Recommended by Scott Sickles

You know from the get-go what's going on and what's gonna happen. Then you find out, YOU'RE WRONG! Multiple imaginations are at work, specifically the playwright and his protagonist conspiring to fashion magic and memory. There are a few holiday tales going on at once, like unwrapping a present to find another present inside and another after that... only this time there's a gift in each box. Any sentimentality (and I mean, it's a Christmas story about a little girl so...) is balanced with working class strife and real world loss. Start unwrapping this one now!

Gauge strikes me as someone who's been told over and over, "If you want people to take you seriously, maybe you shouldn't dress like that." By the people who are supposed to be their allies!

Peaceful revolutions are hard enough when you're part of a movement, but when you're a movement of one as well as an outlier among other outliers... Sisyphus had it easy by comparison. Medlin perfectly conveys the anguish of justice stifled on all sides, from the righteous indignation to the unstoppable determination to the morbid facts of potential consequences. A powerful rant!

It’s the everyday objects that ground us, not only in our present lives but in the past. Not just personal belongings but public locations like the titular bench. Kniess captures grief and loss as the speaker revisits a temporal touchstone, an ordinary place where life as they knew it changed with the advent of love.

Well, this takes me back!

Body fascism in the gay community cuts many different ways. For some guys, any body fat is too much body fat. For others, there's no such thing as too much heft... but there is such a thing as too little.

Kudos to Michael for putting the brakes on a bad decision IN THE MIDDLE OF MAKING IT! May he be a role model to us all. But regardless of our background, most of us have been in this predicament. Screw that guy! Choose you!

And sure, adjust your app preferences.

It’s very difficult to get through this play without screaming at the men in it. How Jenna manages to hold it in so long… is a perfect example of the anger management women have to go through every moment of every day, especially when they’re dealing with men. Even well intentioned ones. (For a primer on this kind of rage, see also SHE-HULK.)

Simultaneously a scathing critique on the legacy of toxic masculinity and a lovely portrait of a young couple navigating vastly different backgrounds… and Mario Kart! A terrific ten-minutes with a great last line!

Taken completely out of context, these two monologues would make great speeches – a riveting lecture on the immigrant experience and its resonance two generations in. While its scope is broad, its core is intimate. The experiences of one family, what that family left behind from trinkets to loved ones who died is the experience of so many across cultures.

Taken in context, even the limited context we’re provided in the description, there’s an even greater weight. An urgent lament in a moment of calm. Stirring and powerful. I’m looking forward to more.

What do God, the Devil, and Love have in common. They’re all in the details.

CROSSING AN OCEAN rebels against the amorphous question regarding the state of being in love and instead offers an assessment. If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you may be in trouble!

It’s a glorious list filled with grandeur and mundanity, fulfillment and frustration… the ecstasy and the agony.

And damn, does it stick the landing!

I have a new hero! Intern Nirmal! Their kindness, openness, and curiosity is as inspiring as their happy dance is warming.

The dialogue is delightfully arch in a Monty Python with Pith Helmets way. (I read it with British accents. It was difficult not to!) Dr. Bill is every know it all ass who refuses to listen even though you’ve answered their question several times!

But the true star is the stork! Their prehistoric visage already gives them a puppet-like appearance, so it’s a gift to puppeteers! It’s also a terrific character!

A tiny tour de force!

What’s really funny, at least to me, is the selection of cheeses. In this Pygmalion story, that a gay dude requires index cards to explain such rare delicacies as feta and Gouda is a scream! It’s like Henry Higgins extolling the virtues of a Brooklyn accent to Eliza Doolittle.

Martin embraces certain preconceptions so he can strategically upend others in this deceptively rich examination of gay/straight bro-hood! So much fun for the actors who get to eat cheese every performance!

Nothing says “I’m thinking of you” like postage stamps with a salivary adhesive.

That’s but one of the optimistic sentiments in this fast and funny one-pager about the kind of inevitable mailers that darken our doorsteps at a certain age. The characters delight despite the brief time we spend with them. I hope the impending birthday celebration is grand!