Six new works written and directed by various artists. Presented by 32 ½ Sisters Co-op Productions. At the Jericho Arts Centre on Thursday, January 3. Continues until January 12

The successes in this evening of six new works by female Vancouver writers are many and varied.

Sherry Yano’s Not a Conspiracy considers the themes of selfishness and generosity. Jennifer (Marianne Sawchuk) is a Vancouver bank executive who’s debating becoming a mother. Her sister Maddie (Tanya Champoux) prefers the less growth-obsessed economies of Africa, where she worked—and, presumably, where she acquired AIDS. The premise and some of the plot points are a bit melodramatic, but the text is intelligent, the acting is strong, and the story’s surprising resolution made me cry.

Gwynyth Walsh and Beverley Elliott, the two performers who bring Barbara Ellison’s A.B.C. to life, are so honest, still, and confident that it’s a pleasure to watch them work. Like many of the new plays on view here, Ellison’s generally solid script—about a parent-teacher meeting—suffers from an artificial inflation of the stakes and an unlikely plot turn.

Trina Davies’s The Apartment is an admirably restrained play about a Muslim judge who is taken to a concentration camp (apparently run by Serbs) and returns to find her apartment occupied by a former underling. The broken rhythms of Davies’s dialogue reflect a world in which meaning is collapsing.

Michelle Brezinski shows impressive comic chops in Shauna Johannesen’s Surprise, which shows us a wedding shower gone wrong, and Kristina Murphy does the same in Tosha Doiron’s Twenty-nothing, in which we meet three giddy friends on a spa night.

In its third year, Women at Play(s) just keeps getting better.