(all photos by Devin Dygert)
Actress/writer/producer Naomi Grossman has 64 credits as an actress on her IMDB.com page since her uncredited appearance as “Confirmation Kid” in a 1990 episode of Father Dowling Mysteries. But it took her performance as Pepper the Pinhead, the first crossover character in the Ryan Murphy anthology series American Horror Story in its Asylum and Freaks seasons to put her at number 5 on IMDB’s “Top Breakout Stars” when her STARmeter shot to #1. Pepper generated millions of fans worldwide and Grossman appeared at ComicCons and Horror Festivals around the world.
Grossman has a theatrical and improv background and is currently on stage at the Skylight Theatre in Los Feliz Thursday nights during the month of June with her one-woman confessional American Whore Story. Grossman was charming, funny, touching and so relatable as she shared stories from her life and career to the standing room only opening night audience.
She shared excerpts from the salacious memoir her mother wrote at age 75. She recounted her experiences with the opposite sex, starting with a boy in her first grade class who charged ten cents to see his belly button. Her longest relationship was with a drug-addicted Mexican who dangled and then fell off the Santa Monica Pier. She shared a little song she composed “Boyfriend in a Coma”. Then there was Judas who really lived up to his name by betraying her with a string of gay encounters, from gloryholes to orgies. She survived them all and still has a zest for life. She also told of her various jobs while waiting for her sitcom to launch; everything from Red Bull girl to Spanish language teacher in Beverly Hills.
Richard Israel directed the show and keeps Grossman moving about the playing area and working with enough props to keep the monologue from becoming static. Even though only 90 minutes, feels too long at times. Some judicious editing would help the evening pass more smoothly although the opening night audience of “Cracked Peppers” and other alcohol-imbibing fans did not seem to mind.
www.americanwhorestory.com