Recommended by Claudia Haas

A play that should be done again and again until we accept and embrace our common humanity. Kahn offers a rich portrayal of artists and outliers of society who will risk all to save a few. The outlook is grim for these resistors but their belief in what is right and good remains a benchmark of hope in what can be accomplished by a few good people.

Steve Martin has made me a believer in the one-minute play. You can feel the setting, the time of night, the expectation, the hope, and the inevitable all in a scant minute. And you know the backstory without any explanation. Beautifully done.

This will give you minimal time to think. Think fast because there’s not a lot of time. Not even as much time as Dzubak suggests. Root for him, pray for him, but can you grant the gift of time?

Riveting and terrifying, Berger explores the unknown scars that grow after trauma. No easy answers are given, but the mystery of what time, fear, and unwanted knowledge can do to your psyche grips you tightly. And it doesn’t let go even when the play ends.

Everytime I went to the ocean, my older cousin would proclaim, “the sea will reclaim their own.” And that phrase haunted me through Feeny-Williams magical play. I am a huge fan of Under Milkwood and Feeny-Williams finds her way around this prompt to create a new fable using a day by the sea. It is the stuff that sea shantys are made of. It’s the stuff of sea-dreams and wave-crashing nightmares. It is the all-powerful and mystical sea. It is the stuff of theatre.

As the perfect storm brews outside, another storm is brewing. The result is an eruption of maybe romance, maybe healing, maybe danger, and maybe, just maybe, a future will unfold. But before anything can happen, the characters have to weather all the storms. Filled with tension and high-flying anxiety, this short play is filled with surprises. The play is a treat for the actors and the audiences.

Loss and grief is so hard to portray because we have all been there but it is still a unique experience. The loss of a child is harder because no one wants to go there. Hall gives us a glimpse into the unbearable and impossible with a truth that grips you. And holds you.

I don’t know how Plumridge has managed a Last Supper monologue for Jesus without it being sacrilegious but it’s here: funny, maybe truer to the truth than we imagine and touched with specifics about diet, Da Vinci and Judas that makes it all so accessible to our times.

You can’t have butterflies forever. And try as you might, DeFrates amazing, longing-filled play holds a mirror to the dream of those butterflies and the truth of when they fly away.

Soucy asks us, what if we choose love? What if? Terse and tense, you sit at the edge of your seats, wondering what is worth dying for! A good question. Asked and answered.