Recommended by Peter Fenton

Oh my--Christopher Soucy is a master of absurd comedy, and none come as weird as HOLIDAY OFFICE PARTY FOR THE SELF-EMPLOYED. It takes self-starter culture to its natural conclusion and introduces a TikTok marketer to an IRL first date when he's throwing an office party for his one-man team. Hilarity (and snow globes) (and boot beer) ensues.

I mean this as the highest compliment, this play is batsh*t crazy. I loved every page of it. THE JERSEY DEVIL IS A PAPI CHULO is a cathartic, incisive, hilarious, and unexpectedly human dark comedy farce that every well-meaning white guy like me should read. Five well-drawn women clock and weaponize the prejudices and white savior instincts hardwired in these boys to great effect. Hilarity ensues. I would love to play Brad or Tony, I've met these guys and I've been these guys.

"Tempes does fugit"
What I love about a Philip Middleton Williams play is the groundedness of it all. Williams is a skilled writer who never needs to rely on a cheap gimmick or meta-theatrical device, he writes real human beings in real life situations and the reader or audience member is hooked to see what happens to them from page one to the end. This play confronts marital issues, alcoholism, and generational trauma with Williams' skilled ear for dialogue and keen eye for kitchen-sink drama.

"I miss playing"
"I do, too. I mostly buy groceries."
So rarely do I come across a play that reads like high-quality lit-fic and also is fun, but John Patrick Bray did it, and I'm so glad he did. Bray takes folklore from upstate New York and blends it with a time capsule piece of being a teenager in the late 90s in the kind of town the tracks pass over. Tracks is a haunting character drama with magic realism and plenty of comic relief that will touch and devastate audiences for years to come.

If you're a theater contemplating BLITHE SPIRIT, set that down and pick this one up instead. DEAD INSIDE by Gwen Tulin is a whip-smart comedy about grief, closure, and living with your ghosts (perhaps in this case more literally than that phrase is to be taken). I had the great pleasure last night of watching a production of this play at Creative Works of Lancaster in Lancaster, PA, starring Tulin herself in the role of LIZA. It was so fun, so human, and took a trippy turn. Great Halloween play!

Philip Middleton Williams is an incredibly gifted writer for domestic drama with an ear for grounded dialogue, and more often than not, creates platonic mentorship-type relationships between gay men of different generations. This play, THE QUARRY HOUSE, has all of that plus pointed social commentary on contemporary immigration without getting up on a soapbox; all the commentary is true to the context of the relationships on the page. I'll be very interested to see how this play touches audiences

Jillian Blevins is a wonderful writer and this play is beautiful. I had the great honor of being in the opening night audience for the workshop production at Phillips Mill in New Hope, PA. I love the juxtaposition of heightened, stylized language exploring the neurodivergent brain and imagination with the grounded family drama realism. All three characters are very well-drawn on the page, which I suspect allowed for the actors and director to go wild and create a gripping evening of theater!

Kieran Khanna has confirmed to me in this large-cast ten minute play that yes, in fact, if the seven deadly sins got together, Envy would be everyone's least favorite. I enjoyed the way Khanna turns this short play from fun, over-the-top personification of the seven deadly sins into an investigation of purpose for this new titular Eighth Deadly Sin. Surprisingly cute for a play set in Hell!

Poetic, grounded in reality, and smutty with intention, Kieran Khanna's "moon love" is a sweet 10-minute two-hander capturing the lead-up to saying "I love you". What begins as a gay frat boy fantasy turns unexpectedly into something quite earnest (though it, thankfully, never quite loses its frat boy spice!).

I had the pleasure tonight of watching the first-ever reading of this play out loud as part of its workshop at Passage Theatre in Trenton, NJ. David Robson is a playwright incredibly gifted at bringing historical figures to life as real human beings through authentic research and excellent dialogue, and does so in this play for Zora and Langston. MULEHEADED also organically raises incisive questions about authorship, Blackness, colorism, sexism. Read this play, then go see it at Passage in 2026!