Mark Contorno

Peter is from a wealthy family and along with his friend Ben, has just graduated college. Peter's father, Saul, intends for his son to go into the family business; however, Peter has a different idea. He and Ben want to travel the world to look for God. On their journey the boys experience both good and some compromising experiences. Eventually Peter breaks from his and Ben’s vow to search for God and leaves to live in the physical world while Ben stays on the path. When Peter’s father dies, he and Ben are reunited again at Saul’s shiva. There they realize that the God they were looking for was always there.

Marty O’Brien is a middle-aged gay man who had such playwright potential when he moved to New York from Chicago in his 20’s. He had an Off-Broadway success with his play, THIS CRAZY LIFE. It was that was bound for Broadway but derailed by infighting and creative differences between the producer and director.
Thirty years later and back in his hometown Chicago we find Marty working for minimum age at a UPS store and looking in of his best friend, a 90-year-old woman named Ellie. He continues to get his “theatre fix” working evenings directing small productions whenever he gets the opportunity.
One night after waxing the past and with the help of friends he decides to revive his play THIS CRAZY LIFE.

This is a musical revue starring some famous dolls and some not so famous or known. Its purpose is to celebrate dolls and the places that they’ve held in our lives.

Barton is a married man who’s struggling with his sexuality. He attends a party one night where he has intimate contact with another man. After that evening Barton starts to frequent going to a gay bar. One afternoon he meets Jack and there is a spark between them. They pursue a relationship that’s sort of bumpy given Barton is married to a woman and Jack is more or less being kept by an older man.
Barton bares his soul to his therapist, Paul weekly and Jack does the same with his therapist, Sharon who unbeknownst to him is Barton’s wife.

It’s Christmas Eve and two middle-aged men, unknown to each other, accidentally meet on the rooftop of the high-rise condo building where they both live.

It’s Chicago ... 1957. Greek-American, Gus Cristakos, is the husband and father of
two sons and a lovely daughter. He is also the owner of Gus’s Diner that he runs along with his eldest son, John. He has what some may call the perfect life, but he is having an affair with Myrna, one of the diner’s waitresses. Myrna tired of being Gus’s mistress confronts him and the unthinkable happens. Will Gus have committed the perfect crime? Maybe ... until Myrna’s twin sister, Verna, comes to town.

A prostitute and a hustler meet on a corner late at night in Los Angeles. They spark a conversation that evolves into a romantic relationship that becomes more and more combative and destructive until there's no relationship left to destroy.

It’s 1979 and following his dream and his heart twenty-six-year-old Michael Morretti has just moved to New York with the hope of adding his name to the lengthy list of Broadway playwrights. Looking for somewhere to live he answers an “Room for Rent” ad placed by the elderly and quirky Egil Hansen. Their first encounter is awkward, but soon it becomes evident that these two strangers were destined to become the best of friends

Uncle Jason and his niece Angie go thrifting together. Jason finds this large statue of Jesus that he's obsessed with. He just has to have it and buys it. He takes it home and what happens next? The statue comes to life and kind of tells Jason "how it is."

This is a collection of 10 short 6-8 minute plays that talk about romances that were interrupted by different circumstances from murder to cheating on your girl/boy friend.

The Harlequin is the story of how three unlikely people meet in New York in 2007 and how each, in spite of their personal struggles, come together for one common purpose.

Peter Edelstein, a gay man in his 50s, who eight months ago lost his job at a prestigious Wall Street law firm, now faces another loss. He has been evicted from his co-op on West 90th Street and is homeless. Peter crosses paths with Matthew O’Malley, an aspiring musician, who has just moved to New York from Toronto, Canada. Matthew is staying at a west side hostel, but is quickly running out of money and, like Peter, will soon have no place to live. As serendipity would have it, they both meet an aging chanteuse named Julie Arthur. Julie offers Peter and Matthew lodging in an old abandoned theatre that she owns on the Lower East Side called The Harlequin. In exchange, Matthew becomes Julie’s musical director for the one-woman show she is trying to put together. This new show is to be her big return to the New York cabaret circuit.

Things start to turn grim when Julie finds out that The Harlequin is about to go into foreclosure and that real estate mogul George Clancy has plans to knock it down and build luxury condos. Julie had taken a huge loan out on the building to help out her nephew, Leonard, with what he described as a “sure fire” business venture. Unfortunately, the business venture went bust and the loan could not be paid. Now, not only have no payments been made, but Leonard is nowhere to be found.

The Harlequin has always been the heart and soul of Julie. It remains her only connection to her once-shining past and all its beloved memories. She and her late husband, Henry, bought the old vaudeville house in the early 1950s and performed together on its stage for many years.

Peter and Matthew make it their mission to help Julie keep possession of The Harlequin indulging in a crazy scheme to raise the money and save it from the wrecking ball.

The clock is ticking and time is running out. Will the Harlequin be saved in the nick of time or will greed win out and dreams be dashed?

Meet Jim Whitmore, a 50-year old, handsome, bachelor who recently took early retirement from working as a psychologist for the State of Illinois. As Jim tries to navigate his life post retirement, his brother and sister-in-law are determined to finally find him a wife. They invite Jim to dinner and surprise him with a guest named Valerie and the two of them seem to really “hit it off.” Has Jim finally found his perfect mate? Or will Cupid shoot his arrow in a gay direction?