DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD: 100% Sweet

Stephen John Williams as CB (left) and Dana DeRuyck as Van’s sister (right on his lap).

SWEET
Perhaps it was the long-awaited dawning of the sunshine on Saturday morning, or the breath of refreshingly honest air each moment the actors shared, but I felt uplifted by the dark, heavy, and sometimes scary piece. My inner bully laughed at their careless treatment of friends but my heart, and the very-vocal souls sitting beside me in the audience, wept to relate to their ignorance and uncertainty. While I can’t say my mind was blown, I can whole-heartedly assert that Urban Theatre Movement’s production established the collective as a promising and ambitious company worth watching.
K. Primeau – LA Theatre Review

SWEET
Honoring that legacy, Royal’s play explodes with physical and emotional abuse, and CB’s coming out of the closet results in a tragic finale. This all unfolds neatly on Rebecca Patrick’s set — two swings, a graffiti-pocked wall and bleachers. Director Mike Dias would do better with sharper pacing, but he has skillfully balanced the light and dark elements. Rounding out the excellent cast are Lisa Valerie Morgan, Collins Reiter and Mikayla Park.
Lovell Estelle III – LA Weekly

SWEET
Perhaps the most classic, poignant line in the show is “dog sees god in his master; cat just looks in the mirror.” With a heavy heart, CB appreciates this analogy and with a renewed sense of wonder and optimism, life goes on. The audience will feel enabled, through the help of these fictional favorites, to grapple with topics once considered taboo, such as homosexuality, alcoholism, teen violence and drug addictions. Each character, from the Goth (Lisa Valerie Morgan) to the institutionalized (Dana DeRuyck) and gay (Jesse James Roth) comes alive with great energy and pithy, priceless commentaries on life as they know it. The show’s ending monologue, waxing poetic, is particularly moving, in the form of a letter to Charlie Brown: “Dear CB, you’re a good man—immerse yourself in life, a place where kindness and respect… even in perfect happiness, there’s always regret…laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and they laugh even harder…”
Bonnie Priever – Tolucan Times