Recommended by Franky D. Gonzalez

You truly can imagine ravens acting exactly like this with tormented writers who take themselves really seriously. A wonderful and hilarious take on the famous Poe work. Hageman explores unrequited love, writer's block, crow dating, windows, and butcher shops. It breezes by so quickly and has so much, you can hardly believe it is only fifteen pages long. Combining over-the-top eloquence with confused realistic dialogue, this play is a perfect fit for your Halloween, Comedy, Poe-Tribute festivals. A fun read! Check it out!

A play where jealousies and barbs at your scene partner is the surface to much more complex and serious conversation about what the future can hold and what feelings have always existed. Julie Zaffarano creates the kind of dialogue that you wonder if it was taken from a candid moment overheard or a recorded conversation, that's how well it moves.

You'll find a lump forming in your throat reading through this play. Cantrell explores the complex questions of beauty and femininity in this wonderful play about multi-generational illness and the manifestations of shame and fear that come with an illness that gets passed down. This play lives up to its title, it's "A Thing of Beauty," through and through. Definitely a play that has a place in evenings of theatre to raise awareness or for benefits. You'll fall in love with this play and these characters. Read it and meditate on this lovely play.

A fun play on words and the fantasy of so many young men who want to be that awkward kid who doesn't know quite what to do when someone likes them. It's a fun short piece that could be the ending to a long play about a shy guy coming into his own and the dialogue is tongue-twistingly fun. A fun short from Matthew Weaver!

Matthew Weaver has that unique gift of creating the circumstances that high school and early college aged males would love to find themselves in. Wish fulfillment and comedy in one. Weaver knows how to capture awkward male longing and creates first kiss scenarios that men could only dream of. He captures the male psyche as it comes into maturity and adulthood.

It's that kind of play that leaves you wondering just what kind of people the poor groom has around him. Matthew Weaver is an explorer of scenarios involving the most interesting of characters. Unlike his usual fare of awkward young guys at the cusp of manhood, we have two people in Sammy and Kay that in an act of self-preservation seal their individual secrets with a third that they'll take with them to the grave. Weaver has a talent in capturing slice-of-life moments that you want to see expanded into a longer work.

A reversal of roles that is both instructional, humorous, and dramatic. Weaver plays on what is the usually tired vampire myth and turns it into a comedy about books, toxic masculinity, and self-defense. You'll absolutely enjoy Elizabeth's snappy retorts and insistence upon reading her book in peace and laugh at the foolish Count Orsino. The meta-theatrical twist at the end makes the play all the more unique. Really a fun play for audiences to enjoy and for actors/directors to have fun with!

S.P. Monahan inverts a narrative that seems so familiar in ways that are unexpected and absolutely delightful. It's heartwarming but not precious. This is a meeting of worldviews that you thought would never meet but rests at the heart of so many conversations about evolving relationship dynamics and new idea(l)s meeting the definitions that were created and hard-fought for years earlier. It's a play that tackles genuinely complex issues but does not lose any humanity, heart, or humor. The play moves naturally and beautifully without the characters falling into stereotype or parody, with real and beautiful dialogue.

A play that is a reminder to all of us. A reminder that the ideas that are taking hold in corners of our society and bleeding toward the middle of the mainstream. Bleeding, we must not forget, on the lives of innocent children. Carnes creates a human reflection of the moments after the tragedy, and the hurt that will remain forever. No need to discuss the person, the weapons, or engage in the politicizing, only a call to face the sun and remember.

The love of a mother that spans through the entirety of life. A beautiful tribute to motherhood and how it evolves, yet never really changes. Carnes creates beauty in the cacophony of memories flooding through the wonderful and limitless Ellen. A wonderful play that can be interpreted in so many ways and mean so many things at once. Carnes creates a piece that is an absolute feast for a director to sink their teeth into and get lost within. Check out this lovely play and read it again to take it all in. It's worth the investment.