Right from the beginning, T.J. Young’s new play grabs our attention with its titillating title: Sperm Donor Wanted (or, The Unnamed Baby Play).  The audience wonders: Is this going to be a provocative piece about the many challenges which LGBTQ people face with becoming parents? Or, maybe, it will be a zany comedy with an endless supply of jokes about masturbation, semen, turkey basters, etc? Thankfully for the audience, Williams’ intense play succeeds as a drama, but with a very generous helping of comedy served throughout.  It is also an important exploration of real LGBTQ lives as we approach the second half of 2024, although the play’s intimate exploration of parenthood, particularly pregnancy, will appeal to audiences of all sexual orientations. Put another way:  The searingly candid themes, fearless dialogue, and fine performances by the talented ensemble cast make the play live up to its promise of an evocative two hours of theater.  But Sperm Donor Wanted, based on the playwright’s own true story, also has some very, very funny moments as well.

Sperm Donor Wanted, skillfully directed by Haley Rice and now playing at Manhattan’s Chain Theatre, introduces us to its four main characters.  Lisa and Bex are a lesbian couple (played respectively by Brianna Cala and Sophia Grasso, who are a couple in real life as well) who already have a son. The gregarious Lisa was previously married to a man. The no-nonsense Bex, who boasts a military background, is a self-proclaimed “gold star lesbian”, meaning she has never intimately been with a man.  The pair want to have another child but are put off by the prohibitive expense of past attempts at in-vitro fertilization.  So… the women decide to put an ad on Craigslist (I know, I know… I thought Craigslist was dead too.), under the “Gigs” section, adding the line, “Please don’t be a creep or a weirdo.  This is Texas.  We own guns!”  After going through a long list of the aforementioned creeps and weirdos, they choose Aaron (Javere Green) and Charles (David J. Baldwin), a highly affable gay couple who have been together two years.  The men have never had children of their own.  Aaron states early on in the show, “Anatomy stops us from having a baby, but doesn’t stop us from trying!” (Green, as Aaron, does indeed get to deliver most of the play’s funniest lines.) Deciding on Charles as the actual donor, the four ALL painstakingly go through the not-always-glamorous (but admittedly, sometimes very humorous) mechanics of the actual “fertilization” process.  It gets A-W-K-W-A-R-D at times.  In one scene, Bex tells Charles, “Just text when you’re done.”  (You can figure it out…) What starts as an, ahem… “one-shot” deal soon turns into a long-term commitment for all four players.  Aaron, in the meantime, bonds with the Lisa and Bex’ son, becoming the coolest guncle in Texas.   Almost a year later, the desired goal is achieved… TWICE (!).

Had Sperm Donor Wanted ended at that moment and closed the proverbial curtain, the play could have been more of an LGBTQ-themed  “Life”-time TV movie than a real “life” scenario, with an open but presumably happy ending.  However, (ahem…) inconceivable complications of all varieties ensue.  These complications, I might add, are neither predicted by the Lisa, Bex, Aaron, or Charles, nor the audience.  One of those complications includes an indiscretion by two of the characters– an indiscretion that threatens to shatter all four’s relationships forever.  Sperm Donor Wanted is performed on a sparse stage with minimal but highly effective lighting effects.  It may sound cliched to say, but with the deft direction and the superb acting, the audience does not NEED a fancy setting, complicated lighting, or even a single costume change to make an impact. That said, I would have liked to see a wardrobe change or two just to show the passage of time. 

This may be a good time to talk about the superb casting.  All four leads, who also play the show’s occasional secondary characters, are excellent.  All the actors also thankfully get their moments to take the spotlight.  A notable example in the first act is when Cala and Grasso each get to deliver a smart monologue, exposing their characters’ true feelings about their ongoing unorthodox experience.  It’s no less than fascinating.  As mentioned before, Cala and Grasso are a couple in real life, and it’s very obvious.  But the chemistry between Green as Aaron and Baldwin as Charles is just as palpable as well.  Here is an example: Green and Baldin are so believable as a couple that their age and race don’t even seem to come into play for the audience until they are specifically brought up, when the potential race of the potential child is addressed; kudos to the playwright for NOT taking the arguably “easy way out” and avoiding the issue of race, by the way… The playwright deserves additional accolades for the look inside the lives of LGBTQ male married couples, whether “legally recognized” or “common law”.  After literal decades of movies, TV, theater, and public discourse being dedicated to the issue of GETTING married, Sperm Donor Wanted smartly explores issues of BEING married, which is criminally underexplored in movies, TV, theater, and public discourse even today.  While it’s secondary to the play’s main theme of having a baby, it’s a much-appreciated touch.  Without giving away the ending, let’s just say that the audience stays attached to the characters in Sperm Donor Wanted, even the ones we didn’t get the chance to “officially” meet yet. Can a follow-up be in the works? (Hint, hint…!)

Sperm Donor Wanted (or, The Unnamed Baby Play) was a finalist for the 2023 L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award.  Performances continue at The Chain Theatre, 312 W 36 St Floor 3 4, New York, NY 10018. on Thursday, April 18 at 7:30pm, Friday, April 19 at 8pm, Saturday, April 20 at 8pm, Sunday, April 21 at 3pm, Thursday, April 25 at 7:30pm, Friday, April 26 at 8pm, Saturday, April 27 at 8pm, and Sunday, April 28 at 3pm. Tickets ($35) are available for advance purchase at www.eventbrite.com. The performance will run approximately 120 minutes, with a 10-minute intermission. 

Photos by Mikhail Lipyanskiy.