Oy Oy! Round and Round the Garden, Tisch Gala, The Wheels and Rebecca Miller

On Thursday, April 5th, I had an absolutely extraordinary day. Only a few days prior, I was named the recipient of the Sony Electronics Scholarship by the Tisch School of the Arts. I accepted this award - which included a Sony technology package with an amazing amount of Sony products - at the 2012 Wasserman/ King Awards at the Cantor Film Center on Thursday (the Wasserman/King Awards are a ceremony where the top prizes from the 2012 First Run Festival are also announced - essentially, it's NYU film school's Academy Awards). Thursday, however, was also the opening night of Tisch New Theatre's Mainstage production of Alan Ayckbourn's Round and Round the Garden, in which I was performing as Reg. I arrived at Cantor at 5:45 PM, and luckily, the recipients of the Sony Electronics Scholarship were awarded near the beginning of the ceremony. I went onstage and accepted the award from our wonderful Dean Mary Schmidt Cambell, and then I hail-tailed it to the Kraine Theater on East 4th Street for our first performance of Round and Round the Garden at 7:30 PM. You can click here to view pictures from the 2012 Wasserman/King Awards.

I am so lucky to have been a part of Round and Round the Garden - the play easily ranks among the finest productions in which I've had the good fortune to perform. I'm as proud of this production as any film work I've done while at Tisch, and it was enormously rewarding returning to this particular play after five years (I played Norman in Austin High School's 2007 UIL One-Act production of Round and Round the Garden). The other five actors in the cast - Daniel Richardson (Norman), Taylor Myers (Tom), Kira Kull (Ruth), Flora Greeson (Annie) and Elise Kibler (Sarah) - are extremely talented artists, and after spending so much time with them onstage and offstage, I consider them among my closest friends. Our director, Daniel Hasse (who starred in my film The Wheels) and producer, Bethany McHugh (who serves on the Tisch New Theatre Executive Board with me) are the two oustanding leaders who made the play possible. There's something about this endlessly hilarious and unexpectedly moving play that brings out the love among its cast members - this was true in 2007, and it is still true in 2012. Flipping heck!

After our first performance, I went to celebrate with some of my friends and family who had come to see the production, including Bobb Barito, Ben Dewey, Mike Cheslik, Ani Tomasic, Tom Corbisiero (who played the father in my film The Wheels), Karen McFarlane (who played Lucille in my film With Love, Marty) and, of course, my mother Gretchen and our family friend Leslie Eckert, both of whom flew in from Austin to see the performance. We went to the B Bar & Grill, just down the street from the Kraine Theater, and it was wonderful to be surrounded by my friends.

Like most shows, our Round and Round the Garden company kept getting better with each performance. Luckily, our closing night was filmed by the director himself, and we were never better than during our final performance. After that performance, the cast and crew celebrated at U2 Karaoke Lounge and Suites on Saint Marks. I'll admit to performing a few rousing numbers, among them "Sloop John B" by The Beach Boys and "What's Up?" by 4 Non-Blondes.

From having our incredible poster proudly framed and displayed in the Tisch lobby for many weeks to attracting large and enthusiastic audiences for every performance, my second (and hopefully not final) Round and Round the Garden experience was nothing short of amazing, and another wonderful collaboration with Tisch New Theatre, one of the finest of all Tisch organizations. More than anything, it was exhilarating to get back onstage again. Here is a link to both a feature on Round and Round the Garden on the Tisch School of the Arts website, as well as an article from NYU Local about our production. Congratulations to my fellow cast and members and the crew, and thank you to my friends and family for coming to see the show!

On Thursday, April 19th, I attended the 2012 Tisch Gala After Party at the New York Marriot Marquis. Only a week earlier, the Dean's Scholars had been offered tickets to the After Party, as well as the opportunity to record a special video tribute for Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell, who was being honored for her twentieth year as Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts at this year's Gala. I immediately recorded a video thanking Dean Campbell, explaining that, as a Tisch Dean's Scholar, there is no way I could attend this extraordinary school and pursue my dreams if it were not for her support and wonderful leadership. As usual, this year's Tisch Gala was star-studded, with Martin Scorsese, Alec Baldwin, Spike Lee, Tony Kushner, Bill Paxton and Clive Davis among those in attendance and speaking at the event. You can click on this link to see some of the photographs from the Gala.

However, I had no idea that my tribute video would play - in its entirety - for the whole audience at the 2012 Tisch Gala at the Marriot Marquis. As I arrived at the After Party, a few of my professors who were leaving the Gala said that not only was my entire video played, but that I was the only current student featured among the tribute videos honoring Dean Campbell from Tisch graduates (including Ang Lee. This was such an incredible honor, and I was nearly beside myself to learn that Scorsese, Baldwin, Lee and, of course, Dean Campbell - among many others - watched my video (I can assure you that, the next morning while working at Mr. Scorsese's office, I waited for him to recognize me from the video - alas, this did not happen).

The 2012 Tisch Gala After Party was an extraordinary time to spend with friends and celebrate the end of the semester. If you want to view some of the official After Party photographs from the Photo Booth, you can find those here at this website. Here are more official photographs from the event, including the stage and screen where my video played for the crowd.

Earlier on that same Thursday, I had tickets to a Tribeca Talks Director's Series panel called 100 Years of Universal (one of many special events hosted by the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival), during which Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Judd Apatow were slated to speak about their films with Universal Pictures. I was enormously excited for this event, as it marked the first time I was able to see De Niro - my lifelong hero (along with Scorsese) and the finest actor in the history of cinema - in person. Ben, Mike and Nicole joined me for this event at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and although Mrs. Streep was unfortunately unable to attend at the last minute, I was overjoyed to hear De Niro speak for an hour about the Tribeca Film Festival, his upcoming projects, his preparation as an actor, and a few memories about the many films he has made at Universal (The Deer Hunter, Casino, Midnight Run, The Good Shepherd). Thank you so much to my godmother, Kay Lee Werlin, for treating my friends and me to this wonderful event!

In other news, the feedback on my film The Wheels has been wonderful around Tisch. The film has received some very high praise from the professors, and I am especially proud of this particular movie. Tisch Professor Geoff Erb invited me to screen The Wheels for his Freshman Colloquium class, as part of a presentation of complex student films that were successfully produced. Professor Erb and his colleagues were very kind in their praise for the film, and on Tuesday, April 24th, I screened the film for his class (essentially half of the entire freshman class) on a large screen at Cantor. After the screening, Ben, Bobb and I came onstage and participated in a Q&A with Professor Erb and the freshman class, detailing the intricate pre-production process of The Wheels and explaining how we successfully worked with the NYU production supervisors and the great people at Deno's Wonder Wheel to shoot a seemingly "un-filmable" student project. It was such an honor presenting and screening my film for the class, and the fact that The Wheels is being used as an example of a successful student film is humbling, to say the least.

In the midst of mailing out DVDs of the film to my IndieGoGo contributers and showing the project to my friends (in addition to an upcoming joint-screening of The Wheels and my producer Erica Rose's film And I Love Her at Tisch), I have slowly but surely been attempting to thank everyone who gave so much support to the film. Please click here to check out The Wheels on IMDB.

Before performing in Round and Round the Garden, I was able to join the Tisch Dean's Scholars to see the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, directed by the legendary Mike Nichols and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield. I was anticipating this production more than any Broadway performance in recent memory, as Miller's work has such a profound influence on me, and the teaming of Hoffman and Nichols was almost too good to be true. I do not exaggerate when I say that Death of a Salesman was the best piece of live theatre I have ever seen - as the curtain went down on the performance, tears were streaming down my face. I have never been so moved by any theatrical performance in my life. I cannot thank the Tisch Dean's Scholars program enough for the tickets to this extraordinary revival, which is now nominated for several Tony Awards.

After the performance, Nicole and I waited outside the Stage Door as many famous faces emerged from backstage, including Mike Nichols, Andrew Garfield, Liza Minneli and Alan Alda. But what was truly amazing about the experience was being able to talk about the performance with my directing professor Rebecca Miller (Arthur Miller's daughter). She has taught me so much about directing actors this semester, whether through coaching me as I directed my final scene from Michael Mann's The Insider (1999) in class, or giving insight into her own films, such as The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009). She is an extraordinary professor, and her directorial wisdom has made an indelible impression on me - I am so honored to have had such a remarkable person as my professor. Luckily, I have had the opportunity to tell her how much of an impact her films - particularly The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), starring her husband, Daniel-Day Lewis - have made on me. Here is a link to a fascinating article on the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman that opens with extraordinary praise from Professor Miller.

Speaking of Broadway, while my mother and Mrs. Eckert were visiting New York City, I had the pleasure of joining them to see Gore Vidal's The Best Man on Broadway at the Schoenfeld Theater, directed by Michael Wilson and starring James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, Candice Bergen, John Larroquette, Eric McCormack and Michael McKean. Filled to the brim with incredibly talented actors and impeccably directed by Mr. Wilson, The Best Man was an outstanding production. After the play ended, I had the good opportunity to see Mrs. Lansbury exit the Stage Door and greet her many fans. At eighty-six years old, she is still astounding audiences with her performances.

There are many other experiences from this semester that I will report in my next blog post. The end of this semester - with Round and Round the Garden performances, the Wasserman/ King Awards, working extra days at my internship, apartment-hunting for the summer, Assistant-Directing a most ambitious Intermediate Narrative film, submitting The Wheels to films festivals and mailing out DVDs of the movie, preparing for a summer film project, writing my feature screenplay for Developing the Screenplay, directing my final scene for Rebecca Miller's class, editing Ben Dewey's Intermediate Narrative film Quitting and keeping up with my classes - has been exhausting. I will close by expressing my deep sadness regarding the death of Levon Helm, one of the finest musicians of all time. I encourage everyone to watch Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz (1978) to witness Helm's breathtaking musical performance, or listen to Helm's wonderful songs (both with The Band and his solo work) in his remembrance. His voice, his music and his power will never fade away.

Lastly, Sunday, April 29th marked the ten-year anniversary of the death of my father, John Kyser. If you knew him, hold on to his memory. He was a wonderful father and a great man, and I miss him every day.

That Her Face, At First Just Ghostly, Turned A Whiter Shade of Pale

Although I still have many things to report from my fall semester and winter break, I want to write a little bit about my spring semester thus far. Starting in January, I have been interning at Martin Scorsese's office, Sikelia Productions, which is nothing short of a dream come true for me. If you know me, then you know that Mr. Scorsese has been my hero since I was eleven years old. In my review of Hugo, I wrote: "I await a new Scorsese movie the same way some anticipate a sort of religious experience. His work is such a fundamentally important part of my life that there are times when I don't know how much I originally found similarities between my personal demons and Scorsese's work, and how much Scorsese's work ultimately influenced my behavior." In short, it has been the honor of a lifetime to work at his office this semester. Here's a link to a recent CBS News look inside Mr. Scorsese's office.

In February, I auditioned for and was subsequently cast in Tisch New Theatre's Spring Mainstage production of Alan Ayckbourn's Round and Round the Garden. I have written in many previous posts about my enormous love for this play, as I starred in Austin High School's 2007 UIL One-Act Play production of Round and Round the Garden as Norman, and the other cast members in that production became some of my best friends to this day (including Lucas Loredo and Cora Walters). That production of Round and Round the Garden advanced to the Texas State Championship (the first Austin High production to do so in eighteen years), and along the way, I was named Best Actor at the Zone, District and Area competitions, and won All-Star Cast awards at the Regional and State competitions. Out of the twenty-three plays in which I performed at Austin High, Round and Round the Garden will always remain closest to my heart.

I am incredibly excited for this new production, in which I am playing Reg. The other five cast members are brilliant performers, and our director, Daniel Hasse, is doing a fantastic job. The performance dates for Round and Round the Garden are April 5th, 6th and 7th at 7:30 PM at the historic Kraine Theatre in the East Village (last year, my friend Alexander Fofonoff and I produced Tisch New Theatre's Spring Mainstage production of Last Exit No Toll at the Kraine, and so it is nice to return to a familiar stage). Last semester, Daniel starred in my Intermediate Narrative film The Wheels; now the tables have turned, and he is directing me.

Tisch New Theatre recently put up our IndieGoGo fundraising page for Round and Round the Garden, and I highly encourage you to contribute to this fantastic production if you can! Here is the link to the IndieGoGo page, as well as our promotional video:

Finally, after one final ADR session last Friday, my Intermediate Narrative film The Wheels is completely finished. I sent the following update to my wonderful IndieGoGo contributors just a few weeks ago regarding the current status of the film:

Dear Contributors,

It’s been about three months since my crew and I finished shooting The Wheels, and now, the final film is nearly complete. I wanted to update all of you regarding its production status as my team and I head into the final leg of post-production.

About two weeks ago, my cinematographer Benjamin Dewey began color-correcting the film in a finishing suite at Tisch. After fine-tuning the colors over the course of several evenings, Ben succeeded in giving the picture a haunting, faded look, similar to that of an old photograph or a distant memory. I sat in on the process and watched as Ben worked his magic, and I feel so lucky to have him and so many talented others working on this project.

After the color-correction process, Ben helped design the closing titles to the film. We are meeting for a final time tomorrow evening to tweak some small picture details in After Effects. Ben recently posted his new Cinematography Reel for Fall 2011, and it includes some color-corrected footage from The Wheels. If you have a chance, make sure to watch his reel below, which features clips from many outstanding projects that he shot last semester (including The Wheels). Here is Ben's reel:

Ben is also currently working on the poster for The Wheels (he created a beautiful poster for my last film, With Love, Marty). As soon as the poster for The Wheels is completed, I will send the image out to all of you.

My roommate, good friend and sound designer extraordinaire Bobb Barito is currently putting the finishing touches on the sound design, and his work is extraordinary. Once that is completed, The Wheels will be entirely finished. Once again, thank you all so much for your support of this project – it means the world to me, and my wonderful crew and I would not have had the opportunity to make this movie if it were not for your generosity. I very much look forward to showing you the final film.

Sincerely,

Jack Kyser

My classes this semester are absolutely amazing. My favorite class is Directing the Actor, as my professor is Rebecca Miller, the acclaimed writer and director of The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, and daughter of Arthur Miller. I was hoping more than anything to have Mrs. Miller as my directing professor, and she is an outstanding teacher. Two weeks ago, I directed a scene from Michael Mann's The Insider in front of Mrs. Miller and my Directing the Actor class, which was a thrilling experience. Her comments and criticism of my direction were invaluable, and the two actors I cast in the scene were enormously talented.

I am also taking Developing the Screenplay, a wonderful screenwriting class taught by the great writer Ken Dancyger. He's a brilliant professor, and, after pitching my feature screenplay in front of the class and meeting with him privately, I feel motivated and energized to continue writing my feature script. My other classes include Intermediate Editing, where I am editing Ben Dewey's Intermediate Narrative film Quitting (I was also the Assistant Director on that film last semester) on AVID; Introduction to Performance Studies; and History of Modern Ireland, a class at NYU's Glucksman Ireland House.

I have served as Assistant Director on two projects so far this semester. Most recently, I was the Assistant Director for my friend Nicole Cobb's Intermediate Experimental film Athanasia's Waltz, one of the best projects I've had the privilege to work on. After weeks of location scouting in Red Hook and across Brooklyn, as well as sitting in on rehearsals with Nicole and her two very talented actors, the picture was shot last weekend in Brooklyn with an incredibly supportive crew. As soon as I receive the production stills from the set, I will post them on this blog. In the meantime, here is a link to the page for Athanasia's Waltz on Nicole's website.

I also worked as Assistant Director for Ben's Intermediate Short Commercial Form project Don't Try This At Home in late February, with a small crew that included Ben, Bobb and Jon Annunziata. On the last day of February, I presented my Dean's Scholars Collaborative Project to the Tisch Dean's Scholars, where I collaborated on a small project with another film major and a photography student. That incredible program, to which I devoted an entire post earlier this year, has some amazing events lined up for this semester that I will share in the coming weeks.

With regard to this year's Academy Awards - first of all, I was ecstatic on the morning of the Oscar nominations, as Hugo led with eleven nominations, and both The Tree of Life and Terrence Malick were nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, respectively. Yes, there were many omissions (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Margaret, Take Shelter, Shame and Young Adult were completely ignored), but the triumph for Hugo lifted my spirits - at least until the Oscar ceremony.

My heart was a little broken this time last year, when David Fincher and The Social Network lost their Oscars to a less deserving picture. But this year was much worse. I hadn't been this close to the Oscar race since 2007, when Scorsese won his first Best Director Oscar for The Departed. There is no question that Scorsese deserved this year's Oscar - not simply because he has a long history of losing to inferior films, but because he made the best film of the year, Hugo. Although I was very happy to see Hugo win richly-deserved Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects, nothing stings as badly as watching the most deserving film lose the top awards - particularly when it loses them to a charming and inoffensive silent picture that appeals mainly to people who haven't seen many silent films. Oh, well - history will be the judge. The Artist joins Dances with Wolves, Ordinary People, Chicago and Rocky. Hugo, meanwhile, joins Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Gangs of New York and The Aviator.

Additionally, for the second year in a row, many performers who deserved to win the Best Actor Oscar (Leonardo DiCaprio for J. Edgar, Michael Shannon for Take Shelter, Michael Fassbender for Shame) were not even nominated. Meanwhile, the extraordinary performances that were nominated (Brad Pitt for Moneyball, Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, George Clooney for The Descendants) failed to win the Oscar. On a positive note, I was very happy that Christopher Plummer, Woody Allen and Alexander Payne all received Academy Awards.

I have seen several films since I returned to New York City, including two outstanding holdovers from 2011 - Asghar Farhadi's A Separation, which deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus, a brilliant and brutal Shakespeare adaptation with incredible performances from Fiennes, Jessica Chastain and Vanessa Redgrave, who unquestionably should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. New 2012 releases that I have admired include Paul Weitz's Being Flynn, with an unforgettable performance from our finest living actor, Robert De Niro (a performance that will hopefully result in an Oscar nomination for De Niro, after his astounding recent work in Stone and Everybody's Fine went overlooked); David Wain's ferociously funny Wanderlust, delightfully full of that unmistakable Wain humor (the best bit, besides an outrageously funny mirror-monologue from Paul Rudd, is a morning news show with Wain, Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black doing their thing); and Tony Kaye's Detachment, an immensely powerful film with an excellent lead performance from Adrien Brody. Note: Michael Showalter is a professor at the Tisch Schools of the Arts, and when I see him at Tisch, it's hard not to express my enthusiasm for his work, from the brilliant Wet Hot American Summer to his appearance in Wanderlust - so, instead, I'll express my love here. Mr. Showalter, you are a comic genius.

Finally, here's a comedy short for which I served as Assistant Director last semester - Surprise! - from the new sketch comedy group Unlikely Allies. My friend Mike Cheslik directed the short, and Bobb did the sound - take a look!