Recommended by Rachael Carnes

A lovely, bittersweet moment that digs into loss and love. O'Neill-Butler finds wistful connection on an 18-minute ferry ride.

Relationships are hard. They take work, every day - or they can languish. And even if The Grinch had everything a girl was looking for, it's the maintenance, the **effort** that's missing now, in this airtight confection, chockfull of Christmas candy fun and wrapped up in dark humor. 'Tis the season!

Cracking dialogue plunges us right into the cold, deep end of academia, where an indiscretion blows up, leaving corpses and collateral damage. Kaissar explores the murky depths of institutional betrayal, picking at the inequities inside gender, race and power dynamics, as thoughts and ideas and worlds unravel. A chilling tragedy, that goes down so easy.

Oh, Anti-holiday joy! This is my kinda Christmas play, in the way that I watch "Die Hard" every year. Busser's collection of monologues offers a delicious tonic to avenge the treacle of the Season. So when you can't take anymore "Cheer" - or you've had it up to your you-know-what with forced pablum - tuck into these raunchy and riotous lil morsels of satanic glee.

There's a month of planning and prep to go before Christmas and I'm already low-key exhausted. Tinsel the Elf, I feel ya: Spreading holiday cheer is tiring stuff. All that emotional labor, all those thankless tasks... The occlusion of Tinsel with a red-hot mob delights in this Xmas short, with zippy dialogue and terrifically fun characters. A welcome break in the holiday fray, and would be a delight to any audience. Thanks, Bob!

Aw, for real! Franky has put into words exactly how it feels to be friends and colleagues with Matthew Weaver! Happy Birthday, Matthew, so glad you were born.

Well, Halloween may be in the rearview for this season, but it's never too early to start preparing for next year, and this spooky/fun short is no trick all TREAT. I spit-snorted several times at the Middle School quips as Max and Tom fumble to grasp and cope with what goes bump in the night. A funny, surprising, evergreen gem.

A succinct expression of the passion and grief that educators carry — Hoping that their clear voice of reason might rise up above the fray of conspiracies and terror and politicking — And knowing that it probably won't. Still, they try. Will the light they cast on words bigger than any one of us help illuminate a young person's future? Maybe. Let's hope it's still possible.

Having chaperoned more High School thespian and debate tournaments than I can count (Sorry, Gresham, OR Days Inn - I really did *try*, and I understand the lifetime ban.) Anyway - Wow. Gatton nails the culture of teen intellectual/creative competition. Ugh. What a weird world, populated by talented and gifted kids on the edge of breakdown and backstabbing, seemingly always. This dynamic piece is funny as hell, and simmers with a subtext about the frustrations of youth that seem evergreen, and the shortcomings of any system that would try to codify their light. A perfect scene for teen actors.

Deeply humane, creative, theatrical, with dialogue that leaps off the page. Malakhow's exploration of a timely and important topic - through the lens of online community - is both relevant and relatable. A fresh take on a topic that we don't talk about enough. Bravo.