Buyer & Cellar by Jonathan Tolins at The Studio Players

Directed by Brett Marston. Buyer & Cellar is a sharp, hilarious one-man comedy that follows Alex More, a struggling actor in Los Angeles who’s down on his luck after losing his job at Disneyland. Desperate for work, he lands a bizarre but intriguing gig: managing the private “shopping mall” in the basement of Barbra Streisand’s Malibu home.

Yes—an actual mall, all for one customer: Barbra herself.

At first, Alex’s job is lonely and surreal, but everything changes when Streisand begins visiting the basement. The two strike up an unlikely rapport, blending starstruck admiration with moments of genuine connection, awkward humor, and underlying tension. As Alex becomes more entangled in this strange world, he begins to question whether their relationship is real friendship—or just another illusion created by fame and power.

Told entirely from Alex’s point of view, the play is a fast-paced storytelling tour-de-force in which one actor embodies multiple characters, shifting seamlessly between voices, personalities, and perspectives. Beneath the comedy, Buyer & Cellar explores themes of celebrity obsession, loneliness, ambition, and the fragile line between fantasy and reality.