Recommended by Steven G. Martin

Do everyday people care even a smidgen about moral complexities? Are we just self-centered, selfish automatons who can't imagine the impact of our actions on others? Has "NO WHAMMIES!" become the battle cry of chai-drinking, dead-eyed, pop-culture-suffocated suburbanites who are more receptive to conditioning than Pavlov's dogs?

Read Ruben Carbajal's terrific short play, produce it. It is funny as hell, ridiculous and slap-sticky, yes, but also sharp and pointed.

Pelham's terrific plot will make audiences reexamine their perspective about the actions and characters in this short play several times. Questions about identity and the given situation build and grow throughout, but Pelham's skill at building worlds and defining characters and stakes will keep an audience well-oriented as secrets are revealed. Beautifully written science fiction.

Applaud Hansen (rightfully so) for the structure, the dialogue, and the theatricality of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)", but it's the range of emotions that leave the lasting impact.

We watch David, the character, struggle to navigate and re-orient himself as he understands there are no rules -- range of emotions, people's responses, length of time -- to grieving. It's a humane play.

Delaney has found a perfect match between tone and subject: comedy and the search for employment. Orson and Louella demean themselves in some of the worst jobs ever and they note the dehumanizing rules of the employment game, but through Delaney's structure, plot, and dialogue, they find a sliver of a possibility of a chance for fulfillment.

Minami's short, dark comedy will jolt the audience as it moves from theatre games and promises of clarity and inner peace immediately into cult leadership, group-think, violence, and suppression.

Bohannon's skill at creating atmosphere and tone is on full display here. Starting with playful, friend-to-friend banter/teasing, Bohannon slowly shifts into suspense and terror through dialogue and reaction. That shift makes "Edmund Fitzwater Doesn't Have Answers for You" so many things: a horror story, a critique on technology's pervasiveness, and a dark comedy about friendship.

Sickles's one-act play "Badger and Frame" is about secrets, memories and stories not told. It's about loss and consideration for others who have lost more. It's a coming-of-age tale as well as a letting-go-of-the-past story. Ephraim's life-altering, unforgettable summer is juxtaposed well by Mary Kate's lifetime of sameness. Subtle, wonderful dialogue and actions reveal these -- and other -- characters.

With 72-year-old Ruth, Blatt has created a dominant character who knows exactly what she wants throughout this short play and will use every tactic at her disposal to get it. Whipped, manipulated Cort is constantly kept off-balance by Ruth, who deftly shifts from antagonist to predator to confessor to sage. Blatt keeps the audience off balance, too, in this terrific play.

"Or Or Or & & &" is a startling, awe-inspiring, deliriously imaginative, full-length play that blends biography, history, mythology, meta-theatre, realism, and a whole lot more to explore highly personal, ultimately intimate stories: the relationships between a man and his mother, his friends, and himself.

Isaac loves theatre and the process of creating theatre, and he celebrates theatre by writing this impossible play that shows the multitude of possibilities within theatre. "Or Or Or & & &" has quickly become a personal favorite.

Minigan tells a story that showcases what theatre does best. The dialogue and setting are spare, but the audience infers the patterns and ironies of the family's journey. It's also wildly theatrical, and Minigan uses its theatricality as a storytelling device -- something as simple as an actor walking to a clothing rack has emotional impact. Supremely well written.