Recommended by Doug DeVita

What a sweet and touching character study; Hoke captures different sides of wistfulness as she skillfully delineates her two characters in their different stages of life. Lovely.

Dark, bleak, repetitive (as its title suggests), and audaciously, hilariously funny rumination on the horrors of growing old. As Bette Davis said: “It ain’t for sissies.”

When Daly writes about family dysfunction she is on sure ground and she pulls no punches; using a fast-moving verbal shorthand, Daly’s aim in “Raw” is lethal, and she delivers a breathtaking blow to the gut and below. Harrowing.

Haunting, heart-breaking, and at times surprisingly hilarious, Lori Fischer's "Petie" rivets from first page to last. Parsing out information as needed with an exquisite command of non-expository exposition, Fischer steadily builds tension with each succeeding, beautifully written scene, her all-too-human characters maintaining interest and sympathy even when their actions are frustratingly obtuse, and even, at times, heinous. A sure ear for the rhythms of her characters speech adds a shimmering effect which is quite appropriate for a memory play, especially one as delicate, yet tough, as this one. A true gem.

Creepy, unsettling, paranoia-inducing, stalker-nightmare-fueling fun.

I have long been a fan of Suzanne Bachner’s work; in a former life, before I began writing my own plays, I reviewed “Circle” for the off-off Broadway Review. A snippet of that review:

“With gleeful acidity, Circle explores issues of sex, power, desire, and intimacy.”

Re-reading the play recently, I stand by my original assessment; it’s a wonderful work.

https://oobr.com/go.htm#!menuID=Circle%20Bachner

For a “*very early draft,” Tyler Joseph Rossi’s “Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin” is pretty tight. Fictional meetings between historical characters generally make for interesting theater, and Rossi demonstrates a sure hand here as the titular characters meet in an otherwise empty speakeasy at the dawn of the “talkies.” They drink, accuse each other of intellectual theft, and engage in a knock-down drag-out bar-room brawl in a promising play that deftly exposes the pain underneath their comedic genius. I’m looking forward to watching this develop.

This is delightfully delicious; Armstrong’s farce moves like wildfire and provokes nearly non-stop laughter as it races along its wildly inventive, smartly conceived, and beautifully constructed course.

Maybe the lullaby of old Broadway lights the way to opening a new window into the glamorous life of a real estate agent? Kate Danley's "Staging" – like Marjorie Bicknell's short "Sondheim Syndrome"– is another charming look into the necessity of using Broadway musicals as a selling tool. Apparently there's no business like show business, especially on the street where you live. So, hey, big spenders: Happy Hunting!

And hey, Mr. Producer: pairing Bicknell's and Danley's shows would make for some enchanted evening.

(Okay, I'm done.)

"Cry Havoc," by Tom Coash, grabs you by the throat on page 1, and never lets go. Gripping, terrifying, heartbreaking, and sadly still all too relevant.

(Full disclosure: I was the marketing director for Abingdon Theatre Company when they produced this play in 2007. I loved it then, and I still love it; I'm thrilled to have a platform like NPX to recommend it to a larger audience.)