Recommended by Brian James Polak

With “Light Switch” Osmundsen has created one of the great central characters of contemporary theater in a beautifully written story existing at the intersection of neurodiversity and queerness. The play is a classic example of the specific being universal. What defines us as individuals differs in the details, yet we are all after the same things in life. Just like the main character Henry, we all seek love. I highly recommend this play for theaters with young ensembles and for people interested in sitting down to read a fantastic play that will entertain and move them.

I love this play. It's so well crafted, written in a completely authentic voice, and quite moving.

I fucking love this play.

I love Daisy Violet the Bitch Beast King. This play, to me, is about repression, rebellion, agency, and trauma. I found it darkly hilarious and quite moving.

This is a wonderfully theatrical and beautifully written play. It was a joy to read and WILL BE a joy to see produced because that needs to happen... you hear me theaters of the world?!

HYANNIS marks a dark and challenging time in American culture and does so with an ensemble of hopeful characters who all made my heart ache. This is a play that belongs on stages and anthologies and should go down in history with the other great American plays that shows us who we are and what our families and neighbors are struggling with. Teachers: teach this play not just as a great example of form and structure, but also as history so future generations can understand this time and place better.

This is a beautiful play dealing with the theme of family in a riveting way. Cooper shows us the entanglements of families dealing with loss, and the complications that inevitably come with couples and marriages that don't follow tradition. What I appreciate most is how he allows his characters room to make mistakes and do/say terrible things, while maintaining a sense of empathy for them; ultimately telling a story of people finding the good in those who can't quite see it in themselves.

Spenser Davis masterfully crafted a piece of theatre for the online medium. This is not a play that is forced into a Zoom, but a play specifically created to be experienced in this way. It is something that feels like a play, film, documentary, and VR experience all in one.

This is a brilliant and powerful play. Villanueva took me inside these complex characters with great skill. This is the type of play, like Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves or Ruby Rae Spiegel's Dry Land, that shows young audiences themselves on stage with recognizable characters, but also gives a pathway for older audiences to engage with, and understand, younger people better.

WORKPLACE is a smartly written gut-wrenching play dramatizing the challenges women face in the workplace when the double standards of duplicitous managers conspire against you. I love the structure of this play as it brilliantly challenged my assumptions with a shifting the point-of-view. This play reminds us that we are the only advocate we can count on when HR stands to support a corrupt organization. This is a great play by an excellent playwright who will no doubt land on many Lit Managers' and Artistic Directors' radars very soon.