Recommended by Maximillian Gill

A sharply written absurdist take on existential despair in the mode of Beckett but with a wit and verve that are Gacinski’s own. Escaping a revolution only to be stuck on a boat with nothing to do but contemplate your choices is a metaphor that just keeps giving under this writer’s assured hand.

Oh yeah, this monologue is as tightly wound and bursting with intensity as its protagonist! A savage and funny portrait of a character just a couple of notches away from completely unhinged, and at its heart a meditation on how difficult it is to let go. Great role for a fully committed actress.

When I read DeVita's work I wish the plays were longer just so I could spend more time with the characters. They're incredibly real and likable even with all of their flaws and complexities, and the characters in this one are particularly rich and engaging. Seeing the insecurities of kids manifest in the neuroses of adults is heartbreaking and played in a wonderfully subtle fashion. The two central characters bind the play together. We love them and their friendship, and the tensions between them build slowly and methodically into a simply breathtaking climactic confrontation. Another stunner from DeVita.

Simply marvelous! The dialogue is consistently witty and the satire sharp. The conceit of the play-within-the-play adds another comic layer that would likely allow all sorts of humorous improvisations in a staged version. At heart it has some real and timely messages about gender identity stereotypes and the traps they are for everyone, both those who embrace them and those who resist. Also a sweet story about how difficult it is to discover who you really are when you’re growing up. I imagine a staged version would be screamingly funny.

A wonderful tribute to an era of Broadway and more significantly to the women who dominated the stage with their talent, grit, and sheer force of personality. I knew little about the real June Havoc going in, but it doesn't matter as DeVita creates compelling characters who live on their own and inhabit a fully realized time and place that is such a delight to feel immersed in. The play moves between memories colored by fantasy without ever losing the reader, and DeVita's dialogue is consistently sharp. I look forward to further development of this play.

A crisply written, compact chiller. Like the best ghost stories, McBurnette-Andronicos connects the supernatural to the psychological state of the protagonist. Her feel for get-under-your-skin moments is intuitive, and I can just imagine what a skilled actress could do with this monologue. I haven't tested it yet, but I believe it is actually capable of making me lose some sleep if I think about it too much.

Stories set in the near past are often more difficult to successfully pull off than those set in the far past as the former is more vivid. Goldstein succeeds admirably, and the play’s rendering of 1976 is specific and completely convincing. The characters talk and feel like people of the time, yet their desires and travails are familiar. I appreciate the contrast between the older generation, who struggle with the comforts of middle-class complacency while trying to reap the benefits of the sexual revolution, and the youth, who try to form their own identities. An assured work.

A compelling portrait of a woman and her family struggling with her mental decline told with startling originality. Celeste is never pitied or made to look weak, she instead bursts with the vitality of someone fully in command of her wants and desires even as she loses her hold on reality. The play moves through real, hallucinatory, and remembered states, but through it all Solomonson maintains exceptional control so the reader is never lost and is always fully engaged. The audience participation sections are innovative. It’s very exciting when experimental theatre is executed so flawlessly.

A delicate and compelling portrait of two young men at significant coming-of-age moments in their lives. Malakhow has such a natural and intuitive feel for the way young men interact with each other verbally and physically and does an excellent job at representing their tentative steps at understanding their place in the world with the complications borne of socioeconomic status and ethnic identity. Their sexual feelings are handled sensitively and honestly. The revelations in the play are surprising but completely organic and well prepared for. Malakhow’s writing continues to impress me.

A lovely piece about the expectations we put on ourselves and others in life and in love. The characters are real and effortlessly fleshed out, caring and unthinking in equal parts, both ambitious and happy just to get by, in other words complex and human to the core. The play is fiercely honest about body image and explores the issues from all angles without ever preaching or proposing easy solutions. Wagner’s dialogue is consistently funny and true in its depictions of everyday awkwardness. Another wonderful work from a writer to watch.