Recommended by Doug DeVita

I devoured this play in one sitting, and was so haunted by its beauty I went back a few days later to read it again – and I'm still spinning from the experience. And for once, I'm at a loss for words except to say I love every word and every character in this script, and I'm deeply touched by Villanueva's depth of feeling in this this work. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone looking for an exceptionally moving, exceptionally well written drama. It's just so damn... perfect.

Oh, the heartbreak, ramifications, and consequences of dashed teenage expectations; Melanie and Shaun may be teens of today's world, but their problems and methods of dealing with them are age-old, and are dealt with frankly but tenderly by Eliana Pipes in this achingly delicate, gently funny, and sad-but-hopeful little gem.

If Edward Albee and John Waters had a child, it could very well have been Steven Hayet, and THE PINEAPPLE LINE would be the play they grandfathered. There are no encomiums high enough to describe this work; stunning comes close but it's still not enough. Suffice to say, wherever you stand on the "Pineapple as a Pizza Topping" divide, you should read and savor this play. It's that good.

Taking the premise that this planet is, in reality, a penal colony to which criminals from another world are sent to do their time, David Ceci spins out fascinating theories about religion, free will, and the utter hopelessness of humanity as we know it, and makes the wildly improbable strangely sensible and compelling. What an interesting work, and one I'd like to see staged.

Magically beautiful, and beautifully magical. St. James lets their imagination run wild, and brings us along for a breathtakingly bittersweet, immensely theatrical look into the deepest parts of our childhood fears, longings, hopes, and dreams with gentle precision and heartbreakingly truthful emotion. What a lovely romantic fantasy, with characters one roots for and loves. So wonderful.

Carnes puts a proto-feminist spin on the legend of The Bell Witch, thereby giving the 19th century tale a deeper, creepier, and more horrifying edge. A wonderful piece for a Halloween Festival, it should prove to be popular with the actors performing it as they delve into the layers Carnes has given the story and the characters, and for its audiences who can revel in the work's alternating contemporary and traditional approaches to fright. Boo!

After watching Steven Haworth develop this over the last few years in a writers group we both attend, I listened to an online reading today and was fascinated by the journey Haworth has taken with the script. His exquisite sense of time, place, character, and local idioms adds a glistening layer of varnish to an intense work; as Haworth builds suspense slowly but surely, one goes along for the ride with every twist, turn, and drop.

Well, this is an unexpectedly fun piece! Surprising, witty, sexy, weird, and delicious. The use of art to comment on the action is inspired, as are the comments themselves. Totally absurd, but delightfully so.

Hope Villanueva’s concise depiction of “the system” is as explosive, as horrifying, and as devastating as the precise hit of a bullet on its mark. It should be performed, and often. Perhaps in the boardrooms of corporate America as a training manual for recognizing potential and cutting red tape.

This charming one-act, set entirely on the Staten Island Ferry, is a funny, touching, and very human love letter to a city that can sometimes feel quite inhumane — especially to a tourist. One is left cheered, hopeful, and smiling from ear to ear after reading this gentle, lovely work.