Recommended by Scott Sickles

I want to see this performed two ways: with inflection and without infection. I’ll bet it’s sexier with and more emotionally powerful without.

Byham extrapolates the trajectory of preliminary interpersonal consent to its logical extreme and still somehow manages to keep romance not only alive but thriving in a seemingly cold emotional climate.

Whether the performances are emotive or minimalist, I guarantee one thing: everyone will be smiling at the end! Talk about sticking the landing!

I want to see this performed two ways: with inflection and without infection. I’ll bet it’s sexier with and more emotionally powerful without.

Byham extrapolates the trajectory of preliminary interpersonal consent to its logical extreme and still somehow manages to keep romance not only alive but thriving in a seemingly cold emotional climate.

Whether the performances are emotive or minimalist, I guarantee one thing: everyone will be smiling at the end!

Even on the page, the atmosphere and visuals are evocative, elegant, unsettling, deeply Japanese. (The imagery vividly reminded me of the 1964 film KWAIDAN, which is high praise indeed!) Unfolding like a Grimm’s fairy tale but with a childlike simplicity that belies its intentions, the play escalates steadily throughout its brief page count, both thwarting expectation and delivering its narrative promises without hesitation or compromise.

Ah, Tuesdays…

(Silence. One of infinite longing and sanity shattering emptiness.)

Anyway. What fun!

Soucy, our ever-reliable guide to the whimsical horrors lurking in abysses both glimpsed and unknowable, has bequeathed us a special treat indeed! Another chat with Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos and surprisingly pleasant Destroyer of All Things!

Throw in a touch of Douglas Adams mathematics and an omniscient narrator (who in my mind sounds like King of the Movie Trailers Don LaFontaine) to guide and remind us how simultaneously puny and lucky we are, and delightful discourse ensues!

Enjoy it… WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!!

Tuesdays…

Not enough is written about the dangers of hot air balloons.

Adam Richter has added one more page to that wanting canon. With Rube Goldberg as inspiration and the help of a cow named (say it with me) Bessie, this playwright opens our eyes to the trepidations of aerial recreation, agriculture, and simply being outside.

The message being: read this indoors.

On behalf of the playwright, you’re welcome!

If you didn’t know what it was about (and if you haven’t seen the synopsis, read the monologue cold), you might expect a comedy.

It begins with a sense of comic absurdity, even though we know a death has occurred. What we don’t know, what we find out, is that death is a fragment lodged in a deep, bloody, unjust societal wound.

Donnelly gives Claudine another miracle: exquisitely contained rage! She has lost too much for surrender to be an option. Not for her. Not for the surviving members of her family.

Intimate, incendiary, unforgettable.

An elegant, measured, often hilarious… rant? Outcry? Bemoaning? Lamentation?

Any or all might do!

In Edith, Syran has captured the bitter inner snob in all of us. When I say “all of us,” I mean “me,” but that level of honesty DOES NOT BRING ME JOY, so I’m including all of you.

Vividly real, a prisoner of her own indulgences and jealousies, and just as big a pain in the ass to be married to as her husband.

I’m glad I’m not at the dinner party with her but I enjoyed the minutes I’ve spent!

This series of vignettes, constructed like a short symphony, is a powerful and unpromising indictment. Taube puts a human face on people often represented by statistics and rhetoric. Here’s hoping it reaches the people it needs to: not only the second amendment advocates who put everyone’s lives in jeopardy including thier own, but the survivors of the violence wrought by shooters with easy access to deadly weapons.

They call them trappings for a reason.

When an action star sets his sights on the hot, young Recreational Facilities Supervisor at a Florida resort... Traps, traps, traps! But not only for the titular cabana boy...

While Death in Venice is prominently referenced, the dynamics reminded me of The Age of Innocence: the triangle of a spoken-for man exploring passion with an "improper" inamorato. But here, that passion isn't love, it's possession. The movie star is a narcissist and the younger man... is trusting.

Still in early drafts, I'm excited to see where Williams takes these characters and us!

How dare you, Soucy? Seducing me with words like “administrative”!!!

What I’ve been loving most about SPOOKY U is the cosmic humor amidst the cosmic horror. Here, the funny effectively takes a back seat to the aforementioned admin in a subtle, quietly powerful drama.

No one wants to be forced to do something they don’t want to because it’s “for thier own good.’ But at Miskatonic, if anyone acts for anyone else’s good, then you know something is deeply, deeply wrong.

Horror and portent pervade the proceedings. I hope we find out what happens next!