Recommended by Scott Sickles

Ken Love uses play structure like a flamethrower! Usually. Here, he opts for quiet elegance. Something bad is about to happen. But it's going to happen on schedule, so our titular assassin has time to fill before it's time to kill. So why not write a poem? Hitmen are often portrayed as one-dimensional brutes or quirky comic relief. In this meta-poem, Love gives his contract killer a complicated soul, filled with aspiration, doubt, reflection, and humanity. It's a riveting buildup to deadly business.

There's some gloriously bad writing in here. And it is hilarious! Dovetailing a contemporary "big break" audition scenario with... the thing the actor is audition for... Byham gives us a great behind the scenes look at terrible TV sci-fi in a post-creativity age. He and his protagonist also point out the sillier Star Trek tropes with Galaxy Quest level accuracy and admiration. Surprisingly potent and wonderfully fun!

What's funny is that Syran was trying to write a play about a completely fictional person for once and accidentally wrote a biographical monodrama! This is the sort of thing that would happen to her. That said... Meet Ernst Weil! Ernst is a master pontificator, a maestro of the subordinate clause, and a passionate defender of his moniker. Naturally, Syran infuses the piece with history in ways that are resonant and immediate. It's a joy to read aloud!

Anyone who's ever packed up their parents' belongings, be they fading or departed, with identify with sisters Daphne and Joy. Floyd-Priskorn captures the impending emptiness of rooms as the artifacts of a life are gathered for transport and/or disposal. Especially truthful is the relationship between siblings: there's always one who bears more of the burden while the other can never quite pick up the slack. Deeply personal and beautifully universal.

Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend tried to kill me. This play was her weapon of choice. And she almost succeeded. Not since Greg Mandryck's "September in Biddeford" have I laughed this hard, tears streaming down my face from both mirth and asphyxiation while my lungs tried and failed to take in necessary live-giving air. A glorious send-up of Hallmark Christmas movies, Feriend's signature pitch-dark-yet-somehow-lighter-than-air humor forges a perfectly perverse and sharply satirical holiday exchange. While trying to kill me.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Sometimes that's not voluntary. Choices are made but the choice to remain may not always be one's own. Kaminski has a magical way of taking familiar scenes and tropes, immersing us into the things we love about them, then surprising us with a new take or unexpected twist. When I heard this read, each person in the audience had a different prediction of how it would end. It's great when so many of us could be kept guessing. My guess was way off, and I love this play for that.

Time is a funny thing and playwrights get to pretzel it to our purposes. Cole presents an older couple meeting their younger selves on the precipice of a life altering event. What does one say? What warnings do you give? What would you have wanted to know and would you have listened if anyone told you? Big questions hang heavy over a tiny human moment. Cole tells the story of these two couples separated by time with warmth and grace.

The most important question a playwright must address (anytime a character speaks but especially) in a monologue is: why must this be said now??? That's especially tricky with a graveside vigil because, clearly, the living speaker is addressing the dead too late. Or are they? Braverman composes both a requiem and a reckoning between brothers, creating a full understand of why the departed was both impossible to live with and impossible not to love. As for "why now?" I'll leave that for you discover. Its a punch to the chest.

If E.M. Forster had been an American playwright, he'd might have written this, even though it would only have been published after his death. A century later, we're fortunate to have David Hilder forge this beautiful tale of personal repression and social oppression. Not only powerful and poignant, but the craftsmanship in the narrative is perfection, especially in regard to pressurized exposition. Just like his characters, Hilder reveals nothing until it absolutely must be said. It leaves one's heart with a hopeful ache.

Empaling, immolation, impunity. So many things kids love! But this experiment in anthropomorphic agony is the kind of theatrical s'mors-gasbord (see what I did there) perfect for entertaining the dark, sick and twisted child in all of us. It's a large cast for a festival but totally worth pooling the cast together for the evening's grand finale. Gooey deliciousness from its cozy campfire start to fiery, ferocious finish!