Monday, October 17, 2011
DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT THIS: I've long thought The Breakfast Club could make a solid play--almost entirely one setting, small cast, brand name recognition for a run. You could either keep it a period piece or make fairly minor adjustments to plot (have their cell phones taken away) and dialogue and set it in the here and now. We're not getting that, but Jason Reitman is directing a one night only staged reading of the screenplay in LA. While billed as a surprise cast, he's announced on Twitter that James Van Der Beek will play the Emilo Estevez part, Patton Oswalt the Anthony Michael Hall part, Mindy Kaling the Ally Sheedy part, and J.K. Simmons will play the janitor. Any suggestions for who fills Molly Ringwald's princess and Judd Nelson's criminal shoes or who will remind people not to mess with the bull as Principal Vernon?
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ReplyDeleteFollowing your suggestion on Twitter of Retiman alum, I would've stuck Ellen Page in where they're using Mindy Kaling. My knowledge of Kaling's love for the cute and stylish things of this world makes it hard for me to imagine her as the Ally Sheedy we meet at the beginning of the movie.
I vote Amanda Seyfried for Molly Ringwald.
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For those not following on twitter, I'm attending this (SO EXCITED) so will update here how it goes. I can see a lot of Ringwald options, having trouble filling Nelson's role.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if we're trying to pull from the Reitmanverse, I'd go with Aaron Eckhart or Jason Bateman for Dick Vernon, and Anna Kendrick in the Sheedy role (Kaling would make a better Claire, frankly).
ReplyDeleteFor Bender, don't you have to go Ryan Gosling?
Oooh, oooh....forgoing Reitman alumni, how great would Alec Baldwin be as Vernon? It won't happen, but it would be AWESOME.
ReplyDeleteIf I still lived in LA, I'd sooooo be going to this! Maret, I'm jealous and hope you have a fabulous time! I can't wait to read your update!
ReplyDeleteLamenting once more the lack of a "lurve" option....
ReplyDeleteAlec Baldwin was my first thought was well. Great minds, Maret. Great minds.
ReplyDeleteA name that came up on Twitter who'd be great for Claire? Alison Brie (and Community has an off week from shooting this week, it seems).
ReplyDeleteNPH Hathaway
ReplyDeleteOh! You must give us a detailed review!
ReplyDeleteI'd go Judd Nelson as the principal.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. Only problem, maybe distracting. Not so much if it's just a reading.
ReplyDeleteMove J.K. Simmons over to Principal. John DiMaggio as Bender (Eat my shiny metal shorts). Got nothing on the rest.
ReplyDelete--bd
One of the people I'm going with also suggested Judd Nelson as principal. Would be really fun to have an original cast member as a part of things.
ReplyDeleteI saw a student adaptation of The Breakfast Club in the plays competition at Rosemont College in the late 90s. It was an all-female production (as Rosemont was a women's college at that time). It was probably my favorite play I saw in college. Rosemont's theater department was tiny (the whole undergrad women's college totalled about 400 at that point) so it certainly wasn't Broadway but I think it works really well as a play.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine has tickets but I'm taking the redeye to a wedding that night so I can't go. Saddest. Can't wait to hear all about it!
ReplyDeleteI imagine that everyone has seen that Anne Hathaway has joined the case of Les Miz?
ReplyDeleteI have been off twitter for the last few hours so missed the announcement when Reitman tweeted, but Aaron Paul for Bender. This Breaking Bad fan is VERY HAPPY.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, that's brilliant.
ReplyDeleteAaand Jennifer Garner as Claire. While I didn't mention this here, I did guess this one to some friends and mentioned it on twitter. This leaves only the principal unknown, which makes me think it's either Nelson or another previous cast member, or someone huge like Clooney.
ReplyDeleteHe just announced it's Michael Chiklis as Vernon, who I think will be good, if not the hugest name.
ReplyDeleteRecap for those who wanted it. It was terrific. Theater was about 250 seats and we got there early so sat 5th row, center. It was a reading so they all sat in chairs (although the actors playing students sat in chairs with desks attached) in a row with scripts on desks/music stands. They had some lockers on either side of the stage and a screen behind them which only occasionally would show a still of one of the sets from the film...it didn't change often enough to be distracting, and was nice to see the library, a hallway, the clock, on occasion.
ReplyDeleteThey read from the shooting script, Reitman explained at the top, so there were some lines/stage directions that never appeared int he film, and some stuff from the film that was improvised during shooting that wasn't in the script. A few of the most notable: "You mess with the bull, you get the horns." is not in the original script. The Claire character was originally named Cathy, so the shooting script they read from sometimes still had Cathy in the stage directions. And there was some bizarre dream sequence towards the beginning that when read out loud made everyone look relieved it never made it in...Patton Oswalt's facial expressions as Reitman read it out loud were hilarious.
The cast was terrific -- the standouts, as you'd predict, were Aaron Paul and Patton Oswalt. Paul was pretty much perfect. Great tonality, expression, and throughout was reacting in character to the rest of the script as it was read. His ogling of Jennifer Garner when Reitman was reading the stuff about Bender being under the desk was hilarious -- she kept cracking up. Oswalt was great too -- just perfect timing on all of Brian's interjections ("I'm in the math club."), etc. But since those two parts are probably the best written, it also makes it ideal for the actors cast in them. Garner was spot-on as the pouty princess, Van Der Beek was fine, but Andy is the most boring of all the characters so you couldn't help but feel bad that he never got the shouts of laughter all the other characters get from time to time. I really liked Mindy Kaling too -- her Allison was different sounding than Ally Sheedy's but still felt like a good mix with the script. She was a little more peppy, but peppy with a weary ironic tone so it worked.
JK Simmons was great as Carl -- there's a monologue that never made it into the film that Carl has where he's telling each kid where they'll end up in the future and it's all bad stuff and he just shuts them all down. Chiklis was ok as Vernon but I felt like he read too fast.
It was so fun though, and so well done. And there was wine and cheese after and we sat right in front of the actor who plays the dean on Community. Best $10 I've spent in a while.
Happily, this is going to be a series at LACMA, the next one is already on their calendar -- it doesn't say what the script is or who will be in it, but the group I went with last night is all getting tickets regardless.