NPX Weekly Round-Up: Hot Blood Sundae by Aly Kantor

Becoming monstrous is perhaps a sort of freedom...plus three other plays I added to my library this week.

Mar 10, 2025

Hello and welcome friends! The content warnings for this week’s play are minimal: discussions of blood, sexual frustration, and medical tests. That’s it! I hope you enjoy this week’s post.

Man, am I tired.

I’m fucking exhausted, actually.

All my chronic illness/pain people know what it’s like when you stretch yourself just a liiiittle too far and your body decides to basically snap in half. I didn’t realize how far I had pushed until I almost collapsed at work last Wednesday— I slept for almost four hours when I returned from work and still fell asleep at my normal bedtime. And as I write this, I’m still on the struggle bus. I have tech rehearsals and performances coming up on top of my usual work responsibilities and life-living, so I don’t exactly anticipate an end to this flare up any time soon.

As they say, “The horrors persist, yet so do I.”

In that spirit, this week I read Hot Blood Sundae by Aly Kantor.

Here is the summary from NPX:

In a world in which nobody is REALLY sure what constitutes a HIPAA violation, two cold, tired, sexually-frustrated women choose to self-diagnose.

This piece is a snappy little two hander for two women who really want to yell. No, really, they get to howl on stage and stuff. If I had to describe this play in just a few words, they would be “a giant fuck-you to social expectations for women”, which is exactly my vibe 24/7.

We open with Jess and Bex sitting on a bench together. They are talking about some sort of illness or condition that Bex was recently tested for, and a mutual friend who seems incredibly happy with her diagnosis of this condition. The two discuss their lives, down to the gory details— their eating habits, strange dreams, sexual frustrations, waxing/shaving preferences, and shitty exes. This culminates in the two enthusiastically howling to the unseen moon together in a mix of elation, frustration, and solidarity.

It is then that Bex confesses that she hopes that her test comes back positive, that she indeed has this mystery condition. And here, Jess reveals what this condition is— lycanthropy, ie…being a werewolf. Jess is a little perplexed, asking Bex, “You want to be a monster?” Bex replies, “I want to want anything and get it. Monsters get what they want.”

Well put, Ms. Kantor. Well put.

From here, Jess asks Bex if she’ll infect her. But before Bex can do so, she gets a call from the lab. She is negative, therefore not a werewolf. Both women are dismayed at this news, starting to question whether they should return to normal behavior and mindsets. However, Jess points out to Bex that while people know she was getting tested, nobody knows the test results but the two of them. So, why not pretend they were positive? Both decide to proceed as if they are infected werewolves, with all the monstrous freedom that accompanies the diagnosis.

I love how open and stream-of-consciousness the dialogue in this piece is. Neither woman is holding anything back at all. They’re frank with their thoughts and feelings, and with each other. Through this they are able to truly connect over what, on the face of it, would seem like a negative event (testing positive for being a werewolf), showcasing how perhaps our perceptions are what truly hold us back.

I actually feel that this piece and one I recently wrote, called Taking the D Train, are in conversation with each other. Perhaps not in subject matter— my characters don’t have any supernatural circumstances to contend with— but in theme and ~vibe~. This was an interesting thing to contemplate as I was reading. The great Paula Vogel has said, “We write plays looking over our shoulders to our writer ancestors…[and] the ancestors of our plays may be alive and well…” and this play certainly feels like an ‘ancestor’ of mine! My play also centers on two women discussing their experiences in a misogynistic world with frank and open demeanors (though mine might just run away to Coney Island instead of becoming werewolves). But what really connects the two is this sense of freedom being found in things our patriarchal society would condemn. So, in reading Hot Blood Sundae, I believe I gained a new perspective on my own play! Yet another way that reading plays can make us better writers.

Here’s my official recommendation of Hot Blood Sundae on NPX:

A funny and truthful piece about femmes' desires to escape societally created expectations that keep us and our desires buried. Features a realistic and delightful friendship with a splash of supernatural metaphor! A fantastic piece that two actors would have so much fun diving into.

Have thoughts about this play? Let me know in the comments!

A Playwright's Journey

Discussion about this post