Recommended by Peter Dakutis

D. Lee Miller does a great job of bringing history to life in this excellent monologue. During the American Revolutionary War, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington is trying to convince her father, a colonel in the Colonial militia, to allow her to go on a mission to call members of the regiment to battle. It’s an exciting monologue, but Miller artfully creates a fully rounded character through personal details. Young women should love performing this piece, but young men should be reading it as well to appreciate how much women’s roles in history have been neglected.

This is a lovely play about love, loss, and remembrance. Sometimes, finding an answer is not as important as having the support of a loved one during the search. Because it’s beautifully understated, this two-hander gives its actors some great subtext to explore.

In a void in a ripple of time, real-life 19th century pirate Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart) meets a robot named RX-78-2. Don’t let the geeky concept fool you. This is a lovely play about making connections and finding meaning in existence. William Quant creates authentic characters and excels at crafting specific dialogue for each. This is a play that should be a success in a great many short play festivals and not just those with sci-fi themes.

Not Fine is a harrowing story about a family of strong women ravaged by Pick’s Disease, a terrible form of dementia. Marj O’Neill-Butler does an excellent job of employing empathy and compassion to show how the progression of disease in Susan affects her mother Joyce and daughter Alli. There can be no happy ending, but the playwright’s compassion provides a catharsis for the audience. Great roles for women here.

This is a cute one-minute play about handling the Anxiety Fairy that all of us must deal with at one time or another. It would be a joy to see on stage!

In this engrossing play about a female couple who purchase a house once occupied by a single mother and a teenaged boy who commits a horrific crime, a character says that houses aren't haunted--people are. John Bavoso expertly weaves together two timelines, sometimes simultaneously onstage, to explore the different ways people are haunted by the past, present, and potential future. He keeps you engaged with the characters, all of whom are treated with compassion. Instead of easy answers, Bavoso focuses on greater understanding of how our lives intersect.

In The Shape of the Unknown, Emily McClain is outlining the contours of the human heart. This beautifully crafted play, about two people sitting under the stars looking for UFOs, takes the audience on a quiet emotional journey. McClain employs wit and compassion to explore our needs for answers and connections.

This is practically a full-length play (or at least a long one-act) expertly compressed into a two-page monologue by Vivian Lermond. The relationship between two sisters, small-town life, some hilarious physical comedy, and a meditation on life and death are just some of the elements in this piece. It left me hankering for more, and I'd scarf it down like those scoundrels laid waste to the titular mince pie. Lermond is a miniaturist of the highest order!

This is a terrific monologue that will resonate with young people (and some adults) who are wrestling with their Otherness. The deceptively simple metaphor of flying is quite brilliant because of its positivity. There is so much here for a young actor to explore, and I believe this piece will be a hit with a wide variety of audiences. Kudos to the playwright!

This beautifully crafted play is a brilliant illustration of what it means to love thy neighbor. A neighbor confronts a single father with a child on the autism spectrum who loves to feed wild turkeys in the yard. A situation that could devolve into acrimony is reversed by compassion and simple kindness. This piece brought tears to my eyes.