Generic Thriller - The Story

The writer can do anything he wants, right?

Or maybe not...as Steven, a handsome young theatre history professor discovers when he sets
out to write a stage thriller - a plain, old generic thriller - only to discover that his
characters prefer a character study - and want it to be a movie, not a play. At least Steven
can create the man of his dreams, right? But that character - Vertigo - named after Steven's
sixth grade teacher Mr. Vertigo (Steven always dates men named Vertigo) - isn't really cooperating.
Will Steven ever finish his play? Will Vertigo behave (or rather, misbehave) as Steven wishes?
And what about the friends on whom Steven is basing his other characters - will they still be
his friends when it's all over?

"Generic Thriller" is a search for the answers in the form of a post-modern farce, something in the
vein of "Fellini's 8½," Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author," or Woody Allen's
"Deconstructing Harry." It all takes place on a bare stage but it's really happening in Steven's
head - including the visits from Thalia, Muse of Comedy (she rides around in a bubble like Glenda
the Good Witch), Sigmund Freud (you never know when he'll leap out of Steven's subconscious) and a
mysterious African tribesman who makes no sense whatsoever.