Recommended by Larry Rinkel

Although "Known Universe" can be performed as a stand-alone, it gains considerable resonance and affect if produced as part of the "Second World" trilogy. This is the bleakest of the plays, and offers a final cautionary note concerning climate change that is both inevitable and horrifying. Like an opera (say "Götterdämmerung" or "Bohème") where a reprise of earlier material at the ending gathers the whole together, the re-enactment of Teddy's story sent to Anzor in Part One unifies the trilogy with emotional force. A same-day staging of the trilogy would be great for a serious, ambitious theater.

Bittersweet and melancholy in its suggestion that it is near-impossible to find true connection in life, and its sadness is only exacerbated by being set at the most miserable time of the year. I love plays that explode the sentimentality attached to Christmas and expose the loneliness that so often really exists. (How's that for three X's?) But there are laughs here too, as in naming a baby Nebuchadnezzar. Actors must also decide whether to pronounce Basyl and Basil identically or differently. I vote for . . . .

Though the ending (which I won't give away) is undoubtedly shocking, this two-hander for two Lesbian teenagers packs an emotional wallop. Both girls are trapped in the conflict between passion for each other and the damage caused by parental misunderstanding and prejudice. Amber Palmer handles subtext very well, with both Kate and Ella unable to say all they really mean to and the impossibility of escape from a hostile small-town environment.

Intense, original, fast-paced, and powerful. Two strangers — a young man gripped by his personal history of violence and his heritage as an Iraqi, a young woman victimized by her philandering ex-husband — meet against the backdrop of a horrendous Montana blizzard and a car accident leading to their probable deaths. Episodes of remembrance and hallucination alternate with reality as the two confront their likely fates. This 1-act play offers not only great opportunities for the main actors, but also for the lighting and sound designers. Well-worth producing!

Absolutely delightful. An utterly charming, utterly theatrical send-up of a hapless would-be young playwright whose every effort at success succeeds only in comic failure. Rushing has a ball creating this poor pathetic but ultimately adorable loser and filling every scene with deftly crafted speeches and incidents. The other characters - most played by Douglas Jones-Jones himself but others by his friend Maude and Czech-speaking unseen stage manager Kirby - add variety and zest to the proceedings. This gossamer light-as-air jeu d'esprit may be the best play I've read by Straton Rushing yet. Good work!

A clever little satire on the pretentiousness behind collecting "fine art." There's the collector, the gallerist, the auctioneer, an unnamed woman, and a disheveled journalist trying to make sense of it all. I won't give away the ending, but it puts a nice little button on the piece.

Such a clever idea - personifying writer's block as a character - and succeeding so well in making the "block" such an annoying and all-too-true representation of the doubts and fears every one of us writers feels. I only wish I had as good an idea for a short play as this, but then I couldn't have done it as well as Michael Susko.

Steven G. Martin below has it right: two guys late night on a rainy London street, one all too flamboyantly aware of his sexuality, the other all in denial. Over shared cigarettes ("fags"), they form a doubtless temporary bond as power shifts back and forth between the queen and the leather. It is indeed a dangerous little play.

Although Carnes's main themes are clear — the subjugation of women and the resulting distortion of their human potential — there is much that breaks the boundaries of the conventional and will challenge both audiences and producers. Ostensibly set in the 1930s, characters also speak frequently in the language of today, to suggest how far we haven't come. There's a great role for the malevolent, Nurse Ratched-like Miss Van Rose, whose every self-satisfied pronouncement is clearly *wrong.* Which doesn't prevent Carnes from having great fun creating the character, especially the variety of epithets Rose uses to address her captive brood.

This is one of those sparkling petits jeux Rachael handles so well. More a situation than a play with a plot, it reminds me of the meeting I experienced working at a Fortune 500 when upper management decided the best way to save a project in trouble was to reduce the number of employees working on it. So under the guise of "love," two upper managers fire their staff while taking potshots at each other. But above all it's RC's vividness of language that should engage you; how often can gluten-free muffins, cephalopods, and lavender co-exist within the same play?