Soccer moms think about it, stage mothers rehearse it and cheerleader mothers have actually done it -- committed murder to get their little ones a place in the sun. That's the premise of Eric Coble's funny but sketchy comedy "Bright Ideas" at the Brewster Theater Company.

Coble's play follows the increasingly desperate efforts of an upwardly mobile couple to enroll their 3- going on 4-year-old son in a prestigious preschool named Bright Ideas.

Genevra (Abigail Bara Hall) and Josh (Paul Stein) are a typical two-career family whose multi-tasking lives are the fodder of television comedies -- with one exception. Like Macbeth and his wife, they have ambitions that fuel drastic deeds.

When they discover their son is No. 2 on the enrollment list -- with only one spot open -- the light (make that dark) dawns on them that they could eliminate the competition. That would be the child of Genevra's co-worker Denise (Valerie Esposito), who soon finds herself facing a plate of poisoned pesto.

The plan is to kill Denise so that her son will have to go live with his father in the Midwest and thus clear the way for Josh and Genevra's kid.

Like many murder plots, comic or otherwise, there is escalating involvement for the culprits. They soon find that getting their son in the school is only the first step. There are teachers who also stand in his way -- especially when it comes to winning a coveted award for excellence.

So, in for a penny, in for a pound, Genevra takes the lead in erasing the roadblocks -- lethally if necessary.

It's a funny concept and director Ryan Dietzen has directed it with dispatch and gleeful dark humor. Hall and Stein have excellent comic timing, especially the rubber-limbed Stein, and their appealing 30-something personas help dilute the macabre doings.

Esposito is amusing as the unfortunate dinner guest, and Brian Field and Ambyr Bartko score as much-more-pulled-together yuppies, who continually upstage Josh and Genevra's stabs at social one-upmanship.

There's clever support from Eric McDonald, Wendy Egan, Scott Griffith, Rita Aber and Wendy Greggs as a variety of teachers, coaches, and even a party-going beaver named Bix.

The set, the design of the director and Ray Vento, uses brightly colored cutouts that look lifted from a kindergarten book.

Though the playwright has a good grasp of the inanities of contemporary parenthood, the script is essentially a series of funny sketches that end in blackouts. It's not so much a play as an extended "Saturday Night Live" routine but still funny enough to brighten an evening out.

The underlying theme of striving, however, is as scary as it is funny. What's next? Conjugal suites on campuses, where couples can book a night for conception , thus giving their offspring "native" enrollment rights? Egad!

Brewster Theater Company,'s "Bright Ideas" plays Friday and Saturday and March 22 at 8 p.m. at the Melrose School, 120 Federal Road, off Mill Town Road, off Route 22 North, Brewster, N.Y. Tickets are $15, $13 for seniors and students; all the box office at (845) 598-1621, or visit www.brewstertheatercompany.org.

Running time is 1 hour and 50 minutes, including one intermission. The play contains adult language that may not be appropriate for younger audiences.


This event is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program. In Putnam County the Decentralization Program is administered by the Putnam Arts Council.