Recommended by Nick Malakhow

A gentle, lyrical work that looks at queer identity and grieving in four sympathetic and disparate characters. Each has urgent needs, wants, and histories that impact the present. It feels very intentional that divergent opinions on funeral traditions, faith, honoring the dead, and grieving play potent roles throughout. John captures a poignant loneliness inherent in queerness without exploiting the trauma of their tenderly drawn characters. I'm eager to see this work on stages!

A troubling, essential work that examines white supremacy, class conflict, abuse, and family in a head-on yet nuanced fashion. We increasingly see the "inside" brother's humanity as we begin to see the flaws in "outside" brother's narrative, and that murky navigation is deftly handled. Most importantly, our understanding of each character's life is done without exploiting or manipulating Black characters. The capitalist, opportunistic forces that maintain white supremacy are fully explored in the flawed white characters onstage. I'd love to see this staged.

What a well-observed play with nuanced, troubled, and sympathetic characters. The stuff of this play has been so historically reserved for the straight, white antiheroes of Sam Shepard and the like. Najla, Jawad, Tommy, and his mother are so multidimensional and, here, Forest Malley explores big truths about family, domestic abuse, and relationships while always keeping a clear eye on the intersectional identities of his characters and how they intertwine with those larger themes. There are sublime moments of theatricality as the pressure-cooking builds. I'd love to see these characters realized in a production!

A play that is as tender and intimate as it is expansive. Tonally speaking, it also straddles a fine line between poignant 'complicated family drama,' farcical hilarity, and historical family intrigue. A lot is tackled here! Family history, mental health, identity. All throughout, Quentin Nguyen-duy writes his characters compassionately and with a nuanced brush that highlights their precarious sense of in-betweenness that both strains familial ties and brings them all together. I'm excited to see the developmental trajectory of this play!

This is such a well-defined set of characters placed into a unique, ever so slightly heightened (until the end when it becomes magnificently heightened!) setup. Patrick excels at exploring themes of masculinity, radicalization, belonging, and socio-cultural and socio-political group dynamics from angles I never would've thought of myself. The theatricality of working out is used to good effect here, as are all the clever metaphors and images connecting the gym, church/worship, and society. I'd love to see this performed!

A clever, poignant dramedy with a compelling nucleus in Jo. The time and place--90's in a vintage store at the dawn of eBay and the beginnings of online commerce--are vividly realized here and the store is an amazing character in and of itself and would be a treat for a designer to realize! I appreciated the ways Josh explores how we assign meaning and value to objects and how those values may be at odds with the ways the world is changing...those connections, ever complicated, may keep us stuck as much as they can nourish us.

A beautiful, slightly surreal theatrical collage that examines grief, the opioid crisis, addiction, responsibility, and recovery using an impactful collage of people. The dreamlike logic of transitions and the design elements so effectively mirrors the irregular and perseverating tidal forces of grief. I would so love to see this staged!

A deeply affecting, creative piece of speculative fiction. Laufer skillfully builds the world of the play with deftly chosen details. The particular constellation of characters here also serve to explore the trajectory of how the poison of hatred and intolerance in all forms and, very specifically antisemitism, can infect a society. Sarah's journey is incredibly compelling, from her tension with her father and her father's willingness to assimilate and simply survive to her desire to understand an identity she's been robbed of owning and exploring. A straightforward, accessible, potent play that achieves a lot of nuance and complexity.

There is a lot tackled here with alternatingly devastating and sharply hilarious brushstrokes. Vermillion explores "bleeding heart liberal martyrdom," masculinity, violence, pride, the fear of losing ground from both sides of the political aisle, and more. Like Vermillion's other work, these characters manage to live simultaneously as interesting and plausible humans with unique wants and desires as well as representations of volatile socio-political conversations. I'd love to see this on its feet!

Phew! What a wildly astute, sharp, and unsettling play about masculinity, violence, and radicalization. This is one of the few plays in which the characters both have these specific and compelling (albeit heightened and satirical) character arcs and truths, while also being finely drawn metaphors for huge, topical social issues and political discourse. In James, Vermillion illustrates just how close beneath the surface of real "normal" men is the capacity for hatred and violence and how that is tied to social expectations of masculinity and manhood. The ending is quite a gut punch!