Recommended by Collin Smith

  • Boy My Greatness
    30 Apr. 2024
    Stunning, absolutely stunning. I'm especially impressed with the tasteful interweaving of Shakespeare's writing, which feels carefully selected and never overdone. This work is thematically rich, building on its subject matter to question gender, faith, love, performance. Yet this play never veers towards self-indulgence, centering the characters and trusting the story to reveal its themes. And these characters are all deep & complex: an absolute dream for an actor. This play is clearly so thoughtful, so lovingly crafted. It had me laughing then soon after moved to tears. Truly, astonishingly great.
  • Octavia
    10 Apr. 2024
    This play reminds me of a quote from Roddy Piper: "Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the question!" From the first moment, the answer to why these two characters are where they are evokes a sense of dread. Then, after the reveal of what happened, Prillaman utilizes his strong character writing to create authentic twists and turns. This feels like a lens into the immature and often cruel psyche of young adulthood. These characters are authentic and likable while still acting foul to each other. This scene will stick with me for a bit!
  • Orange Peels
    8 Apr. 2024
    A beautifully melancholic portrait of romance & mental illness. Cameron creates an all too real image of how having mental illness can make even the most banal things, like orange peels, feel insurmountable. It balances out to feel neither sentimental nor hopeless; rather, Orange Peels is an honest, raw, and moving story highlighting the difficulties of living day to day.
  • Appetizers, or "On an Island Somewhere"
    1 Mar. 2024
    This is a play that feels increasingly prescient as more LGBTQ+ hate permeates American culture. A gutting dystopian play with expert precision, "Appetizers" races toward tragedy. The expository information is communicated seamlessly, tying in effortlessly with the forward motion of the plot. These 4 characters all experience a relatable internal push and pull, as the mask of heteronormativity cracks under the pressure of its own falsehood. The internal struggle of all 4 characters speaks eloquently to the experience of being told an aspect of identity is "wrong." An excellent satire of modern America.
  • The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood
    27 Feb. 2024
    This is a play that helped get me into writing when I saw it at Boston Playwright's Theatre. I remember sitting with a class of college freshmen and my professor, and in a moment we began crying, profoundly moved.

    Reading it again years later, and I only enjoyed it more, once again nearly crying. This time at my front desk. The richness of the characters, the fluidity of the dialogue, and the rawness of emotion hit me all over again. Absolutely beautiful and gutwrenching.