How fun! I got linked by the great John Gruber of Daring Fireball for my video where my cat and I try to use Stage Manager on iPadOS 16. Thanks, John.
My interview on Karate Kid Fanatics Podcast is out, watch me talk about pawn shop video cameras and editing with two VHS decks.
I play Drew in S4 of Cobra Kai, now streaming on Netflix!
I play a bad guy (or is he just misunderstood?🤔) alongside Jordan Calloway in “Painkiller,” the backdoor pilot for Black Lightning spinoff.
SPM had some very nice things to say in a recent social media post:
Susan Page Modeling
February 23 at 7:05 PM · Instagram ·
Congratulations to SPM Voiceover Workshop Instructors, Sara Lynn Holbrook and Jef Holbrook, on this amazing booking! We are SO lucky to have their talents on board with our SPM Ohana. They are so invested in the success of our students- it’s like they’ve been with us forever! SIGN UP TO WORK WITH THEM this Sunday, February 28th at 3-5pm HST. Their popular VO series has helped our students build confidence, add to their skills, and book! Sign up online or by calling 955-2271. Congrats again to @saralynnholbrook and @jefholbrook. We can’t wait to watch!
It’s been a real joy to work with them and their students, one of them even just booked a VO gig, which SPM highlights in this post:
We love this photo of SPM student, Aliya, working in the Voiceover booth this week! There is so much VO work now and we love to see our students diving in to add to their skill set! Aliya is in our Adult Acting class and also takes our VO workshop. Want to join her? Sign up for our next VO workshop, taking place TOMORROW from 3-5pm! Sign up online today!
#Repost @aliyalangi with @get_repost
・・・
So fun to be back in a recording studio working with director @mmaslarjr on his new film! Can’t wait to see it all come together I felt a lot more relaxed and prepared going into the session thanks to recent trainings with @saralynnholbrook @jefholbrook @heyitseesh @susanpagemodeling @acluster
I play a hapless Public Defender in this BET+ original produced by Manns-Mackie Studios.
"After becoming the youngest female, minority judge elevated to the bench in her state, Angela Sylvester quickly finds herself trapped into a 'Kids for Pay' prison scam orchestrated by her boss, Judge Cynthia Paulino. Fearing her legal career and dream of becoming a federal judge is over, she struggles and her career spirals out of control. Afraid, she takes the advice of a close friend and turns to her faith to find the strength needed to redeem herself of the crimes committed."
You can stream the movie with a free trial over at BET+
Photo Credit DSoul FotoArtistry
I mean, I just dig the dude’s energy.
Right now Sara and I are working with some really cool folks to help John make a short film and I’m just enjoying the damn thing so much. John tries to stay humble and all that (just try to give him a compliment to watch a master class at deflection and redirection) so I’ll try to avoid embarrassing him too much here.
Brian of Lion House fame has been very gracious in opening his home to us for the shoot. The Lion House is a character in the film, in her own way. It’s been really comforting to see some familiar faces (looking at you, Nolan) and it’s been humbling to work with new people who are so on their game (thanks, Matt and Stewy).
There are some really talented film artists here in Columbus and I feel very lucky to have a front row seat to watch them work.
I’m super happy to be hopping back in to the voiceover studio to record some more space pirate shenanigans to close our 2019!
I had a lot of fun narrating this one. It was a little bit like Star Trek meets Pirates of the Caribbean. If you’ve got a craving to listen to some simple sci-fi action, give this one a listen and let me know what you think.
You can see some of the recording session on this episode of the Argo Navis vlog:
This time, Sara Lynn and Jef Holbrook scout a location for a film event, prepare for a film festival with Natalia Temesgen, and Jef records an audiobook.
Here is the Publisher’s Description:
In the deep black of space, there are no rules. Only pirates. And Rangers.
A space opera boxed set in the deep black of space from number one best-selling author James David Victor.
Captain Drummond Bayne is a Navy Ranger tasked with bringing order to the lawless reaches of space. When a simple mission turns deadly, they find themselves navigating space more dangerous than they can imagine. Can they save themselves and uncover a truth that could tear the galaxy apart?
Captain Bayne Omnibus contains the first three books in the exciting Deep Black space opera. If you like fast-paced space adventure, rogue pirates, and stories more complex than good vs. evil, you are going to love your visit to the Deep Black.
The Film Thing
Or: On Going Forward Back Home
I’m really lucky to get to do film in my hometown.
Like, really lucky.
But that was never the plan.
Here’s the thing: my wife and I left Columbus about seven years ago to move to Atlanta to “do the film thing” which, in this case, was acting. We had agents and stuff. We were booking things in Atlanta even though we were living in Columbus. So, we thought we needed to be a little closer to the metro area in order to book more things. At least I think that was the idea. I know we were looking for a change. I’m not sure what we thought would be different… maybe we just needed to see what would happen. So, we move. We roll the dice.
Things go pretty well, I guess. Sara Lynn books some TV, I book some TV and also get pretty heavily into the audiobook narrator thing. The plan was working for the most part.
The part that wasn’t working (also known as “the least part”) was that while we had pretty good day jobs between bookings, these jobs weren’t what we moved to Atlanta to do. They were a way to pay the bills. We observed from the lives of our pals that’s sort of the actor’s life in Atlanta: day gigs in some other field while you and your agent pursue bookings. If you aren’t independently wealthy (we aren’t), you find a job that won’t fire you whenever you book a show. That’s just the way it was, so we didn’t think much about it.
But major life events have a way of snapping your life into focus.
This time is was our wedding.
Actually, it was the reception.
My new wife and I had been trying to dance to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” It was the one song Sara Lynn really wanted to dance to and there we were… not dancing. Instead we had been stopped outside the dance floor by Paul Pierce to have a little chat about. We were talking about the film industry in Columbus. I didn’t realize there was a film industry in Columbus. Paul told us that there isn’t one yet but the wind and the wizards all predict that it’s coming and he was hoping that we could be a part of it. I believe that is when we were first offered the job to create with Paul what would become Springer Film Institute. I say ‘believe” because Sara Lynn insisted we get out on the dance floor as soon as possible and politely but firmly ended the conversation so we could get back out there… but by then the song was over. There would be no dancing to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Lots of other dancing, just not that song.
Today, whenever we hear “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” we stop and dance. I think we’ll be trying to get that dance back for the rest of our lives.
Anyway, we promised Paul we would get back to him about the whole “film in Columbus thing.” Our wedding was in November and we did get back to him sometime in January. What we learned from Paul kind of changed our tune and later changed the current course of our new life together for the better.
We learned that Columbus, our little hometown, was all grown up and had become serious about film. We learned that there was a program in place to fund filmmakers and that major studios and indy pictures were going to try their hands at shooting some projects in Columbus. Paul offered us a chance to make film our new “day job” and we took it. It was a terrifying, exciting time then as we put together plans for leaving the life we built together in Atlanta to go back home and try something new. We honestly weren’t sure if it was going to be a step forward or back at the time but we new it was something different. We left our hometown to pursue a change and as counterintuitive as it seemed, we were now going back home for an even bigger change.
Turns out that we weren’t going back to our hometown. We were going forward to a new, if familiar, place. And pretty soon after we settled in, we realized how much better it was to get to go to work together. To share an office. To be a team at home (still newlyweds remember) and at work. We also got to produce a cool miniseries written by a Columbus screenwriter, directed by, crewed by and starring local Columbus filmmakers. It’s called Grounds and it’s really good.
And within those early days, Sara Lynn and I finally got to be in a movie together called The Long Night. Not just in the movie together, but we have a scene together. I can’t tell you how cool it is to go to set with your wife but yeah…it’s freaking cool.
Which brings us back to today.
We’ve been in Atlanta together this past week, staying in the house we got married in (which belongs to our friends now, who are also newlyweds), to screen Grounds, a Columbus film, at an Atlanta film festival. We are staying an extra couple of days because we also have to do some ADR (voiceover) for The Long Night while we’re here. We were originally asked to come to Los Angeles for the session, but the producers were nice enough to let us do the voiceover at a studio here.
So today I will be at Crawford Media, one of my favorite studios ever, to do voiceover in Atlanta for a production team based in Los Angeles for a film that will be distributed worldwide but was filmed… in Columbus.
In my little hometown.
Lucky.
Having a blast attending the Urban MediaMakers Film Festival today with Sara Lynn Holbrook, Natalia Temesgen, Will Oliver and Mustapha Slack. We’re screening episode one “Bunker Down.” This is our second film festival for this episode after our premiere at Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland.
Currently voicing the “Captain Bayne” trilogy for Audible Studios at ListenUp! Productions in Atlanta.
I had a blast narrating Zen Golf Daily Tips with Kristen Kalbli, and now it's available to own on Amazon and Audible!
Here's the latest review of Incorruptible at Onstage Atlanta:
From: http://www.atlantatheatrebuzz.net/reviews-2017.html
INCORRUPTIBLE OnStage Atlanta
****½ ( A )
BAD TO THE BONE
1250 AD. Priseaux, France. To the north -- Starvation. To the south -- Hunger. To the east and west -- Privation. It is still the "Dark Ages," and everything is, well, really dark. The monks of the Monastery of Ste. Foy have relied on their relics, the bones of Ste. Foy, to provide their penny-a-prayer income. But it has been thirteen years since the last miracle, and a neighboring village convent has obtained a counterfeit Ste. Foy, which seems to be generating its own not-so-counterfeit miracles.
What are the poor starving monks to do? All they have is their faith, their monastery, and their well-stocked cemetery. Faster than you can say "When Life Hands You Skeletons, Make Blessed Relics," they are in the business of selling "Sacred Bones" to distant towns and churches. Because it is the Dark Ages, how are their "customers" supposed to learn that theirs is only one of a dozen "Heads of John the Baptist?"
But there's still the question of enticing the Pope himself to visit their small corner of the Holy Profit Empire. Hence, the need for an actual "Incorruptible" ("Incapable of corruption, that is, decay or dissolution.") All they need to do is to find an older corpse that has not decayed.
This is a very funny production of a very funny play (by Philadelphia playwright Mark Hollinger). This is a play that isn't afraid to be outrageous in its cynical portrait of the faithful. Nor is it afraid to give us an actual from-the-dead miracle, one which in a lesser writer would smack of sentimentality, but here seems ... well ... incorruptible. Nor is it afraid to have some politically-incorrect fun at the expense of peasants and simple-minded fools and lovers and strangers and siblings and, of course, monks and nuns.
Decatur's OnStage Atlanta has gathered a flock of farceurs who light up the stage with a plethora of over-the-top exaggeration (LeeAnna Lambert should be arrested for overt consumption of scenery). Darrell Wofford and J. Michael Carroll are wonderful as the older (and supposedly more devout) monks, Chris Schultz is suitably fresh-faced and sincere as the young Felix, whose honest faith may earn him an actual miracle. I also liked O'Neil Delapenha's glee-filled simpleton Olf as I did the wandering tag-team con artists played by Jef Holbrook and Sara Lynn Herman, as well as Katy Clarke's schemingly pleasant peasant. And of course, LeeAnna Lambert takes over Act Two completely as the competing nun Agatha, whose only means of communication seems to be from-the-gut emoting with to-the-rafters volume.
This is a very attractive production. The set by Lizz Dorsey focuses on the monastery's altar, reverently placed in front of an Ogee Window that, in better times, will probably hold stained glass. Ben Rawson's lighting fills the set with warm candlelight and shadow, with a down-front Oriel Window gobo that punctuates scenes without overwhelming the general wash. Jane Kroessig's costumes are perfectly 1250 monastery-chic, and Kathy Ellsworth (and apparently every boneyard in Decatur) brings a tongue-in-cheek joy to the props and set dressings. And, the whole thing is briskly and breezily directed by Aaron Gotlieb.
Did I mention that this show is exquisitely funny? Okay, maybe the skeptic in me enjoys the skewering of religious hypocrisy more than the average theatre-goer, and maybe my joy in well-done farce colors my enjoyment of any attempt that doesn't fall flat on its face (pratfalls excluded), and maybe my love of Monty Python ensures I enjoy ANY "Dark Age" comedy. But there is something incredibly freeing about uncontrollable laughter, at seeing cleverly constructed plots blithely unwind, at seeing badly-behaved characters escape by the narrowest of margins being hoist on their own petard.
Or maybe, just maybe, this is a well-written well-produced, well-performed comedy that came along just when I needed it the most! I'm sure I'm incorruptible enough that that I don't need to mention that the bribes that weren't offered (and wouldn't have been accepted) would have no corrupting influence on my words and favor. And if something is unmentionable, the least I could do would be to not mention it.
-- Brad Rudy (BKRudy@aol.com @bk_rudy #OSAIncorruptible)
Once again, happy to be narrating for the New York Times' Audible Channels edition. You can find out more about Audible Channels by visiting audible.com/channels. For links to previous times I've narrated with NYT and other publications, check out jefholbrook.com/audio or see the links below.
Very pleased to share that Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance is Required has been recommended by the Suzi Bass Awards, in addition to being named a Best Bet by Encore ATL. Tickets are still available at get.org.
From the Suzi Awards Site:
What does it mean to be "Suzi Recommended"?
The Suzi Bass Awards send five Recommending Judges to the opening night of eligible shows. Those judges complete a form scoring all of the individual elements of a production including acting, directing, and design elements. Those scores are tallied and averaged to obtain a final production score. If that score is sufficient, then the show is Suzi Recommended.
After a show is deemed Suzi Recommended, notice is sent to the Play or Musical Panel judges to attend during the run. Those judges keep notes on the production for use when completing their end-of-the-season Nomination Ballots.
Suzi Recommended shows are eligible to receive nominations from our panel judges at the end of the season. Those nominations lead to Suzi Awards!
More information on the Awards Process
THE 12th ANNUAL SUZI AWARDS CEREMONY
November 7
View more
Voted "Best Bet" by Encore Atlanta, Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance is Required is a hilarious and hopeful action comedy set in the mysterious land of Zardelgnia.
About the Show:
When retired schoolteacher Rhonda Charles opens an email in her spam folder with the subject line, “Greetings Friend your kind assistance is required,” the journey of a lifetime begins. With her best friend Marybeth in tow, Rhonda travels to the mysterious kingdom of Zardelgnia, facing down guerilla fighters and attempting to rescue the captured Crown Prince. Along the way, Rhonda and Marybeth encounter danger, unexpected romance, and a new sense of purpose - proving it’s never too late to find new adventure.
About Georgia Ensemble Theatre:
Georgia Ensemble Theatre (GET), North Fulton’s only professional theatre company, continues its string of successful comedies from Atlanta playwright Topher Payne with the premiere of Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance Is Required. The production runs January 5th through 22nd, 2017 at the theatre’s home in the Roswell Cultural Arts Center. Veteran Atlanta director and actor Shannon Eubanks will be reunited with playwright Payne to once again direct his latest comedy. Sponsorship for this production is graciously provided by the Robert W. Hagan Family Foundation.
About the Cast:
Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance Is Required features an extraordinary cast of Atlanta performers, including many new comers to the GET stage.
Brenda Porter (Artistic Director of Impact Theater Company and veteran actor) makes her GET debut as main character Rhonda Charles with Karen Howell (One Slight Hitch at GET) as her friend Marybeth Mulaney. Skye Passmore (Miss Saigon at Serenbe Playhouse and Sweeney Todd at Actor’s Express) also debuts beside GET favorite Stacy Melich (The Great Gatsby at GET). Also performing multiple roles are Parris Sarter (Doubt at Out of the Box Theatre); Cristian Gonzalez (Twelfth Night at Culver City Public Theatre); Jef Holbrook (Great Tuna national tour).
About the Playwright and Director:
When speaking with the playwright Topher Payne about writing this play he explained, "I wanted to write something about the excitement and possibility presented by the third act of your life. If your first act is dictated by other people – parents, teachers, and the second act is in service to others - career, raising a family... Round three is really yours for the taking. Plus you have the wisdom and experience of everything you picked up along the way. I don't see a lot of stories that celebrate just how amazing that is. Also, there's a message in this, which really drives the action of the whole story…that kindness is an act of bravery. Being bold enough to be curious and helpful can lead to your greatest adventures."
Director Shannon Eubanks says of the production, “This is the most magical play that Topher has written to date!”
Payne continued, "It has the madcap spirit of those old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby road movies. And I had so much fun playing pretend on this one. I got to create my own country! The language, customs, history... Zardelgnia is a fascinating place."
Ticket Details:
Ticket prices for Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance Is Required start at $26 for Wednesdays, Thursdays and matinees; Friday nights start from $30, and Saturday nights start from $35. Book early for best prices. (Senior/Student discounts available for select performances). Tickets are available now online at www.get.org, or by calling the Box Office at 770-641-1260.
Interviews with the Cast or Director may be arranged through Michael Van Osch, Resources Manager, at 770-641-1260 x234 or mvanosch@get.org.
We're working hard on getting the show ready for previews and then opening. Show opens Jan 5, so get your tickets soon!
From Georgia Ensemble Theatre:
When retired schoolteacher Rhonda Charles opens an email in her spam folder with the subject line, “Greetings Friend your kind assistance is required,” the journey of a lifetime begins. With her best friend Marybeth in tow, Rhonda travels to the mysterious kingdom of Zardelgnia, facing down guerilla fighters and attempting to rescue the captured Crown Prince. Along the way, Rhonda and Marybeth encounter danger, unexpected romance, and a new sense of purpose - proving it’s never too late to find new adventure.
WORLD PREMIERE COMEDY from Atlanta's Favorite Playwright Topher Payne. Directed by Shannon Eubanks.