Recommended by Kim E. Ruyle

Meat Cute grabs you and punches you in the gut. It’s shocking but, like a horrific accident, you can’t look away. The writing is perfectly spare, and the dialogue pulls you in and then delivers something so tender and unexpected. Courageous. Creative. Absolutely brilliant.

Beauty Binds My Soul chronicles the tangled web of affairs of Peter Watson, an English art collector and founder of the literary magazine, Horizons. Watson, who lived in the first half of the 20th Century, had a discerning eye for beauty in the art he collected and in his companions. Lawing has written a play that’s compelling, very creative, and highly theatrical with some characters representing works of art. I would love to see it staged!

A neighbor stealing landscaping rocks and the recovery of said rocks. Seems pretty straightforward, but there’s a lot more to it. This play is “chewy.” It addresses meaty topics – guilt, marital relationships, aging, and the question of what gives a person a feeling of worth, of mattering. The issues and characters are all worthy of our attention and care. The Backyard Stonehenge Chronicles is great as a short play, but with such meaty topics and well-drawn characters, I would love to see it expanded to a full-length play. Well done!

Oh, the anguished mind of a playwright. Glenn Alterman captures the angst, the deep pain we endure in five short plays that explore the playwright’s relationships with characters, family members, actors, other writers, and critics. The first play, What Happens Happened, hooked me right away. What’s real? What’s in the mind of the playwright? As the play unfolded and I got into the subsequent plays, I was carried along for a great ride. Alterman perfectly captures our feelings - the loneliness, the weirdness of our craft (dancing in a gym!), the pain of rewriting, and more. Wonderful.

It looks like another bleak, lonely Christmas for Lena who’s longing for something more than #9 in the Happy Cheese Factory holiday catalogue. Things begin looking up when a new neighbor, Frankie, shows up at her door. He’s “a man who knows somethin’ about pairin’.” And Vivian Lermond knows something about pairing, too, invariably pairing distinctive characters with authentic dialogue and placing them in situations that create great stories. Say Cheese made me smile and warmed me like a nice glass of Malbec.

Reading Chris’ play, I saw everything played out so vividly. I was sucked into the story, the clever set-up and delivery, and the sultry, silent siren in the red dress. Who wouldn’t be tempted? Her Smile gives us dramatic tension, a rich tableau, and a mystery that unfolds to an unexpected conclusion. Wonderful.

Nathan is persuasive, so logical with his argument that nothing would change between him and Rebecca if they had sex. But Rebecca’s not buying it. Until, finally, she does. And when Rebecca reaches the tipping point, boy, does she tip. In the surprising twist, Nathan’s getting more than for what he bargained, and certainly more than he wanted. It’s great when a 10-minute play can be both entertaining and thought-provoking. The Argument is that play.

In the unlikeliest of places, Margaret and Archie, two middle-aged strangers make a connection. It’s a brief but endearing encounter that leaves us hopeful and wanting more. Well done.

This is wacky great fun! Highly creative. And the dialogue! I especially loved Camille’s monologue on her final thoughts before her death. Mein gott! Such sturm! Such drang! Holy scheisse! Vriters know nothink. Except for Bill Triplett. He nails this one.

The Cost of People is an intriguing historical account of the tragic Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire of 1911. Fictional characters representing both survivors and victims vividly relate their experience and drive home the horror of the fire in which hundreds perished. Very compelling.