Recommended by David Hansen

A full-length play but a swift read, an artful three-hander for women. There is an ethical dilemma involved; as writers, all we see and hear and experience form the basis for our work. But how much of what defines us doesn't belong to us alone? Or at what point do we say, you know what? Screw it, I'm a writer. I'm writing this. An urgent, compelling script.

Like a Yoruba folktale mash-up with the works of Sam Shepard, filled with animal characters in human form slouching in an existential, American tableau, “Glass” pulses with ancient magic as Life and Death engage in a barroom brawl with Anansi playing bartender. This script is fanciful and fierce and not to be missed.

Ortiz's play is based on extensive interviews and documentation from those at the heart of a struggle to educate and empower our Latinx citizens. It includes song, dance and poetry, with mythical allusion and cultural depth. In spite of the disheartening nature of this true history, it is a story of hope. I wish I could see it, the pageantry might leaven the heartbreak of reading it. A beautiful and important work.

"Elephant" is an outrageous condemnation of moneyed East Coast liberals, depicting a world in which it is difficult to discern exactly who is complicit in the destruction of the planet, until you realize it's pretty much everyone, including the (literal) elephant in the room. White people are insane and they are ruining everything. Not sure there is any argument against that at the moment. Awesome script!

Goodwin's play touches on the cultural divide of our age, from the vantage point of two brothers, each talented, professional musicians. The plot (did-he-or-didn't-he) is extremely compelling. I was also drawn to the older/younger sibling dynamics, which I found achingly familiar. The larger story addresses the misunderstandings which have and will continue to plague our nation, and our world. I love this script.

I am charmed by this story, focuses on the relationship between parents and adult children, and the ghosts of things unspoken. Or not yet spoken. The intense relationship between parents and children, the importance of mentors and lovers, and lovers who are mentors. A must-read.

Like one of those caper films in which an ordinary, seemingly blameless white guy gets sucked into a world of crime and intrigue, only to emerge by the final reel safe and sound, a bit wiser but confident in his place of privilege, Schulman's script is a seriously dark comedy in which our protagonist is hardly blameless, and his successful passage through the underworld unearned and undeserved. We are all aware that the drug war unfairly punishes people of color, and this is a damning, hilarious, and fast-paced illustration.

Mysterious and magical, this is fabulous tale is at once universal and uniquely American, about how we cope with the ghosts, those literal and imagined, from the counties we left behind. A delightful and haunting read.

Coble has an incomparable way of taking difficult contemporary issues to outrageously hilarious extremes, and "Fairfield" is a classic example of this. He explodes modern conversations about race, while still presenting engaging and (with one obvious exception) sympathetic, well-meaning, occasionally delusional characters who truly want to do the right thing, even if they only help make everything spin more wildly out of control. As one of the parents whose children attend Fairfield might say, Eric Coble knows how to "use his words!"

Wellman has composed a chilling fable about the helplessness of parenthood. Having a child means that every day, every moment, is an opportunity for them to die. Part ghost story, part aching lament, the playwright taps into the primal fear of child loss, creating a contemporary mythology, not to explain the afterlife, but rather what happens to the living when someone they have put their heart into is gone. It is a creepy, painful, glorious work of love.