The Odd Couple

by Neil Simon

a Custom Made special event

directed by Leah S. Abrams

Neil Simon's The Odd Couple is perhaps the greatest of his early plays - an almost perfectly crafted examination of the battle of the sexes, except both protagonists are male!

Oscar, a typical, slovenly bachelor, is living in his beautifully decorated, but now trashed, apartment after his wife left him.  Felix, an anal-retentive neat-freak, has just been dumped by his spouse.  Thinking the company would do him good, not to mention the rent reduction, Oscar invites Felix to live with him... and so begins one of theatre history's most famous marriages.

Featuring a color-neutral, gender-blind cast, The Custom Made Theatre Company stays word-for-word true to Simon's exquisitely crafted script, while having some fun along the way.  Don't miss this hysterical comedy, as Oscar and Felix try to figure out if men are both from Mars and from Venus in
this timeless classic.

Cast and Crew

Cast

Stefin Collins (Vinnie) loves, LOVES comedies! He is grateful that he gets to continue playing, with a wonderful character like Vinnie, in The Odd Couple. Other favorite roles include: (The Actor) in God and Death with CMTC, (a Furball from hell) in Sincerity Forever also with CMTC, (Sam Greenblatt) a reanimated dead guy, in KML’s The Cheever Tapes, (Otto) in The Food Chain, and (Erronius) in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  Thanks again, Leah for trusting me to have fun.  AJ-ILYE&A.

AJ Davenport (Murray)  Though a Diva with pretensions of grandeur, AJ has never harbored a desire to carry a gun, arrest people, or ever do male drag again (remember the world's oldest living Bolshevik?).  Here she is again donning men’s clothing and using her deepest speaking voice.  Only the chance to work with Fred Pitts and his random ravings could tempt her back to the realm of the masculine.  Props out to all the other CMTC folks who shouldn't feel bad by not being the reason she signed on for this onerous duty; you guys know I love you, sorta.

David Fierro (Oscar Madison) is happy to continue working with The Custom Made Theatre Company this year.  He has trained at California State Summer School for the Arts, College of Marin, Shakespeare and Co, and the American Conservatory Theatre.  He has previously worked with: Marin Shakespeare, Center REP, TheatreFIRST, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Thrillpeddlers, Impact Theatre, Golden Thread Productions, The Mountain Play, and Berkeley Rep where he understudied such shows as The Pillowman, Mother Courage, and Argonautika.  Favorite recent roles include Scoop in The Heidi Chronicles and Snug in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He has also been seen on television in The Love Connection (three times!) and You’re Not The Man I Married (Lifetime).  David is a proud member of Theatre Bay Area and Actor's Equity.

Jay Martin (Roy)  has played in previous Custom Made productions, such as "Two Rooms," "God and Death," and "Candaules, Commissioner."  At the Fringe Festival he improvised a show about a CEO with accounting problems, "Candistan," and at LaborFest he performed the election-year memoir "I, Candidate" by Upton Sinclair.  Like everyone else in theater, he has worked on a Neil Simon play before, "God's Favorite," with the Trumbinikeh Players in Santa Cruz.

Fred Pitts (Felix Ungar)  49th in line for the throne of Luxemburg and a veteran of National Theater of Vietnam, is thrilled to be back performing with...um...what's the name of this troupe, again? Thanks to CMTC, where he was seen as Peter in The Heidi Chronicles  and as Dr. Dysart n Equss.

Gabriel A. Ross (Gwendolyn Pigeon)  has appeared in Custom Made Theatre's productions of Assassins (Oswald), The Water Engine (Lang), Equus (Alan Strang), Sincerity Forever (George) and Finding the Sun (Fergus).  He also directed The Pet Dog with the Lady for the B.O.A. Festival with C.M.T.C.  He recently appeared in Jesus Christ Superstar at The Willows Theatre.  In the fall, he appeared in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Guildenstern) at Actor's Ensemble of Berkeley and in Sleepy at Impact Theatre.  Gabriel played Felix in a tragic high school production.  He is excited to try very new things in old places.

Jessica Jade Rudholm (Cecily Pigeon)  is delighted to be a part of this production of the Odd Couple.   Jessica has most recently been seen in Tony Kushner's Slavs with CMTC in which she played Mrs. Domik.  She is a graduate of CSU Monterey Bay where she had the honor of working with Alexander Mikhailov and Benny Sato Ambush.  In the summer of 2004 Jessica attended ACT's summer training congress where she studied with Michael Carroll and the amazing ACT staff.  Jessica is a member of TBA, and she likes dumplings.

Richard Wenzel (Speed)  is really tweaked, uhm, no wait I mean, no wait, wait … happy (yeah, that’s it) really happy to be in his first Neil Simon play.  This is his fifth season with Custom Made, having just completed a successful run as Popolitipov in Slavs! which, along with Charlie Fox in Speed the Plow and Allen in Ian Walker’s Accident of Identity, was one of his favorite roles.  He would like you to know that no real cards were harmed in tonight’s poker games.  Big shout out and many thanks to all my good friends who keep coming to see me in shows (God knows why).

Staff

Leah S. Abrams (Director) is the co-founder and executive director of The Custom Made Theatre Company.  Earlier this year, she directed the West Coast premiere of Mark Eisman’s Dodo for President and Beckett in Winter II.  Other directing credits for CMTC include Lee Blessing’s Two Rooms, Beckett in Winter, and the Beckett half of Beckett/Ionesco.  Often seen on stage, favorite acting credits include The Heidi Chronicles, The Old Neighborhood, and Temptation.  This one is for the two coolest card playing guys she’s sure are watching from above.

Marci Ring (Lighting Design/Stage Manager/Props Master)  is the Technical Director of The Custom Made Theatre Company, and has had fun watching fellow company members learn to play poker (can we start playing poker on the stage again?)  Marci like juggling design work with stage management, and though has tries to take a production ‘off’, she’s designed or SM’d every show the last two seasons.

Elizabeth Creeley (Assistant Stage Manager/Props Master) received her MFA in Playwriting from San Francisco State University. Her one-act play “Four Green Fields” opened Killing My Lobster’s “Bruno’s Island” festival of short plays in 2003. Her one act play “Ibid” was given a staged reading featuring local playwrights at Valencia Street Books in San Francisco in 2002. Her one-act “Nuclear” was featured in a showcase of student work at the SFSU Greenhouse Student Works Festival at the Teatro Esperanza in San Francisco. She has worked with CMT before, having served as the dramaturge for CMT’s production of “Slavs”. She is a huge fan of everyone in the Custom Made Company, especially Jay. E. Martin, CM company member. She is “the Felix”.