Recommended by Jarred Corona

When someone was shot outside my apartment my senior year of college, it terrified me to the core. The gunshot... Occasionally, loud noises send me back. I think someone else is dead, and I'll have done nothing. It's a trauma similar to the one explored in Hoplo, and I found myself sitting with Hope, beside her. The title, I think, finds the truth here: Hope can be in low supply after trauma and when looking at politics, but it survives. If hope survives, if you do what you can to care for it, you can step forward. A lovely sentiment.

I think theatre spookiness thrives on the unexplained and unseen, weird vibes and sounds from off, unexplained happenings and characters with ominous wishes converging all to a point. It's a slow boil of tension. Something could be in the theatre. I hung on each line in delicious anticipation of what would be coming. What haunting will take me thus? And then there's a sort of answer, the kind that promises more darkness ahead, that implies further unknown dangers. I always advocate for more genre fiction in theatre, and this is an excellent spooky short.

A warm smile, that's the sweet embrace this short play left me with. It was a laugh with a friend spent too long away from, a moment of fear, and then an embrace that throws away the anxiety. It's also fun. I don't want to give away the names of Alex's fiancé, but I've never been more amused by a name joke. Three Sisters is a lovely little play.

When I read Gypsy in my musical theatre history class in college, I must unfortunately admit that I cared for it all that much. I can say without a shred of hesitation that DeVita's Fable is a theatrical force that I would love to see and read multiple times. It's strange to think about, but for me, June's story, presented here, is the one I'll keep with me. I certainly understand why this piece has achieved so much acclaim and praise. It's more than earned it, and DeVita is an amazing wordsmith.

This is a wonderfully gentle play. It takes a certain brilliance to handle such a topic and manage to make it heartwarming and funny and meaningful all in one go. Jacquelyn Floyd-Priskorn has that certain brilliance. The premise is quite amusing, and the jokes and characters don't disappoint as the play rolls on. In a way, it's like a friend telling a joke and then giving you a wonderfully cathartic hug.

Perhaps we all need a Rembrandt to visit us, a force of some sort to remind us of the terrifying and wonderful nature of our modern magic, of the world shaped around us. A brush stroke to remind us that we are not only humans but artists. And we are not only artists but art. I truly believe D. Lee Miller's play can very well use the stage as a brush of paint to line an audience with a fresh breath of hope.

I never quite expected to run across a comedic, somewhat hopeful No Exit, yet here I am, smiling about this Philip Middleton Williams play and thinking through all my college discussions about absurdism and existentialism and comedy. I'm always a sucker for writing that wonders, "Okay, but what if what we writers are doing actually impacts semi-sentient beings?" This show scratched that itch the entire run of its length. I feel I'll come back to it when the itch returns. Great work.

What really matters when your heart is breaking? If the world ends, it ends. If death comes, well... maybe not that far. Love helps keep us afloat in the absurdity of the universe. When it goes, even if we survive the flood, the pain is unimaginable. Memories sometime remain, pleasant debris awash in tears, making the waters all the more harsh. I felt every moment of this play. One might call it magical, what Sickles manages to do in such a short time. Just lovely.

Death claims that most people lose their appeals with them, but reading this heartwarming play leaves me with one distinct, happy idea: perhaps many of us have had brushes with the other side, and Death is perhaps so kindly as to give us second chances. Perhaps I'm on my second chance now and simply don't know it. In a way, that's a wonderful hope to leave an audience with. Well done.

I haven't read nearly enough of John Patrick Bray's works but I think I've read enough now to say he might be one of my favorites. The way he writes family drama and connection, fallings and risings and longings and hopes and hatreds, there's something there that his characters in this play might call simply sublime. Of course, there's much more to this play than family, but as with his wonderful CAPSTONE, the family is what sticks with me here. Truly wonderful.