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S03E12 - Meet Tethered's Paul Lukach & Frederick Williams · CINEMACTIVIST

• John C. Lyons: Hi, everybody, and welcome to Cinema Activist. My name's John Lyons, and I'm your host. And I'm here in the Schuster Theatre on Gannon University's campus, where we are doing a lot of our rehearsals for Tethered's new upcoming show, The Lever. And on this episode, I'm going to be Talking to a couple members of the cast. First up is Dr. Paul Lukach Paul, how are you, good sir? I'm great. Having a great day. It's awesome to have you involved in the show. I've known you for a little while. first time working together and it's really exciting for me personally so thanks for being part. Happy to be a part of it. I I haven't done theater in a while so this is exciting to jump back into it and this is certainly a new and different experience that I haven't been exposed to before. Yeah so talk let's talk a little bit about your background. Where did you always want to be a performer? Were you on the producing, writing, directing side, like where were your interests in so all over the place. The first show I ever saw, I was, I don't know, 13 years old, and it was West Side Story. there you go. And I thought, I have to do this, I have to do this. So as a young person, I got involved in every possible theater thing I could do. Being out in the country was a little bit more difficult to find those opportunities, but I did. Continued it in college, in fact did a little minor theater thing when I was in college. Did a lot of stuff like that, jumped into the professional world for a while, got away from it. Came back to another small community where that was their kind of socialization. wow. So I joined a community theater group where I ended up becoming the president of. And for 10 years I was kind of running that. So I wasn't only acting, I was directing, I was finding shows to do. I was doing all the heavy lifting behind who can build our sets, who can I beg to paint. You know, we have $10 in our budget. How do we make a show happen like that? All of that. All of those kind of things. And it was really a lot of fun. And that catapulted me into doing some other community theater groups. I just the thing about community groups are These people want to be there, they want to do it. And the audiences want to see it because it is their socialization and it is their friends and it is their people they work with and and their their the people they know. So they want to do that and support it, no matter how good or bad it is. They always seem to have a good time, and that that was always reassuring. and then I was asked to teach theater at the University of Pittsburgh, one of their branch campuses. So I did that, which was really very cool. So I feel like I had a a real good rounded experience doing all those things. I love doing all those things. But this is a this is different. This immersive theater thing is a bit different than any of that. So again, another new, exciting, thing that I can participate in. What do you find from your past experience is most useful bringing to like a show like this? Like what skills do you need for a show like this? And do you have you like picked up some of those in interesting ways from your prior experiences? I always like Writing grants, which I did a lot of that too. You you never throw away a bad grant or an old grant. You always save it because there's always a some glitter of something that might help you in the future. And I think the same theater, every good experience, every bad experience, every potential interaction with theater on the set, behind the set, you know, working as a supporter gives you some opportunity to say, I understand what goes into a show, especially understanding the hard work that no one ever sees. How did this show come about? Who wrote it? Where are the props coming from? You know, you guys, where are the rehearsal spaces? How does that work? Do can we navigate that? Do we even have any money to spend? Right. What about costumes? What about, you know, logistics? What about are we are we infringing on someone's, you know, personal stories and all of that kind of stuff? So I have a great appreciation for all the stuff that happens before the actors are even chosen or coming on stage. But again, I think everything you do gives you another opportunity to appreciate the next thing you're gonna do. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for saying that. I know I knew you had a lot of varied experience for sure. And I was, you know, like I said, I was very excited that you joined the team. I was curious, like, yeah, have you ever done anything like this before? Have you ever done any improv before? I've done improv and in fact as some fundraising I actually created very, you know, you know, one night only improv groups where I'd say, Okay, here are my seven friends, you're gonna do this. And I stole a lot of things. From Whose Line Is It Anyway, and the things that they did that kind of gave me a platform. And we did, you know, do couple rehearsals just to say, hey, these are maybe the scenarios that might come. But we were really honest in saying, you know, hey audience, what do you think? You know, and trying to pick those things out. so yeah, I did. I was more behind the scenes putting it together than than being on the stage. But I can tell you, even you know, waiting for your scene to happen in a rehearsal, there were so many times. When you know somebody would grab a prop and do something stupid with the backstage. And that created a whole improv moment that probably could have been something had we remembered what the hell we were doing and not paying attention to the director. But yeah, so I really appreciate that. And I actually think because I do like to talk to people and I do like to share experiences and sometimes even for fun, embellish those experiences just to see if people are actually listening, that I'm gonna be okay with the whole improv thing. I think you will be too. Yeah, for sure. so we're recording this on day five of rehearsals. so we've just started out. How has your experience been so far as far as you know the auditioning process? Rehearsals, what has surprised you? what has terrified you? What are you most excited about? I know it's still early stage. So funny. I was terrified to even come. And it was a last minute thing to decide and I hurried up and I went online and find a you know a a really quick monologue to do and whatever and and and I the first few minutes in that room I was like I I gotta get the hell out of here. This isn't for me. But then I fell in love with it. I mean everything we did was great. I really at the end of that rehearsal or that audition moment, I it that was really a fun experience. Do you want to talk because they don't whoever's watching and listening to this doesn't know how we structure We we first got we first introduced who we were and why we might be involved and what experience we had, you know, pretty typical stuff. In a group. In a group. And then we broke off into smaller groups and we had to talk about some real experience of our life, you know, that was life-changing or or or very memorable or whatever. And that was first a little awkward, but we started sharing and and and and it was kind of neat because some of those people are in the show. And I'm like, I I I have a connection with them now. I remember when we did this. So that was kind of cool. The the thing I really liked is when we did after we all did our monologues, the directors and producers asked different ones of us to do these little you are now this and you are gonna take, you know, this storyline and work with it. I loved that. I thought that was so much fun. And and even watching all the other people. you know, coming up with their clever, you know, made up stories on the spot was really fun. So I thought that was great. Going back to the rehearsals, I I would consider this, and this is I think typical of any beginning theater in the first, you know, couple of weeks, organized chaos. Is and and I'm still trying to figure out how this is all gonna go together. so I'm excited because every time we rehearse, there's a little bit more like okay, you know, okay, here's how I'm feeling, here's how I'm supposed to do this, here's how my my biggest concern is because I'm gonna be doing a lot of in in my role as executive director of this agency, I'm gonna be doing a lot of interacting with the audience, especially early on. Yeah. My biggest concern is Having audience members being too interested in my story and wanting to, like, you know, pull my ear for a long time, or presenting me with something that will totally take me by surprise. Right. That would be hard for me to do because I think I can, you know, in my work, what I did prior to this, I I think I I was present with a lot of crazy ass things, and you just have to react appropriately in the moment. So I think I can do that, but there's always that moment of I I don't. know how to respond to what you just asked. And there's seven other people listening now too. Yep. Yeah, that might happen. That might happen. You'll figure it out. You'll you'll roll with it, I'm sure. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about your character without spoiling you know, the overall arc of your character. The executive director of this nonprofit organization called Feed Our Neighbors. And they're having their annual report meeting. Right. And yeah, you you kind of what? Think of yourself as like a man of the people. You're I told you before he he was an early inspiration, like Joe Biden was an early inspiration, you know, like kind of working class. He sees himself working class, even though, you know, he's he's part of the elite structure in in the city. What what are your kind of general thoughts about the character? So I have I have decided that my character comes from Minnesota. Okay. And is still trying to be Everyday eerie, you know. So there's some people okay with it, there's some people like you're still an outsider because you know you have to be here like 50 years to be, you know, an eerie, right? Yeah. so but I'm very proud of my work and I'm very pleased with where I've come with, even if even if other people aren't so impressed, I am impressed with what I've done and what I've accomplished. and so I feel like I want to share that. But because I have all these great experiences in my life, because I've been fortunate. Enough, I want to couch everything in one of those experiences. I want to talk about how I, you know, walked across the faces of Mount Rushmore, and you know, which I don't think you're allowed to do, but I'm gonna say it. and how that likens yourself to you know putting yourself in the place of these great men and the work that they do. so I think that I'm excited about kind of you know rolling out that, you know, look at me, I'm so good, but I really did do good for the organization, and we're gonna celebrate that tonight in this in this meeting. I also think I'm very aloof. I think there's a lot of things going on that I have no idea about. and that's gonna be an issue for sure. That's a great tease. Paul, thank you so much. And I look forward to developing this show and finding this character with you. Yeah, I hope it's everything that everybody wants it to be. you know, it that's the thing about live theater. You don't know until it's over how it went, and I love that whole idea. Now it's a pleasure to be joined by Frederick Williams. Frederick and I go back a little bit. Fred, you starred in There Are No Goodbyes, which is a film we made together fifteen years ago almost. twenty eleven. Twenty eleven. Or the beginning of twenty ten. So fifteen fifteen years ago. Yeah. It's awesome to see you. It's amazing to be reunited and to work in this new space that you know both you and I are are figuring out. immersive theater. So why don't you talk about how acting, you know, started in in your life and you know how you found your way into film, how you found your way into voice work, and how you found your way into this production. Give us your life story, Frederick Williams. Well it's you know I I never thought about being an actor. you know, actor actor. I thought about being a voice actor. Okay, from early age? No. it when did you s first start thinking about like, yeah, I could do that. That was about two thousand and seven or two thousand and eight. Okay. I mean still a young buck. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I was encouraged that I should be using my voice more. Mm-hmm. And I just great voice. Yeah, and I decided to pursue that. Never thinking that I would get into acting. You know, I mean physically acting, where people see me. but I did that and I stumbled across a director who thought I should audition for his his movie. Who was that? That was you. all right. And I had no idea, you know, how I was gonna act, you know, because I said, wow, I've never really done that. And I I turned on the first audition. And so what brought you back to the what brought you to the second audition? Actually I I called you and said, You don't want this old guy, you know, I mean at the time I was like fifty one years old, you know, and giving away my age of course now. But But you know, y and you said, Well, you know, give it a shot, you know. Yeah. and I said 'cause you only had one more. Had one more audition, I said, Well, okay. I'll go down. My wife said, Well, just go down and give it a shot. Yeah. And I'm glad she did. Shout out to her. So so I I read the script and and I I had it down and you I asked you to send me a couple you know what the movie was about and give me some sides yeah and and well I can use that term now because I've been I've been around the block a few times but anyway I read the sides and I get down there and interview time came and you came out and said I have another script for you to read And I was I was totally drawn I did that? I threw you a curveball. I was totally thrown out of the league. You know, I said man. What a jerk. And I said, I didn't I didn't practice for that. Yeah. Don't you you you should remember that. And you I don't remember doing that. That's it's maybe I don't think I did it on purpose. I was gonna be the neighbor. I was gonna be the neighbor. right. I do remember this now. And and and then we thought of you for the other role. Right. And so for Fenris. So so yeah, he said, I you have the voice for, you know, maybe this Fenris character. I said, I didn't study for that. and well just read it anyway. I said And I get the I get the script and I read it and I did the best I could, but I thought I failed, you know, and I went home. I went home and I told my wife about it. And and I said, I just blew this audition that I will never probably get another one. So And then the rest history. And the rest is history. So Fred co co-starred in There Are No Goodbyes with Matthew King, who was in tethered last year. so what so you've done more film work since There are No Goodbyes. What's some of the stuff that you've done? I did a movie which is now on Tubi. It's on Amazon Prime. It's called Angel of Reckoning. Cool. that's a Len Kabasinski movie. That's a L Len Kabasinski movie. I did Blood Prism. Yep. Which is also on Tubi. I did another movie called Hellcat's Revenge. Okay. You've done the number of Yeah, I've I've done about and not all of the the thing about being in the indie market, and I've I've learned this because I've been in about fourteen of them. And you know, from here to Virginia to the backwoods of Ohio. Cool. And so I found myself being in the indie market. Yeah. You know, and and I liked it. Yeah. You know, to me being in front of the camera was like being in sports. You know, I you don't see the audience, so you don't really see the well once you're into the character, you don't really see that. Now I was born with that. I was never I never had any formal training. Okay. Right. And I've never had any formal training in speech other than in classes that I took when I was in college and you know, in high school and and that type of thing and I was a lector at one time. That's right. You were a lector. Yeah, I remember that. And people would say, hey, you have a nice voice. So good storyteller. To to to to get myself since I wasn't in the indie market, but I wanted to expand. Yeah. So I I was doing voiceovers. For people. Yeah. And my last voiceover was I did it for the Chronicles at WQLN. W QL PBS affiliate. Yeah, which is an Emmy Award winning multi Emmy Award winning series. And I did the entry on that for Harry T. Burley. Burley, cool. Yeah, yeah. I have that on my on my That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. And it that's great. It started that off and it was good and you know, and I had fun doing it. Yeah. And I'm still moving on. Yeah, absolutely. So you've also done some theater work. You've haven't done immersive theater before, right? But you have been in some stage plays. Yeah, I've I my home theater was all in act theater. Yeah. Before it its demise that the the building caught on fire and it just it never got back together. But we did a number of plays there I did. Yeah, I saw you in a couple there. Yeah. Macbeth Twelve Angry Men, The Sensuous Senator. I played crooks in mice and men. Yep. Yeah so you've got okay so you've done you've done quite a lot over, you know, ever since you decided to start giving this thing a try. Yeah and it's and you know the the thing is I was always asked, you know, when people saw yeah and you know, they they liked what I was doing. Yeah. And that's what I do now. Mm-hmm. I do it for For the audience. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. And I like to I I like to hide behind characters. Yeah. Well, for this show, so for Tethered's The Lever, it's all about the audience. It's very audience centric. And your character is the retired police chief, Hank. He's a different kind of character. He sure is. And what are your thoughts about Hank? Well it it's it's gonna stretch me. you you're gonna put me to the real test. And the audience will decide whether or not, you know, I pass. But right now, the character is He's something that I wanna challenge, you know. How would you describe Hank? What are what you know, you're just starting to dive into him a little bit, but but what do you understand about him and you know how can you how are you approaching this character? Well, Hank he he's determined, you know, and he And he has reason to be. He's running for mayor. He's running for mayor. And in running for mayor, he has no doubt that he should be mayor. Yeah. Because he came from the community. Yeah. Okay. And he knows what's best. That's right. And he's been around the block. Yeah. You know, he's he's worked his way through and his next step is being mayor. Yeah. And people people already know that. Yeah. You know, 'cause they know him. And hopefully I can do his character Real justice. I yeah, I can't wait to see it. I talked to Paul about his experiences in the auditions and the rehearsals so far? How would you say how's how's this been going for you so far? Well, I've never done I've done a lot of auditions, okay, and where I had to do it, they gave me 15 minutes. Yeah. And this was hours. Yes. Literal hours. Yeah, yeah. So So how was how was that? Were you you weren't anticipating that, I'm guessing. No, I I I wasn't, you know. I did two versions of it. Yeah. You know, of this character. The nice guy and the determined guy. Yeah. Can I I'll share really quick? So these were workshop style auditions, and we said to bring a one to two minute monologue to perform, but we said that you know that's just gonna be part of the experience. So most people, I would say like 90% of the people who auditioned for us brought like an already existing piece. Well, Frederick, I don't know if you improvised or if you worked that out. Ahead of time, he probably worked it out ahead of time, but Frederick performed as the retired police chief character who he was auditioning for, which was very impressive, sir. Yeah. Well, thank you, because you know it it pulled me in. Yeah. And then when I had to do the other side of that that performance. I had to think about it and I only had a a little bit of time. Yeah. And I went out there and and I got lost in it. You know, being I was the mayor to be. Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome. And I I you know Next thing you know, I'm looking at and and they're thinking that I'm really doing this. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah, and so I loved watching it. Yeah. And so I It was very impressive and it was surprising and I'm glad you made that choice for sure. Everybody could instantly see you in the character. So before we wrap, is there anything you want to share about you know the cast that you're working with that you're getting to know, the rehearsal process, like anything you wanna share? Well, I've never been in a immersive type of theater. It it's different. I have a good group of people that I'm working with. who share we all share a commonality of interest and we're we're we're all actors. And so far we're all comfortable. Yeah, it's interesting. The dynamics already like taking hold. Right, right. Yeah, which we're very happy about for sure. And I'm very happy about it because y I can work well. I've worked with a couple actors. I mean, you know real good actors. Yeah, you know, and like known Yeah, no, no. Yeah, yeah. You know, one played on the series criminal minds. Mm-hmm. You know, on and he's a good friend. of mine I talked to him on on a regular basis and you know he gave me a lot of a lot of pointers like never look into the camera huh you know yeah you don't look at the top of the camera yeah yeah yeah but this group is a good group I think I think when we As we're bonding, yeah. It's gonna be a great show. Yeah. People are gonna wanna see this. Yeah, I can't wait. I'm so excited. We've got a ways to go. but so far so far it's going good. Well, thank you for being here, Fred. So, just so everybody that's watching and listening to this knows, if you sign up for the Lyons Den Productions Tethered Cinema Activist newsletter, you will get first access to tickets for the show. So you're listening to this on a Thursday. On Monday, we're going to email out the pre-sales code, and you'll have a week of early access to tickets for the lever. So you can go to tethered immersive dot com, scroll to the bottom of that page, click on the newsletter sign up link, and sign up before Monday morning and we will give you the code. And then you can check out Fred and Paul and everybody else in the cast. Thank you for listening. We'll be back soon.