Recommended by Steven G. Martin

I laughed out loud at the many twists and turns and jokes Ava Love Hanna packs into this short, darkly comic yet romantic play, from Jam Hamson to Vegas showgirl costume reveals to Tarot/Uno wars and all the twists and turns and reveals of a 1980s soap opera. Hilarious stuff, and I'm glad it's published in Smith & Kraus' Best Ten-Minute Plays anthology.

How apropos that Lee R. Lawing takes the unbelievable story of a girl blown around by a tornado and grounds it. I love that Florence, after her world was changed permanently and despite the notoriety and the whispers of her being a miracle or a scam artist, seeks nothing more human than a way to sleep peacefully at night.

Mathew Green takes readers and audiences down one path with their assumptions, then zigs as we expect a zag. No, the first time you read "Last Halloween" you won't know where Green's monologue about Nathaniel is going. You will sense Nathaniel's rising displeasure but even then you'll not know the life-changing choices he has made and the actions that will unleash his full rage. And then it's too late. This is a wonderful monologue, character, life-altering moment.

This is nightmare fuel that's visual and active and full of design and character details, that shows zealotry and misplaced grief and revenge and blood, and makes you question at the end what happens when the play ends but the story continues.

This one-act dark satire is audacious as it takes on authors and authorship, publishing, greed, and ego. We get 9 pages of exposition that beautifully show how overblown the main character's sense of self-worth is, an amazing sound design that tells the story as well as dialogue, ridiculous circumstances and false titles that poke holes into publishing house catalogs, and an ending whose callback makes you wonder if there's something more going on than what we assume. This is strong coffee.

"I meant, everyone’s been telling me how good I look. My mom said she’s never seen me look so beautiful. So, maybe it’s worth it." And with that line, Aly Kantor shows us Darcy is trapped. But in "The Prime Cut" the audience and readers see the moment Darcy escapes and it's beautiful, even more than a wedding with embellishments, pockets, and a swoosh. This short play will be performed everywhere and will have a robust production history.

This short play will satisfy your cravings for a father-son stoner comedy. A little bit of paranoia, a little bit of oversharing, a little bit of snack food, a little bit of heartwarming emotion, a lot of laughs from Joseph Bondi.

Margie Semilof's short comedy is great fun. Nothing bonds a bickering family quicker during the holidays than a perceived slight.

It's beautiful when parts coalesce into a whole. Sickles' open-hearted hero Isaac references time (yesterdays and todays and tomorrows) and space (supernovas, binary stars) throughout this monologue and it all comes together in a breathtaking line that ratchets up all of the emotions and sends an audience into a new direction. A gorgeous monologue and a superlative entry into Sickles' "Bascom and Isaac" series.

I enjoyed the fantasy elements in this short play, but I love more that its core is about changing relationships and burgeoning self-awareness. Vince Gatton has developed such a rich backstory and a set of characters who stand up for one another yet are empathetic to the other's feelings.