SM Playhouse's 2 ACROSS to Open 8/23

Santa Monica Playhouse Presents the 10th Anniversary production Jerry Mayer's 2 ACROSS Opening August 23, 2014. Can A Crossword Puzzle Change Your Life? A commuter train leaves San Francisco Airport at 4:15 a.m. on its way to the East Bay. A man and a woman who have nothing in common but their crossword puzzles are on that BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train. She takes crosswords (and life) very seriously; he treats everything like a game. By the time they reach East Bay their lives have changed. Over 40 Million people in the U.S. do crossword puzzles every day. Most never finish them; a driven few would rather die than give up. 2 ACROSS has one of each, and the sparks that fly will have you laughing till you drop.

Playwright Jerry Mayer has had an impressive career in television, writing and producing such prized shows as M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Facts of Life and five Mitzi Gaynor's TV Specials, plus her famous Las Vegas Act. His award-winning plays and musicals have appeared successfully in New York City three times (Off Broadway) and in hundreds of theatres all over the US and Canada, as well as in Europe. http://jerrymayerplays.com

2 ACROSS follows the incredibly successful Silver Anniversary Playhouse production of Mayer's "Aspirin & ELEPHANTS" and is the second installment of the 2-year Santa Monica Playhouse JERRY MAYER-A-THON, a salute to local playwright Mayer (the West Coast Neil Simon) leading up to the acclaimed author's 30th playwriting year and a world premiere Mayer play in 2016.

Veteran director Chris DeCarlo has been acting, writing and directing in Los Angeles for more than 40 years, bringing to the stage over 250 World Premieres and American Premieres, including the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground, Hard Laughs starring Sammy Shore and Ron Palillo, Michel Garneau's Quatre á Quatre, Stephen King and Robert B. Parker's RAGE, four of Jerry Mayer's comedies, Annie Reiner's Mirage à Trois, Brenda Krantz's Lovely!, starring Louise Sorrell, the Ovation-nominated Picon Pie, Todd Susman's Locked and Loaded, Arnold Schulman's Sleeping Ugly, and the long-running Wyse-Rae-Waldman hit musical Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother. Among his LA TIMES Critics' Pick productions are Doug Knott's Last of the Knotts, the Silver Anniversary production of Jerry Mayer's Aspirin & Elephants, the Sroka/Fleming comedy Dying for Laughs starring Stuart Pankin, and Charlie Lustman's pop operetta Made Me Nuclear.

Kip Gilman's theatre credits include: Dave Vaughn in the World Premiere of Catskill Sonata directed by Oscar-Winner Paul Mazursky and Adam Baum & the Jew Movie, also directed by Mazursky. Other premiers include Harry Houdini in Harry and Arthur directed by William Shatner, Ben Hecht in the L.A. premiere of Moonlight and Magnolias, Gretty Goodtime, Michael Weller's What the Night is For and as Paul Wolfowitz in the MARK TAPER FORUM'S Stuff Happens, Sharing the role with Steve Vinovich, he originated the role of "He" in the world premiere of 2 ACROSS. Recent film work includes the Taylor Hackford film Parker with Jennifer Lopez and Nick Nolte, and Atlas Shrugged Part 2 with Samantha Morton. On TV he has starred as a series regular in numerous shows including Studio 5B with Jeffrey Tambor; Closeup News; Loves Me, Loves Me Not with Susan Dey; Nurses, and Foot In The Door, with recent guest appearances on CSI Miami and Bones.

Wendy Michaels assayed the role of Jenny in the 1999 Playhouse revival of Mayer's first play Almost Perfect, and the role of Honey in the revival of the just closed Aspirin & ELEPHANTS, both at Santa Monica Playhouse. In other theatre, she appeared as Becca in the Pulitzer winning play Rabbit Hole Film work includes the quirky role of Sue Hoover in Bachelor Party 2, the housewife who gives Jim Carrey a very unexpected reaction in I Love You Phillip Morris and Haley Webb's mom in the soon-to-be released film, Single in South Beach. Recent TV includes The Glades and America's Most Wanted.

2 ACROSS plays Saturdays (7:30 pm) and Sundays (3:30 pm) August 9 - September 28, 2014. Tickets are $29.50 - $15.00 buy online at http://SantaMonicaPlayhouse.com or call 310-394-9779 x1.

Santa Monica Playhouse is at 1211 4th Street in the heart of downtown Santa Monica. Convenient parking is available directly across the street in city lot #1. By public transportation: take the Santa Monica Blue Bus or the LA Metro Rapid #720; exit 4th and Wilshire. Santa Monica Playhouse is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, by the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission and by US Bank.

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