Recommended by Nick Malakhow

I appreciated the evolving and tricky relationship between Chai and Shayra--Cathro captures the complexities of their mother-son connection really well. I also appreciated Chai's conversations with his white girlfriend about names, identity, and his challenging of her blind spots and assumptions. A quick and compact piece with a driving tempo and a concise and well-told story.

An unsettling and well-done examination of trauma and its multi-tentacled aftermath. Tuesday and Sky are self-destructive and sympathetically-drawn characters and, even as you see their relationships and grip on life implode, you root for their success and survival. The way the piece wanders back and forth through time is powerful and emphasizes the haunting and lasting impact of the Meadow on these characters' lives.

As someone who spent most of his summers throughout high school at artsy pre-college programs, this piece captures all the beautiful contradictions of those settings--intense, camplike friendships and romances in a quasi-academic setting; navigating and negotiating huge feelings for the first time; experimenting with self-destructive and liberating behaviors. I love how Drimmer both treats his teen characters with respect and like the full humans they are while also demonstrating just how much one's sense of self and the world changes as they grow into adulthood.

An unsettling and wrenching piece that explores sexual violence in a kind of fabulistic/mythical manner. So much is packed into this ten minute piece--a genre generally reserved for comedy and singular bits. This manages to be a potent self-contained story that tackles expansive, weighty content. Lots of room for directors, designers, and performers to interpret.

A powerful, moving, funny, theatrical piece that examines trauma and sexual abuse in a way that only theater can. The figure in the tub is a direct, potent, and inventive extended metaphor for Jane's processing of her trauma, and the way the piece winds back and forth through time and space builds tension and suspense. From a designer's, actor's, and director's perspective, there is so much to do here! Even as she weaves a wholly new contemporary story, Strayer also manages to unpack the legacy of what Shakespeare and history/interpretation have done to Ophelia as well.

An insightful and well-rendered piece that explores friendship and how constellations of relationships change as people come of age into adulthood. The sizeable ensemble is populated by self-sabotaging but sympathetic characters that would all be a treat to embody--this play is definitely an actor's dream. In addition to exploring friendship, Drimmer illuminates that eternal quest for self-actualization and the internal and external barriers to doing just that. The tempo manages to remain engaging and propulsive throughout while still avoiding artificial dramatics. The little seismic shifts within/between each character are truthful and poignant.

Beautiful piece that explores an underrepresented historical event, refracts it through theatrical devices, and discusses it in conversation with contemporary dialogues within the queer community. The use of double/triple/quadruple/etc. casting is genius, as is requiring this story to not simply live in the bodies of cis white gay men. Billy is a fantastic role in general, but it would be a treat to be any part of the incredibly used ensemble. The theatricality of the piece also makes it a glorious challenge for a whole production team--directors, designers, movement coordinators, etc. alike. Funny, moving, sad, important!

Joshua's arc in this play is so beautifully illuminated and Kearns very profoundly explores the complex intersection between Joshua's Christianity and trans identity. His role as a pastor and the parallels and juxtapositions between Joshua in that space vs. the bar serve as an apt extended metaphor for the distinction between faith/Christianity and the church as its own separate entity. Shorter, potent, punctuating scenes are interspersed with longer, ruminating exchanges. The visual and aural landscape Kearns creates is also dynamic, aesthetically distinct, and leaves lots of room for designers and directors to interpret. Beautiful work!

An amazingly rendered portrait of two women with a masterful use of theatrical devices--direct address, malleable chronology--to tell the story. Levitsky-Weitz tackles so much here--the intricacies of female friendship; the ways society can both pit women against one another and hold them back individually; the artistic and creative process; how men can have a leech-like, deleterious effect on women working hard to self-actualize exert their personal and professional power; friendship and the passage of time. I very much was in awe of all the little seismic relationship shifts communicated here that amounted to a wholly engrossing, subtle narrative.

A well-written and well-structured play that explores power dynamics and a generational changing of the guard. Seidel looks at the tensions between coworkers of various ages and genders and uses the characters' individual identities to comment on power, progress, obsolescence, and pride. He also illuminates how change can often be an illusion--that old toxic patterns of living and working appear to change on the surface when the same old systems and structures remain festering underneath. The characters are so multi-dimensional and vividly rendered. The setting is claustrophobic and compelling.