As audiences clamor for more, Brad Zimmerman's "My Son the Waiter, A Jewish Tragedy" is heaping on another piping-hot block of tickets. One of the season's tastier hits, the critically acclaimed one-man crowd-pleaser is on sale at the Triad Theatre, 158 West 72nd Street, through Sunday April 5.
Originally scheduled to end its twelve-week, Off-Broadway premiere engagement on New Year's Eve, Zimmerman's deliciously self-skewering account of three decades of underachievement as a beloved bad waiter, announced its first extension to March 2 in December. The NY Times has recently called it "powerfully poignant." Now the table's being set for another five weeks.
Written and directed by Zimmerman, "My Son the Waiter" tells the story of how Zimmerman, now pushing 60, waited tables in New York for a mind-numbing 29 years, before finally overcoming his fears to study stand-up comedy, and write a one-man show about waiting until his mid-50s to perform on stage.
A unique hybrid of long-form stand-up and theatre, "My Son the Waiter" has been called "easily the funniest show to hit Off-Broadway since 'Old Jews Telling Jokes," by Curt Schleier in The Forward, who pulls no punches by adding that it's "belly shaking funny." In her glowing assessment in The Times, Anita Gates called the show "Delicious. Distinctly original and bittersweetly on target."
An Oradell NJ native, Zimmerman attended Riverdell High School and was bar mitzvahed at Temple Emmanuel in Westwood, NJ. He started his waiting career in the late '70s eventually working at a string of now defunct restaurants where he insists he never memorized the menu, making an art form out of underselling the food.
In the past decade the late-blooming Zimmerman finally broke his losing streak as a struggling waiter, opening for comedy legends
Joan Rivers and George Carlin. (Rivers once called him "the best comic... in his price range.") But he continued waiting tables, still unable to fully commit himself to acting and comedy. He handed out his last check there in 2012.
Prior to New York, Zimmerman toured "My Son the Waiter" this past summer in such cities as San Diego; Arlington, MA; Coral Springs, FL; Phoenix; Owings Mills, MD, and Thousand Oaks, CA. But throughout the tour, Zimmerman made no secret of his desire to return to New York, the scene of his victimless crimes. His reception here, he says, where audiences seem to get ALL of his jokes, has been powerfully redemptive.
"My Son the Waiter, A Jewish Tragedy" is produced by
Dana Matthow and Philip Roger Roy's Playhouse Productions, Inc., the team behind "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish & I'm in Therapy," "RESPECT: A Musical Journey of Women," and "Old Jews Telling Jokes" (tour). Performances are Monday at 7pm; Friday at 7pm; Saturday at 2pm & 7pm, and Sunday at 2pm. For tickets, which range from $45 to $99 (+ a 2-drink minimum), call Smarttix at
212/868-4444 or visit
www.mysonthewaiter.com (Running time is 90 minutes.) # # #
