We really enjoyed this Jewish Journal appreciation of the brilliant, under-sung Chris Ross. That the author found something in Chris and his comedy worth praising 50 years after his death makes us feel like we’re on to something. We have some great Chris Ross material that we can’t wait to bring to light.
A Herbert Gold story in the March 1970 issue of Holiday magazine features a portrait of a rare Scott Beach-directed Committee cast.
“So far [The Committee’s] great achievement – due partly to talent and partly to San Francisco tolerance – has been to survive without silicone for nearly a decade in its handsome cabaret in the topless playground.”
Pictured: Dan Barrows, Kertia Thomas, Bruce Mackey, Julie Payne, Scott Beach, David Ogden Stiers, Ruth Silveira, and Jim Cranna.
Since we last checked in, much has been accomplished. We’re bearing down on our fundraising, editing our first episode (1963-66), lining up our next interviews, and more.
We are fully ensconced in our headquarters – the incubator program at Ninth Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco. The space accommodates three workstations, a projection screen, and centralized storage for our growing digital and physical archive of Committee-related materials. We also have access to a 60-seat screening room which we used just this month for a viewing of Jerry Wainwright’s photography archives with Jerry’s family & interested parties. We love it here.
In the coming months we’ll host an office-warming, listening parties and screenings to support our vision of the episodic documentary The Committee: A Secret History of American Comedy. Stay tuned.
Interested and able parties can now support our work with a tax-deductible donation of cash, stock, or securities via our fiscal sponsor Filmmakers Collaborative San Francisco. Our 2013 Kickstarter funds – which paid for most of our 30 + interviews – have been depleted, so we’re fortunate to have Filmmakers Collaborative San Francisco as a fundraising partner.
Since January we’ve raised more than $10,000 in new funds, including a significant boost from the family of Committee friend and investor Maxwell Myers. We are looking to bulk up our production team, as well as our army of patrons. Please consider spreading the word about our project. We are confident in the demand for The Committee’s story, and we will pitch this project to anyone, anywhere.
Here are some more highlights from the last few months:
Thanks for your interest in The Committee: A Secret History of American Comedy. We are always on the hunt for archival material – home movies, audio tape, print ads, whatever. If you’re sitting on something that might be valuable to our story, we’d like to see it. Hit us up!
Jamie Wright and Sam Shaw
jamie@lekkermedia.com
sam@lekkermedia.com
There was a lot we wanted to ask David Ogden Stiers about a wide range of subjects.
David Ogden Stiers was approached twice by Alan Myerson to join The Committee, until he finally signed on in the summer of 1967, performing alongside Don Sturdy at The Committee Theater (“America Hurrah”, directed by Joe Chaikin) and then with the revue players at 622 Montgomery. 1967-68 was a peak transition year for The Committee, when the company was preparing to open up a run at The Tiffany in Los Angeles while maintaining two theaters in San Francisco and expanding its workshop program.
Stiers performed in two Del Close-directed shows at 622 Broadway in late 1967 and early 1968 and it’s a joy to imagine Stiers arriving at Juilliard with an understanding of the earliest beginnings of longform improvisation (The Committee’s fall ‘67 show included a Harold) and the experience of playing with Committee performers old and new, from Garry Goodrow to Gary Austin.
He flew east for Juilliard in 1968, but not before joining in on the fun at The Committee’s June Satirathon, which featured pretty much everybody. That Satirathon was recorded in full, and maybe someday we’ll find a full tape and hear him improvise, or even ask for suggestions. For now, we’ll settle with this gorgeous picture of David Ogden Stiers from that night, shot by the late John Byrne Cooke. RIP.
As we continue to research The Committee and interview members of its cast and community for our documentary film, it’s become clear that we are truly building the airplane while we are flying it. When we started, we imagined that our story would be a straight-forward, feature-length, “talking head” style documentary, with a heavy reliance on archival material.
Instead, given the nature of what we’ve uncovered in our research, we’re now producing the project as an episodic documentary, currently structured to be told in five parts. It is our intention not only to tell the story of The Committee, but also to shine a light on the particular joys and struggles of the individuals involved, and put their achievements in the context of their time.
We recognize that this is an ambitious vision. To help us toward this end, we have recently formed two important partnerships. The San Francisco Film Society (SFFILM) has taken us on as our fiscal sponsor, a partnership that will allow us to receive institutional grant funding and tax-deductible donations from individuals. This fiscal sponsorship is a key tool for fundraising and we can’t wait to introduce our project to funders, individuals and foundations alike.
Our second partner – Ninth Street Independent Film Center – has accepted us into their Incubator Program, which will allow us the use of an office space and screening room subsidized by The San Francisco Film Commission. We will move into the office, located in San Francisco’s Civic Center, later in the fall.
We’ve been working on this project for over five years at this point, and feel that our tilt to episodic storytelling, a fiscal sponsor, and workspace are major breakthroughs and will help us move faster and more efficiently. We will update this blog and our Facebook page with news of events and screenings. Thanks for your support and interest.
A rare moment with Maestros Milburn and Mathieu. #homemovies #blinkofaneye
Work session in The Game, tightening up funding proposals and pitch decks. More to report soon.
We had an amazing time this weekend visiting the Summer of Love exhibit at the de Young Museum with none other than Lisa Law (Flashing on The Sixties, The Hog Farm, The Jook Savages, and much more). Lisa photographed everything in the sixties, from Committee performances in San Francisco and LA, to Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Further, and everywhere else. Thanks, Lisa, for letting us tag along,
