Recommended by Donald E. Baker

Caleb, a gay man, is estranged from the church. His mother attempts to lure him back by presenting him with a miracle, the appearance in her backyard of his dead father in the form of a "half-and-half" cardinal. Caleb poo-poos the notion, while his mother is adamant about what she saw. By the end, it doesn't seem Caleb is any closer to returning to the church, but he has grown a little closer to his mother. That's miracle enough.

Alaina Tennant leaves much to conjecture in "There is No Bird." As forty-year-old John holds vigil over the dying 17-year-old Oliver, their relationship is never spelled out. John denies he's Oliver's father, but is he? There is obviously a strong connection between them. In his last moments, Oliver hallucinates a bird flying about the room. Is it his soul fighting to escape--or not? This is an emotional little play that will leave an indelible memory.

OK. I thought the title was a typo. Nope. It's a high school math class out in the snow. Feisty student Carolyn stands up to her sadistic math teacher (is there any other kind?) who finally agrees to take the class back inside. But where's the key to the locked school door? This is a cute little piece with some very funny lines. It would work on stage but it'd be great as a small film.

How can one cope with the death of a child? As "David" says, "I never understood the term 'devastating loss' before ..." As he and Lacey begin to question their whole relationship to the universe, a cardinal becomes the catalyst for them to gather the loose strands of their differing religious beliefs, their anger, and their hurt and to begin to find a way through their unimaginable new reality. From Deb Cole, one expects thoughtful plays and believable characters. This is no exception.

Here Williams takes an out-of-this world play prompt and presents a down-to-earth script with characters you begin to care about immediately. The dialogue is as natural as you please as two stranded strangers get to know each other in the company of a very empathetic gate agent. All three reveal what the centers of their individual universes are in a work that will be a gift to any festival of short holiday plays.

It's a play from the off-kilter mind of John Busser, so you know you're going to get a feast of giggles, groans, and guffaws. All the well-honed tools from Busser's bag of tricks--the sly wordplay, the outrageous puns, the creative anachronisms (because, why let chronology interfere with a joke?), the odd pop-culture references--make their appearance in dialogue guaranteed to delight any reader and any audience. Vintage Busser and therefore terrific.

There's lot going on in these 11 pages. Gina wants to be on a TV reality show. Buck doesn't want her to go to Los Angeles for the required two months. As he gives her every excuse for her to stay with him, she gets more determined to leave. The tension builds throughout, and the realization of what their dynamic really is, is devastating. A super play in a small package, with roles the actors can really dig into.

After a snowboarding accident in a Michigan blizzard, David makes his way to a tavern presided over by a clairvoyant bartender and occupied, despite the weather, by a quirky group of friendly regulars. He slowly realizes that "it's dead in here on Tuesdays" is to be taken literally, and the tavern is a sort of purgatory where everyone, including himself, is awaiting the next step in their afterlife journeys. In this enjoyable short play, Alles has given us characters with depth and heart.

This is a fast-paced fantasy play with quirky teenage characters whose reality has changed overnight. Advanced high school or college-level actors would have a great deal of fun with the quirky characters and the situation, but the lighting designer will probably have the most fun of all creating a new dimension in which the features of the natural world--sky, trees, ocean--change from one vibrant color to another with each new day. Nice work!

The world didn't know it needed another slice from the case files of Joe Pie, P.I., but it got one anyway and I'm glad. Again Plumridge and Norkin have thrown a mishmash of puns, song lyrics, movie quotes, and meta self-references into their magic script blender and managed to come up with a comedic noir that will keep the reader chuckling, groaning, and guffawing from start to finish. Pi as a number is infinite. With any luck, Pie as a source of theatrical enjoyment will be as well.