Recommended by Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend

Well, I adore this. Eddie the angel is in charge of Garden-of-Eden-era Earth, but he's not being kept in the loop of what God wants from him, and we all know how the story ends. This one act is so smart and so funny, with dialogue that zips along and had me laughing all the way through. What a delight!!

This play dealing with the pros and cons of intentionally creating genetically exceptional children is wonderful. The characters are complex and I was completely sucked in as I watched them grapple with the fallout of the decision they made five years earlier to have brilliant 'flutes' for children. (Also, I really enjoyed the joke about Mississippi.)

Mother Teresa as you’ve never seen her! I love this (mostly) monologue from a sweaty lady who has reached her limit. It’s clever and funny and has some delightful dialogue.

A group of people with nothing in common other than the fact that they all died, and then they all came back to life, start meeting as a (not support! don't say support!) group. I loved the unique voices of each of them and watching their relationships develop as they slowly, almost seemingly against their will sometimes, became friends. I especially loved their discussions of what makes a life worth living. What a lovely play!

I was on board with this play about art competition judges from the line, "I have stigmata on my eyes, I just know it." This short comedy about the subjectivity of art and the standards to which we ourselves feel we are constantly being held and judged for is delightful! The dialogue is hilarious and I loved the reveal of what kind of art competition this was. This is a smart, funny way to spend ten minutes.

This short is a JOY. A JOY. Simultaneously a stark look at our climate-changed future and a comedy satirizing theater artists of Chicago, LA, and NYC, this play is Too Much Fun from start to finish. As a fellow Chicagoan, I am looking forward to the post-climate apocalypse theater scene here. As much teasing as this play includes, it also feels like a love letter to Chicago theater. Now I want to read everything Paul Michael Thomson has written. And so should you! Start with this.

This short play about feeling like you don't quite fit in is beautiful. So much of Katherine and Aurelia's relationship - and Katherine's identity - are revealed in only five pages. I love the exploration of what it means to feel weird and different in so many different senses. This is a play that would definitely stay with you in a night of shorts.

It's Barbara's birthday, and her daughter, Bonnie, has granted her wish! I was hooked from the moment Barbara and Lyla entered the cabin and saw what the wish was. This fun and darkly funny play hurtles along to its (surprise!) conclusion, and I loved every minute of it.

I once witnessed an exchange between a woman and a man in which the woman was talking about her daughter, and when the man asked what her daughter was doing these days, she said her daughter had died. The man immediately apologized for bringing up sad memories, but the woman smiled and said, "Oh, they're happy memories. Very happy memories." This one minute play about a woman at the gay pride parade, celebrating her deceased son, reminds me of that. Keyes perfectly captures the sorrow at what she's lost along with the joy of what she was gifted.

Ooooh this spooky monologue is wonderful!! Tony is a security guard filling in for a guy who works the graveyard shift under the George Washington Bridge, and he passes an unnerving night. The tension builds as the monologue progresses, and at several points I wanted to shout 'GO BACK INSIDE THE BOOTH, TONY!!!" Rarely do you find a monologue as captivating as this one.