Recommended by Michele Clarke

This show brought the house down as the anchor of the Helltown Players' inaugural collection of short plays earlier this year -- and the audience leapt to its feet in the final moments. A celebration of heart, gumption, adversity, and the wisdom of letting go.

Bone-chilling. In a moment of weakness, while under extreme duress, a husband's deeply buried character flaw catapults to the surface and has inexorable consequences. Set against the backdrop of an incredibly compelling moral dilemma, this well-crafted descent finishes with a heart-pounding 15 minutes. Produce this play!

If you're putting together a night of macabre or reckonings, don't sleep on James Perry's CHECK PLEASE. Well-drawn characters. Jaunty dialogue. A cliffhanger twist. There's a lot to work with - especially for actors - in this quick dark comedy. It's your move:

There's a lot to love here. With another round of smoothing, this one's ready to take audiences on a roller coaster of comedy, shock, tragedy and hope. And absolutely loving the "Aisle" framework for multiple vignettes.

Jillian Blevins' work is sublime. Here, it's from character to dialogue to lighting to choreo(ish). :) The description of Doxy's age is perfection and I'm now now in love with describing character gender by their pronouns -- because a drag Doxy would be equally delicious!

No one escapes unscathed in this delightfully clever four-hander that turns on hilarious frustration. So much range for a director as well as the actors -- anything from playing it straight to going all the way over the top. Lots of fun.

Adorable.

A piercing, riveting story of hope, ambition, disappointment, betrayal, fear and the involuntary changes all of that leaves in its wake. Your heart will break, then soar, then break again in this deeply felt story that wields real power from its unsentimental telling. The final line of NO JOY, NO LUCK will rip your heart out. And just to say it: Amy Tan was wrong. This work is exceptional.

I didn't want this scene to end. Would love to have a longer visit with these two characters.

An exceptional noir monologue - dotted with other characters and graced with the smoothest scene transitions. So much to play with here for the scenic and lighting designers as well as the director. There's a clever middle twist that sends you down a sure-footed path... until it doesn't. Your best actors will be fighting to play this twisted lead character/narrator.