Nine Winning One-Acts 

Reviewed by Gray Palmer 
The Group Rep 
Through May 20 

Nine short plays in Nine Winning One-Acts are receiving world premieres from the Group Rep in North Hollywood. This is the 44th season of the Group, which has the atmosphere of an actors’ collective.

The programming choices, from over 150 submissions, emphasize a popular, commercially-derived notion of entertainment-value. (Ira Levin’s Deathtrap is currently playing on the mainstage.) And the line-up does make an entertaining anthology program — not easy to do with nine plays. The producers show good judgement in the order of the acts.

All the work is sincere and some performances are very good. 

In The Assessment by Josh Nason (directed by Katelyn Ann Clark), a married couple (Diane Frank and Lloyd Pedersen), stand on a table with nooses around their necks. They discuss double suicide in a chipper, matter-of-fact tone, somewhat reminiscent of Dorothy Parker’s “Resumé.” They’ve chosen suicide to avoid being murdered by the government agents who will be banging at their door at any moment. Look out for the feds.

In Crosscut by David Robinette (directed by Larry Margo), a stranger (Paul Sobrepena) lingers in an empty diner so that he can talk to the waitress (Deborah Dominguez). Small talk becomes immediately disturbing. She calls her manager (Robert McCollum) for help. Laconic, elliptical, and a touching performance by Dominguez.

I Wish the Voices in My Head Would Stop Yelling Long Enough to Let Me Say “I Love You” by Rich Orloff (directed by Linda Alznauer), is set in the office of an assistant principal (Doug Haverty) at a special-ed school for the terminally weird. Two students (Ken Ivy and Kaylena Mann) have been selected to represent the school at “Let’s Feign Interest in People Who Are Different Day” at the nearby Unspecial High School for the Hopelessly Mainstream. Another student (John Ledley) stops by the office, wearing a tinfoil hat with solar panels. Playwright Orloff’s language alternates between comedy-crazy and an exaggerated PC lingo. Life lessons for delusional teens.

Lawson Caldwell’s Just that Sort of Day (directed by Susan Lee), is a coming-out story about a gay man in denial (Nathanial Vogel) whose mother (Katelyn Ann Clark) has arranged a date for him with her gay co-worker (Andrew Diego). Mother Knows Best. Mr. Diego’s hair stylist deserves a program credit.

Roadside Alice by Uma Incrocci (directed by Helen O’Brien) is an American turn on a Noh ghost play, minus the uncanny. A woman (Lisa McGee-Mann) has had a flat tire. She gets help from a cheerful apparition (Stephanie Colet) who helps her buck-up. The dialogue has a lyric (kitsch-rubble lyric) sort of yearning for adventure, like On the Road re-fashioned with references to recent TV. Girl Power with a ghost.

Kent R. Brown’s Jimmie and Ruthie… and Mommy… and Me (directed by Patricia Lee Willson) is the dressing-room monologue of a woman (Vesna Tolomanoska) preparing for her shift at a strip-club. She has the strange, childhood idea that she has been responsible for a series of deaths — by looking into the eyes of “her victims.” Southern Gothic, Oklahoma version. Brown is talented.

Crass Menagerie, also by Rich Orloff (directed by Brent Beerman), is a spoof of Tennessee Williams in which the Amanda character (Sherry Michaels) says things like, “I once had seventeen gentleman callers in one day and by the time the last one left I was bow-legged for a week”; the Tom character (Brad Kahn) tells her, “If you really loved me you’d take morphine and I’d write Long Day’s Journey into Night“; the wheelchair-bound Laura character (Deanna Gandy) greets her Gentleman Caller with “Pardon me if I don’t get up”; and the Gentleman Caller, representative of the “normal,” is played by an actor with a disability (Robert Axelrod, who is also one of the evening’s producers). Very funny mean comedy for irritable theater insiders. Williams doesn’t deserve this but he’s past caring.

Hooking Up by John Franceschini (directed by Larry Eisenberg) is an on-line blind date story featuring Lisa McGee-Mann, Julie Davis, and Kevin Hoffman. Any details would be spoilers.

White Dress by Laura Shamas (directed by Jules Aaron) features a runaway-bride (Savannah Schoenecker) meeting a more likely romantic partner (Nick Paonessa) in the park where he is photographing a series of park benches. From the church, her fiancée has dispatched drones to locate her. Whimsy in the Neil Simon mode, fortified by feminism.

The plays are staged efficiently with quick turn-overs in the simple black space (set design by Chris Winfield; lights by J. Kent Inasy; sound by Steve Shaw). The directors, of varying ability, have focused on the acting. At the matinée I attended, there were outstanding performances by Deborah Dominguez, Katelyn Ann Clark, Deanna Gandy, Nick Paonessa, and Savannah Schoenecker. The comedy crackled in Orloff’s spoof of Williams.

Upstairs at the Group Rep/The Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood; Sat. 2pm, Sun. 7pm, through May 20; (818) 763-5990(818) 763-5990(818) 763-5990763-5990 or thegrouprep.com. Running time: two hours and 15 minutes with intermission.