arts&life
theater
From
Southfield
To L.A.
Writer Stan Zimmerman brings
Right Before I Go to NYC.
JULIE SMITH YOLLES SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
50
November 23 • 2017
jn
S
tan Zimmerman’s one helluva funny
guy.
The prolific, highly creative and
award-winning writer has penned many
beloved comedies, including Golden Girls,
Roseanne and Gilmore Girls and continued
the story of the lovely lady and her three
very lovely girls on to the big screen in the
Brady Bunch movies.
So the last subject his fans would expect
from him is a play about suicide.
“Right Before I Go is the first really seri-
ous play that I’ve written,” Zimmerman,
a Southfield native, says of his upcoming
one-night-only benefit for the American
Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the
JED Foundation in New York City. “After
my friend took his life five years ago, I was
in such shock. I wanted to somehow use
my craft to work with the pain and help
others.”
So he started collecting suicide notes
from war veterans, singer Kurt Cobain,
author Virginia Woolf, members of the
LGBTQ community, kids who were terribly
bullied and others who had suffered heart-
break and loneliness. He initially titled it
Suicide Notes: In Their Own Words.
“I did a staged reading in my living room
[in the Hollywood Hills] and my friends
encouraged me to write and write so that
it would end with a feeling of hope and
that people would feel uplifted to reach
out to those who were suffering,” says
Zimmerman, who returned to Michigan
in August for his 40th Southfield High
reunion.
“There is a huge suicide rate among
war veterans. So I wanted to represent
them and get people talking about what
Stan Zimmerman
they can do to help. It makes me want to
get this play up and running even more,”
Zimmerman says.
Developed to be presented as a one-
hour scripted narrative, a la The Vagina
Monologues or Love Letters, Zimmerman
polished the final piece, directed it with
four actors and premiered it at the
Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2015, taking
home the Encore Producer’s Award.
“It’s a lot to shoulder,” Zimmerman says.
“As Diane Orley so eloquently said to me,
‘We didn’t choose to be involved in this
subject so we have to make a difference.’”
Orley, who lives in Birmingham with