←Recommendations of Erstwhile

I’m awfully glad that Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend wrote this blisteringly funny holiday spoof so I could sit here loudly guffawing in the local coffee shop - I mean, I’m not glad about scaring everyone around me. That’s a disturbing thing for a fan of this playwright to do, but I’m glad I came across her short political satire. I mean, I'm not glad this country is a death trap, that’s serious stuff. But I’m glad I got to read it and will be even happier if I can see it produced someday.

I laughed out loud through this whole play. Loudest guffaw "I chewed that myself." This farce is so wonderful and it is actually a warning to not paint ANYONE with a broad stroke brush. Even if appearances push your "buttons." This is brilliant. I want to watch it again and again.

What starts out a clever, amusing satirical take on Hallmark takes a hard turn down an alley filled with dark humor. This wonderful short play holds a mirror to our current state of affairs, but it's a carnival funhouse mirror. Only a writer as talented as Dellagiarino Feriend could so deftly turn a sweet satire into such dark, biting satire, and somehow do it seamlessly.

What initially seems like a love story turns into a political work, a black satire, and a sharp commentary on how the blind acceptance of ideology -without critical thought, without self-reflection, without an open window to the wider world- gives rise to violence, absurdity, and polarization. Subversive, beautiful, and darkly ironic.

I mean who doesn't love a witty Hallmark parody, but then, wham bam thank you ma'am, things take quite an unexpected turn. So entertaining! So unexpected! Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend, you clever, clever girl.

Absolute holiday magic. Read it and have your heart grow three sizes, I sweartagod. I need to stop typing lest a spoiler slip through, but trust that this is every bit as hilarious and deranged as you may have come to expect, and hope for, from a Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend play. Reader, I HOWLED.

Okay the twist, the TWIIIIIIIIIIIST! I kvell over comedy as sharp-edged as this one. Dellagiarino Feriend's astonishing gift for the deftest dialogue is paired here with a story that feels as old as the Hallmark Channel but then reveals itself to be much more 2026 than all that. Chef's kiss!

Lisa Feriend just forever ruined Hallmark movies for me. None will ever be this creatively evil or fun to watch. Perfect parody. This is an excellent Christmas treat!

Pokes fun at a certain brand of predictable narrative... and then transcends genres into something else entirely. Wicked. Ingenious. All-around awesome!

Well that was a master class in dark comedy. Parodying Hallmark Christmas treacle provides a framework for this play's witty dialogue and hairpin twists. It's just such great fun.