Celebs and Sex Fantasies in a House of Death

"This poetic, funny, whatever you would call this weird play I wrote": Even playwright Sheila Callaghan is at a loss for words when describing her "Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)." The play, which takes place in a killer apartment -- literally -- is being staged by Catalyst Theater Company. (By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)

She has yet to quit her day job and still freelances as a graphic designer. Money is tight enough that toward the end of the month, she'll only take cellphone calls after 9 p.m. when her unlimited minutes kick in. She is six months pregnant with her first child, a boy. Daddy is a composer and still in school.

She hopes to sell screenplays to Hollywood or write for a TV series. HBO's late "Six Feet Under" would have been a perfect fit, she says.

Striking use of language is one of Callaghan's hallmarks as a playwright. In "We Are Not These Hands," the two main characters, Moth and Belly, live in an unspecified Third World country and speak a slangy, pidgin English. In "Crumble," the language varies between broken-up dialogue (Short phrases. How short? Real short. Like these.) to poetic monologues. Characters refer to laughter "like little bursting soap bubbles" and bad breath "like rotting fruit and stomach acid, as though she swallowed a pear months ago but can't digest it."

Poetry elevates critical moments in the play, much as arias do in opera or song-and-dance sequences in traditional musical theater, Callaghan says.

Director Shirley Serotsky (crush: Andrew McCarthy, circa "Pretty in Pink") has added a few unscripted song-and-dance sequences to "Crumble." Eric Messner (crush: Erin Gray in "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century"), who portrays Timberlake, has been taking hip-hop dance classes at Joy of Motion for the past two months and worked with a choreographer to prepare for his role.

Though a Timberlake hip-hop sequence isn't scripted, Callaghan does have a dance background herself.

As a young(er) playwright in New York, Callaghan worked as a club dancer, shaking it in cages and on pillars.

"It's good to have an eclectic work background as a writer," she says, laughing. "I'll just leave it at that."