LOVESWELL is "such a wonderful little discovery to find in the middle of Hollywood."

What a beautiful review by Actress and Second City Alum Tracy Thorpe who said that Loveswell, "exceeded all of her expectations that were super high to begin with." Here's what she had to say:

"Loveswell is such a wonderful little discovery to find in the middle of Hollywood. Both John's writing and performance were pure perfection. I have been thinking about it all day. SO powerful and HILARIOUS on top of it all!!!! A show with deep heart and soul, and many, many laugh out loud moments. Its billed as being about surfing, and it does honor the sport in such a way that it compels you to want to get out and surf the first chance you have. But mostly Loveswell is a deeply touching, and extraordinarily forethcoming lovestory." - Tracy Thorpe

Ticket's and Info at www.loveswell.com and read the more than 50 + counting Amazing Reviews.

Everyone loves Loveswell!! Written by John Fortson and directed by Terrie Silverman

Running until June 7th, 2009 at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles

Hope to see you there - John

LOVESWELL: "BRAVO for LOVESWELL" the One Man Show by John Fortson at the Hudson Theatre

Loveswell gets a major wonderful review from Celebrated Actor and Author of the Hilarious New Hit Book - Angry Conversations With God

"Actor-writer John Fortson possesses that rare combination of vulnerability and humor. A handsome, surfer jock with an innocent heart and an undyinglove for his tempestuous wife, he glides from hysterical mimicry to heartbreaking revelation in a moment. His show really is like riding anendless wave. You won't realize you've traveled such a distance with himuntil the lights go out. Bravo!"-- Susan Isaacs, Actor/Writer, Angry Conversations With God

Tickets and Info plus all the 50 + great reviews at http://www.loveswell.com/

Directed by Terrie Silverman at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles until June 7th, 2009

LOVESWELL is "RECOMMENDED!!" by ReviewPlays.com

"Recommended!!" "I recommend this show. Full of funny monologues with poignant moments...hilarious scenes...that showcases Fortson's versatility as an actor in this terrific portrayal of love and marriage. "
--Elizabeth Lopez, ReviewPlays.com

Tickets and info plus all the reviews at http://www.loveswell.com/

Loveswell is directed by Terrie Silverman

Playing at the Hudson Theatre until June 7th, 2009

"LOVESWELL is the very best one man show I've ever seen."

LOVESWELL, the one man show by John Fortson has received more than 50 Amazing Reviews from Critics and Audiences like this one:

"Loveswell is unquestionably the very best one man show I have ever seen. Its a fiercly brave, beautiful and honest portrayal of true love from the point of view of a hopeless romantic. I found the writing and acting to be incredibly moving and poignant and the parallels between my marriage and the play astounded me. I have a new found appreciation for my husband and I am inspired and awe-stuck by John Fortson's flawless and authentic acting skills". --Katie Mack

Tickets and info as well as all the reviews at: http://www.loveswell.com/

Writing and Rehearsing

I'm up tonight and I'm writing and editing and editing and writing and rehearsing and it's fun and painful and sickening and awesome all rolled into one. Loveswell opens at the Hudson theatre and there is lots of interest already.

My director, Terrie Silverman, is very excited about the material and the work I'm doing. I said can't we just do what I did in the last show. After all it got great reviews from critics and audiences. She said, this show is much deeper and you are really getting to the heart of what relationships are all about. It's funnier, more poignant and frankly I'm more excited about this work.

So I'm going to keep at it. See you on opening night. - John

Loveswell Press Release - It has been announced!!

Hey all - here is the great press release for Loveswell my one person show hitting the prestigious Hudson Theatre May 1st. Check it out. They did a great job on it.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: Lisa Singelyn, Counterintuity, LLC818-731-0935; lisa@counterintuity.com

RETURN OF LOVESWELL SET TO MAKE WAVES IN HOLLYWOOD
(Hollywood, CA)—Back by audience demand, Loveswell, a one-man show that dives deep into the ebbs and flows of a relationship through the eyes of a surfer, returns to the prestigious Hudson Guild Theatre on May 1st.Loveswell—written and performed by John Fortson and directed by Terrie Silverman—earned critical and audience raves and during its original run in 2005.

Fortson, whom some call “the next Spalding Gray,” was compelled to revive Loveswell by pleas from fans, as well as Silverman. “John’s gotten deeper and has gone to the next level,” Silverman observes. “Loveswell is so great—poignant, funny, heart-opening and truthful. John is in his power as an actor and writer.”

Married to film and television actress Christie Lynn Smith for almost 11 years, Fortson introduces parenting into this hilarious but brutally honest revival that allows the audience to peer behind closed doors as he struggles to balance the demands of marriage and fatherhood with his love for waves.

Described as “raw, hilarious and incredibly poignant,” Loveswell uses surfing and the ocean as a metaphor for the ever-changing nature of relationships. Fortson shares his deep vulnerabilities and the complexities of marriage and fatherhood with unflinching honesty. Fortson fearlessly bares all as he works out--with the audience--his own shortcomings, and reaches for the love he wants to share and the husband and father he wants to become.

"Loveswell will appeal to anyone trying to figure out love in their relationship, because John embodies all the difficulties, the absurdities and the ironies about his own relationship and how he's trying to navigate through it," Silverman said.

Fortson, who earned a Best Leading Actor Award at the 2007 Film Accolade Awards, has studied with famed acting coaches Howard Fine, Jay Goldenberg, Eric Morris, Cameron Thor and the Groundlings. He is a member of SAG, AFTRA and AEA. His screen credits include independent and feature films, numerous TV roles, and dozens of commercials. He has been asked to perform in Six Feet Under writer Jill Soloway’s hit show, Sit N Spin, at Los Angeles’s MOCA and other local venues.

Silverman is an accomplished director, writer, performer and educator who directed the original Loveswell. Famed surf artist Meegan Feori will design the set; lighting will be designed by Derrick McDaniel.

All proceeds from the opening night event will benefit Heal the Bay, a non-profit group that fights for workable solutions to the problems threatening Southern California's coastal waters.
Tickets for Loveswell are available at www.plays411.net. For complete information, visit www.loveswell.com.

Angry Conversations With God

My friend and once classmate, Susan Issacs, has written a book called Angry Conversations With God. And I can't wait to read it. I loved it the minute I opened the box from Amazon.com It looks snarky and funny! And I love that word, snarky. I don't even know what it means. I don't even want to know. I just want to hear it and believe it's kind of tongue in cheek humor, or dry and witty humor, or it's a kind of alien humor, you know, those Snarks. I love the Snarks. But they use this word to describe Susan's humor in the book and I'd have to say that they are right.

Susan's hilarious. She's got this uncanny ability to play the deadpan around her witty looks at life and religion. I've seen many of her performances and work based on the work that she presents in this ACWG and it always makes me laugh and think.

I've had many ACWG and I think that's okay. I think he can take it, after all he's omniscient right, so he knew it was coming and he knows when it will end. How are we supposed to take all this suffering that this life is about so we can become better people. He set up the system so why shouldn't he hear about it every now and then. It's good to let it out and I think he likes it as whenever we are severely challenged by something in our lives it means we are getting closer to another level and or change.

I've let him have it over my career many times and the way he's kept me almost getting what I want. Due to this struggle I've managed to rack up many film and television roles, a slew of commercials, and write my most exciting project to date, my One Person Show, Loveswell. Loveswell opens May 1st for it's Hollywood Premiere at the prestigious Hudson Theatre. I also got married and had a baby with my wife actress Christie Lynn Smith. These two women are the loves of my life and if it hadn't been for challenges in my life they would not exist to me as I know them.

I wanted to be a pro surfer but my Dad nixed that with the ole', "What is a trophy on the wall going to do for you? How will you pay the rent? How will you feed your family?" So I stalled and didn't move forward. I kept surfing but not competing. I had no real role model at that time but I did have acting and acting had me. It found me in the way of a well known acting teacher, Kathryn Laughlin, who took me under her wing to get me into class and on my way to LA. If I hadn't taken her seminar when I graduated college as a result of not wanting to become an advertising exec, I would of never met my wife who as an actress, living in the same town, Jacksonville, Florida, called me to ask, "I hear that you drive down to Tampa to take Kathy's class. Do you think I could ride with you sometime?" Of course I said and the rest is history.

Now married 11 years almost and a 1 year old baby. I look back and think wow if I had had it easy I'd never be surrounded in the love I am now. If we hadn't admired each other's acting and friendship right away. If the long drive, 3 1/2 hours each way from Jacksonville to Tampa, had been shorter, maybe Christie wouldn't of ridden with me. Then we wouldn't of become great friends. Then when I moved to California, I wouldn't of asked her to be my roommate, which I did and we were for 3 years, just as friends. Then as I was ultimately fed up with her being my roommate and looking for my own place - I was always having ACWG at this time as she never cleaned a thing always frustrating me, pushing me to get my own place - she booked a job that would take her away for a soap opera for a year. If that hadn't happened then I wouldn't of been so introspective about what I really wanted that year and thus when she came back I might not of saw her in a new light and asked her to be my girlfriend and lover, then wife.

Now with a baby and 11 years almost under our belt. I'm happiest when I'm wrapped up in her love. I can't imagine it any other way. And all the ACWG's I had - why did you put me with her? Why bring her into my life? Why doesn't she clean a thing? This is ridiculous! God must of just been laughing knowing she and I were meant to be.

Ultimately he knows and has to have the last laugh at all of us trying to figure out and make sense of this world of half knowledge and truths. I can't wait to see how Susan brought together all her stories into what is ACWG. Just the cover makes me laugh. I'll let you know how it goes.

Best, John

I want to be...

Kissing my wife, making out with her, holding her, lying naked with her, feeling her body, making love. I want to hold her hand and lie in a hammock together or walk around the street. I want to hear those words, I miss you. You are handsome. I want you.

I'm staring over at my wife and seeing those sweet little delicious lips dissecting the day, but I'm only thinking how my lips would feel pressed up against hers. I hope she doesn't quiz me as she does sometimes. Are you listening? Yes. What did I just say? I usually make something up here based on the couple of words I did hear, or I just am silent. Either way she gets upset.

But now it doesn't matter, I yearn for her. But with a mountain of stuff between her and I on this kitchen table, how could we ever come together. I wish we could be in a movie for a while where we throw everything off the table, reaching and grabbing for each other, dying to make love. The way it was the night I asked her to be my girlfriend, on the beach, in the mouth of that cave in LaJolla, San Diego, the ocean lapping up against our feet in celebration of her saying yes.

Now it's a baby highchair and a baby reaching up for me. Abby wants me to hold her and she's pretty upset about it as an eleventh month old can be. On the table sits my lunch, on top of scripts and notes for my current show, Loveswell, bills, junk mail, an alarm clock, a camera, an organizer, a box of pasta, The Baby Book, and a half dozen other things collaging up my eating space and creating a list of to dos that's keeping me from those lips on my wife.

I pick up Abby. She reaches for my lunch as I pull her away. Christie hands me a green bean and I destring and nibble off a tiny bit, then playfully poke my tongue out at my daughter, the been dangling off. As usual she would reach up and take off the bean with her fingers, but she must of been hungry, she leaned in and mouthed it off my tongue before I even knew what happened.

It was one of the sweetest things she's done, so innocent, so wanting the food and seeing it there just went for it. My wife sighed, Oh, that's so sweet, she french kissed you. Don't say that. No, no, I'm kidding, that was so sweet. Oh, she's so cute. Everyday my daughter endears herself to us in some new way that blows our minds. This was one more on the list.

But part of me thought, I wonder if that would work on Christie? Maybe if I chewed up her food on her plate and sat close enough to her on the other side of this messy table, maybe she'd just go for me, if at least just to eat her dinner. I want to french kiss my wife.

The days just get so busy now, having a kid, working on shows, writing a play, auditioning, working, working out, cooking food, doing chores, and it's all so exhausting that I'm looking for her at the end of the day, only when I find my wife, we both just want to crash.

I want to be...hmmmm...so much.

Life Raft

Where is the help? That's what I've been wondering lately as I develop material for my one person show, Loveswell going up May 1st at the Hudson Theatre in LA. Rehearsing has been so much fun and at the same time really life affirming and a huge awareness builder of issues and how they are handled between my wife and I.

I feel as if we are on this life raft sometimes floating out and about in this ocean called life. Experiencing the world together; rowing our little boat here and there. And all is wonderful, that is until one of us skips the oar and falls out of the boat. It's as if the boat is drifting slowly away, you are trying to get back to it, treading water in the middle of the ocean, reaching desperately for the side of the life raft.

But your partner is upset that you've fallen out! And as you reach for her, she's taking the oar and hitting you on the head for falling out in the first place! Hitting me and hitting me until I'm pushed under the water drifting downward toward the bottom of the ocean. Where is the hand? Where is the help? Help me?! Help me when I've made a mistake, forgotten something at the grocery store, snored in the middle of the night, given too big a tip to a waiter, or past the exit to the movies. Why is it always, John, what are you doing?!

I don't know what it is about feeling as if she has to keep trying to get an answer for why the brain forgets things or skips a beat and makes a mistake. Maybe she's a scientist and like everyone else, she's just trying to figure out the billion dollar question that'll make us all more efficient or just more accepted by our spouces.

But I'm overwhelmed and it's easy to see why I forgot one thing at the grocery. I know you said it a million times, but I have a million things on my mind. So why doesn't she say, Oh, honey I understand, you are so busy, no worries, we'll just make it without the salsa. Instead, it's why, why, but why, no really why, how come, you had a list, did you cross it off, can I see the list, why, why, why?

Your hand, your hand is all I want to know that you love me no matter what. I thought of this recently in rehearsal, the life raft. I think we all need a hand back in, that's why we tell our stories. That's why I'm telling Loveswell, so we can stay in the boat enjoying the scenery of life.

Fun Developments for Loveswell

Have to blog about a great recent development for my one person show, Loveswell. In developing the material I tried out using surfing and the ocean as a backdrop, for metaphors, for my relationship. Loveswell is about relationship, but uses surfing and the ocean in a way that anyone can relate. And people really loved it, thus I had confidence in using it in the show.



This run starting May 1st at the Hudson Theatre here in LA, Loveswell will have the privilege of having famed surf artist, Meegan Feori, along for the ride. I had the instinct when I first saw her work on a site online. One of the first paintings I saw was Night Flyin Femlin and I was immediately taken.


All of Meegan's paintings share the ocean and surfing in a way that anyone can enjoy. It's not in the flashy maneuvers that surfing can easily take on, only appealing to surfers, but it's in her representations of the ocean as a playful place, of a connection place, of a meaningful place where we, as man or woman, share time bathing in the beauty of one of our most important natural worlds, the ocean.

As she says, “I am a bella niña bruja ocean-loving dreamer compelled to create what my heart and mind envision. While my work represents surfing, it is not exclusive to surfing. It transcends the act of surfing becoming a visual representation of human emotion and experience.”

After talking and meeting with Meegan recently at The Hudson Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd, in LA, she happily agreed to have a showing of her work coinciding with our Loveswell run. Then I had the idea to ask her to paint the set and use her own colors and interpretive talent to create the world where Loveswell will take place. And Meegan said yes.

So Loveswell is proud to bring Meegan aboard for what will be a wonderful and fun run of Loveswell, my one person show about a man fighting for his relationship through the ups and downs of marriage as seen through the eyes of a surfer.

Hope you can make it down to see both of these fabulous works. www.loveswell.com

Writing Loveswell

Hey John Fortson here. I'm back to blogging. Thought it would be fun as my One Person Show Loveswell is hitting the stage soon.

Someone asked me why I wrote Loveswell today. My one person show. It's not a new question but one that gets refined everytime I answer it.

I simply had to do it. I suppose like most writers, creators of things, these ideas come to you as if you were an antenna. Loveswell, sat in me for almost 10 years in another form, as another story. After a series of dead ends, I heard these bits and pieces of the story bumping around inside of me and finally had to listen. I've been very interested and challenged by the relationships in my life, with my relationship with even myself and so through my acting and my writing, Loveswell came to be.

The hilariously uplifting story of a man fighting for his relationship through the ups and downs of marriage as seen through the eyes of a surfer. It's a story about relationship, about grey areas of life, about all of us. Through telling our stories we all connect no matter how personal.

People said of Loveswell, "I felt as if I was at an intimate dinner party with you and found out things I never knew." I say to that I'm not embarrassed or ashamed to tell the things I feel insecure about because we all feel the same. We all have the same lives, just yours is in a different state and you go by a different name, but we are all the same.

I'm excited to share Loveswell again. It's been so fun to work with my director, Terrie Silverman again. To improv and dig deep to find the gold of stories lying beneath my skin. I look forward to Loveswell hitting the Hudson Theatre, here in Los Angeles, May 1st-June 7th.
Take care, John