Recommended by Aly Kantor

Sure, the premise of this absurd dark comedy may be utterly bonkers, but there is something thoroughly relatable about being so afraid of connection that you'll foster a strange, compulsive "habit" to keep people at arm's length. The truth is, vulnerability is tough for some of us, and this goofy short shines a light on the (sometimes bizarre but uniquely human) ways in which people fight tooth and nail against connection. The well-executed twist at the end was a shocking and fun way to end this wild story! This wild, quirky, and darkly goofy romp will certainly delight audiences!

You need high stakes to write a truly compelling ten-minute play, and the stakes couldn't be higher than the destruction of the Earth! Somehow, this piece still manages to maintain a great deal of humor and heart, with a string of corny, snicker-worthy gags and wordplay throughout. Even so, the bittersweet scenario shines a light on our current global climate (literally and politically) without feeling heavy or preachy. Furthermore, there are ample opportunities for creative design which will be like catnip to the theatre artists lucky enough to produce this one. This is fun, important work!

This one-act would be a wonderful introduction to the horror genre for middle-grade or family audiences! It manages to fit into the "charming" niche and the "spooky" niche simultaneously. Because we never see violence on stage, and since the audience knows who the ghost is from the start, it's a safe entry point into the genre for nervous but curious young theatre patrons. Plus, it has some great roles for younger performers! I loved the way the dialogue used family idioms to move the action along. This accessible short would be easy to produce with just a few shipping pallets!

What a perfect, timely short comedy for this strange era of uncanny human-AI collaboration! If an internet algorithm has ever read your mind, this play is for you! What starts out as a thoroughly relatable scenario (a driver frustrated with the absurd recommendations of the voice in their automobile's GPS) escalates, and escalates, and escalates, posing questions about when humans really know best. It's consistently funny, with opportunities to play with sound, staging, and even projection. Another great entry in the Christopher Plumridge catalog of shorts!

Wow. What a truly gorgeous, melancholy play about grief, yearning, and memory. It's amazing how stories about non-human characters are so effective at bringing out the humanity in us all. This piece is haunting and amazingly efficient, with fast-moving dialogue that moves this tragic story forward, never bogging us down with exposition. The culmination is the gorgeously haunting final image, that will linger in your mind like a specter. It may be spare, but actors and designers alike will clamor to bring this deeply felt sci-fi tale to life.

Putting a group of kids at the center of this chilling story was an amazing way to divert expectations! Even with all the subtle clues, the dark and deeply twisted ending caught me off guard - and only lead to more questions about the new kid next door! Like me, audiences will be perched on the edge of their seats trying to frantically gather clues and figure out what's going on with this well-drawn trio of hooligans. A group of teens would have a BLAST performing these roles and basking in the shocked response! Such a fun, twisted short!

This play begins like any traditional crime drama: a glimpse of the crime in action and a peek into the room where a team of detectives struggles to find the suspect. Unlike other crime dramas, however, the motive is not what you think! I struggle to say much more about this one because I don't want to give anything away! What I will say is that it's carefully crafted, with compelling dialogue and a satisfying, unexpected, thoroughly eerie conclusion!

This series of short, interconnected scenes is designed to be disorienting, but there is an anchor - the couch, where a mother sits, ready to offer comfort. By the time you reach the end of the play, you will thoroughly understand how the scenes are connected and why - and why the mother is so thoroughly rooted in place. This one would be a treat for an invested design team, with ample opportunities to use lighting and sound to boost theatricality and elevate the effective, haunting storytelling. This piece is an emotional ride that will leave audiences feeling raw!

This play is a heartbreaker, and though the stage may be bare, the piece achieves its moving power through the careful worldbuilding embedded in every line of deceptively simple dialogue. The script is as heartwrenching as it is efficient, with plenty of re-read value for those interested in going back and discovering the little gems of foreshadowing hidden throughout. An affecting piece with a truly elegant reversal.

This short play offers a twist a minute, with larger-than-life characters taking center stage to subvert a common fairytale trope! As someone who often centers capitalism as the antagonist in my plays, I was on board from page one! The play includes some tricky stage magic that theatre artists will have a BLAST figuring out - and the piece is goofy enough that the sky is the limit in terms of execution. Ultimately, it's a silly comedy that brings you full circle from beginning to end, but what a delightful (pungent?!) trip!