Recommended by John Busser

02.08.25 - I didn't know that 37 was a lucky number in numerology. Lucky for me then, that I read Claudia Haas' 5 minute play about the importance of the little things. In this case, bees. Alex is sure that the addition of 37 origami bees will bring real ones back to their farm. Lee isn't so sure, but with the high stakes established in what appears to be a bee-less future, better to be safe than sorry.I don't know about you, but I was rooting for these two (and the bees) the whole time.

02.07.25 - Okay, this made me laugh out loud. I had no idea where this was going, and when the title revealed itself, I couldn't help but laugh. What a gimmick Fred has. And to Flight of the Bumblebee, no less. That's brilliant. Philip Middleton Williams takes what could have been a teacher receiving a letter filled with lemons and turns it into a lemonade stand on a hot summer day. Pretty satisfying.

02.06.25 - What a fresh breath of Wisconsin air here, thanks to Brian Cern's delightfully daffy take on Cyrano. I loved the puns of course, but what really got me were the characters. No phony-baloney Hollywood make-believe bullhockey. No, we get sweet lunkhead Colton trying to ask out the woman of his lofty dreams, the foul-mouthed but well meaning mother of a crap machine, Roxi, all with our erstwhile Cyrano, Irv the bartender's help. I laughed at all of this. What a hoot.

02.05.25 - Beautiful and touching, Jacquie Floyd's take on grief and moving on from tragedy is as compelling as it is relatable. We all go through this experience with family, a loved one, a close friend. It's never an easy journey but one we all go on. What better way to ease some of the pain than with a reminder of the person who passed, in this case, origami flowers and (in a wonderful touch for their reason to be there) bees. It was a terrific touch from a writer adept in heart-warming tales

02.05.25 - Feeling more and more documentarian by the minute given the clown show we're going through right now, Steve martin's pointedly ridiculous (well, less and less so) satire about how a people lose their rights is dead on target. Give it a read. It'll curl your hair.

02.05.25 - A delightfully funny take on Beauty and the Beast. Amazing how a little money coming into the family can change your outlook, don't it Dad?

Deb Cole gets right to the point. We're all greedy little beasts, aren't we?

02.04.25 - Oh I loved this premise! And the execution was perfect. I never realized how backwards the concept of a working ouija board was until now. Yeah, the last thing you want this to do is actually work. Brilliant. And the manifestation taking hold of Fred in the background would be an actors dream. No lines to learn, but totally steal focus! DC Cathro, keep writing this kind of stuff. We need more.

02.04.25 - Using Haiku poetry, Deb Cole takes us to the depths of frog despair to the absolute heights of the heartbeat of a future generation. Such a wide array of tones here might be hard from some playwrights, but Deb never falters. Our progeny truly may be different this time. Let's hope so.

02.04.25 - In just one minute, Jacquie Floyd has illustrated our lemmings-going-over-a-cliff mentality that is American politics. I can't think of a better example of this right now, especially as we seemingly just Thelma and Louise-d it this past election cycle. And now we're just holding on for dear life to survive the aftermath. Maybe this time it'll be different, right Jacquie?

02.04.25 - See, this is what happens when a playwright mixes NyQuil with the runoff from an old air conditioner and drinks the whole thing down before writing. Or it would be if Scott Sickles owned an air conditioner. Or sprang for NyQuil. But he doesn't and he won't so I'm afraid he wrote this under his own demented sensibilities. I would absolutely love to see the theater crazy enough to mount this absurdist fever dream. The costumes, the claws, the consumption, the kookiness. Bravo Scott.