Rambo Explores 'The Lady With All The Answers'

One woman's timeless advice is brought to a new audience.

David Rambo is a supervising producer for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, but he has also done some writing for the stage. One of his plays, The Lady With All the Answers, is currently being performed in Rambo's home state of Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. Lady is about iconic advice columnist Ann Landers. Rambo grew up reading Landers' column every morning. "When I read her obituary, I was struck by how affected I was by her death," Rambo explained to the Post Gazette. "She had been at the breakfast table all my life. It was odd to think of her not being there anymore."

"As I looked over biographies and collections of her columns, I realized that her dialogue with her readers through the column was very much an artist-and-audience relationship," Rambo said, and he decided that she was the perfect subject for a one-person show. "She so created herself as a theatrical character."

Landers' sister Abigail Van Buren was also an advice columnist, but Rambo decided to focus on Landers. "The things [Landers] was interested in and used her column to deal with had a bit more gravity," he explained. "Dear Abby was very clever and would go for the quick quip. Ann Landers was much more concerned with broader social issues and was very instrumental in steering a lot of money for advances in medicine and mental health care. She took on important issues that made a difference in everyday people's lives."

"She cut through a lot of mystery about human behavior and human problems. She gave us a vocabulary for them. Thanks to Ann Landers, we knew what to call alcoholism and homosexuality and depression. She brought it out in the open," Rambo continued. He went on to say, "It's so great to see stuff she wrote 25 years ago still relevant, still having an impact, and with younger audiences who never knew who Ann Landers was."

The original article is from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Tickets to The Lady With All the Answers can be purchased at the Pittsburgh Public Theater website.

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