Recommended by Scott Sickles

COMING *IN*!!! I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, PLUMRIDGE!!! A delightful spin on the coming out to/meeting the parents story, with wonderfully British details. It's especially impactful in the necessary and organic way it addresses bisexuality, a state of being that continues to baffle people - including the family patriarch who is doing his best but could honestly do better. Wonderfully playable characters and so SO much food. When it's over, you'll be entertained, enlightened and desperately hungry.

There needs to be a study of John Patrick Bray's character names... IN VIENNA!!!
In the meantime, enjoy the rooftop adventure of Amanda Leads and Buster Joint (see?) as the unveiling of a present goes really wrong and really right, consecutively and all at once, in ways that are beautiful and terrifying. One thing I love is the characters' nostalgia disparity: there's nothing more awkward when an excessively thoughtful gift is greeted with bewilderment. Fortunately, wonders await - and abound!

LDF may have created a new genre: jacuzzi noir! A hapless man encounters an uber-chatty femme fatale but neither is conventional, mostly because they're both SO conventional – regular people who knew each other a long time ago, one leaving a much bigger impression. Some people hold a grudge forever, others put it down and dust it off when the opportunity joins them a hot tub decades later. With sudden changes in temperature, this story's jets hit all the right places no matter where you soak!

What is this miracle? A play for six septuagenarians where they all kiss each other; reminisce about first kisses, early love, and the ever-changing world; and even acknowledge sex, desire, and longing??? UNHEARD OF! Yet, thanks to Matthew Weaver, here it is!!! This will be a joy to rehearse, perform and see. *Though imagine getting your first case of mono in your 70s! Protocols, people!) Populated with great characters rich with history, this gem shines!

There are so many classic tropes and themes baked in but as ever Baughtman composites them seamlessly into something all its own. He immediately turns the wolf man story on its head by eliminating men altogether. We have two women, two sets of animal DNA (wolf and...), and two martian moons that don't bode well if lycanthropy turns out to be a thing. And those are just the givens!!! The story unfolds with the slow burn of a moonrise with a countdown ticking down fate. Fun, riveting and squirmy!

MEMORY, SPEAK takes empathy and memory to new extremes introducing technology that allows one person to remember another's experience so vividly, their past threatens to become yours. The subject/skeptic sharing his memory... is not a good guy. There's a double edge to his memories: if the experiment fails, he doesn't get caught; if it succeeds, he gets to hurt someone else. Win-win. Conlon exposes the dangers in radial empathy and the arrogance of predators in this profound gut-wrenching piece.

In times of crisis, details matter for within the minutia, there are unexpected casualties. After a deadly mass shooting in a school library, an unfathomable but necessary question is asked: what happens to the books? It's a knockout question, one I'm embarrassed to have never considered. Cathro also examines the generational dichotomy of people who grew up with active shooter drills and active shooters on the daily and those who (might) remember life before metal detectors in schools. Searing!

GOTTDAMN, MAX GILL!!!

What starts as a Kafkaesque spin on the refugee crisis... Well... When you start at Kafkaesque...
CORRECTOR is a consistently suspenseful, subtly surreal, and ultimately jawdropping examination of both the abhorrence of xenophobic persecution and perils of assimilation. The choices are impossible yet must be made. But what starts out as a nigh on hopeless scavenger hunt for decency also reveals humanity where it seems to have disappeared. A gut punch!

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. HOMICIDE's "Three Men and Adina." THE PILLOWMAN.

Annnnnnd nowwww.... BUSSER!!!

Noir is fertile fodder for spoofery and Busser mines it for all it's worth and then some. But why stop at one genre when so many are available??? A hard boiled detective, an undervalued comedian, and an eager cop who's an HR nightmare, take us down a dark, windy path to cracking a case in a way no case has ever been cracked before!

In fact, "cracked" is a perfect description this play! Enjoy!

MY BROTHER JAKE is a gentle, elegant vivisection of the filial compass – when one's entire identity orbits the other sibling, the one you should be more like, the better one. A great example of this is ORDINARY PEOPLE. Here, Osmundsen (mercifully) eschews maternal brutality for brotherly love, but that love doesn't make things easier. The endless comparisons sting Ethan and the audience, especially one purloining of experience that's a stunner. Emotionally immersive, empathetically vast. Bravo!