Recommended by Scott Sickles

This play simultaneously demonstrates why I eschew the idea of Zoom dating yet totally salute those who take the online plunge and go for it!

St. James captures the frenzy, anxiety and preparation that goes into dating when quarantine has you lonely and touch deprived, craving sex yet yearning for connection, and knowing that, even though pants are optional, the only person getting past first base with you tonight IS YOU!

The monologue is peppered with salient details reminding us how the world has changed over the past year making Lauren’s trepidation and determination all the more heroic.

Perfect. Just perfect.

Weibezahl creates a pitch-perfect (there's that word again) lightness of tone to balance the twists and turns of this journey. There are some lovely surprises that play your heartstrings without tugging on them.

The roles are gifts for female actors and the story provides a great challenge and opportunity for costume designers.

Elegant, celebratory, with a subtle veil and a bright sheen... just like the perfect wedding dress.

Everyone should write a baseball play. Prillaman has chosen to write this one as a metaphor for 2020, Our Pandemic Year, and in so doing perfectly captures the frustration, the pressure, and the abject absurdity of it all... including the degree to which people are doing their best to succeed while having their most important moments scrutinized and commented on by offstage voices. It's a delight to read both as a heightened sports play and as Ionesco at the ballpark. You'll want a hotdog and a beer to go with your angst!

A magnificent pantomime with endless staging possibilities in its sixty-second frame. Prillaman captures the turning point between all hope being lost then regained. A profoundly moving read that I can't wait to see on stage.

Sometimes you really can depend upon the kindness of strangers!

Prillaman imagines panda-penguin first contact and it is a delight! A reluctantly intrepid adventurer happens upon a delegate from an unfamiliar civilization, and wildly different personalities collide in the friendliest of ways as they attempt to solve an age old narrative conundrum: how to get home.

The play also perfectly portrays the dynamic between introverts and extroverts in awkward social situations!

Actors will have a great time with these characters, as will costume designers and makeup artists. And the audience will just keep smiling!

EVERYTHING is a rather big thing to remember.

The idea of a photographic memory is cool! But Sexton shows us the downside of remembering everything... and then remembering remembering everything... our experiences, or imaginings, our memories... reliving them when not making more memories to revive.

It begins with a lovely romance that turns dark, raises questions, and incurs suspicion. What does she see in a recluse? Can he trust her when her version of events don't match his perfect memory? How reliable is either narrator?

A slow steady burn, relentlessly compelling with fascinating characters.

To me, this play is equal parts rage and inspiration. To rob someone of the instrument of their artistic expression is unforgivable. Too often violations of property go unsolved and unpunished, as they do here. But this sixty seconds isn’t about justice; it’s about persevering in the face of injustice. In that regard, it soars even higher than its villains descend. INDOMITABLE is how this play and its hero make you feel.

I have a little series of plays about “Tropes I Hate” and I really wish I had written this for it. But no! Daniel Prillaman wrote it instead with his signature Prillamanian (Prillamaniacal?) flair!

The terrible trope in question is, “did I say that out loud?” Sure we’ve all done it and it was funny the first billion times. Prillaman has miraculously made it funny again! Definitively so. And I hate him for it so I’m gonna steal this, put my name on it and tell everyone he stole it from me...

Did I say that out loud?!?

Sometimes leading by example or “not asking of others acting I would not do myself” is not the best idea. And while there is something to be said for childhood zeal...

Cross has created a girl who, as she grows up, will never need caffeine or extra encouragement. Carly is an impassioned activist who, to her credit, has enough awareness to know when things may have gotten out of hand.

Let her be an example to us all of both what not to do AND what to do when we’ve done that.

A hero is born!

Meteor showers often inspire the best in playwrights and this is no exception!

When listening to a reading of this delightful one-minute play, I thought, “I am both of these people!” There’s a passionate, goofy whimsy to one and adamance toward rules and propriety in the other, and depending on the day or even the moment...

Cross turns up these qualities in her characters to 11 and the result is a lively cautionary tale about taking ourselves and each other too seriously when there is beauty we should celebrate in the moments we can.