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Ricardo Soltero-Brown

Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

  • HOT & COLD by Gwydion Suilebhan
    29 Sep. 2017
    “ Get pumped for scenes two, four, and seven. Moments throughout three will be surprisingly funny. Directors and designers will dribble and slaver at how to stage the transitions and simultaneous action. Come at this the same way you would a Letts or Churchill play. Be clever, be practical. Even the opening is a fun-filled challenge. I had a thrill conceiving ways to build, open, and reveal the scenes with lights. Actors, this type of dialogue is the reason why you render it all physically. Dramaturgs, grab a medical dictionary and, please, have yourselves a ball. ”
  • Adventures In Slumberland by David Hansen
    26 Sep. 2017
    “ The '89 animated film shook me. This gung-ho stripling's warped, breakneck, nighttime chimeras sink my heart into my stomach and turns it into butterflies. My tummy always feels funny with Nemo. His tales fascinate and consternate; they're genuinely intriguing, scary but engaging. Why is this? McCay and Hansen accomplish the feat of tapping into the part of a child's mind that seeks more devotedly to follow through, solve, and understand. Just as one does in a dream. The potential kiss from the princess remains most frightening. Flip's attitudes bestow moral reference. Think about giving this small play a big budget. ”
  • Why Birds Fly by Emma Goldman-Sherman
    26 Sep. 2017
    “ I read this because I wanted to know what Goldman-Sherman could do on her own. With no religious, aesthetical, or topical framework, and the mention of Beckett doesn't necessarily suggest something polemical. She is clearly a deft architect and keen delineator. I wanted to know what she was capable of "by herself," whatever influences aside. I was, quite bluntly, floored. Creating a mythos is no joke. Goldman-Sherman has here probably the most primal play about women I've ever read. What do I know about the primordial state of women? Nothing. I'd like to think this. ”
  • On the Third Day by Amina McIntyre
    20 Sep. 2017
    “ Amina McIntyre is who you get when you mix Marcus Gardley with Lillian Hellman. McIntyre's plays are driven by intense histories, dogged bonds, and familial intrigue; all of them steeped in the unique atmosphere of her own mythos. 'On the Third Day' is a modern classic. The brewing rage, the stifled dreams, and elemental lifebloods that make up the members of this family are present in all families. Life treats you like a yo-yo, McIntyre knows this. Pride is the last thing anyone will ever be able to sacrifice, that is, before life itself. This is one for the books. ”
  • SOMEPLACE NICE by Scott Dunn
    18 Sep. 2017
    “ How bizarre, this piece, amidst all its darkness and void, Dunn seems to have such fun with the language. Reminds me of when Robert Frost charged that writers must experience whatever they intend the reader to. Frost mentioned tears, and since reading that I've always wondered if it applies as much with laughter. Or shock. Dunn is the carnie from a Tom Waits song with this play. On the fringes, it may be, but Dunn knows damn well the problem we all must face is Change. In that sense, this is as valid a Marriage Play as any other. ”
  • FUEL by Caridad Svich
    17 Sep. 2017
    “ I like Svich, a lot, I've written such, and this play's brilliant. Partly why I admire 'Fuel' is it's the latest of a recent, simpler, more ingenious, purer quality of writing Svich's been exhibiting in her last two, three scripts. She's always poetic; what excites me, my imagination, interpretation, is her profound allegory of a plausible USA. She's been pertinent; this feels prescient. I'm prudent about pulling off a puppet on stage, come the day, I hope it's worthy of this. Svich is Queen of Duo Against the World, but this pair is nearly trapped by one tragic "complicity." Home. ”
  • Libertadoras, the tale of Jonatas, Natan and Manuelita Saenz by Diana Burbano
    15 Sep. 2017
    “ Burbano conducts a channel of voices that, frankly, I've wanted more and more. Despite being of Latino stock, and what I do and don't know of my heritage, I'm perpetually challenged to comprehend, even fathom, what's been and's still being done to Central America, South America, the Antilles, and the Caribbean; that's to say, Latin America. The histories of its lands and peoples imbue, a both connected and individual, shock and awe. I hope Burbano looks at the Taíno someday. Jonata's account and saga illumine a past Peru's in-clashing culture with the memory and wisdom earned through her survival. ”
  • Ghost by Ashleigh Ann Gardner
    14 Sep. 2017
    “ Gardner has written a farce, true and modern. There's plenty dark humor and satire, too, but this's as heightened, daring, and dangerous as anything within its class today. Actors will go for broke with this. Bring it or bust. Look at Catherine Weingarten for a primer. Through mania, obsession, paranoia, and (most importantly) a soupçon of tragedy, three characters driving their objectives full-throttle, firing on all superficial and philosophical cylinders till the tanks empty and the engines burn every fume of self-aggrandizement, self-deprecation, and self-sacrifice, we get an anti-romance with a dreamy denouement. It's "wicked in the best way." ”
  • (SHORT DUMBSHOW:) The Train by Irene L. Pynn
    14 Sep. 2017
    “ Pynn's first brush of beauty comes in the way she describes the train. It takes only a sentence of stage direction, but with it, she makes all the difference. The concept of unseen passengers, save for our two players, works to a director's advantage here, same with however spare and bare the design of the subway car fairs. Many people are interested in exercises and experiments involving a lack of dialogue, but this piece tends to the gardens of innate, passing, and brewing kindness; so, every smile from the actors, no matter how big or small, is the whole point. ”
  • The Fluidity of Truth by Matthew Weaver
    4 Sep. 2017
    “ If you can crack how to stage the first page, well, the rest should follow, and I promise it'll follow in spades. You can call that a criticism, but this play is all about the absurdity of victim blaming. It's a bizarre satire for a bewildering problem. This is, in the truest form of satire, a militant play. The fact that there may be no "ha-ha" is beside the point; and, true to Quintilian, this is all about rhetoric; the character Donnie does an infuriating job of twisting words and pulling logical fallacies from out his ass. I dare you. ”

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