Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

Aside from the fact that this took me back to my own sibling rivalry between myself and my older and the younger brother -- I was the middle one -- and vivid memories of glorious battles in the yard, it confirms my theory that theatre and acting are innate forms of art: we are born with the ability to perform and create elaborate stories with all the plots, themes, and subtext that they ponderously remind us of in grad school seminars. All you have to do is watch children at play, and Scott Sickles frames it perfectly.

Who's to say it didn't really happen that way?

A new teacher learns the hard way that perceptions can be deceiving, and sometimes those perceptions -- especially when there is an agenda behind them -- can be devastating. Peter Anthony Fields has constructed a taut and powerful drama and used the stage and memory to great effect in this short piece. He also shows how the most important moment of teaching for the teacher and student is crushed under the weight of bigotry and ignorance.

This was really hard for me to read because it was so true to how I felt when I lost Sam. But I'm glad I did because Peter Anthony Fields conveyed all the love, affection, joy, and attachment that comes with having a friend like Bogie. Grief is hard to share, but this monologue does it so well. Thank you.

The charming awkwardness that is inherent in teenagers trying to express themselves while in the throes of the excruciating attempt to be cool is what makes this coming-of-age story so catch-in-the-throat real. Scott Sickles gives us these two searching souls without any of the tropes that plague so many others, and the connections, be it a classic horror film, a folk trio, or baseball, the great metaphor for life, are tenuous at first. But you read this and hope that this first moment will be something these young men will remember as long as they're together. I certainly will.

As he has with the other monologues in this collection, Robert Weibezahl pulls no punches and lands them right on target: at the well-wishers who casually toss off platitudes as if they were meaningful and well-intentioned yet meaningless and inane. In this case, Andi looks at her life -- such as it is -- and challenges the status quo for being just that: the status quo, realizing that time passages and loss are devastating not by their crushing burden but more often in the little ways we hardly notice... until we do.

A familiar scenario turned a bit sideways by building on our expectations and flipping the script to another page. Clever and timely.

History is sometimes best seen through a microscope: examining not just the events but how they touch the lives of people who have no role in them. This gathering of ladies at their monthly gathering to share literature is part comedy of manners and, in a gauzy black and white turn, a peek into the room where politics and innuendo becomes its own farce and drama. Arthur M Jolly's rapier-like wit and strong sense of characters is on full display, and while the events may be nearly seventy years past, they are prescient for all of us today.

The challenge is to write a recommendation that is longer than the title. Hmm. Nope. Can't do it. That's because my admiration for both the playwright and the object of the play knows no bounds, and 100 words cannot capture it. Also, it takes longer to write it than to actually perform it.

That said, this is a true testament to both the art and friendship of Franky Gonzalez. And... happy birthday, Matthew. Again.

Impending danger forces us to face reality: it forces us to be honest with ourselves and those we care about. In this taut drama where three people are taking refuge from a horrific storm, the peril of physical harm brings suppressed echoes of the past and lays them starkly on the table for all to see and deal with honestly. Jan Probst's characters are intricately drawn and we see what really lies beneath, like when a storm peels off the roof of a house to show us the inside. And yet they hang on and survive.