Recommended by Eric Pfeffinger

A terrific, ingenious, raw and poetic play that encapsulates a sprawling and vitriolic political divide as a grounded, human drama between two specific, recognizable people. Covers vast rhetorical and dramatic territory in just eleven pages.

What a masterful juggling act this play performs -- a keenly observed character comedy, an uncompromising interrogation of morality on a global scale, and a kick-ass rock & roll concert -- all in the service of exploring and ratifying the power of art to make a difference in the world. Knocks your socks off in performance.

The playwright boldly and deftly uses the extremity of her protagonist's crises to create amplified moments that are both absurdly hilarious and completely grounded in real, recognizably painful humanity. It's a broadly funny comedy with high personal stakes and it never telegraphs what it's going to do next -- the playwright's confident manipulation of tone fills me with envy and admiration. In performance it must be a rollicking gutpunch of a ride.

Such a strikingly affecting play -- bold and clear-eyed about adults coping with the consequences of their choices in a world of very real obstacles. Nothing in this play feels contrived or manipulated, and yet its seemingly relaxed plotting resolves into a tightly observed treatment of regret and accountability. Terrific, surprising, believable characters that actors will love to play.

This remarkable play engages insightfully with the wider world on the macro level while simultaneously being an impeccably observed, detailed portrait of recognizable people living their lives. Moving and stirring and ingeniously structured.

Innovative and surefooted, built on a confident awareness that the most momentous drama in our lives often expresses itself through the most unassuming and mundane moments.

A brainy drama of petty ambition that goes to the heart of what art's all about, with a driving comic sensibility that's positively vaudevillian.

The anxious experiences of regret and second thoughts and reduced opportunities, dramatized here with such immediacy, has a queasy universality. Coupled with the phenomenon of working poverty it takes on a sharp political specificity. The notes of hope and optimism at the end are complicated and welcome.

Starts as a deftly brisk and funny slice-of-life, something that three young actors with good timing can really crush. But when things turn -- dropping what feels like a big bomb on these young lives -- the feelings are real and the anger is unsparing and the final moments, which could have been unsatisfyingly pat, are instead laden with emotional subtext.

I first saw this play years ago; it's the kind of subject you'd hope would go out of date but regrettably it feels as electric and relevant as ever. This is the kind of thing theater's supposed to do: translate an idea into concrete, grounded drama with such immediacy that even audiences who think they already agree with the premise are discomfited and enlightened by the experience. Tight and relentless and necessary.