The plot sounds strikingly familiar: Five 32-year-olds sit in a dive bar and stress about their lives, their friendships, their relationships, their damaged egos. There’s the bartender, the girl who sleeps around, the hot guy, the virgin and the depressed friend. They sit at the bar and wonder if, in the throes of doubt that come with being an early 30-something, this is as good as life gets. It’s not the most unique material – St. Elmo’s Fire, anyone? – but it resonates with audiences, partly because Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley (author of Moonstruck and Doubt) is a master at injecting his brutally honest scenes with vitality and dark humor. Although this play was first written in 1984, Savage in Limbo could just as easily have been written in 2004 – or played out in real life, at the local dive bar of your choosing. – Erin Sullivan