Dead Man’s Cell Phone at UCLA

By Matthew Wrather | Published: April 29, 2010

I’m very excited to be work­ing on my first full-length project with my class­mates at UCLA. If you live out here, I hope you will con­sider com­ing out to see some very tal­ented actors. And also me.

DEAD MAN’S CELL PHONE
by Sarah Ruhl

directed by Alex Levy

fea­tur­ing Lau­ren Duna­gan, Josephine Keefe, Nina Law, Cather­ine Leong, Colin Fairchild, and Matthew Wrather

An inces­santly ring­ing cell phone in a quiet caf. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And a dead man — with a lot of loose ends. So begins Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a wildly imag­i­na­tive new com­edy by play­wright Sarah Ruhl, recip­i­ent of a MacArthur ”Genius” Grant and Pulitzer Prize final­ist for her play The Clean House. A work about how we memo­ri­al­ize the dead — and how that remem­ber­ing changes us—it is the odyssey of a woman forced to con­front her own assump­tions about moral­ity, redemp­tion, and the need to con­nect in a tech­no­log­i­cally obsessed world.

Thurs­day, May 6 at 7:30pm
Fri­day, May 7 at 4:30pm
Sat­ur­day, May 8 at 7:30pm

1330 Mac­Gowan Hall,
UCLA School of The­ater Film and Tele­vi­sion
(Enter on Hil­gard near Sun­set; park in Struc­ture 3.)

Tick­ets are free; open seat­ing; first come, first served.

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Returning to the Ancestral Homeland

By Matthew Wrather | Published: April 17, 2009

Though I’ve announced this in sev­eral places (Face­book, Twit­ter), I haven’t really made the update here… Ear­lier this year I accepted an offer of admis­sion to the grad­u­ate act­ing pro­gram at the UCLA School of The­atre, Film and Tele­vi­sion. It’s a 3-year M.F.A. pro­gram, and it means that almost 11 years after mov­ing to New Haven, I’m headed home to South­ern California.

I’m really excited about the pro­gram. Liv­ing on the east coast, I wasn’t really aware of it. (Their show­case is just in Los Ange­les and I gather that most of the grad­u­ates stay there—and why not?) I was more aware of UCLA as a film school.

But they kindly offered to fly me out for a tour after I was admit­ted, and I was blown away by the tal­ent of the stu­dents, the qual­ity of the instruc­tion (srsly… I sat in some absolutely incred­i­ble act­ing classes), and how nice and wel­com­ing every­one was.

So. I’m bid­ding farewell to the East Coast, and, for the most part, bid­ding farewell to life as a work­ing actor (there won’t be any time for it amid what I’m told is a very intense sched­ule. Except for summers.)

This www.matthewwrather.com site and mail­ing list will prob­a­bly become much less of a brochure site/blog for my act­ing career and more of a lifestream aggre­gat­ing the var­i­ous things I do all around the inter­net. (Here’s the pro­to­type.) I hope you’ll stay sub­scribed to the RSS feed or mail­ing list, which will prob­a­bly be updated a lit­tle more often. I hope you’ll stay in touch. And if you hap­pen to be in the LA area, I hope you’ll stop by!

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Appearing at La MaMa ETC in “It Matters Where You’re Buried”

By Matthew Wrather | Published: February 13, 2009

I’m pleased to announce that I’m appear­ing (and play­ing a lit­tle piano!) in a read­ing of It Mat­ters Where You’re Buried, a new cabaret pray about chanteuse and night­club hostess-to-the-stars Brick Top, at La MaMa ETC in the east vil­lage, as a part of their read­ing series Shadow. Here are the details:

IT MATTERS WHERE YOU’RE BURIED
by Beth Campbell

Directed by George Fer­encz
Fea­tur­ing Sheila Dab­ney as Brick Top
Lee Bee­bout as Jim Com­stock
and Matthew Wrather as Itchy

Brick Top, cabaret chanteuse and saloon keeper to the stars of the Lost Gen­er­a­tion in Paris, gives an inter­view to Jim Com­stock, edi­tor of the West Vir­ginia Hill­billy news­pa­per, in her bar in Heaven.

Where ever I am, that’s Brick Top’s. As a gin joint it ain’t bad.
—Brick Top

Feb­ru­ary 14, 2009 at 7:30pm
La MaMa Annex, 74A East 4th Street, NYC [map]
Free Admis­sion /No Reservations

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KNB Review at NYTheatre.com

By Matthew Wrather | Published: August 17, 2008

I am delighted that the NYTheatre.com review of KNB the Musi­cal was a rave, hap­pier still that the reviewer seems to have got­ten the writer/director’s aims exactly, and aston­ished that the fol­low­ing sen­tence appeared in it:

The cast is led by Glenn Seven Allen as Bat­teaux, who sings, dances, and acts with grand finesse.… Stand­outs include…Matthew Wrather, who, in addi­tion to danc­ing, is a fea­tured pianist in a cou­ple of numbers.

Only two more chances to see me in the show–check out the main post for details.

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Fall Out at the, um, Binge Festival

By Matthew Wrather | Published: August 11, 2008

Appar­ently, when it rains it pours. In addi­tion to rock­ing Christo­pher Carter Sanderson’s KNB: The Musi­cal (four more per­for­mances as of this writ­ing!), I’m going to be appear­ing in Fall Out in the Binge Fes­ti­val, a Work­ing Man’s Clothes joint.

Our play, Fall Out is a 10 minute comic bro­mance about the apoc­a­lypse. I’ve been rehears­ing with the direc­tor and other actor, and it will be a good time. I espe­cially like the for­mat of the evening: It runs from 11pm–3am (we’re sec­ond on the bill, so if you’re just com­ing for me, you’ll be out around mid­night), there’s a band and full bar, and tick­ets are only $5. I hope to see you there!

Fall Out

writ­ten by Larry Pon­tius
directed by Nel­son T. Euse­bio III
with Jason Robin­son and Matthew Wrather

Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, August 15 and 16
The show runs 11pm–3am. We’re sec­ond on the bill.

Wings The­ater (154 Christo­pher Street) [map]
Between Green­wich and Wash­ing­ton in the West Village

$5 admis­sion

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KNB: The Musical

By Matthew Wrather | Published: July 17, 2008

KNB The MusicalI’m so excited to announce my first NYC show, an new work called KNB: The Musi­cal, writ­ten, com­posed, and directed fel­low Yalie Christo­pher Carter Sander­son. I’m in the cho­rus (another first!), and it’s been a great way to start off work­ing in a new city and meet incred­i­ble, tal­ented new people.

If you’re in the area, I hope you can check it out. Tick­ets are cheap ($15!), and the sched­ule is a lit­tle weird. I’ve heard that the prime-time shows sell quickly, so reserve online now!

Gorilla Reper­tory presents
the New York Int’l Fringe Fest. pro­duc­tion of

KNB

The Romat­i­cal, Com­i­cal, Nau­ti­cal Musical

writ­ten and directed by Christo­pher Carter Sander­son
musi­cal direc­tor: Alli­son Tar­talia / chore­o­g­ra­pher: Erin Porvaznika

All’s Fair in Love and the Global War on Ter­ror? A sailor won­ders what is mak­ing his life truly mis­er­able as his Navy Reserve Boat Unit sings and dances its way toward impend­ing deployment.

The Michael Schim­mel Cen­ter for the Arts, Pace Univ. [map]

Sun­day 8/10, 6:45pm
Thurs­day 8/14, 3:00pm
Sun­day 8/17, 1:45pm
Thurs­day 8/21, 7:30pm
Sat­ur­day 8/23, 9:45 (pm, i hope)

tick­ets ($15! Cheap!) are avail­able on the Fringe Web­site

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Matt on Film: The Raft

By Matthew Wrather | Published: April 3, 2008

The Raft: Still 1

I spent the week­end before last in Fall River, MA, home of sev­eral Korean War vin­tage U.S. Navy ships, includ­ing the destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. I was there to shoot a flashback/dream sequence for The Raft, an inde­pen­dent short film directed by Robert Jones.

The movie stars Ed Asner (!) as a grand­fa­ther who tells his grand­son about a par­tic­u­lar inci­dent in WWII. The grand­son then imag­ines the inci­dent as his grand­fa­ther has told it, but with him­self in his grandfather’s role as Cap­tain. New Haven friends and NHTC reg­u­lars Peter Chenot and Chris­t­ian Sha­boo were in the scene with me, and we had more bond­ing expe­ri­ences than we’d ever imagined—or wanted—as we stayed awake for two 6pm–6am work­ing “days”, explored New­port, RI (I’d never been) dur­ing the down­time, and drove home to New Haven at 5am on a Tuesday.

Here are a few more pic­tures (click for larger versions):

The Raft: Candid 1 The Raft: Candid 2 The Raft: Candid 3

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Matt On Stage: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

By Matthew Wrather | Published: November 21, 2007

Most Wonderful Time of the YearHappy Hol­i­days to one and all! You know how I like to cel­e­brate? Tap Dancing!

That’s right—you can see me in the Cor­ner­stone Pro­duc­tions Hol­i­day show, The Most Won­der­ful Time of the Year, a song-and-dance spec­tac­u­lar which, for me, rep­re­sents sev­eral firsts:

  • First time imper­son­at­ing Elvis in front of a pay­ing audience
  • First time lift­ing a scantily-clad vamp over my head mid-dance
  • NOT the first time danc­ing onstage with girls in their under­wear (that would have been 1998, in Santa Mon­ica Playhouse’s pro­duc­tion of Back­street, a musi­cal based on Sholom Asch’s God of Vengeance, for which I also co-wrote book, music, and lyrics)

Inter­ested in see­ing the musi­cal spec­tac­u­lar that’s blaz­ing like a meteor across the Con­necti­cut shore­line? Con­tact me for info…

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Matt on Stage: The Funny Stages

By Matthew Wrather | Published: November 6, 2007

The Funny StagesAs ever, I’ll be appear­ing in New Haven The­ater Com­pany’s The Funny Stages, CT’s only night of improv com­edy and music, this month on Wednes­day, Novem­ber 14, at 8pm, in the back room of  New Haven’s BAR (254 Crown Street). Tick­ets are $5, and you can bring in BAR’s deli­cious pizza and house brews.

We’re appear­ing this month with the Keith and Mazer Trio, fronted by the phe­nom­e­nally tal­ented Megan Keith.

The show starts at 8pm and should go until about 10:30 or 11, but don’t feel like you have to show up (or stay!) for the whole thing. NHTC started doing these monthly com­edy shows because we wanted to cre­ate an alter­na­tive the­ater expe­ri­ence, one where you don’t have to decide to buy a sub­scrip­tion months in advance to pay an extortionist’s price for the priv­i­lege of sit­ting in an uncom­fort­able seat and not mov­ing for three hours. Come, go, eat, drink, flirt, leave, return, stay, laugh, heckle… it’s all good. See you there.

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Matt On Stage: 365/365 Concludes

By Matthew Wrather | Published: October 31, 2007

I’m going to be appear­ing at Long Wharf The­atre this Mon­day, Novem­ber 5, in the thrilling con­clu­sion of the New Eng­land Region’s year of 365 Days/365 Plays, by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Work­ing with New Haven The­ater Com­pany, I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in this project since Novem­ber, 2006—the New Haven Advo­cate called our Black Fri­day store­front the­ater the “most widely seen 365 event” in New Haven—and it will be a blast to wrap the project up by per­form­ing the Third Con­stant, Inac­tion in Action, and the final play of the year on the Long Wharf mainstage.

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