What do you think?
Rate this book
Please Continue
In the fall of 1960, as the Eisenhower era comes to a close, a Yale senior finds himself helping Stanley Milgram pilot his soon-to-be-controversial "obedience experiments." Milgram gets the data he needs, but the lab assistant who conducts the experimentis left to grapple with his own responsibility. On the same campus, another Yale senior is forced to confront his role in a sexual assault scandal from the recent past. With the help of Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, the student explores his actions and, mirroring the work that his classmate is undertaking for Professor Milgram, comes to understand the ways in which conformity can push us to act against our conscience.
Audible Audio
Published April 4, 2019
8 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
May 9, 2025
A short and interesting audiobook, inspired by the infamous obedience experiments conducted at Yale during the 1960’s.
The audiobook is produced like a play and makes for an enjoyable listen, despite the context.
The audiobook is produced like a play and makes for an enjoyable listen, despite the context.
May 19, 2025
Audio wasn’t the best medium for this
December 29, 2020
“Please Continue”
By Frank Basloe
Performed by: Tara Lynne Barr, Will Brittain, Jake Green, Taj Jegaraj, Rob Morrow, James Scully, Mark Jude Sullivan, Matthew Wolf
Length: 1 hr and 53 mins
Published April 4th 2019 by L.A. Theatre Works
Well, it looks like I'm going to be closing out 2020 with a bunch of plays. Not a bad way to end a bad year. This time around it is “Please Continue” by Frank Basloe. This play tells the tale of psychologist Stanley Milgram's studies/experiments on obedience in the 60s.
The gist of the studies/experiments is that a student is told to administer an electric shock to a student when a wrong answer is given. The shocks become more powerful as more wrong answers are given. With the test subject screaming in pain in the next room, the actual test subject is told to, “Please Continue” if they hesitate on giving the next shock. These experiments really do expose a lot about the human psyche.
This play also weaves in the story of Francis, a grad student assigned to Milgram who was involved in a gang rape of a 14 year old girl at his previous college. Francis was not named in the hearing on that case but he knows he took part. As he is conducting the experiments for Milgram his guilt is triggered and comes to the surface. He seeks out the advice from a local clergy who convinces Francis to seek out atonement not forgiveness. That is the big hole in this performance. We never really find out what that atonement is or whether it was the right advice.
That lack of finality in the story really left me hanging in the story and pretty much ruined the entire play for me. Something was just missing. The performance and production were high quality, it's just that the story was missing something, some closure. Otherwise it was pretty interesting to hear the outcome of the original experiments where other humans were prone to keep administering the punishment no matter how guilty they started to feel. I think this could have been explored more and just leave out Francis' story. At one point in the play there is the statement where the men of Yale would of course keep punishing their fellow students, because they are self-centered seekers of power. (I paraphrased, but that's the gist of it.) So was it human nature or just the nature of certain humans attracted to the idea of becoming a “Yale Man”?
By Frank Basloe
Performed by: Tara Lynne Barr, Will Brittain, Jake Green, Taj Jegaraj, Rob Morrow, James Scully, Mark Jude Sullivan, Matthew Wolf
Length: 1 hr and 53 mins
Published April 4th 2019 by L.A. Theatre Works
Well, it looks like I'm going to be closing out 2020 with a bunch of plays. Not a bad way to end a bad year. This time around it is “Please Continue” by Frank Basloe. This play tells the tale of psychologist Stanley Milgram's studies/experiments on obedience in the 60s.
The gist of the studies/experiments is that a student is told to administer an electric shock to a student when a wrong answer is given. The shocks become more powerful as more wrong answers are given. With the test subject screaming in pain in the next room, the actual test subject is told to, “Please Continue” if they hesitate on giving the next shock. These experiments really do expose a lot about the human psyche.
This play also weaves in the story of Francis, a grad student assigned to Milgram who was involved in a gang rape of a 14 year old girl at his previous college. Francis was not named in the hearing on that case but he knows he took part. As he is conducting the experiments for Milgram his guilt is triggered and comes to the surface. He seeks out the advice from a local clergy who convinces Francis to seek out atonement not forgiveness. That is the big hole in this performance. We never really find out what that atonement is or whether it was the right advice.
That lack of finality in the story really left me hanging in the story and pretty much ruined the entire play for me. Something was just missing. The performance and production were high quality, it's just that the story was missing something, some closure. Otherwise it was pretty interesting to hear the outcome of the original experiments where other humans were prone to keep administering the punishment no matter how guilty they started to feel. I think this could have been explored more and just leave out Francis' story. At one point in the play there is the statement where the men of Yale would of course keep punishing their fellow students, because they are self-centered seekers of power. (I paraphrased, but that's the gist of it.) So was it human nature or just the nature of certain humans attracted to the idea of becoming a “Yale Man”?
January 4, 2024
Wonderful, stimulating play (I listened to the audio—twice—by L.A. Theatreworks) about the “obedience experiments” at Yale in the late 1950s, which were inspired by the hand-washing Nuremberg defenses of the Nazis (“We were just following orders”). Will a student recruited to take part in an experiment continue to administer electrical shocks of increasing intensity even after the subject being shocked wants to end the experiment? (There were no real shocks; the second subject was in on the ruse—it was all done to see how much people followed cruel orders.) The masterstroke that deepens the play is the parallel plot of the student who carries great guilt from a past incident and who goes to campus chaplain William Sloan Coffin for counseling. He inquires about Coffin’s reference to the two thieves on the cross and St. Augustine’s comment (“Don’t despair—one of the thieves was saved; don’t presume—one of the thieves was damned”). This student wonders if there could have been “a third thief,” someone who stole like the others but who was just not caught, not punished at all. How do we handle the burden of the guilt we encounter? A thought-provoking, emotion-provoking play. (I wonder if a better title might have been The Third Thief?)
May 14, 2025
Really loved that this audiobook was read like a stage play. Made it very engaging and thought-provoking.
August 14, 2020
"We know not what we do because we know not what who we are"
Listen here: LATW production
Based on the renowned social psychologist Stanley Milgram's infamous obedience experiments at Yale in the 1960s, "Please Continue" cleverly weaves scenes depicting the experiments with the story of Francis, the graduate student assigned to Milgram as his thesis supervisor, whose participation in these experiments reinvoked strong guilt in his involvement in the gang rape of a 14 year old girl visiting a Yale college but was never caught.
In these experiments, each "subject" was tricked into administering increasingly high levels of electric shocks to a supposedly unsuspecting "victim" (but was in fact an actor) when a wrong answer was given. These subjects were repeatedly told to "Please Continue" despite increasingly helpless cries from the "victim" in response to the shocks. Most did. Blind obedience to an authority figure ensued, even though the subjects became aware of the plain that they were inflicting on another human being.
As true to the dialogue may be to what would have taken place in the actual experiments, these scenes lacked pace and suspense despite the clearly potent material Basloe was working with. He was more successful in using Francis's guilt and desire for atonement to build a climatic scene about what he should have done where he pondered why he chose *not* to stop the gang rape but instead acquiesced to participate.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
But overall, I found the entire play very slow moving, especially the first half. As an audio play, one needs the necessary background to Milgram's experiments to *want* to continue.
Milgram was an American-born Jew with immediate family members who survived the Holocaust. He cited "Please Continue" as being inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi "kidnapped" by Mossad agents from Argentina back to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. Does "I was just following orders" absolve his responsibility? Not just Eichmann's actions but the thousands of soldiers who also blindly followed orders to execute their fellow human beings. (Much has been written about how Milgram's work could not be used to understand Nazi soldiers' behaviour - for one, the "subjects" here did not know its victims nor were they motivated by racial or ethnic bias.)
Milgram's work was just as infamous about its findings about human's propensity to obey authority figures (even in the face of committing acts which prick's one conscience) as the experiments' breach of research ethics. He was also infamously denied tenure at Harvard. Nonetheless, his work has since been replicated many times in various different social settings and across cultures, with surprisingly little variations in the experimental outcomes.
Listen here: LATW production
Based on the renowned social psychologist Stanley Milgram's infamous obedience experiments at Yale in the 1960s, "Please Continue" cleverly weaves scenes depicting the experiments with the story of Francis, the graduate student assigned to Milgram as his thesis supervisor, whose participation in these experiments reinvoked strong guilt in his involvement in the gang rape of a 14 year old girl visiting a Yale college but was never caught.
In these experiments, each "subject" was tricked into administering increasingly high levels of electric shocks to a supposedly unsuspecting "victim" (but was in fact an actor) when a wrong answer was given. These subjects were repeatedly told to "Please Continue" despite increasingly helpless cries from the "victim" in response to the shocks. Most did. Blind obedience to an authority figure ensued, even though the subjects became aware of the plain that they were inflicting on another human being.
As true to the dialogue may be to what would have taken place in the actual experiments, these scenes lacked pace and suspense despite the clearly potent material Basloe was working with. He was more successful in using Francis's guilt and desire for atonement to build a climatic scene about what he should have done where he pondered why he chose *not* to stop the gang rape but instead acquiesced to participate.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
But overall, I found the entire play very slow moving, especially the first half. As an audio play, one needs the necessary background to Milgram's experiments to *want* to continue.
Milgram was an American-born Jew with immediate family members who survived the Holocaust. He cited "Please Continue" as being inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi "kidnapped" by Mossad agents from Argentina back to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. Does "I was just following orders" absolve his responsibility? Not just Eichmann's actions but the thousands of soldiers who also blindly followed orders to execute their fellow human beings. (Much has been written about how Milgram's work could not be used to understand Nazi soldiers' behaviour - for one, the "subjects" here did not know its victims nor were they motivated by racial or ethnic bias.)
Milgram's work was just as infamous about its findings about human's propensity to obey authority figures (even in the face of committing acts which prick's one conscience) as the experiments' breach of research ethics. He was also infamously denied tenure at Harvard. Nonetheless, his work has since been replicated many times in various different social settings and across cultures, with surprisingly little variations in the experimental outcomes.
May 14, 2025
3.75 rounded up to 4
Please Continue is a thought-provoking play presented by L.A. Theatreworks and featuring a cast of voice actors. The play is about the obedience experiments conducted at Yale University in the 1960s by social psychologist Stanley Milgram. Dr. Milgram's study was inspired by the defense strategy used by Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials (“We were just following orders”).
The fictional study is designed to ask if a student recruited to take part in an experiment will continue to administer electrical shocks of increasing intensity even after the subject being shocked wants to end the experiment? (There were no real shocks; the second subject was in on the ruse—the objective of the study was to find out if people are inclined to follow cruel orders despite any natural intuition to stop.) There's a parallel plot running through the play that involves a student who carries great guilt from a past incident, leading him to visit the campus chaplain for counseling. This young man carries a particularly heavy burden because of the role he played in a heinous crime committed against a young woman, and while other men involved were identified and punished, he was spared any similar consequence.
A bonus added after the conclusion of the audio play is an interview about science and ethics with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a Professor of Education at the Rossier School of Education, a Professor of Psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute, and a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Program Faculty at the University of Southern California. The interviewer's questions and Dr. Immordino-Yang's responses were so incredibly interesting and informative... very astute in how the results of the obedience experiments relate to normal human behavior and the logic that drives the identifiable behavior. The few minutes of education provided by the add-on interview is so intelligent that it's worth a star alone when it comes to my rating of this dramatic work.
Please Continue is a thought-provoking play presented by L.A. Theatreworks and featuring a cast of voice actors. The play is about the obedience experiments conducted at Yale University in the 1960s by social psychologist Stanley Milgram. Dr. Milgram's study was inspired by the defense strategy used by Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials (“We were just following orders”).
The fictional study is designed to ask if a student recruited to take part in an experiment will continue to administer electrical shocks of increasing intensity even after the subject being shocked wants to end the experiment? (There were no real shocks; the second subject was in on the ruse—the objective of the study was to find out if people are inclined to follow cruel orders despite any natural intuition to stop.) There's a parallel plot running through the play that involves a student who carries great guilt from a past incident, leading him to visit the campus chaplain for counseling. This young man carries a particularly heavy burden because of the role he played in a heinous crime committed against a young woman, and while other men involved were identified and punished, he was spared any similar consequence.
A bonus added after the conclusion of the audio play is an interview about science and ethics with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a Professor of Education at the Rossier School of Education, a Professor of Psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute, and a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Program Faculty at the University of Southern California. The interviewer's questions and Dr. Immordino-Yang's responses were so incredibly interesting and informative... very astute in how the results of the obedience experiments relate to normal human behavior and the logic that drives the identifiable behavior. The few minutes of education provided by the add-on interview is so intelligent that it's worth a star alone when it comes to my rating of this dramatic work.
April 30, 2025
This play was fun to listen to. I haven’t heard of this experiment that the play covers, but it is very intriguing. I did some outside research on the experiments because of this play again sometimes it’s a little hard to follow what’s going on just because this audio of a play without the visual. I do enjoy listening to the sound effects in the actors. Do a really great job. This is probably my favorite product production from this group so far.
May 2, 2025
An interesting play on an infamous science experiment. I knew the results, but had no idea on the sex scandal going on at the same time. I was not entirely sure why the sex scandal was mentioned so much. Is the play trying to hint that college aged guys took advantage of a underage girl just due to peer pressure? I guess that is sad but true, i wish human nature was better.
May 7, 2025
An interesting treatise on guilt, ethics and basic humanity. Considering some of things that are going on *gestures wildly* everywhere, this feels decidedly prophetic in nature.
“We know not what we do because we know not who we are.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“We know not what we do because we know not who we are.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
July 12, 2025
Min-max audiobook #2. I was pleasantly surprised with this! A play based on the Yale obedience experiments with a parallel storyline featuring a “real world” example of peer pressure, guilt, and inability to stick to one’s own perceived morals. Very entertaining and I’ll likely try to find a video to watch it.
September 10, 2021
This is one of the more disturbing plays i've read. Not necessarily in a graphic way but in the sense that I know not of what evil we are truly capable of. I look forward to putting this play up in time.
May 18, 2025
An interesting audio play based on Milgram's obedience experiment he started in 1961 at Yale University. If you've read about the experiment and found it hard to visualize (as I did), this audio drama will help.
April 29, 2025
This was so crazy to me, this was a good read but I really was like this can not be true....It is very hard to believe that such a thing happened. Definitely recommend!!
May 1, 2025
hoopla bonus borrow -- audio play more then a book. Very fascinating study!! The study references why people did what they were told back during the holocaust when they knew deep down what they were doing was so so wrong! really interesting!
May 2, 2025
A disturbing account of 1960's psychology experiment about conformity.
May 5, 2025
A dramatization of Stanley Milgrom’s obedience experiments.
May 8, 2025
nice ensemble reading this play about the Yale studies from the late 50s - fake shocking of study leader by student participants...
Read
May 15, 2025Fascinating. Very short audiobook but cool that there is a whole crew of actors
May 18, 2025
This was an interesting play about the experiments in college regarding peer pressure and herd mentality and how that can influence us. I found it very enjoyable
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 12, 2025
2 🌟 Completed book Please Continue.
Free on hoopla
Free on hoopla
May 11, 2025
Really interesting. I enjoyed how the storylines parallel.
December 28, 2021
Please Continue - Frank Basloe (DPS, 2019) 11 July 2021
7M, 1 F
2 Acts (Prologue 7 Scenes/7 Scenes, Epilogue.
Fall semester, 1960.
Various locations around Yale University.
This play deals with the Milgrim obedience experiments; experiments designed to determine whether or not it was psychologically possible for Nazi soldiers to "just follow orders" while exterminating an entire innocent population. Would people-ordinary people, not soldiers-"follow orders" even if those orders caused pain to another individual? No one thought the test subjects would continue until the shocked participant was killed, but a good number did. This led to the conclusion that people would ignore their own moral code or compass when under the auspices of authority.
Please Continue parallels this story with a story about another student who has to face the consequences from is participation in a sexual assault a year or so ago. These stories combine to reinforce the power of compulsion to conformity that society has on us. We are trained to respect authority and conform. If it isn't right to do it, then the authority figure wouldn't be telling us to do it. Similarly, peer pressure is difficult for people to ignore. Sometimes succumbing can lead a person to commit a crime without thinking it's a crime, as happened before the start of this play.
While this show is noting special, in terms of technical elements, I would love to work on it. The story is powerful; the message is important. It should be performed. Costumes would be 1960 conservative, New England, academic. Lighting is realistic; there are no moments of theatricality to enhance the design. Scenery is interesting only because of the need to change scenes between the various locations. Do you do scene changes often, or should we create a unit set?
7M, 1 F
2 Acts (Prologue 7 Scenes/7 Scenes, Epilogue.
Fall semester, 1960.
Various locations around Yale University.
This play deals with the Milgrim obedience experiments; experiments designed to determine whether or not it was psychologically possible for Nazi soldiers to "just follow orders" while exterminating an entire innocent population. Would people-ordinary people, not soldiers-"follow orders" even if those orders caused pain to another individual? No one thought the test subjects would continue until the shocked participant was killed, but a good number did. This led to the conclusion that people would ignore their own moral code or compass when under the auspices of authority.
Please Continue parallels this story with a story about another student who has to face the consequences from is participation in a sexual assault a year or so ago. These stories combine to reinforce the power of compulsion to conformity that society has on us. We are trained to respect authority and conform. If it isn't right to do it, then the authority figure wouldn't be telling us to do it. Similarly, peer pressure is difficult for people to ignore. Sometimes succumbing can lead a person to commit a crime without thinking it's a crime, as happened before the start of this play.
While this show is noting special, in terms of technical elements, I would love to work on it. The story is powerful; the message is important. It should be performed. Costumes would be 1960 conservative, New England, academic. Lighting is realistic; there are no moments of theatricality to enhance the design. Scenery is interesting only because of the need to change scenes between the various locations. Do you do scene changes often, or should we create a unit set?
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews