At The Irish Rep, Director Marc Atkinson Borrull Shapes “The Beacon” into a Showcase for Kate Mulgrew and The Cast

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 21 November 2024 19:26

Written by Brad Balfour

Kate Mulgrew and Zach Appelman in "The Beacon". Photo by Carol Rosegg

Play: “The Beacon”
Playwright: Nancy Harris

Director: Marc Atkinson Borrull 

Cast: Kate Mulgrew, Zach Appelman, Sean Bell, David Mattar Merten, Ayana Workman

Where: Irish Repertory Theatre
132 W. 22 Street

Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage

When: Until November 24, 2024

Currently running at the Irish Repertory Theatre is the powerfully compelling production of "The Beacon.” Starring Kate Mulgrew as Beiv, she is a renowned artist who has left her suburban Dublin home for a secluded cottage on a rugged island off the coast of Ireland’s West Cork. Even though she’s isolated herself, she can’t escape rumors of her shadowy past. With his new wife, estranged son Colm returns home searching for answers about his father’s mysterious death. Returning to the island leaves some people searching for a light and others avoiding its glare. Once her relative peace is disrupted, the prying into the past nonetheless comes with a cost for all involved.

According to Irish playwright Nancy Harris, “The idea for “The Beacon” began with two things — a place and an image. The place was West Cork and the image was of a glass house overlooking the wild Atlantic sea.”

She added, “Working with a company whose history was so grounded in that part of the country got me thinking about my own west of Ireland roots. Though originally from Dublin, my family moved to West Cork for an extended period of time when I was a small child because my father, another writer, was immersed in historical research about the area during the famine.”

For American actor and author Mulgrew, it was appreciated return to the live stage. Best known for such roles as Captain Kathryn Janeway in “Star Trek: Voyager” and Red in “Orange Is the New Black” the 69 year old first came to attention in the role of Mary Ryan in the daytime soap opera “Ryan's Hope.” This small screen stalwart has nabbed a Critics' Choice Award, a Saturn Award, and an Obie, and has also received Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

The play was originally commissioned by Druid, the renowned new writing company founded by Garry Hynes, which is based in the west of Ireland. But to make this production come to fruition here required a director who could bring the forces of story and talent together. That required such a vet as NYC and Dublin-based Marc Atkinson Borrull who recently had a birthday on November 18th. His critically acclaimed record includes the first major revival of Enda Walsh's "Bedbound" (Landmark, Galway International Arts Festival and Olympia Theatre), David Eldridge's "Beginning" and Nick Payne's "Constellations" (Gate Theatre, Dublin), and Elaine Murphy's "Little Gem" (Irish Rep: Outer Critics’ Circle Award).

The 35 year-old had co-founded Sugarglass, a company which has presented work internationally, including the Irish Premiere of "Tender Napalm" by Philip Ridley (Project Arts Centre, Dublin), “All Hell Lay Beneath” (Irish Times ‘Cultural Highlight of the Year’), "Five Minutes Later" by Ellen Flynn (The Lir, Dublin) and "Ethica: Four Shorts" by Samuel Beckett -- which was presented in the residence of the Irish President to celebrate International Human Rights Day (Krastyo Theatre, Bulgaria; Happy Days Festival, Enniskillen). 

Because the play left such an indelible impression, I interviewed Borrull in order to prompt others to see it at the Rep before it closes this coming weekend.

Q: How did you get involved with this project in the first place? 

I brought the play to the Irish Rep. I know Nancy the playwright's work. I work in New York and I go back and forth between Ireland and here. I have known Nancy's writing from Ireland. I directed a lot of the Gate Theatre in Dublin and produced a lot of Nancy's recent works. I've been thinking about projects that would make sense to the Irish Rep — contemporary Irish plays, which could speak to an American audience but also represent a little more of what Ireland looks like today.

I thought The Beacon was the perfect play for that. I brought it to them and then Nicola Murphy, their director of New Work, programmed it for this New Work series. They do have readings which we did last October and one of the amazing things about the Irish Rep is that they can move so quickly when they want to. We did the reading and then not long after they decided to program it for their main stage in September. it was a very quick turnaround but an exciting one

Q: The play does recall those kinds of classic murder mysteries that have been seen on the stage. Have you debated the ending? Did you have a clear idea, or was it meant to be ambiguous?

Marc Atkinson Borrull: I don't want to give a spoiler for your readers necessarily.

Q: We can do it without a spoiler.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: I read the ending as not ambiguous. Certainly Kate and I spent a long time discussing, debating and thinking about this in rehearsal. we came to our own conclusion; I think that that's essential. she can't play that ending without knowing what she believes happened. And so, to try and answer your question, I would say that one of the things that animates this play is this huge secret between mother and son that has existed for over a decade.

I think really the journey of the play is that, by the end of the second act, she’s forced to tell him this secret she's been wanting to tell him for years and years and years — but vowed not to. I know from my conversations with Nancy [Harris], that, of course there is some ambiguity there as there always is in life, but the intent is that there is a truth that is told at the end.

Q: I worked around it by leaving that word ambiguity in there. It reminded me a bit of Hitchcock. Did you have certain other stories that it brought out in mind? It brought Hitchcock out clearly. This could have been filmed by Hitchcock.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: There's a Hitchcock-esque quality to it, isn't there? I try to treat each individual project as its own thing, but there's certainly a little bit of Hitchcock in there, and that form of the thriller that’s running through it is really clear. Strangely, I was thinking a lot about Greek plays and those kinds of secrets that are kept between families and this idea of a curse that gets passed down from generation to generation whether people want it or not. I think that those overtures are pretty conscious in this writing. 

As you know, the kind of emotional places where the play arrives are pretty extreme, and I think there's a lot being borrowed from the structure of these old Greek plays. I also know that it was Nancy's first attempt to write a well-made play. A lot of her work is much more formally experimental, usually and I know that she was in a particular state of mind where she really wanted to write her own version of a well-made play. So there's bits of it in there as well.

Q: It also recalls a bit of that movie with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve — “Deathtrap” [based on the 1978 play of the same name] or "Sleuth." What is great about this play is that it reminded me of things that made it familiar, but at the same time, it had its own unique storyline. The dynamic between mother and son, which was unusual. 

One of the things about it was that sometimes you get a story and you need to have a history lesson. This was not when I had to have a history lesson, but you're right about the Greek tragedy. there's all these things that it touches on. Were there things that brought, besides the Greek tragedy, were there other things that brought up for you,

Marc Atkinson Borrull: The other kind of references?

Q: Not so much references, but you could see you are intrigued about the play because it brought you along the same lines as these other productions, but it was a very different storyline, but it had this element of mystery. It had this question of personality, why the family was that way. Like you said, there was a family history there that is meant to be, you need to learn. And what's good about the play is you learn it very quickly.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: I think you're absolutely right, that the story could play out in lots of different locations, but I think that it's also doing something, talking about contemporary Ireland in an interesting way. Ireland is a country that's changed so drastically over the last 20 years. I moved to Limerick when I was 11 years old. 

I've seen just an enormous amount of change over the 20 years for me There such change  30 years later for the country from legalizing divorce, contraception, gay marriage, and abortion. The country has undergone a pretty radical sea change, and I think that Nancy was self-consciously trying to write an Irish play, which deals with contemporary themes.

The plot between the two men, even just the representation of Beiv, this character as a fierce, fearless, feminist Irish artist who is very uninterested in the old tropes. I think all of that is a pretty conscious decision on Nancy’s part to try and represent a more contemporary vision of Ireland, but through a form, essentially a kitchen sink drama, a form that is, as you say, very recognizable for audiences.

Q: It also reminds me of the life and writing of the late author Edna O’Brien. I just saw a documentary about her, and it made me think about how much Ireland is now driven by women as opposed to by men. You can think about how horrible those men were in Ireland, and you could understand Beiv’s behavior in light of that.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Absolutely. It was her desire to run away and just create her art on a small island.

Q: Also to be this distinct personality in her own right and not be defined by men as so many women in Ireland were forced to be.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: I suppose if you want to think about it metaphorically, there’s a metaphor at the center of the play obviously, of this painting [with its huge red encircling shape at its center] that we're staring at. We don’t know what we're supposed to see inside it, but perhaps there is an answer in there that’s been staring at us all along. 

When Nancy and I were preparing the play, she talked to me about shame and guilt and their role in Irish society and culture. I don't think it's a coincidence that a contemporary female Irish writer is writing a play about a secret or something that everybody knows but is unwilling to look at properly or is willing to look to the side of it in order to see something else. Or even to see what they want to see rather than what's really there. If we think about some of the great shames that have been in the last couple of decades, there has been a culture of looking away or seeing what you want to see. So I think, even metaphorically, some of that is infused with the play.

Q: Having mentioned shame and guilt, you've got to see this Edna O'Brien film because it talks about how she had to deal with the shame and guilt being foisted on her because she was a liberated Irish woman at a time when that was not tolerated.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Absolutely. she was sort of a trailblazer in that way, wasn't she?

Q: The play builds on that tradition, but it's very much a play that could only have been created after all the things that have happened in Ireland — fighting for abortion and women's rights and gay rights and such. 

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Of course. Exactly. Right.

Q: You obviously have an English accent. How does that come into play with your history of having lived in Ireland? Now you're living in the States, I assume.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: I’m a bit of a mongrel. When I'm in England, they tell me that I have an Irish accent, which I don't understand because I think it’s southern English. Nobody ever knows where to place me. My father is English of Irish descent, and my mother is Catalan from Spain. I was born in Canterbury, England, but we moved around a lot when I was a kid. I lived in England for most of my childhood. Then we ended up moving to Limerick in the west of Ireland when I was 11 years old. I spent all of my teenage years in Ireland and then went to Trinity first and Dublin for undergrad. I moved here to New York for grad school. For some reason, my accent has stayed stubbornly like this. I don’t know what it is, but I can't even do other accents.

Q: Now that you're in New York, were you acting as well?

Marc Atkinson Borrull: No, I'm just a director. When I first went to university in Dublin, I thought I was going to be one. I was tunnel visioned into becoming an actor, but the truth is, I was not very good. Then somebody said to me, “Hey, would you like to direct this show?” I sort of thought, “Oh, well, why not? I'll give it a try." Of course, I immediately fell in love with it, and it helps that it was something I could do well. 

Q: Now you're directing plays. Have you done films at all?

Marc Atkinson Borrull: I’ve worked on a couple of small independent films. During Covid, I realized that I couldn't really rely on live entertainment, so I started to get interested… I've always been a lover of film, but I've never worked in it, so I've just been dipping my toes into it. I've made a couple of little independent shorts, but I'm planning to do a bit more of it over the coming years.

Q: I was really trying to draw the distinction in my head of directing a movie versus directing a play. It has been said many times that directing a play is a whole different animal from directing a film because there are so many other issues. There's a lot of things you have to be concerned with that have nothing to do with the actors. Yet with a play, it’s all about the actors and their relationship to the words. what it is for you, the process of directing a play?

Marc Atkinson Borrull: For sure, you're right. When you're directing a film, what you're thinking about is the cut. how is each scene or each take going to cut together and what is the rhythm of that? how do you create meaning using clever cuts whereas on stage, you're thinking about continuous action, right? How do you tell the story over the course of one whole night or one whole series of events that doesn’t stop and doesn't cut away. It has to keep moving. in the theater, we're thinking a lot about how one thing leads to the next, and then leads to the next thing. How do you do that fluidly? A lot of directing is just threading the needle from moment to moment

Q: In this play, because it's essentially in one room with one dominant image, you really have a lot of elements of directing that aren't the same as say some other play where there's more than one set, for example.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: No, you have my job in the play, this is to go really zoom really into the acting to make sure that the acting is as detailed as nuanced, just complicated as possible. And I think we've really achieved that with this production, the five actors are presenting really complex relationships and that hopefully the audience is tracking how those relationships change over the course of an evening. And of course, you're also thinking about the choreographic elements. Where do people stand in that one room?

Q: And how they move.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Exactly, how they move, how close to one another, how far when they're looking at each other when they're not. There's a moment that I particularly like in the second act where it's just Baiv and her son Colm, and they're talking about his missing wife, and he's so angry at her, but then he goes and sits right next to her on the couch. 

Although they are absolutely tearing each other apart, they're sitting right next to each other, sort of softly. That's true of parents and children sometimes you can be so enraged with the other person and yet need them to be your parent. that kind of complexity between what people are saying and people are doing physically, being at odds with one another is what makes theater acting so exciting and so interesting.

Q: Well, one thing you do is that you've figured out how to make the characters really feel distinct within each other, in who they are.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Yes.

Q: With that in mind, did you know any of these actors before? Or was everybody new? Kate was new to you, I gather.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: These were all brand new to me. Yes. We approached Kate and she said yes, and she's such a wonderful actor and collaborator that I feel like I've known her for decades. But yes, it was the first time we've worked together. And then the others who are terrific, they all came to me through auditions and we had a wonderful casting director,Geoff Josselson, who introduced me to all of them. But yeah, completely new. And it's the first time in a long time that I've worked with a company of all completely new actors. I tend to like to work with people who I've worked with before and develop that kind of relationship and sort of shorthand that comes through long collaborations. But this was brand new and it was really refreshing, I have to say.

Q: Talk about what was unique in working with the Irish Rep?

Marc Atkinson Borrull: People always say to me, when you're working at the Irish Rep, it's like coming home. It sounds like a cliche, but that’s absolutely right. Basically, they run that building like a big family. They take such good care of you and the actors. That's pretty unique. You can end up in theaters where everybody is doing their job and doing them well, but here you can tell that there's a sort of extra layer of care. I also think that by the standards of New York theaters, they moved really fast, which is really exciting. Sometimes you can be talking to a theater about a project and they're saying, oh yeah, maybe in two years it's going to fit into our program. 

Because of the way that they work, something like this can happen, which is really exciting. They care so deeply about the work that gets put on their stage. It's such a unique space to work in because it's quite an intimate house in some ways, but they can attract such amazing actors like Kate. audiences have this opportunity to get right up close to really astonishing performers. I think that's a pretty unique thing that they have that is so exciting for a director.

Q: Did you go back in and watch any episodes of Star Trek: Voyager?

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Of course [chuckles]. And Orange is the New Black too. You know.

Q: Yes. But  I'm a devotee of Star Trek: Voyager.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: it’s terrific to go back and watch some of it and remember how radical it was. you see that's the thing about Kate, that's why she's so brilliant for this role. Just like Baiv in the play, she's a trailblazer. how radical it was to have a female captain in Voyager and the way that she was presented and the way that Kate insisted on her being presented. It is even true of her earlier work. Did you know "Ryan’s Hope" at all? The first show she starred in?

Q: I saw it in its day. Yeah.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: I’ve only seen clips from it, but even from what I understand that there was a kind of radicalness in Kate's portrayal of Mary Ryan too at the time. I just think she's had a career of being a fearless trailblazer. So it's a real honor to be a small part of that

Q: Well, did you ever feel a little intimidated or that, you felt, damn it, I'm going to make sure I am the director.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Well, that is my job, is to whatever feelings of, I think it's Peter Brook used to say, the famous director, when he was asked, what do you do on the first day of rehearsal? His answer was always, whatever it takes to get to the second day. Directors are not immune to feeling intimidated or nervous or feeling like you've got to prove yourself in front of your team. But our job is to park those feelings and lead the process. 

The way I try to do that is to treat any actor, to treat everyone like any actor. They're a collaborator who's there in front of me, and I'm excited to see what they're going to do and how I can help push that. The thing with people like Kate is she's a consummate professional who loves the work. So if you can just focus on getting down to the granular detail of the work and all of it then everything else goes out the window, who she's, what she's done, and it's just two collaborators focusing on the material.

Q: obviously even if an actor has done a lot — has a large body of work — you can't think about it. You have to think about them in relation to the play only.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Exactly right. Also remember that I have to remind myself all the time that they too are, each project is new and they too are nervous. Will I figure this one out? Will this one be different from the rest? How am I going to live up to the kind reputation and all of those kinds of questions that they're dealing with? And when you remember that as a director, it gives you a lot of empathy for what that actor is in the middle trying to figure out.

Q: You're right in a way when you're a well-known actor who's taking on a role that, I don't remember when Kate was last on stage, there's a certain pressure put on them in a way.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Of course. And it's brave, the camera, we were talking about the difference between film and theater. And while film of course, is film acting extremely difficult in its own ways, it does shield you a little bit from that. You can always have another take or you can edit around something or in theater, you are right out there and you could be there for two hours. And it's a very vulnerable, brave thing to do. I always think when actors come back to the theater.

Q: Then you got to get up there the next day.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Exactly. Whatever happens, you got to do it again.

Q: do you have hopes to take this elsewhere or for it to enjoy some further life with the Irish Rep at another point? Or is there any kind of conversation in that regard?

Marc Atkinson Borrull: It's early days for those kinds of conversations. I know that they obviously have, they have stuff, they have their own next bits of work coming up, so I don't anticipate that we'll be extending this specific run of it, but I know that the play’s being a real hit with their audiences. And so you'd never say never. It would be a joy to see it have a further life. I'm pretty sure that this will be the start of the journey with Kate, with Nancy [the playwright] and with the rest of the ensemble. These are all artists I want to keep working with.

Q: In any case, It was an audience-expanding show that has been getting rave reviews.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: Oh yes, great…

Q: I didn’t realized how critical a role you had. This is special because it brought in a new director — not necessarily new — but a director that hasn't been there on that stage so much. That in and of itself was something I didn't think was as emphasized because, of course, you had the spotlight on Kate, and that's an important point.

Marc Atkinson Borrull: The Irish Rep [team] are really brave in the way they do things. I actually directed there once before in 2019, just before the pandemic, and was a 28-year-old director who'd done some relatively high-profile work in Ireland, yet I was still young and inexperienced. They took a risk, a gamble on me. They said, "Okay, let's give you a show." I'm always amazed and impressed by theaters that are willing to do that with younger artists because there are so many places where they're so risk-averse. I think one of the amazing things about the Irish Rep is that they just go, "Sure, let's try something and see what happens."

Master Animator Bill Plympton Keeps The Tradition of 2D Art Alive Through Provocative Animated Features Such as “Slide”

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Friday, 08 November 2024 14:28

Written by Brad Balfour

Who: Bill Plympton
What: Big Apple Comic Con
When: November 23rd, 2024
Where: New Yorker Hotel
Address: 481 8th Ave.

In all the years I’ve known Bill Plympton, I still don’t quite comprehend how many drawings he’s made in his life. And he does them so they can work wonderfully well in sequence. There’s a certain crazy genius about him and the work he does.

From stories which include Hitler and a half-naked Trump, Plympton has never shied away from controversial stories and characters. And yet the Bill I know rarely has a harsh word for anyone and is never lacking in joy. He’ll be appearing at this year’s Big Apple Comic Con at the New Yorker Hotel, November 23rd, and has recently released “Slide,” his latest animated feature that’s also a something of a musical.

Born April 30, 1946 in Portland, Oregon, the 78 year-old was raised on a farm in nearby Oregon City with five siblings providing the roots of an odd life. Then, from ’64 to ’68, he studied Graphic Design at Portland State University, where he was a film society member. In ’68, he transferred to New York City’s School of Visual Arts, where he majored in cartooning and graduated in 1969.

When we first met, he was a cartoonist with a political strip. “Plympton,” running in the “SoHo Weekly News” which began in 1975. Eventually it was syndicated in over 20 newspapers. Plympton’s illustrations and cartoons have been published in “The New York Times” and the weekly newspaper. “The Village Voice,” as well as in the magazines “Vogue,” “Rolling Stone,” “Vanity Fair,” ”Penthouse,” and “National Lampoon.”

In 1988, his animated short “Your Face” was Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Short Film. He did other animated shorts, too, including “25 Ways to Quit Smoking” [1989] and “Enemies” [1991,] the latter of which was part of the “Animania” series on MTV, where many of his shorts were shown.

In ’91, Plympton won the Prix Spécial du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival for “Push Comes to Shove” which was featured on MTV’s animated series, "Liquid Television." The next year, his self-financed first full-length animated feature, “The Tune,” debuted at Sundance Film Festival. His work also appeared on the 1992/’93 Fox comedy series, "The Edge." In '93, he also made his first live action film, "J. Lyle" and later in 2016, the mockumentary, "Hitler’s Folly." 

Distant relative, actress Martha Plimpton, served as associate producer on his animated feature, “Hair High” [2004], doing much of the casting which included her father Keith Carradine and uncle David. “Guard Dog” [2004] was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Plympton’s 2008 80-minute feature, “Idiots and Angels”– entirely without dialogue — premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival -- and was presented by legendary animator Terry Gilliam. In 2011, director Alexia Anastasio released a doc on Plympton –– “Adventures in Plymptoons!” — direct-to-DVD and through video-on-demand. Then, Plympton collaborated with film critic, Perry Chen, on “Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest,” a 2011 short animated film about the noted actress and Holocaust survivor.

All that served to get Plympton the opportunity to animate the opening couch gag for the Simpsons episodes “Beware My Cheating Bart” in 2012, “Black Eyed, Please” in 2013, “Married to the Blob” in 2014, “Lisa the Veterinarian” in 2016, “22 for 30” in 2017, “3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage” in 2018, “Manger Things” in 2021 and “One Angry Lisa” in 2022. He also did as well as the menus and packaging for the Season 19 DVD. Thanks to his old friend and fellow Portland, Oregon, native Matt Groening, he reached his largest audiences ever.

Other productions included contributing animation and graphics to a computer game collection, “Take Your Best Shot,” in 1995. He also published a comic book in 2003, “The Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton.” In 2005, Plympton animated a music video for Kanye West’s “Heard ‘Em Say.” The following year, he created the music video for “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Don’t Download This Song.” Plympton contributed animation to the 2006 History Channel series, “10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America,” to illustrate the Shays’ Rebellion. Together with other independent New York City animators, he has released two DVDs of animated shorts, both titled “Avoid Eye Contact.” He also directed the segment “On Eating and Drinking” in the 2014 animated film ,“The Prophet,” adapted from Kahlil Gibran’s book.

In 2018, Plympton created a series of videos for The New York Times called “Trump Bites.” One of the series, “Trump and Putin: A Love Story,” depicts Trump and Putin kissing half-naked. Controversial as ever, some critics said the video implied that gay relationships were inherently comic and immoral.

Bill then turned to Kickstarter to speed up production on “Slide,” his new animated feature in the works. Bill drew his inspiration for “Slide” from his life, growing up in Oregon, playing the slide guitar. He loves country music, especially the music of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. It took more than two years to complete “Slide,” but a successful Kickstarter campaign was going to bring Bill’s newest film out in 2021.

Then the pandemic hit.

Q: It seems your Wikipedia page has not been updated, because it talked about a movie coming out in 2022.

Bill Plympton: Well, because of Covid, I had to drop the movie and make money. Usually, I do a lot of lectures and film festivals at movie theaters. But because of Covid, I ran out of money. [So I did] music videos and things like that. Then I picked it up again in about 2022. 

I’ll tell you a little bit about the new film called “Slide” — which is now out. It’s about a slide guitar player — it’s a cowboy film, a Western — who comes into this corrupt lumberjack town and cleans up all the corruption in town with his music. He doesn’t use guns or whips or knives or anything like that. He uses his music to create a better town. It’s as if Mel Brooks was an animator. This is what he would do. It’s not for kids. There’s prostitutes in there, a lot of bloody violence. It’s really something very different, very unique, and that’s why I’m really excited about the film. It’s also a musical.\

It has six new songs from Maureen McElheron. I’ve been working with her since I first moved to New York. You probably met her in my early days. We had a band. We played a bunch of clubs, and I played slide guitar — she sang the songs. She did the song for “Your Face.” She did the music for “The Tune” [1992] and the music for “I Married a Strange Person!” [1997]. She did a lot of my music for a lot of my films.

Q: Somewhere online, you were selling some of your cels and art and stuff. Hopefully, you didn’t have to sell a lot of it. I’d rather you see it be donated or get paid by one archive, because there must be a million people who want to study what you’ve been doing.

Bill Plympton: Yeah, that’s a very good point. The selling of the originals actually is a really good deal, and that is very popular — more popular than I expected. If you’ve been to my studio, I have a whole wall of boxes of art that I’m willing to sell, like $200 each, $300 each. So it’s a good way to raise funds and keep my studio somewhat orderly [laughs] without all these boxes of artwork.

Q: It’s a good thing that at events like these Comic Cons, you can be signing and doing pictures — you are quite in demand.

Bill Plympton: I like the Big Apple [Comic Con] because there’s a lot of fans of mine who live in New York. Truthfully, the biggest sellers are “Your Face” [1987] artwork and “The Simpsons” — people love “The Simpsons.” There’s a lot of fans in New York City for “Simpsons” art and I have a lot of original “Simpsons” artwork.

But the interesting thing is that the animation that’s on “The Simpsons” is all digital. In other words, they created it on their laptop or computer. I’m the last guy who actually makes drawings on paper, so I’m the only guy who has “Simpsons” artwork that is legit — real artwork that is in the film. That gives it a very high resale potential; it makes the artwork very valuable.

Q: What’s the secret to how you are able to make so much art — your hand can be drawing while you’re sleeping!?

Bill Plympton: Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. That would be good. Sometimes I even draw left-handed — I’m basically right-handed — but if my hand gets tired, I’ll draw left-handed and it actually helps speed up the process.

Q: It sounds like whatever your assistants do, you still do the majority of the real creation there.

Bill Plympton: Let me tell you exactly what I do, because there’s some confusion. A lot of people think I have inbetweeners and people who do the artwork. I do the story, of course. I do the storyboards, all the character design, all the background design and the layout. I do all the animation — 100% of everything there is mine. I did all the drawings, and I colored the drawings, too. I do all the coloring.

There’s two reasons [why] I do that. One is, it’s cheaper that way. I don’t pay a lot of money to hire other artists. The other reason — it’s more fun. I love drawing all day long. That’s my passion in life: drawing all day long. So it works out pretty well for me. As an independent, I don’t have a lot of money and I have to finance everything myself. As an independent, I have to keep the budget low.

Q: It must be tough to resist the urge to train a computer to be you.

Bill Plympton: I’m really bad with computers [laughs.] In fact, I don’t even know how to answer my emails, so I have someone to do it. I’m so busy drawing, I’ve never really learned how to use a computer. So it’s a bad situation; I’m not proud of that. But it’s just the reality of my artistic life.

Q: You are married and have had a son. How old is he?

Bill Plympton: He’s 12 years old, and he loves drawing. He wants to be a game designer. He wants to design games and is actually doing one right now.

Q: So that could become your next source of income. He could game-ify a lot of your stories and works.

Bill Plympton: That’s a great idea. I’ll tell him you said that.

Q: Yeah. By the time he’s 14, you could be sitting back and smoking your cigar while games are generating income [laughs.]

Bill Plympton: Right, that’s true.

Q: It’s mystifying how you come up with some of these wacky ideas. And then, forget about coming up with them, following the path of your narratives is a whole other thing.

Bill Plympton: Well, just so you know, I live in New York City, and New York City is basically a cartoon city. There’s so many ideas on every block, and I carry around a sketch pad with me to write down the ideas and the weird things I see. So that’s where a lot of ideas come from.

Q: You’ve done so many films. It’s hard to say which one people think was the weirdest and which one people think is the best for kids. Which one do you think could be adapted to live action?

Bill Plympton: Okay, let me start. My favorite film is probably “Your Face” because that really put me on the map. That really opened me up to the whole animation industry. My favorite feature film is “Cheatin'” [2013], which I did about 10 years ago. It’s a really beautiful film, I love it. The weirdest film is “I Married a Strange Person!”, which actually was the biggest hit. It was my biggest success. Can I tell you a story about it?

Q: Absolutely.

Bill Plympton: Okay, well, “I Married a Strange Person!” came out in [1998] and got invited to the Sundance Film Festival. Which is really special, because generally they don’t like animated films. So we showed it, the audience went crazy for it, standing ovations, they loved it. I thought, “I’m going to make some money on this film.” But no distributors bought it, and I thought, “Oh, this is terrible.” You’ve been to Sundance, right? You know the buses that go around the city?

Q: Yeah.

Bill Plympton: Anyway, I was on the bus and I saw the head of Lion’s Gate Films; I knew him from somewhere. I walked up to him and I said, “Hey! How’re you doing? I’m Bill Plympton, remember me? I did a film, ‘I Married a Strange Person!.’ Have you had a chance to see it yet?” He said “No, I’ve been busy. There’s been so many films to see. I don’t have time to see “I Married a Strange Person.” So I was pretty depressed.

Then this snowboard dude jumps on the bus, with snow dripping down his face, beard, and just wet from head to toe. He says “Hey, you’re Bill Plympton! Duuude, I loved ‘I Married a Strange Person!’ That’s the best film I’ve seen all year!” He then jumps off the bus and goes down the hill. That’s the last time I saw that guy, but the guy from Lion’s Gate said, “Okay, I guess I’d better watch your film.” He loved it, bought it, and it made a lot of money. It was one of my most successful films. All thanks to that snowboard dude. I don’t know what his name was, but he saved my ass.

Q: Of all the films you made, are there any you’d like to see made in live-action?

Bill Plympton: Not really. I really love animation. Animation, to me, is the best format for telling stories. However, I am working on a book now, a “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” kind of book, that I think would make a great live-action feature, or animated film. It’s called “Sky High” — I don’t know when it’s going to be coming out, but it’ll be coming out probably in the fall sometime.

Q: Would you want to have one of your ideas made into a digitally-created animated film, just to see how it looks?

Bill Plympton: Oh, yeah. No, I like Pixar films. I like Disney films. I have no problem with computer animation. In fact, I think computer animation really saved the animation industry. Because of Pixar and Dreamworks, animated films now are huge, huge box office. In fact, something like “Avatar,” which is really a computer film, they [made] like two billion dollars or something. I think they’re the most successful art form in a long time. So I’m perfectly happy to see computer animation used for films.

Q: Did you ever think you would be considered that far ahead of your time?

Bill Plympton: Well, I wasn’t ahead of my time, I was behind. I’m a dinosaur in the business. I think people will start appreciating hand-drawn animation a little bit more. Someone like [Hayao] Miyazaki [co-founder of Studio Ghibli], his films are incredibly popular. And, of course, “The Simpsons” is very popular. They’re all hand-drawn. So I think there’s still a market for those kinds of films. But certainly, the computer itself is so, so massively popular.

Q: Have you seen the films of Irish born Tomm Moore? [“The Secret of Kells” (2009), “Song of the Sea” (2014) and Wolfwalkers (2020), were all nominated for Oscars] They’re a mix of hand-drawn and digital.

Bill Plympton: Yes, that’s Cartoon Saloon [co-founded with Nora Twomey and Paul Young]. I visited his studio, actually; he’s a really nice guy. I really celebrate his [work], it’s very different. He was like me: he started out as an illustrator, doing illustrations for magazines. Then he got into animation, and it became really popular, very successful, and I’m really happy for his success.

Q: Your Hitler film, “Hitler’s Folly [2016] must have been your most controversial.

Bill Plympton: It was, yeah. Actually, my most controversial film was “Trump Bites” [2018-2019]. I did a series of short films for “The New York Times” about Trump and the things he said. I would take his dialogue — which is crazy, as you know — and then I would do animation to accent the surrealism of what he was saying. I got so much hate mail — oh my God, tons of it. [Conservative pundit] Sean Hannity showed the film on Fox and man, I was inundated with this hate mail, death threats, and stuff like that. It was pretty ugly. It’s still really ugly stuff.

That was my most controversial film, I’d say. I only did one season of it, but it was the highest-rated show on the “New York Times” online programming. In a way, that’s good; but in a way, it’s because I was so controversial.

But anyway, the Hitler film I thought was a great idea. Again, Mel Brooks made a film about Hitler, [1967’s “The Producers;” “Mel Brooks: To Be or Not to Be”, music video (1983)] and so did Charlie Chaplin [“The Great Dictator” (1940.)] Disney made a Hitler film [“Jojo Rabbit”, dir. Taika Waititi (2019.)] What I was doing is not that controversial. There have been a lot of Hitler comedies before, so I didn’t get too much feedback.

Q: Whether it’s a sad thing, or a good thing, “Hitler” is such a crazy concept that it can be made into so many movies and books. Nobody, still to this day, believes he could have really been a real thing. Except that he was.

Bill Plympton: Yes, you’re right. If his art career had taken off, if he had gotten into animation, he never would have been a dictator. He would have been a dictator-animator, but I don’t think he would have been a political dictator.

Q: Norman Spinrad wrote a book, “The Iron Dream,” which envisions Hitler as a science fiction writer. You should look that up. You’d appreciate that.

Bill Plympton: Yeah, I think I would.

Q: So what is your opinion on “Rick and Morty”? What do you think about that, all the controversy?

Bill Plympton: That’s really well-written. I don’t think the artwork is so good, but I love the writing and the imagination. Another one I like a lot is “SpongeBob.” I think “SpongeBob” is definitely a takeoff on Bugs Bunny and Warner Brothers cartoons. The humor, the visual craziness. And it’s all visual humor, whereas most [cartoons] are word humor. I like visual humor the best.

I did think one answer to your question of what films of mine would be great for kids? For the Cartoon Network, I did a Christmas special, “12 Tiny Christmas Tales” [2001.] It’s a half-hour, and the reviews were off the wall. They were like, “Oh, this is brilliant! This is the best thing ever! The best Christmas special ever!” Then the Cartoon Network put it in their vaults and they never showed it again.

Q: I was going to say, “Why aren’t you a perennial like Charles Schultz?

Bill Plympton: Exactly. It really was a unique Christmas special. We’ve been trying to get them to show it again, but it’s hard. But at least it shows in other countries. In Argentina, it’s a big success. They show it every Christmas, and people say, “You did ‘12 Tiny Christmas Tales’! All right, dude!”

Q: Do you ever think about doing your own Christmas [project] and distributing it on your own?

Bill Plympton: Maureen McElheron wants me to do that. She has a story that she thought would be a great Christmas special. But it’s hard to sell something like that, unless I had connections with Netflix or Hulu or Apple, or something like that. I don’t have those connections.

Q: You don’t have a vast array of agents and managers. [Laughs.] And you can be controversial.

Bill Plympton: No, I’m independent. And I do adult animation. They think there’s no market for that. So, it’s a very difficult business to be in.

Q: So, what do you think about what happened to wildly successful cartoonist Scott Adams who made some questionable comments about African Americans which caused his “Dilbert” strip to be dropped by his syndicate?

Bill Plympton: And he’s one of the cartoonists I liked the most. I love his cartoons. They’re not only funny; they’re of a dry, deadpan kind of humor, and I like that. But why would he say that? I guess he felt he was so popular that he can say anything and not get blowback on it. But yeah, that’s a stupid thing to do. One thing that disappointed me was the troubles that John Lasseter had with Disney. You probably read about it, right?

Q: Yeah. 

Bill Plympton: Without him, animation would be a much deader business. Pixar is the great studio of the last two or three decades, and they single handedly raised animation to the art form that it is now. That’s all due to John Lasseter [who was chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, as well as Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering]. He is the genius of geniuses, and I think he deserves a better fate than that. He joined this other studio, Skydance [Animation] and did a film called “Luck.” It wasn’t very good. I don’t know what happened; it was really a bad film. But I will always be indebted to him for making animation such a powerful, powerful art form.

For more info go to: https://plymptoons.com/

To see Bill at Big Apple Comic Con go to:bogspplecc.com

With George Heslin as Executive Director, The NY Irish Center Celebrates 20 years as a Culture Hub for its Community

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 19 September 2024 14:06

Written by Brad Balfour

George C. Heslin, photo by Brad Balfour.

Based in Long Island City, The NY Irish Center (NYIC) launches an ambitious season of new programming initiatives starting in September. Joining the Center for the first time will be Ireland’s national broadcaster TG4, introducing the first Irish language film festival in the U.S. May 2025 (exact dates to come). 

Also un-spooling at the Center will be a Saturday Series of international cartoons curated by Ireland’s celebrated animation studio Cartoon Saloon (starting Feb 2025). A season-long literary deep- dive, “The National Endowment for the Arts ‘Big Read,’” runs from Oct 1, 2024 to June 30, 2925, with 18 events in partnership with Flushing Town Hall, Hunters Point Library, India Home and Irish American Writers and Artists. 

Also among the highlights, NYIC premieres “Crossroads Concerts,” a new music series that blends and juxtaposes Irish folk traditions with music from many other cultures. It kicks off on Thursday, September 19th, at 7 pm. Curated by ethno-musicologist and educator Colin Harte, the eight-concert series runs monthly from September to June 2025 (skipping November and January). Harte brings together a stunning line-up of virtuoso folk musicians, many of whom are renowned in nearby Queens neighborhoods. 

NYIC executive director George C. Heslin explains, “In addition to the US and world premieres of plays and films we regularly present, we want the 20th season to be full of new discoveries. We are also happy to open our doors even wider than before to share Irish culture with more and more of our incredible neighbors. Headlining our resident trad music series on its first night of the season are the husband and wife duo of Siobhán and Willie Kelly (two stars of the Irish folk firmament in America).”

For two nights — September 25 and 26 — NYIC presents the NY premiere of Jay Sefton’s explosive new one-man play, “Unreconciled,” brought straight from Belfast by the director Geraldine Hughes. 

NYIC’S community-wide 20th Anniversary Celebration, on Saturday September 28 — from 2 pm to 5 pm — brings together all of NYIC’s constituent groups for a season sampler staged by Heslin, who has been the Center’s executive director since 2020. 

Added Heslin, a longtime veteran on the Irish American arts landscape, “Our 20th Anniversary Celebration is an open-house style party. It’s something we love to do at the Center… you can show up and when you do, you can be sure there will be something on stage, and merriment will prevail in all corners of the Center. ”

This is a free event with entertainment, but register in advance at: www.newyorkirishcenter.org 

The following Q&A was conducted online in advance of the above events.

Q: How long have you been into the arts, especially arts drawing on your Irish heritage?

George C. Heslin: I’ve been involved with the arts all my life. Since 2002 in NYC I have produced numerous events and productions both as a freelance artist and as Executive Director at New York Irish Center.

Q: What were the first arts experiences you had as a kid?

George C. Heslin: I had the honor of attending a Jesuit school in Limerick, Crescent College. The school had a marvelous arts program which afforded students the opportunity to act, produce and direct many plays.

Q: What are the biggest challenges in running an arts center in general and one focused on the Irish community in particular?

George C. Heslin: New York Irish Center, is a community enrichment center with numerous programs that serve the community from youth to seniors under the pillars of Community- Culture- Care. Our cultural programs focus on music, theater, movies and literary events.

Responding to the needs of a changing diaspora is another aspect of our work here at the center. Guiding and advising our new J1 arrivals is very important to us. While we offer them strategic support, it sometimes can be a challenge for new arrivals to secure employment and housing and we very much try to help with this.

Q: How do you decide what to book and how do you find the talent?

George C. Heslin: Each season we aim to present artists from a cross section of disciplines. We have a list of artists who we have worked with in the past but we also receive numerous enquiries from artists in Ireland looking to New York. We try to accommodate as many as possible

NY Irish Center’s Director of Arts & Culture Stephen Long has his finger on the pulse of what excites audiences.  NYIC is an incubator and gateway for emerging and prominent Irish talent. In planning programming Stephen works six months in advance in securing talent. 

Q: What about some of your most satisfying experiences in the arts and running a hub like this one?

George C. Heslin: The most satisfying aspect of running NYIC is saying yes to as many people as possible, offering people space to grow art, or offering networking opportunities to new arrivals, supporting our senior community with a daily welcome.

Q: The street you are on is like a little irish haven — how did that evolve?

George C. Heslin: LIC has deep historic ties to Ireland from local architecture built in the 18/19 century to our cultural footprint in Sunnyside, Woodside, Maspeth and beyond.

Q:  Talk a bit about the upcoming season — what should we look out for?

George C. Heslin: This year we have 100 cultural events to share with the community including our Annual Holiday Concert; New York Croons For Christmas with Colm Reilly & Friends, America’s first Irish Language Film Festival in association with Irish Broadcaster TG4, Queens Irish Heritage Festival and our new partnership with Oscar nominated Cartoon Saloon in Ireland.

Q: Ultimately, what do you hope people will take away from a visit to the Center?

George C. Heslin: My hope is that people have been enlightened by an aspect of Ireland from our renowned hospitality to our cultural offerings and our deep community support.

[The New York Irish Center is at 1040 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, seven minutes, and one stop, on the 7 Train from Grand Central Station. For more info and queries call 718- 482-0909 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ]