Recommended by Sam Heyman

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.

Having just had the pleasure to read this play aloud with Steve over Zoom, I can say without hyperbole, that this is one of the most hilarious short plays I’ve encountered. It is both farcical and cutting, unabashed in its characterizations and utterly satisfying. I loved every minute of /ÄRT/ and you will too.

Neighbor Jane is a play that keeps you on your toes, off-balance and searching for the right footing. Tina Esper manages to expertly balance supernatural intrigue with compelling human drama, keeping you guessing about who and what to believe until the very end.

Beauregard and Zeke — and by extension, Scott Sickles — are the gift that keeps on giving. Reading through this play aloud, I was struck by the delicacy and depth of feeling that Sickles has imbued these young men with. There’s so much to love here, as with the other plays in this series, and I can’t wait to see where these two go next!

I was treated to a reading of CHANGELING, and within pages I felt transported by Monica Cross’s timeless, storybook-plucked verse dialogue. There’s something marvelous and heartfelt about the conversation between LostMother and ForestChild, which manages to be grounded and relatable while also feeling firmly planted in the realm of faefolk and Grimmsian parables. There’s a lot to glean from this piece, and I’m excited to see theater audiences fall in love with it.

A sweet, mournful bedtime tale - Earth People sneaks into your heart and sticks itself to a deep place you didn’t know you had in you.

I love all the pieces of this story, which builds inevitably to a powerful, searing conclusion - Two-Hander dramatizes the competitive, codependent, occasionally caustic relationship between two artists trying to make a name for themselves. Sometimes the people who should support us most are the ones who tear us down, and Reynolds understands this well. Like the name suggests, this is a solid play for two actors and would no doubt pose a compelling challenge for a director to tackle.

An incisive look at the conversations and feelings navigated by queers of many an age, Gay Positive dramatizes the attitudes and anxieties surrounding being transparently yourself in the workplace, particularly within education. Framing the play as a turn-of-the-century tale, Norm Reynolds distinguishes his characters' view points in a way that both humanizes them and prompts audiences to wonder: How far, really, have we come since 2000? Is the law truly on our side? Or will the unwritten rules of self-censure in schools always reign supreme? Thoughtful, stellar work.

An understated, poignant two-hander that lets its actors speak volumes with moments of silence, A Quarter Placed On Railroad Tracks tells a story of two friends getting ready to head off on two entirely different journeys. The play ends and you wish for more, knowing full well that small connections like this are made all the more meaningful for their brevity. Excellently moody.

A sumptuous and heartbreaking portrait of intimacy and subtext-made-text - This time is an arrestingly emotional play, centered around three femmes attempting to find comfort in each other from their circumstances. With this gorgeous work, Brian Dang manages to create a new form of tension, between thought and word, between the audience’s awareness and the characters’ private hopes and desperations — I loved and ached for every minute of it. Once this play gets going, no reader, or audience member, has any hope of looking away.