Recommended by Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend

YES. A freshman has been cast as Lady Macbeth, and the jealous upperclassmen try to hide their envy as they get to know her. In addition to having pitch-perfect theater major dialogue, this play also touches on how few good roles there are for females in the plays that tend to get done in college. Maybe these girls would be less desperate, jealous, and macbitchy if there were more exciting female roles to go around. That's not an issue in this play, however, where every role would be a treat. What a great show for college-age actors!

Wow, this short is powerful. I was a teenager in the 90s and what little thinking I did about Don't Ask, Don't Tell was basically, 'Well good. Now that's fixed." I realized that was flawed thinking as I grew, but I never really thought about what it would be like to be gay and in the military in the 90s. Then I read "Sniper," and now I can't stop thinking about it. This short play accomplishes its goal in spades. What a great piece.

The feeling of being trapped is palpable in this short. The California wildfires are coming, but COVID is raging, so where is safe? When nowhere is safe, you might as well stay where you are and focus on the small things you're capable of doing to make it all more bearable. One line that stuck with me was, "Anything for more life." What a great short, tackling so many things in such a small span of time - how like a human life.

Whoa! Sound is used to maximum effect in this short, scary play. Being given gruesome and ominous sounds, and allowing the audience's imagination to do the rest of the work, is a very successful way to do horror on stage. Even the jazz music was scary by the end - and the silence was maybe scariest of all. I loved how invested this play made me, even though not a lot of background information is given to understand the very bizarre things going on. They say show us rather than tell us, but this play actually makes you FEEL it.

I love this! A group of theater makers gather to discuss doing a production of Hamlet. Suggestions for improvements - and accusations of exclusion - are hurled out, and by the end of the play, what they've come up with is not quite Hamlet, but definitely something I would by a ticket to. This short is smart and fun, and has the added bonus in this ongoing pandemic of able to be performed live or on Zoom. This play sounded like it would be fun, and it far exceeded my expectations.

This monologue is beautiful and sad as a son tries to prevent himself from dying with the regret his mother died with, and to somehow give her what she felt she had missed out on. Marcia Eppich-Harris reminds us that nothing is clear-cut and nothing is universal. Having achieved what his mother didn't get the chance to, her son ends up with his own regrets. What a beautiful snapshot of what it's like to be human.

For those of us who have ever worked in the service industry, this short is a reminder of how thankless it can be. I love that Toby Malone has taken the premise beyond just the overly demanding customer and long-suffering server and upped the stakes with Andy's urgent need to go to the bathroom. There's verbal comedy, there's physical comedy, and there's a special place in hell for people who make baristas reopen a closed espresso machine. This piece would be a great showcase for two actors - there is a lot to mine here.

Who knew so many different phrases can be abbreviated POD? The word play comes fast and furious in this short, and I enjoyed the back and forths as Princess and Dude tried to crack the code of the mysterious "POD" text they both received. This is definitely a Play Of Delight! (...Charles Scott Jones's POD phrases are better than mine.)

Well, this is a delight. A COVID-era take on Waiting for Godot, Valerie and Esther are waiting for their host to arrive in a Zoom meeting in this short. Their quick and hilarious dialogue keeps you entertained as they kill time waiting for the meeting to start, and there's even a reveal about their relationship that made me laugh out loud. What a fun piece!

This short Zoom play is powerful. It deals with climate change, loss, and bearing witness, and serves as a warning as to where we are all headed if we don't change our ways. Human beings have gotten used to using things and throwing them away, and Aly Kantor takes this trait to a heightened (but plausible) place, with humanity discarding Earth and taking to space in search of a new home. Kim and Leta stay behind, preserving and honoring what is being lost. If we all loved like they do, the planet would be in much better shape.