Recommended by Shaun Leisher

The arbitrary nature of milk's expiration date is something I'm sure most people in this country has thought about. I'm really glad that Gracie Gardner has not only thought about this but has written a play about. This short piece will make audiences laugh but also think and hopefully lead them to ask questions about this issue.

Last year I saw this play at a late night performance that was part of Philly Fringe. There are moments and images from this piece that still haunt me. This play is part memory play, part choreopoem and pitch black comedy. It's an important new work by one of the most exciting new voices in American theatre. It's an exploration of love that oozes with sex and gore. The stage directions, lines and characters challenge directors and producers and I can't wait to meet those that are up to the challenge of producing this magnificant play.

This is a delightful play about family. The family you are born with and the family you choose. The family that you have to leave eventually to find yourself. These characters and this setting were crafted with real care and it's so refreshing to see a coming of age story where a woman is given the opportunity to feel lost and unsure of her place. This was really a pleasure to read.

You will most certainly never see a play about people on the Autism Spectrum quite like this one. Using the rehearsal of a theatrical performance as a framing device, Rockwell brilliantly gives the audience a taste of what it it like to be a person on the spectrum and how dehumanizing it is for them to be forced to follow this "script" as they go through life.

This is most certainly not your run of the mill riff on Shakespeare. Svich takes the Othello story and creates a world where the children of that play's key player's are left to make sense of the tragedy that took place. The themes of ancestral sin and racism among police officers meld together to create a haunting piece of theatre. Caridad Svich proves once again why she is one of today's greatest artists when it comes to making sense of the "classics" in today's world.

Such an interesting take on women in careers typically held by men. This play doesn't give us a moment of triumph or an uplifting ending but gives us a realistic that is messy and complex.

In 2016, I got a chance to attend the Crossing Borders festival at Two Rivers Theatre but missed the first reading which was of this play. I heard about how incredible it was all weekend. I also heard about how incredible it was when it was fully produced at Two Rivers earlier this year. Now I finally got a chance to read the script and I understand what everyone was talking about. This play is epic in scale at times but also so intimate in the way it addresses issues like identity and selling out. Love this play!!

I loved this one act!! It's a meditation on art and sisterhood. People change, disappoint each other and drift apart over the years but there are certain things that keep us connected.

What if women were free to be themselves, to tell their own stories, to not be known in relationship to a man or for how well they lived up to gender roles? This play uses the lives of women both mythical and historical to ponder these questions and ask so many more of us. I hope to see this play at an actual planetarium some day. Also, we need more theatre that encourages women in STEM!!

I'm a huge fan of riffs on fairy tales, especially ones that take on the Peter Pan story. It's a fairy tale that is begging to looked at and picked apart. Tinkerbell is the most interesting character in this story so I love the idea of her getting to tell a group of children her side of things. This solo piece explores gender roles, abusive relationships and the loss of child-like wonder in such a beautiful way.