Recommended by Peter Fenton

This play starts banal enough that by the time you notice its incisive grip, it's too late. I first learned of Zach Barr's NEW OLEANNA from their recent 3-hour case study of a regional theater company as exploration for good faith debate from their YouTube channel. I am quite familiar with OLEANNA, having worked on a production in 2019. Barr's NEW OLEANNA explores Mamet's themes for a post-MeToo audience incredibly well and explicitly raises brutal questions about being "one of the good men".

What a fun opportunity for a designer! In OPERATION SEA GHOST, Danielle Wirsansky offers a 10-minute comedy set in WWII Scotland that features the Loch Ness Monster as a fully fledged character with agency and a desire to be left alone. I very much enjoyed this quick bite of historical cryptid comedy and especially loved this interpretation of Nessie.

This play is such a mess (complimentary). Aly Kantor always has such a way with dark comedy and I love to see a five-piece ensemble of young women get the chance to go absolutely feral, so I'd go as far to say ICE IN THEIR VEINS is Aly Kantor operating at the height of her power. Instantly quotable lines, brilliant skewering of influencer culture, snappy pace, and short runtime will make this a rightful favorite among student productions and blackbox theaters!

This play is a prescient and brutal 90-or-so minutes from start to finish. I admire Scott Sickles as a writer on many fronts, but man, can Scott Sickles make you feel something viscerally. What I find especially astounding about TESSERACT is that we go through the harrowing journey of a missing child and the consequent strain on a marriage without naming a single character. This one will stay with me for a while, that ending was a gut punch. Excellent work; someone please produce this.

This is a very cute rom/com two-hander for queer teen boys or young men that I'd estimate runs about 10 minutes. "Just you, me, and the ocean." I loved the odd specificity of the "who are these people on the boats" game, Horowitz draws imagined pictures quite well in this piece.

Audiences will watch this one-act with knots in their stomachs every step of the way, with bonus knots for those audience members who came in with existing religious trauma. Chilling, with a pitch-perfect twist ending. Scott Sickles has written a short speculative horror play that is (unfortunately?) deeply relevant in the here and now in 2025. Not sure I want to say too much more, just take a look at this one.

An origin story for Ebenezer Scrooge, but make him and Jacob Marley a couple. What I love about this one-act is Richter's commitment to nestling the play as a workable origin story for a centuries-old character, Dickensian language and all, but with a story unmistakably written in the here and now. It's difficult to pull off, but Richter sells it quite well. I'd love to see this one up on its feet in time for Christmas!

"that's French for look it up" had me rolling on the floor laughing. Daniel Prillaman's dialogue is gripping, surprising, and thought-provoking every step of the way in IN THE SLUSH (and much of the rest of their work). I can't say any part of me expected the story that unfolded from the opening pages, but I cared deeply about Laura Beth well before I knew the full extent of her character. This play raises great questions about creation and parenthood; and contains excellent (and sultry) poetry.

Morey Norkin is one of the funniest writers I know. GOLD PAINT manages to be equal parts funny and thoughtful; I found this intersection between a Jewish immigrant family and a Black FBI agent in Washington DC in the mid-1960s to stir interesting thoughts about America's past as backdrop to Norkin's signature farcical wit all throughout this play. I also deeply appreciate some good Yiddishisms thrown in throughout a script and loved seeing the glossary laying it all out at the top!

I devoured this play. In REVIVAL, the brilliant Philip Middleton Williams takes a vulnerable, honest look at a career in playwriting, asking the fundamental question, "At what point do I run out of things to say?" that haunts many of us the more plays we put on the shelf. A full-length three-hander laced with Williams' signature slice-of-life wit and characters grounded in reality and full of life. Those of us who have been in the industry a couple years will especially appreciate this play.