Recommended by Scott Sickles

Does everyone have at least one relative that screams in the middle of a quiet street about how somebody ELSE is making a scene or are we just lucky?

A fun, effervescent companion to BACKYARD STONEHENGE. This time the empasis is on multigenerational family obligation. Mrs.Ferria a/k/a isn’t a pistol so much as a cannon and Jude (age/gender/ethnicity not specified so there’s great wiggle room in casting) is long suffering but stalwart. The complaints volley back and forth as this escapade of gardening counter-larceny unfolds. The payoff is a win-win for everybody!

I love it when I’m watching or reading a play that’s set outdoors at night and I can feel the night air and see the shadows and the glow on the characters’ faces. This is one of those. You can practically smell the backyard and taste the underlying resentment. There’s a grand romantic gesture happening and, as with such gestures, the circumstances aren’t ideal and there’s a lot to make up for. This marriage is deeply real. The conflict ebbs and flows with high stakes but without histrionics. The payoff is sublime.

What a lovely play. McShane pulls off a few miracles: a chatterbox who we want to keep talking, a vacant stoic who exudes the perfect flicker of warmth, and an afterlife/limbo play that only looks like something we’ve seen before but is absolutely unique. The world building is simple but exquisite, imagining a void that allows the dead to roam while they forget. It’s also filled with danger. Our heroes may be dead but they are definitely not safe. How lucky they are to have found each other. How lucky we are to witness it!

I think I uttered “oh no!” three times on page one! And indeed, the awkward situation only gets worse with crossed boundaries, shaky professionalism, and the temperaments of sports dads put private issues in full public view. The play uses the ball game to present intimate histories and dynamics In the context of a realistically larger world that extends far beyond the field. Fun and funny!

From FRANKENSTEIN to LOVE LETTERS, literature is filled with epistolary tales of yearning. There’s a delightful narrative arc, filled with surprises great and small, as we’re treated to a broad array of children who can’t spell. Each missive is imbued with childish candor, blissfully unaware of its inappropriateness. Clever visual jokes provide directors and actors exciting challenges. As it should, the play represents cultures far and wide — including Austria where the playwright was clearly being studied in a sanatorium before escaping into the night.

Absolutely riveting, sometimes confounding (in a good way!), stirringly moving, eerily sexy, unsettling and suspenseful.

I have questions! And I enjoy pondering them. More than once, they play presents conflicting versions of events from urban legends to intimate memories that may or may not have been shared, to death in close quarters.

Larson instantly puts us in 1989 with the beloved “you never heard about these killings?” horror movie trope, and takes us on a ride from there, playing with time, tone, and a Styx t-shirt!

An exquisite, horrifying, beautiful puzzle of a play!

What an exhilarating ride! Jonte gives her character tremendous urgency: she MUST impart everything she knows about heartbreak to her niece, explain all its permutations, what to do when her heart is broken and when she breaks another's. No fissure in her heart is left unmined as she protects someone she may never get a chance to protect again! Deep emotional complexities delivered at high speed, this piece requires great precision and good breath control. A tour de force!

I can't tell you how great it is to read a play about a gay-straight friendship between men where no one EXPLAINS the gay thing!!!

Hartman packs a lot of history into a short time. Deftly avoiding stereotypes (or using a couple to great advantage), he creates two guys you want to get to know too as they get to know each other. You know these two or you're one of these two. Either way, you want to be their friend too.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

After seeing a reading, a revised reading, and even more rewrites, I'm compelled to re-recommend TRIPTYCH!

Heyman's characters and their bonds have grown deeper and more complex. It's a great example of how dramatic conflict can be three lovely people at cross-purposes, wanting similar but not necessarily the same things, while realizing lost potential and the potential for greater loss.

Phillip is especially wonderful: a lovable guy who "knows" the objects of his adoration are out of his league. You want to protect him. Fortunately, so do Stella and Marc, who have their own trepidations.

Heart-filling and delightful.

So beautifully over the top you can almost not see the top from here. But Kantor is, if anything, precise and it requires this level of precision to make comedy this broad work so well. Playing like an elaborate Swiss clock that's mostly cuckoos, the dialogue moves lightning fast, the twists and turns try to outdo each other, and the characters reveal layer after layer (well, two of them do) as the social food chain becomes increasingly complex and clear. When all is said and said and said and done, it sticks the landing!

Absolutely, perfectly, gloriously batshit crazy!