Recommended by Nick Malakhow

I truly enjoyed this surprising and human exploration of polyamory. The characters' intersecting relationships with one another and evolving attitudes felt genuine and made for engaging storytelling. Each character was also well-defined and spoke with a distinct voice. MacCarthy explores some sticky truths about connection and relationships that fall outside what is considered the norm with some poignant moments interspersed throughout what is a largely humorous and briskly-moving script. This is definitely a great piece for four actors to really dig their teeth into.

Marge is a vividly-realized, dynamic character who serves as a strong nucleus around which the other characters orbit. The supporting folks are boldly drawn individuals as well whose evolving relationship to Marge's substance abuse issues keep the play moving at a steady and always engaging pace, while also providing for some genuinely surprising turns. I appreciated the clear sense of place Yenser evokes and the visceral, gross-yet-compelling images that he utilizes to flesh out Marge's conflicts and relationships. MARGE defies genre boundaries as well--dark comedy mixes with gritty intervention tale which mixes with revenge story--in a unique manner.

This is a searing but altogether fair exploration of fame, celebrity worship, and reality tv culture. Bobby is a compelling, flawed, and sympathetic central character. As he struggles to find meaning in his life and a world that consumes and discards idealized fantasies of people on the daily, we see him make some poignant and sad revelations about his fate. He is flanked by a collage of bold characters that leave an impact, even if they only show up for a few scenes. As with his other pieces, Finocchiaro eschews sentiment while still mining Bobby's story for moving pathos.

A sweet and sad piece whose melancholic atmosphere kept me fully engaged throughout the briskly-paced dialogue and poignantly chosen moments in time. I love the way that Langley plays with time. The toying with chronology definitely provided subtle tension at a few key moments towards the beginning of the piece, assisted in the exploration of grief in the wake of tragedy, and taught us much about Corie and Parker's relationship in a few haunting, potent moments. The two are credible and sympathetic characters, and Langley renders them with the urgency and yearning of late adolescence.

Truth/Dare is funny, honest, painful, and haunting. All four central characters have compelling personalities and unique voices, and the way the desires, yearning for friendship, and identities of each girl collide with one another is believable and at times heartbreaking. Keenan-Zelt uses fluidity of time to unique theatrical effect. Time play in this piece serves to build tension, reveal information, and explore the lasting trauma and regret of grief. This would be an excellent vehicle for four (or seven!) young women to dive into complex and well-written roles that honor the complexity and humanity of adolescence.

This piece is pointed, insightful, funny, truthful, and all around brilliant! Inda Craig-Galvan consistently shows herself to be a master of managing multiple tonal and style qualities in her always theatrical and incisive plays. She powerfully explores gentrification, racism, and local politics in a more effective and unique way than I've seen in other narratives by centering the story on black characters and zeroing in on the ways white hegemonic structures and institutionalized racism turn folk against one another. The theatrical "trick" that ends the piece is, rather than a gimmick, a powerful and potent visual metaphor.

This is an uncompromising and wrenching piece that explores aspects of the aftermath of sexual assault that I haven't really seen examined onstage. Both Ricki and Hunter are exquisitely human characters, and I love how they are put in this heightened theatrical world. Through Ricki, Langley articulates the complex brutality and reality of being assaulted by a friend. In the misguided Hunter, she shows how an acquaintance assailant asking for forgiveness on his own terms can so easily be just another form of attempted control, domination, and trauma. It would be harrowing but powerful to see this onstage.

A poignant and well-written two hander set in its own hermetically-sealed, controlled environment, which allows some beautiful and universal truths about relationships, love, connection, and loneliness to emerge. Kitt and Nina are both well-drawn characters, and their interactions elegantly show their history both in what they choose to remember about their relationship, but also with how they bristle and readjust to being in the same space. As others have mentioned, the tonal balance of humor, melancholy, and fire is well struck and provides for a compelling read. I imagine watching a good production live would feel urgent and intimate.

This is a well-crafted, funny piece that successfully explores some excellent moral questions about getting ahead vs. equalizing the playing field in the world of academia. All four characters are credible and sympathetic, and it is fun to see them get to know each other and complicate one another's worldviews over the course of the play. It's a huge credit to McLindon's writing (and, indeed, one of the points of the play, it seems) that I found myself rooting for each character--even the ones I had judged more harshly at the outset. I'd love to see a production.

This is a tightly written two-hander that so deftly uses dialogue to both illuminate character and move the plot forward. Not a word feels extraneous in the carefully chosen exchanges between Anna and Curt, and I appreciated how Minigan explores this at times dangerous feeling relationship in a way that doesn't let either character off the hook. Curt's coaching feels authentic even as it is manipulative--and it is certainly difficult to write "good teaching" that comes off as credible in real-time. I also appreciated that Minigan honors the unsettling age/power disparity in scene one, while giving Anna agency throughout.