The Anti-Holiday Holiday Show THE SANTALAND DIARIES Returns To Santa Monica Playhouse

For the third year running Santa Monica Playhouse ushers in the holiday season with David Sedaris' sardonic modern holiday classic The SantaLand Diaries - featuring Patrick Censoplano in the lead as an unemployed writer taking a job as an elf at Macy's department store in New York City - on stage now through December 17, 2017,

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. Timothy Olyphant brought the story to life on stage off-Broadway, and now Patrick Censoplano dons the candy-cane tights n this outrageously funny one-man play, adapted by Joe Montello from NPR's well-loved humorist David Sedaris's story about his experiences working in SantaLand. It's a wry look at how the holiday season brings out the best - and the worst - in us a

Patrick Censoplano, reprising the role from last year, will also be familiar to Playhouse audiences from his roles in the world premieres Lisa Phillips Visca's Climax and Turning Thirty; the Rudie/DeCarlo musical productions of Adults, Keep Out! , and Beauty & the Beast as well as the titular characters in all-male productions of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Dorothy's Adventures in Oz. Notable TV and film credits include Grey's Anatomy (co-star), Fame (principal), and Gettin' It (starring). Recent credits include the multiple award winning dramatic short Our Father starring Michael Gross and Michael Worth.

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, the long-running Wyse-Rae-Waldman hit musical Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother. Among his LA TIMES Critics' Pick productions are Doug Knott's Last of the Knotts, the Silver Anniversary production of Jerry Mayer's Aspirin & ELEPHANTS, the Sroka/Fleming comedy Dying for Laughs starring Stuart Pankin and Charlie Lustman's pop operetta Made Me Nuclear. Recent credits: Santa Monica Playhouse's critically acclaimed productions of Arnold Schulman's Sleeping Ugly, Al Kallis's A DeLusional Affair and Jerry Mayer's 2 ACROSS, Almost Perfect and How To Love A Republican.

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.

Joseph Mantello is an American actor and director best known for his work on Broadway productions of Wicked, Take Me Out and Assassins, as well as earlier in his career being one of the original Broadway cast of Angels in America. Mantello directed The Ritz, his sixth production with playwright Terrence McNally, in 2007. Mantello directed the Jon Robin Baitz play Other Desert Cities at the Booth Theater in 2011. He returned to acting with the role of Ned Weeks in the Broadway limited engagement revival of The Normal Heart for which he was nominated for the Tony Award. Mantello had previously been nominated for the Tony Award for his role as Louis in Angels in America.

The SantaLand Diaries plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, Sundays at 3:00pm through December 17, 2017. Tickets are $29.50, and include a pre-show glass of champagne or non-alcoholic eggnog, cCall the Playhouse Box Office at 1-310-394-9779 ext.1 or buy on line at http://SantaMonicaPlayhouse.com

Santa Monica Playhouse Main Stage is at 1211 4th Street (between Wilshire and Arizona) in the heart of downtown Santa Monica. Convenient parking is across the street in city lot #1. By public transportation: take the Santa Monica Blue Bus or the LA Metro Rapid #720,exit at 4th and Wilshire or the Expo-Line to 4th and Colorado and walk north up 4th Street.

Santa Monica Playhouse is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, by the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission, and by U.S. Bank.

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