Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Vince Melocchi’s provocative, long one-act hinges on the death in Afghanistan of a young recruit named Danny, who’s from a small Pennsylvania town. His fiancée Amy (Connor Kelly-Eiding), who works in a local donut shop, is trying to cope with her grief over his loss, but she’s also angry on several counts. She’s resentful that military red tape is delaying the payment of his death benefits, and the arcane rules that may make him ineligible to receive them. Read more…
Margaret Gray – LA Times
In his new play, “Nice Things,” premiering at Rogue Machine Theatre, Vince Melocchi returns to the middle-American, blue-collar, recession-devastated milieu of his two previous plays, “Lions” and “Julia.”
Set in and around a dying mall in Dunsmore, Pa., “Nice Things” explores the ethics of army recruitment in a bad economy, a complex issue helpfully broken down in the segments of a radio broadcast that frame each scene. Read more…
Now running through Nov. 23.