Albie Selznick’s unlikely correspondence with one of rock’s biggest stars takes center stage in Letter from David, opening Oct. 18 at Santa Monica Playhouse.
As a teenage magician, Albie Selznick knew exactly how to make things disappear. But years later, he pulled off an even better trick: getting one of rock’s biggest stars to answer his fan mail.
For Selznick — and millions of other teens in the mid 1970s — David Bowie wasn’t just an idol. He was an escape hatch.
The Santa Monica native lost his father as a young child and quickly found refuge in creating illusions. Then, at 12, a friend handed him Bowie’s career defining album, Ziggy Stardust and everything changed.
Ziggy Stardust, surrogate dad
“Bowie became a father figure to me,” he remembers. “I wanted to be just like him.”
Years later, Selznick sent his hero an audacious, unsolicited pitch: a circus-themed tour inspired by Bowie’s Scary Monsters album cover, which pictured the “Space Oddity” singer as the classic French clown, Pierrot.
The ambitious young performer offered to teach his idol to walk a tightrope, juggle, perform magic tricks and navigate the stage on stilts.
Then the impossible happened.
“I’m intrigued — nay, excited!” Bowie responded in his own handwriting. “Send me videos.”
That reply launched a decidedly unpredictable sequence of events that Selznick recounts in Letter from David, his autobiographical solo play opening October 18 at Santa Monica Playhouse.
The show turns Selznick’s youthful rock star connection into an 80-minute trip through grief, glitter and the outrageous business of chasing a dream.
Sawing people & opening for Devo
At 13, Selznick and a friend auditioned for the Magic Castle’s junior program with a glam-rock magic act and a decidedly unconventional soundtrack.
“We sawed someone in half to the song ‘White Punks on Dope,’ wore glitter in our hair, and painted our faces like Bowie,” he remembers.
He later co-founded The Mums, a juggling, magic and physical-theater troupe that opened for Devo, Duran Duran and Berlin. Tim Robbins directed one of their plays.
But Bowie remained the big prize.
“Ever since I saw his Diamond Dogs show when I was 16, working with Bowie had been my ultimate goal,” Selznick says.
And by the time he devised the circus pitch, it seemed the dream might not be quite so far-fetched.
“He knew who I was, and he really liked some of my ideas –– particularly the Scary Monsters circus concept,” Selznick recalls.
“We ended up having a few run-ins over the years.”
The details of those meetings are a carefully guarded part of his show. But, Selznick teases that the reality “was very different from what I originally envisioned.”
Co-written and directed by his wife, filmmaker Laura Maccabee, Letter from David follows Selznick from age 9 to 27, blending archival photographs, video, projections, and physical theater. He began developing the project two years ago while recovering from major spinal surgery that left him homebound.
An early version played five performances at this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival. One particularly meaningful audience member: Bowie’s longtime pianist Mike Garson, who stuck around to swap stories.
For all its rock-star encounters, though, the play comes back to a lonely kid looking for somewhere to fit in.
“Bowie was a beacon for misfits and people who felt like they didn’t belong,” Selznick says. “He gave people permission to be themselves.”
Know Before You Go
What: Letter From David by Albie Selznick
Where: Santa Monica Playhouse, 1211 4th St., Santa Monica
When: Sundays (Oct. 18 – Dec. 20) @ 7 p.m.
Previews: Sunday, Oct. 11 @ 7 p.m.
Parking: Public Structure #1 (directly across 4th St.)
Tickets: Get Tickets ($15–$25)
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