I recently sent the very rough first-draft of my one-act play “The Monster Test” out to a few friends for their critiques. The first ten pages received a staged reading which went very well. A few more bits and pieces had been workshopped in my class at South Coast Repertory. My long-suffering first-draft reader and lackadaisical blogger Writer Dad got to see the ending first and gave me valuable feedback.

But this is now the first time anyone has been able to sit down with the play as a whole and read it from beginning to end. One of my few non-writing friends, and I’m not sure I have permission to post this so we’ll just call him “Pat Butler”, read the play today and left a voicemail response that pretty much encapsulates everything I was going for in an audience reaction.

It’s also one review I will always treasure.

Transcript:

I just got finished reading a one-act play called “The Monster Test”. Um, it was very good. It was very good. What the fuck is wrong with you, dude? Whoa! Okay. Okay. Oh, yeah. I liked it.