At Long Last Love – BILL WAXMAN’S NEW PLAY RIFFS ON LOVE IN THE GOLDEN YEARS

The cast of "The Coot Elimination Committee" includes, back row from left, Jerry Oshinsky, Stuart Orenstein, Ed Giron and Sandy McOwen; seated, from left, Tim heard that phrase and right then and there Whitcomb, Deborah Helm, Julie Allen and Char Smith.
The cast of “The Coot Elimination Committee” includes, back row from left, Jerry Oshinsky, Stuart Orenstein, Ed Giron and Sandy McOwen; seated, from left, Tim Whitcomb, Deborah Helm, Julie Allen and Char Smith.

Writer and director Bill Waxman was visiting his wife’s stepmother and significant other in a retirement community in Palm Springs. That’s where he heard about a committee that had been established to rid their environs of a disruptive duck-like bird: The Coot Elimination Committee.

“It was like a gift,” Mr. Waxman says. “I heard that phrase and right then and there I thought, this is a play. I came home and sat down and about a month later I had the play. It rolled right out.”

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Head to Head – Freud and Lewis face off in DIJO’s new production

Up until his death from jaw cancer, Sigmund Freud continued to see patients in his Hampstead, London home, having moved there from Vienna as the Nazis closed in. There is no reason to believe that he had ever heard of C.S. Lewis, author of the “Chronicles of Narnia” book series and atheist-turned-Christian convert, let alone invite him for a chat. But in the form of a what-if, Mark St. Germain’s “Freud’s Last Session” has these two influential writers and thinkers of the 20th century and chew the God-existing cud. Winner of the Off Broadway Alliance Award for best play in 2011, it has now be picked up and produced by DIJO Productions, and opens Saturday at Carpinteria’s Plaza Theater.

Behind the cigar and convincing beard stands actor Ed Giron, DIJO’s resident lead and go-to historical character actor. On the other side of the desk, playing C.S. Lewis, is Justin Stark. The actors haven’t sparred one-on-one since DIJO’s production of “Frost/Nixon,” and they’re loving it.

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