Recommended by Vince Gatton

"How can we ever know what anyone else is going through?"

This beautiful little play, a private one-on-one moment at a high school reunion, explores how such moments can actually change the course of a life. A memory which looms large for one person can be a lost blip for another, of course, but this wise little play knows that doesn't diminish its meaning and impact. Alli Hartley-Kong has given us lived-in characters with likable self-awareness, winningly natural dialogue, and a gentle emotional urgency that I found captivating. Gratitude and grace, beautifully expressed in ten lovely minutes.

A recurring theme in Christian St. Croix’s writing is the tension between a wounded wariness of love, and an overwhelming, irresistible faith in its power. Here he gives us a ritual of tales told in the moonlight - tales of love in fantasy, horror, and apocalyptic trappings, but love stories nonetheless. St. Croix’s language is soaringly poetic, yet still grounded by real-life detail: a work uniform, a box of muffin mix, and an ill-timed phone call satisfyingly tether the vastdeep emotion to real-world characters with pulses, jobs, and actual lived lives. Another beautiful, poignant winner.

A lovely and heart-tugging entry in the hilarious, sexy, and moving Beauregard and Zeke series, this one gives us a whole someone else's story, quietly sitting there just out of view. A masterful example of telling you a lot with a little, and of how love between boys has changed - and not changed - since the seemingly-ancient-but-still-recent past. If you're anything like me, you'll want to keep your tissues handy.

A brilliant and deeply moving exploration of what we would and wouldn't do to protect ourselves and others, and what genuine loving kindness does and doesn't look like. Two strangers in dire life-and-death circumstances face off, the desperate need of one hitting the implacable wall of the other; mediating it all is the the dog Roxie, a terrific character and terrifically effective device that not only charms but packs a wallop when the story gets where it's going. You're a good girl, Roxie. Such a good, good girl.

Humor, horror, joy, and sorrow commingle beautifully in St. Croix’s stunning play. Black Remy is raising his late husband’s white teenage son Pup, and their bond is gorgeously real, warm, idiosyncratic, and sharp. But darker events in their pasts and the present threaten the safe haven of their drive-in theater/trailer home. This fathers-and-sons story is funny, painful, and filled with so much love, exploring the monsters and ghosts that terrorize us, those that live inside us, and those that do both at once.

Michael O’Day's Billy and Ma are hilarious, and their zippy dialogue delivers primo, salty, Staten Island-y goodness. There’s also something much sadder, and even a bit scarier, lingering just under the surface in this portrait of an isolated and frustrated young man, fighting to prove his worth to a world that always seems a step or two ahead of him. This short winner takes place not very long ago, but the world today is more full of Jimmy Mangiarolis than ever. A funny, sweet, and sad warning of a play.

I promise I mean it as high praise when I tell you I found this play nauseating. Sage Martin plays around with effectively nightmarish absurdity before descending into all-too-real horror in this powerful short. Queasy-making, terrifying, enraging, and heartbreaking.

The dad struggle is real. This awkward conversation behind a toy store digs into issues about race, gender norms, and the isolation that toxic ideas about masculinity and manhood can create. Mabey explores these bigger ideas with his trademark humor and compassion, filling this encounter with fallible human grace notes that made me laugh and smile and nod. The kids are alright, if their dads can be, too -- in Mabey's world, and hopefully in ours.

This is awesome. Sally’s teacher is awesome. Sally is awesome. Elisabeth Giffin Speckman is awesome. And it must be said: what makes it all so awesome isn’t just the powerful and important message it conveys, but the high level of execution: idiosyncratic, natural, active, entertaining, urgent, very funny, and with an entire tight dramatic arc, Make It Known hits all the right notes and makes it look easy. Brava.

Maybe it's that I'm mildly claustrophobic; or maybe it's that I grew up where cave tours were standard school-field-trip fare and I can too easily place myself in this predicament; or maybe it's just that Kirkman knows how to tell a good story. However you slice it, this little bit of speculative history told entirely in the dark had my heart racing from the get-go. This desperate scenario is also infused with likable, distinct characters and a surprising amount of humor. No idea how the real-life story ended, but for me the play delivers on the shivers.