"Evenings with the Boys in the Backroom" is a world premiere staged reading Sunday, May 5, benefitting the Friends of the Altadena Library.
The Movable Theater Company presents the play by Peter Adum & Joyce Fante at 3 PM at the Altadena Main Library Community Room, 600 E. Mariposa Street. Tickets are $20, and available at the main library circulation desk.
Based on actual conversations that occurred between 1938 and 1940 in Stanley Rose’s Hollywood book shop, the play chronicles the friendships between Rose (J. Todd Howell) and some of his book store customers: John Fante (Joe Estavez), William Saroyan (Shaun Duke Moosekian), Nathanael West (David Datz) and Carey McWilliams (Bruce Nehlsen). In the back of the shop was a room where Rose and his friends drank, played cards, read the racing forms, argued, discussed ideas, gossiped and found the inspiration for many of their most famous works. This was pure Hollywood during the “Golden Age” of studios, movies, glamour, big deals and even bigger dreams in the middle of the Depression. Also featuring Karen M. Louis and Evelyn Ortiz.
"Evenings with the Boys in the Backroom" deals with adult themes.