Recommended by Daniel Prillaman

(1/2/2025): This is some highly serious fun and silliness. Audiences of all ages (but especially kids) will scream for ice cream. I'm sorry, I mean this play. It's a true delight to read TYA that doesn't talk down to children, but includes them (often as some of the more intellectual members of the world). Add to that a fun, historical mystery with a heartwarming ending, you'll be begging once more to hear the song. Love it.

I adore this play. It is absolutely delicious horror, the kind that lilts its way into your marrow, flirting with dread until you realize too late it's dragging you straight into the most grotesque feats of human ability. To say too much about this play will spoil the journey, which I will not do. But if you like horror, Twilight Zone, period frights, or any combination of those things, know that this one is going to blow you away. It’ll certainly stay under my skin for a long time to come.

The “big” anything (dock, school, um…equipment?) is synonymous with adulthood, coming into your own. Williams’ cast of youngins may not be delightfully diverse in privilege, but they are in ideology, and that fateful summer of 1969 provokes some heavy soul-searching amongst the ones realizing that they don’t quite fit neatly into the lives they’ve led so far. A beautiful study of community, humanity, and the chaos that is finding not only your way in the world, but who you are in it.

There’s a moment in this play that turns it from a humorous situational comedy (always great in its own right) into one with so much more working through it. O’Day’s play is a moving story of connection. To have it. To have once had it, but no longer. To not see it coming. In a world that manages to consistently surpass expectations in how terrible it can be, connection can mean and be everything. It can even be the difference between life & death. Pronunciation lessons have never been better.

A fabulously zen SLICE of life (hehehehehe, get it? Dost thou see what I did there?) comedy. I really appreciate the beauty of Soucy’s dialogue, being not just funny, but filled with deeper meaning, like pastry hiding melty cheese just beneath the surface. There are so many straws right now. And the last person who should be shaming us for needing (and taking) rest is ourselves.

Good worldbuilding is like good sound design. If you’re not actively noticing it happening, you’re in the presence of a pro. Poynton’s addictive script is triply beautiful in genre savvy, construction, and character, & is one you need to know about. I left it musing on the many forms of sacrifice. Not just those we make for ourselves or others, but what we’re willing to part with or give up. And what it means to make those decisions in others’ stead, their permission be damned. Tremendous work.

I had the pleasure of listening to this play through Gather by the Ghost Light's "Stage Frights." Mandryk's script is an incredible short horror filled with suspense and brilliant pacing. It gets your heart pumping with adrenaline right along with the protagonist. And is ultimately a perfect spooky story that though you're lucky enough to walk (or run) away from, you certainly won't be forgetting it any time soon.

As someone who’s fallen into interactive acting, mayhap I'm biased, but O to be in an audience for this! It’s really not an audience piece. Nordland Morgan pulls us into the gathered congregation, and we’re along for the ride of a fully immersive cult ceremony, complete with all the layers possible of manipulation & language. Shall we find fruition? That’s up to how open we are to the word of the Lord and Caretaker Dan. If you’re looking for some horror that can only be theatre, you’ve found it.

Seeing the seven deadly sins put aside their…tendencies? affinities for? SINS, I guess, really…is quite delightful and wholesome. The actors (and the audience) will have a great time going hogwild embodying these sinners. A lot of fun freedom for designers to be found here, as well.

I recently had the opportunity to watch a performance of this short play during Bump in the Night Theatre’s “Jump Scares: Vol. 1.” It’s hard to speak more about this one without spoiling the journey, but there is some palpable dread weaved into every beat. Often, the scariest things are the things that could easily happen to us any day. “It’s Getting Dark” is standing tall (or hunched over) right there with the best of them.