Recommended by Toby Malone

Wow! This is one of those plays that you pass through warily, trusting that the playwright will look after you - and we all know that Ruben Carbajal will - only to get to the detonation at the end that makes you immediately re-read with the new context in mind, effectively giving you a new play entirely. A beautiful imagining of an unfathomable truth.

A knowing ride through a horrifying (but you _know_ there are people out there who think this stuff is valid) patriarchal construct, where daughters are treated like commodities and vessels to be protected, Erin Mallon's short play holds a great deal of punch but doesn't come down on the predictable side of 'educating' those who are 'wrong' in this world. Constance and Jeremy presumably speak for most readers, but they exist in a world where despite their protests change is not inevitable. This makes it relatable and real. Good work.

A beautiful, heartbreaking piece that explores the way we romanticize the past and fixate on how we might manipulate our future without actually considering the mundane living that has to be completed in between the grand gestures. I spent the entire play anxiously certain that Damian's romantic infatuation with recreating his parents' meet-cute was going to torpedo the reality of what he was striving for: it's a story that is bittersweet but hopeful, reminding us that the rose-colored glasses have their limited use as a guide for the future. Excellent work.

A breathtaking, fearless, necessary play that goes straight for the throat and speaks directly to the insidious swamp that is the internet's comments section. The masterful device of the Chorus of Neckbeards would be reason enough for a recommendation, but the finely drawn characters, metatheatrical breaks, and real-world consequences (including the best use of guest-star meta I've seen in forever) make this necessary reading. This shows us how low we've sunk, and how impossible it is to find our way out. I left acutely depressed about where we are in the world, but elated to have discovered this voice.

The things that kids overhear can often take on a life their own, and Megan Ann Jacobs explores that idea with glee as she sets up a vengeful tyke hell-bent on exacting revenge for his mother's abandonment, which, to his youthful ears, equates to clubbing Santa Claus to death with a bat. Quippy, witty, and full of life, this is just the tonic in this ever so bleak Christmas season.

Josie Gingrich's 'Over the Fence' is a dead-on, furious two hander that explores the wreckage left in the wake of men who blunder thoughtlessly through life and the abuses of academic power. in a college town, where there are no secrets and where boundaries appear to be an afterthought for those who feel invincible behind the screen of tenure.

'Poured Over' is an intriguing short with a whiplash shift from what you think is formulaic comedy (man needs coffee, co-worker explains why coffee is bad for the world) and veers steeply into something much darker and out of control, and with the spectre of the Fonz always looming. This is a piece that'll make you think, but will also make you consider the consequences to tiny actions and where it can push people.

It's easy to see why this play has won the plaudits it has: it is muscular, direct, and rich, laying out a lifetime in a little over a page, and providing the love, hurt, and devastation of this marriage, even managing a tiny twist at the last second. Of a one-minute play. Just masterful stuff as a dramatization of the proverbial "life flashing before the eyes". Heartbreaking in its portrayal of loss of control, of humanity, of regret of unrealized potential.

Isn't it wonderful when you find a play that shows you all of the joy and glory and confusion of humanity when it's reflected through a pair of aliens from the planet Zlagdor, including the optimistic anthropologist father named Nancy and his rollerderby-skating daughter Arugula, just coming to terms with her sexuality and other confusing things. It's a beautifully crafted, loving, laugh-out-loud ride that should be (and IS being!) produced all over. Keep an eye out for 'Space Girl' - it's going to be everywhere really soon.

A heartbreaking, compelling ten minute play that takes us inside the world of two gorillas in captivity as they discuss where they've come from and where they're going. It's a beautifully thoughtful piece that explores existential questions from ones so cut off from everything that they are forced to both imagine the worst and dream of a return to simpler memory times. Both characters are extremely human and very much gorillas, which, of course, is the point. Lovely stuff.