Recommended by Asher Wyndham

A quirky monologue about relationships with a memorable action moment -- a spectacle with spare change. If you're producing a short solo/monodrama festival on relationships and love, consider this one by Zoe Jovanovich.

WOW. This play is super cute and heartwarming - the popsicle moment is one of my favorite moments in the history of reading plays - and it also heartwrenching in its simplicity. It's also complex -- the interrupting vs. interpretting dreams forced me to think about how the Trump Administration is interrupting the dreams of the undocumented through abuse and separation. If you haven't read a Hageman play, start here -- and you'll get hooked and want to follow her career. Highly recommended for a protest play festival.

One of most intense short plays I've read on New Play Exchange. Is the stranger a perv-o or a guardian? Is he trying to teach the teenager a lesson through frightening her or does he have another motive? And why does he have handcuffs? The situation isn't something I've read before -- and made me uncomfortable every page. Check out this perfect play and consider it for your theatre's short play festival. I also recommend this for any high school theatre showcase or an Intro to Directing class in college.

This is a play unlike any other play by Weaver. The language here is his most poetic, most experimental -- it has a playfulness like Edward Albee, a delicacy of ancient Greek plays (if the characters were sirens), the speech of sexy vampires (I've never been around vampires, but I think they would sound like the women in this play)-- it seems to borrow from various genres and styles to create something surprising to the ear. The world he has created just by dramatic language is captiviating. This is a good example why Weaver is a finalist for festivals.

Most monologues play it safe; the character is a good person with flaws. Rarely is the character pure evil. This isn't a sinful man, it's an evil man in a surplice instructing an altar boy -- a future victim -- on his vestments and duties. It's really creepy how the priest uses the language of Christian doctrine and effuses it with sexual undertones. A future crime will be committed offstage, and you're left to wonder what will happen to the altar-boy. The problem is still happening. This play is a reminder.

Weaver writes charming, joyful plays that make you smile. A few times he goes into the dark territory. This play is wicked Weaver, from the same author of the sick/creepy play Rugburn. Check out this monologue. It'll certainly be wicked pleasure for an audience.

A comedy on a mid-life crisis for a married man -- with charm, insight, and surprising intimacy. Perfect short, just perfect. Highly recommend this winning play for any festival on marriage, relationships, love, or just any theatre festival. Get a toilet, two actors, and make this play.

This play is one of the best-written political short plays that I've read on New Play Exchange. Says so much about evil and racism that shapes the worldview of Trump supporters. The dehumanization and cruelty that is happening offstage -- in the US right now -- will either break your heart and depress you or anger you -- whatever the reaction, this is a play that can force you to protest, to call your local representatives, to vote. It's a perfect example of theatre for social change. Produce this perfectly-crafted play now.

What's the secret? What painful episode in the past resulted in ten years no relationship between daughter and father? Those questions will keep your interest as the monodrama progresses to its disturbing ending. It was impressive how the charcter of this young woman -- her heartache and anger -- was constructed gradually through believable speech, demands, and questions. A monologue to consider for any solo festival.

The plays of Diaz-Marcano speak to us on several levels -- political, sexual, feminist, and the mythic (Puerto Rican or Latinx and U.S.). INTO THE RIVER I WENT is no exception. It has a strangeness like in Erin Courtney's Demon Baby, and its subjects of rape, gun control, and race politics makes it topical. The character of the Beast will be a challenge for director and design artists, and the shocking showdown a dream-come-true for a fight choreographer. If you're not reading Diaz-Marcano, join the club. Read, produce, share his work.