Whatever Your Heart Desires at Theatre 40

Eight-time Emmy® Award-winner Ed Asner (Lou Grant; The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Roots; Rich Man, Poor Man) and Academy Award ® nominee June Squibb (Nebraska) star in a staged reading of a play by Christine Rosensteel. 

In Whatever Your Heart Desires, Daniel and Issy are an elderly married couple who have enjoyed a long and happy life together. Daniel is getting progressively less in control of his faculties with the advance of years. Candace and Harley are a young couple who take Daniel home after he has a fall on a shopping errand. But Candace and Harley are not Samaritans; they’re grifters, and Candace is determined to fleece the old couple, goaded by Harley’s evil half-brother Keith.

Two things stand in the way of Candace’s greedy scheme. There’s a will that bequeaths the old folks’ estate to the Leukemia Society. And Harley’s latent but innate goodness begins to assert itself, as he warms to the kindness of the aged couple. But Candace is more destructive than Harley could ever imagine.

Conveyed within this crime story is a message about elder abuse, but playwright Christine Rosensteel never hits the audience over the head with a didactic hammer, preferring to let the narrative convey the import of the material, rather than merely preaching.

Several of her plays have been produced in Los Angeles, including A Widow’s Kiss, Cherry Pie, and That Kind Of Woman.

This event is a rare opportunity to see these acclaimed stars perform in person.

Admission: $20 per person.