Recommended by Tom Moran

  • Tastes like Chicken
    25 Mar. 2016
    I've been going to the Last Frontier Theater Conference for 8 years now, and "Tastes Like Chicken" remains probably the funniest piece I've seen there. The story of a psychotic brother who arrives to wreak havoc on his sister and her family, "Chicken" benefits from continuously hilarious dialogue and a crisp construction of interrelated subplots that keep topping themselves in ludicrousness. Barnes does a masterful job of delineating characters, continuously upping the stakes throughout, and delivering so many laugh lines it's easy to forget that we're actually watching a descent into madness. Highly recommended.
  • Monkey Play
    25 Mar. 2016
    Monkey Play (or, as I prefer to call it, "Night, Monkey") runs the gamut from absurd to genuinely heartbreaking. It's brimming with great one-liners and bone-dry humor, but at its core this is a play of ideas. As Homer Chimpson attempts to defend his status as an intelligent being, the audience is moved to consider the real meaning of sentience, and comes to sympathize with the plight of a clearly self-aware chimp who only wants to be recognized as such. Higbee deserves credit for mixing the hysterical and thoughtful in winning fashion.
  • A Girl Named Destiny
    25 Mar. 2016
    Charming, unpredictable, and riotous. Higbee takes a fun concept - when you're in love, everyone looks like the object of your affection - and spins it into a full-length filled with memorable characters, surprising twists, and a very wry wit that had me laughing out loud at several points. Best of all, the play's conceit means the whole thing files with a cast of just two. Combined with simple, suggested sets, this play is not only immensely charming, its also eminently stageable.

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