When Elliott Farnsworth delivers lunch to the offices of MagnaScreen MultiMedia he is introduced to the beautiful actress, Lila Pickford, and falls immediately, madly and helplessly in love. In the course of this meeting he is mistakenly identified as an aspiring actor and offered the opportunity to audition for a movie. If he corrects this mistake, he destroys the chance to see Lila again and the possibility of wooing her. In the name of love, he makes the cataclysmic decision to pretend to be an aspiring actor, thus setting in motion a series of events that ultimately involve not only him and Lila, but a movie producer, director, screenwriter, agent, the owner of the deli, several major movie stars and a cast of hundreds. When his courtship actually begins to succeed in attracting Lila, it sets in motion an ever spiraling series of complications and conflicts between their burgeoning romance and the foundation of deception it's based on. Can Elliott actually somehow metamorphose into a real actor? If not, at what point must he be unmasked for the faker he is? Can love survive such a revelation or will hearts be broken in a monumental tragedy of falsehoods and betrayed trust? Inspired by a P.G. Wodehouse short story, one could be expected to assume that this titanic tale of love, the movie business, illusion and reality is No Laughing Matter - but one could be wrong. Cover by Graham Abbott Author Photo by Ariel Mombrea