Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

In his riotous 'Bound for Glory', Christopher Soucy deftly renders a simultaneously indefatigable and insouciant design of the Marquis de Sade who uses both bawdy and ideological diversion tactics in order to variously provoke and enlighten. In the words of George Bernard Shaw, "Whew! How he does talk!" The characterization of Marais is also keen, ready to parry whatever quarrel de Sade thrusts his way, providing a spirited ping-pong of ideas and values. An animate bio-drama not for the bashful.

What makes us? What happens when it's gone? What happens when we are left to our own devices? Making something of yourself without foundations is tough. Without a proper guide or early benefits the real world will be very harsh in its valuation of you, and no one wants to be worthless. Asher Wyndham's raw, pensive monologue 'IZAX' is about an 18-year-old who has reduced his own body and soul into commodities in order to engage with an indifferent society, which he aims to escape in only one way.

When does concerned behavior turn into pertinacious behavior, obstinate behavior, self-destructive behavior? When do weary thoughts turn into wary thoughts, suspicious thoughts, distrustful thoughts, paranoid thoughts? Jillian Blevins' stark psychological horror, 'Postpartum', sees a woman at the edge where her expenditure meets oblation, where her natural insecurities mutate into total peril. Turning the "ownership" of motherhood on its head, terror as the creation claims the creator as "mine."

Through the looking glass of introspection Adam Szymkowicz's 'God Splat' comes out the other side to be in a brown study over everyone and everything. The play is akin to the splitting of an atom and the subsequent eruption of cosmic stuffs. The audience is taken through an existence that resembles more the timeline of the universe than it does the modern human life-cycle, but alas all the flaws, mistakes, pains which come with growth are presented as unavoidable milestones. Surviving is an art.

A great deal of both pleasure and insight is gained from witnessing the dynamics between Daryl, Jennifer, Larry, Bethany, and Carly in Dave Osmundsen's 'The Wonderful Out There', a play about neurodivergent children growing into and grasping their surroundings, their relationship to their environment. It is about achieving communication in face of the looming failure of it. The play renders a paced but rhythmic naturalism that gently sidles its way into your heart, despite its mystery framework.

Marilyn Ollett's 'The Promise' is as blunt as a play can be, clear stage directions however block the scene, preventing it from seeping into gratuitous. The psychologies of the characters are dramatically airtight, what with Barbara's emulating Ken's abuse on a doll and sporadic outbursts with a red pen, Ken's promise of rewards as an exercise and abuse of power, and Kate's initially cautious then determined breaching of a horrific situation. The ending of the piece is surprising yet inevitable.

A devastating, inspiring, and deeply personal investigation into healing, making sense of trauma, the price of self-actualization/identity/autonomy, and if any of it is possible for non-cisgenders/non-males in a patriarchy. Reminiscent of Toni Morrison's DESDEMONA, the weight of struggling with a society is felt in an elegiac meditation of one's authority to tell their truth. A deconstructing of popular gender tropes transcends into a clarion call for the validity of emotion, intuition, and art.

Certainly one of the most impressive examples of Immersive Theatre that I've encountered, at least via the script's opening notes, Gwydion Suilebhan's TRANSMISSION is an electrifying piece of intellectual and emotional, even spiritual, gameplay, and challenging. Saturated with historical context, both nuggets and milestones, the play feels like Ariel Dorfman's 'How to Read Donald Duck' as told by Shel Silverstein. This is high compliment for its dreamlike aesthetics and shrewd social commentary.

"They taunt promise of/Paradise in exchange for loyalty." A stellar line that arguably represents the thematic center and dynamics of the play. Alaina Tennant's 'Eve and Adam; Abel and Cain' is perhaps familiar on the surface, but is rendered as a nuclear family imploding. Everyone is exercising their status, but bitterness and suspicions devolve their actions into vies for power-most, if not all, understandable-whether it be domain over family or self. Astute metaphor with resplendent language.

Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT meets Gus Van Sant's GERRY - with a bit of Sam Shepard's KICKING A DEAD HORSE - in this charming, existential dramedy about two friends discovering each other's true state, their feelings beneath the surface. A play about memory, manners, behavior, age and adulthood. A great deal of pleasure comes from imagining the two stopping in their tracks as Friend agitates Man, innocently, though, not deliberately. With staging/blocking challenges for directors and practical freedom for designers, this play is a delightful and even wonderful communal experience that could heal us from the daily hustle-bustle.