Recommended by Shaun Leisher

Was really blown away by the epic scale of this play and how it looks at sex in so many ways. Sex as liberation. Sex as a weapon. A weapon almost always aimed at women and so often paired with religion. The way Espinosa weaves so many threads between characters with wildly different views on sex is what makes this such a compelling piece. Will definitely be thinking about this play for a long time.

Really loved this collection of plays. A wide variety of takes on being in love, dealing with oppression and basically being human in a post-Trump world.

Basically two plays in one that both strike a balance between stating the belief that these plays have a lot to say about today and also ask "Why still do them?" It feels like a guttural scream from an artist that has wrestled with these women of Shakespeare and has been forced to stomach too many lazy takes that strip them at anything resembling agency. I hope this play starts a conversation about Hero and Ophelia that is long overdue but I hope more that this play would just be produced instead of Shakespeare's.

A mind-blowing experimental piece of theatre that looks at a piece of LGBTQ+ history while also showing one man's experience at a time right after the AIDS epidemic killed so many in the 80s. The playwright does a great job weaving factual pieces of history and revisionist history to tell a story about the importance of mentorship and acceptance and how that was robbed from the Queer community by the inaction and hatred of those in power.

This play looks at campus sexual assault and the impact of protest in such a unique way. Showing the side of those that care for loved ones going through trauma and how their intentions can be distorted was an inspired choice and will start some very necessary dialogue.

The poetry, the images, the pacing all work in perfect harmony to create a stunning work. No easy answers are given but this conversation about the intersection of LGBT+ identity and faith is one that needs to happen more often. I love how Benne brings these characters from different faith communities and see God very differently today and it's not just about them butting heads. The tense conversations are there but they are also able to connect in magical ways. People of faith aren't a monolith and I'm glad a play like this is around to show that.

Zajdel is really good at balancing the fantastical and naturalistic elements in this moving coming of age story. The mundane and the extraordinary of growing up in a female body is given the same weight and respect in this play. Really glad a piece like this exists for teenagers to see themselves and their stories reflected in theatre.

This play takes such a specific and unique world (competitive figure skating) to raise awareness about the extreme pressure that faces teenagers today. It doesn't give us villains to demonize or root causes to focus. No one is truly at fault. All the characters in this play are human and like humans they are capable of love and nurturing and also cruelty and neglect. Glad to see a play like this out there for young people to feel seen and to see themselves in.

Like so many of Rosenberg's plays this does not provide audiences with neat, easy answers. It wouldn't be true if it did. Eating Disorders and other forms of addictions impact everyone and take shape in a variety of ways. By creating such complicated characters, Rosenberg is able to put real faces on these diseases and depict them with humor and the heaviness they require. This is the kind of play that will create much needed dialogue and shine a light on a crisis that needs to be addressed.

"Whoa. God almighty. Very Tony Kushner." This meta-theatrical line in the play makes sense for obvious reasons. Like Angels in America this is a play that employs elements of fantasy to look at the AIDS epidemic. This play also should be in conversation with Kushner's epic because it does what Angels doesn't and that's share the perspectives around AIDS from people that aren't white gay men. It's a beautiful story of an inter-generational and inter-racial relationship that asks some vital questions about the state of AIDS today and how it impacts people of different eras. PRODUCE THIS PLAY!!