Recommended by Scott Sickles

Ah, 2020... No one misses you...

This wee Halloween scenario remains resonant as a reminder of life during lockdown, especially at holiday times, while also serving as a universal metaphor for loneliness and isolation when one feels (or is) disconnected from society.

Despite such thematic heft, the characters' easy friendship, charm, and openness keep things just light enough. You'll want to scream right along with them! The perfect amount of sweet for a night of (or even without) Trick or Treating.

Do we every really recover from our elementary school crushes? Miller takes us back to twilight encounters with fireflies and friends filled with longing: the longing we had back then for That Boy and the longing we have now for the feelings we want to recapture. Brief but lovely.

There are certain conversations that require delicacy, diplomacy, and a modicum of manners.

These three never got that memo.

Which is all for the best because the bickering and banter among this family trio zings along like a highway driver too distracted to find the right exit. Great characters, a fraught situation made both better and worse by misguided preconceptions and a shared bluntness. Easy to produce and very funny, this one’s a crowd pleaser for any short play fest!

There's something about baseball...

The rules, the traditions, the techniques... The teaching and learning... The camaraderie between players who each inhabit their uniforms with distinctly different souls.

Dzubak had composed a good old-fashioned nostalgia piece that works on many levels. The audience connects to the plsy's bygone era as the characters in scene 2 connect to scene 1. Only six years later but they and their world have changed, life having thrown its share of curve balls. But baseball... Baseball is the constant.

Elegantly written, fun to stage, it's a beautiful tribute, to the game and to Dick Trotta.

A glorious historical, theological, and philosophical mic drop! BOOM!

DEB COLE DID NOT COME TO PLAY!!!

STORK PATROL holds the “pro-life” voters’ feet to the fire and makes them practice what they literally preach! Pointed without being didactic, informative without being pedantic, and brutally honest about the hypocrisy inherent in those who claim to value life as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them.

I’d want Cole to be President of the United States if it wasn’t such a shitty job. BRAVO!

The perils of live performance…

An artist’s interpretation can clash with an audience’s expectations, especially when covering a song. This is one of many examples where an audience member confuses expectation with entitlement. There’s a palpable sense of danger in this confrontation which is about bigotry as much as artistry. Fortunately the singer knows how to handle a problem and protect themselves at the same time. Miller practically conjures the venue in your head, you can practically hear the din and smell the beer. Vivid and urgent!

Damn!

Cole (quite literally) answers the question “What reason could anyone have to throw out a child’s entire birthday cake?” It’s a gut-punch of a response, and the scenario unfolds with stark realism and depth of heart.

Powerful and succinct!

When we're young, we think we're invincible. That death happens to other people. That our rebellion and obstinance and umbrage entitle us to protection.

Yeah...

Rose creates a beautifully detailed young everyman with dreams and an appreciation of the beauty of the world who now faces a daunting loneliness. Preconceived notions about the expectations of life and death prove useless, giving him a perspective that's unique, dark, jagged, and heartbreaking.

An exquisite stand-alone piece that will pack a huge punch in the hands of a young actor with passion and subtlety.

There’s a literal and figurative gravity given to celestial beings that become earthbound. Eternity becomes an abstraction replaced by the passage of time you feel in your bones. The knowledge of prophecy is more than a narrative but an inevitability one must endure surrounded by mundanities and loves ones whose futures are not preordained with sacrifice and the promise of heaven. So what becomes important is the here and now. The promises kept. The things that require work instead of faith to accomplish. The people. Their feelings. What you mean to each other. It’s all in here. Enjoy!