Recommended by Sam Heyman

A play as rich with history as it is with nuance, Carefully Taught examines the ways in which life’s challenges can sow seeds of resentment and prejudice in even the most loving plots. You feel for Bruce Karp’s characters, even as you may disagree with their choices. Relationships are well drawn and characters are well defined, adding up to create an excellent one-act play.

Great monologues transport you to an emotional place and time, and give you insight into someone different than yourself. Proud of My Name is one such monologue, returning us to adolescence before bringing us in intimate contact with a troubling, testing event in the present. I'm excited to hear that this will be performed soon! It is well deserving of the honor.

Don't Scream is an excellently humorous and surprising play that would be a pleasure for any pair of actors to dig into. Rachel Feeny-Williams pits two temperamentally opposite characters against each other in a scenario that could easily turn sour, but she navigates them through a conversation that bound to get audiences giggling--and closes the play out on a tantalizing, refreshing note.

A thought-provoking and tense play that sees opposites attracting each other's attention and colliding, all while tensions rise ever higher. A Finger Pointing feels literary in its openness to interpretation, and almost dream-like at points, but ultimately it is grounded in the very reality we live in.

What a set up, and what marvelous execution! In Incoming Male, Bruce Karp gives his characters a chance to revisit their uncomfortable shared past, and affords them--one of them, at least--a chance for catharsis. You can feel the discomfort, the resentment give way as the balance of power shifts, leading to a satisfyingly biting conclusion.

There's something truly substantial about this play about two comics whose career in comedy may amount to nothing. Morey Norkin accomplishes a lot in comparatively little time, taking a chance encounter between two strangers and expanding it into an emotional, theatrical treat. Packed with one-liners and biting barbs, Last Laugh ultimately is a play with plenty of heart and humor to spare.

In She Sells Sea-Shells, Samantha Marchant expertly blends whimsy, nostalgia and a sense of foreboding. Although nailing the technical elements of this play might be tricky, the pay off is glorious.

Daughters Of Abraham is a thoughtful, poignant play about two characters extending hands — and more than hands, their whole selves — across lines of difference, and finding the ways in which they relate to one another. Goldman-Sherman’s protagonists are well drawn, and their perspectives on each other’s circumstances evoke strong feelings without being overly sensational. Excellent work!

There's plenty to love about 'altitude,' Daniel Prillaman's stoner Odd Couple abduction opus, and plenty more things to get lost in within his script. This Waiting-under-the-influence-for-Godot style story is packed with laughter, absurdity, fourth wall breaks and F-bombs, ingredients which, in Prillaman's more than capable hands, come together to create an experience like no other. I know audiences will love it as much as you will love reading it.

That Moment When… is the sort of experimental play that many writers attempt, but rarely succeed at executing. It is both an intimate, meet-cute and an exhaustive character study, explored through movement. Actors skilled in subtlety and directors with an eye for the nuance of movement and body language could have a field day with this play—I would love to be in the audience to see how this play could be interpreted, and the feeling produced by one of the wordiest, wordless play I’ve encountered.