Recommended by Greg Lam

As someone who writes sci-fi myself, I appreciate good world building and when the playwright manages to remember that the characters are fully formed people beyond the requirements of the sci-fi premise. Vaughn paints indelible characters with the barest of brush strokes, hurt survivors defined by their boundaries.

This is a hilarious, profane play which uses a softball team in Chicago as the pinhole to view all manner of issues in race, class, gentrification, sexuality, change, and life. The players on this team are all going through a lot of stuff as the world changes around them. It's laugh-out-loud funny, and the details are so specific you feel as if you can pinpoint the block in Chicago the game is being played. Hear an excerpt on the play with playwright interview here: https://www.bostonpodcastplayers.com/bpp-season1/

Waiting For Godot meets Walking Dead? This darkly amusing take on the Zombie Apocalypse follows two mismatched women stranded on an island desperately searching for other forms of human contact. They meet one couple, and hears from another party on their CB, but neither interaction is satisfactory to the women. Though the world is populated by zombies, this interesting play is not as much of a horror play as it is an existential examination of loneliness and the need for human connection.

This is a loopy character based comedy in which a woman comes out of an accident convinced she's a naval war hero from the 19th century. Her fractured family of two daughters and ex-husband are forced to play along with the reality that the recovering woman is manufacturing, playing the roles assigned to them. And their nurse Lizzie becomes the Commodore's beloved wife and all consuming passion. This play presents its delightful oddball premise and never gives up its momentum. Featured on an episode of Boston Podcast Players https://www.bostonpodcastplayers.com/updates/2018/11/7/laura-neill

Despite the title, this is not a supernatural horror story but an examination of secrets in an extended family spanning decades and continents, as events in the present day America have echoes in wartime Europe. There are some truly chilling revelations contained within and an expansive canvas created through staging and poetic language. Hear an excerpt on the play with playwright interview here: https://www.bostonpodcastplayers.com/bpp-season1/

I saw La Llorona at a partial reading in 2016 and at Fresh Ink in 2017. It's a bold story of three girls coming of age in Texas mashed up with scary folklore from several different cultures. Each of the three girls have their own arc and their hauntings are in turns scary, funny, moving, and thrilling. The folklores the playwright pulls from are new to me and I'd want to see again to better understand the many connections and nuances. Definitely a good read.