Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

Every family has their holiday traditions, and no matter how strange they may seem to others, they are a tie that binds even when the family dinner teeters on the dreaded political arguments. In this charming and insightful slice of life by Peter Fenton, we see that this ritual of searching for the wild turducken is a deeply-held bond between a parent and her growing-up kids. I was reminded how much I miss what I used to smirk at and would love to have back just one more time.

Don't say Marshall Gibbs didn't warn us, but even knowing his seemingly limitless sense of weird -- in a good way -- presentation, this holiday jag proves that even the monstrous deserve a jolly holiday. The lucky actor who gets to play Jeremy will be literally chewing the scenery, and the audience will double-check the egg nog when they imbibe at the office party. Great good fun.

In a time when comic books and radio serials mesmerized a nation during wartime, Brent Alles gives us a look behind the pages to give us deeply drawn characters who have their own struggles with real-world villains and cliff-hangers. He crafts a tale that combines fantasy with reality, and they seek to find a way to get to a world where life is more like their fantasies: love wins out, the baddies are vanquished, and we are our own superheroes.

The suspense element in this two-hander is palpable from the beginning when Chet and Dusty meet up at a 7-Eleven parking lot. Michael C. O'Day brings in more in this Hitchcock-style thriller as we try to figure out the motives of these two, both real and imagined as well as our own presumptions about the characters. The true test is seeing them evolve in these few minutes and betray our own notions as to why they're there and learn what could happen when you share a package of Twinkies.

This waltz of words is mesmerizing, and anyone who has suffered at the hands of a bully - and that's all of us - it will seduce you into seeking revenge, justification, and relief that the torment is gone. But the mind plays tricks; it becomes its own bully, exploiting the weaknesses that made the victim such easy prey, and turning the tables until... I have never doubted the skill of Scott Sickles to make a seemingly simple act of childhood revenge into a harrowing moment, and he does it here.

I never know what to expect from John Busser, but I've never been disappointed. This short and hilarious take on "The Exorcist" by turning it into a Mother's Day episode of "The Addams Family" has all the right -- or wrong -- moves. I was honored to read the role of Christos for the Players Thriving reading, and can't wait to see it on the stage.

Even if you haven't seen "The Shining" since Jack Nicholson chopped wood, the connections that Mike Byham makes in this hilarious and all-too-real confrontation with an I.T. tech will make you scream with laughter. You can call this a horror story -- and well-deserved -- but think how real it is the next time you're on hold with Customer Service and you'll see what Stephen King was trying to warn us about.

Leave it to Daniel Prillaman to make an Elizabethan-era tale of terror into a frat party seance with all the usual suspects and a surprisingly hip advice counselor pop out of a mirror just in time to play a little match-making. The setting may be grody, but the fun and the outcome is just right.

Shipwrecks have been a part of legends since the time of Ulysses, and this tale of storm and mysticism is gripping in every way imaginable. Kyle Walker's reputation as the teller of horror tales is well-earned in this short play that will keep you holding your breath with every twist and turn of the story and the hull of the ship.

It has all the elements of a good suspense story, worthy of Hitchcock in building up the details and told in such a manner as to lead you to one conclusion, only to put all the clues together at the end. A great piece for an audition or a night of thriller monologues.