Recommended by Dan West

Ken Love writes challenging plays. Plays that provoke their audiences to gaze deep into the souls of his troubled characters and then dare us to not to identify with them. Why would this short Christmas play do anything different? When a holiday traveler picks up a lonely hitchhiker on Christmas Eve, he quickly learns that not every Yuletide homecoming is a festive one. More than just the weather is chilling this season.

What do you do if a ghost returns the morning after it’s been exorcised? Maybe deny its existence. Perhaps try to kill it again. Maybe take a turn to the meta and engage in out of character digressions. Paul Donnelly’s familiar characters try all three in this brilliant send up of Edward Albee classic play. And this time is not just for fun and games. What would Nick and Honey think? I dunno, but I loved it.

Being interviewed for a job can be an overwhelming proposition, especially is that job is one for which you are overwhelmingly unqualified. But Sam has a solution for this dilemma - lie. Lie, lie and keep lying. And hope the person that is doing the interviewing is just as under-qualified as you. Tom Erb explores just such a scenario in his ten-minute “The Interview” to hilarious effect. The escalating outrageousness will leave the audience rolling in the aisles.

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