http://cbsrmt.mousetrap.net/

http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/Media/Radio/1977_CBS_Radio_Mystery_Theater.htm

http://rmt.radio.shows.org/

http://www.michael.mcelwain.com/wierd/theater/

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Byte/7548/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074174/

http://slate.com/id/2120904/

My review

http://citypages.com/databank/26/1286/article13538.asp

Tuesday, August 9th -Minneapolis

7:30pmBarnes and Noble Edina
3225 W. 69th St.
Edina, MN 55435

http://www.fimoculous.com/archive/post-828.cfm

http://www.sweetbeej.com/sounds.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8475258/

http://www.theonionavclub.com/

http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/Madison

http://www.sweetbeej.com

http://www.jessehozeny.com/

http://www.rwin.nl/joelpaterson/

http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/artists/devilinawoodpile/

http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/Joseph

http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/Madison

Joseph

http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/Joseph

Dolan

http://search.villagevoice.com/search?q=%22Jon+Dolan%22&;site=All&btnG=Search&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ie=UTF-8&client=village_voice&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=village_voice

photo by David Loeb for Isthmus

In addition to Joel Gersmann tributes here and here, my friend Rick Vorndran writes from New York:

I first saw Joel Gersmann around 1987. I went to his Broom Street Theater adaptation of Philip K. Dick�s Martian Time Slip. It blew my mind like few things ever have. The book was schizophrenic, and so was his staging. If he needed actors to change from American to Chinese, no problem, just have them fall to the floor and come up squinting their eyes and stuttering in bad accents. Helicopter? Just swing rope over your head and shout over the engine. Sets, costumes and catharsis? Only for losers, baby. And there was Joel before the show, giving his legendary "give-us-money-or-we�re fucked" speech, looking like he loathed the audience. I later found out he did.

A few years later, a friend was acting in one of his plays. She almost quit because he screamed "fucking cunt" at her during rehearsals. I can�t remember whether I advised her to do, quit or stay, but she stayed. Much later, she and I got into a screaming match in a parking lot, and I believe she is the first and last person I ever wished to hell at the top of my lungs. Maybe Joel was onto something.

A few years after that, Joel used to come through the line at the food co-op where I had a part-time job after college. He was always kind to me, if not always a little distracted, and he always looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. Probably off to ream another actor, I often thought.

A few years after that, I started doing tech work on Broom Street Theater, working for another director. Very quickly I decided I wanted to write and direct at BST, and the fastest way to do that was to work on one of Joel's shows. I expected to see the "fucking cunt" monster and I was okay with that. Instead, I found much to my surprise that... I loved working with him. With Joel, as long as you gave into his vision, you were cool. And man, was it a vision. For the next 6 years, I would always work with him at least once a year, no matter how busy I got. Even the crap was fun.

A few years after that, I moved to New York City. Joel was one of the few people from Madison who called me constantly. Okay, he called MANY people constantly, but that never made the calls any less. He'd talk for 30 minutes, ask me a couple of questions, go back to talking, and then hang up. A couple of days later, I�d realize I�d told him more in 2 minutes than I often tell people in an hour. Tricky guy, Joel.

A few years after that, he came to New York to visit friends. Old friends from the '60s. They kept him busy and he only could make time for lunch. Still, probably one of the best lunches I�ve had this year. Talking with Joel was never boring. Frustrating as a motherfuck, to use one of Joel favorite words, but never boring.

And then a few months after that, he died. He wasn�t completely sane, but he wasn�t crazy either.

(7/12/2005)

Link to stay connected

While I was in Canada with family watching the videos from the bombing this weekend, David De Young was in the UK, blogging from outside London.

Also: Here's a sweet video of performances from the B-Girl Summit in Minneapolis a month ago.

MNSpeak linked to these amazing local mugshots of women from 1963; viva the internets and all that.

No, Ice Cube's not in Rize, the amazing new documentary by David LaChapelle about krumping and "clown-dancing" in South Central Los Angeles. But that photo from Tommy the Hip-Hop Clown's site says more than I could say in my recent review. If you're in Minneapolis, see the movie here in Uptown. It's been compared to Style Wars, Hoop Dreams, and Paris is Burning. (For background, read up on L.A.'s tradition of hip-hop dance innovation.)

Otherwise, you don't have to read the recent conversation between film critics Rob Nelson and David Thomson to know summer movies are bad. The exceptions are what we live for, though. Besides Batman Begins (much funnier than Rob gives it credit for, I think), here's a guide to all that's cool in summer movies (as well as movies and music) around the Twin Cities area, this week and beyond:

Movies and Music (and More) in Minneapolis-St. Paul

'Foxy Brown' at the Bryant-Lake Bowl tonight in anticipation of the Twin Cities Black Film Festival. Classic blaxploitation at the Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 W. Lake St., Minneapolis; 612.825.8949 Tuesday, July 12

Movies and music on the river in Stillwater These events are always sweet. Tuesdays through August 16

A night of films in Stevens Square Park Search and Rescue - 'Cinema and Civics in Stevens Square' Wednesday, July 13

Summer Sleaze Fest: A Night of Dirty, Sexy Rock 'n' Roll, Film, and Pageantry Rock and film this Friday at the Triple Rock Social Club, with the SPITTIN' COBRAS, the BLEEDING HICKEYS, and the SCREENS, with DJs C-Gull and Trevor, plus special guests the Minnesota Rollergirls, go-go dancers, plus films by filmmaker Nicole Brending. Friday, July 15

Movies and music in St. Paul's Castillo Park in St. Paul Thursdays through August 11

'Sherlock, Jr.' at the Heights Theater with organ accompaniment The Heights screens Buster Keaton's 1924 classic with live organ playing by David Knudtson at 1:00 p.m. this Saturday at the Heights Theatre, 3951 Central Ave. NE, Columbia Heights; 763.788.9079 Saturday, July 16

Childish Film Series at Oak Street Cinema Minnesota Film Arts continues its series of films for kids of all ages on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. I particularly recommend The Red Balloon on July 23. All programs begin at 1:00 p.m. Oak Street Cinema, 309 Oak St. SE, Minneapolis; 612.331.3134 Saturdays though August 6

Movies and music in Loring Park in Minneapolis One of the reasons to live in this town, folks. Mondays through August 22

Movies at Bobino The people at Bobino's Starlight Lounge present an eclectic series of films on the outdoor patio, with screenings at dusk. Bobino Wine Bar and Cafe, 222 E. Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612.623.3301. Mondays through August 29

Movies at Solera Free movies on the rooftop of Solera Restaurant, with theme appropriate drink specials. Sundays and Mondays through August 29.

The Free Range Film Festival screens cool films inside a large barn as part of its "farm-fresh alternative to stale cinema" in Wrenshall, Minnesota (somewhere between Duluth and St. Paul, I gather). Corner of County Road 1 and County Road 4, Wrenshall mike@freerangefilm.com July 29 - July 30

Twin Cities Black Film Festival Don't know much about this young festival at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, but looks good. 1501 Hennepin Avenue August 19 - August 21

'Sin City' still playing at Roseville 4 for a couple bucks. ongoing

Late-Night Cinema at the Riverview Theater The Riverview Theater screens cult films on select Fridays and Saturdays at midnight. Riverview Theater, 3800 42nd Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612.729.7369. ongoing

Atomic Midnights: cult movies on Saturdays midnight at Saint Anthony Main These late movies always promise rare, awful vintage exploitation films for you to groan and shout jokes at. ongoing

Omnitheater at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul ongoing

Search and Rescue Series from Minnesota Film Arts This essential 16mm film series draws on the University's treasure trove of endangered celluloid, with cheap admission (customarily an optional donation) at Bell Auditorium, usually on Tuesday nights at 9:00 p.m. The Bell, 10 Church St. SE, Minneapolis; 612.331.3134. This week, however, the event takes place on Wednesday, July 13 at Stevens Square Park. (see above) (Wednesday, July 13; Tuesdays) ongoing

Minnesota drive-in movie theaters

More summer movie events in City Pages. See also the City Pages movie clock, with links to the only complete reviews in town

Oh, and here's a review of Fantastic Four...

Roll with its goofy tone, and there's much to enjoy in the first third of this labor-of-money Marvel Comics adaptation, before inept action takes over. The idea of a superhero team created in the eye of celebrity, without secret identities or a carefully contrived mythos, gets a blissfully breezy treatment from director Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi). Jessica Alba might be a porndog casting choice as the Invisible Woman--the original '60s character looked like Donna Reed--but there's something refreshingly bald about a script so shameless that it contrives to disrobe her three times. Chris Evans, the charmcake mimbo of 2004's underrated Cellular, fires off good lines as the Human Torch before the picture loses its sense of humor. And Ioan Gruffudd's rubber-limbed Mister Fantastic benefits from improved CG animation. Then there's the Thing, one of Stan Lee's and Jack Kirby's greatest creations, a walking pile of orange rocks who spouts the humanist poetry of belligerent Brooklynese. Before cosmic rays transform erstwhile Ben Grimm into his larger stone self, Michael Chiklis carries the character's threatening bulk with the same poise he brings to FX's The Shield--he promises to be Hugh Jackman-perfect. But the Thing-suit he wears is almost as bad as the one in Roger Corman's shelved 1994 Fantastic Four movie: This monster looks like a pre-animation Yoda covered in hardened squash, with a death-metal voice. Hey, at least they left out Herbie the robot.

Note: If you're in Minneapolis, rent Roger Corman's 1994 Fantastic Four at Discount Video.

Also: Take Bahn's Fanstastic Four quiz at MSNBC.

photo by Brent Nicastro

Email from Nate Beyer:

Hi,

Thank you for your posting about Joel Gersmann. I was in a few of Joel's plays in the mid-nineties, and got to know him outside of the theater as well. He was an incredible person�difficult at times, yes, but so what? He was always kind to me, especially at times when I needed it most. In his own way (phone calls, mainly), he reached out to me, even though, at the time, I was not very capable of returning his efforts, mainly due to my own lack of maturity.

I've attached a poem I wrote while in Madison for Joel's funeral (I now live in Boston). Just thought I�d share it with you.

He would make a great Broom Street play. The wild-haired maniac with a Jersey accent who seemed to believe the world would be a better place for having to put up with him, and was probably right. Joel Gersmann was a life worth talking about even if you've never heard of him, or his amazing theater, and I've invited friends and family to contribute good stories to this blog (more to come). Here's an email I got last week from Mark Thomas in Madison:

Pete - My relationship with Joel - other than seeing his plays - was to answer the phone when he called for Annie. Usually she wasn't home. I'd ask if he wanted to leave a message, and he'd say "Tell her to call Joel". This happened hundreds of times, I probably never said fifty word to him face to face.

The last time I remeber seeing Joel in the co-op, he turned to Annie with a lear and said "If you were younger I'd fuck you right here!" Annie replied "No honey, if you were younger".

Joel was the kind of person that makes it so much fun to live around here. Thanks for writing, Pete.

For Minneapolis people to imagine the figure Gersmann was in Madison, picture a combination of Al Milgrom and Steve McClellan, and have him write voraciously literate book reviews while DJ-ing obscure classical, Arabic music, or whatever else obsesses him on community radio. Gersmann was a rare combination of big and small. He was kind and mean, he loved high and low. He learned ancient Greek to read and adapt The Odyssey for one stage comedy (Ulysses, Won't You Please Come Home), and based another play entirely on excerpts from Cosmopolitan magazine.

These links only begin to tell the story: Joel's death makes the New York Times, Dean Robbins's cover tribute in Isthmus, with links to other good stories, "Joel Gersmann. A name often followed by the phrase 'that fucker'", Various Madisonians remember Gersmann on this Isthmus blog, a Cap Times news item, Joel Gersmann dies at 62, A State Journal tribute, Not exactly famous last words: one of Joel's last, typically cantakerous voicemails, An appreciation: Gersmann's vision needed his courage, Dyskeptic's obituary, and a thread at the Isthmus message board. Ditto these older articles: Off-off-off-off-off Broadway (cached article from Madison Magazine), Joel on the Overture Center, and Another Rob Matsushita memory of Joel. I wish I could have attended Joel's funeral just to hear people talk about him.

Joel Gersmann directed me in a play when I was in middle school, Clara Reeve (1982), which he adapted from an obscure novel set in Victorian times. He was very sweet to me, which amazed many who knew him. (He could be a storming asshole.) Joel couldn't believe that I transposed the play's theme song ("I Dreamt That I Dwealt In Marble Halls") by ear on piano--he could read music easily, but couldn't play by ear. His enthusiasm for other people's talent could be boyish, and he drew out (or provoked) the best from them.

Gersmann's '70s Broom Street taught me that a foot could be a phone, that five actors could play 20 characters, that art meant absolutely anything goes. He seemed to write dialogue as rock and roll, and I remember him timing his shows with a stopwatch to make sure the verbal-musical trains ran on time. (We did one rehearsal of Clara Reeve as fast as humanly possible, which was kind of surreal.)

The Gersmann plays I remember most seized on taboos, slapped them around some with tasteless satire, then somehow extracted uncommon insight and humanity from the story. The one that lost Broom Street its National Endowment for the Arts grant, The Chicken and the Chickenhawk (1990), was actually a plausible and sensitive rehearsal of the relationship between a Dilbert-like man in the closet and a male adolescent hooker. Elsewhere, Gersmann lampooned Vietnam in Action Comics (1978); jogging in Running (1979); horror in The House of Mystery (1980); Appleton in Houdini! (1981), a glorious musical that deserves to be revived; Christ and Westerns in The Jesus Gang (1984); the Doors mythology in Light My Fire (1984), way better than that Oliver Stone movie; "PC" academia in The Case of the Nazi Professor (1994); Trotskyists and fascists in Nazi Boy: The Story of the First Skinhead (1996). He played pioneering gay activist "Radical Harry" Hay this year, and I'm sorry I missed that.

Joel also made way for great work from others: Marty Mulhern's Favorite Son (1980); Danielle Dresden's Signalized (1982); Star Olderman's Boxcar Bertha: Sister of the Road (1982); Tracy Will's Packer Glory (1984), another big hit; Paul Wells's Vampire Stewardesses from Hell (1990); Rick Vorndran's I Am Star Trek (1995) and Please, Please, Please Love Me (1996) and Michelangelo, Renaissance P.I. (1997), and many more I'm forgetting. The early plays were my introduction to avant garde, before I got into punk rock. If Joel's definition of great art was that "you walk out changed," that's how I felt after those performances.

Broom Street has never staged the same play twice. The company has never staged plays that had previously run elsewhere. Admission is cheap (it was $6 for years, though that might have gone up). The actors work for free. The only concession to audience comfort (and Joel fought this, as I remember) is the presence of cushions on the otherwise backless and austere wooden bleachers. (I suggest theater goers arrive in groups, then lean against your friends' knees behind you.) Broom Street is designed to provide, in other words, an intense but temporary experience.

I always left the plays energized. I'd love to hear all the coversations continuing out to the bar afterward. (Which play was it, again, where the actors kept going after all but one audience member had walked out, and then, when that last guy left, followed him out onto the sidewalk, performing the play behind him? Somebody help me out here.)

I hope the theater keeps going without Joel. It's bigger than his personality, which is saying something.

More memories:

Joel is not there (email and poem by Nate Beyer)

Things I have to thank Joel for (at Tracy G's blog)

Costumes are for losers (Rick Vorndran remembers Joel)