Some Things You Should Know About My Mom

SHOW TITLE: Some things you should know about my mom

COMPANY: Sad boys with dead moms collective

BASED CITY OF COMPANY: Oakland

AUTHOR: Gabriel Diamond

SHOW DESCRIPTION: "Some Things You Should Know About My Mom" is a multimedia performance by Gabriel Diamond about his mom Sandy Diamond. It’s full of Jewish Mom jokes, what it was like being a troublemaker teen growing up with a bipolar, hunchback, single artist mom, how he helped her die, burying her with his bare hands, all the regrets, and now, what it like raising a teen of his own. And there’s dancing.

It started off as the eulogy Gabriel shared in 2016. That it was adapted into a play “Memorial” by Tamar Halpern. After about 8 different actors played Gabriel in various productions, Gabriel was invited to perform himself with the Roots and Wings Project in Los Angeles in 2021. Now he’s coming back to the stage to finally share the full story.

Some reviews from Gabriel’s LA performance:

"Totally engaging and captivating" -Front Mezz Junkies

"Performed with understated power by Gabriel Diamond, it's a movingly beautiful, heartbreaking tribute to not just Gabriel's mother, but all mothers who raise children with
courage, love, humor, and self-sacrifice. Throughout the piece, Diamond moves
from awkward son to powerful mourner. His grief chokes him at times; his
performance is infinitely poetic." Erin Kahn - Stage Buddy

"It was told in such a personal and simple way that you really hung on every word." - Max Berry

TYPE OF SHOW: Solo performance

TIME OF SHOW:

WARNINGS: Ok for ages 11 and up.

Gabriel Diamond is an award-winning filmmaker and social artist. His work explores the intersection of vulnerability, street theater, dance, and social change. He co-created the Vulnerable Rally as a radical experiment to invite empathy between strangers—blending street theatre, shadow work, and community building with social/political commentary. As an in-demand movement facilitator, he’s known for Dance Roulette and Blindfolded Contact Dance—a practice that emerged from a desire to surrender into
the unknown, discover freedom from judgment, and increase sensitivity and trust
between dancers. He received his theatre training at Trinity Rep Conservatory
and was a founding member of Cutting Ball Theatre. He lives in Oakland, CA with
his daughter and partner. Oh, and he loves his mom. 

Sandy Diamond was a painter, calligrapher, playwright, and poet who spent her early years rubbing shoulders with Allan Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac. As a young artist, she battled manic depression and was in and out of mental institutions. Her early work was informed by her mental health struggles and her lived experience as a hunchback, which she got from a combination of scoliosis and breaking her back after falling off a roof. Sandy moved to California in the early 1970s in order to raise her son, Gabriel, as a single mother by choice.
In her later years, she performed her poetry with a band under the stage name, Quasimodo and the Bell Ringers. While Sandy passed in 2016, her prolific calligraphy work lives on
today in the homes of luminaries such as Alice Walker, Whoopi Goldberg, and Gloria
Steinem. Sandy was the author of several stage plays, books of poetry and calligraphy. Her memoir, To An Insane Degree, was published posthumously.