Welcome to the Moon and Other Plays.

THE STORIES: In THE RED COAT, a teenage boy in the Bronx lays in wait outside a party for a girl he hardly knows. His mission, which he accomplishes with touching if halting effectiveness, is to tell her that he loves her. (1 man, 1 woman.) In DOWN AND OUT, a Poet and his Love live in abject poverty, hounded by a maniacal Spectre. The Spectre first takes away the Poet's library card, and then returns to offer money for his soul. His Love protects him. (2 men, 1 woman.) The third play, LET US GO OUT INTO THE STARRY NIGHT, deals with a skinny woman in a cafe who approaches a haunted young man who reminds her of Dostoevsky. They have an intensely serious conversation which temporarily transports them into an ecstatic spot among the stars. (1 man, 1 woman.) OUT WEST centers on the old story of the coming of a Cowboy to a small western town. There is a Good Girl, a Bad Girl, a gunfight, and then the need to move on. But it all happens at about triple normal speed! (3 men, 2 women.) In A LONELY IMPULSE OF DELIGHT, a young man falls in love with a mermaid in the lake in New York's Central Park and decides to introduce her to his best friend with delightfully humorous results. (2 men.) In the final play, WELCOME TO THE MOON, Stephen, a guy still madly in love with a girl he hasn't seen in fourteen years, joins his old friend, Ronny, who has been unsuccessfully trying to do away with himself for fourteen years, for a drink in a Bronx bar. They decide to commit suicide together by putting plastic bags over their heads-but the two people whom they've always loved arrive in time to stop them. Time then stops for a bittersweet moment, as past and present become one. (4 men, 1 woman.)John Patrick Shanley is the author of 'Welcome to the Moon and Other Plays.' with ISBN 9780822212317 and ISBN 0822212315.