Recommended by Aly Kantor

This speculative horror short tugs furiously at the imagination and won't let up! Rich with subtle but specific worldbuilding, audiences are treated to a visit to a lab where a simple experiment reveals itself to be something more mysterious than it seems. There's no shortage of rich imagery to populate one's "theatre of the mind" as they place themselves in the protagonist's shoes. A haunting, nefarious twist leaves us with more questions than answers, hinting at a vast world beyond the story!

Dear Computer Journal: It's Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Bring It On meets Riverdale! It has campy splendor in abundance and all your favorite tropes from page one, with delightful subversions throughout! The syntax of the dialogue is ridiculous, and the internal joke structure is consistently spot-on! And, god, the SNORT I let out at the very end of the play! I can say with some confidence that you will not see the twist coming. An irreverent delight for the teenage set! Plain stupid fun!

I love well-researched historical fiction that reveals the silly, messy humanity of people we've only seen in history books—the jokes, the drinking, the spousal squabbles, sibling dynamics, and teenage hijinks! You get all of that into this tidy peek into the post-VE Day festivities. It's a richly rendered, deeply human world in which both spirits and stakes are high. Plays like this make history (and our place in it) feel real and help us to zoom out and place ourselves in a grander context.

There are lots of hearty laughs to be found in this script—which is impressive since it's ostensibly a play about how we manage grief when we lack a traditional relationship to faith, including grief about our imagined future (and the future our loved ones may have imagined for us). Something about this play is cozy as, despite the presence of an interloping ghost, we're given the distinct impression that Benjamin is perfectly safe... perhaps safer than he realized. This is a sweet heartwarmer!

This dark, gorgeously symmetrical play explores the space we take up in one another, for better or worse. The language is deliciously naturalistic, with just enough poetry to make your ears perk up at the wisdom hidden in the crevices of this messy reunion. The world of the play felt rich and far larger than what we see on the page, which helped Danny and Margot come across as incredibly vibrant and complex in the claustrophobic uniformity of the grungey motel room setting. Painful but hopeful!

At every grade level, modern reading instruction makes would-be bookworms resentful of stories with the power to delight and inspire them. This charming play, featuring some of my personal literary favorites, shines a light on what it means to give children - historically some of the most disenfranchised people - the power to choose the worlds they fall in love with. It's quick moving, funny, and heartfelt and will introduce audiences to some spectacular stories! Fun and thought-provoking work!

This is the type of play I LIVE FOR—messy, incredibly human glimpses of characters we think we know, allowing them to breathe in four dimensions! I love how the play builds tension and suspense through truth or dare. Best of all, it isn't just a device but is meaningfully built into the character and her story and seamlessly melts into a gorgeous, theatrical, and moving reversal. I particularly love the final dare—a powerful battle cry for every oldest daughter. I want to tattoo it on my body!

This sharp, relatable little gem has a silly central metaphor that instantly makes the protagonist's struggle visible (and audible...and pungent...and hilarious)! Sara's journey is crystal clear, with several hearty laughs along the way! The play really illuminates both the privilege of ethnic ambiguity AND the privilege of strong genetic ties to a people—the conflict of living at an odd ethnic intersection (extra complex today). Squeezing so much complexity into such a short play is masterful!

The narrative symmetry in this play is so lovely and satisfying! We all live with choices we can't take back—choices with the power to haunt you if you let them. This conversation between friends provides the type of closure most don't get to experience. It's also so refreshing to see such a beautiful, nuanced story about male friendship, especially when the characters are as specific and emotionally vulnerable as Judd and Ronnie. This one's a treat for the ears, heart, and imagination!

The land of misfit toys never quite looked like this! This sweet short play offers an electric dose of nostalgia as the beloved toys of Christmases past gather for a support group. It's loaded with fantastic puns and wordplay, plus a whole lot of humanity for a play about inanimate (or, in the case of Tickle-Me-Elmo, uncannily animate...) objects! While it does say a lot about the culture of consumption, it leaves the audience with hope for the future. Hug your Cabbage Patch doll while reading!