MARTHA: Great news! My parents are staying all of Thanksgiving weekend. And we’re pretty much booked with relatives and friends through Christmas.
GEORGE: Time for the annual Holiday Theater Orgy!
MARTHA: The silver lining of our guest room’s being occupied until 2009. So what should I take my parents to? They like celebs, but they don’t get Katie Holmes.
GEORGE: The Seagull then. Your mom and Kristin Scott Thomas could be sisters.
MARTHA: No hot-mom jokes, please. What about your college drinking buddies? They’re in town for the Giants game the week after.
GEORGE: I’ll take them to Speed-the-Plow. We’ll bro out with Ari Gold.
MARTHA: I don’t suppose you can take Jimmy with you. My sister’s dropping him off for the night while she meets her new “Internet friend.”
GEORGE: Sure, maybe it’ll man him up. Put some hair on his palms or something.
MARTHA: On second thought, I’ll take him to Billy Elliot—much better role model.
GEORGE: You’ll be thrilled to hear my Jersey cousin will be in town—the one who griped that we didn’t play enough Whitesnake at the wedding. So thank God for eighties lovefest Rock of Ages. Who else?
MARTHA: The annual visit from Uncle Craig and Tom. We sent them to Company last year and Sweeney Todd the year before that. So, Road Show?
GEORGE: New Sondheim? Obviously. They’ll be beside themselves.
MARTHA: What about Cousin Betty and her Zac Efron–obsessed daughter?
GEORGE: 13, naturally. Oh, and I definitely have other plans that night.
MARTHA: Ditto for when your little brother, the anarchist performance artist, comes in. Remember his four-hour, one-man show about Radovan Karadžic?
GEORGE: I’ll take him to Blasted. Violence and degradation in a nightmarish civil war? He’ll think it’s a comedy.
MARTHA: Okay, here’s a stumper. My cousin the Marine is in town the same night as your MoveOn-loving ex.
GEORGE: Black Watch at St. Ann’s Warehouse. It’s about brave soldiers and also antiwar!
MARTHA: What about your dad, who doesn’t think there’s been a decent bit of pop culture since the forties?
GEORGE: The revival of Pal Joey? He might even know who Stockard Channing is.
MARTHA: Oh, cripes! Almost forgot your sister and her little monsters on Christmas Eve day. I asked her what they liked. She said comics and belching.
BOTH: Shrek!