The Author's Voice at Duke University

Todd is youthful, and devastatingly handsome. He is also in the process of writing the kind of tortured and brilliant novel that can only come from the soul of a genius. Todd’s editor, the beautiful and bold Portia, would love get closer to his mind -- and his body -- but Todd keeps her at arm’s length. Under his successful veneer, Todd hides a wicked secret: he keeps a smelly and misshapen gnome named Gene locked up in his apartment, trading Gene’s skillful and creative storytelling for ‘protection’ from the laughing, jeering outside world. Todd and Gene remain locked in a physically and emotionally violent battle of codependence, with Todd at an unfair advantage -- until Gene tries to script a love scene for Todd and Portia, hoping against hope that, at the last minute, he might step into the starring role…..In this vicious, twisted little tale of two Beauties and a Beast, Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg has given us a world of painful pretension and poignant need, where one deception is fair revenge for another.