Recommended by Matthew Weaver

Sensuous, provocative, steamy and evocative!
Jonte presents a monologue devoted to the gaze upon men, and it's everything a fearless monologue performer could want, particularly those seeking to level a challenge to audiences and whoever else might be paying attention.
Jonte's words sing, and it would be fascinating, and life-affirming, to watch her, and other high-caliber performers, bring them to life.
It's an ode to sex, to love, to men - "the manhandle thing? handle me, man" - to joy.
Select this monologue for your festival and make sure you have an extinguisher nearby for when the words catch fire.

A very moving play about grief and birds.
Cole writes a play that's about what it's about without ever out and out saying it, until she does, which makes for a very poignant tale about a devastated couple trying to find their way back to each other. In some ways, this is kind of like watching a play out of the corner of one's eye, which heightens the tension and adds further layers to the unfathomable. Ospreys are the subject, and the stand-in, and the coping mechanism.
Very good words from Cole. Many mourning couples will find much to relate.

Shakespearean aficionados and students the world over will find much to delight within St. James' first writing!
A clever, contemporary prequel that captures and lightly tweaks so much of the classic play, while also offering us glimpses of many of the attributes that I suspect are and will become mainstays in St. James' own body of work.
AND, it's funny.
AND, it's fun.
AND, it's sharp as hell.
Teachers and drama teachers: Give these words to your students. There is much within these pages to respect and admire.
Hayley: John Cariani would be proud, methinks.

And here St. James plays with Shakespearean puns most delightful, hopeful youth and then proves themself to be a master of suspense. This is a short play, but definitely NOT insignificant. We the audience are left as puzzled as Dauphine, perhaps even moreso, as we worry, and possibly mourn. Hopefully St. James is eventually moved to continue the story; I think there's a longer tale in here, bursting to come out. At least I hope so!
St. James has a skill for deep characterizations of folks we probably bump into each day (or we did, before the pandemic). More, please.

Who hasn't had this moment of hope and fear and anxiety and excitement. St. James is a maestro of capturing the real, the ordinary, the extraordinary, and making it sing.
I foresee this monologue being produced, and performed, and highly sought after, a LOT.

I really like how of the now A GODAWFUL SMALL AFFAIR is, as St. James shows us lust, love, yearning tinged with politics and just the general contemporary sense of exasperation, exhaustion, rage and weariness.
The story they tell is bold and unflinching, and yet at the same day, every day and REAL, which makes it all the more powerful. Plus, you know, Bowie, so it's cool as hell.
St. James ably handles affairs of the heart, pop culture, politics and just LIFE with skill and aplomb. Definitely a playwright any theatre would be lucky to be in business with.

St. James offers we the audience a perspective we don't see nearly enough in theatre, and I hope we get to see much more.
This is a love story as two characters learn more about themselves, and their past, and what brings them together. I don't think any feeling audience member would be able to resist rooting for Nora, Stephanie, Nora AND Stephanie and Mrs. Hyena. It's first love, with all its anxiety and all of its acceptance, and the story St. James tells is so, so, so valuable.

I don't have the history with GYPSY that many audiences will presumably have. Really a passing knowledge, more than anything. But DeVita excels here, as he does with his PHILLIE series, at playing with the boundaries of time, memory, fiction, truth and family, painting emotionally layered and deeply complicated relationships that resound no matter one's connection with the source material. Laced with the showbiz setting, natch, to make it utterly irrestistible.
This is a story of sisters and daughters, bound to one another through the truth, lies and swift kicks in the pants from beyond the grave ...

David Ives, but for Zoom.
And yet we feel each sudden twist or turn in the conversation that seems to go nowhere and everywhere deep down within our SOULS.
Carnes transcends Zoom fatigue for a conversation that reveals nothing and everything ... and this was on Day Four! Where are these characters nearly a year later? Are they OK? Are any of us OK?
Her play is a mirror, a time capsule (for a brief time period that's lasted longer than perhaps originally thought), a moment captured in time. Carnes makes this medium sing.
Cheers to wombat altruism.

For the record, in the future, when you hear Emily Hageman's name and you think to yourself, "Everyone's always talking about Emily Hageman and her plays," THIS PLAY IS A SHINING EXAMPLE OF ALL THE REASONS WHY.
Hageman takes an every day, ordinary occurrence in the Life of Boys, gathering together to play Mario Kart, and shines a light on everything brimming beneath the surface.
Teachers and parents, read and produce this play when you need a reminder.
Boys (and girls), read these words when you need to feel seen and understood.
Emily's gonna save the world. She already is.