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“My Bestie, The Car” says Jim Catapano about Let Mezaluca Buy Your Car Revs Its Engine at the Downtown Urban Arts Festival
National Latinx Playwriting Award winner and O’Neill finalist Desi Moreno-Penson has brought a side-splitting story of Pains, Strains, and Automobiles to La Mama. It begins with Joey (Wilson Hernandez) and Caterina (Kathleen Guerrero) arguing in his beloved ‘94 Camaro after leaving a party. The car was “born” the same year Joey was, as he is proud to point out. Caterina calls the old Camaro “a piece of sh-t”, and Joey insists that she stop badmouthing his “best friend.”
“It can hear you, and it’s not old, it’s vintage!” he retorts. Suddenly there is a (very well-realized) accident, and the shaken couple, having been thrown from the car, are quick to take sides on who’s at fault. Driver Joey blames Caterina for aggravating him, while Caterina thinks the blame lies elsewhere: Joey for doing tequila shots at the party they just left, and the Camaro for being junk.
“No don’t, it doesn’t like you!” yells Joey at Caterina when she goes to retrieve her phone from the car. “It knows you say bad things about it, so it feels a little resentful towards you!” Joey begins to talk so lovingly about the car that Caterina starts to wonder if he’s sleeping with it (a dynamic that many frustrated partners can no doubt relate to).
And if that wasn’t bizarre enough, suddenly a third character arrives on the scene to give its testimony on the situation: THE ACTUAL CAR (a hilarious Jayson Kerr, who enters to the sound of alarms and headlights on his shoulders). And this injured, outraged Camaro has a lot to say, especially to his “disrespectful” nemesis Caterina—suggesting that if it were up to him, he’d “send her back to the t-tty bar where she belongs!”
It is then that the plot thickens as Caterina reminds Joey that she wants him to sell the car to the unseen Mezaluca of the title, basically asking her partner to abandon his best pal for cash. Noting that Mezaluca is importantly Latine, Caterina triggers a discussion about how “there are all kinds of Latino,” as Joey and the Car uncomfortably but hilariously run down a series of old-fashioned stereotypes, much to her disgust.
“I’m Puerto Rican,” notes Caterina.
“Well maybe you’re a little bit shady,” the car claps back.
“None of this is based in reality!” exclaims Caterina in a slightly meta moment.
Stylishly directed by KM Jones Associate Member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, and with a winning cast, Let Mezaluca Buy Your Car is a quick and fun dive into the surreal combined with an astute look at relationships, prejudices, and the personality traits that can alternately create tension and yet somehow, connection.
Let Mezaluca Buy Your Car was performed at La Mama on June 3, 2026. Keep a look out for further performances and other works from this dynamic team.
A Jim Catapano Review: The Iphigeniamachine Rages Against the Neverending Atrocities of the Patriarchy
Girl Interrupted, a World Deconstructed
“Where’s the girl to save us all?”
The walls that surround us are covered with torn book pages. A stuffed animal sits in the center of the stage. To the side is a screen with the title of the play, but it is soon to be filled with the images of war. As described by the production, we are in a “technofeudal, post-apocalyptic ice age.”
Iphigenia (playwright Mackenzie Robin Krestul) emerges out of the darkness, joined by a chorus (Quinn Andrews, Kaitlyn Rose RaBocse, Sam Hardy). They giggle joyfully together and play with children’s letter blocks on the floor. The serene scene gives way to the arrival of the warrior Agamemnon (Travis Bergmann), Iphiginia’s father, who is seen asking ChatGPT for advice—plunging us unsettingly into the darkness of the here and now. “King Artemis is holding up all our ships because she is angry I killed her deer,” he explains to the machine. “The soldiers are pissed and we all want to get back to fighting. What do I do?”
“Sure, I can help with that!” responds the chillingly cheery AI. “…If you want your ships to sail, you must sacrifice your daughter on the altar.”
Thus begins a stunning production that takes the text of the Euripedes’ original tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis and deconstructs it through a powerful postmodern lens, shining a black light at the heart of the problem that has plagued the world ever since humans crawled out of the muck and learned to walk and talk, and eventually to wage war.
“Imagine embarking on a journey through a tapestry of ships sailing across the sea,” continues the joyful but soulless computer simulation. “Think about the vibrant and bustling community you’ll burn to the ground! A circle of blood…the cries of women, young girls, children sobbing, eyes bloodshot, choking on the crimson dust that clogs the air.”
Before long we witness Agamemnon literally pleasuring himself to the war footage that is shown on the TV, in a lengthy sequence that is wordless but speaks volumes about man’s fetish for war and history of bloodshed and oppression.
“One burning desire driving this machine of war,” chants the chorus.
“Why do bad things always happen to men?” Agamemnon whines following his self-exploration.
“It’s worth noting that men are the primary protectors of our entire world!” chimes ChatGPt gleefully, reminding him that his daughter must both symbolically and literally die for the greater glory.
Cadence Lamb provides remarkable support as the “motherwife” Clytemnestra. “No one fights fiercer than a mother for her children,” she proclaims, reminding Iphigenia of the 27 hours she spent in labor, and of her daughter’s own “biological imperative.”
“You have to fulfill your duty as a woman,” she insists, echoing the creepy cheeriness of the AI. “Like me, and my mom, her mom, her mom…” she goes on and on and on, as if reaching back to the beginnings of our society’s hegemonic discourse. Her advice to the soon-to-be-wed Iphigenia to “hold still until it’s over,” speaks chilling volumes about a woman’s role in the world as far as the patriarchy is concerned.
The production, directed impeccably by Harrison Campbell, is masterful, with a startling 4th wall break late in the show that puts the audience at the edge of their seats. This electric sequence is anchored by an incredible performance from Hardy, embodying the latest threat to civilization, which we heard earlier in the play giving Agamemnon horrific advice. The deconstruction of the original Euripedes story is then mirrored by an actual destruction of the impressive set. Kudos to Emily McManus for her terrific puppeteering of the “deer” we meet mid-play, who is so expressive that they feel like another living character (and wonderfully designed by Annie McGowan).
“Were you snatched from your mother too?” asks Iphigenia of the elegant creature. “There’s a handprint on your flank, but your eyes are blank. Are mine?”
Iphigenia recognizes that she’s speaking to a puppet. “I’m one too!” she announces. “I play the girl on the gallows. She’s been hiding since the dawn of time. From the corner of the sky, she sees…everything.” Iphigenia encourages the deer to escape the fate that has been handed to both of them. “You can leave…abandon your role. Travel the path through the dark and the heat where a light stands waiting. All you have to do…is drop the sticks.” And the puppet pulls free of the puppeteer.
Writer Krestul has pulled no punches whatsoever in holding up a mirror to the uncomfortable truth of who we are as a society and how little we’ve evolved. In addition to her sharp, biting, poetic, and extremely powerful crafting of the story and its dialogue, she also gives a stunning performance in the role of our tragic hero. Her voice and artistry are exactly what we need right now.
The Iphigeniamachine was performed at The American Theatre of Actors in May 2026.
Jim Catapano reviews Anne L. Thompson-Scretching’s Home Is Sweet Sorrow: “A Masterful Conclusion to a Momentous Family Saga”
The War That Never Ends
Home Is Sweet Sorrow is a must-see and a devastatingly powerful third chapter in the Blood trilogy, which also includes the highly regarded A Lesson in Blood and A Long Way From Home. Anne L. Thompson-Scretching’s prolific pen and deft direction again triumph in a depiction of an American family wounded by war and the trials of the mid-20th Century.
It is 1971, and PFC Willie Taylor (Laquan Hailey, reprising his role from A Long Way From Home) has come home from Vietnam. He is in a wheelchair, but his prognosis to walk again is good. Though he may soon regain his mobility, the damage to his mind is far less likely to ever be healed. He is a stranger to himself and to his family: mother Shanna (Gina McKinney), father Jacob (Kevin Leonard), and sister Luella (Joy Foster). Non-blood cousin Ceola Red Feather (Carrie Johnson) is the daughter of Oceola (the lead character of A Lesson in Blood); she has gone to school and now has medical training that she can help Willie with, and the two eventually begin the romantic relationship they were destined for. Rommell Sermons (Chester in A Long Way From Home) appears as Thomas Avery, a sergeant who visits to try to get Willie help for his PTSD.
That PTSD has shattered Willie’s personality and threatens his very sanity. After he arrives home (significantly not wearing his uniform), the mother he had missed so very much tries to help him navigate a tight hallway in his chair, and he snaps instantly and violently. He has developed a drinking problem—reaching for the bottle when the nightmares come (and they do, every time he closes his eyes), when the cars backfire like rifle shots, and when the flashbacks in his head threaten to consume him.
“I don’t know who I am or what I’ve done,” Willie despairs. “Them doctors, they only patched up the hole inside me and sent me on my merry way…sometimes when I wake up, I still feel like I’m dead. I can’t be the same person I was before I left here.”
Adding to his own trauma is that his friend and fellow PFC Jamie Lofton perished under suspicious circumstances in Vietnam. Jamie’s devastated mother Abigail (Elly-Anne Ehrman), aware of the secret that was her son’s burden, has come looking for answers from Willie, and a painful revelation adds even more horror to the already devastating effects of a war that no one wanted.
The relationships among the characters are so well-realized and so well-acted, anyone watching Home is Sweet Sorrow could almost feel like they truly are in the home of the Taylors in 1971. They share many a meal and many a drink, namecheck All in The Family and Ed Sullivan, and truly give the sense of having been through a great deal together. Each and every one of them feels like a real living and loving human being, and so their happiness and pain are felt viscerally. We find joy in their warmth and connection, thus making the moments when that connection is severed all the more painful to witness. Willie’s devotion to his Shanna is damaged by what he sees as her inability to grasp what he’s been through, and she is left terrified, forced to walk on eggshells in fear of the traumatized shell that her son has become. Shaina and Abigail, ostensibly friends, clash over their grief and their individual need to honor their sons, one who is gone physically and one emotionally. Jacob plays peacemaker and is anguished that any returns to normality are short-lived. Anne L. Thompson-Scretching’s powerful dialogue and skillful world-building are astonishing, as is her bravery in reminding us that resolutions and closure are not to be found in the brutal reality that Home Is Sweet Sorrow so poignantly depicts.
Layton Lamell, Patricia Fields and Sania Hyatt are Swings for Willie, Shanna, and Luella respectively.
Presented as part of the African American Playwrights Initiative, Home Is Sweet Sorrow is performed at the Sargent Theatre at The American Theatre of Actors through March 29, 2026.
Review by Jim Catapano: Tom Nemec’s A Cat in a Box Is a Moving Journey from Trauma to Healing
From The Storm to The Breeze
Comedian and actor Tom Nemec has a story to tell. It’s a deeply personal one, but judging by the response at The Tank theatre as he told it in his one-person show, one that resonates far and wide.
One of the first things Nemec does upon taking the stage is to invoke his childhood self, calling for his mom. “This is the way I entered my childhood home my entire life,” he explains. “Screaming ‘Mom!’ often before I even got through the front door.” He shows a picture of the home, in Lyndhurst New Jersey (“Gateway to the Meadowlands,” he quips before adding, “I hated that house.”)
Over the course of an hour, A Cat in a Box reveals what happened in that house as Nemec and his three siblings grew up in the 1970s; and as these events unfold to us, Nemec bares his soul and shares his life. It was a childhood of dysfunction and isolation, of alcoholism and emotional and physical abuse.
Nemec warns early on not to expect any funny or sentimental anecdotes. “When most people hear the word ‘family’ they think love, stability, support,” he notes. “But that’s not the definition. That’s an ideal…My family was just a group living together as a unit.”
He hated the family photo that hung on the wall as much as the building that housed it, as it was a lie. “That was not us,” he observes. “But I continued to pretend it was for a long time.”
Nemec’s recollections are raw, and no punches are pulled. He speaks of nights that would end with Nemec’s severely inebriated father banging on the door, demanding to get in. “I’d just wish he’d wander off to someone else’s house and never bother us again,” Nemec admits. He is nostalgic for the Christmas holidays because “no matter how bad things were at home, everyone was in a slightly better mood (and besides I kind of believed in Santa Claus”). Though he concedes that any gifts were “more like an obligation wrapped in a bow.” He reveals sadly that his father’s addiction overshadowed his mother’s behavior, which was often accompanied by violence.
The audience was captivated by Nemec’s every word. One could almost picture themselves in that Lyndhurst home, so vivid is Nemec’s recollection and expert storytelling. The most moving part of his tale is his journey to adulthood and his path to reconciling with the past and conquering his own demons. He last entered that house in the year 2000, and is now not only an accomplished actor and comedian, but a teacher, helping young children make their first steps into life in a healthy, nurturing environment.
A brief Q&A after the performance revealed that many in attendance saw a lot of their own childhood in Nemec’s. For a moment, we were united in our collective experience, and in our resolve to heal; and to paraphrase Nemec’s powerful closing statement, “to see the breeze as our friend.”
A Cat in a Box is directed by Jim Mendrinos is performed at The Tank through November 8, 2025. For more information, visit https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/a-cat-in-a-box
Jim Catapano Wishes for Many Beautiful Hours at “Birthday Candles”
Noah Haidle’s Moving Masterpiece Birthday Candles is Beautifully Realized by the Lighthouse Repertory Theatre Company
Ernestine Ashworth celebrates her 17th birthday with her mom Alice (Alissa Wexler) as per family tradition—a homemade birthday cake. In between anxiously wondering about her place in the universe, she excitedly recruits Alice in helping her rehearse for her school’s production of “Queen” Lear, and then takes an annual turn at the height chart next to the front door of their Grand Rapids, Michigan home. That height chart will be filled with names we’ll get to know over the next century, and we’ll spend pivotal moments of those years with Ernestine and family, but always accompanied by the unseen but always felt antagonist of Birthday Candles: Time.
The idea for Birthday Candles came to Noah Haidle after his friend’s eight-year-old daughter asked her mom if she thought she had wasted her life. That question is also Ernestine’s first line, directed at herself, and thus a profound question from a child led to a profound play.
We get to spend Ernestine’s birthday with her over the course of 90 years; every year she bakes that same cake, and is accompanied by a version of her goldfish Atman (Sanskrit for “essence,”) always sitting in a bowl on the kitchen table. It is noted that goldfish only have 3 seconds of memory before they “start over”, and the other characters wonder if Atman is better off that way, as the years and the memories wear them down.
Kami Crary gives a magnificent performance as Ernestine Ashworth, whose life spans “one hundred years and ninety minutes concurrently.” With no makeup and only very slight costume changes, Crary embodies Ernestine at 17 and 107 and everything in between so convincingly it’s astonishing. Her castmates complement her wonderfully, going on their own life journeys filled with both sadness and joy, sometimes in the same scene.
The 17-year-old Ernestine is aggressively but charmingly courted by Kenneth (usually played by Kevin Russo, but in this performance played by producer Tony Chiofalo, in a stellar “one-night-only” turn). However, she instead marries Matt (Rian Romeo), and they have many happy years together until tragedy leads to a devastating betrayal. But, it also means that Kenneth may have a chance with Ernestine after all, if he waits long enough…
An ominous tickling clock accompanies blackouts that depict time moving forward. Sometimes the scene is brief and humorous (like when Ernestine’s daughter goes from College Senior to College Graduate to Unpaid Intern in a matter of real-life seconds, or when Matt is seen to give Ernestine the same gift three birthdays in a row). But sometimes the circumstances are heartwrenching (one short scene is just of the characters sobbing). Most scenes are longer, depicting poignant life-changing turning points. The fact that Ernestine lives for over a century means that tremendous sadness and loss are inevitable, and this casts a backwards shadow over the events of her life, even the happier ones. Ernestine is determined to keep her loved ones alive through her rituals, even if it means breaking into the house that she no longer lives in to bake that cake one more time, a full century after the tradition began—much to the chagrin of new owner Beth (Julie Lorson) and to the amusement of Beth’s domestic partner John (played by Chiofalo). “Ernestine: Age Eternity,” she introduces herself with pride.
Shea James plays Ernestine and Matt’s daughter Madeline (Maddy), who later wishes to be called Athena, and finally “Anonymous.” She is a troubled soul who is existentially perceptive, lending a perspective that complements the transitory nature of life that the play so keenly demonstrates. Stephen Anastasia is Billy, who rebelliously criticizes his parents for settling and selling out, only to have the same charges leveled at him by his own daughter Alex (Stephanie Curley) decades later. Billy is a musician who is heard practicing the Beatles’ “Let It Be” (a fitting song for this play), and his rendition gets better and better over the years. Liz Spencer is hilarious as Billie’s girlfriend (and later wife) Joan, an anxious person who berates herself in the third person after every faux pas. Amanda Luong and Glenn McKay are Ernestine’s grandchildren Ernie and William, seen rehearsing “Queen” Lear decades after their grandma’s initial triumph.
Birthday Candles is a heartbreaker for the ages, but also incredibly funny; and it is a stunning celebration of all that matters, and a reminder that a life well lived and full of love is worth the tears. To paraphrase Ernestine, let’s all make a wish for “so many beautiful hours.”
Birthday Candles is directed with finesse and poignancy by Kate Russo. It is performed at the Merrick Theatre and Center for the Arts through June 29, 2025. The production benefits Birthday Wishes of Long Island, whose mission is to improve and empower the lives of homeless children and their families. To learn more, visit birthdaywishes.org.
Jim Catapano Saddled-Up for a Gay Rodeo!
An Exuberant New LGBTQ+MusicalKicks Off Pride at 54 Below.
“The rodeo has come to town!” sings Gurney (the powerhouse-voiced Erich W. Schleck), to open Queer Cowfolk: The Gay Rodeo Musical. “Time for chasing dreams that don’t last, let’s forget the world and have a blast!” he implores, with a compulsory yippee-kay-ay.
The musical, crafted by writer Bear Kosik and composer Lani Madland, is a rollicking good time throughout, and a celebration of LGBTQ+ creation and community. The town that Gurney sings of is Denver Colorado, where the International Gay Rodeo Association has landed for a weekend event. The center of activity is the bar Chutes, where several members of the local community explore love, relationships, and their place in the world.
Amid the backdrop of the rodeo we meet Brace, the owner of the leather shop next door. She introduces us to Fred, “one of our favorite people here,” who was recently injured and thus unable to participate in the rodeo. This impacts his relationship with his partner Ron, who is having trouble dealing with Fred’s “lost sense of purpose,” and is seemingly falling out of love with him.
“What the hell has happened here? We were the couple of the year!’ Fred laments in “Last Time You Kissed Me. “Are you ever gonna miss me again?”
Meanwhile, Ron sets his eyes on Marty but has competition in Dolly (Candace J. Templeton); Derik, the sex-loving beer delivery driver and rodeo cowboy, and Dane, the lonely Chutes bartender, express their despair about having never found true connection in the moving “Lonely After 40”. They’ve been “picking up men but avoiding relationships”, and the rodeo weekend makes them rethink their life choices.
Paul and Martin arrived at the rodeo in a rental car from Baltimore. Paul has had an “encounter” with the promiscuous Derik, in the latter’s truck. Martin, having realized he is bisexual, has “proceeded to break up with both his wife and his girlfriend.” The two sing “Purple Mini-Rental” as they play tag around the parked vehicles.
Rebecca and Tina met at a previous rodeo and are now an item but live on separate ranches miles apart. “That’s how people stay together,” muses Brace. “They live far away from each other!” Tina sings about wanting the same love her parents shared in the lovely “Day Old Roses.”
The lyrics clearly and poignantly illustrate each character’s journey, set to music that is a perfect blend of Classic Country and Broadway. Boisterous singalongs sit very comfortably alongside moving ballads.
The songs are wonderfully crafted and the love that went into creating them is evident, from the opening stomper “The Rodeo Has Come to Town!” to the gorgeous, award-winning “What I’m Saying” to the soon-to-be iconic “The First Drag Queen Rodeo Clown.” “Tell the World” could be the theme of Pride 2025, as it urges all to banish hate and choose love.
As Kosik has pointed out, Cowfolk’s characters are entirely from the LGBTQ+ community, thus freed from being relegated into the box of the “other” in a society where heterosexuality is stubbornly clung to as the norm. They are relatable and 3-dimensional, and feel like new friends you want to hang out with by show’s end.
At the 54 Below world premiere performance on June 9, presented by Bearly Designed Productions, Cowfolk was emceed by Lisa Dennett and Schleck (of the Jesus Christ Superstar national tour). The cast also included Dennett, Allison Calabrese, Anthony Castellano, Farid Garofalo-Germes, Laura MacLean and Andrew McNamara, all bringing the characters and songs to life with gusto.
Sue C. Maskaleris provided expert musical direction and accompanied the cast on piano and violin. Nelson Riveros did stunning guitar work throughout, backed by the impeccable rhythm section of Tony Ventura on bass and Brian Woodruff on drums.
Cowfolk the Gay Rodeo Musical is a love letter in song to LGBTQ+ pride, and a tremendous showcase for the artists of the community. Keep an eye out for it Off-Broadway.
“Tell the world we choose love.”
Arts Independent 