Recommended by Scott Sickles

Joey Ray does not like Starbursts or coconut. Talk about big red flags...

I love a play where everything seems normal even though you know it's not. And then, suddenly, nothing is normal and things just get stranger and darker from there. The sustained setup is masterful in its mundanity. When the horror kicks in, it's equal parts soft and hard. It can't be happening... yet it could be. The payoff is all about the Why! The resolution is simple, visually stunning, and a bone chiller!

It's just a conversation. A friendly interview. Very professional. Ignore the screams. We can cut around them.

In all seriousness, this straightforward Q&A between a documentarian and the proprietor of an extreme haunted house is riveting from the start. Smith uses the setting and atmosphere to instantly create a feeling of unease and suspense. The characters are terrific, Milo's unflappable journalistic professionalism clash smoothly with Stewart's machismo, slowly pulling the curtain back on his sadism.

Audiences will certainly be discussing the ending: a shocker that's been set up from the start.

A terrific horror-thriller.

Much like the Lord above, Marcus and this play are OVER THE TOP!!!

It's one thing to find your boyfriend has immaculately conceived the next Christ child but O the strain of literally being the Joseph in this situation... The histrionics escalate ever Heavenward, sweeping the audience up like marauding angels hellbent on abducting us with hilarity.

Yet Garcia does so much more than explore a "What If?" They take a vivid look at love, especially loving someone dealing with mental illness, sticking the landing with a gut punch. Or a gut kick as it were. AMEN!

Glorious! Equally vast and intimate in its scope, TIDAL PULLS grounds us (as it were) firmly on the wet earth, connecting the bottom of the sea to the ever turning galaxies that surround us, all through the prism of a scientist with a magnificently lame sense of humor. Cowley captures the esoteric passion of science lovers and proceeds to connect everyone and everything on a quantum level with the poetry of Lee's beautiful nerdy soul. More than a monologue, it's a map of the universe.

Oh, I have had this conversation! Many, many times with my very own Barney. When Lou says, "Write that down" and Barney taps his forehead and replies, "It’s all up here." It was like a Time Machine.

Lyle captures the push-pull of storyteller and sounding board. The defensiveness when the listener has too many questions or JUST DOESN'T GET IT as well as the glee when a good idea blows up. They're great characters steeped in truth.

My real-life Barney is sadly no longer with us, so this was a lovely visit. Thanks, Heinrich!

Ah the trials and tribulations of dude bros! Their friendship, their insecurities, the endless cavalcade of competition, and yes, their secrets... what they look like on the outside and how they feel on the inside. BLUNK is a delightful comic inner duo-logue dissecting the dynamics between two friends know each other so well and yet not at all. And it's a dynamic I personally adore. For sports fans and their admirers.

When I first heard of savior siblings, I thought it was bullshit. That anyone would have a child solely to use its body parts to save the ailing child they already have, love, and are terrified of losing is simultaneously understandable and monstrous.

But this isn't about the parents. This is about the "savior." The man that began as a boy brought into the world for spare parts.

Martin's monologue filled me the Gabriel's rage, frustration, and displacement. It's a story of a family torn asunder by a void and how the void feels, evolves, and loves. A masterpiece.

A lot of playwrights bitch and moan about submission guidelines. I'm one of them. Here, Brenton captures a few of the most annoying, the first few incisions in a death by a thousand gatekeepers. Best of all, he illuminates the passion and the pain of wanting to share our stories and being stymied at the earliest possible moment.

I felt this one in my ribcage. A punch to the heart.

"THAR SHE BLOWS!!!" And if anything does blow, it's MOBY DICK.

Richter has fashioned a public service announcement inside a public service announcement that's also a fun comic scene, a needing doll that's the love child of Cliffs Notes and Mr Yuck.

And it's a real time-saver!

#TeamG

That's it. That's the rec.