Recommended by Rachael Carnes

With ready humor and consistent heart, Annelies explores the 'What If's' of history and the missed opportunities in our everyday, taking a fresh approach to grief, loss and the ties that bind us to each other, and to the past. I was fortunate to hear a reading at the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and someone must've been chopping onions in the room, because tears were flowing. Beautiful work.

Timely, relevant and thoughtful, Wilkins’ exploration of unionization on a campus peers into the seamy structures of colonialism, the myriad ways capitalism demands complicity and the ways creativity and collaboration can illuminate the darkness. I was fortunate to see a reading of the work at the Great Plains Theatre Conference and was bowled over by its powerful messaging, cached inside richly-dynamic characters, plot and storytelling.

A historically driven explosion of thoughts and ideas related to the erosion of women’s rights - then/now - Phoebus ratchets us through increasingly high stakes with deft humor and magnetic theatricality. A reading at Great Plains Theatre Conference delivered big energy, charging pacing and dynamics among characters centuries old, yet chillingly contemporary.

I was lucky enough to see a staged reading of this play at the Great Plains Theatre Conference and I’m dazzled by Weiss’s dexterous exploration of grief, regret, love, loss and the river of comfort and comedy that can carry us through. With rich characterization, a uniquely theatrical setting and set-up, this play draws us in and lets us see ourselves with more clarity and compassion.

As someone who always embarrasses my family by talking to security guards in every art museum we go to (because the security guards know SO MUCH!) this lovely play is right up my alley, creating a wonderfully rich sense of place and the philosophical musings that these palaces to imagination - or big dots - so frequently afford us.

Maybe it's not the art, it's the slowing down to see and listen... I'd love to see this onstage, and look forward to listen to it in podcast format.

They say siblings hold our memories with us, helping us to revisit a time or a place or a moment through adjacent yet different eyes. Mabey's play eloquently unpacks this tender dynamic, asking what we leave in the past, and what we carry forward forever. Beautiful.

Pure delight! Plumridge engages in witty barnyard crosstalk in this rollicking take on human foibles through an animal lens. The physicality of these majestic (?) creatures rolls off the page, and this would be SO FUN to direct and even more fun to act in. Everyone's got juicy little lines to deliver and business to busy about with and mostly, I want to say that the 'setting' on the title page is my favorite in all of theatre, ever. I hope producers are moooooooooved to do an evening of cow plays and highlight this one.

Charming and funny and relatable, Lawing's monologue hits all the right notes, and as I read it, I couldn't help but imagine an actor with giant crustacean antennae beaming out of their forehead, and smiling. More arthropod drama NOW.

Gah! Oh my - no spoilers - Just read this and admire how Caffrey pulls us along into this exceptional world building. Cinematic, splendid dialogue, magnetic characters and a super scary surprise. I love the dynamics of it all, how it bends around space and time, feeling like urban legend and contemporary moment all rolled into one.

Eek!

Razor-sharp dialogue shimmers with subtext in this tight exploration, as Jigour digs into tropes about relationship, expectation, hope and failures. Bright rhythmic dynamics keep us rollicking on an absurdist arc but underneath is the guts and sinews or real, deep feeling. Brilliant.