(The Rise and Fall of) The Farewell Drugs


Book Description

The Farewell Drugs (Reed, Chimpy, Johnny and Sloane) were the worst behaved band on the Lower East Side: heroin snorting, groupie abusing, shoplifting, drug dealing, sexist, racist misanthropes. But they had talent. When beleaguered record industry executive Hella Hecht endeavors to make them over, she finds wild success, marketing them as The Skatekeys, a boy band full of clean cut and polite young troubadours. The Drugs play along but slowly and surely, their old ways creep back in with deadly results. A rock and roll industry farce with a little too much of an edge. "Spitz exploded onto the Ludlow Street theater scene... their first production, 1998s's Retail Sluts depicted the SoHo class struggle: kids working in high-end boutiques selling overpriced hipster clothes to tourists." -Tom Murrin, Paper Magazine




Shyness is Nice


Book Description

Fitzgerald was once a twee wallflower. He's remade his image as a tough, junkie hipster and wants to take his Smiths obsessed, cardigan-wearing friends with him. Fearing resistance, he approaches a surly, Australian pimp, Blixa and hires her "finest bitch" Kylie, to "de-virginize them." He pays for Kylie's services with bad dope. When a furious Blixa shows up for revenge, what is supposed to be the most special night of Rodney and Stew's life could very well be their last on earth. Heroin, Morrissey, Nick Drake, Nick Cave, Toto Cuelo, Chinese egg rolls and a baby snatching dingo all figure into this fast, fearless, pitch black sex farce. "Spitz writes with a buoyant irreverence that may evoke rewarding memories at times of playwrights Joe Orton and Charles Busch. And he's not afraid to address life's really big questions, such as what is the ideal recording to listen to the first time you have sex?" -Chip Deffaa, The New York Post




The Hobo Got Too High


Book Description

Bug Blowmonkey does so much cocaine that he has developed a friendship with one of his chemically induced hallucinations: the confused but still righteous ghost of Marvin Gaye. Estranged from the one woman he had feelings for, Bug begins to question his compulsion to get so numb and frigid. When he meets a new woman, he tries to strip away the icy, hipster facade and accept her for who she is: and not the idealized Vertigo-style duplicate of the pristine ghost he needs to break away from. Will he break away from Marvin Gaye as well? And just how will Marvin take this? A hallucinatory, funny, sad drug dream about longing and the slippery grip on "self help." "Marc Spitz is one of my favorite playwrights; I have been to at least half of his dozen plays, and I have never been disappointed. He knows how to shake people up; make them laugh, gasp and gag. Expect bad taste, bad language, snappy dialogue, theatrical surprises and maybe something that really grosses you out." -Tom Murrin, Paper Magazine




Gravity Always Wins


Book Description

The pressures of life in a post 9/11 world are starting to effect suburban dad Mort Williams in a strange way. His wife has left him and the only two people he can relate to are his unscrupulous plastic surgeon and his "tween" next door neighbor. Eventually the fact that Mort is slowly turning into Michael Jackson becomes a problem that his two grown sons must deal with; even as one has become a survivalist and the other is trying to convince his French girlfriend to keep their baby. Bleak and brutal with moments of wild humor, and the occasional shout of "Wooo!," this dark comedy embodies the spirit of a stunned city, struggling to piece life back together. "The Spitz aesthetic is proudly trashy and puerile, dedicated to slapstick and tasteless jokes, sort of like Mel Brooks if he listened to Joy Division. But Spitz's newest, Gravity Always Wins, turns out to be - hold on to your trucker hat - a domestic comedy with absolutely no onstage sex, violence or drugs. In truth Spitz's past works always hid a streak of sweetness, beneath the corrosive comedy lurks a romantic soul." -David Cote, Time Out New York




... Worry, Baby


Book Description

Dexter and Donna's relationship has gone dull. To spice things up, they head to a trendy eatery on the Lower East Side, secure that "it's safe now." While waiting for a subway train, they witness a drug related shooting and find themselves face to face with a gravely wounded, white B-Boy named Larippo. He orders Dexter to go find help and holds Donna as collateral. Dexter heads up to Harlem to fetch Larippo's boss and a doctor while Donna shares her creative and sexual frustrations with the bleeding, sweating thug. Secrets and a lot more blood are spilled and nobody turns out to be who they seem. A gore and sex drenched black comedy about gentrification, cultural carpet bagging and the perils of forgetting that at its heart, New York City is anything but predictable. "A fun crime spree straight out of a John Waters picture." -Paper Magazine "There's certainly nothing classic about playwright Marc Spitz's farce... a kind of modern day La Ronde in which mindless violence substitutes for casual sex. As gratuitous as the blood and gore undeniably are, the satirical vision is so consistently outrageous that it's hard to seem morally inflamed when one can hardly stop laughing at the perverse and all too pervasive cultural absurdity." -Charles McNulty, The Village Voice




The Name of this Play is Talking Heads


Book Description

It was supposed to be a routine promotional appearance: an aspiring writer appears on a cable news or entertainment network to film a talking heads expert spot in order to promote one of his recently published articles. When face to face with the routine manipulations and blunt agendas that elicit the soundbytes we routinely see as part of our daily info-tainment, he is horrified and decides to rebel, only to realize that he is essentially violating the order of the entertainment universe and there are rewards for playing the game and deadly consequences for resisting. You will never watch an I Love the 90s episode again without wondering what's going on behind the scenes. "Mr. Spitz has written racy, insidery plays about junkies, pimps and rock stars. They were sloppy, but it didn't matter. Who wants a well made play about pornography or Joy Division's Ian Curtis anyway?" -Jason Zimonan, The New York Times




I Wanna Be Adored


Book Description

Winston Frame is the self described, urban "poet of death and despair." Young, dour, pale and handsome, he is, much like Ian Curtis of Joy Division, also haunted and suicidal. When the pressure of impending success, fatherhood and an affair get too much, he hangs himself. Only his journey is not quite over. Winston finds himself in Purgatory, which is a Weimar style cabaret full of animal acts, exhausted chanteuses and the borscht belt comic Bobby Lemondrops. His guide is "Mad Simon," who seems intent on keeping Winston's damned soul out of Hell. Simon's agenda is hidden but we get the idea that this is no ordinary tour guide. It's A Wonderful Life meets 24 Hour Party People, I Wanna Be Adored is as strangely sweet as it is delirious and austere. "Beginning with a series of punchy and surprising scenes that include a woman getting spanked with a trout, a fight and a striptease by a wheelchair bound woman, the show maintains a gleefully racy tone throughout." -Jason Zinoman, Time Out New York




Up For Anything


Book Description

Walter Dabney thinks he's being practical when he ingests a recreational erectile dysfunction drug called Themis. It will, he reasons, allow him to have a quickie with Annie, his mistress, before his wife returns with her family for a long planned celebratory supper. Only Walter is that guy you wonder about: the one who actually gets the four hour erection they warn you about in those commercials. He must now navigate the aforementioned dinner and the spontaneous arrival of all kinds of random New York City visitors, while keeping a raging and un-lowerable erection in his pants. A madcap sex farce with a case of over a dozen, it examines notions of fidelity, self control, art and whether better living through chemistry is truly better after all. "Marc Spitz is one of my favorite playwrights; I have been to at least half of his dozen plays, and I have never been disappointed. He knows how to shake people up; make them laugh, gasp and gag. Expect bad taste, bad language, snappy dialogue, theatrical surprises and maybe something that really grosses you out." -Tom Murrin, Paper Magazine




Retail Sluts


Book Description

Clarence, Tony and Dommy work in a posh clothing store in New York's retail capital of SoHo. They're surrounded by fabulous people, drape themselves in the latest fashions, but they take home tiny pay checks and cannot numb themselves enough with drugs, alcohol, cheap sex and even cheaper fads. As 30 approaches fast, they must fact the dying dreams, face their greatest fears, and reckon with the various firebrands, zealots and sugar mommas who make up the women and men in their lives. All day long, they must ask customers, "Can I help you?" but these guys can barely help themselves. With the world collapsing around them, they must depend on each other to survive another weekend shift. It's the story of friendship, frocks and five dollars an hour self esteem. "Marc Spitz is one of my favorite playwrights; I have been to at least half of his dozen plays, and I have never been disappointed. He knows how to shake people up; make them laugh, gasp and gag. Expect bad taste, bad language, snappy dialogue, theatrical surprises and maybe something that really grosses you out." -Tom Murrin, Paper Magazine




Marshmallow World


Book Description

A short, holiday-themed play takes place entirely in a church basement shortly before Christmas; a lonely, intense time of the year for some. During a meeting of a special support group for people with pop music related ailments, three regulars welcome a new member, a Jew with a secret penchant for Christmas songs. Together they share and try to manage their rock related "issues." "Marc Spitz is one of my favorite playwrights; I have been to at least half of his dozen plays, and I have never been disappointed. He knows how to shake people up; make them laugh, gasp and gag. Expect bad taste, bad language, snappy dialogue, theatrical surprises and maybe something that really grosses you out." -Tom Murrin, Paper Magazine