Recommended by Larry Rinkel

If there's one thing true of Dante's "Inferno," it's that sinners are sent to hell for eternity with no chance for redemption. But Janice Liddell combines elements from "Christmas Carol" and "It's a Wonderful Life" to suggest that even a violent murderer is not hopelessly doomed. Death being the great leveler, forgiveness and redemption are possible to even the apparently worst of us. Even so, some of the most vibrant sections of the play are the early scenes taking place in the criminal underside of life in Atlanta.

This is such fun. It's rare I'll laugh out loud reading a script (actually rare I'll laugh at all), but Doug's rapid-fire, zany love letter to musical theater had me doing just that - with its spot-on caricatures of notables like Jerome Robbins and Ethel Merman, and its effortlessly virtuosic dramaturgy. What is truth? asks the play, and what is fable? So many balls being juggled as we don't know whose truth is being told and whose lies. A bit Rashomon-like, the play suggests that truth is largely a matter of one's perspective.

We learn from Wikipedia that Hernandez is adopting the myth of Medusa's origins from Ovid's version in the Metamorphoses. Reminding me of the musical "Wicked," Hernandez shows the transformation of a beautiful and sympathetic young woman into the fearsome monster we associate with this Gorgon's name. Most impressive is the way the play slowly builds the confrontation between the victimized Medusa and the mysterious male (presumably Poseidon) who eventually rapes her. The goddess Athena's vindictive response conveys the sense that she who is raped is seen as guilty, even by another woman.

A sweet little piece, literalizing the metaphor of giving one's heart away. Almost all done through movement rather than speech, this one might present a challenge how to realize an actual beating heart, but I'm sure a good director will be up for it.

Clever, taut, and deft, with an ending as inevitable as it is unexpected. Puts a new spin on "sink your teeth into it."

I saw this last night (October 25, 2019) at Schreiber Shorts in New York City, and it was easily one of the highlights of the festival under Gregg Pica's superb direction. What an exciting, and at the same time scary depiction of a culture so alien to a citified New York boy like me. The core of the play is the character of the bull himself, furiously aggressive and competitive during the (almost) perfect nearly eight-second ride by AJ Hawkins, yet remorseful once he finds he has killed his challenger. Tucky the clown as MC is also a memorable character.

A big, ambitious, fast-paced play centering on the gay writer Phillie/Philip and his break with the teenage friend Barbie/Barbara whom he impregnated. But above all it's the vital characters and dialogue, Phillie's mother Veronica especially, that makes this such a fun, involving play. Pay particular attention to the doublings as you read; they're carefully thought out and evocative. And think about how different life was back in the 70's for a gay teenager.

Eytan Deray is plainly steeped in the horror genre, as we could all tell even if the allusions weren't so fast and furious. You might call this play "playing with clichés," with the emphasis on "playing," where it not that all the standard teen-age horror movie tropes are for once so cleverly re-enacted for the stage. Great fun.

A fun, economical horror piece, where the tables are turned on the parapsychologist and his assistant, who become the victims of the supernatural horror themselves. No space wasted here, it all happens fast and fun. And perhaps the most fun is how the possessed main character Leigh takes such evident delight in the horror she's unleashed.

Since we have animal fables, why not food fables? Paul Braverman has created a clever parable of three hot dogs, the outer ones rotating and the inner one "stuck in the middle," and uses his three sausages to debate issues of life, death, and faith. A fun presentation at Midwest Dramatists' Conference, 2019.