Recommended by Sam Heyman

What gives Playing On The Periphery its inimitable quality is Scott Sickles' ability to capture the specificity, delicacy and bonafide weirdness of being a kid, not to mention a queer one. Each character in this anthology of monologues and short plays moves beyond their type and is given a chance to tell their own story in their own words. This is a gift to audiences and especially young actors everywhere. I strongly encourage that you spend some time in this world, as soon and as often as possible.

What a tense scene, rich with history and resentments that linger even as the porch light is extinguished. Though the playwright has expanded on this scene and these characters in a larger collection of plays, this version of Best Friends stands on its own and provides dialogue that subverts expectations about narratives of homoerotic experimentation and the friendships that develop around that activity. As Danny and Eddie drive home from bowling and drinks and near their destination, the sinister undertones of the play's title reveal themselves. A must-read!

Writers are known to fictionalize, and dramatize, the pivotal experiences of their lives, and they do so for a variety of reasons. In "A Tree Grows In Longmont," Philip Middleton Williams uses the form of the memory play to search for answers to one of his life's unsolved mysteries. Williams takes great care to render the specificity of his experience in such a way that you feel drawn into this private, intimate conversation immediately. This is a lovely, transporting play, not one to miss!

What can constitute 'horror' on stage can sometimes feel muddy -- does anyone want to see someone get stabbed during a night of theatre? (Don't answer that.) -- but Sickles finds a perfect balance between psychological and supernatural horror in his play, Corporeal Punishment. His characters feel lovingly ripped from a Wes Craven classic, but the situation they find themselves in is well within the Sickles wheelhouse, if tilted toward the macabre and grotesque. This is a play whose screams will echo in your mind for a long time.

Les Joyeux Dilettantes wears its referential nature on its sleeve, but Scott Sickles manages to pack a lot of great character work and dialogue into the play's runtime, establishing this one-act as more than just a Menagerie reference in play form. There's monologue, there's charming banter, there's inside baseball--truly this play has it all! Whether you're a Tennessee Williams devotee or just a follower of the Sickles canon, this is one dinner date to reserve in advance.

With “Glass Houses,” Emily McClain captures the claustrophobia and codependency of quarantine, and the distrust that arises at the first appearance of freedom. The characters in this play are well drawn, and unsettlingly so. Even now, the resonance of this play can send shivers down your spine.

A haunting, emotional story of an unwritten aftermath, now put to page so plausibly and painfully by Erin Proctor. Husk teaches its characters a grim, sobering lesson; I have no doubt that it would leave audiences reeling. From one reader to another, read this play!

Just try and read this play and not finish with your jaw on the floor - there are so many reasons to love "The Lesbian Play", even if that love may be swirled with a feeling of horror. Riley Elton McCarthy expertly ratchets up tensions between members of this ensemble cast and engages with questions worthy of theatrical exploration -- but this is not a play of idle musings. Shit gets real, and once it does, the ride does not stop until it has reached its disturbing conclusion. Produce. This. Play.

Imagine my surprise to find a piece of Scott Sickles' writing featured - and imagine my delight in reading the piece, transporting myself to a youth known but not lived, understood but not experienced. The universality of "Boy's State" and the unmistakably Sicklesian way in which the piece is written helps it feel familiar and surprising all at once; familiarly insightful, surprisingly affecting, inescapably Scott.

BLERDS is a strange and wonderful journey, and a celebration of Black fandom, friendship and family. J. Corey Buckner writes his characters with nuance and humor and from a storytelling perspective, he isn't afraid to get a little weird with it. I particularly enjoyed the sibling relationship between Brandon and Kiera, and the various iterations of the Stranger throughout the play. If you are or have ever been a nerd, this is the play for you!