I’m very excited to announce my last show at UCLA. Antwone Fisher, the sub­ject (and writer) of Denzel Washington’s 2002 movie of that same name, is retelling the story of his life in the­atri­cal form, using actors from UCLA’s grad pro­gram to por­tray the cast of hus­tlers, sail­ers, neigh­bor­hood kids, and fam­ily mem­bers that pop­u­late his incred­i­ble past.

I don’t mean to gush, but it’s been an honor to work with Antwone and to try to bring this mate­r­ial to life. It’s an incred­i­ble, ter­ri­fy­ing, heart­break­ing, inspir­ing story, and it’s a ter­rific way to bring my 3 years in grad school to a close.

I hope you can come. I have a feel­ing it’s going to be a hot ticket, so please make reser­va­tions early!

ANTWONE FISHER: A PLAY
writ­ten & directed by Antwone Fisher

Buy Tickets Online

Feb 29-March 3 & March 14-March 17 at 8pm
Matinees March 3 & March 17 at 2pm

UCLA’s MacGowan Hall, Room 1340

Directions: Enter UCLA on Hilgard Ave near Sunset. Park in Structure 3. MacGowan Hall faces the Murphy Sculpture Garden; the the­ater is in Room 1340 on the first floor.

Find Out More about Antwone

I’m very happy to announce my second-to-last show at UCLA—not because it’s the second-to-last, but because it’s a fas­ci­nat­ing play and should be an inter­est­ing pro­duc­tion, directed by a mem­ber of Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, J. Ed Araiza. We’re doing it with min­i­mal production—just light and sound, really—and it will be very view­pointsy and artsy.

For those of you who don’t care about any of that and are com­ing just to see me: I don’t show up until the very end. But when I do, watch out. This is my third play at UCLA where I speak the very last line on stage (a tra­di­tion I started with my first pro­fes­sional show at Santa Monica Playhouse, Mezzanine). It’s a great scene by Elmer Rice, and I think it’s worth stick­ing around through inter­mis­sion for.

The Adding Machine
By Elmer Rice
Directed by J. Ed Araiza

After 25 years on the job, Mr. Zero’s life changes when he is replaced by an adding machine.

Featuring: Anne Butler, Adrienne Hertler, William Hickman, Josephine Keefe, Evan Lipkin, Mary Beth Menna, Adam Mondschein, Jeremiah O’Brian, Marcus Oberheide, Philicia Saunders, Colin Simon, Bryan West, Matthew Wrather, Dash You

Nov 4–5 & 8–12 at 8pm
Nov 5 & 12 at 2pm

Buy Tickets Online

The Freud Playhouse at UCLA

Directions
Park in Structure 3, make your way to the Sculpture Garden, turn around, and the the­atre will be in front of you (it’s the big the­ater next to the Little Theater). Here’s a map:

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What’s funny about the great reces­sion?
It’s 2008, and the res­i­dents of “The Versailles,” a huge lux­ury condo com­plex plopped down in the mid­dle of inner-city Philly, band together when their land­lord goes AWOL, their neigh­bors start defect­ing, and the power goes off. Both a hilar­i­ous satire and a fas­ci­nat­ing study of what hap­pens to civ­i­liza­tion when its com­forts are stripped away—urban camp­ing, right­eous theft, yup­pies with food stamps—this new com­edy capu­tres the feel­ing of des­per­a­tion at the height of the Great Recession and mer­ci­lessly skew­ers the hypocrisy and wish­ful think­ing that got us there. Read More »

I’m glad to announce that we’re doing The Cherry Orchard at UCLA, directed by Mel Shapiro, the head of grad­u­ate act­ing at the school of Theater, Film and Television. It’s a fan­tas­tic show and I hope you can see it!

UCLA School of Theater Film and Television presents
Chekhov’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD
directed by Mel Shapiro

March 4 at 8pm
March 5 at 2pm
March 5 at 8pm
March 9 at 8pm
March 10 at 8pm
March 11 at 8pm
March 12 at 2pm
March 12 at 8pm

The Little Theatre, MacGowan Hall, UCLA

To buy tick­ets, call (310) 825‑2101
or visit the UCLA Central Ticket Office online.

Directions
Park in Structure 3, make your way to the Sculpture Garden, turn around, and the the­atre will be in front of you. Here’s a map:

view larger

Everybody has been telling me to let them know when I’m in a show at UCLA. Well, here it is! And what’s more, it’s a musi­cal (the first one the grad­u­ate actors at UCLA have ever done.

I’m glad to announce that next month, you can come see me sing, tap-dance, play piano, and—oh yes—act a lit­tle bit in Is There Life after High School, with music and lyrics by Craig Carnelia. It’s a good show, it’s fun, and, most impor­tantly, it’s short. (Less than 2 hours! You’ll be home in time for The Daily Show.)

Is There Life after High School?
Book by Jeffrey Kindley, Music and Lyrics by Craig Carnelia
Directed by Professor Gary Gardner

November 9, 10, 13, 18 & 19, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
November 13, 2010 at 2 p.m.

The Little Theatre, MacGowan Hall, UCLA

To buy tick­ets, call (310) 825‑2101
or visit the UCLA Central Ticket Office online.

Directions
Park in Structure 3, make your way to the Sculpture Garden, turn around, and the the­atre will be in front of you. Here’s a map:

view larger

I’m very excited to be work­ing on my first full-length project with my class­mates at UCLA. If you live out here, I hope you will con­sider com­ing out to see some very tal­ented actors. And also me.

directed by Alex Levy

fea­tur­ing Lauren Dunagan, Josephine Keefe, Nina Law, Catherine Leong, Colin Fairchild, and Matthew Wrather

An inces­santly ring­ing cell phone in a quiet caf. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And a dead man — with a lot of loose ends. So begins Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a wildly imag­i­na­tive new com­edy by play­wright Sarah Ruhl, recip­i­ent of a MacArthur ”Genius” Grant and Pulitzer Prize final­ist for her play The Clean House. A work about how we memo­ri­al­ize the dead — and how that remem­ber­ing changes us—it is the odyssey of a woman forced to con­front her own assump­tions about moral­ity, redemp­tion, and the need to con­nect in a tech­no­log­i­cally obsessed world.

Thursday, May 6 at 7:30pm
Friday, May 7 at 4:30pm
Saturday, May 8 at 7:30pm

1330 MacGowan Hall,
UCLA School of Theater Film and Television
(Enter on Hilgard near Sunset; park in Structure 3.)

Tickets are free; open seat­ing; first come, first served.

I’m pleased to announce that I’m appear­ing (and play­ing a lit­tle piano!) in a read­ing of It Matters Where You’re Buried, a new cabaret pray about chanteuse and night­club hostess-to-the-stars Brick Top, at La MaMa ETC in the east vil­lage, as a part of their read­ing series Shadow. Here are the details:

IT MATTERS WHERE YOU’RE BURIED
by Beth Campbell

Directed by George Ferencz
Featuring Sheila Dabney as Brick Top
Lee Beebout as Jim Comstock
and Matthew Wrather as Itchy

Brick Top, cabaret chanteuse and saloon keeper to the stars of the Lost Generation in Paris, gives an inter­view to Jim Comstock, edi­tor of the West Virginia Hillbilly news­pa­per, in her bar in Heaven.

Where ever I am, that’s Brick Top’s. As a gin joint it ain’t bad.
—Brick Top

February 14, 2009 at 7:30pm
La MaMa Annex, 74A East 4^th Street, NYC [map]
Free Admission /No Reservations

Apparently, when it rains it pours. In addi­tion to rock­ing Christopher Carter Sanderson’s KNB: The Musical (four more per­for­mances as of this writ­ing!), I’m going to be appear­ing in Fall Out in the Binge Festival, a Working Man’s Clothes joint.

Our play, Fall Out is a 10 minute comic bro­mance about the apoc­a­lypse. I’ve been rehears­ing with the direc­tor and other actor, and it will be a good time. I espe­cially like the for­mat of the evening: It runs from 11pm–3am (we’re sec­ond on the bill, so if you’re just com­ing for me, you’ll be out around mid­night), there’s a band and full bar, and tick­ets are only $5. I hope to see you there!

Fall Out

writ­ten by Larry Pontius
directed by Nelson T. Eusebio III
with Jason Robinson and Matthew Wrather

Friday and Saturday, August 15 and 16
The show runs 11pm–3am. We’re sec­ond on the bill.

Wings Theater (154 Christopher Street) [map]
Between Greenwich and Washington in the West Village

$5 admis­sion