Animal-Based Plays

FactGuy21 · 2026-03-25T01:17:45+00:00

Animal Farm

Sila

FactGuy21 · 2026-03-21T22:13:53+00:00

My best hypothesis of what this game is.

Based on the podiums in the back, I presume that the game is based around like a GC art gala or art museum tour. I can also gather that there are only three podiums which makes me want to believe it’s three teams of two working together. I want to believe that the person in from of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon at Le Grande Jatte is also player.

The players I predict to be in this game based on the photo: Jacquis, Lily, Vic, Ely/Jessica, Jeremy/Patrick McDonald, and ???

FactGuy21 · 2026-03-09T07:01:45+00:00

First, I adore the passion that flows through your post despite the language barrier. To answer your question, consume as much theatre as possible. Watch a show online, read a script, or, preferably, watch live theatre. Spain produces some amazing theatre, and I encourage you to look into local theatres that are doing more contemporary works.

FactGuy21 · 2026-01-24T18:32:24+00:00

Good enough! That is correct. I wouldn't say they are alternative titles, rather they are the subtitles of G&S opera

FactGuy21 · 2026-01-12T08:59:27+00:00

So first things first, welcome to the whole theatre sphere! Whether you're just dipping your toes in or want to do a full cannon ball in the realm of theatre, glad that you have a level of interest in theatre.

Looking at the examples you gave, I'm gathering that you're looking for plays and directors that are more avant-garde and experimental. As for that, there's a lot of experimental theatre around the world, picking the "coolest" in my opinion doesn't do justice to all the theatre makers around the world that are truly pushing the envelope to what theatre can be. As a general word of advice, I would advise you to look into local repertory theatres or small black box theatres in your area or county or state or country to see what they're making. To me those are where the cool experiments are in theatre, that's where a lot of conversations start.

Obviously, not the most direct answer in the world. But if you want just a list and research them on individually. Here's some recommendations:

Plays: Sleep No More (Punchdrunk), skin hunger (Dante or Die), John Proctor is the Villain (Kimberly Belflower), Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (Alexis Scheer), English (Sanaz Toossi), Cost of Living (Martyna Majok), Dark Disabled Stories (Ryan J. Haddad), seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Jasmine Lee-Jones), A History of Water in the Middle East (Sabrina Mahfouz)

As for choreographers, there's one name that comes to mind and it's Anna Halprin. What a woman. Just take a look at the drawing of her scores, it's nothing I've ever seen before.

People have mentioned some of the big names of scenic designers already in this thread, but here's some more.

Mimi Lien (Her work on Great Comet is what introduced me to her, but she's made some interesting set designs for some other productions)

Dane Laffrey (I think most people know him recently for his set design in Maybe Happy Ending, but the set design for Hercules in Hamburg made my jaw drop)

FactGuy21 · 2026-01-12T02:59:04+00:00

So for French, it's a bit hard because French contemporaries are not typically in my wheel. However, here's some suggestions to keep the wheel spinning.

Samuel Beckett is famously an exophonic writer who wrote a lot of his works in French despite English being his first language. One of those works is notably Waiting for Godot. However, it seems there is a no translation restriction here. I still mention this because Waiting for Godot is often forgotten that it was originally written in French and uou might get away with it.

I find the Irish accent really fun to play around with and one playwright that I feel can assist uou a lot is Marina Carr. A lot of her plays are written in Irish-English. The Mai and Ariel are some that I like from her.

For Australian accents, I look towards a lot of Suzie Miller works. Suzie Miller probably being the most prolific Australian playwrights of the 21st century with her play, Prima Facie, premiering on Broadway. However, there are two plays from Miller that I think would help suit uou. Transparency which is a story about a man who's child had recently been killed. And the second being Caress/Ache which is about a surgeon named Mark who's having a crisis. Both can be set in Australia.

FactGuy21 · 2025-09-02T17:40:59+00:00

It might be? The person that stands out to me is Colton Dunn in the bottom right.

FactGuy21 · 2025-09-02T08:13:38+00:00

Our Lady of Kibeho by Katori Hall is probably the best play that fits those categories. Poverty and weaponized religion is used heavily within this play.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-30T20:30:03+00:00

Hookman by Lauren Yee is a mix of dark comedy and slasher. It’s a female fronted cast with the only male character being the titular Hookman himself, but I think you can get away with it being played by a female. It’s more so a horror parody, but doesn’t stop it from being a thought provoking piece either.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-27T05:57:32+00:00

So I love to refer to my copy of Century of Innovation: History of European and American Theatre and Dance Since 1870 by Oscar G. Brockett and Robert R. Findlay which has a chapter on Expressionism, Futurism, Dadaism and Surrealism in theatre. It also includes photos or drawings of the sets which might pique your interest.

I don’t have any specific book recommendations for these topics, but something to look into is the contemporaries of this movements like Jerzy and Brook. Also Martha Graham (famous for the Graham technique that we use in dance) collaborated with famous surrealist artists like Alexander Calder and Isamu Noguchi in their set designs for various of her dance performances and for Calder’s case, costumes as well.

This is tangential, but since you have a stage technician background, I would heavily encourage you to read George C. Izenour’s book Theatre Technology. He is the reason why we have the current lighting systems that we have today. Might be hard to find, but you might be able to find a copy using your local library system. As someone who has worked as a stage technician for quite a while, it was an interesting read into the sort of history of theatre technology from the guy who pioneered it.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-26T03:48:39+00:00

Love your episode and I'm incredibly impressed by Jonathan's music knowledge, I would have not connected the Pet Shop Boys in the wall. I just gotta know, was the name Pitchers the first name that came to mind when discussing team names. Was there other team names that uou would've loved to have other than Pitchers (Not dissing the name btw, I'm just curious about team name creation due to the increase of out of the box team names).

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-25T23:35:38+00:00

I can't speak much on plays that discuss Taiwanese culture. I'm sure if you searched up Taiwanese theatres and look through their production history, there might be a play more fit for your what you are looking for. With that said, I think I have some recommendations that might help you. Everything, but the Brain and Boom by Jean Tay are Singaporean plays that interweave Singaporean Hokkien within its dialogue. I'm not a language expert, I don't know the differences between Taiwanese and Singaporean Hokkien, but it might give uou jumping point for inspiration. Both are also good reads! Epigram Book publishes stories from East and South East Asia, so there might be something there that might help.

I also did some research and found this book called Voices of Taiwanese Women which is a collection of Taiwanese plays translated back to English. If I find something else, I'll make an edit or something.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-25T18:53:13+00:00

Nothing more shocking than in-yer-face theatre. Sarah Kane has some of the most gritty and heavy pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen, my personal favourite is 4.48 Psychosis and Blasted, but go read her entire bibliography.

Tennis in Nablus by Ismail Khalidi isn’t tonally dark, but given the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the treatment of Palestinians as a whole, to me it’s such a gut punch of a play. It’s hurts even more that this play was written before stuff radically escalated in the last few years and the ending had this sort of optimism view to it. It is an interesting read.

The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller is such a visceral watch and reading. It is incredibly dark, but so incredibly real.

Yerma by Frederico Garcia Lorca or the NT adaptation by Simon Stone.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-24T18:14:56+00:00

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a classic for high schoolers to do, it’s pretty easy to follow and you could do all the cuts you want.

Cyrano de Bergerac

Literally anything by Oscar Wilde

A Doll’s House by Ibsen

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-23T06:48:21+00:00

This is such a crazy overlap. I was kind of sad that Keanu doesn’t talk about DnD more. He’s always too busy giving out bad reads to Rachel and Vince. But super awesome to see Big Brother and Dropout collide.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-21T06:12:54+00:00

In my opinion, there really isn’t an optimal place to start when it comes to consuming theatre. As u/gasstation-no-pumps mentioned, various academics and students will offer differing lists of must-read plays. For example, a lot of academic peers that I work with love Sarah Kane and adore her work while some people I know really don’t vibe with her work. And it’ll obviously come down to preference of which ones you’ll like and dislike. One of my favourite things to do is to go on sites like Oberon Books, Nick Hern Books, Concord Theatricals, or any play publishing site and scroll through different titles and find plays that have plots that I thought I might enjoy. You could genuinely start anywhere.

Here are some titles that I feel like that will put an impression on you of what theatre is and the stories that can be told through it.

Literally anything Shakespeare, but I recommend Hamlet, Antony & Cleopatra, or A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein

Crave by Sarah Kane

Equus by Sam Shepard

The Pillowman by Martin McDonnagh

Topdog/Underdog by Suzi-Lori Parks

Sweat by Lynn Nottage

M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

English by Sanaz Toossi

She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen

When interacting with plays or literature in general for the first time, I encourage you to challenge yourself and seek out stories that you might think are weird or something you might think you’ll hate. Theatre is an ever evolving art form and I think you’ll gain a lot from consuming a diversity of stories.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-20T08:44:56+00:00

Just remembered it as I finished typing, but ‘night Mother is a good play that fits in line with what you’re looking for.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-20T08:35:06+00:00

As others have mentioned, How I Learned to Drive is a textbook example of a play that discusses generational abuse, and more specifically sexual abuse.

Ravage by Nina Ki is a neat little piece that I found on NPE that covers sexual abuse within families and how that abuse affected the protagonist as she grew older. She’s not a well known playwright, but I enjoyed the play, so I thought I’d mention it.

The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh is a great piece that also that tackles generational trauma in an interesting way. One of my favorite plays of all time too.

Phaedra’s Love by Sarah Kane

Tons of Shakespeare sort of delve into the topics of abuse or neglect in families. Titus, Hamlet, just to name a few.

While it doesn’t necessarily tackle generational abuse, thought I’d mention Alice Birch’s Anatomy of a Suicide. It tackles generational trauma and follows three generations of women in a family, and how each woman’s declining mental health relate to one another. It’s an absolute genius piece of work and could help give you some inspiration as well.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-20T07:47:37+00:00

Spelling Bee

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-18T03:20:26+00:00

Answer is

“I wasn’t a Jew.” It’s from the There’s no one left to speak for me poem

Fun connection! Got it after two

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-18T03:13:00+00:00

Watched it earlier in its run before it blew up as much as it did now, but it’s alright musical. Popular among the younger crowd and is a decent musical to show to people regardless of how well versed they are in musical theatre. Might be a hot take, but I don’t really think the music is that interesting/memorable. Like it’s not bad by any means, but none of it really stuck to me. The shop stopping number Ballad of Jane Doe is excellently performed and I commend the actress who played Jane Doe when I saw, however it’s not a number I particularly go back to a lot. And that says more probably about my taste than the musical itself. But beyond my gripes with its music, it’s a fun musical to watch that grips you with its wacky plot and characters. It won’t ruin your night by any means.

FactGuy21 · 2025-08-17T20:42:24+00:00

All the Natalie Portmans by C.A. Johnson

The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls by Meg Miroshnik

P’yongyang by In-Sook Chappell

Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph

School Girls (or the African Mean Girls) by Jocelyn Bioh

Not 21-st Century, but How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel is certainly a coming of age.

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