Recommended by Vince Gatton

Ah, how wonderful this is! Not just the adorable fact of What's Just Happened (which is indeed adorable, as far as we can tell), but the right-now, in-this-moment, glorious blend of emotions Sydney is experiencing in relating this breaking news. Urgent, joyous, rueful, this short solo piece has got plenty for an actor to play, and plenty for us to think about later: about young love, parental love, and the optimistic sweep of history.

If you liked Madeline Miller's novel CIRCE, you're going to lose your mind over Jillian Blevin's THE FEMALE GAZE. Reframing Medusa and Metope's stories through a feminist lens, Blevins calls out some enraging bullshit, uncovers new insights, and delivers a remarkably moving and redemptive story with immense humor and grace. (Bonus credit for the challenge of presenting Medusa's hair, which here is effectively a supporting character.) Great characters, sharp and witty dialogue, and small, telling gestures make this a winner. Lovely.

The opening of this wild short play fires off like a starter pistol, and it maintains its zany energy even as it veers into more thoughtful territory. Leave it to DC Cathro to write something this madcap and ridiculous and still infuse it with unexpected beauty, heartbreak, and kindness. Jump in the car with Steve and Victoria and enjoy the ride.

"Hope is desperation wearing deodorant."

Aly Kantor's gorgeous two-hander about suicidal ideation and friendship walks boldly into its heavy subject matter with a breezy spring in its step, and earns a huge emotional payoff. The warmth and humor in the dialogue is matched by Kantor's masterful sure-handedness with her metaphors: Cal and Em argue so smartly, so lovingly, and so well that it's a joy to behold. This play's clear-eyed view of the challenges of mental illness, the dangers and benefits of hope, and of the real, day-to-day praxis of friendship make it a charming and powerful wonder...

Set a bit into our future, this satire hits several juicy targets about The Way We Live Now: the disaster of climate change inaction and the schadenfreude-rich spectacle of reckless mega-rich tourism chief among them. But it's also just a very funny survival (or not) story, with dumb people dumbing dumbly as their circumstances get increasingly dire. Fun, funny, and delightfully, daffily dark.

Well, you can inject Scott Sickles' LOST STARLET directly into my veins, please and thank you. This brilliant homage/spoof/loving tribute to classic Hollywood pictures and the TCM interstitials who love them is 100% up my alley. Every word of the pastiche work here is perfect, from the character names to the movie titles to the bits of dialogue we see played out; and through it all we get a delightfully structured and executed story of thwarted ambition and unearned glory that feels like a mini-Amadeus. Magnificent.

I dream of a world where dramaturgs study this play as a relic of the horrors of late-stage capitalism run amok -- but today is not that day. Instead, this hilarious and savage satire is only a slight exaggeration of the absurd dystopian present. Hilarious, sickening, and with a terrific ticking-clock premise ratcheting up the tension (for those of us raised in tornado country: prepare to shout at the screen/page), Billionaire Mindset is effective as hell in all the right ways.

A delicious, bracing, melancholic, philosophical, righteous, terrifying, and altogether beautiful extension/variation of the Frankenstein myth. The histories, desires, and intentions that Adam and Helen each reveal are unsettling, unexpected, and thought-provoking, giving you plenty to chew on as the lights dim.

I expect this one will linger.

Jillian Blevins could have written a hilarious Jewish Space Laser sketch and left it at that, but her brain and heart have a lot more to say. Here she takes one of the stupidest anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of recent times and spins it into workplace-comedy gold...and then takes it a step further, shifting slyly into a deeply serious -- even Talmudic -- debate on the nature of Jewish identity, obligation, and history, before hurtling toward a rivetingly intense conclusion. Excellently executed, all around.

Pull up a chair and let Simon tell you a little about his grandfather. It's a wonderful and wonder-filled tale of the legacies passed down through one quietly wondrous family. There's mystery here, and terror; also pathos, and enormous helpings of (multiple kinds of) love. A warm and magical meditation on family, and the costs and joys of knowing one's purpose.