Recommended by David Beardsley

I love this short (and naughty!) musical about two older women staring down late middle age and refusing to blink. It’s written so efficiently, with great dialogue and fun, funny lyrics. It’s a joyful, optimistic, unflinching, unapologetic musical on important themes. It deserves to be produced—a lot.

There is so much going on in this play! It's gorgeous and deeply moving. It reveals the "emotional physics" at work in every person and every home--the vast, universal forces that mold us all, but that somehow produce a unique life every time. In what is a relatively large cast, Carabatsos does a masterful job of developing each of her characters, giving them all fully realized arcs and deeply affecting storylines. No one is just along for the ride. And it is a moving, funny, painful, meaningful ride. Beautifully done.

This is such a fun and funny play. It lovingly toys with theatre clichés and traditions, and it joyously captures the spirit of a doomed high school production mounted by a troupe that isn't yet jaded enough to let one glorious flop interfere with their dreams. Just when it seems poised to veer into absurdity or farce, the plays takes an uplifting turn, and we watch a group of high schoolers teach themselves a vital lesson, a lesson that the adults around them seem to have forgotten: Dream big and live "all in."

This is so much more than a light-hearted comedy (though it's absolutely hilarious). Patrick Gabridge has a real knack for finding complexity and depth behind the humor. As we laugh at the notion of Santa's sleigh being pulled by dolphins while a couple of bitter, jobless reindeer drown their sorrows in egg nog, we find ourselves suddenly confronted by the notion that climate change is coming and, as Gabridge's characters finally realize, "we're all in this together." Ho, ho... oh.

I saw this play produced (really creatively) on Zoom as part of the 2020 Boston Theatre Marathon. It is a fun, creative sci-fi/rom-com mash up. Two young lovers take a hike, with one (a brilliant scientist who, sometime in the future, will unlock the key to time travel) planning to propose to the other. They're visited by three different manifestations of a future daughter, who takes advantage of mom's invention to come back in time and warn them about critical mistakes they'll make. It's funny, it's sweet, it's smart, and it deserves a place in a lot of festivals.

This is a touching play about young-at-heart love, grand romantic gestures, and the painful effects of isolation and loneliness as we age. Minigan writes with trademark skill and subtlety, taking a storyline that could easily become overblown or melodramatic, and turning it into an understated and touching romantic comedy. It worked well as a Zoom production during the 2020 Boston Theatre Marathon, and I hope it has a long life on actual stages with this coronavirus madness is behind us.

I saw this play performed during the 2020 Boston Theatre Marathon. It's a strong send up of white savior complex and should be a wake up call for anyone who likes to think of themselves as "woke." I hope it gets a lot of attention from festival. It deserves to be produced again and again.

This touching and theatrical play examines dementia's effects from both sides: the people with the condition and those dealing with the stress and heartbreak of caring for them. Rigney has a gift for finding humor in difficult situations, and it infuses this play with life. The playfulness between these sisters is joyful and makes the difficult and poignant moments more powerful in comparison. But this play is most notable for the way it blurs reality and fantasy. Roz's "one moment of magic" at the end is moving theatre, and a true gift of love for Marcie, her caregiver sister. Bravo!

DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD does what the best really, really short plays do: They drop you right at the top of the highest, steepest hill on the roller coaster, send you screaming to the bottom, and somehow leave you with the impression that you've just experienced an entire day at the amusement park. There's a whole world packed into the final few minutes of this jealousy-ridden relationship. You learn more about these characters in two or three minutes than it should be possible to learn. Bravo.

Man against nature, or, in this case, man against bear cub determined to get into the garbage. I love this monologue, which uses a brief peek at one Quebec man's absurd battle with a local critter to speak volumes about the importance of the places and people that give shape to our lives.