Recommended by Dan West

The mythological Medusa was a monstrous temptress whose evil gaze could turn a man into the hardest stone. In Scott Sickles geriatric sex comedy of the same name, the female lead Mavis’ harsh glare has much the same effect on her gentleman, Thor. After a date gone wrong turns into an awkward, pitfall laden night of physical coupling; our two senior singles are left to decide if a long term romantic relationship can be built on a foundation of mutual loathing (or something like that). A fun, cleverly written anti-romcom for all ages.

“Quiet Tonight” is a vampire play about the relationship between those left behind once the vampire has been defeated (but left unslain) and the pieces remain to be picked up. What if the monster is what brought you together? What if it was a person you both loved? That is the dramatic question Mathew Green is asking us. And it’s a question that I am not sure any of us would be able to answer. An enthralling one-act play.

In this modern day update of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Jonathan Ziese relocates early-17th century Vienna to a pandemic era Texas boarding school. With the long time principal away on sabbatical, Pine Bluff Academy’s student body president Charlotte is forced to test how far she is willing to compromise her own principles to protect her brother Percy from the less principled vice-principle who has been left in charge. This strongly written adaptation does a meritorious job transporting the most notable of the Bard’s “problem plays” into the age of #MeToo.

The mixture of quirky humor and pathos makes this darkly comic fantasy a real winner for me. Floyd-Priskorn’s Shop in the Darkness has gathered four uniquely compelling and fun characters for a witty and insightful exploration into the space that sits right at the intersection of darkest depression and the last light of hope - and lets them find reason to go on. The tone and spirit of this piece remind me of George Saunders at his best.

YouTube sensation Monst3r and his team have given away hundreds of millions of dollars to charity on his channel and have made millions more while doing so. But just as it seems that nothing couldn’t challenge his online empire, the viral “philanthropist” gets exposed for behavior sordid enough to completely destroy his finely tuned reputation. Gibbs’ wry and prescient writing takes down everything from cancel culture to viral apology videos and leaves you laughing from beginning to end. A comedic tragedy of Shakespearean proportions for the influencer age.

Mark Wolfson has traveled through time from the 2020s all the way back to 1840s Ireland with a message for his 11 x great grandmother, Sally Reardon. Okay, so maybe it’s not a message he brings. Maybe it’s more like a bunch of questions, and some confusion, and a bunch of words that haven’t been even Ted yet like “movie”and “influencer”. He definitely brings along a bunch of laughs for the audience. A time-travel comedy that dares you to ask “what happened to the hotdog anyway?” This is a really fun ten-minute piece.

really fun 10-minute piece.

One of the foundational principles of Improv is that they are no mistakes. I wonder if Jane still feels this way after this particular comedy show, which keeps finding ways to repeatedly jab its rubber knives into her most soft and sensitive inner scars. You start out laughing at the humor of it all; but then, as Jane’s comic mask slips, you realize that things here are nowhere as funny as her troupe partners P & B have been making them. There is some real pathos hidden within this outwardly comical package.

Set in a late-19th-Century Swedish mental institution, this "based on true events" ghost story examines how memory and tragedy can shape peoples lives and how we perceive them. Young Per Nilsson is awoken each night by the ghost of his murdered wife, a murder that his own mother has been executed for; but, as the hospital staff does their best to help him overcome this trauma, we begin to suspect that not all is exactly as it seems. Dark, chilling, and expertly crafted; Donald Loftus' "PER" is a psychological thriller that is sure to leave its audiences talking.

A carefully crafted and poetic ensemble piece about how our military establishment seeks to create ideal soldiers out of individuals, but fails as a system to protect the individuality of the soldiers it creates. Marus Anet use of a Greek chorus and verse drama provides a fine counterpoint the inflexible structure of the rigid institutions being deconstructed. A sympathetic and insightful exploration of patriotism and war and who exactly we label as heroes.

This short dark play about the loss of a child expertly navigates the middle ground between maudlin and insensitive without ever really risking wandering into one of those realms or the other. In a story that (IIRC) is founded in an actual event, a mother seeking to commemorate her recently deceased child is offered a chance to speak her mind to the corporate lawyer assigned to protect the copyright of a well-know (& litigious) global media giant. Gibbs manages this potentially difficult, darkly comic premise with sensitivity and with great humor.