MATTY: an Evening with christy Mathewson 

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Featuring eddie frierson • directed by kerrigan mahan

“One of the Year’s Ten Best Plays! Whether you are a baseball fan or not, Eddie Frierson’s play, “MATTY: An Evening With Christy Mathewson,” is a superb theatrical experience. MATTY hits a home run!” — National Public Radio (NPR)

The Santa Monica Playhouse BINGE Fringe Festival of Free Theatre in association with The Mathewson Foundation present
the Smash Hit Off-Broadway Show direct from Times Square!

Santa Monica Playhouse is delighted and proud to welcome Eddie Frierson’s MATTY back to our boards for two shows only. Baseball fan or not, you definitely want to see this show.

“It’s 100% true that you don’t have to be a baseball fan to be completely engaged by Eddie Frierson’s performance. He leaves the audience with a real appreciation of Christy Mathewson, and the place and time in which he was an authentic hero. On the other hand, if you are a baseball fan, you will be amazed at how much you didn’t know about “Matty,” his contemporaries, and the dramatic baseball events of their time.” — Bob Costas, NBC

Written and performed by Eddie Frierson, Matty is the life story of Christy Mathewson, legendary hall-of-fame pitcher for the New York Giants (1900 to 1916), gentleman, philosopher and first true American hero who inspired a whole generation of fans to make baseball America's pastime. Mathewson was arguably America's first major baseball legend - a college-educated all-American farm boy from baseball's age of innocence, a multi-faceted baseball player with homespun wit. Besides his ballpark records, still among the most impressive ever posted, he was an author of books for boys, toured in vaudeville, made a motion picture, and was a war hero, a coach, a sports writer and very likely the first major sports figure to be a product spokesperson.

“A perfect pitch! Pure Virtuosity!” Clive Barnes, NEW YORK POST

Frierson, who researched and developed the play, is also a college-educated all-American ballplayer. A baseball scholarship brought him to UCLA to pitch for the Bruins. While there he also pursued a degree in theatre and, as he says, realizing that he would never be a hall-of-famer, bypassed a professional baseball career in order to pursue acting. Staying close to his athletic roots after graduation, he was the head baseball coach at Santa Monica High School while looking for the perfect vehicle to launch his acting career. He found that vehicle with the Christy Matthewson story, spending twelve years researching and developing it into Matty, which had one of its first public performances at the Santa Monica Playhouse in 1989. Ironically, he has clearly gone farther in baseball through the stage than he ever would have on the field as it is because of his performance as “Matty” that he was ushered into Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown as an “Honorary Inductee.”

Santa Monica Playhouse is honored to welcome Eddie Frierson and Matty back to the boards and thanks you, its loyal audiences, for your support of the BINGE Fringe Festival of Free Theatre.

Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 7:30 pm
​sunday, november 6, 2022  at 1:00 pm

​Tickets are FREE but you MUST reserve below

Call the Box Office at 310-394-9779 ext 1
to book your tickets or click ---->

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Santa Monica Playhouse Reserves the Right to Cancel or Reschedule Performances Without Prior Notice.