Recommended by Anna Tatelman

Memory plays can be tough to pull off, but Laura King does so deftly in Memory Box by embuing both past and present narratives with a sense of urgency and a conflict that barrels forward whether the characters are ready or not. The people in this play are fundamentally good, but sometimes make wrong choices, which lends a dose of sympathy too.

With biting snark and quick wit, Strauss's Houses examines the idiosyncracies of the middle and upper middle classes through the real estate market, the showmanship of the court of law, and our obsession with minutea like pie crusts. Though this play is a satire, and a brilliant one at that, Jerry Polner also gives his characters a dose of heart and sympathy. A solid piece!

Looking for a comedic play with a large cast that tackles the familiar meta-narrative of "let's watch 'em put on a play," but with some unexpected twists? This is the script for you. This entertaining play shows us all the drama, both on stage and behind the scenes, of staging a new work unprepared for the world (or is the world unprepared for the play?).

Does reality consist of our external actions, the menagerie of thoughts clamoring through our heads, or the narratives we tell ourselves and others? St. John of Suburbia soundly answers: all of the above. This highly inventive play takes us deep into the psyches of and narratives told by its principle characters, showing how all the raucous noise in our heads -- the stories we've told and heard, from Biblical ones to smut -- irrevocably shape our lives.

Lots of works of art tackle subjects like media saturation and school shootings, but few do so with the nuanced sympathy, curiousity, or wisdom of SPIDER. This play highlights the uncomfortable ways that both YouTube sensations and school shootings are glamorized briefly by the media, then forgotten. This is a play that you cannot just walk away from after reading or seeing, and that is a blessing.

I saw this at Seattle Public Theatre's Distillery reading series. I love how the writers firmly establish this piece as historical fiction while finding both the socio-political and personal threads that reverberate today. This piece also does an excellent job of truly being an ensemble piece, deftly balancing the arcs and desires of each individual within the large cast. The songs alternate between catchy tunes and highly moving melodies, all of which give rich emotional insight into the characters.

I saw this play at Sound Theatre a few weeks ago. Steph Del Rosso does a wonderful job in each vignette of both lending her characters compassion while picking apart their hypocrisies with absolutely no mercy. Neither the left nor the right comes off as "the good guys" in this piece, which is an admirable and daring choice for our highly polarized country.

I saw this play at The Shattered Glass Project's May 2024 festival of new works. In each scene, playwright Rachel Atkins skillfully fleshes out the lost humanity and futures of those who perished, or of the loved ones they left behind, bringing empathy and individuality to the victims of large-scale catastrophes. Each vignette within this piece depicts people who are, confusingly but accurately, both resistant to and hungry for genuine human connection.

I saw this performed at The Shattered Glass Project's May 2024 festival of new works. What a fun sapphic campy romp! This adaptation follows the novel’s major plot points while adding a sense of irreverent, goofy humor, poking fun at the silly formality of outdated customs while lending its characters sympathy. The script also knows when to cleverly morph from its self-aware sense of humor to something more dark and sinister. The sequence in which our human protagonist has a nightmare is legitimately startling!

I saw this at Seattle Public last month and it was one of my favorite productions this season. Rosie Narasaki does a fantastic job not only teaching her mostly-Western audience about a lot of likely unfamiliar history in a fun and non-patronizing way, but of crafting an engaging narrative with well-timed humor and pathos; excellent pacing that knows just when to linger in a moment and when to bounce forward; and witty, nuanced characters who sometimes make questionable choices even when they mean well.