Recommended by Vince Gatton

If you usually find whimsy cloying and hard to swallow, I strongly suggest you try the Adam Szymkowicz version. The Book Store is magical, yes, but it knows how you feel, it gets it, it’s been there...and it finds a million little ways to coax you in anyway. Delightful, witty, moving, and satisfying as a good novel — the one you didn’t know you needed, right when you needed it.

Dang, y'all. The individual pieces of Reykjavik are magical or menacing or both; collectively they add up to a whole that delivers a disturbing and satisfying emotional wallop. Sexy, dangerous, and weirdly compassionate, Reykjavik is hell of a meal.

I love what Donna Hoke is up to here, testing her audience's response to uncomfortable relationship and power dynamics through the filter of gender. I was fascinated by where my moral lines moved, how my judgments and comfort zones shifted scene-to-scene, as the one variable -- gender -- kept getting swapped out. Far more than a clever experiment, the characters and their messy emotional ties make for full and compelling people, and pat answers are not on the menu. Would love to see this on its feet, to feel the crowd's responses and eavesdrop on their conversations afterward.

There is symbolic resonance galore in this conversation between two women on the margins of a ritual steeped in tradition, as one year rings out and a new one rings in. Yet the characters never feel like symbols: these are richly dawn, fully rounded, complicated individuals, who’s story drew me in immediately, and satisfied deeply with its funny, sad, and messy humanity.

Don't let the breezy, knowing tone of this play's protagonist/narrator fool you: the depth of feeling and largeness of ideas here are, well, insidious. The surprises keep coming well beyond revelations about the mysterious Anton, as Francesca's witty story sneakily accumulates moral and emotional weight - even as it recoils from pat sentiment or easy answers. You will want to be friends with The Insidious Impact of Anton, is what I'm saying -- and whether it will admit it at first or not, the feeling is probably mutual.

Hilder’s characters often do things that not only surprise the audience, but surprise themselves. Such is the case with his take on Kafka’s The Trial, wherein Our Dude is caught up in a comic nightmare that is as much about what’s happening inside him as it is about what’s happening to him. There’s a trick to telling a story with this much give-no-fucks attitude and an equal measure of loving care, but Hilder pulls it off. It’s wildly funny, appropriately horrifying, and deliciously sad.
And funny.
And horrifying.
And sad.
Make it stop.

This moving and humane ghost story has compelling characters and ideas about self-determination, transformation, and the persistence of love. The ghost-hunters are a delightful pair of genuine oddballs; the ghosts a study in control and manipulation. A late theatrical coup brings the two pairs together in a twist of both plot and form that’s revealing and invigorating, unexpected and yet entirely right. The setting and action allow for tremendous breadth of directorial imagination – it’s possible that no two productions of this play would look anything alike – and Courtney is a winner of a role. A lovely little gem.

David Hilder gets at the jagged experience of grief with sharp humor and honesty. Drown captures beautifully -- and sometimes hilariously -- people trying hard to say and do the elusive right thing when there are so many things to get wrong. Talking clams and the relative merits of eating plankton versus krill add a welcome dose of off-kilter theatrical wit to the exploration of Bonita's troubled state of mind. A sweet, sad, and not-at-all-mawkish play.

I hate you, Clown Bar. I hate you because clowns are evil and freak me out and you are a play filled with them that I nonetheless couldn't resist. You're hilarious, you're dark, you're musical, you're sad, you're violent, and you're wildly theatrical. Hate hate hate you, Clown Bar, for making me love you so. Get lost.

So many dramas packed into one tight, suspenseful play. A prodigal sister returns, conflict follows, but in a way that feels entirely specific and fresh. David Hilder reveals his ominous "sideways version of next year" to us on a strictly need-to-know basis, doling out the hints and explanations in doses just large enough to serve the tense story. I can't tell if this is a big Brave New World nightmare packed into a small family drama, or a moving family drama disguised as a dystopian-future thriller. It's probably both, and it's all excellent.