Audiences looking for a second childhood should run to Mark Schultz’s harrowing “Everything Will Be Different,” but be warned: It might not be a pleasant trip. Puberty, a yawning maw most of us were eager to escape, is back in this horrifying, hilarious new production. For anyone who can’t remember adolescence without wincing, this tale of wounding loneliness will get the winces out in force. For those of you who kept your dignity intact, Mr. Schultz will expose your lies. “Everything Will Be Different” starts out on a raw cry of rage, and carves closer and closer to the bone as it goes.

Young Charlotte (Laura Heisler) doesn’t have beauty, charm, or a mother. Her father (Christopher McCann) only emerges from his self-absorption to bludgeon these points home. Endowed with shaky self-confidence, a keen interest in the porn industry, and a shallow best friend (Naomi Aborn), Charlotte will have to make her way alone. Lost in a morass of self-deception and self-pity, she has no way to combat her swamping sexual awakening. Her clumsiness makes every touch a blow: She wrecks friendships, mentorships, and the last tenderness that her father has to offer.

Director Daniel Aukin keeps the boiling energies under a tight lid. Mr. McCann’s Harry, a figure of menace and appeal, doesn’t even seem to hear the words he speaks in his tumbling, mechanical speeches. Charlotte, too, speaks almost without affect – since everything she says is a cry for help, why make her scream? The result is driving and powerful and occasionally physically painful to watch. Ms. Heisler, in particular, seems to have been stripped bare of skin and defenses; she’s white-hot with vulnerability.

Kip Marsh’s set, a living room that drops off into a white void, seems to be sliding its way into the audience. Fend it off as we may, eventually it does wind up in our laps. For the last 20 minutes, a climax of awful pity, I think the entire audience was actually holding its breath. But despite staying as still as possible, “Everything Will Be Different” still hunted us down and slayed us, every one.

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At first, it passes understanding that Jack Cummings III and the Transport Group could talk 28 playwrights and composers into writing for his new show “The Audience.” Everyone, from Adam Bock to Michael John LaChiusa, contributed. But the motive soon emerges – revenge! Offered the opportunity to write about those ungrateful, candy-unwrapping, nap-happy fools who come to their shows, the writers pounced.

Fifty members of a Broadway audience sit facing out, all of whom have more comfortable-looking seats than we do. Everyone there is familiar – the four senior citizens who talk too loudly, a snapping gay couple, a “red state” family, and a scattering of die hard fans. Unfortunately, the playwright (Jack Donahue) has also chosen to watch the show, and while the others suffer his play, he suffers them.

Because of the hodgepodge, sometimes resources go unexploited. Michele Ragusa, for example, may have Broadway under her belt, but she never gets a solo. The conceit, though, gets milked dry. John Story’s attractive set and the indispensably helpful lighting by R. Lee Kennedy do their best to marry the many pieces. But after the first 30 minutes, the ability to care about the umpteenth mini-drama begins to fade away.

Still, “The Audience” should be required viewing. It could appear as a featurette before plays, like those sequences at the movies that show popcorn sacks dancing into trashcans. Maybe then, that lady behind me would think twice about answering her cell phone, hissing to her neighbor, and cracking peanut shells while the rest of us have a transcendent experience.

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Going to the New Victory for a show usually involves a lot of activity – it’s a nice reminder that at age 8, just a red curtain and a drumroll got you bouncing out of your seat with excitement. Chattering and shushing and the aforementioned bouncing play a big part in New Victory audiences, so the quiet new show “Luna/Penguin” feels like a distinct change of pace. That pace is a very slow one. A narrator reads two children’s stories while an orchestra plays softly around him. Screens display animated illustrations – nothing flashy and nothing very glossy. In “The Audience,” a silent congregation is the most a playwright can ask for. But at the New Victory, nobody wants a muted response.

“Luna of the Tree,” the first of the two stories, is one of those chestnuts about three sons that every child could recite in his sleep. In narrator David Freeman, the Pantalone company fails to choose a dynamic voice to act as guide. In fact, when composer-conductor Filip Bral speaks a few sentences at the top of the show, his cool tones set a standard that Mr. Freeman never matches. But the second act, attractively set on a flooded stage, holds more water. A naive parable called “My Heart Is a Penguin” lends itself beautifully to the simple projections, and the children around me leaned forward a little. Finally, the silence around me started sounding less like boredom and more like calm.

“Everything Will Be Different” until April 30 (46 Walker Street, between Church Street and Broadway, 212-868-4444).