Recommended by Greg Mandryk

A fairy tale that's far more in the spirit of Brother's Grimm than Disney, Jacquelyn Floyd-Priskorn's Fairie Ring is a tale of a young mother coping with depression and the dark thoughts that come with it. Heartbreaking, yet ultimately reaffirming, this is excellently done.

When you give actors material that’s this much fun to perform, the infectious glee can’t help but spill out into the audience. A nice, short piece of macabre comedy.

This is just beautiful. Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend is a heavyweight landing joke after joke on her audience. In the hands of a pair of skilled comic actors, Heist! would be criminally hilarious.

Okay, first of all, points awarded for the eye-catching title.

It’s hard to dislike a play that’s this wholesome and charming. If you have a good costumer and an actress with some solid percussion skills, this play would be an absolute showstopper.

The family that faces extinction via a giant, incoming meteor, stays together. Cam Eikmeyer’s apocalyptic family drama serves as a sweet reminder that our time is too short for bitterness to come between us and those close to us.

Despite what the Bond films may have taught us, the compulsion to spout off a dad joke after ending someone’s life is a sure sign that you’re mentally unwell. Christopher Soucy sends up this trope hilariously with Quips.

As someone who will trip and yell “I’m fine!” before I’ve even hit the ground, I find Autumn highly relatable. This is a perfectly charming monologue that would give a not-yet-old actress a chance to shine.

It’s wacky, it’s fun, and hey, you get an excuse to wear togas! Who wouldn’t want to produce this clever confection by Morey Norkin?

Whether you're drawn in by the lasers and killer robots, or the mind-boggling hypotheticals, good science fiction always has, at its core, a very human story. Vince Gatton's Double Helix tells a very touching tale of two estranged siblings desperately yearning to reconnect, but unwilling to surrender their own personal truths to do so. In this increasingly polarized world, there is something eerily relatable to having a former confidante turn into something alien and unrecognizable, all the while insisting they're the same person they've always been. I'm interested to see where Mr. Gatton takes this work in progress.

Sometimes you find a script that makes you a little sad you’re only reading it on NPX on a whim and not because a nearby theatre is gearing up to produce it. Such is Blowhole.

Aly Kantor’s effortless wit sparkles in this adaptation of Lysistrata. Kantor keeps the heart of the classic intact while infusing each scene with intelligent, delightful, double entendre-rich dialogue.