"What's remarkable about writer/performer Alan Aymie's one-man show Child's Play is the super-abundant energy, tight scripting and furious pacing - so fast the audience can barely keep up as Aymie morphs into a disparate cast of characters. With his spitfire delivery, the indefatigable performer never misses a beat, careening from an estranged girlfriend bearing his child to an unctuous paternity lawyer, a no-nonsense-talking cousin back in New York and in a distinctly uncomic about face, to the brutally dysfunctional kids he teaches. Aymie's performance is quite electric....
Alan Aymie's moving semi-autobiographical, Child's Play is a testimony to the travails of adult responsibilities and fatherhood. Aymie deftly creates a montage of intriguing characters while telling of life as an impoverished artist who's about to become a father. Because Aymie instills a full-bodied, infectious humanity into his characters." - LA Weekly
"Alan Aymie (who's 5-foot-6, maybe) turned his real-life experience -- a man determined to be a father to his unborn daughter, despite the protests of the child's mother -- into the surprisingly fast-paced one-man show "Child's Play." Creating a variety of characters -- relatives advising he whack the former girlfriend, member of single-father support groups -- Aymie balances laughs with honest sentiment." - The Aspen Times
"Alan Aymie isn't accustomed to the fanfare that goes with appearing at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. He's rubbed elbows with some of the world's top comedians. He's met network executives and producers. He's drank a few six-dollar Coors Lights. and his lungs have been humbled by the Rocky Mountain altitude. Welcome to Aspen, Mr. Aymie. "I feel like the ugly stepchild that's just glad to be here," he said Friday. Friday was an "off-day" for Aymie, 28. While being pampered with a red carpet treatment that was foreign to him until arriving here, the first-time Comedy Festival talent wasn't getting a big head. "You can definitely get caught up in it," he said. "I'm really not used to this, I even found myself wearing black. But then I have to go home and pay rent in two days." Unlike the Comedy Festival's heavy hitters -- Steve Martin, Billy Crystal and Martin Mull, to name a few -- Aymie has a lot more at stake. "These guys -- it's like playing basketball with Michael Jordan. You just can't do it." Like many first-timers here, Aymie would love nothing more than to catch the eyes of a TV exec looking for sitcom talent. "I'm your typical struggling actor," he said. Originally from Boston, Aymie makes ends meet by teaching second grade in South Central Los Angeles. But he must be doing something right with his other job. Aymie's critically acclaimed one-man show, "Child's Play," was noticed by Comedy Festival officials last year. And in December, he got the big call. The folks at HBO, Comedy Festival's title sponsor, liked Aymie's show enough to invite him here. "I'm used to being a bus boy for these people," he said. "Now I'm being invited here." "Child's Play" is a true story about Aymie's struggle as a single-father. He barely knew the child's mother when she said she was going to have a baby they conceived and refused to marry him. And Aymie had to grapple with the fact that his picturesque view of family life wouldn't happen with this time around. "I was unemployed at the time and I tried to win her over," Aymie says with a laugh. "I got a job, cleaned my apartment and said, "Look at me, I'm a breadwinner." It didn't work. And in a refreshing manner, Aymie takes no pot-shots at his daughter's mother. "We're oil and water," he says. "But that's okay. That's the reality of it. What can you really do?" And that message comes through in "Child's Play". Aynie's first appearance was at the Raw Space on Wednesday. And the pre-show jitters were with him for sure. "Then someone said, the test is over. You made it." Aymie recalled. "They said I've worked two years to get here. And it eased the fear." The theme of Aymie's "Child's Play," which is directed by James Brown-Orleans, is simple. "Family is about love," he says, 'Everything else is pictures.'" - Aspen Daily
"Theater 150 ends its current series of one-person shows this weekend, and although each has had its merits, Alan Aymie's "Child's Play" may be the most inviting and accessible. Like his predecessors this season, Aymie writes from his own life. A month after a brief romantic relationship ends, he learns that the former girlfriend is pregnant. Somewhat taken aback by the news, if only because he's thought she was using birth control, Aymie is thrilled by the prospect of fatherhood and immediately offers to marry the woman. Explaining that, among other qualities, he's "too hairy" and smells like garlic, she declines. From that point, he embarks on a brief (45 minutes onstage) retelling of advice from several sources and recounting of his efforts to gain partial custody of the child, Emma. The tender coming-together of father and child is the show's focus, and -- refreshingly -- Aymie doesn't paint the unnamed mother as a villain. But at least as interesting is the writer-performer's telling of his time as a substitute teacher in an inner-city school. Although it forms a substantial part of this piece, it might be expanded rewardingly into a show of its own. Aymie and director James Brown-Orleans have come up with a presentation that's informative, powerful and energetic, touching, funny and humane -- in short everything a one-man show should be." - Los Angeles Times
