by TRAVIS MICHAEL HOLDER 

Photo by Paul Rubinstein 

City Garage

Known for tackling weightier philosophical and political heavyweights, Santa Monica’s ever-unconventional City Garage Theatre pivots beautifully into lighter, more intimate territory with Charles L. Mee’s Limonade Tous les Jours: A Paris Love Story. Featuring a wisp of a socially unacceptable romance that trades the company’s signature Brechtian hammers for something altogether more delicate, this time out is a lyrical, evocative meditation on the persistent hunger for human connection.

Under the absolutely brilliant direction and featuring a drastic Mee-approved adaptation by City Garage’s prolific 39-year artistic director Frederique Michel,  Limonade is a whimsical meditation on the unpredictable nature of romance, challenging the rigid boundaries society often places around love. Set against a backdrop that evokes a dreamy and almost cinematic romance, the production thrives on its ability to balance lighthearted charm with deeply bittersweet truths about our flawed species’ too-often culturally compromised crash through life.

When a chance encounter at a sidewalk café sparks an immediate and surprisingly connected conversation about guarded affections, haunting loneliness, and the absolute foolishness of falling in love for a second time, the result is exactly what they claim to be guarding against. What follows is a whirlwind, mai-décembre fling that felt quite like home to me personally as it evolved into a subtle, elusive dance of mutual seduction and vulnerability.

Michel draws strikingly well-calibrated performances from her cast of three, successfully mining the wit, humor, and underlying melancholy of Mee’s signature conversational prose. The heart of the production beats in the captivating dynamic between its leads.

As the free-spirited Golightly-esque Parisian Ya-Ya, Nicolet Anton delivers a performance brimming with magnetic vitality and a sharp, spirited intelligence. Rather than falling into what could be an easy trap of a superficial archetype, she injects the character with a compelling, unpredictable spark that commands the stage.

Opposite her, David E. Frank portrays the reluctantly smitten Andrew with measured vulnerability, capturing the hesitation and eventual surrender of a mature man caught off guard by an unexpected second chance at passion with a girl half his age. The chemistry between Anton and Frank is palpable, navigating Mee’s rhythmic avant-garde dialogue with easy and fluid grace.

While the central romance dictates the plot, the true lifeblood of this production resides in the spectacular contribution of Cruz St. James. Serving double duty as the production's choreographer and a chameleonic ensemble force, fluidly stepping into roles ranging from a swift-footed waiter to a hypnotic nightclub performer called Madame Josephine, St. James delivers a textbook example of theatrical versatility.

As a performer, he possesses a magnetic presence that completely recalibrates the energy of the room whenever he steps onstage. Whether executing his own sultry, sharply stylized choreography or anchoring the show's musical transitions with striking vocal delivery, St. James elevates the multi-role ensemble into a vital living framework for the play. Rather than simple background texture, these varied characters operate as a witty, physical commentary on the central storyline of the lovers' sweeping emotions. It is a thrillingly distinct, multi-faceted performance that provides the production with its most vibrant and memorable highlights.  

Charles Mee is easily one of the most iconoclastic voices in contemporary American theatre. Often asking people to refer to him simply as "Chuck," as he did when I interviewed him in 2004 to coincide with the opening of his Summertime (in which I had the great honor of playing the then-unknown Tessa Thompson’s father in the second ever production of the Boston Court Performing Arts Center), the playwright’s path to becoming a staple of the avant-garde theatrical scene is entirely unique largely because he didn't start out as a conventional theatre practitioner and radically rejects the traditional rules of playwriting.

Mee describes his plays not as tightly spun psychological realism, but as collages. He samples and repurposes found texts from a dizzying array of sources, including classical Greek tragedies (which he frequently reinvents, such as Big Love or Orestes 2.0), historical documents, Shakespearian fragments, National Enquirer articles, classical philosophy, and contemporary pop culture. He tosses these elements into a theatrical blender to create dense and often beautifully disjointed landscapes. For him, human experience isn't a neat, linear narrative; it is messy, interrupted, and flooded with competing stimuli.  

As he told me back a dozen years ago during Summertime, he sees his plays a lot like life, something akin to riding a rollercoaster when it suddenly shifts or dips or makes a drastic turn, throwing you completely off-center from what you expected.

Perhaps his most controversial contribution to the theatre world is his radical stance on intellectual property. In the early 1990s, Mee launched “The (Re)making Project,” posting the full texts of all his plays online for free and issuing a public manifesto inviting artists to pillage his work:

"Please feel free to take the plays from this website and adapt them, ruin them, change them, hand them to your friends, put your own name on them... cut them up, reshape them, write your own plays inspired by them, or do whatever you like with them."

With our production of Summertime,  our director Michael Michetti mentioned to Chuck how much he loved a particular one-scene appearance in his previous play Wintertime, which features the same family, when a pizza deliveryman casually sticks around to talk about his killing of his entire family. 

Chuck said, "Put it in." When Michael seemed puzzled, the writer elaborated, telling him to feel free to take the scene and add it somewhere in our production, which we did featuring the incredible Patrick Gallo in the role.

Mee views theatre as a continuous historical conversation, arguing that Greek tragedians stole from mythology, Shakespeare stole from Holinshed, and therefore modern theatre artists should steal from him. His deeply political and historical sensibilities stem from his first career. After writing early off-off-Broadway plays in the 1960s, he took a 20-year hiatus from theatre to support his family.

During that time, he worked as a professional historian and author, writing acclaimed, definitive nonfiction books on international diplomacy, power dynamics, and American history (such as Meeting at Potsdam and The Marshall Plan). He also served as the editor-in-chief of the arts and culture magazine Horizon.  When he finally returned to the stage in the mid-1980s, collaborating with choreographer Martha Clarke on Vienna: Lusthaus, he brought that massive historical canvas with him.  

While his intellectual pedigree is formidable, a Charles Mee play is rarely dry or pedantic. He frequently infuses his work with an intense, almost breathless sense of joy and physicality. It is common for a Mee script to suddenly demand that the entire cast burst into an elaborate synchronized dance, sing a classic pop song, or erupt into physical slapstick. He routinely strips away traditional plot mechanics to focus purely on the intense, erratic emotional states of his characters: their longing, their sudden violent passions, and their desperate pursuit of love. Given City Garage's long-standing devotion to European avant-garde and text-driven deconstructed theatre, Mee's poetic, collage-driven style is a perfect fit for their artistic wheelhouse.

In an inspired directorial choice, Michel introduces a rich musical framework that completely reshapes the production’s atmosphere, turning a straiqht play into a fascinating piece of contemporary musical theatre. By embedding specific French torch songs into the core concept of the play, they function as vital narrative extensions rather than traditional musical breaks. It is a bold, inventive piece of theatricality that honors the script's fluid structure while giving the audience a beautifully textured auditory experience. Rather than treating these musical numbers as mere decorative interludes to break up the text, Michel elevates them into crucial storytelling pillars. This layered, collage-like approach to the soundscape feels entirely organic to the piece, perfectly deepening the emotional resonance of the staging.

Hence the most incredible part of this time out is what Michel has done to adapt and recreate the script itself. The pair has maintained a very close relationship according to Michel’s cohort and City Garage producer and production designer Charles A. Duncombe, and she let the playwright know early on what she had in mind—something about which he was very enthusiastic. In putting this version together, she added monologues from others of Chuck’s plays that seemed in the spirit of things, including this last speech is from his Tunnel of Love that she gave to Cruz as the waiter to deliver—a huge departure since in the original Limonade, the character is a non-speaking Vietnamese transplant to Paris:

"Sometimes you don't see the other person at first.

And then suddenly you do.

You sense something in one another.

You might not even know what it is.

In fact, you never know,

the connection is so deep,

beneath the place where language even starts.

And then, if you let the moment pass, it is past forever.

And then what you never know is:

was this the great love or not?

Was this the one great love

that you've just missed.

Because each of us is given only one great love in life.

That's what al the poets have known.

We've forgotten it in our times.

I think we get too caught up in our daily lives.

But people used to know:

you are born,

you have one great love,

you die.

There's nothing else to life.

That's why, in Romeo and Juliet,

after they find their love,

they die.

Because that's the truth of it:

birth, love, and death,

that's all there is.

Your great love may come at the beginning of you life,

or in the middle,

or near the end.

Or not at all.

But there is only one

and if you miss it,

you've missed it forever.”

As I said, this particularly hit home to my partner Hugh and especially to me, the décembre of our amazing love story, since we have defied all our friends' early opinions (now changed, I assure you) and societal influences to benefit from a remarkable 13-year-plus relationship regardless of the massive 42-year age difference between us. Thanks to Michel’s genius contribution as director and adapter, this version of Chuck Mee’s originally melancholic ending for Limonade Tous les Jours, while deftly honoring Mee’s intricate melange-ike mixture of dialogue, utilizes his atmospheric shifts to create an environment that feels both deeply intimate and larger than life to me.

The result is a remarkable staging that understands the play's inherent poetry, allowing moments of quiet reflection to breathe just as effectively as its bursts of theatrical joy. It is an enchanting evening of theatre that transports its audience into a dreamlike state, offering a beautifully stylized escape that lingers in the mind long after the final curtain.

THROUGH JUNE 28: City Garage, Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Av., Santa Monica. 310.453.9939 or www.citygarage.org

Photo by Knud Adams 

Mark Taper Forum

The criteria for a playwright to receive the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Drama is simple and straightforward. It’s awarded “for a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life.” There could not be a more perfect way to describe Eboni Booth’s 2024 Pulitzer honoree Primary Trust, just opened at the Mark Taper Forum, an exquisite, deeply moving exercise in minimalism that could not possibly feel more American.

In fact, it’s something akin to a hybrid of Thornton Wilder crossed with Carson McCullers. Where Wilder asks us to look up to the stars to realize how connected we all are in our brief existence on our ever-spinning planet, McCullers asks us to look into the quiet, shadowed corners of a lonely room to witness the ache of a heart that cannot make itself understood. Miraculously, Booth deftly manages to do both.

In an era where contemporary drama frequently mistakes volume and sprawling high-stakes mechanics for depth, Booth’s play offers a radical alternative: a quiet, intensely focused, and sublimely tender exploration of loneliness, the comfort and trap of routine, and the seismic bravery required for some people to let the world in.

Set in the picture-postcard suburb of Cranberry, New York, a fictional town whose motto is "Welcome Friend, You’re Right on Time!", the story centers on Kenneth (Petey McGee), a 38-year-old terminal loner who has spent the last 15 years after the death of his mother hiding from a lifetime of unexamined trauma behind a rigid, comforting regime. By day, he works at a dusty, low-traffic used bookstore owned by the paternal Sam (an extraordinary James Urbaniak) and by evening, he sits at a local tiki bar called Wally’s nursing two-for-one Mai Tais alongside his fiercely loyal BFF Bert (Ugo Chukwu).

When the ailing Sam announces he must sell the shop due to his failing health, Kenneth’s carefully constructed sanctuary is shattered. Suddenly jobless and unmoored, he is forced to step outside his survival loops, eventually landing a position as a teller trainee at the local bank called Primary Trust under the supervision of an overly enthusiastic manager named Clay (again Urbaniak), an officious low-ambition guy living on memories of his years as a high school football jock. What follows is not a story of explosive reinvention, but a delicate step-by-step account of an isolated soul navigating grief and rediscovering the grace of human connection.

Wunderkind director Knud Adams, who also helmed another recent Pulitzer winner, English, both in New York and here at the Wallis earlier this Spring, recreates Primary Trust’s celebrated 2023 off-Broadway premiere with an impeccable, light-handed precision. Adams understands that the magic of Booth's script lies in its negative space: Kenneth’s hesitant pauses, the silent subtext lurking between the lines, and the quiet dignity of ordinary people trying their best.

McGee is sweet and affecting in the central role, delivering much of the narrative through direct address to the audience and in doing so quickly establishing a heartbreakingly vulnerable rapport. His Kenneth is a multilayered study in high-functioning fragility; every forced smile and twitch of social anxiety is anchored by a profoundly luminous warmth that keeps the character from ever feeling like a mere caricature of trauma.

More than once Kenneth tells us he doesn’t believe in God or heaven or hell, “but I do believe in friends.” Chukwu’s Bert quickly emerges as his rock-solid sounding board, providing a grounded—yet soon to be revealed ephemeral—counterweight to Kenneth’s clear dysfunctionality. The chemistry between McGee and Chukwu forms the emotional spine of the evening, ultimately giving the play its uniquely poignant resonance with the bittersweet revelation that Bert is actually Kenneth’s imaginary friend only he can see.

The other two supporting performances might be the most difficult, balancing the simplicity of the story with a sometimes over-the-top delivery that may or may not be something intended to be perceived germinating from somewhere in the depths of Kenneth’s muddled mind. Urbaniak brings a lovely, melancholic tenderness to both the bookstore owner and the nerdy but well-meaning banker, as well as  a waiter in a French restaurant who makes the carrying of two martinis to Kenneth's table a moment of comedic genius.

Rebecca S’manga Frank, who appears as a series of tiki bar servers and Primary Trust customers, is a chameleonic delight, effortlessly shifting between each of her characters until she emerges from her pool of quirky waitresses in a distinct, sharply drawn portrait as Corrina, a real-life potential friend trying earnestly to offer Kenneth a unexpected lifeline of casual kindness.

The technical elements at the Taper work in brilliant lockstep to mirror Kenneth's internal landscape. The cartoonlike Mr. Rogers-esque scenic design by Marsha Ginsberg utilizes a beautifully sparse, toy-theatre aesthetic—a miniature Grover’s Corners of rural structures representing Cranberry’s storefronts that underscore both the safety and the claustrophobia of smalltown life.

A particular triumph of the production is the live musical accompaniment by Luke Wygodny, positioned on the periphery of the stage with his back to most of the audience, who provides an organic, real-time score utilizing a variety of acoustic instruments and a foley-like chime to mark both the transition of Kenneth’s days and a means to remind him he is wandering off in his thoughts and needs to refocus to tell us the story. It elevates Booth’s remarkable play to something akin to a modern fable, adding a rhythmic heartbeat to the staging that feels completely essential.

At a concise, intermissionless 95 minutes, Primary Trust is an empathy machine of the highest order. It gently strips away the armor we wear against the world, reminding us that survival is a collaborative effort. By focusing on the monumental heroism hidden within seemingly mundane choices—like applying for a new job or accepting an invitation to go out for a drink—Booth has created a quietly devastating slice of life bound to linger with audiences long after the final lights fade.

THROUGH JUNE 28: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Av., LA. 213.628.2772 or CenterTheatreGroup.org   

Photo courtesy of LucasFilms LTD. 

It was 49 years ago this month when I was invited to the very first screening of a new science fiction feature film and went with some reluctance. Although in many of my circles it was talked about as possibly being something special, it was a totally unknown entity to me and Victor and I almost stayed home, thinking what we were about to see might be something landing smackdab between The Giant Claw and Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere.

The movie was the original Star Wars and, of course, the rest is history.

Now, almost a half-century later and after over two years (and a couple of wonderful Thanksgivings) hearing about the making of the 12^th Star Wars epic from our dear friend and the film’s co-producer Ian Bryce and his amazing assistant Cerise Preston, my partner Hugh and I were thrilled to be invited to a special cast and crew preview screening last week of an all-new and much-anticipated blockbuster in the most celebrated film franchise in motion picture history.

Sneaking onto the guest list of an exciting private screening as part of the 100-year anniversary of the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood two blocks from our home made the event even more memorable. Such extra treats as a Disney-friendly overture played by the theatre’s resident organist Rob Richards, who has since 1999 played over 4,000 live pre-screening concerts from the historic stage at the classic 1929 pipe organ saved when the Fox Theatre in San Francisco was demolished in the early 60s, as well as a special grand Star Wars-themed laser show right after Richards and his massive Wurlitzer disappeared into the bowels of the place and a knockout immersive sound plot that caused the entire theatre to shake with every explosion and rollercoaster ride zipping through space, gave us an experience almost as epic as the film itself.

Almost.

Without a doubt, The Mandalorian & Grogu delivers the pure big-screen-designed Star Wars experience which has been missing. For seven long years, the galaxy far, far away has been absent from movie theatres, leaving fans forced to get their fix on home screens. 

With writer-director Jon Favreau’s latest saga, the franchise makes a triumphant return to the cinema where it belongs. While some traditionally cynical critics are already dismissing it as an expanded TV series episode, they are missing the forest for the trees. This isn’t a self-serious, existential space opera; it is a totally thrilling and expertly crafted blockbuster built specifically to maximize the scale, sound, and pure joy of the theatrical experience.

At its core, the film succeeds because it strips away the convoluted lore of the recent small screen seasons and returns to the lean, mean, space-western roots that made us fall in love with George Lucas’ original marvel way back in 1977. 

We find that titular bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) right where he belongs: acting as a lethal, pragmatic hired gun for the New Republic, tracking down the dangerous, scattered remnants of the Imperial cells with cinema-sized graphics and continuous kinetic action. What sets all this apart from its streaming predecessor is the jaw-dropping sense of scale. 

Favreau has explicitly stated that this film was “forged” for the big screen and that’s where the influence of our pal Ian Bryce becomes undeniably apparent.

Ian famously started his career as a production assistant on 1983’s Return of the Jedi before producing the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA Best Film-winning Almost Famous, then going on to produce massive, tactile Hollywood blockbusters such as Saving Private Ryan, Twister, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Transformers series, and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man—making him the 14^th highest grossing film producer in motion picture history.

He once again brings grand-scale, physical action choreography back to the Star Wars franchise. Under his guidance, the film trades the static, stage-bound feel and inherent limitations of television for truly dynamic filmmaking relying heavily on breathtaking visuals. Every frame of the stunning, practical effects-heavy cinematography reflects this massive blockbuster pedigree and nowhere is this clearer than in the film's masterfully handled action set-pieces.

The undisputed highlight is an extended, high-stakes battle sequence taking place entirely within the churning interior of a roaming AT-AT walker. Bryce and Favreau turn the classic Imperial machine into a living, breathing level of an action movie. It’s a claustrophobic, tactile sequence as Mando navigates the massive moving gears, industrial catwalks, and vertical shafts of the walker. The direction provides audiences with a thrilling, grounded perspective on classic Star Wars machinery like we’ve never witnessed before.

The film also shines in its aerial dogfights. The Razor Crest—or rather, Mando’s customized N-1 Starfighter—is pushed to its absolute limits in a breathtaking chase through an unstable asteroid field and the sound design, featuring the seismic charges and the deafening roar of starship engines bouncing off the rococo walls of the El Capitan, is alone worth the price of admission. The entire production carries the unmistakable signature of Ian Bryce's classic, heavy-metal blockbuster sensibilities.

Of course, the heart, humor, and magic of Grogu and his bond with Mando are the emotional anchors of the story. For anyone worried that the character of the ultra-cute non-speaking puppy dog young apprentice would feel like a cheap marketing tool on the big screen, the film quickly puts those fears to rest. The tangible, seamless puppeteering work brings the character to life with an astonishing amount of personality, providing the film with its biggest laughs and its most genuine heart.

The supporting cast shines as well, most notably Sigourney Weaver as Colonel Ward, Mando’s gritty New Republic contact, who brings an immediate, grounded gravitas to the outer rim and serves as the perfect foil for Pascal’s stoic warrior.

The verdict, for me, is in. The Mandalorian and Grogu doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, nor does it carry the usual narrative weight of a sprawling multi-film trilogy. Instead, it offers a beautifully paced galactic adventure that delivers exactly what it promises. It’s a cinematic ride that rewards the fans, celebrates the tactile mysteries of the universe, and reminds us how much fun Star Wars can be when worldclass ingenuity and breathtaking theme park-style entertainment are the focus and a major film was bravely greenlighted to become sheer movie magic at its best.

Ultimately, however, what made sharing this continuation of a legendary saga with its uber-talented cast members and creators so unique for me personally wasn't just what happened onscreen but what happened after.

As the extensive credits rolled against a black screen, accompanied by Ludwig Göransson’s future award-worthy score, no one seated in the theatre moved. No one bolted for the lobby. Not a single person. Instead, the entire audience sat in reverent appreciation, cheering as the names of their talented friends and colleagues filled the screen. It might sound like an elemental reaction but for me, witnessing that unexpected display of collective respect was a deeply moving finale to an unforgettable adventure.

THANK YOU, IAN! 

Photo by Jeff Lorch 

Pasadena Playhouse

The standard for staging Golden Age musicals is shifting. Audiences love the sweeping romances and soaring melodies but the outdated jokes, passe gender roles, and creaky dialogue can feel out of sync with modern sensibilities.

Enter the Pasadena Playhouse’s production of the 1947 classic Brigadoon, offering a fascinating and edgy modern twist to Lerner and Loewe’s well-known mythical tale. Armed with a thoughtful new book adaptation by actor-turned-playwright Alexandra Silber and directed/choreographed with sweeping energy by Katie Spelman, this revival isn’t just a breath of fresh air; it’s a flat-out triumph.

Rather than lecturing audiences with contemporary theatre’s tiresome and overworked focus on society’s inequities or stripping away the piece's original romantic whimsy, Silber and Spelman deep-clean the original tale, focusing heavily on human connection and genuine grief with an unexpected all-new emphasis on vibrant Scottish culture.

The foundational story remains unchanged: two New Yorkers get hopelessly lost in the Scottish Highlands on vacation, only to stumble across a (literally) enchanted village that appears for only one single day every 100 years to protect itself from the corrupting influences of the outside world.  

Silber's book narrows down the timeline. Our travelers are once again city-dwelling buddies, while the village itself is still preserved with all its vestiges of the 1700s. Crucially, however, the outdated caricatures are gone, most notably underplaying smitten villager Fiona MacLaren’s competition for the heart of Tommy Albright back in the Big Apple.   

“Including Jane in the story was not serving a good purpose,” believes Silber. “A man choosing between the opportunity to be brave, to grow, seemed like a more interesting story to me than pitting women against each other at its center.”

Also, the town pump Meg Brockie (played with showstopping, boisterous charm by Donna Vivino) is no longer a desperate woman hunting for any man available but instead is portrayed as a vivacious, independent tavern keeper fiercely proud of the Gaelic culture of her village—and of herself—and the original kindly schoolmaster is cleverly reimagined as the town’s beloved spokesperson, played in a notable star turn with an unshakeable lived-in gravitas and quiet humor by the incomparable multiple Tony and Emmy-winning Tyne Daly.  

Silber defly deconstructs the former madonna-whore polarity of Alan Jay Lerner’s original text, which leans heavily into dated female archetypes, creating a sharp contrast between the pure and idealized Fiona (Betsy Morgan) and the hyper-sexualized, man-crazy caricature of Meg. Fiona is given a sharper and more fully realized agency and modern interiority; no longer is she depicted as a mooning lass just waiting around for a husband but instead has a rich connection to her community's history.

Vivino's role of Meg undergoes the most radical text lifting, refashioned into a still bawdy yet fiercely independent tavern keeper completely content to be her own woman, shifting her comedic numbers from a desperate hunt for a man to a celebration of autonomous female desire.  

Gender-flipping the village's wise academic patriarch Mr. Lundie into Widow Lundie and adding the remarkable performance of Daly to the mix brings a completely different maternal warmth and lived-in authority to the exposition of the town's magical contract with that also mythical old man on the cloud, replacing the musical’s clinical history lesson with an act of communal storytelling. “The hardest thing in the world is to give up everything,” she wisely offers, “even if it often is the only way to get everything.”

All of this could not come across more spectacularly. “What I wanted was to make sure I didn’t paint it with a broad watercolor of a contemporary feminist lens,” Silber explains in the production’s program, “ but to actually bring out and portray that matriarchal ancient society did exist in 18th-century Scotland.”

Further fleshing out the community's background and silent grief, she approached the adaptation with novelistic stage directions, digging into the previously unwritten backstories of the ensemble. This is most vividly executed through the character of Maggie Anderson (Jessica Lee Keller), traditionally a peripheral dancing role. In this version, Maggie is expanded into a central emotional anchor who was rendered mute after losing both of her parents in a past calamity. By giving her a clearer traumatic backstory, her explosive, agonizing Act II funeral dance, jarringly created by Spelman’s Agnes DeMille-centric choreography following the suicide leap of Harry Beaton (Spencer Davis Milford) carries immense thematic weight regarding how a tightly knit community processes collective sorrow.  

The playwright and director obviously worked closely together throughout to ensure both the cultural identity of the characters and solidifying that the setting felt authentically Scottish rather than a postcard caricature, something further extended by the precise use of traditional folk roots in Spelman’s driving, athletic choreography which bypasses the standard airy fairyland tropes to deliver an environment that feels tactile, ancient, and deeply human, not only paying homage the spirit of DeMille’s iconic original ballets but introducing a freshly raw, driving vitality.  

The absolute luxury of this production is its scale. In a bold move, Pasadena Playhouse places a full 22-piece live orchestra onstage behind Jason Sherwood’s sweepingly charming sets, augmented by a live Ceilidh band complete with bagpipes in full view and directly interacting with the performers. Under Brad Gardner’s lush musical direction and Danny Erdberg and Ursula Kwong-Brown’s electrifying sound, Frederick Loewe’s iconic score swells beautifully, filling the historic 101-year-old house with an intoxicating warmth and musical grandeur.  

The vocal performances are uniformly elite. Max von Essen delivers a soaring, elegant tenor as Tommy, infusing the character with an achingly grounded sincerity rather than the typical dopey lovestruck persona. Opposite him, Morgan is simply spectacular, her rich, almost operatic soprano providing the emotional heartbeat of the night—and their duet on the show’s most famous standard, “Almost Like Being in Love,” sends chills straight to the rafters. Also, nothing about the predicable rom-com nature of their relationship, which begins with the feisty Scottish lassie telling the puzzled visitor who doesn’t quite get her town, “I like you very much… I just dinna like anything you say,” emerges as in any way contrived or formulaic.

Happy Anderson is a major standout as Tommy’s best friend and traveling companion Jeff Douglas, the musical’s one non-singing role here turned by Silber from a peripheral second banana into a boisterous, wisecracking drunk who uses his size and humor to hide the incredible pain of losing his beloved wife to cancer. One startlingly memorable and emotionally charged eleventh-hour scene between Anderson and von Essen after the pair has left Brigadoon somehow plays like Odets rather than Lerner—and ironically feels totally in place.

The joyous wedding celebration between Charlie Dalrymple (the charming and big-voiced Daniel Yearwood) and Jean MacLaren (an ethereal Kylie Victoria Edwards) is light and celebratory but still stands in perfect, devastating contrast to the show's emotional climax, something that leaves many in the audience visibly misty-eyed on their way out of the theatre, all ready to go home and tell their absent loved one “There but for you go I” as they declare how much he or she means to them.  

Pasadena Playhouse continues its incredible streak of proving why it won the Regional Theatre Tony Award. This fresh and fabulous Brigadoon is beautifully produced, newly balanced, and acted with clarity and enormous heart, proving you don't have to break a Golden Age classic to make it matter to a modern audience—you just have to find its heartbeat. The most indelible personal take away for me energizing the journey through my own unexpectedly passionate golden years came from the Yoda-esque Widow Lundie: “If you love deeply enough, anything can happen.”

THROUGH JUNE 14: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Av., Pasadena. 626.356.PLAY or pasadenaplayhouse.org 

Photo courtesy of Meyer2Meyer Entertainment 

Nocturne Theatre

From the moment the misty lights come up on The Little Mermaid at the Nocturne Theatre, it’s clear director Justin Meyer, choreographer Taylor J. Smith, and their whole intrepid creative team aren’t just dipping their toes into the water here—they dove headfirst into a theatrical abyss and came up with a shimmering pearl.

Even for those who have spent an obsessed lifetime in the darkened wings or velvet seats in reverent worship of live theatre, it’s rare to see a familiar fable reimagined with such visual panache. The Nocturne, the formerly abandoned and once underwater (no pun intended) Glendale Center Theatre, has quickly become known as a space that consistently punches above its weight class and with this clever Disney reinvention without the unlimited bucks, it has transformed its stage into a bioluminescent wonderland that would make Neptune himself green with envy.

The cast is, quite simply, fin-tastic (oooo, somehow I can’t seem to stop myself from puns worthy of the show’s prolific bookwriter Doug Wright). As our heroine Ariel, Jenna-Mae White brings a crystalline purity to "Part of Your World" that makes you forget the Disney artifice and truly root for the girl with the tail. She navigates the stage with a grace that suggests she’s truly buoyant, making the transition from sea to land feel less like a stage trick and more like a triumph of the spirit.

Every great show needs a bit of a seaside bite and the inspired casting of Wesley Moran as Ursula is a delicious choice, devouring the scenery like a shark in a feeding frenzy in costumer Tanya Cyr’s outrageously cool masterwork featuring gigantic, constantly undulating tentacles manipulated by several puppeteers dressed in black. Moran basically steals the show, especially when delivering "Poor Unfortunate Souls" with enough brassy confidence to rattle the rafters.

Sebastian and Scuttle (Darius Aaron Frye and Brendan Lynch) provide the necessary levity, keeping the pacing brisk. Their comedic timing is sharp as they manage to land every Wright-ian pun with the precision of a seasoned vaudevillian—far above my own thematic poor power here to add or detract. Kelby Thwaits as King Triton seems as though he stepped directly out of the original carton itself, Christian and Jonah Lees are wonderful as the waveboard-riding Flotsam and Jetsam, and Nicole Nelson elicits many awwww's as the lovestruck Flounder.

Andrew Gaxiola brings down the house with Chef Louis’ “Les Poisson” and J.D. Wallis is also another standout as Prine Eric’s loyal guardian Grimsley. The entire ensemble of singers and dancers could not be more committed or in sync as various mermaids and others, while the innovative inclusion of arialists (no pun here) Lisa-Marie Burnside and Kimberly Butler provide a truly special Cirque du Soleil-style treat.

Still, surprisingly, the true anchor of this production lies in the royal treatment delivered by the presence of Ben Raanan as the dashing, lovesick Prince Eric. Since Raanan was my TicketHolder Award "New Discovery of 2025" winner for his riveting LADCC-nominated turn as the titular Batboy at the Open Fist last season, I walked in with high expectations—and he certainly didn't let them drift away.

While the role of Eric can often feel like a two-dimensional buoy for the plot to float around, Raanan infuses the character with a soulful, searching quality and his vocal performance is nothing short of shore perfection, carrying a weight and longing that makes "Her Voice" the emotional high-water mark of the evening. He manages to find the humanity behind the crown, playing Eric not just as a royal figurehead, but as a man truly lost at sea until he finds his match.

It’s a testament to Raanan’s versatility that he can pivot so seamlessly from the twitchy, misunderstood angst of a pointy-eared cave-dwelling hybrid to the quintessential, square-jawed nobility of a Disney prince, not to mention his recent turn as the teenaged me in the beginning teaser now germinating into a feature film culled from my 2023 “auto-novel” Waiting for Walk. Seeing him continue to evolve is a reminder of why we keep coming back to the theatre—to witness a star-fish in the making. I expect great things from this major triple-threat talent; he is, quite simply, the reel deal.

Meyer’s staging and Smith’s choreography are Broadway quality, while Cyr’s flashy, splashy designs are like another featured character. Instead of bulky prosthetics, Cyr and Meyer use flowing silks and clever lighting to suggest the undulating currents of the deep. It’s an o-fish-ally stunning achievement. All of the components combine to be a testament to ingenuity on a budget at its ultimate best.

While some might find this a tail as old as time, this exceptional reinvention of The Little Mermaid breathes fresh oxygen into the story. It doesn’t just float; it soars. If you’re looking for a night of theatre that’s deep in heart and high on spectacle, don’t be shellfish—take the whole family. It’s a wave of pure theatrical joy, proving once again that some of the best art in this city is found in the most intimate corners of our local stages. It’s a hightide triumph on just about every level.

THROUGH JUNE 28: Nocturne Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale. thenocturnetheatre.com 

Photo courtesy of Hershey Felder Presents 

Ensemble Theatre Company / South Coast Rep

As much as I love both Santa Barbara and everything that makes productions from the Ensemble Theatre Company performing at the New Vic Theatre sensational, it’s quite a distance from Los Angeles and not a journey I often make. Still, there was no doubt when my cherished longtime friend Hershey Felder told me he was bringing his latest solo show to ETC that my partner Hugh and I were in for a roadtrip.

I was thrilled to be catching Hershey’s The Piano & Me for the first time in ETC’s beautifully appointed performance space I at one time had only experienced looking out from the stage itself, especially since everything he told me about the creation of it in our frequent late night texting rants from every corner of the world made it apparent this newest touring piece was undoubtedly his most vulnerable work yet. 

This freshly conceived production, which swerves from the usual formula of all the previous successful Hershey Felder one-person explorations over nearly 30 years, examining the lives and music of the most famous composers in the history of music, has been making its way through venues such as TheatreWorks Silicon Valley since early this year. The Piano & Me uniquely captures the essence of how one of our time’s most prolific theatrical wordsmiths conjures artistic magic by finally turning his famous Steinway spotlight onto his own life.

After three decades touring the globe mutating into such musical geniuses as Beethoven, Berlin, Bernstein, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin, among many others, Hershey has finally stepped out from behind the masks to reveal the man who has been introducing the world’s most revered composers to us all along, delivering a masterclass in narrative intimacy and proving his own life story is just as haunting and harmonious as those of the maestros he has portrayed.

“Put me in a pool of light,” Hershey confesses at the very top of this haunting rollercoaster ride, “put me in front of a crowd, and I’m going to tell the truth.”

The evening begins not in a grand concert hall, but in the cabbage-scented kitchens of his traditional Yiddish childhood in Montreal, Canada. We meet the young Hershey, a lonely, overweight first-generation immigrant kid whose life instantly changed when he discovered the piano was not just a piece of furniture but a “suitcase for survival” that made the world open up like a painting suddenly come to life. 

Over the years, Hershey has proven he is an authentic musical savant at the piano able to step into the skin of the groundbreaking musicmakers he brings to us, but here he shows he is also a gifted mimic able to populate his tale with a vivid gallery of characters from his own past.

These most prominently include his mother, a gossamer and adoring presence whose early death provided the emotional wound that motivated his future and has remained his fulcrum, and his often distinct father, the taciturn widower whose silence is often filled by the music Hershey writes and plays.

His teachers and mentors throughout the years are also portrayed with sharp, affectionate humor, taskmasters who sternly told him he would need to practice his craft every day for the rest of his life—and I can personally attest to the fact he still does just that. They emerge as heroic figures who forged the rigorous path Hershey steadfastly tread from a six-year-old prodigy who could memorize compositions by instantly seeing all the notes superimposed in front of his eyes to his days as a McGill University scholar and on to later as a young adult when he found his passionate ethnic roots as an interviewer for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation.

What makes this multimodal tapestry stand out from his previous biographical portraits, which have been seen by millions in some 6,000 performances internationally since their humble beginnings with George Gershwin Alone right here at the Tiffany Theatre in 1999, is the effortless integration of memory and media. Stefano DeCarli’s projections are sincerely poignant, moving from Felder family snapshots to the shadowed, harrowing imagery of his family’s past in Nazi Germany. These visuals don’t just serve as a backdrop; they act as a secondary narrator, grounding his personal anecdotes in the broader and often tragic context of Jewish identity and inheritance.

Of course, the piano, an extension of Hershey’s very soul, remains the main character, but instead of a curated Greatest Hits of a single composer, this time we are treated to the music he most dearly loves and so generously shares with all of us. He weaves through Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier,” Mozart’s “Turkish March,” Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” pieces by Liszt and Bartók, and as an encore the night we attended, Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”

One of the most impressive moments comes when Hershey plays an incredibly intricate piece of classical music he wrote himself—at age eight. We are all of us transported into a brave new realm of artistic human endeavor we seldom get to experience as our days are commendeered by stepped up timelines, quickly wandering attention spans, and social media. I tellya, the transition between spoken word and virtuoso performance throughout this presentation is so seamless you often don't realize where the story ends and the music begins.

This newest creation from a guy who never stops creating is a profound fullcircle moment for someone who has spent his entire life honoring others; here, he honors the craft itself and the resilience required to keep on keeping on and playing the music that shows the best of who we as a species are. 

It is a heartbreaking, hilarious, and ultimately triumphant evening that reminds us why one man seated at a piano can move us so deeply. Art heals as nothing else in our lives and boy, do we need to heal at this outrageously discouraging point in the evolution of the human experience as we hang on for dear life while our troubled planet spins wildly out of control around us.

Don't miss the golden opportunity to experience a powerful moment in theatrical history. Santa Barbara may be a trek from home for many and indeed, Hershey’s run at ETC only runs through May 10, but it then moves on to South Coast Rep next month before opening for a much-anticipated off-Broadway run at 59E59 in July and August. Without the shadow of a doubt, The Piano & Me gifts us with the unearthly wonder of the remarkably galvanizing Hershey Felder at his most authentic—and, as such, at his most brilliant.

NOW CLOSED: Ensemble Theatre Company at the New Vic, 33 W. Victoria St., Santa Barbara.  etcsb.org

PLAYING JUNE 9 - 21: South Coast Repertory Theatre, 655 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa. 714.708.5555 or scr.org

Photo by Robert Sturdevant

Road Theatre Company

Los Angeles wunderkind playwright Tom Jacobson’s newest and most idiosyncratic work, now world premiering at the stalwart Road Theatre, chronicles a fascinating descent into the divine—and the damned.

For 35 prolific years the Road, under the fiercely dedicated leadership of founder and artistic director Taylor Gilbert, has been a sanctuary for championing and presenting only ambitious new works, but Jacobson’s Hell Mouth is a venture courageously taken on even beyond that well-earned mantle. It is a work awash in a singular, ultimately haunting scale as it delves into a young man named Tim (Danny Lee Gomez), whose name is surely intentionally only one vowel away from the author’s own for a reason. Jacobson, a master of blending meticulous historical research with the surreal, has this time out clearly crafted his most personal work, a piece that feels less like a play and more like an incantation.

The story is described as a blend of art history and heretical theology, juxtaposed with being a heart-wrenching family drama. In it, Tim is caught between two worlds: his Lutheran-austere upbringing and—at first glance, at least—sheltered Oklahoman mother Lois and his dying father Russell (Gilbert and Tony Abatemarco) and a pseudo-sophisticated and ridiculously pretentious Hancock Park fashion icon named Spencer (also played by Abatemarco in one of the play’s most challenging narrative obstacles) who may just be owner of a previously unknown painting of Judas by Caravaggio. It shouldn’t take anyone who’s been around LA a few decades to realize Spencer is based on the lategreat and rather charmingly monstrous Mr. Blackwell, someone with whom both Jacobson and Yours Truly worked and knew personally, perhaps rather too well.

Employed as an acquisitions manager for a tony LA art museum (Jacobson worked for years as a fundraiser for LACMA), Tim struggles to reconcile his humble midwestern roots with the extreme wealth and ostentatiousness of the LA art world—there’s even a sly plot point about his worrying his parka-clad mother might just land on Spencer’s annual “Worst Dressed” list.   

The play is described as having “blood, profanity, and meta-commentary,” which fits perfectly with the high-intensity, almost industrial energy that makes this playwright’s work so unique. It deals with hidden secrets, intense transformations, and the pressure of being caught between two different lives.  

Set against a backdrop where the veil between the mundane and the macabre is dangerously thin, Hell Mouth follows Tim and his ultra-sophisticated but hardened former New Yawk-er fine art broker Samara (again played by Gilbert) as they navigate their career-making task of getting Spencer to donate his possibly historically important canvas to the museum. His journey quite literally takes him from LA to Oklahoma to Provence, France to try to unearth details about Caravaggio’s mysterious and never substantiated death—and perhaps, at least in the hallucinations Tim begins to suffer, on to a metaphorical and possibly even literal visit to the Valley of Hell itself.

The script is a dense thicket of language, rich with wit, and chockful of existential dread. Jacobson doesn’t only demand a lot from his actors, he asks a lot of his audience as well, refusing to hand over easy answers and instead layering the plot with thematic questions about redemption, legacy, and the literal and figurative pits we flawed humans tend to dig for ourselves.

Having myself been closely connected not only with Blackwell—whom I personally befriended bigtime while for several years editing his weekly column in the Tolucan Times and then taking it and him along with me in the early 90s when I moved on to be editor of the now defunct Beverly Hills Post—but Tom and his husband Ramone Munoz have also been pals almost as long. His up-until now unproduced Hell Mouth has been on my radar for some time, although I just learned from him opening weekend at the Road that he actually wrote it 18 years ago after the death of his own father.

One of the reasons the play remained in a drawer so long was the intense difficulties of presenting it, especially as the actors playing the parents and LA art-fashion figures must switch identities, as well as clothes and wigs, at lightning speed. Luckily, the Road secured the collaboration of one of the company’s finest and most imaginative directors of past successes Ann Hearn Tobolowsky who, along with a crackerjack design and creative team, has finished the puzzle, managing to make the intimate Road space feel cavernous and claustrophobic at the same time.

The staging leans heavily into the supernatural requirements of the text without ever veering into camp. The visual palette is striking, with Mark Mendleson’s austere yet versatile and highly modern set utilizing deep dark red shadows and sharp, angular light designed by Derrick McDaniel that easily suggests the encroaching darkness of the story’s titular gateway to Hell itself. Add in Nicholas Santiago’s masterful video projections, a combination evoking something between Hieronymus Bosch and the real-life images of works by Caravaggio himself, and the result is a masterclass in mood over literalism.

While the script is undeniably wordy, Tobolowsky’s direction keeps the energy taut, ensuring the philosophical debates never stall the forward momentum of the plot. The success of any Jacobson play always rests on its actors’ ability to handle rhythmic, heightened dialogue without losing the human pulse beneath it.

In this premiere, Gomez delivers a grounded, soulful performance that acts as a necessary anchor for the play’s more complex elements, while the undeniably arresting chemistry between veteran thespians Gilbert and Abatemarco provides the emotional stakes needed to make the play’s cosmic consequences feel personal.

Hell Mouth is undeniably a challenging, rewarding piece of theatre that commands its audience to work almost as hard as its performers. That Tobolowsky and her team have successfully found a clear pathway to do just that perfectly reaffirms Tom Jacobson’s status as one of the most erudite, gifted, and daring playwrights of our time. It isn’t merely a story; it’s a sensory experience that lingers long after the final blackout. For those who prefer their theatre with a side of intellectual vertigo, this is an essential sit.

THROUGH JUNE 6: Road Theatre Company, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., NoHo. 818.761.8838 or RoadTheatre.org   

Photo by Cheryl Mann 

Diavolo l'Espace

In the rich and sprawling landscape of the Los Angeles dance community, the pioneering Diavolo: Architecture in Motion has always been the equivalent of heavy metal music transformed into the truly thrilling environment of the LA movement scene. 

Diavolo is most widely known for dominating the austere Pasadena Civic stage over the 12th season of America’s Got Talent in 2017 and for opening the 2024 Grammy telecast with Dua Lipa. Their signature performances have played in 250 cities and 14 countries around the world to an estimated 100 million significantly gobsmacked patrons.

Still, for me the most indelible personal connection came in February of 2005 when I was invited up to Las Vegas to cover the entire opening week of Cirque du Soleil’s long-running KA at the MGM Grand for Entertainment Today, where I was not only granted several days backstage access to meet the newly-bonded and remarkable troupe of unearthly gifted artists from all over the world, I also had the privilege to sit in on the final rehearsals and observe the design and structural tweaks before the show’s spectacular opening night.

I might also mention the Cirque’s typically flashy and unreal opening night party in the MGM Grand Garden Arena, dominated onstage by a huge ice sailing ship manned by partially-clothed worldwide members of the troupe brought to Vegas as they always are for every opening night, lasted until noon the following day. It was quite a trip, I assure you, one I will never forget where I also made friendships that have stayed strong for the past 21 years.

As part of my press access, I was also given permission to interview KA’s insanely talented designers and creative team, including the show’s charismatic Paris-born choreographer Jacques Heim.

Heim is the inspiration, driving force, and creative director of Diavolo, which he founded here in 1992 and his company is still today only one of three dance entities to survive our fickle and quickly bored reclaimed desert climes over the past 25 years.

Getting to hang out and pick the fertile brain of this incredibly innovative artist, one of the first choreographers to blend modern dance with acrobatics and gymnastics, forming what the LA Times once noted as the “dance bridge to the 21st century,” was one of the highlights of my stay.

Diavolo’s latest production, ESCAPE, currently running through mid-June at their own unique creative space downtown at The Brewery, trades the stadium spectacle for something far more raw, vulnerable, and—quite literally—sweaty.

Tucked away in the exciting and electric arts district in the company’s permanent home and studio Heim calls l'Espace Diavolo, ESCAPE is a 70-minute exploration of the human struggle against a chaotic world. 

While the company is famous for its gravity-defying feats, since it’s being performed in this eclectic private former warehouse studio, this production brings the audience literally within five feet of the action. With only 90 seats in the house, the massive yet somehow intimate black box setting transforms the performance from a distant marvel into a shared endurance test.

Watching 22 worldclass artists grapple with Heim’s self-designed signature architectural metal structures at such close range is staggering. You don't just see the athleticism; you hear the breath, you feel the vibration of the wood and the steel, and above all, you sense the sheer stakes of the danger involved.

The performance is propelled by a high-octane soundtrack—a mix of pop, EDM, and rock spanning from the 1970s to today. This sonic backdrop mirrors the surreal landscape of ESCAPE the performers must navigate. Themes of survival and community aren't just subtext here—they are the literal foundation of the show.

However, the intimacy of the space is a double-edged sword. On the night I attended, the atmosphere inside the black box reached a fever pitch. The energy was electric, but the temperature within the venue was equally intense. The physical toll of the performance isn't just felt by the dancers, as the audience is also plunged into the human struggle for air and space. It is a testament to the power of the work that even when the environment becomes overwhelming, the sheer beauty and drama of the movement remains undeniable.

Breaking—or should I say smashing—the fourth wall, Heim’s vision for ESCAPE extends beyond the performance itself. The show aims to break down barriers, offering pre- and post-show interactive opportunities where guests can actually ride the colossal structures themselves. It is a rare chance to touch the art that usually exists behind a proscenium arch.

I would imagine most people find one or two performers in any dance or group performance to focus on throughout the show as I always tend to do. In this case, my attention kept returning to a young man smaller in stature than most of the other male dancers named Evan Hernandez. Although his positioning in less prominent places during the show and his youthfulness made me think maybe he is a newer member of the company, I also found him to be, besides equally gifted athletically, one of the more graceful and passionately  committed members of the troupe. Expect great things from him in the future.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that ESCAPE is a one-of-a-kind visceral and breathtaking experience that captures Diavolo’s 34-year legacy in a pressure cooker. It is bold, it is loud, and it is undeniably Los Angeles.

Just a word of advice: despite the fact that at the box office they pass out quite effective little personal electric fans to each patron and even though you should bring along a sweater or jacket just in case Dallas Raines turns out to be full of crap the day you attend (this is LA after all), definitely dress light under the layers and prepare for a real workout yourself—even from your seat.

It isn't easy to endure but what an opportunity to understand at close range just what each and every one of these 22 phenomenal artistes must undergo physically on a daily basis to bring us such undeniable sorcery.

THROUGH JUNE 14: l’Espace Diavolo, 616 Moulton Av., LA. www.daviolo.org/escape  

El Portal Theatre

Longtime Los Angeles weatherman Fritz Coleman retired in 2020 after four decades delivering his signature uncannily cheery forecasts on a daily basis but at age 76, his solo show Unassisted Residency, which plays once monthly at the El Portal’s intimate Monroe Forum, proves he’s still got the chops to deliver a jocular and lighthearted tsunami to his eager and most loyal fans.

Coleman began his career coming to LA to pursue his passion for standup comedy in the early 80s after first achieving success as a well-loved deejay radio personality in Buffalo, New York.

As the story goes, a producer at NBC caught his act one night at a local club and began to woo him to become a weatherman at KNBC-TV since our weather here was so consistent that he felt it needed a little on-air boost of humor to make it more interesting.

Delivering the daily forecast with a twinkle in his eye beginning in 1984 didn’t stop Coleman from continuing to chase his original dream by performing on local stages in several successful live shows, including his hilarious award-winning turn in The Reception: It’s Me, Dad! which played around town for several years to sold out houses.

Now, after leaving NBC four years ago, Coleman is back but the demographics have changed—or I might politely say… matured.

In my own case, as someone a year older than Coleman, his focus on finding the humor in aging is most welcome. In Unassisted Residency, the comedian talks about the challenges life has to offer in these, our so-called golden years, from physical deterioration to losing contemporaries on a regular basis to navigating the brave new world of technology and social media.

As his opening warmup act, the very funny and professionally self-deprecating Wendy Liebman notes, while looking out at the sea of gray hair and Hawaiian camp shirts in their audience, that Coleman chose to present his show as Sunday matinees so his target audience can shuffle our drooping derrières on home before dark.

Along the way, he also tackles subjects such as retirement communities, nonstop doctors’ appointments, incontinence, and Viagra, not to mention having grown up sucking in our parents’ omnipresent clouds of secondhand tobacco smoke and that generation’s lackadaisical attitude toward our safety and our health, all before moving on discuss to his all-new admiration for those heroic modern educators who during the pandemic had the patience to deal with zoom-teaching his grandkids.

The one thing he doesn’t talk much about is the weather—that is beyond mentioning how grateful he is that our current heat wave didn’t deter those gathered from venturing out of our caves and offering as a throwaway that one of the reasons he retired four years ago was climate change. Although he never says it, he doesn’t really have to; we get that even for someone as funny as Coleman, everyone has their limits when it comes to the potentially catastrophic future for our poor misused and abused planet.

Then when he launches into reminiscing about the amazingly incessant search for sexual gratification in our younger years (that time Stephen King once wrote when the males of the species all look at life through a spermy haze) and how that has changed since then. As a now single guy still looking for love—with some choice remarks about online dating sites—he tells a rather steamy tale about one date that proves it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, something of which I can definitely relate.

I first met Coleman in 1988 or 1989 when I did a feature interview with him as a cover story for The Tolucan (the more industry-oriented and less Evening Women’s Club-ish-pandering predecessor of the Tolucan Times).

He was gracious and charming and kept me laughing so hard back then that I couldn’t take notes fast enough, a knack he not only hasn’t lost but has sharpened considerably over the past 40 years. I couldn’t help wondering how many of the audience members at the Forum have been following him since then and for whom the topic of not-so gently aging hits home as dead-center as it did me.

This doesn’t mean you have to be 70-something to appreciate Fritz Coleman’s hilarious gift for creating homespun storytelling in his ever-extending monthly outing called Unassisted Residency.

My partner Hugh, who is a mere 42 years my junior and was quite literally at least three decades younger than anyone else in the audience last Sunday, laughed longer and louder than anyone else in the audience—perhaps a reaction to hearing me bitch continuously about getting old for the last 12 years?

NOW IN ITS THIRD YEAR! Plays one Sunday each month at the El Portal Theatre’s Monroe Forum Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., NoHo.  For schedule: www.elportaltheatre.com/fritzcoleman.html