I spend a lot of time in my car. I mean a lot. My wife would say far too much. I would say, for someone who grew up in the greater Los Angeles area, it’s par for the course.

I’ve spent hours commuting to work, going to and from clubs, dates, and friends’ homes. I drive to doctor’s appointments, pre-schools, grocery stores, beaches, sports events, bachelor parties, weddings, funerals, comic book stores, veterinarians, conferences and plays.

I’ve had some of the best (and worst) times of my life in cars. I’ve wept. I’ve screamed. I’ve lectured. I’ve laughed, and argued, and made love, learned, listened, loved and despaired.

I’ve watched my sons nap. I’ve sung out loud. I’ve feared for my life.

Stuck in LA traffic, I’ve often glanced over at the car in the next lane and stolen glances through a window and tried to make out the conversation going on next to me, craft my own version of their story as I pass time in my own tale.

Sometimes, when I’m going slow enough (or at a dead stop), and the windows are down, I’ll catch the odd phrase, and snippets of conversation parsed out next to me, and I’ll wonder to myself “I wonder what’s going on in there?”

So it’s very little wonder that when I heard about the newest incarnation of Moving Arts’ The Car Plays, that I literally jumped in my car, buckled up, cranked the ignition, and followed the 405 Freeway south to the Segerstrom Center For The Arts in Costa Mesa.

Upon arrival, I’m handed a “Notice To Appear Citation” — a program disguised as a traffic ticket — which serves as simple, yet effective bit of ephemera. I’m invited by car hops (dressed in valet jackets) to line up for my row of cars.

It works like this: each citation is color-coded to a different row of five cars. Each audience of two is randomly assigned to a row. You’re escorted to a car, and once seated inside, the doors are closed and the play begins. After the ten-minute play is over, you are escorted to the next car and experience another story. Five cars. Five plays.

In truth, there are actually fifteen plays in all — three rows of separate plays; this evening, however, I’m seeing the five plays on the Red Ticket — the “Street” series.

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Our first car of the night, is actually the second one in line, and aptly named “Start.” The play — a hilarious piece about an increasingly awkward first date — drops us into their world without preamble or pretense: actors already in place, alive and real. I am entranced instantly, transformed into a fly on an armrest, a butt dial during an argument, an open window in a parking lot.

Ten laugh-filled minutes fly by quickly, and before I know it, it’s time to go to the next car.

As the process repeats, I’m treated to “Terrible Amazing,” a charming, but sober piece about looking back at who we were, and forward to what we become; then to “Abraham and Isaac,” a tense, and sometimes heavy-handed yarn about challenging expectations, taking chances and making hard choices; next up is a heartfelt, tear inducing romantic comedy, “The Time She Proposed,” about love, LGBTQ acceptance, and being over the top; and finally a rapid fire, giggle-inducing, (and incredibly close to home) play, “Disneyland,” a wonderful bit about a mom teetering on the edge of sanity while stuck in traffic with her two kids.

As I shift from back seat to back seat and car to car, I’m struck by how much these five different plays, with five different playwrights and directors, feel like one cohesive show — more like different thematic acts in one larger piece. I suspect this is due in no small part to just how tight the timing of the overall show is.

What my subconscious at first parsed out as “random” noises coming in through the window, I slowly come to recognize as pieces of the other plays, pouring in at consistent beats, always the same and at the same points in time, providing and replacing the traditional sound design and soundtrack that sometimes binds together immersive pieces of this scale. In truth, it’s not until I get back into my own car that I realize that I’ve not heard a bar of music in an hour of sitting in cars.

As I start my own car to head home, I find myself thinking about all the simple touches which added to experience: the leather cleaner that pervaded one car, while another had the faint funk of being old and used; how even though we spent a majority of time looking at the back of an actor’s head, we got to see their eyes through careful positioning of rear view mirrors, and clever staging and seating arrangements.

I turn onto the northbound 405 on-ramp, and find myself locked in steady, but slow-moving traffic. And as I often do, I notice a heated conversation, complete with wild hand-waving in the next car over. I find myself briefly wondering what their story is. And then, changing lanes, I decide that I could have just seen their story, ever so briefly, in a play set in a car.

The Car Plays concludes this weekend February 2 &3, at Julianne and George Argyros Plaza, Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa as part of the OFF Center Festival. Tickets are $25, and are available online, and if you have the opportunity, we suggest seeing more than one row!

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