Recommended by Joshua H. Cohen

  • Light Switch
    11 Aug. 2021
    I've known about the existence of this play for a long time, and I would like to apologize to myself for taking this long to read it. It is nothing short of marvelous, witty and heartfelt at the same time. I wish I had read it a long time ago. Fortunately for me, it is also, at its core, a play about forgiveness.
  • Antagonism, or, Some People Like to P*ss in the Pool [a 1-minute play]
    8 Aug. 2021
    When I first started to wonder about the one-minute play format, I knew I had to start with Steven G. Martin. This play is a lovely metaphor for how individual recipients of someone's antagonism can respond by forming community.
  • Call Center, Morning & Evening
    8 Aug. 2021
    Sometimes we all just need someone to tell us we're right. Only then can we start to see how maybe actually we're not. These two plays nail that paradox in a breezy, funny snapshot.
  • New York Shorts: A Trio of 1-Minute Plays
    8 Aug. 2021
    A love letter to the city everybody loves to hate. Thanks, Larry, for reminding me why I wouldn't live anywhere else.
  • MISFIT, AMERICA
    16 May. 2021
    To write a play whose theatricality screams out to you, that belongs so firmly on the stage - that is hard. To write a play that is firmly rooted in place, that lives and breathes and loves its setting - that is also hard. To do both at once - that is an astonishing feat, and Misfit, America does it beautifully.
  • Jew Kamp
    14 May. 2021
    This play reminded me of The Baltimore Waltz (which is one of my very favorite plays) in the way it combined reality and fantasy, sex and gallows humor. The characters say shockingly funny things, but it's never for shock value - it comes from genuine human reaction to being in a shocking place. I know these people, and I enjoyed getting to know them better.
  • Alaiyo
    14 May. 2021
    Romance as racial geopolitics, or maybe the other way around - this play is a journey. Its verbal dexterity jumps off the page and demands to move. All good plays are written for voices and bodies in time and space, but this one I especially hope to see on its feet.
  • A Brief History of Terrible Advice Given To and By Me
    13 May. 2021
    The pacing of this play is perfect. Every time you think you have it pinned down it throws another curveball, and yet it all makes perfect sense in the world of the play - even when, as the stage directions accurately warn you, things get weird. Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll - it's all there, but not necessarily in that order, and never quite in the way you expect.
  • Me and Mr. Tom
    13 May. 2021
    As befits is subject, Me and Mr. Tom draws upon both existential poetry and vaudeville schtick, and manages to find a harmony between them. Marriage, aging, art, celebrity, all come in for both elevation and debasement, and sometimes it gets delightfully challenging to tell which is which.
  • Buried Roots
    13 May. 2021
    Buried Roots is a beautiful play about the complexity of blood ties and familial love. I especially enjoyed how the main themes of the play are reflected in the characters' casual behavior: the fierce love masked by different forms of verbal combat.

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