In the panhandle of Nebraska, two actresses of a certain age are making a homecoming in their dying small town. Jane's in from L.A. to check up on her ailing mother, Alma. Andrea's back from New York to bury her father. Will a disappearing dot on the map of the Great Plains provide a second act for each of them? In the quiet of their hometown — and with two local men entering their old stomping ground — the women are moved to explore feelings about lost parents, thwarted aspirations and what it means to be successful, leading to a showdown between Jane and her plainspoken mother. It's a new rueful comedy about the urge to be creative, the itch to move away and the ache of reconnecting with the family and feelings that you thought you left behind.

HOLLYWOOD, NEBRASKA is available for licensing through the playwright. Visit ByKennethJones.com.

From the Playwright: Unlike my plays TWO HENRYS, ALABAMA STORY, TENNESSEE WILLIAMS DRANK HERE and CIRCA 1976, this one doesn’t have threads of social justice woven into it. It's a sadness-streaked Chekhovian family comedy about show people looking in the mirror and trying to figure out who they are in a time of personal crossroads. One audience member at a talkback asked, "What's at stake for the main character, Jane?" My answer was, "Everything!" An L.A. actress in her forties is often an invisible creature, and Jane is trying to figure out where she fits in the world, professionally, personally, romantically. The past and present collide in her hometown, a place where "dying" things are constantly referenced. It's ultimately a hope-filled play about living — and what it means to live a "creative life."

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A theatergoer at a reading of the play Off-Broadway billed it as THE RAINMAKER, BROADWAY BOUND & STEEL MAGNOLIAS combined. "I wanna call my mom," she said of the bittersweet comedy about parents and children. That sounds about right to me. It's also sexy and funny and warm. Comfort food that makes you think, to mix a metaphor.