American Pop (film)

"What do I look like, man? A soda fountain?"

When my wife and I first started dating we were both in our mid-20s, and there seemed to be something going on in the Gen X zeitgeist. A rediscovery of our shared youth, which had been overlooked due both to the overwhelming cultural dominance of the Baby Boomers, and our own all-too-early desire to discard the trappings of childhood and move as soon as we could into maturity.

Pre-eBay it was not easy to locate and reacquire the actual totems of the 1970s (toys, trading cards, magazines) but a few corporate offerings were popping up; the re-airing of Schoolhouse Rock shorts and recordings like Saturday Morning: Cartoon's Greatest Hits, a CD of contemporary artists covering theme songs from all our favorite shows.

My new love and I compared notes and found to our delight that we both loved Ralph Bakshi’s 1981 masterpiece, American Pop. We found a shared interest in generational stories, in witty dialogue, and of course, in American popular music. 

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

And yes, I already knew about Bakshi when I was twelve. I have older brothers. They brought me to see his epic Lord of the Rings in the theater when I was ten. It tanked at the box office, but I watched it again recently and it’s just amazing. That film inspired me to read Tolkien's entire trilogy when I was in fifth grade.

We had a movie night of the 1977 film Wizards, one of the guys had a laser disc machine, which is a bit of a mindbender for a pre-teen, this mashup of fantasy and postapocalyptic imagery. But I got it – Fascism will always return, and must always be defeated. Heard.

Now, I didn’t see American Pop in the cinema, not that my folks wouldn’t have taken me to an R-rated film, that happened several times – or at least, to unrated foreign films. But it played on cable later that year, and like movies on cable, it played a lot. 

I was intrigued by the animation; I was familiar with rotoscoping from his mother movies, which is when you film actors and then trace their image onto animation cells, which provides a much more realistic image of a human – but that’s also weird to see, when you are accustomed to the fluid, smooth figures of cartoons.

"Danke."

And neither my wife nor I had seen it since it had been on cable, it wasn't available on Laser Disc, VHS or DVD until 1997, primarily due to the wide variety of copyrighted music that figures prominently or plays in the background of the entire film. The rights were too prohibitive. The day it was final released was a celebration and we pre-ordered a copy from the late B-Ware Video on Madison to watch it together as soon as it was available.  

The plot is the evolution of American popular music through the 20th century, or the first eighty years of the century, anyway. Bakshi is not terribly self-aware in his telling, regarding issues of cultural appropriation, for example, he focuses on the story of four generations of men, each of whom aspire to create music.

The first, Zalmie, is a Russian immigrant, and Jewish, who wants to sing but suffers a throat injury entertaining troops in France during the Great War. He fathers a song named Benny, who is a talented pianist, but is killed in World War Two. He and his Italian-American wife had had a son named Tony, who becomes a disillusioned poet and wanderer in the 1960s (this Baby Boomer character’s saga takes up a much, much more self-indulgent part of the run time, because of course it does) becoming the lyricist for a San Francisco rock band.

The tale ends abruptly as his son Pete, the product of the one-night stand with a blonde Midwestern woman, puts it all together – the voice, the keyboard and the lyrics – to become a blonde, blue-eyed rock superstar.



Last week, I was interviewed for the recently rebooted Cleveland Stage Podcast, and host Tyler Whidden asked about the father thing in my play The Right Room. And it’s true, fathers figure heavily in the piece, sons trying to figure out who these odd men are who sired them, as I have tried to understand my father, and his fathers – the one he knew, and the one I only recently learned anything at all about.

However, unlike in American Pop, the mothers figure even more prominently. The mothers in Bakshi’s films are minor, tragic characters; victims of industrial tragedy or gang violence, disappointed or an easily abandoned conquest.

"The Right Room"
Convergence-Continuum (2026)

One of the elements of production director Jasmine Renee was able to push further in the production of The Right Room at Convergence-Continuum (which wrapped up last night) takes place during the moment when each couple takes a verse singing “If You Were a Train.” For a brief moment, the couples become aware of each other, and take the opportunity, as if in a dream, to see each other, and to connect.

And it is the women, the mothers, who see and who take in what they have done, and what they have created. My biological grandmother never knew what happened to that baby she left behind in Kansas City, and maybe she never wanted to know. But for a moment, as part of this play, she did. Because of her, I have this life, in this place, with these people. And that by itself is so much.

American Pop is an American saga told through the voice of one American family. I made one of those, too.

"The Right Room" by David Hansen is available to read at New Play Exchange or by contacting the playwright

The Future: September 2001 (revisited)

Revised scene from I Hate This (a play without the baby): The Silver Collection

DAVID is seated on the stool at the end of the previous scene. He hears the familiar music, and turns to look at the screen, which reads:

SLIDE: September 2001

SLIDE: The Future

DAVID does not want to perform the scene he wrote so many years ago. He looks at the audience seated before him in his living room and picks out a familiar face. He calls them by name, and asks this simple question.

DAVID

Where were you?

He asks two or three audience members the same question. Responses varied, but they were the same answer. At the gym. In the car. At work. In Tennessee. At school.

DAVID

Traumatic events can reactivate entirely unrelated trauma. I was in rehearsal for the first week of my new job, as an actor-teacher for the school residency program at Great Lakes Theater. Where I still work.

The team gathered in the bar and grill on the ground floor and we watched the television as those two mammoth structures collapsed into dust.

The towers fell. And I thought, “Yeah. It feels like that.”

End of Scene

"I Hate This (a play without the baby): The Silver Collection" was performed at the home of the playwright, October 14 - 18, 2026

See also: The Future: September 2001

You can donate to the Preeclampsia Foundation today, please follow this link to contribute directly to them in support of I Hate This (a play without the baby): The Silver Collection.

The Right Room | Character Biographies

Fanny was born in 1910, in Vermillion, Minnesota, the fifth of eight children. Her mother, a school teacher, passed away when Fanny was fourteen years old. A home-girl (in the former meaning of that term) she had two sons – the first she had placed for adoption when she was 25 – before marrying at the age of 36, to a man with whom she had a third son. She died in 1979, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at the age of 69, and was buried in her hometown. She was never reunited with her first child.

Mason was born in 1913, in Hastings, Minnesota. He fathered a child that was born in 1935 before marrying another woman the following year, and together they had three children. A career in the Minnesota state house was brought short by alcohol use disorder, and he pursued a life in teaching and high school administration. He died in 1999, in Bellingham, Washington, at the age of 86. There is no evidence to suggest he was ever aware of the existence of his first child.

Lucille was born in 1904, in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1932, at the age of 28, she married Leif. They suffered two miscarriages and a stillbirth before adopting sons from the Willows Maternity Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri in 1935, and again in 1938. A registered nurse, she was employed by the Maternal Health Association, the forerunner of today’s Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland. She died in 1982, in Bay Village, Ohio, at the age of 78.

Leif was born in 1904 in Fevik, Norway, immigrating to the United States in 1927, and receiving American citizenship in 1931. He married Lucille in 1932 in Lakewood, Ohio and they adopted two sons. As a younger man he was a merchant seaman, later a member of the IBM Division of Cleveland Trust Bank. He died in 2005, in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of 101.

Mathilda was born in 1935, and brought up in Lakewood, Ohio. She married Charles in 1959, with whom she raised three boys in Bay Village, engaged in a traditional, suburban lifestyle as housewife and mother, supporting school organizations and a local food pantry. Following the death of her husband, she resumed a relationship with Archie, her high school sweetheart. Archie was holding her hand when she died in 2020, at the age of 84.

Charles was born at the Willows Maternity Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri in 1935. His adoptive parents raised him (largely) in Lakewood, Ohio. Graduating from Miami University, he was employed by Cleveland Trust/Ameritrust before forced retirement at the age of 53. He married Mathilda in 1959, and they raised three sons in Bay Village, Ohio. He died in 2016 in Lakewood at the age of 80, never having shown any outward interest in his biological heritage.

Aubrey was born in 1970 in Athens, Ohio, to a teenage mother, who raised her as a single mom after Aubrey’s biological father left when she was four, before her mother remarried in 1980. She graduated from high school a year early, moving first to Atlanta, and then to New York City before she turned 18. She moved to Cleveland in 1995, where she established herself as a writer and editor, a high school teacher and bookseller. With Steven she bore three children, the first stillborn.

Steven was born in 1968, in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in the suburb of Bay Village. Shortly after graduating from college he entered into a brief, two-year marriage. He married Aubrey in 1999, with whom he had three children, the first stillborn. He has been an underground theater artist, an arts educator, marketing director, actor, director and playwright. Since 1991 he has lived in Cleveland Heights, the city of great writers.

Convergence-Continuum presents "The Right Room" as part of the Verum Project, a new play by David Hansen, October 29 - 31, 2026 

The Right Room | Production Biographies

Jasmine Renee (Director) 

Jasmine is a multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Renee graduated with a BFA in Dramatic Arts from The New School of Drama. Some of Renee's credits include My Dear Aunt Flow by Kelly Harper (Starcatcher Theatricals), Ava Hearts Riley by Cris Eli Blak (Amplify Theatre Collective), Elaine Calling by Niara Mae (The Language of Us).

Julia Fisher (Intimacy Director) 

Julia (she/her) is an intimacy director and playwright whose work has been seen in professional theatres throughout Northeast Ohio and beyond. She is a Certified Intimacy Director through Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, where she also served for two years as a Teaching Artist and Curriculum Developer. Julia has intimacy directed over 50 productions across Ohio — at Dobama Theatre, Rubber City Theatre, Cain Park, Near West Theatre, Ensemble Theatre, convergence-continuum, Ohio Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Public Theatre’s Test Flight, LatinUs Theater, Broadview Heights Spotlights, BorderLight Fringe Festival, the University of Akron, Baldwin Wallace University, Case Western Reserve University, Lorain County Community College, and Ohio Northern University. www.juliachristinefisher.com

Lindy Warren (Stage Manager) 

Production management work includes The 39 Steps at Idaho Shakespeare Festival and Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Great Lakes Theater. For eight years now, Lindy has served as director of the youth musical program at Lakewood Congregational Church. She currently works for Playhouse Square, serving as Volunteer Coordinator.

Serenity Grace Tate (Costumes) 

Serenity Grace (they/them) is a Costume technician and designer with a BFA in theatrical costume technology from Kent State University. They have worked as a craftsperson and First hand for Great Lakes Theater since spring 2022 as well as filling various roles for Playhouse Square and touring productions throughout Northeast Ohio.

Zelda Thayer-Hansen (Scenic Design)

Zelda is a Cleveland-born, Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of textile, illustration, sculpture, performance art, and collaborative research. Zelda received a BFA in Sculpture & Expanded Practice in 2025 from the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University after publishing their thesis, Frock Logic: Directional Behaviors of an Annotated Body. Since graduating, they have shown immersive works at Plex Arts Fest, Cleveland Public Theatre’s Soft Launch, and Whirligig Art Festival. This is their first set design, with previous scenic work as a part of Latecia Wilson’s Asé Theatre Project: Portals of Knowing in 2025.

Bradley Wyner (Music) 

Bradley has worked as a music director at Cain Park (Rent and School of Rock), Blank Canvas (Hedwig, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, One Man Two Guvnors, many others), plus Cleveland Public Theater, Dobama, Kalliope Stage, Cleveland Play House. Proud of his many years as a teaching artist (Case Western Reserve, Cleveland School of the Arts, and more); students have gone on to careers as teachers, non-profit leaders, journalists, artists, musicians, and actors on stages from Broadway to Cleveland. Bradley also works as the Director of Education at Milestones Autism Resources.

David Hansen (Playwright) 

David (he/him) has participated in Cleveland’s theater renaissance as a founder of Guerrilla Theater Company and  artistic director for Dobama’s Night Kitchen and Bad Epitaph Theater Company, as well as an actor and director at theaters across Northeast Ohio. His published plays can be found at Concord Theatricals, Next Stage Press, Pioneer Drama Service, and YouthPLAYS. He holds a MFA in Creative Writing from Cleveland State University. David is Education Programs Manager for Great Lakes Theater and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. He lives in Cleveland Heights, the city of great writers. www.davidhansen.org

Convergence-Continuum presents "The Right Room" as part of the Verum Project, a new play by David Hansen, October 29 - 31, 2026 

The Right Room | Actor Biographies

Lauren Berger (Mathilda)

Lauren just graduated from Baldwin Wallace this May with her degree in Acting. Recent on-stage credits include: The Comedy of Errors (Duke Solinus/Luce), A Man for All Seasons (Alice More), Good Kids (Deirdre), Legally Blonde (Vivianne), and much more.

Nicole Coury (Aubrey)

Previous credits include The Language Archive (Emma) at Clague Playhouse, I’m Alive … and Always Will Be (Lang) with Nightbloom Theatre Company, Aida (ensemble/fight captain) at Karamu House, Bedroom Culture (Mia) at Cleveland Public Theater, The Right Room (Mathilda) at BorderLight Theatre Festival, and Acts of Clay (various) at Wizbang Theater.

Rachel Gold (Fanny)

Rachel is a Cleveland-based actor, director, fight choreographer, and educator. Acting credits include String of Us and The Body Play (CPT), Grand Concourse (Seat of the Pants), Little Women (Dobama), and multiple roles with Great Lakes Theater and Cleveland Shakespeare Festival (CSF) where she now serves as the Artistic Director. She also serves as the Resident Fight Director for Dobama Theatre

Bradley Hughes (Leif)

Bradley is a recent graduate from Baldwin Wallace University, where he earned his BFA in Acting. Over the last four years he has worked on productions with Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, Borderlight Festival, Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Theatre Project, and Baldwin Wallace. Some of his favorite credits include Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Gross Indecency, Three Sisters, The Right Room and King Lear.

Kayce Kvacek (Lucille)

Kayce is a Cleveland based actress and playwright. She received her BFA from Boston University and has trained at The Academy for the Performing Arts and LAMDA (London). Some of her favorite roles have included Viola in Twelfth Night, May in Fool for Love and Camille in Horse Girls. Her first one act play, Ships in the Night, was accepted to the Boston Playwrights 24 Hour Play Marathon and has since been published & performed across the country.

Zach Palumbo (Charles)

Zach is a Cleveland-based performer whose favorite roles include Eugene in Broadway Bound (Beck Center), Feste in Twelfth Night and the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz (Ohio Shakespeare Festival), Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, and SpongeBob in The SpongeBob Musical (Blank Canvas Theatre). He’s premiered works at Cleveland Public Theatre, including Savory Taṇhā and Experts in a Dying Field, and performed with Karamu House, none too fragile, and others. He’s also a music director with credits at Clague Playhouse and CWRU. His rock opera Future Perfect, co-written by David L. Munnell, premiered at BorderLight Festival in 2024.

Kyler Rogers (Steven) 

After graduating with his BFA in Acting from Ohio University, Kyler is thrilled to make his debut at Convergence-Continuum. Credits include: Inherit the Wind (u/s Davenport) Tantrum Theater; Macbeth (Macbeth) Cleveland Shakespeare Festival/CSF, Richard III (Ratcliffe/First Murderer) CSF. Ohio University: Romeo and Juliet (Benvolio), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Demetrius), The Trojan Women (Poseidon), True West (Lee), Angel’s Trumpet (Quinn).

Cole Tarantowski (Mason)

His acting work in Cleveland includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, Acts of Clay: Out Of the Kiln at Wizbang Theater, and Karfuffle in Parmadoro also at WizBang Theater. Cole also has begun his journey as a playwright, with his first ten minute play recently having been produced at Wizbang Theater.

Convergence-Continuum presents "The Right Room" as part of the Verum Project, a new play by David Hansen, October 29 - 31, 2026 

I Hate This (a play without the baby): The Silver Collection (In Performance)

Maybe you can tell from the title of this blog post that I am tweaking my own tendency toward alternate or sub-titles to my works. Or perhaps I am just doing it once more.

Some time over the summer, when I was on my own for several weeks, I got this idea in my head, probably while running. I have lots of ideas when running, sometimes they become realized.

I have always wanted to do a house performance, or at least as far back as 2010. I read about them, then I sought them out. We produced the Love In Pieces project in 2014, and more recently I have enjoyed – and later, participated in – works produced by Micro Theater CLE.

What does it mean to invite strangers into your home for a live performance? Not that anyone this weekend was a stranger, exactly. And even those who were, well. We are now a bit more familiar, I think.

Anyway. As I was having this time on my own, and as I was looking for an opportunity to perform I Hate This once more, it all came together and I made myself that commitment. The commemorate our first pregnancy, and Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, we were going to do this.

I asked Josh to update his multimedia program, found both stage and house managers to run the show and serve the guests, and asked the Preeclampsia Foundation if I could promote this as a fund raiser, a suggestion I am grateful to have been well received.

The thing about the script is that it is now truly a memory play. When I was first taking this piece around, I was commenting on things that had only recently happened – including 9/11. And a couple things which were true in 2001 no longer are.

While working over the script, I tried to eliminate the delivery I remembered, to focus on how I feel about these things today. I also have the advantage of not having to project my voice. Not at all. A normal speaking voice. Telling an old story.

It took some work to clear out the living room and even then, ten seats was quite a squeeze. Sunday, Josh and I ran the cues and made adjustments to time and sound. Monday we brought in Geneva, the SM, to learn the cues and run the whole show, cue to cue.

I was relaxed, I had fun, even. Though, there was one moment, it is an extended, direct address with a single audience member. As I concluded, he gasped. I asked if that was all right. He said it was fine, just a lot.

Tuesday night was dress rehearsal, before paid audiences received the entire treatment (open bar, handmade snacks, etc.) I had invited company members from The Right Room, and some of the actor-teachers. It went well, there were a few surprises, pleasant and not, like when the cat turned on the Roomba. I did feel myself falling back into old forms of delivery, and I wasn’t happy about that. And it is something to be so close, and to look them all in the eye.

Wednesday night, opening night, was a bit of a party, we had a certain fellow solo performance expert sitting in the front row and she was laughing at all the darkest stuff and that was really something special. Her laughter made others feel free to laugh and it made all the difference.

Know what else made the difference? Our house manager-cum-bartender Char was in the (literal) house starting that night and their charm and skill kept things bubbly before curtain. Also, Toni had made cheese stuffed dates and fruit and cheese skewers (thank you Marchant Manor, support your local business) as well as puff pastry with tomatoes from City Fresh.

Thursday was the experienced crowd, and by that I guess I mean they were older. Also, many of them had seen the show before, like, most of them. They had come to see this show again, one of them for the third time, having seen it first in 2011 and again in 2016. What’s that like? Geneva has shared performance photos with me and they are striking. I used to look that way, now I look this way.

I look like my father. I look so much like my father now.

After the show, I head upstairs to change out of the costume while audience members are invited to stay and continue the conversation. After the dress rehearsal Toni joined me and it became a kind of Q&A, which was only appropriate as there were many younger folks there who don’t actually know me personally that well and didn’t know her at all. But I’ve been trying to avoid the after event becoming an extension of the show, I just want to see the people.

Thursday night, we were all telling our September 11th stories.

One of the unique elements of this production is my proximity to the audience, which allows me to speak in my natural voice. No projection, I can even mutter on occasion. One audience member this night said they were particularly focused on my breathing, which was a wonderful thing to learn.

Friday the crowd was older, the laughs were fewer … this is to be expected. You do not know who in the audience may have experienced some kind of child loss, but the older the audience the higher the probability, of course. I keep this in mind. It’s the Bette and Boo effect (see link) or as the good doctor put it, some people “don’t think stillbirth is funny.”

The show continues to change. When I mention how we handed out “handmade red paper and pens” at the boy’s memorial, I hand out actual paper we had commissioned from Dissected Relics and also Sharpies. Members of the first audience gave me a note; they didn’t know what they were supposed to do with the paper.

I ad libbed to the Wednesday night audience that they too could write “secret messages to our boy” and they did! On Friday, after the show, I was asked about the birdbath we burned the messages in back in 2001 and it’s still there in the garage, and the team thought it might be nice to have a place to set the messages at the end of the show.

For the final two performances, the set included a small birdbath.

Saturday night was a mix of ages and experiences, or at least you might think so. Again, everyone has a different connection to child loss, as parents, and also as siblings. For me, the event was highly charged as my former spouse Diana was in the (literal) house, and though we have made our way back to being friends we haven’t been in each others’ presence for over thirty years.

It was a happy reunion, though I think that she was much more interested in seeing my wife. They have a great deal of catching up to do. That evening went the longest, a half dozen of us sat in a circle and chatted for almost two hours.

I was asked how I would feel if this was the show I would be remembered for, and I came to terms with that a long time ago. It’s why I keep coming back. And it’s a story I love to tell. Tonight, we're going to tell it one more time.

You can donate to the Preeclampsia Foundation today, please follow this link to contribute directly to them in support of I Hate This (a play without the baby): The Silver Collection.

Dissected Relics

Our upcoming, intimate house performance has called for some original properties … and one old one. We incorporated red paper into the 2016 performance, but for this one we wanted something unique.

Our friends at Dissected Relics took a special order for deep red handmade paper, and what they have provided is truly beautiful. I loved that they shared photos from the process and I received the results in the mail today. They are gorgeous to behold … and to hold!

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. I will be performing the play I Hate This (a play with the baby): The Silver Collection on October 14-18, 2026, as a fundraiser for the Preeclampsia Foundation.

Each night promises to be a unique experience. Please reach out directly if you are interested in attending, and I will provide more complete information.

Dissected Relics (Etsy shop) "We sell handmade paper, collages, collage kits, & more."