A strange thing happened when actor Freddy Rodriguez was spending time with a group of heroin addicts in Savannah, Georgia last year.

The 38-year old actor was studying up to play Idaho, a drug addict in “CBGB,” the Randall Miller film about the storied nightclub, when he got a call from another Randall. Randall Arney was gearing up to direct David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

Arney was looking for someone to play Bob, a recovering heroin addict, in the three-man play.  “I haven’t done a play in 25 years since high school, but Randy convinced me that it was time to go back to the stage,” said Rodriguez.

The odd coincidences didn’t end there. “American Buffalo” takes place in 1975, the year Rodriguez was born, in Lincoln Park, the town where he grew up, and references Masonic Hospital, where he was delivered.

“It was like everything in my life was telling me to do this production,” said Rodriguez.

The play centers around three small time crooks as they plot a heist to steal a rare coin collection, namely a valuable Buffalo nickel. As the time for the heist approaches, their long-repressed feelings of betrayal and bitterness test their friendship and threaten their business.

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