Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

For those of us of a certain age who recall the J.M. Barrie stories of Peter Pan via Disney and Mary Martin on grainy black-and-white TV, this 21st century take on the characters and plots is a marked and surprisingly adept escalation of the imagination of little lost boys and their dreams of high-sea adventures. The conflicts of Peter and Captain Hook go beyond Neverland and into a far scarier and deadly realm: real life and the dreadful truth that we spend our adulthood trying repair the damage of growing up. Even so, it is uplifting and hopeful.

What do writers write about when they write about writers writing? They seek the truth behind the characters they think they've created, but in truth they are at the mercy of those characters and their own truths. In this creative and honest examination by Sam Heyman, the drive to be true to what they want to say is at the mercy of what the readers want to read, and that's where the conflict truly arises. This is an imaginative and intriguing tale that leaves you wondering where the real world ends and fiction begins. Bravo, Sam.

Turning the money-churning wedding/baby/whatever shower business on its head, Lavinia Roberts does a great job of twisting the knife into the wounds of separation and heartache to a hilarious parody of the business of exploiting happiness in a tour-de-force of bubbly cynicism and pent-up anger. At the Midwest Dramatists Conference 2023, the actor playing Andrea pulled out all the stops, and the result left us laughing and wiping away tears.

There's a truism that says the prison with the strongest bars is our own mind. In this piece by Greg Lam, a prisoner is offered the choice to serve his sentence in real or virtual time. The catch is that the sentence is just as long either way... but is it? This is the kind of dilemma that makes for a great play because it forces us, the audience, to think as hard as the characters about the choice. The willing suspension of disbelief isn't just coming from the characters: we're as much involved as they are.

Bringing life to a real person from history can be both dangerous and enlightening: where does the playwright draw the line between history and creativity? In this short play by Debra Cole, the balance is not just maintained but enhanced by showing Ella Harper to be more than a sideshow. She is interviewed by a cagey reporter who seeks to exploit her celebrity and expose her as a fraud, only to find that that not only is she the person she claims to be, she makes sure the world knows that she knows exactly what she wants.

It's always easy to spot the influence of other writers in some plays, and sometimes that spoils the fun, as if you know what's coming and you're waiting to see how it gets there. Not so in his inventive and twisted -- in a good way -- tale of the travels of Winston on the subway. If the name of the train is a giveaway, just wait to see where it takes you. Bill Triplett's skill at leading us one way and landing us somewhere else is on full display, and the ride is so very much worth it.

At first I chuckled as I put together who we were meeting yet again all these years later. But then as the reality of the contrast between an iconic 1950's sitcom and the all-too-real echos of the war that divided America in the 1960's, William J. Goodwin's crafting of the aftermath brought me back to reality. It may be jarring to put the antics of little boys and their suburban paradise in contrast to the trauma and loss as represented by the Vietnam War Memorial's names, but it's something we need to see and remember.

The way country music singers tell it, their lives are all heartache with nothing but drugs to ease the pain and help them get over bad marriages and lost loves. John Adams cranks this set-up to eleven and then hits the warp drive to bring in elements that take us way beyond the honky-tonks... like to the outer reaches of the solar system and gas giants. It's clever, fast-paced, shocking, hilarious, cringey, and above all, a tale that Johnny Cash or Hank Williams never sang about. Or could hope to.

Greg Romero brings his magic and humane touch to all his works, and this piece does not disappoint. In fact, it lifts us up to a moment where the fantasy becomes real for Beverly and us as we are transported with her. And it wouldn't be a Greg Romero play without a visit from a gray wolf or some connection with the world beyond our grasp.

If the rest of this play is as compelling and human as the first scene that Dan Born shared with us at the Midwest Dramatists Conference, it is truly going to be a work worthy of seeing and sharing. The connection between the living and the dead in this scene is not a ghost story; it is anything but. I was reminded of how we the living hold on to the memories and feelings of the dead as a celebration of love and affection. That our lives have been improved by what came after in the lab is a bonus.