Recommended by Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend

This play. So many little treasures of lines that are SO funny as poor Veruth tries to explain her (very valid!) reasons for not liking the Midsummer Solstice Harvest. Or any holiday, really. If I were watching a collection of shorts - holiday themed or otherwise - I would be utterly charmed and delighted when this one began. What a unique and wonderful take on the holiday play.

I have NEVER liked the idea of the Elf on the Shelf, and I'm so delighted to see that monster get its due in this short! I also adore the way this is structured to exist as an interruption to a short play festival. The concept is clever, the message against the Elf on the Shelf is the Lord's work, and the bit about the sign the narwhal made was my favorite joke of the play. A heartwarming tale of worker solidarity for the holidays!

YES. This short play just keeps getting sillier and sillier as it makes its case for the importance of the Oxford comma - which, also yes. You're always in good hands with a Scott Sickles play, and this one in particular I wish would be made into an episodic show, because I want desperately to follow the exploits of this new royal family. You'll laugh, you'll gasp, you'll remember the importance of punctuation.

There is so much here! I love watching Casey and Mark (and also Jesus and John the Baptist) wrestle with thoughts and feelings and about life, God, and each other. This play deals with escaping from a toxic religious upbringing, but it also deals with relationships formed when you're in the process of becoming who you'll be, and how hard they are to shake, even when they don't - and never will - give you what you need.

This monologue is lovely. I'd never thought about the crucifix-eye view of the church before, but Matthew Weaver has covered it thoroughly, not just touching on what the crucifix sees, but how people interact (or don't interact) with it. The monologue is short but poignant, managing to take you on a journey and leave you thinking. It packs a lot into a little span of time, which is no small feat.

What a clever short! I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, especially getting to hear both Evelyn and Tricia's versions of what happened the night before, shifting my allegiance and making things darker. What a wonderful idea for a play, and how much fun this would be to see. A perfect reveal and a delightfully silly ending!

This play about a couple trying to hold their family together is set in the 1980s, but the struggles they face - a lack of employment opportunities, violence against the LGBTQ community, raising teenagers - are ongoing struggles, making this play feel both of a time and timeless. Each character has moments to shine, and the audience will even pick up a little Slovak by the end.

This play is wonderful. A skeptical woman meets up with a teenager claiming to be the reincarnation of her deceased husband, and you spend the entire play trying to deduce who's earnest and who's deceptive, continually reeling and reevaluating as new information gets sprinkled in and what you thought was true turns out to be not quite. I loved every minute. With complex characters, stellar dialogue, one set, and a small cast, this play would be easy to stage and should be staged often.

Too much fun! 10 pages of silliness and pharmaceutical humor. A dad who can't joke is no dad at all - but luckily there's a cure! And if MorNorkin won't get you joking and laughing, a John Busser play will. Especially this one.

Oooh an apocalyptic battle between a ragtag group of outcast heroes and American God (you can imagine what that character is like). This play is funny and epic and poignant, and there are so many little moments of magic which I would love to see a production team pull off. The metaphor of Eden is so well done, and The Star Spangled Banner playing when the American God enters is genius. I can't wait to read Part 2!