On August 12th, we would like to invite you to a very special installment of Film Club! Our friends over at Torn Page are re-mounting their production of The Whole of Time, a Drama Desk nominated play that’s a riff on Tennessee’s Glass Menagerie. Written by the Argentinian playwright Romina Paula, the play is about a family’s fragile and very private life on the precipice of changing forever. The Whole of Time digs deep into questions of home and exile… physical, intellectual, and emotional.
In support of their run at The Brick we’re showing Sweet Bird of Youth, a classic 60’s play-turned-film led by incredible work from Geraldine Page and Paul Newman at the family home of Geraldine and Rip Torn! Tony Torn, their son, has been using the townhouse for years as a lab for theatre work of incredible imagination and power. We’ve had many wonderful conversations with Tony about the importance of keeping this theatrical lineage alive and well, and we’re honored to be a small part of that effort. We’ll also be leading a talkback after one of the performances, so be on the lookout for that date soon!
Film Club is free to RSVP (link in the linktree) and you can reserve your tickets for The Whole of Time at the link in their bio!
Rip as Ulysses S Grant. I imagine this is General Grants expression as he looks into the future at the sorry state of the country in 2025. “We fought so hard..to end up like this?!?”
Happy Easter! Spider Rabbit stream is live and he has "things to show you."
Find the link at tornpage.org or in comments below. The stream is free of charge but please donate to Universal Aid for Children in Ukraine: uacukraine.org
Photo Credit: Charles McCain
SPIDER RABBIT STREAMING FREE THIS SUNDAY ONLY!
You might say "Spider Rabbit is the Easter Bunny, but those aren't eggs in his basket" or you might ask "why is this Rabbit different from all other Rabbits?' but either way you can watch SPIDER RABBIT on Vimeo (link posted in comments) or on the home page of tornpage.org this Sunday April 17th from midnight to midnight Eastern! Photo credit: Charles McCain
Thinking of Rip today on the 2nd anniversary of his departure. Planted some Paw-Paw Trees in Lee Ann’s spiral garden today, which seemed appropriate. The garden has a Motherwort plant at the beginning and a Paw-Paw plant on the end, so the spiral spins from mother to father. Think about the people behind your birth today.
This is what my beloved pal Clark Middleton looked like when I first met him back in 1981. I was still in High School, he was “key student” for my mother Geraldine Page’s acting class...he opened up the classroom for her and helped take attendance for a reduction in tuition. He needed that reduction. He was a flat broke young actor dealing with chronic rheumatoid arthritis. He also had big dreams.
He made a lot of those dreams come true over the years through talent, intelligence, heart and sheer bull-headed perseverance, working with directors like Lisa Peterson, George C Wolfe, Joseph Chaikin, Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch and Bong Joon Ho. For the past decade, he taught acting at Torn Page, giving back to Geraldine’s legacy with love and always good humor and joie de vivre.
39 years later, Clark has left us. He died in Los Angeles of sudden complications from West Nile Virus, the recent outbreak of which would have been big news if CoVid and fires and our political horror show had not taken up so much attention. The timing is cruel. Clark was in the middle of creating what will be his magnum opus, a collaborative film called Bluefish that Clark was the visionary ringleader of. I’d never seen him happier than he’d been the past few months, creating every day with his friends.
We will finish it for him, but for now, it’s time to sit and think about all the memories. There are many more wonderful ones than I have time to get into here. Bon Voyage, Buddy.
From Follies of God “"She never talked about her work or what she was doing. She simply did it. She hated career talk: It bored her, and she had a yawning/laughing sound she would make before she walked away. She was phenomenally sweet to fellow players--at least in my presence, in that play. She could shift the entire production through the force of her concentration and help someone out, push them forward. She had no patience for laziness, but if something beyond the control of an actor took place, she was the first to smooth things over, mount a rescue."--Tennessee Williams on Geraldine Page #FolliesOfGod
Happy Father’s Day to the great Rip Torn! Celebrate his legacy by watching his great performance as country singer Maury Dann in “Payday” https://youtu.be/akc10EdthxQ
