Anne Nelson
The Guys
By Anne Nelson
Synopsis
Less than two weeks after the September 11th attacks, New Yorkers are still in shock. One of them, an editor named Joan, receives an unexpected phone call on behalf of Nick, a fire captain who has lost most of his men in the attack. He's looking for a writer to help him with the eulogies he must present at their memorial services. Nick and Joan spend a long afternoon together, recalling the fallen men through recounting their virtues and foibles, and fashioning the stories into memorials of words. In the process, Nick and Joan discover the possibilities of friendship in each other and their shared love for the unconquerable spirit of the city. As they make their way through the emotional landscape of grief, they draw on humor, tango, and the appreciation of craft in all its forms- and the enduring bonds of common humanity. The Guys is based on a true story.
The cast for NSU's production will feature Heather Woehlhaff as Joan, the editor and Tony L. Kollman as Nick, the fire captain who must deliver the eulogies and needs assistance in writing them. NSU Director of Theatre, Daniel Yurgaitis, directs the play, while NSU Technical Director Larry Wild will do the scenic and lighting design. The entire production will be stage-managed by Samantha Banner, assistant stage managed by Steven Warzeha and the assistant director will be Kellyanne Kirkland.
The Guys will be presented for four performances, beginning April 14th through the 17th, at 7:30 pm nightly in an arena setting on the MainStage of the Johnson Fine Arts Center on the campus of NSU. Tickets are $8.00, $7.00 for students and seniors. There are group rates available for groups of 10 or more. Tickets will be available in the NSU bookstore beginning on Monday, April 5th, or by mail. Call the NSU Bookstore at 626-2655 or the NSU Department of Theatre at 626-2563 for additional information.
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Anne Nelson |
As a reporter, she covered wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the early 1980's, at the height of the death squad period, and was published regularly in The Los Angeles Times, Maclean's and The Christian Science Monitor. Her photographs appeared in The New York Times and other publications.
Nelson's writing on the Philippines earned her the Livingston Award and the Thomas More Storke Award, both honoring international reportage. Her first book, the non-fiction Murder Under Two Flags: The United States, Puerto Rico, and the Cerro Maravilla Cover-up was made into a feature film.
For four years, she served as the director of the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists. While at CPI, she co-founded the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (www.ifex.org). Since 1995, she has directed the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's international program. She currently oversees students from 24 countries. In this capacity, she developed the first journalism school curriculum in human rights reporting. She also helped establish the first interdisciplinary university website on human rights, www.humanrights.columbia.edu
Nelson has traveled as a consultant on journalism development, visiting countries including Hungary, Romania, Cambodia, China, Spain and Argentina. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she is a regular international affairs commentator on the syndicated television program "The Editors."
She wrote the play The Guys over the course of a week in October 2001, based on an experience she had shortly after September 11th. It opened on December 4th, 2001 and had been presented across the United States and in several international productions. The play was published by Random House and a Japanese translation was issued in September. On September 11th, 2002, she made the play available at no charge for non-profit performances across the country as part of memorial services. She has worked with the New York Fire Department medical office to establish the Flanagan Fund, which has begun to channel contributions from regional productions to support programs on behalf of working NYC firefighter and their families. She also wrote the screenplay for the Focus Features motion picture, also directed by Jim Simpson.
Although The Guys was Nelson's first play, she was active as a performer before she turned to journalism as a profession. She was appeared in the Yale Repertory Theatre productions of The Tempest and A Midsummer's Night Dream. At the age of 18, she soloed in the European premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass produced at Vienna Konzerthaus. A BBC production of the performance was broadcast in both the UK and the US.
The Stillwater, Oklahoma native graduated from Yale University and lives in New York with her husband and two children.
On Tuesday, December 4th, 2001, the Flea Theatre in New York began a series of workshop performances of Anne Nelson's new play The Guys, directed by the Flea's founder Jim Simpson. Nelson was commissioned to write the play by Simpson for the theater. Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray originated the play's two roles: the fire captain who has lost most of his men in the World Trade Center attack, and the editor who helps him write the eulogies as they both struggle to come to terms with the events.
The genesis of The Guys was unique. One of the young actors in the repertory company asked Simpson to try and find a work that addressed 9/11 directly. Simpson reviewed texts, but could not find the right piece. One night in mid-October, he happened to be seated next to Anne Nelson at a benefit dinner for a human rights organization. Their conversation inevitably turned to 9/11. Nelson, director of the international program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, had never written a play before, but at Simpson's request she agreed to weave experiences and ideas relating to 9/11 into a play that the theatre could stage. She based her piece on a real-life working relationship that came about in the aftermath of the tragedy. A working mother, she wrote The Guys during the midnight hours in little over a week. Two days after that, Simpson scheduled the one-act for staging.
The Flea Theater, one of New York's leading off-off-Broadway repertory companies, had been severely impacted by 9/11. It is located at 41 White Street, seven blocks from Ground Zero. Over the preceding five years, the Flea had served as a thriving performance space for music and dance performances, as well as innovative theatrical presentations. In the week leading up to 9/11, the Flea was hosting a repertoire of 5 plays, 2 dance presentations and a concert. On 9/11 all activity ceased. When the neighborhood reopened two and a half weeks later, the Flea's attendance plummeted from 90% of capacity to 5%. Audiences were unable or unwilling to venture into the area, since dust and ash from the debris continued to hang in the air for weeks. The initial workshop production of The Guys, it was fervently hoped, would help foot traffic and drop in business in and around the lower Manhattan area.
Sigourney Weaver (Simpson's wife) expressed interest in performing the lead role, and she recruited her friend Bill Murray to play opposite her. She explained, "I really believed that theatre could nourish us all during this time and that The Guys could illuminate some of what we're all going through. As a New Yorker, I jumped at the chance to be part of this. It's an amazing play."
The Guys debuted on December 4th at the 80 seat Flea. At most performances, every seat in the house was occupied. Seats were given free to firefighters and their family members who wished to see the play. The workshop production continued the theater's tradition of outreach to the New York community, and its ongoing emphasis on artistic expression that is timely and connected to the lives of the public it serves.
Simpson noted that "small theaters, while more vulnerable to current events, also have the ability to react and respond. When the Flea was threatened, we rediscovered our ability to respond in an immediate and direct fashion. Theater can be immediate, and its obligation is to be more than escapist. Here was an opportunity for the community to come together to confront the catastrophe on human terms. New Yorkers showed their best, and this piece hopefully gives people a sense of community. Even strangers can help each other get through something like this."
The Guys continued its run through 2002 (finally closing at the Flea on December 20th). Actors rotated playing the lead roles. Bill Murray was followed by Bill Irwin, then by Anthony LaPaglia (who played opposite Sigourney Weaver prior to making the film version with her). Next, Susan Sarandon performed in the play for a number of weeks, also playing opposite LaPaglia. Tim Robbins starred with Swoozie Kurtz. Tom Wopat and Amy Irving performed the piece for a number of weeks. Marlo Thomas and Carol Kane also starred in the play. In July 2002, Tim Robbins and Helen Hunt first performed the play in Los Angeles, under the auspices of the theatre troupe The Actor's Gang. Subsequent performers in Los Angeles have included Jeanne Tripplehorn, Philip Baker Hall, David Hyde Pierce and Glenne Headley.
In August that year, Random House published the play in paperback, while Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon took the play to Dublin's Abbey Theatre for a limited run. The play has also seen productions in Edinburgh, Chicago, Cincinnati and Raleigh. On September 11th, 2002, Sigourney Weaver returned to the play once more for a separate free-admission staging, opposite Stephen Lang, at New York's Lincoln Center. Also on that day, there were nonprofit performances as part of the commemorative observances around the country in dozens of cities. Many of these were held with the active participation of local firefighters.
Casting director and producer Bonnie Timmerman brought the idea of a film version of The Guys to Edward R. Pressman and John Schmidt (and their production company ContentFilm). Another pair of NY based producers, Joana Vicente and Jason Kliot of Open City Films, were also deeply moved by the play and had begun talks with Simpson about a film version. It was decided that both companies would produce the film.
"I wanted to make a film about the enormity of what happened on 9/11," said Simpson. "We were never going to talk about what happened, just about these guys. One journalist asked me if I was worried about appearing to exploit the tragedy of 9/11, of being a part of plays and films that would bubble up. And the answer is no, that was never a worry. Everyone is trying to deal with the event in their own way, and the play and the film are organic expressions of how two people dealt with the aftermath in their own personal way."
Anne Nelson would write the screenplay for the planned film. She added that, "over time, audiences have brought new emotional connections to the piece. Recently, a human rights advocate from Cambodia told me how that it helped her with the experience of losing a close friend to cancer. People have started to talk about it as a metaphor for different kinds of grief and loss. The warmth, emotion and humor conveyed by the actors contributes to a healing process."
The Guys brought together two actors (Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia) for the first time, although they had appeared in a film some years earlier, but had not shared any scenes together. So they finally met the first night they read the play on stage. Simpson recalls, "I think Sigourney and Anthony shook hands, and said 'Hi, how are you?' and sat down and began performing the piece. It was great, in a way, that their first meeting was before an audience at the Flea." When it came time for the film to be made the two actors were familiar with the material. "On stage," Simpson notes, "they had to freedom to interpret the material every night; on film, the mandate was to distill it into one consistent piece."
The Guys went into production in New York City in the spring of 2002. Many of the crew members came to work on The Guys having done stints on the NBC drama series Third Watch, and were therefore very familiar with members of New York's Bravest and Finest in the uniformed services. The movie was filmed in locations that included Manhattan's Upper West Side, a Harlem brownstone and a firehouse in Greenwich Village; and the interiors of Cadman Memorial Church in Brooklyn (where the final eulogy in the film is delivered).
The day that scene was filmed, the pews in the Fort Greene church were filled not with hired extras, but with volunteers from various firehouses, police stations and organizations of families who had lost their loved ones at the World Trade Center. Performing in front of real family members, firefighters and police officers was a real challenge for LaPaglia. "I'm not the nervous type, but in that church, in front of those people, I was really sweating, " remembers LaPaglia. "I felt a tremendous responsibility to everyone in that room to get it right."
The 88-minute film premiered in Los Angeles on Friday, December 13th for a one-week run (to qualify for awards) and went into general release in the winter and spring of 2003. Link to the Imdb.com entry for The Guys.
To see a listing of the brave men of the NYC Fire Department who died in the line of duty on September 11, 2001, and who have been found, click on this link: www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/fdny/html/memorial/wtc/rank_pages/chaplain.html
"A straight from-the-gut beautifully written two-hander… laughter is heard as often as sobs." Curtain Up
" The kind of quiet hybrid that the situation and the times- an era of pithy sound bites, booming rhetoric, and the numbing repetition of the CNN loop that followed the attacks- seemed to demand… A small jewel of a play." The Chicago Tribune
"Ms. Nelson's play… gives credible and powerful voice to a very specific kind of pain… perhaps the keenest message to emerge from The Guys is the assertion that writers- and actors- have a serious role to play in a grieving society." The New York Times
"A generous, sad and touching play about the braveries of grief." The New York Post
"A courageous and riveting… play that tackles the horror of September 11th with an intimacy that's both unsettling and healing." The Christian Science Monitor
Script:
The Guys by Anne Nelson. Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York, 2002. (ISBN: 0-8129-6729-1). The script is available at Amazon.com.
Motion Picture:
The Guys (2002)
