The Third Story
September 16 - October 19, 2008
Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre
World Premiere

An original commission by La Jolla Playhouse

Written by and Featuring Charles Busch
Directed by Carl Andress


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Omaha, 1949...Peg, a brazen screenwriter of Hollywood's Golden Age, has been a stowaway on a Chinese junk, escaped a cannibal village and had her ankle kissed by a young Tyrone Power — but now that the boys have taken over Hollywood, she's out of work.  Ever optimistic, Peg approaches her son to collaborate on a new script to resurrect her faded career. Although Drew has fled Tinseltown for the quiet life of a Midwestern mail carrier, he reluctantly joins his mother to draft a crazy adventure through time, the uncertainties of science and the bonds of love. 

Their flights of imagination bring together an elegant and hardscrabble Queen of the Mob, a chilly scientist harboring a seething passion and a romantic fairytale set in a Russian forest. Add to that a botched science experiment named Zygote with seven nipples and a chemical dependency, and a tough guy with a serious case of claustrophobia, and you have The Third Story. 

Uplifting, imaginative and endlessly funny, The Third Story delights in the stories we tell to make sense of our lives.

Charles Busch
Renowned actor, playwright, novelist, screenwriter and director Charles Busch is a legend in his own time. Author and star of the Sundance Film Festival award-winner Die, Mommie, Die! and the author of Broadway's Tony Award- nominated The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Charles Busch embarks on his most ambitious work yet with The Third Story. Gracing the stage as three of the female characters in The Third Story, Mr. Busch is sure to delight and inspire audiences.


La Jolla Playhouse wishes to thank our generous sponsors for their support: