The New Century is a tough play. Its challenge lies in taking extremely improbable characters and locating within them a common humanity. Patti Gardner's character, Helene Nadler, is puzzling over the fact that her three children have become gay. But not just gay — they are peerlessly queer. The eldest is a garden-variety lesbian, the middle child is an M-to-F transwoman and a lesbian, and the youngest, a boy, is an S&M submissive obsessed with scat. Nadler prides herself on her complete, open-minded acceptance, and boldly, loudly declaims her love for her kids all over the place — but pulsing just underneath that confident façade is a deep mourning of the ordinary family life she had imagined for herself in girlhood. It was a delicate balancing act, and Gardner nailed it like few could.