What happens when New Age philosophy is corrupted by a scientist with a myriad of monkeys and a penchant for evisceration? This is the question that audience members seek to find in Columbia alumnus, Stephen Fife's, new multi-media infused sci-fi comedy, "New Day," which opened at the Theater for the New City on Nov. 8.

In the play, visitors to the New Day Life-Transformation Center find themselves miraculously changed from "hapless souls" and "hopeless losers" into achievers with a winning, corporate attitude, leading them to success. As you may suspect, there is a catch to this new-found fortune, which comes in the form of a strange blue liquid that new inductees must drink.

In "New Day," one man, with the help of a woman trapped in cyberspace, must overcome his fears and an insidious world domination plot to save himself, the woman and possibly even humanity.

"New Day" was written by acclaimed playwright Stephen Fife, a 1998 graduate of Columbia's School of the Arts. Fife's plays have been produced at Primary Stages, Jewish Rep, Circle Rep Lab, 7 Stages in Atlanta and Theatre in Process in Boston.

His last production at Theater for the New City, "Mickey's Home," was described by the New York Times as "a mixture of drama and comedy that raises the ghosts buried in horrible memories of the Holocaust and makes of its characters both haunts and the haunted." In 1998 his play, "God of Vengeance," commissioned by Jewish Rep was directed by Joseph Chaiken.

"New Day" is directed by Samuel Buggeln and features Arthur Aulisi, Marissa Copeland and Kim Gainer. The play will be performed Thursdays through Sundays until Dec. 2 at the Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, between 9th and 10th Street.