Sandra de Helen

The play is a portrayal of Tennessee Williams as a man in his prime, after he's had success, and after he's suffered the loss of the great love of his life. Tennessee laughs too loud, drinks too much, takes too many pills. He appears extroverted in order to compensate for the introverted, painfully shy Tom inside. Michael shows us the real man, the self-destructive, fearful poet who loves too much, and makes us love him in the process.

Forty years ago, four sets of conjoined twins met and formed a consciousness-raising rap group. They bonded over their experiences as twins, as being conjoined, and of being discriminated against. Together they explored ways to help them evolve, and one thing they did was to ask people to stop referring to them as Siamese or conjoined. They preferred the term “extraordinary people.”
Now they gather again, this time to bury one set of twins. They learn about their experiences over the ensuing decades. Medical advances have allowed for the separation of one set, self-separation caused another. The reunion brings them together again, in much different ways.
This is a comedy.

Why did Apollo bring down a plague on the citizens of Thebes? Someone must have messed up royally. But who?
The plague: The Theban men—Oedipus and his pals Tmolus, Dictys and Aristotle (Tom, Dic, and Ari)—can’t hold a logical thought for ten consecutive seconds; The Theban women have been afflicted with trays permanently affixed to their left hands, no two alike. (Jocasta’s is a breakfast tray, Episiotome’s a medicine tray, Tracheotome’s an ash tray (she had just given up smoking!) Pistophone’s a waitress tray. Helen and Mediocrite and Calliope share the same fate. But does it have to be their fate?
Oedipus is the king, he should do something. He solved the Sphinx’s riddle. But now, like the other men, he is too befuddled to figure out the role he has played in the tragedy. Tiresias, a 200-year-old blind prophet is summoned for his advice. But Tiresias, once a he, has recently become a she and is more interested in knowing why she doesn’t have a tray. Is she not a real woman? No, she’s simply not a Theban.
Tiresias advises the women of Thebes to invoke the Goddess for help. The Goddess—not at all how they had pictured her—responds to their incantations. She has an idea for lifting the womens’ plague without the men returning to their pre-plague misogynistic logic. Will it work? Will Oedipus figure out his role in the tragedy and do his duty? Will Apollo call off his punishment? The women are not so sure. The men are clueless.

When Serena and Annie move, Annie’s cat Gilda disappears. Meanwhile, OCA looms.
Serena becomes attracted to co-worker Marcus, realizes all she’s ever wanted is a family, and questions her sexuality.
Taylor has a dream and feels guilty about Serena’s having been abused by the step-father. This episode sparks ‘Dine’s resentment of Serena and she tells Serena how she feels. Serena threatens to tell Taylor about the kiss she once shared with ‘Dine.
Taylor is overwhelmed with guilt, as the news of the kiss brings back memories of her failings as a mother.
At the election night rally, OCA loses and Serena announces that she will marry Marcus.
Marcus dumps Serena. Gilda is found, Annie takes Serena back, and they think maybe two lesbians and a cat make a family after all.

Two young, upper class women named Rose end up in an asylum together. It’s 1940 and Dr. Freeman is on the cutting edge of mental health. The Roses are attended by Tee and Flora, who have obstacles of their own to overcome.

Tomboy McCorkle is a young Butch lesbian assuming the responsibility for her crime family upon the death of her brother Bobby after his murder. Her men don’t look forward to being led by a woman, let alone a lesbian; she hasn’t yet found love at the age of 33; her family is in conflict with the di Mayos over rum-running, and she has a younger brother to take care of. Things get worse when her sister-in-law turns up asking for help, and she learns that the family consigliere not only disappeared but has probably killed her brother. Tomboy has to take control and fast.

Sandra is seven when her father dies of a massive heart attack. Her mother is left with two young daughters, a house she can't afford, and nothing else. It is 1951 in rural Missouri. Despairing, Helen considers suicide, even murder, before quickly remarrying in order to support her daughters.
Helen's mother, Maggie does what she can to provide emotional support for Helen, Sandra and baby Alberta. But she and her husband Cliff, Helen's stepfather, are even poorer than Helen. They're still raising Cliff's daughter Faye, whose older sister Inez has married and begun having children of her own.
Sandra grows up with a mother who becomes an alcoholic, remarries again and again. She gets pregnant and married at fifteen to an abusive, alcoholic man only three years her senior.
When Cliff dies, Maggie auctions off everything she owns and moves in with Helen and Alberta.
Maggie is the primary emotional support for her entire family, so it is no surprise that Maggie is the person Sandra first comes out to when she realizes she is a lesbian.
Throughout the play, we are shown how death, poverty, even abuse is overcome with the strength and pervasiveness of love.

Lesbian immigrant from Mexico living in Oregon is visited by a puma while rehearsing for a concert. Puma is transformed into a woman when they profess their love for each other. Unfortunately, the young singer loses her attraction for Puma when she sees her in human years. Puma has a broken heart, and no skills, no home, no one to care for her as an old woman.

Two lesbians of a certain age have their first date online -- in the early days of a pandemic. The Zoom technology is as new to them as they are to each other. Will there be sparks?