Recommended by Iyna Caruso

“Cake” opens with two guys in handcuffs and covered in frosting. With a scene like that, I’m all in. But then comes the twists, revelations and realizations. In ten short minutes, Jacquelyn Floyd-Priskorn captures a spectrum of emotions and the complexity of friendship.

The weight of the moment is palpable in Francis Boyle’s monologue about a trauma unit as it awaits two victims –- a situation with the power to change history. It will certainly change the lives of those about to be part of it. A chilling piece that will leave you with a pit in your stomach.

The challenge with reading Donna Hoke’s Life Lines is that you want to jump ahead because you can’t wait to see how the story unfolds. Should a mother read her dead son’s journal? “All I have to do is open the book and you are right here.” What an impossible choice. Who couldn’t relate to wanting to discover every last knowable moment of a late loved one’s life? I missed seeing this play performed but grateful to have had the chance to read it.

Breaking the Cycle takes no time and wastes no words putting the audience in the middle of a devastating family dynamic. Bad choices beget bad choices, exacerbated by guilt. And though abuse can be passed down, it’s not genetic as we learn in this powerful monologue. Sometimes it takes the unconditional love of just one person—and bravery--to break patterns and break free. Well done.

The DMV has long had a reputation for being a circle of hell and Nora Louise Syran nails it. A clever send-up capturing the lunacy of bureaucracy that has us rooting for the Devil.

A tightly written monologue of what happens when ego tries to steer the ship. It’s sadly relatable and, fortunately for us, bitingly funny.

What starts off as an elegant beachside dinner party immediately launches into a wild and unexpected ride. Dialogue ricochets like beach balls among these characters with varying degrees of absurdity. “The island has changed me,” says one character in the ultimate understatement. “I’m more blunt now”—as though bluntness is the issue at hand for these couples washed ashore on a deserted island. Funny and inventive.

In Donald Baker’s two-hander, a homophobic sister says it’s possible to “love the sinner while hating the sin” referring to her gay brother, now on life support following an accident. And yet how is it love when you’ve broken off all ties and are only willing to reunite someday in the family’s cemetery plot? Thoughtful, poignant and, sadly, all too real.

The name of the play alone grabbed me. Brent Alles cycles us through the stages of grief and death’s messy aftermath. And just when you think the one-act is coming to a satisfying conclusion, he doubles down in this wholly original treatment of a difficult subject.

There are no sentimental goodbyes from a mother who lies on her deathbed, nor sentimental reunions when she is visited by the ghost of her late husband. The woman’s losses and disappointments come to the fore in Agnes Palfi’s UNWANTED LIVES and yet her final moments appear as a prelude to a hopeful beginning.