Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

Audiences were loving playwright Irene L. Pynn's Critic's Choice winning play at the 2018 Orlando International Fringe Festival, engaged with Hawel's existential angst, narrative Easter eggs, and an absurd domestic serio-comic nightmare; it's like Wendy Wasserstein having a fever dream. Themes are driven home by monologues reflecting on, and scrutinizing, the purposes and products derived from a working life, that is, as opposed to those deriving a life's work. Brimming with egos spanning the spectrum, cultural references, and a dogged deconstruction; Pynn keeps the play accessible, elevated, and knowing.

Lawing has a field day writing this live wire with an axe to grind at a wedding. Her contention being slighted out of doing her day job for a cousin she claims to esteem like a sister. Claims of all kinds come from this "all-knowing" and "ever-understanding" woman who never got out of Dodge, now running a menial task for the bride she watched tour the country, surrounded by townsfolk she secretly fears pity her; except for the audience, likely taking place of the one guest she's never met, listening to an actress's opportunity for a pressured, provocative, tragicomic speech.

Donna Hoke finds those two coworkers, located at many jobs, who just meet at their own level, then throws their longing for tender, platonic affection on a display table for us to watch as it works itself out truthfully, simply, exactly; as it professes it needs to. The desire for this behavior, this connection, this satisfaction arises in, and is confided by, so many people everywhere that one can't help but be suspicious of it when we actually see this both social and personal boundary breached so matter-of-factly. It's so strange and vulnerable, genuine, rounded. An act of intimate perfection.

'Diving Practice' contains the kind of crafted character drama Wyndham works so well on, and here he's focusing upon a teenager reckoning with tragedy, faith, and the painfully crossed-over relationship they now have with water. Wyndham really appears to be able to channel the voices, minds, hearts, and spirits of practically anyone - at any age. The words consistently feel authentic. The piece is also a challenging, exceptional, and intriguing opportunity for performers in high schools, regional competitions, and YA theatre.

Hageman's beautiful, evocative verse guides us through the difficult journey of a trapped teenager, an episode of painful maturation, a confrontation with shame and embarrassment, with questions beyond nobody's years. However, this is what the play is about. A delicate tale, an illuminating rite-of-passage many youths must endure, and Hageman conceives it as a parable for those who will need it most. Full of tender friends and beleaguering authority figures, the staging would be an emotional, educational presentation, the subject's implications engendering significant reflections on autonomy, class, judgment, responsibility, self-care, and thinking for one's self in audiences of all ages.

From the start, I knew this would be one of my favorite works by Rachael Carnes. Once again she shows her ability for a range of style, language, genre, and plot. This is a pure farce, and Carnes' love of the ages gives the piece several timeless, anachronistic elements. This is Kaufman and Hart if they had used a time machine. She brings back her perfection of the mansplainer and the ingenious, maverick woman. Madcap, irreverent, neurons firing on all cylinders, I cannot recommend this play enough. Please, produce it! Also, I knew Carnes knew Dickinson—all those em dashes!

A vital fork-in-the-road is captured with remarkable grace and spirit in Rachael Carnes' 'Fairview'. Resplendent language grips its fist around our hearts and we follow Mary's story in rapt, heart-breaking, heart-beating, cautious, beguiled silence. The immediacy of these possibilities is marked by a constant theme in Carnes' work, the here-and-now, the what's-in-front-of-you, and that still includes the fourth wall. The fact that the administration and staff are concerned with experience and facts is a testament to Carnes' ability to inhabit her characters, her knowledge that we may always, so easily go back. A master's use of parables for a parable.

To prepare myself, I re-read Poe's short murder tale before moving to Martin's notable play. Remarkable how faithful it is; if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Martin gives Montresor's classic narration a setting and we go down with him, as it were, into the catacombs of his memory. Martin knows that the journey and assembly are what make this story so ghoulish, so sinister, so spooky, with poignant themes of the Fool and alcoholism. What might be described as all but dramatic irony clamps our teeth and shrinks our necks. A powerhouse for two actors, and perfect for Halloween.

A perfect companion to Sharai Bohannon's 'In the End', this play should be treated with the thoroughness and veracity as a work by Ionesco. Seriously, I see Alice's surroundings reflecting all that's ever happened in her life. This play is a prayer and a connection, and a communion. This is a moving interjection in the right kind of festival.

From the get-go, Bohannon reels us in with fascinating, nearly disorienting dialogue, enough to set up the mystery of the piece and hint to her mastery of it; the madness and elliptical nature of the work calls Albee to mind. A play not for the faint of heart, and about grief and loss and the tragedy of missing what was meant for us, it includes some of Bohannon's most devastating speeches and most lucrative language, this is without a doubt one of her best works.