Recommended by Donald E. Baker

This brilliant monologue goes from light to dark in a hurry. Beginning with a parent's sunny memories of halcyon days playing with their young daughter in an idyllic setting, it moves on to admissions of verbal abuse of the same daughter as a teenager and then suggestions that that abuse ultimately became physical. It concludes with an ending that is, well, stunning. Highly recommended.

A bit of a "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" vibe here. James wants to impress his girlfriend's parents and enlists his gay friend Bill to help him. The plan they come up with is to offer a charcuterie board so he can show off his knowledge of cheeses. Unfortunately James doesn't know anything about cheeses so needs a crash course. But apparently Bill is almost as clueless. The dialogue nicely portrays just a couple of bros interacting and offers a nice demonstration of the fact that gay and straight guys can have friendships with no homoerotic undertones.

For many children, the make-believe worlds they construct during play are a way of coping with the real world they are forced to inhabit. Slim has divorced parents. He lives with his mother, but she may be dying and he may have to join his father far away. That's a lot for a kid to deal with. But with the help of his possibly fictitious ukulele, a girl playmate, and her amazing talking stick horse, he tries valiantly to deal with those unfortunate circumstances. This would make for a very sweet and touching theatrical experience.

Edna is a survivor of more than one kind of abuse, and her amazing story of resilience and finding her own way will survive in your memory for a very long time. This is simply one excellent and moving extended monologue/one-woman play. Read this one. You'll be better for it.

A hospital is thrown into a turmoil when a woman claims to have healed a patient by faith. She is immediately consigned to the ward for the mentally ill, but the patient's cancer does indeed disappear completely. An experienced doctor is compelled to admit that something miraculous has occurred and that medicine may be both an act of science and an act of faith. Audiences will be discussing this one on the ride home.

I participated in a reading of this play and, as a former librarian myself, I was delighted to see that Rex McGregor has revealed all of our secrets. The personalities involved are certainly recognizable, and the character of the cataloger is brilliantly drawn. The audience will be laughing, and the librarians among them will be laughing loudest of all.

In this spoof of soap operas, a character is killed off and the actor disappears from view. But the resulting publicity only makes him more desirable as the lead of a show of his own. As reporters and producers frantically search for him, we discover that his life is like a real-life soap opera in its tangle of failed marriages and illegitimate children. Character actors of all sorts will have a great deal of fun with this.

I participated in a reading of this short play and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. During the course of the play your sympathies go totally toward one character, then the very last speech turns everything on its head. A terrific time for actors and audience alike.

It's World War II and women are doing men's jobs--including playing (gasp!) professional baseball. (Yes, just like in that movie.) At the beginning, Josephine and Penny are rehearsing a silly skit with a serious complaint--their league's requirement to maintain femininity at all costs while playing a sweaty summer game. It is full of wonderful wordplay (baseball puns galore), which continues as the rehearsal becomes a flirtation and then a daring proposal to become a couple in defiance of the team, the league, the government, and society itself. A funny and touching piece of work. Play ball!

The saga of Isaac and Bascom from "Punch Bowl" continues. (Do read that one first.) Their relationship has now advanced to the sleepover stage, where they must cope with trying to spoon while Isaac is encumbered with a cpap machine. Even more distracting is the fact that the machine kicks Isaac's morning bedhead up to a whole different level. Listening to the dialogue as the two of them work their way through the little bumps in the road to love is a delight. More, please.