Recommended by Nick Malakhow

What a compelling piece! Cy is an excellent nucleus around which the other characters orbit. All of the characters are vividly realized and speak with distinct voices, creating not only a sense of themselves but also a clear sense of the place they inhabit. The Cyrano source material is both logically folded into the Cy-Cole-Rose dynamic and also helps to underscore the issues explored here--silenced queer and female voices, the search for truth, and physical and psychological abuse in the military. The well-structured scenes progress with an intentional and escalating pace to the wrenching finale.

This surprising, funny, and original piece successfully explores weighty themes of grief and loss within its slim 10-minute running time. A well-structured play, "The Textbook Lady" delivers engaging turns at strategically placed moments. What begins as a couple's argument takes an unexpected and poignant turn once the surprising reason for the fight is revealed. The final, otherworldly moment is well executed and captures something indescribable about loss that pure naturalism would struggle to communicate. I hope this piece has a long life!

An excellent vehicle for two young women, "The Stakeout" is a brief but potent piece about family, identity, and friendship. In ten short pages, Mavromatis fully renders two distinct and compelling characters, clearly establishes their relationship, and provides a compelling turning point for one in particular. Not a word is wasted here, and each line of dialogue is in service to the storytelling. The end is a gut punch of glorious ambiguity--pain, relief, hope, fear. This should be a go-to ten minute piece for teen and young adult actors.

I love the way that Strayer weaves back and forth through time. These shifts structure the play, keep the tension high, and elegantly reveal the truth behind Jess' selective mutism. All of the characters are well-defined and sympathetic. I rooted for both Brit and Jess even as they bristled against one another. An 11th hour betrayal hits hard and potently motivates Jess' response to trauma. While Strayer tackles weighty issues like abuse, assault, and trauma, there is a great deal of hope and humor in this piece to keep it human. Lastly, the songs are absolutely beautiful!

This insightful exploration of racism and gig economy offers some pointed and painful truths between copious laughs. Not only are Dante and Peter well-fleshed out characters, but the ensemble of folks hiring them also ring true. Gabridge uses the unexpectedly theatrical act of assembling IKEA furniture as a central, grounding image throughout to great effect. The scenes move briskly and the unsettling relationship between Dante and Peter becomes palpably more tense. The ending feels inevitable, but packs a punch when you see how it plays out--it is uncomfortable and reveals social patterns that demand shifting.

What a spectacular, visceral, wrenching, and tenderly-written piece. Rosenberg has, again, created a vital piece of theater that fleshes out and complicates theatrical representation of folks who live with eating disorders. Even while zeroing in on just a few well-chosen characters, Rosenberg speaks volumes about body image, shame, addictive behaviors, mental health, and what it means to be a young woman grappling with these things on a daily basis. With an intersectional eye towards sexuality and race as well, this play further plumbs subtle and nuanced layers of the aforementioned issues. I hope to follow the play's trajectory!

This short, haunting piece is a compelling read that fully takes advantage of theatricality. I enjoy the way Henry plays with time and space here both in form and content. The use of stark and disarming transitions, repeated dialogue, and vivid imagery all help evoke and explore PTSD and trauma. The aural and visual landscape described definitely grounds the piece and helps render an unsettling atmosphere as Sylvia tries to process her destabilizing trauma from childhood. I was most impressed by how scary yet not gratuitous the play was and by its poignant and hopeful ending.

"Rattler" is an insightful, unsettling, and engaging play that deserves a wide audience. I absolutely loved the way Adams played with time and space in a theatrical way, using the support group to frame and punctuate and utilizing the furniture of that space to create other settings. Because the support group never visually disappears, it becomes the perfect extended metaphor for the insidious social forces that perpetrate and perpetuate rape culture and the silencing of women. Each character is well-drawn, and the eye towards intersectionality brings this piece to the next level. I hope to see it produced soon!

This is a taut, briskly-moving thriller. The hermetically-contained environment of the cabin was an excellent choice for setting--there is much visually to be done with the simultaneous action described. Like all good horror, this piece goes beyond shock value and explores important themes--namely trauma, assault, and PTSD. The characters are interesting (hooray for normalized queer characters whose sexuality is not the big "to do" of the piece!) and revelations come at a steady clip. Bookending the piece with fire imagery/sound is a powerful choice! The use of spectres is an appropriately haunting theatrical sleight of hand.

This play absolutely had me by the heart! Brilliant writing, brilliantly chosen scenes, elegant and theatrical transitions, space for movement, and unique design--this piece really had it all for me. Jonah, Geraldine, Ella, and Sam are so tenderly written and exquisitely human. Ruben, while menacing, remains credibly-drawn and, therefore, is all the more terrifyingly human as well. This is such a potent representation of abuse and trauma, and also makes visible and normal the lives of POC, queer and otherwise. I do sincerely hope to see copious productions of this materialize soon! The final moment is truly sublime.