Tiny Office...Beeeeeeeeeg Show

My best friend and college roommate Jen works as the Executive Assistant to this theatre company called JARADOA Theater. The name stands for Just A Room Full of Artists Doing Outreach And Theater.

Their latest show, "I'll Be Damned" just opened at the Vineyard Theatre. I got to see it on Tuesday night, and I've got to say, it wasn't what I was expecting, which is to say it completely impressed me. I don't want this to sound too much like a review, because I wasn't really looking with a critical eye. I was there to enjoy, and I did.

Up until this moment my entire impression of Jaradoa has been of their office, which like most New York City office space, is pretty tiny. It could fit inside the bathroom of the house I grew up in, in Queens, and every time I'm there it is inhabited by only Jen, her boss April, and maybe an intern. In truth, if all three of those people were in the office at the same time, I probably wouldn't fit.

But from this teeny tiny office has come a truly great production. It's a new musical about a geeky, home schooled boy named Louis who agrees to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for Satan finding him a friend. And when almost every play, musical, movie and television show out there seems to revolve around some forbidden (and more often lately, supernatural) love story, I thought it absolutely refreshing that this musical was about something so simple and easy to relate to as just wanting one true friend. Someone who likes you for who you really are.

We've all been (or felt like) that lonely kid at one point in our lives. Louis sketches comic books, some of us write short stories, or have elaborate fantasies, but it's all to the same end: Imagining ourselves as well-liked and popular. It was a sweet story, mostly funny but with some really poignant moments as well.

The performances were really strong as well. Mary Testa was fantastic, as expected. She made some comedic choices that I thought were truly brilliant, and I was always engaged when she was onstage. And then she was able to completely flip her character on her ear and have some moments of real depth and sincerity as well, particularly in the song "Mother's Day."

Jacob Hoffman played Louis, leaving me pretty baffled as to how this kid could have no friends when I fell immediately in love with him. He found a really nice balance between the stereotypical pop-culture "nerdy-kid-who-turns-out-to-be-cool," and the actual, real-life weird kind that we all went to school with. The one who wore sweatpants every day.

And of course, guaranteed to be one of the more bad-ass performances was Satan, played by Kurt Robbins. Is it wrong to be rooting for the devil? Is that a bad thing? Because that's exactly what happened. One of my favorite parts of the show was the song "Alone," in which Satan describes what Hell is like to Louis.

Also, Andrea Varga put him in some very tight pants.

This whole thing has left me with a pretty strong desire to become more involved with Jaradoa, which I would recommend to anyone else reading this. In addition to productions, they do several after-school programs, teaching literacy and also working with teenagers who have been convicted of felonies.

Seriously, if I had any money, I would give it to them.