Dan West

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: Laura and Dean love each other. That has never really been the problem. What is the problem resists easy diagnosis - it lives somewhere in the silences, the small failures, the distance that grows between the couch and the loveseat. Structured as a theatrical sonata in eight movements, "Variations in the Key of Laura" is a chamber drama for two actors that finds the full weight of a relationship in a single living room, a coffee table, and a letter that might be better off unopened

FULL LENGTH: Phoebe and Rocco are $18,000 in the hole on Labrent County's most elegant and elaborate corn maze when two executives from the Asterion Corporation arrive with a large check and a request to host a mysterious "private event" - an offer the young couple can't afford to refuse. What follows is a gladiatorial contest between a corporately enhanced Minotaur and a battle-weary hero with, Phoebe, Rocco, and a trio of unlucky bystanders caught in the middle as unwitting lab mice in someone else's maze. When the labyrinth is destroyed and the architect behind everything turns out to be Phoebe's estranged father, she must decide between the power that she was born into or the life that chose.

FULL LENGTH: Medusa has a problem. She arrived in the suburbs to remind humanity of its ancient terror, and instead got a bath, a pseudonym, and a warm guest room. Her host, Ann Boyce, is either the bravest woman alive or the most willfully oblivious. As stone statues accumulate in the living room, everyone around Ann attempts some version of a solution: her husband Charlie quietly unravels, a hapless Police Inspector circles the premises without connecting any dots, and Ann's best friend Gloria attempts a more direct intervention with predictably disastrous results. Ann responds to all of it with the same cheerful propriety she applies to everything else. A full-length dark comedy about an immortal predator whose gaze can turn anyone to stone, foiled by someone who just won't blink.

FULL LENGTH: Stand-up comedian Alexander Goodkind has always had an edge on the competition: Thalia, the mythical, but very real, Greek Muse of Comedy, has been living in his apartment and whispering jokes in his ear. When Alex's late-night TV debut opens the door to mainstream stardom, Thalia warns him that chasing easy fame will cost him everything that makes him funny. The fight that follows costs him Thalia instead. Suddenly unable to land a single punchline, Alex spirals through jealousy, therapy, drunken schemes, and one catastrophically bad open mic night - while Thalia, unwilling to wait, moves on to his rival, and beyond. A full-length comedy about what it takes to be genuinely funny, what it costs to stop, and whether losing your muse might be the best thing that ever happened to you.

FULL LENGTH: Sixteen-year-old Samantha Din just wants to get through family dinner and make her date on time. This turns out to be harder than expected. Her little brother Sammy has stigmata and a devoted following, a mysterious visitor named Oona has arrived from the future to confirm that Sammy is destined for greatness, and a family of pilgrims shows up to venerate him. Worst of all, Samantha - fluent in at least six languages and armed with more logic than anyone at the table wants to deal with - is starting to notice that she's disappearing from the family photos, and perhaps from existence. An absurdist family comedy about prophecy, destiny, and what happens when the universe has very big plans for your annoying little brother and apparently none whatsoever for you — until Samantha decides otherwise.

ONE-ACT (~45 Minutes): Playwright Wayne Dennis has lured critic Barry Brant to an empty theater with one goal: make him either recant his savage review of Wayne's play or die for his convictions. What follows is a series of murder attempts so perfectly sabotaged by the universe that they might almost be staged. Meanwhile, an oblivious family wanders in convinced they're about to see a show, unaware that they are about to become part of one instead, as the evening takes on a life of its own that neither man entirely planned. A farce about art, criticism, and the uncomfortable possibility that Wayne Dennis may be a more accomplished playwright than anyone realized — including Wayne Dennis.

ONE-ACT (~45 Minutes) - In a suburban basement seeking shelter away from a neighborhood party (& between his neighbor Todd's theories about ice cream serial killers), Charlie Boyce encounters Eurydice, who has been waiting millennia for her husband Orpheus to sing again. She offers passion, freedom, and escape from a marriage that has left him feeling like a well-worn shirt. Charlie is tempted. More than tempted. But choosing mythological destiny over seven kids and a woman who knows exactly how he takes his coffee turns out to be harder than it sounds. A tragicomedy about love, loss, and what it takes to finally see yourself.

ONE-ACT (~35 Minutes): Nobody knows how long Hector and Anthony have been in the trench. The medics are coming — they have to be coming. When a luminous figure appears and tells them one must go with her or both will be doomed, they do what soldiers do: they argue, they bargain, they look for a third option. A third soldier arrives — cleaner than he should be, wearing the wrong uniform for this or any war — and suddenly nobody's choices are as simple as they seemed. A one-act war drama about two men who refuse their fate, and the darkness that keeps rising around them whether they accept it or not.

ONE-ACT (~30 Minutes) - Judge Earl Robb invites his sister Doreen to his isolated estate on a stormy evening, ostensibly for tea. But as thunder rolls and the drawing room door locks behind her, Doreen realizes she's become an unwitting subject in her brother's twisted experiment. Haunted by a case involving a child murderer, Earl has become obsessed with a single question: Can anyone commit evil?

What begins as a philosophical debate escalates into psychological warfare as Earl tests the limits of his own capacity for cruelty—with his beloved sister as his victim. A taut two-hander that builds to a shocking reversal, Vespers examines the nature of evil, the fragility of trust, and what we're truly capable of when pushed to our limits.

ONE ACT (~25 Minutes): In an age when technology promises to optimize everything, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to outsource guilt. When Jordan, a struggling digital artist, signs on for a "free trial" on an anthropomorphic "AI scapegoat," they discover that offloading your conscience is easy, but getting it back can be considerably more costly. This darkly comic take on "The Picture of Dorian Gray" traces one artist's moral unraveling in a digital age when consequences are no longer required.

ONE-ACT (~25 Minutes): Maxwell Page, founder of Page Publishing, has solved the author problem. Why pay writers when an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce everything worth reading — and already have? His operation is booming, the competition is dead, and his last human author has just been shown the door clutching a final royalty check. Then comes the monkey virus. Then the banana shortage. A dark comedy about hubris, the myth of infinite scalability, and the dangers of replacing human creativity with systems you can't actually control — the play that A.I. doesn't want you to see.

ONE-ACT (~25 Minutes): HOA members John and Dorothy pay a visit to their slovenly neighbor Wallace to help him see the error of his ways and convince him to clean up his act (and his yard). By any means necessary.

What begins as a neighborly chat escalates through an impromptu trial to a verdict that Wallace really should have seen coming. A pitch-black comedy about conformity, property values, and the surprising things people will do to keep the neighborhood nice.

ONE-ACT (~25 Minutes): Zugzwang (noun): a chess position in which every possible move makes things worse. Clyde Hoover knows the feeling. Six months ago, he paid off the mortgage, set up the kids' annuities, transferred everything into his wife's name, and disappeared to play chess in the park - where at least the rules make sense. On this particular day, he cheats a prep school prodigy out of ten dollars, debates the meaning of life with his chess partner Otto, and is discovered by his wife Laurie - who hasn't come for answers, but finds them anyway. A one-act dark comedy about a man who felt forced into a life with no good moves, and the afternoon he has to explain that to the people he left behind.

ONE-ACT (~20 Minutes): A kindly old Storyteller settles in to read us the tale of Little Johnny Watkins and his dog Wags, who venture into the Deep Dark Woods in search of a lost ball. Johnny has some reservations about the plot. The woods, however, don't care. What follows is a darkly comic fairy tale full of witches, a Werewoodsman, and a Forbidden Secret — building toward a warm, cheerful cottage at the center of the forest, and a trunk with a lid that locks from the outside. A subversive comedy about the price of innocence - and who's collecting.

ONE-ACT (~20 Minutes): Bob and Steve play Russian Roulette the way other men play golf; regularly, competitively, and with a lot of chat about nothing in particular. They and their friends started playing years ago and have been at it long enough for there to be a long chart of the deceased - and they are the only ones not yet on it. Today they are going for the record, until Bob's young son wanders in to fetch him for supper. A very dark comedy about male friendship, fate vs. chance, and the particularly American conviction that the rules don't apply to you.

ONE-ACT (~15 Minutes): A Man packs his briefcase to go to work, and has the worse day of his life. He loses his job. He gets bitten by a dog. He gets mugged by children. Through it all, two silent Stagehands shadow his every move, rearranging the world around him with impassive efficiency. A dark absurdist comedy about the smallest possible reasons to keep going.

ONE-ACT (~15 Minutes): John Paar is dead. His Body decomposes. His Soul is waiting for the call. Together they linger - bickering, reminiscing, and negotiating the awkwardness of being dead together - while Soul searches with increasing desperation for the doorway to Heaven that Sunday School always promised. What he finds instead is something that neither of them was ever prepared for. A dark comedy - until it isn't.

ONE-ACT (~15 Minutes): Sam is packing his bags. After a brutal defeat at the hands of a twelve-foot mechanical gorilla, the masked vigilante known as the Ocelot has decided that superheroism isn't for him anymore. His roommate Chase would like to talk him out of it. And on this particular Saturday, with the laundry going and the cat to feed, he has a confession that might change everything. A warm, funny two-hander about secret identities, the loneliness inside extraordinary lives, and why even the most powerful person in the universe needs someone who sees them for who they are.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: When Elden Funk, the world's second richest man, secretly acquires the test tube containing Tom Edison's dying breath, his intentions for the century-old relic turn out to be somewhat less than antiquarian. As Funk's true plans for the acclaimed inventor's essence become clear, his devoted assistant and long-suffering legal counsel Savannah begin to have concerns - grave ones. A ten-minute comedy about the American mythology of genius and the legacy of hunger, theft, and deceit that accompanies it.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: Marvin has been camped out in a coffee shop for two weeks, waiting for the girl of his dreams and narrating the whole thing directly to the audience. When Ingrid walks in, she's perfect — except for one dealbreaker: she hates men who break the fourth wall. The encounter threatens to spin off the rails until the playwright himself climbs out of the audience to take over, only to discover that his characters have opinions about that too. A meta-theatrical comedy about loneliness, creative control, and what happens when the people you created stop doing what you want.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: Two mob hitmen sit in a stolen car, eating french fries and waiting. One of them is about to kill the other.

When Paulie accidentally insulted a crime boss's sister, someone had to handle it; and Vinnie figured his best friend deserved a friendly face. What he doesn't figure on is how hard it is to pull a trigger on a man you've known your whole life. The two men eat, talk baseball, talk life insurance, and otherwise stall in an effort to negotiate the impossible — loyalty to the mob, loyalty to each other, and whether there's any dignity left when those two things finally collide. A dark comedy about friendship, obligation, and one small waterfall that might mean everything or nothing at all.

Ten-Minute Play: When Santa Claus retires, corporate executive Lorna conducts interviews for his replacement at a Holiday Inn conference room. Jesus Christ shows up as an applicant, hoping to reclaim Christmas's spiritual meaning—but quickly discovers that in the modern marketplace, even the Son of God must compromise his values to land the gig. A sharp, absurdist satire about the commercialization of the holidays.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: Host Chip Tupper promises a scandalous glimpse into suburban adultery. Instead Bruce and Angela simply lie in a Holiday Inn bed and discuss the color orange. And a shiny penny. And gun running. "That was nice." "Yeah...nice" A deadpan absurdist comedy about reality television, the mundane, and two people who have apparently run out of things to feel.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: Three years ago, con artist Paul vanished on their fake wedding night in Barbados, leaving his partner Alison to face the Feds alone. Now he's back, desperate for the incriminating book only she can provide — with the mob closing in fast. Alison came for answers. She got them. A sharp two-hander about partnership, betrayal, and the particular danger of underestimating the person you left behind.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: Veteran clown Bingo convinces young idealist Winky to quit the circus with him - until their boss offers Bingo a promotion, revealing just how quickly principles crumble under the big top. Set entirely in a circus dressing room, this ten-minute play peels away the greasepaint to expose the raw truths about loyalty, ambition, and what really makes us look like fools. Through sharp dialogue and three meaty roles, "Circus Jerks" delivers both laughs and a gut punch about the choices we make when climbing the corporate ladder, no matter how floppy the shoes.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: In alternating monologues, a well-meaning social studies teacher and his thirteen-year-old former admirer address the audience from their respective bedrooms. Ned Cooper believes in student empowerment, active listening, and the importance of letting kids express what they truly believe. Casey is assembling an AR-15. She believes in love. A two-hander about the distance between what we think we're teaching and what's actually being learned — and what happens when a student takes the lesson seriously.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY: A condemned party clown receives his last visit from a Catholic priest while awaiting execution for strangling a child during a birthday party performance. Through their charged conversation, we discover how years of perceived mockery and disrespect drove a once-proud entertainer to commit an unthinkable act of violence. As Tickles prepares for his final "curtain call," this provocative drama explores the psychological breaking point of a man whose profession demands laughter while his soul screams for dignity.