Fengar Gael

Dorian Pemberton, the artistic daughter of a renown virologist, is suffering from the neuropsychiatric aftereffects of the coronavirus and believes she is being followed by a familiar, a rat named Rufus that only she can see. Although Rufus rarely materializes, his presence in Dorian’s life has given her a secret confidant that occasionally interacts with reality, chilling the temperature and toppling teacups. Still living with her mother and grandmother, Dorian longs for independence but has dropped out of college and never been employed or sold a painting. While strolling through a bookstore, she encounters the owner, Godfrey, who claims to sense the presence of Rufus and offers Dorian a job as a part time clerk. Dorian shares pictures of her paintings with Godfrey who is eager to display them on the walls of the store. At first Dorian’s mother doubts the existence of the familiar, but is forced to acknowledge his presence when he abandons Dorian and begins following her. Both mother and daughter confide in Doctor Volmer who is sympathetic but skeptical until he is also subjected to the familiar’s presence which expands his conception of reality, making him more sympathetic to the delusional claims of his patients. By the end of the play, Dorian’s new prospects and blossoming friendship with Godfrey give her the confidence to leave home, causing her mother to face the surprising probability that she will miss her daughter when she leaves.

Miriam Auslander and her niece, Theodora, have hired a night shift security guard named Lucian to protect their Lower East Side tenement. After several tenants perished of the corona virus, the rest fled, leaving only Theodora who remains in her apartment and is in charge of maintaining the building. Before the pandemic forced the closure of theaters and restaurants, Lucian was a struggling actor and Theodora an aspiring dancer who managed The Tea Room on the first floor of the tenement. Since Theodora is a chronic insomniac, she often seeks the company of Lucian, and as their friendship blossoms, Theodora confesses that despite her vigilant fear of the virus, she keeps a pet bat named Cora that she feeds daily rations of her own blood. Having been bitten, Theodora feels nocturnal yearnings that allow her soul to flee her body and fly with Cora to various destinations in the City. Miriam’s curiosity and grudging concern for Theodora’s welfare have led her to install hidden surveillance cameras to observe Theodora’s attachment to Cora and growing infatuation with Lucian. When he becomes infected with the virus, Theodora nurses him, risking her own fragile health. After he recovers, Lucian dreams of escaping to Los Angeles, but is thwarted by a bout of rabies that proves fatal, leaving his spirit to haunt The Auslander. After witnessing Lucian’s spectral presence, Miriam posts notices seeking exorcists so that Theodora will be free to pursue her destiny among the living

Failure of the Planetary Defense System has caused an asteroid named Osiris to impact
the exact center of the United States, creating a cavernous crater that sprouted geological fault lines dividing the state of Kansas in half. A British medical scribe named Minerva volunteers to assist an ocular surgeon treating the injured eyes of survivors. Minerva recounts their contentious relationship while attending court ordered Society for Sobriety meetings. Since the asteroid is named for an Egyptian deity, there is a revival of interest in ancient pagan religions, especially since the crater evokes suicidal urges in vulnerable people who leap from its periphery. Even skeptical Sobriety members exchange wild
rumors of the crater being inhabited by a vengeful Earth Mother Goddess demanding human sacrifices for the centuries of abuse she’s endured. A curious reporter from Wichita befriends Minerva and together they venture to explore the edge of the crater. When the reporter slips and vanishes, Minerva becomes a murder suspect, causing her passport to be confiscated, her personal life upended, and her bright future threatened. Although she is tempted to succumb to despair, fate intervenes and Minerva is redeemed through relationships that enrich her world view.

THEMES: The play explores the corrosive effects of an astronomical crisis, as well as the human capacity for romance, redemption, and invention.

In the near future, on the hottest summer day on record, an elderly nun faints on a city sidewalk and is rushed to the nearest hospital. She is diagnosed with heatstroke and left lying unconscious in a private room where a dense cloud has formed above her head. The nun is identified as Sister Angelica Boyle, a popular choirmaster and the subject of a city wide search. When she awakens, the Sister is surrounded by doctors, a volunteer named Autumn, and a medical scribe named Jules. Sister Angelica claims the cloud is a gift from Saint Swithun, patron saint of weather, in response to her fervent prayers. Later, when the Sister is left alone, she inadvertently swallows the cloud, then coughs it up in the form of a crystal sphere capable of generating more clouds. Jules offers the use of his yacht to transport the doctors, Autumn, and the Sister to the ocean where the sphere produces a funnel shaped fog that skims the sea, leaving a wake in which a stranger is spied clinging to a plank. The rescued stranger speaks in watery trills and appears to be part
male, part female, with gills, webbed feet, and a barnacled body. The stranger’s presence unsettles the passengers, testing their capacity for empathy until boundaries of civility are crossed, and an ensuing fight leads to tragedy. The story of the voyage is told by Jules who is testifying before an audience of jurors at a coroner’s inquest. Jules is also writing a novelbased on the voyage and explains that his plot, like the cloud,
is proving problematic: a metaphysical mystery that may never be resolved.

In an assembly hall in Atlanta, Georgia, marchers have gathered for the Centennial Suffrage Parade. A raffle is being held to select a grand marshal to lead the procession, and a young woman named Lily Pearl Rhodes is chosen. She mounts the stage to join the organizers who are teaching the parade anthem. Soon they are all singing with heartfelt harmony until a bomb explodes, maiming many, including Lily who is hospitalized in a coma. When she awakens, Lily claims to be Lydia Morgan Miles, a pioneer suffragist from Boston who died in a similar explosion in the year 1850. Lily’s mother and fiancé are appalled at the surfacing of Lydia whose life appears to have been a wretched tale of illness, marital misery, and thwarted ambitions. A therapist hypnotizes Lily and is convinced that she has lived many lives, all of them women, all having marched many miles for many causes. Lydia attempts to adjust to the technological advances of today’s world and is the subject of much speculation until she disappears and becomes the object of a citywide search.

THEMES: Passing Parades attempts to explore issues of gender parity, the presumptions of privilege, and recent social, scientific, and political progress.

One hundred years from now, a biomechatronic guide is speaking to an audience of tourists who have evolved as a fusion of the organic and mechanic and are visiting the notable landmarks of the shrinking island of Manhattan. What they are seeing is a simulated habitat of a drama that took place in the early decades of the twenty first century: In the heart of the city’s most prestigious shopping district stands Saxenburg’s Watches, specializing in hand crafted mechanical time pieces. The shop is located directly across from a renown residential building where powerful corporate magnates convene and conspire to control global conflicts and economies. In the watch shop window stands Mona, an alluring A. I. chatbot equipped with a camera that spies on the constant stream of marchers protesting the country’s dysfunctional plutocracy. The shop owner, Gunther Sachs, hires Anna Glazer, a proficient clerk and struggling writer who charms him and his cousin, Lena, a robotic engineer. Lena’s outrage at the country’s corrupt leadership inspires her to equip Mona with an acoustical beam aimed at the corporate penthouse, but inadvertently afflicts innocent tenants, causing a pernicious form of insomnia. The police pursue Lena who flees the country while Gunther is suspected of being an accomplice and seeks asylum in Austria. Anna is left to manage the shop while writing dystopian novels that will become required reading for students at future universities.
THEME: The play explores the corrosive effects of a divisive government as well as the human capacity for romance, redemption, and invention.

PLOT SYNOPSIS:
On the stage of the operating theatre of the Wards Island Hospital, Beverly Gravenstein,
a seriously ill estate lawyer, speaks to an audience of medical specialists attempting to fathom the origin of her affliction. She relates the arrival from London of Honey Frost,
the sole heir of an American antiquities dealer who made his fortune looting the buried treasures of the Middle East. Honey’s inheritance includes an apple orchard in the Hudson River Valley with a barn containing a sarcophagus that features a carving of the goddess, Pomona, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Honey. The orchard is infested with worms that arrived inside the sarcophagus and are propagating, preventing the apples from being edible; however, the wormy pulp can be brewed into a cider which has a euphoric effect,
is highly addictive, and proves to be extremely profitable. Needing something to occupy herself, Honey opens a vintage boutique and hires Beverly’s daughter, Ingrid, to be her personal assistant. The boutique, named Forbidden Fruits, proves a surprising success, and as the women become friends, Honey reveals the details of her sordid past; Ingrid reveals her passion for Honey’s cousin; and Beverly becomes smitten with Honey’s Uncle. When the cider is later exposed to be the cause of a potential pandemic, they are quarantined on Wards Island and forced to face the catastrophic possibility of species extinction.

THEMES: The play is a dystopian exploration of the corrosive effects of obscene wealth, sexual predation, and the human capacity for romance, resilience, and belief in the world beyond. The infested apples serve as a metaphor for the corruption of democratic ideals when the ethics of business affect every aspect of human life.

SYNOPSIS: Mendel Steingold, a prosperous real estate lawyer, is addressing The Jupiter Investment Club, explaining his decision to resign. Eight months ago, he was escorting
the British twins, Argonne and Fluorine Seaborg, to their town home on Edgar Allan Poe Street. The sisters inherited the house from their estranged American mother, a molecular endocrinologist who employed the process of gene editing to bestow unique gifts on her daughters, making them preternatural polymaths: proficient in the arts, sciences, and possessors of eidetic memories. Their mother’s professional goal was to locate an empathy gene, but having failed and aware that most women are nonviolent, she attempted to create
a transgendering process so men could be feminized and less likely to engage in the ravages
of incessant wars. The sisters are enamored of their new home and since it’s reputed to be where Poe composed “The Raven” they decide to turn the house into a museum. They
also discover the house to be haunted by a spirit believed to be Poe’s wife, Virginia, who plays the harp and fills empty cups with a liquid that contains a new element they name Virginium. Mendel’s fiancée, Samaria, becomes enamored of the twins while Mendel becomes increasingly suspicious of their motives, and the house begins to seem menacing and oppressive. Eventually, Mendel’s quarrels with Samaria cause them to separate, while experiments with the Virginium lead to tragic consequences, forcing the twins to flee the country and abandon their new home. They leave the deed to Mendel who is eager to exorcise its demons, then sell to whomever dares to dwell in the house on Poe Street.

THEMES: The House on Poe Street explores issues of gender parity, genetic determinism, the presumptions of wealth, and the power of poetry to affect emotions and visions of a spectral afterlife.

The Viscount Villanelle, a renown literary critic, has been missing for weeks. Desperate
to find him, his wife, Margaret, seeks the help of Roderick Rondel, a retired forensic artist known for his uncanny ability to summon the spirits of the deceased by simply touching their skeletal remains. Margaret has been sent a tooth, and Roderick reluctantly summons the spirit of the Viscount who claims to have been murdered by a coterie of poets seeking vengeance for his vicious reviews. The poets have held a drawing, and a young woman named Amber was chosen to confront, humiliate, and record the Viscount eating his own words: a printed page filled with his cruel condemnations. Amber succeeds in her mission, but while swallowing the paper and his pride, the Viscount chokes, suffers a heart attack, and Amber flees. The deceased Viscount’s spirit leaves his corpse to possess Amber’s body, wreaking havoc by murdering her fellow poets in myriad ways. In the course of their own investigation, Margaret and Roderick forge a romance while Amber behaves erratically and is suspected of being possessed by a revenant that can be traced to the Viscount and the wild wolves he hunted as a child. Eventually the Viscount’s corpse is found, but his revenant spirit proves more elusive and powerful than those of mere mortals and poets.

THEMES: The play explores the importance of poetry in the age of Twitter as well as corrosive effects of harsh criticism, and the human capacity for romance, vengeance, and belief in the world beyond. Throughout the story, various Grimm fairy tales are referenced as the characters attempt to mythicize their own misguided lives.

THE STORY: At Global Gospel Records Studio in the town of Swampwater, Texas, the Reverend Roger Billy Starks and his backup singers, the Angelicals, are recording songs for their latest album. During the session, Roger Billy sneezes, collapses into a coma, and is institutionalized for decades. When he recovers, he’s convinced that when he sneezed, his soul escaped, slipped through the wiring, then during mass production fell into the groove of a single record. Without his soul, Roger Billy is deaf to God’s voice,so he arranges a reunion with the Angelicals who join his countrywide search, exploring vintage record shops. Their journey takes them to New York City where Roger Billy starts spinning like a whirling dervish. Convinced that his soul is revolving on a nearby turntable, he attempts to find the record’s owner, but on his way is robbed, then arrested, and jailed. After his release, Roger Billy befriends a melancholy street vendor, is waylaid by transit strikers, then hikes to Wall Street where he discovers his investments have vanished. Dismayed and needing sustenance, Roger Billy stops at The Melting Pot Diner where he’s beaten, booted out, then chased by department store mannequins. Seeking refuge on the streets, he becomes smitten with a homeless drug addict whose brother, a combat veteran, collects vinyl albums. One of his albums contains Roger Billy’s soul, and when they’re finally reunited, he realizes that despite enduring many indignities, his journey has led to genuine feelings of inclusive universal reverence.
THE THEMES: Soul on Vinyl explores themes of alienation and identity. During the decades that Roger Billy was institutionalized, has his country lived up to the ideals that inspired his songs? Has the United States remained a model for concepts of religious and political liberty as well as racial and ethnic pluralism? Has the nation, with all the blessings of modern science and technology, become a genuine refuge for the oppressed: for immigrants and dreamers, for champions of civil, gender, economic, and environmental rights? Modern consciousness is often symbolized by the global cybersphere, and although Soul on Vinyl tells a personal tale of spiritual loss and redemption, it also attempts to reflect the diversity, intensity, and velocity of today’s techno-society.

Little Phoebe Potts has a vivid imagination, which is why she spends her after school hours cowering in a closet. Then one day she follows a moth through a buttonhole and discovers an entire galaxy on the other side! With the help of an alien named Melf the Gelf, Phoebe embarks on a magical journey to save the Galaxy Clesto. There she encounters alien creatures who bestow wondrous gifts: gloves for seeing through densities of matter; anti-gravitational boots for leaping great distances; and beanies for breathing under water. Soon Phoebe discovers that by making friends and conquering her fears, an imagination can be a wonderful thing!

The mystery at the heart of the creative process is explored through the story of a young portraitist in transition -- from being a mere copyist to becoming an original artist. While teaching her niece, Francine, to paint, Fay Locke recalls the lessons of her own tutor, Muriel, who professed that to know one’s subjects fully one must know them passionately. After Muriel’s seduction and subsequent departure, Fay has settled for a life of dreary isolation, dispassionately pleasing her subjects in a dated style of portraiture. The arrival of Francine is a catalyst for Fay’s development; in her young niece, Fay sees herself as she was, and experiences anew the freedom and optimism of an uninhibited child. In the past, as Fay’s artistic prowess grew, she began
to resemble Muriel, adopting her myths and anecdotes in order to explain the power of color and form to evoke strong emotions. Like Muriel, Fay attempts to pass her knowledge to her niece, to create Francine in her own image as Muriel created Fay in hers. During the course of their summer together, Fay is also challenged by the amorous devotion of a woman she’s been commissioned to paint and tries desperately to resist. Fay expresses her resistance in a portrait unlike any she has ever created, thereby releasing new passions with an energy she has long ago suppressed. The final painting and reactions it provokes bring Fay to a new appreciation of her talent and potential.

THEMES: The Portraitist explores the loss of innocence through the crossing of personal and sexual boundaries between a teacher and her student; the damaging intensity of thwarted adolescent passions; and the power of art to express rapture.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: Homeless and disreputable men are vanishing from the streets of London leaving only their buttons as evidence. The Metropolitan Police have exhausted all possible clues when Detective Chief Inspector Fossmire hears from a distraught anthropologist specializing in witchcraft who claims her twenty year old triplets are responsible. When the girls were toddlers, their father, a professor of Jacobean Drama, read plays to amuse them. They were so delighted by the arcane speech that they claimed it as their own and refused to learn modern English. Now the girls live in opulent seclusion, making their fortune in shrewd investments while worshiping pagan goddesses. Although Fossmire is skeptical, he visits the sisters and becomes convinced of their involvement when they demonstrate their powers, sending him reeling to his
bed. His mother, Lady Augusta, an activist for the cause of global population control, is intrigued by the triplets since as a lonely child she conjured three imaginary sisters of her own, all bearing striking similarities to the suspected triplets. Meanwhile, a sympathetic psychiatrist, Doctor Flora Whetstone, is brought into the case, and Fossmire becomes smitten. Together they attempt to comprehend the girls menacing behavior, and to fathom how witchcraft is being employed to accomplish their sinister goals.

The events enacted in Drink Me may be interpreted as literal, fantastical, or allegorical. The Rime Sisters may be neurotic manifestations of sexual anxiety or they may be flesh and blood women, or they may simply be reminders that the inexplicable exists. The play attempts to question Fossmire’s assumption that human experience can be quantified or known, and he is left with doubts about the underlying reality of his own fragile life.

At an auction in rural Georgia is a careworn trunk filled with items from the closure of Alchemy Antiques. The bidding escalates to thousands of dollars and leads to a reclusive collector living in New York who claims to have cheated death. The collector is Dragos Dragomir, leader of a clan of Romanian gypsies who became the time-traveling repositories of history, living generation after generation through escalating catastrophes to our current precarious times. As gypsies, the clan endured constant prejudice, enmity, and exclusion from every country in Europe. While most learned to live peaceful, productive lives, one of the members sought revenge by infecting the ink of the swastikas she is asked to tattoo on her clients. She is arrested and imprisoned, but escapes to seek asylum with Dragomir who fears for his own survival and that of the remaining members of his ancient clan.

SYNOPSIS: Devil Dog Six evokes the world of horse racing with its eclectic mix of ethnicities and eccentric personalities. The play begins in Bossier City Hospital where
a young woman jockey named Devon Tramore is recovering from a traumatic fall that caused multiple fractures and painful cerebral swelling. Instructed to ease the swelling by reducing the flow of information, Devon sits in a darkened room in utter silence, attempting to think of nothing. Finding the task unbearable, Devon’s spirit spins out of her body to her mother’s farm where she befriends several thoroughbreds, including a colt named Devil Dog Six. Devon’s daily journeys give her unique insights into the world of horses as she absorbs their language, movements, and characteristics. She whinnies, gallops, and attracts flies which confounds Devon’s parents, her physician, and a nurse who believes in the healing powers of Voodoo. Meanwhile, an investigation into Devon’s accident uncovers a possible plot by resentful jockeys to harm her. The investigator also probes into Devon’s romance with an African-American groom who works on her mother’s farm. Despite a pessimistic prognosis, Devon’s ambition, newfound powers, and her dream of riding Devil Dog Six
in The Dixie Derby help her heal and resume her career. Soon Devon becomes the sole rider of “The Devil” and wins every race; however, when the time comes to enter the high
stakes Dixie Derby, the Saudi owner chooses a male jockey with a better ranking. Devon’s disappointment turns to fury, and she indulges in schemes that compromise her relationships and integrity.

THEMES: Devil Dog Six deals with issues of gender equality in sports, racial and class discrimination, animal adoration, religion, and science. The play is also about raw, untamed ambition gone awry in a culture that encourages competition and fosters the mentality that winning justifies any means.

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the sorceress Sycorax, mother of Caliban and mistress of Ariel, was reported by Prospero to be deceased. But Sycorax is alive, having waited five hundred years for the ideal technology to reveal the truth of her story to the widest possible audience: the World Wide Web of the Internet. As a young girl in Algiers, Sycorax’s talents are revealed by spinning platters and floating scarves; later she carves small animals that
are brought to vivid life through secret supplications to the pagan god, Setebos. Through
the kindness of her scholarly brother, Sycorax learns to read and write, but as a Muslim woman, she is forced to endure marriage to a man already wedded to three wives. Although Sycorax employs her powers to oust invading Turkish pirates, a tribunal of mullahs judge her guilty of witchcraft, heresy, and treason. Since the Quran forbids the execution of pregnant women, Sycorax is exiled to Qamara where she conjures a menagerie of creatures that help transform the barren isle to a paradise of fertile fields. Although Sycorax longs
for a daughter, she gives birth to a son, Caliban, whom she learns to cherish. Years pass
in blissful harmony until Caliban becomes restless for companionship and Sycorax carves
a young man from a tree, naming him Ariel. Thanks to the intercession of Setebos, Ariel
is born with wings and the talent to sing, dance, and conjure storms that thwart ships from landing on their shores. Ariel is also a dashing seducer and soon both mother and son are enthralled by his charms. Eventually Ariel spies a boat drifting towards Qamara containing Prospero, his daughter, Miranda, and stacks of books that Sycorax longs to read. She allows the boat to land, but after eavesdropping on Ariel and Caliban plotting to escape, she unwittingly conspires to sabotage her future and that of her beloved son.

: Arturo Salvia, a traumatized detective who has been rendered mute, is witnessing the trial of his lover, Elena Abril Fiero. She has been accused of murdering her tenants and burying them in her garden as sacrificial tributes to the earth goddess, La Madreguera. As the prosecution presents its case, Arturo recalls how he was hired to investigate the disappearance of a colleague’s niece whose last address was Elena’s boarding house. Arturo soon finds himself smitten by Elena’s seductive beauty and enthusiasm for life. Their romance blossoms until Elena poisons a sickly tenant, then enacts an elaborate burial rite that is witnessed by another boarder who confides in Arturo. After he unearths the decaying corpse, Arturo confronts Elena who claims
her actions were merciful since the tenant was soon destined to degenerate and die. Because Elena is deeply influenced by ancient Mayan rituals, she believes that even the basest life can be transformed by the redemption inherent in the life cycles of flowers and trees. Arturo agrees to keep the burial a secret, but feels compelled to dig elsewhere, and is horrified to discover more corpses. Elena is arrested and a lawyer hired to support an insanity defense. When Elena discovers that Arturo is responsible for her arrest, she curses him, condemning him to life as Judas tree. Devastated, his heart hardens and he abrogates humanity for the life of a sentient tree. While Arturo revels in a new appreciation of nature, he perceives Elena and the cultures that created her in a critical light, and dreams of spreading seeds to reforest the Earth with majestic trees.
The Judas Tree attempts to weave romantic and ritual elements, while exploring the historical, political, and psychological forces that can give rise to criminal behavior.

THE CANTOR’S TALE is a troll tale of passion and betrayal. Prue Dimms, a priest, cantor and self-professed antiquarian, is the spiritual advisor to Duncan Albright, a talented young tenor who has fallen in love with a woman and is leaving the seminary to marry. Outraged at losing the leading soloist of his choir, Prue conspires in every conceivable way to destroy Duncan’s engagement. In the process of his scheming, Prue uncovers clues to his own repressed passion which has taken the form of a shadow-self, an omnipotent troll who propels the action of the play in a bombastic, magniloquent voice. Prue’s relationship to women is also explored, especially his evolving friendship with his niece, Frances, who unmasks his troll-self, forcing Prue to finally acknowledge his love for Duncan. Prue gains strength from his new insights, and confronts Duncan only to discover that his machinations have succeeded in turning the young man against the woman he once loved. The irony is compounded when Prue realizes that both he and the abandoned woman have projected their fervently felt ardor on a man incapable of returning their passion.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: The Spell Caster is a comic drama revolving around a group
of ragtag carnies who earn a precarious living by picking pockets, rigging games, and shortchanging the marks. The story begins with the troupers taunting Louisa, the carnival’s eldest member, for being too feeble and foul smelling to attract customers. Knowing she is the target of their enmity and fearful for her life, Louisa employs her powers as a fortune teller and healer to conjure her salvation: her own youth. Louisa’s child-self emerges from another time, another plane, as Mayra Rios- Benitez, a gifted hypnotist with the power to tap into the unseen potential of the carnies, transforming them from con artists to genuine artists: the tattooist acquires the genius of Michelangelo; the lead barker acquires the voice of Caruso; the kootch dancer becomes a prima ballerina, and so on. For months they enjoy fame, fortune, and blissful harmony until
it becomes apparent that Mayra is not the virtuous child that Louisa remembers. While Louisa had repressed her passions as a girl, Mayra is bold, restless, and seductive, wreaking havoc in the interrelationships of the carnival and threatening its survival.
As Louisa attempts to control Mayra’s impulses, the play becomes a battle between
old age and youth, culminating in Louisa reclaiming her youthful spirit, becoming the carnival’s featured attraction: the world’s oldest old lady, ministered to by the other carnies who are eager to keep her alive.

THEMATIC SYNOPSIS: The play attempts to explore issues of ageism, racism, the transcendent power of imagination, and the instant gratification syndrome endemic
in America. There is also a parallel between the Great Depression of the1930s and
the current economy. While there were many homeless drifters in the 30s, there was
a different spirit, a stronger desire for renewal. Today there appears to be a more cynical attitude, a lack of faith that society can ever bridge the ever widening gap between rich and poor. Louisa’s dream of youth is a call for the unity and preservation of life, and this is what transforms the carnival.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: On Isla Fortuna, Don Hilardo’s wife dies while giving birth to their daughter, Esperanza. The infant’s defective heart is replaced with an artificial one, and since she is not expected to live, Don Hilardo decrees that her brief life reflect his ideal
of paradise. To accomplish this, he creates Villa Leche, a commune of nursing mothers who attend to Esperanza’s every need. Don Hilardo’s dictums require that she only behold beautiful forms, hear words set to music, and consume mothers’ milk. She must be protected from all privations, contaminations, or electronic imagery that might induce a longing for a world she will never know. The management of Villa Leche is entrusted
to Don Hilardo’s mistress, Maria, who oversees the mothers and reports on the child’s growth. Fifteen years pass as Esperanza defies her father’s predictions and lives to prove his patriarchal paradise is stunting her emotional and intellectual growth. Finally, the mothers agree to revolt, but Esperanza escapes and returns to become the experimental beneficiary of Maria’s matriarchal paradise which threatens to become as distorted as Don Hilardo’s. In the end, both Maria and Don Hilardo have treated Esperanza as a blank slate on which to draw their ideological fantasies, but she defies them both, escaping their bondage to flourish as a child of her own invention in a globalized, digitized, postmodern world.

THEMES: The Island of No Tomorrows is an allegorical exploration of sexual subjugation, political oppression, and the challenges of parenting in the electronic age.

SYNOPSIS: The corpse of Reamus Skrolls, an esteemed elderly dramaturg, is found
on the floor of his Manhattan brownstone where his spirit has returned to witness the consequences of his death. A reputable director, Griffon Wright, discovers the body, and
assumes Reamus has committed suicide, but instead of a note, he has left a lengthy play entitled Beggar at the Feast. When detectives search the house, they discover that the rooms on the top floor are filled with thousands of scripts; while the cellar features a laboratory
for the production of potent opiates. Soon the deceased dramaturg is declared a notorious felon, and theatres everywhere are clamoring to produce his play -- despite all the characters being vultures and the dialog entirely in verse. Because the fingerprints on a nearby syringe do not belong to Reamus, his suicide is deemed a possible homicide, and an investigation ensues, revealing that his name, ethnicity, and country of origin have all been a deception. The police locate Reamus’s granddaughter, Fontana, a musician and heir to his estate,
who participates, along with Griffon, a detective, a playwright, and literary manager at
the reading of Beggar at the Feast. A romance ensues between Fontana and Griffon amid subplots involving accusations of seduction, plagiarism, and musings on the never ending cycles of violence enacted by human beings as vultures devour their carrion spoils on
the fields of battle. Since the play is told from Reamus’s point of view, he interjects his dramaturgical analysis while espousing his philosophy. He also engages in futile attempts
to control the destinies of characters who resist his machinations.

THEMES: Beggar at the Feast deals with the moral reckoning of a tormented soul, while exploring the value of familial and romantic love, the triumph of imagination, and the perpetual folly of resolving conflicts through violence.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: From her apartment in the Garment District of New York, Penelope Melton, an orchestral violinist, speaks to hidden cameras recording her every move. She recounts the decline of her dying sister, Portia, who spends hours in a wheelchair, staring out a window facing Spindle’s Fabric Shop. Portia notices that the feeble and infirm women who enter the shop never leave, so suspecting a nefarious gendercidal scheme, she entreats Penelope to investigate. Once inside the shop, Penelope meets Katrina Spindle and her nephew, Siegfried, a former physics prodigy who asks Penelope to stay and play her violin. While she graciously complies, Siegfried becomes smitten, falling hopelessly in love. Meanwhile fearing for Penelope’s life, Portia leaves the apartment and ventures into the shop with her caretaker. Relieved that her sister is unharmed, Portia meanders around, admiring the fabrics, then suddenly vanishes, leaving only her wheelchair. A police investigation ensues involving a journalist and photographer who spread news of the mysterious shop and its disappearing patrons. Both Siegfried and Penelope become suspects, and while Penelope continues searching for Portia, Siegfried attempts to prove the existence of a fold in the fabric of infinity that leads through unseen dimensions to a parallel universe.

THEMES: The Draper is a dystopian mystery that explores the effects of globalization
on The Garment District as well as the metaphysical implications of recent theories in physics, and the conflicted feelings of a family in which death is imminent.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: As Quince Dillingham attends his dying wife, Clovis, she speaks her last words: “Will you take my hands?” He clasps her hands in his own, and in that instant the gift of sculpting which once belonged to Clovis is bestowed upon Quince. Although
he’s an esteemed art dealer, Quince failed to appraise his wife’s goddesses as worthy of an exhibition. Now that he’s endowed with her talent, Quince knows the statues are masterful and capable of garnering a fortune. In her will, Clovis bequeathed her entire collection to
her barrister sister, Ginger, who vows to avenge Clovis by making her statuary known to
the world. Months pass and Quince has become a prolific sculptor, exhibiting his own goddesses in his gallery under a false name. Ginger sees them, confronts Quince, and threatens to expose him as a thief. A quarrel ensues, and though Quince fails to persuade Ginger of his mystical gift, he demonstrates his artistic prowess, convincing her of a genuine newfound talent. Together they conspire to exhibit the statues, employing Ginger’s cousin, Rosemary, to attend gallery openings, posing as the sculptress. Quince soon finds that managing the gallery while being an artist is threatening his health, so he relinquishes the hands to Ginger who succumbs to their power. After an opening exhibition, the goddesses reign supreme in the art world, Rosemary is feted by the media, and takes up residence at Fennfield along with Ginger and Quince. As time passes, Rosemary longs to become a genuine artist, and after learning the the true legacy of the hands, grasps them for herself, triumphing as their final possessor.

Touch of Rapture is an allegorical exploration of the relationship of art to character; the art of creation versus art as a commodity; and the importance of body image in contemporary society. There is a crimson cloth that moves from scene to scene serving as a deathbed shroud, a curtain, carpet, shawl, and so on. The cloth represents post-Newtonian physics
in which the perception of an object actually alters its molecular substance, so our concept of an object’s purpose might also change its essence as we perceive it to possess beauty, functionality, and so forth. As the crimson cloth flows from scene to scene, it affects the audience through its color, shapes, and applications, and also through being touched by
the hands of the characters in the play.

Nella Kimanjano, a research chemist, works at a laboratory managed by an astrophysicist and her daughter, Aurora, who are offering a reward to anyone supplying definitive proof of extraterrestrial life. They have employed Nella and a molecular biologist, Howard Golden, to analyze the hundreds of objects, photographs, and videos of abduction testimonials that pass by their microscopes and computers every day. After several futile months, the appearance of a single whisker reveals the presence of an alien microorganism. The whisker is followed by a hand, and soon Nella observes her own dark flesh turning a jaundiced yellow, then later a bilious green. At first she is devastated, isolated, and forced to reflect on her future, but greenness brings new insights that make Nella more sensual and sentient, and soon she is devising schemes for solving the problems of climate change, genocidal wars, and rendering obsolete the assumptions of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious world.

Wild Orchids is a work of science fiction; it is also a parable about race that attempts to reflect upon political, scientific, and spiritual issues.

From his cell in New York City, a gallerist charged with vagrancy and assault claims his behavior was caused by a painting of a monkey whose sordid history was recorded nearly
a century ago, after the first World War. The monkey was euthanized by a distinguished zoologist, but seeking revenge, its malicious spirit took possession of his daughter, Selena, who was driven to slaughter a pet shop filled with animals then consigned to an asylum. After her release, Selena was haunted by the souls of the slain creatures, and persuaded her cousin to paint her vivid descriptions. The paintings evolved into whimsical masterpieces, but possession was soon replaced by obsession as the monkey continued to wreak unholy havoc. The Gallerist explores the timeless power of art, the effects of repressed passion, and the connection between demonic possession and creativity while drawing inspiration from
the likes of Othello, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

An elderly usher, Edgar Ashbourne, is hosting a ball, but before the dining and dancing commence, the guests must convene in the theatre to witness a play of his own contriving in which he plays several roles. The play is an ill-fated romance that takes place in London during World War One. A lonely composer, Annabelle Snowden, is followed home from theatre by an admiring usher, Wilfred Blackstone, who introduces himself as a wounded veteran and teacher at a local boys academy. As they stand chatting,
a bolt of lightning strikes Wilfred who is severely burned, then taken to recuperate at a military hospital. While there, he feels a compulsion to dig up the hospital grounds, reenacting the nightmare of shoveling trenches on the Western Front. He unwittingly excavates the bones of ancient warriors, is joined by archeologists, and becomes famous throughout England as “The Digger.” Annabelle visits Wilfred regularly and finds herself falling in love. While retrieving clothing from his flat, she discovers a diary written in German that implicates Wilfred as a possible spy. Annabelle’s Aunt Mavis translates the diary, which reveals Wilfred to be a pacifist who has allowed an enemy soldier to escape, then wounded himself to avoid combat. Both offenses are punishable by execution, and Wilfred is eventually discovered and officially charged. Meanwhile, as he sleeps, Wilfred’s soul escapes his body to become the spiritual usher of deceased soldiers leaving the hospital to the world beyond. When Wilfred finally recovers his health, he is not the man Annabelle believes him to be, and a tragic separation ensues.

THEMES: The Usher’s Ball touches on themes of love, loss, the futility of war, and the psychological cost to the soldiers who fight it and the civilians who suffer the consequences. “The war to end all wars” cost the lives of ten million men, and is is now regarded as a folly fueled by misguided nationalism and leaders intent on vengeance through violence. Despite a worldwide pacifist movement, the tragic treadmill off slaughter continues.

Fernelle Millmore, a teenage linguist savant, is hired by a research geneticist to translate the arcane speech of two patients, a young man and woman under- going an evolutionary metamorphosis, the shocking result of an experiment gone awry. The play is told from the viewpoint of the linguist’s father, Felix, who believes the evolved patients (referred to as “mutagens”) hold the visionary key to the future
of humankind. Felix encourages his daughter to befriend the mutagens in order to fathom their facility with languages and discover any life enhancing revelations they have
to offer. Felix’s hope lies in the possibility that the mutagens will track endangered languages as well as create a universal one, but suddenly they dispense with language altogether, emitting strange musical sounds that cannot be deciphered. At first Fernelle resists the mutagens, finding them physically repulsive, but soon she becomes intrigued, and her subsequent attachment incites her father’s jealously and resentment, forcing him to confront his own inner turmoil. Eventually, the mutagens demand the isolation of an underground research station to continue their evolution. Fernelle agrees to accompany them, causing reactions in her father that jeopardize their relationship and his own humanity.

In a secluded wood lies the charred body of a woman who appears to have consumed vast quantities of absinthe. Her remains lead
a forensic sleuth to seek her identity by posting sketches throughout England. A widowed veterinarian notes a keen resemblance to her neighbor, an elderly French housekeeper for a dissolute painter who claims to channel artists from the Age of Absinthe. The investigation leads to a secret distillery producing a highly addictive brew that causes dangerous deliriums: unlikely people fall in love, marble statues spring to life, and an ancient Greek sorceress lets loose a plague that transfigures all mankind.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: On the fictitious island of Dolphina, Gwendolyn Welles, a marine biologist, awaits the birth of her genetically modified daughter. In the last months of the pregnancy, an ultrasound image reveals the fetus has regressed to an amphibious stage, with webbed hands, feet, and gills. Her husband and doctor recommend an immediate abortion, but since the oceans are rising from drastic climatic changes, Gwendolyn feels the world may benefit from a species that thrives on both land and sea. While nursing Gwendolyn through the pregnancy, a doula named Mirabelle bonds with her through daily swims in the sea. Months later, when the infant, Finoola, is born, she is a piscine mutation bearing no semblance to the daughter they’d imagined. Gwendolyn’s husband demands she be euthanized, while Mirabelle and a devoutly religious maid insist she be allowed to live. Gwendolyn and Marlin are unable to conquer their revulsion, and take
an extended trip, leaving Finoola with Mirabelle who develops a genuine affection
for her. When Gwendolyn returns, she decides to surgically alter Finoola to conform
to acceptable images of human anatomy. Mirabelle feels this is unethical and a custody battle ensues, resulting in Finoola’s foray into the ocean where she vanishes during a storm. Twenty years later, evidence of her survival appears in amphibious infants born
to mothers who swam in the region.

THEMES: Sorrow of the Sea Maiden revolves around themes of love, loss, species extinction, and is an allegorical exploration of the catastrophic effects of climate change on our oceans and higher marine mammals. The play is also a futurist Frankenstein tale with women in the roles of the scientist, the assistant, and their customized creation. Instead of stitching cadavers, Doctor Welles employs her body to incubate an idealized being, a genetic experiment gone tragically awry.

PLOT SYNOPSIS:
Before losing everything that matters in her life, Doctor Miranda Birman is called to testify for the prosecution at the trial of Omar al-Fahd, a Syrian born jihadist who has slashed and hammered priceless works of art. He is apprehended in New York at Le Chat Noir Gallery which specialized in paintings and sculptures of cats. Omar, a devout fundamentalist Sunni, believes it is blasphemous to create art resembling humans or animals since artists are usurping the powers of Allah, capturing their subjects’ souls while condemning their own
to perdition. Omar’s attorney has entered a plea of insanity since Omar believes he is possessed by the spirit of a cat that once dwelled inside a statue he destroyed. Witnessing
the trial, Miranda's curiosity is roused, so she visits Le Chat Noir Gallery which is owned
by two French sisters who worship the Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet. Miranda and her fiancé, Stephen, are both nonreligious physicians, but as Miranda leaves the gallery, she
is followed by two cat spirits that conspire to jeopardize their relationship as well as Miranda’s career, her reputation, and sanity. After Omar is sentenced and confined, he questions his radicalism and becomes an artist himself, while Miranda checks into
Bellevue Hospital desperately hoping to expunge the spirits and regain her former stability.

THEMES: The Cat Vandal tells a story of conflicting cultures, science versus religion,
but is also a metaphysical mystery. The play was inspired by the Taliban’s destruction
of the giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan, and the metaphysical assumptions of a hadith
of the Quran that reads: “Beware the Day of Resurrection: the most tormented sinners will be the painters of pictures of living creatures. Souls that were breathed into every picture shall be freed, and the painters punished in the fires of hell.”