Recommended by Jillian Blevins

A meditation on identity, regret, and mortality that’s both melancholic and ultimately hopeful. Martin’s sincerity and vulnerability make 153 especially poignant; it’s clear that this piece comes straight from the heart. It offers exciting opportunities for a director to go all out with maiden/mother/crone imagery (or whatever you call it when it’s a guy) and make bold creative choices.

Adam Richter has done it: he’s written a funny play about moral philosophy. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Dead White Guys On The Midway resurrects two feuding philosophers and highlights the absurdity of their seeming differences, all over a game of ring toss.

DC Cathro’s The Cardinal does a rare thing: shows compassion for two people on opposing sides of fraught issues (in this case, religion, sexuality, and the possibility of miracles). Neither character is a stereotype, and the love they share (as well as their complex history) is clear in the text. Cardinal is gentle, in the best possible way. The conflict isn’t explosive; no one is trying to win. Rather, it’s two people struggling to close a distance between them without relinquishing their deepest beliefs.

Julia Fisher’s taut play draws us into the world of a grandmother and granddaughter bonded by their love of detective and mystery novels. As they play a nostalgic crime-solving game (an enjoyable puzzle in and of itself) we get a sense of their connection, along with one of creeping dread that something darker lies beneath.

The layers of mystery in this play (at least three for us to solve) make it an electric read. Fisher’s clever conceit feels not like a gimmick, but a nuanced exploration of love and guilt that elevates the work in surprising ways.

Media feasts on the thrill of tragedy as avidly as it insists that it won’t happen to us—not as long as we are smart and informed, right? Dark, Dark, Dark deftly explores victimhood, empowerment, and repression (plus the myth of “protecting yourself” which may sound familiar for listeners of a certain true crime podcast). Through a focused, darkly comic allegory, and always with a light touch, Dickens Assaf challenges our culture’s tendency to obsess over violence and horror while ignoring the bodies in our own backyard.

A beautiful fable about one of the great challenges and mysteries of motherhood: we conjure a child into being, and then watch as they become someone separate from us, and different than we ever imagined. In Cross’ fairy-tale, her characters are both totemic and deeply human, evoking the tenderness and tension of the mother-child relationship with spare and impactful poetry. Depicting the messiness and contradictions of motherhood is dangerous and risky ground: Changeling ventures there fearlessly and begs you to go with it.

Either Waiting for Godot on mushrooms, or Dude Where’s My Car by way of Ionesco (or both, or neither). The stoner comedy is a cinematic classic, and reading Prillaman’s trippy sci-fi adventure makes one wonder why theatre hasn’t taken advantage of the absurdity, the fun, and the surrealistic potential of the genre. Altitude’s stranded foursome (along with a few disembodied voices) meet existential crises with humor, depth, and alien drugs.

The magical-realist premise of Burke's play is an incisive combination of body-horror and the perils of whitewashing and respectability politics. This mother-son face-off explores an uncomfortable and perennial question: are oppressed people stronger when they remain connected to their cultural and familial history, or are they able to do more good if they distance themselves from their people and their past? I look forward to hearing more from Twinkle Burke's thoughtful and daring perspective.

I laughed out loud more than once reading Thal's deft and agile prose. His characters possess unique voices, brimming with literary/historical/philosophical allusions and irreverent humor which authentically capture the competitive cleverness unique to the verbal sparring of smart early-twenty-somethings.

What I find most resonant is the play's exploration of nostalgia, and the mythology of self created from year to year and across the decades. Thal's young characters are working overtime to define their identities, while their older selves variously long for, criticize or reimagine who they once were.

An economical short play that manages to be both meta-theatrical and heartbreakingly real. Gonzalez rolls out his clever premise with subtlety and wit. What Love Must Be is a bittersweet and thoughtful exploration of infidelity, longing, and the truth of "true love".