Recommended by Dave Osmundsen

I was fortunate enough to see this play at IRT. A warm-hearted, slyly funny, and deeply human story, this slice-of-life takes us into the lives of a group of employees at a scrappy amusement park and explores not only their dreams and desires, but why they choose to stay in a less-than-ideal working environment. Many scenes took me back to grunt jobs I used to work, specifically the scheduling conflicts. The final scenes are a devastating exercise in dramatic irony, especially because you’ve come to care about these characters so much. Wonderful play!

In "Young Men & Recovery," Scanlan eschews many of the inspirational tropes of high school football narratives (such as "Varsity Blues" and "Friday Night Lights") and explores the harm that toxic masculinity in athletics can have on the players. Most of the play is a slice-of-life depiction of a weigh-in and football practice, but towards the end, the play takes a devastating turn that forces the audience to reconsider everything they saw up until that point. Your heart can't help but break for these young men whose lives are irrevocably changed by the sport.

An absurdist look into a couple travelling to take the next step in their relationship, Goldman-Sherman expertly captures the isolation one often feels with the person they're supposedly the most intimate with. The supporting characters are delightfully eccentric and poignant in their own ways, underpinning the existential longing and anxieties that the central couple faces--they've lost each other, but can they really live with each other? Clever, poignant, and hilarious, I can't wait to see this piece staged!

It’s one thing to fight the dragon and think you’ve defeated it. It’s another to deal with the emotional aftermath of the dragon not being completely vanquished. Here, Sickles gives us two characters who are flawed, hilarious, and compassionate. They drive each other up the wall at times, but are ultimately there for each other in the best possible way. This will also be a blast for sound and set designers—I found it exciting to imagine to blood-soaked stage and the sounds of Astaroth! Hilarious and moving work.

Malakhow gives us an intimate and dynamic relationship between two young men who uncover and realize the trauma they have suffered at the hands of the same person in acutely different ways. It is not always a pretty picture--Malakhow often goes for the messy and the complicated, particularly in the second half of the play. But the depth of emotion here is outstanding, and you feel as if you have become friends with Peter and Marcus by the end of it. A lovely, heart-wrenching, and quietly moving play.

A lovely, lovely play about how we deal with heartbreak long after the damage has been done. Sickles beautifully captures the tension, the yearning, and the agony that quietly simmers when an important figure from your past returns to ask what feels like the impossible. Carefully calibrated dialogue and subtle humor. Gorgeous!

How much violence and trauma can a friendship survives? In this brief play, Sickles gives us two men forever linked by a horrifying event that changed their lives forever. Sickles masterfully parses out information in a way that lets the audience put the puzzle pieces together. He is also wonderfully sympathetic in his characterizations--he neither demonizes nor heroizes either of the two characters. Difficult to watch, but hopeful in its bittersweet, yet believable conclusion.

I saw a reading of this play via the Notre Dame College Performing Arts New Works Festival.

A very charming, hilarious, and boundlessly creative mashup of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. This play teaches young audiences about critical thinking and the importance of making the most of the time we have. Simple to stage, this play is perfect for TYA touring companies!

Bonkers, off-the-rails, wild, wacky, trippy... These are only a few adjectives I would use to describe this play. St. James proves a master of spontaneous, unhinged playwriting that somehow manages to make sense in the world they create--consistency through inconsistency, if you will. In any case, this is an absolute blast to read (and makes me want to watch "The Wizard of Oz" while stoned).

A gentle slice-of-life piece filled with optimism, hope, and longing. Optimism and hope for a new administration, yes. But longing for the people the pandemic has separated us from. A lovely and intimate play (even as it crosses state lines).