Recommended by Doug DeVita

Playwright Cassie M. Seinuk characterizes "Meet Me In The Bathroom" as currently under development. As a work in progress: it's already well on its way to being a WOW! Seinuk has a firm grasp on the language, the personalities, and the almost unbearable pressure of being a teen-ager in a world where high-school reputations are made and destroyed with a single click. As Choderlos de Laclos wrote in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses:" "When one woman aims at the heart of another, she rarely misses. And the wound is invariably fatal." Seinuk hits a bullseye here. Brava.

Sarah Cosgrove Gaumond’s UNSPOKEN is a sensitive work, beautifully balancing melancholy and hope as her protagonist, Cate, confronts her past in order to heal. Playing with time and place, the play is structured as a series of quick, short scenes, giving it a cinematic feel which builds the tension and pulls us deeper into Cate’s story, allowing a catharsis for both her and the audience simultaneously.

An interesting, touching, and spot on character study that perfectly captures the dynamics of 3 siblings dealing with the suicide of their elder brother. Grief, denial, blame... all the emotions are bared with precision as they stumble their way to a greater understanding of their place in each others lives.

John Jiler's moody, evocative "Half Moon Bay" grabbed me on page 1, and never let go. A haunting tale about the illogical logic of an ill-fated obsession, Jiler's characters are so real, so flawed, and so human, one can't help but be swept up into their lives, and wonder, or is it worry, about their future long after having read the last page.

Set in the not-too-distant future after a series of not-so-improbable climate change catastrophes, “Be Mine’s” frighteningly funny argument posits that despite apocalyptic events, human nature itself won’t ever change — for better or worse. A provocative argument, lightly but deftly handled by McPherson.

Using a Starbucks in Manhattan as ground zero for a treatise on race relations in the Trump era is an inspired idea: where else is conspicuous consumption and white privilege better represented than the ubiquitous coffee shop that caters to the self absorbed kooks with too much time and money on their hands, and who fake a congenial intimacy with the baristas who serve them on a daily basis? But when something goes wrong, be it a badly made latte, or a missing baby, things get real ugly, real fast.

What fun! A bratty kid, an inexperienced cop, and two McDonalds employees serving up Happy Meals and drug deals all crash into each in this well-crafted, truly hilarious ten-minute farce. I was laughing out loud right up to the last lines.

"Desperation" is another wonderful example of Marj O'Neill-Butler’s expert ability to write very funny comedies that deal with the issues faced by contemporary women over fifty, in the process creating smart, multi-layered characters into which older actresses can sink their teeth. I laughed out loud on several occasions, and fell in love with everyone in this play.

In "Battle Ground State," Tony Tambasco expertly paints an America in the not so distant future, when the Republicans and Democrats have devolved from being warring political parties to becoming warring nations, and he does it by using the problems of one small family trying to avoid playing on the larger stage of the politics they're forced to confront in order to survive. Chilling, topical, and ultimately terrifying.

This charming, gentle short play captures the whimsy of childhood fantasies, along with the bonds – and rivalry – of young siblings beautifully. What gives it added depth is the knowledge that fate of these children (Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV's son and daughter) is bound to a larger world of which they have very little understanding, and it looms over the entire play like a thundercloud that never lets loose, allowing the children, and us by extension, to enjoy the moment, like a lovely summer's day.