Recommended by Mark Harvey Levine

I love plays with smart characters, and this little gem is packed with them. Marj O'Neill-Butler takes the simple story of an adult daughter trying to get her elderly mother a caregiver and turns it on its head. The mother is no fool -- she's sharp as a tack, and almost convinces us she needs no help at all. But the character of the caregiver Michael is a joy to watch. He parries expertly with the Mom, until she realizes that she enjoys the sparring. And so do the lucky ones who watch this play.

A tender play about two lonely people finding each other. This is a play about two people falling in love -- but not romantic love. Just two human beings recognizing something in the other. I liked how the young man is revealed to be neurodiverse without calling attention to it. The ending is proper -- tantalizing, yet that's how it should end. A gentle, sweet, touching play.

What an incredible play. Boils down the family dynamic to stark numbers, but then brings in heart-breaking detail. It's lyrical, funny and tragic. Relatable to everyone. Universal in scope but specific in story. Completely deserving of all the awards it has won.

This is not just a well-written drama about the survivors after war and their complicated feelings as the ones left behind -- although it is that. Once you get the references, it becomes a play about what happened to the innocent people we knew from our childhoods, and about the innocence we had in the late 1950's and early 60's. Nicely done.

Creepy and chilling. There are references to Kafka sprinkled throughout this play -- some obvious, some so subtle I didn't get them until after the play was over. But all of it added to a nightmare experience for Winston, and a good, but scary, experience for the viewer. I loved all the crossword stuff!

My Lord. What started out sounding like an overly cliched potboiler of a play takes one of the sharpest left turns I've ever seen on stage. Suddenly everything you were thinking is turned on your head and you realize you're in the hands of John Adams truly strange mind. Shock turns to awe and then you find yourself laughing at the most horrible things but you can't stop. Read it -- read it ALL the way though!

I was delighted when I saw the reading of this at the 2023 Midwest Dramatists Conference. Having Mother Goose as a marriage therapist is brilliant touch. I loved that she is called "Dr. Goose". I really love how it uses the fairy tale trope to talk about modern problems, and to highlight how ridiculous some of our stories are. Very funny.

A great yarn -- that also happens to be a true story. Everett Robert tells the life of an unlikely civil rights hero in this fun (and funny) play. "Sputnik" Monroe is not the sort of person you'd think of to take a stand against segregation, which makes it so fascinating when he does. I got to see this at the 2023 Midwest Dramatists Conference and enjoyed every minute of it.

A very sweet play wrapped up in a very funny package. I got to see a reading of this at the 2023 Midwest Dramatists Conference. An officious librarian, a snarky teen and a ticking clock provide the comedy, but underneath all this is a very human story of unrequited love, regret and yearning. Nicely done.

A play with a neatly folding structure and a really cool Sci-Fi premise. It feels like an episode of Black Mirror (and I love that show). Greg Lam skillfully mixes the scary futuristic premise with some very human, emotional scenes. The kind of play I wish I had written!