Recommended by Tristan B Willis

I was lucky enough to see DEE at Live Art in a Day 2017 (the very day after this play was written!) DEE confronts the often basic and dehumanizing understanding of a marginalized person's agency by others, even in progressive spaces with people who consider themselves friends. The use of the closing of Dee's Mancala game as a scene change and moment of introspection for Dee works so well on stage AND on the page.

A lovely short play that evokes feelings of distance, melancholy, and joyful discovery. I really enjoy the way Thembi employs stage directions and movement to say as much (and more!) than just dialogue - especially the juxtaposition of Cooper and Ms. Thompson dancing while the Sgt yells silently and the Marines cheerfully destroy themselves in the background.

Cricket Woman Mother Earth explores the anxiety caused by an overwhelming amount of access to terrifying, dehumanizing, and hope-killing news. As some tweet supposedly quoting someone's therapist said: our brains didn't evolve at the same rate as our technology, we are not built to handle this much daily trauma. The best moments in Cricket Woman question our tendency (especially in Trump! Era! Theatre!) to see current events as new, awful developments instead of more of the old, but the womb-horror aspects were a close second for me. More horror theatre, please!

An unapologetically queer and melancholy play with collage-like dialogue reminiscent of someone trying to describe a dream, or a memory that reminds them of a memory that reminds them of a memory. Bird Brains battle the tangible and intangible people and circumstances killing them and erasing them in a room suspended in time and space, where they can exist and commiserate, 'a bird in flight, twice at once.' So, basically, extremely my shit and very worth the read!

Luckily I caught a performance of NORMAL SEA at the Capital Fringe Festival that included a wonderful cast and the most DARLING sea lion puppet. The script itself is magical and so so kind. It's always nice to see a play that understands there are no simple protagonists or antagonists in such personal and hard-to-navigate situations. (Also the line "my office doesn’t have Bring Your Aquatic Offspring to Work Day" killed me.)

A delightful play about gender and expression that battles against any one 'right' way to be queer. It's so refreshing to see a specifically femme non-binary character and the shift from an all-too-realistic evening of misgendering to an internal Olympics of legitimacy immediately had me cackling. Most importantly, it all read so real and so familiar. (Hire trans and nonbinary artists to tell our stories! We tell them best!)

ATLAS OF MUD is a dystopian story I can get behind - interested more in the relationships between people in this new world and the new hierarchies they create than being tricky. ATLAS is structurally interesting with dialogue that fluctuates between the natural and poetic. Similarly, there are plenty of opportunities for incredible design and movement. The evacuees emptying their suitcases and release of the birds keep flickering through my mind. A great read I'd love to see on stage!

I had the opportunity to see COLLECTIVE RAGE at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co in 2016 and am so glad I did; I think back to the production and play fairly regularly. COLLECTIVE RAGE straddles absurdity and surprising realism (I feel like I've met every Betty!), letting each of its characters explore their identities and each other in a collage of hilarious and poignant scenes. And as a non-binary person with a pussy myself, it's refreshing to see a non-binary character on-stage engaging in these discussions too.

I'm a sucker for art about process, the meeting of inconsistencies, and things turning into other things and The Egg-Layers does not disappoint! The Egg-Layers explores the origin story of myth and creator, interweaving the Playwright's development with myths' performance/discussion in a way that simply must be performed and viewed live. Simply, this play wouldn't make a better movie. Even the stage directions burst with personality and life. (I particularly liked "So was it awful or sexy or both and is he okay?")

Somehow in the middle of time travel, asteroids, and dinosaurs the most magical part of this piece is the Starlight All Night diner itself - a place I now wish I could visit!