Recommended by Doug DeVita

I love dark comedic mystery thrillers, and Bethany Dickens' "Dark, Dark, Dark" is indeed dark, dark, dark. Intense and funny, her script provides 4 great roles for women, and I imagine when staged it should be a thrill ride for performers and audience alike.

There is so much heart in this 10-minutes it's almost unbearable. Wonderfully so. These two spirits, Allen and Jill, are enchanting; who wouldn't want to spend eternity in conversation with them? A lovely, touching ode to the afterlife.

Oh how I love this dark, dark, dark ode to all things Hitchcock. Funny and horrifying, this look back at a year in the life of the hapless Becky keeps humming along, dropping breadcrumbs and Macguffins with aplomb, until the brilliant Hitchcockian plot twist that leaves one gasping for breath. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. And dark. Dark. Dark.

Never piss off an iconic fast-food clown, otherwise you may end up as a mouseburger. This hilariously killer musical imagines what happened behind the scenes when The House Of Mouse banned all the products from The Golden Arches, and no one survives, except the audience. And even there, the chances they'll die laughing are great. Funny, deranged, and more entertaining than a day at Disneyland.

Wonderfully funny spin on birth and rebirth as an old soul faces up to the realization her twin is a newbie, and what fresh hell this life will be for her. Fresh and sassy.

Incisive — and hilarious — portrait of two women vying for the same job, written with O’Neill-Butler’s inimitable style and with a deeply satisfying twist at the end. Delicious.

Two hapless teens run afoul of the girl’s diabolically protective father on prom night. By turns it is both poignant and hilarious.

A perfectly crafted minute in which Arianna Rose finds all the longing and heartache attendant to an illicit love affair, and she does so without judgment – just an honest assessment of feeling. Beautifully handled all the way to its mic-drop final line.

Is there another writer as off-the-wall funny, inventive, and politically astute as Ian Thal? I think not. I love the risks he takes and the way he makes them pay off in this hilarious, but pointed short work.

In this taut, tense 10-minute, the future has become the present — and it’s horrifying. Panttaja’s script is excellent, if unsettling, and provides two great roles. Should be a staple in short play festivals everywhere, if we ever get back to normal.