Recommended by Donald E. Baker

Who knew dust bunnies could get lonely? This story of how two of them found each other through the vagaries of a wafting breeze (while attempting to avoid the greasy area under the stove) is as sweet as it gets. It would be a fun challenge for actors to create the world of restricted movement Dawn Branch has in mind, and a delight for an audience to experience.

Take a farce, heighten the absurdity, and merge it with a soap opera, and you have Ian Donley's "Space Fanatics." By the time the superb full-circle final scene occurs, the play has kept the audience off balance with wild twists and turns, hilarious wordplay, and ever-changing relationships among the characters. It's an imaginative concept entertainingly realized.

The person in this monologue was well into adulthood before they discovered they had ADHD and realized why they did some of the things they did. As someone who was fifty years old before he was diagnosed with ADHD, I totally understand. Debra A. Cole is so good at getting at what makes people tick. This piece is just one more illustration of that talent.

A wonderful short work in which euphoria, regret, betrayal, and determination all make an appearance. I'll never forget one of the saddest sentences I've ever read: "I let him marry the wrong me." Grandmother comes fully alive in this most effective monologue for an older actor.

18,936 steps translates into 8.47 miles, the length Amelia walks around town as she waits for news whether her partner has survived his cancer surgery. No news can't possibly be good news, can it, so she naturally fears the worse. The tension heightens as the time passes ever so slowly. The emotions of that helpless, interminable waiting, will be familiar to a great many people. Another powerful work by Rachel Feeny-Williams.

When I heard the playwright's heartfelt reading of this monologue, I was blown away by the amount of emotion packed into such a small space. What parent hasn't wanted to slow time down to be able to savor each moment of their child's development?

I heard the playwright herself read "A Gust of Wind," and I was on the verge of tears listening to "Kathy" work her way through her grief and her future prospects. It's a short but powerful piece that many people would be able to relate to.

In this gem of medical horror writing, Prillaman has distilled all the nervousness one might feel surrounding a visit to the doctor--all the anxiety and the fear and the apprehension-- into as unsettling a play as you'll ever find. When at my own next appointment, the doctor asks why my blood pressure is so high, I'll tell her it's "just a little Heartburn."

There are those who believe that every decision an individual makes changes the whole world. Chris finds out that all those individual decisions have produced cosmic gridlock and the world cannot move on until he makes one of the two (or three?) choices presented to him. Which does he choose? Brian Cern has produced a tense, intriguing, funny, memorable, mystical play with an ending guaranteed to leave you gasping.

A heartwarming little play about how sibling relationships both change and stay the same as time goes by, and how holiday traditions are handed down even after those who originated them have passed on. One minute to read, a lifetime to remember.