I Was Never Going to be Gavin Creel

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By Andrew Briedis

“I was never going to be Gavin Creel.” This is a line I use whenever I need the right words to explain why I quit performing. Like so many boys who were handed the lead role in the high school musical, I heard “What Do I Need with Love?” once and said, “I want to be that.” If only I took a moment to look inward at my own lacking abilities, but Gavin Creel made it look easy! And while I did manage to muscle my way through the role of Claude in college and one day audition for The Book of Mormon, that’s the closest I ever got to being Gavin Creel.

As with most of the world, I was blindsided by the news. And unlike so many who have gone before him, this one hit different. I didn’t know him, but I felt like I did. I wanted to say something about how influential he was, but it didn’t feel right to make it about me. How do you not make him about you when a small piece of who you are is because of him? 

I’ll think I’ve seen everyone’s statements on this tragedy and then I’ll open Instagram and it’s a carousel of personal photos from Josh Breckenridge, a gorgeous tribute from Brooke Ishibashi singing “We’ll Meet Again”—friends I’ve had since we were teens looking up to this singular voice on a Broadway cast album, who are now in the throes of grief over their loss of that voice. I normally offer condolences when a friend loses someone they love, but what am I supposed to do, text every single person I know? Everyone knew him, everyone loved him.   

I’m writing this on a laptop with a broken screen. A friend came over the day Gavin Creel died—she knew and loved him too, of course—and as she was arriving, my puppy got excited, tripped me, and I dropped my laptop on the floor. When I saw the long black bar slicing down the right side of the screen, all I could do was shrug. On another day, there would have been a big performance over this—I do still perform sometimes—but on this day I could not. It was a day we were all given a perspective on life that I wish we didn’t have to get.

My internet was overcome with stories of his kindness, his generosity, his activism, his insight, and all the other ways he was an inspiring, loving, wonderful person. And maybe that’s the best gift Gavin Creel gave us: A reminder of what we can be. Few will ever sing like he did, or come up with a fresh and surprising approach to Cinderella’s Prince like he did. But we can try to be as kind, as generous, and as good a friend as he was. That’s how we can be Gavin Creel.

You’re Supposed to Take Me to Phantom of the Opera

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By Andrew Briedis

My mom was consumed by Phantom Mania. 

It was the late 80s and The Phantom of the Opera was like Hamilton in the summer of 2015. Or Into the Woods in the summer of 2022. Or The Lion King every summer, apparently. It was the British Invasion of Broadway and Michael Crawford was my mom’s Harry Styles. 

She played her cassette tape of the original Broadway cast recording while driving me to school. She had the Madame Alexander dolls—Yes, there were Madame Alexander Dolls. And one Halloween, she hosted a Phantom­-themed party, where she served French pastries in a fully-committed Phantom costume—complete with horror makeup and multiple wigs. Let’s just say, one of the first things I remember learning about my mom was that she lived for that music of the night, baby!

I grew up in San Diego. To me, New York City and whatever “Broadway” was might as well have been Mars. But my mom once visited the New York of the 1970s, where she saw A Chorus Line during the height of its power, so she knew a phenomenon when it was clear and present. But with Phantom, my mom wasn’t attracted to the It Ticket prestige or the groundbreaking spectacle.  It was the score. She loved, loved, loved that score. And she wanted so desperately to hear it live, but at that stage in her life—with two kids, my dad’s work in flux, and a fear of flying—a cross-country trip to see the first musical to weaponize a synthesizer was out of the question.

Luckily for my mom, by the early 90s, The Phantom of the Opera had opened a Los Angeles company, and my uncle and aunt got my parents tickets so she could finally attend her beloved masquerade in the flesh. I was very little, but I remember this being a deeply special moment for her. I don’t recall anything about the day she went, or how I assume her eyes lit up for weeks afterwards. There’s just a distant feeling from all those years ago, that I knew—at the time—a dream of hers came true.

Our family didn’t always have the expendable income to see live theatre, especially if it was “Direct from Broadway!” Titanic at the Ahmanson was my marquee gift one Christmas, and for some reason when I was around ten, my mom and I ended up seeing Ralph Macchio star in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. But attending major national tours was not the cornerstone of my childhood. However, during the summer when I was fifteen, we learned Phantom was coming to San Diego later that year, and my mom was ready to sell our Princess Diana Beanie Baby to make that happen.

“I’m going to take you to Phantom of the Opera,” she said with stage door glee, as she looked up from the full-page ad for the San Diego Civic Theatre’s season in our local paper.

“Oh, cool!” I lied, with feigned excitement. 

Phantom was her thing. And while I respected the passion, I was fifteen. Phantom was…old. I wanted to see Footloose starring future CAA power agent, Joe Machota, and the guy who would become Christian Borle.

I’ll never know what corners my mom cut to afford tickets, but we went down to the literal box office that sweltering day in July to buy them. No Ticketmaster.com. No Will Call. My mom wanted to hold the tickets in her hand and keep watch over them like her own personal Christine Daae´ during the four months that followed, until the arrival of that Sunday matinee—November 14th—when she could finally show me one of her most favorite things.

The summer carried on as usual, I grew even more randomly obsessed with Footloose, and that fall, I started tenth grade. Then, on a random afternoon in September, my mom told me that she would be placed in hospice care. 

Okay, look, I know buried the lede! But in a way, that was deliberate. Because my mom’s health was sort of like the fate of Phantom itself: a bit of a blindside if you didn’t have all of the information.

For exposition purposes, my mom had been battling breast cancer my entire life. This wasn’t something my parents ever hid from me, but it also wasn’t something that consumed my childhood. My mom knew the reality of her situation, but never wanted her fight to define my memory of her. Only once, when I was thirteen, did she reveal during a rare moment of truth that, “This will eventually kill me.” 

I never actually thought it would happen. She was my mom! She was unstoppable! There couldn’t be a world without her presence. That would be like imagining a universe where something else played The Majestic! 

 “What’s hospice…?” I asked her, as she sat upright in her hospital bed. 

My dad stood beside me. He didn’t know how to explain it. Instead, he looked to her. We always looked to her.

 “They stop,” she stated, matter-of-factly. “And they make a hospital for me at home.”

“And then what?” 

I truly wasn’t getting it.

She shrugged. “And… That’s it, Andrew.”

The wheels in my head turned for a few seconds. Seconds that felt like two and a half hours with an intermission. And then the chandelier dropped.

“But…” My head cocked to the side casually. My eyes took on the pointed shape of a kid trying to solve an Algebra equation.

“You’re supposed to take me to Phantom of the Opera.”

My mind could have gone any number of directions, and cobbled together a myriad of more appropriate sentences: “Why is life so unfair?” “I’m fifteen, I still need you.” “Who’s gonna dance with me during that part at my wedding?” 

But, NO! At the most pivotal moment of my young life, the first thing I thought about was tickets to the third or sixth national tour of a musical I didn’t really want to see. 

There’s a scene in the TV series This is Us, where Mandy Moore’s character finds out that her husband has suddenly died. One minute he was fine, the next he was gone. She doesn’t cry or break into hysterics. She stares off as if she’s stuck on a Wordle, and then she inexplicably bites into a candy bar. When I first saw this scene, I said out loud to my wife: “Whoever wrote that has lived it.” The Phantom of the Opera was my candy bar. 

You never know how you’re going to respond to something like this until it happens to you. Nor will you ever fully uncover the mystery of why your reaction manifested the way that it did. Maybe my thinking of Phantom was just trauma-induced randomness. Perhaps my subconscious conjured the thought of something she loved in an effort to calm me. Or the more likely scenario: My mom had always been there, and this might be the first time she wouldn’t be—for the rest of my life.

Without having ever seen it, The Phantom of the Opera had inserted itself into a unique place within my heart because of this moment. It’s forever part of my mom’s death story. The Majestic will get renovated and reopen with something like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2: The Two-sical, but The Phantom of the Opera has a permanent residence in one of the most personal experiences of my life.

But I don’t think you need a dead mom to have at least felt a brief moment of melancholy when the news broke that the longest running Broadway show would just stop running. Phantom is something I don’t think anyone ever thought would leave New York. It’s part of the city. And just like the city, people love it and people hate it. To some, it’s a rat nest beneath an outdoor pandemic café that was supposed to be temporary, and to others, it’s the Empire State Building. No matter how you feel about it, Phantom was a constant.

There’s comfort in a constant. 

When something endures for so long, we define our personal experience by the length of its existence. Think of everything you’ve done during the near 14,000 times the Auctioneer has banged that gavel and shouted, “SOLD!” It might be your entire life. And while I’ve yet to see the Broadway production of Phantom, every time I walked by The Majestic, I always felt my mom winking at me from within the iconic images that she loved so dearly adorning those walls.

My dad took me to that matinee of The Phantom of the Opera instead of my mom. The next day, I sat beside the hospital bed in her room, and I got to share with her the experience she always wanted to have with me. It’s our last conversation that I remember.

She died the following evening. 

Phantom—like my mom—will never truly be gone. It’ll re-open at New World Stages, or be revived in five years with six cast members playing the instruments and the chandelier. It’s already the backdrop of a new series for Peacock. Still, learning that the original titan is closing is bittersweet. It’ll be exciting to see what new show gets a shot in its place, even if I always secretly loved that the production on my mom’s cassette tape was still alive.

We didn’t see Phantom together, but my mom and I got to talk about it. And she sang the score to me in her car, and she even played the title role at a party. For all the years that followed, I never forgot that it was there. So, in a way, my mom did take me to The Phantom of the Opera.

_________________________________________________________

Andrew Briedis is a writer, known for “Saturday Night Live” and “#SOBLESSED: The Annoying Actor Friend’s Guide to Werking in Show Business.”

I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING THIS SEASON: Annoying Actor Friend’s 2019 Tony Awards Drinking Game

In January, I tweeted about seeing Waitress for the second time in thirty days and someone responded: “Oh wow, people who live in New York can just casually go to a Broadway show whenever they want.” This struck a chord with me because it’s been a minute since I lived (like most of the people in the world) without the privilege of access to a Broadway show. So, as an experiment, I decided to spend the rest of the season getting back in touch with the days before I lived in New York by not seeing any theatre in 2019 and not because NOBODY I KNOW OFFERED ME COMPS.

That’s not to say I didn’t want to see any theatre this year (I would drop mad cash to watch the puppet from King Kong do the entirety of Mike Birbiglia’s The New One), I just found myself in circumstances where theatre didn’t want me to see it. But thanks to Broadway Internet, I feel like I have a pretty good idea what this season was all about:

1.) It’s amazing compared to last season, which was dragged by the Tonys because there were three commercial titles nominated for best musical, but this season only has three. 2.) Nobody has bothered or cared to learn that the “Tall Man/Boy” in Hadestown has a name and it’s Timothy Hughes. 3.) Billy Porter is about to EGOT in red carpet.

All caught up!

SO! Grab your favorite drink(s) and toast the Tony administration committee for awarding the great Marin Mazzie with a posthumous Tony Award and then pour one out for all of us because tonight is also the season premiere of Big Little Lies; it’s time to get SHA-WASTIES-Town!

THE RULES:

You might remember some of these rules from previous years and I’m not even ashamed to recycle them or the following joke for the third year in a row because drinking games aren’t born, they’re made. (Look, there’s a lot of support for white male mediocrity on Broadway and this drinking game is no exception.)

As per usual, all rules apply to what is happening on screen, through social media, or wherever you are viewing it… Unless otherwise specified, DRINK WHEN:

  • You hear the words: “live theatre” or “community”
  • The sound doesn’t work (drink cautiously because it’s going to be a long night).
  • There is a technical issue (again, drink cautiously because the stage is big).
  • Celia Keenan-Bolger finally wins a Tony Award for playing a child.
  • CBS celebrity!
  • Who is that CBS celebrity I don’t watch CBS!
  • You somehow get into a Twitter fight with a fan of Be More Chill.
  • LAURIE METCALF.
  • Anyone uses the words #grateful or #blessed in any form. That includes ironically.
  • Tootsie starts to feel like a show that thinks the T in LGBT stands for Tootsie.
  • You remember that thank god Camille A. Brown is nominated this year.
  • Something happens with the plays.
  • You roll your eyes.
  • James Corden makes us watch carpool karaoke for six minutes and then acceptance speeches get cut off early.
  • A producer of an un-nominated show buys air time.
  • You remember that The Boys in the Band was this season.
  • You remember that Frankie and Johnny is next season.
  • There is a show about theatre celebrating theatre.
  • Someone tweets something and then deletes it.
  • Someone spells it “Tony’s.”
  • The Prom performs a dance number from Mean Girls.
  • You zone out during a speech and randomly remember how awesome Michelle Williams was in Fosse/Verdon.
  • A male choreographer misunderstands what is appropriate to make a woman do in heels.
  • THE TEMPTATIONS!
  • Someone not in The Cher Show does a bad Cher impression as a bit.
  • You’re a person who says “This Oklahoma! fucks” even though it’s still a musical with a title that ends in an exclamation point.
  • There is an inappropriate close-up during a large production number.
  • Bonnie Milligan appears in a montage and the audience cheers louder than it has the entire night.
  • You see someone you know on stage.
  • You get bitterly jealous of said person.
  • You see someone onstage who doesn’t belong there (drink at your own risk).
  • Hadestown loses to Green Book.

Remember to always drink cautiously, but unapologetically.

THE WORST BROADWAY SEASON IN HISTORY: Annoying Actor Friend’s 2018 Tony Awards Drinking Game

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What a terrible Broadway season, right?! Honestly! In previous years, I was able to quickly come up with a cute alcohol infused title for these drinking games based off of one of the season’s shows like Drinky Boots or Come From Awaysted. What am I supposed to call it this year? SpongeBob DrunkPants? MartEANi Girls? Escape to Margaritaville? I already did Frozen Margaritas for the 2014 Oscars! This is why this season sucks. And not because that’s what I keep reading online from people who have somehow forgotten 2012 when shit was so dire a cruise ship performed on the Tonys and the only original score was the songs in Newsies you forget about.

Now, I know that last part may have sounded harsh (because Leap of Faith was also a thing that season) but I am allowed to say whatever I want because I am an anonymous person on the Internet that everyone has forgotten revealed its identity in 2015. No joke, I was talking to someone the other day about Annoying Actor Friend and they said: “Oh, I remember that.”

Whatever you may think about this season, I want you to picture a day when you’re ten years older and a bunch of fresh-faced recently graduated seniors pop-up like the crabgrass of Broadway and tell you that the 2018 season is what got them into theatre. Because it’s going to happen. Talk to anyone over 35 who thought Legally Blonde was “just okay.”

SO! Grab your favorite drink(s) for what is bound to be a truly phenomenal Tony Awards filled with exciting production numbers and fabulous hosts who haven’t attempted statutory rape and pour one out for the YouTube video of the 2017 telecast, because it’s time to get Ka-DRINK-a LenkED!

THE RULES:

You might remember some of these rules from previous years and I’m not even ashamed to recycle them or the following joke because drinking games aren’t born, they’re made.

As per usual, all rules apply to what is happening on screen, through social media, or wherever you are viewing it.. Unless otherwise specified, drink when:

  • You hear the words: “live theatre”
  • You roll your eyes.
  • A moment is so awkward, your butthole literally clenches.
  • Someone is nominated for a Tony award for only writing one song.
  • Tony Shalhoub shows up.
  • A producer of an un-nominated show buys airtime.
  • Andrew Garfield speaks just a touch longer than anyone else.
  • The sound doesn’t work (drink cautiously because it’s going to be a long night).
  • There is a technical issue (again, drink cautiously because the stage is big).
  • You remember that for some reason Camille A. Brown is not nominated. (drink a bottle)
  • CBS celebrity!
  • Who is that CBS celebrity I don’t watch CBS!
  • You see a person in the Mean Girls performance who went to Michigan. (drink water for this one)
  • Someone tweets something and then deletes it.
  • A sold out show comes back to perform to remind you that you can’t get tickets for it.
  • Bruce Springsteen makes another billion dollars.
  • Someone proudly and bravely posts on social media that they don’t know anything about Harry Potter.
  • A Tony nominated costume designer recycles Gigi can-can dresses that appeared on the 2015 Tonys.
  • Someone spells it “Tony’s.”
  • LAURIE METCALF.
  • Someone acts like The Band’s Visit wasn’t also based on a movie.
  • You remember again that for some reason Camille A. Brown is not nominated. (drink another bottle)
  • Anyone uses the words #grateful or #blessed in any form. That includes ironically.
  • Something happens with the plays.
  • CBS makes a musical censor some of their lyrics even though they let Charlie Sheen exist on their network for ten years.
  • There is an inappropriate close up during a large production number.
  • Frozen is a thing.
  • You blackout when you remember that for some reason Camille A. Brown is not nominated.
  • Sara Bareilles mentions Waitress.
  • Josh Groban mentions The Great Comet. (pour one out)
  • A show wins best musical for including a rap number where a white dude is backed up by four people of color.
  • LUNCH TRAYS!
  • You see someone you know on stage.
  • You get bitterly jealous of said person.
  • You see someone onstage who doesn’t belong there (drink at your own risk).

Remember to always drink cautiously, but unapologetically.

COME FROM AWAYSTED: Annoying Actor Friend’s 2017 Tony Awards Drinking Game

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What an incredible Broadway season, right?! We were gifted with so many new musicals that didn’t want to open in the same season as Hamilton crammed into every possible open theatre, we’re going to have to wait an entire year for Escape to Margaritaville. 

The industry term for this season is “packed,” but I prefer to call it a “baby rattlesnake” season.  Because… Okay, you know how baby rattlesnakes can’t control their venom when they bite, so they just let it all out at once? That’s what happened this year. The moment Lin-Manuel walked off of the Beacon stage, literally every show waiting in the wings bum-rushed the theatre district faster than a Panic! at the Disco fan can exit during curtain call at Kinky Boots. Broadway baby-rattlesnaked. This is what a post-Hamilton Broadway season looks like: we let it all out at once, and there’s venom everywhere.

But, hey! More shows means more opportunities to be drunk! SO, grab several of your favorite drinks (and pour one out for the elderly lady who dropped her sippy-cup cocktail off the balcony and into the orchestra the night I saw A Doll’s House, Part 2) because it’s time to get COME FROM AWAYSTED.

THE RULES:

You might remember some of these rules from 2016’s #SLAM4HAM, 2015’s Somedrink Rotten, 2014’s A Drinker’s Guide… and 2013’s Drinky Boots, and I’m not even ashamed to recycle them because drinking games aren’t born, they’re made.

As per usual, all rules apply to what is happening on screen, through social media, or wherever you are viewing it.. Unless otherwise specified, drink when:

  • You hear the words: “live theatre”
  • You roll your eyes.
  • A moment is so awkward, your butthole literally clenches.
  • Someone tweets something and then deletes it.
  • Someone says they’re thankful that Hamilton wasn’t nominated.
  • The sound doesn’t work (drink cautiously because it’s going to be a long night).
  • There is a technical issue (again, drink cautiously because the stage is big).
  • Someone cries boogers.
  • You cry boogers.
  • Someone on social media makes a brave and unique comment about Kevin Spacey’s sexuality (take a shot if it includes a reference to one or more Newsies).
  • CBS celebrity!
  • Who is that CBS celebrity I don’t watch CBS!
  • A producer of an un-nominated show buys air time.
  • Politics ruins the telecast.
  • Various cast members from the revival of Hello, Dolly! appear to be inconvenienced by the Tony Awards.
  • Accents and dialects!
  • Someone spells it “Tony’s.”
  • The camera cuts to Glenn Close during the performance from War Paint (take a shot).
  • The camera cuts to Patti LuPone when an award is presented by Glenn Close (finish the bottle).
  • LAURIE METCALF.
  • Someone uses the words #grateful or #blessed in any form. That includes ironically.
  • The theatre community congratulates itself on the new Golden Age of Broadway by welcoming to the stage a star from Hollywood.
  • Knee braces!
  • There is an inappropriate close up during a large production number.
  • Sydney Lucas comes back to show Scott Rudin that it is possible to fill the stage at Radio City.
  • An award that was aired during last year’s telecast is left out this year because it wasn’t Hamilton.
  • Something happens with the plays.
  • Michael Greif wins a Tony Award for not using scaffolding.
  • You see someone you know on stage.
  • You get bitterly jealous of said person.
  • You see someone onstage who doesn’t belong there (drink at your own risk).
  • Ben Platt loses to Moonlight.
  • Accordions!

Remember to always drink cautiously, but unapologetically.

SOBLESSED at BroadwayCon 2017!

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LIVE! from BroadwayCon 2017, Andrew Briedis, writer and creator of Annoying Actor Friend, was joined by Broadway favorites Lesli Margherita, Eric Anderson, Keala Settle, Julia Murney, and Andrew Keenan-Bolger to present readings from his best selling satirical ‘how to’ book, #SOBLESSED: The Annoying Actor Friend’s Guide to Werking in Show Business, an irreverent analysis of what life is like for both aspiring and employed actors and actresses in today’s world.

Recorded LIVE on January 29th, 2017 at the Javits Center in New York City using an iPhone 6 and zero professional sound equipment, so we hope you enjoy the raw unedited audio on SOUNDCLOUD!

#SOBLESSED: the Annoying Actor Friend’s Guide to Werking in Show Business is available on paperback, Kindle, and audiobook!

YOU CAN’T STOP THE TWEET: Annoying Actor Friend’s “Hairspray Live!” Drinking Game

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Here we are again! After a significant pissing contest between NBC and FOX, our beloved live musicals have now completely conformed to actually including a live audience. Gone are the days of silence so awkward that you could actually hear it emanating from miles away in that studio hangar out in Bethpage, Long Island, and gone are the days when all of my working New York friends had to juggle an eight show week, developmental lab, and a lucrative television salary while I comped their drinks at the bar I work because they told me they couldn’t afford to visit me on their nights off because they’re “poor.” That’s right, Broadway on network television has officially gone Hollywood.

Never has there ever been a more poetic example of “Oh. Hell. No,” than NBC’s response to FOX’s Grease Live!. They were like, “Wait, wait, WAIT. You snatched our wig and wore it better!?” Hairspray Live! is like that New York actor who left their Broadway chorus contract to go out to Los Angeles for pilot season because someone who understudied them once at a dinner theatre landed a one episode arc on Scream Queens.

Look, I thought Grease Live! was great. And it pissed me off. Now we’ve got to deal with a show that is actually good following the Grease Live! method. It’s going to be very difficult to make social media funny during Hairspray Live!, but I’ve seen a lot of people find a way to make 2016 funny, so I have great faith in all of you because even in the darkest of times, one thing is certain: YOU CAN’T STOP THE TWEET.

SO, EVERYONE, grab your favorite beverage, and pour one out for “Nikki Blonsky from the movie Hairspray”; it’s time to use your elbow to break down the walls of segregation and/or elbow back as many as it’ll take to make you forget that Jennifer Hudson is only four-ish years older than Ephraim Sykes.

PRE-GAME: take a shot in honor of every actor friend you know who is live social media-ing this event on a Wednesday night at 8pm, because it probably means they’re unemployed.

NOTE: I trust you’ll be surrounded by friends either in person, on social media, or both, so some of these rules pertain to you and those around you, as well as what you’ll be viewing on screen. 

DRINK WHEN…

  • Ariana Grande attempts a consonant.
  • a set piece breaks or malfunctions.
  • there are sound problems.
  • celebrity marking.
  • you have no idea who Amber and Link are.
  • the camera cuts to an actor who is not really paying attention.
  • Ugh. LA dancers.
  • the key changes for Jennifer Hudson.
  • you see someone you know (this is probably a wasted rule because LA).
  • Dove Cameron is a deodorant right?
  • Martin Short and Andrea Martin eat the set by the end of act one.
  • one of your friends says, “I almost booked this.” (because they didn’t. again, this is LA)
  • was Garrett Clayton a Vine star?
  • an actor accidentally looks at the camera.
  • Donald Trump wages war on Hairspray Live! because there’s a song called “Ladies’ Choice.”
  • Donald Trump wages war on Hairspray Live! because he thinks the Miss Teenage Hairspray competition is rigged when Amber doesn’t win.
  • Donald Trump wages war on Hairspray Live! because Rosie O’Donnell.
  • NBC stamps an awkward hashtag at the bottom of the screen. #Crabs
  • omg remember when Kristin Chenoweth did The Music Man?
  • someone in the cast is phoning it in like they are doing an open ended run.
  • Allison Williams has a series of flashbacks and you can audibly hear her screams from her home in Chelsea.
  • PONIES!
  • lyric flub.
  • Harvey Fierstein.
  • where’s Shanice?
  • acting for the stage.
  • The original Broadway Dynamites look younger fourteen years later than you did when you were fourteen.
  • Billy Eichner screams at someone.
  • Little Inez walks away with the show like Benanti.
  • you pass out before “Cooties.”

Have a great night, everybody! And remember: Always drink responsibly, but unapologetically.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION TIME: The epic best selling book, #SOBLESSED: the Annoying Actor Friend’s Guide to Werking in Show Business and its sequel, #GRATEFUL: Everything Happens for a Reason are available on Amazon Kindle and Paperback and “ARE THE GREATEST HOLIDAY GIFT OF ALL TIME.” – Me

9 Times I Shoehorned Jurassic Park References Into Annoying Actor Friend

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By ANDREW BRIEDIS

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Today, July 13th, 2016, marks the fourth anniversary of when I created Annoying Actor Friend. I was bored out of my mind and had nothing better to do on an extremely hot day. Nothing has changed! Hence this blog post.

Yesterday, I asked a friend, “How should I celebrate my parody Twitter account’s birthday tomorrow?” Upon hearing those words come out of my mouth un-ironically, I promptly asked the universe to send an asteroid to my GROWN ASS ADULT’S house because that is some serious Millennial bullshit. But, hey, look around, look around… Pokemon GO is still a thing after an ENTIRE WEEK. We get to be children forever now!

Publicly celebrating the birthday of a parody Twitter account is probably the most #ShamelessSelfPromoting thing ever, which is certainly “on brand” for Annoying Actor Friend, and when it comes to brands that define myself, Jurassic Park is pretty much the only thing I’ve got going on right now. So, for this blog post that I am 100% certain that nobody will read, I’d like to list and annotate all of the times I shoehorned Jurassic Park references into the voice of a character that was created to satirize the life of a Broadway actor. Think of this as my version of the #Hamiltome, except without the insightful stuff and more Jeff Goldblum.

1.) Spielberg Don’t Give a Shit

In the Smash blog, “Spielberg Don’t Give a Shit” (Mar. 2013) I gave Mr. Spielberg a few GREAT suggestions for how to up Smash‘s rating by using elements from some of his most famous films. I’ve spoken greatly about how of the 20+ Smash recaps/blogs I wrote in the winter/spring of 2013, this one marks as my favorite. It was the first time I made a series of memes, and I am still proud of this one:

IndySMASH

While I was actually giving myself an excuse to devote an entire section of a blog to my favorite Spielberg film, I was too paranoid that one of my friends would pick up on it, so Jurassic Park only gets a tiny mention at the end, urging Smash to “add dinosaurs” to the show.

2.) Mr. DNA Deciphers the Tiered Production Contract

In #SOBLESSED: The Annoying Actor Friend’s Guide to Werking in Show Business (Oct. 2013) — ON SALE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY! — there is a passage in Chapter 4: “On the Road,” where the Old Annoying Actor Friend explains how the Equity national touring contracts devolved over time. In that section, I gave a nod to Mr. DNA, the cartoon exposition extraordinaire who explains to the audience exactly how Dr. Henry Wu (played by Broadway’s B.D. Wong) was able to clone dinosaurs out of DNA found in fossilized amber by filling in the genome sequencing gaps with the DNA of frogs…

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The highlighted line is verbatim what Mr. DNA says in the film, except it’s said in a labored and exhausted manner because that’s how tedious it is to connect millions of strands of DNA to create one dinosaur. I chose this reference in particular, because upon doing my research, I was equally as exhausted by the confusing manner in which many of the more profitable Equity touring contracts seemed to disappear. It felt about as easy to explain in this book as it would be to revive an extinct animal.

(NOTE: There is also a reference to Game of Thrones within the same sentence. I use many Game of Thrones references in my AAF writing, depending on what time of the year it is. I believe most of my Tonys drinking games have some mention of the show because the season finales are in June).

3.) JURAAF Productions

In the summer of 2014, ten incredible and generous actors (Alan Cumming, Lesli Margherita, Megan Hilty, Julia Murney, Will Swenson, Keala Settle, Tituss Burgess, Krysta Rodriguez, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, and Brian Dennehy), along with two equally incredible and generous audiobook producers/directors (Piper Goodeve and Jayme Mattler) donated their time and talents to the audiobook version of #SOBLESSED, where all proceeds and royalties benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Due to scheduling, the recording of this audiobook began in June 0f 2014, but didn’t wrap until the end of September. So, I had a lot of time to come up with the only piece of new writing this project needed: a production/publisher name. That name wouldn’t need to be established until we had locked down the voice we were looking for to read the opening and closing sections–which included the credits. Naturally, I procrastinated until that time.

In July, we were fortunate enough to grab a few hours of Alan Cumming’s time, so that morning I frantically tried to come up with some sort of title that would live on this project forever…and I still couldn’t use my own name. Borrowing from Jujamcyn Theaters (which derives from the first handful of letters of the names of the original chairman’s grandchildren), I took the first three letters of JURassic Park and the initials of Annoying Actor Friend, to come up with JURAAF PRODUCTIONS. My nickname is also “baby giraffe” because that’s what I look like when I run, so the entire thing worked for me.

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At the end, Alan Cumming reads my full name as executive producer, followed by “JURAAF PRODUCTIONS,” and that is probably the most “hiding in plain sight” moment from when I was anonymous.

You can download the audiobook for FREE, and BC/EFA will still get their donation if you follow these directions: How to Get “#SOBLESSED: the Audiobook” for FREE!

4.) Where’s the goat!?

It wasn’t until June, 2015 that I stopped caring about being found out. I had planned my reveal for December, and Jurassic World was a huge thing at the time, so I thought it was appropriate to bring some truly niche and forced jokes to Twitter.

This is pretty terrible. Edward Albee has a play called The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? and Lex Murphy (Ariana Richards) says the famous line, “Where’s the goat?!” before a goat leg drops on their windshield. The word “goat” is about all the two have in common, although I’m sure Edward Albee has at least seen Jurassic Park.

5.) #Sufosteraptor

This is my most favorite tweet I have ever done, or will ever do…

I was on a red-eye coming back from Kauai (where most of Jurassic Park was filmed) and I had left my entire playlist on shuffle as I fell asleep. At some point in the middle of the night, “Gimme Gimme” popped on, I didn’t skip it, and when Sutton Foster got to the lyrics, “clever girl,” my hazy mind went to those two famous words Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck) utters to the velociraptor just before she devours him.

6.) Dennis Nedry is #GRATEFUL

#GRATEFUL: Everything Happens for a Reason (Nov. 2015) — ON SALE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY — is the “choose-your-own-show-business-destiny” sequel to #SOBLESSED. It is four times as large as its predecessor, and thus has four times as many references to Jurassic Park.

There are four main stories that break down into close to a hundred smaller stories, depending on which avenues you choose. One in particular, is semi-autobiographical–wherein you quit being an actor, become a personal trainer, and then create a version of Annoying Actor Friend, which in the universe of #GRATEFUL, is called Irritating Performer Pal.

There is a fairly simple exchange your character has with your manager, that I pulled from when John Hammond (Sir Richard Attenborough) bemoans to Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight): “I’m sorry about your financial problems, Dennis, I really am, but they are your problems.”

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It’s kind of a throw-away, but my goal was to get as many in as possible.

7.) Creativity Finds A Way

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If you follow the career transition track in #GRATEFUL, then you reach a point where your character is trying to suppress the creative instincts inside–which goes completely against the nature of an actor, and that isn’t always a good thing. Similarly, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) has a speech near the beginning of the film where he tries to break down how attempting to control nature will always end negatively:

“The kind of control you’re attempting simply is… it’s not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.” – Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

I adapted that passage for the narrator to recite to the reader at the moment they are trying to battle against their own instincts:

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8.) Discipline. Discipline. Discipline.

There was a moment in the very beginning of Annoying Actor Friend (around fall, 2012) when I wasn’t sure how to make the next step. I considered an Instagram account that posted screen caps of “social media offenders” with their names blurred out. I eventually decided against that because it wasn’t providing new content. It just felt like trolling and unnecessary shaming. However, there is a part in the semi-autobiographical section of #GRATEFUL where you can choose that option, and when it backfires, I borrow from the following words so eloquently spoken by the great Jeff Goldblum:

“If I may… Um, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it.” – Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

From #GRATEFUL (2015):

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NOTE: There was one final nod to Jurassic Park in #GRATEFUL where I noted that the Times Square Chicago Flyer Girls “do move in herds,” but it was cut because it was the only reference that lived outside of the section that is semi-autobiographical.

9.) The Reveal

When John Hammond and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) are left alone to eat melting ice cream after the power outage, Ellie urges that the animals will defend themselves, “violently if necessary.”

When it came time to write “@AndrewBriedis”, the essay that would reveal my identity, I knew that Jurassic Park would play a small part in it. I made sure to explain how the film inspired me to write Steven Spielberg and ask him to be in the sequel, which ultimately led to me starting youth theatre. I was certain to make a joke about the meme of Sutton Foster with a raptor. And I made sure to include at least one phrase of dialogue in the final sentence. Whether it made sense or not, it was for me, and exactly how I wanted to end that chapter of Annoying Actor Friend…

“Above all, it taught me that you can have an epic passion for something and then one day you might wake up and it’s gone—and that’s OK. Because if you really love it…if it is absolutely a world you’re supposed to be involved with in some way, it will drag you—violently if necessary—back into its arms.”

CONGRATULATIONS and THANK YOU for reading all of that masturbatory crap! Or for at least scrolling to the bottom! These were just the nine times I referenced Jurassic Park that I could remember. Who knows how many were lost after a happy hour.

TUNE IN on Annoying Actor Friend’s 5th birthday, when I list and annotate all of the times I shoehorned in references to Animaniacs.

#SLAM4HAM: Annoying Actor Friend’s 2016 Tony Awards Drinking Game

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What an incredible Broadway season, right?! So many Hamilton! Hamilton think pieces! Hamilton jokes! Hamilton memes! Hamilton Hamilton! Since the moment Hamilton opened at the Public on January 20th, 1997, it has just been one awesome and crazy ride to the 70th Annual Tony Awards.

Wow. Has Tony time for Hamilton come already? I mean, thank goodness Jeffrey Seller coaxed Harvey Weinstein into locking down Radio City this month so that the Tonys had to bump a week to the Beacon, thus adding an extra seven days of cultural relevance for the juggernaut. Alas, unfortunately it is finally the moment for the Event of the Century to climb atop the Iron Thrown, and then go gently into that dark night, to make way for future artistic triumphs of the American Theatre such as the revival of Motown.

OK! Grab several of your favorite drinks (pour one out for every member of the original cast of Hamilton who left the production before the Tony Awards) because it’s time to slam a few back for Ham! #Slam4Ham.

THE RULES:

You might remember some of these rules from 2015’s Somedrink Rotten, 2014’s A Drinker’s Guide… and 2013’s Drinky Boots, and I’m not even ashamed to recycle them (or the rest of this sentence) because there were literally nine hundred theatre award ceremonies this year, and I’ve already forgotten which one I’m currently writing about.

As per usual, all rules apply to what is happening on screen, through social media, or wherever you are viewing it.. Unless otherwise specified, drink when:

  • You hear the words: “live theatre”
  • Hamilton wins something (Drink WATER. Remember: Tonight is a marathon, not a sprint. The only way I can assure that all of you will remain hydrated is by instilling this mandatory rule that requires everyone to drink water every six to seven minutes).
  • A winner thanks God in their acceptance speech (take one drink for them, and one for the latest national tragedy that God didn’t get a chance to stop because He was too busy helping that person win a Tony).
  • You roll your eyes.
  • A moment is so awkward, your butthole literally clenches.
  • Someone tweets something and then deletes it.
  • Lin-Manuel raps while not in a costume (Again, drink WATER).
  • Jennifer EFFING Simard.
  • The sound doesn’t work (drink cautiously because it’s going to be a long night).
  • There is a technical issue (again, drink cautiously because it’s going to be a long night and they haven’t been at this venue since Once).
  • Someone says the entire title of Shuffle Along without stumbling (take a shot).
  • CBS celebrity!
  • Who is that CBS celebrity I don’t watch CBS!
  • A producer of an un-nominated show buys air time.
  • Fans of a nominated show are tricked into buying air time.
  • Pies.
  • Someone spells it Tony’s. #unfriend.
  • Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber drags a diva.
  • Someone uses the words #grateful or #blessed in any form. That includes ironically.
  • An award is presented that was left out of last year’s telecast because it wasn’t Hamilton (take one shot for Lisa Kron and two for Jeanine Tesori).
  • Something happens with the plays.
  • Cynthia Erivo does Jack Palance-style one armed pushups when she wins.
  • A kid from School of Rock quits the business midway through their performance because it’s the 27th time they’ve done “You’re in the Band” this week.
  • You see someone you know on stage.
  • You get bitterly jealous of said person.
  • You see someone onstage who doesn’t belong there (drink at your own risk).
  • Streisand appears after 46 years to make us all OK with her doing the new Gypsy movie and Broadway Internet collectively shits itself.
  • Banjos.

#SLAM4HAM: If someone or something beats Hamilton in any category, grab the bottle nearest to you, slam it back until it’s finished, and then run streaking through the streets until daybreak.

Remember to always drink cautiously, but unapologetically.