In the fall of 2022, we put out an open call for writers to submit seven-minute monologues detailing the messiest experience they’d had with romantic love. We were young, scrappy writer/directors who thought the collection of those stories on the same stage for a few nights might feel moving. Nearly 100 artists wrote back from all over the world.

In Crushing’s inaugural run, we ran a sold out slate of shows at the renowned NYC theater Dixon Place. The show probed romantic love in new ways: one writer spoke about self-worth in the wake of being left by her partner after suffering a stroke on her 24th birthday; one discussed interracial love amid the 2020 resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement; another told, with comedic flare, about the day he received an STI diagnosis while in rehab; one told the story of her unlikely engagement.

Crushing was revived with a sold-out San Francisco run in 2025, featuring a whole new lineup of writers at the Bayfront Theater in Fort Mason. The evening wove from a standup set about what online masculinity courses taught a young college student about picking up women, to an international love affair, and dual perspectives on one marriage from husband and wife.

We’re anchored by the belief that romantic love is a connective tissue of the human experience, but for all its universality, it can still feel profoundly isolating. We hope our show is an antidote to that.