 Wade's
Words
"L.A. LINKS"
I have been on sabbatical leave during the fall 2012 semester with a primary research focus on the actor and new media. Though some of this research took me to London, Philadelphia, and New York for interviews, you might imagine that most of my interviewees were to be found in the film and television capitol of Hollywood and its larger geographical environs, Los Angeles.
While there I had the chance to meet with a number of our alums, catching up on their lives and tapping their experience with media in general and new media in particular. I had dinner with Cara Chute (our featured alum this time around) and her boyfriend Ben Rosenbaum, (also a GW alum), a get-together that was arranged by alum Maggie Contreras and included her husband Patrick, an art director currently working on a television series. May I now recommend La Poubelle to those of you going to LA., and particularly the mussels and pasta that Patrick encouraged me to order! By the way, Cara expects to become the principal casting director for an upcoming television series that her agency has the account for, and Maggie has written a new media script that Richard Roundtree has taken an interest in.
Alum and director Michael Lange invited me to the set of an episode of Criminal Minds that he was shooting. Got to meet a few of the regulars on the show (Thomas Gibson, Joe Mantegna, and Matthew Gubler, all quite convivial people in their long-workday environment—7a.m. to 7 p.m.!). Though Michael was quite busy, we had a chance to talk at craft services (wonderful choices that day!), and he has one or two more episodes of the show on his plate this season.
I am pleased to report that Dariush Kashani is married and continues his teaching and acting. Igor Torgeson “deigned” to speak with me on my research topic. We had a nice lunch (Hey, wait a minute. I paid for that lunch!!!). Charles Freericks, a GW poli sci not a theatre alum, but someone I taught in a speech class in the early 80’s, has made his career in film and television as a producer and has written a couple of books and performs in the spoken word community in LA. (Perhaps he went wrong as a result of that speech class). We talked about my adapting for the stage his most recent book. Shameless plug: the book is My Imaginary Friend Was Too Cool to Hang Out With Me.
And, serendipitously, I came across Jay Bushman, a 1993 theatre alum who always had his sights set on film and television as a director and writer. Jay is at Fourth Wall Productions (at least the title of the company keeps him close to the theatre!) where he is doing wonderfully creative work as its director of social media. I encourage you to log on to Jay’s own website where you’ll find links to his work (http://jaybushman.com/). Of particular interest to me is his Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a multimedia update of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (sort of up my “chamber theatre” alley if any of you ever took that course I taught many years ago).
Bottom line: GW TRDA alums are thriving in the Hollywood media environment both professionally and personally, and I thank them all for showing me a terrific time while I was there.
[see photos below!]
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