Recommended by Paul Donnelly

Chuck is vivid and sympathetic and his dilemma is rendered poignantly but without self-pity. It's still chilling to see a man have to ask not to be hated in his old age.

I want to grow up to be Phoebe. Seriously. She is very, very funny and trenchantly self-aware. Her authentic responses also paint a withering portrait of her all too recognizable parents. While painful to her, her frustration is a joy to behold.

Wyndham paints a powerful portrait of two women with ferocious, desperate, mutual need who are tragically unable to connect. Both are drawn with painstaking specificity and could, with just a touch more self-awareness, be deliciously comic instead of devastatingly lost.

Chilling. Even with the sense of foreboding, the word "autopsy" comes like a body blow when it's a teacher speaking of a student. A student he has shot. This is a powerful cautionary tale that I fear will be our reality all too soon.

Poignant and regrettably timely, or perhaps in our America timeless. A subtle and effective portrait of a father who only wants to protect his kids and yet is clearly ambivalent about the way he and his wife have chosen to protect them. He is a man facing the burden of only having bad choices.

What a tart and tasty morsel. There's wit in the lines and wit in the reveal and wit in the reversal. It turns out that poor Pru has to be miserable to maintain her friendship with Dennis and Rhoda. And it's a bit chilling that she's willing to go along with their agenda for her.

TEACH offers a riveting examination of gender and power dynamics between a teacher and student as issues of attraction and nurturing, responsibility and manipulation come to the fore. Hoke's exploration of gender in having a male and female teacher figure and a male and female student figure interact in varied configurations is far, far more than a theatrical device, although it is also spectacularly effective as a device. The cautionary figure of the principal who never gets beyond manipulation and self-absorption provides a compelling foil and effectively represents systemic shortcomings. All in all, a work that demands to be staged.

What a lovely and captivating mix of explosive lust, gentle hesitation and tender lyricism. And how refreshing to see a reverse chronology that doesn't begin in failure or bitterness or recrimination. We see quite unmistakable passion and then we see how that passion credibly developed. Hernandez certainly knows how to build both a fully engaging story and compelling characters.

A surprisingly complex, while still richly comic exploration of the ways the stories we tell about our lives and tell ourselves about our lives shape those lives. The play looks carefully at the need to be true to one's artistic vision while also being honest about the cost that has for others in our lives. There are comic heights in the depiction of the writing process and, perhaps most compellingly, there are issues and aspects of character left unresolved.

A searing portrayal of how far we haven't come, how dignity often takes a backseat to survival, and the damage clueless white people can do.