Recommended by Donald E. Baker

In Sickles's dystopian vision, states have seceded and formed an extreme right-wing paradise where anyone who is not white, straight, and Christian is persecuted, and state surveillance to insure conformity extends even to analyzing and redacting pen-pal letters between children. A family with too many secrets is enmeshed in this nightmare, and their fate is the focus of this masterful, deeply unsettling play, part of a trilogy as chilling and addictive as "The Handmaid's Tale." Read it. Read it and weep.

So just who was Godot? Turns out he was one of a food service worker's worst nightmares--a diner who monopolizes a table long after the meal was finished and the dishes have been cleared. Yes, the waiter who waited ON Godot is now waiting FOR Godot, to pay the check, to leave a meagre tip, and to get the heck out so he can turn his table. This is a wicked little masterpiece that parodies Beckett's tone perfectly.

Hilarious! What starts as the familiar trope of a controlling husband working on his wife's last nerve soon descends--ascends?--into a wonderfully absurd farce that heightens as other characters are brought on and attempt to jam themselves into a sort of clown car simply represented on stage by two chairs. Farce rarely reads as well as it plays, but the performance in my imagination had me chuckling, then laughing out loud, then cheering at the perfect ending. Fortunate indeed the performers who get to play it live and the audience who get to experience it. Brava!

The shortest of plays with the simplest of stories. A mother gives one child a Batman figure and the other gets Wonder Woman. But the gifts turn out to be life changing and a new super hero is identified. This one-page play couldn't be more sweet, more satisfying, or more well done.

Who knew Hades had an HR department headed up by Minos? Or that Sisyphus was a writer who wasn't willing to take any sort of job opening that might drain him of his creativity? We playwrights can certainly relate. The conceit is delightful, the play even more so.

What gay man, bullied as a teen, hasn't wondered what he would do if he met one of the tormentors as an adult? When the opportunity unexpectedly presents itself--and the former bully reveals he himself is gay and begs forgiveness--Daniel has decisions to make: Forgive? Forget? Deny him shelter? Pay him back in kind? I hope Daniel's choices satisfied him as much as they satisfied me reading this well-written and very relatable play. It would make a fine addition to any festival of short plays, gay or otherwise.

New Mexico is the "Land of Enchantment" and "Tucumcari" has the sound of a shaman's incantation. To the two men who have chosen to sleep rough out in the desert its magic would be manifest as soft beds and hot showers in the town's selection of 1200 motel rooms. Well, since they are handcuffed together and one man has a gun, the choice to sleep out wasn't necessarily unanimous. Their conversation as the sun slowly rises reveals two very human guys caught up in an unusual and dangerous situation. Another fine play by Williams.

Important plays like this one bring cosmic issues down to a human level. Here five people marooned overnight in a dilapidated restaurant must figure out how to maintain their individual integrity while dealing with the constraints of society, religion, and the law and the vital question of how properly to prepare barbecued ribs. As the storm outside abates, it is obvious that some dreams will be shattered while on other fronts there is considerable hope for the future. A very satisfying, beautifully written play with memorable characters whose voices will long linger in the mind's ear.

The Book of Common Prayer says, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us." As perpetrators or victims, Scott Sickles' characters in this powerful play must deal with strong feelings of denial, regret, and anger resulting from sins of omission and commission. The background of a controversial college production of "Romeo and Juliet" on the anniversary of a love-triangle murder-suicide make it all the more powerful. A stunning work that will resonate with many audience members.

Scheming servants, bumbling masters, farcical concealments, disguises, mistaken identities, deliciously silly Python-esque wordplay, equally silly but also skillful swordplay--had Rossini seen this script he would have turned it into a comic opera to rival "The Barber of Seville." Inspired hilarity throughout.