Recommended by Scott Sickles

Koop takes a familiar scene - hostages tied together - and creates a fast and furious pitch-black comedy. The characters are not only bound together, they're gagged. And they have quite an extensive conversation about escaping while not being able to speak clearly during a situation where the stakes could not be higher.

Rehearsal for this play will be a joy! Figuring out how much is intelligible to them and to the audience (which are two different things!) will be a blast! The physical comedy opportunities are limitless.

The play is a tiny, funny, thrill ride. Produce it!

Many of us will read/hear this and think, "there but for the grace of God-knows-what go I."

We have been our own hurricanes of bad decisions, terrible impulses, horrendous taste, and irresistible urges.

Wyndman deftly shows the flaws in both the speaker and the listener here. One who demands not to be interrupted while the other waits quietly for the rant to stop so they can get down to business. High maintenance, low expectation, little to no standards.

All of these dynamics are at play in this fast, funny monologue that's totally DTFI

I'll bet you have considered this situation from this perspective, at least not this way!

There's a skill to creating characters like this, humanizing their plight and feelings, drawing parallels to a variety of experiences – social, political, personal. Yet a good story is about the characters, not just what they represent. O'Grady illustrates science fact in a way that might hopefully help the listeners understand the world around them and why things are as they have become.

It's concise, suspenseful, and fun with a striking twist.

Enjoy!

John Minigan is a more forgiving person than I.
Or at least more of an optimist.

Here he simply and elegantly recreates the day of the Insurrection from an unexpected perspective: small-town Massachusetts. Covid is another tension, literally in the air. The physical distance between the characters and the event is bridged by offstage breaking news. The naturalism of the dialogue plants the listener firmly in the day. Expectations regarding a walk to the coffee shop are heavy and discoveries during it, profound. Forgiveness and optimism simultaneously become reactions and choices.

Minigan finds light on the darkest day.

She’s done. She’s absolutely, finally, irretrievably DONE!

And she’s just getting started.

At first, one wonders if she’s become inhuman or otherworldly. One might also wonder if she’s succumbed to madness and any “him” will sate her dark intentions. Then a recollection… something he says to her too often… something she’s chosen to never hear again.

She’s already referring to him in the past tense.

We get enough of a glimpse to know how she got here and where she’s heading. It’s the now that matters. And off she goes.

This short piece would make a great audition monologue. There’s tension and conflict right out of the gate! You get a good sense of both the speaker and his relationship to his listener. Williams sticks the landing with a memorable parting shot that’s specific to its source play yet easy to appreciate without a larger context. Sharp, impactful work.

I would love to see this. Or... NOT SEE IT!!! (It's ideally performed in the dark.)

Beyond the sci-fi A.I. trope/policy of putting a "shotgun" in potentially achieving sentience and rebelling, which is constructed here quite entertainingly, Hageman makes you think about what makes us human AND humane! How much do we value our fellow man? Do the rich who are hemorrhaging money want the working class to think and feel? Do people with power want to destroy the sentience of those without it?

It's potent, relevant, and most importantly unnerving science fiction!

The synopsis alone had me howling! The play itself is a theatrical antidepressant.

Very little… let’s call it “real estate” is given to the parents of the Peanuts kids. What must they think of these preternaturally precocious children? Well, now we know!

In creating the van Pelt parentals, Cathro gives us the most realistic and likeable mom and dad since Calvin & Hobbes. Yes, Mom is a bit high strung but given the circumstances, SHE’S NOT WRONG!!! Dad by contrast is understanding and patient, but grounded in the world. We get surpising insight into “Lucille” as well. A joy!

So that’s how that happened.

We’ve all heard of Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill over and over and over, but most of us (including yours truly) are too lazy to look up why. Why is Sisyphus doing this? We only care about how the the myth works as a metaphor for our own struggles.

Fortunately, Eppich-Harris has done our homework for us and created a relatable scenario involving art and bureaucracy. This is what Hell is probably going to be for most of us playwrights. Now we’re prepared.

Thank you, Marcia, for the heads-up!

Someone has had enough of your shit!

I would not want to be on the receiving end of this monologue, not because it is a combination of unleashed anguish, unrestrained vitriol, and inextinguishable FIRE, though that is true! I don’t want to be that person because that would mean I was a horrible human being, an emotional parasite, a self-esteem vampire, and I deserve every last drop of righteous hate raining down upon me!

That it’s set during an I-Hop brunch is a masterpiece of world building. The right actor will turn this into a symphony!