Recommended by Tony Tambasco

"Friar with a Crowbar" is a charming and delightful mashup of several of Shakespeare's plays.

The use of poetic forms in Yolk allows for some great opportunities to explore silences, and the dream-like nature of the narrative allows for a great range of interpretive possibilities in a short piece.

Noir Hamlet is an intelligent and charming mashup of Shakespeare and film noir with loads of comic potential. John Minigan's script takes on a life of its own, beyond the tropes it plays with, and serves as a funny yet insightful pairing of these two genres. Despite the name, Minigan draws from Shakespeare's ideas beyond Hamlet for his script, and uses the language of film noir to deliver a sardonic punch. And there is real mystery here, right up through the last beat.

Marcia Eppich-Harris' exploration of the man, his philosophy, and his circle brings us closer to all of them; revealing the gulf between Nietzsche's own characterization of himself, and the reality he lived and suffered through. Answering the philosopher's call to love fate and embrace suffering, Seeking Nietzsche posits thoughtful questions about what it means to love someone, and what it means for that love to be unrequited, and whether Nietzsche's own self-love may be the most unrequited of all.

This was a delightful rendition of a fable in a modern setting.

I was fortunate to direct this play at Modern Classics of LI in 2023. Larry had me hooked on the first page of Capriccio Radio, and it never let me go. Capriccio Radio personalizes the crisis in classical music — and all classical art forms by extension — of finding relevance in a cultural landscape that no longer values it for its own sake. The motley crew of characters all have their own reasons for loving their music, and genuinely struggle to set aside their differences to protect the music they all love.

A touching and thoughtful dramatic reply to The Merchant of Venice that would make an excellent companion piece to that play. Conversos blurs the line between history and fiction, and written in light of changing historical and scholarly perspectives on Shakespeare's characters, flips the script into a satisfying sequel. The cherry on top is Thal's inclusion of commedia and folk song as essential plot elements.

A compelling short play about the dark side of inspiration, with lots of opportunities for creative staging of supernatural elements.

Violence begets violence in this short play, putting bloodshed in contrast to beauty, wrapped in considerations of what it means to make the world a safer, more beautiful place, and who can (and should) get to enjoy it. Lawing provokes heavy and thoughtful dialogue in a brief script.

I enjoyed the back and forth between the two characters in this play, and the way the author has constructed a cage match between two fiercely intelligent people, both under the influence of a well spring of rage and self doubt. "Gambit" evokes the duel between Holmes and Moriarty in "The Final Problem" in a modern setting, and engages with some of our broader civil discourse in a thoughtful and personal way.