Brad Mays
Encyclopedia
Brad Mays is an independent
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
filmmaker and stage director, living and working in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Background and education
Brad Mays developed an early passion for film and theatre while growing up during the late 60s-early 70s in PrincetonPrinceton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
where he did a brief work-study internship at McCarter Theatre
McCarter Theatre
McCarter Theatre is a not-for-profit, professional company on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. It is one of the most active cultural centers in the nation, offering over 200 performances of theater, dance, music and special events each year...
, a professional regional theatre
Regional theatre in the United States
Regional theaters, or resident theaters, in the United States are professional or semi-professional, theater companies that produce their own seasons. The term regional theatre most often refers to professional theatres outside of New York City...
then under the management of Arthur Lithgow
Arthur Lithgow
Arthur Washington Lithgow III was an American actor and director.-Life and career:Lithgow was born in Puerto Plata, the Dominican Republic, the son of Ina Berenice , a nurse, and Arthur Washington Lithgow II, an entrepreneur. His parents were of American descent...
. In a 2010 LA Talk Radio interview, Mays freely discussed his earliest exposure to theatre in general, and his first drama teacher, African-American playwright/director Don Evans
Don Evans
Donald Thomas "Don" Evans was a noted African-American playwright, theatre director, actor and educator.-Early life and education:...
, in particular. Describing Evans' angry impatience with then-current mainstream theatrical offerings, Mays credited his teacher with inspiring him to go against the grain at every opportunity; even to look for the beautiful in what may at first seem to be utterly horrific.
Shortly after his family moved to Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
in 1971, Brad Mays became involved in the local experimental theater scene and, at the age of eighteen, began directing at the Corner Theatre ETC
Corner Theatre ETC
Corner Theatre E.T.C. was an American experimental theater in operation from 1968–1987, a not-for-profit cultural organization located in Baltimore, Maryland, which provided resources for new playwrights, designers, directors, actors, dancers, and other artists seeking alternative means and...
, the Baltimore Theatre Project
Baltimore Theatre Project
The Baltimore Theatre Project is an internationally-recognized performing arts center located at 45 West Preston Street in Baltimore, Maryland.-Early years:...
, and various other theatres in town. These very early efforts include such plays as Jack, or The Submission, The Future Is In Eggs, The Leader, and The Lesson, by Ionesco; Lovers, by Brian Friel
Brian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
; The Boys In The Band
The Boys in the Band
The Boys in the Band is a 1970 American drama film directed by William Friedkin. The screenplay by Mart Crowley is based on his Off Broadway play of the same title, Crowley penned a sequel to the play years later entitled The Men From The Boys...
, by Mart Crowley
Mart Crowley
Mart Crowley is an American playwright.Crowley was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. After graduating from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1957, Crowley headed west to Hollywood, where he worked for a number of television production companies before meeting Natalie Wood on...
; The Devils
The Devils (play)
The Devils is a play, commissioned by Sir Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company and written by British dramatist John Whiting, based on Aldous Huxley's factual historical novel, The Devils of Loudun.-Performance:...
, by John Whiting
John Whiting
John Robert Whiting was an English dramatist and critic.Born in Salisbury, England, he was educated at Taunton School. His works include:* A Penny for a Song. A play * Marching Song. A play...
; and The Indian Wants the Bronx
The Indian Wants the Bronx
The Indian Wants the Bronx is a one-act play by Israel Horovitz.Gupta, the Indian of the title, has just arrived in New York City from his native country to visit his son and speaks only a few words of English. While waiting for a bus to the Bronx, he is approached by two young punks, Joey and...
, by Israel Horovitz
Israel Horovitz
Israel Horovitz is an American playwright and screenwriter.-Theatre career:An American dramatist, Horovitz has written more than 70 produced plays, many of which have been translated and performed in more than 30 languages worldwide . The 70/70 Horovitz Project was created by NYC Barefoot Theatre...
.
Upon completion of theatre arts studies at Towson University
Towson University
Towson University, often referred to as TU or simply Towson for short, is a public university located in Towson in Baltimore County, Maryland, U.S...
, Mays was formally hired by the Baltimore Theatre Project, where he taught acting while continuing to direct increasingly ambitious productions in and around Baltimore, including Peter Shaffer
Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist and playwright, screenwriter and author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
's Equus
Equus (play)
Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses....
, (with Charles S. Dutton
Charles S. Dutton
Charles Stanley Dutton is an American stage, film, and television actor and director. He is perhaps best known for his roles as "Fortune" in the film Rudy and "Dillon" in Alien 3...
in the role of Dysart); his first production of Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' The Bacchae
The Bacchae
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides, during his final years in Macedon, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which...
;
Arthur Kopit's Chamber Music; Tom Eyen
Tom Eyen
Tom Eyen was an American playwright, lyricist, television writer and theatre director.Eyen is best known for works at opposite ends of the theatrical spectrum...
's The White Whore and the Bit Player; and Brecht-Weill's Threepenny Opera. In 1982, Mays moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he began working off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
and, ultimately, produced and directed his first independent feature film, Stage Fright
Stage Fright (1989)
Stage Fright is an independent feature film produced and directed by Brad Mays and written by Stanley Keyes. It was director Mays' debut film, and it had its premier screening at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival under the auspices of the New York Foundation for the Arts.It is a...
.
Film work
In 2006, Mays filmed the documentary feature SING*ularity (2008), which explores the cutting-edge training of classical singers at the world-renowned OperaWorksOperaWorks
OperaWorks is the registered trademark for an acclaimed opera training program, founded by program director Ann Baltz, and conducted in Northridge, California.-Description:...
program in Southern California. Other films include his rarely seen free-form adaptation of Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' The Bacchae (2002), and his first feature, Stage Fright, a semi-autobiographical piece, co-written with his friend and fellow Corner Theatre alum, Stanley Keyes
Stanley Keyes
-Career:Stanley Keyes began his theatre career in Baltimore performing various roles at Theatre Hopkins in the early 1970s. It did not take long for him to become associated with Corner Theatre ETC, an experimental theatre also located in Baltimore, where he continued acting as well as trying his...
, which depicts the trials and tribulations of a late '60's theatre company and had its inaugural screenings at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
. It was during the editing of that particular project that Mays was invited to participate as a segment director on Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...
's first Pay-Per-View special
Howard Stern pay-per-view specials and tapes
Between 1982-1994, American radio and media personality Howard Stern has hosted a number of pay-per-view specials and released various VHS and audio tapes.-Howard Stern's Negligeé and Underpants Party:...
, Howard Stern's Negligee and Underpants Party, where his satirical short The Gay Untouchables received favorable mention in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
.
Mays' 2008 motion picture romantic comedy The Watermelon
The Watermelon
The Watermelon is an independent feature film penned by Michael Hemmingson and directed by Brad Mays. It is produced by Lorenda Starfelt at LightSong Films in North Hollywood.The Watermelon is Michael Hemmingson's first produced full-length screenplay, and director Brad Mays' fourth feature...
premiered at the San Diego Film Festival, where it quickly achieved the top slot for audience and industry buzz. Written by Michael Hemmingson
Michael Hemmingson
Michael Hemmingson is a novelist, short story writer, literary critic, cultural anthropologist, qualitative researcher, playwright, and screenwriter.-Publishing History:...
, The Watermelon was produced by Lorenda Starfelt
Lorenda Starfelt
Lorenda Starfelt was an award-winning independent film producer, as well as a committed political activist and blogger who famously dug up president Barack Obama's in an August 1961 edition of The Honolulu Advertiser while researching her documentary on the 2008 presidential election...
at LightSong Films in North Hollywood, and was conceived as a "Fairy Tale for grown-ups." The film stars Will Beinbrink
Will Beinbrink
William Bates Beinbrink [aka W. Bates Beinbrink and Bill Bates] is an American actor who starred as Achilles Pumpkinseed in the romantic comedy The Watermelon, directed by Brad Mays and written by Michael Hemmingson. He has also appeared in supporting roles in Cellular as an L.A...
, Kiersten Morgan, Elyse Ashton, Julia Aks, Mike Ivy and Bob Golub
Bob Golub
Bob Golub is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and filmmaker of Polish descent, whose work is largely inspired from his true-life childhood experiences of growing up in a dysfunctional home located in the steel-mill town of Farrell, Pennsylvania.-Career:Bob Golub began his career as a...
. The Watermelon was released by Celebrity Video Distribution, a Los Angeles distribution company dedicated to serving the independent film community. It was subsequently awarded a 2010 California Film Awards "Diamond Award."
In 2009, Brad Mays finished work on the feature-length political documentary The Audacity of Democracy
The Audacity of Democracy
The Audacity of Democracy is an independent documentary film produced by Lorenda Starfelt and directed by Brad Mays for LightSong Films in North Hollywood. The film, which was shot in New York City, Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas and Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado is an in-depth...
, which followed the 2008 race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination and focused in particular on the notorious PUMA
People United Means Action
PUMA was a political action committee in the United States that opposed the Democratic Party leadership and the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for President in the 2008 presidential election. PUMA began as an effort of supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who...
movement. In multiple Blog-Radio interviews, the director expressed dissatisfaction with the project, revealing that he had not been allowed to complete shooting in the manner originally agreed to.
A short film project entitled A Way Back In, which Mays had begun work on late in 2008, was finally completed during the late summer of 2009. Written and produced by, as well as starring Holly Anderson (who had performed a memorable supporting role in The Watermelon), the thirty-seven minute "featurette" was originally intended as a fund-raising pilot for a planned feature drama-thriller, but was quickly deemed strong enough to stand on its own. Awarded three Indie Fest Awards Of Merit – for Short Film, lead Actress, and Direction - the film was subsequently chosen as an Official Selection for the January 2010 inaugural installation of the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema
Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema
The Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema is an annual, competitive independent filmmaker - friendly film and arts festival, founded in 2009, which is held in Idyllwild, California.-The first year:...
, as well as for the 2010 World Music and Independent Film Festival in Washington, D.C., where it was nominated for a total of six awards, including Best Short Film and Best Direction.
Stage work
Brad Mays has directed extensively for the stage, primarily in Baltimore, New York and Los Angeles. His first production in New York was an evening of one-act plays, written by long-time friend Linda ChambersLinda Chambers (playwright)
Linda Chambers is an American playwright, screenwriter, actress and college instructor living and working in Baltimore, Maryland.-Career:Linda Chambers first began serious writing after becoming involved with Corner Theatre ETC, an experimental theatre located in Baltimore...
and performed at the Cubiculo Theatre: Joan, Stones, and Requiem. All three pieces dealt with themes of personal spirituality. Requiem, the longest play of the evening, was a fictionalized drama about the death of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands
Bobby Sands
Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze....
, and performed during the Saint Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day is a religious holiday celebrated internationally on 17 March. It commemorates Saint Patrick , the most commonly recognised of the patron saints of :Ireland, and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. It is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion , the Eastern...
holiday in 1982. Mays' next production, an Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
presentation of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz's The Water Hen, was videotaped by the Lincoln Center's prestigious Billy Rose Theatre Collection for inclusion in their permanent archive.
In Los Angeles, Mays' original adaptation of Euripides' The Bacchae
The Bacchae
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides, during his final years in Macedon, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which...
was nominated for three LA Weekly Theatre Awards (including Best Direction) in 1997 and also videotaped for the Lincoln Center's archive. The production was recognized for its overall directorial audacity, the movement-scoring work by choreographer Kim Weild
Kim Weild
Kim Weild is a Drama Desk Award nominated theatre director, choreographer, actor, writer and educator, living and working in New York.-Background:As an actor and dancer, Kim Weild has performed extensively in both Europe and the United States...
, and for its aggressive though non-exploitive use of onstage violence and nudity. Mays' multi-media production of Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
' A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian....
, performed in Los Angeles at the ARK Theatre company, was likewise nominated for Best Direction, Best Revival Production, and Best Actress by the 2004 LA Weekly Theater Awards. Vanessa Claire Smith
Vanessa Claire Smith
Vanessa Claire Smith is an award-winning actress living and working in Los Angeles, California.-Background and education:Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Vanessa Claire Smith attended Webster Conservatory for the Performing Arts in St. Louis, Missouri...
won Best Actress for her gender-bending portrayal of Alex
Alex (A Clockwork Orange)
Alex is a fictional character in Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange and the film adaptation, in which he is played by Malcolm McDowell. In this film adaption, Alex's surname is DeLarge, in relation to Alex's reference to himself as "Alexander the Large" in the novel. This, in itself, is an...
, the story's protagonist.
Maintaining an experimental approach to directorial "problem-solving," Mays has involved himself in a wide range of theatrical production, both modern and classical. Such efforts include Peter Weiss
Peter Weiss
Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance....
' The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade at Theatre of NOTE in Los Angeles; an expanded version of Joan by Linda Chambers, starring Rain Pryor
Rain Pryor
-Personal life:Pryor was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Shelley R. Bonis and American comedian Richard Pryor. Rain Pryor's mother was a Jewish go-go dancer and Rain was largely raised with her Jewish grandparents who taught her about Jewish culture...
as Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
; an in-the-round regional staging of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
Amadeus
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
; a modern-dress version of Euripides' The Trojan Women
The Trojan Women
The Trojan Women is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. Produced during the Peloponnesian War, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier in 415 BC , the same year...
, in which the action took place in a setting reminiscent of the Iraq War; an interracial interpretation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
; and the bizarre black comedy Dragon Slayers, by Stanley Keyes
Stanley Keyes
-Career:Stanley Keyes began his theatre career in Baltimore performing various roles at Theatre Hopkins in the early 1970s. It did not take long for him to become associated with Corner Theatre ETC, an experimental theatre also located in Baltimore, where he continued acting as well as trying his...
, in which a cult of insane puppeteers engage in ritual murder. Dragon Slayers was performed in both New York and Los Angeles over a period of several years, featuring an original electronic score contributed by Garth Hudson
Garth Hudson
Eric Garth Hudson is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist. As the organist, keyboardist and saxophonist for Canadian-American rock group The Band, he was a principal architect of the group's unique sound...
of the late sixties rock group The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
.
Other work
Brad Mays often edits films for other filmmakers, including Resilience, by Paul Bojak; Dodo: The Documentary, by Bob GolubBob Golub
Bob Golub is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and filmmaker of Polish descent, whose work is largely inspired from his true-life childhood experiences of growing up in a dysfunctional home located in the steel-mill town of Farrell, Pennsylvania.-Career:Bob Golub began his career as a...
, and numerous others. Mays edited a short film for The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group still existing in the U.S...
entitled No Sir! – a multi camera, multi screen capture of a live piece of street theatre performed, in typical Living Theatre fashion, in front of the U.S. Army recruitment center, in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
.
Brad Mays, along with Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
, director Richard Schechner
Richard Schechner
Richard Schechner is Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University , editor of TDR: The Drama Review, and artistic director of East Coast Artists. His BA is from Cornell University , MA from the University of Iowa , and PhD from Tulane University...
, and actor Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming, OBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy...
was invited to discuss Euripides' The Bacchae as part of an up-coming web series Invitation to World Literature, which officially launched on Annenberg Media
Annenberg Foundation
The Annenberg Foundation is a private foundation that provides funding and support to non-profit organizations in the United States and around the world...
's educational website in September, 2010. The series, produced by Annie Wong for WGBH Boston, began airing nationally on PBS in October, 2010.
In a June 2010 interview with Priscilla Leona on LA Talk Radio, Brad Mays discussed several projects in the works: Featherweight, an original web series about a young woman who finds Jesus and becomes an overnight boxing sensation; Dear Brutus, a feature film adaptation of J.M. Barrie's classic play, and the Los Angeles premiere of Doraine Perez's dramatic fantasia Anais Nin: Woman Of The Dream. Customer Diss-Service, a new comedy web series under Mays' direction, premiered on January 22, 2011 on Staytunedtv.net.
On June 6, 2011, Brad Mays discussed his personal and working relationship with his late wife Lorenda Starfelt – who had died of uterine cancer earlier that year – with blog radio host John Smart. In the interview, which Smart describes as "harsh, truthful and brutally honest," Mays revealed the closeness of his artistic collaboration with Starfelt, as well as his reasons for considering their 2010 documentary film co-production The Audacity of Democracy to have been "unsuccessful...incomplete, inconclusive, ultimately unsatisfying and even embarrassing."
Selected filmography
| Year | Film | Function | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Stage Fright Stage Fright (1989) Stage Fright is an independent feature film produced and directed by Brad Mays and written by Stanley Keyes. It was director Mays' debut film, and it had its premier screening at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival under the auspices of the New York Foundation for the Arts.It is a... |
Director/Editor/ Co-Screenwriter | Premiered at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978... . Sponsored in Berlin by the New York Foundation For The Arts, and the Goethe House in NYC. |
||
| 2002 | The Bacchae The Bacchae (film) The Bacchae is an independent film adaptation of Euripides' classic play, produced by Lorenda Starfelt and John Morrissey, and directed by Brad Mays.-Production:... |
Director/Editor/ Screenwriter | Screen adaptation of Euripides Euripides Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most... ' classic play, filmed roughly two years after Mays' acclaimed Los Angeles stage production. |
||
| 2004 | Paper Chasers Paper Chasers Paper Chasers is an American independent feature length documentary film, produced by Holly Becker and Yvette Plummer, and directed by Maxie Collier.-Plot:... |
Editor | Re-Edit of hip-hop feature documentary produced and directed by Maxie Collier, and featuring James Brown James Brown James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr... , Chuck D., Flavor Flav Flavor Flav William Jonathan Drayton, Jr. , better known by his stage name Flavor Flav, is an American rapper and television personality who rose to prominence as a member of the rap group Public Enemy... , Master P., Ludacris Ludacris Christopher Brian Bridges , better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings... , and Russell Simmons Russell Simmons -External links:** * * * * * * from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum* *... . |
||
| Shakespeare's Merchant | Producer/Editor | Adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic... , adapted and directed by Los Angeles stage director Paul Wagar; and produced by Mays' wife Lorenda Starfelt. |
|||
| The Trojan Women The Trojan Women The Trojan Women is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. Produced during the Peloponnesian War, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier in 415 BC , the same year... |
Director/Editor | Documentary Film of Brad Mays' 2003 Los Angeles stage production of Euripides' classic tragedy, produced by the ARK Theatre Company. | |||
| 2005 | Resilience | Editor | Acclaimed feature drama, written, produced and directed by Paul Bojack. | ||
| Sunset Stripper Murders | Editor | A complete re-edit of the erotic thriller Seventh Veil, directed by Amin Q. Chaudhri. | |||
| 2006 | Dodo: The Documentary | Co-Producer/Editor | Docu-Comedy about the life and times of comedian Bob Golub, directed by Bob Golub Bob Golub Bob Golub is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and filmmaker of Polish descent, whose work is largely inspired from his true-life childhood experiences of growing up in a dysfunctional home located in the steel-mill town of Farrell, Pennsylvania.-Career:Bob Golub began his career as a... and released in 2010. |
||
| 2008 | SING*ularity | Director/Co-Producer/ Editor | Documentary about the world-famous OperaWorks OperaWorks OperaWorks is the registered trademark for an acclaimed opera training program, founded by program director Ann Baltz, and conducted in Northridge, California.-Description:... training program for classical vocalists, filmed in the years 2006–2007. |
||
| The Watermelon The Watermelon The Watermelon is an independent feature film penned by Michael Hemmingson and directed by Brad Mays. It is produced by Lorenda Starfelt at LightSong Films in North Hollywood.The Watermelon is Michael Hemmingson's first produced full-length screenplay, and director Brad Mays' fourth feature... |
Director/Editor | Oddball romantic comedy, written by Michael Hemmingson Michael Hemmingson Michael Hemmingson is a novelist, short story writer, literary critic, cultural anthropologist, qualitative researcher, playwright, and screenwriter.-Publishing History:... . World premiere at the 2008 San Diego Film Festival. Released July 7, 2009. Received the California Film Awards 2010 Diamond Award. |
|||
| The Audacity of Democracy The Audacity of Democracy The Audacity of Democracy is an independent documentary film produced by Lorenda Starfelt and directed by Brad Mays for LightSong Films in North Hollywood. The film, which was shot in New York City, Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas and Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado is an in-depth... |
Director/Editor | Documentary Film of the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, shot in Dallas, Princeton, Washington, D.C., and Denver. Released in 2009. | |||
| 2009 | Crystal Fog | Editor | Hard-hitting docu-drama, written, produced and directed by Sundance Festival award winner Steve Yeager Steve Yeager (filmmaker) Steve Yeager is an independent filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. He is best known for his film on the life of fellow director John Waters, Divine Trash, which won the Filmmakers Trophy for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998.... . |
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| The Dream of Alvareen | Editor | Fantasy-drama, written, produced and directed by Alex Lehr. | |||
| ShowGirls, Provincetown, MA | Editor | Documentary film about the venerable weekly "Showgirls" crossing-dressing variety show in Provincetown, where all manner of drag queens compete for a cash prize. Premiered at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival Palm Springs International Film Festival Palm Springs International Film Festival is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. It was started in 1989 and is held annually in January... . |
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| 2010 | A Way Back In | Director/Co-Producer/ Editor | Dramatic action film short. World premiere at the 2010 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema The Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema is an annual, competitive independent filmmaker - friendly film and arts festival, founded in 2009, which is held in Idyllwild, California.-The first year:... . Winner of three Indie Fest Awards (Short Film, Leading Actor, Direction), and three Accolade Awards Of Merit (Short Film, Creativity/Originality, Direction). |
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| 2011 | Customer Diss-Service | Director, Editor | Web Series produced by Ron Williams, Scott Scott Weisenfeld and Lorenda Starfelt and starring Frank Noon and Johnny D'Agostino. | ||
| 2012 | Beginning Blue | Director, Co-Writer | Feature film about an all-girl rock band determined not to trade on looks or gender appeal, very loosely based on the Beatles. Produced by Mays' wife Lorenda Starfelt. |
External links
The Watermelon official webpageCNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
clip of director Brad Mays remembering Paul Newman at the 2008 San Diego Film Festival.