Gage McCalester, Adam Mohr, and Lilo Foster in The GuardianI was willing to give the Internet Players' The Guardian a lot of leeway, accepting playwright Kevin Straus' presentation for what it is: A morality tale of environmental responsibility. While watching Thursday's performance, I could forgive Straus his plot holes and unnatural dialogue because the author managed to discuss responsible green living with no detectable attitudes of intellectual and moral superiority. And Straus had me ... until the interpretive dance in the middle of the second act.

Bill Ingersoll, Adam Overberg, Bill Peiffer, and Andrew Cole in The Tragedy of Sarah KleinThere's a charming naïveté at the core of the Internet Players' debut production of The Tragedy of Sarah Klein, as the playwright's perspective seems to be one often observed in college students and recent graduates - a belief that "I am one of the very few who sees certain injustices in the world, and I, alone, can wake the world up to them." Wake-up calls of this sort are often attempted with protests, targeted vandalism, or, in the case of Sarah Klein, the stroke of a pen, yet while the Internet Players' Thursday-night performance was poetic in word and impressive in scope - particularly in playwright/director Nathan Porteshawver's staging - it was also pretentious and, at times, dull.

Friday night's presentation of 100 Saints You Should Know played to a half-capacity audience, which is a shame; New Ground Theatre's poignantly personal play deserves more attention, due to its thoughtful script and equally thoughtful performances. And while playwright Kate Fodor's themes of spirituality and sexuality may put off some potential spectators, the story is much more inclusive, in terms of philosophical perspectives, than those themes might suggest.