2010 Season 31
OCT presents
A wild comic romp...with no taxes!
LOVE, SEX and the I.R.S.
written by
William Van Zandt & Jane Milmore
directed by Ken Roberts
June 11-12-13
Portville Central School Auditorium (map it)
Here is a wild farce with twists of fate, sight gags, mistaken identities and hilarious comic lines. Jon Trachtman and Leslie Arthur are out of work men--musicians who room together in New York City. To save money, Jon has been filing tax returns listing the pair as a married.
The day of reckoning comes when the Internal Revenue Service informs the "couple" they're going to be investigated by a Mr. Spinner. Leslie masquerades as a housewife, aided by Jon's fiancee, Kate.
Complicating matters further Leslie and Kate are having an affair behind Jon's back, Jon's mother drops in unexpectedly to meet her son's fiancee, and Leslie's ex girlfriend shows up demanding to know why Leslie has changed and won't see her anymore.
ABOUT LOVE, SEX, AND THE I.R.S.
by co-author Billy Van Zandt
1979 - A simpler time. When car jacks were something we changed a tire with, and the only crack we ever saw was on the back of a plumber’s pants. It was during this innocent time when “Love Sex, and the I.R.S.” first saw the light of day
I was in Los Angeles as an actor and bored out of my skull as I sat around on the set of the first “Star Trek” movie. Jane Milmore (my girlfriend at the time) smuggled my Smith-Corona typewriter onto the lot and we passed the time in my dressing room between takes writing what eventually became “Love, Sex, and the I.R.S.” Basically meant as nothing more than a showcase for me to do a lot of “I Love Lucy” gags, we had no idea the success that lay ahead of us.
TICKETS:
$8.00 General Admission
$7.00 Senior Citizen & Under 18
THE CAST
Kate Dennis..........Alyssa Dechow (Randolph)
Leslie Arthur..........Colin Sullivan (Olean)
Mr. Jansen..........Ken Roberts (Portville)
Jon Trachtman..........Tim Hollamby (Olean)
Floyd Spinner..........Moses Howden (Olean)
Vivian Trachtman..........Marcia McAndrew (Bradford, PA)
Connie..........Patty Howden (Olean)
Arnold Grunion..........James Smith (Eldred, PA)
THE PRODUCTION STAFF
Producer..........Charlotte Roberts
Director..........Ken Roberts
Stage Manager..........Judy Chiariello
Stage Crew..........Tammy Aaron
Tech Crew..........Rodney Stebbins
We had never written a full-length play before. And what’s more, we knew nothing of rewrites. Also, this being the late seventies, we were prisoners of the typewriter. Rewrites consisted of replacing nine word jokes with nine word jokes, just so I wouldn’t have to retype the entire manuscript over from page one every time we changed something. It’s for this same indolent reason Jon Trachtman is “Jon” Trachtman and not “John” Trachtman. I was too lazy to type the extra “h.”
Our friends Kathy Reed and Denis Lynch produced the first production, which opened on the top floor of the Dam Site Dinner-Theater (now the Gristmill Restaurant in Tinton Falls) June 1, 1979. It was Kathy Reed who talked us into the title. Running the most successful dinner-theater in the state at the time she claimed, “Sex sells.” As a result, we went from the unfortunate title of “Tax My Mistress” to the final title that has made us an April 15 staple around the country.
We opened to rave reviews from the all the local papers, which we used to show Samuel French - the world’s leading publisher of plays. More surprising than just hearing they were going to publish our show, they told us they would also take our “next two.” Unaware we were even going to write a second play at the time, we figured the people at Samuel French knew better than we did. So we pulled out the typewriter and started writing what became the second of what are now twenty-two plays.
“Love, Sex, and the I.R.S.” is still one of our biggest successes. It’s been produced in over 10,000 theaters, performed every day of the year in some theater somewhere - regional theaters, summer stocks, dinner-theaters, community theaters, high school productions (where we are constantly asked to take the word “sex” out of the title). It’s even been performed in Japan, Brazil, Germany, Canada, England, France and Spain.
I don’t know whatever happened to the Smith-Corona.
source: http://www.vanzandtmilmore.com
