Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

Hayet spoofs the long-term after-effects of a very famous and classic childrens' tale, continuing the story 15 years after its original events. The characters are no longer children, but extremely maladjusted young adults, with more mature issues, or...disorders. Hayet keeps everything set inside a world where the fantastic is possible, but now of less interest to the five reunited, former contestants of - they're all agreed - an altogether traumatizing contest with life-lasting consequences that were not fair to have bestowed upon adolescents. Filled with in-jokes, puns, and crude myth busting, this dark parody of ambitions is quick-witted and riotous.

A fantastic point made by someone everyone should see make it; truly, this is a piece relevant (and will undoubtedly be effective) to any age of audience, particularly its heroine's peers and authority figures--making it an important, socially significant choice of presentation for all elementary schools, middle-schools, high schools, even colleges--and a surprising, upfront episode of confidence with adults attending a theatre.

Wyndham's 'Margaret' addresses several varieties, degrees, and cultural forms of assault against women through the composed voice of a young girl's strong sense of personal boundaries, and her account of, experiences with, and instinct for, their being crossed.

Lawing has written a road play driven by the fractured relationships between three brothers, brought together by a living wish of their dead father: culprit of their rashly different childhoods (and, so, maybe adulthoods), despite all having been raised under one roof. In the car they carry the patriarch's ashes inside of an urn, a silent witness to an array of bitter, petty, surly arguments the siblings surge through, interjected only by food, radio, and several soliloquies. Their private pains become passengers, too, turning a totemic trip into a personalized via dolorosa, where veritable dialogues will break down everyone's reserve.

The spirit of Nelson Diaz-Marcano's writing is one of its most valuable attributes. With bold fervor, humor, and awareness, 'MISFIT, AMERICA' assembles one of the most original cast of characters you've ever come across in an altogether classical, obscure, and provocatively familiar setting for a modern, sagaciously American adventure. An alternately wry and heartfelt commentary sets up a plot tackling the complexities of capitalism, free-market transactions, usage of natural resources, doomsday diplomacy, race and gender relations, non-traditional families, community organizing, etc.; all of it filtered through a Neo-Western lens. Moreover, it hinges on an impressively well-written, and timeless coming-of-age story.

Darcy Parker Bruce portrays a small town - itself the belly of a whale - that is being haunted by death; not even a ghost has peace here. Jonah is a mess and, like many thirty year olds, doesn't understand why he is where he is, and so drinks for both the bonding and drowning experience. If only everyone would commit to what - or who - was best for them. Instead, bonds of friendship breakdown into a cogency for connection, into the hunt for home; this primal force is tested across the planes of time, space, and dreamed dimensions.

A visceral read. There's much to say of Craig-Galván's writing, images irradiating from the page, language resonating, economical, poetic; performance is seldom so clearly delineated within a script as it is here. Lanny's story of abuse begins rooted in ignominies of race, from her dialect, to the management of her natural hair, with all of it being enforced (and reinforced) by her mother. The play's thematic endeavor, to have an objective view of Reda, requires solemn, informed apprehension regarding numerous psychosocial issues, which Langree and Tabitha seek to achieve through revisiting, maybe even correcting, a journey of learned shame.

With scathing views of capitalism, Bavoso aims this dark comedy at MLMs, the Mormon church, urban ennui, products, sales, modern technological information exchange, and macabre fascinations, for a frighteningly fair version of the American Nightmare. Discussions of outsourcing, formative life events like private school childhood, feminist affairs, the burgeoning need and fear to create something of one's own, spousal disappointment, and much more, navigate a tale of domestic sabotage, treachery, and myth making. Variously witty, polemical, astute, the drama takes wild, progressively daring turns when two characters' desperate, hyper ambitions take personal offense. A play that keeps upping the ante.

Gonzalez builds here a slow-burning roller coaster, make sure to strap in because this's one hell of a dance upon a tightrope, balancing between taboo and humanity; a cocktail of naughty forehead raising, heartbeat skipping double-takes, and an invigorating connection for two actors. An audience should end up light-headed after losing several breaths for oxygen. There's an interesting concept here about love as fuel, and what, or who might run it out for anything, anyone else. The honesty, openness between Jason and Alicia catches you off guard and delivers a tense, steamy, dreamy drama about finding what to live for.

Carnes weaves several possible scenarios together and leaves the staging rather open, but clearly theatrical, in LAUDANUM, to address some causes and effects of an opioid addiction. The relationship between the two players evolves over an unstable foundation, not just uncertain, but increasingly desperate and tragic. A performance would attack an impressive amount of angles on this issue, leaving an audience with plenty to analyze, ponder, and remember.

This is high poetry from Koivisto, one of the deepest, edgiest plunges into drama I've read in a while, or that anyone could get since the Greeks. The end of the world is something we deal with everyday and Koivisto takes it literally here, pitting characters (siblings) against each other in a way that I haven't really seen since Sarah Kane. 5/5