Terry Glaser

Who has not struggled with the ambition of finding true love, of daring to act – even though it might lead to a terrible mistake – and of finally taking the plunge into the unknown territory of commitment? Is it possible to trust in love again after your heart has been broken? This is the critical question for a group of college students struggling to forge their identities as they teeter on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood. Fern has been jilted by her boyfriend Zach; Oliver’s heartthrob, Angela, has left him to join an ashram; Cooper’s trying to tame his libido; and Luna just wants to pass her final exams. Although Fern and Oliver have both sworn to never love again, they find a common bond through their shared experience of loss. When their friendship threatens to overstep its bounds and turn to love, however, romantic chaos ensues. It’s all complicated by the bumbling attempts of Cooper and Luna to bring the two together, and obstructed by the passionate Damien, who has designs on Fern, himself. Throw in a brilliant but clueless doctoral candidate who manages to confuse things even more, and you have all the ingredients for a light-hearted yet touching exploration of love lost and unexpectedly found.

THE TROJAN FOLLIES immerses the audience in the world of the Trojan War, as seen through an absurdist lens that intermingles poetry and prose, vulgar jokes, pratfalls, and passionate explorations of fundamental beliefs. THE TROJAN FOLLIES starts with the genesis of the war as Zeus’s plan to rid Earth of excess humanity, continues with the Judgement of Paris, includes events from all ten years of the war, and culminates in the destruction of Troy and the fate of Helen and the Trojan women who are left alive after the war is over. With the women of Troy reclaiming their narratives, THE TROJAN FOLLIES mirrors our own world in its depiction of the devastation and futility of war, and in the ironic overturning of traditional views of honor, chivalry, patriotism, loyalty, and truth.

Love, vengeance, and slapstick are scrambled together in crazy combinations of youthful romance, aging lust, clever servants, foolish masters, and a host of zany townsfolk, all skewered to reveal the foibles that bind us in a common humanity. It all begins when Pantalone, the town's most powerful citizen, stirs up a hornet's nest of unrest. He woos his son's sweetheart, bites his servant on the arm, and pits himself against friend and foe alike, including a tango-dancing soldier and a bogus academic. The aggrieved citizens hatch a plot to get revenge on Pantalone and save the young lovers by enlisting the services of the local baker, Pulcinella, a dental-guild drop-out with a bagful of terrifying tools. It's a collision course of physical stunts and verbal fireworks to make Pantalone fall for the ruse and allow the lovers to wed – or does Pantalone sense the scam and take his revenge in return? THE DENTIST revels in its blatant theatricality and audience participation, as we come together as strangers, only to discover all the things we have in common – the desire to right wrongs, achieve justice, find true love, and live happily ever after.

"Pardon My Greed!" takes as its inspiration “The Pardoner’s Prologue” and “The Pardoner’s Tale” from Chaucer’s "The Canterbury Tales." In this adaptation, Chaucer himself is a character who introduces the Pardoner, who explains his lucrative business of selling papal pardons for sins (indulgences). The Pardoner denounces greed as the root of all evil and illustrates his point with a play about three wastrels who set out to kill Death but, through their avarice, end up killing each other instead. With ribald humor and poetry, "Pardon My Greed!" exposes the hypocrisy of the Pardoner’s actions, and the greedy Pardoner as the epitome of a man who practices what he preaches against.

Is it possible to trust in love again after your heart has been broken? Marivaux answers this question in his comedy of 1727, given fresh life in this sparkling new adaptation by Terry Glaser. Flaminia, newly widowed and in mourning, and Dorante, abandoned by his lover who chose a convent over marriage, have both sworn to never love again. They find a common bond through their shared experience of loss, but when their friendship threatens to overstep its bounds and turn to love, romantic chaos ensues. It’s all complicated by the bumbling attempts of their servants to bring the two together, and obstructed by the passionate Eraste, who has designs on Flaminia, himself. Throw in the resident philosopher Hortensius, who manages to confuse things even more, and you have all the ingredients for a light-hearted yet touching exploration of love lost and unexpectedly found.

With its mixture of transcendent poetry, scatological slapstick, and sharp satire, THE FROGS makes the case for the arts, particularly theatre, as a means of salvation for our war-prone society.

The god Dionysos and his slave Xanthias travel to the underworld in order to bring the great tragic poet Euripides back to earth so that mankind may benefit from his counsel. On the way to hell, the travelers encounter a variety of gods and demi-gods eager to either help or hinder them.

Once in Pluto's realm, Dionysos judges a contest between Euripides and Aeschylos. In a virtuoso display of literary satire, Aristophanes pits the two poets' writing styles and visions of society against each other, coming to a startling and enlightening conclusion for the best way to save a civilization imploding under the weight of its own achievements.

Taking its inspiration from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, "Bath Time "opens with Chaucer sitting in the Tabard Inn with a bad case of writer’s block. Enter the Wife of Bath, seeking shelter from the springtime rain, as she makes her way to Canterbury on pilgrimage to atone for her lusty sins. To pass the time, she tells Chaucer a story about an ignoble knight who is transformed into a man of honor with the help of a wise old crone. With ribald humor and poetry, she not only solves Chaucer’s writer’s block, but she also answers the age-old question: What do women really want?

Raymond Chandler meets Ovid in this madcap noir version of the story of the abduction of Persephone and the origin of the four seasons. Jaded gumshoe Phillipides joins forces with Persephone’s mom, the goddess Demeter, and a host of denizens of Greek mythology, including a babbling fountain and a whiny Apollo tired of toting the sun around the cosmos, to find Persephone and bring springtime back to earth. It all hinges on a stoned satyr, the fastidious King of the Underworld, and a pomegranate...