Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

The joke is that goldfish have no short-term memory, but Jennifer O'Grady's exploration of the life of this particular goldfish is illuminating. It makes you wonder how we humans can feel so smug about being able to remember when it seems that forgetting is part of coping. A short piece that will stay with you.

I saw a reading of a portion of this at the William Inge Festival in 2019 and has been in my mind ever since. Octavio Solis takes up the tale of the Joads and brings it to the present with all of the power and scope of Steinbeck's story. Intimate yet epic, the return journey to Oklahoma brings back the memories of the first journey: windswept, desolate, yet looking for hope and peace. It is a portrait of how we have changed in so many ways, but still cling to threads and rough pavement that brought us here.

Grief and kept secrets don't go well together, but in this case they make for a tense confrontation and unexpected outcome. Sabrina Rose Bivens has done a fine job of crafting the right amount of tension balanced with intrigue, and it will provide the actors plenty of room to explore their characters.

This charmingly disarming moment between two techies getting ready to run their high school production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" reminded me of the times when I first got into theatre in school: learning about how things work backstage as well as learning how things work between two friends. Mia and Danny, like the lovers in the play they're working on, are finding their way through the mysteries and awakenings of youthful love with awkward shyness and blushing smiles. Ready, go, lights up.

As with many of his plays, Steven G. Martin knows so well how to make a moment so powerful that you feel how the characters got to where they are at the moment and what happens after. This one-minute play gets you, grips you, holds you, and pushes you out in the time it takes to read this, and you have to remember to breathe again.

Rarely do I find a play where the adage "read between the lines" is more apt. On the surface this short play by Debbie Lamedman seems to be just a moment in the life of a married couple getting ready to go away for a weekend: the banal chatter from her, the non-responsive shrugs and disassociation from him. But beneath that veneer there seethes thoughts, feelings, and an intensity that will make great demands of the actors. It is a powerful testimony to the idea silence can be brutal.

We all deal with grief in our own way. Hollis is dealing with it in her own way. But the connection she makes with us and her loved one is beautifully universal, and even if we cannot make our own leap of faith, it is by seeing it in others that we find a way. Steven G. Martin's gift is that it is unadorned with sentiment; almost the opposite. And yet if it does not move you or make you think and reflect, then nothing really will.

The limitations of Zoom can also be liberating to the imagination. When these two artists meet up, it's as if they are together in the air, their thoughts at once distracting and yet coming together, and we understand how their partnership and even love can grow and change even if the only connection they have is the dance of electrons.

Picture "Mission:Impossible" taking place in the hallowed halls of Downton Abbey or the British Museum, cast it with the likes of Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman as jewel thieves, and you have a hilarious set-up as they try to outdo each other in one-upping until... Well, you have to read it yourself. Hayley St. James's comic touch is on full display, as is the challenge to designers, but it would be well worth the effort to explore the fun and passion of these rivals.

It isn't history when you hear it from the people who were there, and Sylvia Rivera was there when Stonewall happened. In this enlightening, humorous, passionate, and unflinching monologue, Diana Burbano gives voice to the real story that we haven't heard and makes it a living part of the movement, filling in the space and making it whole.