Hutchins Foster

BISQUE is a dark comedy set in 17th-century France, in which Monsieur—the brother of Louis XIV—and his wife, Madame, sit down to a meal knowing that one of the two bowls before them has been poisoned. Bound by pride, protocol, and a heated game of chess, they agree to finish every drop.

Inspired by the mysterious 1594 painting Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters, this comedy of manners follows the final months of Gabrielle’s rise at the court of Henri IV. As the king’s pregnant mistress attempts to secure legitimacy for her children—and perhaps the crown itself—she must outmaneuver rivals, scandal, and the imprisoned Queen Marguerite de Valois, who plots from afar. At her side is her younger sister Julienne—“Juju”—whose loyalty, ambition, and complicity become inseparable from Gabrielle’s own ascent. Told through a series of shifting perspectives in which each character freezes the action to explain how they arrived at the infamous bath scene, the play reframes a baffling historical image as a brilliant act of political strategy.

At a naval training station in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1919, enlisted sailors perform in Navy-sanctioned drag shows to boost morale before deployment. Onstage they are princesses and vamps; offstage they form a secret sisterhood — Theda, Salome, Ruth, Beckie, and Cig — who discover that silk, rouge, and chosen names allow them to feel whole. They call themselves The Ladies of Newport.

When Chief Machinist’s Mate Ervin Arnold, a former vice detective, suspects “immorality,” his report climbs the chain of command to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eager to bolster his political future, Roosevelt authorizes a covert entrapment operation.
Young sailors are recruited as “operators” and ordered to seduce suspected homosexuals and participate in intimate acts to secure arrests.
One operator, Charlie Goggins, is assigned to infiltrate the Ladies’ circle — but what begins as duty turns into genuine affection for Cig. As Arnold pushes his men to go all the way, the Ladies’ sanctuary collapses, leading to arrests and court-martials.

In reclaiming this forgotten scandal, LADIES OF NEWPORT confronts the systematic erasure of these “Ladies” — individuals whose courage, identity, and joy were deliberately written out of history.

At the core of THE MADNESS OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT is a man still in mourning for his soul mate ten years after her brutal death. Although noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright has tried to move forward—once again designing houses and working with his son in Los Angeles—his mind keeps playing out events from his past over and over, including in-depth conversations with his dead soul mate, Mamah Borthwick. As Frank wrestles with his grief, the son of the man responsible for Mamah’s death visits him on the construction site of Ennis House, the largest of Wright’s Mayan Revival houses. Will Frank reconcile his past, or will his melancholy sink him further into madness?

During the turbulent summer of 1967 when one hundred fifty race riots erupted across the United States, SISTAHS THR3E follows three weeks in the lives of the Pettigrew sisters who live with their brother in a Negro boarding house built by their World War II vet father in provincial Alliance, Ohio.

Although originally from Detroit, the family left the Motor City before many of the Black areas were decimated by freeway and city expansion. Odessa, Misha and ReeRee, however, dream of returning to their childhood home, where they were raised by their father and mesmerizing music teacher mother, who taught them in times of joy or duress when words weren’t enough that only songs of their own creation will be their salvation.

Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and the atrocities of the Vietnam War—while incorporating original Motown-like music—SISTAHS is a reimagining of Chekhov’s iconic play viewed through the lens of a Black American family fighting for their very survival.

Will the Pettigrew sisters mirror their Prozorov counterparts and remain stranded in existences that are unfulfilling, or will they break free to inhabit the lives they were destined to live?

Zelda Fanning has planned a family reunion to celebrate her deceased artist husband’s seventieth birthday, which falls on Halloween. The guests include her gay best friend, her buttoned-up son and his maladjusted family, and her free-spirited daughter newly out of rehab. As the weekend progresses four generations of dysfunctions are dealt with, secrets come to light and fantastic Halloween costumes are worn. All the while, an arson induced wildfire encroaches closer and closer to the one-of-a-kind house Zelda designed, which shelters her family and her husband’s priceless masterpieces.

Beneath the glittering court of Louis XIV was a pernicious underbelly which made use of the practice of poison. “Inheritance powders” were frequently used to get rid of pesky problems such as a wealthy older wife, a tiresome lover or a belligerent husband. It wasn't until the Marquise de Brinvilliers, a woman of the aristocracy, was being hunted down for killing her father and siblings that the rampant use of poisoning in opulent Parisian parlors came to light. Once the Affair of the Poisons—as this part of French history became known—was placed into the competent hands of a newly appointed lieutenant general of police, Nicholas de La Reynie, the elite’s hidden proclivities were revealed. Exquisite Poison delves into this decadent world with it's immoral inhabitants including the King's queer brother, the up-and-coming playwright Jean Racine, the manipulative yet fashion forward favorite, and the morally ambiguous, profiteering witch. It was a scandalous time where the only true sin was getting caught.

The set up is familiar—Janet and Stephanie, best friends, marry Thane and Reuben, also best friends. They seem to have it all, but then a single lie is told. As deception spirals into betrayal, buried tensions surrounding race, sexuality, and identity explode to the surface. Weaving together the ancient writings of Sappho, a Disney documentary about the Arctic North, and a phone sex hotline, ALIVE WITH LEMMINGS forces each character to confront their authentic selves—a reckoning that might very well lead to someone's destruction.

My own personal story of being an epileptic in a mental hospital. Why it happened, what happened when I was there and how I finally got out.

Mommy with a Penis is about a gay man’s harrowing journey into motherhood. Based on the award winning blog of the same name, Mommy with a Penis delves into marriage, adoption, interracial kids, and the dreaded potty time.