Recommended by Rachael Carnes

Maybe it's my spending the last 15 months interacting in real life with only one other adult most days, but this play seems relevant and relatable, as a marker of time, and the ephemera of living with another person. Two characters, one looking back, the other towards the future, both trapped in the Zoom world of wonder... It's poignant and pithy, a wry comedy, exploring age-old arguments.

We all know an O'Donnell. Maybe he was an overbearing college prof. Maybe we've worked for the guy. Maybe we have the misfortune of being related to him. But he's out there: A bloviated, entitled know-it-all, so full of hot air, yet somehow shielded by the structures of inequity that ensconce him. Well, how richly satisfying to see the barriers assailed, the briars surrounding academia hacked by our hero, Serena. The tension in this tête-à-tête ratchets up throughout, leading to a satisfying conclusion.

Okay, this play might include my favorite opening stage direction *ever*. What a treat! Weeks crafts a hilarious romp through time and space, with deft world-building and a magical realism so magical, that it seems real. Part parody, part parable, relevant and relatable, this play will be a field day for a creative team. Such fun!

A deeply moving family drama exploring Austin's family of origin, and his parents' inability to roll with change. Robkin artfully develops these rich, multifaceted characters, whose competing wants and needs exchange the dynamic of loss and renewal with tremendous emotional facility. This play should be required viewing in every regional theatre in America. Read this now. Produce this yesterday.

A heartbreaking re-envisioning of the Iphigenia cycle, juxtaposing the Reagan-era "War on Drugs" with deeply-felt family drama. Pearson combines comedy, tragedy, story, song, dance - using the Greek form to great effect - twisting it tightly with our current incongruities. Language breaks away into lyrical poetry and swings into easy vernacular with breathtaking facility. Deft pacing and a driving plot leave us few outlets, driving us to an inevitable outcome. A beautiful, challenging new work, creating a dynamic ensemble for the ages.

A powerful page-turner set in a moment just before the world will turn on its axis: 1962, a family reveals painful histories and the intersecting complexities that bear down on decisions they face in this prescient, present moment. A fight against conformity, belief, family, a maelstrom of competing wants and needs, makes this piece fascinating and richly-hewn horror show. It's hard to know where to find comfort here, and in the not knowing, there's such mystery and illumination. A brilliant reading at the Great Plains Theatre Festival brought out very nuance of this timely piece.

Celebrate PRIDE by stopping what you're doing and reading this play. As a mom of a kid who wore whatever they wanted until the day *after* they started kindergarten, this play hits me in all the feels. I have been the parent lioness, encountering stupid, and shielding my kid - but how can a mom or dad protect their child from pernicious, systemic gender conformity that plagues our schools? Keyes' sharply-wrought play gets at the heart of why grown-ups and their unexamined baggage causes real harm, every single day. A beautiful, poignant work.

A play that dances between the cerebral and the embodied, this remarkable short play is long on history, focusing with specificity on childhood in a particular place and time - centering an iconic creature as a fixed point for the protagonist - smartly pinging us to our own "Guy the Gorilla". For me? it's Jeffrey the Boa Constrictor, at the Lincoln Park Zoo, in Chicago. No visit was complete without a scaly hello. I wonder: What are the constants for others? People, places, ideas? A poetic, relatable piece. I see it theatrically, with Guy slumped in the corner.

Irreverent, humane, profound and profane, McBurnette-Andronicos' play takes us on a sweeping journey through the history of the American Southwest, swinging us into an impasse, the introduction of settler-colonial assimilation over a tight-knit community. With rich detail and historical investigation, balanced by humor and theatricality, this piece resonates with the dynamics of community survival across the ages.

A familiar VRBO-like mountain cabin belies a mysterious string of connections, in this resonant meditation on loss, and living across the ages. Fechtor deftly picks up intertwining narrative threads, twisting each one into an inevitably strong and unbroken cord. There's a common ground that Fechtor creates here, between an easy vernacular, and Medieval wonder, a knowing/unknowing that develops the way a darkened space fills with candlelight, as our eyes adjust. A dream on death, loss, grief, and living with life itself. I'm grateful to have heard a reading of the play at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Brava.