Emily Berl / New York Times News ServiceFrom left: Alexi Wasser, Maria Thayer, Lisa Loeb and Sarah Sweet perform a sketch during “The Living Room Show,” at the home of Rachna and Dave Fruchbom in Los Angeles. The show, which is followed by dinner, brings unpaid performers together in people’s homes for a variety show inspired by a pre-digital era when families gathered to watch variety sketches.

LOS ANGELES — “Not looking,” called out Rachna Fruchbom, as the doorbell of her Studio City home rang. It was 6:30 on a recent evening, and Fruchbom, a writer for NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” was standing in her kitchen arranging crackers on platters. She threw her right hand in front of her face to block the sightline between herself and the front hallway.

Just then, actress Illeana Douglas sprinted through the living room and opened the front door. Greg Grunberg (a star of “Heroes” and “Alias”) was waiting on the stoop, bongos and black backpack in hand. Douglas hustled him down a hallway and into a bedroom.

Why so furtive? Fruchbom, 36, and her husband, Dave Fruchbom, 35, who writes screenplays, were about to host the ninth installment of “The Living Room Show,” a professional variety show produced by and co-starring Douglas and comedian Sarah Sweet — and performed exclusively in Los Angeles living rooms. In exchange for free entertainment, the couple had promised to provide dinner (courtesy of one of the city’s ubiquitous taco caterers) and drinks for 60 guests plus the performers and assorted friends. No money would change hands.

“We’ve found out that actors will work for food,” Douglas said.

Douglas and Sweet, a sometimes nanny for the Fruchboms, had been at the house for three hours, stashing furniture, setting rented folding chairs in rows and generally reconfiguring the Fruchboms’ L-shaped living room/playroom into a performance space (think oversubscribed piano recital). Yet neither the Fruchboms nor their guests had been told who exactly would be performing.

Hollywood nostalgia

Sweet, 28, who grew up in Colorado and is a comedy club regular, met Douglas, 48, in 2010 when the actress (best known for the films “Ghost World” and “To Die For”) was speaking on an industry panel. Despite their age difference, the two bonded over comedy and men.

Last January they were catching up on the phone. Sweet was “toast” after a year on the road playing comedy clubs. Douglas wanted to expand her repertory in a setting more genteel than those drab clubs with two-drink minimums and hecklers.

“I just want to perform in someone’s living room,” Sweet blurted.

That got Douglas thinking. An intrepid, old-school hostess known for giving celebrity singalongs at her Los Angeles home, she said the idea jelled with her nostalgia for pre-digital Hollywood, where Judy Garland might drop by for drinks and belt out a few songs at the family Steinway or, at the very least, a time when families gathered to watch variety shows together.

“The Living Room Show” debuted just after Valentine’s Day at a photographer’s house in Toluca Lake. “We wondered if seven people would show up,” Douglas said. “From the very first show, it was just pandemonium.”

Each of the nine shows has had different hosts — friends and acquaintances of Douglas and Sweet — and a different combination of unpaid talent, recruited from their deep bank of show business connections.

“We’re very persuasive,” Douglas said.

Improv is encouraged. Joel Gutman and Gail Silverton (sister of chef Nancy Silverton), nursery school operators, held their party on a sweltering September evening. Andy Dick, the comedian, burst through the front door mid-show and incorporated Silverton’s obliging Yorkie into a bit about rehab.

When Shawn Gold, an entrepreneur and former Myspace executive, and his wife, photographer Amy Neunsinger, opened up their Laurel Canyon house, the audience was celebrity-packed. After the official show, in which Broadway star Roger Bart sang and Douglas told a bittersweet story about Dennis Hopper, singer Sebastian Bach (Skid Row) and actor Donovan Leitch Jr., who were both in the audience, commandeered the piano (Garland-style) and led a singalong of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Hey Jude” and “Candle in the Wind.”

The evening’s entertainment

Back at the Fruchboms’, the house filled up with the young parents and television and movie writers who make up their social circle. A decanter of Negronis made the rounds.

Owen Ellickson, a sitcom writer — most recently for “The Office” — was savoring the mystery of a surprise performance, so rare in this age of researching every entertainment option on the Internet.

“I’m trying to stay spoiler-free,” he said. “I was worried that I would feel somehow on a stage. But I think there are enough people here that I can get through this OK.”

In the green room, aka the guest room, Grunberg, blogger and actress Alexi Wasser and actor David Alpay (“The Vampire Diaries”) were shoehorned around a queen bed.

“We were all just talking about how terrified we are to do this show,” Grunberg said. “And how great it is to be terrified again.”

Things got even cozier when Justin Willman, a magician and M.C. for the Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars,” singer Lisa Loeb (with husband) and actor Steven Weber (“Wings”) were stuffed into the room. Alpay asked if anyone minded if he put on a devil costume. Getting no reply, he just turned his back and did it. Sweet popped in and offered to run the gantlet of guests and ferry back drinks.

Just after 8, the lights in the living room went down a bit. Against the backdrop of a black chalkboard wall, singer and songwriter Xander Smith opened with “Down.” The line “it’s so dirty, turning 30,” got the night’s first laugh.

Sweet and Douglas walked onstage. Sweet introduced herself. Douglas said simply, “And I was in ‘Cape Fear.’” They were off, riffing on men, beauty and Los Angeles, with its seasons as defined by Sweet: pilot season, selling season, awards season and “call your parents and ask for more money because you haven’t made it season.”

Next up was Willman, who encased a woman’s iPhone in a balloon (safe texting,) made a lot of Coca-Cola disappear and did something astounding with an iPhone calculator and a ship in a bottle. A quartet of lovelies (actress Maria Thayer, Sweet, Wasser and Loeb) accompanied by the bearlike Grunberg became five Shirley MacLaines, in a skit based on sentences from the redhead’s 13 published works. Sample: “That night I had one of the two erotic dreams I had in China.”

Loeb was left alone onstage. She played a new song and her defining hit “Stay (I Missed You).” For the first time, a few in the crowd raised their cellphones.

“The Living Room Show” was in high gear. After comedy from Wayne Federman, an encore by Willman and a skit about the devil, Weber stood to sing a plaintive version of “Last Night When We Were Young,” with Alpay on violin.

When the lights came up, some guests grabbed the actors for pictures, others lined up for tacos in the backyard.

“The show brings people together,” Douglas said. “We make a theater in someone’s living room and it’s special.” (What form any future specialness takes is a question. This being Hollywood, “The Living Room Show” is being shopped around as a possible TV show.)

In his kitchen, Dave Fruchbom savored the afterglow.

“In the back of my brain I was a little bit terrified that it would not be that great. It was great. It was surreal having Lisa Loeb sing in my living room. My friends were like: ‘Why is this great show at your house? How did that happen?’”