THE IDIOT BOX Opens 5/29 at NoHo Arts Center

Producer Ronnie Marmo and Theatre 68 are proud to present THE IDIOT BOX - By award-winning playwright Michael Elyanow - at The NoHo Arts Center. Rick Shaw (hot off the smash hit "It's Just Sex"), will be directing the play, opening May 29th, 2015.

THE IDIOT BOX tells the story of six sitcom characters whose lives are shaken when reality crashes into their perfect world. A play about war & betrayal! It's about the deterioration of a TV sit-com and the collision of reality and denial. A glittering absurdist farce with a sinister undertow that takes hold early and never lets go. As the artifice of their lives unravels, each character discovers powerful truths about race, love, sexuality and the America outside they never knew existed - resulting in a theatrical experience.

The colorful six couldn't-be-happier, or so it seems, as penthouse-mates and include the neurotic paramedic, the spoiled rich girl, the sex-crazed male model, a new-age hippie acupuncturist, the cynical hubby and control-freak, and a stereotypical romance novelist wife. And since every sitcom must have its guest stars, "this week's episode" features appearances by a Naval Reserves doctor, and also a cabaret singer.

This disparate group and their idiosyncrasies provide comic fodder, as they become embroiled in familiar sitcom foibles - innocuous spats and predicaments such as the training of a hostile puppy - all purposely embellished with laugh tracks. Just when you get the impression that this is all nothing more than an amusing but pointless sitcom run amok, the mood subtly darkens, the sound effects cease and reality intrudes, forcing these characters to confront weightier issues of racism, sexual identity and the value of love.