(the collected) TINY PLAYS FOR THE TIME OF NO PLAYS

The note that introduced our first tiny play on March 18 (below in italics, or scroll all the way down to go back in time–it’s also how you read ’em all in order!) is all the introduction you need to the fast-accumulating rest, each accompanied by the introductory thought from the e-blast in which it appeared. Thank you for your response to this project, it continues to mean so much to us, our artists, our audience. Stay well, and we’ll see you soon.

Heartbroken for our artists and colleagues when theaters shut down this week with their beautiful, long-imagined work inside (or waiting right outside the door)… we looked ahead at a time of no plays, thought about what we might need, and asked our artists for tiny plays to share: perhaps a tiny balm for us, them, and you.

DECEMBER 22 OKAY so every Tuesday morning since the start of lockdown: affiliated artist Zoom coffee hour. Tasha Gordon-Solmon is a steady attendee … which is how we know about her Lifetime holiday movie pandemic obsession. So before we could send you Tasha’s tiny play, OKAY (that’s the name of the play, OKAY)… we had to ask her: why??? … And here’s that tiny play. (Very tiny. Also somehow loud.)

DECEMBER 13 In Jessica Huang’s SATO, the fact that itsalreadydecember doesn’t mean there’s no stopping for sunshine.

NOVEMBER 22 Kate Tarker’s I GUESS IT’S TIME TO START A BAND? Proof of life if ever there was one.

OCTOBER 27 Your usual tiny play…well, maybe not so usual. I finally convinced Susan to write one! Enjoy Susan Bernfield’s TWIST OR TWO. — Jaynie

SEPTEMBER 27 In Charly Evon Simpson’s tender I answer, an assortment of silences become resonance.

SEPTEMBER 13 Kristen Palmer’s U.S.G. got me cataloguing longings: for strangers’ smiles, weak cups of coffee, pauses awkward and less so. Maybe an Unclassified Support Group is what I’ve been looking for…

AUGUST 30 While Deneen Reynolds-Knott titles her meticulously-observed play LOSE. LOST. LOSS... I’m grateful for ways it coaxes me to look.

AUGUST 16 Daaimah Mubashshir’s canny Red Queen Deal just might be the ideal accompaniment for today’s sudden dip in the weather. Holler if you think we go triple or nothing to see what happens next…

JULY 26 Sonya Sobieski is pretty much the OG New Georges artist… part of everything early, then productions of Commedia Dell Smartass at the Ohioand Still Waters in New Georges’ Manfest (yes, Virginia, there was a Manfest), and she’s now our New Play Advocate, reading/chatting/supporting ’round the clock. With her Collateral Damage on the windowsill, the tiny play sits close to home.

JULY 12 Herewith, a tiny play in two acts! We had a request for a play with an intermission (odd, but going with it), and the excellent Mary Elizabeth Hamilton heeded the call. WHAT I WANT TO SAY echoes so many far-apart conversations of the past four months. And then, it echoes.

We hope our requester enjoys it, especially that mid-point.

JUNE 25 Coming together with our colleagues around budget justice, the reflective conversations we’ve been having with artists… it all reminds us why we miss theater, and you. So while you’re here, and it’s still the time of no plays: a tiny play. Molly Haas-Hooven’s UNDERWATER is, definitively, immersive. I’ll be TWO with you. I think.

MAY 23 Memorial Day weekend in the time of no baseball. Herewith: the tiniest double header! First up, Crystal Skillman’s THE REBEL musters all the forces at her disposal to plan the next dream. Then IN STRIDE, in which Kate Bergstrom manifests her rightful obsession with sea urchins (I call that a beach read).

MAY 14 Amina Henry sends two humans out for a walk in the spring, puts colors and smells in their path and varying amount of zest in their step… whether it’s really spring remains an open question.

MAY 4 In the persistent present of Liz Appel’s THE WORLD BY HERE AND NOW, even the punctuation hovers in the air… oh, I am right there with it.

APRIL 29 Oh, we’re in it. And by in it I mean going in circles, it’s THIS MOMENT, after all. In which Alexis Roblan’s A can’t get no satisfaction, though A tries, and A tries, and A tries, and A tries, well, every damn thing we’ve all tried! A little too on the nose? A’s tried that, too.

APRIL 24 Jessica Almasy’s FNGR LKRS is a tiny play streeeetching its legs. I’m always eager for patches of white on the page, especially when I feel so well guided, so thoroughly invited into moments. A breath? A dare? Do I fill it up or let it echo? Enjoy your morning scroll. (Fingers exercised enough? Hear the mighty Jess read her play right here.)

APRIL 16 Caught in the fine points of confinement, the attribution-free couple in Jacqueline Goldfinger’s CAT FIGHT, our tiny play this week, prove that it is (quite literally) a fragile time.

APRIL 8 Wow, already, our fourth tiny play. Appropriate that it should be Caridad Svich’s BLOSSOM, which looks back, then forward, then gathers all time within our static moment.

APRIL 2 It’s good it’s tiny, cause I think I’ve read Molly Beach Murphy’s LET IT BE PERPETUAL about 40 times now, just sitting here trying to write you all. Maybe it’s ME.

MARCH 26 It’s a new week. And a sometime rainy one! I haven’t found the gloomier days so easy, but Tori Keenan-Zelt’s WEATHER WE’RE HAVING makes me almost look forward to more showers… almost.

MARCH 18 Heartbroken for our artists and colleagues when theaters shut down last week with their beautiful, long-imagined work inside (or waiting right outside the door)… we looked ahead at a time of no plays, thought about what we might need, and asked our artists for tiny plays to share: perhaps a tiny balm for us, them, and you.

Amy Gijsbers van Wijk’s WITHIN THE TRAPPING I FEEL TRAPPED sure captures what my week’s been like, and with nimble simplicity.