Recommended by Mackenzie Raine Kirkman

Boat People elegantly dances between Fito's lessons to his students to Mitsy and Elsie talking about school while doing chores weaving a tale of a real American family; a family newly immigrated and dealing with the secret challenges so often held in mystery until new citizens arrive. Benson's characters are crisp and clear, showing us all of the different paths forward from the moment of arrival and the difficulties families face when its members choose to walk down different ones.

Hauntingly no less relevant than it was four years ago. This play lives in response to a moment that's been overshadowed by the atrocities that it shepherded in. A staged time capsule to an era that left a permanent pockmark on the face of the United States.

I think we can all relate to this piece vore and centaurs aside. The aching need to be seen and known by someone else and the desperate struggle to hold on to anyone who you think could fill the role, even if they aren’t the right person. Roblan’s piece is funny and strange amid the terrible familarity.

Sweet Dreams, Pillowman pulls you into a strange almost cartoonish world of singing rats and manages the impressive feat of making you immediately think, 'sure, I'll go with it.' Monique's quips are fast, funny, and wildly entertaining which makes you want to know more about her story and the strange friends she makes up to help her work through it. I think one of the shining achievements of Hibbard's work here is the vast design and performance options that the rats present. It's a wonderful play for the times, heartbreakingly sad but also weirdly hilarious.

Twenty Shillings and a Dog brings to mind the farces of Molière with it's cast of oft-immoral fools you can't help but adore. They jump right off the page, unique and alive and even reading in your head they carry their own voice and bearing. McKnight's work rushes ahead with all the darling and wonderful tropes of farce we know and love and then at the very end, slams the door in the audiences' face instead.

burnout. is a play for those of us who have sold small recoverable parts of their body to buy gas. For anyone who had sleep for dinner. For people with hopes and dreams that they have to delay to afford another month of housing again and again. Timms' writing is sincere, honest, and familiar. It's painful but painful in the same way watching a sad movie is when you're already crying. It opens a valve and relieves some of the pressure, at least until the bills come.

small town icons feels like riding a cart down the hill. it's thrilling, exciting. it's fun and fast paced. then suddenly you realize you have no control, no idea what's happening or how to stop it until the inevitable disastrous conclusion barrels at you, unavoidable and brutal.

Willis walks the line of control over the story as a playwright with such skill in this piece. The formatting on the language, the indentations, the artful poetic stage directions give such specific guidance to the performers that contrasts so beautifully with the freedom imbedded in the piece from the shifting roles and the ever present audience. Beyond the poignant insights to art and the complicated world behind the craft, this piece will sustain because it is alive, ever changing but somehow hauntingly consistent. I can't wait to see it again and again and again and again.

There's a lot of build in this play, like the cliffhangers game in Price is Right, constantly advancing forward to a pleasant but uneasy tune. As every secret is revealed, or grievance aired there's a feeling of "the shoe has to drop soon" but it doesn't. Just like the men in the play, the story carries on like life itself. While the characters can't always confront their emotions the way they are delivered, from the casting directions to the writing itself, they present them to the audience in a moving and realistic and charming way that resonates long after.

This is a piece of beautiful poetry, three voices speaking together but also entirely separate. Though the setting is well placed in the beginning and in the lines the three women speak, this play features almost no stage directions leaving room for the actors and director to match the poetry of the lines with movement. A really beautiful piece!