Recommended by Jarred Corona

Quickly earned its way on to my favorite plays list lol. Fantastic jokes, wonderfully earnest at times, meta, queer, campy. I want to see it, direct it, act in it. It's just so fun. Of course I couldn't help but think of "But I'm a Cheerleader." Imagine a stage adaptation of that movie playing in rep with Bavoso's wonderful comedy, with McCloskey playing RuPaul's character in the other... Anywho, what a lovely time. I smiled a bunch while reading it, and I'm sure you will too.

I try to never go into art with expectations. Of course, that's impossible. We all make judgments from the slightest things we can. I've read a handful of Scott Sickles' plays by now. They've come to carry a certain expectation. The writing will be good and the characters well-made. Something queer will be afoot. But the expectation is less material than that. His plays evoke, for me, a fading lilac, a still from a forgotten film, a heavy caesura after a sforzando. This play has received plenty of love. It's all deserved. I hope one day to see it performed.

Oh, college. What a time, to be thrown into a pack of academic stress, trying your best to figure out who you are while feeling like you're supposed to have already figured it all out. I went to college in Kentucky. Trump had just been elected. On the way back home from the city's first Pride, a group of college boys driving past yelled the f-slur at me. It was horrifying. Infuriating. But classes still came. Gay friends struggled with religion and coming out. Bills still called their names. It's a wonderful, horrible time, captured beautifully and vividly by Heyman.

Robin Rice has a way with language, staccato, lyrical, pressing, that drives her story through you. The argument builds and roils and all of a sudden, you've reached the end. Agnes yells back words said by other characters and the childish repetition is devastating. The twists are wonderful and dark. When we shroud ourselves so we might drown in our guilt, sometimes we need someone to tear up all that we've sewn. We need to rip up all our empty notebooks. We need to love and forgive. Isn't it funny how forgiving ourselves is so much harder than forgiving others?

There's a chaotic scene at the end of the film CHILDREN OF MEN... I kept thinking about that film while reading this. That movie plays in the back of my mind randomly. I've no doubt anyone who sees TESSERACT will experience a similar remembrance effect as they go about the rest of their lives. Sickles channels a pessimistic anger here that hopefully, hopefully can serve as a wake-up call to bigots and centrists alike. I think one of the most "thrilling" aspects, is that you know it's coming. Because we do. It does. And we have to stop it.

While of course there is nothing that can compare to the Holocaust, the moving, haunting, depressing and yet hopeful piece that is MERE WATERS serves, in my mind, partially as a showcase of the cruelty of abortion bans in the US and growing anti-abortion sentiment elsewhere such as in the UK. When I was in college, anti-choice activists compared abortion to the Holocaust. I think they would do well to see this, to grasp the horrors and difficult choices thrown at Gisella, and to witness all the lives she helped and saved. May all who suffer find some small hopes.

Listen, I know this isn't the point, but I want to play the raccoon. I want to be the absurdity that highlights and alleviates grief. "It makes no sense that he's gone. It hurts." Yes, loss is like that. "It makes no sense for a person to be playing a raccoon causing chaos in a bar." Correct, the universe is like that. It doesn't always make sense. Sometimes, things simply are. We accept them, we build meaning out of them, and we have to do our best to do good by ourselves and by others. A nice short show.

There's a mirror. And when the mirror shatters, the glass will cut you. I can only imagine the harsh, wonderful, hideous, and beautiful catharsis of seeing that moment live.

In this show, we see the same brief period of time. The days move forward, but it's almost like we're stuck, repeating. Until suddenly we aren't. Rather, the show isn't. But there's a mirror because religion and patriarchy continue to repeat these horrid moments. We are this show. We need to break it.

Well-written, amazingly conceived, and with wonderful queer representation. Put this on, because I need to see it.

This piece of poetic theatre takes place in 2016. I remember the immediate surge of hatred, of walking home from the first pride in Bowling Green, Kentucky and being called the f-slur. And yet I have to say this is a piece of today. About today. I think about the news story about the drag bar and the blackout from earlier this year. The threats and violence against queer people, especially trans and gender nonconforming people, people who perform drag. How infuriating. How great the angry power of hope at the end. We are together. We must be together. Beautiful.

There's something about this script that whispers to my brain, "If this were a manga, you'd be filing this away as one of your favorite one-shots of all time." It's a lovely piece of dialogue. Humans, parents, and gods. We all try so hard to control that which we create, and we always seem so pained when we discover life exists beyond us. But it does. And it moves forward, and it lives. This is a wonderful short from Cesario Tirado-Ortiz, and I can't wait to read more of their work. (I hope he keeps writing sci-fi, too.)