October 13, 2023 The eighth annual BFF Binge Fringe Festival of Free Theatre takes place at the Santa Monica Playhouse from Tuesday, October 17 to November 19. This month-long event features a host of productions and workshops celebrating the idea that theater arts experiences are vital, transformative and must be available to all. The event is made possible in part by generous grants from the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission and Playhouse PALS, and all in-person and live-streamed performances are free to the public. Mary Guillermin, a long-time Topanga resident is performing her second one-woman show, Love on the Other Side of Death, on Friday, October 27 at 7 p.m. in the BFF Binge Fringe Festival, Santa Monica Playhouse, The Other Space. There will be a Q&A and refreshments in the foyer after the show. Guillermin’s late husband, film director John Guillermin, saw death as a final end. She traces the story of his post-death change of attitude and how she truly feels a two-way love on the other side of death. Mary explores the dying process and the question of life after death gleaned from being present at the death of her mother and husband. She shares insights into how her mother’s buried grief and depression impacted Mary’s own life-long struggle with depression. Her show includes a strange tale of intense grief, frozen for millennia — a past life story that suddenly intruded into Mary’s present-day life and brought her a searing grief she had not previously felt in this incarnation. Come hear Mary’s narration, woven in with her poetry and art, of how these experiences changed her life.