Recommended by Greg Romero

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.

I had the pleasure of seeing a reading of this play at the 2021 Valdez Theater Conference and enjoyed it so much. Like all of Tamar's work, the play is smart, and features beautiful language and fully-drawn, compelling characters. There are also some really fun and highly intelligent theatrical flourishes, particularly in the silent-screen re-creations of the fatal moments surrounding the incidents between Rappe and Arbuckle in the Hotel St. Francis. This is a highly engaging, thoughtful, active work that gives voice to an under-represented story.

I am so grateful to have seen a reading of this play at the Valdez Theater Conference in June 2021. There is so much that is so powerful and impressive about this play and its deeply painful, humane, and fresh expression of grief. Wellman has created four incredibly human and complicated characters, who we get to know intimately, painfully - and in real-time - as the guts of their lives spill out right in front of us. Wellman's attention to detail - in all ways - is exquisite and devastating. This is a beautiful, exciting work of theater.

I had the pleasure of reading this play, then seeing it in production with The Tank (NYC) as part of the "Weird Plays" project and there is so much that I like about it. Like all of Levine's work, it offers surprises - fresh moments you didn't see coming. This play does that, and one of these surprises also offers a really satisfying gut punch, delivered less by words and more by numbers and Froot Loops. This is a really excellent, very full, short play.

I had the pleasure of reading this lovely play, then seeing it in production with The Tank (NYC) as part of the "Weird Plays" project. It is a play full of gentle surprises, gorgeous visuals (both in the language and in the physical transformation we see a character taking on) and beautifully expresses longing and the need for belonging. This play is a heart-breaking delight.

I had the pleasure of witnessing Brian develop this play during our time together in Hyde Park Theatre's playwriting group. I was continually delighted by the freshness of Brian's writing, the depth of thought in how he crafted this work, and the sincerity in his approach to creating. As a work of theater, PIPER is fun, surprising, and full of humor and pathos; a classic story made fresh through new, complex, fascinating characters who do delightfully surprising things, all expressed through some highly theatrical moments.

I had the pleasure of seeing this play in production at FronteraFest in 2018 and there is so much that I like about it. The play is really fun and offers a lot of surprises in spoken, physical, and theatrical language. Kosmak's writing feels really fresh in a really delightful way.