Recommended by Michael C. O'Day

A poignant, lyrical, and disturbing meditation on how past sins and trauma have a way of festering and intensifying with time, despite our attempts to heal or transmute our pain into art. Life as a futile attempt to understand a painting that's been painted by a blind man - that's a potent metaphor Chikazunga has crafted here.

There's a very particular vibe to Upstate New York art towns - shimmering oases of superficial progressivism, created by wealthy outsiders vacationing from the sordid ways they've made their money, at unspoken odds with the townsfolk around them - and Rowan nails this. A fun modern Chekhov update (complete with the requisite firearm) that's crying out to be done on the biggest stage possible.

A terrific (and so very musical) tale of self-deception and self-realization, of how culture shapes our sense of identity and how we learn to live with that. Hilarious and heartbreaking, and a feast for actors. To put it in terms the characters would understand, it's a Liadov miniature with Tchaikovsky's soul.

Everybody's encountered a teacher like this (if they aren't that teacher themselves - if that's you, log off this website and go get some help). Mulley does an excellent job depicting his rationalizations, his petty frustrations, and his charms - right up until the point where his amorality, and the damage he's left in his wake, can no longer be denied.

Visceral, brutal - and profoundly theraputic by its end. A powerful piece about all the different ways we process trauma.

A young couple try to occupy their time during the COVID lockdown through an app that lets them answer the questions of internet strangers, only to discover that they're becoming strangers to each other. A fine meditation on how the technology intended to bring us together has a habit of alienating us even further.

What seems at first glance to be a literary and historical riff - and a delightful one at that - turns out to be a pointed commentary on the discontents of the modern world. Aphra Behn would approve (and would be throughly delighted at becoming the subject of a drinking game).

Rice's great achievement with LENI & JOSEPH is to create a thrillingly catty behind-the-scenes show biz soap opera - and let our excitement and engagement with that serve as an equivalent to the seductiveness of evil, so we can see just how easily it happens. Smart, an actor's delight, and terrifyingly relevant.

A RINGU for the Zoom era (and medium), LET ME IN does what all good horror does - creates an entertaining and concrete monster to stand in for all the nameless terrors we're surrounded by these days. Well-observed, fun, and genuinely scary.

Possibly the most effective short Christmas piece I've ever seen - perfect if you have a taste for the macabre. Ashley Lauren Rogers has some genuine, tragic insight into who we are and what we're capable of, wrapped up in just the right amount of Yuletide magic and tinsel. A diabolical gem.