Recommended by Shaun Leisher

I'm really anxious to see this piece continue its development. Workplace plays are hard. They so easily can fall into the trap of just being a location with a bunch of wacky characters. This play has stakes and take you through the wringer emotionally as you see not just what this grocery store closing does for its employees but also to the community.

An emotional journey about the power the imagination has to help us cope with our lives. I especially love how this play doesn't spoon feed details to their audience but just asks them to sit with this family for a brief time and wrestle with the choices they make. In this play, no one is 100% a hero or 100% a villain. Just like how life works.

There are certainly plenty of plays about estranged siblings but most of the time its brothers so it was so refreshing to see one about sisters. Femia brilliantly uses Hurricane Sandy and the death of a parent to frame this real time reunion between two sisters who are forced to face the ways they've betrayed each other with the choices they've made. The play is a total gut punch that will stay with you for a long time.

A beautiful solo piece about womanhood in our society and how memories (especially the one we'd prefer to forget) make up who we are.

This play is a true showcase for 2 actors. Using commedia techniques, Infallibility is a brilliant play about Catholicism, the art of story-telling and how the two intersect.

Big cast political history plays are nothing new but Barbot really does something unique with this play. A fast-moving play that tells the story of little known in real-time that will make you laugh and really feel for these characters. An ambitious work that really pays off.

Reading this play a truly pleasant surprise. Matt Barbot is really gifted at revisionist history and while I'm sure this conversation between the literary giants never occurred after reading this you will really wish it had. A hilarious and moving look into the ideas that so often the most brilliant among us carry the most crippling insecurities.

A necessary play for our current age!! Told through the perspective of an 11 year old, Svich uses beautiful poetry to paint an image of what America was, is and can be. A play that should be done in big theaters and on street corners.

Using the fictionalized origin story of Aunt Jemima, PANCAKE QUEEN is a scathing look at how white culture has always and continues to appropriate African American culture and deny the severity of slavery. The play also does a fascinating job looking at the idea of artists of color working on problematic pieces because it's the only work available. The beautifully written characters are the heart and soul of this play and brings stakes for these characters as they face these choices.

Simply put this play is a masterpiece. James Ijames has written a play that speaks to our times in so many ways. It makes you laugh but also cringe as you are forced to face the way art appropriates people of color and their work. He's also written a true actor's showcase with the role of Vanessa.