A bad habit is hard to kill
written by: Tony Abatemarco
A reading of a new gothic farce in two acts
THE STORY: On a remote, lighthouse island off the coast of Cape Cod, the menopausal daughter of an abusive ghost attempts to undo her childhood trauma by placing an ad for a live-in helpmate. But 'help wanted' has never proved this wanton.
As an actor, TONY ABATEMARCO won the Ovation Award for Lead Actor in The Mystery of Irma Vep and he is a three-time Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle nominee for lead performance, including South Coast Rep’s Bach at Leipzig, and most recently for Red at International City Theatre, Long Beach. Tony has appeared in Long Beach Opera’s The Soldier’s Tale by Stravinsky, LA Opera's Wonderful Town by Leonard Bernstein and in the Mozart Festival’s Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart. He received two National Endowment Directing Fellowships, founded two seminal L.A. theatres: Accident Theatre and The Night House, and has directed on Broadway (Julie Harris in Lucifer’s Child), at The Arts Theatre in London’s West End (Robyn Peterson’s Catwalk Confidential), regionally and in Paris. Selected on-camera work includes How to Get Away with Murder, the films Town & Country, Sleeping with the Enemy, HBO’s Sacrifice, The L Word, E.R. and Frasier. As a playwright, he has won LA Weekly and Drama-Logue awards. His play, Beautified, world premiered at Skylight Theatre, 2012; and his latest, Forever House, premiered here in 2016. His collected plays are being published by F-Stop Books in 2018.
As an actor, TONY ABATEMARCO won the Ovation Award for Lead Actor in The Mystery of Irma Vep and he is a three-time Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle nominee for lead performance, including South Coast Rep’s Bach at Leipzig, and most recently for Red at International City Theatre, Long Beach. Tony has appeared in Long Beach Opera’s The Soldier’s Tale by Stravinsky, LA Opera's Wonderful Town by Leonard Bernstein and in the Mozart Festival’s Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart. He received two National Endowment Directing Fellowships, founded two seminal L.A. theatres: Accident Theatre and The Night House, and has directed on Broadway (Julie Harris in Lucifer’s Child), at The Arts Theatre in London’s West End (Robyn Peterson’s Catwalk Confidential), regionally and in Paris. Selected on-camera work includes How to Get Away with Murder, the films Town & Country, Sleeping with the Enemy, HBO’s Sacrifice, The L Word, E.R. and Frasier. As a playwright, he has won LA Weekly and Drama-Logue awards. His play, Beautified, world premiered at Skylight Theatre, 2012; and his latest, Forever House, premiered here in 2016. His collected plays are being published by F-Stop Books in 2018.
