It’s a few weeks until opening night, and the playwright can’t stop swearing, the stage manager’s dressed like a dog, the intern’s caught on fire (again), the artistic director and lead actress have broken up (…again), and the set designer doesn’t speak English. But hey, it’ll all work out. That’s how theater happens, after all.”
Jonathan Elliott, pictured at right, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, Class of 2000, has written “NeverLanding,” a new web series based on a summer-stock theater company. Shot at locations throughout New Jersey, the actors are from New York City and New Jersey. “NeverLanding chronicles the comedy, tensions, and sense of community created under the unique conditions of a college’s summer-stock theater environment,” says Elliott, who was raised in West Windsor. It premiered on December 16 at https://NeverLanding.tv.
“We wanted to tell the story of why we love theater,” says Jonathan Bulava, series director, co-creator, and a veteran of Princeton Summer Theater along with Elliott. “In the post-college years, some of us have gone on to work successfully in the performing arts, and others have chosen different paths. But we wanted to tell a story that showed off the special bonds that theater creates, and how those don’t ever really go away.”
Set at the fictional Carrol University, NeverLanding follows 12 young people hired to operate the college’s summer theater. When the company opts to produce a punk-rock adaptation of “Peter Pan” as the final show of the season, an unlikely twist of fate rockets one member of the company to stardom. Five years later, a documentary filmmaker pieces together the story of how these theater people came together and what drove them apart — and sets in motion the series of events that reignites them as a company. Each episode tracks the story of one company member, based around an interview with the filmmaker. A new episode will be released every two weeks.
“The Artistic Director’s Story,” features Graham, the artistic director, and serves as the entry point into the series’ mysteries and plot. Episode 2, “Tape it Out: The Stage Manager’s Story,” will be released on Wednesday, December 29. Episode 3, “Reptiles: The Set Designer’s Story,” will be released on Wednesday, January 12. Episode 4, “Not the Glitter: The Actress’s Story” will be released on Wednesday, January 26. Additional bonus footage and other materials will be released on a weekly basis.
Actors include Gabe Alonso, who was raised in Plainsboro and graduated from WW-P High School, Class of 2003. Both Elliott and Alonso graduated from College of New Jersey. Other actors are Jed Peterson, Jon Bershad, Madeline Orton, Dennis Chin, Patrick Dresh, Damian Gaeta, Amanda Ganza, Sarah Gosnell, Ashley Kipness, Kim MacKanic, Rachel Michel, Andrew Timmes, and Julianna White. Jason Milstein serves as associate producer, Matthew Lauyer is director of photography, and production managers are Laura Hargreaves and Marla Pachter.
“We all have a fond attachment to the weird and wonderful possibilities of college theater, where anything could sort of happen in the mix of youth and autonomy; the show’s about the nostalgia of making theater without consequences, and what happens when you have to grow up past that — or choose not to,” says Elliott who was involved with Princeton Summer Theater from 2002 to 2005. Peterson, Bulava, and Bershad also worked at Princeton Summer Theater. Most of the company members have done summer-stock somewhere.
“Web TV is sort of like the independent film circuit of episode-based entertainment with more and more people becoming accustomed to getting their entertainment via Internet means and at their leisure instead of through ascribed networks. The New York Times has a monthly column on the Web Series scene — the second installment ran this past Sunday:” https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/arts/television/12watch.html.
“It’s a new-ish field overall, but people are watching them,” Elliott says. “We’re one of the first professionally-produced series to film entirely in New Jersey. We’re all professionals in one form or another (our film crew has done film work for the Discovery Channel and MTV, among other projects) and I got my WGA (Writers Guild of America) card on spec from these scripts.”
