Act 1

The action of the play begins on Memorial Day weekend at the lakeside vacation home of Gregory Mitchell in upstate New York. Gregory, a successful Broadway choreographer, has invited a group of his friends to visit for the long holiday weekend. We are given a glimpse of most of them right away as they are gathered around Gregory's piano singing "Beautiful Dreamer." There is Bobby Brahms, Gregory's own blind, live-in boyfriend; Buzz Hauser, a comic, sarcastic lover of Broadway musicals who is HIV-positive and afraid of what the future holds for him; Perry Sellars and Arthur Pape, a lawyer and accountant in a long-term, monogamous relationship; John Jeckyll, a mean-spirited English pianist; and his boyfriend, Ramon Fornos, a handsome, young Puerto Rican dancer.

Though each of these men becomes involved with one or more stories, or "plotlines," in the play, Love! Valour! Compassion! is more about its...