Recommended by Audrey Lang

ABCD is a brutally honest depiction, even indictment, of the major flaws and inequities in the American public school system, even as it maintains a remarkable degree of care for the individuals stuck inside of it. No character is portrayed entirely as a villain, but no one is let off the hook either - it is always complicated. I saw the virtual reading of ABCD in the Playwrights Realm's INK'D Festival and can't wait to see this play make waves onstage and/or in classrooms across the country.

This play is thrilling to read. It has so much respect for its teenage characters - Kathryn de la Rosa lets their thought and dialogue flow authentically and so cleverly. Sam, Marina, and Jesse explode off the page and leave me deep in thought and eager to instantly re-read (or better yet, to see onstage), to catch the new intricacies I'm sure I would find with each foray into their world.

This is such an exciting, yet chilling, play - most exciting in its most disturbing moments, and most disturbing in its most "normal" moments of young womanhood somehow. I have to admit that I was a little wary of reading this play because of its proximity to Hitler, but I found it to be really thoughtful and humanizing of the girls, without humanizing him, which I appreciated. "Hitler's Tasters" made me think in a surprising new way.

This is such a deeply theatrical play and I'm aching to see it performed. The characters are complex and challenging. It can be hard to empathize with people in circumstances we don't fully understand, so it is especially remarkable that Yarchun has depicted a family struggling with mental illness in a way that lets us in and truly does bring us to feel for each character, even and especially when their actions (or inactions) are upsetting.

This play is incredible and everything I could hope for in a teenage Julius Caesar adaptation. It is both funny and uber-serious, because everything in the lives of Kaashvi, Priyanka, Bailey, and all the others is just that high-stakes. Their dialogue and feelings are truthful and believable, while easily rising to (and perhaps even surpassing) the momentous level of high-stakes-ness of the original characters from the source material. I would love to see this play performed!!!

A super sweet play about change and growing up. Danielle Mohlman's ensemble of characters deals with totally relatable feelings of being left out (in many different ways) and of not being ready for the next step of life, and how to keep going anyway. The music gives the play an exciting sense of motion, and the way that queerness is acknowledged and embraced, yet also so casual and normal, makes my heart sing.

"In Every Generation" is, without a doubt, one of the best Jewish plays I've ever read. In this play, Ali Viterbi addresses so many of the complications surrounding Jewish identity, from who is "allowed" to feel or be Jewish, to being "Jewish enough," to even being "not-Jewish enough," as well as the intergenerational trauma associated with the Holocaust and Judaism. The way Viterbi tackles this by using four vastly different Jewish moments in time (moments in Jewish time?) is nothing short of brilliant. Every young Jewish person (and old Jewish person) should experience this play -- every generation.

Paul Michael Thomson has written an outrageously funny play that also manages to address a wide variety of serious issues in society, in theatre, and of course, in junior high school. The climax, and the way it was resolved, truly got me. This play never loses the trying-too-hard vibe of every junior high theatre kid, capturing them with humor and understanding, but also acknowledges the real hurt they cause each other in the process. Such a brilliantly written and constructed piece!

"Three Year Summer" captures so clearly the struggles of being thirteen: wanting both privacy and your family, wanting both a crush and a friend, and in everything, not being totally sure which is which or which is more important. It's wonderful to see the way that Tommie eventually finds her confidence and that magic can only take you so far, but the magic of writing and of using your voice go even farther.

I was lucky enough to witness the development of judy as Emma’s fellow member of The Workshop Theater’s Fall 2020 Writers Intensive. This play is unabashedly quirky, funny, and heartbreaking for all involved and deals so well with body image and the complications of growing up.