What's The Gas Man about? "It's about... well... it's kind of a series of scenes that are put together to be one thing, and the Gas Man comes because there's a gas leak. It's in the basement."

The basement of what? "Of a house, that some people live in. Other things happen as well--some young boys answer this classified ad for someone selling sound equipment, and they go to this person's house with their dad. And also--"

Wait a minute--what happens with the boys? "They purchase this stuff from the man who put out the ad. I don't want to give it away for free here--"

That's your dramatic hook? They answer an ad and they buy some stuff? "That's only one of the things that happens, though."

It sounds pretty far removed from, say, the Ring cycle. "Well... we don't have any fire or flying horses."

Couldn't you throw some in? Just to spruce things up a little? "Perhaps. Maybe."

Do you have a lot of experience with classified ads? "Just a bit. The drummer I used to play with I met through a classified ad, and once I bought a speaker cabinet. And once, when I was in high school, my friend Erik and I went to buy a guitar pedal that we saw advertised in a classified ad. It was in an apartment building in downtown Omaha. As we went inside, there was a body lying outside the elevator. When we came back down, it was gone. We bought the guitar pedal; it was sold to us by an architect who was unemployed."

The most exciting part of this story seems to have happened without you. Is that common in your life? "Yes."

Any danger of the gas leak exploding? "You're just hoping there's some suspense?"

Yes. "Yes, a high degree of impending doom hangs over the entire play."