In 1999, the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays was in its 24th season. Beginning to feel creative pressure from the relative upstart Contemporary American Theater Festival, Humana’s producers decided to try a few gimmicks. They presented “t-shirt plays,” a “car play,” and a series of “telephone plays.” For the last, patrons entered one of several telephone booths in the venue lobby, picked up the receiver, and listened to a three-minute play unfold. The works had been written specifically for the medium, and presented by playing an audio recording made earlier.
In 2020, Baltimore’s nomadic Single Carrot Theatre like all companies during COVID sought novel solutions to the challenge of presenting plays safely, rather than resorting to dormancy for the duration of the crisis. Their most recent effort is “Healthy Holly’s Hidden Hideaway,” a roughly one-hour telephone play by Agyeiwaa Asante and April Amara. Its alliterative title is a reference to t