←Recommendations of Imperfect Storms

Emotional and environmental catastrophe strike at once for two star-crossed lovers in this lovely and sad short play. Sickles is a master of keeping his eye on relationships and emotional truth within genre trappings - whether it’s horror, scifi, crass teen comedy, or the magical realism he’s working with here - making Kelian and Louis’s moment alone deeply moving amid the rushing danger. (Also, the specifics of body type add a fresh, interesting layer to the interspecies dynamic: what it means to Louis, with his greater mass, to be the one cradled, held, and possibly rescued.) Beautiful.

When you're going through the most painful moment in your personal life, the world ending seems like an annoying slight to make your already bad day even worse. The use of the environment to echo the turmoil of the two characters as they make the heartbreaking decisions they must make creates a fantastical moment that we're lucky enough to witness (before everything completely falls apart!). Despite the magical elements, Sickles never lets us forget that this story is about these two people (well, person and magical being...) and their connection. Simply beautiful.

Relationships between mortals and immortals rarely end well, even when both parties have found someone they can truly be themselves with. Devastation gives Louis a one-two punch when water sprite Kelian decides to break off their liaison just before Louis is swept away in a massive flood. Kelian pulls him from the torrent, but in their temporary shelter the two debate whether Louis wants to be saved or not. Sickles handles the material masterfully, giving us an engaging modern fairytale. Will it have a fairytale ending? Read it and decide for yourself.

Sickles drops us into an extraordinary moment, with extraordinary people, under, well, extraordinary circumstances. And yet the emotions are so real, as is the surrounding events. Sickles attention to detail--hands, a lump in the throat--and both honest dialogue and unspoken words create a literally breathtaking play.

What really matters when your heart is breaking? If the world ends, it ends. If death comes, well... maybe not that far. Love helps keep us afloat in the absurdity of the universe. When it goes, even if we survive the flood, the pain is unimaginable. Memories sometime remain, pleasant debris awash in tears, making the waters all the more harsh. I felt every moment of this play. One might call it magical, what Sickles manages to do in such a short time. Just lovely.

Wow! Where to begin when talking about Sickles’s IMPERFECT STORMS? Kelian and Louis navigate heartache as the world around them is swallowed by a flood. Simply reading it, you can hear the house creaking and feel the water flooding in. It’s impossible not to hold your breath. Heartbreak can be all-consuming and larger than life, and that certainly holds true for Kellian and Louis—a sentiment reflected in the magic and devastation of the world around them.

This is a gorgeously written piece that would be profoundly impactful to see staged.

A larger-than-life tragedy, coupled with an intimate one… “Imperfect Storms” contains drama, disaster, paranormal romance, and some intriguing and challenging characters that actors would love to tackle. It feels cinematic in nature. Technically and visually challenging as well, this is a beautiful and heartbreaking tale, told honestly and with the wonder that Scott Sickles is known for.

Sickles gives readers a play full of hope and heartbreak in this 10 minute punch to the gut. The scene is so real that you allow yourself to expand your beliefs for the 9 pages, and the characters are so distinct and brilliant that they make everything feel so drastic and full of energy. This was a beautifully written piece that is meant for two actors with strong chemistry to shine with!

This 10-minute play tells a heart-rending tale of a loving couple whose love isn't enough to overcome unusual obstacles.

Scott Sickles brings so much complexity to "Imperfect Storms": real-life current events (the July 2021 floods in Europe); Belgian mythology/fantasy; a same-sex loving couple whose most biggest challenge isn't that they're both the same sex; a lot of design and production values ... but at its core is the story: two individuals who are so right for one another, but have to separate.

There is adventure and fantasy, but I especially found heartache in this terrific short play...

In extreme moments, we see things that aren't there, hear voices that are not speaking, feel things that cannot be sensed... but are they not really seen, heard, or felt? In this short and storm-driven play, Scott Sickles uses all of the above and then more: hope and connection and the touch of connection and a bond that cannot be broken. And as always, he draws us in with characters that show us everything from the moment they speak, and we are there with them.