So I'm back in LA after two weeks on the road in New York City. While on the east coast, Paul Becker, Sergei Krasikau, Eli Hue, and I went to Princeton University where we shot a lunch interview between Ben Vereen and Cornel West. Although Ben and Cornel had never met before, from their conversation you would've assumed that they were old chums.
Ben spoke about his Broadway career and how much Sammy Davis Jr's mentorship had meant to him in the early years. Cornel touched on Obama's presidency, arguing that Barrack's election was the realization of part of Martin Luther King Jr's "dream", not the fulfillment of it. I could go on here, but I won't. For more details, you'll have to wait to see the documentary.
At the McCarter Theater at Princeton University, we also filmed Ben Vereen's one man show where he performed many of the Broadway hits that made him famous while sharing autobiographical stories in between. It was his opening night, and Ben quickly bonded with the sold-out audience which gave him a standing ovation at the end.
Vereen is also performing in "Fetch Clay, Make Man" a play by Will Power about Muhammad Ali's friendship with Stepin Fetchit. The play is running through February 14th, and we hope to film that as well for use in the Ben Vereen documentary.
We also shot some more stuff for http://www.home4dance.com. Choreographer Warren Adams rented a studio on 8th Avenue in midtown Manhattan where we shot green screen interviews with dancers, agents, managers, physical therapists, the whole gamut. Anyway, miracle of miracles, that studio ended up being on the same floor as my friend Sean Elias-Reyes, a partner at http://www.hyperbolicaudio.com: a voiceover studio and post-production sound house. In any event, Sean is cool as hell and is also a fantastic actor. And I should know since I cast him in several plays I wrote while getting my MFA in dramatic writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. One of those totally random New York City moments. Cheers, Sean!