Recommended by Nick Malakhow

Wholly original, fascinating, hilarious, and tragic. The theatrical world established here is super specific, and the exploration of how we search for meaning in others, work, and more is all uniquely executed and potent. I'd so love to see this on its feet!

Such tightly written and fully realized storytelling and characterization! Goldfinger manages to deeply honor and explore the trauma and healing and recovery this veteran is working through and they treat this character with care and tenderness while not avoiding moments that illuminate the deep and gutting horrors of that process. Perhaps it is trite to say I laughed and cried when I read it, but it's true! Most importantly, I saw a brave person struggling against incomprehensible challenges and achieve some seismic shifts by the end that were potent and moving.

Wildly funny and poignant, the eclectic collection of folks Brasch explores and illuminates here are delightful and endearing. That we both see the characters at varying ages and stages, and the actors playing various characters at time, the universality of these humans' search for satisfaction and identity and meaning in others and themselves is highlighted in a moving way. Loved the extended imagery/metaphors surrounding birds and flight.

Wow! This piece is a brilliant exploration of a lot (friendship, family, loneliness, grief, loss, aging, AI sentience, the intersection of relationships and technology) with very few/adaptable theatrical requirements. It is moving, funny, truthful, and heartbreaking. I'd be so delighted to see this on its feet some day soon!

A beautifully rendered character study of three complex, nuanced, and recognizable humans. Like all great historical fiction, Coleman makes wonderful use of the socio-historical context he is writing within to illuminate truths about our contemporary world. The seeds of Pride and the complications and dynamics surrounding it are explored thoroughly, as are the implications and reverberations of those historical origins on contemporary intersectional queer activism. I'd love to see these characters realized onstage and to spend time with them watching a staged production.

A gorgeous play that explores the many-tentacled monster of grief in an original and very human way. Rather than replying on the huge theatrical overture of the "various Emilies" in a gimmicky or specious manner, August plumbs the irregular and murky waters of loss with specificity, nuance, and great care for the Emilies and their husband, Jeff. A heaping tablespoon of comedy and wit, in the form of the Presenter, assists the storytelling in a way that makes for compelling theater I'd want to watch. I hope to see a production of this soon!

This play is amazing! Meaker uses heightened theatricality so well to draw stark attention to the ways society pits women and femme folk against one another and themselves and their bodies in so many ways. They tackle body image, disordered eating, fatness/fitness, health provider gaslighting, and a lot more. They manage to do this in a play that is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking and scary--fine lines to straddle. I also appreciated the nuanced and complex and just so natural queer representation. I'd love to see this produced!

An incredibly creative and inventive exploration of whiteness, masculinity and masculine identity, class, academia, the evolving mythology around American identity, the intersection of tall of those things, and so much more! Eddie was quite the nucleus around which the play revolved, and his presence and maddening, harrowing, hilarious journey kept things so incredibly focused even with the pliability of space, time, and reality...allowing the piece of go in very epic and heady directions without losing its human core. I would so love to see this on its feet and in production.

Expansive, complex, and, above all, hilarious, this play is fantastic! It has a sprawling, satirical feel and the farce is sharp and incisive about the things it examines--class, race, ethnicity, pop culture, influencers, celebrity, and more. I so loved how the humor arose organically from the situations and relationships--the jokes were a welcome and genuine necessity to the storytelling. I also appreciated the exploration of intersections of sexuality, race, age, and gender. It feels somewhat "classical" in structure, but so, so on point for today. Some gorgeous, poignant, quiet moments punctuated the madness beautifully!

This piece is so incredibly hilarious and poignant. It so very much captures the existential dread of creating art both at the particular socio-cultural and socio-political moment of Spring 2021, as well as in general. The ensemble is a dynamite collection of diverse individuals that actors would sink their teeth into. The intersection of magic and Shakespeare and satire and politics is totally unique. I'd love to see this in production!