Recommended by Scott Sickles

Ouch! This one’s a heartbreaker.

We have long lived in a nation where knowledge isn’t valued and “knowing the answers” makes you a freak. Add that to the crippling double-edged sword of needing to belong and knowing that you don’t, and suddenly everything you care about is the reason you don’t matter.

“Deflagration” is a perfect word and a perfect monologue.

The best love stories have some bite to them. Anyone can say sweet things, but to get in the right zinger at the right time and to receive one in return... it’s less a knife in the heart and more like Cupid’s arrow.

Leventman covers a lot of ground here: AIDS; open relationships; age differences; the evolving relationships between sugar daddies and kept boys,
He skillfully presents all of these in a crucial moment where the specific manifestations of these themes become a negotiation of acerbic yet sincere love. THE BOY warms your heart while unsentimentally breaking it.

Just watched a PERFECTLY CAST reading of WABI SABI with Almost Adults theater. They really brought out all that is delightful in this play.

And there is much that is delightful.

Carnes takes a broad subject “trans teens” and makes it incredibly personal, i.e. about THIS trans teen. Adolescence is difficult enough anyway, but when one is also transitioning physically, evolution and transformation are two vastly separate things happening at the same time.

The play also gives these young characters a complicated history that makes them all the more real. It hits hard and just right!

I did not have the greatest parents, but occasionally, it hits me: how much they actually did do, how many of my demands they met, how they supported me in their actions if not their words.

Cathro creates a scenario we can relate to because many of us have been Julie – impassioned by purpose and spoiled by entitlement – and we either are or have acknowledged our parents were like Julie’s Mom.

It’s a powerful piece, forthrightly told, that forces us to appreciate what our parents did right, regardless of how vast or narrow that list might be.

BY GRABTHAR'S HAMMER... WHAT A TIME-SAVER!

Insanely fun even if all you know about The Ring Cycle is "the Ride of the Valkyries"! A sixty-second expressionist epic that embraces the scope and melodrama of OPERA!

And are these Canes ever urbane!

While one wouldn’t want to encounter coyotes in the wild or in one’s neighborhood, Martin has created two lupine pals you wish you could hang with. They’re funny in a reverse cool way, like animals who are like wolves but aren’t probably would be. And they make mealtime fun!

Martin’s anthropromorphization of Ralph and Bert (could Sam the Sheepdog be nearby?) works perfectly for this social satire taking on urban development and the environment from the fauna’s POV. A treat for actors and especially costume designers! Ah-ooooooo!

A beautiful tender response to the early days of the 2020 pandemic and the fourth year of 45’s presidency. So much emotion in so few words capturing a time when the smallest, most normal things can be a sign of impending cataclysm. One wants to check in on Meg and Drew to see how they’re doing now.

I thought I had gotten past the abject lust and terror of getting caught gazing at homoerotic Calvin Klein underwear packaging (as it were) at the mall back in the formative 1980s but thanks to Vince Gatton, I realize I've just repressed those feelings and they've been lurking just below the surface all these years.

Thanks for that, Vince.

HEY perfectly captures closeted gay teen boy awkwardness, particularly of that era, from desire and instilled self-loathing to unexpected hope and encouragement.

But mostly it's a hologram of embarrassment that'll give many of us red-faced flashbacks.

So thanks again.

If Darren Aronofsky made Sleepless in Seattle, it might look a little like this – and I mean that as the highest compliment.

The characters possess a youthful enthusiasm about romance that transcends the pandemic but might not be able to withstand the more extreme aspects of their separation.

Cross has taken spiritual inertia and physicalized it in ways that are beautiful, disturbing, and well... juicy.

One can’t help but root for this relationship while understanding why it may no longer be viable. The stakes are bizarre and impossibility high with no easy solution. Brilliantly and bravely weird!

What starts out as a small town slice of life takes a surprising and satisfying turn when a special visitor shows up. With a delightful cast of characters, Williams tackles national issues through a small town lens, proving the adage that politics is personal. And now I would absolutely kill for coffee and a sweet roll!