Recommended by Victoria Z. Daly

Is it better to be remembered, even if the memories aren’t true? Doug Devita has crafted a rollicking, theatrical speedboat of a ride through the mind and memories of the older June Havoc — one of three versions of June, who fights for a truthful portrayal of her younger self in the musical GYPSY — but we can’t be sure her memories are accurate, either. The dialogue is witty, laugh-out-loud funny and touching in just the right places. The characters (including the musical’s historical creators) are sharply drawn and hilariously ruthless; actors will have a blast speed-switching between them.

Such a moving piece, and so efficiently told in only 5 minutes. O'Grady manages to encompass a span of 20 years in a father-daughter relationship: their utter trust in each other, with a lovely wisdom for the essentials in their life passages and the progressing balance change between parent and child -- then to the devastation of his absence at the end. Beautifully done.

This 2-hander illuminates the busywork that can underlie grief -- and in this case the peculiarities of Covid grief. When your world crumbles beneath you, what do you do to fight back? Designed for (and set on) Zoom, INVISIBLE FOE leads to a moving, socially-isolated moment between a mother and her adult daughter.

A lovely piece -- part police procedural, part romance, part Christmas story -- about faith, love, mystery and hope. Donna Stuccio, a former policeperson herself, writes with authority about all these aspects, and it feels grounded and real. Consider this for your holiday-themed (or any!) evening of shorts.

How much do I love this monologue!? Let me count the ways: it's poignant, wry, biting, hilarious, theatrical, dystopian, feminist. It could even be staged as a site-specific and/or audience interactive piece. Brava to Goldman-Sherman for using all the tools to create such an engaging work. I want to be in the audience for this one!

This play feels so timely and relatable, reflecting our current pandemic-connection-dilemma in a way that's comedic and light yet high in stakes. And then, at the end, it totally wrenched me in a way I never saw coming. I'd love to see this in performance, whether on Zoom or (some day!) on stage.

This set of shorts -- featuring a great group of quirky female characters -- is energetic and entirely engaging. Len Cuthbert has a wonderful imagination for the possibilities of sci fi, technology and metaphor, woven into what at first seem to be everyday situations and then turn into very high stakes, moving, life-and-death conflicts. I leaned in throughout. Would love to see the entire evening staged.

A haunting portrait of the complexities and jealousies embedded in a mother-daughter relationship. Is the daughter's new boyfriend telling the truth or spinning yarns? We don't know. What matters is whether the mother trusts her daughter's choices. I love that the mysteries aren't all solved but that the play leaves us with one unescapable truth: children grow up and leave their parents, and parents have to let them go.

A poetic declaration to the possibilities of a woman's life, no matter what her age or how much prior circumstances have buffeted her. Affirming and lovely.

It's not just the hilarious double-speak (written in a language Ian Thal has invented), or the ant-on-ant puppetry, that's so effective here. It's the increasingly unsettling feeling that the science film enacted onstage describes not just ant behavior but also humans' relentless need to dominate, enslave and feed on each other. This is such an inventive and playful way to discuss both science denial and some truly disturbing realities about humans. Would love to see it staged.