Recommended by Doug DeVita

Commerce and creativity clash in Daniel Rover Singer's "Dizgruntled," a passionately written and authentically realistic look into the very real unhappiness that threatened Walt Disney's "happiest place on earth" in the early 1940s. Juicy behind the scenes gossip mixed with scrupulously researched historical fact makes for a fun read that nonetheless shines a harsh light on the inequities of being a right brain person in a left brain world.

Molly Wagner's "Tide" fairly shimmers with deep feeling, pitting one's faith in God against one's faith in oneself with an urgency that captures and sweeps you into the conflicting emotions like a riptide. This is a finely wrought work, which poses questions that have no easy answers, and none are given. Beautifully done.

With haunting dreamlike logic and cinematic precision, Hovanesian's "Roses" plays with time, perception, and perspective with effortless and shattering skill. A lot of questions are raised, very few of them are answered, but nonetheless the play is a completely satisfying and moving experience; it lingers in both the mind and the heart for quite some time after having read it.

Fueled by a mixture of tension and heart, the relationship between a jaded, alcoholic script doctor and a young pup "New York City Playwright" in 1930's Hollywood is what makes "Page Count" an affecting mismatched buddy comedy/drama. The stakes for both characters are high, their rapid-fire banter has the breezy zing of pre-Code flicks, and playwright Kerr follows the advice of the older, experienced screenwriter in his script: "Get in as late as you can, and get out as soon as you can," a bit of advice that keeps the play bubbling along right up to it's heartbreaking conclusion.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Weaver out-metas meta as he not quite exits while being pursued by a Bear.

A fascinating "what if?" look into a fictional meeting of two completely opposing personalities, literary giants Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll (aka the Reverend Charles Dodgson), Daniel Rover Singer's two-hander is a wonderfully entertaining one act that zings the funny bone and stings the heart, and is beautifully handled from start to finish. What a joy it would be to see it staged; as it is, reading it gives one much blissful pleasure, like spending time with old friends, but in a new light. It's a total delight.

The Greatest Generation, Boomers, Gen X, Millenials, whatever the hell you want to call them... when we're in our twenties, at the crossroads after college but before life really starts throwing the curveballs, we all have/had the same concerns and fears. The genius of this script is that Wagner realizes this, and has written a play that crosses all generational lines because the characters, and their concerns, are so universal. We're not so very different, after all. Beautifully done. And funny as hell, too!

A post-Holocaust Holocaust play, this overwhelmingly powerful, almost unbearably sad "dark comedy" is a punch-to-the-gut that nonetheless does have moments of levity, no matter how morbidly tragic. It is a credit to Blatner's talent that she makes this piece riveting and compelling – despite the horrifying subject matter – from the sheer boldness of her writing, and her sympathetic handling of her characters, even the most heinous.

Baughfman brings us into the heads of two men and absolutely nails their quite different thought processes. Funny, sad, touching, and spot on.

What is God's plan? A quick, euphoric death? A chance to start a new life with a new connection? Life is a rollercoaster, but is it meant to end on one? Who cares. Just strap in and enjoy the weird, wild ride Baughfman provides in his very dark comedy, and just let the questions linger later.