Recommended by Donald E. Baker

  • Any Second Now
    28 Oct. 2023
    As we playwrights beat our scripts into submission--draft and re-draft, edit and tighten, move scenes and move them back, and especially eliminate characters or re-think their roles--we never consider the psychological effect our actions have on the characters we create and, perhaps, cavalierly throw to the curb. Fortunately, the ever-empathetic Philip Middleton Williams has examined their feelings and has here given us a first-hand report of his findings. It's a delicious inside-the-craft script guaranteed to tickle your funnybone.
  • Second Book Syndrome
    25 Oct. 2023
    For the sake of commercial success, somewhere between submitting the manuscript of his novel to an agent and the actual publication, Robert's original vision mutated into something he barely recognizes. That makes it tremendously difficult for him to write a sequel. Then two characters from the original novel arrive to help, bringing their own conflicts with them, Sam Heyman has done a wonderful job here of creating two worlds, one for his play and one for Robert's successful dystopian novel. The characters are memorable and consistent and the dialogue is compelling. This is truly excellent work.
  • Stage Fright
    24 Oct. 2023
    A totally different interpretation of "stage fright." It isn't the actors auditioning for parts in an unnamed play who are nervous. It's the director, who is hearing sounds and voices no one else hears. The actors are reading the words in the sides they are performing, but the director is hearing something completely different--scary words, accusatory words. The revelation of what is afoot is satisfying, and the last two lines are inspired. A perfect addition to any theater's evening of spooky short plays.
  • Venus Needs Men
    23 Oct. 2023
    So. Beneath the Venusian atmosphere of carbon dioxide clouds, beneath the planet's surface, is a network of community theaters. Who knew? Just one problem. All the males on the planet have been extinct for millennia, leaving the surviving females to produce an unending repertoire of "Steel Magnolias." So they import an earthling male, the most laid-back earthling male one could ever hope to find. He has no acting experience, but the ladies are willing to cast him in anything just to get a little theatrical variety. And that's all they want from him. It's hilarious.
  • Pie 2 - A Bigger Slice of Pie
    21 Oct. 2023
    Who gave Maxwell Edison
    A taste of his own medicine
    By killing him with his own
    Silver hammer?
    It's left to John Pie,
    The pie-eyed P.I.
    To decide who should go
    To the slammer.

    Actually, who should be going to the slammer are the two playwriting scoundrels who have imposed yet another lyric-ridden noir upon an unsuspecting public. This time they have raided the lyrics of the Beatles, ABBA, Queen, and who knows how many other pop artists, to provide themselves with embarrassingly funny, punny dialogue. Kidding. This is the voodoo they do so well and it's hilarious.
  • Pie 2 - A Bigger Slice of Pie
    21 Oct. 2023
    Who gave Maxwell Edison
    A taste of his own medicine
    By killing him with his own
    Silver hammer?
    It's left to John Pie,
    The pie-eyed P.I.
    To decide who should go
    To the slammer.

    Actually, who should be going to the slammer are the two playwriting scoundrels who have imposed yet another lyric-ridden noir upon an unsuspecting public. This time they have raided the lyrics of the Beatles, ABBA, Queen, and who knows how many other pop artists, to provide themselves with embarrassingly funny, punny dialogue. Kidding. This is the voodoo they do so well and it's hilarious.
  • Feeling Batty
    21 Oct. 2023
    A marvelously, well, batty take on a vampire story with a neat twist at the end. It would be welcome comic relief among other more scary plays at any Halloween festival.
  • Love that Burns
    15 Oct. 2023
    Over time, only Bobby Ray maintains the flaming passion with which his and Flora's love affair began. Even after a near-fatal heart attack he still yearns to see the woman who abandoned him and his daughter. In flashbacks and with inspired staging we watch the decline and fall of their doomed relationship, and as the play nears its end we begin to wonder whether Bobby Ray's wish will be granted and the long-absent Flora will show up at his bedside. A sad but well-written play about a failed marriage with great material for actors to work with.
  • Just an Old Woman in a Rocking Chair
    12 Oct. 2023
    Small towns can harbor big secrets, and small lives can be heroic in their own ways. To the idle passer-by, Edna might appear to be "just" another old woman. But as Jan Probst takes us back in time to reveal significant secrets, incidents, and conversations in her long lifetime--involving war, alcoholism, the lesbianism of a best friend--we discover a woman who lived with enviable integrity and fidelity. An truly excellent character study.
  • Bouquet of Violets
    9 Oct. 2023
    You are a woman who values her own integrity and talent, but society--and your mother--insist you must marry. Inconveniently, your artist lover is already married, so the most convenient solution is to enter into a marriage of convenience with the artist's homosexual brother. In "Bouquet of Violets" Deb Cole has given us an impressive view into the world of the Impressionists in nineteenth century Paris and the life of a woman determined to be as independent as possible and become a recognized artist in her own right.

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