Port Authority Throw Down
by Mike Batistick

"New York cab rides often make strange political bedfellows, as the opening scene of Mike Batistick's PORT AUTHORITY THROW DOWN illustrates. The angry dark-skinned taxi driver is a Pakistani man [Pervez] sick and tired of being mistaken for an Arab. The meek fair-skinned passenger is a woman from Akron, Ohio, working as a Christian missionary in the city. He announces that he has a bomb, then says he was just joking, 'letting out some aggression.' She suggests that people like him take their aggression and misguided views 'back to their kingdom.' Then he asks her out, and she gives him a portable Bible…Pervez is under more stress than usual, since federal authorities broke into his house four days ago and arrested his brother, Nawaz, apparently without explanation. Now Pervez has to do Nawaz's job too, selling newspapers at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There he meets Nate, an alcoholic homeless African-American who had befriended Nawaz. Before Pervez learns that, however, he is susp"

— Backstage