Even if you vowed that you would never go to another one-person show, a newcomer named Alex Lyras provides some pretty compelling reasons to withdraw your pledge. In his new collection of seven characters, "Desperelics," Lyras presents a fitness trainer whose obsession with gambling interferes with his work; a philosophy professor with a hefty curriculum and a dirty secret; an intense housewife who loves to humiliate her husband in public.

The best of Lyras impersonations is also his most cynical: a volatile, coke-snorting, corporate flunky who dreams of crushing other people on his way to the top while he's mostly stuck at the bottom.

"Let's teach people how to E-mail viruses to their competitors," he suggests.

Catch a refreshing young talent in the making in “Desperelics,” at the Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street