In Hollywood in 1939, an actor/director named Julian Hyde is blackmailed by a gossip columnist known as Hollywood Confidential who threatens to reveal Hyde's homosexuality. Hyde is coerced into revealing secrets of other Hollywood stars. Hyde plots revenge by making a film about Hollywood Confidential's life, revealing all of his secrets. "Mr. Parnell argues that the dreams perpetrated by the dream factory during the movies' golden age were as monstrous as ... nightmares but far more lasting and lethal ... ''A nation lives by its symbols, '' says the playwright. Implicit in HYDE IN HOLLYWOOD is the belief that a braver 30's Hollywood might have helped produce a more courageous nation than the one that was tardy in mobilizing against Hitler in one generation and against Joseph McCarthy in the next. ...a fascinating piece." --Frank Rich, The New York Times