Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

My father read "A Christmas Carol" to my siblings when we were children. It is, in essence, a story for children as a life lesson interlaced with a ghost story to keep the attention of the wee folk. The lesson is simple: realize what the holiday is all about. But what Adam Richter has done with this story is give us the foundation as to why Ebenezer Scrooge is the way he is and why he despises the sentiment of the day: it is a painful reminder of the love he had for Jacob. Complex, truthful, and brutally beautiful.

Ah, the aspirations of the young and their rebellious music! They will conquer the world and make the cover of "Rolling Stone" before they're 18... but first they have to actually play in front of an audience. Dominica Plummer has captured the true essence of the glory and the heartache of hitting the road to heavy metal domination, including finding a lead guitarist who can get to the show, and the utter shame in finding out that being cool crosses the generations and that creative punctuation can have unintended consequences. Shred on!

The things we believe in are very personal. Our images of icons, be they concocted by faith and practice or drawn from literature or fevered imagination of the One True Love cannot be really described in terms we can share; it's like relating a dream upon wakening. In this monologue, though, DC Cathro has come as close as possible to portraying the moment when Cynthia discovers her secret Santa. What does she see, hear, feel? Ah... that is left to our own imagination, and therein lies the magic and the beauty.

I really need to find out how Christopher Soucy got hold of my family's photos and transcripts of our epic battles over decorating the Christmas tree and the ultimatums that came from them. Cunningly written as a documentary in the vein of the most earnest PBS/David Attenborough's explorations, we are immersed in the traditions and rebellions that bring us to the world of family dysfunction that somehow still manages to continue year after year. Brilliant, farcical, and eminently truthful.

This play took me back nearly sixty years to the annual agony of the family Christmas photo: the struggle to sit still and smile for the 1/100th of a second that it took for the shutter to click and the hours of dread that we all went through to make real. Jen and Jason have that sister/brother relationship that is all too familiar and yet needs to be shared and... well, if not cherished, at least remembered and reconciled far later. I should know: as I write this, four of my family Christmas photos bare mute witness.

This gets right to the heart of every confrontation I remember from Grade 3 and learning that just because you think you're right doesn't make it so. Monica Cross has the perfect touch in capturing the determination of these young people as they find their way into the world, and the budding friendship, so well shown by their vulnerability cloaked in certainty, is the foundation that will last long past the classroom. I know so because it is so.

Imagine, if you will, that moment of purgatory imagined by Ingmar Bergman in "The Seventh Seal" with the iconic figure of Death, the chessboard, and all of the meditations of life and death... in the skillful imagination of Scott Sickles. Need I say more? Well, okay... it's terrific fun and deep insight all in ten minutes.

Having been on both sides of the desk -- as student and teacher -- this short two-hander packs a velvet wallop. Understatement is one of many of Marj O'Neill-Butler's talents as a writer, and every word has meaning, and here it plays to near perfection. I also know that teachers like Mrs. Dunn have an impact on students long after the bell rings; their caring and lessons reverberate for life. Good teachers know this, and this play puts it on the stage very well. Good luck, Bryant.

TV and the movies and -- ugh -- commercials have set us up to believe that communication between generations, especially within a family, is too complicated to be resolved without shrieking matches or selling us something. But as Marj O'Neill-Butler has portrayed here, real communication, without the cliches and the tropes, not only can happen when we listen, it also makes for a really strong and enduring message to us all, and worth sharing on stage. Gram and Cassie are not so different, and it's beautiful to watch as they are finding that out.

Family gatherings are fertile grounds for finding out the truths and feelings that lie beneath the veneer of celebration or mourning. When the Rubin-Rice family gathers for Passover and the observation of the traditions, we listen in as brothers Joel and Leo, estranged for years, come to terms with the past and the tragedies -- large and small -- that caused the rift. As it happens at every Seder, it is the child asking the questions, seeking the hidden truths, who leads them to find it, along with the afikoman -- the matzoh -- itself.