I am no longer involved with Faraway Theater.
I used to drive the Western deserts and dream of starting a theater. I wound up back in Alabama, found the right people, and we created this place out of thin air, quite literally. In the beginning, it felt like it would last forever. There was a palpable magic in the air. We built a community that felt destined to exist and the right people kept showing up to give it dimension and life. We had lightning in a bottle and we knew it.
Teaching performance art is a deeply meaningful vocation to me. Providing this space and guidance for people to Create is something I’ll forever be proud of. Any art requires a modicum of bravery, but improv especially so. At the heart of it to me was a real-time exploration of what is True. We were in the business of Storytelling and Good Stories only work if in pursuit of internal and external Truth. And, with improv, it’s a matter of diligently integrating whats True as it presents itself. Integration. It’s a tough thing to do and it requires the best of ourselves to do it well. Watching people summon the best of themselves is a spiritual experience and being in a position to foster and constantly witness is an honor.
So it was with a hefty heavy heart that I walked away.
In the middle of starting a theater, I also started a family. Raising my boy in my theater was such a fun dream to me. But before that could happen, I had to be a little less present; still present, just less so. I had to get my boy out of infancy and help my wife start her business. I had to be a Husband and Father first. When I started to come back fully to the theater, the air smelled a little different. I put my limbs through sleeves but the suit was ill-fitting. Maybe because of my huge muscles.
My intention and understanding was for the theater to become a non-profit which would better reflect the vibrant and varied community. It was also a way for me to have a measure of influence on this creature I’d been integral in creating while still being able to provide for my family (something running a comedy theater simply cannot do).
—Continued in comments—
Changes Post 2:
I hope you’ll watch Aaron White who has such a mysterious and mesmerizing stage and screen presence that I essentially wrote this because I am so inspired by him
I hope you’ll watch @veryfunnyvince , @the_coreyw , and @sarabhersh who showed up for their small cameo appearances with professionalism and gusto
I hope you’ll watch for the crowd of fools that consisted of so many of my hilarious friends from @farawaybham especially the particularly flabbergasted @abigailbals
I hope you’ll watch for the behind the scene efforts of @theonlydanking and @jake__ferrari and @tylomonroe and the achingly kind Barry Dabbs from Food Giant in Hueytown
I hope you’ll watch my daughter Lucy make her film acting premiere.
I hope you’ll watch because art is interactive and I want my film to know you.
Thank you to @atlantafilmseries who awarded me Best Narrative Short at their Underground Film Festival
Thank you to my wife Grace who makes me a better artist and a better man. Watch for her giving the only actual line in the whole thing!
“A hermit seeks transcendence through change”
Last Spring I wrote and directed my first legitimate short film Changes.
I approached the golden-eyed @marcusjay_dp to be my Director of Photography and pitched him this very absurd idea for which I didn’t have a script or a storyboard. Just an amorphous thru-line and a strong sense of what it needed to feel like. Marcus promptly understood what I was going for and we got to work. Marcus, I don’t think I ever told you this but I’ve rarely felt more understood than in the making of this.
We made this for less than the money you’ll see on screen. It was a lesson in resourcefulness and the internal (and eternal) value in trusting the creative process of manifesting literal dreams.
At the time of posting here I’m pretty jaded with the film industry to which I’ve functionally given my entire adult life to. Ive been primarily watching older movies due to their cultural relevance and ensouled nature. Film doesn’t seem to have a meaningful cultural value right now and as such its economic value has drastically waned. I don’t know that there’s a career in it anymore, at least for my standard of living, outside of the highly nepotized.
So for now I’ll seek funds elsewhere and position myself to patronize and nepotize myself. Making art for the hopes of material success is killing me. Changes helped bring me back to life. I made it not for leverage or money or to walk down some masturbatory red carpet. I made it because I wanted to and it was rewarding to enrich my relationships with such talented friends. I need to do more things that bring me to life and I can’t do that waiting on the life raft of another larger (and sinking) boat.
I hope you’ll watch my film. It’s made by real people in the real world. It’s 12 minutes.
- Just found out IG has a word limit. More on post two
Happy Birthday to my wife Grace who is the spirit of Woman on Earth. To whom all of Gods creatures, bug and beast, flock. She says that she wouldn’t be harmed by an encounter with a wild Tiger and I believe her.
Every so often I find a project meets me exactly where I’m at.
I need something from it and I do what I can to ensure that what I offer is what the project needs in return. An intimacy occurs. These experiences act as a guiding sprite along a path that can sometimes feel like it’s going in circles towards dead ends. They REMIND me of why I started and continue down this road.
Essence of a Photograph was one of those projects.
Thanks @dalten_directs for bringing me on board. Thanks for asking hard worthwhile questions with your art. This was a tender one to trust me with. And thanks to @nancylg98 and all the tremendous crew who took such creative and professional care with your work. You made space for me to hold things lightly or abuse them as I saw fit. Intimate.
Haunting set: @maximos.e.t
📸: @hyelimphoto_
Try to catch me, as Jack and Jeffrey try to catch me, as the object of the watch in Neighborhood Watch. In theaters April 25th!
What an honor to scrap with these guys right here in the mean streets of Birmingham, Alabama
From 2016-2018 I lived directly across the street from Warner Brothers Studios. As a struggling actor I would often stare at the WB gates and meditate on what I might have to do to be able to work on the lot as an actor. To take a sip from that iconic water tower.
Turns out I had to move back across the continent to Alabama, burn my entire life down, walk away from the industry for a while, find God, and start over.
Nearly a decade later I got to return to Warner Brothers with my beautiful wife, tell them my name, and walk through the gate. I figured it out. I got on the lot.
What an honor to show up as a supporting actor for Days of Reckoning and share the screen with so many talented people. What a beautiful and badass film. Surreal. Dream come true.
Always listen to God, your gut, and your beautiful wife.
@esxentertainment
