Synopsis
In the Western Garden & Sudden Devotion & Resident Alien
Published by Broadway Play Publishing
4 Male 1 Female
"RESIDENT ALIEN is a sweet and quirky comedy set in an anonymous small town in northeastern Wisconsin.... It's the characters that set RESIDENT ALIEN apart from television fodder. They are interesting, likeable and cut just enough against stereotype to be refreshingly funny.... Additional humor is found in small town insularity. Most of the characters, who are approaching middle age, are still playing out grudges and slights from their adolescent years." Damien Jones, Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
"...be sure someone pokes you awake for Stuart Spencer's IN THE WESTERN GARDEN, the evening's gem. It's 1989; a famous old abstract expressionist painter and his patient, sagacious wife are visited on their Hamptons farm by his longtime dealer, with a hot young conceptual artist in tow. The dealer, on the verge of bankruptcy owing to the crash in art prices, desperately needs product; the conceptual artist wants either to replace his boyhood hero or to subsume him into the anonymity his pomo installations express. The artist and his wife have secrets of their own to unveil. Packed into the play's short space are a neat, effective intrigue, a fierce debate about the nature of creativity, four vivid characters.... ...the wit or the nearly palpable passion behind Spencer's mordant contrivance." Michael Feingold, The Village Voice (reviewing the second act of the full-length play being performed on its own)