10/2/2012 Interview Part 2

In the second half or our interview Austin Pendelton talks with humor and candor about his struggles with stuttering. How it helped him get – right out of college – his first role on Broadway; co-starring with the “breathtaking Harris” and “the amazing Jo Van Fleet” in Arthur Kopit’s enigmatic play “Oh Dad, Poor Dad.” Hear him describe the hilarious way he got the role, the ordeal of trying at the same time to, and not to stutter -which he believed was dragging the show down, and the kindness and generosity of director Jerome Robbins; who not only encouraged him to stay with it, but then cast him in “Fiddler on the Roof” – with Zero Mostel. Listen to the way he was coerced into his role in “My Cousin Vinnie,” and how that role in some way defined his career. Hear also about his time at the Hollins University and meeting Annie Glenn – the wife of astronaut and Senator John Glenn, who conquered a stuttering problem that was worse than Austin’s…

If this is the first you have heard of him – take this opportunity to hear from this funny, sweet, accomplished, remarkable man. Watch the video, and donate to, the making of the Austin Pendleton Project, co-directed by Gene Gallerano and David H. Holmes. Donate here: http://www.indiegogo.com/austinpendleton

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/47057982]

9/25/2012 Interview Part 1

I start this interview by saying “I am here with the one and only Austin Pendleton.” This is not a casual or frivolous comment. Nominated for a Tony for his direction of Elizabeth Taylor in The Little Foxes, winner of a Drama desk and an Obie award,  actor, director, playwright, producer, teacher and inspiration, Austin Pendelton is one of a kind; a singleton.  Unique, special, extraordinary and esteemed by his peers (listen to Meryl Streep and Olympia Dukakis talk about him), Austin has somehow managed to stay under the radar of fame. His love affair with the theater began when at seven years old when he snuck down stairs to watch his town’s fledgling community theater group rehearse in his living room. But young Austin denied his interest in acting to his friends, he says “who would believe that a nerdy kid, who wore glasses and stuttered so badly could be an actor.” Apparently Austin did. Apparently Austin was right. While not able to stop him, his stutter remained an intractable stumbling block on the path to his beloved goal – working in the theater. But Austin is not only incredibly talented, he is also incredibly tenacious; listen to the determination with which he worked to overcome his stutter and so become, while not famous, a professional who is always working, always in demand. Check out Austin Pendleton Theatre Credits and Austin Pendleton – Filmography to see what I mean.

If this is the first you have heard of him – take this opportunity to hear from this funny, sweet, accomplished, remarkable man. Watch the video, and donate to, the making of the Austin Pendleton Project, co-directed by Gene Gallerano and David H. Holmes.. Donate here: http://www.indiegogo.com/austinpendleton

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/47057982]

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7-17-12 Interview

Joanna McClelland Glass is a writer. Her play “Play Memory” directed by the legendary Hal Prince was nominated for a Tony Award. Both of her novels were published and optioned for film and she adapted both of the screenplays. Woman Wanted was directed by and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Holly Hunter and Michael Moriarty. But Joanna’s heart is in the theatre and her playwriting credits are much too extensive to include here. With all this talent and skill one might assume that Joanna had a privileged childhood and lots of training. No! Joanna’s childhood included an illiterate mother and an alcoholic father, who sold everything not nailed down to pay for his liquor. True to the culture of her time Joanna married young, worked to send her husband to graduate school, had three children very close in age and settled into the role of traditional wife and mother. It was not until, approaching 40; as the divorced mother of 3 young children, that she seriously turned her attention to her writing. Having announced that she was going to “try to support this whole thing with her writing,” Joanna says she simply had to “get kids on the bus and sit at the desk and do something.” And without any training – she had to learn the rules of her trade on the job – that is exactly what she did. And the quantity and quality of what her work is quite extraordinary. Listen to this woman’s inspiring story.

5-15-12 – Interview

Playwright Leah Napolin is a multi talented, thoughtful and courageous woman who was singing, dancing, drawing and reciting the poetry and stories she’d written was by the time she was 4 or 5. In college she was bitten by the “acting bug” and discovered her interest in writing plays. Still she was to teach music in Venezuela (until the revolution closed the school), get married, have children and lead a “bourgeois life,” before getting her chance to become the writer she always was. Her friend Robert Kalfin who’d started The Chelsea Theatre Center in Brooklyn suggested that she read Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Yentl the Yeshiva Boy.. And after being “thunderstruck,” Leah found away to dramatize the folk tale. The production was very successful but she didn’t reap much of the financial benefit because of the roadblocks put up by Barbara Streisand (listen to that interesting story). Finally she was able to hold on to the copy write for her work and the play has found many homes most recently having finished a successful run at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota Florida (in which Hilary Clemens -see above- played the role of Yentl). Listen to Leah talk about her journey towards finding her voice as a playwright and a person.

5-1-12 – Interview

Emmy Award winning, Peabody Award winning, Tony Nominated playwright, screenwriter, lyricist Sherman Yellen thought he was going to be a painter. An asthmatic child he spent a lot of time in bed drawing and listening to his mothers stories about her life and the lives of her extended family; stories like the one about Cousin Ida the whore of Minsk. Sherman absorbed it all. He attended the High School of Music and Art certain he would be a fine artist but he had very high standards for his work and believed that although a “natural artist” and a “fine draftsman” he would never ” break the barrier” and become a fine artist. He began to write stories, not surprisingly about his family, and discovered what he really is – a writer. Hear the story of his introduction to writing for TV (a play he wrote with Peter Stone who would go on to write many movies including Charade and the Musical 1776 and which starred an outrageous scene stealing Jack Lord who went on to star in Hawaii five-0. Listen to Sherman talk about the way he experiences the act of writing, the “losing of oneself,” and hear a songs from Blackbird – the story of Josephine Baker, a musical for which he wrote both book and lyrics, and which is the West Coast Black Theater Troupe’s current production.

5-10-2011 Interview

At age 3 or 4 Steve Drukman discovered that fiction – something unreal – could change a person’s attitude and feelings. Of course, as he says, he didn’t have either the words or the sophistication to think of it in those terms, but the experience that showed him this irrefutable truth is still clear in his mind. Recognizing early the importance that words, ideas and writing had to him, Steve pursued several jobs/careers: acting, teaching, journalism. But while trying to decide if he was a “journalist or a scholar” a play “emerged out of his unconscious,” and he understood finally that he is a playwright. The Innocents, his clever and interesting play about the many possibilities of love, marriage and family is currently having its debut performance at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota FL Listen to this thoughtful, philosophical, interesting man tell the story of his journey to discover himself.

February 1, 2011

David Hirson doesn’t know when he decided that he was a writer because looking back it seems that he was always a writer; by the age of 10 he was “filling notebooks with ideas and thinking about what he wanted to write. “ He thought of it as “playing.” At 27, David decided to write his first play. Thinking that, as a first time playwright he had do something unusual if he was going to get anyone’s attention, David chose to do something that no one had done; to write a play all in rhyming couplet. The result was La Bette, which not only won the Tony but has continued to play all over the world; most recently in London and New York, and now at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota. Listen to this thoughtful and compelling interview which chronicles the remarkable story of La Bette’s creation, journey to Broadway and the way in which it impacted David’s life.

January 12, 2010

Discussion – In this show I am beginning to talk about the danger we face when we begin to consider exposing the Undercover qualities we had carefully hidden away.

Interview – Playwright Jack Gilhooley is a crusty, outspoken, interesting man with a dark vision and a passionate interest in history, which is demonstrated in his many, many plays. Jack was encouraged by his father to pursue a career in business and while it was instantly apparent both to Jack and the Wharton School that it wasn’t for him, it took him a while to realize that his passionate interest in plays, which he’d begun reading voraciously as a boy, was really what his life must be about. But having once started writing plays, nothing could stop him. “Writing a play is easy” he says, “it’s getting them on that’s hard.” Still jack perseveres. He is very definitely an example of someone who knows who he is, makes no apology for it, and steadfastly follows his path.

November 17, 2009

Discussion – You can discover so much about yourself by listening to the way you talk to and about yourself. We all have an ongoing internal dialogue – much of which is commentary on or about ourselves. In this show I give examples of the way that your inner commentary can highlight a Cover Story or uncover and Undercover…

Interview– Eva Slane, is the quintessential Patron of the Arts. She was honored this week by Sarasota Magazine as one this cities 28 most important people to the Arts. This is no small achievement in a city where almost everyone thinks of themselves as a supporter of the Arts. Eva has spent most of her 80 years dedicated to preserving the theater. Escaping at 10 years old from Vienna shortly after Kristallnacht, she and her parents finally arrived in New York City, the perfect place for a theater lover to land. Listen to how, in her late 70’s Eva has begun to explore her own artistic abilities, by participating in a writing project sponsored by the the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg Fl, writing several short plays and even auditioning for a role as an actor. A role model for becoming who you really are, Eva is not only delightful but inspirational.

April 28, 2009

In this show I air my interview with the producing artistic director of the Asolo Rep, Michael Donald Edwards, in which he talks about his vision for theater. I replay Sharon’s review of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, which Michael directed and about which he takes at length. I also air my interview with actor/playwright Jason Wells, whose plan Perfect Mendacity is about to open.

May 13, 2008

After recapping the creation of a Cover Story I explain how and why we hide some of our most important qualities Undercover, and that these qualities which we have, but deny, can be the very ones we need to do some things we’d previously been unable to do. Using brief descriptions of two movies “Juno” and “Miss Pettigrew” I talk about the importance of strong female role models in fiction and then play the second ½ of my interview with Sharon Lesley, who is not only a powerful role model but has written three theater pieces which highlight the lives of powerful woman.

May 06, 2008

Beginning with a recap of the concepts of Modeling and Anti-Modeling and talking about the dilemma of being an artist in this culture, this show goes on to demonstrate how the creation of a Cover Story stops us from doing what we would otherwise be able to do. It continues the series Anatomy of an Artist with the first half of an interview with Sharon Lesley, actor/singer/playwright/director, and includes cuts from CD’s by Sharon and her husband pianist David Ohrenstein.