I recently had the opportunity to co-direct a high school play with one of my best friends last spring, and we chose to adapt David Lindsay-Abaire's "A Devil Inside" for our production. This dark comedy murder mystery is essentially based on the story of Anna Karenina, but despite not having read the original novel, my friend and I were able to fully understand and appreciate the play.

The play revolves around a young boy named Jean who turns 21 on his birthday, only to discover that his father, who died 14 years ago, was actually murdered. His mother reveals to him that his father's death was not due to a heart attack, as had been reported, but rather he was chopped up and his feet were removed by someone who wanted to silence him. My friend and I were both hooked from the moment we read the script, and we knew we had to bring this play to life.

The story takes off from there as Jean is asked to go on a mission to find his father's killer. Throughout the play, Lindsay-Abaire explores some darker themes and includes adult language that may not be suitable for all audiences. However, despite these mature elements, "A Devil Inside" is ultimately a thought-provoking and engaging play that will keep you guessing until the very end.

One of the things I love most about David Lindsay-Abaire's writing style is his ability to craft intricate plots that are both clever and hilarious. His characters are well-developed and complex, and he has a talent for finding humor in even the darkest of situations. My friend and I were both fans of his work before choosing this play to adapt, and we knew that it would be a great fit.

In addition to my experience with "A Devil Inside", I also wanted to share with you guys another play that I recently auditioned for and have yet to receive news on - "Almost Maine" by John Cariani. This play is essentially the theatrical adaptation of Richard Curtis's "Love Actually", but with its own unique twist. It takes place in a fictional town called Almost Maine, which is loosely based on Bar Harbor, Maine.

The play follows a collection of love stories that all take place during the wintertime. Each story explores themes of love, loss, and relationships, and they often intersect with one another in unexpected ways. The characters in the play are all well-developed and relatable, and their individual storylines weave together to create a beautiful and heartwarming whole.

One of the things that drew me to "Almost Maine" was its unique setting - the play takes place during the winter months, and each character's storyline is tied to the snow and cold weather. The set design for the play features elaborate coats, scarves, hats, gloves, and other winter accessories, which adds to the overall aesthetic of the production. I think that "Almost Maine" would be a great choice for anyone who loves romantic comedies like "Love Actually", but is looking for something new and different.

Finally, I want to share with you guys another play that I have recently discovered - "The Last Five Years" is not it but almost Maine was close so the last one I will recommend is actually a play that I just auditioned for and have yet to receive news on so we'll find out about that hopefully soon. So, the play is Almost... Maine is kind of similar to Love Actually almost like Love Actually that's kind of what it is but this one takes place in this fictional town called Almost Maine almost in Maine and they all kind of connect in some sort of way. I love Love Actually no pun intended so when I first read the script for this play I just fell in love with it because it's so adorable, it's so cute and it takes place during the wintertime which I love and it is just so beautiful this one I definitely will say is a comedy again it occasionally does have some heavier themes but they are not too dark. It's kind of like contemporary American play but it has some darker elements so if you're in the mood for something kind of like that then I highly recommend checking out this play because almost Maine is just beautiful and beautiful

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys it's Hanna and today I'm going to be doing a recommendations video for you guys and today I'm gonna be talking about some of my favorite plays so as a lover of theater and an actress myself I thought it would be cool if I did a recommendations video for you guys that talked about some of my favorite plays some which I have actually been in myself and some which I have just read in my spare time now I have about seven plays to recommend and they're in no particular order at all and they kind of spread across a wide range of genres I have some comedy in here some drama in here some classics in here some dark comedy just a wide range of things and I really just wanted to share some of these plays with you guys because they're really important to me and personally I think plays are a great source of reading material because they're so easy to get through they're really fast paced and they're just lots of fun plus a lot of the time they come with stage or movie adaptations so it's always great to watch those after you've read the play so now let's just get into the list of plays that I recommend so the first play I'm going to recommend is quite a well-known one and I feel like one that almost anyone who has gone through high school at least here in the United States has probably come across at one point or another and that is Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare now I read Twelfth Night for the first time in my sophomore year of high school and we had to read it for my English class and also act out one of the scenes and I absolutely fell in love with it Twelfth Night is a comedy about mostly mistaken identity it also has one of the most famous examples of a classic love triangle however in this play the love triangle is quite literally a love triangle mostly because of the mistaken identity so for those of you who may not know Twelfth Night is about two twins named viola and Sebastian and at the very beginning of the play they are in a shipwreck and viola lands on a shore of a beach and she thinks that her brother Sebastian is dead and she is in a new kingdom so she decides to change her identity and she becomes Cesario who is a male and she decides to go work for the court and all of the drama kind of just takes on from there within the court the love triangle holds the mistaken identity finally becomes a problem and there are a whole cast of characters in this book who are hilarious and drunk a lot of the time and just really really entertaining Twelfth Night is a comedy so it is quite a funny play and I'd also say it's one of the more easy-to-understand pieces of Shakespeare's work so if you are intimidated by reading Shakespeare I highly recommend Twelfth Night because it is much simpler than some of his other work and it's just lots and lots of fun the next play I'm going to recommend is one that I actually read quite recently and mentioned in my August wrap-up and that is Spring Awakening now like I said I just read Spring Awakening this past month and really really enjoyed it I've still yet to see the musical adaptation of this play but I have heard from several people that it is just absolutely fantastic so I can't wait until I get to that Spring Awakening essentially is what the author calls it a children's tragedy which really just means it's a tragedy about children not really one written for children this play is definitely not a comedy though it does have some comedic parts I would call it a dark comedy if not a drama because it does deal with some very very dark intense issues so I would say that this play has a trigger warning for rape and abuse and suicide however if you're comfortable with reading something that deals with those topics I highly highly recommend this play the main story of Spring Awakening follows three children when della Moore eats and Melkor I don't know if I'm pronouncing their names right they're all German I don't speak German so I apologize correct me in the comments down below if I'm saying any of those wrong but the story follows these three children and it essentially just deals with them coming to terms with growing up and learning about sex and learning about themselves and their bodies and just human interaction really the main message of the story really revolves around the mis-education and suppression of teaching children about sex and how to deal with sex and how sex functions in our society and how it's taken advantage of when it's not taught to someone in the proper way so like I said this play really does deal with some dark issues however I would HIGHLY I highly recommend it because it's a really fast read and it's really thought-provoking and I think it's something that everyone of course if they're comfortable with the topic should read because even though this play was written back in 1891 I think it's still very much relevant today and very much relevant to how our society at least here in America still deals with the topic of sex so I think that it's just a really stimulating read and I think that it's something that's just really important for us to talk about in our society today the next play I'm going to recommend to you guys it's actually the second play that I was ever in in my entire life and that is funny mirrors by David lindsay-abaire now my sophomore year of high school was the first year that I really started getting into theater and drama I joined my high school's drama class that year and auditioned for the fall play and then the spring play which was funny mirrors now funny mirrors is a very very strange complicated convoluted interesting play I will say right off the bat this play is probably not for everyone it's weird it's very very weird and that's the best way I can describe it but personally I love weird therefore I love this play this play is a dark comedy so it does deal with some much darker themes and it has lots of adult language so if you're not comfortable with things like that then I wouldn't really recommend reading this play but if you are then I highly highly recommend it funny mirrors is probably one of my all-time favorite plays that I've ever read and ever been in it's absolutely hilarious like I said it's a dark comedy so it has its darker aspects but it also has lots of really comedic aspects and it's just so so funny the story follows the main character named Claire who is a 40 year old woman and she is married and she has a son and basically every morning when Claire wakes up she doesn't remember who she is where she is or anything about her life but Claire has is called psychogenic amnesia so every morning when she wakes up she doesn't remember the previous day or any of the days prior to that I really just follows one of Claire's days as she wakes up in the morning and her husband Richard tells her like he does every day that she is psychogenic amnesia and then they just go about their daily lives however in this day when Claire wakes up in the morning right in the very beginning someone comes into a room with a gun pointed at her and takes her hostage and then her day just kind of goes on from there the cast in this play is extremely small I think there are only six or seven characters total but each one of them is so well developed and so absolutely funny I adore it I honestly think this play will stick with me and being in this play was one of the greatest experiences of my life I played Heidi who is a cop who you meet later on in the play and she is hysterical and I just I love this play I love this place so so much if I were to recommend any play off of this list as my number one it would probably be this one because it's just so clever and so well put together and everything just wraps up in the end and ties together in such a witty way and I loved it I loved it so so much so the next play I'm going to recommend is actually another classic and that is The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde now I was just in this play last fall because my high school put it on and it was so much fun so like most of Oscar Wilde's other works The Importance of Being Earnest is a satire on the British aristocracy of the 19th century and it is such a funny funny play essentially this story is another one of kind of mistaken identity these two men named John and Algernon both assumed the name of earnest because the two people who they are interested in romantically say that they will only marry someone whose name is earnest and that's kind of how the story just unfolds and it's so so funny if you know anything about Oscar Wilde or if you've read any of his other work I highly recommend checking this one out because the play is hysterical and personally I love satires I love anything that's a satire whether I agree with it or not just because I like reading things from that point of view usually they're very clever and well put together and that's definitely what the importance of being earnest is so if you are interested in anything along those lines I highly recommend checking that one out and in that production I got to play Gwendolyn Fairfax who is the love interest of John slash earnest and it was so much fun I loved it I loved being an uppity British woman it was it was so entertaining the next play I'm going to recommend is another one of my all-time favorite plays and that is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead so if you guys have read Hamlet you will recognize the names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern but if you have not you probably think I'm speaking some other language because they're really weird names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is written by Tom Stoppard who took two of the minor characters in Hamlet and gave them their own story so basically he just tells the behind-the-scenes of what's going on in Hamlet from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern point of view now if you read Hamlet you know that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern kind of played expendable roles within Hamlet and in Tom Stoppard's play he kind of takes the two characters and kind of shows how expendable they truly are this play I wouldn't say is a dark comedy it's definitely comedic but it definitely has some of those darker more insightful deep moments there are some lines in this play that are some of my all-time favorite quotes it's just again really witty really insightful and just so so funny and so clever and I highly highly recommend checking this one out but I do recommend reading Hamlet before reading rods and gill because you kind of need the context of the two of them in Hamlet before you can fully understand and appreciate the beauty that is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead the next play I'm going to be recommending to you guys is actually a play that I co-directed with one of my best friends last spring at my high school and that is a devil inside by David lindsay-abaire now if you notice this is the same author as the author of fuddy mirrors but my friend and I both love funny mirrors so so much that we wanted to do one of his other plays because we love his writing we love his style and we love the types of characters that he has so we decided to look into some of the plays and we chose a devil inside and from the minute that we read it we were hooked a devil inside is essentially a murder mystery but again it is a dark comedy and the play really revolves around the story of Anna Karenina which I have yet to read so there are probably a lot of references in the play that I personally missed because I haven't read Anna Karenina but at the same time I don't think you need to read Anna Karenina to fully understand and appreciate this play because like I said I hadn't read it my friend hadn't read it but we definitely understood the play and the message again like fuddy mirrors this one deals with some darker themes and has some adult language so if you're not comfortable with those things then I wouldn't recommend checking this one out so this play revolves around a young boy named Jean who on his 21st birthday his mom surprises him by telling him that his father who died 14 years ago of a supposed heart attack didn't actually die of a heart attack and he was murdered and his feet were chopped off and then jeans mother asks him to go on a mission to find his father's killer and that's pretty much where the story just kind of takes off from I highly highly recommend this play like I would with every David lindsay-abaire play that I have read because his writing and his storytelling is just impeccable it's so so clever and it's so so funny and all of his stories just tie in at the end so well and I've never read any plays like his I just adore his work so I highly highly recommend checking him out and finally the last play I'm going to be recommending is actually a play that I just auditioned for and have yet to receive news on so we'll find out about that hopefully soon but the play is almost made by John Kerry on E at least I think that's how you say his name not a hundred percent positive sorry if I'm saying it wrong almost vain is kind of a collection of love stories that all take place in this fictional city almost Maine and they all kind of connect in some sort of way so if you've seen Love Actually almost Maine is essentially the play version of Love Actually that's kind of what it is and I love Love Actually no pun intended so when I first read the script for this play I just fell in love with it because it's so adorable it's so so wonderful and it takes place during the wintertime and I love wintertime and it's just so so cute in every single scene the characters show up on stage wearing a bunch of coats and scarves and hats and gloves because it's so cold and it's just so cute and so beautiful this one I definitely will say is a comedy again it occasionally does have some heavier themes I wouldn't really say that they're too dark it's a much lighter play but there are some heavy moments in there some more dramatic moments it's in my eyes the play version of a light fluffy contemporary even though it has some of those heavier moments so if you're in the mood for something kind of like that then I highly recommend checking out this play because almost Maine is just it's beautiful so so beautiful so there you go guys those are some of my top play recommendations I'm really glad I did this video I feel like there aren't that many people here on booktube that talk about plays that often so I thought I'd contribute a little bit to that genre because it shouldn't stay neglected it should be well loved because I definitely love it and I want some of you guys to love it I hope some of you guys love it and if you do definitely let me know in the comments down below what some of your favorite plays are and I will definitely check them out because I'm always looking for a new place to read and always looking for new ones to watch because I love theater like I said and it's just so important to me in such a big part of my life and I always want to keep reading because I love them I love love plays so thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this video and I will see you in my next video bye the two of them are just kind of awkward but I think they're gonna work together I don't know I I actually really like this one so I'm gonna go with you guys start seeing Luna I like ithey guys it's Hanna and today I'm going to be doing a recommendations video for you guys and today I'm gonna be talking about some of my favorite plays so as a lover of theater and an actress myself I thought it would be cool if I did a recommendations video for you guys that talked about some of my favorite plays some which I have actually been in myself and some which I have just read in my spare time now I have about seven plays to recommend and they're in no particular order at all and they kind of spread across a wide range of genres I have some comedy in here some drama in here some classics in here some dark comedy just a wide range of things and I really just wanted to share some of these plays with you guys because they're really important to me and personally I think plays are a great source of reading material because they're so easy to get through they're really fast paced and they're just lots of fun plus a lot of the time they come with stage or movie adaptations so it's always great to watch those after you've read the play so now let's just get into the list of plays that I recommend so the first play I'm going to recommend is quite a well-known one and I feel like one that almost anyone who has gone through high school at least here in the United States has probably come across at one point or another and that is Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare now I read Twelfth Night for the first time in my sophomore year of high school and we had to read it for my English class and also act out one of the scenes and I absolutely fell in love with it Twelfth Night is a comedy about mostly mistaken identity it also has one of the most famous examples of a classic love triangle however in this play the love triangle is quite literally a love triangle mostly because of the mistaken identity so for those of you who may not know Twelfth Night is about two twins named viola and Sebastian and at the very beginning of the play they are in a shipwreck and viola lands on a shore of a beach and she thinks that her brother Sebastian is dead and she is in a new kingdom so she decides to change her identity and she becomes Cesario who is a male and she decides to go work for the court and all of the drama kind of just takes on from there within the court the love triangle holds the mistaken identity finally becomes a problem and there are a whole cast of characters in this book who are hilarious and drunk a lot of the time and just really really entertaining Twelfth Night is a comedy so it is quite a funny play and I'd also say it's one of the more easy-to-understand pieces of Shakespeare's work so if you are intimidated by reading Shakespeare I highly recommend Twelfth Night because it is much simpler than some of his other work and it's just lots and lots of fun the next play I'm going to recommend is one that I actually read quite recently and mentioned in my August wrap-up and that is Spring Awakening now like I said I just read Spring Awakening this past month and really really enjoyed it I've still yet to see the musical adaptation of this play but I have heard from several people that it is just absolutely fantastic so I can't wait until I get to that Spring Awakening essentially is what the author calls it a children's tragedy which really just means it's a tragedy about children not really one written for children this play is definitely not a comedy though it does have some comedic parts I would call it a dark comedy if not a drama because it does deal with some very very dark intense issues so I would say that this play has a trigger warning for rape and abuse and suicide however if you're comfortable with reading something that deals with those topics I highly highly recommend this play the main story of Spring Awakening follows three children when della Moore eats and Melkor I don't know if I'm pronouncing their names right they're all German I don't speak German so I apologize correct me in the comments down below if I'm saying any of those wrong but the story follows these three children and it essentially just deals with them coming to terms with growing up and learning about sex and learning about themselves and their bodies and just human interaction really the main message of the story really revolves around the mis-education and suppression of teaching children about sex and how to deal with sex and how sex functions in our society and how it's taken advantage of when it's not taught to someone in the proper way so like I said this play really does deal with some dark issues however I would HIGHLY I highly recommend it because it's a really fast read and it's really thought-provoking and I think it's something that everyone of course if they're comfortable with the topic should read because even though this play was written back in 1891 I think it's still very much relevant today and very much relevant to how our society at least here in America still deals with the topic of sex so I think that it's just a really stimulating read and I think that it's something that's just really important for us to talk about in our society today the next play I'm going to recommend to you guys it's actually the second play that I was ever in in my entire life and that is funny mirrors by David lindsay-abaire now my sophomore year of high school was the first year that I really started getting into theater and drama I joined my high school's drama class that year and auditioned for the fall play and then the spring play which was funny mirrors now funny mirrors is a very very strange complicated convoluted interesting play I will say right off the bat this play is probably not for everyone it's weird it's very very weird and that's the best way I can describe it but personally I love weird therefore I love this play this play is a dark comedy so it does deal with some much darker themes and it has lots of adult language so if you're not comfortable with things like that then I wouldn't really recommend reading this play but if you are then I highly highly recommend it funny mirrors is probably one of my all-time favorite plays that I've ever read and ever been in it's absolutely hilarious like I said it's a dark comedy so it has its darker aspects but it also has lots of really comedic aspects and it's just so so funny the story follows the main character named Claire who is a 40 year old woman and she is married and she has a son and basically every morning when Claire wakes up she doesn't remember who she is where she is or anything about her life but Claire has is called psychogenic amnesia so every morning when she wakes up she doesn't remember the previous day or any of the days prior to that I really just follows one of Claire's days as she wakes up in the morning and her husband Richard tells her like he does every day that she is psychogenic amnesia and then they just go about their daily lives however in this day when Claire wakes up in the morning right in the very beginning someone comes into a room with a gun pointed at her and takes her hostage and then her day just kind of goes on from there the cast in this play is extremely small I think there are only six or seven characters total but each one of them is so well developed and so absolutely funny I adore it I honestly think this play will stick with me and being in this play was one of the greatest experiences of my life I played Heidi who is a cop who you meet later on in the play and she is hysterical and I just I love this play I love this place so so much if I were to recommend any play off of this list as my number one it would probably be this one because it's just so clever and so well put together and everything just wraps up in the end and ties together in such a witty way and I loved it I loved it so so much so the next play I'm going to recommend is actually another classic and that is The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde now I was just in this play last fall because my high school put it on and it was so much fun so like most of Oscar Wilde's other works The Importance of Being Earnest is a satire on the British aristocracy of the 19th century and it is such a funny funny play essentially this story is another one of kind of mistaken identity these two men named John and Algernon both assumed the name of earnest because the two people who they are interested in romantically say that they will only marry someone whose name is earnest and that's kind of how the story just unfolds and it's so so funny if you know anything about Oscar Wilde or if you've read any of his other work I highly recommend checking this one out because the play is hysterical and personally I love satires I love anything that's a satire whether I agree with it or not just because I like reading things from that point of view usually they're very clever and well put together and that's definitely what the importance of being earnest is so if you are interested in anything along those lines I highly recommend checking that one out and in that production I got to play Gwendolyn Fairfax who is the love interest of John slash earnest and it was so much fun I loved it I loved being an uppity British woman it was it was so entertaining the next play I'm going to recommend is another one of my all-time favorite plays and that is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead so if you guys have read Hamlet you will recognize the names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern but if you have not you probably think I'm speaking some other language because they're really weird names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is written by Tom Stoppard who took two of the minor characters in Hamlet and gave them their own story so basically he just tells the behind-the-scenes of what's going on in Hamlet from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern point of view now if you read Hamlet you know that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern kind of played expendable roles within Hamlet and in Tom Stoppard's play he kind of takes the two characters and kind of shows how expendable they truly are this play I wouldn't say is a dark comedy it's definitely comedic but it definitely has some of those darker more insightful deep moments there are some lines in this play that are some of my all-time favorite quotes it's just again really witty really insightful and just so so funny and so clever and I highly highly recommend checking this one out but I do recommend reading Hamlet before reading rods and gill because you kind of need the context of the two of them in Hamlet before you can fully understand and appreciate the beauty that is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead the next play I'm going to be recommending to you guys is actually a play that I co-directed with one of my best friends last spring at my high school and that is a devil inside by David lindsay-abaire now if you notice this is the same author as the author of fuddy mirrors but my friend and I both love funny mirrors so so much that we wanted to do one of his other plays because we love his writing we love his style and we love the types of characters that he has so we decided to look into some of the plays and we chose a devil inside and from the minute that we read it we were hooked a devil inside is essentially a murder mystery but again it is a dark comedy and the play really revolves around the story of Anna Karenina which I have yet to read so there are probably a lot of references in the play that I personally missed because I haven't read Anna Karenina but at the same time I don't think you need to read Anna Karenina to fully understand and appreciate this play because like I said I hadn't read it my friend hadn't read it but we definitely understood the play and the message again like fuddy mirrors this one deals with some darker themes and has some adult language so if you're not comfortable with those things then I wouldn't recommend checking this one out so this play revolves around a young boy named Jean who on his 21st birthday his mom surprises him by telling him that his father who died 14 years ago of a supposed heart attack didn't actually die of a heart attack and he was murdered and his feet were chopped off and then jeans mother asks him to go on a mission to find his father's killer and that's pretty much where the story just kind of takes off from I highly highly recommend this play like I would with every David lindsay-abaire play that I have read because his writing and his storytelling is just impeccable it's so so clever and it's so so funny and all of his stories just tie in at the end so well and I've never read any plays like his I just adore his work so I highly highly recommend checking him out and finally the last play I'm going to be recommending is actually a play that I just auditioned for and have yet to receive news on so we'll find out about that hopefully soon but the play is almost made by John Kerry on E at least I think that's how you say his name not a hundred percent positive sorry if I'm saying it wrong almost vain is kind of a collection of love stories that all take place in this fictional city almost Maine and they all kind of connect in some sort of way so if you've seen Love Actually almost Maine is essentially the play version of Love Actually that's kind of what it is and I love Love Actually no pun intended so when I first read the script for this play I just fell in love with it because it's so adorable it's so so wonderful and it takes place during the wintertime and I love wintertime and it's just so so cute in every single scene the characters show up on stage wearing a bunch of coats and scarves and hats and gloves because it's so cold and it's just so cute and so beautiful this one I definitely will say is a comedy again it occasionally does have some heavier themes I wouldn't really say that they're too dark it's a much lighter play but there are some heavy moments in there some more dramatic moments it's in my eyes the play version of a light fluffy contemporary even though it has some of those heavier moments so if you're in the mood for something kind of like that then I highly recommend checking out this play because almost Maine is just it's beautiful so so beautiful so there you go guys those are some of my top play recommendations I'm really glad I did this video I feel like there aren't that many people here on booktube that talk about plays that often so I thought I'd contribute a little bit to that genre because it shouldn't stay neglected it should be well loved because I definitely love it and I want some of you guys to love it I hope some of you guys love it and if you do definitely let me know in the comments down below what some of your favorite plays are and I will definitely check them out because I'm always looking for a new place to read and always looking for new ones to watch because I love theater like I said and it's just so important to me in such a big part of my life and I always want to keep reading because I love them I love love plays so thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this video and I will see you in my next video bye the two of them are just kind of awkward but I think they're gonna work together I don't know I I actually really like this one so I'm gonna go with you guys start seeing Luna I like it\n"