Recommended by Donald E. Baker

In "A Christmas Carol" we get some of Scrooge's backstory. But we never see the story of the Scrooge and Marley partnership. Adam Richter here suggests it might have been more than a mere business arrangement. Even so, love was unable to overcome the cold view of the world both of them shared. Marley's visit to Scrooge in the original story is poignant. His death in this one is even more so. And the stage direction for the sound of unwinding chains at appropriate moments is chilling. It's an excellent new look at perhaps over-familiar characters.

Alcohol hasn't been available to humans for a possibly very dull 3,000 years. But after much interstellar searching, a bottle once belonging to a Mr. Jack Daniels has been discovered. With much scientific fanfare, a room full of people who have never experienced this concoction are given samples. What could go wrong? Rachel Feeny-Williams shows us in hilarious detail.

Apparently global warming is upon us and wheeled transportation has been replaced by ice skates. Milly and Henry find themselves skating on legal thin ice when an officious cop stops them on the highway for disobeying a host of ice-traffic regulations. We had a lot of fun reading this at our Sunday pay reading group. It's another off-the-wall situation from the clever mind of Rachel Feeny-Williams.

Rex McGregor has written a delightful dialogue between a pedantic, historical-accuracy-at-all-costs Renaissance re-enactor and an herbalist who has a few tricks up her sleeve--or amongst her jars of simples and potions. Rex's customary sly humor is on full display right up to the neat twist at the very end.

In "Off the Leash," Alice Josephs has produced a super 10-minute soap opera, replete with backstabbing, corporate greed, and adultery, all bound together by a through-motif having to do with dogs. It's great fun.

Sounds like the beginning of a joke. Beethoven, Carl Reiner, and W.C. Fields walk into...not a bar, but Steve's Christmas Eve dreams. That's what he gets for mixing up his aspirin and melatonin bottles. Somehow Williams takes that off-the-wall casting and comes up with an amusing Christmas treat that takes only a sidelong glance at that other story with three ghosts. Do add it to your holiday reading list.

In this devastating entry in Wyndham's "Some Americans" cycle, we meet a college student in his senior year, who moonlights as a drag performer--in present-day Florida. Both of their worlds are collapsing under them. Their future educational prospects are in doubt because their advisor and mentor have left the university--and the state--for more welcoming pastures elsewhere. Their "Ida Ho" persona, along with drag queens in general, has become a special target in the ever nastier culture wars. With nowhere to go, they can only put on their makeup and wig and persist. They're being more heroic than they know.

Two of the many things Rachel Feeny-Williams does well are writing police procedurals and depicting relationships that turn out not to be what they seemed. Both of those are on display in this piece. And every time you may think you know where the play is going it veers off into somewhere else entirely. Rachel's work never disappoints.

So many questions arise in this tightly written play. George is isolated in a snowbound cabin with only a very expressive dog for companionship. Or is he? How accurate are his memories of the night his wife left him? And who is the strange woman who appears, literally out of the blue, to break into his twelve years of solitude? Fear not. All questions are answered. Or are they? Terrific writing with a patented Rachel Feeny-Williams twist at the end.

Having participated in a reading of this play, I can testify that bringing to life the dynamic between the two characters will be a pleasure for any actors. Despite its dark premise, there are some wonderfully funny lines, and what the script has to say about the American healthcare "system" and also about the sorts of theatrical experiences that seem to win awards nowadays are right on. George Sapio packs a lot of different emotions into a small space with this one.