Recommended by Peter Fenton

It's a piece set in the afterlife and someone got hit by a bus--Brent Alles knows the way to my heart! Jokes aside, this ten-minute two-hander is clever and hilarious. I love the clever exploration of the Mandela effect and how blasé an attitude the Office Worker takes toward reality bending. Lots to explore here for the actors and director in this quick treat of a piece!

I have to imagine if you are a gay man under the age of 40 (which I am), MEMORIAL DAY is a must-read to get a taste of what life was like in the late '80s and early '90s for us. What's especially remarkable about this play as a work of human drama is how Donnelly leverages soft comedic dialogue that ironically underscores how bleak and tragic the scenario really is. George is an incredibly complex, well-drawn character and I especially appreciated his arc through the piece.

I love the interplay between these two characters! Patricia Lynn has explored a dynamic between amicable-enough exes who were high school sweethearts and raises some intriguing questions about what exactly self-defense is... it has a broader definition than you may think. I really enjoyed the history and relationship between Missy and Carter and love the visual image of a debutante throwing punches in a ball gown and high heels!

Gut-wrenching. Adam Richter's CLIPS is short and to the point specifically about local journalism and broadly the futility of dreams--and I loved every line of it. The two characters illustrate perfectly the battle between the young and ambitious against the rich and powerful. This story is bleak, but it is one that has more than justified its darkness.

This play absolutely must be heard out loud! I just love the back and forth between these two little old Italian-American ladies recounting their childhood and the good and the bad of it all--but they were happy (maybe?). Jennifer O'Grady has masterfully captured the voice of her Italian grandmother and takes the reader on a walk through the lower Eastside. And we were happy.

I can't say I expected this piece to go where it did, but I adored the journey it took me on. I'm honestly amazed at how real of a family history Julie Zaffarano was able to seamlessly weave into the father/daughter dialogue over jumper cables and that silly malaproper "Knowledge is power, France is bacon". A touching exchange that left me with a little more hope than I started.

This conversation between two old, spiritual men of different traditions is beautiful. While I myself am neither Jewish nor Lakota, it moved me to see these two characters find common ground and be moved by each other's stories. While the piece is set in 1955, it's especially prescient in the current moment of history (November 2023). Thank you, Peter Langman, for this piece.

I've been a server long enough to know how you treat a service worker says a lot about you, and what I appreciate Paige Chung has done in 10 minutes in NAIL SPA is set up this classic scenario of an entitled customer mistreating her service worker, but throws a little twist on it--the service worker has a side of the story, too. There is no black and white morality in this piece, but three shades of grey.

This piece is so different than what I typically gravitate toward, but Ozzy Wagner really delivers a beautifully lyrical piece that explores a depth of emotion that I don't think a more straightforward theatrical presentation would illustrate with justice. With tight choreography and deliberate, stylized delivery this can and will be an extremely powerful piece, hitting like a poignant spoken word poem.

This is only the second piece from Ryan Kaminski I've read, but I can already tell Kaminski is a writer who is a master of giving a setup for a twist, but can execute it in such a way nobody in the audience sees coming--and still, it's the very best ending for the specific story being told. I love the bookends with the soft joke about the first and second confessor of the day, too! A wonderful thriller for the lapsed Catholic in all of us.