Upstage Hearts

Cute concept, but it leaned too quaint for me. The setting is vivid—the fly room smells like rope and lemon oil, and the pigeon hoarding wrappers is a nice touch—but the excerpt trades on cozy clichés: the hardworking technician, the small eccentric community, the ‘polite, crisp’ downtown offer that will obviously force a choice. Gerald’s honk is funny, sure, but felt like a gimmick rather than something that reveals character. If you’re craving atmosphere over plot surprises, this will satisfy you. For readers who want sharper conflict or less predictability, it might fall short.

I wanted to like this more than I did. The prose is attentive—nice imagery with the pulley and the lemon oil—but the central conflict feels telegraphed: city offer versus cozy community is a familiar beat in workplace romances, and the email from Southbridge arrived with all the subtlety of a stage cue. Gerald the goose is amusing at first, but starts to feel like a quirky prop used to paper over shallower characterization; I wanted more about Rowan’s internal reckoning rather than lists of tactile details. Pacing drags slightly in the middle, and the stakes don’t deepen as quickly as they should. Not bad, but a bit predictable.

Loved the tone—wry, observant, and affectionate toward its setting. Gerald the goose is a highlight (what a presence!), and the little domestic specifics—coffee from the diner, a pigeon with gum wrappers—make the Crescent Street Playhouse feel like home. The dilemma with Southbridge Repertory is believable and stakes are emotional rather than flashy. It’s the kind of romance that sneaks up on you and stays put.

Elegant, small-scale, and oddly moving. The author’s attention to mechanical detail (slack splice, belaying pin, counterweight) sells Rowan’s interior life as much as any confession scene could. The neighborhood touches—the custard-tart vendor, the diner’s cinnamon steam—add warmth without getting saccharine. There’s a steady hum of community that makes Rowan’s choice credible and heavy. If you appreciate romances where the workplace is a lover in its own right, this story is a gem.

This excerpt hits all my soft spots: low-key humor, a protagonist who loves work the way others love people, and a community that’s more family than backdrop. The imagery—lemon oil, cinnamon steam, Gerald shedding tissue feathers—creates a sensory map I could walk through. The plot seed (a polite email from Southbridge Repertory) cleverly raises the stakes without melodrama; I can picture Rowan weighing a downtown promise against the playhouse that literally creaks to life at his touch. A cozy, intelligent romance that treats craftsmanship as an act of care. Lovely.

Witty and surprisingly tender. I laughed out loud at Gerald’s timing (“Not now,” Rowan mutters—relatable), and then got misty when Rowan listens to a system settle ‘and not conspire against him.’ The author gets how devotion to craft looks like love: knots, belaying pins, counterweights as metaphors without being precious. The diner, the pigeon, and that honk make the neighborhood feel lived-in. The only thing I wanted more of was the person Rowan might be falling for beyond the space itself, but maybe that’s coming. Either way, I’ll follow this production to opening night.

Short and sweet: I adored the tone. The playhouse breathing under Rowan’s boots, Gerald’s ill-timed honk, the kettle at daybreak—those images are vivid and cozy. The romance feels earned because it’s rooted in shared labor and care. Also, custard tart vendor = chef’s kiss. 🙂

Sharp, tactile writing. The excerpt sells the theater as a character: the pulley’s whine like an old dog, dust motes in flashlight beams, a pigeon hoarding gum wrappers—details that feel earned. Rowan’s ‘practical love affair with things that held each other up’ is such a good premise for workplace romance; his devotion to craft becomes the emotional throughline. The choice offered by Southbridge Repertory is handled as a real dilemma—career vs. community—rather than melodrama. I especially loved the scene where a piece of Gerald’s tissue feather lands on Rowan’s shoulder; small physical moments like that do the heavy lifting. Pacing is measured but never sluggish. If you like quiet romances where the setting does the wooing, this is right up your alley.

I finished this with a stupid grin. The way Rowan moves through the Crescent Street Playhouse—listening for a metallic after-note, easing a counterweight, clipping a safety line before climbing to the catwalk—felt like watching someone court an old friend. The writing makes craftsmanship intimate: knots answering him, the lemon-oil smell of the fly room, Mabel’s cinnamon steam sneaking in from the diner. Gerald the papier-mâché goose is a delightful, absurd touch (that honk is comic gold) and grounds the humor so the romance never tips into schmaltz. The Southbridge Repertory email arriving on opening night gives the story genuine stakes: it’s not just about love between people but love for a place and a trade. Warm, precise, and quietly funny—this one stuck with me like a well-tied knot.