Recommended by Doug DeVita

As someone who speaks fluent Starbucks, Williams had me LOL-ing on every line in his witty commentary of current coffee culture.

When one’s mother is an Oscar-winning character actress who has worked with nearly every star from the Golden Age of Hollywood — including the legendary Marilyn Monroe — how can one not share that story? But what emerges most clearly in Luke Yankee’s tender remembrance of his mother Eileen Heckart’s relationship with the troubled Monroe during the filming of “Bus Stop,” is Heckart’s brash self-confidence masking a deeply vulnerable pain that ran nearly as deep as Monroe’s. Don’t expect a salacious Hollywood tell-all. Do expect a touching portrait of a son searching for his mother.

As Thomas Wolfe said: you can't go home again. Even when you've never left, whether physically, emotionally, or both. And that is the pain that Weibezahl captures so poignantly in this two-character drama: all the "what ifs," the "if onlys," the "coulda shoulda wouldas" that make up the years between high school and middle age. Beautifully rendered, this tender character-driven piece about two people whose wants and needs are so voracious they may never be fulfilled, or even acknowledged, lands right where it's intended: in the gut, and in the heart.

And my heart is exploding from ALL the feels engendered by this wonderfully rhythmic one-minute play.

Ethical and moral questions are dealt with a light, but nonetheless gripping touch by Weibezahl, as two disparate young men meet on the Staten Island Ferry, and change each others lives with unexpected acts of kindness. Beautifully tense, right up to its gratifying ending.

In one of the best stream-of-consciousness inner monologues I've ever read, followed by a swift, breezy exchange between two former lovers, Speckman gives us a perfect ode to change, capped in just one, almost throwaway stage direction and line of dialogue. Wonderful.

Writing with Woody Allen's sense of existentialism, but with a lighter and less self-persecuting tone, Izzy Salant's "The Scenic View" is a killer comedy. I won't say anything more than I absolutely loved it; if you want to know why, read it and let Mike tell you.

Sensitively drawn two-hander about half-brothers forced by circumstance to share a bed in a seedy hotel right after learning of each other’s existence. Beautifully handled all the way through, with lots of humor peppered through the poignancy. Two great roles for younger actors.

All the concurrently conflicting emotions of puberty are on vivid display and delightfully realized in this laugh-out-loud but poignant comedy. Particularly inventive is O’Doherty’s use of the emotions Joy and Anger, physically represented as speaking characters being goaded by a deviously charming Puberty, as a sort of Greek Chorus leading us — and Amelia, the main character — through the wildly fluctuating feelings the young protagonist experiences as she’s starting to face the changes she’s going to be going through. A totally winning little gem.

With more LOLs per second than should be legal anywhere in the world, John Bavoso's "The Home For Retired Canadian Girlfriends" exceeds its brilliant premise and becomes one of the most delightfully dizzy comedies I've read in a long time. And as much fun as it is to read, I can only imagine how dazzling it is to see it performed. Great, hilarious fun.