Recommended by John Busser

What should have been a normal interaction between two fathers becomes tense when parenting styles differ wildly. There's a reason for it though, and it delves into how best to protect your kids and yet still allow them their own space. Samantha Marchant shows the toll it takes on one father who can't help but believe he is the problem he wants to protect his daughter from. Smartly written and well drawn characters make this a great piece to see staged.

Laugh out loud funny and sly as hell about puncturing our societal weirdness on discrimination. Jeff Dunne creates a comic nightmare straight out of a Monty Python sketch. I would love to see this onstage where I can guarantee even the left-handed people, like myself, would laugh our heads off. And now I'm wondering, how DO matadors get hired?

Robin Rice has hit on something here. As we become more obsessed with technology doing everything for us, we become more dependent on it even as we progress (HA!) into a dumber state. Like the film Idiocracy, we seem to be lurching headlong into the Stupid Zone. Rice shows us a woman who doesn't believe in evolution even as she becomes a victim of the inevitability of it, and another who has fully embraced it just as she needs an evolved sensibility to create. A lot of bang for your buck here. Good stuff.

Some coming of age rituals are just absolutely devastating for a young man already feeling out of sorts. The shop for clothes is one of them, and shopping for underwear is the worst. But Vince Gatton shows us this ritual from not only the POV of mom and son, but from a uniquely hilarious source as well, the package of underwear. The allowance of only one word the underwear can use speaks volumes though, and would be a challenge for any actor standing around in just his, well, underwear. Funny and heart-breaking at the same time. Nicely done Vince.

What a darkly fun play. Two friends make a stand against a doctor who wants to keep them apart. Or does she? It may be that she wants them to be even closer together than ever. Reading this play was great but seeing it onstage would be even better. Terrific roles for three actresses and a plot with a nice twist to it. Nicely done Erin.

Oh my God, did this play speak to me! Superheroes, Supervillains, Secret Hideouts, Secret Identities, Capes, Catastrophes, Bananas. Well, maybe not bananas (don't like 'em) but this play by Sarah Rae Brown is the kind of bananas I like. It's whip-smart and as fast as a 60's Stan Lee comic and the fact that all the characters are portrayed by two women guarantees that the boys aren't the only ones able to indulge in comic-book mayhem. Puns, punches and power are portrayed in plenty as a panicked populace (the audience) pees its pants laughing. This is a winner!

All human interactions are a complex mix of love, hate and fear. We can never really know what another person is truly thinking unless they open up and tell us. And in the end, that's all we can do. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Paul Smith means what he says here. The only way we can truly connect is stop hating and fearing. Just love each other. Then we can get through life. Heart-breaking and life-affirming at the same time.

Write what you know. And if you don't know, get an expert. That's the key to success. Paul Smith certainly writes what he knows, which is an interesting take on the human condition to succeed. Even if what you are succeeding at is illegal as hell. Luckily Paul's plays are NOT illegal. But they are successful.

Sometimes the connections we make are not the ones we should. Paul Smith shows us how multiple lives are disrupted when this happens in quite a darkly humorous way. Sometimes the wrong people take chances and it takes the right one to do something about it. Way to go Caroline!

This absolutely floored me when I got to the end. I wonder how many interactions we all have with people that we believe go one way and never know it is really progressing in a different direction. This play makes me think a bit more about how important the connections we make through life really are. And why sometimes, it just may be too late.