Recommended by Dave Osmundsen

I saw a reading of this play via the Notre Dame College Performing Arts New Works Festival.

A very charming, hilarious, and boundlessly creative mashup of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. This play teaches young audiences about critical thinking and the importance of making the most of the time we have. Simple to stage, this play is perfect for TYA touring companies!

Bonkers, off-the-rails, wild, wacky, trippy... These are only a few adjectives I would use to describe this play. St. James proves a master of spontaneous, unhinged playwriting that somehow manages to make sense in the world they create--consistency through inconsistency, if you will. In any case, this is an absolute blast to read (and makes me want to watch "The Wizard of Oz" while stoned).

A gentle slice-of-life piece filled with optimism, hope, and longing. Optimism and hope for a new administration, yes. But longing for the people the pandemic has separated us from. A lovely and intimate play (even as it crosses state lines).

This pandemic has been an emotional roller coaster for many of us. The fleeting moments of joy are often outnumbered by the moments of fear, dread, and horror. In the final piece of their Goddamn Small Affair trilogy, St. James precisely captures how these emotions figure into the minutiae of every day life. In exploring how millennials deal with an older generation that doesn't always try to understand them, to problematic familial devotion, to simply coping with one's own mental health, St. James' work here displays strong compassion and conviction.

This short play is absolutely delightful! It will charm anyone who loves a good heist story to a surprisingly romantic comedy. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to perform either of these roles--they both get some killer, badass, hilarious dialogue. Great fun!

A few brief, insightful, romantic, and human moments in the life of one couple. Charming and bittersweet!

The Shakespeare puns herein make this script worth reading alone. But St. James presents us a charming and fantastical slice of life that disarms the audience on its way to a chilling conclusion. Indeed, some things are too good to be true!

Such a fun, delightful, and adorable play with such a strong, beating heart! There are many definitions of love, according to the Greeks--and this play does a beautiful job exploring just a few of them. I love this play!

The characters in this touching and quietly moving play have certainly been through the ringer! They endure (or have endured) divorce, sexual assault, unrequited love, trauma from witnessing a school shooting, and death. But because this is a Scott Sickles play, they display great humor and humanity throughout. Trauma, and how it manifests in our lives, is a central theme here. It impacts the art we create, the art we consume, and the people we love. This play is a fascinating exploration of that idea, while being a compelling love story.

A deceptively gentle satire about racial politics in a majority-white private school setting that becomes sharper and messier as it continues. Malakhow displays an uncanny ability to remain compassionate and critical of his characters. You're almost guaranteed to disagree with them at some points, and agree with them at others. He also takes "polite" microaggressions and places them under an interrogative magnifying glass--the moments of microaggression really hit hard. He's also not afraid to complicate his characters, which makes them ultra compelling to watch.