Recommended by Peter Fenton

I was genuinely surprised by the ending of this 10-minute piece! I'm a sucker for a stylized period Western and even when I thought I knew where the piece was going, I was enjoying every step of the way. Kaminski's subversion work was both surprising and enhanced the piece. Great work!

There's a charming Black Mirror aesthetic to IMPOSSIBLE THEORIES OF US by John Mabey, but Mabey goes deeper than that in their IMPOSSIBLE THEORIES. While a Black Mirror episode might leave the reader with a bleak overall feeling of "technology is bad", Mabey explores the ethics of AI as well as love, grief, and trans identity in a meaty, highly stylized full-length piece for two actors with an inventive narrative structure. A miracle? A tragedy? A rom-com? It's all of these things. Sounds impossible, but I have a theory John Mabey has pulled through for us.

It's funny how an entire lifetime can change in a moment with what seems like a small decision, and Philip Middleton Williams has illustrated this idea in just ten minutes. What I appreciate about this ten-minute two-hander is how Philip handled the ambitious time-jumping on stage between four unique scenes with cinematic ease--it made the screenwriter in me smile. Another well-written triumph in the Philip Middleton Williams collection. My only question left is: which of their futures is real? (and I think that was the entire point!)

Morey Norkin, a playwright living in Japan, has just given this lifelong American Gentile a masterclass on a chapter in my country's own history! What's fascinating about this piece is the fact that Morey flies in the face of the stock writing advice "show don't tell" to great effect, by instead being very strategic about what he shows--and lets narration cover the rest. If the reader is paying proper attention, their brain will fill in the rest. A well-researched, educational, and gripping historical narrative about Antisemitism in America fit for any age.

The battle every writer faces when creating a holiday play is: How do I write something that hasn't been done before and doesn't feel schlocky and manages to be a worthwhile work of art? To this writer, I say: look no further than Dana Hall's MY KIND OF CHRISTMAS! Dana is exactly the kind of writer up to this task, filling the pages with her trademark dry sense of humor, unabashed joy, and some unexpectedly pointed familial existentialism especially the commentary on the nature of traditions evolving. Highly recommended to become the newest perennial holiday favorite!

Horror is such a hard genre to tackle on stage, but Jillian Blevins never backs down from a challenge! Postpartum is a brilliant 15-minute piece bringing to life every parent’s primal fear—something is wrong with that baby.

I had the pleasure of seeing this piece performed in its rolling world premiere at NJ Rep this past weekend! Inda Craig-Galván has written four well-rounded, nuanced characters colliding in an often funny, hard-hitting skewering of how classism and racism manifest within factions of the African-American community. This piece's strength is in its dialogue, and Patricia serves as an exceptionally human antagonist. I have no doubt this piece will become a standard in black box theaters across the country and world, deservedly so!

"That’s what we do here. Bury it deep inside and have another drink." I've read a few of Philip Middleton Williams' plays at this point and I would dare to say COOLER NEAR THE LAKE is Philip Middleton Williams at the height of his power as a storyteller. COOLER NEAR THE LAKE serves up a snapshot into the complex relationships of both a close-knit lake community in the American Midwest and the strange relational dynamics of living and navigating life, love, and family as a gay man. CNTL is both a personal and theatrical triumph in every dimension!

"As long as you can forget the actual reason for the holiday, you can sell anything!"

Philip Middleton Williams has crafted a funny, cynical peek inside the heads of ad executives planning the Christmas season. Williams is especially gifted at creating a fully lived-in scene in his plays of any length or genre, and Christmas Commercial Conspiracy is exactly that. Great work!

I’m obsessed with the concept for this screenplay idea that’s the discussion point in this play—someone who’s a werewolf 24/7 because they’re in space! That’s badass! This is a very fun two-hander showing the kind of wacky slice-of-life conversation two friends can have right before a movie starts.