Scenes from a dot-com dynasty family gathering:

Scott (ex-son-in-law of the family's wealthy patriarch): "Far be it from me to try to be included in a family discussion. I learned my place long ago ..."

Dorothy (ex-wife of Scott): "You also ruined any chance of being a part of this family a long time ago."

Scott: "Well, Dorothy, I am ready. Let 'er rip. Give it your best shot. I am ready for my tongue-lashing."

Dorothy: "Who is the new 11-year-old you are fooling around with now?"

Scott: "Actually she's 5 years old and her name is Gametech.com."

Outtakes from a new prime-time, Silicon Valley soap, implausibly populated with "Baywatch" beauties and pumped programmers? Dialogue downloaded from an Internet sitcom? Nope. Scott and Dorothy are actors in a scene from "Grandpa's Little Secret.com," a play conceived with a very special audience in mind: the families of the superwealthy.

Not what one might have expected from David Kersnar, director, playwright and co-founder of the famed Lookingglass Theatre Company. But in an era in which national funding and patronage for the arts have been all but gutted by Bible-thumping senators, Kersnar has come up with a way to continue doing what he and his partners are good at, and still keep his family out of the poorhouse: Shaking the Tree -- a company formed specifically to produce plays for the viewing pleasure, and instruction, of wealthy family audiences.

Kersnar and his colleagues at Shaking the Tree are commissioned to write and direct plays that teach wealthy families how to get along. The commissioners are usually financial institutions seeking to minimize the damage that their rich clients tend to inflict upon themselves through family feuds and bickering. So the income generated by Shaking the Tree is considerably better than what Kersnar is used to -- sometimes five or six times what he made as artistic director at Lookingglass. In addition, the money gives him the financial freedom to take on other, less remunerative projects.

And the plays work.

"I have seen the light bulb go off, the look on people's faces when what they're watching resonates with some problem they've been grappling with. It's a really effective method of education," says Kersnar.

The "morality" plays that Kersnar and his colleagues at Shaking the Tree construct to teach wealthy families how to get along aren't exactly like the final scenes from "Hamlet." They aren't designed to produce hair-raising moments of personal revelation or peel back sinister motives. Instead, they gently prod their audiences into self-recognition via encounters with archetypal characters and scenarios -- like the prodigal son reluctantly primed to take over the family steel mills, or the mutinous granddaughter whose choice of badass boyfriends is not exactly to her grandfather's taste.

The key here is not the details but the universality of the underlying issues. "Rivalry, fairness, trust and communication -- these are concerns of everyone," says Kersnar.

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