Recommended by Dan Caffrey

A touching portrait of two men doing their best—yet still struggling—to be honest with themselves and each other. I love how it heavily focused on historical events without being too expositional or exploitative. Excellent short!

Lovely short play about both the internal lives and external needs of plants that isn't afraid to compare their own existential quandaries to our own. Really fun (and sometimes lonely) stuff!

Biting in that, by presenting characters who talk themselves into a kind of stubborn naivety, Weingarten exposes an underlying sadness and offers sharp commentary on gendered oppression. Make no mistake, this is funny stuff. But it's also heartbreaking.

A haunting—yet still very warm and funny—play that's not so much about dying from cancer or even being unhelpfully optimistic about it. Rather, it's about learning to coexist with something horrible and potentially life-threatening. It's about living in the moment. My favorite element was the characterization of the dinosaur as a metaphorical creature who's ashamed of his nature, but also knows it's futile to try and change. Truly wonderful stuff.

A truly incredible script. My favorite thing about it is how each of these three richly illustrated people are hyper-aware of their flaws (or, perhaps more accurately, their scars), which somehow makes it harder for them to change and find happiness. It's so important for LGBTQ+ stories to allow their characters to have complications, rather than just being ciphers for social change or vessels of reassurance for well-meaning theatergoers. Seeing Eye is a shining example of that. Also, it's funny as hell, and one of the best brother/sister narratives I've read in a long time. Produce it!

As a diehard fan and writer of horror, I'm always thinking about what's effectively scary onstage, which is much different than what's effectively scary onscreen. And this play--the first I've read of Jan's--shows that she's a writer who KNOWS theatrical horror, and how the medium invites true narrative flexibility. Yes, these four complicated characters confront the queasier aspects that always accompany internal and external transformation. But by the end, that queasiness has given way to beauty and acceptance without ever skimping on the rawness. I loved this play and can't wait to read more!

So often, it's easy for the poetry of a play to overwhelm the cohesion/linearity of the story. But not here. TJ blends the straightforward and the mysterious with such grace, humor, and compassion. Make no mistake—all of these characters make some egregious mistakes, but TJ never judges any of them. And thus the script becomes a thesis on radical empathy and forgiveness. Please check it out!