Jon Elston

Jon Elston

Jon Elston is a playwright and the Literary Director & co-founder of Road Less Traveled Productions (RLTP), a Buffalo, NY theatre dedicated to the development & production of new plays. RLTP's in-house development program is the Emanuel Fried New Play Workshop. Visit RLTP at www.roadlesstraveledproductions.org .

Recommended by Jon Elston

  • Curse of the Puerto Ricans
    22 Apr. 2018
    READ THIS PLAY! While Rosa is consciously evoking familiar family melodramas of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, her characters occupy a distinct psychological landscape and bring their own unique, fractious dynamic to the dinner table. The dialogue absolutely crackles in performance. Julia and Baby transcend simple character descriptions, becoming individuals of human dimension and remaining vivid in my mind years after I first encountered them. Julia's relationship with Nene also explodes expectations and feels unlike any other stage romance I can recall. We'll all be talking about "Rosa Fernandez" ten years from now - why wait?
  • ELEVATOR GIRL
    14 Apr. 2017
    AN O'NEILL FINALIST! Already one of this country's most exciting emergent playwrights, Donna Hoke takes a major step in a newer direction, expanding her repertoire into spectacle and a more pliable realism, where colorful superheroes can frolic around problematic topics in an uncouth graphic literature world while their creators and readers combat around those same issues IRL, with far greater difficulty (and higher stakes). This is a particularly timely play; Donna continues to demand the attention of America's literary departments, producers, and audiences!
  • Life On My Knees (A New Award-Winning Comedy)
    25 Apr. 2016
    Highly recommended to ALL fans of comedy and/or political satire, all fans of Mr. Downs, and (most especially) all fans of Bill's previous masterpiece, THE EXIT INTERVIEW. Like that acidic gem, LIFE ON MY KNEES is as incisive, scalding, nasty, petty (yet fair!), and just plain funny as you could hope for. And yet into the bargain, there is a genuine sweetness and generosity of spirit about LOMK... by the final line, I felt sympathy and even affection in my heart for the hapless heroine and her conflicted co-stars. A finalist for Road Less Traveled Productions' 2016 National Residency!
  • Speed of Light
    9 Apr. 2015
    This play is a rare & precious thing indeed: a compelling, suspenseful science fiction thriller hinging on strong female protagonists (not even 1, but really 3) and their valiant attempts to harness their intellects and the sheer force of their wills to avert extinction-level disaster... naturally, against every odd & obstacle. Bella Poynton is writing bold, progressive, visionary theatre, speculative in narrative but powerfully resonant with contemporary socio-political concerns. Road Less Traveled Productions (Associate Member, NNPN) is producing the world premiere of this play in September 2015 and welcomes intrepid partners for a Rolling World Premiere.
  • SAFE
    11 Feb. 2015
    Road Less Traveled Productions (Associate Member, NNPN) is proud to announce our world premiere production of Donna Hoke's SAFE in March 2016, and we hope other NNPN members will join us in producing this vital new play.

    For us, SAFE addresses themes even more universally resonant than those of bullying, domestic violence, or teen sexuality. This is a play about the slow process of recognizing and confronting intolerance, in our community as well as in our hearts.

    SAFE is the winner of Naatak’s Playwriting Contest 2015 (Santa Clara, CA) and the Todd McNerney National Playwriting Contest (2015). Read it!