←The Depot for New Play Readings

In “Morir Soñando,” Manuel López Torres combines the story of an undocumented striver, Rafi, with the supernatural legend of El Cuco, a malevolent figure who haunts children’s dreams. While Rafi pursues love and law school, El Cuco shadows him, a dramatic externalization of a system that prevents immigrants like Rafi from ever achieving the American Dream. A heartbreaking play that walks the fine line between comedy and tragedy. Highly recommended.

Germaine Shames bases “The Joy of Theatre” on a case of Russian theater artists arrested for a rewriting of a fairy tale. Shames masterfully transforms the story, which for some people may resonate with events in the U.S. Action moves quickly, from celebration to incarceration under inhumane conditions. Never didactic and with rich language, humor, and stark stage settings, the play mocks the absurdity of authoritarians while positing the power of creative minds to resist. Strongly recommended.

In “Didn’t See That Coming,” a beautifully written compendium of eight ten-minute plays, Mark Harvey Levine examines the tensions and ambivalences of relationships with originality and economy. Often beginning humorously, the plays shift delicately to address love, death, and the metaphysical. The brilliant dialog is very visual and like a transcription of real conversations. Organized in an emotionally satisfying narrative arc, the plays can be produced with simple sets. A sure crowd pleaser.

In her brilliant farce, “Dance for a Manatee,” Mara Dresner presents ineptitude for laughs. Fundraisers meet politicians meet dancing detectives, a cast of characters who live in a singular reality both believable and absurd. With great comic bits, rapid-fire repartee, and a plot that twists and turns like a roller coaster, the play delights from beginning to end. A gem of a comedy for actors of multiple ages and races. Audiences will buzz about this play for days. Highest recommendation.

In “One-Pot Wonders,” Jennifer Persechino explores the bittersweet choices aging couples inevitably confront—loneliness, illness, and mortality. The play presents the difficult Cathleen and patient Ed as their marriage fractures and Cathleen navigates the tricky territory of not wanting to ask her daughter for support but needing it. With memorable stage action and dialog as quick as ping pong, the mood shifts from comedy to tragedy masterfully. Plum roles for older actors. Highly recommended.

In David MacGregor’s “Mildred Whiskey,” four people gather in an old neighborhood bar on the night before Thanksgiving. Their interactions are fast and funny, like a situation comedy, but as the fog outside thickens and the night wears on, the four tell stories about profound rejections in their lives, and the weight of these memories leads them to ask what makes life worth living. MacGregor’s answer is a deeply humane protest against greed, overweening ambition, and technologies that promise to connect us but don’t. A funny, serious, luminous play with a perfect ending. Highly recommended.

Rich Rubin's “Ivory Tower” tells a two-part story, divided by 150 years and set in the same room, where the legacy of nineteenth-century African slavery plays out. Deftly using ivory literally and symbolically, Rubin sets the primary drama in the “ivory tower” of a small New England college, where the new president, an African-American classics scholar, faces a decision that jeopardizes the college legally. Explosive and honest, “Ivory Tower” mines the complex questions that arise when we work to address the injustices of slavery, in our lives and in our communities. Strongly recommended.

In “Machines Eat People” Max Gill delivers a nuanced and multi-layered drama about two families whose interactions one weekend change the way the characters think about themselves and each other. With great restraint, Gill builds tension and holds emotions taut. Everyone who attended the Depot reading was affected by it. The stakes felt so real, one actor vowed to avoid the mistakes his character made. A beautiful unfolding of one specific moment after another straight to the poignant end. Strongly recommended.

Kevin Brodie addresses the history of the abuse of native children in Catholic-run boarding schools in his powerful play “Save the Man.” Daniel, a Shoshone teenager, escapes his school and hides in the barn of a family of Sikh farmers. The family's humanity cannot undo years of trauma, though. With fully developed characters, heartbreaking scenes, and multiple languages and cultures, "Save the Man" left the Depot audience speechless. A powerful play with timeless themes. Strongly recommended.

In “Alicia” J. Lois Diamond dramatizes the career of the great Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso with cinematic scope. We meet Alicia, old and blind, and, as she talks to dance students, through flashback, recounts her life. Choral roles populate scenes with multiple characters, while Alicia’s dancing comes to life in beautifully crafted dialog. In Diamond’s telling, Alicia wanted only to dance, no matter the cost to others or to herself, and despite her willfulness, sympathetic. Highly recommended.