Impassioned Embraces.

THE STORIES: Designed to be presented by a company of six actors (three men, three women and without any formal setting, the fourteen short pieces that comprise IMPASSIONED EMBRACES offer a wealth of intriguing possibilities for the performers. Dealing largely with the many aspects of love (from the sublime to the ridiculous) and with the trials and terrors that actors must face, the plays mingle hilarity and poignancy as they explore the problems that romance-and the need for self-expression-can engender. We encounter, for example, an actor struggling through a particularly devastating rehearsal; two teenagers gingerly dissecting a frog-and their sex lives; a bridegroom who finds that he really loves the bridesmaid rather than the bride; a woman (masquerading as a man) who tries to pick up a man (masquerading as a woman) in a bar; a couple chattering through a splatter film whose conversation is even wilder, and more intriguing, than the soundtrack of the movie; an assortment of sad/funny monologues about the various perils (and pleasures) of the acting profession; and a wildly funny farce involving a man about to undergo a vasectomy, a shockingly inept doctor, an irate (and pregnant) nurse, and the doctor's madly jealous wife. Fast-moving and highly inventive throughout, the program maintains a mood of high spirits and offbeat humor that will infect those on both sides of the footlights, as the hilarity-and truth-of the various pieces find their mark.John Pielmeier is the author of 'Impassioned Embraces.' with ISBN 9780822205562 and ISBN 0822205564.