How Many Waitresses Does It Take to Make a Movie?
The answer is 11, because I wrote it.
REMINDER: New Yorkers still have a chance to see me read Congress of the Monsters #2 at CrawlSpace in Brooklyn on Sun 3/30 at 3pm! Or hit me up if you’d like a copy of the book in the mail.
I’m not much of a drinker these days, so the promise of alcoholic beverages doesn’t do much to lure me out of the house. But there’s one important exception. Every couple of months, I meet my good friends Fred and Bryan at a bar or restaurant to spend a few hours taking comfort in our shared identity as middle-aged cranks bewildered by the ungrateful City that keeps changing beneath our feet.
The three of us met doing independent theater around 20 years ago and have worked with each other in almost every capacity, writing, directing, and acting in a few dozen plays and performances. We don’t do much of that sort of thing these days, but we’ve all maintained some sort of thread connecting us to the creative folly of our youth. Bryan in particular has remained a prolific creator of independent horror films through his production company Third Lows.
In December 2023, toward the end of one of our evenings together, I blurted out an idea that hadn’t crossed my mind until that very moment: Let’s make a movie together! I would write a script for Bryan to direct, and Fred - who was the leading man in many of my own theatrical projects - would star. It would be a great way to honor our two-decade friendship and give us all a chance to collaborate again.
This might have turned out to be just another tipsy inspiration destined to disappear with the next flush of the john, except that the idea came fully formed with a creative hook in my mind, one that would allow the project to play to all of our strengths. I won’t spoil it now, but for the next few weeks the idea took up residence at one of the back corner tables of my mind, and as soon as it was ready to settle its tab I typed it all out before it could stumble into the night.
To my delight, Bryan and Fred were 100% on board. That’s how, after a number of the usual setbacks and delays, we spent last weekend filming the project currently titled The Eleventh Waitress.
I can’t say much about the film without saying TOO much about the film, but I can tell you a bit about the shoot. The story unfolds in a kind of purgatorial barroom, and, after scouting various locations, we ended up finding the best option right down the hall from my apartment. Our building includes a windowless basement lounge room that we were able to book for the weekend. Dozens of grad students from Pratt live here at any given time, so it seems like the building management is accustomed to such requests. We shot about 12 hours each day last Saturday and Sunday, getting nearly all the footage we needed without straining ourselves silly. Other longtime collaborators from our show days came to join us on camera and off, along with a handful of new faces we worked with for the first time.
As we broke down the equipment on Sunday night, we all discussed how lucky we felt. It was the first time in many years this group of us had come together for a whirlwind weekend of creative activity, and we were all energized from the experience. It felt like old times, we agreed - but better, because we weren’t taking it for granted. It’s a privilege to be able to make stuff that excites us, on our own terms, in a city that’s increasingly tough to live in. It may not last forever, but we’ll enjoy it while we can.
From my perspective, it was wild to have a bunch of people bringing my words to life without having to run the show myself. The vast majority of my plays have been self-produced (in collaboration with Hope), and even if I wasn’t directing, I was acting or art directing or otherwise involved. Here, I played a number of informal roles - gofer, gaffer, set photographer, off-camera stand-in - but mostly I was on hand to listen to Bryan, Fred, and the others turn the weird images from my head into a living, breathing reality. I’ve left out most of the best photos here because spoilers, but I hope these convey a flavor of the fun and excitement that we had in the room.
And now I disappear from the process again as Bryan goes into post-production. I enjoyed seeing the story I wrote unfold in physical space, but the movie itself now exists entirely inside the camera, and so it remains a mystery even to me. The gestation of a film is different from a play - in theater, you lay an egg of increasing dimension night after night until it’s over, but a movie is more like a moth in a cocoon that gets liquefied and reformed as a completely different thing. As we enter that pupal phase, the project will be less mine than ever, but that’s what it should be. What a joy to be able to set something in motion and then let it grow out of sight for a few months before emerging fully formed. I can’t wait! Rest assured you’ll be hearing all about it when it’s ready to view…
