Recommended by Doug DeVita

Oh, those last moments of innocence and that inevitable moment when one friend matures faster than the other...

Weaver captures all the charm, wonder, bravado, and heartache of that moment when everything irrevocably changes in this beautiful little masterpiece, at once as joyful and sad as it is in life.

Anyone who's ever felt hemmed-in by the holidays and/or become over them before they've even begun, Goldman-Sherman's Claus-trophobic comedy is for you. Delightfully tense and fall on the floor funny, this short is a gift for two older actors. Delicious fun.

While reading this unsettling play, I was reminded of the Frank Loesser song “Inchworm,” from the movie “Hans Christian Andersen.” In the song, Andersen sings a haunting refrain encouraging an inchworm to stop and think how beautiful marigolds are while in the background we hear students monotonously intoning an arithmetic lesson. Both Loesser’s song and Omorotionmwan’s play are lyrical pleas for the acceptance and beauty of non-conformity, with Omorotionmwan adding layers of fear and loss that make this play a devastating cautionary tale for our times.

Three geniuses take a yoga class... and all high-falutin’ hell — and wind — breaks loose. Fresh and funny.

A play in which the metaphor is the meaning, Stephen Kaplan’s “A Real Boy” stuns with its inventive theatricality, its well-placed humor, and particularly with its depth of feeling. A beautifully written, provocative, and haunting work of art.

There is so much beauty in this script it almost overwhelms, and I mean that in the best way possible. Dave Osmundsen's protagonist, Henry, is one of the most specifically engaging characters I've encountered in a long while, and he is wrought so tenderly one can't help but fall in love with him, fear for him, root for him, and ultimately cheer for him. I would love to see this script produced. Often.

Disturbing and gut-wrenching, this play will churn up deeply felt emotions and haunt you for days after reading it. Beautifully handled all the way through, Salisbury has written another unfortunately necessary piece of theater for out times.

I don't think I've ever seen bullying presented so poetically, or with such theatricality. And that Hageman presents the issue from three sides, and presents it so clearly, just adds to the power of the work. This should be a required text in HS English courses, as well as produced at assemblies regularly.

What a beautiful play. By going into the mind of Miriam, Jacquelyn Floyd-Priskorn brings us right into the terror and heartbreak of loss. And while pulling no punches, she does it with sympathetic grace and tenderness. Moving, at times humorous, often sad, and just... beautiful.

Horrifying, gut-wrenching, and all too possibly possible, Jennifer Walton’s “My Pretty Pink Rifle” graphically hits a bullseye. A stunning statement about gun culture in the USA, Walton takes down every argument 2nd Amendment advocates have through the simple, deceptively clear-eyed logic of a child who is too young to completely grasp the horror and tragedy she caused with her pretty pink rifle. Heartbreaking and intense, this play should be produced everywhere.