Recommended by Steven G. Martin

This full-length play showcases exceptional, precise character studies that examine the intersection of maleness with age, gender and sexual identity, and culture. It also wisely knows that the five characters portrayed are just a handful of the variety of men in the world.

Alan Safier allows his characters to pass judgements on one another and what it means to be a man in "Love, Loss, & What I Drove." But even if they tease, taunt, or question one another, Safier allows all of them to shine and to show their true selves.

A drama replete with fully dimensional characters, life-changing circumstances and events, longing and questioning, and an uncertainty of what life might hold as it changes.

Dave Osmundsen doesn't expect his characters to be heroic, nor does he treat them as villains. In "The Gift of BS," Osmundsen has a clear eyed view of his characters' flaws and strengths. He sees how mentor/mentee relationships can change, how sudden loss and long-lasting ruts can equally throw a person off their confidence. And that, like it or not, there's more life to live regardless of how selfless or self-centered we are.

This unsettling drama plays solidly in the haunted house realm of stories. What especially struck me was all the waiting Rich must endure, and the tension it created.

Daniel Prillaman creates a gift for sound designers and actors in "Water Damage," which would creepily fit into any theatrical festival build around the horror genre.

This darkly comic one-act shows the demise of a man, with each poor decision he makes turning the wheels that destroy him grind faster and faster. This play is very funny, very cringe-worthy, very jaw-dropping in showing the tragedy of feeling that our lives are not enough.

I laugh at George, the protagonist in Kate Danley's "Grand Delusion" because he cannot grasp how unachievable his dreams are and how he isn't prepared to attain them. Give Danley kudos, however, as she shows why George's foolishness exists. And by understanding George, I can feel sympathy for him.

Unmitigated Ego and Gall, thy name is Social Media Influencer. Prepare to be eviscerated in this sharp, cutting one-minute comedy about contemporary love and relationships in the Age of Sharing Everything.

During a performance of "Insta-Engagement," an audience is going to taste bile in their mouths due to proximity of the Influencer character. Mark-Eugene Garcia comically and darkly shows how dramatically an ego spins out of control when it tries to spin the truth to its own perspective.

This one-minute play is seriously funny and scathing and cringe-worthy. There are Olympic levels of delusional self-centeredness. It's wonderful.

This is a wonderful relationship drama filled with insight, irony, and enough skillful storytelling that audience knows what the future will hold for the protagonists.

Cheryl Davis deserves kudos for so much in "Peace Through Understanding," including the irony of naming her characters Dick and Jane and setting the play at the 1964 World's Fair. Davis also adds enough details in dialogue that we understand the characters and their desires ... and the tension of the dramatic irony only increases with each line of dialogue.

"Peace Through Understanding" may be short, but it is substantial and full of wonder.

Not only is the concept of this 10-minute comedy very dark, but the execution is very snide and sour. This is the dark comedy that will pucker your mouth and sting your inner cheek.

Cindi Sansome-Braff crafts a view of dying that is ironic and snarky. We get a brief view of Chris's history, the Everyperson Protagonist, but "The Menu" is about choices to be made in the immediate present and their future implications.

"The Menu" is an unrelenting play that is going to be different than anything else produced in a short play festival; oh, will it stand out.

This comic monologue works as a lovely "If, Then" conditional statement. It's a very comforting and logical and precise struture.

Credit playwright Emily McClain for providing a lot of detail about protagonist Casey in the first part of "Sticker Guilt." Casey tells us directly their relationship, and struggle, with accepting stickers as gifts. It's a clear character story.

But then McClain digs deeper in the second part of the monologue. We see how the details about Casey's interactions with sticker reflect on deeper personal issues. "If" Casey responds like then, "Then" we see deeper.

It's a nice, straightforward structure.

This monologue builds to a horror not through merely creating an atmosphere but by putting its protagonist Skylar through progressively word situations that would leave any person in tatters, emotionally and physically.

I watched a virtual reading of "The Interior" from Back Porch Theater in April 2021. The story, the performer were absolutely relentless, all of which raised Scott Sickles' script to the appropriate level of genuine horror.

Philip Middleton Williams nicely balances a difficult path in this beautiful memory play. He details in his relationship with Allen Pfannenstiel, including several moments that had to have hurt very much, and he does so objectively so that he and Allen are seen as 3-dimensional people with flaws and strengths rather than types.

The structure of this play is beautiful, the scope both broad yet focused, and the details highlighting the character of two men in love and ultimately as best friends are rich and plentiful.

We may never fully know a person, but Williams creates a strong portrait here.