Recommended by Donald E. Baker

Cubist art looks at things every which way all at the same time but somehow it makes sense. Jones has achieved the same thing here. The play is both serious and funny--both at the same time--and the characters are delightfully quirky and memorable. Producers looking to include something deliciously different in their next festival of short plays should give this work serious consideration.

What a super introduction to Japanese folklore! With a bit of The Little Mermaid (in reverse) and a touch of Rip Van Winkle, kids are going to want to put this play on and there are parts enough for half a class of budding thespians. The amount of memorization for any one student is small enough to keep it fun. It would make a great addition to any teaching unit on international culture or any school international festival. A great job by our man in Japan!

A lovely short play audiences will be discussing after they see the production it deserves. So many questions. What exactly is the relationship between the two characters? Is Ruth living in the present or the past? Is her brain going beyond "foggy"? Is the upcoming runway show real or is it role play between Ruth and Lady Fashion? Very nice work.

Cue the "Twilight Zone" music. From a father's love and a daughter's dreams, Jonathan Cook has constructed a brilliant little psychological paranormal story that will leave audiences breathless. It needs to be included in many short-play festivals, and should be very much in demand on the Halloween circuit. Nicely done!

Wyndham sets up one sort of expectation: tipsy TV host peddling her designs for children's clothing, many opportunities for Lucy-esque physical comedy, inappropriate asides about her husband's coverage in the tabloids. And then, wham! Our discovery of what the children's clothes are made of, and why, leaves us with a staggering OMG reaction that deepens the more we ponder it. Well done.

Our most profound moments happen while we are concerned with the mundane minutia of our lives, as this play illustrates so well as it juxtaposes a COVID-restricted trip to the grocery against a COVID-truncated life. In a mere page of unforgettable dialogue, Bathke presents an emotion-laden world and a lifetime of love. Such concise, precise, beautiful work.

People with a passing acquaintance with P&P will be charmed by this play. People who know their Austen well will love it. The conceit of pairing one of Austen's stories with contemporaneous songs, many of which she herself enjoyed, was brilliant, and Syran carries it off beautifully. Using the ensemble like a Greek chorus to comment upon and further the action was inspired. Great work nicely realized.

Do we ever truly get over our youthful obsessions? A story of two friends navigating the life-altering changes of young adulthood, Heyman's fine play is ingeniously constructed to show the reality and dreamscape of Lee's obsession with Shawn. Can he/will he get over--or at least tame--his feelings before they consume him and permanently damage their relationship? Excellent work.

When Mitch has his first sexual experience with another man, one who is more worldly and experienced but is also married and deeply closeted, both of them face choices that will fundamentally change their lives. Williams handles this material with his usual deftness and the result is an excellent play with three-dimensional characters the audience will care about. Bravo!

Women who choose to be childless were once--and in some quarters still are--strongly vilified as unnatural beings who are threats to the social order and traitors to their gender. The persistence of that attitude, and the assumptions of those who hold it, are amply demonstrated by one of the women in the mini-debate over reproductive freedom that occurs in this play. Excellent work by Feeny-Williams, as always.