This is my friend Michael.

On Wednesday, three of his comic shorts will be performed at The Woolly Mammoth Theatre.

The first play, Seat Yourself, centers on a couple at a restaurant who are harassed by an impossible waiter with a silly accent who doubts the man’s existence. The second play, Pompa y Circunstancia, focuses on a pair of brothers who miscommunicate about a graduation day prank. Both shorts have received accolades in recent Theatre Oxford’s 10-Minute Play contests.

The evening will conclude with Michael’s one-act play, Porcupine. It is a fictional take on Sigmund Freud’s 1909 visit to America, where, according to Michael, “he delivers a series of lectures and searches for his inner porcupine.” The action takes place in the Adirondacks where Freud and his psychologist contemporaries indulge in “a few days of deep thoughts, high silliness, and various mental and physical competitions.”

I cannot tell you how much I think you ought to go if you live anywhere near D.C. Michael is brilliant and quirky and creative and funny and well-versed on nearly every subject (even if he disagrees with my classification of The Thin Man as slapstick film noir). Check out his latest YouTube video if you doubt my sincerity.

I’ve been to readings of his last two plays, Artist and Protector of Children: The Life of Henry Darger and The Quick Brown Fox Jumped over the Lazy Dogs, at the Kennedy Center and particularly raved about the latter (skip down to the sixth paragraph) because of his playful yet meaningful use of language.

The reading is at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26, at 641 D St., N.W., in Washington, D.C. Presented by the the PlayGround Playwrights and directed by Kerri Rambow, the evening’s fun is free — but would be well worth it even if you had to pay.