Recommended by Adam Richter

Darkly funny — emphasis on the funny — short play about a sock monkey with a cruel streak and two roommates who belong together. Lots of physical comedy and great banter between the monkey and Matt. This would be a hoot to see on stage live!

The mom in this play deserves the coveted Parent of the Year award! In one minute, Evan Baughfman gives us a scenario that's all too familiar (esp. to those with kids) and delivers something unexpected and hilarious. The punchline at the end is, simply, brilliant. Well done!

"The Memo" is such a brilliant satire on the drudgery of the workplace. Witty, surprising and full of wonderful theatrical moments. Great job!

"Apex Predator" is a tense, frightening horror play that kept me in suspense from the beginning. Though nothing overt goes on in the course of the play, the audience will have a pit in their stomachs the entire time, knowing the worst possible outcome for Margaret could well be the most likely. A great, suspenseful play that I would love to see live. Bravo!

Steven G. Martin has given us another beautiful, cathartic, emotionally resonant play that lasts just 60 seconds. I feel as though at some point in our lives, we've all been in the void where Trystan finds himself, and with any luck, we've had a Sally to pull us out (or better yet, been a Sally to someone else.) I loved the message of this play but also the wonderful theatricality. This would be great to see on stage.

Sometimes moving away is not enough to add distance to the end of a relationship. In "Last Exit," Philip Middleton Williams gives us two characters whose breakup is in the past but their baggage is still very much in the present (and omnipresent, for that matter). I loved the way that in a few short pages, Williams gives us years — decades? — of the characters' lives, Each reminiscence, each quip leaves the audience and characters wondering, "Where will they go from here?" — right up to the final line. This is a brilliant relationship drama. Well done!

"Sugarplum" is a superb play that finds the most harrowing way to ask the question: How do we know what is real? Furthermore, is that even preferable to the nightmare that the protagonist has to live through? The staging of this is so terrifying and engrossing that it would be wonderful to see on stage. Great job!

A heartbreaking yet strangely hopeful play about two lovers whose relationship can not survive, a fate unrelated to the catastrophe unfolding around them. Scott Sickles grounds this story of a human and a mythical creature in the unfortunately real world of a planet undergoing a climate crisis. The stakes are life-and-death, but even by the play's last page he gives a glimmer of hope that the lovers' breakup isn't the end of the world. Manmade climate change is.

I don't know if this is true for most 1-minute plays, but "MIRACLE..." would be a lighting designer's dream. This short play shows us the awe-inspiring wonder of the natural world, made more brilliant by Simone's nearly intractable resistance to it. Nearly.
Steve Martin, once again, packs his 1-minute play with so much depth and heart that you're amazed (and a little saddened) that it only lasts one minute.

The mythos of childhood fantasy characters is — complicated. Emily McClain skewers it brilliantly, focusing on the one that, frankly, has the lowest financial requirement for parents. The Tooth Fairy is upset that her rating fell because of one bad review, even though she outsources her labor to parents. She, like most of us, puts too much stock in her branding and online reputation. Unlike most of us, she has a plan to get her ratings up.
Don't get in her way.