Recommended by Claudia Haas

There is a world in this play. In just a few minutes we are privy to a sweet and terrible beauty of a past and a challenging present. A beautiful moment in lives that can never be the same. A small powerhouse.

An impossibly, high, sharp trumpet note. A baby who stops herself from being born. A loss. But not any loss - this is Lady’s loss. A ghost that is as needed and wanted as the dead baby. The imagery in the play will stay with you just as Alice, the unborn baby stays with her mama. A haunting, lyrical look at a couple in love under the backdrop of life-affirming jazz and deadly racism. Theatrical and heart-stopping, this is a story that needs to be told.

A marriage of convenience is turned upside down when Ed decides that convenience is not enough anymore. As you age and you know the clock is ticking, what happens if you want more from your later years? As Ed digs in sure of his needs, Cathleen is left terrified of being alone. Her knee-jerk reaction to find another man for company is a reminder of a generation of women brought up to do that. But Persechino realizes what her characters truly need and she provides an ending that strikes the right chords for everyone. Truths and sweetnesses permeate the play.

A gorgeous layered play about love, duty, and memory. I was hooked from the lyrical opening through the end. What does a biographer owe her subject? Absolute truth (warts & all) or a truth ensconced in the mores of the times? I loved the mixture of “duties” required by Charlotte to family, work, and her calling combined with Gaskell’s duty as biographer and protector-of-reputation. There is irony that while Gaskell cleansed Chatlotte’s reputation, she also preserved it. O’Grady seamlessly puts together a story of complicated women navigating a time that was not kind to them.

Reinventing your life. I daresay the majority of middle-aged people have given it a thought. In Off the Map, Foster’s couple does just that. What they find is not what they were looking for. Magic meets ancient world meets mythology in this adventure tale that makes you question the reality in existence. Twists and turns keep you guessing but in the end, the answers are subtle. And not clean. Because lives seldom are. Original, quirky and a highly theatrical play that asks the age-long “be careful what you wish for” but wish for it anyway. Production ready.

Control, need, and an unexpected love affair circle this play like a tiger. Phelan gives us a relationship between renown tiger-tamer, Mabel Stark, and a tiger cub. What develops is more than a taming of a tiger, but becomes what essentially is a love affair. There are a lot of thought-provoking themes throughout - reconciling trust with the wild, imperfect families, and how relationships impact each other. What happens when love turns to need? An original and compelling take on the nature of how we make connections, and how we fracture them.

Hoke has crafted both a ghost story and a mystery amid a background of our country’s early growth of “insane asylums” that populated all 50 states. At the core is a loving couple at odds with each other as the ghosts of forgotten patients fill Lydia’s dreams and eventually her waking hours. There is magic here mixed with care and love. Grief meets the past, permeates the present and may destroy a future. Smartly written with humor and goodness, this is an original look on the development of mental health in our country. Highly theatrical and very poignant.

Ghosts. They’re everywhere. They’re watching you. And maybe they want to be watched, too. Part fable, part horror story, part love story, Reich spins you a tale of wanting to be noticed. Craving a little attention is harmless, right? As Ghost’s seemingly benign needs start to spiral out of control, you are in a quandary - do you root for the humans or the ghosts? A very funny, original look on growing up, being present, and taking care with your ghosts.

Levine takes a box of crayons, turns them upside down and creates a chaotic cacophony of lively crayons and their deepest feelings. While doing so, you wonder about the unseen artist who is creating at a breakneck pace. What crayon will be used up first? (Burnt Siena is all terror and self-sacrifice.) Through the lens of the young, Levine asks a few questions about individuality and the collective good. Crayons are finally center stage and they make the most of it. I am remembering Midnight Blue and how I used that crayon till just a nub remained. RIP Midnight Blue.

Svich brings you the brink. You are at the edge-lands of despair. I is coming age amid a barren landscape of memory and dust. I is wishing for those past who gave them goodness while noting the futility of wishing. But then there’s a badger. And a cleaner in a remnant of a once splendid opera house. And briefly some good happens. Going forward may mean letting go of what sustained you/them. The play haunts and mesmerizes. Both I and Albermarle will stay with you for a long time. As will the nature of hope.