Recommended by Brian James Polak

  • COMMON SKIPPERS
    15 Oct. 2022
    I was quite moved by this family drama centered around a hospitalized mother after suffering a stroke. I kept thinking about how we are never prepared to deal with or accept the end of life, yet we know its inevitability. Tori writes about this beautifully with three siblings each needing and wanting similar things yet stuck in their own way. The irascible mother may have wanted life to end in her own particular way, but what she ultimately needed is likely what we all need: to have our closest people by our side.
  • BOX OF TEETH
    12 Oct. 2022
    I love this sweet, moving, and funny play!
  • Let You Be Mine
    25 Sep. 2022
    I love how this play feels, how it sounds, how it moves... I badly want to be inside a Victorian home experiencing this great work in person.
  • Light Switch
    13 May. 2022
    With “Light Switch” Osmundsen has created one of the great central characters of contemporary theater in a beautifully written story existing at the intersection of neurodiversity and queerness. The play is a classic example of the specific being universal. What defines us as individuals differs in the details, yet we are all after the same things in life. Just like the main character Henry, we all seek love. I highly recommend this play for theaters with young ensembles and for people interested in sitting down to read a fantastic play that will entertain and move them.
  • RESURRECTION
    6 Mar. 2022
    I love this play. It's so well crafted, written in a completely authentic voice, and quite moving.
  • I HATE SHAKESPEARE
    19 Sep. 2021
    I fucking love this play.
  • Daisy Violet the Bitch Beast King
    16 May. 2021
    I love Daisy Violet the Bitch Beast King. This play, to me, is about repression, rebellion, agency, and trauma. I found it darkly hilarious and quite moving.
  • For Leonora, or, Companions
    12 Feb. 2021
    This is a wonderfully theatrical and beautifully written play. It was a joy to read and WILL BE a joy to see produced because that needs to happen... you hear me theaters of the world?!
  • Hyannis
    10 Dec. 2020
    HYANNIS marks a dark and challenging time in American culture and does so with an ensemble of hopeful characters who all made my heart ache. This is a play that belongs on stages and anthologies and should go down in history with the other great American plays that shows us who we are and what our families and neighbors are struggling with. Teachers: teach this play not just as a great example of form and structure, but also as history so future generations can understand this time and place better.
  • i loved a certain person ardently
    30 Nov. 2020
    This is a beautiful play dealing with the theme of family in a riveting way. Cooper shows us the entanglements of families dealing with loss, and the complications that inevitably come with couples and marriages that don't follow tradition. What I appreciate most is how he allows his characters room to make mistakes and do/say terrible things, while maintaining a sense of empathy for them; ultimately telling a story of people finding the good in those who can't quite see it in themselves.

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