Arts In Review - Friday, June 5, 2026

Follows the audio · click any line to jump

1. view
2. And yes, this is Julio Martinez, and I have the writer and the complete cast of a show
3. that I'm going to be talking to right now, Mr. Ryan Leonard.
4. How are you, sir?
5. I'm very well, Julio.
6. Thank you very much for letting me join you today.
7. Oh, it's my pleasure.
8. Now, you've had a long history working in live theater, television, film, even animation.
9. what led you to write a solo show?
10. I have always toyed, I did stand up for a long time
11. so I'm familiar with just one person on stage
12. and I've wanted to tell a story and I just didn't know
13. what story it was that I wanted to tell and how I landed here is
14. kind of interesting. Briefly,
15. there's a theater in the Bay Area, I live in Oakland, The Marsh, and they do a lot of
16. solo performances and shows. And I went to buy tickets one day and they were sold out for that
17. night. And then I noticed that a local director, David Ford, was starting a class on how to write
18. a solo show. And it started in like 20 minutes. And I go, all right, well, I've signed up. And I
19. plopped down and he said, all right, well, what's your show about? I'm like, I didn't even know I
20. was going to be here 20 minutes ago. So I have no idea. So we just started to kind of riff a little
21. bit about my funny, somewhat dysfunctional childhood. And then it kind of morphed into
22. telling the story about raising our daughter, who was brilliant, but emotionally volatile.
23. And just the dozens and dozens of therapists that we had hired over the years to kind of
24. navigate some of those troubled waters. Well, the name of the show is Therapist Zero,
25. which is a telling remark just in the title.
26. And you had success with this show.
27. You did the San Francisco Fringe Festival.
28. You performed it off-Broadway.
29. And is this your first time doing theater in L.A.?
30. Yes, it is.
31. I had to think about it for a moment.
32. It is.
33. I'm excited.
34. I have a lot of friends down there and a few enemies.
35. I'm kidding.
36. But yeah, I'm excited about coming to the Hudson Theater next week for five shows.
37. Well, you're performing Monday, June 8th at 6.30, Thursday, June 11th at 6.30, Friday, June 12th at 8.30, and then you're doing two matinees.
38. Well, not quite matinees.
39. June 13th at 5.15 p.m. and then Sunday, June 14th at 3 p.m.
40. It's a typical fringe lineup.
41. That's right.
42. Yeah, a little bit.
43. But it's times that work for everybody and works for nobody at the same time.
44. One of those things.
45. Well, I've done a Fridge show in the past.
46. And the whole problem with it is if you have a difficult set, it's getting it on and off in time to get on when there's someone before you.
47. What kind of set do you need for this?
48. It very stripped down It literally two chairs and a stool And then I have some video projections a few that help support the story But working with my director Ken Sonken it was always to kind of keep it austere
49. and keep the focus on the story about our daughter, about myself, about our family and the family dynamics.
50. So you'll be arriving here pretty soon.
51. And you're in San Francisco right now.
52. Correct.
53. Yeah.
54. Oakland.
55. Correct.
56. Oh, you live in Oakland?
57. I do.
58. Yeah.
59. My wife and I lived in San Francisco for years.
60. And then we felt like we weren't getting enough street crime.
61. So we thought, let's move to Oakland.
62. And that's worked out very well.
63. Thank you very much.
64. How long did you live in San Francisco?
65. We're there for nine years.
66. I'm from Chicago originally, but I lived in San Francisco for nine.
67. And now we've been in Oakland for 20 plus years.
68. Yeah.
69. I lived in San Francisco through the 60s.
70. I finally came to LA in the 70s.
71. In fact, I was a member of the committee, which was an improv group.
72. I know the committee very well.
73. Jim Crenna and Bill Bonham and...
74. Gary Goodwin.
75. Yeah.
76. I worked with Michael O'Brien, who was not in the committee, but he was committee adjacent for big chunks of that.
77. I worked with a crazy director named Del Close.
78. Oh, yeah.
79. Who came out of Chicago's Second City.
80. I know a little bit about your background, Julio.
81. I'm familiar with the name before this week.
82. And I'm thinking, oh, when it came up, I could do your show.
83. I'm thinking, oh, man, Julio's like OG.
84. And now, not like, oh, golly, but having worked with Del Close, well, there you go.
85. That says it right there.
86. Right.
87. So how did you get involved in performing?
88. You didn't start out as a child actor, did you?
89. No.
90. I always wanted to.
91. The idea of being a comic was just so – the pull was so strong when I was young, when I was a kid.
92. But the idea of going on stage was just terrifying.
93. So I found this balance.
94. It's like, okay, here's where I can perform, but I can do it alone.
95. So I started in radio.
96. and I did that for like four or five years.
97. And when I got a job offer in San Jose up north here
98. to co-host a TV show, it's a comedy show.
99. And I did that.
100. And then when that got canceled, I started doing standup.
101. But it was, you know, it was terrifying for years and years.
102. And then that kind of, I fell forward, started acting.
103. I got an agent.
104. I started taking acting classes at ACT and, you know, Gene Shelton up here.
105. And then I started directing.
106. And as my mother used to say, Brian is unemployed in many fields.
107. I'm familiar with one show you did, David E. Kelly's Girls Club.
108. Yes.
109. I was on the episode that never aired.
110. That sounds like my wife.
111. Yeah.
112. it was, I, you know, I was so, I, you know, it was the first time,
113. it wasn't the first time I was a guest star,
114. but the first time I showed up and I'm talking to one of the actors and he
115. said, he said, Oh, I'm your, your double. I'm like, what? He says,
116. I'm your, your double. And I've never had one before. And I was like,
117. Oh my God, this is a coming of age. But the show they pulled,
118. they canceled it before my episode aired,
119. but his office called me to tell me, and I thought that was very decent.
120. And normally it just things happen in the vacuum that you never hear about And you I also familiar you did Nash Bridges That was on for a while
121. It was on for, yeah.
122. I think if you lived in the Bay Area as an actor and you didn't work on that, it was kind of a black mark.
123. It's just like, what's wrong with you?
124. So when did you do the play Off-Broadway?
125. It was this show.
126. I did it October, several months ago, at Theatre Row.
127. Ah.
128. Yeah.
129. It went very well.
130. Yeah, I was happy.
131. So are you going to do the Fringe Circuit?
132. You're down in San Francisco.
133. You're doing L.A.
134. You're going to take it to the Edinburgh?
135. I just finished the Brighton UK Fringe a week ago, 10 days ago.
136. and I'm doing some shows up in San Francisco again next month
137. and then Chicago, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis.
138. Purposely, I'm not thinking of the Edinburgh just because it's so massive
139. and there are so many shows and there are so many performances
140. and it just seems cutting through that.
141. You know, the Hollywood Fringe has got over 2,000 performances
142. over the course of three weeks.
143. and multiply that by multiple times in Edinburgh.
144. I just can't imagine trying to cut through.
145. So that's why I've chosen not to pursue it.
146. It might be a smart idea.
147. I did the Edinburgh Festival, and it was crowded.
148. Did you have fun, though?
149. Did you enjoy it?
150. Oh, sure.
151. I brought a theater company over there.
152. Oh, my.
153. I was the director of a publicly funded theater company.
154. the federal government started it under the CETA Act, Comprehensive Employment Triumvirating Act.
155. They thought there was no more depressed occupation in this country than acting in Hollywood.
156. So they formed five companies and I directed one of them.
157. The most depressed or the most depressing industry.
158. The CETA Act was actually started to put depressed occupations to work around the country.
159. And L.A. decided it was acting.
160. So there we go.
161. There we go.
162. Now, with this play, are you thinking of expanding it, taking it to television, writing a film about it?
163. You know, I'm open to – that question's come up a couple of times.
164. And I certainly am open to it.
165. But I'm kind of thinking just of the immediate, and I know it kind of sounds hackneyed, but just trying to find the audience that I can and doing the best I can.
166. I've got a couple of very small nibbles of interest.
167. So, again, I'm open to it, but I'm not actively pursuing that.
168. Uh-huh.
169. Are you working on other projects at the same time?
170. I'm not.
171. Oh, maybe I should.
172. What do you think?
173. You're solely concentrated on your solo show.
174. I am.
175. I am.
176. You know, that's the thing that surprised me.
177. You know, I did, like I said, I did stand up for a long time.
178. I had a manager for a time, but I mostly was myself, 100% and booking and everything else.
179. But this has been an enormous time suck.
180. I had no idea, you know, between the social media and just the technical aspects and, you know, marketing and everything else.
181. So I glad that I got the time to concentrate on it and hopefully give it some traction Well I feel very close to the play because I have a daughter who very talented and at times rather troubled
182. And just trying to...
183. And I also have a smaller son who has no trouble at all,
184. is happy all the time.
185. And my daughter is always somber all the time.
186. So dealing with these two things has been very interesting.
187. Yeah, yeah.
188. I didn't want this to be too navel-gazy of, oh, this is Brian's story, and it's just like, oh, isn't that special and precious?
189. It's a deeply personal story, and it's dark.
190. Parts of it are dark, and it's funny.
191. It's got some very big laugh-out-loud moments.
192. But I wanted it to be both deeply personal and having universal relatability.
193. And I've heard from a lot of parents.
194. Parents obviously will react to this stronger than someone that has no children, but I've heard some really nice feedback from them as well.
195. Um, and the, the, the range of response has been so heartening, um, because it's about the mental health industry.
196. And again, the literally dozens of, of psychiatrists, psychologists, et cetera, that, that couldn't help her.
197. Um, and it does have a happy ending to, to kind of cut to the chase a little bit.
198. But I heard from this one woman, I thought it was the most wonderful comment I could have.
199. She said she works in social services and she works with children in crisis when they're in real crisis.
200. And oftentimes it falls on her to be the person to decide whether they need to be admitted to a psychiatric unit.
201. And again, these are children.
202. And so she said, I've been doing this for 20 some years and I would work with these kids very closely for days, weeks, sometimes months.
203. And then all of a sudden they would just disappear into the system.
204. They would get transferred.
205. And she said, I would have no visibility into what happened to these kids after they left my purview.
206. And she said, after 20 years for the first time, I felt like there's hope that some of those kids actually made it through and that they're doing well.
207. and she was so grateful for that.
208. And that just, that really, you know, that hit home with me.
209. Well, the title of your play sort of gives an impression
210. of what your attitude about therapy is.
211. It's mixed, shall we say.
212. So, had you been doing the show?
213. Has it evolved?
214. Do you do rewrites as you go?
215. I have.
216. I've tweaked it.
217. Yeah, I have tweaked it and adjusted, and it's always with my daughter's input and approval.
218. Because this is, in many ways, this is her story.
219. And when, you know, when I mentioned, when I started workshopping this idea at the Martian in Berkeley, you know, and then it started to shift to tell about her story.
220. And I brought it up to her and I said, well, what do you think of that?
221. And she thought about it, thought about it.
222. She said, yes, I think that is okay.
223. Tentative, but she was clear.
224. And then when it was developed a bit more and I had a full draft, I handed her a hard copy with a red Sharpie.
225. And I said, I'm going to perform this for you.
226. And as I do, if there's a word, a line, a page, just draw a red line through it and hand me back the script.
227. And you don't have to explain it.
228. You don't have to justify it.
229. I will.
230. cut it. And so I performed it for her. And at the end, she was weeping. She was crying. It's very,
231. again, it's very emotional. And then she handed it back to me and she said, I wouldn't change a word.
232. Well, lucky you.
233. Yeah, it meant a lot. I mean, she trusted me. And then I've made some changes. You know,
234. the story has evolved. There's been some updates. And, you know, it was always with her input. And
235. she said, I prefer you didn't say this. And could you kind of frame this? And then she started
236. writing some of the jokes. And then I'm like, okay,
237. alright, just leave that to Dad, okay?
238. I appreciate that,
239. Bob, but you know.
240. Joke's not bad, but I think the jokes find the way
241. it is. I want to let our
242. KPFK audience know
243. that the producers are
244. offering two pairs of tickets
245. and you can get a
246. free pair of tickets to this show,
247. which I think is going to draw
248. quite an audience if you
249. just call. And this means
250. you're a member of the KPFK family. So if you're a member of the family, you can call 818-985-5735,
251. 818-985-KPFK, press one, and you can get a pair of tickets. There's only two pairs available,
252. So call in.
253. And I am talking to Brian Leonard.
254. And I must say, when you started out as a child evolving into this, did you go to college and study entertainment at all?
255. I didn't.
256. It's funny.
257. I went to college and I dropped out after about a year and a half.
258. and I started to work in radio, as I mentioned.
259. That's what I really wanted to do at the time.
260. And I did fine, you know,
261. and I kind of kept falling forward into different careers.
262. And then when our daughter was in first or second grade,
263. I think second grade,
264. I was talking to her about the importance of education,
265. how, you know, you really need education
266. and went through this whole thing about college
267. and, you know, she's only six.
268. she doesn't really need the college conversation now but then I stopped and I thought about it well
269. you know dad if it's so important then why don't you go back and finish
270. so I did after like a 30-year gap I finished uh college and it you know professionally didn't
271. help me not even one iota um but that wasn't the point I just wanted to kind of finish what I had
272. started where did you go um DePaul DePaul University in Chicago yeah what was your major
273. communication
274. probably the easiest path forward
275. so when you were on the radio
276. was it
277. a public television
278. public radio station like ours
279. or was it a commercial radio station
280. it was a commercial radio station
281. outside of Rockford Illinois
282. I did the morning show
283. as I used to say it was the number 7th
284. top rated morning show in the 138th
285. largest market in the country
286. So I got that going for me.
287. And when did you first get the nerve to go up and be a stand-up comedian?
288. Like I said, about a year after the TV show got canceled.
289. I thought, you know what, I either need to do it, and if I don't, I just need to put it behind me and not think about it.
290. And I thought one of those little epiphanies, it's like, you know, five years from now, will I be glad I did or I didn't?
291. And I said I just I need to So I just I didn tell anybody And I got to say Julio the first time I told a joke that I wrote to a dark room full of strangers and I got a laugh
292. It wasn't a big laugh, but I got a laugh. I'm like, wow. Wow. Yes. All right.
293. It's even surprising when you're talking, you don't expect a laugh and you're getting laughs.
294. well the the opposite you know mentioned i was in brighton recently and um i did the show there
295. and the first show um did not go as i expected and it was it had been it sold out it sold out
296. about a week earlier so there was you know people were there and they knew enough about the show
297. and i used to perform stand-up in in england my wife and i lived in london years ago so for
298. a year I performed there on and off. So I was accustomed to English sense of humor and audiences
299. and I thought I had kind of handle on it, but I did therapist zero in Brighton. People were very
300. nice, attentive, and it just like silence. And I told my wife, I said, I got four, maybe five laughs
301. if I'm, if I'm being generous. And it really threw me, it really, really threw me for a loop.
302. And so then afterwards people came up and they started talking and I was like, okay, they,
303. they got it. And then the second show, I went in with this mindset of, okay, do the best show.
304. Don't worry about the laughs and they're not going to come. And I felt much better about it and
305. got a few more laughs. Again, it's, it's, it's comedy, but it's not like a ha ha comedy,
306. but it, but the, the nice thing is, so the reviews came in and they were very nice. And it's just
307. like, okay, people got it. And, you know, one reviewer, he, I think, you know, reading it,
308. he understood my story better than I did. He was making connections that I hadn't been consciously.
309. So it was a really interesting epiphany for me of don't lean on the crutch of laughs
310. to best tell the story necessarily.
311. And so, yeah, it was a surprising lesson, but a good one.
312. Hmm.
313. Working with a director,
314. and you've worked with a very accomplished director,
315. Ken Sunken.
316. Yes.
317. How does he guide you through this?
318. You can get up and do stand-up on your own.
319. How do you work with the director?
320. That's a great question.
321. I've known Ken because he had a stand-up background himself, but as a theater director, he teaches theater now.
322. And so he and I had a certain familiarity.
323. And so he kind of pushed me and he said, this shouldn't be a stand-up show.
324. And I'm like, I think we both agree.
325. I want this to have some heft and some weight and have a little bit of emotional core to it.
326. And I want the laughs to either, you know, add some levity to some really dark places or to just change the energy.
327. So there's a lot of jokes that I, sorry, a lot of jokes that I cut that were just jokes for joke sakes.
328. And they needed to do more heavy lifting.
329. They needed to really tie in some things that we had heard earlier or these really dark moments.
330. I think we need to kind of lift the mood without without deflating the the story
331. or the or the point that I making your daughter she grown now right yes correct yeah is she in the entertainment industry She is so not Oh God She is so not She is the last thing that she would ever do
332. I mentioned this friend of mine, Michael O'Brien,
333. who teaches improv, and I go every week.
334. And so before she went to college, I said,
335. Emily, for a dad, just come to one improv class with me, just one.
336. She said, okay, you know, very, okay, I'll do it.
337. So she showed up and people were just really genuinely welcoming and warm and encouraging.
338. And so she went up and objectively, she did really well.
339. She had like one scene.
340. It was really beautiful.
341. It was very poignant.
342. She had another one.
343. She got some really big laughs and people afterwards, oh, Emma, I can't believe you.
344. Oh, they were so good.
345. And they were genuinely really happy.
346. And so walking out to the car with them, like, all right, good.
347. Well, maybe this will be her thing.
348. So she doesn't say a word, closes the door.
349. She turns to me and says, okay, I did it once.
350. Do not ever ask me to do that again.
351. Fair enough.
352. That's good.
353. So I have to ask you something.
354. Please.
355. How did you get into animation?
356. Because I'm thinking of getting into animation.
357. It was writing.
358. It wasn't, I can't draw a stick figure.
359. It was, again, one of those things that kind of fell forward.
360. I was doing some writing and I met this writing, he ran this writing group in San Francisco
361. and I went and I befriended him and got to know a couple of people.
362. And then one of the other people in his class or group was head of story development at
363. Pixar.
364. And so he said to Sam, do you know anybody, you know, maybe from the group or otherwise, that could help out to maybe develop some stories?
365. And he said, oh, yeah, Brian Leonard.
366. So I met Will Sacklos, who was, again, head of story development at Pixar at the time.
367. And so he brought me in on a couple of projects as a story consultant.
368. And I was, the first project was with Jan Pinkava, who won an Oscar for Jerry's Game, a short.
369. really is brilliant
370. and so I'm in this big room
371. and they've got all the 12 foot
372. walls and all the storyboards
373. and so it's just Jan and I
374. and he's going through the whole story
375. and he's going over to these storyboards
376. and so then this character Red comes down
377. and he's kind of acting out the whole
378. movie in his mind
379. that he's got so far
380. and he stops and he says so
381. Brian
382. what should we do? And I thought
383. wow, Jan, you should hire somebody that knows what they're doing.
384. It was, but he was just, he was, and I was just kind of thrown.
385. It's just like, you won the Oscar.
386. I'm just some goober.
387. But no, he, it was, it was great.
388. I mean, it was just one of those kind of humbling moments and I had some ideas and he liked
389. some and some didn't.
390. And then I helped on another project.
391. So it was just for a couple of, you know, moments in time, did a little story consultant
392. at Pixar.
393. Right. By the way, this is Julia Martinez, your host for Arts in Review.
394. I want to let our audience know that following my show is Donna Walker's Pacifica Performance Showcase.
395. And her guests are actor Peter McGee starring in Primary Trust at the Mark Taper Forum and singer John Ford Coley all well duo England of Don and John Ford Coley Yes I know them well Now once you get done with the Fringe Festival
396. do you immediately go on to performing somewhere else?
397. No, I've got a couple of weeks off,
398. and then I'm doing some shows in San Francisco.
399. So I've got like the last couple of weeks of June off.
400. But the summer is pretty booked.
401. Good.
402. Yeah, it is.
403. It's a problem to have, Julio.
404. It's a good problem.
405. It keeps me out of trouble.
406. Well, I really want to thank you for being a guest on my show.
407. It's been my pleasure.
408. Oh, it's truly an honor.
409. It's a pleasure.
410. Thank you very much, Julio.
411. And I'll let everyone know I've been talking to Brian Leonard,
412. whose solo show, what did I, oh, Therapist Zero.
413. I almost forgot it.
414. is performing at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
415. It opens Monday, June 8th at 6.30,
416. June 11th at 6.30,
417. Friday, June 12th at 8.30 p.m.,
418. Saturday, June 13th at 5.15 p.m.,
419. and finally, June 14th at 3 p.m.
420. And I want to thank you all for joining Arts in Review.
421. We come to you every Friday on KPFK.
422. Arts in Review and Pacifica Performance
423. Showcase are the
424. Arts and Culture Hour
425. on KPFK
426. every Friday from 2 to 3
427. Thank you all and I'll see you next week
428. Coming up this week on LA TheatreWorks
429. After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, American citizens of Japanese ancestry faced increasing infringement on their rights.
430. The notice goes up for my district. And there it is in black and white. Everyone with one-sixteenth Japanese blood must go.
431. Hold These Truths by Jeannie Sakata, next time on L.A. TheatreWorks.
432. That's this Sunday evening from 10 p.m. until midnight. L.A. TheatreWorks, right here on KPFK.
433. Hi, this is Halle Berry and you're listening to KPFK 90.7 FM.
434. And welcome to Pacifica Performance Showcase, Arts and Culture to Enlighten, Enliven, and Educate.
435. I'm your host, Donna Walker.
436. And today's show I'm really looking forward to, I have to say.
437. I just saw a remarkable play at the Mark Taper Forum called Primary Trust, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
438. It's by a female black playwright, Iboni Booth, one of a whole crop of remarkable black playwrights.
439. both male and female, who are just doing remarkable work.