Santa Monica Playhouse to Stage ASPIRIN & ELEPHANTS, 11/9-1/26

Opening Saturday, November 9th, Santa Monica Playhouse's Silver Anniversary performance run of aspirin & ELEPHANTS from the acclaimed team of Playwright Jerry Mayer and Director Chris DeCarlo. The show is now running through January 25th on weekends at 7:30 PM and Sunday matinees at 3 PM. (Currently sold out: November 30 - December 1st and December 21-January 5th)

Warmth, pathos and lots of jokes join a husband and wife and their two grown daughters and sons-in-law aboard a cruise ship. It's a modern family vacation and the result is "a funny and touching look at six people enmeshed in various stages of complex relationships." An identifiable and buoyant dead serious comedy about love and survival that asks the question, are men really more trouble than they're worth?

Playwright Jerry Mayer's wrote scripts for some of the biggest shows of the 70's: All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show, as well as, writing and producing many other network television shows including a six year stint as writer/Executive Producer of The Facts of Life. In the mid-80's he wrote his first play, Almost Perfect, which had its World Premiere in 1986 at Santa Monica Playhouse where is ran for almost two years and garnered Mayer a Drama-Logue Award for comedy playwriting. Since then, he has penned a succession of critically-acclaimed original plays, including aspirin & ELEPHANTS, A Love Affair, Killjoy, 2Across, Black & Bluestein, and the musical Falling in Love Again, all of which are published and many of which have been and are currently being produced in L.A., off-Broadway, nationally and internationally.

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, most recently Arnold Schulman's Sleeping Ugly, Lisa Phillips Visca's Raise Me Up, and LA Times Critic's Choice Last of the Knotts. DeCarlo also directed the world premieres of three of Jerry Mayer's plays, including the long-running Aspirin & ELEPHANTS in 1989 at Santa Monica Playhouse.

Aspirin & ELEPHANTS boosts an outstanding cast of theatre, television and motion picture personalities that includes (in alphabetical order):

Todd Cattell* The Young and The Restless, Justified, Days of Our Lives, 24; Neil LaBute's Some Girls The Geffen Playhouse, Distant Fires Circle, in the Square
Ryan Driscoll* series regular Poop Notice; Take Care, House M.D., and the comedic web-series Death As We Know It
Kip Gilman* Moonlight and Magnolias, Stuff Happens, Catskill Sonata and Adam Baum and The Jew Movie both dir. Paul Mazursky, Jerry Mayer's 2Across, CSI Miami, Bones
Amanda Maddox The Stone; Faith and Other Weapons with up and coming director Hanqin Lin for release in 2013 and the independent feature film Me Without You
Michael Marinaccio* off Broadway :Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding, One Man's War, Richard III and Romeo and Juliet; Santa Monica Playhouse World Premiere of Lisa Phillips Visca's Raise Me Up, Lil' Tokyo Reporter
Wendy Michaels* Rabbit Hole, Jerry Mayer's Almost Perfect, Bachelor Party 2, I Love You Phillip Morris, The Glades and America's Most Wanted.

ASPIRIN & ELEPHANTS plays Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 3:00 p.m., November 9 through January 26, 2014. Tickets are $29.00: $22.50 for students, teachers, seniors and the military. Group rates available. Call The Playhouse Box Office (310) 394-9779 ext. 1 or purchase online SantaMonicaPlayhouse.com.

The Other Space at Santa Monica Playhouse is located at 1211 4th Street. Convenient Parking is located directly across the street in city lot #1. By public transportation: take the Santa Monica Blue Bus or the LA Metro Rapid #720 and exit at 4th and Wilshire.

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