What does actress Amanda Peet know about playwriting? Actually a lot. In her new world premiere play at the Geffen Playhouse, she tells quite a good story with director Tyne Rafaeli and a talented cast.

The show opens with a scruffy tennis coach Jay (Joe Tippett NBC's Rise) in his 30s and a precocious 10-year-old girl Carlin (Abigail Dylan Harrison). Raised by a single mom Cyn (Mamie Gummer in HBO’s True Detective and also Meryl Streep’s daughter), Carlin takes up the game of tennis at the local park courts, and Jay notices her talent. Once a tennis star and now a bartender, he believes he can nourish Carlin’s tennis potential.

When I noticed a well-dressed man and a little furry dog walk into the lobby of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, I immediately recognized Jeremy Irons. His purposeful stride had a distinguished air compared to the nearby theatre attendees near the bar or waiting for the theatre doors to open. While asking a staff member if Jeremy Irons just walked in, she replied “Yes, he and Smudge just arrived.” He had about 35 minutes to dress and prepare for his role of James Tyrone in the Eugene O’Neill award-winning play A Long Day's Journey into Night.

Walking into the Geffen Playhouse to take my seat, I was wowed by scenic designer Rachel Myers dramatic and detailed two-story set. Downstairs is a break room with metal lockers, bulletin boards, tables and chairs, and a small kitchenette. One immediately can tell this is set in Detroit with stickers of the city’s hockey team the Red Wings and football team the Lions on the wall.

Upstairs is an assembly line with automotive wheel rims hanging down. When one of the workers power up the drill to work on the moving silver rims, smoke rises and dissipates near the UAW (United Automobile Workers of America) Local 167 sign hanging over in the corner.

A chain link fence with barbed wire is partially peeking out along both the front stage wings.

Sitting in the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood, an older gentleman and two young girls sitting in the front row, step onstage to make an announcement. The man is Benson Schaeffer, the father of Rebecca Shaeffer and the girls are her cousins. Benson informs us he is the husband of the performer, and father of Rebecca. The girls (one looks like a young Rebecca) request audience members to silence their cell phones. As they go back to their seats next to other family members, the protagonist Danna Schaeffer takes the stage. This is her play, that she wrote, to share the story and honor her daughter. She begins telling the audience how giddy with excitement she and Benson were about the accomplishments of their only child. Rebecca had achieved so much at such a young age. Her world was her oyster until July 18, 1989. 

It’s not often I find myself sitting behind the playwright of the production I’m attending but that was the case as I was directly behind David Henry Hwang during his latest work, “Soft Power”. Hwang has had great luck and success at Center Theatre Group, where he premiered Pulitzer Prize finalist “Yellow Face” and his Tony-nominated revival “Flower Drum Song.”

The name of the show Forever Bound has so many innuendos, starting with the program featuring a large cockroach bound by tape. The opening of Forever Bound begins with a lovely redhead girl Miranda (Emily Goss) walking slowly with vacant eyes, while holding a gas mask. Is she “Forever Bound” to believe that her world is about to end? Playwright Steve Apostolina’s literary comedy turns into a chilling thriller, with a surprising moral twist.

I wanted to love the continuation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera in the sequel Love Never Dies. I was a huge fan of the musical when it premiered at the Pantages Theatre in the 1990s starring Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman. I went back to see the beloved musical again, when television actor Robert Guillaume replaced Crawford in Los Angeles. He was the first African-American actor to play Phantom, and was a sensation.