Recommended by Steven G. Martin

Another beautiful fingerprint of a play to identify LGBTQIA lives. For being set on Armageddon, it's remarkably funny, even as Lars is heartbroken over his unrequited love for Benno.

I love Scott Sickles' LGBTQIA+ characters because they are living what lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersexed people live: all the joy, fear, self-doubt, gaslighting, hate, and love that LGBTQIA people face. Non-LGBTQiA audiences may understand the characters and feel empathy toward them. But they are not universal, they are specific and of themselves.

I greatly enjoyed Almost Adults Productions (Santa Fe, NM) virtual reading of Sickles' play.

Pure, comic silliness! Andrea Aptecker's light comedy makes good use of the virtual meeting/Zoom format, and I'd love to see the students' misadventures with making the angel food cake batter. Light-as-air fun!

"The Spot" is a story best told via live theatre. It's a gentle, although bittersweet, fable about accepting growing older. It's also a reminder of the importance of communing with nature. There are fine roles for older actors, too.

The cadence of back-and-forth in this short drama is sharp. Statement, response, counter-response that reveal a lot about these 50-something characters, and perhaps not who an audience might expect. Realistic drama, told well.

Hageman shows more empathy for Jason by just adding the slightest of dimensions to him -- that he loves and wants the best for that dog -- that I think most people, let alone playwrights could muster. It's also an upsetting dimension that reflects back on Jason's flaws.

A true screwball comedy with heightened language and ridiculous twists and turns that'll give an audience gleeful whiplash. This script would be fun for actors, too.

Poor Gerald, the protagonist of "6,745." Neil Radtke's darkly comic monologue proves that timing is everything. It's also a bittersweet reminder that the chaos in the world never really lets up.

I enjoyed Radtke himself perform this monologue during the "Natural Distancing" event produced by Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette in October 2020.

Produced together, Justin Guidroz's "Room 219" series of short plays would create an enjoyable, varied evening of theatre.

"Spice It Up" is a very comic depiction of a married couple ready to experiment. Except they're not ready, at least to some of the extreme scenarios that Siobhan has considered.

Produced together, Justin Guidroz's "Room 219" series of short plays would create an enjoyable, varied evening of theatre.

"I Remember the Night" knowingly addresses some of the realities LGBTQIA+ people face when it comes to love and romance – and those realities span from psychological to sociological and familial. Wise.

Produced together, Justin Guidroz's "Room 219" series of short plays would create an enjoyable, varied evening of theatre.

Yes, the title. "First Come …" is the funniest of the Room 219 plays, and provides so much material for the lucky comic actor cast in the role of James. Despite the bravado and crassness, it feels James is more of an uncertain doofus that he's willing to let on. Horny, too, and perhaps slightly desperate, James is a great role.