Recommended by Adam Richter

Jack Levine's holiday monologue is an absolute delight, nailing (and skewering) the persona of the perpetual optimist who refuses to let a fire, a hospitalized husband or a friend's bad fall on the ice dampen her holiday spirit. The main character — who would be a fun role for any actress — talks so much you'd think she's terrified of silence, and I wonder if Harold didn't get stuck in the chimney as he was trying to escape a conversation. Brilliant work again, Jack!

Plays this dark should not make you laugh out loud. But Daniel Prillaman's one-minute play is a macabre delight that comes with an important lesson: It's never too late to correct your mistakes.

People who live their lives with hate need to be understood — that is not to say they require our empathy, however. Philip Middleton Williams delivers a fantastic and enraging monologue that gives us the former without asking the latter. We have a long way to go before the hateful views of the Larrys are extinguished. His happiness is tied to other people not having what he does, and that's just pathetic. Middleton Williams' monologue accomplishes a lot in a few words, giving us a portrait that is insightful and unsympathetic.

A powerful, perfectly staged one-minute play about unrequited love. Steve Martin once again shows why he's a master of the one-minute play, doing so much in so little time. Your heart will break for these characters.

In less than half a page, John Mabey gives us a richly realized character in Jules, whose warmth, wit and hurt come through in every word of this brief but powerful monologue. The final line cuts with razor-sharp precision.

The bonds of family may be strong, but Philip Middleton Williams puts them through the ringer in "The Sugar Ridge Rag," a powerful play about the toll that war takes on families, even when no one is killed. The Grangers are a loving family who get tested by the Vietnam War and the choices each twin makes in response to it.
Each war leaves scars on the current and succeeding generations, and "The Sugar Ridge Rag" explores those scars brilliantly. This should be staged everywhere.

An excellent play for the Halloween season, "Of Night and Dark Obscurity" haunts us with its tale of emotional abuse and what victims need from each other. The dialogue is rich and layered, and the staging would be a costume designer and makeup artist's dream collaboration.

When someone veers inexorably down an irrational path, there is little that a reasonable person can do to stop them. Rachael Carnes has written a darkly funny revenge play about the desperate lengths to which people will go to get back at those who have wronged them.
This play is — ahem — itching to be produced.

It's remarkable what we do to push ourselves when we're seeking to prove our worth — whether to ourselves, our dumb sister with ALL THE TROPHIES or that snide-yet-cute sailing instructor. Ellida is an instantly recognizable young woman: Determined yet questioning why she's in a situation she considers dumb. This monologue is funny, vivid and full of dramatic tension. Not to mention the lighting and movement possibilities of staging a person treading water in a fjord. I would love to see this on stage.

War makes for impossible situations. Dave's tale of taking a life while in Vietnam is brief but powerful, and filled with questions. The one that stuck with me the most is: Who has the right to take a life? The killers in the trenches during a battle? The doctor who decides a patient isn't worth saving? The politicians who sent them all to fight in the first place?
This is part of a larger piece but "Zero Sum Game" easily stands on its own as a thought-provoking and powerful monologue.