Recommended by Audrey Lang

FUKT is the kind of play that makes you feel less alone. It's hard to say something that hasn't already been said in its many recommendations, but it feels important to me after reading such an extraordinary piece as this one, to say something. FUKT is a story of honesty and compassion, including with and for yourself, when those things are most difficult to offer. As these three versions of one woman learn how to be less alone together, so do I.

"Geomancer" is a thoughtful and thought-provoking look at real people and real events that I know I learned little if anything about in school, with a complex layering of science, politics, history, and emotions. It's the sort of play you want to read again, both to gain new insights and to re-experience the journey that Lum has created.

I feel as though I could spent countless more hours just listening in on Rockwell's characters--that's how real and how interesting they are. The time I spent with them while reading "The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood" was painful and beautiful, moving and heartfelt, and truly human and nuanced: qualities that are missing in so many stories of teenage girls, but are incredibly well-done in this play. I would love to see these characters take life in production!

A touching, humorous play about a girl dealing with grief, loss, and smashing the patriarchy in her own way. "Do This In Memory of Me" feels simultaneously irreverent but also the most reverent--a contradiction that deepens Genevieve's complex story even further. An exciting, powerful, and powerfully theatrical journey!

This story of a complicated family includes deliciously creepy scares and deliciously authentic relationships. A fun read—but I’d love even more to see it produced and watch this exciting play come to life onstage!

Nick Malakhow has a way of revealing humanity when he writes, and this play is no exception to that. Every character has such a depth and you want to keep spending time with them, even as you cringe when they hurt each other. I love this honest look at teenage characters, which doesn’t judge them, and takes them all as people in an extraordinary way.

A powerful look at race, sexual orientation, and isolation in a privileged school setting. I love that as present as the white, privileged voices around Sasha and Raymond are via text messages, they are the two characters whose story is placed centrally (as they are the only two characters we see or hear from directly onstage). This conveys a clear and direct sense of the environment they are living and learning in while giving the reader or audience a focused look at their specific pain and loneliness in a world where they are the "others."

I just watched "Masculinity Max" in Pride Plays and I am so taken with this gorgeous play. I laughed, I almost cried and found myself trying not to--an interesting and revelatory moment to have in my experience of this particular play. I gained a deeper understanding of what it means to be trans from this play, but more importantly, I felt myself, a cis lesbian, relating to every character and understanding gender in a new way. I need to see this play produced and I'd also love to see it become required reading in theatre and gender classes.

A PICTURE OF TWO BOYS is most beautiful to me in the moments that feel ugliest. It is an important look at trauma, the deep and painful shame that is found when the feelings surrounding a trauma are not the feelings you're "supposed" to have about that experience, and the struggles of friendship when one of the most significant things connecting you may be that trauma. I believe this play will change the lives of young men fortunate enough to play Pete and Markey and young audience members alike.

I love the way that both this play and its protagonist, Jason, are gentle without losing any assertiveness. Even in their moments of misunderstanding and anger, each character has care for the others--of course that's not a necessity for any play, but it's a beautiful part of humanity that I appreciate Malakhow's choice to depict. I loved the journey that SEEING EYE took me on and would love even more to experience a production!