BOTOC: Dealer’s Choice! Awards
AWARDS
BEST HAIR: A Tie: Becca Leigh Gellman & Laura Berberich
BEST LEGS:
1st place – Jolie Jenkins
2nd place – Trisha LaFache
3rd place – Briana Lane
BEST BICEPS: Sammy Obeid
BEST ABS: Nicole Koval & Jacy King (two kids later!)
MOST COMMERCIALS: Thursday Day Class
BEST CAR: Saku Ee & Casey Unterman
ONLY SECRET SANTA: Thursday Day Class
SHINIEST: Dean Li
BEST SCORE: Monday Night Class – INTO THE BLISS by Anna Campbell
BEST SCRIPT: Thursday Night Class - THE MUSIC OF GREY GARDENS by Mallory McGill
BEST PROGRAM:
1st place – Friday Day Class - Jennifer Mather
2nd place - Thursday Night Class – Coco Parks and Mal Wow McGill
3rd place - Tuesday Night Class – Noodles Schneider
BEST COSTUMES:
1st place - Friday Day Class - Gina Novish
2nd place - Monday Night Class
BEST IN BOXERS: Isaiah Mustafa
BEST WIG:
1st place – Allison Poccia
2nd place – Emme Rylan
3rd place – Briana Lane
4th place – Aaron Gaffey
BEST BIOS: Monday Night Class (Lesly’s Monday Night Class BOTOC: Dealer’s Choice Bios!)
MOST ORGANIZED: Janet Cao
BEST ENSEMBLE:
1st place – Pink Ladies (Nicole Koval, Sasha Salinger, Natasha Rose Capener, Pepi Sonuga)
2nd place – T-Birds (Casey Unterman, Sammy Obeid, Collin Palomares, Nick Jaine)
SEXIEST WOMEN:
1st place - Thursday Night Class (Lilah Richcreek, Alison Turner, Bettina Olivieri, Eden Riegel, Maitland McConnell, Allison Poccia)
2nd place – Monday Night Class (Briana Lane, Lili Mirojnick, Kelly Frye, Anna Campbell, Jacy King, Alexis Krause)
MOST ENTHUSIASTIC:
1st place – Collin Palomares as Kenicke
2nd place – Alison Haislip as Peter Pan
3rd place – Ellen Wroe as Maggie
BEST INDIVIDUAL SCENE: Thursday Day Class: “Portlandia” with Tommy Dickie, Molly Cerne, Leanna Spear
MOST COMMITTED INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE:
1st place – Courtney Parks
2nd place - Mal Wow McGill
3rd place – Josh Rachford
MOST COMMITTED INDIVIDUAL EFFORT:
1st place – Anna Campbell
2nd place - Mal Wow McGill
3rd place – Lilah Richcreek
BEST SPORT: Robbie “Tank Top” Silverman
MOST FUN:
1st place – Tyler Ritter
2nd place - Amir Aboul-Ela
3rd place – Thursday Night Class, in general
MOST ANGELIC: Briana Feehan
MOST CREATIVE: Anna Campbell
MOST INNOVATIVE SHOW: Thursday Night Class - THE MUSIC OF GREY GARDENS by Mallory McGill
SEXIEST: a tie between Trisha LaFache & Lilah Richcreek & Alison Turner
MVP: Jay Lacopo & Victoria Kelleher Garcia
MOST MOVING SONG: “At the Ballet” with Trisha LaFache, Jackie Geary, Ellen Wroe
MOST MOVING MONOLOGUE: Alex Quijano
FUNNIEST PERFORMANCE: Jay Hayden
SEXIEST SONG:
1st place – “Cell Block Tango” with Briana Lane, Lili Mirojnick, Kelly Frye, Anna Campbell, Jacy King, Alexis Krause
2nd place - “Cell Block Tango” with Lilah Richcreek, Alison Turner, Eden Riegel, Allison Poccia, Maitland McConnell, Bettina Olivieri
MOST THRILLING SONG: “Music and the Mirror” with Ginifer King
BEST ACTING OF A SONG: “Nothing” with Angelique Cabral
MOST SEEMINGLY EFFORTLESS SINGING, DANCING & ACTING: “Tits & Ass” with Jolie Jenkins
BEST NON-MUSICAL ACTRESSES: Mallory McGill & Courtney Parks
BEST SHOW:
1st place – Tuesday Night Class: WHAT WE DID FOR LOVE: A TUESDAY NIGHT CHORUS LINE
2nd place – a tie! Between Thursday Night Class: The Music of GREY GARDENS and Monday Night Class: INTO THE BLISS: A Story of Twelve Fucked Up Characters and How They Learned to Cope
Congratulations!!!!
BOTOC: Dealer’s Choice!
We survived
BOTOC: Dealer’s Choice!
December 10-14, 2012
(a BOTOC is a Battle of the Ongoing Classes)
Here are the results!
Lesly & Trisha’s Monday Evening Class
did a show called
Life in All Genres:
An Anthology Curated by Janet Cao, or
25 Days of Christmas Co-Stars
Everyone wore black, and it was very clean and well done. Each scene moved seamlessly into the next. It was well organized; they were fat free!
Lesly’s Monday Night Class
did a show called
INTO THE BLISS:
A Story of Twelve Fucked Up Characters and How They Learned to Cope
Written by Anna Campbell
Story by Anna Campbell, Alison Haislip, Alexis Krause and Lili Mirojnick
Choreography by Alexis Krause & Lili Mirojnick
Lighting by Anna Campbell
Music by Alison Haislip
Directed by Anna Campbell & Alison Haislip
Everyone played a character from a different musical or show in a fabulous costume and make-up. Anna wrote the show from scratch incorporating songs and characters people had wanted to play or she wanted to see them play and/or sing. We saw Peter Pan, the Cowardly Lion, Sweeney Todd, Ado Annie, Glinda the Good Witch and so many more! They clearly had a great time. It was fast and fun with great lighting and wild enthusiasm. Amazing sets and props and wardrobe and make-up — and the wigs! OMG!
Click here for photos!
Lesly & Eyal’s Tuesday Evening Class
did
Wishing Scenes
Kudos to those of you who made it!
Lesly’s Tuesday Night Class
did
What We Did For Love:
A VERY TUESDAY CHORUS LINE
Directed by Jolie Jenkins
First Assistant Director: Ellen Wroe
Musical Directors: Ginifer King, Helen Highfield
Choreographers: Jolie Jenkins, Trisha LaFache
Videographers: Helen Highfield, Jay Hayden, Todd Grinnell, Joel Johnstone
Video Production: Jay Hayden
Property Mistress: Angelique Cabral
Morale and Inspiration: Todd Grinnell
Program Design: Chris (“Noodles”) Schneider
Musical Accompaniment: Greg Nabours
First they sent out a trailer. Yup! A trailer! See it here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYw61KvDAxw.
This was an extraordinary experience for me. Not only did they somehow put up most of a Tony award-winning show, but they did in just about a week, and they did a show that hit it big right when I was falling in love with acting back in the ‘70’s. And it’s a show about our business and auditioning — I mean the first song is called, “I Hope I Get It!” Plus, to see them play such iconic roles, cast so well, and soooooo freakishly committed in spite of having new babies and shooting commercials and working on set and flying in from shooting movies and writing movies and having full-time non-business-related jobs and having three part-time non-business-related jobs and going through horrible emotional crap! And they did it all with such incredible specificity and wit and charm and believability and warmth and humor and vulnerability and depth! Uch. It was so amazing that I asked them to do it again – and they did! On Sunday night. With barely two hours’ rehearsal, two cast changes and a sold-out house!
I took the pix on Tuesday night, but Jenni took the great pix you’ll see on Sunday night. So sorry, Joel and Todd! I’m no Jenni!
Click here for pre-show photos!
Click here for Lesly’s photos!
Click here for Jennifer Szilvagyi’s professional photos!
Lesly & Vikki’s Thursday Day Class
did 23 scenes -
Dear Santa, For Christmas I want
All of My Favorite Showrunners Together In One Night of TV!
They split into four groups, and each group covered either multi-camera comedy, single-camera comedy, network drama or cable drama. They did scenes from shows and showrunners they love and admire, and sang Christmas carols in between.
Lesly’s Thursday Night Class
did
The Music of GREY GARDENS
Script by Mallory McGill
Musical Direction by Lilah Richcreek & Alison Turner
Music by David Murphy, Oliver Singer & Bettina Olivieri
Lights by Bettina Olivieri, Mallory McGill & Oliver Singer
Set by Trevor Torseth & Mallory McGill
Catering by Trevor Torseth & Mallory McGill
Programs by Courtney Parks & Mallory McGill
Program note: “No animals were hurt in the making of this production. Just our sanity. And souls. And sobriety.”
They transformed the Yellow Room into the set of GREY GARDENS. Mallory wrote a “journey through the imaginations of Big and Little Edie Beale. They lived their lives confined to the walls of Grey Gardens, while their minds were lost in a world of make-believe. Tales of glamour, love, triumph, hardship, good and evil filled their heads and hearts.” Characters appeared from RENT, THE BOOK OF MORMON, WICKED, GLEE, CHICAGO, MOULIN ROUGE, ONCE and other famous shows. They had so much fun, took such enormous risks, dared to suck – I saw everyone do things they’d never done before. The room was covered in roses and they hadda smoke machine! I was woooooowed!
Lesly & Jolie’s Friday Day Class
did
GREASE
Executive Producers: Dean Li, Sasha Salinger
Director: Sasha Salinger
Additional Direction: Dean Li
Choreography: Nicole Koval, Briana Feehan
Music: Sasha Salinger, Eric Lindquist
Make-up: Cher Tenbush
Set Design: Casey Unterman, Saku Ee
Props: Kristina Campo
Script Editing: Sasha Salinger
Stage Manager: Bronwyn Cornelius
Party Planning: E-Kan Soong, Briana Feehan
Program Design: Jennifer Mather
Program Note: “In memory of Patricia Ann O’Donnell Goldberg Kahn.” Love that, guys. Many thanks from both of us.
I liked the choreography, Kristina’s props, Kantu’s dance, the fabulous commitment of the T-Birds (Nick, Sammy & Casey) and the Pink Ladies (Nicole, Pepi & Natasha), Eric’s live accompaniment, Saku & Casey’s car, as well as Bri’s lovely voice and Sasha & Collin’s gutsy gusto. Gina, Josh and Amir did amazing character work. Rosalie, Emily and Dean looked cute in their wardrobe. Jenny Mather’s program was gorgeous!!!!
Stay tuned, we’ll post the awards tomorrow!
BOTOC: Dealer’s Choice Teaser
Check this out–Tuesday Night 7pm Class’ BOTOC: Dealer’s Choice Teaser 2012!
And the Winners of BOTOC: Scare Me . . .
And the winners of BOTOC: Scare Me . . . and recipients of Individual Casting Workshops at Scott David’s new company, The Actors’ Link are . . .
THE RED DOOR!
Written, produced and directed by Anna Campbell! And starring Jay Ellis, Zach Lewis, Jacy King, Allison Haislip, Lili Mirojnick, Shaan Sharma, Franz Latten, Joanna Sotomura, Jacie Dotin, Louise Griffiths, Kelly Frye, Alexis Krause, Jack Jack Merrill, Anna Campbell (Khaleesi) and Jon Prescott. (Not Pictured: Aaron Gaffey, Kristina Sexton and Eric Nenninger.)
Lesly’s Monday Night Class
Watch it again here: http://vimeo.com/53169606.
BOTOC: Scare Me! Results Post #6
Les & Jolie’s Friday Day
Katie S, Matt N, Eric L, Kristina C, Nicole K, Hassie H, Saku E, Keesha H, Gina N;
2d row down: Brandon S, Dean L, Kantu L, Casey U, Collin P, Josh R, Sahara H, Emily O, E-Kan S;
bottom row: Andrea S, Rosalie M, Briana F, Pepi S, Amir A
(missing: Saxon A, Natasha C, Nick J, Sammy O, Sasha S, Cher T, Kay W)
From the Producers: The class as a group decided upon the theme of ghosts, so that even though we were dividing up into smaller groups (mostly for logistical reasons), the projects would be somewhat cohesive.
From Lesly: Colin was the Emcee and intro’d the first entry, a film called TANG, written, edited and directed by Emily O. They were all at a fun party when Rosalie became possessed by Amir. It was somewhat like a music video with lotsa music. It was interesting and fun, but not very clear and not scary. Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxj2o099p6o&feature=youtu.be.
Andrea then told a long, complicated story that was about psychic phenomena. Later, Trisha told a one minute story that also involved psychic phenomena and it was really scary. We learned how important it is that the beginning of a story ties through the middle and into the end. In Trisha’s story (which could have won for Tuesday Night Class had they entered the Kahnpetition – it was the scariest thing all week), her family moved to a house and Trisha and her mom had bad dreams about funerals and murders. She later learns that there was a murder and funeral in the house. THAT was scary.
From the Producers: “While other groups elected to do short films, my group decided to do a live presentation. Nick wanted to do chants and spells. His good friend is actually a part of some witch network and though we weren’t going to actually invite spirits into the Kahn, there was talk of it and a ouiji board (briefly). Nicole came up with the idea of wanting to be the ghost of someone who was murdered and telling the story of that. For reference she was thinking of The Lovely Bones. I liked this idea and then of course thought that Nick‘s chanting and this purgatory state would match well. For purgatory, I was using Jean Paul-Sartre’s No Exit and Beetlejuice as references. In comes Kristina with her serial killer knowledge. She just happens to read about this stuff so we then decided the closer to reality the narrative, the scarier — so out with the netherworld.
“After lots of late night, sleep prohibiting research on serial killers, we decided that we wanted to juxtapose scenes of a serial killer and his victims. We wanted to highlight the fact that serial killers (outside of their illicit activities) seem like pretty normal and nice people, otherwise they would never find people to kill. The idea was to watch the serial killer in a ‘normal’ day making breakfast, etc,. and then to catch a glimpse into his torture chamber. We then thought it would be interesting to see a scene in which he meets his next victim, Natasha.
“Add this to a whole bunch of blood and rusty tools and you have our BOTOC summed up.
“We shaped the story around people’s participation levels and presto: four bloodied and tortured girls with a new victim on the way… who also happens to be the sister of the girl who was in the basement the longest… DUN DUN DUN!!!”
Saku and Keesha
Kristina and Nicole
Saku, Keesha, Kristina, Nicole and Killer Casey (with saw)
Then Eric and Bri did a poem to music and Song (What Scares Lesterina) and One Shitty Actor Thought: To You, with guitar and signing.
Eric and Bri
Then there was a movie where Hassie and Josh had a date and Sahara was a ghost. Watch Collin’s film here: http://youtu.be/AUaZZEQ3TYs.
Food and fab program by Matthew Newton.
BOTOC: Scare Me! Results Post #5
Les & Vikki’s Thursday Day
From Lesly: The building was dark. Vikki, Ang, Casey and I came upstairs and were handed programs
Yemi
JB
Michael
and blindfolded and brought into the Yellow Room. There were more zombies and skeletons and décor and fab music and people touching us and weird whispers and all kinds of cool, scary stuff. They did scenes from ROCKY HORROR
Anne and Sean
Sean and Edward and Anne
Sal and Sean
and the Thriller dance, which was so fun!
Yemi, Anne, Marcy, Jessica, Lizza
And scenes from EYES WIDE SHUT.
Nelson and Christina
At the end, there was sort of a rape – among other things –
Jeremy
and then it got “real” but neither Vikki nor I bought it (Ang, our TA, did). Then we took class pix:
Michael R, JB T, Edward KO, Nelson C,
2d row down: Jessica R, Rachel A, Yemi C, Allegra L, Jenna J;
3rd row down: Marieve H, McKenzie C, Sal N, Mary Alyce K, Leanna S (masked), Anne L, Caleb H, David B;
4th row down: Marcy M, Lizza M, Christina S, Sean C;
5th row down: Mike G, Daniel B, Jeremy M, spider;
missing: Stephanie J, Rachel G, Tim B, Julie Z, Sam Y, Molly S, Anthony P
and they served tacos and baked treats and then Jeremy flashed us and then something happened and he started to get crazy and violent and Mike G and guest audience Casey M tried to hold him back and it got “real” and we actually thought it was real but then we weren’t sure and it wasn’t. And then it was finally over but then people were acting weird and disappearing.
Jessica, Leanna, Marcy
Michael
Marieve
Marcy, Lizza, Christina, Sean, Daniel, Jeremy, a spider
Anne
Nelson, Sean, Lizza, Jessica, Leanna, Marcy
Sal, Michael, Anne
Daniel, Lizza
Edward, Marcy
Jenna, Edward
BOTOC: Scare Me! Results Post #4
Lesly’s Monday Night
From the Producers:
THE STORY:
RED DOOR, the LK Monday Night BOTOC entry, is composed of a 15 page film script plus a 5 page live component. We had a very simple premise: a reluctant psychic, Lou, is brought by her boyfriend to a memorial service for a man who jumped to his death. The dead guy is haunting the place. She meets his co-workers, and is befriended by Judith, who doesn’t take the occasion particularly seriously, especially when the man’s widow has invited a medium to try to connect with her loved one (she is unaware that a real psychic is present). After the fake medium is revealed, several people end up dead. The ghost (creepily) leads Lou to the clues that lead them to the dead man’s office, in a familiar building on La Brea. Our heroes tentatively walk up the stairs into the dead man’s office, where our audience just happens to be watching the film.
As the doorknob turns, the performance becomes live, and our two actors enter the “office.” When the boyfriend hears a noise and goes to investigate, our psychic finds a clue: a body falls from the roof, and she gets another vision (a video), watching from the killer’s POV as someone walks up the stairs, shoots Lou’s boyfriend, and enters the room where she hides. The killer turns out to be Judith, who is prepared to kill our hero to keep her secret, but the dead man’s ghost appears floating outside the (2nd story!) window, protecting our psychic by revealing himself to his killer. Judith screams, Lou kills the lights and is able to hit Judith with a conveniently placed baseball bat. Just when you think it’s all over, the bloody boyfriend appears in the doorway with a bang! He’s ok! And then the credits roll…
HOW WE DID IT:
Having done one previous BOTOC, as soon as we were assigned BOTOC: Scare Me!, I knew our main goal was to make something that we could accomplish in the time frame. Looking at our assets (an amazing group of actors, my ever-increasing desire to try my hand at directing, and a husband out of town leaving us a house to shoot in), I declared that we were going to make a movie, that we would have one shoot day, a small live component on the night of the event, and asked who would be available, assuring people that if they weren’t, they would be given jobs on performance night. I would take care of the rest.
I banged out the script. Twenty pages was overly ambitious, but I knew that if we planned carefully, we could make it work (or at least we were boldly daring to suck). I spent a few days gathering props, doing a “paper cut” to plan our shot list, and prepping my house. We shot interiors at the Kahnstitute on Friday night, pick-ups after our class on Monday night, and on Tuesday everyone showed up at my house ready to rock.
Using our professionalism to it’s utmost, we banged out 12 pages of text between 6:30 PM and 2:30 AM. I was thrilled when people jumped on board to help with sound, to work sticks, and to support their fellow actors. To top it all off, the incredible equipment and eye of Shaan Sharma captured the vision in my head beautifully. We were only short ONE shot by the end of the night.
As I started to cut, I realized there were a few more shots to complete my vision, and two of our amazing actors willingly gave me a bit of their Saturday night to make sure the project had everything it needed.
No scary movie is complete without great sound design, so I downloaded a brilliant, but relatively unknown soundtrack to give the footage an additional creep factor and to highlight our scares. Sound can make or break any film, and I put a lot of focus in editing making sure the sound was as perfect as possible.
I spent the weekend converting footage and editing. I barely got a DVD burned by Monday night. My actors rehearsed and rocked the timing of pre-planned music. We couldn’t have been more proud or happy with the results, proving that dedication and teamwork are sure-fire ways to make Daring To Suck a smashing success.
From Lesly: It was amaze. Great cinematography and sound and writing and story. So good. Not so much because the prior class had just done a similar premise, but I was in a constant state of trepidation, and that’s a LOT. Wow.
Watch it here: http://vimeo.com/53169606.
Jay E, Zack L, Jacy K, Allison H, Lily M, Shaan S, Franz L, Joanna S, Jacie D, Louise G, Kelly F, Alexis K, Jack Jack M, Anna C, John P
“The Office”
BOTOC: Scare Me! Results Post #3
Sally & Jay’s Monday
Doug S, Matthew M, Christopher F, Emily G;
2d row down: Jesse B, Johnny K, Shobhit A, Terrell F, Caitlin D;
3d row down: Jen A, Patricia A, Rachel B, Stephanie M, Alicia Y, Katie P, Christina J
From the Producers: In Sally & Jay’s On-Going Monday Class, it was our mission to scare Lesly as much as possible. We decided that combining a video with a live performance would bring our presentation to a scarify-ingly new level! We made a film called “Whore-or: The Final Submission.” It was about a group of sorority girls who decided to stay in on Halloween because there was a Sorority Slasher Killer on the loose. They conducted a seance for fun, but nothing happens… or so we think… and then, all of a sudden, the video freezes. As we were trying to fix the video, there was a loud and scary bang on the door. And the live performance began. We brought the video into real life and had some great scares. Go team!” Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQ1e3CSufY&feature=youtu.be
From Lesly: I was brought into a darkened puprle room and they showed a movie. Which was sooooooooooooooooooo good and had one, fabulously scary moment! It was about there being a murderer out there. They did a séance. Then there was something wrong with the dvd and they were racing around trying to fix it. Everyone was freaking. And suddenly there was a loud SCARY noise on the back door!!!! And a strange guy came in and attacked someone and took someone into the bathroom and maybe killed her!!!! Khaleesi was terrified.
Bonus points for pumpkin whoopies and the topless escort!
BOTOC: Scare Me! Results Post #2
Tyler’s Monday Night
From the Producers: “A Lesly Kahn class gathers for an off-campus class session. When their teacher Tyler is a no show, things take a turn for the worst! The students are put in SAW-inspired situations and are forced to use their Lesly Kahn training to survive! This video was created for Lesly Kahn‘s Battle Of The Ongoing Classes (BOTOC: Scare Me!) and took two days to write, two days to shoot, and two days to edit. Watch it here! http://youtu.be/4DndVgJuM9I.”
From Lesly: It was really fun and funny! But not so scary. I loved the premise that they were killed if their acting was bad. It was so well done – what a great script!
Bonus Points: Cookies and brownies! And a special appearance by Ryan Nolan!
Dave B, Shannon K, Karin S, and guests Shobhit A, Alicia Y, Katie P, Emily G
Ryan M,
Dave B, Shannon K, Karin S, Laura K,
Jackson DP, Manny G, Lisa L, Jeffrey L, Brittany M, Andrea CR
Ryan M, Manny G, Jackson DP
Jackson DP, Lisa L, Andrea CR
