Recommended by Scott Sickles

It's always wonderful to capture the moment when a callow spirit starts to grow up. The hipper-than-thou posturing of youth is so brazen in the face of time-held truths. Fortunately, there are teachers like Mr. Middleton to help them see the truth, passion, and downright sass hidden by flowery words in iambic pentameter. What's great here is that his student, Beth, is far more complex than her attitude. It's a meeting a sharp minds and good hearts, even if one of those is surrounded by walls.

We work with what we have.

Gisella doesn't have much. Specializing in women's medicine, she's forced to treat female prisoners at Auschwitz with only a dirty table, rudimentary instruments, and her faith. It makes the horror of DEAD RINGERS seem civilized.

She also has limited information. What Gisella learns over the course of the play is harrowing even if you know what to expect from Dr. M. Blevins plants us in the middle of hell, then plummets us infinitely downward.

Elegant and harrowing.

L'Engle's Time Quintet. The Chronicles of Prydain. The Tripods.
These weren't just novels that shaped my youth, but novel SERIES. The literature of childhood makes an imprint.

TWELVE BOOKS extolls the gift of literary legacy. Williams's choice to manifest the ghostly father at the age when he read these books and the son old enough to have distant memories of them amplifies the resonance of inherited imagination. It's a testament to heirlooms tangible and ethereal.

Sublime and beautiful.

For those of us with Asian mothers, this play is a special treat! Guo skillfully divides the turbulent and complex Asian Mom archetype into separate women — the hovering mom, the distant mom, and the mom who's all about herself — each complex, human, and real.

But you don't need an Asian mom to enjoy their surreal quest. "Dot-nets," "Applebee's" and the phrase "essential amino acids" have never been funnier.
Gloriously detailed, as universal as it is Asian American, this trap is a great trip!

A little stealth bomb of joy.

Sure, it's fun from the get-go. A wacky novice tarot practitioner helps her lovelorn gay bestie overcome loneliness through manifestation! Because wishing makes everything so, right?

Hoang demonstrates this dismissible method in hilarious fashion, then blindsides us with the most romantic comic ballet ever. Daring in its silences, the play manifests an evolution from hope to faith to belief.

Funny, sexy, and swoony, it could change the way you look at love.

This play captures the aftermath of a horrible moment, asking, in unison with its characters, a painfully simple question: Now what?

Using honesty and humor, both equally sharp, they navigate a conversation filled with rage, fear, and shock in the exact way people who love each other communicate without filters. Nicole tempers fear with ferocity. Ben is the ideal husband for a difficult day, taking risks with jokes that are great when they succeed and even better when they don't. Truly sublime.

Sometimes recounting the backstory IS the event of the play. SOUTHIES is a great example of how a playwright can conspire with their characters by stealthily weaponizing their history. There's an entertaining tale within a tale, a jaunty setup with a fun payoff where everybody wins, at least a little, for now. Fun roles for actors, easy to stage, a joy for performers and audiences alike!

Some of my favorite Arthur Jolly plays can be described as "exquiteitely dark." Here darkness is far more literal but equally exquisite. Meant to be performed by the low flame of an oil lamp, two miners are trapped by a cave-in as oxygen and hope run low. All they can do it wait and wonder: Will they be found? Is anyone looking? Who's fault was it? The pressure builds as panic and paranoia mount. Complex characterization illuminate their outside lives, enhancing helplessness and hope. Riveting.

Who better than a Floridian to imagine such a world?

Williams has fashioned a quick and nifty tale of park bench intrigue where expression has become a kind of currency. The characters are fun, the reveals delight and amuse, and yet there's an inherent sense of danger looms throughout this lighthearted transaction. Great fun!

90% of the fun of doing this piece is going to be rehearasing it. Especially mixing and matching actors. Personalties and dynamics will be different every single time. It'd be fun to see this perfomred multiple times thoughout an evening.

There's a beautiful tentativeness to the interaction, a pervading sense of maybe and almost and if only. A fascinating moment of conflict in the middle, both specific and amorphous, provides a turning point for the characters and a grand opportunity for the performers and director. I don't know what to make of it -- in the best of ways!