FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS
A Tragedy in Four Acts (with commercial breaks)
By James Presson
After four years on a hit sitcom, starlet Laura Burns is at the end of her rope. Unimpressed by the whirlwind of fame and consumed by existential notions, she longs for an escape from the artificiality of her laugh-track life. But as the lines between her off-screen friendships and her on-screen ones blur, Laura must face the terrifying possibility that this might be the only reality in which she can exist.
Script available through Indie Theater Now
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Produced by Less Than Rent Theatre at Walkerspace, December 2011.
REVIEWS
“Quiet, well-observed, and poignant”
Backstage
"Presson and his collaborators here utterly and absolutely NAIL sitcoms. Their rhythms, their tones, their gimmicks, their tricks, their soulless soulfulness—all of this is portrayed with a savvy felicity that’s close enough to the real thing to be eerie but still removed sufficiently to function as parody/commentary. We see three more-or-less complete episodes of “Reel Deal” in the course of Friends Don’t Let Friends— a potentially dicey challenge that Presson and company pull off spectacularly well…They’ve got more on their minds than a weekly helping of comfort food; this is as rewarding and nutritious a theatrical stew as you’ll find anywhere in NYC right now."
NYtheatre.com
“Memorable and moving”
Theatre is Easy
"A fresh, ambitious work that pushes at the borders between art and reality, entertainment and meaning."
Hy Reviews