About the Play:

The volume Later Encounters contains a collection of seven one-act dramas by Leonard Melfi. Lena and Louie and Rusty and Rico are about two pairs of lovers who discover what it really means to be in love. The two plays are complementary, feature the same actors, and may be performed separately or as an evening of entertainment. Also includes Taxi Tales, a series of vignettes of urban life relating to taxicabs and their drivers.

Lena and Louie: Lena and Louie are homeless persons who carry all their possessions around in shopping carts. They are also lovers. They meet in Central Park. Tonight, they wait for a catastrophic act of nature to take place. (Cast: 1 woman, 1 man)

Rusty and Rico: Rusty is a prostitute and Rico, her lover, is a successful New York politician. She's his sexual fantasy, and he's her perfect partner fantasy. They meet on the sly in the same place each night in Central Park. On this particular night tragedy, both romantic and violent, strikes. (Cast: 1 woman, 1 man)

Lena and Louie and Rusty and Rico premiered in 1978 at the Impossible Ragtime Theater off-off-Broadway in New York City.

Also includes Taxi Tales, a series of five kinky comedy vignettes about eccentric New York cabbies and their even odder passengers. One thing is certain, you'll never look at a cab the same way after Taxi Tales.

Mr. Tucker's Taxi: Mr. Tucker drives his taxicabs all over Manhattan with his wife sitting next to him. He is dying of a terminal disease. A desperate young lady hails them down, wanting to be rushed to the nearest hospital. At a red light they are hijacked by a gun-toting bank robber. Mr. Tucker obeys the hijacker until, finally, everything is out of control. (Cast: 2 women, 2 men)

Taffy's Taxi: Taffy is a lesbian New York cab driver. Some of her fares on this particular day include two small town honeymooners who become entranced with her life style, a sexually adventurous couple ready for a threesome and a fellow lesbian who makes a romantic proposition despite Taffy's open confession of loyalty to her somewhat exasperating lover. It is all up to Taffy. (Cast: 4 women, 2 men)

The Teaser's Taxi: Teaser the taxi driver is a total innocent who dreams of being a pop singer. On this rainy New York City day he picks up a Contessa and her cat, a young male hustler and a wandering young woman with a suitcase. Teaser wants to protect them all from the rain, but, in the end, everything backfires on him. (Cast: 2 women, 2 men)

Toddy's Taxi: The music-loving Toddy likes to listen to "The Firebird Suite" in his taxi. On this day he picks up a drunken out-of-town businessman accompanied by two high-priced call girls, who are seeing him off at Kennedy Airport. You meet all kinds driving a taxi! (Cast: 2 women, 2 men)

Tripper's Taxi: Tripper is always on drugs. His taxicab is a special world in itself. When a well to do older man, his wife and their teen aged daughter start an incestuous affair in the back seat, Tripper needs a fast catalyst – a drug induced suicide. (Cast: 2 women, 2 men)

Taxi Tales premiered in 1978 at the Century Theatre on Broadway in New York City.

What people say:

"Leonard Melfi's five one-acts are disconcerting and darkly comic. If the cabbies occasionally talk to themselves too much, well, at least it's an interesting trip." — Los Angeles Times

About the Playwright:

Leonard Melfi (1932-2001) was an American playwright and actor whose work has been widely produced on the American stage. He started writing original acting scenes while studying in Uta Hagen's famed acting classes and first came to the attention of American theatregoers with his short plays for Café La Mama, a birthplace for the off-off Broadway fringe in the 1960s. Best known for known for creating characters who were social outcasts, often hiding dark secrets, he wrote or contributed to over 70 plays, including his classic Birdbath.