The Fountain Theatre in association with CHARTOR Entertainment LLC
and the African Grove Institute for the Arts, Inc.

PRESENT

by Bill Manhoff
edited with new dialogue by Ifa Bayeza
with musical hits from the 1960’s
directed by Raymond O. Caldwell
starring Brian Dietzen & Diona Reasonover

Why this play, why now?

In these troubled times, it is good to have an outlet that provides us with the ability to laugh and escape the realities of a very complex world. Plays, speciﬁcally comedies, provide that muchneeded relief.

THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT, a successful 1965 romantic comedy that played more than 365 performances on Broadway, is the perfect elixir that will provide new audiences with reasons to enjoy its brilliant and witty interpretation of the age old tale of attraction between opposites.

On the surface Bill Manhoff’s clever comedy is about unexpected love but on a deeper level it also shows how two insecure, unlikely neighbors, come to admire and respect each other despite their social and cultural differences.

Brian Dietzen

Diona Reasonover

The play is often a delightful and engaging verbal slugfest between a would be actress and an aspiring writer, neither of whom has found their footing and who struggle to make sense of their confusing lives and the world around them.

In a fast-paced two act comedy, we encounter their verbal sparring matches and their intense self deprecation in a mating dance of discovery and self affirmation.

THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT is a return to rollicking humor and a soulful examination of human differences. It is a funny, uproarious, yet truly moving look at how two distinct characters approach life.

The heart and soul of this play are Doris and Felix, an interracial couple engaged in the push and pull of human interaction that strips away any pretense of who they are to one another and eventually reveals what they become to each other.

This revised, edited, updated edition of THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT, with new dialogue by Ifa Bayeza including musical hits from the 1960’s, is a fun, simulating and engaging theatrical experience!

Charles Floyd Johnson, Producer
Victor Leo Walker, II, Ph.D, Producer
August 2025

Brian Dietzen | F. Sherman

Brian Dietzen is an actor, writer and producer. Growing up in Colorado, Brian attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where he earned a BFA in acting. He would go on to perform in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival appearing in numerous productions including WAITING FOR GODOT and EQUUS. After spending two years performing with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Brian moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career in ﬁlm and television. His television career began with a recurring role in the WB series “My Guide to Becoming a Rock Star.” He continued to act on stage, teaming up with Director John Riggi to perform in a two-man show with Steve Rudnic, THE OLDEST MAN IN SHOWBIZ, written by Rudnic.

In 2003 he would go on to make his ﬁlm debut co-starring in the feature ﬁlm “From Justin to Kelly,” a musical romantic comedy distributed by 20th Century Fox. But in 2004 he would land the role he’s best known for, Dr. Jimmy Palmer, a medical examiner’s assistant, later Chief Medical Examiner on the hit CBS drama series NCIS, now in its 23rd season. Brian is also a writer and producer writing several episodes of NCIS in addition to co-writing, producing and starring in the independent ﬁlm “Congratulations,” which received awards at several indie ﬁlm festivals.

Diona Reasonover | Doris W.

Diona Reasonover is an actress and writer. She graduated from Oberlin College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre and dance and went on to receive a Masters of Fine Arts in acting from the California Institute for the Arts. She also trained at Second City Hollywood’s conservatory program.

As an actress Diona starred in HYPEBOLE: origins in 2010, presented at [Inside] the Ford, a venue within the Ford Theatres in Los Angeles. She would go on to perform in Lydia Diamond’s play STICK FLY at Mo’olelo Performing Arts at San Diego’s 10th Avenue Theatre in 2011. Her performance received outstanding reviews from the San Diego Examiner, extolling her performance as “a formidable force to be reckoned with.” And the San Diego Union-Tribune called her performance “quietly ﬁery.” For her performance, Diona received an award at the Tenth Annual Craig Noel Awards for Theatrical Excellence.

Diona went on to work in several television series including “Grace and Frankie,” “Clipped,’ and she did the voice of MaryAnne in the animated web-series “Doris & Mary-Anne Are Breaking out of Prison.” But her big break in television came when she was cast in the role of Kasie Hines, the brilliant forensic scientist in the CBS drama NCIS, a role that she has portrayed in the series since 2018. Diona continues to perform on stage as a member of two improvisational theatre troupes, Ham Radio, a group affiliated with Upright Citizens Brigade, and Essence.

Ifa Bayeza | Playwright

Ifa Bayeza is an award-winning playwright, director, novelist and educator. Her diverse works are driven by a passion to convey the full humanity of Black people and champion the nobility of their struggle against enslavement and its historic and pervasive legacies. Described as “breathtaking,” “staggering,” “extraordinarily lyrical,” and “triumphant,” Bayeza’s literary style and transcendent themes veer from the intimate to the mythic and compel us to re-examine embedded ideas we attach to race and gender. Plays include The Till Trilogy (The Ballad of Emmett Till, That Summer in Sumner, and Benevolence), reimagining the saga of 1955 Civil Rights icon Emmett Till; String Theory, giving voice to the 1839 Amistad slave ship survivors and their allies; Welcome to Wandaland, a childhood memoir and Infants of the Spring, adapted from Wallace Thurman’s classic Harlem Renaissance novel. Musicals include the World War love story, Charleston Olio, a Fred Ebb Award ﬁnalist; Bunk Johnson, a blues poem, on the legendary Jazz originalist; and KID ZERO, an anthropomorphized romp through the world of mathematics and physics. Her novel Some Sing, Some Cry was co-authored with her sister Ntozake Shange.

A ﬁnalist for the 2020 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre and for the 2020 Francesca Primus Prize, Bayeza in 2018 was the inaugural Humanist-in-Residence at the National Endowment for the Humanities and is the recipient of two commissions from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A 2022 MacDowell fellow, Bayeza is a graduate of Harvard University with an MFA in Theater from University of Massachusetts Amherst.

This staged reading of OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT is supported by a generous grant from the Kenneth F. & Harle G. Montgomery Foundation, committed to supporting artistic excellence.

The Owl and the Pussycat

Tim Cummings Discussing THE LIGHTNING PEOPLE PLAY

Forever Flamenco by Juan Murube