But when I drive past Seward and Santa Monica as I do from time to time, it’s hard not to think about that place (now a pet hospital), the weird freedom of working my ass off and pouring all of my creative energies into…whatever that was.
Isn’t that how every project goes?
To nobody’s surprise, Vance and The PAC didn’t last much longer. There were legit companies actors could join that made theater in a manner that respected everyone. LA was lousy with great theater back then.
Vance died in 2008 and very few of the people involved in his theater are still around.
That show was better than the first, and I actually was able to direct it for better or worse.
Then Blair Witch came out, I got hired to make TV stuff, and I assumed my career was off and running (which it actually was for a few years). I didn’t turn my back on The PAC, I was just too busy.
…and we could only build a set if we left it up (which made no sense). Begrudgingly Vance agreed to let me take the bed down before every show and put it back up afterwards. He also allowed me to take down the audience-facing pictures of himself on set with Kevin Spacey and Robert Blake.
…and Jay Bogdanowitsch as well as Sandy Mulvihill — who I’d go on to work with several more times. That time I wanted to build an actual set but a previous show had a fake Murphy Bed that took up the whole playing space and Vance was renting it to an old man named Ken who slept on it…
Both casts did what they could with the well-intentioned script bless its heart. And Vance’s double-casting plan worked: twice the cast meant twice the audience. And he kept the box office.
I actually stuck around and directed another project there which starred two friends of mine, John Maynard…
Scumfuck Vance suggested we fire her but I said “let me see what I can do”, and I just didn’t direct her anymore — rather I directed everyone around her. I wasn’t rude to her, I just narrowed her choices and trusted her to make logical choices. Which she did.
She was excellent. She’d had a real career on TV. She wanted nothing to do with my directing. She eventually said to me in the middle of a rehearsal “Hey Ben, I’m here to do whatever I want. I’m not here to be directed by you.”
Of course I was offended but I could recognize how good she was.
For the most part, the play went okay. The script was less than wonderful and was full of hamfisted clunky exposition. The two casts were actually decent (my first encounter with the basically endless well of talented actors out here). One of them was an older woman named Patricia.
So determined was I to direct that I’d even worn a dress shirt and tie to this meeting.
He didn’t look at my resume and just anointed me the director of a play that would star HIM (the only role to not be double-cast).
And then he’d double-cast them with his “company” members. He’d produce the plays paying literally nobody and building no set, and make the director be their own stage manager and board op (for free).
He would produce the same plays over and over because the writers wouldn’t charge him.
…which took up a massive chunk of the stage real estate. The lighting board consisted of a handful of hardware store lighting dimmers connected to clamp lights affixed to the ceiling. Vance’s MO was to solicit for plays from unproduced playwrights who would allow him to produce their plays for free.
…that theater actors were often the best (which is generally true). So he decided to found a theater on “theater row” and charge people for membership. That enabled company members to audition for his shows. He lived in the theater space and built a makeshift shower next to the tiny stage…
It was called the PAC theater. That stood for “Professional Actors’ Counsel”. His name was Vance and he was an obvious sleazebucket. He had worked as an extra on things like “LA Confidential” and “Lost Highway” and decided that qualified him to direct a movie, and in the casting process he realized…
My first LA directing story 🧵:
I moved to LA in 1999 determined to direct ANYTHING ASAP. 6 months later, a friend told me about a theater looking for a director for a 1-act play. I put together a resume and met with the guy at his crappy theater on the corner of Santa Monica and Seward.
Hey I’m heading off to a religious institution to worship my god and/or gods
APRIL FOOLS
You’re a complete idiot for believing me
“My Octopus Teacher” is a masterpiece.
APRIL FOOLS
you should see your surprised face.
I like sports now
APRIL FOOLS
I’m great at this.
the hardest part of eating a bowl of Lucky Charms at my age is shoving my pancreas back up my asshole with a broomstick
Follow-up to my “ET”-based follow up to “The Goonies”:
“Stand By Me” is a stone-cold masterpiece, maybe the best of these three.
Rounding out my weekend of 80’s flicks — “Stand By Me” is incredible. Probably my favorite of the three.
Follow-up hot take to my hot take about “Goonies”:
“ET” is goddamned perfect.
Hot Take: “The Goonies” is overrated. Richard Donner sucked at directing kids.
With an Oxford Comma no less.
All my life I’ve been a serial user of the “m dash” — and now I’m finding out that it’s a giveaway that stuff is written by AI.
GODDAMNIT I love an m dash and I don’t write with AI.
Deep thought I had upon waking up:
If you combine The Iliad and The Odyssey, you get The Idiocy.
The thing about toxic people is that you never know who is secretly one of them until they decide to hijack your life for however long you’re still stuck with them.
just found out there's a Butthole Cut of Hamnet where they all have realistic CGI buttholes
Lola is a song about telling everybody Natalie Portman is your girlfriend
