Recommended by Charles Scott Jones

It’s said that when a person’s time is up a frequent regret is that they didn’t go to those places they always meant to see. And a last request is often to connect to the past with the taste of an important food. EVERYTHING BAGEL, by Cam Eickmeyer addresses the weariness of OLD MAN in conflict with his younger self, who still wants what he wants even though the body isn’t as able. Eickmeyer writes with sensitivity and insight in this increasingly relevant topic. Admirable in this work is the use of geographic location.

In Christopher Soucy’s PANIC I love it that the audience is addressed as a collective character in the play, investors for an exciting new product. The names of the other characters are hilarious, the jokes land beautifully, an engagement fizzles in the face of the other “A” word. And you can’t beat a play that ends referencing an elusive mythical beast that sucks goat blood.

I’ve read OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE twice and I still only have a sense of what it might be about, something I admire about absurdist drama and Jacquie Priskorn's short play. Marty and Jessy seem to be transitioning from the rules of children’s games that keep one safe to the bigger universal game where we’re always in danger. I like the use of the Offstage Voice to ratchet up the tension and Jessy’s great existential line that seems to encapsulate the piece: “Even if you call time out, your time will still run out.”

This reader theater piece, as author Jonny Bolduc classifies it, has a fine Loftcraftian build that creeped me out in several places. I like that the gothic-crypt atmosphere is offset by a relatable moral dilemma - find the missing boy or return for a doctor to attend to Emily’s injured hand. The three-part narration of THE DREAD HALLS steadily guides the audience deep into the abyss of its darkest imagination. With or without the opium. This is just good skin-crawling horror.

A SLICE OF CHHENA PODA by Chris Plumridge features Roopa - a mother questioning her grown son Samir about his love life - both curious and curiously impervious as to his identity. I love the stage directions of Samir holding a food and a drink in each hand, both of which he hates - neither of which he can put down. Fine comedic writing from this prolific and talented playwright. In the end I feel that Roopa is taking baby steps in getting to know her son, or maybe I'm looking at the glass of Aam Panha half full.

There’s a fork in the road in this provocative meta-theatrical short. Pun intended. Greg Mandryk does a great job in the few pages of DIN DIN demolishing that comfy 50s vibe he so ably creates. Fine work.

Hmmm. I don’t know that I’ve read anything as assured and efficient as MIDNIGHT NIBBLE. By the amazing Scott Sickles. It is one glorious volley, a back and forth between characters named DOT and LINE that I’ll remember for a long time! I could go on and on - instead just read it!

Love the use of tennis balls in this very short geriatric farce. With the right two actors OLDEST PERSON ALIVE would be simultaneously hysterical and adorable! Big fun from the wiley Lee R. Lawing.

OUR LEWISTON by Jonny Bolduc is a very powerful dialogue between Character, a resident of Lewiston after the recent October shooting, and Lewiston, the voice of the city. It offers both the anguish of the moment for 18 lost lives and the view from the mountain. Fine writing on a very difficult subject.

I admire how this Noh-inspired , horror comedy, THE DEMON LADY functions according to its own angry illogic. Veronica and Jeremy seek shelter from a rainstorm after a tree falls on their tent, only to risk further harm from trigger-happy Dash. It seems the cranky old woman shoots folks for saying “Don’t shoot.” And there’s the wonderful conceit of the cabin windows that seem like half-closed eyes foreshadowing what’s best left unsaid. Atmospheric and weirdly hilarious. Would love to see this staged!