Recommended by Charles Scott Jones

Oodles to praise here, especially the very smart Point of Entry that allows so much of this play to come alive in the imagination. THE SLAP OF 1973 is important for many reasons. The three women are very likeable as individuals and are each representatives of shifting mindsets. I love how respectfully they disagree with one another and that they each seem willing to be affected by the others. The use of language is regionally spot-on and provocative. For its insights into society, then and now, this play has had me thinking for hours. Love the setting. Please read!!

BETWEEN THE STACKS is that rare play that from its opening would have its entire audience leaning in, hanging on every word. Sasha Karuc has composed such a quiet, intimate, subtle play every exchange between Sage and Riley seems ordinary and natural and as if their lives depend upon it. I love how it all happens while trespassing after hours in a book store, within an atmosphere of stolen time - surrounded by the past (dusty books) and the present (plants) - and the feeling that I know these two young lovers and yet there's so much more to learn.

With her short and powerful piece BARTLEBY & BESS, Elisabeth Giffin Speckman does a fine job showing a terror of ordinary living - meeting up with a special someone you haven't seen in over a year, wondering how things stand between you. Bartleby's obsessive attention to detail brings out the palpable tension and this contrasts wonderfully with Bess's relaxed, breezy manner. So much is implied and not directly answered, this piece leaves you dumbstruck with the possibilities. I'm still thinking about the crossword puzzle on the plane the person ahead of Bartleby did wrongly and with a pen!!

In her 20-minute horror play THEY WALK AMONGST US, Rachel Feeny-Williams manages a tone that is somehow campy, restrained, and frightful. It nicely hearkens back to classic horror films - or the long creepy stories of Arthur Machen. Favorite moments are when Laura says, "I've got snakes on the brain," (What an image!) and then later when Professor Kelham lowers his hood. I like it a lot that we never actually see the lab - which would be the go-to place if this were a film - that so much of the fright is constructed in our imagination. Big fun!

If you've encountered draft confusion at a play reading, raise your hand - either hand. You'll be hard pressed to find a more "disarming" sense of humor than John Busser's in A FIRST-DRAFT SECOND-RATE LOVE STORY. I love Stuart's explanations to the actors and his insistence on forging ahead with the multiple drafts. As funny as this comes off on the page, I would think it's even funnier on stage - with the attitudes of the performers on full display. I'm still trying to decide which draft works best - maybe the third? What a blast this play is!

As riotously funny as BIG DATE is - and the giant plus-size jokes keep coming - as with most great comedy, there's a serious underpinning that gives the humor resonance; the same psychological basis as those 50-foot human movies. We've all felt too big at some time, uncomfortable and out of place. Maybe the day we're taller than our parents. And romantic love does make lovers feel larger than life. All others shrink before the big emotions of love and the blissful couple towers above their city. John Busser's play deserves a much bigger rec, but there isn't the space!

Part of the charm of Katherine Vondy's THE DRUMS is how meticulously crafted it is. The play always knows exactly where it's going - as it keeps you the reader a step behind - a cool place to be because you don't feel lost but you're never quite there - so it's, like, whoa, let me go read this again. The back and forth between Sharky and Dome is big fun and their app concepts are very clever. And I love it that the roles can be played by anybody, the faces of good and evil open to all!!

Marriage is timing - trying to align the intricacies of one's circadian rituals with someone else's. CHAPTER ENVY is a wily comedy about a couple who operate at different speeds trying to read the same book. It's truly admirable how minutely Toby Malone has thought out all of the bedtime movements of Jessie and Mark and their tussle over the same potboiler (sci-fi fantasy? - the leaked character names are superb). I'm reminded in the best way of the physical humor of Chaplin or Keaton, the attention given to a key prop in silent films. And the dialogue fits perfectly.

It's a watershed when you lose your second parent as two brothers have in "this proves it." I love the title and the childless younger brother Chris behaving more child-like than so-called favorite son Ken. There's the sense that Lee R Lawing thoroughly knows his subject - as Ken realizes what Chris seems to know at the play's opening, that by arguing about their mother's love, by still competing for her love, they keep her alive with the fervor of their caring. It's a very nice effect that you can picture this brother act going on long after the play.

Attics as repositories of the past are ideal settings for drama and who doesn't love a good mirror tale?
THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR highlights the lives of two teenagers, Sarah and Hannah, and contrasts the harsh work-life of an Edwardian parlor maid with the school-life of a modern, spoilt adolescent. Rachel Feeny-William centers young women in this slow-burning horror shocker. It would be great fun for young and old, as we're all acquainted with ingratitude where it rears up most hideously, in our own reflections. What this play does best is hold up a mirror to modern society.