Who: Zachary Levi, Alison Pill, Dean Norris, Clancy Brown, Macon Blair, Ross Partridge, Sarah Clarke, Jeff “the Dude” Dowd, Jordana Brewster, Leila Almas Rose, Jaime Zavallos
What: Benefit reading for Covenant House
Where: Pandemic Players YouTube channel
When: Wednesday, November 25, pay-what-you-can, 2:00
Why: “This here’s the TV. Two hours a day, maximum, either . . . either educational or football, so’s, y’know, you don’t ruin your appreciation of the finer things,” H.I. “Hi” McDunnough says in the Coen brothers classic Raising Arizona. Since the middle of March, we have all had to get our entertainment from screens — televisions, desktop computers, laptops, phones, etc., and for a lot longer than two hours a day as we shelter in place from the deadly coronavirus. On November 25, that finer entertainment includes a charity reading, by the newly formed Pandemic Players, of the 1987 film about a childless couple (from a now-battleground state) who decide that another family has enough kids and won’t mind if they take one. “Edwina’s insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase,” H.I. explains in defending the crime. Wildly unpredictable, gut-bustingly funny, and beautifully insane, the film helped spread the genius of writer-director Joel Coen and producer-director Ethan Coen, who had previously made the modern noir Blood Simple and would follow Arizona with Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink, quite a start to their storied career. The reading is a benefit for Covenant House, which helps protect homeless youth in thirty-one cities across six countries. The original film featured Nicolas Cage as H.I., Holly Hunter as Ed, Trey Wilson as Nathan Arizona Sr., John Goodman as Gale, William Forsythe as Evelle, Sam McMurray as Glen, Frances McDormand as Dot, and Randall “Tex” Cobb as Leonard Smalls; the benefit cast consists of Zachary Levi as H.I., Alison Pill as Ed, Dean Norris as Nathan Arizona Sr., Clancy Brown as Gale Snoats, Macon Blair as Evelle Snoats, Ross Partridge as Glen, Sarah Clarke as Dot, Jeff “the Dude” Dowd as Leonard Smalls, Leila Almas Rose and Jaime Zavallos as multiple minor characters, and Jordana Brewster as the narrator.
Pandemic Players will present a benefit reading of Raising Arizona on YouTube on November 25
Pandemic Players self-identify as “a ragtag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest . . . for a shining planet known as Earth . . No, wait . . . that’s Battlestar Galactica. Pandemic Players told HAL to open the pod bay doors . . . Crap! Pandemic Players is a group of nobodies who dream of being somebodies. No, that’s Taxi Driver. . . . Pandemic Players is an epic of epic epicness . . . Damn you, Scott Pilgrim! OK, got it: Pandemic Players is diverse and growing group of like-minded artists who have come together for a common cause to do what they can to help in these deeply troubling times.” Headed by director-producer Matthew Barber, filmmakers Chris Brown and Darren Dean, writer-producers Frederik Ehrhardt and Myrta Vida, and producer Mark Rabinowitz, Pandemic Players will next present benefit readings of The Breakfast Club and Heathers along with other classic TV shows, radio plays, and films, partnering with different charity organizations on a monthly basis.