The Altruists

These are the kids who protest

They protest arts funding and arms funding

They protest school cutbacks and AIDS cutbacks and welfare cutbacks

They march for gay rights and children's rights and Women Against Drunk Drivers

But their morality is put to the test one day when Sydney, a shallow, anorexic soap-opera actress, fires a gun into the hulking body of her sleeping boyfriend

Terrified, she looks to her brother, Ronald, the center of this merry band of radicals, for help

Ronald, a social worker, wants to aid his sister, but at the moment he's consumed with love

The object of his affection? A young runaway prostitute, Lance. It is Ethan, Ronald's cohort, who points out that they need Sydney - without her money they can do no good in the world

After all, "firebombs don't grow on trees." And when Sydney pressures him, revealing her vulnerability and her real affection for the first time, Ronald acquiesces

He makes the ultimate sacrifice, that of his own happiness for the greater good

And this group of altruists frames Lance, never noticing the irony as they head off to protest the unjust outcome of a trial involving a young man who resembles Lance in every way

REVIEWS

"Exhilarating! Exceedingly funny! The playwright wields his wit like a scalpelwritten with the florid theatricality and seething emotional adrenaline that are the hallmarks of Silver's unique voice" ~ Variety

"Hilarious!Classic Silver to the core" ~ Time Out

"HystericalThe Altruists revels in political incorrectness. Nicky Silver is the bad-boy playwright of Off-Broadway" ~ NY Daily News

"Hilariousthe extravagantly amusing Nicky Silver has written one of his most consistent explosions of dark yet good-natured satirewe are carried aloft on the demented joy of [his] hyperarticulate imagination" ~ NY Newsday