Deborah Blumenthal

70's nostalgia is no slouch market. But I couldn't help feeling like Platinum (the newly revised 1978 musical) at the Fringe didn't really capitalize on that.

All you have to say is "Angels in America," and I'm there. Thankfully, When Last We Flew, Harrison David Rivers' riff on Kushner's great epic delivers in pulling the heartstrings of people who feel the same way. Not to mention that it's a perfectly timed precursor to the highly anticipated New York revival that begins performances in just a few weeks.

Enter James Veitch, a fiercely intelligent theatrical jack-of-all-trades trained in the U.K. and at Sarah Lawrence here in the States, whom I met by way of an undergrad classmate, the day after watching Synecdoche, New York, at the suggestion of the aforementioned friend. (Turns out he knew what it was - just not that there was a name for it.) Synecdoche, New York focuses on an aging, ill theatre director who stages a grand-scale piece in a warehouse that expand and increasingly mimics real life. 'Synechoche' is a term for a part of something that is used to refer to its whole - i.e., the stage.

During my first theater job in New York, I was asked to go to a reading of a play called The Mistakes Madeleine Made, by Elizabeth Meriwether. The play - about a young woman facing family tragedy and a fear of cleanliness -- ended up being produced by Naked Angels, and I've remembered it fondly for years because I enjoyed it so much. It was dark, but funny; deeply disturbed ideas somehow created infectious laughter, and it didn't feel gimmicky for a second. There was something paradoxical about how grounded Meriwether's writing made the zany premise of the story feel - and it worked. I looked forward to seeing her future endeavors.

2004 is hardly ancient history. Sure, things have changed in this country, but in many ways we're still feeling the remnants of the previous administration. We don't need it treated like a relic, or a chapter in the proverbial textbook.

This eclectic mix at The Festival of New American Short Plays is perfect for that short dog days of summer attention span.

An extended sexual family living above a vegan restaurant on Manhattan's Lower East Side must deal with the harsh realities of the world surrounding the utopian world of free expression and free love they've created in their apartment.