eerieindiana | Entries tagged with creator: jose rivera

Award-winning playwright and the first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Oscar, José Rivera is scheduled to speak at the College of the Canyons Performing Arts’ Virtual Insight Series on Monday, April 12.
In conjunction with his expected attendance at the COC Performing Arts’ Virtual Insight Series, Rivera is expected to host a master class for students in the Media Entertainment Arts and Theatre departments on Tuesday, April 13.

Rivera is expected to appear at the event at 5 p.m. on Monday, April 12 to share insight from his career as a playwright and screenwriter with all members of the Santa Clarita community.

“I am thrilled to bring the incomparable José Rivera to speak with our college community,” said Jennifer Smolos, Dean of the School of Visual & Performing Arts. “Learning from an esteemed screenwriter and playwright is an extraordinary opportunity for our students and faculty. José’s unique voice, combined with a willingness to share stories about how he creates stories, allows our students to understand what it takes to bring an idea to life in Theatre, Film and TV. We are so fortunate to have two special events with José as part of this series in April.”

Rivera’s work includes “On the Road,” “Letters to Juliet” and “Eerie, Indiana,” but is best known for his plays “Marisol,” “Cloud Tectonics,” “References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot” and “Sonnets for an Old Century.”

His screenplay for the 2004 film, “The Motorcycle Diaries” earned Rivera an Oscar nomination for “Best Adapted Screenplay” in 2005.

Rivera was born in Puerto Rico and lived there for the first four years of his life. His family eventually moved to New York City, settling in Long Island, where the small town environment played a significant role in the writer’s future career, according to Rivera.

Rivera’s religious family innately loved to tell spiritual stories, often involving elements of magic, which further cultivated his passion for storytelling.

“Seeing magic in the world just felt like how you perceive life,” Rivera said.

By 22 years old, he decided to become a full-time writer after previously piecing together plays in high school and consistently throughout college.

Amid these opportunities, Rivera would ask himself, “What can I contribute that isn’t already being done by a hundred other writers? And I said, I’m going to see if I can translate the magical stories of my childhood and my culture into theater.”

With these questions in the back of his mind, Rivera resulted in writing spiritual stories, derived from stories similar to the ones that floated down his family tree.

“Magic is just another way to explore the metaphors for the psychological state of the characters,” said Rivera. “The magic of the play is only really valid if it’s connected to the psychology of the characters and the reality of the moment. You ask yourself, what is the theatrical metaphor that would make this come alive in a resonant and deep way that hits you as hard as possible? That’s where the magic flourish would happen.”

Produced across the United States and translated into several languages, Rivera’s work has been honored with two Obie Awards for playwriting, a Fulbright Arts Fellowship in playwriting, a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Grant, a Whiting Award, a McKnight Fellowship, a Berilla Kerr Playwriting Award, the 2005 Norman Lear Writing Award and a 2005 Impact Award.

Choosing to balance his work between film, television and theatre, Rivera claims, “It’s a constant juggling act. I have no control over it. I’m often working on multiple projects, mostly because you never know when something’s going to come up, especially in TV and film. I love film and I love television, but I will write theatre for the pure love of it and I won’t write film and TV just for the love of it. And when I’m really moved to explore personal issues, I will write a play.”

To hear more about the experiences and advice of Rivera throughout his career, the School of Visual & Performing Arts’ Industry Insight Series for 2020-2021 is scheduled at 5 p.m. Monday, April 12.

All students, faculty, staff, Patrons of the Arts members, and members of the Santa Clarita Valley community are invited, with an opportunity to ask questions during the event.

For more information, please contact Dean Jennifer Smolos, at jennifer.smolos@canyons.edu.

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5. Tobey Maguire Played a Ghost

Before Tobey Maguire learned the Cider House Rules (which were about abortion or something) or re-invigorated then later ruined Spider-Man, he starred in an episode of Eerie, Indiana. In “The Dead Letter” Maguire plays an old-timey clothes-wearing ghost who enlists Marshall’s help in delivering a love letter to his former sweetheart. In a scene that is both touching and creepy, the young man is reunited with his love who is now a haggard old woman– it’s like a scene from Harold and Maude, or Madonna’s life.

4. The Show’s Co-Creator Also Wrote The Motorcycle Diaries

After Eerie, Indiana was cancelled, Jose Rivera (who co-created the show with Karl Schaefer) wrote the screenplay for the acclaimed film The Motorcycle Diaries. While the exploits of the famous Argentine revolutionary and noted T-Shirt logo model Che Guevara might seem like quite a departure from depicting children battling werewolves and zombies, it might interest you to know that Rivera began his career as a celebrated playwright. He also wrote for Family Matters, but you probably find that less impressive.

3. They Rebooted the Show Six Years Later

With the original show finding a new audience through syndication and a series of novelizations, a reboot of the original concept (that could also be considered a spin-off because it’s technically another dimension) was produced. In Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension, the original protagonists Marshall and Simon were replaced by their Bizzaro-world equivalents Mitchell and Stanley, played, of course, by entirely different actors. Sadly even the alternate universe iteration of the show lasted only one season.

2. Bob Balaban Directed Several Episodes

While famed director Joe Dante acted as a consultant for the show, and directed many episodes himself, another name you might recognize contributed heavily to Eerie, Indiana. Bob Balaban, who people know mainly for his acting roles in Christopher Guest’s films, Seinfeld, and Gosford Park, just to name a few. But Balaban is also an accomplished director, having helmed feature films such as the insane and underrated Parents, as well as My Boyfriend’s Back, the zombie romantic comedy that came out way, way before that sort of thing became trendy. He has also leant his cinematic chops to a myriad of TV programs including Oz and Tales From the Darkside. He directed three of the nineteen episodes of Eerie, Indiana.

1. It Had the Craziest Final Episode of All Time

Most TV shows try to up their game for the final episode, whether it’s Bob Newhart waking up in bed with his former TV wife, or Breaking Bad doing a bunch of things we’re not allowed to freely talk about on the internet yet. Even shows like The Prisoner or Lost that steered their finales firmly into the surreal didn’t have the chutzpah to do what Eerie, Indiana did. In a sly nod to The Twilight Zone episode “A World of Difference” Marshall discovers a script for a show called “Eerie, Indiana” and suddenly finds himself on the set of a TV show where his entire reality is revealled to be a fiction. His parents and friends are all actors and refer to him as “Omri Katz” (the name of the actor who plays Marshall). It’s probably the most existentially disturbing finale of any TV show, let alone a one intended for kids.

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Red Bull Theater today announced that submissions will begin for their 11th annual festival of 10-minute plays of heightened language and classic themes. Six brand new plays, inspired by this year's theme: "Restoration," will be selected through an open submission process to premiere alongside commissions from C. A. Johnson (All the Natalie Portmans) and José Rivera (Marisol, The Motorcycle Diaries).

"'Restoration' is a jumping-off point for creative thematic juices. We want writers to be in dialogue with classical theater in a multitude of surprising ways. Brainstorm by reviewing our Mission and take a look through our history of Readings and Productions. Entrants might riff on a classical character, borrow a classical milieu, or create a brand new style of dramatic verse. Finding inspiration from classics beyond the traditional Western canon is encouraged. This year's selected plays will be performed online in a Zoom-style format - write with that in mind!," explains Artistic Director Jesse Berger. The deadline is 12 Noon on Monday April 5th.

Red Bull Theater's annual Short New Play Festival has generated over 3,000 new short plays of classic themes and heightened language, presenting 80 of them in a one-night only Festival performance with some of New York's finest actors and directors. In its first ten years, the commissioned playwrights have included Marcus Gardley, John Guare, Jeremy O. Harris, David Ives, Ellen McLaughlin, Dael Orlandersmith, Theresa Rebeck, Anne Washburn, Doug Wright and winning entries by writers such as Anchuli Felicia King, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Lynn Rosen, and Jen Silverman. Stage Rights has published a 4-volume collection of the plays from the first 8 years of Red Bull Theater's annual Short New Play Festival as Red Bull Shorts.

The Eleventh Annual Short New Play Festival will be presented on Monday, July 12th online. Directors and casting will be announced at a later date. This year's Festival is made possible with the continued leadership support of The Noël Coward Foundation.

José Rivera is a recipient of Obie Awards for Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced by The Public Theatre, NY, and seen regionally and internationally. Other plays include Cloud Tectonics (Playwrights Horizons, Humana Festival, La Jolla Playhouse), Boleros for the Disenchanted (Yale Rep, Huntington Playhouse), Sueño (Hartford Stage, Manhattan Class Company), Sonnets for an Old Century (Barrow Group), School of the Americas (Public Theatre), Massacre (Sing to Your Children) (Goodman Theatre, Rattlestick), Brainpeople (ACT/San Francisco), Adoration of the Old Woman (Sundance Theatre Lab, INTAR, La Jolla Playhouse), The House of Ramon Iglesia (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Another Word for Beauty (Goodman, New York Stage and Film), The Maids (INTAR), The Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Menier Chocolate Factory, London), Each Day Dies with Sleep (Circle Rep, Berkeley Rep). His screenplay for The Motorcycle Diaries was nominated for 2005 Best Adapted ScreenplayAcademy Award - making him the first Puerto Rican writer ever nominated for an Oscar. His screenplay was also nominated for a BAFTA and Writers Guild Award, and received top screenwriting awards in Argentina and Spain. On the Road premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Trade was the first film to premiere at the United Nations. Rivera co-created and produced "Eerie, Indiana," (NBC) and was a consultant and writer on "Penny Dreadful: City of Angels" (Showtime, 2019). He will be head writer for the Netflix series based on One Hundred Years of Solitude. Rivera's short film "The Fall of a Sparrow" has been seen at the Big Apple Film Festival, the Official Latino Film Festival, The Chain Film Festival and many others. In 2020 he directed the world premiere workshop of his play Lovesong (Imperfect) at the 14th Street Y, produced by Planet Connections, as well as the short film "The Civet." He has served on the boards of Theatre Communication Group and The Sundance Institute and mentored at Sundance Screenwriting Labs in Utah, Jordan, and India. His most recent play Your Name Means Dream was part of the Rattlestick Playwrights Jam, 2020, and read at the Sundance Theatre Lab.

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Tengo información de Eerie Indiana, @Rzz_zzz @juje80 @lombrizaa @daliasoyyo (creo estaban con el tema lotro día) y @CJ_Camba que seguro le interesa : uno de los creadores fue después nominado al Oscar por el guión de Diarios de Motocicleta. Y Joe Dante dirigió varios capítulos.
— PatricioUPMA (@PatricioUPMA) October 16, 2020

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#EerieIndiana is on @PrimeVideo!!!!

19 episodes of one of the funnest, most amazing TV shows.

Thank you @UnrealKarl & #JoseRivera!! pic.twitter.com/kZhVxAsKFi
— BrianZFandom - Human (@BrianPiotrzkow1) October 6, 2020

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If you love eerie, Indiana then find Jose Rivera. Tell him we want #EerieIndiana back!
— #CoolSquare (@Hexy_Dexy) October 12, 2020

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I need to know how @UnrealKarl, Jose Rivera, and Julia Poll came up with the Eerie Indiana episode Zombies In P.J.'s.

"The Donald" comes to town and uses subliminal advertising to get an entire town to sell him their souls.

Either this is evidence of time travel, or prophecy. pic.twitter.com/HAywRHWr3n
— Max Hegel, Technicolor Bane (@JMaxHegel) October 1, 2020

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The best genre TV shows on Amazon Prime https://t.co/27d5Q5lmky
— The A.V. Club (@TheAVClub) September 18, 2020

In 1991, José Rivera and Karl Schaefer co-created Eerie, Indiana, a kid-friendly spin on Twin Peaks and The Twilight Zone about a boy named Marshall Teller (played by Omri Katz) who lives with his family in a small town infested with monsters and unexplained phenomena. Joe Dante was brought in as a creative consultant and frequent director, since this kind of premise—wholesome Americana undercut by the bizarre—is Dante’s stock in trade.

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Watch it here.

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Jose, Omri and Justin, at least one of them is going over his lines:) Jose was one of the creators of Eerie.

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Here we are, at the halfway point of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels and it’s time to have that talk, Joe. The birds. The bees. And everything in between. Let’s talk about sex, baby, because “Children of the Royal Sun” gave us so many different permutations of it. Some (threesome!) wanted. Others (Sex next to a corpse!) not. It’s also the first episode not written by John Logan, as writing duties went to Jose Rivera (who, random, created the excellent Eerie, Indiana!). There’s a lot going on here, so let’s dig in.

( Read more... )

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City of Angels makes the jump from Victorian London to tell a Mexican-American story. You're a white showrunner telling a Mexican-American story. What's the composition of your writers' room?

I'm an Angeleno. And I wanted to write a story about L.A. I'm proud of having created the Vega family, and I'm honored to get to tell their story. But I firmly believe writers need to be allowed to dream, to imagine and to speak in voices other than their own or I fear we will live in a very anemic and cannibalistic dramatic landscape. Having said that, I did everything I possibly could to bring the Latinx, Chicano and Hispanic voices into the story. Two of our writers, Tatiana Suarez-Pico (Iron Fist, The L Word: Generation Q) and Jose Rivera (Eerie, Indiana, On the Road) come from that tradition. My executive producing partner, Michael Aguilar, the designers, the majority of the cast ... I was very open to saying, tell me what's inauthentic. I could tell you what's authentic for Belfast Irish. Jose Rivera, who's an incredible playwright, did a pass to all 10 scripts. The actors were also very engaged. The last thing I want to presume to present myself as is an authority on Chicano culture.

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Visited by her Guardian Angel, Marisol Perez learns there is a war in heaven, a revolution to supplant the old and senile God who is turning the cosmos to chaos. Alone, without her protector, Marisol begins a nightmare journey into an apocalyptic world where angels have turned in their wings for machine guns, the moon has not been seen in months, and food has been turned to salt. José Rivera’s Obie-Award-winning play is a primal, fantastical, and often humorous contemporary classic inspiring us to wake up and change the world around us. Performed in Spanish with English subtitles

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“Questions were playing tiddly winks with my grey matter...”

Most times you go back to watch a programme from your youth, it's pretty disappointing. Every now and then, however, they're genuinely as good as you remember. Eerie, Indiana is one of those special few. There are a handful of series that tried to be The Twilight Zone for kids. Round the Twist (which I'll be coming back to in another article) is well-remembered by British and Australian audiences. Are You Afraid of the Dark and Goosebumps scared the kids of the early and late nineties, respectively. None had the wit of Eerie, Indiana. So why this series only lasted for a single season baffles me.

The series was set in the eponymous town of Eerie, Indiana, population 16,661. Marshall 'Mars' Teller moves to Eerie with his family. Only he, and his best friend, Simon, seem to notice just how bizarre life in Eerie really is. Bigfoot eats out of Marshall's trash, Elvis is on his paper round, and each episode, some uncanny occurrence makes becomes the subject of Marshall and Simon's investigations. The situations the duo faced were man and varied. Some were drawn from classic horror and sci-fi, but with a twist, such as “America's Scariest Home Video,” which drew the Mummy straight out of a black-and-white movie and into Marshall's living room, while Simon's younger brother took his place (and proved far scarier). Some drew on science fiction for their inspiration, such as the HAL 9000 riff “The ATM With a Heart of Gold.” Others were barmy in their originality. “No Brain, No Pain,” involved a shambling vagrant, who was in fact a genius, but had accidentally taped over his mind with a copy of The Knack's My Sharona.

While the writing was generally very good for a children's drama, it was the direction and the cast that really set Eerie apart from its rivals. While Jose Rivera and Karl Schaefer were credited as the series' creators, Joe Dante was a major creative force on the show, directing several episodes. This is the man who directed such sci-fi classics as Innerspace, Gremlins and, um, Piranha. Not the sort of person you'd expect to be working on a children's TV series for the Disney Channel. The cast were what really made it, though. The series boasted not only a solid regular and semi-regular cast, but some of the best guest actors in television. Weird old Vincent Schiavelli played the town's terrifying orthodontist, while Rene Auberjonois tried to brainwash the town. Dante's favoured actor, Archie Hann, played Mr Radford, the proprietor of the World O' Stuff, until the series' midpoint turnaround, when he was revealed to be an imposter. The real Radford was revealed, played with twinkling charm by John “Gomez” Astin. In one fan-favourite episode, “The Lost Hour,” putting the clocks forward one hour incorrectly stranded Marshall in an empty parallel version of Eerie, with only a mysterious milkman to turn to for help. That milkman – who, it was hinted, may have been Marshall's own future self – was played by the late, great Eric Christmas, an actor who was born to play the Doctor. These impressive guest spots and many clever references make the series a joy to watch for genre fans.

It would be wrong to overlook the core cast, however. Omri Katz was the star of the show. Fifteen at the time of filming, but playing it a little younger, Omri was perfect as Marshall, representing the many young boys who were just entering puberty and being torn between silly kids' shows and adult life. Omri gave Marshall a wide-eyed wonder at the weirdness of the world, with just enough snark to make the character snappy, but never obnoxious. Stealing the show, though, was Justin Shenkarow, four years younger, as Simon Holmes. Justin dominated every scene he was in, despite being the youngest member of the cast. Simon was an outsider in Eerie, and became close friends with Marshall, only to find himself take a backseat to the teenager's problems. Popularity, school, and above all, his burgeoning interest in girls, threatened to take Marshall away from Simon, but at the end of the day, the two were inseparable. There was a lot for young boys to relate to.

Marshall's family were equally as important to the setup, forever oblivious to the strange goings on around them. Frances Guinan was just the right side of eccentric as his father Edgar. Possibly named in association with Edward Teller, inventor of the hydrogen bomb, Edgar tried to keep afloat with his career as an inventor for Things Incorporated. His inventions were often a main plot point in the series. Marshall's mother, Marilyn, was played Mary-Margaret Humes, who I only now realise was quite impossibly sexy and wasted as Edgar's housewife. As Marshall's older sister, Syndi, Julie Condra provided the boys watching with the twin interests of an irritating sibling to run rings round, and a beautiful young woman to gaze at.

It was something of a boys' show. Marshall had a new crush every other week, and while the girls were often strong, impressive characters, there was less for the female members of the audience. That changed in the thirteenth episode, which began a process of revamping the series by introducing Jason Marsden – that guy who's in everything, these days – as Dash X. A mysterious, amnesiac with grey hair, Dash X didn't know his real name or where he came from. He became the amoral antagonist to Marshall's hero, sometimes helping him, sometimes out for himself. He might possibly have been an alien, and was even seemingly aware that he was part of a television programme. He was also, importantly, the one all the girls watching had a crush on.

Dash X threatened to steal the series away from Marshall, something that the producers were fully aware of. In what was surely intended as the final episode of the series, but actually aired as the penultimate instalment, Marshall woke up to find that his name was really Omri, and his entire life was, in fact, part of a TV show. “Reality Takes a Holiday” was an ingeniously postmodern episode, and saw Dash X – the only character referred to by his fictional name, and not his actor's name – attempt to oust Marshall as the star. Genuinely clever, it was a high point for the series.

My favourite episode, however, was “Heart on a Chain.” Marshall and a previously unmentioned classmate, Devon (played by another Dante favourite, Cory Danziger), both fall for the new girl, Melissa. When Devon is killed in a road accident, his heart is transplanted into the desperately ill Melissa, who begins to display some of Devon's personality traits. Marshall and Melissa's burgeoning romance is sabotaged by Devon's restless spirit. Apart from the fact that I had a huge crush on Danielle Harris, who played Melissa, this episode really touched me as a kid. Watching it again now, it's still affecting. It's a genuinely sweet, sad, creepy little ghost story, just really fine television.

For all the silliness, references and naff monsters, Eerie, Indiana was quite a dark, subversive series. The strangeness of the town and its supposed ordinariness was a metaphor for the harsh realities that are so often kept behind closed doors. While Marshall had a strong, loving family, Simon was from a broken home. He was able to spend so much time with the Tellers because his mother was rarely home, and his father was often “entertaining.” Other characters' lives were rarely anything to celebrate. “Who's Who” revolved around a young girl whose mother had abandoned her, and who was neglected and exploited by her father and brothers. Even the pilot episode, “Foreverware,” hinted at the dark secrets behind so many supposedly perfect families.

For some reason, Eerie, Indiana never took off on its initial 1991-2 run. It sank without a trace, with certain episodes not even airing. It wasn't until 1997 that Fox bought the series and it was given a new lease of life. It was then that the series made it overseas, onto the Saturday mornings of my thirteen-year-old self. It became successful enough to spawn a spin-off series, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension. The concept was rather clever: in a parellel version of Eerie, life is perfectly normal, until a crazy cable guy opens an interdimensional rift. This lets the weirdness of the “prime” Eerie through to the Other Dimension, and threatens to destroy the Eeries of all realities. Marshall and Simon even appeared in the first episode to help out their younger equivalents, Mitchell and Stanley. However, although the effects had improved over the years, the scripts hadn't, and the weaker sequel series lasted only one season itself.

Eerie, Indiana amassed something of a cult following in its brief renaissance, but has little legacy. Even much of its cast are no longer acting. Omri Katz made the occasional film up until about eight years ago, while Justin Shenkarow now does mainly voice work. Julie Condra no longer seems to be acting. Of course, many of the more legendary guest stars are no longer with us. On the other hand, Jason Marsden is a familiar face on American television, Danielle Harris has become something of a modern day scream queen, and some kid called Tobey Maguire, who played a ghost boy, did quite well for himself. Still, I doubt any of these roles will make me smile quite as much as Eerie, Indiana.

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Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) and Teatro Público de Cleveland (TPC) have announced updated plans for the 2019/2020 Season Spanish Language production. CPT and TPC will present Marisol, by José Rivera, translated by Aurora Lauzardo y Waldemar Burgos, and directed by Julia Rosa Sosa. The play will be performed in Spanish with English subtitles and will run March 5 - 21 in CPT's historic Gordon Square Theatre.

About Marisol
Visited by her Guardian Angel, Marisol Perez learns there is a war in heaven, a revolution to supplant the old and senile God who is turning the cosmos to chaos. Alone, without her protector, Marisol begins a nightmare journey into an apocalyptic world where angels have turned in their wings for machine guns, the moon has not been seen in months, and food has been turned to salt. José Rivera's Obie-Award-winning play is a primal, fantastical, and often humorous contemporary classic inspiring us to wake up and change the world around us. Performed in Spanish with English subtitles. Regional Premiere of Spanish Production.

Ticket and Show Information
Marisol previews March 5. Press Night is Friday, March 6 and the show runs through March 21. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays at 7:30pm. Performances take place in CPT's historic Gordon Square Theatre located at 6415 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44102, in the heart of the Gordon Square Arts District.

Tickets are $15-35. Students/Seniors receive $5 off on Friday and Saturday nights. Preview, Thursdays, and Mondays are $15, and Fridays and Saturdays are $35.

PURCHASE TICKETS at www.cptonline.org or call the CPT Box Office at 216.631.2727 ext. 501. Group discounts are available-call the Box Office to inquire. (Reserve early! - CPT never charges any ticket fees, ever.)

The Gordon Square Theatre is ADA compliant featuring a ramped entrance and an all gender, wheelchair accessible restroom.

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I am neck-deep in an "Eerie, Indiana" marathon. I adore this series. It was a weird depiction of early '90s Americana, similar to David Lynch's "Twin Peaks", but with a stronger paranormal and supernatural spin on it (think "The X-Files" for the pre-teen audience). Overall, it holds up really well, and I'm surprised at times by the caliber of the talent that worked on this series, particularly the cast, the writers, and the guest directors.

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#playwrights #legend #eerieindiana #joserivera #bernardocubria #nyc #oldnyc #hollywood #screenplay #screenplaywriter #theatre

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The first sitcom about adolescent paranoia and depression Eerie, Indiana is certainly novel way to end the weekend; up against 60 Minutes and Life Goes On, this new series is like Life Stands Still for 30 Minutes. Eerie‘s premise is simple and alluring: Marshall Teller (Omri Katz) is a smart, skeptical teenager whose family has recently moved from New Jersey to Eerie, Ind. Bored silly by Midwestern small-town life, Marshall is soon exhilarated and shocked to discover that Eerie is, as he says each week, ”the center of weirdness for the entire universe”.

How weird? Well, Eerie is a place where crows fly around carrying human eyeballs in their beaks, where the rotund fellow in the bathrobe stooping to pick up morning paper proves to be Elvis Presley. And that’s just in the show’s opening credits. The series’ recent debut is already a near legend for its introduction of Foreverware — human-size, Tupperware-like containers that hold warm bodies in suspended animation for years; a woman down the street from Marshall was selling the stuff door-to-door.

In a subsequent episode, a neighborhood youth whom Marshall had just met discovered that the canines were planning a violent revolt against their masters (The hounds chant, ”Bite the hand that feeds us!” and ”Today, Eerie tomorrow — Indianapolis”) Eerie Indiana has been invented by producers Karl Schaefer (TV 101) and Jose Rivera seemingly to give a wholly different meaning to the phrase ”new kid in strange town.”

Katz used to play a mostly silent, wide-eye son to Larry Hagman’s J.R. on Dallas (talk about your eerie experiences). With his lank brown hair falling over his big, sensitive eyes, Katz is an ideal Eerie Everyboy. His face is hand-some yet blank; each week. Katz’s Marshall tells us different story about some odd person or event in Eerie, and when he looks into the camera to emphasize his sincerity and wonderment, you’re not sure if you’re supposed to think this crazy stuff really happened to this kid, or if he?s just making it up as goes along.

At its best, Eerie combines two pop-culture phenomena: the substantial youth market for supernatural fiction (everything from Stephen King novels to the Nightmare on Elm Street movies) plus the let’s-take these-young-people-seriously attitude that made Beverly Hills, 90210 and Doogie Howser; M.D. touchstones for teen TV audience. Eerie proceeds on the assumption that Marshall’s adventures are so imaginative, so elaborately worked out, that they give adolescent daydreaming a good name, and thus afford much comfort to teenage goof-offs all over America.

So far, however, the show’s concepts have been funnier than its scripts. There are no conventional punch lines in thus laugh track-less sitcom, and most of the jokes rate little more than a smile. You watch Eerie for the small-screen spectacle of it all — to see the way, in the show’s first few weeks, feature-film directors like Joe Dante (Gremlins) and Tim Hunter (River’s Edge) oversaw episodes that summoned up an atmosphere of absurdist suburban dread. In a bit of overstatement more hilarious than anything in their show, Schaefer and Rivera have said that what they’re doing is the TV equivalent of the so-called ”magic realism” of Latin American writers such as Gabriel García Márquez (One hundred Years of Solitude). Sure guys. If Eerie is magic realism, I’m Edmund Wilson. Right now, Eerie is more interesting than entertaining.

And like a lot of interesting comedy, Eerie is, when you stop and think about it for a minute, rooted in some sobering notions. For example, if you believe the tenets of pop psychology and hundred Geraldo/Oprah/Phil talk shows, a boy like Marshall would be, in real life, a perfect candidate for teen suicide. He’s a morose loner with an overactive fantasy life, alienated from his family and most of his peers, whit very little parental supervision. ”I’m worried about Marshall,” said his mom in the second episode, but neither she nor her husband ever does anything about this poor mope of a kid.

Eerie, Indiana certainly gets one thinking, doesn’t it? I also wonder if anyone will ever mention how eerie it is that Marshall’s cute mother (Mary Margaret Humes) and cute sister (Julie Condra) look to be the same age, and whether Marshall’s Oedipal complex is extra-eerie as result. One of the ways this series seems bound to disappoint us is inevitable failure to explore its ideal topic: a male teen’s surreal fears and fantasies about sex. Can’t do that sort of thing before 8 on Sunday nights, can you? Too bad; it could have been a riot. B

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José Rivera will discuss his career as a writer in theater, film, and TV with Ben Snyder, the Dramatic Writing Coordinator for St. Francis College's MFA Program, on November 9, 2019 from 5 to 7pm at St. Francis College's Brooklyn Heights campus: 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn.

Rivera is the first Puerto Rican screenwriter nominated for an Academy Award, for his adapted screenplay of The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Che Guevara's chronicle of his life-changing motorcycle trip with Alberto Granado.

Rivera co-created and co-produced the NBC series Eerie, Indiana (1991-92), and contributed as a writer to numerous TV shows including Family Matters (ABC-TV). His plays have been produced throughout the United States and translated into multiple languages. Rivera has won two Obie Awards for playwriting, a Kennedy Center Fund for New American plays Grant, a Fulbright Arts Fellowship in playwriting, a Whiting Award, a McKnight Fellowship, the 2005 Norman Lear Writing Award, a 2005 Impact Award and a Berilla Kerr Playwriting Award.

An Evening With José Rivera is the latest event produced by Write in Brooklyn, a new St. Francis College MFA discussion series with prominent writers from a range of genres. Prior participants include Dominique Morisseau, the Tony-nominated book-writer of the Broadway smash musical Ain't Too Proud-The Life and Times of the Temptations, young adult novelist Jason Reynolds, author/actor Amber Tamblyn, and screenwriter/playwright Seth Zvi Rosenfeld.

Interviewer Ben Snyder is also an accomplished playwright and screenwriter. His feature film directorial debut, 11:55, with Julia Stiles and John Leguizamo is currently streaming on Showtime. His original TV pilot, Nobody's Nobody's is in development with Warner Brothers Digital. He was the Story Consultant for the award-winning documentary The Wolfpack. His plays have been produced at P.S. 122, The Vineyard Theater, Crossroads Theatre, The Apollo Theater, New York Stage and Film, and at HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

An Evening José Rivera is free and open to the public. To register, visit https://joserivera.eventbrite.com

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Who: Playwright/Screenwriter/TV Writer José Rivera

What: Live Q&A discussion with Ben Snyder, St. Francis MFA Dramatic Writing Coordinator

Where: St. Francis College – Founders Hall

180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201

When: Saturday, November 9, 2019

5-7 pm

FREE & Open to the Public

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In which we salute the superlative kid’s show Eerie Indiana! The early-nineties series created by José Rivera and Karl Schaefer, with Gremlins‘ own Joe Dante serving as creative consultant and occasional director.

For those unfamiliar, the series revolves around Marshall Teller, a teenager whose family moves to the quaint, desolate town of Eerie, Indiana. There he meets a younger outcast kid, Simon, who seems to be the only other citizen of Eerie that can tell things are incredibly amiss. Together they investigate all the mysteries the town throws at them.

If you guessed coming-of-age Lynchian/ Burtonian goings-on, then you hit the nail on the head (though it’s worth noting Eerie aired in 1991: still early in the careers of both Burton and Lynch).

It is very well made; shot on film, with pleasingly self-aware scripts, satisfying Twilight Zone-style plots, an absolutely fantastic cast, and direction that harks back to classic 50s/60s b-movies. Self-aware, funny, satirical, and at times genuinely moving, it also loves to get cerebral, and includes the most meta episode of anything I’ve ever seen: the brilliant finale Reality Takes a Holiday.

The less you know about this one going in, the better. Yep, that’s Vance DeGeneres of Daily Show/ being Ellen’s brother fame.

Guest stars: how about a recurring John Astin? You like Stephen Root? Rene Auberjonois? A tiny Toby McGuire? Pretty much any character actor that worked a lot in the 80s? All here!

This show meant a lot to me as a kid, and in my opinion, it more than stands up as an adult. If you find yourself at a loss for something spooky to watch this Halloween weekend, the whole thing is on Youtube and streaming on Amazon.

If you want to read more, only by a competent writer, Denofgeek recently posted an excellent spoiler-free short write-up for each episode (including which ones to skip) right here.

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“Family is all we have,” is what keeps the flame of hope burning in the tense and taut untold true story of The 33, directed by Patricia Riggen from a screenplay by Mikko Alanne, Oscar nominee Craig Borten (Dallas Buyers Club) and Michael Thomas, based on the screen story by Oscar nominee José Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries) and the book Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar.

( Read more... )

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It's not exactly correct to describe the short-lived 1991 TV series, Eerie Indiana as X-Files meets The Twilight Zone for the tween set because Eerie actually preceded the X-Files by two years!

But since it first aired in the U.S. on NBC, Eerie Indiana's original 19 episodes have built a huge worldwide following with scores of fan web sites, a 1998 spin-off series, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension, and a fervent fan base which lobbied for years to get the series released on DVD. Eerie was clearly as important and pivotal a series for budding Gen Y sci-fi fans as My So-Called Life was for Gen Y teen angst.

Thirteen-year-old Marshall Teller (Omri Katz) and his family have moved from his beloved New Jersey to the picture perfect town of Eerie, Indiana. But as the boy observes, Eerie is a strange town caught between the worlds of David Lynch and Tim Burton. Elvis lives on his paper route. Big Foot rummages through the garbage. And the neighbours are very, very weird. Marshall and his best friend Simon (Justin Shenkarow), like a prototypical Mulder and Scully, start to investigate the strange happenings in their town because Marshall wants to know why Eerie is the centre of weirdness. As Mulder would say, The truth is out there.

Also reminiscent of the junior Goosebumps series (for the pre-teen set?), Eerie Indiana has an impressive pedigree. Co-creator and writer, Jose Rivera, would later write indie film The Motorcycle Diaries. His co-creating and writing partner, Karl Schaefer, would go on to write and produce The Dead Zone. And giving the series a Danny Elfman-like soundtrack is Stephen King favourite, Gary Chang (Kingdom Hospital, Rose Red, Storm of the Century). Series producer and occasional episode director was Joe Dante (Gremlins, Explorers, Small Soldiers).

Even with rotating guest directors and writers, Eerie maintained an interesting atmosphere of unease thanks to the central theme of a young stranger living in a strange land. Series star, Omri Katz, narrates each episode with a pitch perfect teenage weariness. The writers had a lot of fun playing with sci-fi themes - everything from ghosts, werewolves and aliens to mysterious Chinese restaurants, Tupperware of the damned, lost souls trapped in the one-hour of Daylight Savings time, to an episode where Marshall finds himself starring on a TV show - as Omri Katz! Though this series is almost 14 years old, it doesn't feel dated. Production values and special effects are pretty good - much better than say cheapie Canadian location shoots, Sliders or Goosebumps - and the episodes are smartly written so that fans - new and old - can enjoy the strange tales of a boy stuck in a town he can't quite call home.

Best of all are glimpses of some familiar faces. A very young Tobey Maguire (Spiderman) guest stars in the episode "The Dead Letter" as a ghost. And one-time child actor favourite, Gabriel Damon (Robocop, Star Trek) shows up in "ATM with a Heart of Gold" along with Full House teen idol, Scott Weinger (Aladdin). John Astin (The Addams Family) and Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian) guest star in an episode about a teleportation portal - in the middle of a cornfield!

WORTH IT? Long time Eerie fans should be thrilled to finally replace their worn tapes with this clean digital transfer. Unfortunately, if you're looking for extras, you won't find them on this set - no commentaries, nothing. But it's an accomplishment in itself that a 14-year-old series was done well enough to have such an enduring fan base.

RECOMMENDATION: Definitely worth a rental for a weekend of weirdness or a Halloween marathon. And fans should snap up this set to replace their tapes.

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Just discovered Eerie, Indiana is on prime. There goes my night.
— Nick Sinnott (@ndsinnott) September 23, 2019

I freaking love that show so much. When Jose Rivera was around DWW because he wrote one of the shorts, I vomited fangirl love all over him about it. Thanks for the heads up! pic.twitter.com/aELzNIqNFT
— Nichol Simmons (@NicholSimmons) September 23, 2019

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"In heaven you can taste the wind and hear the imperfect love song of Delilah & Venezio."

( Read more... )

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Eerie, Indiana is an American television series that originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1991 to April 12, 1992. The series was created by José Rivera and Karl Schaefer, with Joe Dante serving as creative consultant. pic.twitter.com/HKw7yIlPAG
— Killer Kitsch (@killer_kitsch) September 15, 2019

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Eerie, Indiana, is a small town where anything can happen and where urban legends go to become reality. Eerie is a town which has an annual Tornado Day picnic to appease "Old Bob," the tornado that threatens the town each year. Eerie is a town where movie monsters emerge from the television screen, except these are not monsters -- they are actors cursed to repeat their roles forever. Eerie is a town with "a pompous business man known as The Donald who brainwashes the town into buying on credit." Eerie is a town where your next door neighbor (the one mowing his lawn) is an aging Elvis Presley.. Eerie is a town that ignores Daylight Savings Time and when you set your clock back an hour anyway you wake up in an abandoned town with garbage men who are trying to kill you. Eerie, Indiana, is a town where a group of intelligent dogs plot to take over the world.

( Read more... )

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Latino Theatre Projects (LTP) and Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna, in association with Theatre Off Jackson, will present the Pacific Northwest premiere of Brainpeople by prize-winning Puerto Rican playwright José Rivera. Brainpeople will be directed by LTP's Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna. The production will be presented Thursday-Saturday evenings, October 11 through November 3, 2018 at 8:00 pm. Performances will be bilingual in English with some Spanish phrases. General admission is $25 in advance or $30 at the door. Seniors and students are $20.

A mixture of comedy and chaos ensues when one of the guests, who suffers Dissociative Identity Disorder, brings along her crew of "brainpeople" and the other, a nervous, intelligent Armenian woman, reveals the source of her distrust of all people. The meal turns into an evening of brutal honesty and terrifying introspection. Originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory, Brainpeople received its premiere February 2, 2008 at American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco. Subsequent productions in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, and internationally have received glowing reviews for its intense exploration of the broken lives of the three women.

The first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Academy Award, for "The Motorcycle Diaries," José Rivera is also the author of 26 full-length plays including the Obie Award winning Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced at The Public Theatre, New York. Other plays include Cloud Tectonics (Playwrights Horizons, Goodman Theatre), School of the Americas (Public Theatre), The Maids (INTAR),

Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR), Boleros for the Disenchanted (Yale Rep, Goodman Theatre), and Sueño (Manhattan Class Company). Screenplays include "On the Road," "The 33." "Trade," and "Letters to Juliet." For television he co-created and produced the NBC series "Eerie, Indiana," and has written pilots for HBO and Showtime. Awards include a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, a Whiting Foundation Award, and New York Council for the Arts grant.

Rivera has mentored the Sundance Screenwriting Lab in Utah, Jordan, and India and leads the New York-based Writer's Group. Stage Director Fernando Luna is the co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of Latino Theatre Projects. He directed its productions of Mariela in the Desert, Mujeres de Arena/Women of Sand, and Ay, Carmela!. Fernando graduated from Freehold Theatre's Ensemble Training Intensive and holds a Masters degree in Public Affairs from The Evergreen State College.

In 2016, he was selected to participate in the prestigious Chicago Directors Lab, and earlier this year, he participated in a week-long workshop in developing original performance pieces with Teatro Linea de Sombra from Mexico. He has appeared with Latino Theatre Projects in Anna in the Tropics, Death and the Maiden, and Beauty of the Father. He appeared in the feature film Nothing Against Life and the internationally acclaimed short film Pearl. He has also directed performances at the Moore Theater and Benaroya Hall.

The cast of LTP's production of Brainpeople includes Gregory Award nominated actors Sofía Raquel Sánchez (Mayannah) and Alyssa Norling (Rosemary), joined by Vero Lecocq (Ani).

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@joe_dante Mr Dante could you with #JoseRivera and #KarlShaeffer reboot Eerie, Indiana please? 💜
— Lyla Grammer (@LylaGrammer) October 9, 2018

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Director Joe Dante felt right at home. The man who brought us "Gremlins" I and II and "The 'burbs" is no stranger to the weird and wonderful hiding behind simple suburban facades. He was behind the camera for an episode of NBC's new fantasy adventure series "Eerie, Indiana," which premiers tonight.

As Dante stood in the living room set of a modern home, he stared intently at the monitor as the actors went through a scene. Suddenly, he howled eerily like a lone wolf on a wind-swept hill. On cue, a haunted look crossed the face of actor Omri Katz (who plays lead character Marshall Teller) as he went past the camera.

Just another typical day in the neighborhood.

"This show has a sensibility very similar to the movies I've been making," Dante said as he took a break. "It's a little off-kilter, it's got kids in it and a certain weird "Twilight Zone-y" quality that's fun."

And that's just what writers-creators Jose Rivera and Karl Schaefer are aiming for.

"Part of the appeal of doing something like this for someone like Joe, who's used to doing maybe an eighth of a page a day, is that we're doing six or seven pages a day. It's fast, and a lot more different that feature work," Schaefer said. "We're looking for a strong visual style because we're trying to make a little feature every week."

Dante isn't the only feature director tabbed for work. Upcoming episodes will be directed by Todd Holland ("The Wizard"), Tim Hunter ("River's Edge"), Ken Kwapis, Bob Balaban ("Parents") and Sam Pillsbury.

For the two young producers "Eerie" is cutting new ground. Rivera, originally a playwright, spent last year in London on a Fulbright Scholarship. Schaefer was the creator of the short-lived "TV 101." The two met through their agents and decided to combine their off-beat efforts. Rivera had an idea for a teen-oriented anthology a la "Twilight Zone" and Schaefer was toying with a modern-day Tom Sawyer who lived in his imagination.

"We've got something very unique, and yet recognizable, " Schaefer said. "It draws on icons that everyone in America can relate to like Tupperware and Elvis."

Rivera said " 'Eerie, Indiana' is a pop culture junkyard. Everything that sort of falls off the front page of the National Enquirer rolls down to Eerie."

"It's a like a magnet or a drain for all the weirdness," Schaefer added.

The show's title, Schaefer said, "just sort of welled up from our subconscious, as if it's always been there. There are actually two Erie, Indianas, but spelled like the lake."

So, what's "eerie" about this small, seemingly normal town in Middle America? Katz's 13-year-old character Marshall Teller and his young 10-year-old friend Simon Holmes (Justin Shenkarow) see things that nobody else pays attention to because they're too busy. For examples: When everyone sees an old man in a bathrobe, Marshall sees Elvis. When a woman puts laundry on a clothesline, Marshall sees her hanging up a straitjacket.

Rivera said the foundation of the show is psychological and it's not a special effects extravaganza. "These stories are based on real adolescent fears, a real incident from which a fantastic element occurs. There's always an ambiguity, so we're never sure whether it happened or not.

"Adolescence is as much a nightmare as it is fun."

Katz said he sees his role as easy to play because he's past the character's age of 13 (he's 15).

"This is a kid's show and it's a lot more fun to do (he previously played J.R. Ewing's son on "Dallas"). Marshall is very imaginative. He and Simon are the only ones who notice what's really going on in town."

Shenkarow agreed. "I get to go on adventures every week. Sometimes they're weird and scary and sometimes they're fun."

Although he feels a lot of himself is in Simon's personality, he added, "I'd like to be more like my character than I am in person because he has so much fun. I'm not into sneaking into houses and stuff like that."

Back on the set, Joe Dante peered down at a kennel of dogs whose plans to take over the world can only be heard through a pair of retainers worn by a teen-ager.

He shook his head. "Suburbia has changed a lot since 'Leave it to Beaver.' "

"Eerie, Indiana" premieres tonight at 7:30 p.m. on NBC.

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Sometimes you watch a promo for an upcoming series and think it's been created just for you. That's how I felt in the fall of 1991 when I saw a teaser for NBC's Eerie, Indiana, a family-friendly, comedy-laced horror show about an ordinary kid Marshall Teller (Omri Katz), who moves with his family from New Jersey to a distinctly unordinary small town -- Eerie, Indiana, population 16,661. Like Marshall, I had recently been uprooted as well, leaving downtown Toronto for suburban Virginia. And while the community my 13-year-old self had moved to wasn't home to a still-alive Elvis Presley or an orthodontist who designed retainers that allowed their wearers to read the canine mind, it still seemed pretty strange and alien to me. When Marshall described Eerie as "the center of weirdness for the entire planet" in the show's great credits sequence, he basically summed up how I felt about my new home.

( Read more... )

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Latino Theatre Projects (LTP) and Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna, in association with Theatre Off Jackson, will present the Pacific Northwest premiere of Brainpeople by prize-winning Puerto Rican playwright José Rivera. Brainpeople will be directed by LTP's Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna. The production will be presented Thursday-Saturday evenings, October 11 through November 3, 2018 at 8:00 pm. Performances will be bilingual in English with some Spanish phrases. General admission is $25 in advance or $30 at the door. Seniors and students are $20.

Links:

www.latinotheatreprojects.org

www.theatreoffjackson.org

https://www.facebook.com/Latino-Theatre-Projects-346266545430336/

A mixture of comedy and chaos ensues when one of the guests, who suffers Dissociative Identity Disorder, brings along her crew of "brainpeople" and the other, a nervous, intelligent Armenian woman, reveals the source of her distrust of all people. The meal turns into an evening of brutal honesty and terrifying introspection. Originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory, Brainpeople received its premiere February 2, 2008 at American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco. Subsequent productions in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, and internationally have received glowing reviews for its intense exploration of the broken lives of the three women.

The first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Academy Award, for "The Motorcycle Diaries," José Rivera is also the author of 26 full-length plays including the Obie Award winning Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced at The Public Theatre, New York. Other plays include Cloud Tectonics (Playwrights Horizons, Goodman Theatre), School of the Americas (Public Theatre), The Maids (INTAR),

Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR), Boleros for the Disenchanted (Yale Rep, Goodman Theatre), and Sueño (Manhattan Class Company). Screenplays include "On the Road," "The 33." "Trade," and "Letters to Juliet." For television he co-created and produced the NBC series "Eerie, Indiana," and has written pilots for HBO and Showtime. Awards include a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, a Whiting Foundation Award, and New York Council for the Arts grant.

Rivera has mentored the Sundance Screenwriting Lab in Utah, Jordan, and India and leads the New York-based Writer's Group. Stage Director Fernando Luna is the co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of Latino Theatre Projects. He directed its productions of Mariela in the Desert, Mujeres de Arena/Women of Sand, and Ay, Carmela!. Fernando graduated from Freehold Theatre's Ensemble Training Intensive and holds a Masters degree in Public Affairs from The Evergreen State College.

In 2016, he was selected to participate in the prestigious Chicago Directors Lab, and earlier this year, he participated in a week-long workshop in developing original performance pieces with Teatro Linea de Sombra from Mexico. He has appeared with Latino Theatre Projects in Anna in the Tropics, Death and the Maiden, and Beauty of the Father. He appeared in the feature film Nothing Against Life and the internationally acclaimed short film Pearl. He has also directed performances at the Moore Theater and Benaroya Hall.

The cast of LTP's production of Brainpeople includes Gregory Award nominated actors Sofía Raquel Sánchez (Mayannah) and Alyssa Norling (Rosemary), joined by Vero Lecocq (Ani).

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See it here.

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Beginning on Thursday, October 11, 2018, Latino Theatre Projects (LTP) and Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna, in association with Theatre Off Jackson, will present the Pacific Northwest premiere of Brainpeople by prize-winning Puerto Rican playwright José Rivera. Brainpeople will be directed by Seattle’s LTP’s Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna.

The production will be presented Thursday-Saturday evenings, October 11 through November 3, 2018 at 8:00 pm. Performance will be bilingual in English with some Spanish phrases. General admission is $25 in advance or $30 at the door. Seniors and students are $20.

Details

What: Brainpeople by José Rivera

When: Thursday-Saturday evenings, October 11 through November 3 at 8:00 pm

Where: Theatre Off Jackson, 409 7th Ave S in the International District/Chinatown

Who: Latino Theatre Projects in association with Theatre Off Jackson

Directed by Fernando Luna; Written by José Rivera

Tickets: General admission–$25 in advance, $30 at the door; Seniors/students–$20.

Tickets will go on sale through Brown Paper Tickets in September 2018.

Links:

www.latinotheatreprojects.org

www.theatreoffjackson.org

https://www.facebook.com/Latino-Theatre-Projects-346266545430336/

Brainpeople, written by José Rivera, is a deeply psychological story of three women and the life events that haunt them. A wealthy Puerto Rican woman who is still obsessively grieving the parents she lost at age eight sends her armored limousine out into a violent, dystopian Los Angeles to pick up two complete strangers and bring them back to her home for an exotic feast and deep conversation. A mixture of comedy and chaos ensues when one of the guests, who suffers Dissociative Identity Disorder, brings along her crew of “brainpeople” and the other, a nervous, intelligent Armenian woman, reveals the source of her distrust of all people. The meal turns into an evening of brutal honesty and terrifying introspection.

Originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory, Brainpeople received its premiere February 2, 2008 at American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco. Subsequent productions in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, and internationally have received glowing reviews for its intense exploration of the broken lives of the three women.

The first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Academy Award, for “The Motorcycle Diaries,” José Rivera is also the author of 26 full-length plays including the Obie Award winning Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced at the Public Theatre, New York. Other plays include Cloud Tectonics (Playwrights Horizons, Goodman Theatre), School of the Americas (Public Theatre), The Maids (INTAR), Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR), Boleros for the Disenchanted (Yale Rep, Goodman Theatre), and Sueño (Manhattan Class Company). Screenplays include “On the Road,” “The 33.” “Trade,” and “Letters to Juliet.” For television, he co-created and produced the NBC series “Eerie, Indiana,” and has written pilots for HBO and Showtime. Awards include a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, a Whiting Foundation Award, and New York Council for the Arts grant. Rivera has mentored the Sundance Screenwriting Lab in Utah, Jordan, and India and leads the New York-based Writer’s Group.

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September 4 - October 7, 2018
Gil Cates Theater
World Premiere
Written by José Rivera
Directed by Jo Bonney
Featuring Ricardo Chavira, Sara Koviak, Zilah Mendoza, Onahoua Rodriguez & Juan Francisco Villa

How many of us have wished for one more chance to say the right thing? A Better Orpheus Inc. provides an alternative to regret—a service that allows the living to communicate with the dead. When Nikki Corona loses her twin sister, A Better Orpheus puts her in touch with Orlando, a man dying too young. The ensuing love story leads to a quest through a vivid, fantastical afterlife as Orlando learns whether Nikki’s message to her sister has the ability to transcend death.

In the rich literary tradition of magical realism and inspired by Dante’s Inferno comes a brand new play by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and Obie Award-winning playwright José Rivera (Motorcycle Diaries, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot). Directed by Drama Desk Award winner and Geffen alum Jo Bonney (By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, Cost of Living), this stunning world premiere suggests that with love, all things are possible.

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Known as the 'Twin Peaks of Kids TV', Eerie Indiana has retained a huge cult following in the years since it aired.

On August 11th we bring it to the big screen for the first time in the UK + Skype Q&A with cast and crew!

Tickets and more info here: https://t.co/pO7WhgEgpt pic.twitter.com/O3CKvcuRXi
— RAD Film Screenings (@RADscreenings) July 28, 2018

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Who's excited to join us for a our nostalgia trip back to the early 90's with EERIE INDIANA! This will be the first official UK cinema screening of the show and we're so excited to revisit it with you all!

Tickets are flying out so be sure to book now > https://t.co/pO7WhgVRO3 pic.twitter.com/ldOnjXErS0
— RAD Film Screenings (@RADscreenings) July 27, 2018

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Following on from their hugely successful third edition (or season), Pilot Light TV Festival present their first major out of festival event for Season 4, an extremely rare chance to catch a cult TV classic on the big screen at Gorilla. On August 11th, Pilot Light invite you back to 1991 to re-experience Eerie, Indiana with an exclusive retrospective.

Created by Oscar nominated writer Jose Rivera with Karl Shaefer and directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins); Eerie, Indiana follows Marshall Teller, a teenager from New Jersey who has just moved to the town of the same name as he investigates the weirdness lurking under the facade of a totally normal suburban town. Regularly billed as the ‘Twin Peaks of Family TV’, Eerie Indiana was filled with Twilight Zone-esque mysteries that it’s protagonists investigate week by week, essentially being a version of the X-Files, before Mulder & Scully were even thought of; whilst also offing up shades of influence to the DNA of current Netflix hit, Stranger Things.

Pilot Light invite audiences to join them at Gorilla for very special selection of episodes from the first series screened officially for the first time in the UK, plus two exclusive live Skype Q&A’s with the show’s creator Jose Rivera, and actor Justin Shenkarow.

Pilot Light TV Fest’s Eerie Indiana Retrospective takes place 11th August 2018 at Gorilla, Manchester. All tickets are on sale now via Gorilla and Seetickets.

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Pilot Light TV Festival and RAD Screenings are very excited to present an extremely rare chance to catch an absolute cult classic on the big screen at Gorilla. On August 11th, we invite you back to 1991 to re-experience EERIE INDIANA with an exclusive retrospective!

Created by Oscar nominated writer Jose Rivera & Mark Shaefer and directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins); Eerie Indiana follows Marshall Teller, a teenager from New Jersey who has just moved to the town of the same name as he investigates the weirdness lurking under the facade of a totally normal suburban town. Regularly billed as the ‘Twin Peaks of Family TV’, Eerie Indiana was filled with Twilight Zone-esque mysteries that it’s protagonists investigate week by week, essentially being a version of the X-Files, before Mulder & Scully were even thought of, according to Den of Geek.

Join us at Gorilla for very special selection of episodes from the first series, plus two exclusive live Skype Q&As with the show’s Oscar nominated creator Jose Rivera, and actor Justin Shenkarow.

Do not miss out on the chance to re-live this 90’s cult classic on the big screen!

Book your tickets here!