Time: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Location: UC Davis Cancer Center
4501 X St., Sacramento
(Click here to map directions)
This special event is free and open to the public
Please RSVP to Patti Robinson
(916) 734-0823 or e-mail
(Seating is limited to the first 150 guests)
AMC community relations director Nancy Stewart, Dr. Virginia Borges, AMC executive director Alice Norton and Jonna Tamases at the Women's Event in June 2010.
The First Annual Women’s Event on June 9, 2010 raised $14,000 and generated challenge grants for UCCC,s Young Women’s Breast Cancer Translational Research Program. AMC supporters Walter and Laura Dear challenged guests to match their personal donation of $10,000, and donors are rising to the challenge. The event featured Jonna Tamases’s one-woman play, “Jonna’s Body, Please Hold,” which chronicles her life as a three-time cancer survivor. Her funny, touching performance was well received.
Host Jim DeMaria speaks Jonna Tamases about her shows, Jonna’s Body, Please Hold and Girl Manifesto, and traveling around the country performing at survivor days, oncology symposiums, and other wonderful cancer supportive events.
or visit The Nurses Station website and subscribe to the iTunes Podcast.
Written by GayPatriot.net.
I just returned from a special screening of Jonna’s Body, Please Hold, a film that is wowing audiences at festivals across the land. I had been eager to see the flick, having heard it was in production and having met its star Jonna Tamases several years ago at an entertainment industry networking event. Later, I saw her one-woman show which served as the inspiration for the movie.
That play had so moved me, I came back to see it again, bringing a friend who was slated to direct a short film I had written.
If there were justice in Hollywood, the name Jonna Tamases would be as well-known today as are those of perky young blondes and buxom brunettes who may have the “look” that (Hollywood producers believe) sells movie tickets, but whose acting talents can’t measure up. If they were to perform on the same stage as Jonna, it would be like watching high school cheerleaders next to Meryl Streep. The cheerleaders may be more enticing to straight men, but the actress can make you sympathize with her character and feel her pain.
And that’s exactly what Jonna did, both in her one-woman show and in its film adaptation. She tells the story of her battle with cancer from the point-of-view of her body, anthropomorphized into Pearl, an operator who reminds me of Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine from Laugh-In.
Just like Lily Tomlin, Tamases is both a talented comedienne and a gifted dramatic actress (Nashville is worth the cost of rental if just to see Tomlin’s Oscar-nominated performance). In Jonna’s Body, Please Hold, Jonna plays herself, the overwhelmed operator fielding calls from various body parts and also plays those parts themselves. On screen as well as on stage, she succeeds in giving each a distinct personality.
Soon Pearl fields unexpected calls from evil French-accented sprites. At first dismissing the calls, she later realizes they are the cancer which has invaded Jonna’s body, upsetting the balance she has tried so hard to maintain. Through the attempts of this increasingly harried operator to try to placate the now increasingly unsettled body parts, we gain insight into Jonna’s own struggle with cancer. It is both moving and amusing at the same time.
Watching it on screen, I was again reminded of Jonna’s amazing gifts, how she could turn her own illness into an inspiring story, reminding us all to listen to our bodies and to delight in just being alive. It wasn’t just this story. It was also her acting. We believed each body part had a distinct voice. As did the operator. As did the character Jonna.
Seeing such a talented actress, I wondered why it was that other women with less talent have achieved more success on the silver screen. Which brings me to the title of this post.
Jonna Tamases is one of the most talented actresses (at least of those whose work I’ve seen) of my generation. I first saw her doing a comedy sketch and was blown away by her performance. It’s why I rushed to see her one-woman show. On stage, she could switch from one voice to another in an instant and then back again in another. She could go from tears to laughter, without the audience seeing her sweat. Amazing.
Perhaps, Jonna has not become a household name because she just doesn’t have what Hollywood casting directors are looking for. And that’s really where the problem of Hollywood lies. So many talented actors (and writers) come to Hollywood each year thinking they can make it on the basis of their talent. And yet either because they fail to meet the right people or because they don’t meet some producer’s notion of what an actress should be, they don’t get the parts that often go to lesser talents.
To be sure, the entertainment industry is a business and producers have to pick those actors and actresses they think will sell their movies to a worldwide audience. But, it would be nice if Hollywood were a meritocracy where the most gifted performers rose to the top. In that case, we’d be hearing a lot more about Jonna Tamases.
While she may not have the “look” of Keira Knightley or Lindsay Lohan, she does have something that latter lacks, an ability to play a broad range of characters. She resembles women like Thelma Ritter and Lily Tomlin, gifted comediennes who had a rich dramatic range as well. And each enjoyed long careers in Hollywood (heck, Lily is still enjoying hers). Both made movies we still watch today.
If this film leads some enterprising director to discover Jonna and he decides to include her in all pictures, he may well find himself making movies people will be watching long after they are made — as we still watch Ritter’s flicks and Tomlin’s comedy sketches.
If you want to see a contemporary woman who measures up to those Hollywood greats, go and see Jonna’s movie. Or just buy the DVD.
The Auckland Methodist Central Parish, Pilgrim Productions, CityLife Hotel Auckland and BCS joined together to present a wonderful evening of entertainment with visiting Los Angeles-based actress Jonna Tamases and her award-winning one-woman show “Jonna’s Body, Please Hold!” 
On Friday 22 May, 90 people gathered at the Theatre Pitt to enjoy the show and to raise money for BCS. Jonna (pictured) performed in Auckland courtesy of the aforementioned sponsors and helped raise over $1,000 for BCS.
“Jonna’s Body, Please Hold” offers an original, often hilarious but poignant, tender look into Ms Tamases’ own battle with cancer, a performance that uplifts, inspires and challenges despair with Jonna’s own contagious zest for life.
Jonna gives us a glimpse into the hectic day to day world of her body, complete with Baby Toe (who is squeezed into a too-tight shoe), Upper Back who threatens to go on strike if she doesn’t rest up a little and those irrepressible twins Uta and Ula, breasts begging to be released from the torment of a restricting bra. A busy receptionist sits at a switchboard, fielding calls from these irate tenants, dishing out as much comfort and advice as she can while her boss, Ms Jonna, carries on with life, somewhat oblivious and neglectful of the goings-on inside her body … that is until two unwanted tenants move in – the charming French madame Venice and the tough ‘old goat’ Walter – two cancerous personalities determined to set up housekeeping and wreak their havoc.
Jonna performs with an engaging honesty, involving the audience not only in the drama of the situation unfolding within her body but also establishing a chatty rapport as she speaks directly about her life and experiences.
With courage, honesty, and humor Jonna takes us inside her battle with cancer. We are with her every step of the way as she is diagnosed, more than once, endures tests, scans, biopsies and multiple rounds of chemotherapy and then we are there as her ravaged body begins to recover from the trauma of the disease. The body parts report in as they fight the battle and struggle to recover and restore her to health. Jonna finds that her body – its strength and will to survive – is her greatest ally and her most precious asset.
Jonna’s performance moved, inspired and delighted the audience – a truly talented actress with a brave, courageous and moving story to tell.
For more information about Jonna, visit her play website, Jonnas’ Body. Click here to view the Auckland performance poster.
BCS wishes to thank the Auckland Methodist Central Parish, Pilgrim Productions and CityLife Hotel Auckland for their kind support of this event.
Jonna will be performing the new play Girl Manifesto at the A.W.O.L. event. Have fun everyone!
Jonna’s Body Movie (Home Use Only) 
