Recommended by Franky D. Gonzalez

Nelson Diaz-Marcano takes the structure of the domestic family drama and turns it into an exploration of family dynamics in a Puerto Rican family. The play would be fine on those legs alone, but Nelson takes it a step further and explores both sexuality, identity, immigration, and the toxicity of blind deference to the Latino patriarch. A marvelous play that will keep you reading and watching from first page to last. I hope it finds a long production life.

Stunned. Absolutely stunned. This play is raw, real, it's burning with energy and passion. It's a play where the words practically leap from the pages and onto the stage. Ren Dara Santiago is an absolute force and this play is an achievement in its portrayals of dysfunction, class struggle, trauma, and love. It's a play that covers hot button issues and the culture of urban struggles without pontificating. A magnificent play, an absolute masterwork. I can't recommend this play enough.

There's enough praise and adulation for this play that it almost feels like anything I add will just feel redundant. However here is my attempt...

ALABASTERby Audrey Cefaly stands as a prime example of how the boundary between tragedy and comedy is razor-thin. Cefaly walks that tightrope and brings together a play that is at once uproariously funny and heartbreakingly sad. Whether you read it or see ALABASTER, you will be moved, hurt, and uplifted all at once. A marvelous play.

A father's pride and love for his children reaches beyond any barrier, even when that barrier is insurmountable. A tender, human piece that brings the national pastime together with our ultimate pastime. Any father, no, any parent will feel this play deeply.

In Molly Wagner’s ENVISION we are given a delicate balance between comedy and human drama where three people communicate in a higher realm and each make decisions about next steps going forward. It’s a piece you’ll read again and wonder at. What if it was you? Can you let go if those things that weigh on you? Can you walk through the fire? Will you go alone? Can you afford to wait? So many questions for yourself and so many possibilities given in this lovely play.

A heartfelt dialogue in an unlikely place being had by two unlikely men about an unlikely subject. Other playwrights wouldn't be able to pull those disparate parts together, but Philip Middleton Williams isn't other playwrights. He creates a hilarious circumstance and shifts it subtly toward the more serious and more deeper exploration of fatherhood, regret, addiction, and shame. It's a lovely two-hander that will stay with you after reading or seeing this show.

Words matter. In one minute Kevin King demonstrates this truth to us. This short play goes beyond the 2020 pandemic. It's a lesson we should all take and one that we should refresh ourselves on always. We should question the things we say off-hand and actually study the origin of phrases and their impact, even if it has passed into common parlance. Thank you, Kevin for that reminder through your play.

As real of a conversation as you will get between two people in the age of a global pandemic. M and D speak with a sparseness that highlights their isolation and distance from the other. It's the stuff of truth and despair, but at its heart beats human empathy, the need for contact, and worry for one another.

Dana Leslie Goldstein creates characters that can only be called human. Which is to say, problematic, passionate, loving, complicated, political, magnificent, and so deeply flawed. DAUGHTERS of the SEXUAL REVOLUTION is like a Shakespearean History in so many ways. It uses the past and its lessons to teach us more about our current moment in history. A beautiful, layered play that bears repeated reading.

An exploration of the most base and primal urge that moves the human beast to risk life, limb, and health in the mad pursuit to satiate that craving.

If you think I'm talking about sex well...

Read Scott's newest one-minute play, VANILLA. It boils us down beyond the carnal urge to our most basic, most heartbreaking, most human.