Cancer! The Musical

You know what makes Charlie Lustman warm and fuzzy inside? A musical about cancer! Lustman, a 43-year-old musician known around Los Angeles for being the owner of the Silent Movie Theatre, put the theatre on the market in 2006 and wanted to get back to his musical roots. Then he was blindsided with news that he had a rare form of bone cancer. "They sawed my jaw off," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I have a mouth piece now. It is supplementing the jaw bone. This thing goes all the way to the back so you can see my nasal cavity when I take it out. I take it out four or five times a day to clean [after] I eat. I have the cleanest mouth in town."

A year later, the singer/songwriter has penned an operetta about surviving cancer (”Made Me Nuclear”), released as an accompanying album, and now performs the theatrical concert at the Santa Monica Playhouse. “The sweet, sad and humorous one-man show chronicles Lustman’s bout with cancer, beginning with receiving the diagnosis to being declared clean of the disease after a year of chemotherapy,” one reviewer wrote. “Lustman’s free-and-easy melodies variously call to mind ‘70s folk, the blues and the Beatles. High and vibratoless, his voice is sometimes James Taylor-ish, sometimes Elton John-ish.” Lustman is now considering a national tour. “I have to take this to the world,” he said. “I can’t do this as a concert. This is not the festival circuit. This is a sharing experience. That is theater.” Shine on, you crazy cancer-diamond!