Recommended by Vince Gatton

This gorgeous play packs a whole world into 10 minutes, and gives you two incredible, rich, funny, distinctive women who are much more than the sum of their hurts. Fragile, hard, sexy, heart-tugging,and joyful, this play is a knockout.

Oh my. This play is so many things: If you want a sweet, grounded lesbian rom-com, this is your play. If you want magical fantasy that bursts with imagination and design opportunities, this is your play. If you want a play about neurodivergent people that doesn’t condescend or pander, this is your play. If you want a play that embraces metaphor in a big way, this is your play. Absolutely winning in its clarity of voice, emotional frankness, and wit, this play won me over in a big way. I’m grinning ear to ear having finished it.

I saw this play at The Tank in NYC and loved it. A historical drama that is nonetheless wildly modern, Leisure, Labor, Lust bursts with theatrical imagination in its exploration of class, sex, and identity. Mysterious, funny, sexy, and moving.

A lovely entry in Philip Middleton Williams’ decades-spanning series of family stories, Blind No. 7 gives us a crucial moment in young Dan’s life — and he’s not even present for it. A portrait of male bonding at its doofiest and most non-toxic, this three-guys-out-hunting play is sweet and charming.

I saw a college production of this on Zoom and laughed my face off. Because the pandemic has them staying at home, Batman has set up a Zoom meeting to battle with Joker, which is every bit as absurd and pointless as it sounds. A delightfully reasonable Robin and a totally game Joker do what they can to help Batman through his crisis of purpose — and there are taquitos for dinner! A hilarious yet kind satire of toxic masculinity, and a relatable story about just getting through the next day of these trying times, man. Great stuff.

An absurdist skewering of writers’ groups, plagiarism, inspiration, and creative theft, this rondelay of self-absorption, opportunism, and betrayal had me laughing out loud. Savage and ridiculous and tremendous fun.

Scott Sickles has such a gift for writing about the bonds of love between characters, whether those bonds are romantic, sexual, fraternal, or platonic - especially when the love involved is mixed, contradictory, and confused. That is extremely so here, where his characters share a history that is at once beautiful, sad, and utterly horrifying. This story of trauma, mental illness, and the burden of past wrongs, remains underneath it all a story about love...complex and compelling and moving as hell, as Scott Sickles tends to have it. Beautifully done.

A witty and charming Faustian standoff, with apocalyptic stakes and some genuine emotional underpinnings. (Plus it has a Pippin reference, which, you know, makes everything better in my book.) Great fun.

Absolutely gorgeous. The frictions between these four terrific characters are made all the more poignant by the understanding and compassion Audrey Lang brings to each of their perspectives. The yearning romantic hope that drives her teen protagonists jumps off the page, as do their flaws and failings; and the frustrations and needs of a younger sister and supposedly wicked stepmother are given no less weight and care. With dialogue that’s both solidly realistic and endlessly expressive, this wonderfully humane story masterfully evokes all the feelings it aims for, and then some. Brava.

Messy, messy, messy, are the family dynamics explored so beautifully in John Mabey’s Stages of Joy. As Sharon and Mattie near the end of clearing out their deceased parents’ house, an accidental discovery sheds potential new light on old wounds — but whether that will prove to be a balm or more salt is unclear. The natural, easy flow of dialogue gives us two memorable characters: real, complicated adult siblings who are distanced but not estranged, loving but not close, and trying to do their best by each other. Well done.