Recommended by Heather Helinsky

LUCKY is a deeply haunting play of survival where the story of Haiti/DR is told through a 16-year old girl's eyes. This play is a deep river, flowing between past and present as the Waitress is writing her novel in search of cultural knowledge, and finds both beauty and trauma. Every scene is a deeply intimate look at a raw and tragic experience. I've been fortunate to encounter Pharel's work dramatizing characters whose bodies hold so much generational pain, and I can feel the writer's intentional care for both her characters and the audience as we embrace them together.

The intensity of sisterly jealousies from a lifetime of lacerations makes BEASTS a well-written theatrical outburst. Cayenne writes sharp dialogue, and establishes and foreshadows the tensions of pregnancy emotions, creating her own rules for expression. Cayenne then knows how to level up and break structure, allowing the audience to see the darker, frenetic, subconscious emotions through more stylized moments such as puppetry. This play is controlled chaos expressed in ways only theatre can.

Strong, identifiable characters written with care in this summertime play set in rural Massachusetts. The story's seeming quiet simplicity as a coming of age story belies strong craftsmanship, layering different narrative techniques which come from a strong foundation in structure and form. Everything builds intentionally towards the hike between Maura and Jack to see the fireflies and you realize for these characters in a rural place where "nothing happens", this is the summer where everything changes.

This is a play of incantations, whispers, and community secrets, as women find a way to empower themselves in this reimagining of the dawn of America. What I appreciate in this story about an alliance of women against patriarchal violence is that the women never accuse each other, although one woman takes the symbolic fall. This play also has a lot of potential for a director to create stylized theatrical gestures with a chorus of women as fresh graves appear. A play inspired by true events with contemporary relevance.

This is an intersectional play where Corrine's identity and the earnestness of her faith in God co-exist, but her belief systems create challenges for her own mental health struggles. This is also a play where the non-linear structure and the theatricality of orange light helps us track Corrine's journey as the writer weaves together all of Corrine's secrets and lies from her family, as they are in process of adopting a foster child. This play's central question is about where one places their trust and what happens when dealing with things outside of one's control?

I encountered LITTLE BOY/LITTLE MAN at the 2023 Carlotta Festival and was immediately drawn into the world of the play through the writer's aesthetic choices to immerse us in the rhythms of the characters. The driving beat of the story was the tensions between the brothers, and Goblen fluidly shifts the world so the audience continues to be unsettled by the truths and the fate of the brothers with all the chips stacked against them. This play has a strong heartbeat and a call to action.

I first encountered this play as the guest selector at GPTC in 2016, and this two-character play had deep emotional impact on audiences. I was thrilled to dramaturg it in a virtual reading at New Harmony in 2021, further confirmation of this play's solid storytelling of the complicated way two sisters handle grief differently in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's devastation. There are layers of muddy sediment in the relationship between the sisters, as their traumas resurface. Gina knows this neighborhood and renders it so we don't forget the tough women who survived not just Sandy, but other emotional storms.

This is a dynamic new play where Aunties are superheroes in a comic-book style romp that then asks challenging questions about bodily autonomy and the culture of protecting young women. Like all good graphic novels, it connects with the audience by zeroing in on conversations not talked openly about. You'll be drawn into the world of the play by this innovative, highly theatrical approach and renderings of the Aunties we all recognize and love, and relate to the situations the different generations of women are struggling with. This innovative new play is ready for opportunity to Level Up.

PAPERS skillfully weaves together in fresh new ways narratives that could each be their own play: story of two sisters whose relationship falls apart, the Russian revolution and its aftermath in Ukraine, a lesbian love story, the Holocaust, and a Jewish assimilation narrative. This play doesn't give easy answers and flips the script as we're on this journey with two competitive, squabbling sisters. The play asks how does one navigate a hostile, anti-semitic world without losing one's own identity? Strong theatrical voice, ready for next steps.

Playful story of a grandmother teaching her grandson about the neighborhood and her best friends she grew up with in LA, before white flight. Tomas learns his rebellious behavior doesn't fall far from the tree. Aguilar paints a loving and deeply respectful portrait of the neighborhood in his play, while also addressing the underlying complex emotions of the harm that has impacted the community across the generations.