Recommended by Peter Fenton

A wonderfully fun little romp on a tree branch following a paranoid leaf, a spacey flower, and a growing organism who doesn't quite know what they are. An effective illustration of what happens when you run with incomplete information and a great entomology lesson!

This play is deep, clever, funny, and at the heart of it all—very human. I particularly loved the intertwining of storylines related to new life, grief, and love against the backdrop of gentrification and the evolution of this particular neighborhood. Thomas uses this imagery of gentrification as it intrudes into many aspects of life in the here and now to great effect. I wish I could have seen its run at the Arden!

What a fun bite-sized satire of the mundanity of office politics! I especially loved the escalating extended sequence about fundraiser pizza... such fun and pitch-perfect scaling of the bit further and further to its ultimate conclusion. All throughout the script, Thomas plays the sheer absurdity of the situation to great effect in this quick play, and I was genuinely not ready for that ending. Well done!

This play packed an unexpected punch! I didn't set out to read the full-length work in one sitting, but... here we are. Strayer has a delightfully cutting sense of humor throughout all her work and it shines bright through her realistic dialogue, especially between Halle, Avery, and Jaclyn. In this play, Strayer also communicates a powerful metaphor for writing as both an escape and truly a battle, as well as offering powerful reflection on the unique pain that comes from growing up to be different than your parents would have wanted. Highly recommend!

If you couldn't tell by the title of this play, Strayer has a wonderfully dark and zany sense of humor from start to finish in this bite-sized comedy! It's a bit less "cozy book club" and quite a bit more "single ladies murder." This play does a great job of thinking about Zoom(/Google Meet) theater as a medium and without spoiling anything, gets creative with what can be done to make the characters and screens feel more connected. I had the pleasure of acting in the world premiere of this play!

Anyone who has ever written a play before can relate to Katie (or K.T.)’s journey through ROUGH DRAFT. Marjorie Bicknell weaves a witty, heartfelt, brilliant story of everything that went into getting a single award. I laughed out a few times (the Catholic professor was a favorite one-scene character) and related all too well to the ups and downs of a theatre professional’s journey to success. I say well done!

Oftentimes with faith-based works, an author of faith gets 'stuck in the weeds' trying to make sure all their Christian characters are nice and perfect, which oftentimes creates less interesting work. Bicknell throws that out the window and creates a fun, thought-provoking piece that challenges a person to consider what they would do if they met someone claiming to be Jesus. The plot twist at the end was delightful as well!

Imagine a Christmas play that doesn't suck - and here it is! This was a delightful quick read. Ehrlich plays with Christmas carol lyrics beautifully as she creates this sort of pandemonium in the office at Santa's Workshop. I laughed out loud reading this by myself at the joke about Detroit. This script would be perfect for a school group to put on around the holidays.