a solo play adapted and performed by Jonah Scott Mendelsohn
based on Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog by Paul Monette
(505) 395-6490
Creative Team
Jonah Scott Mendelsohn
Actor and adapter
Raised in Albuquerque, NM, Jonah Scott Mendelsohn is an actor, singer, and writer based in New York City.
Favorite roles include Stuart Gellman in Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change (Astoria Performing Arts Center, AUDELCO winning production for Best Revival of a Musical); Pete, a pregnant man, in Tumor by Sheila Callaghan; Paul in Company by Sondheim and Furth at the Philipstown Depot Theatre, and the killers in Shakespeare's Richard II with Walking the dog Theater in Hudson, NY.
Jonah is artistic director of Sweet Pea Chamber Theater, an ensemble dedicated to an actor-driven company that offers a repertoire of short theater pieces, like a string quartet or jazz band. Through sacred play, we cultivate intimacy and beauty to tease out the core questions that underlie our personal and civic identities, bringing them to communities grappling with the same concerns. Love Alone: Elegies for Rog is a project of Sweet Pea Chamber Theater.
Jonah is currently training to become a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner.
Kent Kirkpatrick
Director
Kent Kirkpatrick received an MFA from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, and has taught and served on the faculty at University of California—San Diego, University of California—Irvine, University of Delaware, American Academy of Dramatic Arts West, and Oxford University. Kent is an actor, director, and producer in theater, film, and television. Recently, he taught at the Film School at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.
Paul Monette
Poet
Memoirist, poet, and gay rights activist Paul Monette was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and earned a BA at Yale University. He taught at Milton Academy and Pine Manor College before moving to Los Angeles with his longtime partner, Roger Horwitz, in 1977, where he became active in the city’s gay rights movement.
Frequently elegiac, Monette’s poems narrate the trauma and pain of the AIDS crisis. His poetry collections include West of Yesterday, East of Summer: New and Selected Poems 1973-1993 (1994), Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog (1988), and The Carpenter at the Asylum (1975). Monette is also the author of the memoirs Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (1988) and Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (1992), which won the National Book Award. His novels include Halfway Home (1991) and Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll (1978).
Monette died at his home in Los Angeles of AIDS complications in 1995. The Monette-Horwitz Trust, which he and Horwitz founded, offers awards to individuals working to eradicate homophobia. Monette’s papers are archived at the University of California, Los Angeles, library.