Recommended by Vince Gatton

I have mixed feelings here: one the one hand, this is a very funny, very fun short that would absolutely kill in a short comedy festival; on the other, I now know that I've been targeted, likely my whole life. There's no other explanation.

And once you know something like that, you can't un-know it.

Thanks, Mandryk. Thanks a lot.

Well, this is a wonderful addition to the holiday play canon, all the more so for being a portrait of lack and struggle. (If you pick up echoes of Mary and Joseph's punishing journey that precedes the Nativity, I'm gonna guess that's at least a little bit intentional.) Their lives may be marked by instability and want, estrangement and loss, but Danielle and Warren love and yearn, and crave and miss, just like anyone; and in this fragile moment of respite they achieve a tender grace.

Also: an exceptional example of deploying a title to maximum effect. A+.

Christopher Soucy trains his eye on several hot button aspects of contemporary American life, in a police interrogation scene that upends your expectations and gives your ethical assumptions a workout. Tense, complicated, and indicting.

Funny and disturbing on multiple levels, Carbajal's A Play with a Door does what good absurdist stories do: unsettle you with an uncanny premise, then shake you with the all-to-real, all-too-human ramifications. In the canon of plays about marriage, this one does a tremendous lot with a few simple ingredients and a short running time. Packs a squicky punch.

One desperately wants to see this produced, if only so one can relish hearing repeated RP-pronounced intonations of the name "Dirty Gimlet".

And to reiterate, affirm, and assert the importance of the Oxford Comma.

Five stars. No notes.

I know a script is really good when I find myself reading it aloud -- when the rhythm and music and sometimes just plain dumb glory of the dialogue compels me to speak it and hear it and play every part. Such was the case in my reading of the charming HEIST!, in which two incompetent criminals take a big swing at a big score...and try to pivot as it all goes predictably wrong. Billy the Kid and Gene Wilder may suck at jewel theft, but they're experts at stealing laughs. A delight.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA

<gulps air>

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!

<calms down>

Ha.

<sighs contentedly>

Ahem. Please read this play immediately, then produce it forthwith so I can either see it or be in it.

It’s a banger of a comedy, hitting on widely-felt holiday truths from a hilariously cockeyed angle; a crabby joy right out of the gate that delivers an ending for the ages. It warmed the cockles of my blackened heart, and I am utterly undone.

I call this a must for any festival of holiday shorts. A MUST. Judge me as you will, it’s the truth. Bravo, Prillaman. Bravo.

An absurdist stand-off with surprising emotional depth. Is it a witty cat-and-mouse thriller or an existential long-dark-night-of-the-soul drama? Why not both? This suspenseful and sharp two-hander contains echoes of Sleuth, The Zoo Story, and Waiting for Godot, with language and wordplay that zigzags between grunting naturalism and soaring dark poetry. Lean forward in your seat and take this tense, brainy, funny and sad ride.

Sometimes you gotta exorcise demons in order to move on to the next chapter of your life...and sometimes you just gotta give up your soul. Queer love, misunderstandings, adamantly held opinions, and supernatural shenanigans collide in this very funny, very sweet short.

Another delightful chapter in the Bascom & Isaac saga, pulling in another character from the Greater Sicklesverse: Bascom's friend Fred, last seen in the Destination Wedding series. Jealousy is the subject here, but what we're given isn't a simple romantic triangle: with the title character in play, it's more of a parallelogram. A witty and warm exploration of making space not only for a new lover, but for all they bring with them.