Recommended by Kerr Lockhart

Susan Middaugh presents her play FEEBLE-MINDED WHITE TRASH as a diatribe against Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Court case which permits states to sterilize those it considers unworthy to be parents. But the play is much bigger than that -- it is a family saga in the spirit of Coward's THIS HAPPY BREED, Gurney's DINING ROOM and Wilder's LONG CHRISTMAS DINNER, celebrating the strength and endurance of family against the smug progressivism of the law and providing a triumph for the ties of kinship, unconventional though it be -- even across racial lines -- over narrow-minded and judgmental social gatekeepers.

"Fetus is the real 'F' word, isn't it?" In PEOPLE SHOULD TALK ABOUT WHAT'S REAL, Alli Hartley-Kong writes real, lumpy, sharp-elbowed, non sequitur, inappropriate joke-making, bad timing people. People too busy being real and raw and funny and awful and hurtful and true to cooperate with any story the author might want to impose; trying to define themselves while they're in the middle of the most important thing they will do in their lives. And Kong sticks the landing -- not because there's a solution, but because the characters acknowledge there isn't one, and that's fine. Great playmaking.

THESE ARE THE TIMES by David Hansen is a six-layer chocolate cake. It is labeled as a two-act play, but in length it is truly two plays, which together track the creation and development of political theater in America in the middle of the 20th century. The first play pays tribute to the Living Newspaper and similar contemporary pageants, the second play traces the early days of improv theater from economics to race and sex. Whether out of hometown loyalty or as the product of a commission, all the events have been relocated to Cleveland. A vigorous burst of theatricality!

CHRISTMAS IS ALL YOU WANT IT TO BE by Jack Levine is all you want it to be -- mostly hilarious. Imagine a female Shelley Berman, that's what we have here, as a quotidian little get-together with a friend, unspools into an outrageous offstage slapstick riot. The perfect interlude for a program of Christmas plays, or to be performed at a theater group's Christmas party, it is guaranteed to bring down the house. Jack's experience as a comic is really brought to bear here.

First of all, TINNITUS, STATIC, AND HIM will play like a mother, because Jarred Corona has got an ear, he has got a GD, MF ear and they will not even have to direct the actors because these words act themselves. Luca is a staggeringly complex troubled, troubling protagonist. You may or may not like him or what he does or the choices he makes, but it feels impossible to judge him, because Corona puts you inside him, inside his head, with a precision and balance stunning to behold in a young writer. I am going to follow Corona's work.

EINAR'S RAGNAROK uses an ingenious frame of a present family crisis and a decision to be made to explore and explicate Norse and Icelandic mythology. At first, the names and settings are unfamiliar, but as it unfolds playwright Nora Louise Syran reveals the common ground that all lasting stories have, those essential family truths that connect us more than the alien nomenclature divides us. Its didactic qualities are perfectly disguised in an exciting, entertaining, and suspenseful package. I see a long future for this play.

Sure, the magician never actually appears on stage in LAST CALL AT THE AARDVARK, but playwright Paul Stroili keeps pulling the rabbits out of his hat until the Twist (you know, the dame, the frail) pulls a final twist.

Stroili has a finely tuned ear for the Broadway rat-a-tat-tat talk of Hecht and MacArthur, Damon Runyon and the like, and he leads the audience down the garden path with a wheeze about a broken-down comic and a big-hearted stripper. But the climax is a coup de grace that is a coup de theatre.

A great vehicle for three sharp actors.

Imagine there is a playwright with the rhythm, the cadence, the music of Samuel Beckett
Who is the anti-Beckett
Where Beckett is loneliness, despair, plunging into the abyss,
Caridad Svich in TOWN HALL is about connection, memory, hope.
As a play it is a proposal for a ceremony or interactive liturgy.
Yes, the audience is involved, but not forced to perform
Or to react in any particular way,
But only to be present.
Given the playwright's creativity in the digital medium, it would be interesting to see it reconceived for that format.
A profound act of healing.

Caution, there are leaking roofs to be repaired and wrong-way lighthouse beacons to illuminate a tumbledown household in THE UNMARRYING KIND by Alice Josephs, in which the main character leaves, unnoticed in the very first moment of the play so as to leave two hours of Transatlantic family sparks popping and barbaric yawps yawping. Josephs takes out Chekhov's gun, somewhat literally, but Sam Shepherd, Tracy Letts, and David Storey are lurking in the wings as well. With all those influences, Josephs fashions an inventive, cathartic and uplifting climax that will thrill an audience. A wonderful evening of vivid ensemble theater.

TABLOID by Marta Jorgensen is a mad, extravagant CANDIDE- in- reverse carnival, where all is for the worse, and the dark denizens of the world struggle mightily to make it so. Maybe there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so, but framing can make everything bad, only in a bold, lusty, entertaining way. If you find THE SIMPSONS too subtle, JERRY SPRINGER too polite, and the SUN too fancy and elegant, you will be right at home in the world of TABLOID.