Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

Amina McIntyre is who you get when you mix Marcus Gardley with Lillian Hellman. McIntyre's plays are driven by intense histories, dogged bonds, and familial intrigue; all of them steeped in the unique atmosphere of her own mythos. 'On the Third Day' is a modern classic. The brewing rage, the stifled dreams, and elemental lifebloods that make up the members of this family are present in all families. Life treats you like a yo-yo, McIntyre knows this. Pride is the last thing anyone will ever be able to sacrifice, that is, before life itself. This is one for the books.

How bizarre, this piece, amidst all its darkness and void, Dunn seems to have such fun with the language. Reminds me of when Robert Frost charged that writers must experience whatever they intend the reader to. Frost mentioned tears, and since reading that I've always wondered if it applies as much with laughter. Or shock. Dunn is the carnie from a Tom Waits song with this play. On the fringes, it may be, but Dunn knows damn well the problem we all must face is Change. In that sense, this is as valid a Marriage Play as any other.

I like Svich, a lot, I've written such, and this play's brilliant. Partly why I admire 'Fuel' is it's the latest of a recent, simpler, more ingenious, purer quality of writing Svich's been exhibiting in her last two, three scripts. She's always poetic; what excites me, my imagination, interpretation, is her profound allegory of a plausible USA. She's been pertinent; this feels prescient. I'm prudent about pulling off a puppet on stage, come the day, I hope it's worthy of this. Svich is Queen of Duo Against the World, but this pair is nearly trapped by one tragic "complicity." Home.

Burbano conducts a channel of voices that, frankly, I've wanted more and more. Despite being of Latino stock, and what I do and don't know of my heritage, I'm perpetually challenged to comprehend, even fathom, what's been and's still being done to Central America, South America, the Antilles, and the Caribbean; that's to say, Latin America. The histories of its lands and peoples imbue, a both connected and individual, shock and awe. I hope Burbano looks at the Taíno someday. Jonata's account and saga illumine a past Peru's in-clashing culture with the memory and wisdom earned through her survival.

Gardner has written a farce, true and modern. There's plenty dark humor and satire, too, but this's as heightened, daring, and dangerous as anything within its class today. Actors will go for broke with this. Bring it or bust. Look at Catherine Weingarten for a primer. Through mania, obsession, paranoia, and (most importantly) a soupçon of tragedy, three characters driving their objectives full-throttle, firing on all superficial and philosophical cylinders till the tanks empty and the engines burn every fume of self-aggrandizement, self-deprecation, and self-sacrifice, we get an anti-romance with a dreamy denouement. It's "wicked in the best way."

Pynn's first brush of beauty comes in the way she describes the train. It takes only a sentence of stage direction, but with it, she makes all the difference. The concept of unseen passengers, save for our two players, works to a director's advantage here, same with however spare and bare the design of the subway car fairs. Many people are interested in exercises and experiments involving a lack of dialogue, but this piece tends to the gardens of innate, passing, and brewing kindness; so, every smile from the actors, no matter how big or small, is the whole point.

If you can crack how to stage the first page, well, the rest should follow, and I promise it'll follow in spades. You can call that a criticism, but this play is all about the absurdity of victim blaming. It's a bizarre satire for a bewildering problem. This is, in the truest form of satire, a militant play. The fact that there may be no "ha-ha" is beside the point; and, true to Quintilian, this is all about rhetoric; the character Donnie does an infuriating job of twisting words and pulling logical fallacies from out his ass. I dare you.

Certainly the darkest piece from Hansen I've read, but I've been genuinely curious what he'd do in these waters. To be honest, this is more or less my favorite use of language. This is all about interpretation, subtext, implication, passivity, intuition, and more implication. You're not going to have an "easy" time with this one, but you're going to want to know who wins. You're going to want to know whose point gets made. Drama tends to end on one truth or another, and at the end of this conflict, dinner may not be the only thing that's settled.

What surprised me was how accessible this piece is. It's essentially a story about artists, creators. Audiences will likely have all the popular knowledge necessary to follow and enjoy this play about Jack Kirby. Something else I never saw coming was the humor, this drama is incredibly funny, it's lively and spirited; I'm not kidding, it never runs out of gas. Also, the last thing which was completely unexpected was how poignant a commentary this is on racism. The casual and volatile anti-Semitism Kirby and his community deal with is still shocking, and so is how they deal with it.

David Cote's 'Trigger Warning' is a sly slice of satire, like a daring game of Truth or Dare fueled by college campus conduct, social censure, discriminatory inclusion, inclusive discrimination, and political correctness run amok. It'll make your eyebrows rise in the best kind of way, you won't know whether or not you should hide the open smirk that's formed upon your face. Clever how Cote slips in the theme and overall importance of humanism in this very form of art.