About the Show

The PIT presents Marina and Nicco’s new comedy about Hollywood's race problem. It's 'Waiting for Godot' meets 'Groundhog’s Day' meets 'the real-life experience of virtually every black actor in America.'

The Academy Awards has a race problem. It’s big. But the four black actors in 'Room 4' aren’t particularly concerned with that, because they have a much bigger problem at hand. They’ve just realized they’re stuck in a time loop, auditioning for the same Drug Dealer #2 role over and over. What once felt like a messed-up metaphor has become a literal existential nightmare. Get them out of there!

Critic Reviews (5)

"'Room 4', a devious one-act, is a testament to the truth that serious messages are often best delivered in silly forms...It’s a clever and effective marriage of form to content...Aeed and Tempelsman are sketch comedians skilled at the art of getting in, saying what you have to say, and getting out...Too many plays try so hard to say something serious that they cannot be taken seriously at all. 'Room 4,' quite unlike the casting directors it skewers, knows exactly when to shut up."
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"This compact performance is packed with laughs and groan-worthy moments alike, though it sometimes strays a little too far into the realm of improv...Where 'Room 4' moves beyond sketch and into theater is in its characters' diversity of reactions to the same situation...'Room 4' has great sympathy for those actors who can't quite refuse to play the game of pleasing and appeasing the casting directors, but simultaneously celebrates rebellion when it happens."
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"Screenwriters and comedic playwrights Marina & Nicco use humor to make a serious point: for black actors, the struggle for fully realized, non-stereotypical roles remains ongoing and disheartening...One of the highlights in this short, punchy, and powerful one act occurs when the characters realize that they’re caught in an infinite, repeating time loop. Aghast and incredulous, they repeat the dialogue together—the effect of which is simultaneously uproarious and chilling."
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"'Room 4' uses satire to depict what it’s like for almost every Black actor trying to 'make it' in the film industry...Raw, real and definitely not for the faint of hear, the four actors try to stand up for themselves and stick it to the casting directors, and then they are freed…If you haven’t seen 'Room 4,' you are seriously missing out."
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For a previous production

"In many ways, ‘Room 4’ doesn’t want to be perfect. It wants to get messy...And in that, it is very successful. But the serious ambition, both on the page and playing out on stage, in going into a conceptual framework like the time-loop purgatory, may require even tighter execution than this already well-made piece…All that said: 'Room 4' is a timely and enjoyable series of enlightened laughs and worthy ideas, and a deeply needed catharsis that only something like live staged comedy can provide."
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