Dale Perreault

Cordial brings Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Reveries of the Solitary Walker” to a college classroom, a prison yard, an assisted living facility reading group, and an airport while waiting interminably for a flight to Paris, en route to presenting a paper on the author at his final lodging place in Ermenonville, France.

A skeletal benefactor presides over an annual banquet he had bequeathed funding for, a spread populated by a beset table of malcontents vying for the garland wreath of most wretched. Loosely adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Christmas Banquet."

In the French spa town of Aigu, Réjuve and le Docteur take the waters and discourse on ailments, maladies, and thermal hydrology. Their discreet tryst is interrupted by a macabre Bluebeard-themed tour stopping at the wellspring. The notorious Duke has become apocryphally associated with the town, and his ubiquity threatens to overrun the idyllic charm of scenic and psychic landscapes.

A newly hired elevator operator attempts to break free of his predecessor's storied reputation with his own transformative vision of the elevator as a destination in itself rather than a means to a destination. The building owner would rather it be a Penthouse Express, and residents may ride the freight elevator.

The annual town meeting in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. Tonight, the Stage Manager must take a seat, as the Moderator and his gavel are in charge of the proceedings. A chorus of townfolk vote on bridge repair, dump hours on Satiddy mornings and who might possibly be the best candidate to administer the new Grover's Corners Historical Society. A special appearance by Mrs. Stage Manager.

In 1922 Prague, 337 year old E.M. and a 1 year old R.U.R. meet at the Obecní dům café for an afternoon Tarot reading of three cards from the Greater and Lesser Arcana.

With the polar caps melting and the seas about to turn to lemonade, Cordial enlists Mr. and Mrs. Moot to remake Moot Farm into a Fourier Society abounding in work pleasure, Opera Cabal, the butterfly passion, various corteges, plumes, and the 4 significant apples of history - on the way to Harmony. Another Utopia of plenty, the supermarket Eden Fair, is within walking distance and has air conditioning.

Miser Harpagon returns to bedevil the dying Madame de La Touche into signing over her assets to him rather than her faithless godson.

Hesiod has written his Theogony without invoking the Muses, who demand acknowledgment. Muse of Music Euterpe intervenes on behalf of her sisters. Their mother Mnemosyne (Memory) attempts to appease their fury.

In 1993 New York City, radio station Allegro FM plays bouncy classical music and consistently bests rival Andante FM within key dayparts in many recent quarterly ratings books, but radio has been known to be a volatile medium.

In the Athenian agora, Tragus hopes to revive the tradition of Socratic/Platonic dialogue with Turgides, whose tragedy didn't fare well at the recent City Dionysia festival. The Muses of Tragedy and Comedy, Melpomene and Thalia offer trenchant dramaturgical input. A Chorus of Agora Echoes chimes in. Prize winner Telos grandly enters to humiliate Turgides further.

At the End of the Iron Age, a married couple bickers over finances and a Penny Man pauses to take a chin rest while shoveling their accumulated pennies.

Amid the Cosmorama of mid-19th century New York, Publicity and Hyperbole scatter the Penny Press with wartime amusement in boldface and exclamation points. And relate the tall travels and expansive life in miniature of George Washington Morrison Nutt, the newer Tom Thumb and latest sensation of the American Museum, who has inspired his own polka and variety of lettuce. For toy theater, with 23 characters in 23 short scenes and many changes of backdrop. Plus a fire, Lincoln and laughing gas.

A retrospective of the works of painter Basil Hallward is due to open at the Lippincott Gallery. Dame Sibyl Vane, her brother, Alan Campbell, and others have RSVP'd yes to attend the opening reception. Dorian Gray is a maybe. In short, all the dead people from Oscar Wilde's novel are alive. But the art restorer Stoddart is still having some issues with Basil's turbulent portrait of Mr. Gray. Lippincott's consternation is echoed by gallery employees Ward and Lock. Basil visits the gallery and muses on his work and that time many years prior.

A theater conference held in simultaneous conference rooms. Audience members choose the order of rooms they'll visit, among formats of panel discussion, interview, paper presentation, essay, proposal, workshop, synopsis, ritual, excursion, manifesto. A late attendee misses key happenings arriving too late or leaving too soon. Conference speakers wear tags with names of obscure playwrights. 21 characters, at least. 11 rooms, at minimum.

A play on ice, with all the characters on skates in counterclockwise motion. Two diplomats attempt to redraw desert borders and craft a potential Ice Treaty. Lumpenpress chase Beatitude I on her daily skate to see if she'll fall, as she eludes them with her Minister of the Interior and receives musical gifts from three of her court composers, the Masters of the Queen's Musick. A terminally excluded Q Composer laments the state of his career and drives the ice-clearing Zamboni.

At the corner of Souvenir and Expectation, Sculpitekt leads a radio announcer, Mason and Aether Decanter on a tour of his new and sustainable dream building - an apex of living unparalleled in functionality, his own stamp on Neo-Revivalism.

Ubu is examined in his Office Ovum by Dr. Jarry, 'pataphysician. Ubu regards himself as The Exception. Dr. Jarry specializes in exceptionals. Ubu's trio of Grand Marshals engages in frantic enabling, but no one spews for Ubu but Ubu.

Shall we start? Is everybody here? Is someone out there covering? Is there enough oxygen? Meeting culture. What was decided? We should do that. We means you. We're a focus group. Us, focus? Tomato juice. Brain scans. Tourists. Mirrors. Just keep talking fast. Let Joy continue.

In an archive, a researcher listens to a recording of a memorial service. Since the archive is about to close, she fast forwards through fragments of eulogies. Traces of a past virus spread through the remarks of each speaker. A monodrama for radio, with a female actor taking all 12 roles.

In October 1946, United Nations delegate Eleanor Roosevelt and Elektro the robot from the 1939 World's Fair spar over human rights, anthropomorphic rights, the post-war landscape and presidential pet Fala during General Assembly sessions held at Flushing Meadows, Queens, prior to the opening of the UN permanent headquarters in Manhattan.

Something is wrong. Something is misshelved. A morn to midnight workday in the career of Laurel Dimes, Library Director, as she navigates staff, patrons, the physical plant, a Tour of Reference, a Dead Composer's Wife, salespeople, a parrot, a Narrator, and her own Head Librarian sanity. Library of Congress Subject Headings are the least of her concerns in this Librarynth. A detail oriented world, yes, but not very orderly and not very quiet.

Seven ages in a life - I. Dolly Shot (age 4) - II. Dolly O'Clock (age 14) - III. Dolly Toxic (age 24) - IV. Dolly Logic (age 34) - V. Dolly Chronic (age 44) - VI. Dolly Economy (age 74) - VII. Dolly Province (age 104)

adapted for the stage from the novel by Ivan Turgenev

Helga Scrimm is expanding her art gallery empire with a new branch at the airport. She is currently experiencing delays, as one of her commissioned artists is stalling on his install. Arrivals. Departures. Unexpected rough air. Time and place are one. JFK. LGA. ETA. TBA.

Felled by too much syrup at a political fundraiser, the Abbot Severance is visited by several of his disciples, whose problems he addresses with glib attention. As each leaves depleted by his words, he regains strength. Amid the social bustle of a Christmas Eve fundraiser at the Crêperie, he navigates the growing political chasm between the Right to Pursue Happiness Party and the incendiary Anti-Estrangement Party. An explosion there compels him to penetrate beyond the surface of his life, culminating in Act III's surreal parade of more expansive visions for himself and his society.

A family primal scene is resolved a tad too quickly for the author who enters in hope of stirring up more conflict.

In the firmament, a tuning fork pings some planets and decimates others. Meanwhile, the tin-foiled Baked Potato in Space opts to divert its exploratory mission, much to the consternation of Destination Central, and encounters a cabbage planet with brussel sprout moons, the two-faced sphere Erst/eRST, a docking clone, and a series of split infinities.

Five people with the same name meet for deadpan All-You-Can-Eat. Do they have anything in common except Emmett Vunners?

Nursula and the Doctorly are both afraid of Hospuss the Short Hair who has a predilection for hissing, thumping his tail, clawing catheter bags, vomiting on blankets, sitting on the chests of dying patients and emitting a lethal purr.

Delia and Sheila overlap in the past, future and theatrical present of Human Resources and workplace paranoia.

Three mediums gather in a reception room in a hotel by the sea during a mediums convention in the hope of communicating with their recently deceased medium friend.