Recommended by Daniel Prillaman

100 words isn't enough to truly express how electrifying Malakhow's play is. This script FLOORED me. It is fraught with dread, tension, hope, and change. I saw a reading of it through The Garden and literally could not sit still, as multiple moments every scene inspired visceral reactions. An amazing, deeply layered examination of living in a society that is struggling to combat and navigate white supremacy and systemic oppression, and how often we still put teachers at the vanguard of the battle. This is a masterful work. Highly recommend.

While I'm tempted to simply say, "Mrs. Incredible," and walk away, I should sing praises for St. James' play with a little more context. So...I declare this play absolutely amazing and the singularly best play ever about a completely average pandemic pod powerpoint party. The characters are delightful, the set design (really the whole thing) makes excellent use of zoom as a medium, and the horror is the best kind. Scary, yet leaving the perfect amount to our imaginations. Zoom plays will have some life after this pandemic is deemed over, and this play will be leading the charge.

Kaminski's short tale is an exciting, atmospheric twist on the "deal with the devil" narrative. To say anything more would be spoiling too much, but rest assured that should you dare to partake, you will be in sure hands. The set and ambience drip "Twilight Zone" in the best of ways, but the play isn't just a carbon copy. The two characters and their histories are all their own, and would be a delight to see and/or play. This is the kind of short we sorely never see enough of.

The power of the mind is an amazing thing. It can also be extremely dangerous. Will we use it for good? Or for evil? Lamedman's comedy is an absolute hoot, and the characters and twists inside pack a delicious punch. The play is also quite suggestive, as I would now very much like a doughnut, even though I do not have one. But wait! Or can I? If you imagine it intently enough, you can have anything. A wonderful, positive, mostly innocent piece that would delight at any theatre.

Ah! The things we'll do for love (even if unrequited for the time). Frank's short scene is a delightful little comedy, full of jokes, Shakespeare, and a very situationally specific obliviousness that must be so soul-crushing to encounter, but is still infectiously charming at the same time. Lovely piece.

A clever, funny, perhaps too close to home investigation into gender stereotypes and societal expectations. Martineau plays with so much in such a short amount of time, and the repetitions he's built into the script are remarkably effective and build atop one another like the most satisfying of block towers. Not only does this script poke fun at our inability to not ask questions when faced with something outside "the norm," but it's brilliantly timely as we struggle as a society to break down the preconceived notions of gender we've all grown up with.

There's a melancholy that pervades the air of this bittersweet piece. Jaske and Court obviously have a deep history (we always do with our childhood friends), but it's one that Martin gloriously leaves implied, for us to interpret and wonder over during the beautiful silences where neither can bring themselves to articulate their feelings. Goodbyes, sooner or later, always come. Life takes us in different directions. We don't always get to choose to face them, but that doesn't erase what they meant to us. Or how they made us who we are today. A truly lovely short.

Those who know me know that I adore misspelled things. They leave me cackling, snorting, quite literally rolling on the floor with laughter. Imagine, if you will, me seeing the Waffle Squarf image. Imagine the next day I discover Matthew Weaver has written this opus. And not only has he written about the Waffle Squarf, but he has fleshed out its history, evoking a sinister, ages long battle of good vs. evil. But of course, it's up to us to decide which is which. I will have the chocolate chip squarf.

I think what I love most about this play is that it just feels so beautifully real. It feels honest, and nails the yearning grief of at least last year's portion of the pandemic in a way that doesn't throw in it our face. McClain condenses the moment to focus on two people, just trying to find their way through the astronomical, heavy circumstances they've suddenly found themselves in. A touching piece. Also, make sure you have food nearby before reading, it will make you hungry.

When we talk of holding the mirror up to society, this is what we mean. Goldman-Sherman's play is a necessary, uncomfortable masterwork on the patriarchic warping of our culture and the toxicity it shunts onto young girls and women from day one. It does not pull the punches. It is a fearless play. It feels like a revelation, and it hurts that it feels like one. The three characters command every moment of this script, and you could stage it so inventively and so many ways on the literal (and metaphorical) playground. You need to stage this play. Everywhere.