The Benefactor

available for production

“None of you really want money. All it does is paper over the gaps. It doesn’t make them go away.”
“There you are, Adrian, all the philosophy you could want.”

“Well, if it isn’t money, what is it? What is our ‘heart’s desire’?

To sing like Madonna and look like Michael Jackson? Or is it the other way round?”

A gay bar in a city in the USA where three single young men meet every Friday to gossip and flirt.

When a stranger offers them their heart’s desire they know it’s a joke, isn’t it? But what if it isn’t?

Soon all three find themselves exploring the limits of desire and love – and one is forced deep into his emotions and his past.

CAST

Stranger: M, late 30s / early 40s. Black, quiet, powerful presence

Patrick: M, early 20s, Black, serious

Ken: M, early 20s, Korean-Asian, irreverent

Steve: M, early 20s, short, white, embittered

Jack: M, mid-20s, white

Dino: M, early 20s, Latino

Robert*: M, mid-20s, probably white

Barfly / Nick*: M, early 20s, any ethnicity

Image: M, 20s, tall, white, very handsome (non-speaking role)

* Robert and Barfly / Nick might be played by the same actor

SCRIPT

(An earlier version of this play ran in Los Angeles in July-August 1995.)