Recommended by Joe Swenson

Opting to leave the rec here as there's more on Dana's version. Ahavah, meaning 'to love' in Hebrew, is a beautiful story. There are so many layers of love in Ahavah that it was a no-brainer to include the Loved Ones Audio Fiction Podcast.

Saul's desire to impress his family for their love, not trusting they'll love who he truly is. Alice's undying love for Saul and Saul's transparency with Alice reflect love, but ultimately this show is a show about discovery and how love can reveal knowledge and ultimately reflection on what it means to love. Beautiful.

A beautiful play. One that literally wants to get you out of your seat and get moving. What's so great about it is that it's a play about enthusiasm, energy, and aging. You root for Ryan's characters from the beginning of the show through the end. Highly recommend.

Such a beautiful play. It starts off as an awkward getting to know, but Christopher picks up the pace quickly and reveals on time the twist, so that you can get to the waterworks. Time to Talk is in the Loved Ones Series Podcast (Broken Arts Entertainment) and I had the pleasure of directing the show. It's beautiful, has a wonderful arc and leaves you with both an ache in your heart, but hope for the future. Highly recommend this show.

A truly lovely play about teenage, um, love? Maybe, it's confusing. The characters aren't confusing, the story-line isn't confusing. John Patrick Bray takes us on a bit of a journey from prior to narrative in front of us to the future of a Brian and Erin, mostly immediate future. It's filled with confusion, and defining without defining, and embarrassment and all the things that teenagers feel when they like someone, but are unsure of it. John also properly defines a character not in the show in demonstrating Heather's rejection. Beautiful show.

What an incredible play. Both from an artistic standpoint and as an empowerment play. You find yourself rooting for both Amelia and DeeDee and Calvin and their parents and everyone that's anyone to these two characters. The genius is your left to figure out who the antagonist is in this play. I think it's me and my prejudices, but to someone else reading/seeing this show it might be someone different. I love this show and highly recommend it.

The construct of this play is brilliant. Staying out of the complexity of designing time travel only to leave the complexity of time travel to the many events surrounding time travel.

James takes a stab at one of the great mysteries of writing and hits with the many twists and turns this play takes. Love the characters, love the story. Highly recommend.

What a fun show. Soucy has taken the fear of the unknown, pop culture fears, recent headlines, and a quick two-handed, put them into Soucy GPT (AKA his imagination) and spit out something wonderful, hilarious, tension filled, with an ending that might get messy.

Hilarious, glad I dove in and went along for the ride. Fun show!

The charm of it all. William has us believing in monsters with real names and feelings and everything. It’s a fantastic story that has all the elements of a boardroom. Roger’s Rules of Order, constant interruption, someone’s feelings getting hurt, surprise guests. A lot of fun, seems easy to stage. Great show.

Such a fun one act. Brenton builds 4 distinct and relatable characters in this “it’s okay to dream” comedy. Each character has a primary trait, but it’s the secondary ones that cause you to root for them. In the end Ben gains a clearer understanding of what’s next in his life and maybe Ashley too. I hope Rodney has good recruiting skills, he’s gonna need them. Fun show, would love to see on stage.

I couldn’t help reflecting upon my own life while reading this. My name is Joe and I have been asked if I’ve done the thing yet, many times.

Love this farce. It’s fast, escalates beautifully, is full of laughs and includes many cameos from celebrities that you love and hate or love to hate.

At the end of the day this play is existential. What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything if you haven’t done the thing that you need to do? Probably still 42.

Brilliant! Chris is so much fun!