Recommended by Emma Goldman-Sherman

The Gift of BS involves four characters all struggling in different ways. The gift Osmundsen provides in this multifaceted look at neurodivergence is how hard it can be to look clearly at yourself, take responsibility for your life, own your past and try to find a way to move forward. There is a kind of honesty here that is rare and valuable.

A wonderfully funny and moving trip with three sisters on a flight that is very well written - the characters are so clear and clearly sisters with their histories, individual notions, shifting nuances of their relationships as they try to manage their grief and their futures without their mother plus all the other things that women do (manage, keep track of, and create) in a cascade of dialogue that is well-paced and illuminating. Great roles for women!

I love meta, and this play within a play within a play is that. It's also so relatable. It's a play about rehearsing a play, and it's funny, heartwarming, and full of insecurity and a kind of adorable squeamishness that becomes a big bold action! It's as if these characters are afraid of doing the thing they most want to do until they do it, and then - hats off to them! Thrilling!

The anxiety that Bartleby goes through before Bess arrives is so palpable and clear. Speckman is great at providing the specificity for the obsessive aspects of Bartleby's mania so that it pierces us directly. Her language choices and the rhythms she provides the characters give the piece so much momentum. This is sweet, as some have said, but it's also maddening and wild and could go almost any which way, and while it lands beautifully at the end, there is great tension!

I find it thrilling that she does what she does at the end, and it doesn't break my heart - it gives me a kick the way champagne or winning the lotto would (if I drank or played lotto) but I read plays, and this one is a comedy (and that means it ends well) and so it does!

What a perfect play for our times! The world-building that Prillaman does is the key to trapping us into a story that never lets up (in the best of ways) and the strange sense of corporate-induced menace gets louder and louder as the play moves forward. I swear this is my partner's joblife for real and explains an awful lot! Sinister and wonderfully written!

A beautiful play that warms my heart. I love the language and the way this family communicates. There is a kind of portrait being painted here that will stay with the audience forever. And the characters are clear and real and truthful to their own needs and desires even when they are ashamed of themselves.

Initiation is a very funny play about learning to be what you're not, having no choice in the matter, and figuring out how to make that work for you. It's a kind of quintessential millenial play that clarifies what I love about millenials: their down to earth practicality in the face of the chaotic nature of life. Totally relatable with well-written characters who have very distinct rhythms. Well done!

I am delighted to discover this sweet short play by Emily McClain and thrilled that one of my prompts inspired it, but McClain is a writer who brings so much truth and relatability to her work, I could probably prompt her with an empty paper bag! Orange Slices is delicious in its examination of how hard it is to actually ask for what we want. McClain teases us with twists and turns that make me ache for my own poetic slice!

Beyond brilliant, this play moves across time and space to expose the truth about the effed up situation that is motherhood in any century under patriarchy, with costumes and breastfeeding and I LOVE IT!!!!! YES to women who can get to the heart of what matters while the men's heads spin! FANTASTIC!