Aaron Schmookler, director of Gold From Straw's Sloth, which opens Friday, says, "Scripts are notoriously difficult to read, laborious even ... Sloth was a page-turner on the first read. ... While (technical) challenges are things we've certainly wrested with, we trust the story to carry even where our technical solutions only hint at the play's events." Since the play is a comedy about a retired firefighter, it'd be easy to interpret this cynically as, "I hate reading plays, and we can't afford awesome fire scenes anyway." Luckily, we're fond of Schmookler, so we're confident his band of theatrical upstarts will bring it hardcore.

[Theatre on the Square, through May 15, $23-$26, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, 800.291.7593]