Recommended by David Hansen

I feel this play. A site-specific piece for our peculiar time, a romantic, social-distanced two-hander, utilizing the wide open space of a parking lot to celebrate and expose the most intimate, meaningful, and humiliating moments of one relationship, those most grand and minor. Couples have been aggressively challenged by quarantine and the playwright handily addresses the strain. Szymkowicz mightily manages the limitations of our current theatric situation in a manner both natural and presentational. Excellent work!

Once again, Cross reaches into the well of classic literature to wrought a modern fable with eternal themes. This brief radio (or even Zoom?) play swiftly introduces two meaningful characters and cuts straight to how they can best help each other. It’s a touching tale of how to cope with loss, and I highly recommend it.

Once again, Cross creates a pithy and entertaining rumination on a philosophical theme, in this case how time passes in the for the characters of a dramatic performance. Her intelligently meta construct confounds the senses into believing what is being witnessed is not a play but an experiment to the extent that we are truly astonished when the results are surprising. Three cheers for the scientific method! Three cheers for the dramatic world! Three cheers for Monica Cross! Highly recommended.

Harnetiaux's "Bender and Brian" is a Gen X relationship fever dream, inspired by the (fictional) recasting of the actors who were originally to play those characters. We follow them over the course of over forty years as the protagonists develop and maintain a deep, life-long friendship. The dialogue is laugh out loud, and liike a modern "Godot," these two would be lost without each other's company. It is a loving and hilarious rumination on the nature of relationships, and at the same time exploring regret for the road not taken, a hallmark of our generation. So highly recommended!

TWENTY-SEVEN is a riotous sex comedy about fucked up trust fund children and the inescapable damage caused being raised wealthy and shallow. And it is also, in is special way, about growing up. About finding true happiness and supports the unglamorous truth about really great middle-age sex. Hilder has great talent with brisk and witty dialogue and sympathetic if (hilariously) shameful characters. Highly recommended!

This is a heart-warming story of a cadre of folks who (may or may not) live in the same New York City apartment, but rub each other the wrong way in a genuine attempt for connection in the place where they live. Each character is searching for their version of Prince Charming, who could be love but may also be a real friend. The script is very witty, the dialgoue had me laughing out loud, and, at one terribly awkward party, ever farce-adjacent. It's a sweet piece and I would love to see a production. Highly recommended!

McClain's work is an intense courtroom/boardroom drama, moving back and forth in time to detail the unfair treatment of two women in the workplace. The playwright's use of classical paintings, and her stage directions regarding to use of light are particularly compelling. This is a powerful play, enhanced by Biblical, classical, and modern atmospheres. Timely, and highly recommended.

Martin has crafted an unsettling fable of a teenage girl who has come to believe in a reality everyone knows to be false. Her parents are sympathetic, they are real. There are no simple answers, there is no ah-ha moment when some dark secret is made evident, we are left in the dark to wonder, as they do, what has happened to Abigail? It is a brilliant metaphor for being adolescent, and also for what it is like, as a parent, to feel helpless in the face of inevitable change. Or is it a metaphor? Regardless, it's exceptional. Highly recommended!

MacDermott has created a psychological thriller which literally set my heart racing. There were places reading this story when I could no longer breathe well. It is a tense shocker about secrets, the internet and social media, generational conflict, student-teacher relationships, taboos, truth and self-loathing. A gripping small-cast drama and truly disturbing. Highly recommended!

This collection of vignettes on a common theme is alive with music and movement, packed with tales of aching and anger in the Big City. Espinosa chronicles the desire for and fear of commitment common to young adults, but complicated by the present moment. The playwright wrestles issues of race and class and gender and ideology, with humor and style, creating a cohort of charismatic characters, trip from one small NYC apartment to the next (and also a county fair) with a wise and open heart. I loved this. Highly recommended!