Recommended by Scott Sickles

Another adorable absurdist outing from Matthew Weaver. This time, Fate, Destiny, Opportunity (what-have-you) shows up in the guise of an ice cream vendor in this double edged metaphor about what we want and what the world is trying to sell us! Should we broaden our experience or not compromise based on the power of suggestion, even when we've expressed a certain desire? The play leaves it up to you. A great one-minute piece!

Right from the get-go, you know something's off. The build is slow and steady dropping just enough hints to create a perfect sense of menace. I love horror stories that take place on beautiful days and this one is right on the Fourth of July! The suspense is expertly woven, in that it places the kids in jeopardy in a manner where we know things are worse than they seem but there's no reason for them to suspect that. Something's just off. The matter-of-factness of it all gives it an extra kick. Kudos!

What begins as what could be an abstract existential piece - a person in a slow-moving queue in the freezing cold - becomes even more weighed with dread, and therefore more powerful, when the purpose of that line is revealed. (Which it will not be here.) NO NAME is a survival tale beyond the moment it depicts. It exposes how dire the economic state, and therefore the everyday lives, of adjuncts can be, but it's also a damning indictment of how little this nation values its educators. The speaker is a nice well-intended person who talks too much. Perfect!!!

A deceptively complex piece about the need for and obstacles to human connection. A person who is off-puttingly verbose is trying to connect with someone who just wants to be left alone (how many times has this happened to you...?) by taking about the double edged sword of social media while trying to salve their loneliness, about which they are quite blithely open which is even more off-putting. The results are sadly funny, because you feel the speaker's isolation even though the reasons for it are abundantly clear.

A sharp, elegant reminder that we are all connected. We often mourn celebrity deaths on social media, broadcasting wishes of eternal peace to people we never knew and to whom our good intentions could not possibly matter. And other people complain. THE BEARER not only honors the impact those celebs have on our lives (not just entertainers but others, too, especially statesmen), but illustrates how those people become intertwined with others in our actual lives. The play also astutely observes the vast difference between how tragedy impacts adults and children. All in two pages!

For a moment, I was afraid it was going to go the other way; that the teacher might actually be excited about the changes that are coming. That flicker of terror brought what actually DOES happen in this play even closer to home. There is so much underneath what is being said over the P.A. - the blind ignorance to an epidemic that requires tools! As to what is left unsaid, Burdick conveys years of love and experience, volumes of unshared knowledge, and the tragedy of abandoning a calling made untenable by circumstances others choose not to change. Powerful!

This play is fucking nuts!!! It's also bold, frank, heady, passionate, philosophical, explicit, sexy, and irreverent. Right off the bat, we know this is not just another dinner party play. YOU'LL SEE WHY!!! You will also learn the difference between chastity and celibacy and what each of those things really mean. But while theological loopholes are freedom for some, they are a metaphysical torture chamber for others. Jiménez creates a grounded, realistic universe which he then weaponizes with fear, terror, horror, spiritual dissonance, and an unholy magic to create something entirely unexpected. Like I said... fucking nuts!

An extraordinary pastiche about the aftermath of a murder on a neighborhood, especially important because it takes a close intimate look at working-class queer people of color. Its wit, heart, and style fuel its expressionism allowing the play to tell a panoramic story that indicts a community's ignorance, indifference and hatred. Playwright Jiménez also shows his characters' fears and desires for themselves and each other, and how the those two emotional drives can lead to danger. JULIO also has the most staggering, poetic, beautiful death scene I've ever experienced. It will haunt me forever.

A crucial piece depicting the aftermath of slavery in America as well as the attempt to document it, all told through a deeply personal lens. As a young white reporter manages to navigate barriers of trust with a former slave, the play reminds us that history happens to people – individual human beings connected to each other in the smallest, most intimate ways. Themes of pride and shame in one's heritage have societal and personal consequences. The threat of violence and death facing truth-tellers and truth-seekers is ever present and eternally relevant. An always engaging and ultimately powerful tale!

In plays of this length, the Why is not always important. The What is crucial. And the Who. Together, they get us to ask question after question, not out of confusion – this play is as clear as the view from 13,000 feet – but out of concern, out of a visceral connection to the What and the Who.

It starts out with a deceptive (no puns intended) lightness, the tension rising with the circumstances. The calm, deadpan tenor of the conversation captures a terrify fatalistic reality. It's literally breathtaking.

Dear Ruben: It's later and I'm thanking you.