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The production that first drew cries of “You should write for TV!” was
a takeoff of Thornton Wilder’s
Our Town
, titled
Our Place
. The reworking
moved the early 1900s setting of the original play into contemporary L.A.
“Basically, we were writing a love letter to Los Angeles,” Cheri explains.
“We were writing a piece to explain why this was
our
town.” They wrote
it for fun, but didn’t take steps toward producing it until a last-minute
opportunity nearly forced them to.
The Groundlings had a standing midnight show in an East Hollywood
coffee shop, where they would play to virtually no one. The gig paid off
though when the proprietor bought a nearby theater and needed a play to
open with. After Cheri told him they could go up in two weeks with
Our
Place
, Bill was skeptical. But they rallied their friends to make up the cast
and crew, and “put it on for a budget of I think zero dollars, and maybe
some cents,” Cheri quips. The production was well received, and soon after,
Profiles
:
72
winter
|
spr ing
Cheri at the bar opposite Ted Danson during the filming of an episode
titled “One Happy Chappy in a Snappy Serape”
Everybody gets together for a group shot on the
Cheers
set during an
episode in which Sam, Cliff, Norm, and Frasier have a beard-growing
competition