Recommended by Toby Malone

'Halfway to the Middle' is a well-crafted time capsule that shows us the many beats in the dreaded 'long-distance relationship'. Over a series of meetings in a motel halfway between DC and Cincinnati, Jessie and Logan meet for what begins as hot-and-heavy reunions and quickly evolves into existential fears and missed opportunities. Most welcome is the fact that Sheaff trusts her reader enough to not entirely spell out what happens in between meetings, where a lot of baggage remains unpacked. Even in the tentative resolution, we fear disaster, but that's okay. That's what life can give you.

Rachel Bykowski speaks for every one of us who sees the Facebook posturing of ‘productive artists’ in quarantine for what it really is. Oh, and my favorite play summary this year.

A searching exploration of what happens when trauma reemerges in unexpected ways, with sensitive portrayals of the ordeals that returned officers face, and in particular the additional challenges for women in the military. Liz Dooley takes on a difficult subject and offers wisdom and sensitivity when following Jettie's trauma. An important subject.

Nick Malakhow is fast becoming one of my favorite playwrights. With a sensitive, deft hand, he creates human, complete characters who live real lives and struggle to come to terms with what it is to manage their own existence. Here, Malakhow uses temporal shifts and the deceptive safety of the home town to paint a beautiful picture of Markey and Pete, two boys in a PA steel town dealing with endemic racism and the horrific secret they share. Masterful in its temporal structure, heart-breaking as a character study. Produce this play.

Just when you think you know where you're going in this energetic comedy, Daniel Prillaman takes another turn and demands you stay on your toes. Beginning in Kaufman and Hart territory, Prillaman takes a wonderful right-turn out of the comedy into a horrified warning letter HP Lovecraft would be proud of, and then doubles back again to bottle the narrative into a tense stand-off. Crisp characters, high stakes, and memorable lines abound. This script would be a blast to workshop in a development process.

A fresh, energetic take on multiple tropes - slashers, reunions, friendship - where Maddie Dennis-Yates does the reader the great service of not over-explaining, but allowing the characters and situation to coalesce gradually, resulting in a full, satisfying, creepy conclusion. A great character study for an all-female cast.

A stunning, intimate portrait of the complexities of teen relationships, never played for sentiment or laughs, but always unerringly honest, raw, and impactful. Malakhow's mastery of character brings us four fully-formed, highly-flawed young people who will all be much better off in their twenties, but just have no way of knowing that just yet. The politics of friendship, high school, and identity all come to the fore, where conflicting narratives threaten to crush this struggling group beneath its weight. Honest, loving, breathtaking work. A true joy to read.

A gentle, thoughtful three-hander that when it lands its punch, it hits like a sledgehammer. A touching consideration of grief and the ways we learn to cope at the expense of those who survive with us.

A savage, searing thunderclap of a satire that leaves no stone unturned and is never afraid to speak its truth, raging against the anonymous, numberless carnage that the LGBTQIA+ community has endured over the last century. Cleverly subverting the narrative to encompass a closeted football star who fears discrimination for being straight, 'Dead Gay Body' careens through the body count of generations of homophobia from the Holocaust to Pulse and beyond, and as the bodies pile up the urgency becomes all the more apparent. Produce this play now. We need to see it.

A thoughtful, striking play about the impact of past trauma and what happens when coincidence drags the repressed pain back to the surface. Saltwick establishes in Alma and Leslie an immediate if tenuous friendship bond and intertwines their lives with a common thread. Most excitingly, Saltwick then shifts us forward a generation to gauge the impact on their children, and the ways in which stories change with time. An important play on important themes.