Archived entries for Theatre Planners

Announcing: ‘L.A. Deli’ – A New Comedy by Sam Bobrick – Opens March 22 at Marilyn Monroe Theatre

L.A. DELI
A NEW COMEDY BY SAM BOBRICK
DIRECTED BY WALTER PAINTER

ANNOUNCED FOR MARILYN MONROE THEATRE
SIX WEEKS ONLY
MARCH 21 — APRIL 27

L.A. Deli posterL.A. Deli, a new comedy by Sam Bobrick, has been set for the Marilyn Monroe Theatre in West Hollywood, helmed by award-winning director Walter Painter. L.A. Deli will play two preview performances on Friday, March 21 at 8pm and Saturday, March 22 at 3pm, with opening set for Saturday, March 22 at 8pm. The limited engagement will run through April 27 only.

L.A. Deli is a series of comedic sketches that take place in a Hollywood delicatessen giving the audience a wicked and hilarious look inside show business. The cast of outrageous, shameless, and sometimes certifiable characters includes movie and TV producers, writers, directors, actors, their wives, ex-wives, and a very patient waitress named Kathleen. Some of the events portrayed actually happened to the playwright, some to his friends, and some to people he just happened to be sitting next to at lunch.

The cast will feature (in alphabetical order) Rachel Boller, Scott Kruse, Jeffrey Landman, Melinda Peterson, Phil Proctor, and Darrin Revitz. The set design is by Jeffery Eisenmann, lighting design is by Michael Gend, costume design is by Michael Mullen, music is arranged and supervised by Larry Grossman, sound design is by Chris Mosciatello, and the stage manager is Liana Dillaway. L.A. Deli is produced by Theatre Planners.

Sam Bobrick has written and co-written over 40 plays, many of them performed throughout the world, including Norman, Is That You?, Death In England, Passengers, Getting Sara Married, and without William Shakespeare’s blessing, Hamlet II (Better Than the Original). To date, 21 of his plays have been published by Samuel French with more to follow. In 2011, he won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for his play The Psychic. Bobrick’s extensive TV writing credits have earned him three Writers Guild of America awards and an Emmy nomination. Some of his television credits include Captain Kangaroo, The Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and numerous musical variety specials. He created the Saturday morning hit series Saved by the Bell. Also a songwriter, his songs have been recorded by Elvis Presley, Brian Ferry, and Los Lobos. www.SamBobrick.com

Walter Painter’s theatre credits include direction for productions of Camelot, Hello Dolly!, Cabaret, Once Upon A Mattress, Annie Get Your Gun, I Remember You (a new comedy by Bernard Slade at Garry Marshall’s Falcon Theatre), Bad Habits, Biloxi Blues, A Few Good Men, Dancing in the Mirror (a new play with dance), and Moon Over Parador (co-director with Paul Mazursky). He created the musical staging for the Broadway, National, and London companies of City of Angels. Painter is a seven-time nominee and three-time Emmy Award-winner for outstanding choreography in television. Credits include Musical Comedy Tonight (PBS Great Performances), four Oscar telecasts, and Hit Record TV (with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tony Danza). He stages National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth with the National Symphony Orchestra for live broadcast on PBS. www.WalterPainter.com

There will be two preview performances of L.A. Deli on Friday, March 21 at 8pm and Saturday, March 22 at 3pm. Opening is set for Saturday, March 22 at 8pm. General seating admission is $20 for previews and $30 for regular performances. The running schedule is Friday and Saturday at 8pm with matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 3pm through April 27 only. Tickets are on sale now, and may be purchased online at www.plays411.com/ladeli or by calling (323) 960-7738.

The Marilyn Monroe Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute is located at 7936 Santa Monica Boulevard (one block west of Fairfax), in West Hollywood. Street parking is available.

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02-28-14

Announcing: “The Inventor, The Escort, The Photographer, Her Boyfriend and His Girlfriend” Opens June 2 at the Lounge Theatre

KADM PRODUCTIONS ANNOUNCES
WEST COAST PREMIERE OF
THE INVENTOR, THE ESCORT, THE PHOTOGRAPHER,
HER BOYFRIEND AND HIS GIRLFRIEND
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MATT MORILLO

NEW SEX COMEDY BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SMASH HIT
ANGRY YOUNG WOMEN IN LOW-RISE JEANS
WITH HIGH-CLASS ISSUES
OPENS JUNE 2, 2012 AT THE LOUNGE THEATRE
FOR SIX WEEKS ONLY

KADM Productions has announced the West Coast premiere of The Inventor, The Escort, The Photographer, Her Boyfriend and His Girlfriend, Matt Morillo’s raucous new sex comedy, for a limited engagement at the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood. There will be one preview performance on June 1, with opening night set for Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 8:00. The Inventor … will play through July 8.

The Inventor, The Escort, The Photographer, Her Boyfriend and His Girlfriend is an outrageous sex romp, juxtaposing two lusty comic scenarios involving five people in a New York City apartment building during a fierce blizzard. Downstairs, Julia, a call girl, arrives for an appointment with Jeffrey, a nerdy guy who has made a fortune inventing and selling sexual devices. What begins as a routine ‘trick’ has quite the unexpected ending. In the meanwhile, upstairs neighbors Karen and John, an estranged couple, settle in for an evening of sweet reconciliation and make-up sex. Their plans go awry, however, when Molly, a young dancer with whom John had dallied, arrives seeking refuge from the blizzard. Drunken lunacy ensues.

Matt Morillo’s first play, Angry Young Women In Low-Rise Jeans With High-Class Issues, was a runaway hit on two continents, packing houses and receiving rave reviews through three separate runs in New York City, and two separate runs in Sydney, Australia. Of the 2008 Los Angeles production, Variety wrote, “Angry Young Women is a cheerfully raunchy show that boasts … hilarious writing and a sharp, fearless and funny cast.” Morillo’s other playwriting credits include All Aboard The Marriage Hearse, and American Soldiers. Also a screenwriter, he made his debut at age 23 with the award-winning film The Pretenders (2000), and he has written several highly lauded and award-winning short films, including Maid of Honor (2003).

Directed by Morillo, the cast of The Inventor … will feature (in alphabetical order) Jeffrey Cannata, Isidora Goreshter, Jenni Halina, Jessica Moreno, and Jaret Sacrey. The set design is by Dan Mailley, and the lighting and sound designs are by Matt Richter. The stage manager is Rebecca Schoenberg, and The Inventor, The Escort, The Photographer, Her Boyfriend and His Girlfriend is produced for KADM Productions by Racquel Lehrman and Theatre Planners.
There will be one preview performance of The Inventor … on Friday, June 1 at 8pm. Opening night is set for Saturday, June 2 at 8:00. General seating admission is $10 for the preview, and $20 for regular performances. The running schedule is Friday and Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 7pm, through July 8 only. Tickets are on sale now, and may be purchased online at www.plays411.com/escort, or by calling (323) 960-7712.

The Lounge Theatre is located at 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard (just east of Vine, at El Centro), in Hollywood. Street parking is available.

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05-07-12

Review: Expecting to Fly

Expecting to Fly

Theatre Planners at the Elephant Space

Reviewed by Neal Weaver
January 31, 2012
Photo by Mark Barnes

Michael Hyman’s long one-act takes its title from the Neil Young song. It’s set in late evening in a spectacularly cluttered NYC loft apartment (artfully designed by Keith Mitchell). A young man, Jared (Justin Mortelliti), comes barreling in drunk, high, angry, and exhausted. As he disrobes and prepares for bed, he talks and complains nonstop to someone we can’t see. Eventually, Sean (Casey Kringlen) emerges, and it seems that the men are estranged former lovers. Yet unanswered questions lurk: If the two have had a breakup, why are they still cohabiting? And why is there no bed, only a small sofa?

Jared is exhausted and wants only to sleep, but Sean insistently berates him for his self-destructive vodka swilling and promiscuity and suggests that they’re an attempt to escape the love and closeness he fears. To which Jared can only reply, “You don’t understand me.” Sean sets to work to re-create the happy moments they’ve shared in the past (“I want to remind you what it’s like to be happy,” he says). Jared alternately allows and repulses Sean’s attempts to close the gap between them.

At first they seem merely a pair of ex-lovers playing the blame game, but gradually we realize that more is going on than we’ve been told. It’s a tale of passionate love and loss, touching on issues of faith and trust, with elements of the supernatural, metaphysics, and exorcism. Hyman brings us a taut, convincing, carefully calibrated anatomy of a close yet stormy relationship. And director Kiff Scholl gives the piece a faithful if surprisingly athletic production, with the actors frequently leaping from platforms, climbing the furniture, or tumbling on the floor. It’s a little disconcerting at first, but it serves to underline the oddity and subjectivity of the tale. Still, I’d gladly have traded the gymnastics for clarity of diction. The words aren’t inaudible, but sometimes they’re muffled or swallowed.

The actors are deeply committed to their roles and play off each other in a subtle and intriguing symbiosis. Mortelliti is masculine and volatile, flinging himself around violently in his inarticulate pain. Kringlen is more purposeful and feline, determined in his attempts to make his partner admit the strength of his love.

Sound designer Corwin Evans provides a soundtrack of big-city ambience, and Matt Richter’s lighting cleverly draws us into the strangeness of the tale.

Presented by Theatre Planners at the Elephant Space, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Jan. 28–March 4. Fri. and Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. (323) 960-5772 or www.plays411.com.