Recommended by Donald E. Baker

  • What You Did Say
    27 Aug. 2023
    This little gem is a terrific example of how structure can serve and enhance content. George and Hal's relationship failed in large part because they couldn't communicate what they expected of one another. And Heyman doesn't allow them to do so here either. Instead, they simultaneously air their grievances, self-justifications, and misunderstandings to third parties on a split stage. Their dialogues overlap, interject, and conjoin in such a way as to grab the audience's attention and hold it to the end. It's a brilliant piece of work.
  • EUGENIA VICKERS, SEX ED TEACHER: A MONOLOGUE
    26 Aug. 2023
    Eugenia works full-time as a public school science/biology/sex ed. teacher. You can imagine what she has to contend with from administration and parents. Well, if you can't, she'll tell you in this no-holds-barred monologue. To make ends meet, she moonlights in an STD testing facility. Oh, and she's a lesbian. She has a lot to say in this short piece, and every word is worth listening to. Great commentary on the world we live in today, executed with the mastery we have grown to expect from Asher Wyndham.
  • The Presidential Chili Cook Off
    25 Aug. 2023
    Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Scott Sickles does it again! In this marvelous little satire, he takes the dirty political tricks we see on the national stage--attacks on the press, the Big Lie, money laundering, petty burglary, name calling--and employs them in service of an intrigue to extend a contestant's reign as the perennial winner of the Klonopinto County Chili Cook Off. For example, a rival is forced to leave town when a rumor is circulated that she puts beans (gasp!) in her chili. Never fear. The Klonopinto County Picayune reveals all. Read it and laugh.
  • She Tunes the Violin: The Life of Martha Jefferson
    24 Aug. 2023
    If all you know of Martha Jefferson is Betty Buckley's soaring voice singing "He Plays the Violin" in the musical "1776," then you must read this play. She was a complicated woman married to a complicated man amid a myriad of complicated relationships--husband and wife, master and slave, husband and slave mistress, wife and husband's slave mistress, mother and daughter, mother and too many deceased children. Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend breathes real life into people we encounter only as white marble statues, and other people we rarely encounter at all. It is a rich and rewarding--and yes, complicated--play.
  • Nice Girl from Indiana (MONOLOGUE)
    22 Aug. 2023
    Being a born and bred Hoosier, I see a piece with "Indiana" in the title and I have to read it. I'm so happy I did in this case. I've known a lot of "nice girls from Indiana," many of whom embraced the home-husband-kids expectations set for them. Peter Fenton has perfectly captured the undercurrent of angst of someone who wants something else out of her life, who chafes against the expectations but knows it will be difficult to defy them. Fine work.
  • UNMASKED
    20 Aug. 2023
    They're back! The saga of the murder-solving Stillwell sisters continues in this latest installment. This time the plot involves Americans (gasp) who move into their neighbo(u)rhood. When one of them is shot at his own costume party, the game is afoot. If you love cozy English mysteries, and if you love old-time radio dramas, you will love the Stillwell's. And you can treat yourself to more of their adventures in Lermond's delightful collection, "Mad for Mystery," available from Next Stage Press.
  • Gentlemen
    19 Aug. 2023
    "The Gentlemen's Rules of Restroom Etiquette" are usually unspoken but no less sacrosanct. In this play by Arthur M. Jolly, the rules--for example, always leave a vacant urinal between you and the next guy--are not only spoken but debated. And just to what extent a guy does or does not obey the rules turns out to say a lot about him in all sorts of political and cultural ways. This little comedy contains a number of cogent, shall we say, "observations." It would delight and titillate any audience.
  • REGGIE AND TOMMY BREAK UP
    18 Aug. 2023
    Reggie and Tommy--a couple of bindle stiffs who have developed a close comradeship tramping around the country looking for work. But now Reggie has an opportunity to settle down with a permanent job close to his sister and her family. Tommy tries to convince him to take it. Reggie tries to keep Tommy from following along. Breaking up is hard to do, even when best friends try to pretend it's just another bump in the road. An excellent, atmospheric piece with realistic characters.
  • Potato Salad with Raisins (MONOLOGUE)
    16 Aug. 2023
    For the second time Claudine has lost a son to senseless gun violence. She swears this time around she is not going to have an emotional breakdown. As she describes all the wonderful (six types of brownies) and strange (the title dish) food her friends and neighbors have brought in, she seems to hold herself together. But throughout, one can sense that an explosion is waiting just below the surface calm. Really terrific work.
  • Memorial Day (Full Length)
    11 Aug. 2023
    This Memorial Day weekend is early enough in the AIDS pandemic that a broken condom could be a death sentence, doctors are burning out from hopelessness, and grief is a chronic condition. Of the two couples in this excellent play, three men have lost partners and are struggling to move on. One is a doctor with a terrible secret that is tearing him up. "Memorial Day" tugs at the same heartstrings as "The Normal Heart" and "Love! Valour! Compassion!" and deserves to stand beside them as a record of a terrible time that changed Gay life, and American society, forever.

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