Recommended by Lee R. Lawing

Funny rift of the holiday consumerism of our current times, where Cyber Mondays means more than spending time with someone or just donating your time to a homeless shelter or numerous other ideas you can do to truly give back to your community and your sanity. Time does change, like celebrating the actual 12 days of Christmas at their proper time, but what hasn't changed is the hope we can all pass on for just a little bit of the magic all year long to keep the true meaning of giving on-going and not crammed into one month.

A dark comedy that delights the senses, but what makes this play work like a magical charm is the love story beneath the waters. Ben and Sully may not be lovers in the true sense, but their connection as co-hosts and friends runs just a deep with emotions and pent-up feelings as any lovers may feel and they find themselves at a cross-roads with their relationship and what they each want at this intersections brings about the inevitable pain and suffering for each. All as a feeding frenzy happens beneath them.

Family secrets are always a rich pool to swim in and Duhon gives us a beautiful play where family secrets tumble out into a rich tapestry of understanding of how the family dynamic that we all learn to follow is not as set in stone as some of the world tries to make it. That this is all done with photographs of the past is such tribute to a certain time and place, but love and understanding that our parents are just humans like we are is the true beauty of this play!

Nobody does dark comedy better than Busser and A Wicked Slice is another perfect gem from his must-read collection of plays. If you haven't read one of his plays do yourself a favor by adding one of them your library. You won't ever regret that addition!

At least this play got a hit in the production circuit because Mabey nails it with a capital P and A for the pain and agony it is to be a writer, and also the pain and agony of submitting to these festivals. But he also nails what it is to be a community that do support each other and have each other's back until they don't. I'm sure there's a little Satan in all of us in the end.

Eating Dirt is a great drama. The closet door with all the skeletons is not just opened, but the door is blown off its hinges with a bunch of TNT. Romagnoli provides us with characters that are fully realized and feel so real to me. The story of Missy and Luke will stick with me for some time. Sadly, I've never seen Rashomon but now I definitely need to because this play was so intriguing with a story that's woven in and out, leaving a finished product that's truly quite satisfying.

A love story that tears at every fiber in your being. Most love stories don't come with happy endings, and those actually are really all a Hollywood thing to begin with. Sickles's Floats tells us of one such love story and that's of Joanie and her love for a man who didn't love her the same way Those are the hardest ones to overcome and move on. Especially when that person does the same thing with another girl or boy. The visual ending is perfect and made me love and respect Joanie even more than I did from the start.

A very sobering monologue by Cavanaugh reminding us once again of the fragility of the world and people around us. You never know the true pain someone is caring and you never when you might be able to make a difference during each and every day of your life until the very end.

Addictions are never fun in real life, but how could they not be when a boy and girl sex addict meet by chance in the laundry in their condo building. Arsenault's funny play sets the scene very well and you are chuckling throughout with the Freudian slips that Ted is making. His uncomfortableness and Vicki's goading him on during the entire play would be comedy gold to see on stage.

Another funny play by McBurnette-Andronicos with a twist that I never saw coming. Lots of laughs and an ending that is spot on!