The PlayFinder™

A prominent family's "black sheep" nephew, the son of an interracial marriage, comes to stay with them after being released from prison. But do they want him? And what does he want from them? In this dark comedy issues of race, sex and family values play out with wildly comic and disturbing results.... Read more

Moss and Avis, an attractive, middle-aged couple, wake up one morning in an isolated summer house high above a picturesque body of water. The weather's fine; the view's magnificent. There's only one problem—neither of them can remember who they are. When a young woman named Wren arrives, information starts to flood in. But will it help? Her explanations seem only to make Moss and Avis' world—as well as ours—more terrifying.... Read more

When conservative candidate Therm Pooley's criticism of Kerr's government-sponsored performance art lands him a Senate seat, Kerr seeks revenge. The centerpiece of Pooley's political career is his labrador retriever, Lucky, whose tricks ingratiate Pooley to voters. Kerr seeks to kidnap and retrain Lucky, but his attempt is foiled by a mysterious and supernatural transformation that brings him closer to Pooley than he ever imagined.... Read more

The character of controversial baseball legend Ty Cobb is split into three differently aged versions of himself: The Peach, aged nineteen, at the beginning of his long career with the Detroit Tigers; Ty, in his early forties, at the end of his playing days; and Mr Cobb, in his early seventies, at the point of death from cancer. The play floats freely in time, moving back and forth among the Cobbs as they contend with each other, and the audience, over whom Ty Cobb really was an... Read more

DOWN THE ROAD centers on a convicted serial killer and the husband and wife writing team hired to help him write an account of his crimes. The killer, Bill Reach, has admitted to the murders of nineteen women, but there may have been more. Over many weeks of interviews, the couple—Dan and Iris Henniman—grow more and more uncertain of the ethics of what they are doing. Are they simply relating terrifying events, or are they helping readers consume rape, murder, and mutilation as... Read more

Staged with utmost simplicity, using platforms and a few props, the play probes into the delicate relationship of three singular women: the grandmother, Dorothea, who has sought to assert her independence through strong-willed eccentricity; her brilliant daughter, Artie (Artemis), who has fled the stifling domination of her mother; and Artie's daughter, Echo, a child of exceptional intellect—and sensitivity—whom Artie has abandoned to an upbringing by Dorothea. As the play begi... Read more

A play in two plays, FLAG DAY examines white/black relations in our society with an unblinking eye.

The first play, Good, Clean Fun, is a darkly funny office comedy pitting two workers—one black, one white—against each other as they try to complete a high-pressure project. The office racism intensifies as we learn that one of them has stolen the other's wife. (2 men.)

The second, Down and Dirty, evokes recent white-on-black and black-on-white kil... Read more

Toby and Mia are graduate students with a bright future ahead of them: a baby on the way and a college coaching job for Toby. But when Toby stumbles across a secret that threatens to derail their future, he and Mia must decide between honesty and loyalty, and whether doing something wrong is the only way to do what’s right. Inspired by the Penn State sexual abuse scandal, FOR THE LOYAL is an emotional and thought-provoking night of theater.... Read more

Young Fortinbras, a modern man of action, enters during the last scene of Hamlet only to order the bodies of the royal family shuffled off while he devises the best possible media blitz to legitimize his ascension to the throne of Denmark. Horatio, sworn to the dead Hamlet to convey the truth of his actions, is immediately cast by Fortinbras into the role of an unwilling public relations person. Meanwhile, Fortinbras is forced to balance a disastrous and mistaken invasion of Po... Read more

May N'Kame, the mother of an African dictator, travels to England to see Dr. Cora Gage about medical treatment for her failing eyesight. Dr. Gage uses the consultation as an opportunity to raise the issue of the imprisonment of some of her colleagues. Meanwhile, May N'Kame's true motive in visiting the doctor is to obtain a poison with which to kill her murderous son. GOING TO ST. IVES is the story of two impressive women brought together by that which is personal and divided b... Read more

A man lost in his adult life drives across the West with his stepdaughter—a young girl at the beginning of hers. The broken ground is echoed by their broken past. He's trying to fit together a new life using pieces of the old; she's just trying to survive. Two characters, Bitch and Monkey Man (the only names the young girl will allow), roam through the northern Rockies on a long loop from home, with two very different agendas. In a series of increasingly desperate attempts to r... Read more

The setting is the small town of Independence, Iowa, the lifelong home of Evelyn Briggs. Her oldest daughter, Kess, is a university professor in Minneapolis, but she has come home at the request of her sister, Jo, who is concerned for Evelyn's mental health. Kess, a professed lesbian, wants to cut her family ties once and for all; Jo, an incurable romantic and longtime virgin, has now become pregnant; while Sherry, salty-tongued and amoral, wants only to finish high school so s... Read more

A week after being drugged and raped at a frat party, Molly brings home a drunken man from another party. She doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know who raped her. But she plans to exact her revenge on him.... Read more

The estranged son of a middle-aged man returns home to find that his father has taken in a young refugee from El Salvador. Not only has the refugee moved in, but he's been given the son's room and is sleeping in his bed. As this explosive situation tests the already strained father-son relationship, we discover that the son is a male prostitute and was sexually abused on a regular basis by his average, working-class father. Throw in the secretive young man from El Salvador and ... Read more

In this dystopic view of the near-future, sexual offenders have been removed from the traditional penal system and placed in a series of "gulag"-like camps created out of dying, rural towns all over America. Laws have changed, and now offenders can be kept indefinitely (largely incommunicado), for as long as the state sees fit, no matter the relative seriousness of their crime. Tuck, an inmate who's served his sentence for sleeping with a teenage girl, has hopes of being releas... Read more

Eve Wilfong, who lives over the "Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music Bar," is paid a visit by her niece Catherine Empanger, a novice nun who's been asked to leave her convent. It seems Catherine suffers from a curious compulsion to yell obscenities at the wrong moment, and even, on occasion, bark like a dog. Roy, an honest if simple fellow from the bar downstairs, wants to court Catherine whether she's a nun or not. Eve feels she should give her niece the benefit of her e... Read more

The place is the locker room of the Northshore (Minnesota) Otters, a Triple-A baseball club struggling through a lackluster season. It's the day of the annual Oldtimers Game, and several former Otters are on hand, including "Old John" Law, a Hall of Famer; Dave Pearl, now a star center fielder in the big leagues; Jim Nealy, a once promising player who retired early because of injury; and Crab Detlefson, whom the others have difficulty recalling, despite his tales of daring-do o... Read more

Commissioned by the Bergalis family to explore Kimberly's case of contracting the AIDS virus, the playwright becomes part of the story as an essential observer to the story. Kim's encounters with Lee reflect their relationship in real life as well as the "playwright" and "character" in the play. A third character, Matthew, represents a composite of the thousands of gay men who have suffered in the AIDS epidemic. As the play recounts Kim's case, spotlighting the media and politi... Read more

David and Carolyn Rose would seem to "have it all" —a generous income, two expensive cars, a son in a good college, and twenty-one years of wedded bliss. Now, on their anniversary, they have returned, with another couple, to the hotel in Red Wing, Minnesota, where they spent their honeymoon. The other couple wants the Roses to join them in the bar for a pre-dinner drink, but David, more in love than ever, has other ideas—and it is his amorous persistence which moves the play qu... Read more

THIEF RIVER is the story of two men and their fifty-three-year relationship. Ray marries and remains closeted in the small town where they grew up. Gil moves to the city to seek his freedom. Throughout their lives they struggle with their feelings for each other in a society that doesn't know how to make room for them, while their bond—shaped by a dark and violent event in their youth—forever draws them together.... Read more

The two rooms of the title are a windowless cubicle in Beirut, where an American hostage is being held by Arab terrorists, and a room in his home in the United States, which his wife has stripped of furniture so that, at least symbolically, she can share his ordeal. In fact the same room serves for both and is also the locale for imaginary conversations between the hostage and his wife, plus the setting for the real talks she has with a reporter and a State Department official.... Read more

Is there really a Hell? This speculative dark comedy follows the footsteps of the highly guilty Ponzi-scheming Bernard Madoff (and Verge, his guide) through an updated version of Dante’s Inferno. As a Jew, Bernie doesn't believe in Hell—so why's he here? And why does everything look like Manhattan? Trying to solve these metaphysical mysteries, Bernie and Verge encounter both criminals and their prey. What kind of Hell is this?... Read more

The place is a "pleasant woods on the outskirts of Geneva," where two superpower arms negotiators, a Russian and an American, meet informally after long, frustrating hours at the bargaining table. The Russian, Botvinnik, a seasoned veteran who has mastered the Soviet "hard line," is urbane and humorous but, at the same time, profoundly cynical about what the current sessions can accomplish. His young American counterpart, Honeyman, a newcomer to the arms-control talks, is a bit... Read more

Subtitled "a political fantasy," the play shows George W. Bush on the verge of turning himself over to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for illegal acts committed during his presidency. He spends his last night of freedom in the penthouse of a five-star Dutch hotel with a view of the sea. Keeping him company are Piet, a high-level hotel employee, and Anna-Lisa, a beautiful and mysterious younger woman. George's anxiety about tomorrow causes him to vent eight years'... Read more

Omar, a retired baseball umpire, suddenly gets a phone call from Ry, a son he's never seen. Ry is the product of a one-night stand long ago. He's never wanted to meet his absentee father, but now in his mid-thirties, after making a life for himself in a distant city, he seems to feel it's time. Omar's not so sure. In a series of funny, heartbreaking scenes, the two men negotiate every inch of a very rocky road in trying to come together. Is there any common ground? Can Omar eve... Read more