Matt Falber

Jenga @ Gallery Players’ Black Box Festival

Matt — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:19:17 +0000

I’m very excited to invite you to see me perform in Corey Pajka’s new one act play, entitled Jenga in the The Gallery Player’s Black Box New Play Festival. This is my second year appearing in the festival and working with director Suzanne Adams and I couldn’t be more excited.

The Black Box New Play Festival is The Gallery Players’ signature season-ending festival of new works by both new and established playwrights. More than 400 plays have graced their stage in the past 15 years of producing the festival, including Nat Cassidy’s The Reckoning of Kit and Little Boots, a New York Innovative Theatre Award-winner for Best Play in 2008.

As I mentioned, I’m in a great little play called Jenga. My girlfriend Katie (Anna Chazelle) and I are celebrating our anniversary after moving in together and, much to their surprise, they have found out their brood is about to grow by one. When her two best friends from college (Heather Meagher, Megan Lee) come over for a game night, Katie’s past comes back to haunt her and possibly derail her future with me… which is sad. :(

If you want to see it, you’re going to have to stop that grumbling about Brooklyn (think how I feel – I have to go rehearse there), and hop on an F or an R train to Gallery Players (199 14th St, Brooklyn, NY). The show is only performed four times:

Thursday, May 31st at 8pm

Friday, June 1st at 8pm

Saturday, June 2nd at 8pm

Sunday, June 3rd at 3pm.

Get your tickets here.

Words of Wisdom from Bill Cosby

Matt — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:43:21 +0000

I have always enjoyed Bill Cosby. When I was younger my grandmother gave me some cassette tapes of him performing stand up. His routines remain richly implanted in my brain to this day: play Buck Buck, getting his tonsils removed, and his father telling him “I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it.”

Over the years I’ve also found him to be an excellent role model for performers and a fount of wisdom to anyone pursuing their craft. One of my favorite of his quotes is, “decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.” I also read an article once where he was asked how to become a comedian. His response was something like, “If you want to do comedy, do comedy. If you want to act, act.”

I put together this post because I again stumbled upon an interview he gave where he essentially encourage performers to keep on going and remain positive. Great advice:

Pierre Bernard said that after he graduated from art school it took him 16-17 years to find himself. I think one of the most difficult things is for any performer, any artist, to not to let the negative of learning the technical circumvent the talent.

One has to work and work and work and make decisions in art without being afraid of mistakes. And certainly I think that the most difficult thing in art is to judge the critiques because one can make terrible mistakes in thinking that the critic and the negative should be listened to, or [to let] one’s feelings after being rejected change oneself, or [make you] want to become more liked. It is difficult to believe in your own work when you get negative feedback. It is not that horrible that you aren’t discovered. Jack Lemmon took piano lessons. Not everyone is going to Carnegie Hall.

To be given the opportunity, whether you wind up Jack Lemmon or at the saloon singing, whether you play by yourself or you’re doings design on T-shirts — It is up to the human being to become what ever they want to become.

Wrapped up in my craft.

Matt — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:07:14 +0000

I am at a moment in my life where my art means everything to me. I spend every moment thinking about it and try to be kind to and tolerant of the rest of the world. Maybe it was my brief moment of disability, maybe my grandfather’s cancer but I have never been more motivated to create.

Heart Attack on a Plate… Literally

Matt — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:54:35 +0000

Long before I lived in New York, I spend two years living in Las Vegas. Unusual things started to seem so regular to me even in that short time. I would marvel when people took photos, “don’t they know we built this just so they would take photos?” None of it was real. All of it was over the top. Lots of it was unhealthy. Don’t get me wrong, I could definitely do a show in Vegas but I would need to know that my experience had an end date. I didn’t like living there.

One of the reasons I finally moved to New York was that when I was in Vegas and L.A., everyone kept talking about the revitalization of Downtown and how it would become so cosmopolitan. It hasn’t really occurred in either city. And Las Vegas’ downtown is full of old historic casino and a strip of neon lights called The Fremont Street Experience. Tourists will find no shortage of places selling half-gallon margaritas, low-limit poker rooms, and restaurants. One restaurant in particular reminds seems to sum up the whole city though. It’s called the Heart Attack Grill and they pushing 10,000 calorie burgers to unsuspecting dopes who seem to think it’s all in good fun. Yesterday, their second customer had a heart attack. Check out this video interview from the crackpot owner given after the first person almost dropped dead eating one of their burgers:

For the record, this whole story about bringing awareness to addiction is just the latest line of bullshit from “Dr. John”. His former restaurant (by the same name) was located in Arizona and at this location he told media that people were tired of being told what they could and couldn’t eat and that’s why he opened the restaurant. His tune started to change when their spokesman, a man of over 500 lbs died at age 29. Because he was over 350 lbs, the restaurant let him eat for free.

Thank God I got out before I started to think things like this were normal and even exciting to tell tourists about.

A YouTube Gem!

Matt — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:27:48 +0000

Ever since I started uploading more of stuff on YouTube, I spend a lot of time checking out other people’s stuff… lots of stuff on the YouTube. Here’s one of my favorites today. It’s a video of Tedd Firth and Tony DeSare playing “Take The A Train” on the piano. Friends, this is happiness.

No One Will Cuddle With Me

Matt — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:30:09 +0000

Though I spend quite a bit of time talking about my acting and sometimes my singing, I rarely talk about my songwriting. However, last night, I debuted one of my original songs for the audience at Birdland in New York. Don’t be sad if you missed it, I recorded it for you:

Filming Population 1

Matt — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:23:12 +0000

This weekend I’m filming an awesome short film by writer and director Alex Lamburini about a dystopian society that suffers from child overpopulation. I’m a member of the agency responsible for eliminating illegal children. I’m already having fun working with Alex and my co-stars Luke Trovese and Michael Friedrich — I’ve been working on my gun handling and military stances all this week and it’s been cool to put them to use at our amazing location in Long Island… a forest with a burned down house on the brink of it.

On the set of Population 1

A Busy Start to 2012

Matt — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:31:04 +0000

Summary of my involvement in Perchance to Dream” Theatre’s 24 Hour Play Festival and Duncan Pflaster’s upcoming reading of “Nothing Human.”

Cast for our play “The Believers” in the 24 Hour Play Festival included Hanniel Choi, Bret McCormick, and Vibe Normann. Our writer was Alexandra Cremer and our director was Amanda Junco. Special thanks to Perchance to Dream for an awesome experience.

An Unforgettable Audition

Matt — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 20:01:53 +0000

I normally don’t post about auditions but many of you are aware that I have been doing all I can to get my foot in the door of film and TV in New York. Earlier in the year I had to turn down a role on One Life To Live due to a theatre project. I’m still disappointed about this. Unlike theatre, TV and film auditions usually require representation to get you in the door. While, I’m still searching for the right representation, I am particularly flattered to have been called in by Claire Traeger of Suzanne Ryan Casting to audition for CBS’s new hit show Unforgettable. If you’ve not seen it, you need to check it out. Poppy Montgomery plays Carrie Wells, a detective who literally remembers everything. Apparently there are about 150 people in the world with this rare gift. Anyway, I met Claire recently when I had the opportunity to read for something else and I couldn’t be happier that she remembered me. It’s a huge compliment and I definitely am grateful to her for the chance to come in and share my abilities with Suzanne and the folks at CBS. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Tennis in Nablus to be produced Off-Broadway by The Culture Project

Matt — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:46:26 +0000

This weekend, the cast of Tennis in Nablus (including myself) performed an abridged version of Tennis in Nablus for the Culture Project 2011 Producer’s Weekend where two of the six plays presented where chosen to be produced in The Culture Project’s 2012-2013 season. The piece was very well received and I am so happy that I was able to take the stage with my cast mates to share Ismail Khalidi’s fantastic new play with a new audience of theatre-goers. It was determined that the play would be produced Off-Broadway by The Culture Project and we are all exceptionally excited and proud to have been a part of getting it there.

About Tennis in Nablus by Ismail Khalidi
It is 1939. World War II looms over Europe as Palestinian rebels teeter on the brink of defeat at the hands of the British empire which rules Palestine with an iron fist. As the Arab revolutionaries fight for their freedom, the Zionist movement is getting stronger by the day. A collision between the two peoples seems inevitable, especially as the English sow discord in between their daily tennis matches.

About The Culture Project
Culture Project’s productions have garnered an array of Drama Desk, OBIE, and Outer Circle Critics awards. But they have also won unprecedented awards outside the sphere of theatrical production including the Champion of Justice Award and the PASS award from the National Association of Criminal Defenders. This recognition reignites Culture Project’s passion for its goal and reinforces its commitment to hard-hitting and provocative theater as a powerful ingredient in shaping our nation’s values and debates.