Recommended by Vince Gatton

Damn, Justin Aaron Halle is not playing around or pulling punches. Macht Frei is a scathing, emotionally brutal, highly theatrical cris de coeur against, yes, fascism, but moreso against complacency among those who should know better. Savage and righteous at once.

Sure, yes, they’re hot air balloons — but they still have feelings. This backstage comedy about three vintage Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons has snappy dialogue, sharply-defined characters, and high emotional stakes. In addition to the (hilarious) lampooning of actors’ egos and petty jealousies, Hot Air also gives us some real talk about aging, obsolescence, and what gives life meaning as death approaches. A funny, sweet, and sad existential comedy that stares into the void. The show must go on, right up until it doesn’t.

Adam Richter writes with such wit and compassion, creating flawed yet love-worthy characters who are painfully aware of their own failings. Here the challenges of fatherhood take center stage, as a beleaguered dad makes a tired show of scaring off the monster under his kid's bed...but then the monster actually responds, and it becomes another thing entirely. Really funny and as salty as it is sweet, I want to give this monologue an arm punch and say: you're doing great.

An excellent addition to the subgenre of two-handers wherein a seemingly chance encounter between strangers reveals itself to have hidden agendas. Michael O'Day has a terrific ear for dialogue and character; this funny and increasingly tense scene turns a harsh eye on misguided ideas about manhood, and what growing up is and isn't.

(Also, I love it when the meaning of a title reveals itself in a nifty way, and such is the case here. Mad respect for that title.)

If fast-talking, sharp-witted, miserable people are your jam (as they are mine), then this comedy is 100% for you. And honestly? If fast-talking, sharp-witted, miserable people annoy you, I'd say this comedy is for you, too. Amy Dellagiarino effectively crawls under and through these characters to get at the genuine heart and ache and frustration underneath all the quick-witted defense mechanisms, and makes it worth your time. (Also: ugh. Matt. And his dumb painting. UGH. The worst.)

A freakin' gem, and I love it. As someone...um, *familiar* with trivia nerdiness, I can testify that the characters here are 100% spot on, their wit, fervor, sharpness of tongue, and level of investment amplified and deepened by slogging through the worst months of the pandemic -- to hilarious and poignant effect. (That their arch-rival team is named Quizzlecoatl was all I needed to get on board; when I finally learned their own team's real name, I fist-pumped. Nerd.) A winning comedy with a beautiful message about the value of community, connection, and what everyone has to contribute.

A symphony of mourning in unfinished sentences, this lovely, strange, visually and verbally poetic piece sings off the page. The dialogue here is broken, self-censored, and interrupted, the silences expansive...yet Kullen Burnet deftly gives you all the pieces you need to fill out its very moving backstory -- as well as giving actors rich characters to play in the here and now. Straddling the lyrical and the everyday with confidence, Burnet tells this moving story with a clarity of vision and voice that's exciting to see in a young writer. Sweet and sad and beautiful.

Look, far be it from me to rag on ten-minute play festivals, goodness knows. But when they come in for a skewering as savage and affectionate as Rich Espey's "I Saw This in Paducah!", it's hard not to cheer. Inane themes and ridiculous "World Premier Only" restrictions; audience members who are both passionate (yay!) and entitled (boo!); and somehow, through all the absurdity, something actually important trying to get said and heard...they're all here in Espey's frustrated, angry, yet big-hearted comedy. Put this in your festival and let the meta sparks fly.

Visceral, raw desire gets filtered through a magnificently dexterous verbal brain in this scorching solo piece. Rarely have I seen animal eroticism expressed so unapologetically, so nakedly, and yet with such precise and adept use of language - onstage this would be a hell of a ride for both performer and audience. Call the fire department, Miranda Jonte is here to burn the house down.

I felt uneasy from the get-go of this encounter on a train-station bench, my unease made all the more palpable by the easy charm and wit in the banter of these characters. What, I thought, is going on here? When the answers, such as they are, start to come, what was uneasy turns outright unsettling -- but also weirdly empathetic. Prickly, dangerous, funny, and fragile are the people of Elisabeth Giffin Speckman's world, and I'm here for all of it.