Recommended by Sarah Tuft

SOME TYPE OF ECSTASY welcomes audiences into a world that few see but many people live out… the world of last chances, dead ends, painful histories, and broken dreams, where blood is all you have left to give. Yet, amidst the despair and denial, Wyatt finds the love. Amidst the betrayals, he finds the loyalty. Wyatt gives his characters the same contradictory impulses that compete inside us all, while capturing the unnamable force that drives us to survive against all reason and at any cost.

Jennie Webb does it again with this delightful play that tackles the topical with metaphor, deep humanity, and relatable characters. With its almost sense memory accuracy, WOUND CARE unearths how our deepest personal traumas intersect with society’s historical ones to give us a world where forgiveness is possible. Lots of wit make this a fun ride!

IMPOSSIBLE THEORIES OF US is a tender, timeless journey through love, longing, and loss that incorporates imagined (future) technologies resulting in an exquisite science fiction romance. Mabey’s talent for crafting three-dimensional characters through their choices works in tandem with his fine ear for truthfully layered dialogue to create an utterly human story that’s stunning in its simplicity. Theaters will be lucky to produce this knock-out of a play!

THREE SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A TROTSKYIST is deeply truthful while also being completely absorbing and entertaining. With its richly drawn characters and unforeseen reversals. Boyd effortlessly traces the path of, not just an individual, but a cultural phenomenon in which the oppressed became the oppressor, in which privilege leads to blindness, in which race intersects with access - or limits thereof - and so much more!! As someone aching to write about the socioeconomic evils at the heart of our collective dysfunction, without becoming didactic, this play is a master class!

DRIVE takes us on a journey into the not-too-distant future where a group of truckers has just lost their jobs to self-driving trucks. But as timely as DRIVE is, this is not an issue play. Yarchun has drawn a rich tableau of distinct characters struggling to, not just survive, but find meaning in life after the road. Yarchun’s ear for dialogue and gift for language are matched only by her capacity for empathy in this play about loss, love, and the despair of having work define our worth in a culture driven by capitalism.

Scott does an extraordinary job of bringing a beating heart and powerful authenticity to this updated version of Beethoven’s opera (in German, no less) about a woman, who, disguised as a prison guard, rescues her husband from death in a political prison. The themes of personal sacrifice, social justice, heroism, and how power corrupts resonate with the humanity of the libretto and the achingly truthful parallels to today’s struggles with police brutality, civil right activism, and speaking truth to power…

A powerful two-hander, with great roles for women from two generations, HERE COMES THE NIGHT brings a personal perspective to a highly politicized topic. While exposing how spirituality can be reduced to a brand, the play also offers true soulfulness with its testament to female friendship and how conflict leads to love when mediated through compassion… Theaters take note and produce this play!!!

Maisel’s THIRD PERSON is an achingly tender but also truthful look at the arc of a life - or more specifically three lives - a man, a woman, and their child as he grows into adulthood and they grow into middle age. Though mostly linear, the early focus on the future wife and mother’s yearning for romance when single - is paid off beautifully by withholding details of that romance until after heavy dose of the challenges of marriage and parenting. It’s a sweet but subtle way of reminding us of the importance of gratitude.

With SEEDS, Hoke explores age-old questions about how and when the biological urge to procreate weighs on families and especially on women, who—as the pandemic showed us—still bear most of the burden. But as weighty as those ideas are, this is no intellectual treatise. Instead, SEEDS is a sizzling simmering story of passion and possession with twists and turns along the way. The one-act audio play is superbly produced!!

A breathtakingly tender and extraordinarily intimate coming-of-age story about two young men reaching out to one another for connection during a pandemic in which connection is in short supply, SUNDOWN TOWN shows the burden that centuries of racism place on Black bodies, made even more poignant when those bodies are just beginning to discover who they are and what they want from their lives. Scott's play resonates as a story of Black joy thriving even during times of trauma…