Recommended by Jarred Corona

Of course it has to end with the beat it does. Of course the last-second decision isn't surprising. Yet still, the exact moment before, I felt my eyes burn. I almost said, "No!" I'm always amazed at a writer who can lead you to where you expect to be going, and yet can still get you lost in the emotional moment. A lovely family play from Brent Alles.

Stories are powerful. They can help you survive difficult times. They can give a light laugh in the dark. But sometimes that light becomes the story. Sometimes telling a story is how we dehumanize others into prop-like characters, tropes, or archetypes. In this timely short play, Cole encourages the audience to challenge the easy stories we've been told and that we ourselves might be telling, because there are no "characters" in life. There are only people. People who hurt, work, and sing.

Anyone in search of a good giggle should have a go at reading this short piece. It's simply delightful. I'm certain audiences will get just as much of a kick out of it as I did. Wonderful.

I don't want to spoil things for anyone, but if you're interested in a short play whose ending moment has made someone mutter, "That's so cool!" with a clap of his hands, look no further. It'll take you on a nice journey from absurd curiosity to a deep, creeping sadness before dropping you off at a deliciously haunting ending.

I tend to be quite wordy and personal in my recommendations, but I need to make absolutely clear: I adore this monologue short. Ekphrasis is one of my current loves, and Miller does brilliantly with it. As Ophelia remembers and rages against her treatment, her death, her position as "art," you fall deeper and deeper into the words. It ends and you want more and yet you're also completely satisfied. Again, I say, I adore this. To make art is to make food. We who cook and eat must consider this.

Sometimes a loved one has a nasty secret, and they drop it on you like a big one. It's world-shattering stuff. It'll flush away everything you thought you knew about them. And then they have the gall to try to wipe themselves clean of the stain! How very dare they. Don't howl at the moon; read this short and give it a nice giggle instead

You're going to want to cry at this short piece. Then, at the last moment of love shared by lovers, you're going to smile. It's sweet. It's hopeful. It's lovely. It's going to make you want to cry more. To summon emotions is always magic. To summon them in an instant? That's pure witchcraft. A wonderful short

Team Bix all the way. I mean, they know all the government's secrets and they're so kind and open with them but Trill DARES not to share? Wow. Rude. A delightfully amusing short whose ending punchline will send you off thinking about how similar moments lead to intense frustration and drama in books, movies, and life. It's like Soucy is saying, "Hey. Isn't life a bit ridiculous? Take some time to laugh about it. You'll feel better."

"How capable am I of great evil?" you might ask after catching this darkly amusing play. What would it take? Someone killing your dream? The cruelties of the market? The promise of money? How about the guarantee the people you harm are confined to a screen? They can't feel, after all. Monsters lose their humanity one way or another, so it's fine to enact your violences... right? We can all snap. We can all kill. And we'll do it while calling ourselves good. Isn't that delightfully horrifying?

Do you ever think about the people we lost? I used to not like AIDS stories. Now they fill me with a correct sadness that settles on my shoulders like the sky on Atlas. How cruel the world once was. We're better now, right? And yet homophobia looks much the same. It uses the same slurs. It claims the same God. It builds the same closets, and it kills just the way it used to. We have taken the death sentence from one disease and yet it lingers to the older one. Excellent language & drama. Bravo