Recommended by Steven G. Martin

I attended a performance of "Oh, Tannenbaum" during the 2022 MadLab Theatre Roulette in Columbus, Ohio, on May 28, 2022.

From the introduction of the characters -- an actor shimmying on stage dressed as a Christmas tree and being plugged into an outlet will ALWAYS be funny! -- the audience was laughing at top volume. And then Mark Harvey Levine adds another layer by introducing themes of home and roots.

This is a perfect holiday concoction that richly deserves its varied production history.

I love what Stephen Kaplan has created in the feel-good "Right Field of Dreams." There's a nice heaping helping of sports and fantasy in this 10-minute play, but at the core of this coming-of-age tale is the parent-child relationship. Ten-year-old Tim has spoken up, and his parent's reaction warms the heart.

"Invisible" made me feel uneasy upon reading. I love how Jennifer O'Grady has distilled her longer monologue by the same name into this one-minute version. Doing so heightens the sense of fear, hesitation and perhaps regret and loss that Scout feels.

Taken alone, these two 1-minute plays are comic delights any theatre buff will enjoy. What I especially love, however, is reading them back-to-back with the idea of producing them like that. It gives me strong David Ives vibes, a la "All in the Timing."

This is one of the best plays written for Zoom because it was crafted specifically for Zoom.

Anne Flanagan has written a flat-out funny farce that takes aim at virtual meeting technology and its myriad of options as well as business meeting culture in general. There also are some beautiful references that spoof "2001: A Space Odyssey," which were unexpected and entirely welcome wrinkles.

"Advanced Feature" would be very fun to watch in performance.

An excellent short play whose slow burn to darkness and Dystopia will surprise audiences. The characters, the setting will seem familiar, but they live under the added burden of women's reproductive rights being cast aside. "Egg in Spoon" doesn't show the fight against misogyny. Rather, it shows the consequences and it's all the more powerful because of that.

The women in "3 Days" are direct and earnest. It makes their dialogue that much more powerful to those listening; you're navigating their direct emotions.

And there is a lot of emotion. These women recognize the world around them, the prejudices, the inequality, the ugliness, stupidity and cruelty. But another reason I love "3 Days" is that Caridad Svich recognizes there is strength and serenity. There is recovery.

"3 Days" would be marvelous to experience in person or through audio or digital media.

Ruben Carbajal pares down character, setting, dialogue to their barest essentials in this marvelous one-minute play. By making it so spare, Carbajal makes the story even more intense.

There is much to appreciate in Carbajal's skill; there is so much to enjoy in this emotional story.

"Noir Hamlet" is a wonderful mashup, with plenty of action, suspense and humor. What I like best is that John Minigan -- clearly a fan of Shakespeare and detective fiction -- didn't feel obliged to follow the plot of "Hamlet" point-by-point. The new characters, especially Rae, lift "Noir Hamlet" beyond straightforward adaptation.

I hope "Noir Hamlet" enjoys a lengthy, robust production history.

Like the desserts that represent the end of the Christmas meal in this play, this play represents the end of Nora Louise Syran's "The Twelve Days of Christmas in France" series.

It's apropos that the couple in the play enjoy something sweet because audiences will find sweetness too: food, love, the holiday season and Syran's strength in developing atmosphere through location and season. Like several of the plays in this series, "Twelve Drummers Drumming" isn't advanced through conflict, but rather the story elements of character and setting.

I would enjoy a full production of this complete series. Félicitations, dramaturge!