Recommended by Dan West

Who doesn’t love a good mad scientist farce? Well, I bet you wouldn’t if you were an erstwhile alchemist/traveller abducted during your journeys and bound to a table to have your brain bisected by the deranged Dr. Hossenpfeffer. Luckily neither you nor I are in such a quandary , so we can all enjoy this short, comedic Sam Heyman two-hander and laugh to our hearts content as we watch The Traveler attempt through wit and wile to escape their dastardly predicament. Such great fun.

Rich and Dorethea Helms have written a heartfelt short play about loss and memory and when to let go of the objects from our past (and when to hold onto them). This piece will touch any and all audience members that have either lost a parent to death or may be losing one to dementia.

It's not easy being a teen in the early mid-21st century. Constant feelings of panic, mom thinks you're a demon, your psychiatrist wants to give you Adderall when what you really need is Prozac... And then your absentee father shows up, and he is not at all what you expected... It's enough to drive a girl crazy. And make and audience go nuts with laughter. This is one smartly written and downright hilarious one-act. Devilishly funny.

The Peter Principle states that employees will rise to the level of their incompetence. But what if you were never qualified to begin with? What if you weren't even sure what the job was or why you were doing it? How far could you rise then? In this short absurdist farce, a solitary man hired to participate in an unexplained scavenger hunts learns that success is often achieved by setting your questions aside and simply following directions. There is a lot chew on here. And I quite enjoyed the chewing.

The world can be a stressful place. And it is totally natural to want to withdraw from it from time to time. It is also natural to want to share your sanctuary with those you love. It is less natural to lead your beloved to a self-excavated catacomb far beneath the earth with the intent of spending the rest of your days there. And yet, this is where we find Doug and his boyfriend Lynn - and Lynn is not impressed. An earnestly dark and thoughtful tale about what in means to find solace in the darkness.

Father Dan is just finishing up the days confessional when an unrecognized woman shows up with unique problem to confess. During the next ten minutes; the Father is forced examine his beliefs, explore exactly how much he is willing to accept on faith, and determine if he is even qualified to assist the very special parishioner at all. A short play that earns its laughs while leaving you ponder far weightier matters.

The world is filled with people haunted by the ghosts of their pasts. But what about the ghosts of our future? In Christopher Plumridge’s “Samantha’s Friend”, we bear witness to a ten year “haunting” of young Samantha (just four when we meet her) and her parents by a mysterious “imaginary friend” whose portents become more and more foreboding as the family closes in on a calamitous (and perhaps inevitable?) point in time. Haunting, chilling, and finally quite moving. This is a terrific short suspenser.

In Joseph Jones’ “Unclaimed”, a man arrives at an airport after a long flight only to discover that is luggage (or perhaps his baggage) has not arrived with him. In his attempts to navigate the airport’s complex and labyrinthine “lost luggage” protocol, he is both assisted and hindered by an airline employee who he is forced to to meet for the first time over and over again. This darkly absurd and Kafkaesque one act comedy will drive you mad and leave you laughing all at the same time.

Another good reason to keep your cats as indoor cats. When Jen and Lilly’s beloved feline, Roger, drags in an injured, baby…something, the two women are forced to figure out what exactly to do with it: Nurture it back to health, put it out of its misery, or toss it back outside. I am not sure what the correct choice might be, but it’s not the one that our two heroines made. Darkly funny and terrifying, this short piece makes great use of both lighting and atmosphere in delivering its story to great effect.

What happens when our smart speakers and digital assistants and AI chatbots start getting to know us better than we know ourselves? When the technology we choose to integrate with starts integrating back? Adam is not a perfect man and he would like to become better. For his own sake. And for the sake of his wife Eve. In this tightly constructed, short science fiction play, we discover what could happen if we hand over too much control of our own humanity to our personal tech and reach the point of no return. It’s scary.