Recommended by Dan West

Casey has an unhealthy relationship with her pantry. But this year that’s going to change…right?
Not if Cookie, Ice Cream, and Chip have anything to say about it. Maybe Kale can save the day - if only he weren’t so weird and stringy. A clever and identifiable short play about the struggles so many of us face with maintaining a healthy diet. A fun kitchen cautionary tale for all ages.

Professional wrestling is probably the closest thing we have in our modern age to the Shakespearian Theater of the Elizabethan era - grandiose characters, lavish soliloquies, gross physicality, and targeted toward a mass audience. Brent Alles' "Unbelted" takes us behind the scenes on Christmas Day to witness the cashiering of one of these legendary thespians as he gets "traded it" for a new model. Hard-hitting and authentic - this one will bodyslam you.

Two wounded and perhaps dying creatures, a tiger and a thief, are fallen afoul of the same hunting party and are confronted with spending one last dark night together. Will they be each other doom or can such disparate beasts find common grounds? Abhisek Bhattacharya’s ten minute fable delves into not just the question of man versus nature but finds time to address the topics a class struggle and parental sacrifice as well. A beautiful and deeply moving tale.

Not all Christmas spirits can be the angel at the top of the tree. In fact someone of them might just be gruesome bottom dwellers arisen from the bowels of Christmas past. And, if you should be invited to a holiday party where one is in attendance, be prepared to skip the eggnog - and to have a horrifyingly fun time.

Who doesn’t like an all-female, burlesque-style, musical version of A Christmas Carol? Any self-respecting actress apparently. Director Marco and his assistant Shayna are holding auditions for Marco’s magnum opus and things have been going less than swimmingly when in walks…Helen. Will she be the golden voiced ingenue that Marco has been waiting for or will she just one more talentless set of boobs with too much make-up - and would Marco know the difference if he saw it. This fun and funny 10-minute farce will make even Scrooge smile.

Alan is an accountant with a problem - so neurotic that he attends therapy six out seven days a week. Today he arrives late, only to discover he's a day early - or perhaps not. From there we get to watch from our seats as his reality comes crashing down around him at the hands of his frustrated therapist and an interfering stage manager. An incredibly clever pastiche of the reality genre that breaks the fourth wall, then patched it up again, only to smash through it once more. Bravo, Mr. Braverman.

Booker is a working class bouncer hired by the exclusive Golden Egg Cream Gold Club to keep his own kind from mixing with its beau monde membership. But when fellow member of the hoi polloi, Ruggamon, opens his eyes to the disparity and unfairness in the system, Booker must choose whether to follow his heart, or his wallet. This tightly paced and flat out funny 10-minute comedy slyly mixes its humor with the kind of social commentary that leaves you thinking long after you’ve left the theater

Muses can be fickle things. Showing up and their own schedule and never when you need their divine creative spark the most. Shirtless young hunks on the other hand, will never let you down. At least according to this hilarious short play by Donald Baker, they won’t. When inspiration collides with infatuation there can only be one winner; and, in this case, it’s the audience.

Resting in Peace ain’t easy when you a ghost in a busy Roman tourist motel. Especially when it’s one frequented by spoiled foreign high school students on expensive class trips and their harried (yet progressively minded) chaperones. A fun and esoteric ten minute ghost story.

There is a lot to unpack here. Girlypop True Crime podcaster Lucy has fled to a seedy Pittsburgh motel ostensibly for content purposes, but really to escape her attentively dominating boyfriend and make a bodily choice of which he (and the sponsors) would certainly not approve. While there she encounters the mythical child slayer Medea, who encourages to take control of her own life - and perhaps take the lives of those that stand in her way. Be prepared to get punched in the gut more than once. And to like it. Powerful stuff here.