Recommended by David Hansen

Malakhow spins a tale of ghosts and relations, for it is the ghosts of relations who haunt us the most. It's got tension and humor, an insightful view into generations of shame but also care, and a lot of open wounds begin to heal. Highly recommended!

Takacs has created a modern sit-com with Be a Mensch, a Jewish Glass Menagerie (complete with fragile unicorn) in which the eldest son is also faced to choose between his family and self-determination, dominated by a larger-than-life absent father figure. Only in this case Abram is not dreamily self-involved as Tom Wingfield is, but harshly realistic. It's a coming of age story, one with a much more satisfying, if troubling, conclusion than Tennessee Williams's memory play. Highly recommended!

A deftly plotted search for what is true and what is not, and also questions whether our inherent free-will is something we should really be happy about. Adams's script is adeptly eched with paranoia and doubt, an urgent tale for the era of COVID-19.

Bultrowicz here crafts a compact case of coitus interruptus, a potential hook-up which is uncoupled by the roommate, a savant whose interest in jigsaw puzzles becomes a puzzle to piece togther a masterpiece. It's a witty Millennial moment about relationships, as the invited guest gets to know these two who bicker like affectionate siblings, exchanging sharp, intelligent yet blasé banter. Nothing good happens past 2 AM.

Wang's rapid-fire banter, chatter and verbal abuse is deliriously loopy, poetry in and of itself. Masculaine toxicity here is a sport, one the protagonist Diana, a Chinese-American, the new girl, has to learn or lose. I was first exposed to this play twenty-five years ago, and I thought it was just about trading, but really it's about addiction -- the "junk" in junk bonds. This script is tight, relevant, aggressive and unforgettable.

Brett joyfully mangles English, creating absurd metaphor, and laugh out loud abusive language. This Pythonesque insanity set to imabic pentameter put me in mind of the works of Kirk Wood Bromley, whose delirious forays into verse were nearly psychedelic. It is a non-stop riot, indeed, from beginning to end. Highly recommended!

An intimate family drama set against the backdrop of momentous events, Joker is a keen mystery. The playwright does a masterful job creating tension and an inscrutibly frustrating emotional puzzle which when unlocked reveals the many layers to a character who has kept so much pain hidden for so long. Recommended!

What resonates in this amazing new work is the modern belief that we are right (whoever we are) and that they are wrong (whoever they are) and that our rightness justifies any action, and any statement. There are no disagreements, there are no differences of opinion, there is right and there is wrong. And it is this sense of being right that makes one superior to the other. We are free to define our own reality, and in that definition we reign supreme. Carabotsos deftly describes our entire society, one in which paranoia and alienation dominate our actions. Highly recommended!

A charming, Irish-inspired variant on the you-can't-there-from-here tale, pitting the tourist against the local, with satisfying results. A recommended addition to an evening of short plays.

A warmly romantic and bittersweet rumination on desire and the meaning (and perhaps the point) of true love. Cross creates complete and compact reimaginations of these classic characters, honoring the source material and her audience working to create the satisfactory conclusion we all long for, for Cyrano, for Roxanne, and for ourselves.