Video Showing of “And the Snow Falls – the Musical”

As I left Momiji today after lunch, a somewhat rowdy trio of privileged young white males entered without masks. One lagged behind coming in late to which a posse member yelled, “Get in here before the virus gets you!”

I stopped at their table, with my mask on and told about my young friend who was supposed to play my son in a community theater production.

I told them he had not been vaccinated, had tested positive on October 15 and had died by October 27. They laughed and one said, “12 days.”

Fred may not have turned 30 yet. He was a real estate broker who had played basketball in college. His parents had driven up from Oklahoma to pick up his ashes.

The theater decided to postpone the production and to run a video of its 2019 premiere of my musical, “And the Snow Falls”.

Two things – support live theater by wearing a mask where one is required.

“Film Fest” the Amazon Prime Movie

I watched the independent film titled “Film Fest” on Amazon Prime. As an independent film maker myself, I found it to be enjoyable.

The director/ auteur plays a director/ auteur whose latest ouvre has been accepted into the competition at a little-known film festival. The questionable status of this festival becomes all too evident.

Mr. Director/Auteur’s cast and crew pack up their stuff and leave LaLa Land for the redneck northern part of the state. At the film festival, they encounter every cliché, every overworked situation and every idiot film critic/groupie common to the genre.

I was reminded of “The Big Picture” but any comparison would be giving “Film Fest” unwarranted kudos. The overriding term that comes to mind is “contrived”.

There is one sweet scene in which the producer of the fictional film breaks down and confesses she has maxed out her credit cards to finance the director’s dream piece.

If you are not in any way associated with the production of independent films, I doubt if you will get much from this material. If you are…

God bless you!

James M. Kemp

November 5, 2021

The Big Sleep

Yesterday, the dental technician at my dentist’s office asked me to reschedule an appointment to have a tooth capped. I had already done that once. But yesterday, when I was required to answer Covid-related questions, one question was, “Have you had contact within the past 14 days with anyone known to be positive for the virus?”

I had to answer truthfully – yes, I had. Ten days earlier, I was on stage with an actor named Fred who was the lead and who was playing my son in a production of the old Victorian farce, “Charley’s Aunt”. We were scheduled to open a few days after that. In fact, two days after that, the director called to say that our opening was being rescheduled ahead two weeks.

Fred had tested positive for Covid 19 infection.

I myself have already had my third Pfizer booster shot. I was not too concerned. However, I did go to my own doctor’s office that Saturday to get a Covid test.

It was negative.

I have been taking advantage of the schedule change by completing my director’s cut of my full-length, independent musical parody of the classic Hollywood zombie films titled, “Veil of Secrecy 2020” of which, the first of four episodes is now playing on my Wistia account under The Lemon Aid Network.

And then, I received a text message from my fellow director, Beverly Wilson. It was simple.

“Fred died.”

And I am devastated. That beautiful young Black man had been a success at so many endeavors – was a licensed real estate broker, was an emerging talent as an actor and had already agreed to play a part on our new LAN Television series, “Watching Over Me.”

Dead.

That is how I feel.

Dead.

James M. Kemp, October 22, 2021

“”And the Snow Falls – The Musical”

I discovered a script in 1996 while searching for a “Christmas” show that I had been asked to direct at the On Broadway Theater in Coos Bay, Oregon. We had the world premiere of that show at OBT in December 1996.

My musical adaptation of this script opens December 6, 2019 at the Spotlight Community Theater in Stayton, Oregon. I am the musical director for that production. In the Dan Goggin tradition of music composition, I have taken 10 carols for which there are no copyright claims, and set them to my own lyrics which are derived from my own rewrites of the original Laszlo script.