Recommended by Claudia Haas

A topsy turvey, he wins, she wins, nobody wins play. It’s honest, it’s disturbing, it’s real and it happens. All the time. A grand play about relationships, misplaced love and even Me, Too. This is today, this is America and this is a slice of life about our times.

Love and honesty are at play and work side-by-side in a poignant moment between father and son. Williams finds humor in the darkness, love in the sadness and timelessness in the family bond. A beautifully realized look at a moment of clarity that shines through the fog.

He really needed that job... really. The most inappropriate job interview ever finds ways to grow more and more inappropriate until you think “this could never happen” while knowing it absolutely could happen and does. (Which is scary enough.) Williams nose for character and comedy are at full tilt here. When you’re done laughing you will start to wonder.

Painful and stunning, The Shrine explores some unchartered territory - the lives of parents left behind after a school shooting. There are no easy reassurances, glib moments or sound bytes. Edan explores the shattered worlds of two mothers in just a brief moment in time. This moment doesn’t solve a problem, change a feeling or give an answer to the unanswerable - but it illuminates our humanity, our perseverance and how difficult a journey to forgiveness can be. Emotionally, I was riveted and invested in Grace and Miranda. The play stays with you.

You hope for a lot of things as the play unfolds. As in life, you don’t always get what you hope for but the play succeeds in making each character’s journey a possibility of renewal and growth. We have all been in Marty’s shoes. We have history that complicates us, doubts that plague us and skills that reassure us. What fascinated me was knowing that Marty’s journey doesn’t end when the play does. A meaningful play about what we find and lose along the way.

So much happens in one minute - you will have to catch your breath. You know these kids. Maybe you were these kids. A great addition to an evening of shorts - it’s a perfect curtain raiser.

There is such grace in a family play where you can picture the family ten years ago and well into the future. The siblings are individuals on their own but the strength of being in the same family rings out. Hageman’s humor, wit and compassion shine a bright light through these characters. They will argue, tease, make mistakes and drive each other crazy - all through the lens of family love. The ending is a thing of beauty.

A poignant, poetic play that is part myth, part wish and all love. The lyricism and longing of the Selkie legend captures the characters and the audience/reader. The sea beckons and it brings longing, life and death. A lovely fresh take on loving, grief and the enduring wonder of the Selkies.

I sit here and the characters still speak. The pain, the anguish, the misplaced love stay with me. Abuse coupled with memory has always been an uneasy combination and never more so than here. Gonzalez finds poetry even in the dysfunction.

A play where method acting should have no place. A play that scares you while you laugh. In a scant ten-minutes, politics, mythology and theatre are skewerd and we still laugh. Because it is that frightening.