Wow. These are really fabulous questions. I’ve put off answering them, because these call for hours of conversation, it seems, not just a short answer session.
I’ve waited long enough. I guess I’ll just have to do a summary of each, and assure myself that someday these will turn into hour-spanning discussions on themes personal and universal. Here goes:
1.
Dave you seem to have a lot of respect for singers such as Brian Stokes Mitchell who sing/perform musical theater songs. You also seem to have a lot of distain for singers who sing/perform pop music. In both cases a person has desided to sing for a living and both usually sing songs that they didn't compose or have much personal attachment to. Why the different feelings towards the two different types of singing careers?
Yeah, wow. This got me thinking about the disparity here, which I had never really considered. I think the reasoning is like this:
When Stokes performs the role of Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime, he is doing just that: performing a role. There’s never any doubt about that—he uses his acting and singing skills to master a theatrical part. I know going in and coming out that Lynn Ahrens and Steven Flaherty are responsible for the music and lyrics, based on E.L. Doctorow’s novel. It is a piece of theatre in which he is participating. And also happens to kick ass.
What pop musicians do
is different. Stokes has never said that “Make Them Hear You” is
his hit song. What Stokes is doing is in service of story, and theatre, and art. The writers are celebrated, and respected for their art as well.
Which is not what Avril Lavigne does. While she is
also playing a role, I have a lot more respect for a theatrical production based on a seminal American novel than I do for the construct of a producer who thinks “Gee, we could make some money if we had a skater girl! Let’s create one!”
This leaves a lot unanswered. Is it the fact that he recognizes himself as an actor that makes it OK? If Avril said “yeah, it’s a shtick, so what?” would that make it OK?
Here, in a nutshell: Stokes has learned and mastered a craft. A talented, gifted actor, singer, and dancer that has paid his dues and come out on top. My guess is that Avril happened to be sitting in the lucky booth at a TGIFriday’s when a producer spotted her. So when Stokes stands and proclaims, as Coalhouse Walker Jr., “Proclaim it from your pulpit, in your classroom, with your pen: teach every child to raise his voice and then my brothers, then—will justice be demanded by ten million righteous men” I’ll take it over Sk8er Boi any day of the millennium.
2.
You've been given the following assignment in a screenplay writing class. You are to write a scene that involves the members of your family. Here's the catch, you can't use your family members as the characters, but rather you must "cast" pre-existing fictional characters to represent members of your family. You can choose characters from any realm of literature or media. Who do you "cast" as each member of your family, including yourself, and tell us briefly why.
This question is really tricky for me. My family will read this. What if they are offended by my choice? I’ve been worried about this. So I make it clear that I’ll offer a longer explanation anytime.
My mother: The Mother from Alice Sebold’s
The Lovely Bones
My father: Amalgam of The Dad from Roald Dahl’s
Danny, Champion of World and Willy Loman from Arthur Miller’s
Death of a Salesman.
My brother: A lot of Andrew Wiggin from Orson Scott Card’s
Ender’s Game (but with a little of Quentin (he-Quentin) from William Faulkner’s
The Sound and the Fury) except he has a much better sense of humor than those two combined.
My sister-in-law: Rose Walker from Neil Gaiman’s
The Sandman
Myself: I don't know. At all. Some parts of Barry Egan's character from P.T. Anderson’s
Punch-Drunk Love reminded me of me. Or Tiger Lily from Peter Pan.
Maybe I’ll extrapolate later, but I want to move on for now. Not on the Tiger Lily thing, that was a joke. But the rest of it.
3.
Dave you seem to have changed in your need for stability and increased your enjoyment of the new and the different over the past couple of years. What do think are the contributing factors in this?
Getting older, moving out, going to college, increased self-awareness, independence, reading, studying, learning, breaking up with my first-ever girlfriend, introspection, New York City, age, wisdom, pancakes. Especially the pancakes.
4.
You've often spoken about using directing as a way to evoke emotional response from others and to provoke thinking about the subject matter they've just seen. To you think you could do this more effectively with a show guarenteed to have a six month run on Broadway or with a movie that is guarenteed to be a Blockbuster (regardless of content in either situtation, just assume people would come see it)? Also tell us why.
Well, it’s gotta be a blockbuster movie. If it’s in five hundred theatres across the country and only four people watch it in each theatre per day, I’ve already reached a larger audience than I would in a major Broadway house. Chances are, as it’s a blockbuster, that it will be significantly more than that. Many thousands will see it per day. The opportunity to reach people over a broad regional and economic spectrum is great.
Now, theatre audiences generally expect to have to think more than movie audiences, I’ve found. So I’d just have to do a really kick-ass fantastic job and make them forget their damned escapist notions.
5.
In what ways to think that being the son of a pastor has influenced your life?
I’m used to being “onstage” because the pastor’s family is always under scrutiny. An inordinate amount of people here in theatre school are minister’s kids. They’re linked somehow—being a pastor’s kid IS performing and I guess it just sort of transfers itself along.
I’m good at brown-nosing adults and fundraising.
I know a lot of church music.
I never ever ever want to go to another potluck ever again in my life. Ever.
OK, I’m gonna stop for now. Without reviewing it at all. Y’allz let me know if there’s anything that I answered too much as smart-ass or anything you just want me to expand on.
In closing, I’d like to say that I typed this at work and I’m not sure it’s possible for me to HATE MACINTOSH COMPUTERS MORE THAN I DO. DAMN, THIS IS A PIECE OF SHIT.
