The Realm of Never

For those of us whose mission it is to spin creative gold, the history of my life is in my work. I define “work” by the film, television, and theatre productions I’ve been a part of for over two decades. Yes, I hold the multi-hyphenate of writer/director/actor/producer. The quadruple threat that isn't all that threatening. A solid foundation from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute gave me the audacity to refer to myself as such. It was there that I studied the complicated craft of drama and dramatic writing. Fellow classmates included Adam Sandler, Kevin Corrigan, and Felissa Rose. Upon graduation, I landed several opportunities in television and film. I surreptitiously appear in episodes of “Law and Order,” and dozens of feature films and TV shows, including “Godzilla,” “The Devil’s Advocate,” “Sex and the City,” and “The Sopranos.” My physical appearance is ethnic, suggestive of a “tough guy,” and enlisted me for just that type of audition. When I went in to read, my soft-spoken diction clashed with what the casting directors saw in the headshot and promptly assigned me to the cut-out bin. It was the theatre that recognized my talents and afforded me a variety of roles from Shakespeare’s tragic heroes to Agatha Christie's villains. My writing concurrently attracted the attention of literary agents, and while they were quick to recognize my skills, they often perceived my work as "too oblique" for commercial audiences. I’d been writing before I could walk. Even as a kid, I could never write anything extraneous. I always crafted rich, psychological characterizations and themes that explored the human condition. But I was told to simplify.So I came up with a sitcom pilot entitled, “Cool Mom.” The premise is simple: a 42 year-old divorcee owns a gym. She’s the hottest babe this side of the Atlantic. Imagine Pamela Anderson in the throes of second youth. Sandy Benton. The men want her. The women want to be like her. The old folk love her. The kids think she’s great. All except her two teenaged daughters who can't get below a size 16. They’re envious and resentful, and the last thing they want is their boyfriends’ eyes popping out of their heads whenever Mama is near. Amidst a lot of "Laverne and Shirley-like" scheming, the daughters constantly try to cut their mother down to size (or up to size). Plots include their switching her fat-free desserts with sugar-laden imposters, and paying off the studs in the gym to ignore her. Poor Sandy. All she wants is for her girls to see for the "Cool Mom" she really is. Sound bad? It was the worst piece of pandering imaginable, and as such, earned me my first studio option! Thankfully, it was never produced. But I was coming to a crossroads in my career. If that was the caliber of material I'd have to deliver in order to succeed, my future seemed uncertain. I kept clinging to the words of noted acting instructor, Allan Miller: "The talent will find a place for you to be." It was my faith in those words that kept me going. A spiritual person, I felt that destiny was guiding me in a different direction, but I was unsure as to what it was. By the mid-1990s, the modern independent film movement was in full swing. The advent of digital video had made it possible for filmmakers to take responsibility for their vision affordably.In the fall of 1998, an unlikely opportunity presented itself. Public access television. When I saw the studio at Queens Public Television, it evoked the feeling not of community television, but of those early black box productions I had worked on in the theatre, where a couple of chairs, minimal props, and a simple backdrop was used to evoke a setting. My mind immediately reverted to a collection of one-act plays I had written in the vein of “The Twilight Zone.” I immediately decided that this studio could be the home for such a collection, maybe even a series of originals. If I could shoot live-to-videotape with three cameras, I could reinvent the technique that had seen television through its golden age and carve my own niche in independent film. On March 2, 1999, I put this experiment before the cameras and called it “The Realm of Never.” The series debuted on May 1, 1999 and became the only studio-produced "supernatural dramatic anthology series on public access television in the entire United States." It expanded to Long Island’s Cablevision, the Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), the LTV Network of East Hampton, and most recently, the Internet, where it continues to build an international cult following and garner critical acclaim. The series has received three national video awards and stands as the first public access drama to earn official selection onto a nationally accredited film festival twice. Working on “Realm” has been an education all its own. I've learned a lot about myself and others. But the greatest contribution I hope to have wrought is dispelling the myth that low budget equals low quality. It's alternative entertainment, just as worthwhile as anything in the mainstream, and the essence of independent film. Sometimes, we find the rainbow in the unlikeliest of places. Even public access television. But that's only a place. What we do there determines the quality, and the talent with which we do it, the longevity. ..This is an installment of another QPTV series, "Talking About," produced by my good friend Jonathan Griffith, featuring me and original co-producer Bob Laria discussing the "State of the Arts" and the early production days on "The Realm of Never."