The holidays for performers can be a time of club parties, benefit performances, and catching up with performing friends on holiday hiatus. It's making plans for winter pilot season, or resolving to send out more mailings, schedule more auditions, or get better pictures and/or audition tapes made. For far too many, however, it's also a time when career doubts creep in (sometimes the result of excessively opinionated, talkative relatives). It can make you wonder if you should be trying to pursue a comedy career. If you're successful in one area, it's still hard to know if you'll ever go from improv and sketch comedy to stand-up, from club gigs to development deals and TV contracts, or if you'll get your comedic play or screenplay produced.
That's why I'd like to tell you a tale of two comics: big talents with no egos, always eager to tell me about someone else's great work, but each with his own big talent deserving of big dreams and bigger projects. I'm excited to tell you about their good fortune this month as Sundance Channel Home Entertainment releases the DVD of the multi-festival-award-winning film "Melvin Goes to Dinner." I hope as you read about the success of this project, it will help you hang in there, and inspire you not to take anyone you meet for granted. Remember, the actor met in school or on a job may be, years later, the perfect performer for your project. I know I remember every comic whose talent (or rudeness) knocked me out when I was booking a comedy club. And please don't ever forget that many a comedy-club staff member goes on to a position from which he or she might help you get more work in the future.
The two men whose story I'm telling here are Michael Blieden and Matt Price, each a triple threat as performer, comic, and writer. If you're a fan of "The Daily Show," you enjoyed "Blieden's Video Review" for three seasons, and you also may have seen him in commercials and TV roles. Matt Price's recurring TV characters on ABC's "MDs," the WB's "Off Centre," and VH1's "Never Mind the Buzzcocks," along with his commercial and film roles, make him a much-seen-and-enjoyed performer.
"Melvin Goes to Dinner" is acted, written, and hauntingly edited by Blieden, based on his highly acclaimed play "Phyro-Giants!," which ran in L.A., Boston, and Chicago and was also featured in The New York Times. Matt Price co-stars in "Melvin," reprising the role of Joey that he originated in the L.A. stage production at the HBO/Warner Bros. Workspace. Blieden tells me he wrote the role with Price in mind, and that the script was written (with obvious loving care) from the real conversations of Blieden's friends, who were all cool enough to let him use their words. You can tell in a moment that Blieden values relationships, communication, and has a writer's love of words, plus a respect for comedy based in truth, which is still the best comedy tool I know, something also known by many improv- and sketch-trained comics like Blieden and Price, who are both fearless on stage.
You may have first read about Blieden and Price in my column when they were the sketch group and comedy dynamos Price, Nash, and Blieden (also featuring another talent, Jason Nash, whom you'll catch for a moment in the film if you know his face). What made the vignettes with Price and Blieden especially unique wasn't just their ability to go from dry wit to broad silliness and even outrageous puppetry seamlessly (and in seconds flat), but the reality in their work, solid acting chops, and the truth brought even to their zaniest characters. You could also see the great friendship of these two college buddies and how they listened and reacted to each other and, just as important, to their audiences.
"Melvin" is also the exciting feature directorial debut of Bob Odenkirk of "Mr. Show" fame. Odenkirk is to be commended for using the play's original cast—almost unheard of in Hollywood. It's one of the reasons why the film is mesmerizing to watch, as relationships unfold and a harmless dinner meeting of near strangers turns into one of those nights of letting your hair down that we've all had and will never forget. His wife, producer and talent manager Naomi Odenkirk, who co-produced the film, should also get kudos for first seeing the play's film potential. I'm sure her years of running two of the West Coast Catch a Rising Star comedy clubs helped her.
"Melvin" co-stars Annabelle Gurwitch, a comedienne you may know from appearances on programs such as TBS' "Dinner and a Movie," who is also a fine dramatic actress (Blieden first met her when they worked on a commercial). Also featured are a very strong performance by "ER" 's Maura Tierney and the feature film debut of stage and TV performer Stephanie Courtney. There's also a delicious cameo by David Cross (also from the wonderful "Mr. Show"), and another cameo surprise by an actor and musician who plays a fun, though uncredited, role. It's clear why "Best Ensemble" is one of the many film festival awards this picture has won.
It's a great DVD, especially if you enjoy supporting indie films and the fine art of conversational dialogue. You'll think it was all improvised, but I know from Blieden's past writing that that's one of his biggest strengths. His tight scripts have you believing they're merely off-the-cuff moments in time. I'm sure this is only the first of many magical screenplay moments we'll see from Michael Blieden. He's already being compared by critics to the early (and some say funniest) works of Woody Allen, but you'll soon agree with me that his writing and acting voices are unique—a rare talent.
My two favorite picks for this holiday season are both at NYC's Carolines on Broadway. The always-winning Mike Birbiglia headlines Dec. 22 and 23. There's also "Laugh Mitzvah," a wild night of comedy hosted by Back Stage Bistro Award winner Rich Vos, from NBC-TV's hit reality show "Last Comic Standing." The show features some of the funniest Jewish comedians this side of the Holy Land on Dec. 24 and 25. Vos then joins Cory Kahaney (also a Bistro Award winner) and Dave Mordal—both also from "Last Comic Standing"—from Dec. 26-30.
If you like, or are curious about, the hot downtown trend of serving comedy mixed with burlesque, I wish you much Murrayment when the hardest-working middle-aged man in showbiz, Mr. Murray Hill, shticks and shmoozes his way into your holiday heart. His Christmas extravaganza opens Dec. 12, with shows continuing Dec. 13, 19, and 20, at the Cutting Room, 19 West 24th St.
