Recommended by Alice Josephs

Two characters at either end of their lives - an aspiring Broadway musical theatre actress and a widow in New York on her first trip alone. Constructed as two monologues which come together in a final duologue, this is an affecting short play which could work equally well as a short film as well with an imaginative director. A warm hearted, carefully structured piece centred on the brief encounter of two people, both originally out of towners, who pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and move on in their own way.

A heartfelt and clever duologue with a go-getting young art historían and one of the most celebrated painters ever, Dutch artist Rembrandt. The mercantile craftsman and the studious academic seeking to make her name are pitted against each other but both need, from different directions, instinct and imagination to pursue their careers and satisfy their souls. With two roles to stretch young and veteran actors, this is a refreshing take on the art world and the market for authentication, each character shaped by their commercial and artistic environment but dependant on each other to give their work value.

A combination of grim modern fairytale for our times and nursery rhyme warning. The giant warehousia has its own inexorable agenda and voracious sexual appetite for goods, goods and more goods - if only those pesky human workers weren’t so —- human. This is a thought provoking and intensely theatrical piece with plenty of scope for director, designer and actors, humming with the rhythms of conveyor belt life and social issues.

Jeannie has a modest proposal for her cousin Verna as they hunker down after the funeral and wake for Jeannie’s husband. A beautifully paced blackly comic duologue, filled with wit, two parts which are a gift for older actresses - and a plot to die for …

Memory is a satisfyingly complete detective tale for the stage in 16 pages and seven scenes with its first focus on the detectives, including a woman second in command struggling with chauvinist boss. But by the end there is a shift and the play’s probing searchlight turns on perpetrator and family and emphasis on original macabre twists within the professional classes and scientific medical hubris. This is a well-plotted police procedural with all the elements in place of recognisable tropes, strong characters and red herrings before the surprise ending with an underestimated puppet mistress bringing the criminal to justice.

Tabloid more than lives up to its name as an amalgam of outrageous stories and characters entangled in a web of fake news, stolen lives and projects and a final hellish denouement. With vibes of Jerry Springer The Opera, it nevertheless has its own story to tell borrowing in tabloid fashion from a variety of tropes, putting its own spin on them and showing plenty of savage, raw promise in its scurrilous patchwork.

A mix of old fashioned tried and tested farce techniques plus a modern scenario of a couple with their first evening without their recently arrived baby, the mix ups and laughs escalate in Setting Places over seven tightly-wound scenes during a rollercoaster dinner party. A classic four-hander farce, simple to stage, Setting Places works with characters in excruciatingly funny knotty situations and the clockwork precision of the best of its genre.

In a competitive world where kids are rushed into college by anxious parents wanting to insure their future, sometimes it pays to —- take a break. LeBlanc has written a worthwhile piece about the importance of breathing space at a moment in life when time allows it. A thoughtful play introducing a fine array of characters, this is refreshing take on the education rat race in an accessible and good humoured form.

This play gives a window into lives under constant threat from daily car bombs in Baghdad. The way individuals - the shop owner, the shop worker, the Kurdish neighbour and the mother live with the piled up dead. With tense rhythmic, repetitive dialogue which still feels natural and not a word wasted, this is a powerful and forceful piece bringing home the physical and mental cost of those living on the edges of death, fearing that one day it will encroach into their space.

A play with pitch perfect dialogue - the patter of the snake oil salesmen, rookie and veteran, the hope of the naive customer looking for a miracle cure and the turning of tables on the sceptic, the ‘horseshit’ mutterer. A compact and always gripping piece with compelling characters, a riveting plot and atmospheric sense of place and time. In fact, a rollicking drama that sells itself!