Recommended by Nick Malakhow

A beautiful, quietly potent exploration of loss and relationships. The folks centered in this piece are people who typically don't get such intimate, nuanced stories written about them, and the intersectional complexities that emerge from centering these voices are a welcome thing to read. I sincerely hope to see this highly theatrical and compelling piece onstage some day soon!

Such a dynamic piece with a propulsive narrative thread. It weaves together various aesthetic sensibilities into a coherent whole. The intersectional exploration of celebrity culture, pop music, and identity-driven double standards in the entertainment industry is powerful sharp. The genre-bending meta-turn in the last quarter of the piece is surprising and potent. The poignant coda of Tess' song is a perfect ending. I hope to see this onstage so soon!

A compelling theatrical piece that uses a brisk and darkly-comedic pace/tone and ever so slightly heightened language and circumstances to explore a lot. Clark looks at the ways white cis-het acting masculinity impacts the queer community at large and, specifically, queer Black men and folks who don't fit neatly into prescribed roles; intimacy; and what to do with the trauma and pain that has been inflicted upon you. The clever turns (that are still so perfectly foreshadowed) make for surprising moments and a satisfyingly jaded ending.

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!