My husband is always telling me how lucky I am to have my closest friends. Women have friends for life, don’t we? I know I do. And although I didn’t grow up with them, at least not all the way, we are lifelong, end-of-the-line kind of friends. Always on your side, a phone call away, even if it’s that “You get one phone call ma’m”…it will probably be to them.

The Secret Comedy of Women is about those special kinds of friends, and with an audience almost entirely filled with women, every single person in the theatre could relate. Some of them even brought their significant ‘others’ with them.

Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein didn’t grow up together. In fact, they grew up in different countries, USA and Canada. But they met as adults and knew pretty much right away that they would always be in each other’s lives. 

The Secret Comedy of Women is a delightful retelling of some of their stories. As kids and as adults…but mostly as kids. The set is a typical teenage girl’s bedroom in the 80s. Pop posters, soft toys and bad makeup. A bedroom for everyone, twin beds and lots of pink. As the audience takes their seats, Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein are hanging out on stage, in their undies, waiting for the play to begin. So we know right off the bat we are in for something spectacular. No one who is comfortable lounging in their knickers and bra is going to be shy about comedy…And they are certainly not shy! The show takes us way back, to sleepovers and awkward first crushes. To high school and pantyhose and secrets and even menopause. All with side-splitting candor and profound empathy. 

Oh, and they also sing! The songs are hilarious and brutally honest. Songs about everything from hot flashes to hot dates. They are an absolutely brilliant and incredibly talented couple of women.

I’m not sure what possessed them to create this show, but boy am I glad they did. Not afraid of their wobbly bits, they dress in some wonderful and ridiculous outfits, like kids and teenagers often do. They embrace the eye-rolls of our youth. Toss their hair in the general direction of convention and make us laugh out loud for the entire length of the play. 

Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein are absolute geniuses. They drew warm and loving pictures of their lives, silly bits and all, and remind us how bad it could be back then. No cellphones, no smart TVs. No wifi, no Google, no late-night TV. No Amazon! How ever did we survive!?

Well, I’m certainly thrilled that Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein survived their childhoods and brought us to their crossroads. Reminding us of our patchy humanity and forcing us to reflect on the reason we remain close to those we remain close to. Is it love or is it the fear that they will spill all your secrets, and does it really matter which as long as it makes us laugh? Laugh at them and ultimately laugh at ourselves. Which is always the point, I think. Life is short and times are crazy. We all need something unique and entertaining as The Secret Comedy of Women. I absolutely loved it and my husband learned a lot!

The Secret Comedy of Women runs through May 18 at the Colony Theatre in Burbank. Bring your sisters, bring your best friends, bring some men! Let’s hope you are able to get tickets to see this utterly magnificent show written and performed by these truly incredible women! I love, love, love this show!! Highly recommended!!!

Tickets:

https://www.etix.com/ticket/e/1049499/the-secret-comedy-of-women-phoenix-playhouse-productions-the-colony-theater

Where: 

The Colony Theatre
555 N 3rd St, Burbank, CA 91502

When: 

April 24-May 18
Thursday and Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2:30pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2:30pm and 7:30pm.
Additional performance on Thursday, May 1, at 2:30pm

****
To see what shows are playing, check out our theatre guide>>

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The Body is a really excellent concept. Four short plays all centred around one grim tragedy. A mysterious body falls from a tall building. In each of the stories, the characters are affected by this event in a multitude of different ways. Some only slightly, some profoundly, and all these people are intricately connected. Some unknowingly so, some by choice, some by chance. It reminds me of a group of witnesses to a crime. Everyone has their own perspective. Everyone has their own reason to either get involved or to walk away. But in this case, the crime itself is never solved, and in some of the plays, barely even wondered about.  The body, it seems, isn’t the point…

You can tell these actors know each other well. They work together perfectly. They understand each other and play off that familiarity brilliantly. The characters are both wild and real. The storylines are believable as well as a little outrageous. 

The Body is a collection of four plays with very clever, funny and interesting premises. Couples in love, couples all too familiar but only just meeting in the flesh. Work colleagues and lovers. Party goers and best friends. The characters themselves mean far more than the reasons they are together. These plays highlight how who we are can hold far more fascination than why. Most of the time, we hardly know ourselves, do we? So they bounce off each other in delightful and relatable ways. All of them stumbling through their lives, just like the rest of us. Nothing earth shattering, nothing life changing. Just a group of people trying to be real. 

The plays are dark, but not so dark that they don’t entertain. Even in the falling apart of friendships and relationships, there is humor and poignancy and a little wisdom. It’s a showcase for a fine group of actors and some burgeoning playwrights with some very interesting things to say.

The Body is well worth your time and The Sherry Theater the perfect venue for breakout creatives in NoHo. 

It only runs through this weekend, so don’t dawdle! Support our local NoHo theatre!!!

Tickets: 

https://www.eventbrite.com/signin/pre-auth?referrer=https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-body-tickets-1256904658669?aff=ebdsshcopyurl

When: 

April 18, 19, 20 and April 25, 26, 27
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 7:30 pm.

Where: 

The Sherry Theater
11052 Magnolia Blvd., NoHo Arts District, CA 91601

The Body Cast:

Allen Barstow, Alyssa Berkowitz, Theodore Coonradt, Kore Murphy, Genah Redding and Peter Schiavelli.

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Gritty crime dramas are a gift to theatre. I don’t understand why there are not more in fact. Atmosphere, stress, betrayal, anger and ultimate disaster are so perfect for dark theatres and sitting with strangers to discover something. New together. 

To Each Their Own is a brand new play written by the rather wonderful Travis Williams, told with a tenderness that belies the subject matter. 

Three old friends are drawn together to rob banks. They are all struggling, all feeling abandoned by the world and in need of their piece of some kind of pie. Doug and Benny own a dive bar, Doug and Bailey are old flames and haven’t seen each other for years, since Doug had to skip town after crossing the wrong gang. So they decide to trust each other, even though for two of them, who used to be lovers, trust is hard to find. It’s kind of a risk it all or die trying scenario. They had nothing to lose, or so they all believed. 

There’s a lot of intrigue and subterfuge. A lot of twists and turns and an awful lot of lies…which makes for an intense, and very funny story with characters as big as you would imagine them to be! 

The dialogue is snappy, but not as edgy as it could have been, which I really liked. This is not a story about people who hate each other. It’s a story about regret and lost chances. Wrong turns and heartbreaking consequences. These three have known each other since they were kids. They know who they are and why. Which makes for a deeper melancholy. Truer, higher risks taken, and a fall that means all the more.

To Each Their Own is a brilliant play. The characters and performances are brutally real and effortlessly played by some very fine actors indeed. 

I believed them, which is always the point, isn’t it? I believed they were willing to risk everything to have the hope of something more, and when inevitably they lost, the loss was poetically catastrophic. 

I have to mention the set. A bar. Simple enough, you might imagine. However, when I walked into the theatre, it felt like any dirty bar in any small town. You could smell the smoke and the beer and taste the defeat and sadness. Brilliant! 

Brooklyn Sample directs with what felt like a feather, but I am certain it was not. Invisible direction is always the mark of a master…bravo!!

I highly recommend To Each Their Own. Atwater Village Theatre is the perfect setting for this lonely, funny, poignant play about a group of people just trying to get by, hoping for more, even if the hope of it is all they know they might ever get…and who can blame them. The world’s insane and rapidly imploding. I’m not certain I wouldn’t take the chances they do myself. To Each Their Own in the zeitgeist, that’s for sure!

The Team:

Jason Madera, James Lemire, Tabitha Trosen, Travis Williams and William Wilson. 

Produced by Blind Toe Productions and Erin Coleman.

Tickets: 

https://www.artcrush.la/event-list

Where: 

Atwater Village Theatre
3269 Casitas Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90039

When:

April 16 (Preview) – 8 p.m.
April 17 (Opening Night) – 8 p.m.
April 18, 19 – 8 p.m.
April 25, 26 – 8 p.m.
April 27 – 6 p.m.
May 2, 3 – 8 p.m.
May 4 – 6 p.m.

www.artcrush.la | blindtoe.com

NoHo Arts To Each Their Own listing

****
To see what shows are playing, check out our theatre guide>>

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This is one of Tennessee Williams’s later plays and not one I am familiar with. Set in a hotel bar in Tokyo, the wife of a famous and fading artist has her own sad falling apart, as her husband in their hotel room wallows in his own psychotic break. Miriam, the wife, is played with excruciating nuance by the wonderful Susan Priver. She is older, overdressed and bored, trying her best to seduce the barman who is repulsed. Her husband Mark, played brilliantly by the utterly phenomenal Rene Rivers, makes the occasional staggering and brutal appearance and it is clear he is losing his mind. Does Miriam care? If she does, she hides it well beneath her annoyance and frustration with him. But in the end, I think there is a little more than that, some fear perhaps, and some loneliness, but a sense of loss as well. Age can make us all a little more generous with our illusionary memories of love. 

This is a strange and sorrowful play. Miriam is almost desperate to be free of her husband, and yet she is there with him. Traveling from New York at his request. Dolled up in a bar on the other side of the world from anything remotely familiar. Her husband abandoned to his delusion and his fragmented mind, plastered in the paint that once made him great. 

She writes his agent, asking him to come and either take him home or stay with him so she can leave. He comes as called. Mark was once a big earner for him, but it’s all too late for any destiny to be changed.

Everyone in this play is really wonderful. Paul Coates plays the agent, glib and unrepentant and Remington Hoffman is the stoic barman – handsome, young, and struggling with his instinct to comply and his instinct to run. The dialogue is classic Williams, the setting not so much. But the sadness, the melancholy and the resignation to deterioration and eventual collapse is sweetly and tragically true.

Why stage such a deeply forlorn play? Perhaps we need something sadder than what is all around us? Perhaps these characters, Miriam and her salivating over the barman, and Mark and his unravelling, are a distraction from the waste we see every day. Whatever the reason, this is a remarkable play. It stays with you. And these truly fine actors seem born to play their roles. There’s a coldness to it all. A separation of all these people by time, by distance, by language, by need. What we see is a collection of disparate souls who will never connect. The performances are absolute perfection. No one touches anyone unless it’s an assault. There is no contact emotionally or even physically until the end of a life. And that is a touch of brilliance by director Jack Heller. It’s not until I thought again of the play that I even noticed it, so subtle is it. 

You should never need an excuse to see a play by Tennessee Williams. But I can absolutely provide you with one…this is a wonderful production with actors that know these roles so well they become them. Bravo!

Where: 

The Hudson Theatre
6359 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles

When: 

April 9-May 18
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 3pm

Tickets: 

https://www.onstage411.com/newsite/show/play_info.asp?show_id=7352

In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel Cast

The cast will feature (in alphabetical order) Paul Coates, Remington Hoffman, Susan Priver, and Rene Rivera.

The Team

Set design is by Joel Daavid, lighting and sound design are by Matthew Richter, costume design is by Shon LeBlanc and graphic design is by Sharon March. Brian Foyster serves as producer for Dance On Productions.

*****

Enjoy the NoHo Arts District even more, see what shows are playing and check out our theatre guide>>

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Inspired by the brilliant Billy Wilder film from 1945, The Lost Weekend, about a man struggling with alcoholism, Lost Cellphone Weekend takes on the addiction we all have with our digital screens and pocket communication devices…cellphones. Some might say it’s just as destructive and probably almost as addictive. A silent threat. Namely, it keeps us all from speaking to each other!

The story revolves around two musical theatre writers determined to meet a tight deadline for entry into the musical theatre competition. They must write an entire musical in under two weeks, and it has to be absolutely brilliant. No pressure then!

One of them has the bright idea, inspired by his mopey teenage daughter, to create a musical about the worldwide addiction to cellphones and base it on one of his favorite movies, in a film noir style. 

As they work on this opus together, we see it all unfolding onstage beside them. It’s a wonderful concept and it works flawlessly. The writers also become characters in the show, now set in a remote village in Maine, purposefully bereft of cell towers and wifi. A young couple is on a weekend break, from work and from cell phones! Hilariously noire-ish characters sing their way around the difficulties of no contact, no uploading, no online presence of any kind. She’s fine with it, he is having a breakdown…

The Lost Cellphone Weekend songs are wonderful and very, very funny, and the cast absolutely blew me away!! How lucky we are to have such talent in the tiny characterful Brickhouse Theatre in NoHo!

The show has so many delightful twists and turns, crazy characters and insightful old Hollywood-style montages, I really can’t list them. 

This musical is brand new, and highly original, with songs that are wonderful and memorable and so well performed by this absolutely fantastic cast! 

I really cannot recommend Lost Cellphone Weekend enough! It has only two more weekends sadly…but you can make it a part of your Easter celebrations and support new NoHo theatre!! It would make a great Hollywood Fringe show!!! Just a suggestion!

Where: 

The Brickhouse Theatre
10950 Peach Grove St, NoHo Arts District, CA 91601

When:

April 5-27
Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30pm, and Sunday matinees at 2pm. (No shows Easter Sunday April 20)

Tickets: 

The Lost Cellphone Weekend Cast

Lance Bagley, Birdie, Scott Di Lorenzo, Lauren Faulkner, Trevor Murphy, Courtney South and Jess Spruiell.

The Creative Team

Produced by John Lant and Tamra Pica
Written and Composed by Stephen Gilbane
Directed by Darrin Yalacki
Choreographed by Misty West
Casting by Tamra Pica Casting
Music Direction by Daniel Pietruska
Accompanist by Grace Balint
Lighting and Set Design by Zad Potter
Associate Producer Jonathan Harrison
Stage Manager – Abigail Westman
Percussion – Nancy Guzman
Additional Music Recording – Erich Rausch
Costumes – Susan Eiden and Darrin Yalacki
Publicity – Sandra Kuker-Franco of Sandra Kuker PR

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Gilda Radner and Gene Wilder, two of the most loved comedic actors of our time. Both gone, but far, far from forgotten. BIG HAIR: A Rad and Wild Love Affair is Maegan Mandarino’s sweetly funny biopic of their love affair, narrated by Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein and Gilda Radner as Roseanne Roseannadanna. Both are wonderfully portrayed by the phenomenally talented Maegan Mandarino.

There’s nothing traditional about Gilda Radner and Gene Wilder’s love affair. Nothing. And this solo show, while somewhat confined by the structure of a theatre, a stage and one performer, is just as genre defining. Is it a documentary? Is it a satire? Is it a clever, intimately drawn impersonation? Is it a drama? Is it a comedy?

The answer is, of course, yes…and. BIG HAIR: A Rad and Wild Love Affair really defies all of the above while also being absolutely all of them at once. There are a lot of really wonderful film and TV interview clips to make us smile and laugh and sigh in our missing of them. All are related to their relationship, along with some wonderful outtakes and clips from SNL and Young Frankenstein, and that is at the heart of the show. But because these two people were so extraordinary and are such a huge part of the American culture still, I found myself so mesmerized by just how good they were, that their love affair took second place, just a little. Although, of course, it is love that is the lens through which Ms Mandarino explores who they were. The love we have for them, as well as the love they had for each other. 

In these desperate and turbulent times, I find such comfort in the exquisitely unique and profoundly talented Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner. There was such an innocence to them, a buoyancy, a joyful oddness that truly transcended language and country and even time. I saw Young Frankenstein at the Ford last Halloween. It’s still as good as ever. And Roseanne Roseannadanna is and always will be one of the most iconic SNL characters. 

What made this show all the more moving was how charmingly Maegan Mandarino performs as Radner and Wilder. Switching crazy wigs, clothing and voices, she mimics them but endearingly, subtly, if that’s a word one might use to define either of these incredible artists. But with this thoughtful, loving interpretation of who she believes them to be, Maegan Mandarino doesn’t impersonate them. She allows them to speak through her. Covering herself with their vivid colors and textures and irony and heart. She carries them with her, like memories or inspiration. And that flows through her, forming a strange kind of version of them. But one that somehow feels utterly genuine and true. I can’t explain it really. I think you just have to experience this show and allow the nuance and the craft, and the heart of her performance to reach you. And it does, by reaching right through your chest to your heart, making your throat tighten a little as you laugh and cry and feel so many emotions all at once. It’s quite extraordinary. I came away feeling blessed to have been there, honestly.

These two people will always be a couple in our memories, although their relationship was on and off and Gilda’s life was sadly far too short. Maegan Mandarino reminds us how precious some humans are to our collective consciousness. How pivotal their lives were in our lifetime. How transcendent their influence and how permanent their echo. 

If you have the chance to see this wonderful wonderful show, BIG HAIR: A Rad and Wild Love Affair, I highly recommend that you do. If you want to feel as happy as these two people made us feel over and over again. If you want to be reminded of gentler times in your life, or a moment when everyone watched the same shows and talked about them the following day. That kind of deep connection through performance art doesn’t happen in the same way anymore. Although it does still happen. But Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner were something else, something very very special, something magical…and they will always be.

https://www.bighairmusical.com

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What you may not know about Fritz is that he started out as a stand-up comedian. In fact, he was actually discovered by KNBC while performing at The Comedy Store in Hollywood.  They asked him if he would be interested in covering the weekend shift as the weatherman and the rest is history!

I caught up with Fritz and had a chat about this new chapter in his career…and this is what I discovered.

In 1982, the news director of Chanel 4 watched his set at The Comedy store, which included an anecdote about him being forced to report on the weather on the Armed Forces Radio while he was in the Navy. So they offered him a weekend slot, covering for the regular and, since he was a broke comedian, he took it. Forty years later…

Climate change was a big reason why he retired…in his words, “nowadays you really need to know what you are talking about.” But there is much more to Fritz’s career than just the weather. He has also been a part of other KNBC shows – “It’s Fritz” and “What a Week.”  Notably he received the 2004 EMA Community Service Award for his involvement with KNBC’s wonderful children’s program, “4 Our Planet.”

Fritz’s first one-person show was 30 years ago, “It’s Me Dad!” and was work-shopped at the Actors Forum when it was still located on Magnolia Blvd in NoHo. He then moved it to The Victory Theatre and it was so successful it was purchased by Public Television and KCET who aired it every Father’s Day for many years. He then workshopped his last two shows at The NoHo Arts Center.  

As he says, “All of my shows have been born and raised in NoHo. It’s my hood!”

This is Fritz Colman’s third solo show. The first two “The Reception” and “It’s Me! Dad!” have also been performed at The El Portal, which for Fritz’s, has really become his local theatre, since he lives in the neighborhood. Over the years Fritz has worked out much of his comedy at various theatres in NoHo, some sadly long gone.  But he has a real love for the El Portal, reveling in its history and feeling right at home. The El Portal started life in the 20s as a vaudeville house before becoming a movie palace. The Monroe Theatre, the smaller of the two spaces in El Portal, is a perfect space for this intimate show for “woke boomers.” 

“Unassisted Residency LIVE!” runs through November, once a month, at 3pm “which is a perfect time for my demographic!” he says. Fritz has also just launched the precursor to “Unassisted Residency,”  “Unassisted Living”  on Tubi, which is exciting! As long as boomers can figure out what the heck Tubi actually is. I’m not sure I even know yet, but I’m now determined to find out! Maybe Fritz is actually doing some community service outreach…dragging us all out of the dark ages and into the Tubi light!

Fritz is thoroughly enjoying his retirement. He’s on the board of three nonprofits and spends a lot of time with his grandchildren. However, this still leaves him plenty of time for his own projects, his timetable magically unlocked by his absence from his daily weather slot. As much as we all miss his smiling face on our screens,  It is, however, wonderful to know that we can see him in the flesh, so to speak, at our brilliant NoHo El Portal Theatre for the next few months at least. 

Fresh off a gig in Idyllwild, opening for the US Marine Band from Camp Pendleton, Fritz is thrilled to be back at The El Portal with this hilarious show all about the vagaries of life post middle aged. The Monroe Theatre is the perfect match for his unambiguously thoughtful comedic diatribes on navigating the world as a boomer. He can stand happily in the almost round of the Monroe, surrounded by his ‘people,’ able to see the whites of their eyes in this wonderful space, as he joins them in the fun that comes with aging. When you get to the age when you no longer give the two hoots you used to give and can become the wise and invisible observer of the mania all around us. I really can’t wait to see this show!!!

Fritz Coleman has been a huge part of my Los Angeles experience since I arrived here 35 years ago. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to chat to someone so many of us looked forward to seeing each day, bringing his own unique sense of joy to what used to be our never-changing weather.  Thank you for everything, Fritz!

So head on over to the El Portal on January 26, February 23, March 30, and April 27 at 3pm and reminisce with the very clever and absolutely hilarious Fritz Coleman.

Tickets:

https://ci.ovationtix.com/371/production/1170728

When:

Sundays at 3PM
January 26
February 23
March 30
April 27

https://www.instagram.com/realfritzcoleman | https://www.youtube.com/@fritzcolemancomedian5371/videos

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Deborah Unger has been a storyteller most of her life. Growing up, she found refuge from life as an Army brat in the arts, as many of us do. But for Deborah, it became a lifelong pursuit. As an actress ,her credits are long. On TV and in film and in the threatre, her longest love.

So creating a solo show about her life seems like a bit of a no brainer. But life complicates everything…and the wonderful The Longer My Mother is Dead the More I Like Her took her 15 years to complete. Changing in form and focus time and time again. Reinventing itself, as Deborah had spent years of her childhood doing, moving from place to place, always being the new kid in school.

In the end, it was her relationship with her mother that became the story she tried to avoid. But we are all products of our surroundings, and the recurring voices in our heads are as uncontrollable as the ones outside of them. So Deborah is finally listening to her mother’s voice, after their tumultuous relationship and long periods of silence. And what she hears now is finally making sense.

The Longer My Mother is Dead the More I Like Her is a very funny and deeply insightful show. Yes, it’s about her mother and her. And yes, the mother is present on stage as a truly brilliant sidekick and constant, sometimes unwelcome companion. But this is far more intricate than most solo narratives. 

Deborah seeks to understand her mother. To ‘know’ her more now in death than she ever did in life. Perhaps it’s easier to give in to the love while accepting the difficult details once the other person isn’t around to keep upping the ante. I know my own relationship with my adult daughter, now a mother of her own, is sometimes more than a bit fraught, but is often improved upon by the occasional absence. It’s the stubbornness and the all-knowing intimacy of mother-daughter relationships that can make or break them. Some people can just know just too much about us to give us even the smallest break. Deborah is a genius at unwrapping the difficult bond of parent and child. The “I’m only trying to help you,” and the “it’s for your own good” and the infamous classic, “you’ll thank me someday.” She creates a story around it, in fact, and as the deepening frustration between them deepens still more into brutal understanding, Deborah begins to see her own reflection in the memories she unfolds. Which is a shock, to say the least. But also a comfort.

The Longer My Mother is Dead the More I Like Her is a wonderful, candid and often hilarious glimpse into what for Deborah became an unbreakable bond with her mother. 

Even though at time is was pushed to the limits. Solo shows are the perfect place for this kind of familial fun and also the very best place to find yourself as an artist. Deborah Unger is an artist and a beautifully written and brilliantly performed opus. A tribute to her mother, a “thank you” for everything. I did weep a little, and I laughed an awful lot more! Bravo!

You can find out more about Deborah and her show, The Longer My Mother is Dead the More I Like Her on her website.

https://www.deborah-unger.com

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How can you possibly capture the brilliance of John Barrymore’s career on stage and screen in one solo show? 

William Luce’s Barrymore, the title role played masterfully by the phenomenal Vito D’Ambrosio, is a glorious exploration of the man in the latter part of his life. Post film career, post Broadway headliner, post four divorces. He rehearses for a showcase. He is to perform a selection of his most famous roles, and as he tries to remember his lines, with the help of his trusted and underpaid stage manager – a disembodied voice from the wings – he wanders haplessly into recollections of his life, his loves and his career. 

Barrymore is a beautifully written play. Full of humor and heartbreak, all wrapped up in the marvellously melancholy drama of John Barrymore. 

Barrymore’s famous stagger notwithstanding, he was an icon of American theatre, silent film and then early Hollywood movies. But he was a well-known alcoholic and that kind of relentless self abuse shortened his career as well as his life. 

Vito D’Ambrosio channels Barrymore rather than plays him. The physical resemblance helps enormously, of course, but it is his embrace of the essence of the man that transforms him. He captures the comic qualities as well as the sadness and regret. 

Even as he laments on lost loves and lost fortunes, his charm and wit compel us to love him. A rogue he was, but his talent could not be denied, and Vito charms us all as Barrymore, as well as himself.

To spend a hour or so in the presence of John Barrymore is an absolute gift and Vito D’Ambrosio is Barrymore. Totally and completely. Without affectation or irony, he is utterly spellbinding as this wonderful, tragic man. Larger than life and larger still in death. 

I cannot recommend Barrymore highly enough. Bryan Rasmussen directs this piece with his usual brilliance, coaxing perfection from an artist already well on his way to it. I would also like to make a special mention of Mitch Rosander, who plays the stage manager from the wings with utterly perfect comic timing…

I absolutely loved this play!! Please don’t miss it in May!

Barrymore will return for the Best of the Fest, on May 10 at The Whitefire Theatre. 

Tickets:

https://whitefire.stagey.net/projects/11490?performance_id=27495&tab=performance&embed=false

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Intellectual Mind Candy is a show created directly because of the near-death experience of its writer and performer, Jovian Deadees. After suffering a cardiac arrest, he wakes up and nothing is as it was. Something changed radically for Jovian, and this play is a record of that change and the effect it has had on his life and his art. 

I honestly couldn’t think of a more intriguing premise for a solo show, and I love solo shows!! While I am really looking forward to experiencing Intellectual Mind Candy immensely,  of course, I had a ton of questions for Jovian. So….we asked him!  

What inspired you to create a solo show about your experiences with death?

When I woke up from my coma after my cardiac arrest, I thought I was in a dream, just like a dream, moments kept repeating, nothing seemed real. A large part of this was that my brain was turning back on, and I only had a 10-15 minute span then my memory would reset. I was fortunate in that I remembered my core memory, but everything else was fluid. Once I discovered the telephone I would call my girlfriend Charlene Ward, who also happens to be my director for this show, every 20 or so minutes, saying, “Where am I?  Do you know what happened?” This went on for about a day. Through all of this was an intense core memory of an hour or so of time. By the second day, I was able to get a pen and paper and record that memory.  From that day forward it became a matter of, “where do I even begin?”  In my months of recovery, I began taking acting classes at Mary Kennedy’s ‘The Biz Studio’ (for information email mary@youthactingbiz.com ). I started doing this because acting is something that was always enjoyable, and challenging myself mentally in the process of memorizing lines helped get my mind back up to speed. One of the classes that Mary offers is the one-person show. I started taking that class to help to try and focus my story.  It was in the discovery of writing ‘Intellectual Mind Candy’ that I thought to discuss my many experiences in the arena of Metaphysics throughout my life and how that interplayed in the way I navigated my death.

Tell me about your journey with writing and performing.

I grew up in a family where pursuit in the arts was not prized. Additionally, I kept my study of Metaphysics and subjects like reincarnation very private. I wrote my first book, “The Pharoah’s Voice.” In 1988-1989. I started it while I was still a teenager. The book is a Divination System (think tarot cards). When my father found out that I was writing a book, his exact words were a laugh, followed by “He’ll never finish it.” I had the satisfaction of telling him at that moment that it was already complete and copyrighted. Experiences like that had made me very critical of my own skills and I’m sure they had impacted the course of my life. Over the years I have written and had poetry published. Learned screenwriting, even writing a script and a few treatments, but never connecting with anything. My incident gave me renewed vigor to try again.

As far as performing, I was a Civil War reenactor in the late 80s to early 90s. The group I belonged to was very heavy on the living history aspect, which appealed to me. Through that, I had my first opportunity to work on set in the film “Gettysburg” in the early nineties. Acting was something that I enjoyed, and over the years, especially after moving to Los Angeles, gave me the opportunity to participate as an extra. I didn’t start really considering pursuing acting until after my incident. Before I died, I lacked the courage to really be a performer. I didn’t believe in myself. Death has released my ”What’s the worst that’s going to happen?” attitude and has been very liberating and the source of unknown courage in me.

Why a solo show and not a larger play or a film or anything else?

Something that we saw as I was developing the solo show is that I would discuss Metaphysical experiences that I’ve had decades to contemplate and my after(this)life experience provided even deeper insight, but in relaying that to my classmates, it was like I was speaking Ancient Egyptian. So we worked on the show to convey the heart of my story as kind of an introduction to the deeper mystery that I’ve been living, and limiting the time to about 45 minutes, which seemed like a good amount of time so as not to be too overwhelming as well as to be able to leave some time afterwards for a Q&A with the audience. I’m writing a book of my experiences, which the development of, “Intellectual Mind Candy” has helped to show me the structure that it is taking, and I hope to have the book completed by the end of 2025.

I have considered adapting my experiences to film. Even though for me the experience has been an incredible, enlightening and amazing positive adventure, I think the story would best be told from the vantage of a Psychological Horror film. I sometimes feel that so many of the things  I experienced in my lucid unconscious state would be lost because CGI has been able to bring so many fantastic worlds to life. It’s like trying to capture the overwhelming awe of standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon at sunrise for the first time and translate it into a two-dimensional experience; then multiplying the intensity of that experience by 1000. I’ve looked at the way filmmakers like Ignacio Maiso utilize a psychological way of storytelling in movies like “T H E M” where he doesn’t rely on any special effects, and think this may be the way of telling my story. I’m open to ideas.

I haven’t put thought into the idea of doing this story as a play, but while writing my response to you,  I could see how that may be a possibility as almost a modern “Myth of Er”.  Without giving too much away about my death experience, for almost two years post death I thought my experience was equal to about an hour of living memories.  Then, in speaking with my medical doctor, I came to the realization that I have almost two weeks of life memory, that never happened in this reality. These memories are a combination of events that are slightly off what this world is like, coupled with intense lucid dreams within that time. But unless I was being precognitive about my death (which I don’t believe I was), these memories happened after I died, but before my brain turned back on while I was comatose.  A potential play could be found in those 2 weeks of memory.

What is your process in writing and creating?

I visualize my story before I begin writing it.  I start with the core idea and then build it from there. Once I feel that I have something to build on I’ll write a basic step outline, then fill in the gaps. I have a lot of step outlines floating around.  My hardest part is believing that the story is interesting for people to watch or read, but I guess that’s something a lot of creatives battle with. The step outline is something that helps keep me focused and on track.  

What have you learned about yourself and your art through this process?

That there is value in what I think and believe and I shouldn’t be afraid to share it.

Why is this play so important to you?

My death, as for most, was completely unexpected. However, before I died, I came to a personal enlightenment, an ember I carried through life, that erupted into a fire at the end of it. I was OK and at peace with taking that epiphany to the grave. 

Then I died, and then came back.

I have a hard time believing that these events are only a coincidence, and I have to at least try to tell my story. Intellectual Mind Candy is the first of what will hopefully be many steps to fulfilling that fire that’s now burning in me.

What advice can you give any aspiring writers and solo artists?

Don’t wait until you die to have the courage to live.

Thank you, Jovian! Best of luck with the show this weekend, we love Solofest! Now the second largest solo theatre festival in the country! https://www.whitefiretheatre.com/

Intellectual Mind Candy will be performed at the Whitefire Theatre on April 13, 2025 at 7 PM.

Tickets:

https://whitefire.stagey.net/projects/11315?tab=tickets

Where: 

The Whitefire Theatre
13500 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423

When: 

Sunday, April 13 at 7PM

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