Recommended by Emmet L.F. Cameron

A tight short that can work equally well on a stage or in audio. (The version on Sell Yourself Short is fabulous!) This play really speaks to how the people we happen to be stuck with — in school or in a traffic jam — can have bigger impacts on our lives than we know. & sometimes we’re lucky enough to find out.

Pardoned is an empathetically drawn snapshot of a private moment between two sisters who've been put in the unenviable position of growing up as Black girls in America's first family. This moment holds the impact of that intense level of public scrutiny & the sacrifices made by children in the process of progress, counterbalanced with more ordinary but still so impactful experiences of siblings examining how differences in age & personality have led them to different responses.

STRIKE twists together a shared physical task & complexly intertwined personal narratives with exquisite resonance, dissonance, tension, slack, chaos & control. In the right actors' hands, this play will haunt the audience for a long time afterwards. & it'll strike the previous play's set for you, too.

This short starts out strong with some great comedic meat for the actor playing Emily to sink her teeth into. With the twist, we get a still-funny but sobering reminder of what inhuman tools can do to human beings when left unchecked.

This fun & fast 10 minutes spins exactly the right amount of ridiculousness out of a typo/pun. Works creatively with the instant recognizability of iconic characters such as Satan & Jesus to give them specific personalities in the world of this play. Pam holds her own against the supernatural -- & every theatre (if they're lucky) knows a seamstress like her.

This play has fantastic, familiar rhythm. It's about the kind of sisterhood between people who happen to have the same parents, & the people who happen to work the same job. The deep grooves you wear in each other through forced proximity, even if you don't mean to have anything to do with each other, & how your whole life happens in the breaths you let out between the long lines of people who only see you as service.

There are plays with fast-paced comedic ultra-violent child endangerment sequences & there are plays which sincerely explore the affronts to personhood faced by those who conceive/birth/care for children. & then there's this play, which somehow balances both without missing a beat. A stunning accomplishment.

2 widows, a pineapple, a painting, & a possible vampire husband. It's a great setup for some very funny moments, but also to catch a glimpse of 2 women struggling to exist in a society that defines every aspect of their life, from clothes to hobbies, entirely by their relationships to men, even when those men are 6 feet under. If you sign your painting it will be forgotten; if you don't, you will be forgotten. The audio production & interview on the Playing On Air podcast is wonderful.

Wherever you think this is going, you’re not thinking far enough. Prillaman spins out a small memetic joke & somehow makes it funnier, weirder, sexier, grosser, scarier, & more heartwarming than the audience could ever prepare for. The audio version on Gather By The Ghost Light is fantastic.

I love when a play uses the drama of the natural world to underscore changes in characters' lives & relationships. Freida & Billie have such a recognizable adult mother-daughter relationship, & the sunset as a spectacular but everyday natural phenomenon feels so right as a backdrop for those moments when you surprise yourself by saying the thing you've always carried in silence out loud.