Happy Labor Day Weekend!

I hope that you’ve had a good week. If you’re in the Bay Area, it’s supposed to be a scorcher this weekend with a Heat Advisory in effect until sometime Tuesday. Stay cool and stay hydrated as best you can.

I’m delving ever more deeply into tech rehearsals for my new solo play, Grandma and Me: An Ode to Single Parents. The first preview is one week from tonight, Friday September 9, at the Marsh theater in San Francisco. Performances will be Fridays at 7:30 and Saturdays at 5p. For tickets, visit themarsh.org. I’m going to do a month of previews as I tinker and fine tune the material ahead of the official Press Opening Night, Saturday, October 8 at 5 PM. This will be my fifth solo play, and I’m prouder of it than anything I’ve done to date. As the child of a single parent and a single parent of young ones myself, I think I’m able to present a unique, funny and tearful look at what the experience is like from both ends of the spectrum. Readings I’ve done for audiences around the Bay Area have gone extremely well. If the theater crowds react in the same way, I think I’ll really have something here. I’m excited and optimistic. Last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle pink section profiled the play in its Fall Arts section as a show to go see. I hope that you do!

I continue to be hard at work on the latest draft of a script for the television version of Not a Genuine Black Man with director Rob Reiner. We’ve come up with a format that is unique and cool. If we can get this made, it will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen on TV before. I’m really blessed to be working with Rob and his producing partner/wife Michele. They’re crazy busy with a dozen other projects in the hopper, including prepping Spinal Tap 2 and a documentary of director Albert Brooks. Somehow Rob finds time to read every single page of every draft I’m writing and offer detailed notes and tweaks. It’s heady stuff when I think about the fact that he did the same thing with Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally), Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men and The American President) and William Goldman (The Princess Bride). Sometimes I pinch myself and think, “What the hell am I doing in this company??” 

I’m really glad I’m busy right now though.

I mentioned in last week’s edition that I was having a bit of a difficult time as I suddenly became an empty-nester when my youngest found his first apartment and moved out two weeks ago. Thank you to the anonymous reader who sent me a lovely card, encouraging me to “hang in there.” It truly meant a lot to me. To suddenly be spending my days without a kid of mine under my roof for the first time since 1989 is not easy. Truth be told, at times, it’s excruciating. Especially being single. I grew up in a house full of people and then I raised a house full of people. Being alone is not something I do well. The silence is at times unbearable.

Usually, I give you tips for things to go, do and see in Copie’s Choice. This week, I’m going to ask for your help. If you’re an empty-nester, especially an empty-nester who was a single parent, I’d appreciate any tips you can give me on how you made it through the transition. How’d you pull off a life change so drastic? I don’t even know how to grocery shop for one. Should I burn my Costco card? Any advice you can give me about navigating this new chapter, I sure would appreciate. And please, don’t say to rent out a room or get a roommate. I’m too old for that. Thanks in advance.

Got a few recommendations for you this week:

BOOKS

Directed by James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories from the Legendary Director of TAXI, CHEERS, FRASER, FRIENDS, WILL & GRACE and More 

By James Burrows

I finally finished the Burrows book and savored every page. I initially recommended this book a few weeks ago when I first started reading it and I told you that it was so good, I didn’t want it to end. After concluding it, I really am bummed that it’s over. It’s a terrific read, chock full of anecdotes on some of the stars and behind the scenes trials and tribulations of some of television’s most legendary shows.

COPIE’S CHOICE: READ! READ! READ!

The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family

By Ron Howard & Clint Howard

I’m currently reading the Howard brothers’ fantastic memoir on growing up in a Hollywood family and surviving child stardom and coming out the other side in one piece. Not an easy task. It takes remarkable character, but even more importantly, amazing parents. Great stories on their childhood careers: Ron (The Music Man, The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days) and Clint (Gentle Ben) but so far, I’m finding that it’s really a book about family, and that, I love. I’m not finished with it, but I’m enjoying it immensely. 

COPIE’S CHOICE: READ