Recommended by Doug DeVita

Capturing the convoluted, tongue-in-cheek twists and turns of the Noir genre, this perfectly constructed play is a very entertaining read, and the opportunities for inventive direction, staging and performances abound in spades. Great fun.

This is Cathro working in a more lyrical vein than usual, but as usual he delivers: touching, haunting, sensuous, electric… this paean to love may be a fantasy, but it is also emotionally wrenching and deeply satisfying in a very real way. And it’s a marvelous opportunity for inventive staging and performance. Just… wonderful in every sense of the word.

Annie Harrison Elliott’s dark comedy unfurls at a frenzied pace with much to say about women in the tech arena, most of it seriously funny. Sort of like Clare Booth Luce’s THE WOMEN (version 2.0), its themes of female bonding to overcome their limitations in a man’s world are sharply observed and executed with satiric precision.

Weibezahl beautifully captures the fear and desperation as an elderly woman valiantly tries to not think about what her future may hold, both the immediate and the immediate after-math. Touching and haunting.

Wow. This incisive short by Gina Femia is layered and loaded, filled with sentiment but definitely not sentimental. And as is usual for Femia, it’s what not being said that packs the punch that lingers long after one has read it.

Winter Miller grabs you by the jugular right from the start, and she doesn't let go. Politics and outrage aside (and there are plenty of both here – justifiably so), it's the humanity with which Miller infuses this play that makes it such a gripping, intensely theatrical, and NECESSARY work of art. An infuriating, poignant, heartbreaking, stunning, necessary work of art.

Jennifer Blackmer's PREDICTOR educates without lecturing, is thought-provoking without being heavy-handed, smart without being overbearing, and more than anything else, it's incredibly entertaining. Written with a sure sense of time, place, and theatricality, the central role of Meg Crane is a tour de force for an actress, and all the other roles in the ensemble will provide a field day for the rest of the cast. Insightful, funny, touching, and sharp as a scalpel; oh, how I would love to see this staged!

Bette Midler once referred to Long Island as "Satan's Little Theme Park;" Cindi Sansone-Braff has supplied the prime attraction with her hilariously dark haunted house of crumbling cards. Wonderfully over-the-top characters flinging zingers like rice at an Addams Family wedding help make this an easy, breezy read, and I imagine it would be even more fun to experience live, perhaps as an immersive staging in a creepy old house, preferably on Long Island, but really anywhere would do. Snaps. Snaps.

This lovely, lyrical fantasy is full of life and longing, and may be one of Osmundsen's lightest, yet most deeply felt works. It doesn't just fly, it soars.

This beautiful play haunts. Gabriel Jason Dean's characters are so alive, his dialogue is natural yet achingly poetic, and the play builds momentum artlessly but irrevocably; it's a riveting read, and I can only imagine how wonderfully it works in production. Completely worthy of its accolades thus far, "Terminus" has made me want to read all of the plays in Dean's "The Attapulgus Elegies."