Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

John Busser describes the Woman on Roof/Midler as "ageless." Yes -- I still have my copy of "The Divine Miss M" on vinyl -- and she proves that despite her worries about her career, she's still got it. The cops, who are up for the remake of "Car 54 Where Are You?", do their best to try to talk her down but only make it more precarious and hilarious. Very few playwrights know how to make this kind of story into a non-stop roll of laughter and insight, but John Busser really does. (And the title is perfect.)

Let's see: a graveyard, almost dark, the appearance of someone seemingly out of nowhere... yeah, yeah, you think you've seen this one, right? But you would be wrong, and the suspense that George Sapio plants from the very beginning builds relentlessly until... well, you'll find out. Enjoy!

We deal with loss and grief in our own ways, and we all know the stages. But in this charming and imaginative short play, Brenton Kniess shows us how one person channels his loss into something that can be restorative as well as creative. Not only that, it leaves us feeling like we would love to see this puppet show in real life.

The point of a fable is to make something abstract tangible to the reader so that the point, or moral if you will, is not lost on the most obtuse reader. In this cautionary tale, Daniel Prillaman delivers the tale with cutting precision and dexterity, not to mention a perfect ending.

Reading this play is like eavesdropping on an intimate conversation. You are immediately drawn in to the intensity. There's no long exposition; it's as if they know you know each of them. It reminded me at times of Samuel Beckett, and when we are confronted with the absurdism of the public school evaluation dynamic, it never loses its place. But the message of the play is not lost on this reader who has seen both sides of the story -- the value of teachers -- and demands that we all hear them.

The tremulous bravado that Shiloh puts forth tells us so much about this lost soul seeking a way -- any way -- out of the purgatory he's in. The arrangement he's making is set in stone but built on shifting sands of self-doubt and shielded by his own dreads and fears. His desperation is as thinly worn as the tattered clothes he's wearing, and all you can hope for is that he makes his way out.

Douglas Gearhart has the ability to pack so much into one line that each one conveys poetry: "We all deserve a little mercy." So many writers, myself included, could learn from his lyricism. In this story, a father and son discuss something as simple as ordering a shirt on-line, but the unspoken moments tell us so much about them and their lives. A powerful moment made all the more meaningful by its deceptive simplicity.

For those of us of a certain age, the reminder of the ravages of the AIDS epidemic isn't history; it's the lives and losses of friends, lovers, and none of them with grace, but horror. In Leif Larson's story, the desperation of the plague drives the characters to the extremes. I wept as I watched this reading at the Valdez Theatre Conference in 2023 not only for his riveting story that pulled no punches without using the dreaded tropes, but knowing that behind this drama, there were lives and loves lost because of hate, ignorance, and bigotry.

As an avid bird-watcher for over sixty years, I loved watching this conversation from the Family Corvidae as they worried about the humans fouling their -- and our -- global nest. As most birders know, crows are among the smartest beings, and their plans for saving the planet are both clever and... well, read this play and you'll see that "bird-brain" is a chauvinistic human insult to a noble collection of crows who seem to care more about global survival than we do.

This exploration of prejudice pulls no punches, showing that even the victims of hate can return it with just as much energy as that which was delivered in the first place, if not with the physical violence. Daniel Emlyn-Jones gives us insight into a world where we might believe that intelligence and manners would prevail over visceral reactions. There is much to learn from this play, all delivered with the genial -- and thus much more devastating -- veneer of politeness and keeping up appearances.