Recommended by Robert Weibezahl

This is an extraordinarily powerful monologue—immediate and visceral. Rose digs deeply into the stark truths of pain and grief—both that which can be relieved and that which will never completely go away. With a daring and expert use of the second person, Rose gives Thea a voice that speaks directly to the audience while addressing herself. I cannot not imagine there is an actor out there who would NOT want to perform this piece. Heartbreaking and haunting.

This is a stunning work (in both senses of the word). Rose mixes dystopian tropes and historical realities from past fascist eras with Brechtian assuredness. A grave warning in our disturbing times that will leave audiences troubled, thinking, and galvanized. Produce this play!

GOING HOME is an at-once tender and fierce short two-hander. As a married couple faces a debilitating stroke and the life changes it promises to bring to their loving relationship, they bravely venture beyond sentimentality to a place of honesty about expectations, anger, and loss. Arianna Rose crafts a beautiful story that is both particular and universal, transcending clichés. Audiences will both laugh and choke up, and actors will love investing their souls into this nuanced, heartrending script.

Ever a master at the uses of bull’s-eye nostalgia, Williams here paints an evocative memory monologue that will speak to many. While conjuring a very particular cultural time and place, Mike’s memory achieves wide resonance with its frank depiction of puberty and sexuality, and widens further still when he comes to realize the conflict between the ways society portrays heroes and the essential truth of what a hero really is. While Mike is designated as mid-thirties, actors in a range of ages could—and should—undertake this poignant and witty monologue.

With raw honesty – and a bit of heartfelt music – Saari deftly explores the opioid crisis in rural America through the timely story of one extended family turned upside down. Secrets and lies, resentments, poor choices, self-deception – all plays out with a comfortable familiarity that makes the harsh reality all the more painful to acknowledge. The emotions are very real, as is the surprising amount of humor, which, as in life, becomes a mechanism for survival.

As a woman faces the end of life, she must learn to let go of her lifelong need for control. Cole has fashioned a beautiful short play about art and serenity -- a thought-provoking story driven by gentle metaphors, and imbued with grace.

In our age of relentless self-exposure on social media, one wrong turn can make you a viral pariah overnight. Donnelly explores this idea with lighthearted cleverness in this funny short play, as an earnest young man seemingly blows his chances with the woman of his dreams. But can viral infamy ultimately work in his favor? SEVENTH INNING STRETCH could prove a favorite at 10-minute comedy festivals.

A witty ten-minute “sex farce” about wedding jitters that grapples with timeless questions of sexual identity, anxiety, and values. The dialogue is sharp and the set-up laden with energetic staging possibilities.

Pigs. Friendship. The Circle of Life. Epistemology. Ethical Treatment of Livestock. Color. Did I mention Pigs? Sklenar packs this simultaneously charming and thought-provoking play with so much to think about—both the weighty and the whimsical. You’ll never look at a plate of bacon in quite the same way. Brought to life in a reading at the 2022 Inge Festival, the play was a crowd favorite, and for good reason. Highly recommended.

Arianna Rose is a playwright who routinely – and expertly – exploits the rhythms and music of language to explore the complications of the human heart. In TOUCH THE MOON, which I saw in a reading at the 2022 Inge Festival, Rose is inspired by a real-life mystery about the unsolved disappearance of a young woman and she finds poetry even in the darkest of human truths. This is a beautifully theatrical and haunting play.