David Lindsay-Abaire

By William Tynan

OCCUPATION Off-Broadway playwright

GOAL In five years, to be considered a "semi-successful" playwright and to have written one movie he's proud of

QUOTE "I get my sense of structure from my dad and my sense of humor from my mother. She has a mouth like a trucker."

Actress and comic Janeane Garofalo describes David Lindsay-Abaire's work as "cleverly odd." That seems an understatement for his hit off-Broadway farce, Fuddy Meers. Its characters include a housewife whose memory is erased nightly, her jibberish-speaking mother ("fun-house mirrors" becomes in her mouth "fuddy meers"), and an escaped con with a sock puppet on his hand. Just turned 30, the little-known Lindsay-Abaire has suddenly been discovered. He's been commissioned to write a play for Garofalo, and 20th Century Fox has given him a five-year film-and-TV contract. First up: Road to Ruin, a "screwball comedy" being produced by Wendy Finerman (Forrest Gump) for Hugh Grant.

"A lot of my writing hinges on surprise," says Lindsay-Abaire, who, not surprisingly, cites Ionesco and Feydeau as influences. He was born in South Boston, as David Abaire, to "very regular blue-collar folk" (back then, Dad sold fruit from a truck; Mom worked on a circuit-board assembly line). After Sarah Lawrence College, where he met his wife, actress Chris Lindsay, he honed his craft at New York City's Juilliard School Playwright's Program. What if he scores in Hollywood? "The movie stuff will pay my rent," he says. "But if I want my words to remain as is, I'll stay in the theater."

--By William Tynan