One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
One Girl Chooses Between Two Guys in New Play 'Mine' at the Elephant
These three are "Mine": Sam Daly, Kieren van den Blink and (in background) Adam Harrington (Photo: Chris A. Peterson)
Bekah Brunstetter's slight but largely charming play "Mine" about a thirtysomething romantic triangle is getting a good production right now at the Elephant Stages Performance Lab in Hollywood.
All three characters are living in New York at the start of the play. Annie (played by Kieren van den Blink) calls herself a poet when she isn't working as a barista alongside her scruffy pal Sam (Sam Daly), an acoustic guitar-playing singer/songwriter, with whom she's developed a kind of mutual friend-crush. Her square but successful yuppie boyfriend Doug (Adam Harrington) has the job offer of a lifetime in Philadelphia but won't take it unless she agrees to move there with him. Annie is taken aback by Doug's insistence, but even though she's not that into him, she also can't afford to live without him.
Meanwhile, as soon as Annie finally makes it to one of Sam's gigs, just before she leaves town, he gets discovered by a Vice music writer, who introduces him to record label and manager types, and just like that he has a career and a national tour. Of course the letters he writes and the demo CDs he sends to Annie, now bored as hell with nothing to do all day on Rittenhouse Square, exacerbate her restless nostalgia for the hipster life, and the hipster, she left behind.
Director Dep Kirkland gets a lot out of this somewhat shopworn plot material, expertly intermingling the three characters in each others' lives and minds. Van den Blink does a good job navigating Annie's transitions between East Village Holly Golightly and desperate kept woman, while Harrington avoids settling into the role of a laughable romantic sucker, infusing Doug with a bold pathos and integrity that win us over well before Annie makes up her mind.
"Mine" plays Thursday-Sunday evenings (3 p.m. show only on Oscar Sunday, Feb. 26) through March 10. Advance tickets $22.50, half price on Sundays.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
