Recommended by Steven G. Martin

I love A.K. Abeille's comic monologue. She shows no matter how unexpected the location or unusual the circumstances, Americans are going to be Americans. For better or for cringey worse. A bright bubbly character a comic female actor will love to play.

A silly one-minute horror comedy that's immersive and meta and dangerous and ridiculous yet also feels righteous in defense of artistic integrity before everything is boiled down to a visual gag of a nametag and Sharpie and freaking out an audience member ... all for the sake of transposing two letters. Thank you Ava Love Hanna for this terrific theatrical concoction.

In "Succulent," Lucy Wang cheerfully dramatizes the joy of finding and connecting with The One Who Gets You. She celebrates artistic collaboration in such a pure yet playful way. The chemistry between Composer and Lyricist is formed quickly and only grows within a minute. This is the cheer and warmth that audiences crave.

You'll choke up, you'll tear up reading this emotional short play. I know I did, and I can only imagine what an audience will feel watching it on stage.

I love that 20-SOMETHING, the protagonist in "Fuck Buddy," -- as with all Asher Wyndham characters -- is at a very emotional point and must speak their mind. And every emotion is sharp and clear, and actors will find all of them and play all of them because this monologue is so well written. The rage, the sadness, the desire in this moment when things change for the character. Or, perhaps sadly, not.

Great character work, great dramatization of a life-changing moment by Elizabeth Coplan. We don't Marjorie's life before she became a widow, we see her gruff, closed off, and terse side; Marjorie isn't wiser or kinder because of her loss. But I love that Coplan also shows the first steps of Marjorie's next change, poco y poco as her husband Frank says from beyond. Produce this short play.

Amazing. Bill Crouch combines autobiographical narrative, interviews, and court documents in this one-performer show about one of the most impactful (and perhaps criminally overlooked) court decisions LGBTQ+ American history. "Sodomy Rules! (The Bowers v. Hardwick Trial)" would be a terrific choice for further development and production at queer theaters.

With more than a nod to Anton Chekhov and "The Cherry Orchard," Philip Middleton Williams focuses on a large set of characters, their squabbles and alliances, misguided aspirations and banal realities. The central plot point is solved with barely a splash, but it's the resulting ripples the audience witnesses. Good stuff.

Lee R. Lawing has written an exceptional 1-minute horror monologue with "Madness." Everything builds tension of feeling literally and figuratively cornered. From Renfield huddling to the dense language that has to be delivered almost feverishly to fit within a single minute to the howls and responses to the dread that we know what is going to happen in the end. And because Renfield is cornered, we the audience feel pity. Produce this for your one-minute and/or horror-themed festival.

This dark science fiction script rightfully holds its own with any plays about Dystopian futures. In mere minutes Ruben Carbajal provides a backstory in which books and seemingly all sensory stimulations become exceedingly rare, replaced with technology that has significant drawbacks. Carbajal gives us a moment of hope in "The Last Reader of Books" then slams the door on those possibilities and ends a tragic monologue that will emotionally devastate an audience.