Laura Coyle

Laura Coyle knows she's not an easy sell. The singer, songwriter and guitarist recognizes that her poetically worded tales of spiritual and romantic longing are unlikely to attract the attention of radio, MTV or major record labels. "In New York," the East Coast-bred musician said, "it's hard for a singer-songwriter to get noticed. It's not like the folk boom in the Village back in the '60s and '70s.

Laura Coyle knows she's not an easy sell. The singer, songwriter and guitarist recognizes that her poetically worded tales of spiritual and romantic longing are unlikely to attract the attention of radio, MTV or major record labels. "In New York," the East Coast-bred musician said, "it's hard for a singer-songwriter to get noticed. It's not like the folk boom in the Village back in the '60s and '70s.

The folks over at Open at the Top Productions are an intrepid lot whose mission is to nurture Broadway-caliber new works. Based on a novel by Dennis Covington, "Lizard," a world premiere musical at the NoHo Arts Center, is an impressive realization of the group's artistic mandate. Director James J.

"We're all South-Poled out," Braukmann (Steve Pickering) says to his wife (Dale Dickey) late in Manfred Karge's extraordinary if ungainly political parable "The Conquest of the South Pole." He's trying to assure her the odd pastime he and his buddies have been pursuing in his attic -- reenacting Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's 1911 polar journey -- is winding down.