Recommended by Claudia Haas

“The future is not fixed.” Heyman’s poignant play embodies the truisms that you should just love your children - who they are - and who they will become. Trust them to figure it out because they will. And when they do, they will want you in their corner. A play that will speak to so many teens who are struggling with identity. This play will make them feel seen.

While no community theatre will admit this is them, I suspect a lot of backstage snickers. I have an abiding love of local theatre and Floyd-Priskorn deftly portrays their charms.

Espey has devised a clever mystery. But it takes second place to the rich inner-workings of gifted, stressed, female teens. As they grapple with the loss of their friend, they must also discover who they are and who they should be - if there were nobody else in the world. A rich play with a chance for female teens to shines.

The past, the memory, the love - it stays with us and so prevalent in Weibezahl’s charming remembrance of a past that lasts as long as we do. One of the beauties of theatre is the immediacy of memory. And the playwright conjures it and gives it as a gift for us. Accept it as a present for all of us.

Reality, AI, chatbots - Feeny-Williams takes them all on and succeeds in her wonderfully satiric and human chatroom where being human is a liability. The trolls are out, their knives are sharpened and will two lonely people survive the onslaught? Timely, wistful, true and imagined - a play for our times and our overpowering need to connect.

This could be the guidebook as to how our animal friends really encourage the love lives of humans. Disney would be appalled. Audiences will laugh themselves silly.

A combination of rose-colored glasses and reality join together in a rich play of memory, truth and maybes. O’Grady deftly mixes the toughness of immigrants blending into their new country with the sweetness of their hopes for the future. There is a twist in these remembrances. Are those times missed? Or best forgotten? Happy can have two edges. A poignant slice of life that rings true today.

Can a daffodil make friends with a child? What do they have to offer each other? Is being picked and then “vased” the end for a daffodil? Or is the journey from ground to vase an adventure? Plumridge looks at these questions from a child’s point of view and creates a sweet tale of one child in a nest of daffodils. Young ones will delight in the tale both onstage and in the audience.

This play will make you want to put a trombone in a farm field. How can you figure out something when you don’t know what “something” is? Martin’s fable show’s us how if you limit your expectations, you limit your life. Wanting more is not a crime.

What a beautiful and kind reminder that children live with anxiety - maybe even more so after Covid. The playwright does a beautiful job of a child yearning to play but fearful. I love how help comes to Ada with care and a lot of imagination. Stuffies can be lifesavers.