Recommended by David Beardsley

This is an important play. I had an opportunity to hear Franky Gonzalez read this play live, and it was one of the most powerful theatre experiences I've had. The pain at the center of Paletas de Coco is devastating. The honesty with which Gonzalez confronts that pain and tells his story is inspiring and harrowing. We all try to write truthfully, but few people ever succeed to this degree. I hope this play is produced everywhere. It really should be.

Persephone is a poignant play about grief, and the conflict one feels about getting on with life (or in the title character's case, with death) after a terrible loss. The writing is beautiful and thought-provoking, and O'Grady strikes just the right balance between showing her characters beginning to heal while also acknowledging that they will never heal fully. Life goes on, but it's never the same.

A worthy inclusion in The Best New Ten-Minute Plays anthology for 2019. This play comes at you with the breakneck pace of the digital age, almost the way all those "attaboys" fill up your [insert social media here] feeds. And it asks a worthy question: Has social media commoditized praise to the point that we've all forgotten what it really means to do good? I would love to see this play on stage. It would be fun! (Now, quick, someone pat me on the back for writing an NPX recommendation!)

Death Defying is a worthy entry in the Applause collection of The Best New Ten-Minute Plays for 2019. This heart-warming play takes some thought-provoking turns as it explores identity and the degree to which other people and “what we do” defines us. I love plays that make me think and make a point without hammering away at the main idea. Kaplan’s writing is subtle and displays deep empathy.

I had a chance to listen to the Podcast of this moving and powerful play. It would be easy for a story about such dramatic violence to become overwrought or lapse into melodrama. EGS avoids this, and her play reveals the resilience of people who deal with an extreme, unacceptable situation by coming together with courage and love. After listening, I found myself reflecting on the communities that define my life.

This is a poignant play, with a fun, inventive premise, about the intangible elements that form the foundation of a loving relationship and keep it strong. It would be a lot of fun to see it staged.

I would love to see this play staged multiple times, by different directors, each bringing a different visions, because that's what Winter People supports. It is massive in scope, cinematic really, but Neill has also made it something that can be executed so simply and so cleanly. It demonstrates the true power of theatre. Neill presents the (smoky, sandy) essence of a story and trusts that our imaginations will fill in around that essence.

This is one of those perfect ten minute plays, a tiny package that packs a real comedic and dramatic wallop. The dialogue is authentic and moves the story forward effectively. The characters are fully formed, with distinct voices. And the spectacle of this highway-side birth is such a wonderful pathway the deeper wants and needs of both characters. This must be a fun play for actors to perform, and I suspect it would have audiences laughing until they cry.

The Men Who Couldn't Save Her is a moving memory play about a woman whom powerful men used and mistreated her entire life, and who now, looking down at the scaffold where those same men will take her life, seems somehow to retain her sense of self. Is her final line and laugh a sign of resigned capitulation, or is she claiming ownership of and power over the moment? This would be a haunting play to watch on stage, with memories emerging into the light and then melting back into darkness that will soon swallow Anne, herself.

Jealousy leads to murder and then insanity, except it all happens in reverse order in this strange and disturbing tale told backwards. When the play opens, one character is dead, the other is unhinged, and we have no idea why. As each scene moves us closer to the beginning we start to piece together details, and our knowledge of where it’s all leading makes it all the more horrifying. This is a dark and delicious play.