A few rounds with the playwright

Grant Kramer’s performance as a welterweight boxer in “Shadowboxing� appeared so authentic that many critics and other viewers of the solo show, which closed last weekend at the Hudson Theatre, assumed the script was autobiographical -- especially because the program and press releases indicated that Kramer had been a prizefighter.

Kramer, however, now says that “the play is not at all autobiographical.� He was never a professional boxer, although he acknowledges that he has been in fights in “little holes in the wall� and occasionally received money for them. Elements of the play reflect “the life experiences of people I knew,� he says, but “I’d like to believe I’m a better writer than I am a fighter.�

Indeed, he is hoping for a second round of “Shadowboxing� at a theater in the San Fernando Valley. He also says that before he began fielding questions about whether the play is autobiographical, “I couldn’t even pronounce ‘autobiographical.’ �

-- Don Shirley