I mean it. Let's see how I can best entice you. It's a play that's not expensive ($15! amazing seats). It's very, very funny and quite moving. It's about existential despair, and the costumes are excellent. There's a wig and low-cut dresses and a crooked mustache. It's on the Upper West Side (78th Street Theater, just off the southeast corner of 78th and Broadway). It's by a Canadian playwright named Morris Panych. (Canadians: funny. Can't deny it.) The women are hot and have great comic timing; the men are debonair and never stutter in their long waterfalls of dialogue. The play's tagline is "One man on a ledge, twelve people who could care less." Doesn't sound funny? Oh, but it is. Panych's publisher puts it well: "A fast-paced, sophisticated and hilarious play—a man's contemplation of suicide leads to a charming and surprising ending." Here's a plot synopsis:

7 Stories is a comedy that tackles the issues of morality and the meaning of existence. The play opens with a man standing on a ledge of a building on the verge of jumping to his death. His silence is broken when a bickering couple burst from their window in the middle of an arguement. This begins a domino effect of eccentric characters coming out to engage the man on the ledge, oblivious to his state and consumed with their own lives.

Yes, eccentric's one word for them. Other words are loony, tuney, goony, puny, moony, swoony, and kablooey. Besides that, my handsome and charming cousin Nick Lawson is in it, with a long monologue that demonstrates Panych's uncanny premonition (in 1990) of Friendster:



And so is Paula Burton, as a daffy old lady (though she is, in fact, young, great-looking, and British to boot):



Not to mention these these swell actors, whose names you should recognize from major TV shows and other good plays—when you see their faces you'll know immediately. Names without comment indicate that it's the middle of the night and I can't look up all their famousness, but you'll have to trust me on this one.

Man: Tom Bain [You must not miss him in this. He plays the man on the ledge and never leaves the stage. Incredible.]
Marshall: Paden Fallis
Leonard: Nelson Lee [Traffic, Oz...]
Rodney: Happy Anderson
Charlotte: Teresa Heidt
Nurse Wilson: Jaime Hurley
Michael: Derek Ahonen
Al: Eric Thorne
Jennifer: Sarah Fraunfelder [Va-voom!]
Joan: Sarah Lemp
Rachel: Anna Mannas

Directed by Paden Fallis, Martin Friedrichs, and Nelson Lee; lighting design (excellent) by Chris Jensen.

Why this play? Why not any one of two dozen others? Because it's cheap, it's easy to get to, it's not in Times Square, and it's actually GOOD. Am I sweet-talking you into seeing it just because my cousin, Undisputed King of All Williamsburg Pizza Deliveries, is in it? No. I only recommend plays I'm really crazy about. From RocketShip's (the theater company) manifesto:

For those who find pretension and artifice off-putting, who feel that theatre doesn't neccesarily need to be handled in a reverential way, who tire of its high expense coupled with an all-too-often low pay-off—Rocketship is the night for you.

Rocketship is a jam session for actors, a truly accessible, eclectic, ambitious night of theatre. In the same way that minor league baseball attracts those who love the smell, the feel and the passion of the game itself—Rocketship was created by and for those who feel the same way about the theatre.

Rocketship pulls no punches, but relies on the old-fashioned premise that magic can happen when the actor, the text and the audience collide.

I'll say! This play&#8212the writer, the director, and the actors—gets it. You've got to see it. Buy tickets here now. Here are the remaining shows:

Saturday, April 30 @ 8pm and 10pm
Thursday, May 5 @ 8pm
Friday, May 6 @ 8pm
Saturday, May 7 @ 8pm

And give Nick a really good tip next time you see him. He's earned it.