Recommended by Lee R. Lawing

The more you live, the more you will encounter people who have experienced such complete and utter heartbreak in their lives and you realize just how fortunate most of us are. Hartman's play gives us one such person who gave away her child at 16 from pressure from her parents and now her brother wants to give her one last dying wish to see that son again. This play is funny, poignant and makes you appreciate all the good that life can bring you and to always be on the look out for way to help a stranger in need.

There are always these photographic moments in our lives which we have frozen in time around us that remind us of those times when we were happy. Paul Smith's emotional journey of a play, takes us to one of those moments where we see siblings coming to terms with a death in the family and the impact that it has on their lives. We all wish to be happy. It's sort of the sought-after state of mind that we prize, but there are so many around us who struggle with finding that every single day.

Perry is on to something I think. We all have thoughts about death and our own demise at different points throughout our lives and how much impact we may have made on the world or how many friends have we made. Sometimes the life we think we've led may not be the life we wanted and a mid-life funeral may be the way to right all the wrongs we have made and turn our life into one that could amaze even in the gentlest of ways.

Sometimes you have to really hit someone over the head to get them to know you actually like them. Weaver's tale of the Dung-Beetle is one that is funny and revealing and that even when you think you must follow in your parent's shoes, there are always ways to get out of that and go the way you want to go.

A lot of us see Shakespeare as this otherworldly god who has written some of the most recognizable words in the English language, but Rubin gives us Will Shakespeare who is all so human, the same guy who makes all the mistakes as we do and the guy who has the same problems with his desire to be something more in his time and world than just a tanner. Every person who is daunted by Shakespeare in any way, should read this play which brings him down to our human level, desires and all.

What a delight and what a treasure to read this play which reminds us that even thought we all come from different backgrounds and believe different things, there is always a way for us to come together to celebrate new life regardless the circumstance. Funny and poignant in equal measures and with a delightful comeuppance in the end, this play has everything it takes for any holiday show.

There are always those heroes that have helped us see the world through a better and more fine-tuned lens than the rest of the time. Sondheim was one of those mythical people to me and you can feel how much he meant to Medlin's narrator. Music has a way to heal, soothe and make us leap for joy and Sondheim wasn't any different in all the masterful music he shared with this weary world we find ourselves in.

It's not living unless you question your reason for being and reason for living in a world that doesn't always seem like one that has any rhyme or reason unless it's written that way. Hook in Hell explores so much in it's short time, life and death, controlling your own destiny or being at the hands of another power. What starts out as a simple idea, blooms into an infinitely deeper message about charting your own path even if you don't think you can. To never give up and all of it done with great humor.

There is so much to this play and it unravels before you like a shiny object. That second chapter of any fairy tale will be one that's full of discovery about the characters but also about ourselves. Red's life hasn't been that easy since her escape from the wolf and her new life of crime brings her full circle to grandmother's house once again for a completely different result and a little bit of growing up to realize fairy tales may not end with happily ever after, but the second acts can sometimes lead to a tarnished pot of gold.

How lucky was I that this play was my featured play of the day. Weaver doing what Weaver does best, making the world laugh and think and just being able to enjoy ourselves as an audience member or reader. I especially love the last thing as it makes you feel the love between the players and audience in a very special way.