Recommended by Doug DeVita

Susan Cinoman choreographs a slick, stunning, and strangely beautiful dance of death in this brief, but haunting fantasy. Really wonderfully provocative and alluringly sensual while being brutal and horrifying, her depiction of the unending battle of the sexes strikes through the heart with decisive precision.

The paranoia sets in early in this funny but horrifying metaphor for life early in the COVID 19 era. Plummer keeps us one step ahead of the hapless Stephanie, and the tension – as well as the uneasy laughs – mounts inexorably as we watch helplessly while she falls prey to her roommate from hell Vida’s game of Risk. A great piece for three actors to play, and wonderful challenges for a director and their team abound – the special effects call for some thrilling, and inventive, staging.

Good God, this play is such an inventive, multilayered, disturbing, beautiful, funny, horrifying work of art. Bray captures you right from the start, grabbing you by the throat, really, and never letting go. This is one of those plays I will read again and again, as there is so much to savor, and still see new details each time. Just wonderful.

Although inspired by the poem “Untitled” James Baldwin, the poetry here is completely Lamedman’s. This experimental montage captures all of the feelings that come with any change in the weather, whether it be joy, fear, sadness, longing, etc…, and they are all expressed with a beauty that pierces right down to the soul. I’d love to see this staged, as there are so many possibilities for quite the theatrical experience.

If this is an early draft… Jesus! It’s already pretty tight! Larson expertly weaves all the various threads of one family’s life into one compelling story, but never loses sight of her central character Lark’s journey; her determination to make her life her way fuels the entire play. Both intimate and theatrical, it’s a wonderful read; I’m looking forward to the further development of this very moving work.

Fathers. Sons. Loss…

The hovering inevitability of loss drives this haunting two-hander, a full-length kept beautifully spinning throughout by its genuine depth of feeling, sure sense of direction, and most importantly, its raw, emotionally honest depictions of the father and son at the center of the piece. A wonderfully touching read, I imagine in performance there won’t be a dry eye in the house by the end.

Scott Sickles can write romance with the best of them, but nothing in his work so far quite prepared me for the delicacy and genuinely moving depth of feeling waltzing through this elegant and lovely work. Beautifully handled, right up to its surprising, emotionally satisfying conclusion. A gorgeous piece, one of Sickles’ best.

Holy Shit! Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos has written a wonderfully creepy and surreal “Northeastern Southern Gothic Noir,” her wildly theatrical sense of the absurd firing on all cylinders here. And in “FLORENCE “BUNNY” MAYBRICK aka MISS CHANDLER” she has given us a fabulously worthy heiress to all those fabulously eccentric heroines Tennessee Williams (with a slight nod to Giraudoux) made so irresistible to actresses (and actors) as well as audiences; I so want to see this performed!

I love how Bernstein so effortlessly writes about the intersection of politics and culture; of all her work I’ve read so far, THE LEGEND OF TOMMY TREMAIN may be her most cogent. Early on I was drawn in by this line: “You are everyone who lies without recognizing what a lie is and does.” Powerful stuff right from the start, and the play just keeps escalating from there. It’s a thought provoking, angry, necessary work, completely deserving of both the praise and recognition it has garnered thus far, and completely deserving of a wide audience.

A clever idea for a musical, hilariously spun out with some pretty sharp political satire, jabs at contemporary society, internet and musical theater in-jokes, and a healthy tongue-in-cheek sense of itself and its darker edges. I imagine when staged it will be an audience pleaser, and a lot of fun to boot!