Recommended by Paul Donnelly

An exhilarating mix of trenchant social satire and tender affirmation. The affirmation is all the more effective because of the doubt and tension that precede it.

The metaphorical possibilities of a job training conducted entirely in the dark are rich enough, but the reveal that the job is releasing snakes from a bag only to turn around and recapture them carries this two-hander to dizzying comic heights. The dialogue is wry and delineates character (smug manager, eager bordering on desperate new hire) clearly even though they remain unseen.

I swear to God that I had to read this play twice to be sure that was possible to be so consistently uproariously funny page after page. It clearly is if you're Rachael Carnes. Her trenchantly observed dialogue would be awfully funny between two humans in a stalled relationship, but having one half of the couple be a sock monkey allows for delirious absurdity to reign. This is my my first exposure to her work, but it won't be my last.

Tautly plotted and populated with complex and vivid characters, Misfit America grabbed hold of me at the top and didn’t let go. Its depiction of the collapse of the Western-mythos resonated on both the narrative and cultural planes (as well as the literal plains). The play is also full of wit and both playful and terrifying use of theatrical devices. Drumbeats and shadow are deployed to dazzling effect. And all of this supports a moving exploration of the struggle to define family and identity for ourselves in a world loathe to allow either.

This poignant and sneakily powerful play offers an unsettlingly pragmatic look at the fragility of dreams and the desolation of a hard-scrabble life lived without them. And, lest that sounds too high-falutin', Fin and Euba are cleanly drawn characters whose responses to their lives and to each other will utterly break your heart.

This play explores the terrible dilemma faced by two black South African actors who are asked, cajoled and ultimately threatened with dire retribution to force them to cancel a planned American performance in order to comply with a boycott of the apartheid regime. Complex and distressing arguments about artistic integrity, racial dynamics in both the U.S. and South Africa, and social responsibility are presented with clarity, urgency and bracing humor. While bringing an historical conflict to stirring life, this play illuminates dilemmas that resonate with equal urgency today.