Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

There are few genres that are more tempting to send up (and send to the cleaners) than the noirish hard-bitten detective with a seductive suspect that he is trying to get to sing and perhaps seduce. In this sketch, Charlotte Stowe turns up the heat along with the cliches and puts them to great good fun. Actors would have a great deal of fun with this, as will the audience.

This play touched me deeply not just because of the time and words shared between these two life-long friends, but because of the unspoken dialogue between them as well. Joe Swenson's gentle touch with the little loving barbs that only friends can share, reaches us and lets us in on the absolute truth that friendships endure regardless of the minor interventions that come with life. What a moment.

Relationships are hard to explain in words, sometimes. Oh, heck, they're hard to explain most if not all the time. But in this short monologue, Allie Costa sums up the friendship that was formed, grew, and ended in a short time period, but in a way, it doesn't really end. Charming, truthful, and honest.

I am vulnerable to stories about animals, including the ones made by loving hands as companions for children. Just ask Max and Snowball, who have been my friends for over sixty years. So this origin story of The Bear, who has many tales to tell, is intriguing and breathtaking, frightening and yet full of hope. Thank you, Christopher Plumridge, for starting me out on this journey.

This could have been recorded numerous times during my short teaching career, both in high school and college, right down to the world-weary professor and the "student." Perfect for any one-minute play festival as well as a cautionary tale for both sides.

This send-up of "All The President's Men" has all the elements that are required for a perfect farce in the vein of Peter Seller's Inspector Clouseau along with plenty of Marx Brothers over-the-top antics and the lyricism of Mel Brooks. The best part is that those of us old enough to remember the real Watergate know that the only reason it didn't succeed was because the real actors in that kinderspiel were as inept as the ones Scott Sickles skewers in this delicious adventure. That makes this a true cautionary tale for the next contest.

I have been on both sides of this moment, so the depth of feeling that Evan Baughfman brings out in this one minute is so true to life that it both hurts and warms. Great work.

There's a difference between friends and lovers; and what a good thing that is. There are things you can share with a friend you'd never tell your lover or your spouse, and having friends like Max, Gunnar, and Ingrid is a salve for the soul in good times, and especially in those times when you need them to be there.

The interaction between these three friends who know each other so well is funny, touching, and heart-melting. I see myself and my friends in each of them, and I think you will too.

This is one of those plays where... Wait, what am I saying? I can't think of this as "one of those plays" because it's not like anything I've read in a very long time: inventive, outlandish, and way beyond what the title suggests. I also imagine that the actors and the director, not to mention the designers, will have their work cut out for them, so to speak. That makes it vitally important that an adventurous company produce it.

This taut piece begins like a teaser from an episode of "Law & Order" but takes us through the intricacies of relationships, reflections on performance, and not a little of Hitchcockian jousting and suspense. That's not to say that Ryan Kaminski's storytelling doesn't stand on its own. It does and then some, and as we follow the twists and turns of his plot and the power-play between these two characters, the suspense holds up very well.