Recommended by Robert Weibezahl

Wow. As a word nerd I was intrigued by the description of ANAGRAM. Could Arianna Rose really write a play that uses only words that are anagrams of the word ‘heroes’? Well, yes she can. But more to the point, she has managed to use that extremely limited vocabulary to construct a REAL play, filled with eros, pathos—and no small measure of wit. This little jewel is a miniature tour de force that I hope I get the chance to see performed one day.

Anyone who was a Catholic teenager on Long Island in the 70s will feel as if they’ve been thrust back into their own complicated past in PHILLIE’S TRILOGY. Anyone who wasn’t will get a crash course in the way we were. DeVita’s beautifully-constructed play blends comedy and everyday tragedy and is reminiscent of such canonical plays as Wilson’s ‘Fifth of July’ and McNally’s ‘Lips Together, Teeth Apart”—yet delivered with the clarion surety of this playwright’s singular voice. So funny, so not funny, so honest.

FAMILY BY NUMBERS is a cleverly-wrought spoken motet—a rhythmic and melodic fugue for solo and entwined voices that explores a remarkable array of life’s eternal issues in just a few short minutes: love (romantic, parental, familial), sibling rivalry, regret, grief, and memory. A lovely, poetic, and indelible piece.

I saw a version of this play performed via Zoom by New Circle Theatre Company and was both impressed and deeply moved. Orloff has done a masterful job synthesizing these real and raw recollections about a turbulent time into a documentary play with a compelling dramatic arc and a poignant, timeless message. The work beautifully captures the confusion, fraught emotions, and sense of both purpose and betrayal that a generation of young people faced.

The awkwardness of this encounter is so palpable on the page that I can only imagine how beautifully it could play out in the hands of two talented actors. Underneath the characters’ humorous, if squirm-worthy, discomfort, however, lurk very timely and serious issues about how our ability to communicate and interrelate with one another has not kept pace with society’s rapidly-changing norms. An highly entertaining and thought-provoking short play.

This poignant and uncompromising monologue deftly captures, with dead-on accuracy and perception, the sadness, frustration, helplessness, and sometimes guilt one feels when watching a parent descend into the abyss of dementia,

This is a clever Russian doll of a play where each thoughtful question about the definition and purpose of art exposes a further imponderable. Klass trades in the heightened, not to say pompous, language of art criticism and academia to witty effect, spoofing its pretentions and yet tapping its underlying principles. The theatre audience becomes part of the art itself—or does it? Each of us is left to decide for ourselves.

There are certain things we wish were no longer an issue in our society, but as Williams shows in this crackerjack little play, some people continue to hide behind the self-imposed mores they have created while fearing those who have embraced their own truth. The unexpected ending is brilliantly executed—one should have seen it coming, but doesn’t.

A hilarious short play that beautifully captures the deceptively narrow concerns of a group of older women on a senior bowling league. The last remaining doughnut becomes a metaphor for so much more—symbolizing nothing less than a deep yearning for more out of life. Great roles for an underserved group—older women.

Hoke uses the story behind the writing and publication of Shirley Jackson’s ever-relevant masterpiece, ‘The Lottery,’ as a springboard for exploring issues about the mysterious source of storytelling, mob mentality, and a larger, perhaps unanswerable, question about base human motives. Packing an impressive amount of subtext into a ten-minute play, she also adds brilliantly-imagined touches—reader complaint letters arriving at ‘The New Yorker’ wrapped around rocks is a pointed example. The final line of the play is both poignant and chilling.