Recommended by Steven G. Martin

Flirty, sexy and low-key funny. Cast a pair of actors with serious on-stage chemistry in the roles of Chris and Sam and this one-minute comedy will appeal to audiences and performers alike.

And don't rush the dialogue -- this is a one-minute play that becomes better the more the full minute is used.

I enjoyed a performance of David Hansen's "Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick)" that was romantic, comic and serious when it needed to be. Hansen's writing beautifully creates two willful characters and their journey in such a way that the audience can understand how they became who are they are in "Much Ado About Nothing."

The wit and wordplay are in full bloom as is the double heart as romance ensues. Give Hansen ample credit for not forcing the characters through strange situations and stimuli in order to arrive where they do. Plot and character development flow naturally...

There so much to enjoy in George Sapio's short play: backstory and given circumstances I've never imagined; a setting both disturbing and romantic; characters with competing agendas, both of which are soul-crushing in different ways; a microscopically detailed worldview that is beyond relevant to today's world; twists and turns to the story that'll shake an audience.

"Messages" is marvelous and deserves a rich, robust production history. It's entertaining and engrossing, and it'll remind people of realities that often go unseen. Marvelous.

Kara Maddox and Bryan Stubbles capture the pulse-pounding chaos in horror stories in this short play. "You're It" has classic tropes actors and audiences alike will enjoy squirming and screaming about. This would be a perfect play for a Halloween- or horror-themed event.

Ellen Koivisto has written a pleasant, endearing, recognizable and comfortable drama. Reading "Dog and Human" feels similar to looking at photo albums whose images were taken several years apart.

Dark, satiric content beneath a bubblegum pink, or wallpaper yellow, veneer.

Catherine Weingarten's dialogue is tremendous and I love the few anachronistic flourishes that will make a person question just when in the 1900s "1900s Women Bonding" is set ... or lead a person to realize this has been the reality for several, several years.

Rachel Bublitz's monologue about how a shift in the times impacts a person's sense of well-being and self-worth strikes even harder on this very day, when an even larger shift has occurred in women's rights.

Through her protagonist Blue, Bublitz shows how aggressions against a person's Jewish identity build upon each other, how they lead to a horrible cycle of more aggressions. Miranda Jonte's June 24 performance of "Blue" on the virtual Back Porch Theater made the tension, unease, fear and exhaustion absolutely clear.

"Blue" should have a robust set of productions. It is gigantic.

This is a terrific, acid-tipped monologue that stings and burns even more in retrospect. Read it, listen to it at least twice.

With barely a nod of exposition, John Mabey makes the backstory and the stakes for Jules and the unseen audience abundantly clear.

I loved the June 22 performance of "Secret Ingredient" on Back Porch Theater on Facebook. Actor Miranda Jonte was brilliant in letting viewers feel Jules' tumultuous emotions although they were strongly under wraps. I gasped at the suddenness of the ending and its devastating insinuations.

The conflict that Paul Donnelly creates in "Family Visitation" makes my blood boil, will make anyone's blood boil. The surface conflict is simple -- can Randy pass through a door or not? -- but the forces behind the conflict are deep, complex and emotionally bristling. Credit Paul Donnelly for creating a conflict and characters so clear that an audience will know, sickeningly, how the play will end.

I enjoy how Adam Richter is neatly juxtaposing the scope of humanity's problems in this short dark comedy. There's the universal, gargantuan, save-the-human race conflict paired with the intimate, human-versus-self conflict created from bullying and memories of bullying. "You Don't Own My Soul Anymore" is a treat to read and I think audiences would enjoy it as well.