By Daily Press staff
Save the Santa Monica Playhouse by attending in the coming weeks a show featuring the trials and tribulations of a waiter’s job. Or watch two funny dead men perform on stage.
As part of the Save The Playhouse Benefit Series, “Served (Gratuity Not Included)” will be performed on Sept. 14 and “Dave & Tom’s: A tribute to Dave and Tom” will run Sept. 16 through Oct. 29.
There are the jobs that our parents want us to aspire to — doctors, lawyers, business executives. Now comes a show about the one job most of us seem to slip into — waiting tables. Welcome to “Served (Gratuity Not Included),” a one-man show written and performed by Scott Jones. With non-stop energy, Jones explores both sides of the table, playing both customer and waiter, giving a glimpse inside society’s desire for service. Both comedic and heartbreaking, funny and angry, Jones shows us a world where people really have to rely on the kindness of strangers. And what happens when it fails.
Jones began his acting career and his comedy routines in Florida while attending Florida State University in their London theater program. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2001 he immediately began booking work on “The Ellen Show,” and “Maybe It’s Me.” He has performed all around Los Angeles’ comedy scene. In 2004, he stopped performing stand-up so he could work on a series of monologues that show the world of waiting tables. He hasn’t given up acting though and this summer he can be seen as one character, Dopey, at Disneyland in “Snow White: an Enchanting Musical.”
The show will start at 8 p.m. and is $15. All proceeds benefit the Santa Monica Playhouse for the Save the Playhouse Campaign.
“Dave and Tom’s: A Tribute to Dave and Tom” is a look back at the comedy sketches, characters and monologues of the team.
A poison pen letter to the tribute show, this parody of self-importance, uses the self-tribute framework to make for a fun evening with the fictitious British comedy team, Dave and Tom. “Dave and Tom’s: A Tribute to Dave and Tom” is made all the more silly by the fact that they claim to have passed away long ago, before the tribute show they are performing has even premiered.
The play is written and directed by David Beeler and Tom Konkle, best known to local audiences for their collaborations in the seminal British comedy revues,“Beyond the Fringe” and “Good Evening” and the world premier of “Owl-stretching Time,” original sketches by Monty Python (2001), as well as their original tribute to the dry wit and comic “stylings” of “Cook and Moore, Good Night,” one hour of comedy which premiered to critical acclaim at Santa Monica Playhouse in 2003. Dave and Tom have just finished executive producing a feature length sketch film with their renowned comedy troupe, Lester McFwap, for Comedy Express, a new National Comedy Network and subsidiary of National Lampoon.
The play will be performed on Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. for seven weeks. Tickets are $15.
The playhouse is located at 1211 Fourth St.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 25, 2006. Read the original PDF.