A promising if rather grim dark comedy premise yields less than satisfying results in Bill Fitzhugh’s “New Play with Music” The Altruist, a World Premiere production at North Hollywood’s the Group Rep.

The altruist in question is Sean Adams (Joe Clabby), a young man with the great misfortune of being given not one but two terminal diagnoses in a row by his physician/best friend Dr. Mark Taylor (Larry Toffer).

Sean is, sad to say, soon to meet his maker, though whether this “hideous and incurable path to a miserable death” (Dr. Mark’s words, not mine) will be from Lou Gehrig’s disease or the highly malignant glioblastoma that’s been found in poor Sean’s brain is anyone’s guess.

Leave it to the ever-cheerful Mark to come up with a plan that, while it won’t prolong his longtime bff’s life could well rescue those in need of a transplanted heart, or kidney, or liver, or spleen, or pancreas, or either of Sean’s two lungs.

All Sean has to do is donate his soon-to-be-useless organs to needy potential recipients and voila, as many as eight lives will be saved, though not unfortunately Sean’s, or at least that might be the outcome were it not for some pesky legal issues raised by Sean and Marks’ college chum-turned-lawyer friend Kristine (Lindsey Garcia Freiberg).

Fortunately for the stymied threesome, who should enter their lives but has-been Broadway performer/producer Leonard Stratten (Lee Grober) with a plan to turn Sean’s story into a flashy Broadway musical, and though the show is likely to cost up to fifteen million dollars, at least its creative team won’t have to shell out big bucks for songs, there being a plethora of pre-1930 hits (old chestnuts like 1904’s “Give My Regards To Broadway,” 1922’s “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, (Goo’bye),” and the same year’s “Yes, We Have No Bananas”) now in the public domain.

Unfortunately for audiences, not only is Sean’s story unlikely to make it to Broadway, it’s hard for this reviewer to imagine The Altruist living on past its NoHo World Premiere, and not just because of the challenges of making a pair of terminal illnesses come across as funny.

Even performers blessed with song-and-dance gifts that the Group Rep ensemble largely lack and a Broadway budget a thousand times greater than the one on display here would have a hard time captivating an audience as The Altruist’s second act turns into a series of legal and courtroom proceedings punctuated by largely lackluster production numbers and a string of melodies that may have driven Broadway audiences wild in the early 20th century but now sound dated to this reviewer’s ears, though Fitzhugh does score points for some cleverly rewritten lyrics.

That’s not to say that director Bruce Kimmel and his cast don’t give it their all, if at times a bit too much as is the case with Julie Davis (as talk show piranha Lynn Fontaine), Constance Mellors (as a gavel-crazed Judge Parady), and Lloyd Pedersen (as Dr. Alex Pryor, the bewigged author of “Celebrating Selfishness”).

Tori Austin, Angie Lin, Isabella Sawoski, and Htet Waiyan complete the cast as an enthusiastic Greek Chorus for whom choreographer Cheryl Baxter has wisely devised dance steps that don’t require trained hoofers.

Shon LeBlanc’s costumes are the most colorful and clever elements in an otherwise competent if unremarkable production design completed by Carter Vickers (set), Devin Harris (lighting), and John Harvey (sound).

The Altruist is produced for the Group Rep by Doug Haverty and Genu Lee. Orchestrations are by Richard Allen. Cady Loeb is assistant costumer. Kiana Irene is sound mixer. Sylvie Wylie is stage manager. Nora Feldman is publicist.

I salute Group Rep for attempting a World Premiere musical (yes, The Altruist is a musical and not as its writer describes “a tragicomedy in two acts, with some singing”), but good intentions aren’t enough to guarantee a show that works.

At the very least, The Altruist’s heart is in the right place, as are its lungs, liver, kidney, pancreas, and spleen.

The Group Rep Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood.
www.thegrouprep.com

–Steven Stanley
January 16, 2026
Photos: Doug Engalla

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Tags: Bill Fitzhugh, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Group Rep