Recommended by Steven G. Martin

Wanamaker's "352" may literally be a fever dream, as Aurora is ill but denial leads her to do nothing about it. So, impossible things happen: horrific, illogical, beautiful, and deadly. Even with the love, affection, and concern of Perrault, the best cat companion ever, I worry for Aurora. "352" is unsettling.

Omorotionmwan's unsettling drama is impossible to forget, makes it impossible for audiences not to feel sympathy for all the characters as an education system breaks down individuals into automatons. It also is a very personal tale of a girl who faces bias in the form of an older person attempting to provide a life lesson.

Produce "Color ED."

"Smile, Baby" is a first-rate ricochet of a play: spare, direct, on target. Pay attention from the start because Haas doesn't mess around.

"Monsters Beyond the Midnight Zone" is a perfectly crafted 10-minute adventure script for the stage.

Partain doesn't give the audience or characters time to breathe or orient themselves, starting exactly at the moment of life-or-death conflict, and she never lets up on the tension or pace. If that weren't enough, she creates huge complications as the characters try to survive their predicament in one of the world's most extreme locations.

Actors, directors, designers and audience members will love productions of this play.

Goldman-Sherman's monologue will wrench an audience's collective heart.

Action, visuals, and dialogue -- both poetic and pointed -- show a woman whose feelings of self-worth are growing ... before she is forced to retreat, to diminish herself, as the deadening reality of her circumstances reasserts itself on her psyche.

To wish to be seen as an individual with her own strengths and qualities rather than a symbol of all womanhood, but then not to be able to believe it herself? Absolutely heart wrenching.

Will the United States fall, and much sooner than anyone might imagine? Or can more and more citizens understand the importance and power of participating in civic and political discourse and action?

Koppen begins "Unfocused" with ridiculous characters being selfish, boorish, and easily manipulated. But through changes of fortune and power relationships, she concludes with sobering insight.

"Unfocused" is funny, inspirational, and damning all at once. May it be read and produced throughout the U.S., throughout all election cycles.

"Advice for Women" is brilliant satire that will make audiences laugh and think, question and guffaw.

Rubinstein excels at dialogue, characterization, theatricality, action, structure, and visuals (yes, the slideshow she outlines is laugh out loud funny!). She also is a skilled critic who takes aim at multiple targets and hits the bull's-eye: lack of respect for women and everyday challenges they face, pandering attitudes of the out-of-touch-with-reality People in Power, and our culture of violence.

Read this play, yes. Better yet, produce it.

This is a generous, humane, multi-generation play. It's well-crafted with elegant passages of time, specificity of character, trust in an audience's intelligence to make inferences, and its structure -- those days at a time that link together and create new understanding and connections for Vic and Mr. Van.

It is obvious McBurnette-Andronicos loved every minute of creating "Sock Puppet Fetish Noir." There is a wealth of richly absurd moments in her dialogue, actions, and stage directions that are made even funnier by having a sock puppet as one of the leads.

This short play bursts at the seams with ideas, themes, and conflicts.

It's about responsibility.
It's about innocence and anger.
It's the first loss of trust.
It's about complacency and future generations railing against that complacency.

"Reading Babar in 2070" shows a future that we seem hurtling toward without much concern.