Recommended by Charles Scott Jones

Love where Danielle Wirsansky goes with the delightful talltale OPERATION SEA GHOST. McMurtry's poignant monologue recalling her dangerous enounter with Nessie is sublime. And the theme of Nessie being the last to remember what our world once was will keep me thinking for days to come. Fine work from a gifted playwright. Would be a delight for all ages, so someone please produce this comic treat. [10-9-25]

Witnessed at the Workshop 2025 reading THE TUSK HUNTERS, by Dan Caffrey, an inspired idea taking you deep into the past, far into the future. The character arcs of Pup and Grimwald, their interactions with an exotic environment, the subtle weaving of activity and dialogue draw you into this fine work and keep you there. Love how Pup's sentimentality, his piano-playing reverie inspired by the mammoth tusks is his undoing, and contrasts with Grimwald's deeper pragmatism. Fantastic play! [6-13-25]

Feels like you know the very human characters in Kim E. Ruyle's wonderful SLIDING INTO SENIORHOOD. I love the interplay between the three set locations: an airport lounge, an assisted-living center, and a theatre dressing room - and the ease with which the playwright moves through the character lives, bringing all three scenarios together. It's not easy writing about aging so captivatingly and Kim brings it all to an unexpected conclusion at a nudist resort. Would love to see it!
[1-1-25]

In THE PLAY OF EXCESSIVE EXPOSITION [. . .], playwright Neil Radtke casts himself in the role of desperate and total hack and excels at hacking his way through this riotous spoof of bad mystery writing like a pirouetting Pirandello. The plot to put Max Laxative into the city’s water supply gets things flowing and it never stops in this show about shows that shows shows.

Truly effective and prescient writing. Relatable dialogue creating an appropriate contractual outset to romance. As with all worthy futuristic satire draws intriguing parallels to the present. FIRST DATE 2099 by Mike Byham somehow stays one step ahead while staying within the established date strategy for Man and Woman. What makes this hum along like a distant love song on the radio is that Woman makes herself both salesperson and object and Man is never wrong with the coin flips in more ways than one. Has a date that goes "very well" ever been more unsettling or amusingly ambiguous?

The hockey career of a future enforcer or goon is founded by a violent tantrum after missing an open net. FIVE MINUTE MAJOR is an amazingly sustained monologue from Bugsy Morano told in real time. From the penalty box. Brawling has long been the ruin of professional hockey, and here are some insights from Mike Byham and his player-confessor into the thinking of the powers that be and the bloodthirsty fans that keep it going well beyond the hockey arena. Pro hockey could be played as they do in college or the Olympics with no tolerance for fighting.

The things that Angela and Charles endure together. Within the final room is the relief of having “no evil machete-wielding robot mimes," among other spoofs of horror film tropes. Really admire that with SEEN (Seen-Saw?) Neil Radtke has cut through all the givens of great campy horror and given us instead the final scene which is a doozy. Fine twisty work.

Our place in the universe. What could be more thought-provoking? From the earth as the Pale Blue Dot in the photo taken by Voyager I, while billions of miles away - to standing before Van Gogh's Starry Night at MOMA. Read Nora Louise Syran's wonderful monologue.

AN AUDIENCE OF ONE by Michael C. O’Day is a brisk and entertaining short play with 5 allegorical characters. The action is very cleverly strung along with one-word utterances that parody the kind of social interplay our lives have been reduced to, in this, our capitalist world of brief transactional encounters. By the end we feel Hero’s frustration, but - alas - the golden age of the hero has been superseded by the consumer. A cool play for our times, especially with Vendor as the nexus of the manic activity.

A wonderful original children's play. For adults too. I'm partial to crows and scarecrows and even the black cat and love how Jonny Bolduc has knit this fable together. A very nice touch is having the farmer live in the scarecrow's imagination. The three roles for kids bring them into the act. Well done.