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Ricardo Soltero-Brown

Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

  • The Waiting Room by Sharai Bohannon
    26 Jan. 2018
    “ As one prepares to die, three friends respond to the appropriate anxieties, and some unexpected reckonings, all while a second scene eventually plays out. A poignant piece about sexuality, the metaphorical and literal opposites of sex and death are investigated in one of Bohannon's most daring, simultaneously somber, enlivening, laughing, heart-stopping, palpitating works. ”
  • Tinder... Sucka by Inda Craig-Galván
    26 Jan. 2018
    “ A sexy, saucy, naughty, bawdy, and all around hilarious mix of genres, a welcome mash of blaxploitation and affectionate parody, an amalgam of styles that will never let you look at organized crime, online dating, or Pepé Le Pew quite the same way again. The final fight will excite and, if staged just right, drop your jaw. The final line had me laughing for a full minute. ”
  • MINI: A MONOLOGUE by Asher Wyndham
    26 Jan. 2018
    “ Wyndham proves once again how far ahead of the game he is. Here with a play that should be included in, not only collections for young actors, but monologue anthologies, and short-form dramatic evenings of socially-conscious works, Wyndham taps into what's important for a child. This work is so immediate that you will, and well should, forget about everything else. That is what's so integral to the piece: the willingness to listen to a marginalized child's naïve, subjective, objective, intelligent, canny, and seriously simple experience of a more-than-necessarily complicated country. Wyndham is an American playwright in the best sense. ”
  • End of an Era by Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos
    26 Jan. 2018
    “ There will always be a battle between the aged and the youth, between the wise and the new. McBurnette-Andronicos gives us a prime example that just because a play has a cynical character, doesn't mean that the play itself is cynical. Her work here in 'End of an Era' is about disappointment. How does one bequeath a task, life-long, even obsessed? Modern simplicity is pitted against archaic perfection, and the results are both hilarious and disastrous. Times change and there's always an opinion if it's for the better or for the worse. A dark comedy with a most curious ending. ”
  • Alistair Eats Alone by Matthew Weaver
    26 Jan. 2018
    “ Tragically and unfortunately we have lost Wendy Wasserstein, but by some giving twist of fate, we have Matthew Weaver. The internal drama imbued by longing, one of the (if not the earliest) stages of love, is often skipped by playwrights for dialogues so much more easily digestible, much more socially acceptable. Weaver takes us back to the fundamental. It has to be said, though, just how damn funny he is. There is so much lovely work here that will challenge several varieties, aspects and sensibilities, of designers. Weaver is a transcendent artist regarding the abilities and expectations of the stage. ”
  • THE ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN by Rachael Carnes
    26 Jan. 2018
    “ Before anything else, I want to say that my favorite piece of this play is the cadence of its language. The playwright Carnes delights with words in a way that my ears don't often at all enough hear. The reflection that this monologue-play pays to the eons-old, male-dominated world of forced (political, societal, gender-based) subservience of women will always be relevant. The spirit of its character is a recurring element in the work of Carnes: the undying ability to note the remarkable beauties of all around us. It is to what she gravitates; and from Carnes there's much to learn. ”
  • JANEY SMITH: A FOOTBALL FAN MONOLOGUE by Asher Wyndham
    26 Jan. 2018
    “ Asher Wyndham should be taught at university and drama schools. Every acting teacher I've known and studied with tried to get us to this sort of place. Wyndham is fearless and versatile. His monologues share, easily in my mind, the same territory of the best works from Spalding Gray, Sarah Kane, Ntozake Shange, and Sam Shepard, I'll even say Tony Kushner. He is investigative in a way few dramatists dare. He really does have the artistic flight of, say, Tennessee Williams. Here, in 'Janey', he communicates specific problems of class and society Drama is often uncomfortable with. Listen. ”
  • Hurt Song by Caridad Svich
    25 Jan. 2018
    “ Svich rounds out her tetralogy with a tale of dwellers in an unloving land, where waste and work are all there is. Stevie dares to connect, but must balance hope with a necessary need to adapt, beleaguered by circumstance, location, and even family. This ability becomes both heartbreaking and inspiring. Friendships and bonds grow and shift against an apocalyptic setting. The onstage collapse of a character is not only one of the play's most striking moments, but a humbling metaphor, an amalgam of all that is struggling before our eyes in the cacophony of our country's strangled cries. Perfect poetry. ”
  • Ambitious Card by Hannah C Langley
    20 Jan. 2018
    “ The spirit of a young artist is a fragile thing, a garden with the consistently looming questions of when is it growing, and when has it begun to bloom? Environment is key, and Langley's use of the concept of family is deftly poignant. Talia's journey from one home to another (some encouraging, the others enraging), to the creation, loss, and rescue of her own home is heartbreaking, inspiring, and altogether enchanting. The integration of social issues, like passive/aggressive sexism, is seamless, and naturally addressed throughout the dialogue. An artist's true talents always reveal when all seems lost. Then what? ”
  • The Geese of El Carmelo Cemetery by Hannah C Langley
    8 Jan. 2018
    “ Late teenagers have it all stacked against them, including themselves; it's a period where life is felt to the nth degree, one of both transition and waiting, there's arguably no more anxious of a time. Langley's characters use the only dreams they know to try and solve an unforeseeable future, only for it to be thrown into a desperate uncertainty by tragedy. This memory play bleeds into a fever dream, and appealing to that which is most romantic within us, asks we look closer into the moonlight. It is there young audiences may find the purpose of time. And geese. ”

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