The Dreaded ‘T’ Word

Virtually every time I venture out to attend local theater here in town I am almost always enthralled by at least one of the performances by a cast member — and this weekend was no exception.

 

I didn’t particularly love the direction of “Search and Destroy”, a revival of Howard Korder’s 1992 darkly satiric take on the meaning of success  in a desperate culture full of self-help gurus, drug dealers, and would be filmmakers all chasing a twisted American Dream . But my qualms about the show faded once Thom Guillou stepped onto the stage near the end of the play for one memorable scene as the coke sniffing campaign manager for a conservative candidate who is running for a US senate seat from New Jersey.

 

The next night, a lot of us went to “One Night Stand”, the musical improv show whose triumphant LA run recently added new shows to keep up for the demand for tickets. Yep, it’s that good –usually. But last night’s show had some, uh,  creative issues, but what still resonates this morning is the inventive way that cast member Jonah Platt morphed into a guru/seer called Know-ie (spelled No-ey?) which effectively brought all the loose strands together — and made for another satisfying show…

 

What Thom and Jonah have in common is that both of them play characters on showbizzle, the digital showcase and destination website for emerging talent I created with daughter Lindsey.  Thom plays Luke, the hot  young writer/director filmmaker whose autobiographical film is, in fact, about somebody else… while Jonah plays alongside fellow “One Night Stand” cast member Quinn Beswick as fledgling web series producers, David and Zak.

 

Now here’s something to consider: Jonah just finished a stint as a lowly office  assistant for a TV show while Thom works as a waiter when he’s not being a counselor at a local day camp.  That’s right — here are two incredibly talented young men doing whatever they can to pursue their artistic ambitions while dealing with the challenges and realities in life in the big city during the worst economic downturn in ages.  Sound familiar? If so, read on.

 

We like to say that showbizzle was created to “put a little fun back into the business”, but it’s prime value for the emerging artist is to provide a performance space away from the immediate pressures of the marketplace so that our members can post original characters and original material on the site.  And if we and other members like what we see, chances are so will the young agents and managers who are increasingly visiting our site.  And once we start up with some contests next month, you might even get paid to perform of our Digital Showcase.

 

So the first step is to grab a face cam and tell Janey what has happened to “you” in the process of trying to jump start your career.  And although not everyone reading this post is endowed with the same degree of creative talent — the dreaded “t-word” that  ultimately impacts one’s chances for success and makes a Jonah Platt and Thom Guillou stand out during a weekend of local theater  –we appreciate anyone willing to a take a creative risk and invite you and your chums to become valued member of our community and be treated with respect and compassion.