Recommended by Vince Gatton

Is “unbearable” a word one can use to praise a play? It’s the word I keep coming back to regarding The Known Universe, the gorgeous and excruciating conclusion to Sickles’ Second World Trilogy. It begins with these beloved characters receiving truly unbearable news, then proceeds to show how they bear it. Sickles being Sickles, though, it’s anything but a slog: funny, sexy, overflowing with love, and with a central dramatic question that stays alive right to its final moment, The Known Universe is packed with both unbearable sorrow and hard-earned wisdom. And tears. Many tears. Bring tissues.

This is the second short play I've read this week inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (the other being John Bavoso's "Gaydestown"), and I'm struck by how beautifully these writers take this ancient story to such varied and interesting places. Tyler Joseph Rossi has set his on the icy face of Mt. Everest, giving us a haunting exploration of grief and regret that is poetic, spare, musical, and absolutely heartbreaking. Gorgeous, gorgeous work.

This very witty, very gay take on Orpheus and Eurydice asks what happens when the Eurydice doesn't *want* to be saved? As the bickering couple rides the endless escalator back up to the world of the living, their debate sparkles with sharp wit that masks a surprising depth of feeling. A meditation on our pandemic-induced loneliness, a spiky comedy, and a wise little observation about loss and the cycle of life, this brief bite turns out to be a real meal.

This tight and tense ten-minute drama delivers smoothly-flowing dialogue, engaging characters, mounting suspense, and hefty moral weight. A well-dressed man with a guilty secret stands alone on a subway platform, possibly contemplating suicide; a previously-unnoticed unhoused guy intervenes. The exchange that follows is a moral cat-and-mouse game in which class and privilege dissolve in the face of giant questions of crime, punishment, guilt, and absolution. The delicious ambiguity of its final pages, plus its boffo ending, make it a worthy heir to Bradbury, Dahl, or Serling.

Listen. Someone out there of my generation/demographics may be able to resist this deeply psychotic mash-up of V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic and C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe...but I'm here to tell you simply that I am not that person. Wicked, inappropriate, absolutely nuts, and yet -- honestly? -- only a *slight* exaggeration of the weirdness of its sources, Flowers in the Wardrobe is like a gonzo wink at my 12-year-old self. If you know, you know, and Kevin King knows.

What if your happy ending came along right as the world itself was coming to an end? That's what's in play in the second part of Scott Sickles' Second World Trilogy, wherein the young persecuted pen-pals from Marianas Trench have grown up to achieve their wildest aspirations -- just as the planet seems to be entering its death throes. Sickles starts with a literal bang, our heroes' (re?)union consummated from the get-go; but there are still forces pulling them apart, as implacable as the tectonic shifts that broke up the titular mother continent. Crazy-smart writing, and epically swoon-worthy.

A beautiful piece about isolation, need, and the different kinds of passion that can connect us. When a new client approaches a virtual sex worker with an off-menu request, what starts as awkward comedy takes a turn and something unexpected and wonderful occurs. What a gorgeous piece of work where three simple words, "I know it", can be so full of meaning, and can illicit such a rush of feeling. As an actor you long to get to play a moment like that; as a reader it gives me goosebumps. This play is lovely and necessary and so welcome.

Personal and political terrors combine with heartfelt adolescent yearning in this first part of Scott Sickles epic alternate-history/scifi dystopia trilogy, a story deeply layered with oppression, suppression, love, humor, and human connection. Two boys find each other through heavily-censored letters across the divide between the USA and the newly-formed Confederacy, their internal family dramas heightened and exposed by the ugly turns the world has taken. Both families are made up of gorgeously vivid and complex characters, who make good and bad choices as they each carry their own private burdens. A knockout.

What a joy this play is: funny, acerbic, wise, and kind, with terrific roles for older actresses as a pair of aging superheroes. A delightful staging conceit lends theatricality and physical comedy to a story that explores what being special means, how one's purpose can change over time, and what gifts we have to contribute to the world that we may sometimes overlook. We may not all be super-powered like Maria and Dominique, but their sibling dynamics are super-relatable and very human.

In circumstances heavy with sorrow and trauma, DC Cathro gives us a story that pops with humor and life. Waking up in a graveyard is exactly what Sarah wanted NOT to do, but here she is -- and it's all gabby stranger Miranda's fault. These two young women haven't had it easy -- not in life in general, and definitely not in the last few minutes -- but their prickly, complicated chemistry is a joy to behold. A beautiful, funny testament to resilience, connection, and what we owe to each other -- even, and sometimes especially, to strangers.