Lordy Mercy

Ojai Performing Arts Theater (OPAT) announces a new show, an original comedy, written and performed by our Emmy winning Artistic Director, Richard Camp.

The show is an irreverent, laugh-out-loud comedy about people who have been dealt the bottom card from the deck but lived, thrived and survived.

“Up until I was about five years old,” Camp said, “I thought everyone in the world was deformed because everyone in my immediate family WAS… a stepdaddy with a crossed eye so you couldn’t tell who he was yelling at, our sweet Baptist church piano player with missing fingers who could almost get the chords right, an aunt with a cleft palate who could almost form words and her husband with a backward club foot who could ‘kick your butt comin’ or goin.’” But, nobody pitied them, they were accepted as they were.”

The show’s stepping off point is a five year old’s first funeral, where he interacts with all these characters who “scared the bejesus out of him” and starts to wrap his young mind around the concept of god at the funeral service, where the pallbearers drop the casket.

“You laugh all the way through,” OPAT CEO Joan Kemper said. “The main character’s southern accent makes the show even funnier.”

A comedy mixed with heartfelt moments, the show is produced by OPAT but plays at the Ojai Art Center, where its Board has graciously allowed us to rent the theater.  It runs one weekend only, just three chances to see it.