MY SON THE WAITER: A JEWISH TRAGEDY Comes to The Lake Worth Playhouse
Performances are on February 15th and 16th.
Brad Zimmerman will bring his hit New York comedy to Lake Worth in February with his autobiographical comedy, My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy. The show will run February 15th and 16th at the Lake Worth Playhouse.
My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy is the story of Zimmerman’s struggle to fulfill his dream and ‘make it’ as a comedic actor in New York. One-part standup, one-part theatrical, and all parts uproarious My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy has garnered rave reviews wherever it has played, including sold out runs Off Broadway in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Toronto, San Diego, Thousand Oaks, CA, Huntington Beach, CA., Palm Beach, FL., the Northshore PAC in Skokie, Illinois, The Gordon Center For Performing Arts in Maryland, the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and dozens of other cities throughout the USA.
Every mother dreams her children will grow up to be happy, healthy, and successful. Every Jewish mother secretly – and often not so secretly – adds specifics to her wish: A doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, or these days, a Silicon Valley tycoon would make her very happy. Brad Zimmerman’s mother has finally adapted to her ‘actor-waiter’ son’s career choice and financial situation: “If all goes well, I think Brad is going to buy a bookcase,” she boasts to her friends.
Brad Zimmerman has paid his dues. He spent 29 years “temporarily” waiting tables in New York, all the while chasing a career in acting and comedy. He tells of his pursuit, along with stories about his childhood, family, and misbegotten love life with warmth, wit, self-deprecating humor, and wicked charm, and combines his years of training as an actor with his innate comedic talent.
Zimmerman also examines the trials and tribulations of waiting on tables – particularly for someone not exactly invested in that career, and with little tolerance for persnickety diners:
“I don’t want 60 questions, get to the point!” he said he would tell restaurant patrons when he sat down for an interview for The New York Times. He joked that if diners prefaced their orders by saying they were in a hurry he would say “So go!” He says he did enjoy some of the bantering he did with diners, and often tried out material on them, however there were also ‘the bossy customers who would snap their fingers to get his attention… and the health-food obsessives who elaborately customized their orders and button-holed him over ingredients.’ As he says in My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy, he was convinced his epitaph would read “I’ll be right with you.”
His perseverance and hard work eventually did pay off, and Zimmerman went on to act - he had a small part in “The Sopranos” playing Johnny Sack’s lawyer - and to become the opening act for a number of well-known entertainers, including George Carlin, Brad Garrett, Dennis Miller, Julio Iglesias, and Joan Rivers who said “I’ve had three great opening acts in my lifetime: Billy Crystal, Garry Shandling, and Brad Zimmerman.”
Zimmerman worked on the script for My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy for 9 years and performed it in small venues all over the country, including a stint at Florida’s Stage Door Theatre, where it came to the attention of producers Dana Matthow and Philip Roy (Respect: A Musical Journey of Women, Old Jews Telling Jokes, My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish & I’m in Therapy). Since then My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy spent 2 years at Off-Broadway’s Stage 72 (Triad Theatre) in New York, and has toured the USA from coast to coast.
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