The second weekend of Be Bold! Productions 15th annual Players Theatre NYC Short Play Festival ran last weekend at The Players Theatre in the West Village, debuting five original short plays by five different playwrights based around the theme of New York City. Each weekend for three weeks in June, a new selection of 15-minute original plays premieres to examine what it means to live in NYC. Last weekend’s audience-selected winner was ‘Two Cops on the Platform’, written and directed by Taylor Gonzalez.
In ‘Two Cops on the Platform’, two New York City police officers on a quiet subway platform discuss a philosophical thought experiment known as the Trolley Problem. Officer A (Amanda Gomez-Rivera) introduces the topic and tries to get Officer B (Maddoux LaRocque), who is obsessing over his ex-girlfriend’s apparent plastic surgery, to decide which path he would take in the philosophical scenario. Their mundane conversation takes a dark turn when an active shooter situation erupts nearby, forcing them to face a real-life moral dilemma: pursue fare-evading teens or confront the shooter. ‘Two Cops on the Platform’ appeared among four other NYC-themed one-acts.