Recommended by Susan Middaugh

Excellent example of formatting and use of sound effects for a radio play beginning on page 1. Christine knows the setting and history and brings them to life in Mind How You Go. Suspense that builds gradually. She went to what Mike Nichols espouses as the "school of what happens next." I clearly understand why she won this award. Well done!

The apparent lack of understanding between these two very different brothers is palpable, brought to a head by Patrick's plan to leave home on his 17th birthday. But digging deeper, and after expressing some harsh truths, they gradually uncover a shared history that helps ease some of the hurt -- at last. Hopeful.

Honest, including the conversations about their husbands -- for the first time. The bits about food are also realistic distractions. Chilling -- Laura's fatalistic attitude toward her bullying husband and her paralysis. Poignant and sad.

Powerful, contemporary, spare dialogue that packs a wallop. Is Laura really sorry about the murder of Sharon's husband? Or is she just trolling for dirt in the garden? Sharon's challenge to Laura about tasting the white chicken chili is chilling to Laura, albeit revealing, to Sharon and the audience.

Chilling tale, excellent pacing and suspense. Spare dialogue. At times I wondered who was telling the truth. Sandra's an excellent writer who knows human nature as well as gardening. The shift in time from Constance as an adult to her as a child was a surprise and added complication to an already complicated tale. Great choice of names for her characters. Produce this play!

Mica presents a wonderful physical comedy that revels in comeuppance for the lady of the estate without her knowing it. Lady Albatross is a great name for this employer who's vain and nasty. Funny!

What a wacky funny stew containing combinations you wouldn't expect to be associated with a French hors d'oeuvre: a house sitting young widow, the movie Pretty Woman, and a Ladies Home Journal article about the practicalities of pleasing a man in ten minutes. Imaginative and fun!

Will Gilman has the ability to establish a situation with one set of expectations and take it in an entirely different direction. One clue to the wackiness of this play is his explanation for meeting the other characters in a church basement: "My house is being sprayed for bugs. I just needed a place where I could talk to you all at once." Also outside the norm: he's a super hero who doesn't enjoy it. And yet he has the power to persuade his brother from acting the arch villain that he is. Funny, whimsical.

Carnes takes an incongruous situation -- a love affair between a lumberjack kinda guy and a sock monkey and makes it even more fanciful. The sock monkey is the one that plans to leave because the guy isn't paying attention to the monkey's wants and needs -- and the guy gets very upset when the monkey says, "I met someone else. I met him at Build a Bear." Wonderfully imaginative.

The audience knows at the beginning of this play what a new patient named Lucy does not: that Karen, a patient herself, is pretending to be the sex therapist. What Karen does not know at the outset is that Lucy is getting paid for sex by Karen's husband. One of my favorite lines is from Lucy, who is trying to overcome her addiction to sex: "They don't make a patch for this, do they?" Arianna cleverly leaves it up to the audience's imagination what will happen when the two women meet at the art exhibit. Kaboom! Simple set, well done!