Recommended by Dan West

The train is waiting at the platform and Hilda must make a decision, the man who wants to take her away to a better life or the library to which she has dedicated hers. And it is not an easy choice… or is it? Julie Brandon’s very short, over-the-top “comedic melodrama” is both fun and surprising.

A surreal dream of standing before the Gates of Hell leads Andrew to reevaluate his life and how he has been living it - and to finally do something about it. The choices we all make in life lead us down certain paths, right or wrong. When is too late for us to retrace our steps and try to rectify some of those that we regret? Bruce Karp’s tightly written short comedy deftly travels these paths with humor and aplomb.

It is refreshing to be reminded that message plays do not need to be preachy and didactic, because the short comedy about the dangers of climate change featuring an angel, an alien, and a disturbingly 21st Century Wisconsinite is anything but. It is a true gift to be able to make you audiences bust a gut laughing while at the same time driving it home that our very own behavior is likely leading us to our doom. Well played, Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend.

What a fun (dare I say George Sauders-esque) short play. Maddie is a sharp-witted teenager traveling alone between separated parents along old Route 66. Rick is a curmudgeonly security guard carrying on the three generation family tradition of guarding a large boulder (not a rock) as part of a roadside attraction on a bypassed section of the road. When the two meet head-on, memorable things are bound to happen. And I am just glad that I got to witness them myself.

Medusa has always been one of the most interesting and compelling figures in mythology. Both victim and monster, predator and prey. In Nora Louise Syran’s layered and rhapsodic 10-minute monologue, the legendary gorgon would like nothing more than to enjoy one last glass of wine before yet another questing hero arrives to either take her head or be petrified in the attempt. A fantastic character study of a woman frozen in time and preparing to meet her fate.

A nameless mortician laments the pending losses of both his family business and his marriage, when the young Jane Doe that he is about to cremate rises from the coffin and addresses him. Death is certainly in the air, but whose death exactly is still up in the air. Creepy and ghoulish - in the best way possible.

It wasn’t easy being Asian in America during World War II. And when you’re Hazel Ying Lee and you’re Asian and female and a pilot in the Women’s Airforce Service Pilot program and your plane just went down in a patch of rural farmland, things get even tougher. This short historical play tells Lee’s story with both humor and aplomb. And it’s timely too.

Jack needs to write his play, but nothing’s coming. Solution: invite over a talking monkey and a talking horse to work the story out, of course. As the three friends try to kick Jack’s creative process into gear, things go from zany to absurd as the critter from our writer’s imagination quite literally take the strings to guide our story to it’s surprising and satisfying conclusion. This is the sort of “Writers’ Play” that all audiences will love.

Braving sub-zero temperatures at a rooftop New Years Party is a bold endeavor. And so is writing a ten character ten-minute play. Matthew Weaver is up to the task though in the fun short romp that feature relationship old and new, both coming together and falling apart, on one city roof, one January 1st. You can almost feel the chilly air yourself. Extreme cold has never been this fun.

It’s all about the subtext in this taut ten-minute drama by Marshall Logan Gibbs. An elderly, West Virginia couple is sitting on their porch enjoying their summer beverages and reminiscing about childhood pastimes when a desperately lost young man arrives at their home seeking help as he flees away from one life and towards another. What starts as cautious altruism erupts into a violent and befuddling conclusion. Astute audiences will find themselves rewards by this subtle, yet brutal, short play.