Recommended by Andrew Martineau

Wedding planning scenarios can be interesting setups for confrontations and revelations because the stakes are generally high, not just for the couple getting married but for all members of the families involved. New beginnings can spark memories of people we have lost who will be missing from the proceedings. The birdseed offers a way to honor a missing family member in a touching way, offering the prospect of new life. I could relate to Mabey’s play. It rang true on many levels.

The theatricality of the action of this play, coupled with the poetic quality of its language, is truly awe-inspiring. I marvel at how Goldman-Sherman dramatizes the elusiveness of how time passes in a flicker when we are consumed with the desire to be noticed and validated yet conceal it in anonymity. A wonderful play, especially now in these isolated, uncertain times.

This is the play set in a Target that I always wanted and didn’t even realize I wanted it. Torres takes a simple purchasing conflict that a couple gets entangled in and reveals deeper feelings of uncertainty, embarrassment, frustration and a surprising degree of selfishness on one partner’s part. It highlights the angst that the COVID pandemic has had on relationships, but the resolution reveals hope. A funny play that is relatable to just about everyone without a decent desk chair!

A family’s legacy is rooted in place and this beautifully written play honors a woman who sacrificed much for those she raised. The impending natural disaster is no match for the love that permeates this house and the memories of simple pleasures like playing dominoes and having a good meal. There is sadness and pain there, too, but Mami, while physically absent, is a sheltering, healing presence. Profoundly moving.

BOSTON WHALER takes a familiar conflict of a father showing remorse for not bonding with his son earlier in their relationship and creates a beautifully crafted short drama of regret, rage and confusion about over changing cultural perspectives. There is a touching moment at the end of the play involving their boat that harkens back to an early monologue about the father realizing he should have recovered his son’s lost plastic bucket that floated away. A truly wonderful metaphor!

The beauty of this play, for me at least, lies in the simple act of experiencing a tangible object through all of the senses in real time. As I read it, I wanted to be able to experience it in person with actors in front of me and an actual orange. I felt the longing for this character on the autism spectrum to convey the visceral qualities of the fruit, and, at the same time, it made me realize what I have missed about live theatre during the pandemic. A beautiful moment and a fantastic play.

The seemingly simple act of writing a single phrase in English can be immensely complicated when layered with family tensions, cultural divisions, and misunderstandings. Scott Sickles demonstrates through language and action how words may be relatively easy to translate, but emotional translation takes deep patience and affection. I was deeply moved by this father who cannot make his son see why the written word has more weight for him than the spoken word. Truly wonderful!

There are few situations in life as fraught with uncertainty as the moment a couple confronts the realization of parenthood, and the fragile negotiation and ultimate acceptance of it has been dramatized many times, in many ways. OUR CHILD is fresh, raw and intimate. I found myself rooting for this couple from the moment the takeout bags arrived, knowing the cost of all of it was high, unaffordable, but hopeful that somehow they would make it work. A riveting, gut-wrenching exploration of a life-altering moment.

This beautifully written play resonates like a song, through different times simultaneously, reaching a pitch-perfect tone and packed with bittersweet emotion. It made me think of Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” as the characters are stranded on “the carousel of time.” This mother is the epitome of goodness with a little eccentricity thrown in. I would truly love to see this come to life on stage.

Anxiety is such an abstract feeling that is difficult to process for those experiencing it and perhaps even harder for those who don’t understand it. I could fully relate to this play about wanting to enjoy a new adventure but burdened by the “bear” of unknown and irrational trepidation. Claudia Haas successfully shows us in a theatrical way how an anxious person deals with both the bear and the caring friend simultaneously, both of whom are compounding the problem in different ways. Thank you for writing this, Claudia, and for dramatizing feelings I have had many times myself.