The Agony & the Agony by Nicky Silver
   

THE STORY: Richard Aglow is a failure. A once-promising playwright, he finds himself a virtual shut-in with only rejection letters to amuse himself. Until today. He's started writing again! And as luck would have it, inspiration has hit on the very day his wife, Lela, an aspiring actress who married Richard despite his homosexuality, has met one of New York's leading producers. This is Richard's chance, a golden opportunity to get back in the game. Of course, he'll have to overlook the fact that the producer about to arrive is the man who wrote that last rejection, the one that broke Richard's spirit. The arrival of Lela's lover, his pregnant girlfriend and the ghost of one of the twentieth century's most notorious killers complicate matters further. THE AGONY & THE AGONY is the story of one evening when secrets are revealed, dreams are realized, and hopes are dashed. It captures the loneliness and real desperation of what it means to have "a life in the theater."

boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

THE STORY:  The less-than-romantic couple at the center of boom is Jules, a marine biologist, and Jo, a journalism student. She shows up one night in Jules’s small underground laboratory on a university campus, having answered an online ad for a hookup that promises “sex to change the course of the world.” During his research on a deserted tropical island, he discovered patterns among the behavior of fish that seemed to portend a premature end to most forms of earthly life. So he has turned his tiny lab /apartment into a place to wait out the disaster and begin remaking humanity.  His being gay poses a bit of a problem, of course. So does Jo’s attitude toward babies: She hates the very idea of them. Will love flourish anyway? Will life as we know it survive? Barbara, a starchy, name-tag-wearing woman in a crisp black uniform is our guide for what appears to be a sort of theme-park installation portraying the end of civilization thousands of years earlier. She animates Jules and Jo by pulling levers and plays percussive accompaniment to the story’s more dramatic moments.

 Beware The Man Eating Chicken 
                                          by Henry Meyerson                                                     

THE STORY: In her desire to be a good mother to her son William, Betty comes up with a plan to “make him bigger and make him a Winner”.  To that end, she enters him in the “Fattest Man in the Universe” contest, and she will stop at nothing to win.  Carole, Betty’s younger sister, too weak to stand up to Betty’s threats and intimidation, is forced to assist in the continuous rounds of cooking the unlimited number of chickens needed each every day for William’s inexorable assault on hugeness.  Captain Leonard of the Board of Health comes to inquire about the “large carnivore” that is consuming a large quantity of chickens a day.  At first he is initially only an annoying bureaucrat, but ultimately becomes something completely different to William.   Albert, claiming to own one of the largest chicken farms in the U.S. arrives to present and negotiate a deal to use William’s picture as the logo of his product.  The deal is struck.  But when Dorothy, Albert’s sister, suddenly arrives claiming she is the true owner of the chicken farm, sparks fly and a struggle between the siblings ensues.  But it is Doctor Martin who brings the tragic conclusion to Betty’s plan for achieving her goals for her son and of motherhood.

 

A Musical Comedy
Book by Donald Ward and Bill Solly
Music and Lyrics by Bill Solly

THE STORY:  The year is 1936, the place is prim-and-proper London, yet in the society wedding of the year - breathlessly covered by all the newspapers - the happy couple consists of two men. The fact that no one finds this in any way unusual leaves the musical free to deal, not with angst and depression, but with fast-moving intrigue, high spirits and the universal problems that might beset any two people who fall in love.  When handsome foreign correspondent Casey O'Brien misses out on the story of the decade - the Abdication - he focuses instead on the nuptials of Boston millionaire Clarence Cutler, whose intended is a British aristocrat, the Honourable Guy Rose. Casey's rival newsmen fool him into thinking the mousy Guy is a famous beauty ("The English Rose"). Then when the latter fails to turn up at the church, Casey turns the jilting into a sensational headline, and has to come up with a photograph to back up his story. Meanwhile, the real Guy is right under Casey's nose, trying to live up to his legend. The mismatched pair eventually form a bond with memories of the Boy Scouts ("It's a Boy's Life"), and then true love produces a magical transformation ("You're Beautiful"). Later the action moves from London to Paris, and Guy's aunt Josephine, the racy star of Les Folies de Paris, which features a female chorus line - and male strippers.The score features one exquisite song after another: from the famous ballad "Does Anybody Love You?", to the bright "Let"s!", a Folies Bergeres number "It's a Dolly" and the ironic duet, "Giving it Up For Love".

 The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? by Edward Albee

THE STORY: Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is probably the strangest theatre experience since last year's The Play About the Baby, also by Albee. The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? starts off conventionally and even realistically.  The family housed there is headed by Martin, an architect who has won the prestigious Pritzker Prize, has obtained the contract to design a mammoth living community in the nation's heartland, and is celebrating his fiftieth birthday.  Despite his many accomplishments, Martin is faced with two problems of great significance to him. First, his 18 year-old son Billy has recently come out of the closet, and it has been very difficult for Martin to accept the implications of that. Perhaps more significantly, for the last six months, Martin has been having an affair with Sylvia.  And yes, Sylvia is a goat.Martin's fall from glory, because of his love for an animal, is significant enough, but it is his wife  Stevie who rounds on Martin about his infidelity, that’s truly stinging; she gets right to Martin's heart.