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John Minigan

Recommended by John Minigan

  • GRIT (formerly "What They Think We Are") by Nick Malakhow
    14 Mar. 2020
    “ This is a remarkably fine-tuned play. Malakhow's characters, Raymond and Sasha, are clear and compelling, with inner struggles that become too large to keep inside, on a roller-coaster ride through a semester at boarding school where they are treated as "outsiders" by race, economic background, and sexual orientation. This play FLIES, with crisp dialogue, but also with a highly theatrical sense of the world around Sasha and Raymond, conveyed through projections, and inner worlds conveyed by projected texts, solo moments, and music. Once again, a Nick Malakhow play I can't wait to see on stage ”
  • With Improvements by the Actors by A. M. Shea
    17 Feb. 2020
    “ A very funny, farcical look at what playwrights have had to deal with in rehearsal since at least 1600. Great roles and great running gags throughout! ”
  • My Body by Rachel Bublitz
    17 Feb. 2020
    “ I had the pleasure to sit with an audience in this "flip the script" play about bodily autonomy. The play masterfully moves the audience from early laughs to nodding of heads and strong verbal affirmations of the message. A powerful and clear piece. ”
  • Digital Detox by Cynthia Faith Arsenault
    17 Feb. 2020
    “ Cynthia Arsenault's comic satire hits at a truth that's pretty powerful and on-target--that the more plugged in we are to the online world, the weaker the connection we have to the people around us. This play provides the dopamine hits we're used to getting from our internet addictions. Funny and necessary.
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  • St. Francis by Miranda Jonté
    4 Feb. 2020
    “ A sharp and compelling play built around the story of Tessa, a character who grabs you from the first moment. It's hard to always fully like her as a person--but it's impossible not to end up loving her and sympathizing with her passionate shelter work and her need for love. She has complex relationships with all around her, and most complex is her relationship with her father, and it's a connection that leads to a final moment whose beauty you can only gasp at. ”
  • The Stakeout by K. Alexa Mavromatis
    4 Feb. 2020
    “ This is a finely wrought piece that manages to capture both the friendship of these two characters in clear detail and the emotional distance between them as one revels in the adventure of a stakeout and one faces her longing, her fear, and her loss. The move from a comic and slightly mysterious opening--what are the stakes in this stakeout?--to a powerful and brave conclusion is clear and compelling. A gorgeous play, with great roles for both performers. ”
  • The Shark Play by Miranda Jonté
    23 Jan. 2020
    “ Jonte's characters are fabulously well-drawn--simultaneously not fully likeable and still completely lovable--and the dramatic situation in the play so highly charged, so funny, and so compelling. The Shark Play has repartee worthy of Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, but an aching heart as wide as the ocean underneath. A lovely, rollicking, and deeply satisfying play. Read it, enjoy it, produce it! ”
  • A PICTURE OF TWO BOYS by Nick Malakhow
    20 Jan. 2020
    “ A gorgeous, emotionally complex play about the ways friendship and love can endure despite trauma, differing goals, and separation. The characters, whom we get to know at difficult moments in their lives, are thoroughly compelling. Great dialogue, brilliant use of fluid chronology, and an astonishing passage in which we experience a character coming close to drowning--both literally and metaphorically. Nick Malakhow's play lets us know that friendship and love can pull us out of even the deepest waters. ”
  • Slicing An Onion by J.Lois Diamond
    20 Jan. 2020
    “ This is a powerful, human memorial to Punjab Singh. Diamond anchors the horrors of violence in the familiar and uses the power of smell and the knowledge that our eyes fill with tears to make our moments with this character personal and deeply resonant. ”
  • When We Get Good Again (formerly, Good) by James McLindon
    19 Jan. 2020
    “ McLindon's brilliant craft in When We Get Good Again pulls you in with wit and sharp characterizations and, before you've quite realized it, you're in a complex and compelling world of moral questions. Are we what we do or who we say we are (or will be)? What is the nature of loyalty? Is gaming a system (in hockey or academics) justified when the system itself plays games? Thoroughly engaging, clear, and thoroughly entertaining. ”

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