The SantaLand Diaries - 2015

Previews Thursday, December 3 and Friday, December 4 at 8pm

Runs December 5–20, 2015
Friday & Saturday at 8:00pm; Sunday at 3:30pm

Tickets: $29.50
(Previews $19.50)

Toast the holidays with a complimentary glass of champagne or non-alcoholic eggnog, included in the ticket price!

The SantaLand Diaries is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

"A delightfully thorny account of working as a Yuletide elf at Macy's.
​Priceless observations, both outrageous and subtle.
Destined to hold a place in the annals of American humor writing."
—The New York Times

​When it was first broadcast on National Public Radio, The SantaLand Diaries generated more requests for tapes than any story in This American Life’s history except the death of Red Barber. Now Matthew Wrather dons the candy-cane tights and brings the story to life in this outrageously funny one-man play from NPR’s well-loved humorist David Sedaris about the author’s experiences as an unemployed writer taking a job as an elf at Macy’s department store in New York City, taking a wry look at how the holiday season brings out the best – and the worst – in us all.

"A sardonic, merrily subversive tale—just the antidote to bright-eyed joy before too many shopping days have passed. Worth more than a photo album full of Santas!"
—NY Newsday

SantaLand features Matthew Wrather and is helmed by Playhouse Artistic Director Chris DeCarlo. Appropriately cheerful holiday costumes by award-winning designer Ashley Hayes, outrageous yuletide set by James Cooper and sound design by The Attic Room. George J Vennes III does double duty as Technical Director and Production Stage Manager. (Not suitable for under-15s.)

"A satirical brazenness that holds up next to Twain and Nathanael West." The New Yorker

David Sedaris is an American humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. He was publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay “SantaLand Diaries.” He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994. His next five essay collections, Naked, Holidays on Ice, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, became New York Times Best Sellers. As of 2015, his books have sold ten million copies. Much of Sedaris' humor is ostensibly autobiographical and self-deprecating, and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina and his Greek heritage.

Matthew Wrather* is an actor whose career, begun as a child in his native Los Angeles, spans two decades and three continents. For ten years, Matt was a member of Actors’ Repertory Theatre at Santa Monica Playhouse, appearing in nearly 1000 performances of some four dozen productions and touring with the company internationally. Matt appeared alongside Sam Waterston in Travesties at Long Wharf Theater and alongside Ed Asner in the short film The Raft. Additional film credits include the titular character in Lucas Mirelles’s black comedy A Bad Person and a would-be terrorist with pangs of conscience in Iris Hefler’s Brother’s Keeper, produced by Academy Award-winner Bobby Moresco. Stage work includes Lt. Charles in The Adding Machine, directed by SITI Company’s J. Ed Araiza, and the initial reading of Paula Vogel’s A Civil War Christmas, directed by Tina Landau. This fall he did double-duty as performer and music director in the revival of Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford's I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road, directed by Ms. Cryer. Beyond acting, Matt is an accomplished singer, pianist, and composer, with two full-length musicals and dozens of musical theater songs to his credit. And he is founder and editor-in-chief of Overthinking It, a successful website for pop culture nerds. He holds an M.F.A. from UCLA and his B.A. from Yale.

Veteran director Chris DeCarlo has been acting, writing and directing in Los Angeles for more than 40 years, bringing to the stage over 250 World Premieres and American Premieres, including the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground, Hard Laughs starring Sammy Shore and Ron Palillo, Michel Garneau’s Quatre á Quatre, Stephen King and Robert B. Parker’s RAGE, Brenda Krantz’s Lovely!, starring Louise Sorrell, the Ovation-nominated Picon Pie, Todd Susman’s Locked and Loaded, and the long-running Wyse-Rae-Waldman hit musical Funny, You Don’t Look Like a Grandmother.

*Member of Actors' Equity Association