Recommended by Steven G. Martin

I love theatre for young audiences and astronomy, and Wang's short script combines them beautifully. This is an absolutely charming play that lets all members of its large cast (10 characters representing the planets, the sun and the Hubble Space Telescope) shine. An imaginative director will find opportunities for fun costumes and staging, and Wang includes more than a few scientific facts into the dialogue.

We celebrate the firsts, we grieve the lasts. This one-minute play shares the lasts of an entire species. Spare, direct, and blunt -- it feels like a memorial. It has a little bit of poetry and a whole lot of harshness with poison and shit. I'd love to see how a director and actors bring Morrison's script to the stage.

A concise, acid-tipped, 1-minute satire that dramatizes having a literally new world view.

Tension overrides all of Wang's "My Aim is True," with power plays and deflections between the FBI and Anna Mae Aquash, a young woman. Threats and empty promises abound, and there's even a sense of impending doom, but Wang leaves the audience with a picture of pride and defiance. This is a wonderful portrait.

Liddell's "The Talk" is a family drama teeming with strong characters, a history lesson, and a call to take action. Audiences will long remember the Fuqua family.

Jones has crafted a winner of a comic monologue with "That's Odd." The character is slightly manic, but relatable -- who doesn't overthink details about numbers or words, and tumble into a rabbit hole of "what if's," "how's" and "why's"? Jones' wordplay in this piece also is brisk and fun.

Kendall has written a wonderful comedy about modern communication and manners. It pokes fun at the slippery slope of over-texting that probably has become the reality for most people. An audience will cheer loud and long when Vanessa puts her foot down in this play. I know I did.

Panganiban's "MamaSiHero" is a loving, emotional, and knowing love letter to mothers and their superpowers. This short comedy is a joy.

You know when people refer to a "... and I've never spoken to [the other person] since" moment? Conrad A. Panganiban dramatizes such a moment in this 10-minute drama. The audience sees family ties torn apart as Rianne and Gerilyn fight, and it is heart-rending.

Fully dimensional characters who are witty and loving, and also blunt and flawed. A story that sings praises to creation and imagination, and also notes their limitations. A plot that is a slow-simmering mystery but has at its core a sense of personal longing and loss.

I cannot imagine the amount of research Kaplan conducted to so perfectly dramatize the details of the Brontë family's lives. And I am in awe of Kaplan's artistry that makes the family not mere bronze busts to be worshiped by Brontë fetishists, but a family of siblings that are of the real world.