twi-ny recommended events

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: DUCK BUTTER

Sergio (Laia Costa) and Naima (Alia Shawkat) attempt to have sex once an hour over an entire day in Duck Butter

DUCK BUTTER (Miguel Arteta, 2018)
Tribeca Film Festival: Thursday, April 26, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-10, 9:00
www.tribecafilm.com
Village East Cinema
181-189 Second Ave. at 12th St.
Opens Friday, April 27
212-529-6799
www.villageeastcinema.com
www.theorchard.com

The behind-the-scenes story of the making of Duck Butter, having its final world premiere screening at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26 before opening at the Village East the next day, turns out to be better than the film itself. That doesn’t mean there isn’t lots to appreciate about the too-intimate drama, which chronicles the ups and downs, fears and desires of two women experiencing a full relationship in a twenty-four-hour period. Director Miguel Arteta (Beatriz at Dinner, Chuck & Buck) and actress Alia Shawkat (State of Grace, Arrested Development) initially wrote a script about an eighteen-month relationship between a man and a woman that featured a twenty-four-hour period in which they get to know each other by having sex once every sixty minutes. One friend advised that they instead make the movie just about the twenty-four hours, so they began looking for a male actor to star opposite Shawkat. After coming up empty, they decided that Laia Costa (Bandolera, Victoria), who had already been cast in a smaller role, was right for the part. They stripped the script down to its bare essentials, allowing the two actresses to improvise most of their dialogue as the main section of the film was claustrophobically photographed by Hillary Spera in about twenty-seven hours, giving it a cinéma vérité feel.

Sergio (Laia Costa) and Naima (Alia Shawkat) come together and drift apart in Miguel Arteta’s Duck Butter

After being fired by Mark and Jay Duplass from a show starring characters played by Lindsay Burdge and Kumail Nanjiani, the uptight, overly contemplative Naima (Shawkat) calls the free-spirited Sergio (Costa), a singer she met at a lesbian club. Sergio suggests that they forego the standard dating rituals — “We can skip time!” Sergio declares — and instead spend the next twenty-four hours inside, making love once every hour as they explore who they are and speak only the truth, not playing any romantic games. But what starts out being exciting and sexy soon transforms into something else as they go through in one day what new partners usually go through in years. The film was executive-produced by the Duplass brothers, who portray themselves; Shawkat recently played the bisexual Lila on Transparent, which stars Jay Duplass as Josh Pfefferman. Duck Butter — the title phrase is explained in the film, but you might want to Google it when you’re not at work — also features Hong Chau as Glow and Kate Berlant as Kathy, a lesbian couple who are friends of Naima’s. Costa (who is also an associate producer on the film) and Shawkat (also an executive producer) have a sweet chemistry, but the film is extremely bumpy, jumping around too much as Arteta attempts to squeeze too much into ninety minutes. Some scenes will get you hot, some will make you laugh, but others will make you cringe. The whole experiment is an intriguing idea; perhaps it might have worked better if there were less back story, or more. It ends up being so private at times that you practically have to look away, which is not generally what a filmmaker wants from the audience.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT DOCUMENTARY: HOUSE TWO

Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich and filmmaker Michael Epstein in Haditha, Iraq, in 2008 during the making of House Two (photo courtesy of Viewfinder Productions)

Director Michael Epstein films Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich in Haditha, Iraq, while investigating details of 2005 massacre (photo courtesy of Viewfinder Productions)

SPOTLIGHT DOCUMENTARY: HOUSE TWO (Michael Epstein, 2018)
Thursday, April 26, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-3, 8:45
www.tribecafilm.com
www.netizensfilm.com

Don’t be scared off by the title of House Two; it’s not a sequel to a horror film you didn’t see. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t downright frightening. On November 19, 2005, the Haditha Massacre took place, in which a small unit of U.S. Marines shot and killed two dozen Iraqis, including women and children, in a bedroom in a location identified as “House Two.” The Marines were searching for those responsible for setting off an IED nearby. The next year, following a Time magazine story about the incident, Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning director Michael Epstein decided to make a film about the trial of Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who was charged with eighteen counts of murder. In order to get as much behind-the-scenes information as possible without having to surrender it to the court or the military, Epstein actually became an official part of Wuterich’s defense team, gaining full access to its strategy and all those involved, beginning with Wuterich himself. In exchange, the legal team agreed that Epstein would have ownership of all footage he shot and that he could use it in any way he saw fit; thus, he had complete control over the documentary, and the legal team would even indemnify him for any resulting libel claims from them or Wuterich. What Epstein found out about the case is utterly shattering, a widespread conspiracy to cover up the incident — which recalled the 1968 My Lai Massacre in Vietnam — with a shocking revelation of who was ultimately in charge of the whitewashing.

Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich tries to remember what really happened in Haditha while facing murder charges House Two (photo courtesy of Viewfinder Productions)

What was expected to take about eighteen months turned into a ten-year saga for Epstein, who met with Wuterich extensively as well as with his family, even returning to the scene of the crime to help Wuterich remember exactly what happened and who pulled the triggers when. Epstein speaks at length with Wuterich’s legal team, consisting of former Marine Corps Judge Advocate Neal Puckett, former Marine major Haytham Faraj, and Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, former head of the Regional Defense Council West for the Marine Corps. He also interviews NCIS special agents Michael Maloney and Thomas Brady, who discuss the forensic evidence in great detail and what likely happened at House Two, which doesn’t mesh with the prosecution’s case. But the more the agents and Wuterich’s legal team discover about four other members of the unit who were present at House Two (and House Four) — Private First Class Umberto Mendoza, Corporal Sanick DelaCruz, Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt, and Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum — the more doubt is cast on who actually was responsible for the killings, raising questions that top Marine brass seem to want to sweep under the rug as soon as possible.

(photo courtesy of Viewfinder Productions)

Michael Epstein spent ten years immersing himself in the case involving Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich’s role in the Haditha Massacre (photo courtesy of Viewfinder Productions)

House Two is a tough, tense procedural that goes beyond fly-on-the-wall docs, immersing the viewer in the narrative, particularly as new facts are brought to light but not everyone is willing to accept them. Epstein’s camera reaches some remarkable places as he reveals more about the Marines who were in Haditha at the time of the massacre and exposes a series of lies that keep growing bigger and bigger. Because he was part of the legal team, Epstein (The Battle over Citizen Kane, LennoNYC) has a clear bias; at times he can be heard off camera leading his interview subject onto a certain path. But as he later shows, there appears to be no legitimate other side of the case, as the Marine prosecutors rely on a shaky, and shady, house of cards that is destined to fall. It’s fascinating listening to Maloney, an expert who was among the first to question the original story; Faraj is also a riveting figure, not afraid to get right in Wuterich’s face to find out what happened in what he calls “a very ugly chapter in Marine Corps history.” But by the end, justice and the truth don’t matter; the reputation of the U.S. military is more important than a bedroom full of innocent dead Iraqis. As Epstein notes in his director’s statement, looking at all the evidence, “a clear, unambiguous picture emerged: In Haditha the Marines under Wuterich’s command committed murder.” That doesn’t mean anyone will pay for the crime. House Two has one more world premiere screening left at the Tribeca Film Festival, on April 26 at 8:45; its previous screenings caught the attention of the Pentagon, which is reviewing the incident and deciding what, if anything, to do next.

JASPER JOHNS: A LIFE’S WORK

brooklyn public library jasper johns

Who: Caitlin Sweeney, John Yau, William Villalongo, Martha Wilson
What: Roundtable on Jasper Johns’s career and preserving the work of living artists
Where: Brooklyn Public Library, Central Branch, 10 Grand Army Plaza, 718-230-2100
When: Thursday, April 26, free but advance RSVP recommended, 7:30
Why: In conjunction with the publication of the five-volume Jasper Johns Catalogue Raisonné of Painting and Sculpture (Wildenstein Plattner Institute), the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library is hosting a free panel on April 26 with senior researcher and WPI director of digital publications Caitlin Sweeney, art critic and curator John Yau, painter and collagist William Villalongo, and performance artist and Franklin Furnace founder Martha Wilson. They will discuss the career of Georgia-born artist Jasper Johns, who will be turning eighty-eight on May 15, as well as the importance of preserving the work of a living artist. A catalog will enter the collection of the library as part of the event.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: NETIZENS

Lawyer Carrie Goldberg fights cyber harassment and digital abuse in Netizens

NETIZENS (Cynthia Lowen, 2018)
Tuesday, April 24, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-6, 5:15
Friday, April 27, Cinépolis Chelsea 4, free with advance ticket, 7:30
www.tribecafilm.com
www.netizensfilm.com

In its April 24 newspaper, the New York Daily News reported a story about former Queens high school principal Annie Seifullah, who was suspended for a year without pay after X-rated pictures of her were found on her school computer. Seifullah lost her job even though the photos were allegedly placed there by an ex-boyfriend as an act of revenge porn — something city investigators did not dispute. Seifullah, represented by attorney Carrie Goldberg, is now suing the city over gender discrimination. The situation could have come straight out of Cynthia Lowen’s new documentary, the gripping, eye-opening Netizens, which is having its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, with upcoming screenings on April 24 and 27. The film follows the work of three women — including Goldberg — who are leading the fight against cyber harassment, revenge porn, and digital abuse. Lowen explores not only the invasion of privacy but the financial, professional, and psychological effects of these cyber attacks, which remain with the victim for a long time. “There’s not moving on beyond the trauma because the trauma is your shadow,” the Brooklyn-based Goldberg says. Goldberg, who also suffered cyber abuse at the hands of a man she dated for only four months, later adds, “The nonconsensual distribution of sexually graphic images and videos causes immediate, irreparable harm to its victims.” The virulent hatred with which environmental commodities trader Tina Reine has been attacked online by her ex is absolutely terrifying. The man has built myriad websites condemning her and continues to stalk her to prevent her from restarting her career. “I just want to move on and have a normal life,” Reine says. “And that’s not really expecting that much. So I will do whatever it takes to get this solved, but I’m tired.”

Anita Sarkeesian exposes online gender, race, and sexual discrimination in Tribeca Film Festival documentary

Even though the legal system can identify the responsible party, there are no clear legal channels for Reine to pursue. She was unable to get an order of protection, and her abuser uses the First Amendment to protect his legal right to continue the harassment. “It’s two different rules for men and women when it comes to sex,” Reine explains. Meanwhile, media critic Anita Sarkeesian has received death threats for decrying the depiction of women in video games, leading her to establish Feminist Frequency, which exposes gender, race, and sexual discrimination via The Freq Show and public appearances. “What do these platforms stand for and what do they want their platforms to be? Do they want it to be a cesspool of hate or do they want to actually make it something that users want to participate in and engage in?” Sarkeesian, who has also experienced cyber harassment, asks. “The thing about being attacked for four years is it takes away your humanity. You don’t get to feel to the extent of a human range of emotions because you can’t or else you’d be floored all the time. You have to be hypervigilant, and you can’t make jokes, and you can’t be human, and you can’t exist in the world like everyone else.”

In her directorial debut, Emmy-nominated writer and producer Lowen also speaks with Ordinary Women producer Elisabeth Aultman, University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks, Feminist Press executive director and publisher Jamia Wilson, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace author Danielle Keats Citron, Feminist Frequency managing editor Carolyn Petit, and Women’s Media Center Speech Project director Soraya Chemaly; the only man interviewed in the film is former assistant U.S. attorney and chief of cyber and intellectual crimes unit Wesley Hsu, who points out with regard to the cases, “The harm is immense. That’s why they’re worthy of prosecution.” Throughout the film, Lowen revisits the case of Celia, a young Mexican woman who doesn’t know who is stalking her. The resolution of her situation is frightening, representative of why it’s so difficult to arrest and imprison the perpetrators of these digital crimes. Perhaps Sarkeesian puts it best, however, placing cyber harassment in historical context: “It’s not like misogyny started when the internet started or when Twitter was developed.” It’s the monstrous amplification of misogyny that these platforms permit that takes one’s breath away — and all too often the victims’ lives as functioning human beings, on- and offline.

JETS DRAFT PARTY 2018

New York Jets fans can attend draft party at MetLife Stadium on Thursday night

MetLife Stadium
East Rutherford, NJ
Thursday, April 26, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
www.newyorkjets.com

It has been a long-standing tradition for New York Jets fans to boo the team’s big draft picks year after year, especially when it comes to quarterbacks. Remember Troy Taylor, Browning Nagle, Jeff Blake, Glenn Foley, Chuck Clements, Kellen Clemens, Brooks Bollinger, Brad Smith, and Greg McElroy? More recently, Geno Smith, Bryce Petty, and Christian Hackenberg are lost causes. Gang Green did have temporary success with Mark Sanchez and Chad Pennington, but the team hasn’t drafted a dependable QB since Ken O’Brien at number 1 in 1984 — three picks before their hated rivals, the Miami Dolphins, selected a guy named Dan Marino. This year the Jets have traded up to snare the third choice in a class that includes four potential franchise signal callers: USC’s Sam Darnold, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, Wyoming’s Josh Allen, and UCLA’s Josh Rosen. GM Mike Maccagnan and the Jets brain trust better grab the right guy or the organization will continue its ineptitude; it’s going on half a century that they haven’t been to the Super Bowl, beating the Baltimore Colts in 1969 behind a dude named Joe Namath. On April 26, the Jets are holding a free draft party at MetLife Stadium in hopes of crowning a new king. There will be locker-room tours, access to the EY Coaches Club, the Jets Experience, Jets Fest, and player appearances by Terrence Brooks, Brandon Copeland, Isaiah Crowell, Jordan Leggett, Mike Pennel, Terrelle Pryor, Brandon Shell, Buster Skrine, ArDarius Stewart, Avery Williamson, and Brian Winters. Who? We’re not sure either, but maybe with just the right quarterback, this team can turn things around and finally get back on the winning track. J-E-T-S! Jets! Jets! Jets!

MLIMA’S TALE

Sahr Ngaujah is extraordinary as an endangered elephant in Mlima’s Tale (photo by Joan Marcus)

Martinson Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday through Sunday through June 3, $85-$150
212-539-8500
www.publictheater.org

In 2015, a Minnesota dentist became an international pariah when he shot and killed a beloved thirteen-year-old lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, purely for sport and a photo op. In the 2017 documentary Trophy, Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau went deep inside the big business of trophy hunting, focusing on the industry surrounding the hunting of the Big Five: buffalo, leopards, elephants, lions, and rhinos. In Mlima’s Tale, which was just extended through June 3 at the Public’s Martinson Hall, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage follows the money after a treasured elephant is killed for his magnificent tusks in a national park in Kenya. Nottage, who traveled to Democratic Republic of Congo for Ruined to tell the harrowing story of rape and sexual abuse there, and went to Reading, Pennsylvania, to look at a factory town in trouble in Sweat (which began in Martinson Hall before transferring to Broadway), now takes theatergoers to the African savannah, where the mighty Mlima is facing death. The mammal is sensationally portrayed by the tall, powerfully built Sahr Ngaujah, who displays an impressive, chiseled chest and a deep, dark stare, his movements a kind of contemporary dance.

As the play opens, Mlima is on a spare stage, a full moon projected behind him. His speech is accompanied by elephant sounds in the background. “You must listen with your entire body, feel how the earth shifts when there’s the slightest disruption, because how you listen can mean the difference between life and death. It’s the truth of the savannah, something we all learn at a very young age,” he says, remembering what his grandmother taught him, echoing words spoken by many African and black American parents and grandparents to their children and grandchildren. Two hunters, the impatient Rahman (Ito Aghayere) and the older, wiser Geedi (Jojo Gonzalez), approach the fatally wounded Mlima, waiting for him to die so they can cut off his tusks. Geedi believes the proud animal should be treated with the respect he deserves, while Rahman recalls a Maasai legend, saying, “If you not give elephant proper burial, he’ll haunt you forever.” Just before dying, Mlima calls out to his brother, “Let reason rule your anger, and don’t come to mourn me! Run! Run!” Geedi then removes the unseen tusks and brings them to police chief Githinji (Kevin Mambo), setting in motion a La Ronde-like narrative structure in which one character from each scene continues into the next (with two exceptions) as the tusks, now represented by Ngaujah with white streaks across his face and body, are illegally transported by a series of corrupt men, each one taking his cut. Along the way, the spirit of Mlima is alive in the tusks, leaving a white mark of complicity and shame on everyone involved.

Sahr Ngaujah stands tall as Mlima as Kevin Mambo, Ito Aghayere, and Jojo Gonzalez portray characters debating the fate of the elephant’s tusks (photo by Joan Marcus)

Nottage (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Intimate Apparel) was inspired to write Mlima’s Tale after a conversation she had with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, an animal-rights activist who directed and produced the three-minute 2014 documentary Last Days, about the human and financial cost of the illegal ivory trade and its ties to terrorism. Aghayere (Familiar, Three Days to See), Gonzalez (F**king A, Small Mouth Sounds), and Mambo (The Color Purple, Fela!) play multiple roles, from warden and ship captain to ivory dealer and artist, often changing costumes (by Jennifer Moeller) in less than a minute. Director Jo Bonney (Father Comes Home from the Wars; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark) uses inventive staging for the quick transitions, as a large rectangular board moves horizontally across the front of the stage like a cinematic wipe as such basic props as chairs and tables are changed on Riccardo Hernandez’s set. Each new scene begins with a projected quote, including “Even the night has ears,” “No matter how full the river, it still wants to grow,” and “A single stick might smoke, but it will not burn.” Composer and music director Justin Hicks stands on the floor, next to the stage, effectively mixing music and natural sounds to maintain the stark atmosphere. (The sound design is by Darron L West.)

Tony and Olivier nominee Ngaujah (The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, Fela!) is spectacular as Mlima, his accusing eyes penetrating through the other characters as well as the audience, implicating all of us, his breathtaking movement seeking to regain power that might never return. (The choreography is by Chris Walker.) When he stands high on a table and is examined by prospective tusk buyers, it is like he is an African slave being sold at auction. But Nottage and Bonney don’t overplay that connection, instead focusing attention on the plight of the elephants, whose population has dropped from 1.3 million to 400,000 over the last several decades. “There are more elephants being killed than are being born, which means that in less than twenty years they may well be extinct,” a white Kenyan says in the play. Coincidentally, around the corner from the Public Theater, in Astor Plaza, is Gillie & Marc’s “The Last Three,” a bronze sculpture depicting three northern white rhinos, one atop the other, symbolizing the potential extinction of the species because of the rhino horn trade; sadly, right after the work was installed, one of the three remaining rhinos died. Mlima’s Tale is a gorgeously rendered, heartbreaking reminder of humanity’s place in the world, how greed and consumption trample over the natural environment and how every choice we make, as individuals and as a society, has an impact on the future of the planet, which is far too heavy with white markings everywhere.

TRIBECA TWI-NY TALK: JEFF KAUFMAN / EVERY ACT OF LIFE

Producer and director Jeff Kaufman on the set of Every Act of Life (photo courtesy Jeff Kaufman)

EVERY ACT OF LIFE (Jeff Kaufman, 2018)
Tribeca Film Festival
Monday, April 23, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, 8:00
Tuesday, April 24, Cinépolis Chelsea 6, 5:00
Wednesday, April 25, Cinépolis Chelsea 2, 6:15
Thursday, April 26, Cinépolis Chelsea 9, 4:00
everyactoflifedocumentary.com
www.tribecafilm.com

Four-time Tony winner Terrence McNally and his husband, producer Tom Kirdahy, appeared in the 2015 documentary, The State of Marriage, about marriage equality, but director-producer Jeff Kaufman and producer Marcia Ross were surprised to learn that no one had made a film about McNally himself. So they did. The result is Every Act of Life, an intimate portrait of the Texas-born activist and playwright, who has also won two Obies, four Drama Desk Awards, and an Emmy and has been a fixture in the theater community for six decades, writing such popular and influential works as Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; The Lisbon Traviata; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Master Class; Kiss of the Spider Woman; and Love! Valour! Compassion!

Kaufman and Ross combine archival footage of many of McNally’s works with personal photos and new interviews with an all-star lineup that includes Angela Lansbury, Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald, Larry Kramer, Edie Falco, F. Murray Abraham, Tyne Daly, Billy Porter, Chita Rivera, John Slattery, Rita Moreno, Joe Mantello, and Christine Baranski, among many others. The film follows McNally through every act of his life, from his childhood in Texas living with abusive, alcoholic parents to his homosexuality, from his relationships with Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, and others to his bout with lung cancer and marriage to Kirdahy. Every Act of Life is having its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23, with Kaufman, Mantello, Abraham, Lane, and McNally participating in an “After the Screening” conversation moderated by Frank Rich. (The film is also being shown April 24, 25, and 26.) Just as the festival got under way, Kaufman, who has also directed Father Joseph, The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America, and Brush with Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman, discussed the project via email in this exclusive twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: You first interviewed Terrence McNally and his husband, Tom Kirdahy, for The State of Marriage. How familiar were you with him and his work at that time?

Jeff Kaufman: Marcia grew up in Mt. Vernon, just outside of NYC, and the great love of her youth was coming into the city to go to the theater. It shaped much of her life that followed. I grew up near Seattle with a love of classic movies and art, so my discovery of the theater came a bit later (in part by subscribing to the Fireside Theatre Book Club). We both loved Terrence’s work but also made some lasting discoveries through making this film.

Every Act of Life is an intimate look at the life and career of award-winning playwright and activist Terrence McNally

twi-ny: Do you have a favorite play of his?

JK: For Marcia, her favorite play by Terrence (of many) is Love! Valour! Compassion! She says it speaks so beautifully about relationships. There are many characters and moments and plays of Terrence’s that keep reverberating for me, but I would mention (so others can look them up) the spiritual moments in A Perfect Ganesh and Corpus Christi, the sense of family and scope of life in L! V! C!, and the deep connection to the power of the arts in Master Class.

twi-ny: What made you think he would be a good subject for a full-length documentary? Was it difficult to get him to agree to the film?

JK: When we interviewed Terrence and Tom for The State of Marriage, we were so impressed with how direct and open and full of feeling Terrence could be. His life and work have changed many lives, and launched many careers, so his story is about a community of remarkable people as well. Through Terrence’s life and work we connect to a history of the theater, the struggle for LGBTQ rights (as Nathan Lane says, “Terrence has always been ahead of his time”), overcoming addiction (thanks in large part to Angela Lansbury), and what it means to keep searching and growing (and loving) throughout your life. So, for us Terrence, like his plays, speaks to a lot of important concerns.

And since we worked well together in the previous film, it wasn’t hard to get him and Tom to agree. They’ve been great to work with throughout the project.

twi-ny: Terrence gives you remarkable access to his life. Did that happen early on in the process, or did you have to establish a rapport?

JK: Our first conversation about doing this film was with Tom Kirdahy, a theater producer and former AIDS attorney who is also Terrence’s husband. Tom understood completely that honesty and access are essential. None of us wanted a fawning tribute. Terrence wasn’t comfortable with every aspect of our interviews, but he was remarkably forthcoming and unvarnished. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people, but Terrence is unique.

twi-ny: Were there any times he asked for the camera to be turned off?

JK: When he decides to open the door, he opens it all the way. There may have been a few things he pushed back on a bit, but we always got what we needed.

twi-ny: Terrence is known for being a perfectionist and, at times, demanding, yet he is very relaxed throughout the film. Did the making of the film actually go that smoothly? Whose idea was it to have numerous scenes in which two characters speak very comfortably to each other?

JK: I always try to put interview subjects in a positive frame of mind (even while asking a lot, on several levels). Marcia is a great ally in this as well. Often when I’m working with the film crew to set up the shot, Marcia engages in her singular way (and depth of theater knowledge) to help keep the subject engaged and relaxed. Then I conduct the interview. Since you asked, I came up with the idea for the various sequences (Edie and Murray talking about Frankie and Johnny, etc.).

Jeff Kaufman interviewed a vast array of theater people for documentary about Terrence McNally (photo courtesy Jeff Kaufman)

twi-ny: You have amassed a terrific cast of characters from both his personal and professional life for the film. What was that experience like, “casting” the documentary? Was there someone you really wanted to interview but was unavailable?

JK: Casting is key in documentaries, narrative films, and the theater. Also important for our work is to get people to tell stories that put the audience in a scene with the subjects of our films. We were pretty much able to talk to everyone on our list . . . but I would have loved to go back in time and film Terrence with some of the people who are no longer living. We got as close as possible to that by finding unseen footage of Edward Albee and Wendy Wasserstein, having Bryan Cranston read an amazing letter to Terrence about what a writer needs to keep going, and getting Meryl Streep to read a letter from Terrence’s beloved high school English teacher.

twi-ny: In the film, Terrence and the actors talk about the importance of collaboration, which even extended to many of the documentary participants helping the Kickstarter campaign by contributing special rewards for donors. How does collaboration in theater compare with collaboration in film?

JK: Both are essential, and as Terrence says, life is about collaboration as well. I have a strong vision for what I want the documentary to be and say. So does Marcia. However, that only comes together through the work and vision and talent of many people.

twi-ny: What was the single most surprising thing you learned about theater and Terrence McNally while making the film?

JK: I don’t know if this qualifies as a surprise, but Marcia and I were both impressed by finding in Terrence, and others in the film, great artists who could easily rest on their laurels but who instead are still inspired, still learning, and still striving to do new and better work.