Recommended by Scott Sickles

“A time of bloody conflict and turmoil.”

That’s the setting of this one-minute heart attack of a play. That time could be anytime after the invention of guns, from the Wild West to the post apocalypse, or any day in an American school or Black person’s home. Any day.

Whenever you choose to set it, for the audience, that moment is NOW. That moment is dark and silent and feels like an eternity UNTIL IT DOESN’T!

Unsettling, jarring, and disturbing.

It’s a hell of a minute... literally.

Alas...

The premise hints at comedy. Macabre comedy. Black comedy. You expect discomfort. You expect funny. And you get a little in the beginning. But then...

Alas!

What happens in the play does indeed happen in real life, but I’ve never heard of it happening quite this way. And this way is beautiful.

Through Shannon, Cathro gives us a life story filled with passion and struggle, comprised of loving details and little hints that create a loving tapestry. It’s a testament how theater inspires emotional outpouring, exemplifies humanity through listening, and prompts the desire for eternity.

Dad, sons, and bros. What they give to and take for each other. They are territorial in ways that both divide and protect. They share a love, an understanding, a bond... though in this family of men, the bonds may be tested and understanding may have its limits, but the love is always there.

Williams takes a father-and-sons excursion, complete with dad jokes, brotherly barbs, and mandatory sportsmanship and, in the wide open, provides a familial turning point. Secrets are revealed but not to all. What's next is uncertain but there will be great love... and terrible jokes.

Most autobiographical solo pieces seek the audience's empathy and understanding by sharing history, perspective, and experience. Gonzalez seeks more: he wants his audience's collusion. Our help. Beyond being a memoir and an intimate dissection of familial (especially paternal) emotional inheritance, PALETAS DE COCO is an active search.

This is no metaphor.

We are helping Gonzales draw out an actual missing man who may or may not still be alive. In order to lure him, Gonzales lures us into the story of his family. We are witnesses, bait, and ultimately executors of his legacy. A profoundly moving, living, reaching document.

When the world is filled with hatred, outrage is an easy (and often appropriate) response. But when outrage is what the instigator desires, the high road is necessary no matter how hard it is to climb.

Hansen scales that mountain for us in this terrific monlogue in response to hate speech. The attack is a very personal one (and written so that there identity of the actor informs the slur, forcing the audience to determine the epithet). While outrage sits below the surface, the speaker never loses their cool or their hope.

This must be what it's like dating a Virgo.

Wagner spins an zany tale of mounting domestic and romantic frustration, the pressure building to an act of hilarious violence. It's a great look at how different personalities just might not be compatible and what it's like when only one of the parties involves notices.

Incredibly fun to act out, especially if you've have had to deal with someone like the offstage boyfriend and did not consider it a blessing. A great quick ride!

Pirandello’s six were in search of an author but Williams’s four must wait for authors to find them. Like actors in the Hollywood studio system, they go where they’re told, and where and how they're needed changes with the times. A brisk, insightful, and clever commentary on how narrative trends cycle over time, it's also utterly hilarious with amazing references, subreferences, and theatre in-jokes galore! Even we playwright-dramaturgs with terrible attention spans get a good guffaw while taking it on the chin. Williams takes no prisoners and the character cavdlcade is a delight!

Oh... my... god!!!
A beautiful, beginning and hilarious cascade of life experience and property damage. Incredibly fun to read aloud with fluid energy, clear transitions, and a heathy share of twists and surprises! Audition with this!!!

ALOHA, INDEED!

Very funny take on Americans abroad, even when “abroad” means Hawaii. Like a ten-minute version of FAIL SAFE, only set at ground zero with breakfast alcohol, there’s a physical and emotional frenzy in the play that would be a delight to rehearse and choreograph.

The characters are great fun and their range of reactions to imminent doom is laugh out loud hilarious. A hoot!

Heinous!!! The perfect antidote to overabundant Yuletide cheer. If you need your Christmas Story fix but don’t have the time, this delightfully twisted tale will more than suffice. Pitch black oozing all over its merry reds and greens, you’ll be laughing and wincing until you realize it’s put that song back in your head! A holiday hoot!