$$$$ Where's My Money? $$$$

Everyone has that skeleton in their closet and the nagging confession that’s been hiding in their stomach for years, aching to get out. I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts but I certainly believe that once you feel like you have everything in life under control, something terrible goes wrong. The past will always haunt you just when you think everything is perfect. 

Somewhere along those lines is the underlying theme of the Advanced Directing Project Where’s My Money? Written by John Patrick Shanley and directed by Darcy McGill.

I had no idea what this play was about. I didn’t know any of the cast only one member of the crew, so last week after my Wednesday class I grabbed a program and a seat at the New Studio Theater at Columbia College’s theater building at 72 East 11th Street.

I had never been to the New Studio Theater, I didn’t even know it existed it is in the basement. I liked the set up a lot more than the Getz Theater on the first floor. The New Studio Theater is more intimate and personal, better view all around, and it seemed a little more organized.

The setting was well built, the team of designers start with an empty space and work from there when is comes to Level 4 Directing Projects. The setting consisted of a coffee shop, an apartment, as well as an office. All well built and formed, believable and the transitions between all of them flowed nicely. 

The play begins in the coffee shop part of the stage where two old co-workers, Celeste played by Grace Odumosu and Natalie played by Hilary Williams, find themselves at the same coffee shop many years later and decide to share a table. Over a course of what felt to be too long at times confessions are told as well as secrets. After catch up and the truth a weird thing happens, enter Tommy a zombie with really good make-up played by Tyler Prinz and Natalie’s ex boyfriend who returns from the dead to get his money that she owes him. Both women leave the coffee shop a little sore from the truth as well as a little frightened from seeing a zombie. There really is an emphasis on “it is a small world” throughout the play. Everyone seems to be connected somehow. Someone they know knows the other who knows your mom whose dog is your dog’s sister. Natalie’s lawyer husband Henry played by Keith Falconer is friends with Sidney, who is also a lawyer and played by Matt Trudeau. Sidney is married to Marcia Marie, a hilarious character and housewife, played by Jade Phillips who Sidney is cheating on with Celeste. See what I mean everyone knows someone who knows someone and everyone has a story. 

There were times during a few scene where my mind would wonder off and think about other things like “damn I have to check out a camera” or “shit that paper is do on Monday.” I would then come down from where ever I was and realize the scene still wasn’t over and it should have been 5 daydreams ago. The actors who played Celeste, Sidney, and Marcia Marie were my favorite and absolutely hilarious. Jade Phillips who played Marcia Marie didn’t get a lot of stage but got her time in the spotlight. She was hysterical; the scene when she goes nuts on Sidney because she knows about his affair with Celeste is a riot, the audience was rolling. 

The end of the play when all the cast comes out to take a bow is the highlight and a great ending to the show. The lights start to flicker and Michael Jackson’s Thriller begins to play and the cast enters to begin their choreographed dance. 

Where’s My Money? is a bore at times, but with a fabulous cast, excellent make-up, hysterical laughs it equals out to be a true thriller.