Ray Richmond’s TRANSITION is named one of the Top Ten Theatrical Productions of 2017

Congratulations are in order for Ray Richmond and the team behind the Obama-Trump comedic play TRANSITION, as the first theatrical response to the unfolding Trump era has been named one of  2017’s Top Ten Los Angeles Theatrical Productions.

The influential celeb-centric Huffington Post placed the small-theatre production alongside -- and  even above -- multi-million dollar productions at the Ahmanson Theatre (three in total) and Geffen Playhouse!


The HuffPo raves:

"Using the headline 'Democracy is a terrible thing to waste,' Ray Richmond’s hilarious reimagining of Obama turning over the White House to Trump in a private meeting is uproarious. Harry Murphy has an easy target in an orange-haired despot but it is Joshua Wolf Coleman who completely nails Obama’s speech patterns, authority and his patience.The audience delightedly finally gets to see the latter blown out of the water.”

The one-act TRANSITION was a prescient imagining of what went on during the first private Oval office meeting between President Barack Obama and the unexpected President-Elect. Harry S. Murphy inhabited a Donald Trump that went far beyond the usual parody.  Joshua Wolf Coleman slipped uncannily into the Obama suit.  The play had a successful run in March and April at the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood, returning in June as a hit of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.   

Additional productions of TRANSITION are expected to be presented in cities around the country. 

Meanwhile, Richmond and Coleman have teamed up for a series of Internet shorts called The Obama Monologues.

Chris Bearde June 18, 1936 - April 23, 2017

Chris Bearde was our pal.  He was one of the greatest comedic talents in television history, with a rapier-sharp wit and young man’s rage against injustice.  

Chris created The Gong Show, produced The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and wrote the television special Elvis, also known as the 68 Comeback. 

One of Chris’ last Facebook posts

Up until this weekend, he continued to stand up against Donald Trump and his thugs with Facebook posts that were often hilarious, always full of righteous anger and disbelief that this country he’d arrived in from Australia had come to this!  Eighty is a good run, but Chris, like Joan Rivers when she died, was so youthful, energetic and passionate right up until the moment it stopped, that the shock is real.

We’ll miss Chris Bearde.

Chris’ Facebook post last week

A Democracy is a Terrible Thing to Waste! Don’t waste time, get your tickets to TRANSITION!

“A democracy is a terrible thing to waste!”

Now there’s a tagline!  And it’s all explained in Ray Richmond’s new play, TRANSITION, which opens March 11 at the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood.

TRANSITION enacts what could have gone on during that momentous Oval Office meeting between Oresident Barack Obama and President-Elect Donald Trump two days after Trump's improbable victory.

It’s funny, it's scary -- it gets tense!

There are previews on March 9 and 10… then it's on to the world premiere engagment of the first theatrical reaction to the Trump era.

Written by Ray Richmond.  Directed by Lee Costello.  Starring Harry S. Murphy and Joshua Wolf Coleman.

TRANSITION will run for five weekends and 16 performances, through April 9 at the Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. 

Get your tickets at Plays411.com/Transition.

Ray has reserved two pairs each for Presidents Trump and Obama.

Ray Richmond’s TRANSITION, the first theatrical work of the Trump era, premieres March 11 in Hollywood

 Lots of our pals sank into hopelessness when Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016.

Ray Richmond, our pal the journalist, critic, and “conscience of the entertainment industry” was no different.  Until he became very different and turned his outrage into a theatrical production.

TRANSITION is the name of the play. It’s about that first Oval Office meeting between President Barack Obama and president-elect Donald Trump on November 10, 2016, and has its world premiere on March 11 at the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood.The 90-minute production is described as “an imagined, dramatic recreation of the historic sitdown that took place on November 10, 2016 (two days after Trump's shocking victory in the Presidential election)... a compelling drama with comedic elements woven throughout. 

"The meeting evolves into a chess match between a man who's spent years building a legacy, and an outsider moving in to tear it all down. The play touches on issues including immigration, gun control, health care, sexism and nuclear war.”

TRANSITION stars Joshua Wolf Coleman as President Barack Obama and Harry S. Murphy as Donald Trump, and is directed by Lee Costello.

Coleman is a veteran of Guthrie Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse who's played the title role in Macbeth and Puddn'head Wilson and appeared in television series including Grey's Anatomy, House, and The West Wing.  

Joshua Wolf Coleman in Hidalgo

Murphy is a writer-performer alumnus of Second City in Chicago whose credits include Charlie Wilson’s War, Evan Almighty, Reefer Madness – The Movie Musical, Scandal, and  Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

Harry S. Murphy with Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 3 Episode 6

Director Lee Costello is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre. She's directed countless plays in New York and Los Angeles regional theatre including last year’s Waiting for Grace at The Odyssey Theatre, which was chosen by The Huffington Post as one of the Top Ten theatre productions in Los Angeles in 2016.  

TRANSITION is the first theatrical effort directly inspired by the Trump Era.   It’s also the first play by Ray, who’s well-known as an entertainment critic, columnist, reporter and blogger for publications including The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and the Los Angeles Times, and who's written four books.

"After the election, I was as devastated as everyone else by the fact our country was about to go to hell," Richmond says. “But when President Obama invited Trump to the Oval Office for a meeting, it struck me as a perfect construct for a two-man stage play. Writing it lifted me from my funk, driven by equal parts fear and inspiration.”

TRANSITION will run for five weekends and 16 performances, through April 9 at the Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. Tickets are available at Plays411.com/Transition.

Ray has reserved two pairs each for Presidents Trump and Obama.

Hollywood hijinks hauled out as Time presents Celebrities on Trial on Reelz!

Time Presents: Celebrities On Trial premieres this Wednesday, March 1st  -- tomorrow! -- on Reelz.  

The show presents a rogue's gallery of stars who broke the law and had to face the music in court.  Drugs, assault, thievery, divorce, drunk driving, domestic abuse, murder and general bad behaviour are just some of the reasons celebrities have wound up in hot water -- and worse.

Lindsay Lohan, Bill Cosby, Charlie Sheen, Phil Spector, Mel Gibson, Robery Downey Jr., Winona Ryder and, yes Fatty Arbuckle, are only some of the celebs who are in the docket in this one.

And Michael Jackson.  The folks at  P&L Media, who produced the show for the folks in the big Time Inc. building in lower Manhattan, have already made headlines by revealing why the dead King of Pop wore pajamas to court one day.

Peter Brennan, Lisa Lew, (the P&L) and our pal Burt Kearns are executive producers.

 Watch this if only for the unbelieveable, seemingly never-ending celebrity mug shot montages.  See if your favorite star made the grade.