Ten seconds.
That’s what Google Flow gave me for Franklin in the garden. He sits down, the lights start to drift in, and then — nothing. Clip’s over. Whatever happens next has to happen in a new generation, with no guarantee the light is the same amber, no guarantee Franklin’s spectacles catch the moonlight the same way twice.
Overview # A one-act play, written with my friend Ed Gehrman, and with a nod to Arthur Young, being produced as an AI-generated film — theatrical staging, not cinema. Play One of a series called The Messengers.
Ed Gehrman lives in Quincy, California.
Not the Massachusetts one. The Northern California one — small enough that the coffee shop remembers your order, high enough in the Sierra Nevada foothills that the air still smells like pine sap in May.
The call came in the usual way.
Someone needed a favor. The cast had a gap, the show was already in motion, and apparently I was the right kind of available. Small part, they said. Nothing too demanding.
We made it.
Shrek the Musical opened this weekend—and somehow, despite all the chaos, all the costume changes, all the quick cues and frantic prop swaps—it came together.
Well, it happened, I’m back in another production at the West End Theatre in Quincy, CA.
This time it’s Shrek: The Musical—a tale of love, layers, and swampy redemption—and I’ve landed a small but mighty role as Papa Ogre. That’s right, I’ll be kicking off the show as Shrek’s dear old dad, paired up with my longtime friend and frequent stage partner, Michelle Pfingston, who’s playing Mama Ogre. In this go ‘round, we have the dubious honor of sending off our 7 year old son (Shrek) alone into a hostile world while celebrating it in song. Ain’t show business somethin’!
So… I’m auditioning for some kind of role in Shrek the Musical.
That’s right. Community theater has pulled me back in—this time with ogres, dragons, talking donkeys, and musical numbers that are catchier than they have any right to be.
