Adam’s Blog

Back from another Summer in the Northeast

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

I am back in LA, after doing a 6-week run of The Judy Holliday Story in New Jersey. The run was very successful, selling out nearly all 34 performances. The future of Judy is uncertain at the moment, but several theatre producers attended and there is interest. We will see...
But, for now, I am getting back in the swing in LaLa Land. Booked a potentially long-term gig that will have me going up to San Francisco once a week for much of the Fall. Can’t discuss too many of the details, but it’s a hosting/acting/writing gig for a very popular sports website that is looking to branch out and create original online content. Excited to get in on the ground floor of what could be a great gig!
I got some stand-up shows coming up, which is good, seeing as though it’s been 2 months of no making funny-funny on stage.
And a few of the web/independent projects I worked on this past Winter and Spring have been been cut and finished. Some are on the web and others are waiting to find the right viewing platform:
Gigi: Almost American was an enormous success for MyDamnChannel and there is a strong possibility there will be a second season of that.
And Gym Ratz, the indie comedy pilot I worked on in March that takes place in a... gym (how’d you guess?), is being shopped around to networks as we speak.
And, Grimm City, the pilot I co-produced and wrote along with Josh Covitt and Ryan Darst, is nearly finished and looks AMAZING. We are now figuring out what to do next with it. It’s the most ambitious project yet that I’ve worked on from the start to finish. I think it’s really good. We’ll see what will happen.

We’ll See...

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:28:15 -0700

It’s St. Patrick’s Day! So... I’m wearing a green shirt. Oh, and I will be meeting up with my brother later to celebrate our common Irish ancestry by having a few beers and watching the NCAA Tournament. So Irish.

Pilot season has been underway for a while now. My stats: 4 pilot auditions - no bookings. They all went well though, I thought. Couple were for producers in the room. Felt good. But... oh well. I keep on truckin. Been doing some more standup. Had a great show a few weeks ago at Room 5, a place where I go up often. But this show was promoted by Dennis Hemphill, a very funny and talented comedian. He gets one Thursday a month at Room 5 to kind of produce his own show. Meaning, he brings the comics he wants and he promotes it heavily. So the place was jammed and most of the comics were solid. He asked a couple other comics and me to be the ‘main 4’ in every one of his Thursday shows. Our next one is March 31. So, that’s cool. I’m going up at M Bar next week and hope to do Spotlight Comedy Club at the beginning of next month. All this means is that I’m enjoying comedy at the moment and it’s keeping me fairly sane and busy and feeling creative.
I also shot a little funny video thing with my friend Taye Diggs last week. Something we’d been talking about doing for a while, so I was pretty psyched that it actually came to fruition. I booked the space and found a director and wrote much of it. Twas a good feeling to follow something, albeit a small project, all the way through. In fact, I am off right now to go help the director edit some of the footage. The hope is to get it up on Funny Or Die.
Speaking of FOD, the sketch I wrote for Sara Bareilles, also a friend of mine (I know, how f-ing cool am I? haha), was sent to those peeps and they are interested in producing it. We just gotta nail down the scheduling and all that. It is a much bigger scale type video, so getting that done would definitely be great.

I finally sent an email to NJ Repertory and let them know that I wanted to accept their offer to do the Judy Holliday play there this Summer. Then, after sending that, I found out that Marina is NOT doing it. Some scheduling conflicts. So, that kinda sucks. She’s the reason I became involved in the original project. Not that that matters so much - I’ve obviously grown close to the whole JUDY cast and team. But, this is Marina’s show. She won all the awards, deservedly so, and now she’s out. It will be weird. I am already on the fence about going to NJ to do this production, so this news, has made me even more wobbly about it all.
Oh well. I remain committed to doing it. If something bigger and better were to come up, I would feel okay with backing out. We’ll see...

Still waiting for Level 3 of the Groundlings. It’s been 22 months. Kinda bullshit, actually. I shot this spec pilot a few weeks ago (that’s what the above picture is from) and a couple of guys from Groundlings Sunday Company were in it. They only waited 6 months for Level 3. Sucks. The spec pilot was fun, by the way. I played a very crazy character. The project is basically like ‘The Office’ set in a gym. Called ‘Gym Ratz’. We’ll see what happens with it...

There’s a lot of ‘we’ll see’ in my entries. That sometimes feels like the them of my life. Do all these things, put myself out there and bust my ass working odd and long hours, usually for no money, and then it’s just.... we’ll see.

JUDY HOLLIDAY READING

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:25:42 -0700

The LA staged reading of the No Dumb Blonde: The Judy Holliday Story on January 18 was a huge success!! Sold-out crowd and great response. There were some representatives of a few LA theatres on hand, so we will see if anything happens... hopefully, we’ll be playing in an LA theatre sometime soon!!

Back Into the LA Swing of Things...

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

I’ve been busy since being back in LA, which is good. Last week, I shot an episode of this new web series which will premiere on Funnyordie in a couple weeks. It’s called Ricky and Ravi Are in Between Jobs. It was wicked fun and everyone involved were hilarious. I will post when the series is up and ready to watch.

Commercial and Voice Over auditions are definitely in full swing. I am currently on hold for a Sprint voiceover spot - recorded a demo on Friday for the advertising and production people. It went well, I thought, so... we’ll see!

I am currently doing this acting class, organized by Johnny Clark of the VS Theatre Company. I took it a few years ago, and it was by far and away the best scene study/acting class I’d taken in Los Angeles. Each week, a new director comes in and directs 5 scenes. And each scene gets about 45/50 minutes of attention/direction. It’s fantastic. It’s more like rehearsing for a play, in condensed fashion of course, than working in a typical acting class. And, everyone in the class is talented. Johnny handpicks people he knows and has worked with before.

I am also doing a casting/acting workshop every Wednesday night, which brings in various screenwriters, producers, and casting directors each class to have their projects read by actors or to just come and watch actors perform scenes. And, starting this Thursday, I will be starting a 6-week Longform Improv class at The Groundlings. Looking forward to that.

And, all the while, I, along with Jake and Jason and Mike and Greg, continue to write, and hopefully soon shoot, more sketches for Sports Ballz. Very soon, I will be able to post the pilot of this sports/comedy show we made back in the Spring. We’re not putting it on the internet yet because there has been interest shown by a few producers who believe we could sell the show.
We’ll see...

Cape Cod Livin...

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:45:27 -0700

I just looked at the first line of my last post which mentioned how I hadn’t updated in a while. And that was only 1 MONTH after my previous post. So, I guess this 11 WEEK absence could be characterized as an egregious act of neglect on my part. So, to whomever is reading, I apologize.
MUCH has happened since April Fool’s Day. Let’s start with where I am now, shall we?
Currently, I am on Cape Cod, doing another play at the ‘gem in the crown of Massachusets theatre”, the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. I’m in rehearsals for Born Yesterday, which opens up on July 1 and runs through til July 31.
Then, in August, I go to New York to do a show for the New York Fringe Festival. It’s called Just in Time - The Judy Holliday Story. A very strange coincidence that Born Yesterday was the play, and later the film, that made her famous. Summer of 2010 is my “Summer of Holliday.”
Working backward now, in April, I worked on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It a one scene co-star role, but, it being one of my favorite shows on TV, it was an awesome experience. My episode should be airing sometime in the next few weeks.
In March, I worked on the upcoming video game, LA Noire. It’s by Rockstar Videogames, and it is a highly anticipated game with ground-breaking technology involved. I play Patrolman Kellerman and have several scenes with the lead Detective character. It was a VERY interesting and unique shooting process. After a 70 minute hair/makeup session, I had to go inside this insanely bright, circular room, which had 30 or so cameras all aimed at this chair in the center. I had to sit on the chair and say all my lines to the camera in front of me while being careful to ONLY move my face while talking. It was odd, somewhat uncomfortable, and wicked fun. LA Noire is due out in September!
Also in April, I did a great stand-up show at the Funny Bone in San Francisco with the guys from the Pink Ribbon Comedy Tour