Recommended by Charles Scott Jones

Plays by Donald E. Baker have a steady, graceful equilibrium. Not lacking for drama, but one gets the feeling - as in the marvelous I INVITED YOUR MOTHER FOR THANKSGIVING - that connection is more important than conflict. Personally, I am much more interested in how Dale and Warren work things through with the aroma of homemade cinnamon rolls wafting through the kitchen - than them having a screaming fight. It’s moving and therapeutic and maybe what we need now in this quarrelsome world.

I think what I like most about reading plays is when an author creates an original world and characters that fit - a gift of one imagination to another. LIVE, LAUGH, LOBOTOMIZE succeeds in this regard and so much more. Priskorn’s demonesque tourist trap, its naughty pillow slogans, its weird rule system are brilliantly offbeat. A darkside hootenanny. The best sick joke, of many, might be the insight from our heroine Olivia that saves her.

THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING has high stakes (the highest up) and lasting stakes (centuries) and the grand absurdity of the seeds of humanity in something resembling a take-out container (a styrofoam clamshell comes to mind). If that’s not enough, Cindi and Dell have an existential talk on the observation deck of a spaceship that makes this human comedy we mortals have come to be worthwhile. Terrific sci-fi dramedy from Monica Cross.

“i went to a bar all by myself and didn’t die” is the inviting, draw-you-in title for River’s fine monologue by Wren Aubry Latham. A favorite line: “But my body held the door for me.” The best monologues make you wish you were there and this is one.

A favorite line from Wade in SAD LONELY PEOPLE: “I think I’m uncomfortable with silence so I just say things.” Which is true to character but also to the free-wheeling New Year’s Eve conversation between Harriet and Wade - which is all over the place and yet always feels on topic. Seth McNeill's characters are really well-drawn original creations that seem somehow perfect in their fumblings to make a connection -like so many of us - in the desperate pre-ball-drop moments on this complicated night. Fine work.

The jailhouse philosophizing of THE INVENTION OF TIME feels authentic from the start. I love how Franky D. Gonzalez’s use of diction establishes tone, place, and identity in just a few beats. Prisoner and Cellmate have a discussion about time from their prison bunks. Does Time exist? A photograph is an attempt to make Time stop, but it doesn’t. The writing of this piece is so potent with ideas that it doesn’t matter that the characters hardly move. This play makes me want to read more of this playwright before time runs out.

The play BELDAM & GAFFER starts in all innocence with this arresting set-up: “A senior couple sitting at a table with breakfast remnants.” The conversation Nola and Frank have comes in mesmerizing bits and pieces - it’s like trying to see a world through a colorful gauze, unsure of what’s real and what’s trickery of the imagination. And I love R.S. Brown’s use of language, the rumblings of words that are humorous, ominous, and mysterious all at once. A fine play I read a second time right after the first.

Is Carol an echo of the universe’s emptiness? Does she have some form of existential buyer’s regret? One of the more fascinating supermarket shorts you’ll ever read is FROZEN FOODS by Ian August. Perhaps evidence that everything is not random is this fine play. Carol and Linda are well drawn characters who couple-figure skate (metaphorically) in the frozen food aisle and spin off solo into the icy void. Well done.

A wonderful very short Christmas play. WEINACHTSFRIEDEN (Christmas truce) refers to an informal ceasefire during World War I to observe Christmas. MacKenzie Raine Kirkman’s demonstrates why a German, an English, and a French spy may each decide to put down their guns. In the spirit of Christmas, a timeless lesson for us all.

I love it that the vampire Vlad shares the name with the historical figure Vlad the Impaler that may have inspired the Dracula legend. A favorite line comes from Pat the Exterminator: “You won’t be bothered by them bats no more.” PESTS is great toothy fun for all lovers of vampire comedy.