Recommended by Toby Malone

A beautifully wrought ten minute play that tells us one thing but means another entirely, as Price slowly draws us to the conclusion that there is a much more pressing, human, and desperately sad destination ahead before the rodeo can begin. Kudos for not attempting to take easy answers or trite conclusions, but leaving it up to the performers to wring the substance from the unspoken. Great work.

Wow! John Mabey takes a story thread we all think we know - 'The Emperor's New Clothes' - and blows it open into a thrilling, heartfelt, sensitive journey through concerns of identity, self-perception, and speaking one's truth. The technological asks are masterful and so relatable ("hatters" killed me) and this is a piece that has so many possible modalities that it's honestly exactly what we need right now. Read this play.

Nick Malakhow has such a gift with character that this short play, based around an imagined meeting during a renowned scientific study, just oozes with personality, spark, anxiety, and texture. It's always a treat to read one of Nick's plays, and to fully experience his vibrant, breathing, boundless character studies. Great work.

An inventive, touching short about a haunted couch, although that doesn't really do it justice. A great little piece about how we hold on to the past and how sometimes the past holds on to us. It does a wonderful job of not trying to over-explain the magic involved in the situation (see: haunted couch) but just lets it play out and reckons with the human impact of those choices. Great stuff.

An incredibly nuanced, evocative, impactful short that weaves the lives of hitchhikers together with the pulsating presence of the highway, in a stunning choral sense. Don't rush past the character descriptions or stage directions, as there is as much meat in there as in most dialogic dramas. Spare, unnerving, deep, and plaintive, there is a hopelessness that seeps out of every line in this work. Wonderful stuff.

A yearning, in-depth, asynchronous deep dive into the connections we make and the way in which we strain to capture the intangible. Knight is fearless in her approach to Glen, a house painter who has carried buried meaning ascribed to a house he worked on years ago, leaving the audience to ask questions, make connections, and seek conclusions that leave you gasping. A real achievement. I've found myself listening for the silence more and more since reading this play.

A quippy, to-the-point recreation of a tea engagement between literary titans gleaned from a single, caustic line in Wharton's diary. Terrific work.

Sentient gym balls while away the time stuck in the gym rafters by discussing existential angst and making fun of the kids in gym class below. What's not to like? Witty, challenging, and endlessly amusing to picture being staged (particularly the moment when other suddenly-sentient balls are used to dislodge our ceiling-dwelling heroes), this would be a blast to put together. Nice work.

It's always so welcome when a playwright takes on a common phrase (like "get the stick out of your ass") and takes it so doggedly literally that we are forced to consider the reality of what that might be, and then to push it further, into the territory of the intimacy of that request. Maximillian Gill's 'Stick' is confronting, sure, but it also unexpectedly uncovers the vulnerability of a character we automatically set as oppositional, which is a great achievement in only a few pages. Great stuff.

A beautifully eerie piece set in an evocative location, including the directive that one or other of the play's central characters be pinned to the deck with a sword throughout the action. Creepy, atmospheric, devastating. Lovely work from Dan Caffrey.