Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

There is an amazing, incredible honesty and remarkably genuine quality to the voices of these characters, even (or, rather, especially) in their most heightened moments. Robinson has a remarkable ear for the spirit of speech. Her time as a teacher has made her a clear and vital conduit for the hearts and minds of our hurting youth. There is much to be said about the strength of these students, they're the best, they are survivors manifesting a salvation through art...but I was also struck by Tolivar, her patience and perception, her noticing the necessity of beauty in dark times.

Diaz-Marcano continues his investigation of the displaced, the exiled, the lost, the transient, and more forced to consider the possibility and ramifications of living in the United States; here, in his ten-minute period play 'Mother's Milk', with an effective metaphor for "manna from heaven," he extends himself to a young married couple of South Africans expecting a child. The choice they face is a timeless, surprising hard mix of past, present, and future, of politics, privacy, and family. It's like a beautiful, disorienting mix of Athol Fugard and Tony Kushner, replete with Diaz-Marcano's always dreamy, always divine style of dialogue.

This quick primer to the works of Matthew Weaver highlights what's best about him: dazzling female roles, emotionally vulnerable but daring male characters, heart, humor, an astounding ability to wrap everything up in ways charming, heartening, and inspiring, and the clever gift of always having everything right there in the title. The more I read, the more I realize how caring Weaver really is, as a human and a dramatist. It's remarkable, and exceptionally important, learning and knowing how much we might actually need Weaver and his works right now, his confidence boosts.

As an eons-overdue crackdown on sexually-predatory behavior wrangles our society and consciousness, playwright Carnes hones on a component too tricky for other writers: the completion of love-scorned man into monster. It is one the most accomplished plays I've ever come across. This cautionary tale for self-righteous arrogance, damning document on ownership, and heaven's conviction of the utterly bullshit excuses of bullish men is a mix of Jean Genet and Paula Vogel, with dialogue far funnier than either could provide. Carnes' clear love and interest with history breathes life into bizarre, minuscule details throughout one of this satirist's finest chef-dœuvres.

Without a doubt one of Weaver's funniest plays! I had to stop reading at some point on every page because of my busting out laughing! What a pure, joyful piece this is right here - and yet Weaver inserts moments of wry, sly humor that may indicate just how intelligent the child of this one-character play might actually be, and just when you think you've got it, this student makes you wonder just how witting or unwitting the whole of this presentation actually is. Bravo! Bravo! This will absolutely prove to be a standout performance at any short play festival!

The first line of this play sets up the tone and themes that playwright Turnage investigates in this raw, insightful one-act about marriage in stasis. Four characters reckon with the meaning and significance of their past as applied to the present, creating exchanges that hang desperately on the nuances of every word and thought they share, or don't. The drama that unfolds over the cooking of spaghetti is one of the most tense, engaging, bizarre, astonishingly wounded battles I've read in a long time. The fourth wall-breaking monologues transcend into time-shattering soliloquies. This's a fantastic, challenging, scab ripping for actors.

Golly, what a terrifying, irreverent, hysterical piece! If only Robin Williams were still around. Carnes transmogrifies a personality both Shakespearean and appallingly modern into something astonishingly current, topical and timeless. Perfect for any stage, but will also well serve those particularly interested in an evening of political sketches to be held at any sized venue.

As one prepares to die, three friends respond to the appropriate anxieties, and some unexpected reckonings, all while a second scene eventually plays out. A poignant piece about sexuality, the metaphorical and literal opposites of sex and death are investigated in one of Bohannon's most daring, simultaneously somber, enlivening, laughing, heart-stopping, palpitating works.

A sexy, saucy, naughty, bawdy, and all around hilarious mix of genres, a welcome mash of blaxploitation and affectionate parody, an amalgam of styles that will never let you look at organized crime, online dating, or Pepé Le Pew quite the same way again. The final fight will excite and, if staged just right, drop your jaw. The final line had me laughing for a full minute.

Wyndham proves once again how far ahead of the game he is. Here with a play that should be included in, not only collections for young actors, but monologue anthologies, and short-form dramatic evenings of socially-conscious works, Wyndham taps into what's important for a child. This work is so immediate that you will, and well should, forget about everything else. That is what's so integral to the piece: the willingness to listen to a marginalized child's naïve, subjective, objective, intelligent, canny, and seriously simple experience of a more-than-necessarily complicated country. Wyndham is an American playwright in the best sense.