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Hilarie Burton: Hey everyone! This is Hilarie Burton and you have tuned in to the Southern Gothic Productions podcast, a weekly look into the inner workings of a production company. So sit back, and enjoy a peek into our journey.

Denise Gideon: Hey guys! This is Denise Gideon. I am very excited and honored to be able to introduce the episode this week. It is an interview that I got to do while I was on location in Wilmington, North Carolina with Southern Gothic Productions as they filmed their first episode of their web series, ‘Friendship Union Community Theatre.’ And it was the second day of filming and I got a chance to sit down and talk with Mr. Nicholas Gray about his webisode debut, to talk about filming the webisode as not only the script writer, but as the director. It was quite an interesting time because I got down there and was told to come on set about 10:00 a.m. and they had already been well into filming the first day. When I got there it was kind of strange because I had met Hilarie Burton one time face-to-face on set, and then I had spoke to her a couple of times, and we had done a few podcast interviews, and I’d spoken to Kelly Tenney on the phone and on an interview but never met him face-to-face and that goes as well for Nick. And so, when I get there, there’s all these people there. They’re looking at me a little strangely, and I say, ‘Well, I’m looking for Kelly’ and they say ‘He’s somewhere around here.’ So, I’m sitting there watching a little bit of filming when they end that scene, everybody’s starting to mill around and set up for another scene and I just kind of start looking around. And then, you know, I find Kelly and I say, ‘Hey, it’s Denise!’ You know, and the funny thing is maybe you’ve seen a photo or two of people, or maybe not, and so you get a big hug, and you see Hilarie walking around and I get to talk to her a bit. And then it’s just craziness that whole day and it was funny because when I left I felt like, here they are inviting me down here and I didn’t do anything! And I felt kind of bad about it. And the thing was they were working so hard and trying to get everything done and it wasn’t till the second day that we were able to knock-out some great interviews. And that’s what we’re going to be playing for you in the next three weeks. As this week’s interview with Nick kind of leads up to the release of the first episode of the web series, ‘Friendship Union Community Theatre,’ and the next two weeks following that is going to be great because we got to sit down and do some really in depth interviews with Rachael Sutton who plays Clarisse Birdsong and Taylor Kowolski who plays Walter the Stage Manger, and those two interviews I got to do with Hilarie and so that was a lot of fun. So we’re going to be able to do that for you in the next three weeks, and I’m really excited because it’s almost like we’re opening up the vault and bringing these interviews to you and almost giving you a commentary about the filming of the web series before you see it and after and it’s been a real honor, just a dream come true, to be able to work with all these guys, with Hilarie and Kelly and Nick because they have such great passion for what they’re doing, and to be able to bring me along for the ride and to be able to share some of my passion is a dream come true.

HB: Oh, hello! This is Hilarie Burton and you are listening to the Southern Gothic Production Podcast.

DG: We’re here for the Southern Gothic Productions Podcast, here on location in Wilmington, North Carolina, and I’m very lucky to be sitting here with Mr. Nicholas Gray who’s the writer of this great webisode. Nick, really appreciate you spending some time. I know it’s been kind of hectic.

Nicholas Gray: Sure has! But the good thing is that we have time between shots and so, here I am, as awake and trying to be as non-flustered as possible. [laughs]

DG: Aw, no, you’ve not been flustered, have you?

NG: Well, I mean… yeah! The thing about this webisode is that, you know, we had auditions not particularly for this webisode, but a pre-screen that we did in general, and after that the whole webisode was done in a two week period, so yes, I have been flustered. [laughs]

DG: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about filming, I guess we could say it’s your brainchild. Just talk about filming this webisode and how it was specifically written for the web, and how different that was for you.

NG: Well, as a lot of the people that follow us know, ‘Pedestrian’ was the first thing I really had ever written, and that’s a feature, and after I, you know, was shopping ‘Pedestrian’ a little bit, I continued writing longer pilots, another feature, a full length play, and then I wrote a short film, not the one I shot with Hilarie, but another one, and I was like, ‘I hate shorts!’ They’re so much more difficult to write than features because you have to tell a whole complete story in a really small time frame.

DG: Right.

NG: And it has to be interesting for, you know, hopefully the whole thing because otherwise you have 10 minutes of something and, you know, you want it to pop through the whole 10 minutes, and so as I was kind of approaching this particular project… because, you know, this first one we’re doing… we’re going to come in somewhere between 6 and 8 minutes, probably. And I was like, ‘Oh, crap! I hate writing shorts!’ But the good thing about this is that, you know, there’s a future to it.

DG: Right.

NG: You know, it’s not like a short film, it’s episodic, and so, you know, where we leave off we can continue from time to time, and so I wasn’t really looking forward to it in the beginning, just based on my past with shorts, but I was really, really happy with the product.

DG: And you had auditions beforehand… before you wrote it.

NG: Yeah.

DG: That’s kind of different.

NG: Well, we did a pre-screen audition here in Wilmington just to see who we really had available. I’ve worked here in the theatre community directing and acting, and so I know quite a few people here but I know there’s a lot of people that, you know, do a lot of film work that don’t do theatre work, and I also was familiar with a lot of younger people, and I had an idea that I was wanted to do a webisode about community theatre because, you know, this is all kind of new for us, and I wanted to make sure we could do something where, for the most part, we could keep it in one location, and also, in working in the community theatre setting for the past year and a half, and then about 6 months before last year, there’s a lot of fodder in this world. [Denise laughs] And I knew that it would be, you know, really, really exciting. So we did this audition for a lot of stuff, not just particularly for the webisode, but I did, you know, once I saw who we had, I wrote this first episode with, you know, 7 people particularly in mind, and I certainly haven’t done that before.

DG: That’s interesting.

NG: You know, and I was really happy that everybody that we offered roles to, you know, accepted them because then I was going to have to write a new character! [Denise laughs] But it’s really cool, I mean, in the past there’s been people that I’ve written characters for with specific people in mind, but you know, like when I wrote ‘Pedestrian’…

DG: Right.

NG: I had some, you know, really specific actors in mind, but I’d never really been able to write something for people that I know on a more personal level, and the access of something like that happening is quite possible.

DG: Your characters are some characters! [both laugh]

NG: Yeah. I think my writing style is pretty specific. This is actually, kind of, my first stab at comedy, you know, because ‘Pedestrian’ is pretty dramatic, and a lot of the other stuff I wrote is dramatic, and it always has a touch of dark comedy to it. This is, you know, I really like ‘Arrested Development,’ ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’ ‘Summer Heights High,’ and you know, that’s the style of comedy that really appeals to me. I mean, you know, it’s a really fresh brand of comedy that’s present on television right now, and so that was what I wanted to do. But I think I also, you know, I think I have a specific writing style and I wanted to keep that present as well.

DG: And also, I’ve talked to a lot of people about this, you know, the new medians and webisodes and these podcasts and things like that, and a lot of times viewers now almost have ADD in that I want something thrown at me quickly and I want to watch it and get over it. And I think that’s why webisode are going to be so much bigger down the road because, you know, you can watch your 7 minutes, have a laugh, or get something thought provoking, and then move on.

NG: Yeah. I just read an article in the ‘Washington Post,’ I think it was two weekends ago, and there was a big article on that very fact. You know, I mean, they were going so far as to say that, you know, the web was going to make television unnecessary, which I truly don’t think will ever happen. Well, I guess ‘ever’ is a strong word, but I like watching television so… [begins to rain] here comes the rain.

DG: We’re outside. Let’s explain that to people, so we’re enjoying some rain.

NG: And it’s really interesting because even though I am a screen writer, you forget how the camera I necessary to tell the story, so that is one of the things that I’ve definitely been learning, and it has been so great to have Hilarie’s brother, Billy, with us because, you know, he has years of experience of working on ‘One Tree Hill’ and, you know, seeing all kinds of different ways that they use the camera to tell the story, and you know, sometimes I’m just like, ‘I just want this performance. I don’t care where the camera is!’ And I know I’m not supposed to say that, but you know, it’s so good that he’s here to guide us, guide me, towards that because, you know, I am somewhat an apprentice through this. You know, I don’t know if directing is, you know, an area that I want to pursue down the line. But I know for a lot of writers it’s a place that they kind of naturally go. And I don’t know the answer to that yet, but I really appreciate the opportunity to do it. It’s awesome!

DG: Well, before we close, we’re going to have a couple of your lead actors. Clarisse Birdsong is one character in here, and another on is Walter. Those are the two actors. Can you talk a little bit about them?

NG: Clarisse Birdsong is… which I just found out, I’m a little upset about it. Usually, when I write stuff, because I love the names I come up with, and a lot of my titles and stuff, like, I’ll always google it, and for whatever reason Clarisse Birdsong… my actor was just telling me ‘What is the reference to the Rain Maker by John Gershwin.’ And apparently there’s a character in there named Clarisse Birdsong and I had no idea. [Denise laughs] And I’m a little annoyed. I guess it’s spelled differently. I feel like I’m going to have to add like a ‘Rain Maker’ reference somewhere down the line, now. [Denise laughs] But usually I do really investigate those things. Clarisse Birdsong is… and I’m so excited for the actress that we have playing her because she really is the type that I wanted, and I’m so happy that we found Rachael.

DG: That’s Rachael Sutton, right?

NG: Yeah. Clarisse is a… she was an off-Broadway theatre director in New York, you know, working really successfully for a number of years. She had… and then she got a really bad review that, you know, like a lot of people that I’ve know in New York, it’s a troublesome thing, and at around the same time one of her family members died, and you know, he owned this theatre in this part of Florida where she comes home to, and his dying wish was that she take over this theatre, and you know, those two events together, you know, prompts her to accept her responsibility. And she’s kind of thrown into this environment where, you know, when you’re working in New York, you know, you’re used to the drama queens. You’re used to the strange techies. You’re used to, you know, you’re demanding ingénues, and your strange method actors, but there is a really great level of professionalism to that that you can allow all the quirkiness to, you know… it’s just kind of an added bonus. Here [laughs] in this particular theatre, you know, there’s not necessarily a lot of talent involved, and so all of these characters are just kind of crazy. [Denise laughs] And they take her on a ride. Walter the Stage Manager, which is actually his character’s name, is definitely another one of the characters that we are going to continue with for the remainder of the series. One of the things is with web series is you need to try to limit your cast, because you can’t have an abundance of people popping up all over the place, because it gets really confusing in a small time frame, and that was a really big challenge in thinking, ‘How am I going to write about community theatre and have, you know, 6 or 7 people?’ But I figured it all out. It’s all in my head. But Walter is just this kind of demented techie who has an obsessive sort of crush on Clarisse and him, amongst other things… amongst other people that we see down the line, just continues to frazzle and frustrate and bring her to the edge which is where, pretty much, where we will always have her, and the great thing about… what I love about Rachael and Taylor Kowalski is their dynamic… they both are really dynamic characters, and they’re opposites, and I love their vocal patterns together, which is one of the reasons why I wrote those two characters for them, and I’ve seen them perform before too, so I knew they had a really good dynamic, but yeah, that’s Walter.

DG: Next week on the podcast, we’re going to be talking to Rachael Sutton who of course plays the role of Clarisse Birdsong. Hilarie Burton and I got the chance to talk to Rachael and we talked a little bit about her background as an actress, and why once she was so committed to her role, she wanted to paint her whole body gray. Also on the podcast next week, we’re going to be playing music from a band called Need To Breathe. We’re going to be playing their title track off their new album called ‘The Outsider.’ So keep an ear out for that as well.

HB: Thank you guys so much for listening to the Southern Gothic Productions Podcast. We hang out on Wednesday so make sure to check us out! See you next time.

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