It's Only A Play!

It’s the opening night of The Golden Egg on Broadway, and the wealthy producer Julia Budder is throwing a lavish party in her lavish Manhattan townhouse. Downstairs the celebrities are pouring in, but the real action is upstairs in the bedroom, where a group of insiders have staked themselves out to await the reviews. The group includes the excitable playwright; the possibly unstable wunderkind director; the pill-popping leading lady, treading the boards after becoming infamous in Hollywood; and the playwright’s best friend, for whom the play was written but who passed up this production for a television series. Add to this a drama critic who’s panned the playwright in the past and a new-in-town aspiring singer, and you have a prime recipe for the narcissism, ambition, childishness, and just plain irrationality that infuse the theatre—and for comedy. But don’t worry: This play is sure to be the hit they have all been hoping for. Directed by The Ensemble Company’s producing artistic director, Matthew MacDermid, the production will star company veterans Gabriel Garcia (Hysteria, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) as Frank Finger; Luke Haynes (Speech & Debate) as Gus; Rose Lamarre (Torch Song, The Lyons) as Virginia Noyes; David Lowe (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) as James Wicker; and Thomas Muniz (The Inheritance, Hir) as Ira Drew.  Joining them, in their company debuts, are April Brault as Julia Budder and Ken Preuss as Peter Austen.