Recommended by Maximillian Gill

The balance of caustic and sweet in this short piece is expertly calibrated. I love the many shifts as just when you think the narrative is turning towards the cynical, something unexpected turns us the other way. The characters are sharply drawn with few lines, and we end up rooting for all of them. A wonderful piece for the holidays or any other time.

The careful melding of fantasy with reality in this play is so deftly calibrated that I find it astonishing at times. We are confronted with a difficult and unaccepting real world, but the depiction is balanced with the delicate magic of Nico's reality, which he is unable to express but which we hear. I love how Nico's understanding of the life of the sea adds subtle commentary to what he understands happening in his family unit. The ending is pure magic, earned and immensely rewarding.

A delicate and lovely piece, foregrounding characters we simply don't see often enough on the stage. The play derives so much power from simple, understated moments of affection and understanding between the characters. It's about love, loss, and a refusal to bow to societal expectations, but about so much more too.

A smart and thrilling take on the classic Greek tragedy. The tone is perfectly calibrated to lean into both the fantasies of the epic myths and the disturbing realities of toxic males waging wars in which the women always lose, though the women here are never merely victims in this telling but are instead engaged in active resistance. The use of contemporary social media is a brilliant stroke that Palladino manages to deftly work into the antique setting. More myths redone like this, please!

A truly fascinating piece. The characters are instantly likeable, and their wit and briskly paced dialogue bring the reader into the story swiftly and elegantly. I was all in to just watch these people telling their stories, but then the play goes to some very interesting places as the stories take on increasingly surreal qualities and we learn more about the interior lives of the characters. All of it wraps up in a satisfying and "fiery" close. A wonderful play.

One of the most imaginative reworkings of the Frankenstein story I've encountered. I love the conceit of giving voices to the body parts and the understanding that memory lives in every part of us. Stevens also gives a real voice and agency to the character of Elizabeth, so sadly underused in most adaptations. I can easily imagine a thrilling full production of this piece.

One of the many things I love about a Prillaman play is that many actions may seem absurd and some characters tangential, yet by the time you get to the end you realize that everything matters. It's almost a magic trick as you start out thinking you're reading something fun and breezy, but by the end you're hit with something profound. In this case I feel like I ended up understanding the concept of absence in this play in a very different way. A witty, exhilarating, and thoughtful ride.

A wonderful play. It weaves so many pertinent themes in a moving tale of processing death and grieving. Having three teenagers as the main characters is a brilliant stroke; we follow them as they try to make meaning out of the many ways death intersects with their lives. In their innocence we find profundity. A vital piece for our time.

A real gut punch of a piece. Emotional and visceral, full of evocations of loss on personal and global levels. The frequently abstract portions of text suggest characters, but the real characters are life and humanity in all of their messiness and glory and sadness. A bold work that needs to be experienced.

A vibrant and intense play. Three characters in the woods together typically lead to revelations. Here each one is firmly grounded in character. And then a new character shows up to overturn the board in the best ways. If there is such a thing as poetry of the scatological, I believe this writer excels at it. A true delight to read.