Recommended by Donald E. Baker

Theaters be assured, no animal costumes (or actual animals) are required! All the livestock and personnel from the traditional "Twelve Days" carol are present, but mostly metaphorically. "Three French Hens" are three ladies conversing at a Parisian sidewalk café, for example. The audience will love how each charming scene plays with their expectations and how, in some cases, characters from one relate to characters in another. With its oh-so-French sensibilities, it will provide a welcome change to the usual theatrical holiday fare.

Robin Rice has given us a superbly theatrical exploration of the generational effects of holocaust survivorship. There is so much here. PTSD, survivor's guilt, the need to talk about it, the need NOT to talk about it, the need to KNOW, the fear of connection, the fear of betrayal, and, most heartbreaking perhaps, the test before accepting a friendship: if it could mean death to you as well as to me, "would you hide me"? That story needs to be told, and this play needs to be produced. Everywhere.

Imagine a virus even more terrible that the one the world has so recently endured. Then imagine that the most draconian measures to combat it are instituted and put in control of a man who is willing even to take those measures to the farthest extremes. Rachel Feeny-Williams has imagined just that and realized it in this tense, desperate, chilling drama. So well done is it, that audiences, based on their current experience, will accept that the horrible circumstances portrayed just might be possible next time a virus comes calling. And there are super possibilities for onstage interpretation and design.

The best history plays reveal something of the past that not everyone has heard of and then humanize it. Alice Josephs does this as well as any playwright I know. Before reading this play, I had no idea that in World War II Britain, men were basically drafted into working the coal mines to keep the country running. Tom's hopes and dreams of battlefield glory are dashed when he is dropped, literally, into the dirtiest, darkest job imaginable. But is there future glory ahead anyway? Read it and see.

Hollywood and Broadway have a million stories about monstrous actors, but these ladies(?) are monstrous in every sense of the word. It's obvious early on that one actor has a secret identity, but the other? All is revealed in the last few lines. A brilliant response to a very convoluted writing prompt. And a terrific opportunity for two women to have a great time creating these characters.

A new entry in the "worst first date" sweepstakes! Is there a worse time to find out about the worst in a person than when you're about to jump out of an airplane with him? Nice concept delightfully executed. Audiences will love it.

This is a beautifully structured collection. Each play is complete unto itself if performed separately. But together they paint a beautiful picture of fifty years in the lives and evolving relationships of a father and his two sons. The characters are completely believable as down-to-earth, complicated, flawed human beings who love each other enough to put in the work to understand each other as best they are able. Vintage Williams, humanely wrought.

So many wonderful conceits! Three young people named after corporations (there's a reason). A piece of antiquated technology they are hard put to identify and to understand how to use. And, thanks to a fortuitous time warp, their encounter with a woman from eight decades the the past whose conversation and frames of reference they find well nigh incomprehensible. A wonderfully hilarious take on the near impossibility of the future communicating with the past.

Alterman masterfully plays with audience expectations throughout the course of this ominous little bench play. The dialogue, peppered with allusions to John Lennon songs, is light and bright, until it turns heavy and dark just before a big reveal changes the whole direction of the piece and alters our conception of the relationship between the two characters. Excellent and engaging work.

A different Christmas Story indeed! When the surviving members of a dysfunctional family gather to observe their family Christmas traditions, there are secrets to be aired, a black sheep to be corralled, a new girlfriend to fit in, and a mysterious stranger whose identity and purpose will keep audiences guessing all the way to the end. It's a piece worthy of "Masterpiece Theater" that is definitely up to Lermond's high standards. Theaters should find it a popular change from the usual Christmas fare.