In playwright/director Jim Moran’s bittersweet new romance, Dave, a New York entrepreneur in a loveless marriage, and Amy, a New York ingenue off to meet her fiance;, both miss their flight from Boston to L.A. on September 10. He’s an unabashed flirt. She’s spent enough time in singles bars to smell his randy shtick a mile away. “You look familiar” is his opening gambit, and she bats him away with less concern than you’d give a fly. But when it turns out Dave really does recognize Amy from a party the year before, and he can describe the dress she wore in meticulous detail, he begins to wheedle his way into her psyche. Moran sets up two potentially melodramatic questions in September Skies. Will the two hook up? Will this never-to-be couple board American Airlines Flight 11, destined to plow into the World Trade Center the next morning? But because the writing is taut, witty, and true, and the performances sterling, what might have been a bad TV movie-of-the-week is instead a study in how desperately we flail for what we want during these few short years we call life. David Foubert and Cheryl Platz are the would-be cheats; and both play roles that are, for all their individual idiosyncrasies, archetypes. Viewing the play, you wonder if you’d bed that conquest or board that plane yourself. KEVIN PHINNEY [See Kevin’s full review.]

Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: Sept. 1. Continues through Oct. 1, 2011