Recommended by Charles Scott Jones

This remarkable play explores gender roommate imbalance through a urine crisis. The liquidy crux of HE MISSES is more thought about than talked about - but once brought out into the open - the debate is provocative and messier or more complicated than one might think. Is it a psychological pissing on one's turf that Patrick Vermillon is exploring? Decide for yourself how far to take it. An astute mixture of realism sans bathroom carpets and absurdism, this fine work - it's easy to visualize - would spark various animated audience talkbacks wherever it plays.

During the first 20 pages I took laugh-breaks to indulge in the madness and during the last 20 I took thought-breaks. Intuitively falling into the basket-by-basket rhythm of this demented work of virtuosity. The can’t-leave component of this fine piece of insanity has pleasant associations with Bunuel’s “The Exterminating Angel” - however, with THE BREAD PLAY, Daniel Prillaman has sharpened the focus and deepened this no-exiting Hades eatery with the illuminating reciprocity of Val and Arlo. Who are so good you're willing to follow them into the Dough of Eternity because the breaking of bread will never end, amen.

WHAT YOU WISH FOR by David Hilder is a saucy modern take on the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, a story with origins that may go back 4000 years, with a version in many cultures. The Hilder version is for adults, fast- paced, cynical, hyperbolic, and replete with the hierarchal sexism of the corporate workplace. Instead of spinning straw into gold for Miller’s daughter, the goblin with the secret name fondles her as she types magic into her desktop PC, making millions in the process. A disturbing and darkly funny mixture of the old and the new. Hilder is a force.

It's hard to fully embrace derivative plays and to write a fresh take on Cinderella, a tall order. Well met, by Molly Wagner. Yes, the Godmother’s argument makes sense in the ideal world, but - wow - giving in to the kind of linear logic she presents, that life is a series of moments, each equal to the one before - not for Cinderella. Or me. I love Cindy’s monologue on page 6, the Godmother’s bossy vocalization “Up-bup-bup!” and the marvelous conclusion. Memories are sustainable, as the memory of IF THE SHOE FITS will attest.

Okay, I promise not to tell anyone at the Broadway Theater this is going on. NIGHT LIGHT is the second play I’ve met that involved a ghost light and this is by far the better. It has the charm and magic that we can only imagine goes on behind the curtains in these old theaters. Thanks to Donald Loftus for bringing this passing of the torch (or ghost light) to life.

An outstanding one-minute play takes far longer than the time to read the words on the page. Aly Kantor’s AN ENDANGERED SPECIES captivates from the opening line. Who or what is “really and truly” the endangered one?

Gets us to that overwhelmed feeling most of us have had. So much of NEW GIRL IN TOWN would be in the casting. To see four or five different takes from different new girls would be a riot.

Supreme sustained sorrow. MISFORTUNE is as enchanting a work as you’ll come across. It is so good from the opening direction I feared a word or movement that would break the spell, but David Hilder’s play gets better and better. So much to praise, just about every lovely utterance from Margaret and Stephen - or the perfectly-timed use of reality-defining objects. The minimalist use of elements: the candle flame, the small glass of water sliding on a tray, the dirt, the charcoal sketch, the timely use of the word “Before”. Read this and forever be changed.

TIMELINE OF GUILT by Joe Swenson has an incredible eeriness about it, two timelines intersecting that would be arresting to see staged. Like fish through water, we humans swim through time - but are we creatures of fate or of free will? A new take on this classical philosophical conundrum from a playwright who has the knack for keeping you in the moment - even when there are simultaneous moments.

A fascinating history-inspired piece from Lee R. Lawing. ALICE ROOSEVELT AND THE VOODOO DOLL is based on an odd legacy. Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter Alice buried or “planted” a voodoo doll in the garden of the White House before her father left for civilian life in 1910. Seemingly meant to be a child’s curse on the incoming occupant William Taft, for not being her father, (who had picked Taft to succeed him). 80 years later there’s a reckoning with the doll for elderly Alice who resents her notoriety as Alice Blue Dress. Great role for an elderly actor.