Recommended by Sheila Cowley

So glad to see these absolutely unique characters come to life in a staged reading at the National New Play Network Showcase. Musical language, aching live music and vivid imagery I'd love to see onstage.

This is a huge and mystic play that's at the same time intimate, detailed and realistic. The silent lines of dialogue are so eloquent. I look forward to seeing how this grand tale of dirt and trees and knife-sharp loss will come to life onstage.

What seems to be a loopy satire of pharmaceutical companies with some all-too-believable ramifications, turns into a riff on The Frog Prince tale and love you can't cure even with a vaccine. Over the top fun, snappy jokes and strong women.

Fiery women, vivid dialogue and fast-paced, darkly comic, desperate measures. There are lots of stories where men are driven by their father's legacy - here are impassioned women with guns tackling their mothers' long-lasting convictions. Complicated characters, twists and turns and politics and conscience. A potent play with laughs and shocking strength.

I'll be thinking about this story for a long time. Characters and dialogue so real it's like you're suddenly eavesdropping on the anthropologist embedded with the US military in Iraq. The soldiers and the locals are all people you can feel for. A slow-burning story of the anthropologist who's pulled between both sides. A powerful play with a beautiful, breathtaking ending.

What a beautiful and layered play - so many lines I wanted to mark in the margins, and a wealth of astute observations. It's moving and beautifully constructed, complex characters with humor, dancing and a lot of life. I'd love to see this play onstage - it's a real gift to read.

A very grown-up look at the question we all ask ourselves as kids - what kind of superhero could I be? A layered and compelling story full of unexpected turns, as people ask whether they could do hero-work for real, without imagined super-powers. Exciting, intriguing, funny, impassioned and heartbreaking.

The complicated dance of a not-quite-over marriage, with a moving and unexpected ending. Cheers to Donna Hoke for finding a seamless way to shift times and locations without long-drawn-out set and costume changes.

The best page one I've ever read. And that's just the first spark of a rip-roaring tale of action and poetry, wild lady pirates, laughs and profound longing - with a wonderfully questioning ending. The sound and lighting cues are simple but beautiful - it would make a wonderful production.

A powerful play of difficult truths, and so much I didn't know about how midwives were treated when doctors started practicing surgery. The brave young healer and the boy she loves, scarred from doctor's instruments, are the heart of a moving story.