Recommended by Greg Romero

There is so much I love about this play. I love the play's huge imagination, its bravery, its wildness, all the theatrical surprises, and it also emotionally wrecked me. And I love that it centers LGBTQ characters in such an awesome, truthful way. I have been banging the drum since my first read of this play for more folks to get to know BLOOM BLOOM POW because I think we will all be better when more people are reading and producing plays like this one.

I watched a reading of LUMIN as part of the 2023 Valdez Theater Conference, and I continue to be so impressed by Emma Gibson's writing. This play took me on many emotional journeys, while also (appropriately, horrifyingly) fogging my mind, while also expressing profound, complicated beauty. Gibson's storytelling here smartly plays with time, revealing details that shift perceptions, also bringing urgency and danger to moments that are frightening. The play - with its sounds and visuals - is both theatrical and stifling, placing us in the impossible, heartbreaking, dizzying situations these characters find themselves in. Excellent, challenging, impressive work.

I'm so happy I got to see this play as part of the 2023 Valdez Theater Conference, though now I realize that "happy" is a misleading word because this play is so beautifully devastatingly sad. There is so much impressive writing here that hit me right in the guts and bones. All three characters are so well-written, with such smart detail and humor and honesty. Really fantastic, heart-breaking/opening work. This plays makes me want to hug everything I love for as long as I can.

I had the pleasure of seeing a reading of Charlotte Lang's play at the 2023 Valdez Theater Conference and there is so much that I am impressed with and delighted by. This play is so funny, so theatrically exciting and full of fresh surprises. The play is incredibly smart for what it reveals about the power systems in which we live and about who we are as humans impossibly trying to live in these systems. Excellent, smart, thrilling, fun writing that has great size, clarity, and theatricality.

I just finished reading this play and it is hard to find adequate words to describe how beautiful and exciting and immense this play is. This play is its own enormous, beautiful, white whale. Bates' writing is fantastically theatrical, haunting, poetic, real, and the stories being threaded here are all at once incredibly important and heartbreaking and funny and necessary. I would LOVE to see this play in a production that can meet Bates' writing. Thank you for sharing this play with us, Jaisey!

I had the pleasure of watching a reading of this play at the 2022 Valdez Theater Conference, and there is so much that impressed me about Emma Gibson's writing. This play is expansive, imaginative, beautiful, and addresses the climate crisis with urgency and eloquence. Gibson's characters are complicated and human and there is so much that Gibson tells us through suggestion, subtlety, and how smartly the play is structured. And the play offers such fun theatrical possibilities on stage! Excellent work that I hope finds many homes in production.

I had the privilege of watching this play during the 2022 Valdez Theater Conference and there is so much about it that I found to be powerful, honest, brave, and theatrically exciting. Castle Miller is telling a difficult story in a creative way, structuring her play in a way that makes it feel appropriately intimate, devastating, and, despite everything, often very humorous. Really excellent story-telling here and a story that needs to be heard.

I had the pleasure of watching a reading of KILL SHELTER at the 2022 Valdez Theater Conference, and I continue to be blown away by Ashley Wellman's writing. Wellman's writing is fresh, powerful, surprising, incredibly smart, and full of emotional moments that are truthful, dangerous, and brave. She puts her characters through transformational, challenging journeys that rip the audience's guts out in the best way possible. I would travel to Alaska just to watch this play again, and I hope a theater closer to home will make the smart decision to produce this excellent play. SO GOOD.

I had the pleasure of watching a reading of this play at the 2022 Mid American Theatre Conference and there is so much I enjoyed about it. Rushing creates a play that compels the audience to lean in to the delightful (and relatable) questions these characters are asking, nudging the play forward to become a sort of Beckett play - with its big spaces for big epiphanies - that develops as you are watching it. It is a smart work with excellent moments of humor.

I had the opportunity to see a reading of this play at the Valdez Theater Conference in 2021 and there is so much about it that impresses me. Delaney has a clear command of language, employing it well to create a specific, elegantly coherent world for this play and also to draw complex, compelling characters that I care about. Though set apart from the present moment in time, the play still feels fresh and resonant and accessible. I also appreciate the play's dark humor, which had me laugh out loud several times during its reading. Excellent work.