Sneak Previews
U-M's Festival of New Works showcases
promising theater and film pieces
in a staged reading format.
BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News
ew works" is an apt term to
describe a group of plays,
musicals and screenplays
coming to Ann Arbor's
Trueblood and Arena Theatres May 19-
June 18.
It's the second season for the
University of Michigan's Festival of
New Works, a developmental theater
for new plays, screenplays and musicals
in staged-reading formats. And this
year's festival has a distinct Jewish fla-
vor.
The works include a stage adapta-
tion of novelist Margaret Atwood's The
Edible Woman, directed by a Jewish
female; a rock musical called Rooms,
composed by a Scottish Jew; and an
original screenplay, Allison, penned by a
former local Jewish man whose wife is
studying to become a rabbi.
"I guess you could call this a 'pre-,
pre-' playhouse," said Mary Lou
Chlipala, managing director of the fes-
tival and program director of U-M's
Film and Video Studies program. "The
writers are still working on these plays
to be staged elsewhere, so the festival
provides a perfect showcase for them."
"We're excited about the entire festi-
val lineup," said Frank Gagliano, a
West Virginia University playwriting
professor who is serving as artistic
director again this year.
The rest of the program includes the
screenplays Cold (May 19) and Getting
There (May 20), and the play The Total
Immersion of Madeleine Favorini, by
Gagliano himself (June 16-17).
N
D
an Shere, 25, wrote the
screenplay Allison, which
will be staged June 16-17.
Currently living in Los
Angeles, the screenwriter grew up in
Southfield and West Bloomfield,
attended Hillel Day School and North
Farmington High School and graduat-
ed from U-M's Film and Video Studies
program. His parents are Joel (a lawyer)
and Margaret (an occupational thera-
5/12
2000
118
pist) Shere of West Bloomfield.
Shere got interested in writing dur-
ing his senior year at U-M, inspired by
an old friend, Joe Nussbaum, at the
University of Southern California film
school. "He always called me to bounce
around script ideas, and it really gave
me the film bug," Shere reflected.
Curious about screenwriting, he
enrolled in instructor Jim Burnstein's
U-M screenwriting class. "And he
taught me everything I needed to know
about writing," said Shere.
Shere wrote a script called Goat
Cheese for class, which he eventually
sold to United Artists; the project is
now on hold because of the studio's
uncertain status.
Goat Cheese is about two students
who don't fit in well at their high
school. Desperate to gain some kind of
identity, they form a rock band even
though they know next to nothing
Screenwriter Dan Shere:
"In Allison,' I used many
of my friends- and acquaintances
fr om U-M as models."
about music.
In California, Shere and Nussbaum
wrote George Lucas in Love, which has
become somewhat of a cult film. It has
been shown at several film festivals
around North America and was named
Best Short at the U.S. Comedy Festival
in Aspen.
Lucas is a comical cross between Star
Wars and Shakespeare in Love, telling
about the struggles of a young George
Lucas, who, as a senior in film school,
tries to write the Star Wars script. It's
complete with characters that look and
sound like Darth Vader, Yoda and
Princess Leia.
Lucas caught the attention of famed
director Steven Spielberg, who hired
Shere to rewrite a script for his
DreamWorks Studio. Shere and
Nussbaum are now collaborating on a
new romantic comedy.
Allison = mixing standup one-lin-
ers, zany surreal scenes and a charming,
painful sweetness — takes a quirky
look at college romance and coming of
age as the lead character tries to figure
out what in the world to do with a phi-
losophy degree in the new millennium.
"In Allison, I used many of my
friends and acquaintances from U-M as
models," says Shere. "I also used plenty
of Ann Arbor motifs, such as painting
graffiti on the Rock, running the
`Naked Mile,' and sledding at the Arb.'
However, the Allison character wasn't
based on any one individual."
Shere's wife, Rachel Lawson, gradu-
ated from Birmingham's Andover High
School, and also attended U-M. The
couple have been married almost two
years, and she's studying for the rab-
binate at the University of Judaism in
Los Angeles.
"Occasionally, in meetings with pro-
ducers and other film studio executives,
when I mention that my wife is study-
ing to become a rabbi, they get more
interested in talking about her than
me," Shere mused. "We're both very
committed to studying Torah and being
active in the Los Angeles Jewish com-
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gles and copes after the mother dies. Her mother, Lynn
reative writers usually write about what they know
Podolsky, died of breast cancer at age 43 in 1996 when
liabest themselves and their life experiences.
Erin was a senior at Berkley High School.
Such was the case with Erin Podolsky of Huntington
"Sunday Drive sort of describes what our family went
Woods and Ann Arbor, who won two writing awards
though
after my mother died ... how we had to find our
worth $5,400.
own
way
and then get on with our lives," said Podolsky.
earned
her
the
Her original screenplay, Sunday Drive,
top Hopwood Award in the Minor Screen Writing category She has a brother, Gabriel, and her father, Arnold, is a
lawyer. The family belongs to Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
worth $4,500, and a Naomi Saferstein Award worth $900.
Encouraged by her parents to write as a youngster,
The prestigious Hopwood Awards (won by such previ-
Podolsky really didn't get inter-
ous U-M alums as playwright Arthur Miller
ested in creative writing until
and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan) are given
she attended U-M. She's now
in several categories to University of
the film critic for the Michigan
Michigan students. National judges select
Daily, the university's newspa-
the winners.
per, and she does freelance
Two other Jewish U-M students won
writing for a Web site.
Hopwood Awards in minor screen writing.
How will she spend the
They are senior Gabriel Burnstein of
$5,400?
Plymouth, second place and $3,000 for
"It will help finance a sum-
Broadway Joe, and recent graduate Josh
mer in New York City, where I
Herman of Farmington Hills, fourth place
got a job as an intern at
and $1,500 for Boys to Men.
Entertainment
Weekly maga-
Podolsky, 21, graduated last month from
Left to right:U-M screenwriting
zine,"
said
Podolsky,
who con-
U-M in the Film and Video Studies Program coordinator Jim Burnstein, and Josh
siders
herself
to
be
independent
under the guidance of screenwriting coordi-
Herman, Gabriel Burnstein and Erin
and a self-starter.
nator Jim Burnstein. Sunday Drive is mainly Podolsky, all winners of Hopwood
autobiographical, telling how a family strug- Awards in minor screen writing.
— Bill Carroll
❑