Entertainment
'Where are you really from?' A Latine landmark disrupts Pasadena Playhouse's 100-year history
The pillows are fluffed, the cocktails are mixed, the enchiladas are warming in the oven. Ilana and Enrique Gomez have done everything to ready their Pasadena mansion for the arrival of their daughter’s boyfriend. But nothing could prepare them for who the person at their front door turns out to be.
In Gloria Calderón Kellett’s new play “One of the Good Ones,” this scenario leads to frank conversation, unfolding in real time, about unconscious biases, intergenerational expectations and who gets to claim Latino and American identity. (Between spit takes, hot flashes and swings at a very full piñata, that is.)
“It’s ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ meets ‘Disgraced,’” teased director Kimberly Senior. “And even though it’s a one-act play, the second act is the conversation you’ll probably be having afterward.”
While the play’s title reflects how the onstage parents (Lana Parrilla and Carlos Gómez) view their only daughter (Isabella Gomez), it also echoes how Calderón Kellett, one of the industry’s few Latina showrunners (“One Day at a Time,” “With Love”), says she’s been received during her Hollywood career: with “zoo animal fascination with what it’s like to be a non-white man telling stories.” And the world-premiere comedy, running through April 7, is the first Latine commission in the 100-year history of the Tony-winning Pasadena Playhouse — a landmark worth celebrating, though sorely overdue for a Los Angeles theater company.
Ahead of the play’s opening night on Sunday, Calderón Kellett had a candid chat with The Times about writing Latino characters who are thriving, learning about theater from Norman Lear and making even the toughest conversations laugh-out-loud funny.
How did “One of the Good Ones” come to be?
I wanted to write something about the complexities of identity. Before the strike, I spoke to Danny [Feldman, artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse] about the fact that, though I’ve been a [television] writer for 15 years on many shows, when I did “One Day at a Time,” all people were interested in talking about was my Latinidad. I’m happy to talk about it, because I love who I am and I’m proud of my parents and where they came from, but it’s all people wanted to talk about. And I would get it from both sides, from the white perspective and from the Latino perspective — this sort of zoo animal fascination with what it’s like to be a non-white man telling stories.
So I had to navigate being a storyteller and constantly defending your point of view in the world, which I found bizarre because it’s not something my white counterparts ever have to do. [“One Day at a Time” co-showrunner] Mike Royce was like, “Man, I just get to show up and tell stories and jokes, you have to come in with the weight of the world on your shoulders to represent your community. It’s so much heavier, what you have to do, and I see you.” I burst into tears and he hugged me.
Isabella Gomez, Carlos Gómez and Lana Parrilla in “One of the Good Ones” at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jeff Lorch)
The play discusses identity — Latino and American — from multiple perspectives within one family: one parent is of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, another is Cuban with grandparents from Spain. What inspired these characters and their conversation?
Having to navigate those spaces myself. I’m a West Coast Cuban who grew up in Portland, Ore., and then San Diego. And then in Los Angeles, I was constantly being told as an actress in auditions that I’m not Latina enough, I’m not dark enough, I need more of an accent to play this Latina character. I’m literally 100% Latina! So is identity based on where you live, where your parents lived, what language you speak, what you think it’s supposed to look like?
I also wanted it to be an intergenerational conversation. Writing “One Day at a Time,” I had so many talks with my viejitos about LGBTQIA issues and using Latino/Latina/Latinx — all of that stuff, they don’t know anything about it, they think it’s all crazy. But I loved talking to them about these things, everyone asking questions and trying to understand each other. So though everyone [onstage] is both right and wrong, and though they might not get any definitive answers by the end of the conversation, that they’re able to talk about it, chip away at it and maybe, over time, they’ll get it — that’s the answer.
This discussion unfolds in real time, and though it does get heavy at times, it’s also hilarious. How did you find the funny in such complex topics?
The idea of who gets to claim an identity, that fine line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, it’s so interesting! And one thing I wanted to do: there are lines in here that white people constantly say to Latino people in real life. Like, “Where are you really from?” “Some of our best friends are Latino!” We get that stuff all the time. So I purposefully wanted to see that in the mouths of the Latino characters, let this conversation unfold and have the audience be a fly on the wall in this home.
And with all storytelling, specificity is universal. Like, there wouldn’t have been anybody who walked through that front door who would’ve been good enough for their daughter, and that’s something every parent can relate to. So if you’re not Latino, there’s still going to be things in here that resonate with you. I hope the audience laughs a lot, and then talks for hours afterward. For me, that’d be the biggest win.
“I hope the audience laughs a lot, and then talks for hours afterward,” said Gloria Calderón Kellett.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
It’s a bittersweet milestone that your play is the first Latine commission in Pasadena Playhouse’s 100-year history. So I do love that you highlight the city’s Indigenous roots in the script when matriarch Ilana says, “I was born in Mexico. It’s just not called that anymore.”
The idea of America as the “great experiment” is so interesting, and who feels entitled to this land is fascinating, because it’s not theirs either. And I just had to challenge the idea that anyone feels entitled to this place more than anyone else, with the exception of the native people who actually are from this land.
This is actually the first play I’ve written that is specifically Latino. All the plays I’ve written before were an answer to what I wasn’t finding when I was auditioning as an actor; they were mostly for myself and my friends, just existing as humans in spaces. And those plays worked well for me because they got me staffed on TV shows.
Do you feel pressure debuting your first Latino play in Los Angeles?
I know that one story can’t speak to all experiences; this is this specific family in this specific time on this specific land.
I am really proud of the fact that this play exists. Our stories are only really invested in when we are in trauma or when we are glorified drug dealers, and then that’s how people who do not know people from my community think we are, because they don’t know themselves. Latinos are 20% of the United States population, and still only 5% [of actors in leading roles], and I can’t even imagine what the numbers are for theater. I’m curious about how many Latino productions are being done, and of those productions, how many are border stories or drug narratives, and how many are just Latino people living their lives and being happy.
And the other thing is, we’re always poor — and that 100% exists, but I also know a lot of Latinos who are thriving. So it’s very important for me to show that on this land, there are Latinos living in big houses, who send their kids to college, who have thriving businesses. And yet, they still walk with a lot of these issues about identity and connection on their shoulders.
Carlos Gómez, Nico Greetham, Isabella Gomez and Lana Parrilla in “One of the Good Ones” at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jeff Lorch)
How have your years writing for television benefited your playwriting?
I learned so much from working with Norman Lear. Norman loved the theater, and because he wanted to bring the theater to the everyday family in their households, his multicam sitcoms were very different: the proscenium, long scenes, pages and pages with no jokes. Because it wasn’t always about the jokes, it was about the conversation. You’re there to tell a story; sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not. People processing their feelings might mean acting out or silence or awkwardness; it might be scary and then funny again. Real life is all of those things. That was the type of sitcom he liked, and that’s the type of sitcom I like.
For this play, I get to sit with that at length — no scenes, one location, all in real time. It’s building the tension with the audience live and not letting them off the hook until the end.
What’s been the hardest part about writing this play?
The biggest challenge for me is the fact that there’s so much I want to say. I feel like it could be four hours long! I’m telling myself, “You don’t have to get all of it in this one play. You don’t have to fix all of it. Just tell this one story.”
“I hope this show is successful and will lead to many more stories where the focus is on the thriving, not the trauma,” said Gloria Calderón Kellett.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
What is your hope for “One of the Good Ones” after this run ends?
Whether it’s a pilot or a play, I always love putting up new work, and this has been a wonderful opportunity to stretch my creative muscles. I would love to keep developing it at other theaters, and I’m hopeful that it will lead to audiences’ conversations, healing and understanding of one another.
I also think a lot about who gets to hold a microphone and tell a story. I’m trying to do it in a way that is inclusive and responsible for what I want the future to look like. So I hope this show is successful and will lead to many more stories where the focus is on the thriving, not the trauma. And I hope they come from many different points of view, because I get called a “unicorn” a lot, like I’m the only one, right? No, I promise, I’m not. There’s more of us, and we’ve got work to do.
‘One of the Good Ones’
Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena
When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 7.
Tickets: Start at $35
Contact: (626) 356-7529 or pasadenaplayhouse.org
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
The sixth outing in the director’s chair for filmmaker Kirk Jones, I Swear dramatizes the real-life story of touretter John Davidson (played by Robert Aramayo). Tourette’s Syndrome, for those unfamiliar with the condition, is a nervous system disorder that causes various tics, the most prolific being erratic and explicit language. However, as I Swear expertly showcases, the syndrome is far more than ill-timed outbursts of curse words. Davidson’s story is one of societal frustration, finding your people (both with and without the condition), and using your voice to help others rise. The subject and subject matter are handled with absolute care and understanding under Kirk’s measured vision and Robert Aramayo’s BAFTA-winning performance.
The film kicks off with the greatest exclamation to democracy ever uttered (*%#! the Queen!), as a nervous John Davidson prepares himself before entering an awards ceremony hosted by Britain’s royal family. Right away, the film tells us what it is: a triumph over adversity that blends humor and human drama with education. It’s an important setup, as the film flashes back to Davidson’s 1980s youth, where we see his time as a star soccer recruit flatline as his condition takes hold. Davidson’s life spirals from there. Some aspects, like school bullying and accidental run-ins with authority figures, are expected but important to empathizing with young Davidson’s (young version, played with heart by Scott Ellis Watson) new everyday life. The more tragic, a complete meltdown of his family system, is unsettling if quick. His father (Steven Cree) is never given enough screen time to explore his alcohol coping tendencies. However, his mother Heather’s descent into easy fixes and blaming is crushing and convincing. Harry Potter series actress Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) gives a layered performance as Heather. Someone who loves her son, but also feels cursed by him as the entire family exits the picture. It’s bitter, she’s tired, and fills each conversation with ‘only medication and your mother can save you’ energy.
From there, the viewer and Davidson find refuge in a host of characters. Maxine Peake plays Dottie, the mother of a childhood friend and a retired mental health nurse. Screen vet Peter Mullan plays maintenance man Tommy Trotter. Together, they help Davidson build a life and an understanding of himself that carries the film forward into its second half. After that, the film is primarily a 3-actor show as director Kirk fills the screen with these tour-de-force performances. Peake and Mullan are great vessels to get the film’s main message across: patience, love, and a shared responsibility between the diagnosed and those who understand their struggle can help change the path for people quickly left behind by a normative world. Together, they are the soul of the movie, with the filmmakers clearly hoping the audience will follow their lead after they exit the theater (in my case, the beautiful Oriental Theater for the Milwaukee Film Festival). Both performances are perfectly warm and reflective and shouldn’t be left out in discussions of I Swear.
I say this because the movie is anchored by The Rings of Power actor Robert Aramayo, who leaves Elrond’s elf ears behind to bring an acute naturalism to his performance of main character John Davidson. Aramayo’s physicality and timing of the fitful Tourettes Syndrome never feel out of place or overplayed. In fact, the movie as a whole does an amazing job of never veering into sentimentality. While many moviegoers left with tissues dabbing their eyes, the filmmaking never felt like it was forcing that reaction out of audiences. It straddles the line between feel-good and reality with every story beat and lands squarely on the side of letting the real inform our feelings. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will grasp the film’s message and hopefully take it with them into life.
I Swear continues at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Tuesday, April 21st, and releases nationwide April 24th, 2026, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Several private equity firms and Hollywood power players, including United Talent Agency and longtime agent Patrick Whitesell, have expressed interest in buying parts of Casey Wasserman’s music and sports management firm after it abruptly went up for sale.
Wasserman became ensnared in controversy earlier this year after his salacious decades-old emails to Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, were released as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s trove of Epstein files.
The agency auction is in the early stages, according to three people close to the process but not authorized to comment.
Earlier this week, several interested parties submitted proposals to meet a preliminary deadline in the auction, two of the sources said.
The company, which changed its name to the Team last month, is expected to be valued at around $3 billion.
Providence Equity Partners holds the majority stake. The private equity firm has discussed selling the entire company or carving off Wasserman’s minority interest. Providence also has considered selling the bulk of the firm and staying on as a minority investor, one of the sources said. Another scenario could involve separating, then selling the individual business units that make up the Team.
Wasserman and Providence’s company boasts an enviable roster of music artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. Its sports marketing practice is viewed as particularly lucrative and has potential to grow in value as big dollars flow into sports that draw large crowds.
Wasserman, who declined to comment, has a veto right over any sale of the company that he has spent a quarter of a century building.
UTA, which also declined to comment, is among the most aggressive suitors, the sources said. The Team’s sports marketing and music representation divisions would dramatically boost the Beverly Hills agency’s profile and client roster.
Whitesell, former executive chairman of Endeavor, separately has been motivated to make investments in sports, media and entertainment since last year when he left the talent agency that he and Ari Emanuel built. Whitesell launched a new firm with seed money from private equity firm Silver Lake, and last spring he started WIN Sports Group to represent professional football players.
Whitesell wasn’t immediately available for comment.
European investment firm Permira also has expressed interest, according to a knowledgeable source. Permira declined to comment.
The New York Times first reported that Permira, UTA and Whitesell had expressed interest.
The sales process is expected to stretch into summer, the knowledgeable people said. The auction could become complicated particularly if Providence decides to unwind the business.
For example, UTA could not buy the entire company because of the Brillstein television unit. The agency is bound by an agreement with the Writers Guild of America that prevents it from owning television production.
Investment bank Moelis & Company is managing the sale. A representative of the firm declined comment.
Wasserman also is the chairman of LA28, the nonprofit group that will be staging the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in two years.
Following revelations of Wasserman’s 2003 emails with Maxwell, several musicians and athletes — led by pop artist Chappell Roan and soccer star Abby Wambach — said that, to stay true to their values, they would leave the agency then known as Wasserman.
Wasserman apologized to his staff for “past personal mistakes” and said he would sell the agency.
He had limited dealings with Epstein, flying on the financier’s jet along with former President Clinton for a September 2002 humanitarian trip through Africa.
Wasserman, a prolific Clinton fundraiser whose legendary grandfather, Hollywood titan Lew Wasserman, helped the Democrat win the 1992 presidential election, was joined on Epstein’s jet by his then-wife, Laura, actor Kevin Spacey, Epstein, Maxwell — who was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021 — and others, including security agents.
The LA28 board’s executive committee unanimously voted to keep Wasserman as chairman, citing his “strong leadership” of the Games.
Pizza Movie (2026) Director: Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Star: Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone
Somehow, I got through an hour of this movie. I was seconds away from turning off in the first fifteen minutes because of the juvenile humor. Pizza Movie is too silly, repetitive, and the characters are annoying. Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone star as college friends, Jack and Montgomery. College angles are rarely seen in films right now, and that’s the one saving grace of the film. Similar to high school, people are also trying to fit in. The story and visuals were too corny. You can only watch someone’s head exploding for so long without letting yours.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Stars: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy
I never saw the first Super Mario Brothers Movie when it was out, but I heard it got positive reviews. My brother always loved playing Super Mario video games as a kid, and I’d watch him. I tagged along with my friends to see Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it’s a cute and fun film. I like it when movies explore the video game world. The animation creates unique worlds and characters. The characters are split into their own storylines, and for me, I felt like it worked. It adds more action, especially for kids who are seeing the films.
Emily in Paris Season 5 (2025) Creator: Darren Star, Stars: Lily Collins and Ashley Park
After a bright spot in season 4, I thought season 5 of Emily in Paris would continue its growth in the story and its protagonist, but no, it’s all drained out in the usual Emily (Lily Collins) mishaps. Ashley Park (Mindy) has become too good for this show. Emily and Mindy waste several opportunities because of their love lives. The whole relationship angle is ruining it. I don’t understand why Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is still in the show. I thought writers learned their lesson, but by the last episode, they’re continuing to bring the past into an apparent season 6.
Sarah’s Oil (2025) Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stars: Naya Desir-Johnson and Zachary Levi
There’s always history lurking right beneath our noses. Sarah’s Oil (2025) tells the true story of Sarah Rector, an Oklahoma-born African American girl who became the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Naya Desir-Johnson is fierce and driven as Sarah. Zachary Levi is also along for the ride as Bert, a man who helps Sarah. Kate (Bridget Regan) was another favorite character as an intelligent woman. Cyrus Nowrasteh was drawn to the subject for its story and its themes. Nowrasteh’s direction is compelling as he unearths a hidden story from history. The film is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Jack Goes Boating (2014) Director and Star: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan
Jack Goes Boating (2014) didn’t quite work for me, largely because of its slow pace and uneven storytelling. The film stars the late Seymour Hoffman as Jack, who also directed the film. This was Hoffman’s first and only time in the directing chair. Amy Ryan also stars in the film, giving a solid performance. This was also based on a play that Hoffman starred in. Jack wants to participate in a swim championship. That’s hardly what the film is about, tracking other characters’ stories. While the film aims for quiet intimacy, it ultimately drags, making it an underwhelming viewing experience.
You Kill Me (2016), Director: John Dahl, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Meet You Kill Me (2016), yet another film that I found in the museum of underrated gems. The concept revolves around Frank (Ben Kingsley), a hitman, who is sent to an A.A. meeting to get his mind focused again. A different story happens, where Frank falls in love with Laurel (Tea Leoni). Leoni is one of my favorite actresses. It also stars the funny Luke Wilson. I liked the trio’s dynamics. You Kill Me is a mental health movie. It’s okay to make changes if you’re not happy. I recommended that you keep an eye out for this movie.
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