Recommended by Vince Gatton

Everything is deliberate in this quietly extraordinary, ordinary moment of Garrett's last day volunteering. The silent, mundane business, the pacing, the pauses, the information conveyed and withheld, accumulate to profound emotional effect -- Steven Martin owes me compensation for the painful lump in my throat this play gave me. Moral self-reckoning has rarely been so moving.

Two aging, hilariously bitter attendees at Groundhog Day festivities struggle to adapt to change…but the underlying reason for that struggle turns out to be deeply felt and beautifully rendered in Matthew Weaver’s tenderly empathetic hand. That grace note of an ending is pure poetry, and pulled a quiet little gasp out of me. How wonderful, how painful, how human.

An absolutely fookin’ lovely meditation on aging, creativity, nostalgia, friendship, obsolescence, and how we react to life’s unexpected late-act twists. If you didn’t already have a soft spot for these blokes from “28 Percent Capacity”, you will now.

Some things you can always be sure of when you step into an Aly Kantor play: it will be funny, idiosyncratic, and substantive; it will probably surprise you; and it will love its complicated women characters, allowing them their weaknesses, foibles, and sometimes fucked up motivations while glorying in their brains and wit. ERSTWHILE (OR, THE PRIME CUT) delivers on that Kantor Brand Promise, and I recommend it highly. Take a big bite, you’ll want seconds.

Oh, oh, oh, this may be my favorite Bascom and Isaac piece yet. This torrent of words may seem scattered at first, but Scott Sickles shows a sure hand in its construction: the point, when it arrives, lands beautifully. Not a single syllable has been superfluous. Just lovely, lovely, lovely.

A gently scorching monologue, wittily and ostensibly about language and names and children's stories and wordplay, but a clear intention quietly but undeniably pushes its way through -- a warning. History may not exactly repeat, but it sure does echo.

What's a Sherlock to do without his Moriarty? What's a Moriarty to do when the spark just isn't there any more? A hilarious, oddly sweet, and sweetly touching breakup story.

Wildly funny, tremendously fun, and surprisingly, wonderfully moving. Ava Love Hanna makes her metaphor winningly literal, giving actors, designers, and directors limitless opportunity for over the top physical comedy, all the while grounding the absurdity in something deeply true about marriage and secrets and the nature of love unspoken. An all-around great short piece, one that plays like a delicious froth of a dessert but is in fact a whole meal.

Dry, savage, and deliciously droll, this perverse Agatha Christie/Edward Gorey sendup is tightly constructed, egregiously silly, and tremendous fun. Stiffen your spine and produce it, you craven cowards.

This delightful piece of absurd whimsy is exactly as clever as I wanted it to be, and exactly as dumb. I snorted repeatedly, which please trust is high praise. The dippy, zany fun actors and propmasters will have with this one will be the stuff of legend.