Recommended by Steven G. Martin

Reading this play? Watching this play? You will empathize with a robot.

This full-length play is a perfect marriage of character and tone. Matthew Weaver's characters are entirely earnest, fully self-aware, and always learning. To make his characters robots is next-step thinking.

I greatly enjoyed an online reading of "Awkward Robot's Instruction Manual for Dating Other Awkward Robots" on the Baldwin Wallace BFA Showcase Facebook page in June 2020.

Eerie, unusual, theatrical, and a more than a little bit scary.

THE SEVERED FINGER IS A MACGUFFIN.

Yes, audiences will get pulled into the story of "Finger" by the grotesque, the macabre, and the very darkly funny (and sometimes juvenile) humor. But then DC Cathro downshifts and the story becomes an uneasy view about wanting to care for someone else and wanting to do right for them, even under impossible circumstances.

This isn't a play about a severed finger found by a high school girl. It's a play about compassion and being humane ... with the fun window dressing of gore and the grotesque.

Yes, "Las Rosas" is funny, but it also strikes a nerve. You can have pride and find strength in your identity, but when another person intentionally overlooks you ...

Thanks, Mark-Eugene Garcia, for this one-minute play.

This is the kind of connection I want more of: altruistic, generous, and open-hearted. Thank you, Nelson Diaz-Marcano, for shedding light on this type of interaction.

Gonzalez's dramatic sleight-of-hand in "Corona with ICE" would make O. Henry proud. In less than a minute, audience perceptions are upended.

A ridiculous premise, a very dark conclusion, dry dialogue, lots of action, and foolish characters.

"Don't Eat the Lava Lamp" is a beautiful downward spiral of trying to ignore the elephant in the room, but in this case the elephant is a mesmerizing glob of beautiful, flowing, delicious fluid that tempts, tempts, tempts you into imagining its delectable flavor or ...

Ryan M. Bultrowicz's plays are like no one else's. They're the ones your audiences will remember long after your festival concludes.

High praise for Andrew Siañez-De La O. "One Foot, Two Foot" is a story that only theatre can tell.

Read and savor it at least three times: once for its technical achievements (multiple protagonists and a time jump in less than a minute, beautiful use of analogy for subject matter), once for its emotional weight and its wisdom, and the third time to let it remind you of your own life.

"When the Dodgers Left Brooklyn" is like music made by wind chimes: light, clear, cheery, and lasting only for the moment. It's also emotional and theatrical. Thank you, D. Lee Miller.

This short comedy is based on a sweet "What If?" premise that'll make any audience member smile.