←Recommendations of Warning Shot

"Warning Shot" (a title that can be taken a couple of ways) is a stark representation of viewpoints in conflict taken swiftly, per the format of a 10-minute play, to a stunning conclusion. It unsettles the reader (as it should the audience) and keeps them off-balance for the duration. Well done.

A tightly contained work of psychological horror. Casey and Ned show how, no matter how teachers work to make the classroom relevant to students lives, students - especially middle school age like Casey - are still strongly informed and influenced by their families.

03.09.26 - A sobering wakeup call to a divided nation. Dan West has written a tense two hander showing intentions from a student and a teacher that couldn't be farther apart, but whose convictions for implementing those intentions are practically the same. Ned is about to get the presentation of a lifetime (ironically enough) from Casey and it seems there is an inevitability to it all. Until we can come closer to being on the same page, plays like this will hit hard as a bullet.

An unsettling ten-minute play that understands how efficiently theater can generate dread. Written with restraint, trusting the audience to do the work. The calm tone makes the implications feel dangerous. It examines how language around empathy, activism, and responsibility shapes belief, exposing blind spots of adult certainty. Good intentions are plentiful; accountability is not. Dan offers no solutions, only a mirror, and the uneasy realization that words can load the weapon.

A chilling reminder of how, without nuanced understanding and a solid grasp of consequences, one person's love of anything (country included) can result in violence and tragedy. Casey's blunt and near-emotionless delivery of facts about firearms and personal political beliefs are a stark reflection of today's desensitized youth in the face of publicized violence and political upheaval.