Recommended by Kerr Lockhart

What is it about families? The people we should be most honest with can be the people we construct the most elaborate lies for. Is it to protect them? Or ourselves? That's the situation Rachel Feeny-Williams explores in FRAGILE MINDS in which a family constructs an entire ecosystem of untruth on a foundation of a bigger untruth. The contortions the family members put themselves through to sustain this impossible construct is alternately hilarious and painful. A rich potential vehicle for an ensemble theatre which successfully maintains many strains at once, but all to a palpable and resonant effect.

"The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." - William Faulkner. EGGS AND CHIPS by Rachel Feeny-Williams illustrates this notion in this charming, wistful memory piece reminiscent of British working class plays like THIS HAPPY BREED. Feeny-Williams has an acute and precise ear, and non-natives like me will be whisked away and immersed in this disappearing world. But the object is not nostalgia, but the recognition that past and present live alongside each other, and memory is the key to self-understanding. I hope sweetness like this is not gone from our modern theatre. Your audience will love this play.

CYRANO ON THE MOON by Monica Cross is the sequel for you (a) if you love Cyrano de Bergerac, the character and the play; (b) you wish Roxanne had more agency and more voice in her own story; (c) you wish you knew how Roxanne had processed what she learns in the very last scene of Rostand's play; (d) you had hoped for a reconciliation between Cyrano and Christian; (e) you wonder how else the story might have turned out. A feast of visual and verbal delights.

WHAT'S MY LINE cleverly uses the game show as a frame for a bravura lead performance for an actor of great range and power, in the role of the poet Louis Untermeyer. As the play unfolds, we learn of Untermeyer's complicated and troubling past, his prickly and difficult relationships with the people around him, including his estrangement from his son, and the controversial opinions that led to him being kicked off What's My Line. An exciting challenge for an actor, and no-guardrails ride for an audience. This one I'd like to see.

SOLICITATION by Ross Tedford Kendall is a very dark O. Henry story, complete with the patented twist ending. Kendall has a great feeling for rhythm, and the play provides a wonderful for two actors to maintain an exciting volley between them. The premise is so strong, in fact, that I wish this was the first scene of an entire twisted thriller. But it's thrilling on its own.

BLINDED by Ross Tedford Kendall is clearly written with an insider's knowledge, both of academia and of the prickly personalities therein. Moreover, Kendall is clearly bilingual, having mastered bureaucratic edu-speak and the way actual humans naturally talk, rendered with a fine ear. And the playwright is an optimist, for although the play develops a level of tension which could turn into confrontation, the actual denouement is a moment of learning, and a bridge built between different worlds. Not only a good piece of theater, but could well be useful for workshops and professional development.

First of all, HOLD ON demonstrates that Robert Weibezahl has an ear. The way his characters talk is the way recognizable humans talk, and behave, as well. Second, HOLD ON is such a brilliant set-up for a play that I'm mad at myself for not coming up with it. A not-so-chance encounter at a small-town high school reunion -- Frost's two roads that diverged and made all the difference -- or maybe it didn't. Tender and vivid, with good meaty bits for the actors to strut their stuff. Extremely engaging -- audiences and actors will love this play.

If Clifford Odets had been a gentile from New Jersey and knew something about food, he might have written PORK ROLL, EGG & CHEESE, a Mulligan stew of a play with lots of varied ingredients and a lot of flavor ("I was gonna blow up that bridge when I came to it" is worth the price of admission.) It's a story about growing and accepting change, about the New in New Jersey, about family, priorities, and the unifying qualities of highly salted pork by-products. Do not produce this play unless your audiences and actors like to have good, salty fun.

RED-PILLED is a rare look at mental illness from the point of view of the sufferer. Ben feels like a less-glib Holden Caufield, seeking authenticity and peace, when all he can see is hypocrisy and pain. Or a new Jimmy Porter, often inadvertently hurting those he loves in his search for truth. The family dynamic rings very true, and those roles may well prove a holiday for actors.

Arthur M Jolly administers a model lesson in katharsis in the one-act version of THE ITHACA LADIES READ MEDEA. The play starts off in a polite enough fashion, but soon enough the cycle of betrayal and revenge are played out, true to its title, and it is impressive that playwright Jolly can spin this out so powerfully in such a compacted time frame, to such devastating emotional effect. ITHACA LADIES would be perfect for an evening of plays about women, or for a company eager to show off the talents and scope of their female members.