My favorite new plays of the 2019-2020 (non-Broadway) theatre season:

SUMMA CUM LAUDE

1. Lucas Hnath’s Double Trouble: Dana H. AND The Thin Place (Center Theatre Group @ Kirk Douglas) / (Playwrights Horizons)
2. Wild Bore (NYU Skirball)
3. Is This A Room (Half Straddle @ Vineyard)
4. one in two (New Group @ Signature)
5. Eraser Mountain (chelfitsch @ NYU Skirball)
6. The Michaels (Public)
7. Keep (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
8. Greater Clements (Lincoln Center)
9. Get on Your Knees (Abingdon Theatre Company @ Cherry Lane)
10. White Noise (NYU Skirball)
11. Before the Meeting (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
12. The Fez & The Sandalwood Box (Flea)
13. The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
14. Black Exhibition (Bushwick Starr)

MAGNA CUM LAUDE

1. The Plot (Yale Rep)
2. Feos (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
3. History of Violence (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
4. Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven (LAByrinth Theater Company @ Atlantic)
5. Douglas (Daryl Roth Theatre)
6. King Philip’s Head Is Still on That Pike Just Down the Road (Clubbed Thumb @ Wild Project)
7. Little Women (Primary Stages @ Cherry Lane)
8. You Never Touched the Dirt (Clubbed Thumb @ Wild Project)
9. Manmade Earth (600 HIGHWAYMEN / Crossing the Line Festival @ Invisible Dog Art Center
10. Continuity (MTC)
11. Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic)
12. Mojada (Public)
13. The End of Eddy (Next Wave @ BAM)
14. User Not Found (Next Wave @ BAM)
15. Paris (Atlantic)
16. The White Chip (59E59)
17. Eureka Day (Colt Coeur @ Walkerspace)
    • For the Act 1 closer alone…
18. runboyrun & IN OLD AGE (NYTW)

CUM LAUDE (AKA: everything else I saw, listed alphabetically)

• A Hunger Artist (Connelly Theater)
• A Woman of the World (The Acting Company @ 59E59)
• American Moor (Red Bull @ Cherry Lane)
• BAD NEWS! i was there… (NYU Skirball)
• Barber Shop Chronicles (Next Wave @ BAM)
• Bella Bella (MTC)
• BLKS (MCC)
• Cartography (New Victory)
• Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Chocolate Factory Theater @ Abrons Arts Center)
• Dr. Ride’s American Beach House (Ars Nova @ Greenwich House)
• Dracula (CSC)
• Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson (Working Theatre @ A.R.T. NYC)
• Dust (Next Door NYTW)
• Entangled (The Amoralists @ A.R.T. NYC)
• Fern Hill (59E59)
• for all the women who thought they were Mad (Soho Rep)
• Frankenstein (CSC)
• Georgia Mertching Is Dead (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
• Goodnight Nobody (McCarter)
• Hamnet (Next Wave @ BAM)
• Harry Townsend’s Last Stand (@ City Center)
• Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Playwrights Horizons)
• House Plant (Next Door NYTW)
• How to Load a Musket (59E59)
• Imagining Madoff (New Light Theater Project @ Theatre Row)
• In Many Hands (Next Wave @ BAM)
• Incantata (Irish Rep)
• jazz singer (Abrons)
• Kingfishers Catch Fire (Irish Rep)
• Lockdown (Rattlestick)
• Long Lost (MTC)
• Make Believe (2ST)
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Lookingglass Theatre Company @ McCarter Theatre Center)
• Maz and Bricks (Fishamble / Origin’s 1st Irish @ 59E59)
• Medea (BAM)
• Mirros (Parity Productions @ Next Door NYTW)
• Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow (MCC)
• Mothers (Playwrights Realm @ The Duke)
• Native Son (Acting Company @ The Duke)
• No One Is Forgotten (@Rattlestick)
• Nomad Hotel (Atlantic)
• Notes on My Mother’s Decline (The Play Company @ Next Door NYTW)
• Novenas for a Lost Hospital (Rattlestick)
• Open (All For One @ The Tank)
• Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (2ST @ WP Theater)
• PATHETIC (Minor Theater @ Abrons)
• Power Strip (LCT3)
• Proof of Love (NYTW @ Audible/Minetta Lane Theatre)
• Public Servant (Theater Breaking Through Barriers @ Theatre Row)
• Queens Row (New York City Players @ The Kitchen)
• Reborning (Soho Playhouse)
• Reparations (Billie Holiday Theatre)
• Rinse, Repeat (@Signature)
• salt. (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
• Seared (MCC)
• STEW (Page 73 @ Walkerspace)
• Square Go (Brits Off Broadway @ 59E59)
• Sunday (Atlantic)
• Terra Firma (The Coop @ Baruch Performing Arts Center)
• The Confession of Lily Dare (Primary Stages)
• The Half-Life of Marie Curie (Audible @ Minetta Lane)
• The New Englanders (Manhattan Theatre Club)
• The Perplexed (Manhattan Theatre Club)
• The Pink Unicorn (Out of the Box Theatrics @ The Cell)
• The Rolling Stone (Lincoln Center Theater)
• The Second Woman (Next Wave @ BAM)
• The Transfiguration Of Benjamin Banneker (La Mama)
• The Truth Has Changed (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
• The Underlying Chris (2ST)
• The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood (Public Theater’s Under the Radar @ the Japan Society)
• the way she spoke (Audible @ Minetta Lane)
• TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever (JACK)
• Toni Stone (Roundabout)
• Underneath the Skin (NYU Skirball)
• [Veil Widow Conspiracy] (National Asian American Theatre Company @ Next Door NYTW)
• Why? (TFANA)
• Wives (Playwrights Horizons)