> Listen to NPR's interview with Dani Klein

“Afterbirth,” is a live storytelling show produced and directed by Dani where well known actors and writers perform original, funny stories about how becoming a parent changed their lives unexpectedly and permanently.

The idea for “Afterbirth” came to her while she was home alone with her infant and needed inspiration from people further along on the parenting road.  The show has been playing to sold out audiences for two years in Los Angeles, gaining much attention from the Hollywood community. Both the LA Weekly and Backstage West have chosen “Afterbirth” as their Pick of the Week.  Recently, NPR did a feature segment on the show Day to Day with Madeleine Brand.  Dani hosts the evening, which includes 5-7 original stories performed by the actors/writers. 

Performers have included: Patricia Heaton, Caroline Rhea, Caroline Aaron, Beverly D'Angelo, Mo Collins, Dana Gould,
Kathryn Grody, Dan Bucatinsky, Peter Horton, Moon Zappa, Carnie Wilson, Brooke Adams, Mike O’Malley, Enrico Colantoni, Brett Paesel, Matt Weiner, Rick Cleveland, Cindy Chupack, Daisy Gardner, and more....

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4/21/2008
Tales From the Tot Seat
Comedy Spills From Kidding In 'Afterbirth'

By Barbara Hoffman

Those seeking stories about the wonders of childbirth and the joys of parenting might want to skip "Afterbirth," a "Vagina Monologues" for the stroller set.

Performing it are actors and writers reading true (and truly hilarious) pieces: about fussy eaters, pot-smoking in-laws and how, just when your formerly helpless infant has turned into an interesting teen, he's suddenly too busy to talk to you.

All told, there's not a sentimental story in the bunch - which is just the way the comedian who conceived the piece wanted it.

Four years ago, Dani Klein says, she was a 40-year-old, freshly unemployed first-time mom who needed a lift that neither a nursing bra nor "Chicken Soup for a Mother's Soul" could give her.

"I knew I wanted to hear inspirational, funny stories," she recalls, "not the pretty sweet stories."

And she wanted to hear them mostly, she says, from men - "the Mom-oir," as she calls it, having been pretty well mined already. Besides, she says, "Men don't tend to wax on about the beauty of their child."

Since she'd been a comedian in Hollywood for 10 years, she knew whom she wanted to hear from, too - folks such as Peter Horton ("30something"), Matt Weiner ("Mad Men") and "Seinfeld" writer Carol Leifer.

One call led to another, and before she knew it, she had a show - a highly scripted one, with very few props, which played sold-out runs in Los Angeles and has now come to New York for two nights.

"I did have a nursing bra onstage," she recalls. "A comedian named Joanna Stein put it on over her shirt and talked about how difficult it was to nurse." Another woman supplied a poster of herself, hugely pregnant with twins.

"But I don't encourage props," Klein says. "I really believe it's about the spoken word."

Among those supplying the words in New York are "Sex and the City" TV producer Cindy Chupack, on her odyssey to become pregnant; Caroline Aaron (Judge Biotch on "Ugly Betty"), who wonders whether she should have crippled her son emotionally so he wouldn't leave for college; and "Lipstick Jungle" star Andrew McCarthy, a first-time reader (and father of Sam, age 6) who has a run-in with a stroller.

"It felt good to write," McCarthy tells The Post, "but I'm preparing for tomatoes to be thrown."

That in itself might be interesting.

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12/17/07
Striking writers, loving parents
At the staged-readings show 'Afterbirth,' the burning issue of the season finds its way into the usual family tales.

By Scott Taylor, Special to The Times

As children giggle and jiggle through shopping malls, bending their parents' ears with their holiday wish lists, one cannot avoid Andy Williams' cheery chestnut: "It's the most wonderful time of the year. . . ."

But for Hollywood screenwriters who are parents, this season's feelings are decidedly more mixed.

That was apparent at Saturday night's special "Support the Writers Strike" edition of Dani Klein's "Afterbirth" staged-readings show in Hollywood, where, above the belly laughs and poignant parental yarns, angst and anger hovered like a chilly specter.

"Afterbirth" was launched four years ago when Klein, a writer and actress, desiring a creative and social outlet after choosing children over career, sought input from other parents who have raised their children in Tinseltown.

Every six weeks, she produces an assemblage at the M Bar, where a mixture of actors and writers perform self-penned tales of parenthood before an audience of 80 or so friends, family members and patrons.

For Saturday's show, however, she gave admission discounts to Writers Guild of America members and heavily slanted the performer slate toward writers. And Klein got a jump on the day's news that the WGA was willing to negotiate with individual production companies, announcing to the crowd, "Unlike past shows, where the storytellers perform for free, tonight I'm going to be the first producer to accede to the guild's formula: I'm giving 'em 3 1/2 % of the gross -- that's a whopping eight bucks apiece!" The offer drew laughter and applause.

Not all strike talk

With the mood for the evening set, stories ranged from humorous to heart-rending to reflective. Some included mention of the strike; some did not.

Eric Weinberg, a writer-producer whose credits include "Scrubs" and "Californication," told the audience that as the father of two young boys, his social life with adults was nil, until "Lady Luck smiled down on me a month and a half ago when the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers . . . [failed] to offer us a contract that lets us share in the profits they earn from the material we've created. I say 'fortunately' because with striking comes picketing, and with picketing comes -- can you believe it? -- adult interaction!"

Mike Rowe, a writer for the animated "Family Guy" and "Futurama," also spoke of his sons: "You wait until your sons are old enough and then you have the greatest father-son bonding moment of all, and that is when you watch 'The Three Stooges' with them for the first time."

Caroline Aaron is an actress with recent guest-starring roles on "Grey's Anatomy" and "Ugly Betty" who was reading at "Afterbirth" for the sixth time. This time, she told about the separation anxiety she was feeling with her 18-year-old son soon heading off to college.

"Here is the conundrum," she said. "If I hadn't raised him to . . . emerge over these very short 18 years, then I might not be so in love with the man he almost is and I might not be so heartbroken that he's ready to move on. I am going to write a new parenting book entitled, 'How to Emotionally Cripple Your Children to Keep Them Eternally Dependent and at Home.' "

Manager-producer Eric Gold had never performed at "Afterbirth," but this was the second time that he came to watch and listen. These readings "are great because you can see talented writers incubate their creative process in a different way," he said. "It's a joy to see."

When conversation turned to the strike, Gold suggested that a resolution might lie in a change of tactics: "I'd love to see the writers and the DGA [Directors Guild of America] get together, figure out what's a fair compensation and use their leverage together to find a way out of this thing."

Get serious, for a second

The poignancy peak of the evening was provided by Dan Bucatinsky, an actor and an executive producer of Lisa Kudrow's HBO series, "The Comeback," who wove a tale about the anxious path he and his partner had traveled recently regarding a life-threatening operation for their 2-year-old daughter. But true to form for the evening, the saga ended in laughter.

"Eliza was about to have a heart surgery. . . . Cut to a month later. She pulls out of her 'procedure' with flying colors. Recovered in, like, three days. We took a little longer," Bucatinsky said. "I mean, every time she'd smile at us or do something cute -- or, you know, not dead-like -- we'd cry our eyes out with joy."

That victory in hand, he turned his attention, after the show, to the strike: "I find it ironic how hard the studios and networks fight against piracy -- which, in effect, is . . . not compensating [them] for work that [they own]. What we're fighting is the same . . . only the piracy is being committed by the studios and networks themselves."

Regarding the economic ramifications of the strike, Bucatinsky said, "I turned all of the lights out at the house when I left today, which I never used to think about before. It's a mind-set."

John Eisendrath, a writer and executive producer of "Alias," hilariously described the trials and tribulations of impregnating his wife: "We lived ovulation cycle to ovulation cycle. Ovulation sex has about as much variation as walking the picket line. . . ."

Kell Cahoon, who has written for "King of the Hill," "Just Shoot Me!" and "The Larry Sanders Show," was another who had never performed at "Afterbirth" but was enjoying his second viewing of the show.

"It seems like the strike -- and talk about it -- is permeating the whole room. Not only from a lot of what the performers are talking about, but, when we arrived tonight, my wife and I ran into someone she used to work with on 'The David Letterman Show.' And our conversation immediately turned into the rumor that Letterman is going to negotiate his own contract with the guild, and what impact that might have on the whole strike."

By the end of the evening, much of the somberness of strike talk had been deflated by laughter and camaraderie.

When asked if he and his family were scaling back financially because of the strike, Cahoon said, "Not yet. We're living a life of denial and delusion. If this thing continues into next year, we'll clamp down."