Comedy / Characters: 5 male, 2 female Scenery Requirements: Simple set
Peter and Madeline have been friends since they were teenagers in Queens. They have Manhattan apartments and separate unsatisfactory sex lives. Though more loving than most couples and searching for partners, they are incompatible: he is gay. Maddi is overweight and drawn to men who treat her badly. He hides behind snappy retorts and skepticism. Maddie's alcoholic mother, Peter's father, lovers, pickups and friends with AIDS move through their lives. A homeless teenager, a thief and a poet who would rather be called a whore than a hustler because he doesn't try that hard address the audience to throw everyone's problems into perspective. Dog Opera was first produced Off Broadway at The Joseph Papp Public Theatre.
"Insinuates itself into the consciousness like a conversation in the next booth at a diner.... Everything slowly comes to together to form a coherent, sometimes funny and finally moving contemporary comedy.... It's a singular work created by an imagination of redeeming freedom and eccentricity." N.Y. Times.