Interview: Muse Watson

Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:00 am

Actor Muse Watson is a familiar face. He has been a regular on “NCIS” and “Prison Break” and has appeared in movies that range from “Austin Powers II” to “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” I’m a fan of his film A Christmas Snow, so I was very happy to get a chance to talk to him about his appearance in a live musical version of the story in Branson and about his work on behalf of children and families dealing with autism.

This is the second year you’ve done the show, right?

Yes, the show in Branson is called “A Christmas Snow Live” and it’s based on a movie that we shot, A Christmas Snow. We actually turned the movie into a musical and we’re lucky enough that the leads in the movie have musical theater training, and so we were able to bring everybody from the movie. The first year we brought everybody from the movie straight to Branson to do the show and I’m going back for the second year. We’ll have a new cast in some of the other roles, but I’m going back for the second year, this year. I love Branson and love the positiveness of that community. You couldn’t go into many small communities where the attitude is, “Nothing good ever happens around here,” and see things built like are built in Branson. There were some people there with some real vision and some real positive attitudes. So, I love going to Branson and of course, we’re at the Starlight theater there, and the greatest thing about this show is that every afternoon and every night after the show, we come out of the dressing rooms, go out front and meet the people who are at the show, and to hear the stories of inspiration and how the story grabbed them and to have them say things to you like, “When I get home, I’m going to call my dad.” It’s stories like that that really make you know that doing the show is the right thing, you know?

Have you done much singing before?

Yes, I have. Most people don’t watch me do the kinds of roles that they’ve seen me do on television and think of me as a singer, but when I first got started in this business years ago musical theater was one of my fortes. I did three different productions as Quixote in “Man of LaMancha,” singing numbers like ‘The Impossible Dream.’ And I’ve done “Guys and Dolls” and all kinds of musical stuff. It’s something that I hadn’t done for years but I was tickled to death to be able to go back and do another musical. In fact, my daughter is at the Chime School in Los Angeles, part of the Chime Institute, and a bunch of us do a fundraiser every year. This year my friend Amy Brenneman, you know, from “Judging Amy,” her daughter and my daughter are like best friends, so Amy and I are good friends and Amy led the fundraiser this year. I’ve been doing it now for three, four years I guess, and over the years we involve people who have children at Chime and we’re talking about people like Benjamin Bratt, Collin Farrell, Steven Stills did a couple of numbers last year…and so this year, I was trying to figure out something that I could do for the fundraiser and this year, as it happens, I got to thinking, you know, people back East know me for musicals and stuff like that, but people on the West coast, they know me sometimes for how well I kill people and stuff like that, so…

You have played a lot of bad guys!

Well, ‘”misunderstood,” I like to say. But you know, I decided, this is a free gig and I’m not getting paid for this gig and it’d be a good opportunity for me to show Hollywood how I can stretch a little bit, and so what I did was I did a cover of Coldplay’s “Fix You.” Now Amy decided, she told me that she thought it was a little against our town spirit to sing a song called ‘Fix You,’ and so I got to thinking about what she was saying and so I just changed the words of the song to “Help You,” but that came off, I think, fairly well. I asked some of the Chime people to join me for the last chorus on stage and so they came out of the wings and stuff, and Andrew Keresztes, who is a dear friend of mine, he invited the software called ‘LA Scoring Strings’ which is the way most independent films put orchestral backgrounds to their films, and he did an orchestra backed-up and then he played guitar. I’m an actor who sings, not a singer who acts, so generally speaking, I’m selling a song, probably, more than I got chops, but it works.

You were in another movie I love, Songcatcher.

Well then you’ve seen me play the fiddle! When they talked to me about doing the movie they wanted me to play the banjo, and then a couple of weeks later they called me and they said, “Oh, you’re not going to play, we’ve arranged for Taj Mahal to be part of the show, and since Taj Mahal’s going to be part of the show, we need you to switch and play the fiddle,” and I very seriously said to them, “Well, if he’s a professional musician, he ought to be the one changing instruments, not me!” And of course, the studio producer thought I was being serious, you know! I hired a guy from the Warner Brothers symphony to come over to my house and I video-taped his left hand and then I video-taped his right-hand. The problem with portraying someone playing the fiddle is that people who play the fiddle don’t play a song twice the same way, you know? In the bow strokes they’ll be going up two notes and down one, and then the next time they play the song they’ll be going up one note and down two, and so the bow strokes are a lot different. Finally I just said, “You know, I’m a musician, I went through college on the music side for clarinet and sax, so I know what it takes to make music. I’m just going to feel this thing,” and I did it, and when we got to Sundance Film Festival, where we won a Grand Jury award for ensemble acting, there was a lady that came walking out at one of the screenings and she said, “I’m a violinist and I have never been fooled in a movie. You played a fiddle.” And I said, ‘Gosh, that’s one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever gotten, but I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Tell me a little bit about your work with families dealing with autism.

Well, my wife and I, of course, knew nothing, absolutely nothing, and at about 16 months my daughter started losing words that she had already learned, and we noticed things like we went to the circus and we’d be sitting there and as soon as the circus parade opened the big gates at the end of it, at the hall and started in, she just about went into a coma, she just passed out. We just left, you know? It was just overstimulation. And so we got involved with Chime, with their infant-toddler program, and at about 18 months we started with them, and the more we studied and everything the more we saw that there was definitely going on, perception and whatnot, and of course at that time (I think it’s different today) but at that time you couldn’t get a real diagnosis until 3 years old. So then when 3 years old came along we had been going to therapy for a year and a half or so and of course, they gave us our diagnoses then of “moderately severe autism.” And my wife and I have made it our lives’ work.

Once you’ve met one autistic child you’ve met one autistic child, because there are no similarities. We find ourselves just continually trying to be open. You know, one of the things we definitely wanted to stay away from was the chemicals. We didn’t want to give her any medication and there’ve been several times in the process where we’ve gone to conferences, whether it be where Temple Grandin was or her mother or the Autism Society of America, and we would go to the conferences and we would just say to ourselves, “Okay, we’re going to be open-minded about this. If we need to think about a medicine of some sort of if they’ve come out with a medicine, then we’re not going to be idiots about it,” you know? So far, we’ve not gone that route, and this last conference that we went to in San Diego, we were open once again to it, went to a couple of sessions and I guess we decided that there are still some natural homeopathic things that we can try before we try the medicine. There may be 15 medicines out there and each one may work with a person, but none of them have been proven to work with a lot of people, so everything you do is a real trial and error.

What kind of things are you doing to reach out to other families?

Well, the Chime institute in itself is a place where children of all diagnoses and normal children all get together and they all have the same opportunities as what the school would like to do. It’s total inclusion, and so because of that, we find ourselves involved with parents of all kinds of children, but naturally of course, you gravitate towards some of the people who have, not necessarily similar diagnoses, but at least, diagnoses. And you find yourself being friends with those folks and comparing notes with those folks, but particularly on how it is best to relate in a school situation. So one of my jobs, I feel like, is to explain to folks, “You’ve got to go get a special-needs trust, and you’ve got to get this done, because if you don’t get this done, if you and your husband died, then nobody’s there to take care of the child,” you know? And so, it’s little information like that, that I learned about this process, and I try to share that with other parents. We’ve devoted our lives to the OTs, to the different perception doctors and speech teachers and to giving her the best shot that we can get her. But it’s sad, at the same time, to think that there are so many people out there that have maybe their husband or maybe their wife, either one, that goes into denial about a diagnoses and then when the child gets 10 or 11 years old and the behavior gets to be to the point where you can’t deny anything, you’ve missed all those wonderful years that we had with Sophie of early intervention.

What is it that you wish that parents of neuro-typical kids would understand about autism?

I’m going to confess something to you. After becoming a father of a young lady with autism, I look at the entire world differently. I would hope that I could do something for folks that understand what I’ve come to realize…and that’s that, as I watch YouTube and I watch the videos on YouTube, it’s a crazy, stupid, look-how-weird, how freaky, any of those words—generally speaking, when you get to the video, it’s someone of special needs. And rather than just autism, I wish folks would stop for a minute and instead of taking comfort in their own existence and saying, “look, I ain’t that weird,” I wish they would just take a moment when they see someone and instead of criticizing or throwing them out of their lives or somehow putting any kind of label on them, they would give them just a moment to see what’s good about that person, and what they do right, because there are those things there. I’ll tell you, I think about the kids in school when I was in school, and that kids that were bullied, the kids that were made fun of—I look at them so differently now, because I look at them as being special needs, and it’s…I’m admitting it, I’m a part of that, I understand it; I understand it. I’m just saying, I’m in a better place, now, and I would hope to be able to say something that would allow these people to be in a better place and to look at people a little differently.

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Interview: Director Bess Kargman of the Ballet Documentary “First Position”

Posted on May 17, 2012 at 8:00 am

First-time filmmaker Bess Kargman brought her own experiences studying dance to her documentary, First Position, about a crucial, career-defining competition for young ballet artists. The Youth America Grand Prix was launched in 1999 by two former dancers of the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet, Larissa and Gennadi Saveliev. Its mission is to provide extraordinary educational and professional opportunities to young dancers, acting as a stepping stone to a professional dance career. I spoke to Kargman about how she selected the students she followed through the competition and why classical ballet is still a vital element of the performing arts.

You must be very excited about how well your film has been received.

I am! It’s very exciting, and I never expected anything, so it’s very thrilling.

Tell me how the project got started.

I danced my entire childhood, and this film was one that I always wished had existed. I don’t mean a dance competition film, because actually, I never competed growing up. Dance competitions didn’t appeal to me, and the Youth American Grand Prix wasn’t even around. What I mean is, a film that takes you far behind just the studio and the stage. I was so curious when I would watch dance films (especially dance documentaries) —what else? What do they eat? Whom do they live with? What are their relationships like with their friends? I just was very curious about more of the day-to-day or (some might call it mundane) activities in their lives that I thought maybe could count for a really full and interesting story. I ended up quitting my job to make this film, my first film, and I thought maybe by choosing a topic that was quite dear to me and that I had lived for a number of years growing up—maybe I’d be able to do this story justice.

Is it possible to be a dancer without a very supportive family? It seemed to me that these families were giving up as much as the girls and boys were.

I think in Europe and potentially other parts of the world, it’s possible to make it as a dancer with less support, but in America, where a 12-year old can’t drive him or herself to ballet class, a 12-year old can’t pay for point shoes, a 12-year old can’t pay for costumes, it really requires the whole-family’s buy-in. In Europe it’s more common to go to Ballet boarding school from a very, very young age and in that case the school takes on the burden of the costs.

How did you find the dancers that you focus on?

The story of how I found the first two dancers is sort of magical. A year before we began filming I was walking along the street in lower Manhattan and I saw huge banners for the American Grand Prix. It was the 2009 finals. I had heard about the competition but I really didn’t know all that much about it, so I snuck into the theater and got the last seat, high in the nosebleeds. If I had gone for a coffee I would’ve missed it—out on stage walked the most splendid, itty-bitty baby ballerina I had ever seen for someone so young. She was 11 at the time and I was just blown away by her strength and artistry and technique and maturity on stage. So I got up and walked out, and said, “This has to become my first film, I have to do this.”

I had no idea who it was, but I knew I wanted her to be in the film, and I recall that her name sounded half-Asian, so I went through the roster of 300 soloists that year, and the name Miko Fogerty popped up, and I said, “Oh my gosh, this has to be her.” And then her brother, Jules Jarvis Fogerty, his name was also under hers, and I said, “Oh, this is too good to be true. She has a brother?” So you know interesting things might happen when you have a sibling duo, so they were the first two people.

I then set out to sign a really diverse array of kids. When you’re making a competition film, if you try and predict the winners you’re risking the entire success of your film on factors you have no control over. I just couldn’t live with the idea of shooting for a year, shaping a film which no one would watch because it all came down to who would win—and I chose the wrong one. Instead, I chose kids whose personal stories and personalities and hobbies and families were so unique and interesting that I thought, even if the last five minutes don’t go so well at the competition, and no one takes anything home, that maybe the audience would still have a wonderful time if they fell in love with these dancers and learned who they are as human beings. That’s why the competition really only takes up a third of the film, I focused less on the competition and more on young dancers having a shared dream and being really diverse from all over the world, all different types of personalities and different age groups. Interestingly, when I was getting some advice from some very experienced film-makers they said I was really setting myself up in a bad way if I chose kids from all different age divisions, rather than from one age division. They said that if I didn’t have the kids fighting against each other on the dance floor, that it would lack a lot of drama—and I just thought to myself, well, the whole point is to show how the stakes differ depending upon age and to show how a dream differs depending upon your age or not. Maybe the 11 year olds want it just as badly as the 17 year olds, so I thought even if maybe there wasn’t that backstabbing and there weren’t kids giving each others terrible looks right before they’re about to go on stage because they’re not in the same age division, I was still willing to take that risk because I really did want to show more than just one age division. And what mattered was the individuals, not who they were competing with.

Why did you leave dance?

My advice to young dancers who want to make it as professionals is: Do not do it unless it is literally the only thing that you want to do with your life. It’s really difficult. It’s so demanding both in terms of your time and the way you have to use your body and it’s expensive. So, basically I came to the determination when I was thirteen and half and said, “I love other things just as much.” That signaled to me that maybe it wouldn’t be smart or healthy for me to focus on that exclusively. I became an athlete and I loved sports just as much, and then I wanted to go to high-school and play sports. So, I think what’s good about the age that I left dance was that I never lost that glorious appreciation for it. I think maybe if I had continued to stay in it and pushed myself, full knowing that I liked other things just as much, maybe I would’ve come to resent it or be bitter. I know that sometimes young dancers are hurt badly with ballet, because they’re pushing themselves, like every day is a struggle.

Where did you learn how to make films?

I never went to film school. I earned a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia and in my final semester there, I took a very influential, inspiring class with a substitute teacher named John Alpert who is a documentary film-maker for HBO, and he kind of challenged me to see if I could make a film myself. A couple of years passed before I was willing to take that risk, so I freelanced as a journalist and then I found a subject that I couldn’t not do. I always give advice to first-time film-makers and my advice to them is: you have to do for your first film a topic that is very personal, where you have some sort of area of expertise to compensate for the fact that you’re a first-time director—so I thought, “I know a couple of things, I know hockey and I know ballet,” and thought, “Let’s try ballet.”

How did you get your young performers to be comfortable enough to be honest with you?

One thing I learned very quickly is that dancers are used to expressing themselves with their bodies, not their mouths, so in the beginning they were exceptionally shy which is scary. At first, our cameraman said, “You’re going to have to recast this entire film because they’re not opening up to you.” We then decided to turn the cameras off and really bond with them and to get to know them. We worked to earn their trust. I don’t blame them, you know. If were expecting them to really open up their lives and share their stories, then we should allow them to get to know us as well. I got a skateboard for my cameraman so he could go skateboarding with them and we’d go point-shoe shopping and just do some fun stuff, and then they opened up in a big way, which was essential. I am fascinated by their stories and would love to come back and do a sequel in ten years: “Second Position.”

There are so many great movies about ballet. Do you have favorites?

The one that I watched over and over on repeat growing up, was The Children of Theatre Street – The Story of the Kirov Ballet School, the one that’s narrated by the princess. Forever engrained in my memory are the slow-motion shots of the dancers running, doing grand jetés on the beach. There are also all of the classic ones that I would find—in the days before YouTube. There is now an abundance of ballet content, but some of the things that I would watch on VHS tapes growing up were not translated, they were Russian documentaries—but it didn’t matter because you just absorbed the visuals.

You touch very lightly but candidly on the issue of ballet’s traditional approach of focusing on white dancers with long, thin, slender bodies.

It was important to me on that and other issues to let the people in the film speak for themselves. You never hear my voice, even asking questions. It is a complicated issue because ballet is grounded in traditions that include a very particular body shape and line. But dance has many varieties and opportunities and everyone who loves dance can find a place.

What do you think it is that makes classical ballet so enduring over hundreds of years in a world where people listen to hip-hop, and as you said, watch Youtube videos—why is it that we still go to a live theater to see dancers dance the same dances they’ve been doing for hundreds of years?

I think that there’s something about ballet which is magnetic. When you see people doing things with their bodies that are so disciplined and practiced, and requires so much of both TLC and training. I think that you don’t even have to know anything about ballet to know when you’re seeing something on stage that is incredible. I think that ballet’s focused on lines of the body. It’s just beautiful, it’s really beautiful, and I think that-everyone marvels when people can do things with their bodies that the average human being can’t do.

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This American Life — Live on Screen May 10

Posted on April 14, 2012 at 3:46 pm

The popular WBEZ Chicago radio show This American Life and host Ira Glass bring radio to the big screen with This American Life – Live!, a special live performance from the Skirball Center at New York University. This event will broadcast to movie theaters nationwide on Thursday, May 10 at 8:00 p.m. ET / 7:00 p.m. CT and tape delayed to 7:00 p.m. MT / 8:00 p.m. PT, HI and AK, with an encore in select theaters on Tuesday, May 15 at 7:30 p.m. local time.

The event will include stories by writer David Rakoff, comedian Tig Notaro and Snap Judgment host Glynn Washington. Together they will perform a live stage version of the radio show, centered on the theme “The Invisible Made Visible.” The performance will also feature a new short film by Mike Birbiglia, live music by the rock band OK Go, a dance performance by Monica Bill Barnes & Company, original animation and illustration, and special surprise guests.

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After the kids go to bed Live Theater

Audition Online for the ‘Christmas Story’ Musical

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 5:28 pm

Ralphie will be not only waiting for his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring and hoping for a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle but also singing and dancing in a new musical production based on the classic movie (which was based on Jean Shepherd’s stories about his childhood). Co-producer Peter Billingsly, the original Ralphie, is now looking for kids to star in the show’s five-city tour over the holiday season. You can audition online via LetItCast. The audition will not be made public — the only people who will see it are the creative team doing the casting.

If you are interested, here’s what you do:

1.     Record a video of yourself singing a brief song that is rhythmic and that shows your voice, high notes, and personality. A classic Broadway or a holiday song is suggested and it should be no more than 90 seconds.

2.     Get a recent digital picture or headshot of yourself and your resume. (If you don’t have a resume, just prepare a brief paragraph about yourself in a Word Document.)

3.     Go to www.AChristmasStoryTheMusical/casting and follow the link to register with the online casting site, LetItCast®, and follow their instructions to submit your video, photo, and information.

Casting directors are seeking to fill the iconic lead role of Ralphie and his troupe of friends and classmates, including: Randy, Flick, Schwartz, Scut Farcus, Grover Dill, Mary Beth, and Esther Jane. They are looking for children, between 8 – 13 who are extraordinary actors, singers, and dancers. The production seeks young actors of all ethnicities who are 4’ 11” and shorter. (Boys, your voice should not have changed yet.)

Break a leg!

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Actors Behind the Scenes Live Theater

Watch Shakespeare Plays in Shakespeare’s Globe — At a Movie Theater

Posted on June 8, 2011 at 3:37 pm

Shakespeare’s plays were originally performed in London’s Globe Theatre. The original open-roof theatre, made of wood-and-thatch was built in 1599 by Shakespeare’s company of actors and was destroyed by fire in 1613. American actor and director Sam Wanamaker, worked tirelessly to raise funds for the theatre’s reconstruction and a modern reconstruction of The Globe opened in 1997 approximately 200 yards from the site of the original theatre.

Now the Globe comes to more than 260 movie theaters across the country through NCM’s exclusive Digital Broadcast Network. NCM Fathom, Globe Theatre and Arts Alliance Media with Shakespeare’s Globe London Cinema Series have produced an exclusive four-part in-theater series of the most classic of Shakespeare titles in U.S. movie theaters nationwide this summer and fall. Captured in 2010 from the prestigious and internationally renowned Globe Theatre in London— Shakespeare’s theatrical London home – the series will kick off in June with The Merry Wives of Windsor followed by Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 in August and closing in September with Henry VIII. Each performance will begin at 7:00 p.m. local time and will include a special 20-minute historical perspective on the Globe, the reconstruction process, the work of the Globe today, and a behind-the-scenes look at each production with interviews from the actors and creative team involved. It begins with “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” said to have been inspired when the queen wondered what it would be like to see the wine, women, and song-loving Falstaff (of “Henry IV” parts 1 and 2) in love.

Tickets for Shakespeare’s Globe London Cinema Series are available at participating theater box offices and online at FathomEvents.

Shakespeare’s Globe London Cinema Series schedule is as follows:

§ The Merry Wives of Windsor – Monday, June 27 – One of the great comedies by William Shakespeare, this hilarious tale of love and marriage, jealousy and revenge, class and wealth is Shakespeare’s only play to deal with the contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It was first published in 1602, although it was believed to have been written prior to 1597.

§ Henry IV Part 1 – Monday, August 1 – The second play in Shakespeare’s tetralogy dealing with the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, Part 1 depicts a span of history beginning with Hotspur’s battle at Homildon and ends with the defeat of the rebels at Shrewsbury in 1403. This work of honor, rebellion and the struggle for power is thought to have been written no later than 1597. From the start it has been an extremely popular play both with the public and the critics with Roger Allam winning the 2011Olivier Award for Best Actor for his role as Falstaff.

§ Henry IV Part 2 – Thursday, August 18 – The third piece of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV Part 1, this work is followed by Henry V. This play picks up where Henry IV Part 1 ended and focuses on Prince Hal’s journey toward kingship. The two plays are often perceived as a dissection of father-and-son relationships, with Falstaff as a wayward father substitute for the young Prince Hal, who is estranged from his own dying, guilt-ridden father, Henry IV. It’s also a drama about an old England that, like Falstaff himself, is riddled with ills, in decline and in urgent need of rebirth. It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. Allam received the 2011 Olivier Award for Best Actor for his role as Falstaff in Henry IV Part 2.

§ Henry VIII – Thursday, September 15 – This work is based upon the life of Henry VIII of England. During a performance of this play at London’s Globe Theatre in 1613, a canon used for special effects ignited the theatre’s thatched roof and beams, burning the original structure to the ground. This play was famous in its own day as Shakespeare’s most sumptuous and spectacular play, and this production presents a gorgeous pageant of masques and royal ceremony.

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