Recommended by Nick Malakhow

An absolutely haunting and chilling story that explores the devastating aftermath on a small community of wide-scale child abuse. Cammarato utilizes dreamlike conversations to illustrate the ways a variety of people grapple with different types of trauma and PTSD. All of the characters are vividly-realized, nuanced, and specific in their pain. This powerful and highly theatrical story deserves a large audience.

A beautifully-rendered story that treats its complex characters with respect and tenderness, even as they make questionable choices. Ariel is a very compelling nucleus around which the other characters orbit, and I absolutely love the way different times bleed in and out of various scenes. Oliveira explores grief, trauma, and love as relationships fracture and reconfigure themselves. Ariel's devotion to Lucas is poignant and recognizable, even as Ariel himself interrogates the true nature of their relationship and how Lucas has influenced his other relationships. The stage images are powerful and visually poetic. I'd love to see this staged!

Oliveira creates a unique theatrical world in this piece in which time is pliable, humor coexists with sadness and melancholy, and valuable, underrepresented voices are centered. I greatly enjoyed the distinct characters with multi-layered relationships that took surprising turns as the play progressed. Oliveira used monologue effectively at certain intervals to propel the story rather than trip it up. I also thought that Cristiano's struggle with depression was well-served as a haunting--the spectres of mental health impact both the immediate sufferer and the collateral damage (people) who surround them. I'd love to see this on its feet!

This play is intense, surprising, intimate, beautiful, and heartbreaking. Oliveira not only establishes two vividly-realized main characters and a compelling relationship, but also an entire dystopian world illustrated solely through well-chosen details about those characters' lives. I love how the piece also works for me as haunting sci-fi as well as a figurative exploration of the suffocating nature of relationships, the dual paradise-purgatory of infatuation and desire, or any number of intersectionally rich readings one can make. The pacing and structure is engrossing, the images bold, and the characters' evolving relationship fascinating. I'd love to see it live!

This unsettling, powerful play explores rape culture and campus sexual assault in a multi-layered fashion. Fitzgerald centers the piece on the painful journey of Rachel while also examining the structures and societal forces that facilitate and perpetuate sexual assault as a wide-scale problem. All of the other characters are fully-rendered humans as well. It is particularly affecting that we get Trevor's complex and evolving point of view, Harriet's grim but realistic perspective, and the nuanced thread of Elizabeth's faith and religion. The recurring image/setting of the beach provides powerful repeated visual motifs.

This taut and briskly moving play kept me engaged throughout. All of the characters were distinctly voiced and had moments where I felt both sympathetic with and horrified by them--often at the same time! Kevin's propulsive badgering of his teacher established the driving pace of the play, and the mid-term entry of a surprising character added intriguing nuances. The tense and heightened world of the piece gave us flawed characters who showed us what it means to be trapped by one's circumstances and identity, both implicating them and being sympathetic to their plights along the way.

MacDermott has created a gloriously theatrical world here that is a mash-up of melodrama, satire, and Shakespearean tragedy. Each of the characters he has crafted has a unique and well-rendered voice, and the stakes successfully ramp up (to say the least!) as the piece progresses. Rather than feeling overly "chaotic," the compelling collage of styles is packaged in a strangely unified aesthetic vision. MacDermott successfully uses his storytelling to explore female friendship, gender roles, betrayal, and identity. This piece is weird and hilarious and terrifying and striking in all the best ways!

This moving, funny, briskly-paced play brings to life a number of vivid and distinct characters who each have their own ways of coping with loss, disappointment, and family trauma. Carbajal has an impeccable ear for the unnatural rhythms of human speech as captured in scenes of poignant naturalism, and an incredible eye for dynamic stage pictures, particularly as seen in the spare, melancholy scenes that wrap the piece up. The final image is haunting and affecting. This play would be a treat for actors, directors, and designers alike to work on because of how exquisitely written/composed it is.

In "The Hub," Allyson Dwyer creates a compelling theatricalization of vintage internet culture when online connection was still in its nascent phases. Dwyer's vision for how an old chat room might translate to the stage, and how online personas might exist in relation to real life humans is both clear and provides room for directors, performers, and designers to leave their mark on this piece. I so appreciated how the dramatic action steadily climbed at an irregular but driving pace, and loved the nuanced exploration of identity, relationships, connection, sexuality, and alienation. It was truly human and affecting!

In this beautiful, tightly-written one-act, Pisaturo explores loneliness, connection, and identity formation in the digital age. Owen and Jasper are two well-written and distinct characters that speak with their own rhythms and vocabulary. Even while just reading this play on the page, I felt as if I had a great sense of the visual/aesthetic world of the piece, and it presents an excellent opportunity for some poignant and beautiful staging and affecting lighting. At turns funny, poignant, melancholy, and intimate, this would be an excellent showcase for two strong actors.