MACHO MANLY MEN - by Michael Gordon Shapiro and Michael Allegra.

"Interested Introvert" - Featured in A STAGE KINDLY presents"Encore"

Charlie Poole has had a hell of a week: he was fired from his job, kicked out of his apartment, and dumped by his girlfriend. His credit card was even revoked because his of lack of adventurous spending habits. Charlie's luck takes a turn - or perhaps a lateral slide - when he's accidentally reunited with his cousin Mitch, a traditional hunting-enthusiast, womanizing alpha male. Though Mitch was a childhood bully, he decides to take the hapless Charlie under his wing and turn him into his concept of a real man. In hopes of rebuilding his cousin, Mitch brings Charlie to Sportsland, a self-billed "extreme sports resort" with athletic offerings such as Whitewater Logging, Indoor Deer Hunting Range, and Motocross Without Helmets. Charlie finds himself hard-pressed to adapt to Sportlsland's environment, but finds a kindred soul in Susan, a former history student turned theme-park employee out of financial desperation. Mitch meanwhile starts wondering why he's helping Charlie get all the glory, when his own athletic career was cut tragically short by a football injury. He turns on his student, and the two former childhood antagonists suddenly find themselves again in competition, now for the Sportsland Ultimate Manliness Trophy. Bereft of a mentor, Charlie teams up with Susan to find intellectual solutions to Sportsland's athletic challenges - for example, using physics equations to maximize velocity in competitive skydiving. The competition reaches a climax atop the mile-high Mount Get Me Down, where Charlie, in order to win the trophy, must launch himself from the peak via a rocket pack strapped to his back in a sports challenge that admittedly has never been completed non-fatally. Charlie must decide how far he's willing to go in order to conquer his childhood nemesis, and what the heck manliness really means anyway. For more information, visit manlymen.mikemusic.com