Recommended by Larry Rinkel

This play (which somehow has the aroma of south Florida all through) turns some clichés upside down. Here it's the voluble big cop father who accepts his son's gay marriage, while the mother is more resistant. And watch that cell phone swallowing and breaking up consonants; it's a hint of the joke that lies ahead. Though the play basically turns on that one joke, it's a good one. Still, the best line: "We also do bar mitzvahs."

They tell you that bickering isn't dramatic conflict, but when the bickering is as hilarious as in these three loosely connected shorts, you won't care. Rex McGregor is one funny guy, writing sparkling, gossamer dialogue about such weighty issues as who sits where when married couple Thena and Taz ride their tandem bike. There are some men in the plays, but they can barely hold their own against these infectiously witty ladies. Think of an all-female Beatrice and Benedicta, and you've got the idea. I must read more Rex McGregor. You should too.

Too bad we don't get more than a tantalizing sample on NPX, but this all-female takeoff on "Godot" is lots of fun from the six pages provided. Would love to see more; the writing is brash and vital.

Bill Triplett transforms the ancient myth, where Theseus killed the Minotaur and escaped the Labyrinth with the help of Ariadne. But here the unseen Ariadne betrays "Theo" with a "killer app," so that he becomes the victim of "Mina" and her sister "Tor." Set in the near-darkness of a Colorado mine, Triplett's short horror piece plays on the male's simultaneous bravado towards women and his fear of them, while evoking archetypes of the old American West. This is a taut, atmospheric thriller offering great opportunities for scene design, lighting, and sound.

The play starts as a comic foray into the elaborate gay courtship rituals found in a typical gym. But despite the cynicism of protagonist Jack's friend Rodney, somehow Jack connects with beautiful young William - or seems to, until the boy is revealed as a hooker with AIDS. (Time frame: 1989). But what makes the play work, using a lot of direct address and narration, is how it gradually reveals William's underlying fragility and Jack's intense need to love someone, even someone who could die in two years. It's a beautiful, sad, elegiac piece about the transience of physical beauty.

In this powerful short, Dalglish from the start defies you to suspend any clichés you may have been taught about "show, don't tell." Because this play is frequently told through narration, monologue interspersed with contributions from the hot young punk the jaded older man picks up along with his drunk friend (who is not used as a character). But above all, the play creates the atmosphere of anonymous, impersonal sexual tension in the deep of night, and the violence a young man who can't acknowledge his sexuality metes out on an older man all too wearily aware of his.

I was fortunate to attend a superb staged reading in New York City on May 31, 2019, of this superb play. Both violent and lyrical, "Misfit" gives voice to the most down-trodden and disenfranchised members of the American family - and pits them against the white supremacist who ultimately dies in a bloodbath near the end. But there is hope too for the play's sympathetic lovers, Támit and Tragedy (Lucia). Perhaps the most remarkable character is Roberta, the community's cook and earth-mother, but Diaz-Marcano is equally adept at capturing the twisted attitudes of the supremacist Chip in a chilling monologue.

In this clever short, a unicorn as the symbol of male supremacy finds that dealing with Mary Tyler Moore is not as easy as he had envisioned.

A beautifully written and subtle exploration of colonialism in three stages of Vietnamese culture, all unified by the theme of pho, the beef-or-chicken and noodle soup. This play would bear repeated reading to follow all the intricate relations between the three scenes and the artful triplings of the four actors. The dialogue is so deceptively off-hand as to almost conceal the depth of conflict between the Asian and the French/American characters. One wonders if a staging would require real cooking and eating; I would hope so.

A strong character study of sibling rivalry between the two brothers, and the use of the animatronic gorilla that symbolizes their different sense of their father and their relationship to each other. Outside of the gorilla prop which would be necessary for any staging, the dialogue is the strong suit here.