Recommended by Vince Gatton

If the storytelling path to the universal goes through the specific, Steven Hayet has completed that quest spectacularly here. Two online gaming friends meet in real life for the first time – for a date. And it’s as awkward as you imagine…until they start relating in their friendship’s native tongue. Funny, warm, and utterly winning.

I've always felt there's a special magic in the liminal spaces on the edge of a funeral, especially for the young. Ken Preuss captures that magic perfectly: the vulnerability, the questions, the humor, and the bewildering feeling of learning how navigate this strange new world without a map. Preuss gives us the gift of two beautiful characters, plenty of gentle and genuine wit, and some lovely synchronicity that might as well be literal magic.

John Bavoso does it again, recontextualizing and humanizing characters from Western legend/religion/mythology to hilarious and moving effect. The unexpected bond between Prometheus and his torturer the Eagle is sweet, funny, and utterly charming; firm-headed Heracles’ self-serving intervention a not-entirely-welcome development. The enormous wit throughout is winning and quotable as hell, and the conclusion tender and lovely. Bravo, Bavoso. Bravo.

Savagely funny from page 1, this lacerating comedy about competitive teen ice dancers keeps upping the stakes, delivering one of the most satisfying, wicked comedies I've read in a long time. Kantor's ear for dialogue -- especially for the unique dynamic interplay among young women -- is a joy, and the comic rhythms she finds here are worthy of study. I'll resist the urge to quote my favorite bits, as it would overfill my character count -- so just trust me and read this immediately.

I am sucker for well-executed comedy of repetition, and Greg Mandryk serves up a feast of it here. A coffee shop meet-cute turns into an absurd series of blackout sketches, precisely calibrated to punch a laugh out of me every time; and the genuine longing and frustration that drive the story lend delectable emotional fuel to the comedy. The more unsatisfying/deadly this gets for the characters, the more wildly fun it is for us. Deranged. Mad respect.

Hilarious in conception and execution, and exhaustingly relatable for many of us, I have no doubt. Fueling the high concept comedy (which works like gangbusters) are sharp truths about marriage, family, and self-care in our painful American moment. Brava.

It takes a lot of smarts to deliver on a premise this stupid, and Daniel Prillaman is up to the task. Inspired idiocy from start to finish, this short piece maintains its suspense as you lean in, wondering if he can possibly pull it off. (Reader, he can. He’s Daniel Prillaman.) A darkly ridiculous holiday treat.

All the comic conventions and expectations set us up for something diabolical going on here...but what Miranda Jonté actually delivers is something much more humane, altruistic, and ultimately very moving. Late Night with the Devil this is not - a sharp, demanding, kind little play.

A clever whodunit with a Sicklesian twist, this witty holiday crime-scene puzzlebox doubles as a lovely, wistful contemplation of love, loss, and moving on. Scott Sickles' ability to juggle wildly disparate elements - slapstick gore, hard-boiled cop patois, and aching family drama -- is on full display here. A holiday delight.

At once intimate and vast, this gentle, odd, erudite short play gives you a lot to sit with. Two strangers on a train wake up together, and Humanity’s place in the long sweep of geological and spiritual history gets debated while the coffee brews, and some of the earth’s (and America’s) great wonders flash by outside. Strange and lovely.