About the Play:

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is a full-length dramatic monologue by Eric Bogosian. Once again the author offers a blisteringly funny and dead-on take of the chaos and alienation of post-modern life in America. Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is 100% pure high octane Bogosian.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is a monologue collection that blends characters, angry rants, and a stream of consciousness meditation on making it to the top of the ladder, on falling off the ladder, and on the exhilarating thrill of the ultimate crash and burn. Eric Bogosian takes us for a comedic, caffeine-fueled journey through a cavalcade of colourful characters as he skewers our obsession with celebrity, pop culture, conformity, religious hypocrisy and human nature itself with razor-sharp wit. Whether he's playing a smooth-talking Satan as a modern-day salesman, an oily Hollywood producer capitalizing on an airplane disaster, a money-hungry spiritual guru with questionable motives, or mocking himself as an obsequious actor auditioning for a part, Eric Bogosian tackles today's relevant themes with uncompromising honesty.

Cast: 1 male (flexible casting, has been performed by 16 male actors directed by 13 female directors)

What people say:

"In Wake Up, Bogosian is in top form, saying once again that in order to be truly alive you must see everything, especially the stuff most people work hard to avoid seeing." — Los Angeles Times

"No, Bogosian isn't angry: He's furious. And perplexed. And neurotic. And as brilliant as ever. [Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is] a glorious cacophony of voices that mimics the confusing complexity of life in the Information Age." — Boston Globe

"Bogosian hasn't simply crossed the line of good taste, he has snorted it." — Daily Texan

"Bogosian is there, watching out for the downtrodden, ridiculing the arrogant rich, defending battered wives and neo-hippie hitchhikers and never losing sight of his own capacity for being classed among the batters and bullies. But his 95 minutes is as fast and exciting a read as the theatre community offers. In our time, the stage has almost been what classical thinkers saw it as, a medium for criticizing life. How perfect that a solo performer should rediscover its roots, by choosing his own life as the object of his criticism." — Village Voice

"His wit is as venomous as ever, his material even more devastating and polished than before." — New York Daily News

About the Playwright:

Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist and novelist renowned for employing his dark wit in the fearless examination the darker side of human nature. He is the author of three novels, several films and numerous award-winning plays and solos for the theater. As an actor he has starred onstage as well as on film and television.