TELL ME SOMETHING GOOD is a patchwork play that attempts to explore and consider all the ways that we get lost in the world. It is a collection of intertwining, pathos-rich character studies in the form of scenes and monologues, all traversing the landscape of the human condition—love, desire, ache, longing, disillusionment, loneliness—and the power of human connection. Every character is experiencing something of an existential tipping point. A beautiful, meaningful piece of theater that will leave its audience touched and then moved by its sublime reach.
With monologues, two-person scenes, and larger ensemble moments, TELL ME SOMETHING GOOD offers a flexible cast size, a modular scene structure, rich character development, and meaningful LGBTQ representation.
The years is 2015 and Jeff and Judy are right where they’re supposed to be: waiting outside the stage door of the Broadway musical If/Then hoping to meet their idol. But the conversation they have while they wait will change the course of their decades long friendship forever. A playful yet profound comedy about friendship, ambition, and the traps and triumphs of femininity.
This adaptation of Henry James’ WASHINGTON SQUARE centers on Catherine Sloper, a wealthy young woman raised in a house of grief by a father bitterly dead to love. Surrounded by a society and family who perceive her as plain and soft spoken, Catherine remains steadfastly committed to her forward-thinking optimism. When Morris Townsend, a young, mysterious suitor, makes a bid for her heart, Catherine is torn between following her instincts and heeding the warnings of her father and meddling aunt.
While the novel is set in the fashionable downtown of late 19th century New York City, Sharp’s radical interpretation strips away the excess of the time period to deeply focus on Catherine’s journey to becoming her own person. This sparse, actor-focused design heightens the psychological underpinnings of the story, building tension as the play hurtles towards its inevitable conclusion.
72 year-old Krystyna fights for life in a hospital as four people wait and reveal the reasons why her survival is vital to them. Rachel is a driven young doctor whose brother Jonathan died in the Trade Center; financier David is Rachel’s adoring ex-fiancé, rejected in the fall-out from Jonathan’s death; Nicolas is the truck-driver who, distracted, wrecked Krystyna’s car; and Klaus is a hospital volunteer who believes Krystyna is someone he loved long ago in Poland. But even if she survives, is it too late for love? What purpose or meaning remains for any of them? Will Krystyna have their answers?
A young father in the playground, eleven-month-old baby in tow, engages another parent in the park in a conversation about neighborhoods, parenthood, and culture, processing some of his traumas and insecurities along the way as he tries to predict the factors that will shape his child’s Latinx identity. Meanwhile, his alter-ego, a swaggering hip hop jester named MC Plátano, comments on the action, fills in some of the blanks, and asks us some difficult questions.
Set in a small town middle American town called Principal, this is the story of teenaged best friends Jimmy T. and Kia B. Jimmy wants to take Kia to prom, but it’s complicated. Jimmy is white and Kia is black, and Principal has been holding racially segregated proms for decades. In this contemporary coming of age story, filled with music and magic, rhymes and beats, Jimmy and Kia work to hold fast to their friendship. With a little help from a musical superstar, they both fight to envision a different future for themselves and their town.
This eight-person adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream places us at Hermia’s wedding rehearsal dinner, where she is trapped into marrying Demetrius, threatening to tear her away from her true love Lysander. When dressmaker Bottom fits her into her wedding gown, Hermia faints and awakens in a magical landscape—part frolic, part dream, part nightmare. In her Wizard of Oz-like hallucination her parents transform into Titania and Oberon and friends and lovers couple and uncouple until, at last, Hermia escapes to be with her true love.
Saying “I do” was the easy part – this hilarious commentary on commitment is every bride’s worst nightmare. Disaster after disaster follows her down the aisle, from brutally honest boozy speeches to a totally incompetent wedding planner and friends too preoccupied to help with the wreckage around them. A wildly funny play about love, relationship, expectations, and the courage it takes to find what truly makes us happy.
Ten years after Abigail Williams, instigator of the witch trials, disappeared from Salem, she turns up at the tavern of her fellow ex witch-hunter, Mercy Lewis. About to leave the colonies forever, it’s her last chance to understand the madness that overtook them. But with war threatening northern New England yet again, Mercy and her fellow townspeople are in no mood for Abigail’s doubts, which suggest to them complicity with the devil. And just when everything is at its most dangerously tense—the devil himself shows up.
The story of two older women navigating the perils of aging in suburban Detroit. Virginia Campbell was a longtime housekeeper for Denise Miller and her family, helping Denise raise her children during a difficult divorce. But when she shows up for work, Denise is very confused. Especially since she thought she had let her go several months ago. When an accident in the kitchen keeps Virginia from being able to walk, Denise offers to care for Virginia until she has healed. Their roles suddenly reversed, they share memories of their lives over the course of Christmas Eve. Soon they learn secrets and bond in a way that they hadn’t been able to in the past.
