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NOW PLAYING
AT A GLANCE: On Stage: On Tuesday, February 16th at 9:30 PM, I'll be returning in the Festival semi-finals to the ATA, where this past Saturday I appeared as Max Wolfe in Steven Shapiro's "It's a Long Way Home, Mr. Wolfe", under the direction of Heidi Handelsman. It is being presented as part of the Riant Theatre's annual Strawberry One-Act Play Festival at the American Theatre of Actors at 314 W. 54th Street. It is funny, touching, gentle and perhaps even a tad profound. The audience will get to vote on their favorite shows of the evening and the winners we'll get to perform once or twice more. The four series of 15 semi-finalists represent the upper half of all the plays originally presented, but I'd be surprised if there is much out there that can best this one. The evening is called "Semi-Finals #4" and tickets are $20 at the door or $22 online at http://www.therianttheatre.com/item.php?date=2010-02-16
At the Movies: Now Shooting:
Two Films upcoming: At the end of February and into March, I'll be playing John, the only grownup in a world of superannuated and geriatric adolescents in the Moving Picture Party, LLC production of Ryan Pomerantz's film "Theodore is Dying", shooting in New York and Scranton, PA.
This autumn, I'll be playing the title role in Omar Pierre's short feature "The Actor" which explores how one's life outlives life's dreams and the degree to which one will go in order to keep it going. I've worked with Omar before ("The Otherside") and I'm definitely a fan of his. The film was originally scheduled to shoot in January, but Mr. Pierre is putting together a different production team. Godspeed to him in that effort.
The latest wraps: On December 22nd, 2009, I completed production on an industrial film called "Mashal Theatre" created by Kol Rom Media of Baltimore, Maryland, for a non-profit organization's fund raising efforts. It was directed by C. J. Kramer and written by Malka Josephs. The production consisted of several sketches with music. I played the King in "The King and the Prince". Between November 13th and 15th, I shot an NYU/Tisch SOA student film "Carnival of Crimes", adapted and directed by Eric Mann from a short story by Mark Twain. I played an old man who is determined once and for all quite literally to kill off his conscience. This was a very grand conception and I'm very eager to see how it comes out. On Sunday, November 7th, I appeared as Dr. Bete in a reading of Jon Haddorff's blackly comic, insanely picaresque screenplay "Hollywood Baptism". May it live to see its first communion.
On Monday, November 2nd, I appeared live at Alice Tully Hall after the presentation of the industrial video which was shot for the Ohel Children's Home and Family Services charity by Kol-Rom Media, Inc. of Pikesville, Md. This job, my first overseas engagement, took me to "the City of Golden Stones", Jerusalem, for 3 days of shooting in mid-September. The piece, directed by C. J. Kramer and written by Malka Leah Josephs, is titled "Musical Inspiration: The Journey Begins" and served as a video backdrop and virtual MC for Ohel's annual benefit concert.
On The Internet: On Sunday, August 16th, I shot a piece called "The Caregiver's Resume" by Dwyer Jones, directed by Nancy McClernan for the NYC Playwrights "Project Monologue". You can see it on their website or on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0KpuxZtdxI For those curious about the "early days", I just learned that the first film I made is now on the net. Noah Lagin's NYU/Tisch School of the Arts project "Warsaw" is available at http://www.haydenfilms.com/Festivals/Fest2008/film/28. The film dates from the winter of 2005-06, and I trust my craft has grown somewhat since then. I also appear in two different roles within a 7 minute trailer for a projected touring theatre program that is available on the net at: http://www.jenacompany.com/page.php?8. The touring production which will play various universities covering many states east of the Mississippi over 7 weeks early in 2010, will be a very ambitious effort of the Jena Company to capture the immigrant experience from early in the second half of the 19th Century through the Zoot Suit riots in California in 1943. This trailer was shot in New York last autumn. On You Tube: I was recently informed that a short film in which I appeared early in 2007 is available on You Tube. The film is "Tesla and the Bellboy" and is directed by a very talented recent NYU graduate named Timothy Ziegler in which I play a farcical riff on a real life mad scientist. You can see this extremely low budget but still quite stylish movie at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdD3MRvBvc4.
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Recent Engagements:
On Stage --On Thursday, February 4, I appeared in readings of two short works by graduate students in the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program. The bill was called 2010 Marathon of New Works and was presented in the Goldberg Theatre. Both works were by playwrights had I worked with last term: Chase Marotz's "Headspace" and a scene from Derek Anderson's "Socrates".
From December 5 - 21, 2009, I appeared as Ron in Alex Ladd's new short play "The Knot", directed by Arthur French and presented by HB Playwrights Foundation at the HB Playhouse. Arthur is a legendary actor, director and teacher. Alex is terrific young writer with whom I worked earlier last year in a reading from his published translation of short stories by the Brazilian writer Nelson Rodrigues. The play was part of an 8 play evening of short pieces (there were two such 8 play evenings in repertory). From Tuesday, August 4th through Sunday, August 23rd, I appeared in The Metropolitan Playhouse's East Village Theatre Festival, a celebration of the life and lore of the East Village. For this sixth season of The East Village Chronicles, four short plays presented in two series of four each, I appeared in one play in each series. In Series "A", I played Abie, a deli owner and Holocaust survivor in Morna M. Martell's "The East Fourth Street Years", directed by Laura Livingston. In Series "B", I played Maxie in Robert Anthony's "Day Old Bread", directed by Jackob Hofmann. Maxie collects real day old bread from East Village delis to feed to the birds of his memories.
There was a lovely review from Martin Denton and Matt Roberson of NYTheatre.com posted on Wednesday, 8/12. They said some awfully nice things about the East Village Theatre Festival as a whole, about the quality of the acting overall, about both plays that I was in, about my scene partners and about my work in them. The review is available at
On Sunday, July 12th, I read the role of Joseph in the Cuban playwright Maria Irene Fornes' "Lust", one of the plays which make up "What of the Night?", directed by Jen Danby. This was a workshop production of the HB Ensemble in New York.
On Thursday, July 2nd at 7:00 PM, appeared in a reading of two short stories in a program called Murderers, Adulterers and Madmen: Celebrating Brazil's Nelson Rodrigues. The program, at Barnes & Noble Bookshop at Broadway and 82nd Street, featured the readings, a discussion with the translator of Rodrigues' Life As It Is: Selected Stories, the gifted Alex Ladd, and Domicio Coultinho, novelist and president of the Brazilian Library in New York, and an audience Q & A. It was different from any other short story reading I've ever seen or done in that Alex read the narrative voice and a troupe of five actors read all the quoted dialogue in character. From what I could tell it was quite an effective approach, at least for this wonderful writer. Rodrigues is justly renowned for plays like The Asphalt Road which was produced here in 2005, but he used his short stories as wonderful laboratories in which he could test the elements of his subsequent plays.
On Thursday, June 11th, appeared in a reading of Skot Davis's "The Ibsen Follies" under the direction of Jackob Hofmann. I played the role of Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson, Nobel lauriate and chief rival of the great Norwegian playwright (who, for the record wasn't a Nobel lauriate). The play is a romantic farce. The Abingdon Theatre Company presented this reading at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre. On Thursday, May 28th, I reprised the role of the Judge in a reading of Paula Caplan's "What Mommy Told Me" under the direction of Nichole Donje. I first performed this role last October as part of the Estrogenius Festival. The reading was presented at a conference sponsored by the Association for Research on Mothering. On Monday, May 12th, I appeared in the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Department's BFA Showcase, Adrienne Thompson, head of Production, directed by Janice Goldberg. The evening was a series of readings of excerpts from new works in progress by 12 of the students graduating from the program and was presented in the Harold Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row, 42nd Street. Please see the "Program Notes" page of this website for my appreciation of this wonderful evening.
On April 22nd, I participated in a reading of Fred Tumas' adaptation of Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel "WE", based on Clarence Brown's translation. I played The Benefactor, a role loosely based on Joseph Stalin, in this weird and moving depiction of a futuristic society in which individuality is the ultimate crime. The novel dates from the early 20th Century and created the genre of dystopias -- anti-utopias -- later developed by people like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. On April 18th, I played the role of Saltwater, one of the more engaging and loveable homeless people I've encountered, in an MFA thesis reading of Christopher Sullivan's "The Silver Horse Pony Show" at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. This is a wonderful script which brings the life of "real" characters to the stage with a sensitivity, poignancy and exuberance that I found thrilling. The reading was directed wonderfully by Tlaloc Rivas. On April 11th, I completed the 4 week run of Bob Jude Ferrante's new play "A New Theory of Vision" at the Kraine Theatre in New York City. I played the role of the 17th-18th century philosopher, George Berkeley. The play garnered a very positive review from Backstage.com which dubbed it a "Pick": http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003953831. CURRENT PRODUCTIONS: More details about the outcome of the Riant Theatre's Strawberry One-Act Play Festival will be forthcoming. AND... I continue auditioning judiciously, studying with both of my legendary teachers, Terry Schreiber and Austin Pendleton, and the wonderful actors at the T. Schreiber and H.B. Studios; and, as Al Jolson put it, "You ain't seen nuthin' yet"!
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