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Lincoln the musical wins in LA

5/31/2023

The secret project we have been working on for years finally finished its edit and was sent off to festivals. I was floored to find out the audience voted it Best Feature at the LA Comedy Film Festival. Along with Anthony Giordano I wrote and directed the film and we each play three characters...

Here is the story behind the film-
Working in comedy, theater, and film in NYC comes with a constant struggle to stay afloat. As actors, the struggle of life in the greatest city in the world and the constant rejection of your work is offset by a booked job, the electric feeling of performance, and the spark in your soul that reminds you of what you were placed on this earth to do. “A parody of the entertainment business that we all work in and love…and sometimes hate” is how we pitched our cast. We have produced live comedy shows and plays in NYC for years. We have written and directed comedy sketches and short films. We are writers, producers, directors, and actors. This is a parody of our journey and the people we have met as seen through the lens of a Broadway show.
We wanted to show you the life of the artist in a heightened comedic manner rather than that of the beaten-down trope of the sad clown. We wanted the audience to peek behind the curtain and catch a glimpse of the reality of the absurd world we dwell in.
Before a live show in the flatiron district, we sat in the green room and talked about our auditions and recent work with the other cast members. Two of the characters in the film were performed live on stage that night. This is when we decided to embark on the journey of creating a movie that shows the struggles it takes to put on a show and survive as an actor. Katie Hutch, who plays Lincoln, was envisioned as our lead from the inception. We wanted her to be the wide-eyed actor who loves her art and is thrown into the machine that is show business. Her optimism in life and talent on stage was the perfect blend for our lead
With an outline and some scenes, we began filming in 2019. We had no budget and a small cast of actors that we knew from the underground comedy scene. The core characters would improvise lines off of the script and we re-wrote on the fly. As the film got bigger we brought on a cast of talented theater actors, some of whom had never been in front of a camera before. The characters, dialogue, and songs were written specifically for the actors after they had been cast. Through connections, we met at film festivals and live shows, we were able to obtain locations and we filmed a few days a month with breaks to write while we continued to perform live…
…And then Covid hit. Although it kept us sane by giving us the opportunity to go over all of the material with a fine-toothed comb, edit, and add scenes we weren’t sure we would be able to finish the film or if our industry would ever come back. What started out as a love letter to the crazy business we worked in turned into something different. Some of the actors were forced to relocate, and some were immunocompromised and weren’t sure when or if they would ever be able to perform again. The locations we shot at closed forever. The rehearsal spaces we used for auditions and run-throughs in the film were the same ones we used in real life. They were gone and would never be back. The renowned comedy theater we had that first conversation in was closed forever. What began as a parody of our chosen life became a fight to make sure a love letter to the city and performing arts rose from the ashes of the pandemic. Pretty heavy stuff for a comedy film right? That spark in our soul became a raging fire and with help from new connections we made that had the same mindset, we were able to film several new scenes including the climax at a theater that survived. For everyone involved, this film became much more than a work of comedic art. It became a sign that the entertainment biz would be back to normal even if we had to bring it back ourselves.
We are so grateful for the talented crew, actors, comedians, and theater folk who helped us along the way and we are proud of the film we have all made together as a community of artists.

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