Press Releases Archive for October, 2007

A Catered Affair in San Diego

October 17, 2007 The horror, of course, is that the sheer energy of crap like Legally Blonde and a single thematic song – in that case “Oh My God” – can drive a show to a lot of audience for a long time. And something much more ambitious and thoughtful, like A Catered Affair, will…

Read the full article »

Young Frankenstein In Seattle – Detailed, Spoiler Notes

August 29, 2007 This is the follow-up to Monday’s spoiler-free review column on Young Frankenstein, now out-of-towning in Seattle. Don’t read a word if you want to maintain a show surprise, though most of it is set by the movie we all know so well. ACT ONE Scene 1: A Village In Transylvania, 1934 “Frankenstein…

Read the full article »

Young Frankenstein In Seattle – Spoiler Free

August 27, 2007 The thrill and the horror of Young Frankenstein is that it, unlike The Producers, has the feel of the giant machine shows that have been hitting Broadway in recent years. For instance, the current Grease revival – generated not by the need for a revival, but as a guaranteed pre-sale based on…

Read the full article »

Not So Under The Sea

Sept 5, 2007 There is no drama like theater people throwing gossip around about the latest show they hope goes down the drain. When shows fail, the gossip is “I told you so.” When the gossiped about shows hit, they suddenly forget that there was any fuss at all. The latest show to get bashed…

Read the full article »

Hairspray: The Musical Movie

July 13, 2007 I first saw it in a slightly premature screening – New Line was thrilled with what was delivered – and the show was so charming and sweet that it was pretty irresistible. Still, there were flaws that stuck out, the most frustrating being that Adam Shankman is a better choreographer than a…

Read the full article »

The Unexpected Pleasure Of Xanadu

June 29, 2007 I saw the biggest new hit to land Off-Broadway in years. Unfortunately for the show, it’s opening on Broadway next Tuesday. Xanadu, which I bought tickets for after a half-price opportunity showed up in the e-mail and have been apologizing for since whenever answering “what are you seeing in New York?,” turns…

Read the full article »

Press Releases

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon