Sunday, November 25, 2007
Plum TV
The Theater Workshop production of "I'll Be Back Before Midnight" was featured on Plum TV, a lifestyle channel carried by cable providers in Aspen, Nantucket, the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard, Telluride, Sun Valley, Vail, and Miami Beach. Click here to watch clips from the production and interviews with the cast.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Edge of your seat.
Set in an old farmhouse deep in the country, Jan and Greg, an unstable young couple, grow unhinged by stories about a terrible murder that took place in the rented farmhouse years ago. As night falls, they are tormented by strange sounds and visions of the vengeful ghost. A comic thriller. "I'll Be Back Before Midnight!" by Peter Colley and directed by Fritz Michel. Starring John Devaney, Sarah Fraunfelder, Kevin Mohler and Erin Raftery. Production runs at the Theater Workshop of Nantucket through October 7. Production photos are online. An interesting (biased opinion) preview of the show was published in the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror. I am back in Los Angeles looking for the next thing.
Monday, June 04, 2007
I'll Be Back Before Midnight
Fritz is directing Peter Colley's comic thriller at Theater Workshop of Nantucket. Play opens on September 12 and runs through October 9.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Rockefeller Foundation Nomination
For his work on the Semmelweis feature film project, Jim was nominated for a Rockefeller Arts Grant for 2007. Go Semmelweis! Watch this space for results in the Spring.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Himber Entertainment
Tracy Quinn at Himber Entertainment is Fritz's manager. Please contact her at (310) 276-2500 with professional inquiries.
Sexual Perversity in Chicago!
Monday, December 18, 2006 I just wrapped a short run of "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" at the Underground Theater in Hollywood. David Mamet's 1976 outrageously raunchy battle of the sexes. Danny Shapiro (my character) is a player on the rebound and influenced by his pal Bernie who takes a page from the Marquis de Sade. The 80's Brat Pack hit "About Last Night" was also loosely based on Mamet's play.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Writers and Actors:
Symbiotic. Tom Wang turned me on to these writers who keep you on your toes. Thirty minutes. Cold. On the other end of the conitnuum, studying with Antaeus, LA's classical theater ensemble, brings dysfunction to any "CSI" audition after you've digging around in "Timon of Athens" for a couple of months.
Face to Face!
SYRIANA, ER, ALIAS and other scenes from my work in film and television are online in high bandwith. My agent and manager use this stream to get me in the room for a spectrum of roles. You'll see me firing guns and dancing in an African disco. It's only a few minutes long. This is me acting.
Friday, May 26, 2006
2006 UCLA Festival of New, Creative Work!
"Dick the Host" and "Safe Word Sparrow" are both screening as part of the opening night event. The Festival runs June 9-16.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Tapeworms on a plane!
Hollywood Reporter. April 24, 2006. Page 8. My picture (kinda) is in this article about my director and friend David Harris and the tapeworm puppet I voiced in his short film DICK THE HOST. Echoing (or plagiarizing) David's notion that it's a little lame to post about this kind of stuff but when you are an actor in a business filled with rejection you kind have to savor the victories. Cisco Systems and MTVu have greenlighted a project of David's in a venture capital approach to programming development. I'd call it a three picture deal, but it's more of a interactive internet advice column using film thus too mildly convergence-oriented for a pure cineaste . But if a menacing, French-accented, snaggle-toothed tapeworm makes the trades, shout it out!
Milking it...
George Clooney wins an Oscar for best supporting actor! I haven't acted in enough big Hollywood movies to be at all blase about the critical success of SYRIANA so I think it's pretty cool that the movie earned so many awards and nominations and was named best picture of 2005 by the American Film Institute. I'd especially like to thank the Boston Society of Film Critics for naming the cast of SYRIANA as the best acting ensemble of 2005.... Damn, I was just getting started but the orchestra in my head says enough already. Cue the music. Get off the stage. The DVD comes out June 20. Watch carefully and you'll see my brother Jake in a scene with Christopher Plummer and Jeffrey Wright at a tony men's club .
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
SYRIANA!
This is a really cool movie to be a part of. As Kevin Klass, I face off with an inscrutable Jeffrey Wright over the questionable dealings of a powerful US/Mideast think tank. From writer/director, Steve Gaghan, winner of the Best Screenplay Oscar for TRAFFIC comes SYRIANA, a political thriller (remember "Three Days of the Condor") that unfolds against the intrigue of the global oil industry. George Clooney, Matt Damon and Jeffrey Wright star. The film opens on November 20 in New York and Los Angeles.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Semmelweis streams at The Museum of the Moving Image
The Museum of the Moving Image included Semmelweis as part of their Science Cinematheque online exhibition. The entire movie is streaming here along with an interview. Enjoy!
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Semmelweis To Air On Oregon Lens
We're proud to announce that Semmelweis is being featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting's OREGON LENS, an award-winning primetime show that features short films by Northwest Filmmakers. Semmelweis will air on Oregon Lens on OPB, Mondy, August 8th at 10pm. For more info, check out Oregon Lens.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Red Letters and Tuesdays After!
A shout out to our pals Erik Ryerson and Quyen Tran. Erik's NYU graduate thesis film Red Letters is winning awards on the festival circuit as is Quyen's short Tuesdays After about her Ground Zero experience on September 11, 2001 that launched her career as a cinematographer and director.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Amsel, Eisenstadt & Frazier!
In agency news, Fritz recently signed with Mike Eisenstadt at Amsel, Eisenstadt and Frazier for agency representation and Slamdance Media Group for management. See my bio for contact information.
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue!
Fritz voices a gruff Japanese doctor in the anime series Daphne in the Brilliant Blue. Our shady associate Sam Riegel directs. A bit of trivia: in Japanese, the words for "gun" and "cancer" are identical so something may be lost in translation if you are fluent in Japanese or subversive anime.
SAFE WORD SPARROW!
I recently shot this poignant, comic film playing an elegant S&M Dungeon Master who helps Newton, a man going through a divorce, experience a different kind of pain and free his Id. Check out the SWS trailer and our other cinematic collaborations ( Letting Eddie Go and Dick the Host ) at filmmaker David Harris' website. He gets 100 hits a day which fills me with prideful envy.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
SEMMELWEIS Optioned
Vincent DeVille, a Hungarian producer and owner of Free TV in Budapest, has optioned Jim's feature script and is currently in pre-production to shoot the feature in Europe. Bruce Beresford, director of such films as Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy, and Double Jeopardy, has signed a letter of intent to direct in 2005.
Jim attached to direct Rosalind's Helix
Jim has signed a letter of intent to produce and direct Rosalind's Helix, written by Susan Stanton. Rosalind's Helix is the winner of the $100,000 production grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The script, which depicts the life of scientist Rosalind Franklin, is currently being rewritten with pre-production to begin in late fall.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Fritz on ALIAS!
Season 3 is now available on DVD. A cool graphic recap of Episode 14: "Blowback" using screen captures and captions is online at Two Evil Monks.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
SYRIANA!
Fritz Michel has joined the cast of Stephen Gaghan's geo-political thriller SYRIANA starring Geroge Clooney, Matt Damon and Amanda Peet.
Humanitas Awards!
The "Makemba" episode of NBC's ER (guest-starring Fritz Michel) was nominated for a 2004 Humanitas Prize which honors work which "honestly explores the complexities of the human experience and sheds light on the positive values of life."
Summer 2004:
Fritz Michel stars in a pair of short films directed by David Harrison. In LETTING EDDIE GO, Eddie (FM), a nervy accountant plays possum to save his job from a predator boss. In THE TAPEWORM, which blends live action and animation, Fritz voices an adulterous Eastern European tapeworm who hungers for life's decadent pleasures, if only his host would cooperate.
MASSIVE ARABESQUE
A short film written and directed by Jim Berry and co-produced with the Interactive Visual Media Group in Microsoft's Advanced Research Division, has been selected by The Siggraph Animation Festival. It will screen in Los Angeles, August 2004. See also: www.siggraph.org/s2004/.
Theater News!
The Young Allies production of Oren Safdie's " Private Jokes, Public Places" at Elephant Stageworks was named one of Los Angeles' top ten theater productions in 2003 by Theater 2K.
Fritz on ALIAS!
Trapped between The Covenant and Agent Sidney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), Fritz guest stars on ALIAS as "Guy Dilan". The episode ("Blowback") airs on Sunday, February 22nd at 9PM on ABC.
Fritz Michel on "ER"!
Fritz Michel will be playing Belgian dermatologist Dr. Walter Leurquin on the ER (NBC) episode titled "Makemba". Newly arrived to volunteer with the Alliance de Medicines Internationales, Walter finds himself overwhelmed by the AIDS epidemic ravaging patients at the clinic in Kisingani, Congo. He seeks out the assistance of Dr. John Carter (Noah Wylie). Carter helps Walter find his bearings and teaches him the harsh realities of medicine in sub-Saharan in Africa. The episode airs on Thursday, December 11 at 10 PM.
Young Allies Onscreen!
Young Allies produced a film of Oren Safdie's new comedy " Private Jokes, Public Places". The film was made possible by a grant from the Graham Foundation. Founded in 1956 from a bequest by Ernest P. Grant, a prominent Chicago architect, it is the mission of the Graham Foundation to nurture and enrich an informed and creative public dialogue concerning architecture and the built environment. Shot on location in New York City, the production team included producer Fritz Michel and Director of Photography Erik Ryerson.
Fritz Michel Onstage!
The New York premiere of Oren Safdie's new comedy about architecture " Private Jokes, Public Places" received glowing reviews during it's run at La Mama E.T.C. in May, 2003. The production starred David Chandler (Erhardt), MJ Kang (Margaret), Graeme Malcolm (Colin) and Fritz Michel (William) and was directed by Craig Carlisle.
"An X-Acto blade sharp new comedy" -- The New Yorker
"Biting and mesmerizing, inspired and astonishing. A battle of wits between four sharply defined characters. An hour and a quarter of laughter." -- The New York Times
A new production of the play innaugurated the Theater at the Center for Architecture in the fall of 2003. See www.private-jokes.com for deatils.
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