BWW Reviews: NO ACTORS ALLOWED - Tim Bagley's Hysterical Diary of an Actor Managing His Sanity!

No Actors Allowed/by Tim Bagley/directed by Deanna Oliver/Groundlings Theatre /thru November 4, 2014

Tim Bagley weaves the hysterically sad and poignantly funny incidents of his working actor career into his quick, one-hour, entertaining creation No Actors Allowed. Bagley, more in conversational than in stand-up mode, revels the audience in the easily identifiable instances of an actor struggling in his path to make a name for himself.

Acting since 1992 (according to imdb), Bagley's been through humiliating auditions, roles from hell and, his most traumatizing event of his acting career-- being fired from Friends. Video clips of his guest roles in V.I.P. and According to Jim more than vividly illustrate his less-than-ideal TV experiences. Coiffed and costumed against type in V.I.P., Bagley essays an international terrorist serial killer who only kills supermodels (like Pamela Anderson). In According to Jim, Bagley's abundant addition (of his own doing) to his singular item of costume -a Speedo- might well have been the reason for his one-time role expanding to re-occurring.

Bagley winds up his engaging tall tales with the occurrence what made him realize the underlying reason he chose to be an actor -to touch people, make them laugh, make them cry. After successfully tackling the 88-page monologue titled Underneath the Lintel on a Santa Barbara stage, Bagley receives the best compliment in his acting career. An older Jewish woman stops Bagley to thank him for helping her remember her painful holocaust memories, long since blocked. After this woman passes away, her daughter re-contacts Bagley to give him a family charm for his good luck.

Just think, No Actors Allowed, invisibly directed by Deanna Oliver, wouldn't exist if he hadn't been fired from Friends! Yay for us in the Groundling Theatre audience! Bagley's definitely someone you would choose to include for your ideal dinner party.

www.groundlings.com