Recommended by Seth McNeill

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    A workplace tragicomedy with beautifully written, genuinely funny dialogue. The characters are clearly drawn and distinct, each moment feeling like a voyeuristic slice of life, yet the interweaving of multiple plotlines is deftly handled and keeps the audience engaged.

    A workplace tragicomedy with beautifully written, genuinely funny dialogue. The characters are clearly drawn and distinct, each moment feeling like a voyeuristic slice of life, yet the interweaving of multiple plotlines is deftly handled and keeps the audience engaged.

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    Simultaneously terrifying and full of heart. Rather than getting bogged down in philosophical speculations or science fiction, the play beautifully paints the likely human cost of AI's potential. The way the final scene brings a ray of hope to the dystopia brought me to tears.

    Simultaneously terrifying and full of heart. Rather than getting bogged down in philosophical speculations or science fiction, the play beautifully paints the likely human cost of AI's potential. The way the final scene brings a ray of hope to the dystopia brought me to tears.

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    A Zoom play that actually makes effective use of the form (though it works in front of a live audience as well). What starts as a sex comedy ends with a beautiful moment of human connection, a moment of hope transcending horror. As usual with Scott's work, his characters speak with a hyper-intelligence that weaves the intellectual with the poetic. A healthy dose of pop culture jokes and sexual innuendo entertain and at the same time make the impact of the heavy subject matter more acute.

    A Zoom play that actually makes effective use of the form (though it works in front of a live audience as well). What starts as a sex comedy ends with a beautiful moment of human connection, a moment of hope transcending horror. As usual with Scott's work, his characters speak with a hyper-intelligence that weaves the intellectual with the poetic. A healthy dose of pop culture jokes and sexual innuendo entertain and at the same time make the impact of the heavy subject matter more acute.

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    A truly funny and touching piece that interweaves the personal and socio-political beautifully. The play uses "What the Constitution Means to Me" and "How I Learned to Drive" as clear sources of inspiration, but the metatheatrical way in which Castle Miller wrestles with both the process and the role of playwright injects further tension and humor. "Inferna" explores what it means to be victimized oneself and complicit in the victimization of others, and reckons with the hard truth that those you've hurt are not obligated to forgive you just because someone else hurt them more.

    A truly funny and touching piece that interweaves the personal and socio-political beautifully. The play uses "What the Constitution Means to Me" and "How I Learned to Drive" as clear sources of inspiration, but the metatheatrical way in which Castle Miller wrestles with both the process and the role of playwright injects further tension and humor. "Inferna" explores what it means to be victimized oneself and complicit in the victimization of others, and reckons with the hard truth that those you've hurt are not obligated to forgive you just because someone else hurt them more.

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    A kind of dream play, a series of impressions that accumulate into something you can't quite put your finger on. It's a play driven more by trying to connect the chain of vignettes rather than tracking one central conflict, though the implicit framing within the COVID quarantine adds tension to every scene. It asks big questions even while it ventures into bedroom farce territory.

    A kind of dream play, a series of impressions that accumulate into something you can't quite put your finger on. It's a play driven more by trying to connect the chain of vignettes rather than tracking one central conflict, though the implicit framing within the COVID quarantine adds tension to every scene. It asks big questions even while it ventures into bedroom farce territory.

  • Seth McNeill: All The Best Ingredients by james bosley
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    A kind of working-class Pinteresque dystopian tragicomedy. The humanity of the characters shines through underneath a veneer of procedural language. While it is clear which side is in the right from a moral standpoint, we identify with characters on both sides of the political divide shown in the play and don't come away with any clear heroes or villains. With the oblique references to worldwide cataclysm and the fascistic political landscape, the play is quite relevant to where we are right now.

    A kind of working-class Pinteresque dystopian tragicomedy. The humanity of the characters shines through underneath a veneer of procedural language. While it is clear which side is in the right from a moral standpoint, we identify with characters on both sides of the political divide shown in the play and don't come away with any clear heroes or villains. With the oblique references to worldwide cataclysm and the fascistic political landscape, the play is quite relevant to where we are right now.

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  • Seth McNeill: Nonsense and Beauty by Scott Sickles
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    A delicate, bittersweet epic. It loves all of its characters, making each of the supporting characters multi-dimensional and complicated when a lesser play would have made them "the wife" or "the wise-cracking best friend," and in so doing creates a dramatic world with all of the contradictions and complicated feelings by and about each other that we experience in real life. At the same time, it brings to light the many differences between Forster's time and now in a fashion that is hopeful without being saccharine or naive.

    A delicate, bittersweet epic. It loves all of its characters, making each of the supporting characters multi-dimensional and complicated when a lesser play would have made them "the wife" or "the wise-cracking best friend," and in so doing creates a dramatic world with all of the contradictions and complicated feelings by and about each other that we experience in real life. At the same time, it brings to light the many differences between Forster's time and now in a fashion that is hopeful without being saccharine or naive.

    ”
  • Seth McNeill: around and around and around the static sun by Joanna Castle-Miller
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    Smart comedy that draws you in with the humor and then gives you a surprise uppercut in the last movement. Great use of language and clever conceptualization of the implications of gender inequality and the possible ways of fixing it.

    Smart comedy that draws you in with the humor and then gives you a surprise uppercut in the last movement. Great use of language and clever conceptualization of the implications of gender inequality and the possible ways of fixing it.

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  • Seth McNeill: Lipstick by Lane Michael Stanley
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    Hilarious, fast moving farce that gets astonishing mileage out of its dozens of gags, but with a wonderful degree of depth that keeps it from being limited to mere entertainment.

    Hilarious, fast moving farce that gets astonishing mileage out of its dozens of gags, but with a wonderful degree of depth that keeps it from being limited to mere entertainment.

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  • Seth McNeill: Daisy Violet the Bitch Beast King by Sam Collier
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    Really fantastic treatment of the bizarro logic and imaginative freedom of childhood transitioning to the restrictions of the adult world. I don't know if I've ever read a play like this, and an imaginative director can have a field day with the first act.

    Really fantastic treatment of the bizarro logic and imaginative freedom of childhood transitioning to the restrictions of the adult world. I don't know if I've ever read a play like this, and an imaginative director can have a field day with the first act.

    ”