Recommended by Scott Sickles

Fast and furious with carefully placed resonant beats and rests, this insightful, sharp monologue captures many frustrations while celebrating collaboration. Hovanesian's rhythms are a verbal Gene Krupa solo, but the meaning behind the words -- words about words, words about the absence and futility of words, words abut writing and writing about words and how words are and are not writing, words about acting, and words about art -- the meaning makes those rhythms matter. You feel both lucky and envious if you've not been in his shoes. And if you have... three words: you get it.

If you like low budget sci-fi from bygone eras, then this is a love letter to you! While the jokes and puns abound, and the tropes are picked off one by one with expert precision, Busser gives us a love story worth rooting for, even as people are being inadvertently slaughtered below. (Really people, they're giants. Move away!)
It's dark and frothy, atomically adorable, and a gift for a festival with clever scenic and costume designers who have been looking for a chance to go nuts!

Absolutely infuriating. The willful ignorance of homophobia is on full display in this succinct monologue. Never seeing through his own bigotry to find the common ground between his own life experiences and a gay man’s, Larry is a lost cause. I shudder to think that he’s instilling his values to a younger generation. His hatred is something we all need to be aware of as long as it exists. The man himself, and others like him, deserve to be forgotten.

Starting with a great opening image, Floyd-Priskorn does an end run around our expectations by going broad before going deep. The revelations, while not new to the characters, are continually engaging for the audience. Little by little CAKE lets us in to the relationships and the world of these characters, both onstage and off. We’re also given specifically Arab American characters in small town, which opens up the world even wider, while allowing greater sociological resonance. It’s a fun tableau with intentionally surprising dimension.

Damn. If you're looking for whimsical Hageman, look elsewhere. There's an effortless casual darkness here that's like a raspy summer cough on a stale overcast day. The tragedy here isn't Jane's blindness to her circumstances but the vividness with which she sees her life. It's a stark piece made infinitely more powerful by its concision and simplicity.

This play took a chisel to my heart and cracked it wide open.
And that was before I knew what inspired it.

As a reaction to Pulse, it’s a great “what if?” asking how many lives would have saved if mercy or pity had been offered, even transactionally.

Gershman imbues O with palpable anguish: he wants to be good at being gay but doesn’t know how. Loneliness and insecurity escalate into desperation. His alienation becomes agonizing, his pursuit unfathomably sad.

As an possible alternate reality or an examination of this one, NIGHTCLUB autopsies a soul and a subculture.

Quite simply a lovely ode to that thing we all do, written during a time when we needed the reminder, yet as eternal as its subject. More than an ode, really: a testament.

What a rollercoaster! An adorable comic reunion between inanimate objects takes twists and turns in no time at all! Potential tragedy turns to high stakes romance! This is Weaverian Whimsy at its finest!

How many times can we say goodbye to someone? How many people can we say goodbye to forever in one night? Martin presents two siblings during what is almost certainly the last moments of their relationship. There's a powerful finality to the scene and its ending. Their collective composure during a post-tragedy encounter only heightens the tension and impact. A terrific scene.

Oh, the platitudes that comes with identity politics! And it's not that idealism and ideology can't coexist; in fact, that's usually the case. BUT... Garcia shows us how devotion to one aspect of who we are can distract us from being slighted in other ways. A searing commentary on prejudice in sixty seconds!