Recommended by Lee R. Lawing

What a charming play by Sickles, one full of heart and wit and such humor. I was hooked from the very beginning with this mother/daughter meeting, and the twists that occurred kept me smiling throughout. Sickles provides a well full of emotion and I would encourage everyone to read this play and every theater to add it to their next season!

I was hooked with the synopsis and "Paranormal Love" did not disappoint when read. I always feel that if I learned as much about the craft of writing as I did enjoying a good play and story, then it was time well spent. O'Grady brings together this group of people, both alive and dead, and my heart was pulled into a thousand bits of emotion right up into the very end. Like Joe's beautiful speech about photography, this play is one that the rest of the world would benefit from seeing just how special it is. Encore!

I must extend a thank you to the playwright who said I should read Timbuktu. There was such pleasure derived from it! Irreal theater explained with a dash of Duck Soup thrown in for good measure. It has uplifted as well as inspired.

What a refreshing take on the Boy meets Boy story. Martin always impresses me with each play, but what he does here astounds me. Stepping outside the boxes is what we should aspire to do as writers. Martin defined one of those boxes for me with this masterful tale.

This was my introduction to the very talented and gifted playwright Rachael Carnes and I was very lucky to be able to see this read at the Inge Festival in 2018. It has all those items that make her works a joy to read and see. And then there's the gift she's given to the the playwright community in addition to her talents as a writer. If you haven't read a Carnes play yet, do yourself a very big favor by doing that today!

My Mother the Car for the millennials. Hageman’s play simmers with positivity and lessons on how to listen to one’s heart, while also giving a small ear to those who’ve paved the road before you.

Believing in heaven is one way to deal with grief and loss. Another is to read O’Grady’s haunting “Persephone” which offers hope in its own right. I’ve not seen a ghost story this charming since The Ghost and Mrs Muir and it has one of the best last lines I’ve ever read.

This play is a gem of a comedy about menstruation and I love plays where animals are main characters. Dooley provides us with a whacky ride, but the gift that this play provides is at its heart where loyalty and friendship are shown at their finest!!

This year I have been trying hard to zone in on the moments I write about and get rid of the excess and it's plays like Smoke Break that really teach me how to do that perfectly. Peercy's perfect little moment has a lot of punch and I am intrigued by these two men as much as I am drawn into their crazy world in just those brief seconds.

A little brilliant absurdist theater by August and such a joy to read. From the title to the action, I was hooked and enjoyed every second of it. I feel so many days like Eleanor but at work I sometimes feel like the clerk and so enjoyed taking a break and reading such a funny and wild play. Will enjoy discovering other works by August for sure.