SMOTE THIS, A Comedy About God and Other Serious $h*t Comes to Hollywood in September

SMOTE THIS, A Comedy About God and Other Serious $h*t, is being extended by the Hollywood Independent Theater Festival on September 17 and 27, at Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, 5636 Melrose Ave. SMOTE THIS is an entertaining web of stories and tangents that explores one black man’s reckoning with tradition, legacy, and religion.

Comedian and recovering Shakespearean actor, Rodney Gardiner, strives to make sense of his feelings about God. In this one man comedy, Rodney tries to abandon God despite his deeply Christian roots. His story is one of an undocumented black boy growing up in tumultuous 1980’s Miami where racial unrest, an immigration crisis, and the drug war is just another Tuesday. 

Gardiner utilizes wit and charm to deliver a semi-autobiographical show that is both uncompromising in its portrayal of structural urban racism and hilariously uplifting regarding his on-again, off-again relationship with God. Gardiner pulls no punches in his story of a city overrun with drug money, a murderous cult that preyed on black despair, and a city that would use a young Elián González as a political tool.

“I wrote [SMOTE THIS] against my own will,” said Gardiner. “Religion can be a sensitive topic in my family and community, so it’s a tightrope act, writing on the topic, but as a comic, I’m drawn to that. I want audiences to laugh. I want them to see themselves in the stories of black immigrants. I want them to question their cultural norms.” 

WHERE: Stephanie Feury Theatre, 5636 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038

WHEN:
9/13/23 at 7:00 p.m.
9/27/23 at 8:30 p.m.

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