Dennis Danziger is the author of the novel, A Short History of a Tall Jew and the memoir, Daddy, The Diary of an Expectant Father. His plays include Almost Men (HB Playwrights Foundation), Pennant Fever (LA Actors Theatre), Double Play (HRC Showcase Theatre), and The Richard Nixon Sex Tapes and Other Presidential Nightmares (a full-length play composed of 12 one-act plays, including Shalom Vietnam (William Inge Theatre Festival), The Richard Nixon Sex Tapes, Trim, and Every Child Left Behind (Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre) and My Three Sons and Waiting for Ivanka (Stella Adler Theatre). TV credits include: Taxi, Kate & Allie, My Sister Sam, The White Shadow, Hometown, and Empire. His essays have appeared in Next Avenue, Shondaland, HuffPo, The Good Men Project, and United Teachers of LA. For 24 years, he taught high school English in the LAUSD, and in 2014, he co-founded with his wife, the writer Amy Friedman, the nonprofit POPS the Club (Pain of the Prison System), providing support for teens whose lives have been impacted by incarceration, detention, and deportation. He and Amy edit annual award-winning anthologies of student writing and artwork published by Out of the Woods Press and are consultants to The Pathfinder Network of Portland, Oregon, which serves system-impacted individuals. Dennis’s novel-in-progress is Can’t Teach This: Based on a True Story I’m Not Allowed to Tell.
DEDICATION
This play is dedicated to the late David Assael, my best friend, breakfast companion, racquet ball opponent (I never beat him), writer and mentor extraordinaire, and for 42 years my writing soulmate.
I moved to LA in July 1979 to write for TV, Davey was the only WGA member I knew, and I glommed onto him, hoping to learn how to become a screenwriter.
Soon after my arrival, Davey took me to Cantor’s Deli, treated me to breakfast and toward the end of the meal, ordered a piece of chocolate cheese cake, asked for two forks, and said, “So what stories do you want to tell?”
I told him about a Thanksgiving I flew home to see my father who was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. I was 25, an aspiring playwright in NYC, and back home in Houston, I realized that no one, including my mother, could bear to be around my father. Not even for five minutes. The trouble was, someone had to look after this challenging man who seemed on the verge of death, from heartbreak. Davey took a bite of cheese cake, looked up and said, “Go home and write that story.”
That afternoon I went home and wrote the first notes that 40+ years later became this play.
How I wish Davey could sit in this theater and witness what his kindness, generosity and support set in motion.