Recommended by Doug DeVita

All the “Lear-like” aspects of our former national disgrace are deftly satirized in this pointed, hilarious, yet disturbing short play. Would that the real Don were even half as human as the one imagined by Kyle Smith. But then this play wouldn’t have the heft it does. I’d say this was well done, but that’s such a cliché now I’ll just say it’s a deliciously rare piece for two performers to sink their teeth into.

Osmundsen presents two sides of an argument in this taut ten-minute, and with his usual passionate precision hits both nails squarely on the head. What’s so wonderful about this conversation is that it IS a conversation, filled with conflict and self-righteous declamations, but front and center is the long-standing friendship between the two characters, and their argument doesn’t devolve into DRAMA for the sake of drama. An exquisite piece.

It’s interesting to read a play and then experience it in production. Nuances may be lost in a director’s interpretation while insight not caught on the page may be brought into focus. Such was my experience with this deeply moving family drama; while it’s fun being on the outside looking in, the Hamiltons are one group with whom you do not want to spend Thanksgiving. It’s Ruyle’s gift that he keeps all their machinations spinning seamlessly in short, nearly cinematic bursts of sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking dysfunction, on page and on stage.

Oh, my God! Extraordinary use of language, situations, and characters make HOMESTAR required reading. It’s a jarring, horrifying, at times hilariously funny, and strangely beautiful script. As a long-time fan of Marshall’s work (Full-disclosure, I was in a writers group with him for many years), this is his most mature work to date, a play that demands to be read, and produced, and seen. Highly recommended.

Politics – world, financial, personal, sexual (especially sexual, and not just in the bedroom) – are the driving force in Juan Alfonso’s MIDDLE OF THE WORLD, a theatrical equivalent to a bundle of dynamite if there ever was one. And as provocative, engaging, and thrilling as it is to read, I can only imagine how provocative, engaging, and thrilling it will be in the hands of a gifted director and cast when it is on stage – which it should be. As I said: dynamite.

Reneé Flemings does a deep dive into personal identity and family history, taking us along with her on a journey into murky waters that leaves us gasping; her use of jazz motifs throughout is extraordinary, particularly the way she conveys them concurrently through her use of language, an audacious choice that propels the play forward at an ever-quickening pace. I’d love to see this staged.

Ken Love has an unerring knack for making the poetic theatrical, and the theatrical poetic; folding in bits of noir, jazz, and southern gothic, his DANCE INTO NIGHT is an arresting, jaw-droppingly good play; a fabulous read, I can only imagine how fabulous it would be to see staged. Which it should be. Hopefully soon.

This stunning work, imagining what could have happened on January 6, 2021, is a terrifying vision of the fragility of life in a world gone berserk. Brutal and at times hard to stomach – although Bronson does allow a glimmer of hope to pierce through the prevailing darkness – this powerful short play is a cautionary tale of our times, and one that is unfortunately necessary, if only to warn us how to prevent what could have been if the rioters at the Capitol had succeeded.

What’s that saying? “Be careful what you wish for?” William Triplett’s surreal fable about the quest for eternal life is an intensely imaginative, theatrical, and darkly comic trip that, as Triplett himself says, “reveals the true meaning of life. Kind of.” Kind of, indeed – if the circle of life is really the circle of death, that is. Wonderfully creepy, with some hilarious lines and two killer roles, this would be a fun addition to any short play festival.

Alan Ayckborn’s “veddy British” BEDROOM FARCE, a darkly comic farce commenting on the sexual mores of the 1970s, is given an even more darkly comic facelift by Yvette Heyliger in this exquisitely wrought, very American circa-NOW updating. Those who know Ayckborn's work will admire how skillfully Heyliger has both honored the original and made it uniquely her own, and those who don’t are in for a treat: a perfectly pitched bedroom farce for the ‘20s with much to say both positive and negative about where we are in the here and now, and not just on matters sexual.