About the Play:

Jerry and Tom has become a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues and Male/Male scene-study showcases.

Jerry and Tom is a full-length dark comedy by Rick Cleveland. This unconventional comedy focuses on two regular guys with a dark secret. To the outside world they are used-car salesman, but Tom also moonlights for a gang of Chicago mobsters as a contract killer, with Jerry his willing apprentice in the fine art of bumping people off for money.

Jerry and Tom is about two family men who also happen to moonlight as ruthless hitmen. A man who is tied to a chair with a bag over his head is telling jokes to Jerry and Tom while they wait for a phone call instructing them to kill him. In a series of similarly intense vignettes, a veteran Chicago hit man plays mentor to his impatient student in this quirky, character-driven gem from the writer who contributed to television cult programs like Mad Men and House of Cards.

Jerry and Tom was well received when it premiered in a tiny Los Angeles theater in 1992 and when it opened in Chicago in 1995 in expanded form at American Blues Theatre. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been successfully staged in professional theatres.

Cast: 3 male

What people say:

"A hilarious slice of life about a blue color hit man and his protege." — Los Angeles Weekly

"Viciously funny comedy." — Los Angeles Times

"Terrifyingly funny little gem.... Cleveland's grisly scenarios are offset by humorously skewed dialogue including a riotous retelling of an associate having his nose bitten off." — Los Angeles Reader

"A nice, neat piece of nasty business [with] ... a good balance between hilariously cartoonish and gruesomely noirish elements." — Chicago Tribune

"Rick Cleveland's script cruises fairly effortlessly ... as he tackles the occupational and personal pitfalls of his title characters." — Backstage

About the Playwright:

Rick Cleveland is an Emmy Award-winning American TV writer, screenwriter, playwright, and television producer. A prolific playwright, film writer, television writer, and actor, he has contributed to TV sensations like The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, House of Cards, and Archer. His stage play Jerry and Tom was also adapted into a film directed by Canadian character actor Saul Rubinek that went on to be an official selection at the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals, and got him his first TV writing job.