A widowed single father finds himself in hot water with the IRS soon after embarking on a phone sales job he seems woefully ill suited for in Tom Alper’s overly padded but mostly entertaining The Pitch, an Odyssey Theatre visiting production.
Alper stars as a fictionalized version of himself circa 2006 (same first name, different last), who’s spent the five years since his wife’s death living off her life insurance policy.
Now, with virtually none of that payoff left, Tom finds himself in dire need of cash, not only to pay his own bills but also those of his fifteen-year-old daughter Michelle (Katie Silverman), whose upcoming cheerleading camp is going to cost Dad a whopping $800 that his daughter doesn’t know he doesn’t have.
Complicating matters is IRS agent Mel (Michael Garey), who informs Tom that, as a result of his failing to report $47,350 in poker tournament earnings six years ago, he now owes the U.S. Treasury a whopping $75,000 in unpaid taxes, and it’s not just money Tom doesn’t have, it’s money he’s unlikely to earn anytime soon in his new phone sales job in an ethically iffy boiler room.
Fortunately for Tom, Mel goes on to propose a solution to his IRS woes.
All he has to do is secretly download his boss’s entire inventory and files onto a thumb drive, take pictures of all electronic components stored inside the warehouse, hand all of this over to Mel, and voila, his problems will be solved.
By far The Pitch’s best scenes are those taking place at Tom’s workplace as our hapless hero very slowly (and not so surely) learns the tricks of the phone sales trade from head honcho Mike (Joseph Lorenzo), office manager Scramby (Albie Selznick), fellow salesmen Skunk (Monty Renfrow) and Ricky Ray (Chris Cox), and purchaser The Kid (Connor Killeen).
Father-daughter scenes, on the other hand, while reflective of Alper’s own home environment when he was working the same kind of job as the fictionalized Tom, end up stealing focus from where the action and excitement is.
Do we really need to know that Michelle wants to quit softball for cheerleading, or that her father assumes the worst when he sees her showing a hunky 19-year-old message courier named Jason (Grant Hall) how to throw a fastball? As far as this reviewer is concerned, we don’t.
This might matter less if The Pitch didn’t have a two-hour-twenty-minute running time (including intermission), but it does, which is why I found myself checking my watch during a pivotal eleventh-hour scene between Tom and Mike instead of giving the sequence the attention it deserved.
As for the play’s surprise twist ending, a 2022 interview with the playwright would seem to imply that this wasn’t actually part of the “true story” on which The Pitch is based, and humdinger of a twist or not, my credibility was strained.
Though Alper’s shaky line delivery could stand some improvement even several weeks into the Odyssey run, I enjoyed the colorful supporting performances elicited by Louis Liberti, including Rachel Butera as Angela, a potential customer Tom whose phone call with Tom reveals a mastery of sales seduction not supported by scenes leading up to it.
Scenic designer Caterina Piccardo’s multi-locale set looks looks considerably spiffier than it appears in production stills. Jackson Funke’s lighting and Ross Chait’s sound design are both topnotch.
The Pitch is presented by Waterfront Productions. Christine Blackburn is co-producer. Andrew Blahak is stage manager.
Given that its Odyssey engagement is The Pitch’s third run in two years, it’s probably too much to hope that Tom Alper will make significant trims to his play, let alone leave Michelle and Jason on the cutting room floor.
Much as I enjoyed a good chunk of The Pitch, had its playwright/star stayed inside the boiler room throughout the show (with an occasional side trip to the IRS along the way), the Odyssey Theatre visiting production could have hit the entertainment bullseye from start to finish.
Odyssey Theatre, 2055 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles.
www.OdysseyTheatre.com
–Steven Stanley
July 27, 2024
Photos: Jessica Sherman
Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Odyssey Theatre, Tom Alper