"I'm the new Berlin Wall. Try to tear me down." -- Hedwig An East German war bride looks after a young boy in a Kansas trailer park. She is an ex-prostitute who turns her young charge on to Barry Manilow. The story seems lifted from a tabloid, but these are actual childhood memories for one unusual

Angry, New american musical, Perverse, Pop, Tragic

"M. Butterfly" is the ostensibly true story of a French diplomat who carries on a 17-year affair with a bewitching Chinese opera star, only to discover that she is not only a spy, but also a man. The play, rooted in a tabloid headline and realized in a retelling of Puccini's famous "Madam Butterfly,"

Eclectic, Epic, Layered, Off-broadway, Political

Oscar Wilde pursued a life -- an art -- of pure uselessness. This was not because he objected to pragmatic pursuits, if kept in their proper place: "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it inten

Aestheticist fiction, Clever, Mythic, Perverse, Surreal, Witty

Sean O'Casey stormed the citadel of English cultural imperialism in his native Ireland with powerhouse plays promoting Irish nationalism. Born and bred in the Dublin slums, illiterate until the age of 14, and a self-taught reader, writer, and theater-goer, O'Casey maintained a strong bias towards the

Dark, Feminist, Gritty, Irish renaissance, Lyrical, Political