Recommended by Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend

Well I’m convinced. This monologue is charming, relatable, and has the lovely advantage in these socially distant times of being something that would work well on Zoom. Delightful!

This play is a lot of fun. Batman's monologues and weird, shouted statements had me laughing. I loved watching him try to turn the mundane into the epic, and watching Alfred quietly suffer through it all, responding to everything with, "Very good, sir," like you would to a child you don't want to have to deal with.

Mary Shelley (well, she's still Mary Godwin right now) is writing Frankenstein and can't get Victor Frankenstein's horrified look right, so she tries to imagine the worst experience of her life and describe her reaction. Then her life takes a quick, sudden turn. This is a quick-moving short play about what one truly finds horrifying. I enjoyed the dialogue AND I enjoyed learning details of the lives of Mary, her stepsister, and Percy Shelley that I hadn't known before. This would be a great short play for high school students, as the characters are young and the dialogue is clean.

I saw a production of this play in 2019 (remember when we used to be able to go to the theater?) and I still think about it sometimes. It is so different, in the best way. It plays with time, it explores why relationships (all kinds, not just romantic ones) sometimes die off - and it's funny! It made me think when I first saw it two years ago, and it's got me thinking still. I can't wait for Ross's next full length!

Oh my gosh, this play is terrific. Two lonely 11 year old boys - one living in the US and one living in the newly formed New Confederate States of America - become pen pals and the only good thing in each other's lives. Beautiful and heartbreaking, Scott Sickles has created a world in the not-too-distant future which feels both terrible and entirely plausible. I loved these boys and this play. Now I have to read the rest of the trilogy. So, so good!

Tom Moran is just the best. In this 10 minute play, a girl from 2014 meets a guy from 1881 in a chat room and it is terrific. So funny and whimsical and it makes James Garfield seem like a pretty consequential guy to boot. I love it!

This play is terrific. Oliver Sipple (Billy to his friends) became a hero overnight when he reflexively reached out and tackled Sara Jane Moore as she tried to shoot President Ford. Two days later, Harvey Milk outed him as gay, and he lost everything. Told with an ensemble who assemble, dissolve, and reassemble as different characters fluidly throughout the play, it is a fast, engaging dramatization of the story of a man whose life was altered by a single act, and whose suffering has been largely lost to history. I love a good history play, and this one is fantastic.

Wow, this monologue is short but powerful. What a wonderful piece.

I ADORE this play! I was hooked from the very first moment and absolutely flew through it. A woman survives a workplace shooting because her coworker stands up in front of her and takes the bullet meant for her, and "You Have Earned Bonus Stars" is an exploration of everything that follows that moment. It is so engaging and such a spot-on portrayal of grief and PTSD without being heavy and depressing. Somehow Vince Gatton manages to walk that fine line and delivery a story about violence and its aftermath which is infused with light and hope. I love this.

A reimagined Pinocchio, "Piper" is crazy in the best way. There's a puppet made of underwear, magical puppet dances, a fairy godmother drag queen, and a single dad haunted by the fact that everyone in his family dies very young and even though he's 35, he's almost out of time. The dialogue is sharp and smart, and I've never wished I could see a play I read on NPX on its feet more than this one. I hope I'll be able to see the puppet shows and dances and raves and unravelings live one day! I love the creativity here!