Your final chance to see The Good Steno in LA!

This weekend is the last weekend of the show. We have been so fortunate to share it with full houses every night for the past six weeks. Make sure you come out this weekend the final weekend of The Good Steno.

The reviews continue to pour in - here are a few from The LA Times, Calendar Live:
Jessica West Wood, CA
I just saw The Good Steno last night and can't wait to grab some friends and head back to see it again! Entertaining from start to finish!

Nicole Gil North Hollywood, CA
Certainly one of the best productions I've seen at the Hayworth! It's filled to the brim with energy and depth. I can't stop raving about Gloria's (Noelle Arzillo) performance!

shane kearns LOS ANGELES, CA
Wow! What a night of unique and original theater! This is a powerful new play that rips your heart out with laughs and tears! We are lucky to have it here in LA first because it is surely destined for the New York stage and beyond! Shane Kearns

Jessica Seattle, WA
A fabulous production, excessively talented cast, and a compelling script. The Good Steno has it all. Louis Giambalvo brought so much complexity to the character of Jack, he was our favorite. Don't miss this play.

Another Weekend of Full Houses

The Good Steno continues to impress audiences and critics alike...!

Here's a recent review written on the Los Angeles Times - Calendar Live:

Lead actor/director Paul Ben-Victor cowrote this gem with his mother Leah Kornfeld Friedman, based on her experiences as a stenographer in the NYC garment center in 1946. Ben-Victor is a crazed bundle of energy as Morty & Louis Giambalvo manages to make dirty-old-man Jack a likeable kind of guy. Talented dancer Nick Drago makes a great Gene Kelly, a sultry trio of actresses (Erin Cummings, Johanna Torell, and Veronica Alicino) portray models, a mother, and a gypsy, and Andrew Hawkes skillfully morphs into three very different roles. The best reason to see The Good Steno is discovery Noelle Arzillo as Gloria (think a blonde Jewish New Yawk Mary Tyler Moore). On stage the entire play (or so it seemed), Arzillo manages to be both naive and knowing, cuddly cute and fierce as a tigress. Her "I ain't down yet" spunk is a delight to watch.

Michael Janofsky of the Bloomberg News raves...

...about The Good Steno! After enjoying the play he interviewed the mother-son team of Leah Kornfeld Friedman and Paul Ben-Victor...

Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- At the raucous curtain call on the opening night of ``The Good Steno'' in Los Angeles two weeks ago, the leading actor summoned the playwright to join the cast on stage.

``Where's the author?'' Paul Ben-Victor, who also directed the new play, called out. ``Where's Ma?''

From the seats to his left in the tiny Hayworth Theater, Leah Kornfeld Friedman made her way to the stage, smiling with a flush of embarrassment. Ben-Victor grabbed his mother's hand and kissed her cheek.

It was a sweet moment for a pre-Beatnik era Beatnik from New York, a former actress and painter whose playwriting efforts began after she turned 50 in 1991, with a well-reviewed Off- Broadway show, ``Club Soda,'' among her best efforts. She's now 75 and not, on the evidence, past her prime. (click to read the whole article)

Julio Martinez of Variety says...

...of the February 23rd performance of The Good Steno -

"Waif-like Brooklyn-born teen Gloria (Noelle Arzillo) is a naive steno school grad who finds herself having to explain a whole lot of nasty doings to a sympathetic but relentless NYPD detective (Michael Oberlander). Gloria recalls her experiences at the garment district swimsuit factory ruled over by the impishly comical but grotesquely sleazy owner Morty (Paul Ben-Victor).

"Idealistic Gloria is pitted against Morty's ruthless bullying and his insistence that his models "entertain" potential buyers in the factory's backroom. Gloria works to avoid the lecherous and intimidating advances of the factory's middle-aged top salesman Jack (Louis Giambalvo); she has had her own horrific backroom experience with a sadistic salesman (Andrew Hawkes).

"Also compelling are the hard-luck experiences of swimsuit models Marli (Erin Cummings) and Hansen (Johanna Torell), and Gloria's own troubled home life with misanthropic Jewish American parents(Veronica Alicino, Hawkes)...."

"...the performances are generally first rate. Arzillo creates a haunting portrait of gentle but brave soul struggling to survive within a life-crushing environment. Ben-Victor totally inhabits the soulless but guileful Morty. Other notable perfs include Giambalvo's ever-smiling Jack, and Torell's brief but well-realized Hansen, a war widow desperately attempting to keep her modeling job and her dignity while side-stepping Morty's seething malevolence.

"Enhancing the production throughout are the period-specific costumes of Agata Maszkiewicz."

More cast and friends photos!

Opening Night Party Pictures

Opening night - The Good Steno - cast, guests and friends!

Thanks for the generous feedback!

The first six shows are under our belt and we continue to receive such wonderfully supportive feedback from audience members. The Good Steno was a labor of love, a long journey in the making and it is our great honor to be sharing it with all of you.

Thank you!!!

Here are a few of the latest comments:

We were blown away. Seriously one of the BEST plays we have seen! It was entertaining and captivating all wrapped into one piece. Everyone in the cast did a great job. A great piece of theatre, loved the story, the set, the writing, the cast the direction...well I guess you could say we loved everything about it. Bravo.
Heather and Morgan Simpson

This play is wonderful! I laughed, I cried...... the direction of this piece was astonishing - - energetic, suprising, fun and intriguing!!
Deborah Pollack

For those who haven't made it to the show yet, please be sure to get your tickets soon, we have had very full houses each night and don't want you to miss out.