Five self-absorbed customers find themselves trapped together in Starbucks in the latest off-beat comedy from Emmy Award-winning writer Peter Lefcourt. Set around the corner in a West L.A. franchise, the world premiere of Café Society, presented by Theatre Planners and directed by Terri Hanauer, opens as a guest production at the Odyssey Theatre tonight, August 22.
Packed with sly humor about life in L.A., Café Society takes an irreverent look at our obsession with social media and the way we connect in today's world.
"Like any good comedy, this play pokes fun on the surface, but the reality that underlies it is actually heartbreaking," says Hanauer. "A coffee house used to be a place where you could go to meet people, to have a discussion. Now, when you walk into a Starbucks, there is absolutely no contact. Everyone is on their devices. Yet we all still have that hope, that desire, for human connection."
Café Society stars Julliard graduate Eric Wentz (
Tommy Smith's The Break-Up and Thirty Story Masterpieces at the Hayworth) as Jeff McHenry, a wannabe screenwriter who writes at Starbucks so he can study the "human condition" firsthand;
Chandra Lee Schwartz (Glinda in Wicked on Broadway) as Kari Shaw, a hungry young actress desperate for her big break; Road Theatre Company member
Susan Diol (You Never Can Tell on Broadway opposite
Uta Hagen) as high octane realtor Marilyn Dresden; History Channel's Cities of the Underworld host Eric Myles Geller as a libertarian personal wealth consultant; and Emmy Award-winning actor Ian
Patrick Williams (Bleacher Bums in Chicago, L.A. and on PBS) as a delusional homeless man. Nick Cobey (off-Broadway production of Finger Paint) plays the mysterious loner who triggers the connection between these five raging narcissists, while recent Chapman University graduate Donathan Walters plays Darnell, the barrista, and recent UCLA graduate Kailyn Leilani and Mexican-born actor Gabriel Romero (Telemundo's Los Beltrán) make cameo appearances on video.
Peter Lefcourt's other plays include The Way You Look Tonight, La Ronde de Lunch, Mutually Assured Destruction, The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: A Comedy, The Audit, Only the Dead Know Burbank and Sweet Talk, which he adapted into a feature film. A refugee from the trenches of Hollywood, Peter is an Emmy Award-winning writer. Among his credits are
Monte Carlo, in which he managed to keep
Joan Collins in the same wardrobe for 35 pages; Danielle Steel's Fine Things; The Women of Windsor, a miniseries about the British Royal Family; the Showtime series Beggars & Choosers, which he created and ran; and ABC's Desperate Housewives, for which he was a co-executive producer. He has published eight novels: "The Deal" which was adapted into a movie starring
William H. Macy, Meg Ryan and
LL Cool J; "The Dreyfus Affair," now in its 15th printing; the best-selling "Di And I"; "Abbreviating Ernie"; "The Woody"; "Eleven Karens"; "The Manhattan Beach Project"; and "Purgatory Gardens," set to come out this August.
This marks
Terri Hanauer's sixth collaboration with Lefcourt. She previously directed his La Ronde de Lunch in an Ovation Recommended production for the Katselas Theatre Company (StageSceneLA Award for "Best Direction"); the world premieres of The Way You Look Tonight, Mutually Assured Destruction and The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: A Comedy, all at the Odyssey Theatre; and the feature film adaptation of his play Sweet Talk, which is currently available on Video on Demand and iTunes. Other directing credits include Mitch Hara's Mutant Olive at the Lounge Theatre,
Beverly Hills Playhouse, NY Solo Festival and Whitefire Theatre Solo Festival ("Best Solo Show" award);
Donald Margulies' Collected Stories, also at the Odyssey, which was invited to the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival; The Trip Back Down by
John Bishop at the Whitefire (BroadwayWorld nomination for "Best Director"); Thaao Penghlis' touring solo show, Places; and staged readings of Larry Mollin's The Screenwriter's Daughter at the
Blank Theatre and
Bradley Rand Smith's Nocturne at the Skylight. Terri was accepted into AFI's Directing Workshop for Women. Her short film A Day in the Life was screened at numerous festivals, and Recycling Flo was chosen by AFI to represent it at the Cannes Film Festival International Short Film Corner. Along with being official selection in over 40 film festivals, Recycling Flo won two Best Short Film/Jury Prizes at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and the Farmington Comedy Film Festival. Terri also co-directed 13 half-hour episodes of Zane's Sex Chronicles for HBO/Afterdark.
Set design for Café Society is by Amanda Knehans; lighting design is by
Donny Jackson; sound design is by Dino Herrmann; projection design is by Yee Eun Nam; costume design is by Jackie Gudgel; graphic design is by Nancy Nimoy; and casting is by
Michael Donovan, CSA. The production stage manager is Rita Cofield, associate producer is Victoria Watson, Theatre Planners; and Racquel Lehrman, Theatre Planners produces.
Café Society opens for press tonight, Aug. 22 and continues through Oct. 11. Performances take place Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. There will be two preview performances, on Thursday, Aug. 20 and Friday, Aug. 21 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 on Fridays and Sundays and $30 on Saturdays; previews are $15. The Odyssey Theatre is located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles, 90025. For reservations and information, call (323) 960-1055 or go to
www.plays411.net/cafe.
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