Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

A gift of perspective on hardened views is always welcome, and Megan Ann Jacobs gives us all that, wrapped up neatly in ten pages of snappy dialogue, full-fledged characters, and no holding back during that "most wonderful time of year." Yes, it's seasonal, but it's worth seeing and hearing any time.

The aftershocks of war last far longer than the end of the conflict, and in this touching but very real family drama, Marj O'Neill-Butler shows us that secrets long-held can either divide or unite them. Told with love but without overwrought sentimentality, "The What If of War" gives us full dimensional characters who see how the passage of time does not fade commitment, love, and understanding.

What do you do when you don't know where you are or what there is to do and what comes next? Why, of course, you stare at your phone and play a child's game while the rest of the world contemplates your fate.

The lesson that Lee R. Lawing conveys isn't pounded into our consciousness, but gently creeps in so that even the thickest of us can understand how important the slightest connection can convey. Masterfully done.

This is a loving stroll down memory lane for me: I took Mom and Dad to many a matinee when we could all get in for senior citizens' discount. Robert Weibezahl gets it exactly right, and it brings both outright laughter and tears of recognition and fondness.

This will stay with me even if it doesn't come to pass. If it does, you will never know.

The only thing missing from this horrifying tale is Rod Serling standing off to one side, smoking, and looking at the audience and saying something along the lines of "There is nothing that is outside the realm of the possible."

By its very benign nature, this letter is chilling. When you hear the contents, the chills become shudders, and when you reach the end, they shake you to the core.

We spend our entire adulthood dealing with the slights of childhood, and the smaller they are, the larger they loom. This is especially true in families, and it has made for drama, both on stage and off, since Oedipus got ditched. D. Lee Miller's take on this classic case of childhood begrudgement rings so true because anyone who ever dealt with the everlasting judgment of siblings will instantly know what this play is about. (Full disclosure: M&M's rule.)

This is how I imagine Tennessee Williams would have written the Gentleman Caller scene in "The Glass Menagerie" if he had the touch of Scott Sickles. As it is, the meeting between the two is as meaningful and just as revealing of the inner thoughts and hopes that inhabit all such touchingly awkward first meetings without being overly sentimental. I would love to see this.

Maybe it shouldn't mean so much, this little confession from Robert to his mother who isn't even listening, but I got choked up. Not because it is over-sentimental; it is not. It is achingly honest, and as Scott Sickles has shown in his plays in this series of Robert and Bertram, these boys are incapable of guile. The honesty of the feelings they have, so often lost, ironically, when maturing comes along, is presented without any attempt to cover it with excuses or deflection. More of this, please.

Just as silent films conveyed all the emotion and subtext without saying a word, this short piece by Lee R. Lawing is a story in itself without saying them in dialogue that is well-crafted and genuine. A still photograph can be just as evocative as a moving one, if not more so.