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Doug DeVita

Recommended by Doug DeVita

  • Accident on 80 by Dave Osmundsen
    12 Feb. 2020
    “ Like the accidents the two girls seek out in this horrifying-yet-funny play, it’s impossible not to look away as Osmundsen ratchets up the tension (and the laughs) to a somewhat inevitable but somehow still surprising climax. That we care at all for these two clueless girls is a testament to Osmundsen’s gift for creating sympathetic characters, no matter how heinous they are. ”
  • 19 Excellent Reasons to Date Matthew Weaver (a monologue) by Matthew Weaver
    12 Feb. 2020
    “ In 19 exquisitely written bullet points, Matthew Weaver elucidates 19 reasons why he’s a catch. He had me at #7 — although reasons 1 — 6 and 8 — 19 are pretty convincing, too. Somebody produce this soon, and get this charmer a slew of dates from which to choose a lucky someone. ”
  • Reeking of Indiscretion: Madame X's Allerton by Patrick Thomas McCarthy ptmc
    12 Feb. 2020
    “ I love mixing fiction with historical characters, and McCarthy's epistolary play is a wonderful romp, imagining what words might have been passed between three of Chicago's elite, circa the turn of the last century. With its simple staging requirements, its three actors are free to have a field day with vocal pyrotechnics. Good, bitchy fun. ”
  • Machine Learning by Francisco Mendoza
    12 Feb. 2020
    “ There is so much heart in this play – even Arnold, the AI nursing app appears to have one – that one can't resist its poignant charms. Mendoza hooks you early on with recognizable characters and their personal conflicts, then carries you along on wave after wave of emotional truths, and then WHAM, he guts you with losses that, while inevitable, are nonetheless heartbreaking. A truly inventive, wonderful work. ”
  • All Our Quiet Places by Michael Goodwin Hilton
    11 Feb. 2020
    “ This quietly shattering work builds in intensity, like a gathering storm, until it finally breaks over an already broken family haunted by the ghosts of their past, and leaves one, like the family at the center of this hurricane of a play, both destroyed but hopeful. ”
  • The Bad Boy of the Sonnets by Larry Rinkel
    11 Feb. 2020
    “ Youth, beauty, indeed, the very act of making love (or to be blunt, fucking) is fleeting. But art can be immortal. And in this charming short play Rinkel wittily makes a case for a probable WH, immortalized by Shakespeare in his sonnets; there is no sex at all between the writer and his early 17th Century Rent Boy, and yet the sexual tension is high and the encounter between WS and WH reaches a more than satisfying climax. ”
  • Bulletproof Love by Scott Sickles
    11 Feb. 2020
    “ The language. THE LANGUAGE! The eloquence of these brutish characters is exciting, funny, heartbreaking, and breathtakingly precise. As is their theatricality. Sickles is firing on all cylinders here, and anyone who reads, or better yet sees this reaps the benefits. Simply wonderful. ”
  • Note to Self by Cate Wiley
    11 Feb. 2020
    “ This is a simply rendered yet beautifully complex ten-minute gem, with two wonderful roles for an older and younger performer. Should be produced everywhere, and often: its message needs to be shared. ”
  • DREAM TALK by Emma Goldman-Sherman
    11 Feb. 2020
    “ I love this play so much it hurts. In a very dreamlike, at times almost nightmarish way, Goldman-Sherman gets right to the heart of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the parent/child relationship, and without being preachy or judgmental, rips at the unresolved conflicts that haunt us throughout our lives. And it’s not without humor, either. DREAM TALK is an unsettling, but cathartically beautiful work. ”
  • MADNESS MOST DISCREET: Larry and Viv's Last Visit by Donna Hoke
    10 Feb. 2020
    “ Hoke's imagining of a final meeting between tempestuous stage and film stars (and former husband and wife) Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier is a glittering and utterly savage look at what might have been; the zingers fly, the emotions are high, and underneath is the anguish of two people whose fierce love was the undoing of them both. Fascinating and heartbreaking, right up to the kicker ending. ”

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