Recommended by Charles Scott Jones

Subtle, amusing (Taro and Turtle), anxious (Taro's promise to his mother), forlorn, thought-provoking, gorgeous in its simplicity. Our hero Taro seems victimized by the competing loyalties asked of him. One wonders what would have happened had he not opened the tamatebako. This adaptation of a Japanese folktale, URASHIMA TARO, rings true for me and I love Morey Norkin's light touch.

WELCOME TO YOUR HOUSE OF HORRORS is what fictional, hyperbolic horrors distract us from. Real brutal insidious painful life-destroying horror that is life. As Josh runs through a litany of abuser slogans, the grim false logic of the violent threats made me shudder. It's a nice choice that he seems like an actor reciting lines in an immersive horror show, but he's an actual abuser reprising his role. This is an important and timely play. I love the premise: "One way to confront a scary place is to take a tour of it." Truly, a frightening place.

This is hilarious. I laughed out loud. Don't want to give away any of the gags, but they're a hoot (maybe even more-so if you've like the lawyer ads in Better Call Saul). FEELING DEVILISH rocks, or should I say: hot rocks.

12, ANGRY, MEAN is a demonstration into where your assumptions can lead you. Paul Smith builds this clever play's subject in our conjecturing minds only to dash the delusion. Wonderful fun!

Incredibly disturbing. A psychic field of abuse and murder comes across and lives vividly in the imagination. Though WATER DAMAGE reminds us that in Greek Tragedies the violence takes place offstage, this is different. That shadowy unknown characters re-enact a heinous action again and again in the same unseen space chills your spine. What horrors from the past coincide with our everyday spaces? Prillaman gives a master class in creating a white-knuckle atmosphere through sounds. The middle of this play is harrowing in a way I've never felt before. The stage directions are brilliant. More, more, more.

A joyous and wild (Dionysian?) ride that I won't try to summarize - better to let this feral, fun, foreboding play dance in your head heedlessly. DeFrates again puts on full display her potent and playful sense of the theatrical. I love how the four wonderfully-named characters come to fit together to make THE DAY our day. All right, I can't help it. I love the forks in the road.

A new favorite park bench play. Lives up to its title, SILENT VOWS. Humans whether on the stage or in life are so much fun to observe when they’re not speaking. As gorgeously shown by Chris Plumridge. Inspiring, makes one want to speak much much less all the time.

Autumn is no spring chicken, but she’s not old - for crying out loud. A delightful monologue!! Plumridge has captured the voice of this amusing, irascible, inveterate lady of sixty-seven. And she’s exactly right. She did not have a fall! Would love to take a spin with Autumn in her BMW on the motorway. Love the indignation and visualize this speech getting a standing ovation anywhere it plays.

A phobia I didn’t know about. This monologue about emetophobia puts you right there, in the sufferer’s shoes, in a fearful place I couldn’t have imagined before reading it. I admire and marvel that in MONSTER IN THE HOUSE the threat comes from both inside and outside, and that’s a scary thing. This is a very poignant piece that builds as it goes.

On the page LAST CALL is a mixologist’s insightful demonstration, a show of bar patron types, their alcohol emotions, and fraught circumstances. Just add actors and this game of musical chairs would excite laughter through the variations of misery. Here Jillian Blevins’ virtuoso dramatist skills - and bar psychology - are on full display. I love the theatre’s capacity for experimentation within types and this short play would be a joy for actors, directors, and audience alike. For someone who’s been on both sides of the bar too many times, this would be a thrill to see.