Recommended by Larry Rinkel

Who owns our creative work if we no longer want it? Can we steal someone else's work if they apparently threw it in a McDonald's dumpster along with two of their own fingers? In a brief, macabre, mysterious page, this tiny play raises questions about creativity, ownership, copyright, fame, homelessness, and what it's like to know your dreams have been destroyed and possibly someone else's too.

Both a commentary on Shakespeare and a sequel, "Conversos" expands on the most troubling issues presented in the original "Merchant": Shylock's forced conversion, Jessica's voluntary conversion, Antonio's gayness, Portia's transgender yearnings, even (the absent) Bassanio's profligacy. There are unexpected dislocations (like Portia's estrangement from Bassanio, and Jessica's from Lorenzo), unexpected villainy (Antonio), and unexpected reconciliations (like Jessica's with Shylock). All these are woven in a complex, highly literate dramatic web where the beauty of Ian Thal's poetic language dominates the whole, and there is much to stimulate the actors, and the stage and costume designers as well.

A deft meta-theatrical send-up of the classic concept of "willing suspension of disbelief," when we all know that the characters in any play are actors performing whatever lines the playwright has written for them. Mark Harvey Levine develops numerous playful variations on this concept for his charmingly bemused characters (even throwing in a reference to the Mah Nishtanah from Jewish Pesach). And his final lines give something to readers too, who will get the best joke in the play only if they're seeing the script and not seated in the audience.

As a chauvinistic New York City boy, I wondered how Claudia Haas would represent New York, and instead of the crowds and traffic and noise, she has taken the less obvious route of centering her play in a quiet spot inside its greatest museum on a weekday. The play is all about the merging of Sylvia's observing eye with Monet's observed work of art, and how the mechanical act of Miller's copying eventually merges as well into Sylvia's vision. A lovely short play, asking us to contemplate what a work of art is and who we are when viewing it.

A terrific little piece with crackling dialogue, which asserts at the end the power of music to transcend all attempts to destroy it. The two soldiers are well differentiated, and a good designer can have a field day putting together a room where almost everything has been ransacked except Chopin's upright piano. Mr. Hellesen's play is musically literate and well composed.

Would-be creatives are everywhere! is it possible some of them are actually creative? Are we all just kidding ourselves? To answer these momentous questions, Evan Baughfman offers this sly little take on the illness, complete with punning title.

Having taught English composition and literature for twelve years myself in a mediocre manner at a mediocre college to mediocre students, I can relate to every bit of this. The failure of an educational system that lets students slide by because everyone involved (teachers, students, parents, administrators) has in one way or other given up is all implied here, as well as the frustration of a teacher who can't say what they really want to so as not to risk losing their job. The turn at the end is shocking, but inevitable. Well done, Mr. Boyle.

Such a zippy, funny little comedy about two dudes climbing a spire and holding on for dear life while they imitate the spaghetti scene from "Lady and the Tramp" using a Slim Jim. And then the kiss! (No, no, they're not gay. They're really not. They're just kissing a Slim Jim.)

Richter tells us this compact little play (not about a compact disc but about an LP) is based in real life. But whose real life? Surely there is no greater preciosity than the LP dealer who will not sell one of his easily damaged pristine rarities without the guarantee that it will be never opened, played, or enjoyed. Contrast this with the purchaser who isn't, you might say, buying any of it and you've got a nice clash of perspectives at 33 1/3 revolutions a minute.

A son-of-a-bitch dying father calls his son to his hospital bed, to answer the one question that might let him feel he hasn't been the bastard they both know he is. And the chip-off-the-old-block son answers the father in kind, getting back at the old man by refusing to provide phony comfort. That calculated laugh can last as long as the actor can keep it up (but within the space of a minute).