West Coast Premiere

Drama Dogs, A Theater Company (E. Bonnie Lewis and Ken Gilbert, Artistic Directors) presents a PlayFest Santa Barbara Production of Lies by Jerry Slaff. Directed by R. Michael Gros and featuring Leesa Beck and Nik Valinsky. Playing at Center Stage August 28 – September 6. To purchase tickets, go to Centerstagetheater.org or call 805-963-0408.

Lies is an allegory about lying in government, and a meditation on what truth actually is. Set in 1950, a young and inexperienced Jewish lawyer for the New York public defender’s office is asked to represent a female German-American WWII radio propagandist, imprisoned for treason, for her parole hearing. Except she doesn’t want to leave prison. Neither of them is who they seem to be, as they dance around whether there actually is something called truth. And while Lies can be seen as a political allegory, it should also bring up the question of how we all lie about little things in our lives every day. Can anyone really live without lying?

The two-person play touches on themes such as forgiveness, retribution for the Holocaust, and how easy it was for Germans to slowly slip into fascism. As such, it is very relevant for today.

The play has won many awards, including the Writer’s Digest grand prize in 2020 and Santa Barbara PlayFest Honoree Award in 2022, and has had readings and productions across the country, including New York, Baltimore, Florida and North Carolina. This will be the West Coast premiere.

Jerry Slaff (Playwright) has been fortunate enough to win multiple awards for his work and has had numerous productions. Lies was a semifinalist for the O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference in 2019, was produced at the Lab Theater Project in Tampa, Fl, and in 2020 at the Attic Salt Theater in Asheville, NC. It also received a reading off-Broadway at the AMT Theater in New York, was the Honoree Play at PlayFest Santa Barbara in 2022, and won the grand prize in the 2019 Writer’s Digest Writing Competition, of over 7,000 entries in 9 genres. His play Who’s Yehoodi? about two different generations on New York’s Lower East Side, was a semifinalist for the 2023 O’Neill. He is currently working on a novel, and lives outside Washington, DC, with the loves of his life – his wife, Susan, and Zoe, the Wonder Cat.

1. Michael Gros (Director) is a former member of the professional theatre director’s union (SDC), Professor Emeritus, and former Co-Chair of Theatre Arts at Santa Barbara City College. He taught theatre in the graduate programs at Kansas State University and The University of Akron. Michael served as Artistic Director for six seasons with PCPA Theaterfest producing more than 70 productions under Actors’ Equity Association contracts. He has directed more than 40 professional and university productions. He was a Founding Artistic Director of PlayFest Santa Barbara, an organization dedicated to supporting and developing new plays and playwrights. Michael currently serves on the Board for the Clark Center for the Performing Arts. Michael earned his MFA in Drama (directing) from the University of California at Irvine. He earned his BA in theatre, Magna Cum Laude, at UCLA. His most recent directing project was SLO Rep’s I Hate Hamlet.

Leesa Beck (Lorelei) Leesa fell in love with the script for Lies when she first read the role of Lorelei in the PlayFest 2022 staged reading, and she is thrilled to now be participating in the West Coast Premiere. Other favorite Santa Barbara theater credits include Bella in Lost in Yonkers, Elvira in Blithe Spirit, and Stephanie in Time of My Life (Theatre Group at SBCC), Jewel in 154 and Paradise (Producing Unit), and Maggie in Red Herring (Circle Bar B Theater). Favorite LA credits include Portia in The Merchant of Venice (MET Theatre), Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Raven Playhouse), and Natasha in Three Sisters (Vanguard Theatre). Leesa has also appeared in independent films, TV shows, and commercials, and regularly sings at local music venues. She received her bachelor’s degree in theater from Cornell University.

Nik Valinsky (Benjamin Kleinfeld) following a 13-year hiatus, returned to the acting world in the summer of 2024 as Emmett Forrest in the SBCC Theatre Group’s production of Legally Blonde. He has worked diligently since then, appearing in lead roles in the award-winning short horror film Fade (2025), the not-yet-released revenge thriller False Hope (2025), and later as Fedor Ivanovich Dolokhov in the 2025 Out of the Box production of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, among other roles. This fall, he will return to the SBCC Theatre Group’s stage as Major Sergius Saranoff in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man. Nik is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied Classical Music Performance.

Patricia L. Frank (Scenic and Lighting Design) is the Co-Chair and Director of Design and Technology for the Theatre Arts Department at SBCC. She has designed numerous productions for SBCC and has freelanced as a scenic and lighting designer for productions and events throughout the greater Santa Barbara community. Pat has an MFA in Visual Arts and an MA in Dramatic Arts.

Ben Crop (Sound Design) is the Technical Director and instructor of technical theatre at SBCC where he also serves as a resident sound designer. He has also designed numerous productions in the greater Santa Barbara community, including productions at Center Stage for DramaDogs. Ben holds a BA in Theatre and Performance and his M.B.A in non-profit management from Willamette University.

Buffy jo Grenier-Fitch (Costume Collaborator) has had the honor of costuming for several shows at Center Stage Theater, including Drama Dogs’ Collected Stories, The Gin Game, and Here: A Place for Women as well as performing in Maggie Mixsell’s Personal Stories and with The Dance Network and stage managing for the Dijo Productions, Heroes.  Separately, she most cherishes her 14 years of writing, directing, and costume design and collaboration for annual productions with the amazing thespians of Alpha Resource Center.

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