Book excerpt: Comedy / Characters: 4m, 2f / Unit set A faded screenwriter in the 1940's woos her troubled ex-writer son into collaborating on a screen play. The gangster/sci fi B-movie in their imagination unfolds before us, involving a chic crime czarina, a beautiful but icy lady scientist and her failed and understandly bitter human cloning experiment. A third story is the Russian fairy tale the screenwriter told her son as a child about a painfully shy princess who forges a diabolical pact with a terrifying but surprisingly vulnerable old witch. The fairy tale inspires the movie which inspires the mother and son screenwriters to mend their fractured relationship. "Plays-within-plays require such intricate tailoring. So it's a pleasure to report that with The Third Story, the ever-captivating Charles Busch proves equally deft as both performer and seamstress." -Theatermania. "The main joy of The Third Story is that its foolery embodies something substantive...No wonder The Third Story feels like such an energizing event." -Village Voice.