All over Town

THE STORY: Increasingly disenchanted by the myriad disasters in the world around him, Dr. Lionel Morris, an eminent psychiatrist, is on the verge of withdrawing to a life of Buddhist contemplation. However, egged on by his intense daughter and her social worker fiancé, he is drawn into dealing with a very special welfare department case: a young man named Louie who has fathered nine children by five different women, all out of wedlock and all now on public assistance. The doctor's plan is to have Louie move into the family's luxurious apartment while he analyzes him, but, as luck would have it, a young black deliveryman, Lewis, strays by and is mistaken for Louie-a misconception with which he readily goes along. When the real Louie shows up Lewis conceals him in a guest room and gives him reams of the doctor's questionnaires to fill out, while he pursues his own scheme of hustling the good doctor into putting up the money for a tap-dancing school in Harlem. Adding to the general confusion are, among others, the doctor's vapid wife, who is carrying on an affair with a military man friend of the family; a lascivious Swedish maid who can't keep her hands off Lewis; a bogus French cook and maid; a near-sighted burglar; and the military man's opera-loving wife-all of whom make their individual, and very funny contributions both to the increasing merriment of the play and to the trenchant, underlying observations which liven and illuminate it.Schisgal, Murray is the author of 'All over Town' with ISBN 9780822200178 and ISBN 0822200171.