Displaying items by tag: Lori Lee

There are certain theatrical events that I look forward to attending each season and Hell in a Handbag's Holiday shows are always at the top of my list. ‘The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes – The Holiday Edition, Vol 2’ should be on the top of everyone’s list.  

When I'm sitting in the super cozy Mary's Attic filled with Christmas lights watching one of their wonderful camp parodies, I always feel like I am at home and in the company of great friends and family. This time I love everything about this show, including the opening when host Lori Lee (sidekick Flo) leads the audience in singing the theme song from Golden Girls TV show set in sunny Miami where I grew up. 

Thank you for being a friend.

Travel down the road and back again.

Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant

.And if you threw a party,

invited everyone you knew.

You would see the biggest gift would be from me

and the card attached would say,

thank you for being a friend.

This year’s 'Lost Episodes,' written with cheeky humor- as well as great compassion by Artistic Director David Cerda has especially sweet plotlines that remind me again how lucky one is to have friends and family around you... particularly during your golden years. 

Ed Jones as Rose Nylund, who still believes in Santa Claus is a scene stealer, as always delivers his spot on and totally endearing portrayal of the character made famous by the still "golden" Betty White. 

Grant Drager as Blanche delivers the sass and unabashedly sexy spice that shows even golden girls still have sexual needs that they should not be ashamed of! David Cerda as Dorothy and Ryan Oates as her mother Sophia bring home the dry humor that makes me laugh out loud every time. But I am also reminded of the true bond between mother and daughter when Sophia breaks her poker face and gently asks her daughter, "What's wrong pussycat?"  

Directed and choreographed by the very talented Stevie Love, each scene has a huge variety of great physical comedy and lighting surprises that make you wish the play was longer. Lori Lee is the host of the evening and gets acquainted with the audience between episodes with fun Golden Girls trivia that includes prizes for the audience members. Having the house lights up and interacting with Lori and others as they try to guess the answers lets you actually get to mingle with the audience you are sitting in and is a lovely part of the show.

If you've already been to a Hell in a Handbag Production and are addicted to their special brand of camp humor and music like I am, you already know how unique and fun their shows are. If you haven't been to one yet, ‘The Holiday Edition, Vol 2’ of Golden Girls is a PERFECT production to attend. 

Tis the season to curl up on one of the comfy couches at Mary's Attic with a hot toddy in hand and have a long, hard... laugh with your favorite family of friends! 

‘The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes – The Holiday Edition, Vol 2’ is being performed at Mary’s Attic through December 29th. For more information visit www.handbagproductions.org.

Fun! Funny! Funnier! If you are fan of The Golden Girls TV show, then run, don't walk, to see Hell in a Handbag’s The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes at Mary's Attic before its special, recently extended, run is over. The show opens with a heart lifting, hug your best friend singalong of the sitcom’s famed theme song, "Thank you for being a Friend" - in its fantastic entirety! 

Plenty of fans arrive in costume to see the show and in between the hysterically funny, bawdy, R-Rated "Lost Episodes” theatre goers are entertained by Golden Girls trivia contests with fun prizes, so live it up. 

Hell in a Handbag Artistic Director David Cerda wrote the show which parodies the famed 1980’s sitcom where four women who share a home in a Miami Senior Community are not ready to stop living life to the fullest. Cerda is fantastic as the deadpan Dorothy even with the use of just one syllable – “Mah!" David, who recently won a well-deserved special Jeff Award (Congrats!) for all of his amazing contributions to theatre in Chicago with his much beloved production company Hell in a Handbag, evokes laughs with every shoulder-padded shrug and anchors the show with his dead-on funny accuracy in the role of Dorothy that actress Bea Arthur made famous. 

I don't know how he does it but every single show David writes is unique, displays every cast members talents superbly, heartfelt and funnier than the last. In this show, he takes the iconic TV show and brings it to a new level, creating hysterically campy “lost episodes” that one could only wish took to the air during the series’ heyday.  

Blanche is played with true southern sex appeal by A. J. Wright. Wright is mind-blowingly accurate in his portrayal of the flirty man-eater. Wright is so convincing, I had to occasionally close my eyes and just listen with delight, because I really felt he was a woman channeling Rue Clanahan, not a man in drag. The razor-sharp tongued Sophia played by Adrian Hadlock is also right on the mark with his dry as a martini, machine gun-like delivery of every single one-liner.

Ed Jones rounds out this fearsomely funny foursome with his always gentle, never forced portrayal of the delicate and ditzy, Rose, often forced to do and say indelicate things! Handbag favorite Ed Jones is - as ever, roaringly funny and true to Betty White's every gesture, even to her dazed and confused looks of naivety. As in all of Handbag’s productions, Golden Girls is equipped with a stellar ensemble, this show including hilarious performances by Chazie Bly, Kristopher Bottrall, Grant Drager, Lori Lee, David Lipschutz, Terry McCarthy, Michael S. Miller and Robert Williams.

Not ignoring the other fine touches that make this such a fun experience, Myron Elliot’s costumes and Keith Ryan's wigs and makeup are a laugh riot in themselves and really help each actor achieve the eerie accuracy that makes this a true golden fest for fans of the show. 

David Cerda and I have some kind of strange psychic connection in that his shows always seem to coincide in some synchronistic way with things going on in my life and family, and Golden Girls was just what I needed to see. My mother and I lived in Miami Florida throughout my whole young adult life and the week I saw this production of Golden Girls (one of my mom's favorite shows to watch with me) she was in the hospital and I was extremely stressed and worried about losing her. When David says as Dorothy about her mother Sophia, "She's probably thinking back to her youth in the fields of Sicily," and then sighs, "God, I'd wish she'd just die," I had to let out a cathartic laugh because it was just such a perfectly funny, subtext of compassion coupled with frustration of the statement of all mother/daughter love when stretched to its limits. I loved it. Naturally, I don’t wish such a thing, but Cerda’s writing has a way of somehow finding love and humor in even such a statement.  

I didn't stop laughing or smiling from start to finish of this uproariously funny take on the Golden Girls that no fan should miss. Even if you are not familiar with the show, it’s worth checking out. Don't worry, you’ll pick it up quickly. And like many Hell in a Handbag shows, there is an intermission long enough to stretch, grab a drink and use the restroom which allows you to really allow the funniness of the first act to sink in. Increasingly I find myself enduring 90-minute or longer shows with no intermission as if the audience is trapped in some kind of marathon endurance test of our concentration and bladders! But not at Hell in a Handbag shows, which proves yet again that David Cerda is in tune with everything a Golden Girl needs to truly enjoy a laugh packed night out with your best friends. Much Thanks to David Cerda for "being a friend!”

Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes is being performed at Mary’s Attic in Andersonville on Wednesday and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m now extended through September 16th. Saturday dates have been added for August. Tickets are $20, but are just $16 if purchased in advance. To purchase tickets or to find out more about this hilarious show wonderfully directed by Shade Murray, visit handbagproductions.org.