Recommended by Robert Weibezahl

The worlds of Samuel Beckett and Neil Simon collide in thIs amusing short play that suggests that with the right combination of optimism, delusion, and denial, paradise is attainable. Two fun roles for older actors.

Welcome to the outrageous mind of Scott Sickles. A genre-bending mash-up, this hilariously histrionic short play will have you looking at garden gnomes in a whole new way. No one could have written this play but Sickles, one of the most original minds out there. Read it. Go with it. Hell, please produce it! (so I can see it brought to life!)

Try new ideas and don’t get caught in the past, advises the specter of Rembrandt in this thought-provoking piece that explores timeless ideas of art: What is it? How do we value it? What have we encumbered it with? How does it change—for better or worse? And how can we find the authentic? This short play is so compelling (and filled with humor, too). Read it. Produce it.

Like a compact “Master Class,” this captivating monologue is both an informed and loving paean to one of the great actresses the American theatre has ever produced and a trenchant consideration of what art fundamentally is. Actresses “of a certain age” should kill to take on this role.

Sickles’s little trope-busting comedy reminds us all that the old adage “there are no new plots, it’s what you do with them” can be a dangerous watchword in the hands of the wrong writer. Of course, Sickles is NOT the wrong writer, he’s the PERFECT one to skewer the art of writing with his always sharp irreverence. This wicked play lends a whole new meaning to “bedroom farce.”

The spirit of Brooks and Reiner animates this hilarious dialogue between the shiksa-wed Liebowitz and his (Jewish) noble fir, Tannenbaum. As the tree learns of its dire fate as a seasonal adornment and its owner tries to come to terms with a non-Kosher tradition, Levine packs the play with classic Borscht Belt patter and clever wordplay that is impossible to resist. This five-laughs-a-minute piece is perfect for any holiday shorts festival.

A chance encounter between two older people, each on the cusp of change in their lives, underscores how life continues even after painful tragedy. A sweet, elegiac, and ultimately hopeful play that supplies wonderful roles for two older actors.

So many wonderful moments packed into this monologue celebrating the life and spirit of the great comic film actress Marie Dressler. Burbano subtly explores the age-old Hollywood preference for beauty over talent, even as the large and unwieldy Dressler quite literally has the last laugh. The play embraces this singular actress’s genius, touches on body shaming (before the word existed), celebrates the collaboration of women and, most of all, expresses the joy that can come from performing and making others happy. All in a few minutes. Brava!

An intriguing glimpse into two disparate lives, each unconventional in its own way, who make an unexpected personal connection in the age of Zoom. Jacquie Floyd-Priskorn uses the particular limitations of this medium of virtual theatre to good effect as she demonstrates the ways we have adapted to life in lockdown. The hopeful play, set after the pandemic ends, underscores the need to keep our human relations alive for our own sake as well as others’.

The end of a long-term relationship is a kind of death, filled with the grief, nostalgia, recriminations, and subjective memories of good times and bad. In this highly emotional, at times brutally honest, short play, Williams deftly employs his customary humanism and realism as he lays bare a couple’s long-unspoken feelings of love and, sometimes, hate. Intriguingly, this story of moving on to the next chapter of one’s life takes an open-ended twist in its final moments.