The Right Room | In Performance

Charles & Mathilda
(Zach Palumbo & Nicole Coury)
Photo: BorderLight Theater Festival

The BorderLight Theater Festival is closed for 2025, and with that, so too our run of The Right Room in the Presidential Suite at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Playhouse Square. For those in the room, and for our young company, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The audience only saw the bedroom; the bed, a couch, a few armchairs. They, the audience, were asked to sit in one of eight, ordinary, cushioned chairs. They were also asked not to relocate those chairs, and to make sure their personal items were stashed underneath. They were also advised that though this play would be intimate, it would not be interactive; do not touch or speak to the actors, and they will not touch or speak to you.

Once they were settled, the characters entered through the same room the audience had. Throughout the performance they accessed the bathroom (lines delivered when folks were offstage in the bathroom were amusingly louder than those delivered in the room itself) and occasionally dipped into a closet – but it wasn’t an actual closet. It was a door into the adjoining suite, blocked by a curtain.

The suite (or living room area) was our green room, it was larger than the bedroom. The east end of the Crowne Plaza is rounded, with a view overlooking East 14th and Euclid, the Chandelier. The audience could see this as they entered, but most sat with their backs to the windows for the show. If you can imagine, the entire suite wrapped around the end of the hallway. The door to the suite faced the door to the bedroom itself.

Just as the actors were lining up for entrances at the top of the first performance, facing the suite door, ready to cross the hallway to the bedroom door, I was standing off to one side behind them. Suddenly, the actors playing Fanny and Mason both turned their heads to look at me. And in that moment I saw my biological grandparents, people I never had the chance to meet or even know about, young and attractive and with their whole lives ahead of them. I wasn't expecting that.

Their real names, by the way, were George and Martha. Truth is stronger than fiction.  

BorderLight show pages included the opportunity for audience members to rate and review the productions, and we received many wonderful comments. Here are just a few:

“Each character was incredibly human; in turns flawed, lonely, searching, funny, sad, excited, passionate, confused, and affected by people and a past they only partly understood.” - Amelia B.

“The staging was deft and I was never at a loss of where to look or what story was being told. A truly immersive theater experience that has to be seen to be believed.” - Philip F.

“Jasmine Renee’s direction was outstanding. Pulling off clear storytelling in such an intimate space is no small challenge, and she nailed it. Serenity Grace Tate’s costumes were spot on, and I was comforted to see that Julia Fisher was engaged as Intimacy Director... I hope his play has a life beyond the wonderful Borderlight Festival. We all need to find ourselves in the right room.” - Daniel H.

On a related note: Today is my birthday, and by tradition, I am on vacation. In the office, birthdays are celebrated with cake and ice cream, and about ten years ago they began celebrating mine in my absence. 

It started with a photo of the staff having ice cream at a place on the square, the gag becoming sillier with each passing year. One year they were all crammed into my office … with ice cream. During the quarantine, a picture of an empty breakroom with hats and noisemakers on the large table.

This year? A staff picture in a room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel with a note reading, "We're finally in the Right Room!"

In case you were wondering, I truly love where I work.

Top Ten Life Lessons Pengo Learned From Fred

Me and Fred, from a lost "silent" film. (1986)

This was not the post I intended to write on my fiftieth birthday. But life rarely goes as planned, and birthdays are as arbitrary as any other holiday.

Fred Steiner died this morning from a massive coronary. Apparently he was looking out his window contemplating mowing the grass, which is as fine a way to go as any I can think of.

Fred graduated from Bay High in 1980, a contemporary of my eldest bother, Denny. But we spent a lot of time together, watching movies, engaged in RPG, and producing comedy television for the public access channel.

We haven't spent a lot of time together recently, the last time I saw him was at his mother's funeral, before that at my father's. But unlike some from those old days we never had a falling out, never really lost touch.

I was unable to attend his 50th birthday party, six years ago, but I did pass along a number of things I had learned from him, sincerely offered, to be read at the event. It was only appropriate to be produced as a Letterman-esque "Top Ten" list.

TOP TEN LIFE LESSONS PENGO LEARNED FROM FRED

10. Do the best work you can. Don’t get uppity. Create low expectations.

9. Christian Bale was a grown man before he learned what I learned at age fifteen: Do not have a tantrum when the camera is rolling.

8. The cool person stays in his chair, and makes people come to him.

7. Turn TV-viewing into a contest. It's more fun that way.

6. Fred’s defense of The Creature from Alsace Lorraine sketch; “Nobody told me no.”

5. Be original. Avoid high-concept. Edit.

4. Make the Dungeon Master laugh, and you can get away with anything.

3. "I’m SO fucked in the HEAD!"

2. Women are people, not aliens. They are easy to talk to and if you want something from them, just ask.

1. [This one is private.]

When I was a teenager Fred treated me with respect and dignity, long before Denny did. He was one who taught me decency and humility, and humor. I am very sorry he is gone.