Recommended by Larry Rinkel

Though this charming play may resonate most with playwrights, all can relate to the struggles and doubts any creative person experiences when faced with conflicts both internal and external. Dickens has centered these conflicts around the figure of playwright Elena and the incessant voices ricocheting through her head - only to finally realize that the unqualified delight that one friend takes in her work makes up for all the chatter. But it's the sprightly dialogue we hear from Elena and those voices that accounts for the sparkling wit of this little play.

I too was at a parallel session at Midwest in 2019 and so missed this sparkling rom-com. Dickens takes an unusual and entirely successful approach to direct address here, situating her play in the mind of a stumbling but likable nerd for whom the possibilities of failure are endless, but for whom at the end the possibilities of success are endless too. I love the buoyancy and ease of the dialogue, and the ingenious play with structure in which the slightest change of direction can lead to an entirely unexpected outcome. Nice font in the script, too.

What a wonderful, zippy little comedy, ringing all kinds of changes on the Liar's Paradox and on mythological figures like dragons, trolls, and the Sphynx with its three riddles. San Luis's dialogue sparkles and glints, making this little masterpiece a fast-paced quest that never quite resolves at the end. At the same time the play carries an undertone of sinister fear about the questionable motives of a fortunate country to exclude refugees whose homeland has been destroyed, all the while presenting a façade of benignity. An exceptional short play.

A lovely, original, and thoroughly engaging play about a character who is annoying and endearing in equal measure. Osmundsen takes us into the mind of Henry Sullivan, a high-functioning gay autist who can communicate with others only through his obsession with 19th-century British fiction, a genre the author obviously knows intimately. After failing to connect with two potential relationships, Henry ultimately finds proof that there is someone for everyone. Dialogue, characterizations, and shifting time frames are all handled skillfully in this charming full-length where every character is sympathetic and understandable, even if most cannot provide Henry with what he needs.

Of course, because Asher Wyndham wrote it, this is not really the world's worst monologue; it instead might be considered one of the best. But as anyone who's attended theater knows, this totally awful character may well be only a slight exaggeration of the world's worst theatergoer as we doubtless all have experienced her/him/it/they/them/whatever. As I've always said, you can choose your play, you can choose your date, you can choose your seat, but you can't choose your fellow audience-members. Good job, Asher!

We already know species have gone extinct, and there are those for whom the loss of a member of the animal kingdom is simply an inconvenience. In Bultrowicz's sadly elegiac play, he contemplates the future extinction of a whole class of treasurable fauna, and let's not pretend to ourselves it's impossible. At the end, a faint glimmer of hope is offered, but it's so implausible as to not dispel the overall despair. A touching, well-written little play about global warming and the natural world.

"A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou." Except there is no wine, and two thou's. It's amazing this love affair has gone on for two years (for Carol) and one (for Sophie) without growing stale. You'd think the staff of life would have more crust. But it's a great part for a loaf of bread who's basically a total crumb. The part allows all kinds of variations in casting - white, whole wheat, banana-nut, matzo, baguette - yes, I think I'll go with a baguette, very long and crisp.

A neat little one-minute play, building from calm to panic in a skillfully managed crescendo. We really ought to find alternatives to toilet paper; the stuff we know dates from about 1880 and before then people - well, used other means to clean themselves. I say this not to deliver a lesson on the history of toilet paper but to point up the sheer irrationality and panic that imbues this play, with its implication of a dog-eat-dog world where terror over the unknown leads to selfishness and ultimately violence.

A strong play, set mostly in the months leading to the Bush v. Gore election, ending shortly before 9/11/01, and focused on the conflicted relationship between Jewish 20-somethings Chelsea and Henry. Self-described as having a "Freudian death drive incarnate," the intensely neurotic Chelsea plays a bizarrely funereal "birthday game" with her bemused but passionate housemate Henry, who ultimately abandons her to marry another woman. Central to the play are issues of American-Jewish identity in the early 20th century, but it is most memorable for the character of Chelsea herself, a great role for a young actress.

Rape nearly averted - or is it? - by sheerest coincidence on the final page, after the two good ol' boys have had their verbal fun with the lone female ornithologist caught in their trap like the eagle whose talons have been ripped off. Rachael Carnes, who so often deals in comic whimsy in her short plays, is deadly serious here. And the atmosphere of isolation and impending doom in northwest Oregon at dusk, miles from the nearest town, only adds to the sense of burgeoning terror she creates.