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Media, entertainment, speculative fiction -- it's all here at the City of Kik. Discuss movies, television, theater, books, music, comics. Everything from mainstream pop culture to fringe cult delights. HOME Archives: 
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Thursday, July 10, 2008
Another PARADISE LOST Adaptation...AND IT'S NOT MINE If I wasn't so darn busy rewriting Dream Fragments, maybe I might have made some progress on my stage adaptation of Milton's Paradise Lost before these guys came up with their multi-million dollar idea...I'm always living life a few seconds too slow it seems. :)-- Nick From the blog "The Culture Czar"An Australian writing duo are dropping Angels onto Broadway during the 2008-9 season. They wrote a new musical based on John Milton's poem Paradise Lost and will stage the work, Angels, in a Louisiana theater starting Aug. 29 before bringing it to New York. According to the press release, an aeronautical engineer, Ken Lai, composed the score and an architect, Marcus Cheong, co-wrote the book and lyrics with Mr. Lai. The musical recounts an ancient war between the angels and Lucifer's fallen minions, told through the eyes of Sera, the angel of light. The musical will feature lots of flying angels and aerial choreography tricks, which is perhaps the only way you can keep a theater audience awake during a rendition of Paradise Lost. More from the press release: Angels, a new musical based on Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, will premiere on Broadway during the 2008-9 season, it was announced today at a press conference by the show’s producers. Written by the new Australian team of Ken Lai (book, music and lyrics) and Marcus Cheong (book and lyrics), Angels will feature a cast of 24, including Robert Cuccioli, Jessica Grové and Nicholas Rodriguez, in the leading roles. The musical will be directed by Rich Fowler and, as befits its title, will feature spectacular aerial choreography, unprecedented on Broadway. Friday, February 01, 2008
REVISED WEB SITE COMING SOON I'm hoping to revise the City of Kik Web site very soon, I just need time to make it happen. The hard part is getting the initial redesign finished and running so I have a template that I can update on a frequent and regular basis. I want the new site to promote my acting and writing projects in a user-friendly way. It'll be a way to formalize and professionalize the City of Kik Entertainment brand while also serving as a marketing tool for my personal projects. And I'll have a new blog to go along with it with much more frenquent journal entries. My recent and current projects include: 1. AGNES OF GOD - Keith Maxwell and I produced this show, directed by Tal Aviezer, for Center Stage Playhouse in the Bronx. We had our preview performance last night and it was wonderful. For ticket information, please call 718-823-6434. The movie version in the early 1980s starred Anne Bancroft, Meg Tilly, and Jane Fonda. 2. CENTER STAGE - Speaking of Center Stage, I'm on the Board of Directors and next year is the 40th Anniversary of the group. So we're trying to come up with a very special season. More news as it develops. 2. DARKNIGHT PRODUCTIONS - I'm happy to continue to be involved with this independent Manhattan theater group. I performed a monologuefrom John Patrick Shanley's SAVAGE IN LIMBO a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed it. I'm hoping to write a new short play for one of their upcoming anthology productions, and I'm currently reading an original full-length script by Kevin Clancy called GREAT DEPRESSION. There's a cool part in it for me, so fingers crossed. 3. DREAM FRAGMENTS - Even though the grant didn't come through, I'm still hoping to eventually produce a full production of my anthology script. I've been rewriting it and I'm investigating the logistics and costs of putting it up in Manhattan. This will happen eventually, the only question now is when. It will be the first official City of Kik Entertainment theater production. 4. LEVEL 92 PRODUCTIONS - I acted in two short films with this new independent film company, and I've been invited to a screening reception later this month to viiew the final cuts. Should be exciting! 5. THE WATER CYCLE - Speaking of Level 92, my four short "water-themed" screenplays are on their development slate and should begin pre-production soon. I've submitted the scripts for a local grant and I should know by June whether or not I'll get any money for it. Either way I think this will be one of the next Level 92 film projects, and the first official City of Kik Entertainment movie! 6. WRITERS GROUP - It's been tough to coordinate an official big writers group since I've been so busy lately, so Vin Forgione and I have decided to meet regularly even if it's just the two of us. We'll work on the Web site and our own multiple writing projects, and hopefully we'll have some finished material soon to share with everyone. Friday, January 12, 2007
JANUARY 2007 UPDATE Howdy, all. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and an awesome beginning of the new year. Here's what's happening in my busy world: 1. Staged Reading of MUSIC FROM A SPARKLING PLANET I will be appearing as the character Wags in a staged reading of Douglas Carter Beane's comedy "Music From a Sparkling Planet," about three buddies on a quest to find Tamara Tomorrow (or, more specifically, the actress who played her) whom they remember fondly from their childhood. It's a nostalgic, funny, and heartwarming tale about a generation afraid of growing up, about friendship and loneliness, and much more. I hope you all get a chance to check it out. There will only be three performances, February 9, 10, and 11, at Center Stage Playhouse in the Bronx. For reservations, call 718.823.6434. Tickets cost $10. 2. DREAM FRAGMENTS entered in BRIO Awards Competition I'm submitting my anthology, "Dream Fragments: Brief Scenes of Life and Death," in the BRIO Awards arts competition's playwriting category. Fingers crossed. I've made a few revisions based on feedback and my own reaction to various readings and performances of my material during the past few years. 3. WRITERS GROUP coming soon. As promised, I'm working on bringing my beloved writers group back to life. It will meet monthly starting in March, and a bunch of my friends and fellow writers have expressed interest in participating. It should be a lot of fun, and hopefully just as productive (and even more so) as past incarnations. I will confirm the details shortly. 4. INDEPENDENT FILM PROJECT I've submitted four short screenplays, with the recurring theme of "Water," for an independent film project spearheaded by Christy Cuomo, with actors and creative talent from the Red Monkey Theater Group. The titles of my scripts are: "Hazing Time," "Water To Wine," "Elixir of Youth," and "Deluge." I'll provide more updates later once things are further along, but I'm really excited to be a part of the production. As always, I'm also working on a bunch of other projects, all at various stages of development. I love being busy doing creative stuff that I'm passionate about. Special thanks to my wife Juliana for her encouragement and support as I continue to pursue my hobbies and dreams. Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Stories and Originality As a writer, I always hope that every story I come up with is creative and unique. But as a wise person once noted, there are really only so many stories you can tell – after a while, it just becomes variations of the same theme: boy meets girl, a young novice on a hero's journey, etc. I understand all that, but it's still funny (not in a "ha ha" kind of way) when I work on a story that I think is pretty original only to find out later that someone else has thought up something pretty similar. Here's what got me thinking about all this. As some of you might know, one of my recent writing projects is an ambitious stage adaptation of John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost." Well, no sooner had I gotten about a fourth of the way through my first draft, when I came across this article in Science Fiction Chronicle Magazine: "Legendary Pictures is making a live-action film version of Milton's "Paradise Lost," recounting Lucifer's rebellion and the subsequent fall from grace of Adam and Eve. The film will be directed by Scott Derrickson ("The Exorcism of Emily Rose") and written by Phil DiBlasi and Byron Willinger." I'm sure I wasn't the first (nor will I be the last) to think about adapting a classic. (Some might point out that I was ripping Milton off years ago with my story "To Forgive Divine"). But the timing of this news is what made me laugh. And I'm sure the film version will be a lot different than my ideas for a stage version, but still. It wasn't as much of a shock as learning that Alan Moore was publishing his "Lost Girls" graphic novel about the "coming of age of Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy of Oz, and Wendy of Peter Pan fame." Some of you who read or saw my "Dream Fragments" anthology might remember my story "The Shopkeeper of Lost Dreams" which tells the tale of a grown up Alice and Dorothy on a journey to find themselves. Granted, my play is more surrealist and symbolic and Alan Moore's is (as he readily admits himself) "pure pornography," but still. The ideas are still a little similar. And all along I thought I was being pretty darn original. Then there's the great novella I wrote with my buddy Robert La Vallie years and years and years ago called "The Trials of John Summer." It was a gripping tale about the sensational trial of a charismatic man who happened to murder his family in cold blood and, despite his obvious guilt, a jury of his peers finds him innocent of the charges against him. Anyone reading the story today would think that we were a bunch of talentless hacks trying to write a fictional account of the O.J. Simpson saga. But our copyright documents prove that we wrote that story many years before the true-life crime that turned O.J. from a legendary football and movie star into a notorious guy who many believe got away with murder. That's just another ironic twist in the life of Nick the Writer. That's not even the most morbid example. Have any of you seen my student film "Rambo's Revenge?" It's the lovely tale of an outcast who flips out and decides to gun down his enemies in school. This was a year before the movie "Heathers" came out, and many, many years before the real life Columbine massacre took place. My early student film was arguably tough to watch before, but now even more so. The moral of this essay: keep writing and keep trying to be original, even when coincidences like that happen. Even Shakespeare's plots were often based on familiar tales, but it's all about how you tell the story that makes it your own. Saturday, September 30, 2006
For anyone who's interested, here's an update on what's new in my life. I've been married for almost a year now, and I can honestly say that married life is the "bomb diggity" (translation = "it rocks"). My day-job has also been very satisfying and rewarding, if at times stressful and exhausting, but hey, if I may use a cliché here: "That's why they call it work and not play." Speaking of "play," Juliana has been very supportive in letting me pursue my acting and my writing nonsense. As most of you know, I'm revising my role of Alyosha in the stage play THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV this October, in Manhattan's historic off-off-Broadway venue, the Mazer Theatre. For more information, check out www.redmonkeytheater.org – I hope you all can spread the word and come out to see it. I've also been working on a few writing projects: An adaptation of Milton's PARADISE LOST. Yes, this is a very ambitious endeavor, bringing the classic epic poem to the stage, but I think it's full of potential. I hope to have a draft done within a year, along with some of my ideas for character/set/lighting/music design, and maybe have a reading/presentation ready for public feedback by this time in 2007. Fingers crossed. 1. LANCELOT AND THE THEATER OF WAR. I've finally figured out a way to turn my story idea about an old guy who thinks he's Sir Lancelot (of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table) into a full-length stage play. The structure and various characters are developing nicely, and again, I hope to have a final draft version of this ready for workshopping in a year or so. The story is really providing me with the chance to vent some ideas I have about the modern world, morality, faith, violence, power, art, growing old, etc. We'll see how it turns out. 2. CHILDISH THINGS BEHIND. I had a recent inspiration to take some of my stories that I wrote back when I was a naive little kid and write new re-imagined versions of them. I'm thinking this might be an interesting experiment and maybe I can get this published with my old stories side be side with their contemporary versions. (Listen up, true believers, this is another example of why any of you writers out there should never, ever, ever throw out anything you've ever written, no matter how craptastic you might think it is. You never know when, down the road in life, you might get inspired to make some diamonds out of those crazy lumps of coal.) 3. Revisions of my previously written stories. I hope to finalize versions of some of the short stories, screenplays, and stageplays that I've already written. I particularly want to touch up my DREAM FRAGMENTS anthology and shop it around to some publishers. Then I'd like to compile my short stories in one collection, and finish some drafts of my many screenplays which are in various stages of completion. 4. Writers Group. If everything goes according to plan, I'd like to restart a writing group, similar to the very successful one I led a while ago and building on the one that my buddy Vin and I had going for years. I have some ideas for it and hopefully, we'll be able to kick-start it around January. That's it for now. I welcome your ideas, feedback, critiques, suggestions, or just random verbiage. And don't forget to check out my City of Kik newsgroup for news about the entertainment/media world. Carry on. Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Latest Show a Big Success I'm very happy so far with our production of THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. The audience turnout and reaction exceeded my expectations. I'm blessed to be working with such an amazing cast and crew. Alyosha has turned out to be a truly wonderful character, one of my favorites that I've ever had the pleasure of performing. Many thanks to the director Tal Aviezer and the writer of the adaptation, Carolyn Fuchs, for having faith in me to bring such a challenging role to life. I'm sure these final three performances will be as equally fulfilling. If you haven't seen the play yet, check it out. For more information, go to www.redmonkeytheater.org -- due to the on-stage configuration of the audience seating, tickets are limited, so if you plan on coming, be sure to reserve in advance. Friday, April 28, 2006
The Brothers Karamazoff The play I wrote and performed in last February was a big success (even though the Blizzard of 2006 killed one of our performances). Now I'm acting in another play -- an adaptation of a classic. If you're interested in seeing it, seats are very limited so reserve in advance. I hear some nights are already be sold out. The Red Monkey Theater Group presents THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV By Carolyn J. Fuchs Adapted from the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky Directed by Tal Aviezer Featuring: ZE’EV AVIEZER JOEL AZZERAD OLIVER CONNANT COLETTE D’ANTONA* JOHN FAYE SEAN M. GRADY JOE LAUREIRO CHRISTY LEGGEIRO NICK LESHI PETER LILLO ANGELA PERRI MICHAEL PRETTYMAN BRENDAN WHITNEY *appears courtesy of Actor’s Equity Association Performances: Saturday, April 29 at 8:00pm Sunday, April 30 at 2:00pm Friday, May 5 at 8:00pm Saturday, May 6 at 2pm Saturday, May 6 at 8pm General Admission $15.00 – Seniors & Students $10.00 Mercy College Lecture Hall 555 Broadway Dobbs Ferry, NY Reservations & Directions:Website: www.redmonkeytheater.org Email: redmonkeytheater@hotmail.com Phone: 914.693.1646 LIMITED SEATING – RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED! |