Recommended by Mackenzie Raine Kirkman

An earnest and beautiful work that handles human connection so sensitively while also being absurd and weird and funny. Mannix has this signature frank style that makes something beautifully bizarre when mixed with a figure like Jesus. Their gentle touch makes every character achingly beautiful and sympathetic. The ideas in All-of-the-above Jesus are grandiose but the characters and raw and honest, people chewed up by an ancient and often rigid system of interpretation and faith.

Deeply weird and incredibly moving. A fever dream of self actualization and personhood. Like all of their work Prophets uses Mannix’ bold bizzare matter-of-fact style to investigate the extremely personal and often painful world of gender and sexuality in the face of modern culture. Hilarious and wonderfully open to interpretation it’s a play for the most curious among us.

Current World Record, like many of Urrutia’s work, drags theatre kicking and screaming into a world it’s often pretended it’s too good for. Immersed in a well researched world of niche video games and the newest fad career Urrutia’s two-hander brings to light now far some people will go for a chance at a famed and easy life. Lead by a deeply flowed character Current World Record doesn’t shy from discomfort or awkwardness. It’s Urrutia’s own personal modern theatre speed run.

Vargas writes an amazing piece because it feels like the climax to a three-hour epic that I just sat through. But it's not! It's a lovely tight little ten-minute that is just so well written it feels completely contextualized in the world Vargas is keeping just out of your reach. Charming, romantic, and deeply interesting.

The joy of this piece is in how many turns Heyman can take you on in eleven pages. Hilarious, well written, and with implications of a deeper world that leave a lot to the imagination of the producing artists and the audience, "To Necessary Ends" is a wonderful show for a time when corporations shamelessly sustain themselves on the lifeblood of the working class.

Yellow Wallpaper is such a huge part of our cultural zeitgeist. I can't think of anyone that didn't read it in High School and yet so many of the adaptations struggle to bring in the true essence of this piece. Lark doesn't face those struggles, or if they do they overcome them with incredible grace and skill.

DAFFODIL speaks beautifully to femme rage. It feels all too well to the familiar dismissive tone, the infantilizing that femmes face. An adaptation that isn't afraid of uniqueness in order to express the true thesis of the piece. Fantastic.

Kevin longs. He longs to understand. Longs to feel peace. Longs to matter. Longs to fit in. A chance encounter causes a butterfly effect leading Kevin to take a journey, albeit unwillingly at first, to learn what they need and how to get it for themselves.

Mystical, charming, and genuine Urrutia’s characters, no matter how inhuman, feel real. The real talent of the script is how honest and simply it deals with suicide making for a piece that resonates more deeply with those who have suffered with such thoughts than many other works in the genre. Beautiful and needed.

"bird" is funny and silly and a little weird. But it's also evocative and honest. "bird" points out the brutal truth of funerals: we all want to be the most proper, do things the correct way, we want to be right. But it's a bird, not a pigeon but some sort of bird and that shouldn't matter. Even beyond Gad's beautifully sparse language, a truly shocking amount of beauty in only nine pages, "bird" is beautiful because while the story is clear the way it is told is not yet. And that invitation truly feels like art.

Prillaman's A Pirate Carol is the perfect children's play. Funny without "dumbing" anything down, A Pirate Carol presents kindness as a good option but is also keenly aware of its lesson making it silly fun for all ages. Like all of his work, Prillaman easily builds a rich world that perfectly blends the fun and the familiar with a fresh twist that is guaranteed to keep everyone's attention through this spirited, hilarious, and heartwarming one-act. Coming from pirate country myself I give this play two hooks up!

I just had the wonderful fortune of seeing Wolf Play and I have never sought out a playwrights other work so fast. The world of Wolf Play is off putting but heartwarming, infuriating but hilarious. It’s inventive and clever and everything I love about modern theatre. Go see this show whenever you can, it will stay with you for a long time. Jung has a masterful hand that makes every tool, the puppet, the layered speech, the audience engagement so fresh and unique. Truly beautiful.