Recommended by Larry Rinkel

I never knew dogs snored. (They do, Google it.) This charming 1-minute play has everything you'd expect from a snorata - exposition, development, and resolution. Nicely done, Vivian Lermond.

Reparations and white privilege are dramatized compellingly in this short play, in which bewildered white homeowners Isaac and Rebecca (I am not sure if there's any significance to the Old Testament names) are visited by Shirley, an elderly black woman who claims the couple have built their house on land that properly belongs to freed black slaves. Philana Omorotionmwan lets us see both the young whites' mounting consternation and fear as well as Shirley's relentless, inexorable logic. Rebecca: "But it ain't fair." Shirley: "It never is."

Not the first time God has been personified as a wise-cracking homeless dude, but Kumar puts a charming spin on the idea by putting Hinduism and reincarnation into the mix. And this charming little play has a plot, as 30-something Vishnu evolves "from 'atheist' to 'spiritual but not religious' in ten short pages. Even if in earlier lives he was a cactus and a member of the KKK named Karen.

Deepak Kumar handles the issue of inter-racial teenage dating (here, South Asian-Americans with white) with deftness and humor. His four characters sound like totally with-it Americans, as up on the latest technology as on the latest slang, but the brown boy who wants to date the white girl who doesn't want to date white boys has as futile a quest as the same brown boy who asks to date the brown girl who wants to date only whites. Though there's a touch of sadness in this play, the theme is handled overall with a lovely lightness.

A raw, compelling, often seething portrait of the degrading life faced by women working in the sex trade in a village near Kolkata. Rekha, unwittingly sold into prostitution, finally escapes to face an uncertain future with her unborn son, while Jamuna, her aging and less desirable rival is left to continue her hopeless existence within the whorehouse. The great role is for Jamuna - cynical, passionate, and spitting fury at her irrevocably degraded existence. There are many Hindi words and phrases in the dialogue, but context should make most intelligible. I believe the play requires Indian actors.

ABCD: American-Born Confused Desi. A charming, gracefully written monologue (with supporting voices) depicting the paradoxes and confusions felt by a young Indian-American lesbian woman. The play challenges both the actor and the audience, who are asked to interact with the performer and who help determine the sequence in which the middle four sections of this six-segment play are to be presented. It's an altogether lovely piece that would probably never be performed the same way twice, and which gave this American white man an insight into a culture he barely knows.

(First rec based on 10-page sample) I so wish Steven San Luis had uploaded his full play, but this marvelously written 10-page sample shows what a talented writer he is. Just attend to the mileage he gets out of preheating an oven to see someone who has deft control over the rhythms of comic dialogue. Can't really say much more about this particular play, but I've read enough of Steven's work to know he's someone to watch.

A sarabande is a slow dance in 3/4 time, and a partita is a suite of dance forms in varying tempos. Bach wrote three partitas and three sonatas for solo violin, and the solo/lonely/alone metaphor informs the grief and unease this survivor from a future post-Covid age feels towards the violinist who shared his/her stand in the orchestra and played late Beethoven in their string quartet. Weibezahl's wistful, elegiac monologue speaks to all who have lost colleagues and loved ones, but above all to the inseparable bond between musicians who communicate beyond words through music itself.

In addition to its fluent, sprightly dialogue, John Bavoso's witty comedy is distinguished by its constant play between what seems to be and what is. Small wonder he employs the device of a play-within-a-play to create a context where characters are never what you'd expect, and even falling into a ditch is no big deal because it's really just two actors off in the wings. At a camp where boys are expect to mann-upp and become "real men," we learn how gender roles are far more fluent than traditional masculinity would have them be.

Fast-paced and funny, as the character (Maria) who appears afraid of rollercoasters uses the ride to force her reluctant boyfriend Paul into a commitment. I won't give away all the plot devices, but these two could be riding the same ride several times over until Maria finally gets what she wants. Lots of opportunity for physical comedy and mime here.