Seat Filler: Best NYC Theater of 2009

8. Slipping
In this smart, smoldering drama at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a widowed mother had relocated her gay son, self-mutilating hipster Eli, from San Francisco to small-town Iowa. Emotionally scarred by his first relationship with a menacing closet case seen in tense flashbacks, Eli soon found himself sleeping with an affectionate stud on his new high school’s baseball team. Straight playwright Daniel Talbott’s program note said the action took place in 2006 “at the shore of legalized marriage and Obama,” but Eli's classmates still acted refreshingly indifferent to the affair. Sure, the play was total queer fantasy fulfillment, but leads Seth Numrich and MacLeod Andrews were affecting and adorable.