Recommended by Aly Kantor

What a tense, emotionally fraught ten minutes of high-stakes genre theatre! The brilliance of this short play is how much of it happens between the lines - the parts we don't see engage the imagination and keep us participating as we make sense of the fragments. With very few tweaks, I could see this working as an effective audio drama - but it would be an equally exciting project for a creative team to tackle on stage. Depicting that kind of distance and the passage of time would be a wonderful artistic challenge!

Reluctant murders! Thematic storytelling through movement! Swordfighting! Heightened language! Duplicity! Ruminations on the nature and implications of power in the hands of mankind! I could keep listing and exclaiming, but I only have 100 words, and I need to use a few of them to talk about the tight, immersive worldbuilding, the endless possibilities for stunning staging, and the gorgeous, self-aware poetry of this piece! My biggest (only) gripe is that I have to wait for Part II to know what's going to go down in Mithun! Beautifully structured, visually stunning, and simultaneously original and familiar. Just read it!

What a fascinating short play! It starts off as a familiar enough scenario - a great employee sobbing alone in the supply closet, and a concerned supervisor addressing it - but as Taylor begins to recount their story, the scenario becomes ethically complex. It's an easily staged piece that will open up dialogues between audience members about the challenges of altruism under late capitalism. It's equally horrific and relatable, which is what makes it so effective. Are we all bad people, or did the world make us that way?

Before reading this retelling, the only Taro I was familiar with was the vegetable! After reading this efficient short play, I am newly enlightened! The tale has echoes of tales from Western mythology, like Pandora's box and Orpheus and Eurydice, and would fit in perfectly in an evening of global folk stories for the stage! The strength of this adaptation is the swift pacing, which carries us through 100 years in a tight ten minutes of colorful, motivated action. The final effect would be a particular joy for a creative team to solve!

This highly theatrical, visceral, and relatable play explores everything from grief to generational trauma in a vibrant, affective way from page one. It uses the unity of location to great effect, with a series of horrific events that turn an ordinary apartment into a very personal haunted house. This would be a dream for a design team - the "clean up" in the last scene will stay with me. Whether you read this play as a horror story or a love story, you're sure to come away with a sense of introspection about your own invisible demons.

This comedy takes the "meet the parents" trope and elevates it to new heights when suburban mundanity meets classic horror. A cast of well-drawn, vivid characters navigate prejudices as a benign zombie apocalypse ambles along in the background. The stellar set-up leads to hilarious stage moments, like the crew sipping wine with a flaming zombie in the background. The piece reaches a high-octane, chaotic pitch as zombies and judgmental relatives compete for on-stage dominance, and it becomes unclear which is really the biggest threat. As in all the best comedies, love ultimately saves the day! A gory, goofy romp!

I think love is simultaneously the shittiest and most worthwhile human experience, made squishy and messy through vulnerability - and what could be more vulnerable than loving a stranger? This fascinating, bracingly human short reminds us that every baby, whoever they are, begins as a stranger to the people who are supposed to love them most. My favorite part of this piece is the subtle love story at the center, the way we slowly watch Jake and Emily choose to endure that agonizing vulnerability together (and the realization that they have more experience in that area than most). Just lovely!

You can't rush through the stages of grief - unless, of course, you're on company time. When an agent of D.E.A.T.H arrives and offers Layla the chance to audit her partner's grisly demise, you think you'll be getting an It's A Wonderful Life-esque look at the highlight reel. Instead, Layla comes to learn that D.E.A.T.H does not often make mistakes. The ending is both surprising and inevitable and reaches a tense, exciting peak as the tables are turned. Creative staging helps bring this death-defying comedy to life!

I go to the theatre because, somehow, that communal space always manages to give me permission to express my most repressed emotions. Considering I wept while reading this alone in my bedroom, I cannot imagine what it would have done to me if I'd seen it on stage. It's such an efficient, well-structured little narrative with so many challenging questions at the center, but it all comes down to love and doing the right thing. It's both difficult and hopeful, with an elegant simplicity. The open ending really works. I'm so glad I got to know these characters.

Somehow, this play emulates what it feels like to be a woman in America. It's easy, breezy, and atmospheric, full of lovable, complex, well-drawn characters, but there is constantly a sense of dread and danger lurking beneath the mundane chatter. Like our colorful cast, the reader is lulled into a false sense of security, convinced the danger exists, but it's somewhere else. The ending may be jarring, but it's heartbreaking and absolutely well-earned. The piece does a gorgeous job of putting humanity at the center of a complex issue. Really fantastic.