Recommended by Daniel Prillaman

"A knife!" "NO!!" <-- not a quote from this play, but a Vine.

Move over Doctor Frank, Fetter has some skills up their colorful sleeves. The most delightful thing about this surprisingly sex-positive Christmas Shellian riff is where it goes. And doesn't go. The main subject is talked around to glorious effect, and just absolutely hilarious. Surely a hit for any holiday themed festival.

A fun (and enlightening) jaunt through the soul-sucking rage monotony of corporate fast-food, the adrenaline pumping highs of con-artist shenanigans, and actually really painful burns, you should go to the hospital. Jo and Char are hilarious foils, but are anchored through a genuine relationship, which makes the places we wind up all the more meaningful. A lovely commentary on not only empathy, but giving everyone (including ourselves) more grace for struggling to exist in a capitalist hellscape. Strangely, I am also now thinking Arby's...

I cannot thank or praise Scott Sickles enough. In my personal staunch defenses of the Oxford comma, I no longer need to articulate my (correct) arguments. I can now point to this masterpiece. Not only is it British humor at its finest, it is the goddamn funniest fucking play. I so want to speak on it more, but I cannot do so without spoiling the perfection of its pacing, the glorious absurdity of its build, the ridiculousness of its characters. Just read it. Then do it. This will bring down any house (wink), no matter the festival or theatre.

One of the hardest things about making dialogue natural is feeding necessary information to the audience without the characters having to say things that they would already know, and therefore have no need to explain. Cathro always nails it, but this melancholic and heartfelt play is a masterclass. So much is said, unsaid, and entire histories are revealed through simple, impeccably developed conversation, leading to an ending that brings everything home. A tremendous, in his own words, "unconventional Christmas play," and a reminder that it's Christmas for everyone. Even those with less stable shelter.

If you don't crack a smile while reading this play, it'll take more than spirits to save you. This short delight is at once an homage to artistic powerhouses of ages past, as well as a subtle and pitch-perfect musing on art's very creation. Sometimes drugs help? Shouldn't say that, probably. I don't know. Everything in moderation. Otherwise you wind up with really interesting combinations invading your dreams. The actors and costumers here will have loads of merriment, which means an audience will too.

An old, racist white guy once said that the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. Ignoring the ironic and inherent xenophobia in that, Eli otherwise faces a similar struggle. Not a cosmic horror so vast and unknowable, but the microscopic germs and invisible, but nevertheless PRESENT, stains on the hotel bed. But there's also something underneath the "sheets" here, the fear, excitement, horniness, and undeniably human experience of being vulnerable for the first time with a potential partner. It's a complex, layered moment, and is depicted so tenderly and deftly.

The three Wise Men, while perhaps a bit new to contemporary parlance, aren't idiots. They know bullshit when they smell it, and it smells like myrrh. A very merry (and well-deserved) poke at predatory festivals and that particular anguish that only playwrights truly know. What the Dramatist's Guild equivalent in the Biblical Age?

My condolences to Matthew Weaver. You never expect to have your play overrun by protesting elves. However, the message here is one I would willingly sacrifice my own work to. 100% of the time.

FUCK Elf on the Shelf.

Polar solidarity. I'm with them.

An absolutely lovely and charming play about tradition, culture, languages, the fun of linguistics, the sheer unholy wrath of nature (only sort of joking about the last part). Syran doesn't provide an explicit setting for this couple (so having recently visited Québec, I'm pretending it's there), but it makes the themes of meshing traditions to create new ones all the more potent. A delightful scene in every way.

Whether you approach tarot from a place of skepticism or ardent belief, there's one constant it provides to both kinds of folk, a time to reflect. Sometimes that reflection is more welcome, and sometimes we're like Brooklyn, desperately wanting to not acknowledge something fundamentally life-changing but that we've known was coming for a long time. The cards aren't the only thing getting turned upside down here. A beautiful and surprising two-hander perfect for the end of the year.