The Very Last Dance of Homeless Joe

A character study of nine archetypal homeless people, written in lyrical realism by a playwright who has, himself, been homeless. A young woman named Charlie who works as a copy editor for a little Manhattan newspaper. Wanting to do something important and meaningful, she decides to write about people who are homeless and encounters nine people who make her laugh and cry, open her eyes and ultimately change her life for the better. They include a Vietnam vet, a woman suffering from mental illness and a woman who went blind as a child. There are also a woman named Nobody, who refuses to be saved or spoken to, and a man who says his biggest problem is dating. Their parts are written in tour de force monologues with heightened stage language and inescapable truth. They all refer Charlie to Homeless Joe, who lives on the streets with his dog. He cares for many other homeless people and his story, they insist, trumps all theirs. Charlie’s quest to find Joe is the trip of the play.