On stage in actual and dramatized flashbacks to her giddy days as a comedienne and chanteuse, and on camera in the unashamed current reality of her condition, LEAVE THEM LAUGHING tells Carlas own glad, sad story in her own voice through diary entries, travelogues, interviews and skits. Films of her last brave travels to Australia, Britain and Mexico demonstrate the ferocity of her intention to suck the last molecules of pleasure from her life.

A journalist asked me what I wanted to do before I died, and I quite naturally answered: Johnny Depp.

We are confident that a musical comedy about the nearness of death will be a unique and compelling vehicle to engage an audience with a subject that might otherwise be shunned for its graphic toll of suffering and pain.

But beyond the inexorable progress of the disease is the inescapable truth that all of us, sooner or later, will have to confront our own individual demise. No one could serve as a more inspiring forerunner along that path than Carla Zilbersmith, who faces her own extinction with wit, wisdom, courage, music and love. That she will die before her audience, her son, her friends, and her parents, there is little doubt. That they need grieve for her suffering while she still is living, there is no reason. Later, she says, there will be too much time for tears and sorrow.

We see a universal appeal for this unique portrayal of a womans capacity for humor in the face of tragedy. Carlas outrageous and colorful sense of humor remains intact, even as her physical body weakens; who else would have the words Out of Order tattooed on her feet!

A little about Carla:

For more than fifteen years, Carla Zilbersmith wrote and presented an amazing array of musical and theatrical scores, scripts, one-woman plays, and songs. She and her band the SubUrbans were Lilith Fair finalists, she was the founding member of Were Redheads, a womens sketch comedy troupe, and her one-woman musical, Wedding Singer Blues, received rave notices up and down the west coast, including a Best of the Bay award. The Los Angeles Times compared her favorably to Lily Tomlin.

ALS imposes a cruel and literal deadline; Carla has up to two years to live. Our goal and hers — is to bring the film to the screen for her to see.

We plan a 90-minute version for theatrical and festival release and a 60-minute documentary for international and domestic broadcast.