Recommended by Samantha Cocco

Hoffman always does his homework with his pieces, and this one is no different - my brow furrowed at some of the references, making a mental note to learn more about things with which I'm less familiar, like the Bronte sisters, George Sand, Lovecraft.. Additionally, as the daughter of a woman with three very close sisters, the dialogue here felt so real to me. It is quick, cutting in a way only family can get away with, very real, and with an undercurrent of love when it matters.

While it's certainly neither fun nor funny for women to have our bodies turn on us, Tits is an absolute riot. It has just the right amount of unique personality assigned to each body part to rival the likes of Pixar's 'Inside Out' personification of emotions. Of course each tit would have its own oddities, and each ovary its own level of unhinged demand. Women will get a kick out of this show and men will leave wondering if they should be kinder to the females in their lives.

This piece has just the right flair of Law and Order heightened drama to keep you interested, and hits you with a great twist at the end to tug at your heart strings. A piece like this can make us question our assumptions about certain kinds of persons and will remind us that there is usually a lot lurking under the surface.

This piece stuck with me for a long time. It made me wonder if I could forgive. If I should. If we, as an artistic community, should. It made me think about people I know and people I wish I didn't.

Well-placed melodrama at its best. This has a Kristen Wiig quality to it in its inane yet smart humor. No one wants scene hog extras like these on their set, but you'll want these extras-turned-main-characters on your stage.

I had the honor to star in this piece by Mandryk in 2018, and truly still have nightmares about it. The creepy voices on the line, the winter storm, a woman already on the edge. I love a show that makes you question the sanity of the main character. It takes a bit to scare me; this did it. It didn't help that I share a name with the main character, that I live alone and was recently divorced, or that my mom ends our calls with 'I love you, goodnight'... wait. Was this show about me? Greg? GREG?!

Stonewallin’ brilliantly weaves a tale of intersectional and intergenerational ideas of race and queerness in rural America. Barclay asks audiences, what does it mean to call a place and a people ‘home’? How do we confront the complexities our familial roots, living and dead, as intertwined with our chosen families and identities? Can we cast a spell against white supremacy and against cisgender and heterosexual norms? This show dazzled audiences fortunate enough to take in its short run at Oberlin College and presented a heartwarming take on some very salient issues of our time.

Questions Black women entertain regularly in reference to their hair are woven literally and symbolically through Francisca Da Silveira's "Can I Touch It?" Da Silveira creates a world centered around these questions and around hair, a complex aspect of what it means to be a Black woman in America. I saw the Cleveland Public Theatre production of this piece in May 2023 and loved the grounded realism of the piece with just a touch of magic.