Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

The transitions in love and friendship during one's coming-of-age are tricky, for it's often the first time one really has to let go and experience a new sense of loss, a first-time sense of truly being alone, perhaps then testing the limits of sacrifice. Martin VanBuren III's characters are appropriately animated with hip dialogue and hormones raging. Also the professor and mother are rendered particularly well as adults whose whole worlds are these teenagers who joke about how dire everything is. The comedy is cartoonish, even screwball, the cleverness abundant, the sass smoldering, the romance endearing, and the drama devastating.

An engaging slow-burner that begins with a flame and ends in a blaze. Incorporating a variety of themes - from PTSD, small-town paranoia, to generational change - Hilda's Diner incorporates a number of genres as well, from kitchen-sink drama, marital mystery, working wonder woman/business play, to stage noir. Dana Hall crafts a period piece that is part 'Mildred Pierce', part 'Double Indemnity', part 'The Best Years of Our Lives', with well-paced dialogue and page-turning plot developments. All the roles are juicy parts and will excite any actors wanting to take part in the twists and turns. Overall it's tone-perfect.

This cycle is centered on 10 characters during one of life's major episodes. 'Snowflake' deals with dorm-room homophobia with humor and danger. 'All-Nighter' deals with choosing one's destiny with a light-handed pathos. 'American Politics' is about the need to be activated for oneself and others. 'Relax,Bro' is a sensitive take on self-care and courage. 'Are You a Freshman?' is a comic take on legacy. 'Nobody's Watching' is a complex tale of safety and consent. 'Sexiled' is a torrent on communication. 'The Closet Door' sums it up with young adults that'll have you remembering, cheering, feeling the fire of youth.

Another Wyndham wonder about a teacher doing his best in a new school and in accordance with a state law that takes time away from his class. There are a ton of things adults like to impose on children as essential and most of those adults seem to forget kids couldn't care less. And when they do care it might be even worse an outcome during education time. Wyndham makes a poetic ouroboros of the conflict between state legislature, private/public rights, and when they are enforced/enacted in the name of religion and how easily hate can swoop in.

Strangely beautiful piece about what we take from the earth/mother nature, family trauma, and a young woman's understanding of the world. With airs of Conor McPherson and Caryl Churchill, the story weaves together in a miraculous way. McKinley looks towards the sins of the past to free herself into the future. Behlke has a wonderful way with natural dialogue and all of its imperfections, looping the ideas, characters, story into one thematic whole.

This adaptation by Aurora Behlke is such a wonderful playground of language. Not to mention a solid romantic comedy upset by that pesky bugger alcohol. The wine flows in such a way you start to wonder who is the Cyclops in this situation. There is the juice for a knock-em-dead performance by an actress in the role of Claudia, with one particularly line that made me the reader do a spit-take. I'll leave the family secrets and holy-moly golly descriptions of what love is to all those in search of a perfect ten-minute comedy of manners.

A fine monologue about being stuck in the center of a problem and the impossibility of getting out. How you got there. The need to not be alone during a problem. Finding the will to escape. Finding the will to find the escape. What one might need to sacrifice to solve or escape a problem. If it is even possible.

The character is so wound up she doesn't know how to stop. Like a virus. Feeding. Off bacteria. Toxic bacteria. What is the cure? This is one of Asher Wyndham's most virulent, ferocious monologues about a mother at the end of her wits. The slow descent into paranoia. She's unwillingly become part of a toxic ecosystem called the internet. The psychology of the character is fantastic, while physically making sense as well. Subconsciously she needs to clean because everything is now dirty.

Readable doesn't always mean speakable, but Osmundsen writes this monologue so well you can hear the voice speaking to you. Osmundsen captures that turmoil in a teenager's life where everything means something, the naïveté in one's sexual awakening, the innocence that is lost in love's quest. The attention to detail within the speech may be part of the character, but moreover it transcends into a very lyrical rhythm with wonderful poetic imagery. The relationship builds gradually and believably, but the real core is Bob's love of theatre which Osmundsen depicts through beautifully rendered passages taking place throughout Bob's life.

I don't know how he does it, but Wyndham keeps coming up with the most engaging moments for audiences, albeit the most desperate for his characters. There are all sorts of variations on the theme of class here, that Wyndham includes homelessness in the piece is a stroke of genius. The impossibility of this man's situation is why Wyndham is so great a monologuist, we're forced to question our understanding of empathy. In an age where forgiveness and understanding are rejected for any reason possible, Wyndham's work is a breath of fresh air. Wyndham's work should be in festivals/solo-evenings.