Recommended by Emmet L.F. Cameron

My dad drove cab in Ottawa around this time, & this monologue made me want to ask him more about it. I love period pieces about seemingly small parts of relatively recent history that help you realise how the texture of life changes over time. This one also brings to mind how often cab drivers are engaged in a kind of performance. If you are somebody who loves cab driver patter, you won't wanna miss this.

Brilliant short-but-deep dialogue for two actors playing the same character speaking with one another across years.

In about 20 minutes, this play lays out a future world with a simple but deeply consequential premise. So many questions arise about youth, mortality, the value of time -- & the value of infinite versus finite resources. All of this sci-fi & philosophy is delivered in delightfully down-to-earth comic dialogue. With great roles for several middle aged actors (& a few 20somethings too), I can see this being a big hit at a community theatre evening of one-acts.

I love the use of the cookie jar as sort of reverse Chekhov's gun, suggesting from the outset that there will eventually be an outbreak of tenderness in this cold situation.

This contemporary re-spinning of the tale of the biblical patriarch & his descendants creates such a perfect theatrical-yet-intimate scale to consider the simultaneous interconnectedness & disparate experiences of Palestinians, Israelis, & American Jews. In our world today, this play feels like an emergency -- & also presents so many reasons to hope & work towards justice & peace & treating each other truly as family, with all the love & obligation & complexity that relationship carries.

The audio version on The Parsnip Ship podcast is well worth a listen for the wonderful performances, musical elements, & interview with the playwright.

This starts out feeling like a 21st century companion piece to Of Mice & Men, & becomes something much stranger. Visceral, poetic, empathetic & unflinching. There is so much potential for actors to explore in the physicality of this piece, & so much to be brought to life on the tech side.

This is (& I mean this in a good way) a completely horrifying absurd crime romp. It’s like if Chicago wasn’t a musical, but was more gay, but maybe was also in some ways more straight? You’ll laugh, you’ll throw up, you’ll revisit the Wikipedia entry about Balloon Boy.

The personal is not just political -- it's historical. This play presents 2 events that loom so large in our collective understanding of how-things-came-to-be-as-they-are-now (or as they are still becoming), & brings them down to a human scale, so they can fit on 1 stage, in 1 moment, together, with deeply personal stakes.

the detail & specificity of this piece are so exquisitely drawn, building moments that are so recognizable & resonant even to those of us who experienced these moments with a completely different set of specific details. it’s the strange dichotomy of being bad & being good as a child. it’s the way you can be best friends & sorta in love with somebody & feel like you exist in different realities. it’s sweet & scary & finite & infinite & i love it.

This glimpse of how an extraterrestrial species might adopt our customs from afar is both funny & touching. I’d like to meet these aliens who can imagine us as a unified, unstoppable planet.