Flyovers is a 90-minute play about a film critic who finds himself caught up in a Culture Clash of economics, sex and long-submerged resentment when he returns to the small Ohio town where he grew up. Trying to make peace with his past, he reconnects with some former classmates, a bully and a girl he had a crush on. The encounters are unsettling for all three; nothing turns out as expected.
It's 1998 and the economic troubles that will later engulf the rest of the country are offering a preview of coming attractions in Ohio. The plant that has been the economic heart of a downstate town is closed by a decision from Wall Street. Oliver, a movie critic on a TV show, returns for a high school reunion unaware that his current identifi cation as a Jewish New Yorker can't help but trigger a reaction. An invitation from Ted, the bully who used to plague him, and the addition of Ted's unstable wife Lianne and the provocative Iris bring things to a boil in a play that is by turns funny and wrenching.
When it opened at the Tony® Award-winning Victory Gardens Theatre – in a production starring Chicago acting legends Amy Morton and William Petersen under the direction of Dennis Zacek – Flyovers broke house records and took home the "Jeff" Award for new script. It won new admirers in New York in a limited-run production starring Richard Kind and Michele Pawk under the direction of Sandy Shinner.