Recommended by Nick Malakhow

I loved reading this piece and seeing it unfold in real time structurally speaking--I was engaged from the start and appreciated the steady but subtle build throughout. Logan and Luke were both so well rendered as individual characters, and their relationship to each other was also illustrated as complex and multi-faceted. The fantastical/fabulistic elements of the Goat Man served as lovely extended metaphors for family trauma that's left unspoken, thorny relationships that need to be unpacked, and the haunting shadow of their dead patriarch. The end was funny, poignant, healing. I'd love to see this live!

This is a subtle, slow burn of a play that explores grooming and unsettling relationship power dynamics in a nuanced fashion. The evolution of Peyton's and Stephanie's characters and their perspectives on past and current relationships parallels the often-invisible, insidious, and hard-to-pin down aspects of grooming. I'm eager to follow this play's trajectory!

This world--the school, the students, the social climate--feels so fleshed out even though the piece examines just four teachers through a microscope. Accuardi's writing is economical and spare and so beautifully captures the natural, inelegant rhythms of human speech. The scenes are also so tightly and potently written. I felt for all of these people, and it felt clear the playwright did as well, even while not letting them off the hook. The bookending monologues punctuated the piece perfectly. This was so well structured and compelling!

I loved this piece both as its own story exploring the mechanisms and structures that drive and perpetuate unhealthy and toxic relationships, as well as for what it does with the Shakespearean source material and the confounding relationship between Helena and Diana. The conversations felt both natural and slightly heightened in an engaging and theatrical way. The struggle of each character felt fully honored and seen, and the piece ended cathartically and with a look forward, liberating Helena from the ironically problematic ending of "All's Well..."

A super complex and darkly funny piece that examines the intersection of coming of age identity formation with contemporary Jewish identity, sexuality, sexual orientation, social expectations and much more. The teenage characters here are rendered with nuanced brushstrokes and I found myself rooting for all of them in their complex, adolescent messiness.

A gloriously theatrical piece that brings together disparate theatrical conventions and ideas into a supremely unique aesthetic whole--a well-crafted fever dream. The ensemble story-telling is bold. I appreciated the dive into history (particularly the exploration of Ann Dandridge) and the way that the play shows/illuminates the connective tissue between the historical atrocities committed against Black people in the US and the present day socio-cultural climate.

The conversations in this piece are so well-chosen and pressing today. An amazingly on point cross-section of a liberal friend group whose members' intersectional identity crossroads so deeply complicate and inform their relationship dynamics. I loved how there was room for calling in, anxiety, worry, generosity, and hope in a way that respected each character's humanity without letting them off the hook. The punctuating, lyrical moments struck me, as did the "sub-affinity spaces" we were able to peer into throughout. I'd be so compelled to read a full length exploration of these people and these conversations!

A really well-structured and tightly-written piece that is a perfect balance humor and pathos. The real-time creation of the crossword puzzle is a satisfying and surprisingly theatrical conceit, and the surprises and potent revelations feel both organic but not "out of left field" once they happen. On the contrary, they make you go back and reevaluate the earlier moments in the play and reveal storytelling that had been unfolding all along.

Unsettling and original, "The In-Between" heightens the theatricality of its exploration of hatred, Islamophobia, and assumptions about identity with subtle but palpable supernatural elements. The stage images and nuanced physical metaphors threaded throughout present an arc of slowly building terror that combusts in the final act in an appropriately explosive, tragic ending. I'd love to see a creative company tackle this piece in production!

An unsettling and compellingly theatrical piece that examines the ways violence is rooted in fear. The relationship between Lydia and Boy is a chilling nucleus that the play revolves around, and Marshall and Trey provide an interesting counterpoint. Character revelations about Trey juxtaposed to Boy illuminate different models of dysfunctional masculinity in intriguing ways. Bentley-Quinn's naturalistic/lyrical language is elegant and spare and gives a parable-like quality to the piece. Would be compelling to see these stage images come together live and in person!