Recommended by Brian James Polak

This brilliant and moving play has etched a permanent spot in my mind. So much of this piece is unique: it's form and style, it's autobiographical nature, the way it explores family history... I am both moved emotionally and inspired artistically by this play. Stolowitz, through the telling of her own specific story, has crafted a wonderful and universal narrative.

Recent Unsettling Events is so many things, but first and foremast it is brilliant. Stolowitz demonstrates the complexities of life on a college campus from student to professor to administrator in a way that makes clear nothing is clear. Students fight admirably for agency in their education as professors do their best to please the school and the students while remaining steadfast in their own intellectual pursuits. There are no easy answers and this play leaves you with a great deal to think about when it is over, which is all I want in a play.

This Much I Know is at turns wildly theatrical and deeply emotional. I love the way it explores the interconnectedness of both people and time with moment after moment and character after character fluidly changing before our eyes. I finished the play feeling like I learned a great deal about plays, history, and myself. It's a highly engaging read and I imagine it would make for an exhilarating production.

Welcome to Matteson! is a play that belongs in anthologies marking our nation's history. It belongs on our stages as much as in our schools. It is incredibly funny, complex, and real. Inda Craig-Galvan's genius is in the way she pries open every character revealing their heart and soul. Nothing is simple in this play, but it's all feels honest and that's why it's so good.

Mother Lode is both painfully funny and painfully real. This play shows the importance of empathy and the care needed for both a child and a mother in a culture that throws judgement around more than it listens to real human needs of a person who is more than a mom.

The conversations these great characters have are so real and familiar, it’s as if I was around a dinner table with relatives. What I love most about this play is how sincere it is. These characters speak their truths, which are the truths of so many people in our country, yet we don’t see them in plays either because of their age and/or their politics. I deeply appreciate Gina showing us these real, honest, aging people as they truly are, warts and all.

I feel like this play was written specifically for me. It isn't just pulling my nostalgia strings, harkening back to the millions of times I've watched The Breakfast Club, but it's also telling a story about missed opportunities, moving on, and aging. I love everything about this play: its characters, its tone, its completeness. I hope I can be in a theater where Bender and Brian lives one day.

Three Antarcticas is a spectacular read, as thoroughly engrossing as any novel. I felt immersed in the world of Antarctica, learning that its history is Climate Change’s history, yet the play isn’t a didactic docudrama. It’s character-driven and deeply emotional. Three Antarcticas is about love in many forms, the transcendent nature of art, and the direct impact human beings have on the climate. This is a highly theatrical that will be an incredibly entertaining production.

In a theater world where Sherlock Holmes plays are almost as ubiquitous as Shakespeare, Walsh does with MISS HOLMES what the glut of rehashings haven't and that is create a satisfying Sherlock Holmes story while also crafting a narrative as vital to the time when Holmes lived as it is today. If you are one of the many companies looking to program a Sherlock Holmes play, MISS HOLMES should be at the top of your stack. It is both the Sherlock you want as well as the Sherlock you need.

I just saw Mad Girls in a workshop production in Chicago. It's a moving play about grief, loss, love, and the struggle to find your true self in the madness of life. Mad Girls shows us there is no one way to cope with death and trauma, but it's the trying that matters and that is what I found to be so powerful.