Recommended by Scott Sickles

Oh art! Oh music! Oh love!

The monologue is delightful, and the scenario in which it’s performed is as madcap as it is elegant! I’d love to see this done with a classical actor as Sand, a great pantomimist as leBrun, and a live accompanist offstage playing the Chopin!

This would be a great challenge and an absolute joy to rehearse and perform.

The poetry sweeps you away on the journey of Sand’s life, colliding passionately with her present artistic and romantic circumstances, culminating in a spectacular payoff! Bravo!

There’s a beautiful rationality in this play which derives much of its conflict and drama from characters desperately trying not to hurt each other’s feelings. Funny and fanciful with equally terrific roles, though I must say I’m partial to Clancy the elephant. You have to respect an imaginary friend who has his own plans.

Heyman gives us a great story about growing up, letting go, and facing the non-imaginary world ahead. This put a big smile on my face that keeps coming back.

Utterly delicious!!!

The chemistry reads during casting are going to be fantastic!!! Two immortal beings presenting at wildly different ages with a past so fucked-up it can only happen in Greek mythology! Cast it right and you’ve got sexy for days even though the characters barely touch.

The frisson is fabulous. The history, rich and it’s retelling/reconfiguration, vivaciously fierce.

You need a seasoned classical actor for Daphne. She has a seduction literally for the age. Jones also fashions one of the most elegant stage kisses ever.

Neoclassically sexy! Eternally fabulous!

One paragraph. Sixteen lines long.
And yet… And still…

In that paragraph, that sixteen lines, Frandsen gives us an internal monologue with all the elements of great drama, from the technical (active protagonist with an objective making decisions and discoveries within a carefully constructed universe – I was going to say “world” but that wouldn’t do it justice) to the personal (love, loss, loneliness, relationships, reach and grasp, the flippancy that covers and eases tragedy). It’s a joyride in the deep deep dark that ends like a bomb going off in your heart.

One paragraph. Sixteen lines.

Damn!

SO MUCH world building happens SO QUICKLY!!!
Cross provides an object lesson is active exposition, achieving it through comically stilted sci-fi parody syntax while presenting a dire situation, fueled by two parties at seemingly immovable cross purposes, until revelations and negotiations change everything!!!

IN SIXTY SECONDS!!!

The story itself is a delight and the characters are so fun, you want to find out what happens next and next and next! Hell, you’ll want to join them for all the minutes to come!

I can't even imagine how powerful this would be on stage. In the confines of my head, it's full of life and information, warm, profound remembrance and joyful, sloppy, awkward choreography. A beautiful monument that holographs the spirit and soul of the departed. Amen!

I loved this when I read it but hearing it aloud with four separate voices turns it into something transcendent. For me, on the page it was a lovely list, certainly filled with genuine heart and concern and connection. Hearing it... it's an emotional biography, a metaphysical terrarium, a lifetime's worth of simple advice that may or may not be useful, spoken by people who are invested in you and your life's journey.

Do yourself a favor and find three other people and read it together. Or find four and just listen. Take turns.

You'll feel the words.

Copy editors are the goalies of journalism: crucial the success of the team, yet the get very little glory, and are often only noticed when they let something get by that they should have caught.

Adam Richter is having none of it! With this monologue he enshrines the copy editor to their rightfully exalted place in the cosmos!

I doing so, he takes no grandiose tone or defiant posture, but explains things with a clarity of fact and warmth of persona, like a good editor and playwright would.

This is a lovely tribute to unsung heroes.

This made me smile.

Syran beautifully observes a simple moment between a couple watching a bird out their widow. Though it may not seem like it, there’s a lot going on around them: a son visiting for the holiday break, hunters hunting nearby, the recent capture of a wild animal… and suddenly they are we are concerned about this helpless bird caught in the middle of it all. There’s also time for a mythology lesson, which I personally am partial to, and it gives the couple a delightful texture.

I want to spend my holiday with these people!

This monologue reminds me of the time someone said to me, an Asian American, "But Scott, Asian Americans aren't People of Color."

I did not respond kindly. Now, thanks to this monologue, I know that the word "scurvy" applies to that person's assessment of my people.

By all means READ IT! ALOUD! If you are not Asian, pretend you are, then read it anyway! Make it pertain to you. You'll then discover that, as a human, it pertains to us all. Wang makes a powerful indictment of the heritage of trauma and oppression. Searing and incendiary.