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Post by mom2jared on Oct 7, 2006 20:51:12 GMT -5
Hi!
I peek into this board from time to time just seeing what is going on (I know I'm terrible)!
Anyway, I was looking through my local newspaper yesterday and there is a section where events taking place over the weekend are advertised. I live in South Florida and there was an ad for a play called "Rachel and Julio (One Summer in Brooklyn) and the Director's name was (are you ready...) William Katt. Now, I am hoping this is the same William Katt we all know and love but I have no confirmation. The play is being held at a Performing Arts Center in Davie, Florida. I am going to check out the website to see if it can give me more information.
Ya think this is our William Katt? Is he directing now?
Ilana
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Post by mom2jared on Oct 7, 2006 20:57:17 GMT -5
I just checked the website posted in the ad but there is no information on the play. Sorry!!!
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Post by billswoman on Oct 8, 2006 14:21:39 GMT -5
It IS "our" William Katt! William Katt (Co-Writer, Director). First appearing with the Tony Award winning South Coast Repertory in 1969, Katt continued in the theatre and has worked many times at such prestigious venues as the Mark Taper Forum, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles as well as starring in productions at The Phoenix Repertory in NY and The George Street Playhouse in NJ among other east coast venues. A personal favorite in his theatre career perhaps was “Pippin” for Video directed by Bob Fosse. He has more recently shared the stage at ACT in Seattle for “The Education of Randy Newman” and starred in a world premiere of “Bicoastal Woman” at the Pasadena Playhouse in LA. Well known for his work in television and film in such productions as “Carrie”, “Big Wednesday” and “House”, among many other film and TV projects— but most noticeably his starring role in “Greatest American Hero” and regular appearances in “The Perry Mason Specials”. Majoring in Music Theory and Composition in college, he minored in English and started writing in the early 70’s. He is a published musician as well as having 3 produced screenplays . “Rachel and Julio” is one of three plays currently scheduled for production. Katt is an alumni of the West Coast Director’s Lab and has directed “The Clean and Narrow” which was picked up by HBO and Showtime in 2000, and he has just finished directing his second film ‘The River’s End’, a family adventure slated for release in ’06. Billswoman adds, from a search she found on GOOGLE -- so it's findable by all on the Internet... williamkatt@rachelandjulio.com (Info copy/pasted from www.rachelandjulio.com/index_files/Page421.htm)
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Post by mom2jared on Oct 8, 2006 17:21:58 GMT -5
Oh Wow!!! This was a good find. I'm going to try to get tickets since it is in my neck of the woods. Do you think he will be in the audience or backstage?
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Post by billswoman on Oct 8, 2006 19:03:18 GMT -5
It never occurred to me to ask this, since we're on the subject of WK, but in the Perry Mason shows, does he play Della's son?
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Post by MyTatuo on Oct 9, 2006 10:07:36 GMT -5
He actually plays Paul Drake Jr, the son of Mason's investigator from the original series. But I suppose it's possible that he is Paul & Della's love child. They never acknowledge it, tho...
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Post by MyTatuo on Oct 11, 2006 10:52:15 GMT -5
REVIEW OF "RACHEL AND JULIO", directed by William Katt www.sun-sentinel.com/features/lifestyle/sfl-th10juliooct10,0,7769282.story?coll=sfla-features-headlines ... It's the universality of regret that makes this romantic comedy resonate so deeply, because the tale of star-crossed lovers is only mildly entertaining on its own merits. Offsetting the tendency of the material to veer toward the pedestrian, the production at the Miniaci Performing Arts Center is fortunate to have the star power of Lainie Kazan and Joseph Bologna, plus the direction of William Katt. ... The script by Carrol Mendelson and Katt just doesn't take you anywhere new, nor does it illuminate what you already know. It just illustrates. ... Overall, not a very favorable review, but not horrible either.
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Post by MelMac on Oct 13, 2006 17:07:13 GMT -5
Thing I love about reviewers is that a majority of the newspaper ones don't quite understand how things work onstage and off. They expect it to be a blockbuster TV show. That said, it does seem that overall he is saying it's worth seeing. Too bad I can't go to Florida to see for myself. Maybe one of these days he'll be directing something in Texas and I can go see it. You never know this day and age. There's the Alley Theatre in Houston, the Majestic in San Antonio, other places. I even heard ads for "On Golden Pond" with Tom Bosley (of "Happy Days" fame) and Michael Learned ("The Waltons") that appeared in SA a few weeks ago. Someday...
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Post by jopierce on Oct 13, 2006 18:14:50 GMT -5
And maybe if I get really lucky, he will decide to leave the big time in Florida and maybe do something in NYC. Someday... someday...
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Post by billswoman on Oct 23, 2006 12:25:43 GMT -5
I'm still rather clueless about what a director does. I know that's terrible, esp. listening to Robert Culp's extensive commentary on the RC collection discs (about 7 hours' worth of discussion!) He goes on about directors he's absolutely loved to work with.
I know they're very important, because without fail, my favorite eps of Star Trek are directed by the same few directors (Vincent McEevety and Joe Pevny come to mind, and I hope I spelled their names right....) Even in GAH, I notice the really great eps have the same handful of directors (like Ivan Dixon for DVS... of Hogan's Heroes fame, as most of us know).a
I'm not technically knowledgeable enough to review a play, movie or TV show because of that. I can recognize if I like the writers well enough, again citing Star Trek (many eps of the original series were written by published SF writers, like Robert Bloch, Ted Sturgeon and Fred Brown)
I mention this, because I'd kind of like to hear how WK is as a director. Anyone know enough about this stuff to have an informed opinion of his works?
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 23, 2006 13:12:15 GMT -5
I have done enough theatre directing and stuff to know what makes a good director and writer, not only from having done it, but from trying to be like my favorites: Ivan Dixon you mentioned and of course, Rod Holcomb of GAH and A-TEAM fame. As for Katt, I have never seen anything he has directed to know if it is worthwhile or not. If anyone can let me know something he has done that I could find to watch, I will gladly post about it though.
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Post by Ms Boku on Dec 29, 2006 10:54:55 GMT -5
Just pulled this up...
THE ABC INTERVIEW by Christopher Folino on Wed 27 Dec 2006 08:38 PM PST | Permanent Link | Cosmos Last Friday around 10:40AM, I left Agoura Hills with executive producer Roberto Blasini and we headed off to go to ABC in Glendale to meet entertainment reporter, George Pennachio, to tape an interview for a segment about the movie. We got lost, pretty bad in fact, to the point we had to call the god of editing, Paul Pieper to Mapquest us in. Now Tito hates to be in front of the camera and to be honest, I'm not a big fan either. Mostly because I'm a bit of a porker, now thhere was a time when I was thin. I think, it was for about four months and only then did I love being on camera. I made over 712 Midget porn movies during those four months. But I digress, Tito is a calming force, I've found this out while shooting Full Spectrum Warrior Ten Hammers trailer, while explosives and a cast and crew of over 100 people were helping us to shoot the entire piece in one single day. Also, when we did the CNN Pipeline interview, I was pretty damn nervous about it and Tito calmed me down and injected a good amount of fun while we waited in the make-up room. So, it was a no-brainier to our pretty much always the same when we get together, filled with pure unfiltered optimism with phrases like "It's going to be so cool, maybe we can finally pay off the bank and our credit card bills!" or "maybe we can get to make another movie!" All I know is that Tito is the guy I'm having around when I get cancer! William Katt was running late, I had called him earlier in the day to confirm and it was a good thing, he still thought the interview was going to be at 2PM, not 12PM and he had to cancel a doctor's appointment. So it was all working out, the Greatest American Hero was driving himself and to be honest I wasn't as nervous for this interview. Mainly, because, it wasn't live and I got to interact with George, he was physically in the same room, unlike the CNN interview where a guy asked me questions live from satellite and I had no idea what the questions were. ABC Channel 7 is an impressive building, it was so much cooler looking than CNN in Los Angeles. I rank it in the top ten work places I've ever seen. Now, the most awesome place I've ever been to visit, while shooting a documentary, was hands down Pixar Animation Studio. I swear, that is the greatest working environment in the free world, they have a movie studio, an Olympic sized pool, a cafe where food is super cheap and the company pays to decorate their department however they want. And best of all the place is so massive, employees ride around in electric scooters to get to one end to another. Now, the ABC Channel 7 building is super clean and while we waited in the lobby, George Pennachio was on live talking about all the new holiday movies. After his segment aired, he came and he met us. George is a super cool guy whose also very funny, you feel relaxed right away. We were in a bit of a time crunch with everyone taking time off for the holiday and being sick, so he had the camera operator for only 20 to 30 minutes. We passed the work stations where all the on-air-reporters, writers, interns, work in an open cube environment, and they all have the exact same sized cubes. I saw a number of on-air-reporters and they all kind of poped their heads-up to check us out, to see if we were somebody famous. "Hey that's not Kevin Smith!" Made them look...suckers! George took us inside this huge sound stage that's completely empty, except for a camera man and some lights and some old chairs and a table. This is where we conducted the interviews, he chooses Tito to go first. There's nothing more enjoyable than watching Tito get asked "Why would you put money into this project?" Tito of course gave the best response of all time. "Please don't bring that up, all it's going to do is remind our wives that we're all in huge debt." My interview was next and George was kind, he didn't ask me anything too tough, and it was a cool moment to be at the very place you grew up watching your whole life talking about a movie you did just for the hell of it. Once my interview was over, we called Bill and he was about ten minutes away and a conflict with another interview came up. The next guest for another segment walks in with his assistant and it's Mark Harmon. Nicest guy in the world, he was there to do something for ESPN for UCLA, we got to talk with him for a bit and when Mark learned why were there, he told us"Good for you, for making you're own movie." I told him how much I liked him on Moonlighting, it was perhaps my favorite episode when Bruce went to go tell Cybil Shepard that he loved her and Mark answers the door. Man, that scene and moment is right up with there with the ultimate "f*ck you moments" in cinema history, second to Casablanca! So, Mark is old friends with Bill Katt and he joked "Bill late?, now, there's a surprise." Bill walks in about ten minutes later and he's got on those croc shoes, those horrible looking, but comfortable shoes. Everybody notices and he states "I love them, there so comfortable, I've been giving them out to all my friends for Christmas" I pipe up, "I didn't get a pair?" And Bill shoots back "Well, that's because, you're not my friend." So, the Greatest American Hero bitch slapped me in front of Mark Harmon, Tito and George Pennachio, it was cool. So William Katt does his interview and he's all charming and funny and George is cracking up, I'm like "What the hell? Look at Bill Katt being funny!" I've had coffee now with the man for over a year at least twice a month and that's the funniest I've ever seen him, since doing our movie! It was a great time and an amazing opportunity, I have no expectations, I view the interview as the last great piece of press the movie will ever get. I remain dedicated to the project and pray for it to get some legs and take off, however, at the same time, we got to focus now in the new year on how we are going to pay the bank off, just in case. That's the price you pay for following your dreams, however, I'd rather pay the price than to live my life wondering what if? It's a horrible way to live life. Again, once we find out the time and date, we will pass it on. Posted to: Main Page
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Post by MelMac on Dec 29, 2006 11:13:32 GMT -5
Good interview/story, but just a question: What movie are they talking about?
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Post by Ms Boku on Dec 29, 2006 11:15:00 GMT -5
Good interview/story, but just a question: What movie are they talking about? Gamers.
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Post by MelMac on Dec 29, 2006 11:19:45 GMT -5
Good interview/story, but just a question: What movie are they talking about? Gamers. Cool, thanks. You know, speaking of Crocs, I have thought about getting a red pair to use with the suit should I get to make one. You could then just cover them up with the boot spats or just wear them over red tights and you've got an easy outfit made. (They do win as the weirdest shoes possible).
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GAH Geek
Agent
The Lurking GAH Addict
Posts: 347
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Post by GAH Geek on Dec 29, 2006 22:06:17 GMT -5
that's a great articale thanks for posting it
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Post by Ms Boku on Jan 6, 2007 8:52:56 GMT -5
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Post by jopierce on Jan 6, 2007 9:48:43 GMT -5
Good youtube. Although I often get the sense that Katt feels a little bitter about the Star Wars thing.
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Post by billswoman on Jan 6, 2007 10:18:56 GMT -5
I honestly don't know why they chose Mark over Billy. Was Mark less known at the time? Maybe they wanted someone not at least somewhat established? Not the son of an actress made famous in one of America's top TV shows of all time? Maybe Mark followed direction better than Billy did/does?
I don't think one's better looking than the other... I don't think one can act better than the other. Both blond, handsome men. Aren't they about the same age?
(Just checked IMDB... they were born months apart, the same year.)
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Post by jopierce on Jan 6, 2007 10:37:43 GMT -5
Why did they choose Hamill over Katt?
You've never blown a job interview for a job you would have been perfect for?
I saw a few clips from Katt's screen test. It wasn't bad. But maybe Mark just blew people away... If you only get a few minutes, and there are hundreds of actors, you really have to blow them away somehow...
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