Piccolo Theatre's second annual First Laugh One-Act Festival presents five solid, extremely resourceful small-cast comic shorts, after which everyone gets a slip of paper and is invited to nominate shows for best plot, best characters, and best dialogue. My top pick was one and the same across the board: Thinking Sacks of Meat by Yolanda D. Carney. Probably the finest meat-encased minds in modern theater, its protagonists, a hot dog and burger patty, catch a case of the morbs while on the grill moments before they're meant to die and become a meal. With tantalizing ingenuity, they theorize about meat-based reincarnation, experience meat-based existential crises, and even flaunt linguistic chops. While it's puzzling how a sausage in an icebox could have picked up slang I've heard only Bill Bojangles use, it's also deliciously fun. —Jena Cutie

Price: $20, $15 students