John Uecker is a producer

Film producer

A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

, director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, and editor

Film editing

Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...

 whose work may be considered to occur in the genre(s) and form(at)s of magic realism

Magic realism

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

, metarealism

Metarealism

Metarealism is a direction in Russian poetry and art that was born in the 1970s to the 1980s. The term was first used by Mikhail Epshtein, who coined it in 1981 and made it public in the Soviet magazine "Voprosy Literatury" in 1983; see below his "Theses on Metarealism and Conceptualism" from 1983...

, poetic realism

Poetic realism

Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s and through the war years. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism. Its leading filmmakers were Jean Renoir, Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, and Marcel...

 or heightened realism. Much like his non-linear path, it is difficult to place Uecker's artistic contributions squarely in any one category, but it is apparent from the people he has been associated with he does not seek what might be called "kitchen-sink naturalism" of the Method

Method acting

Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...

 or The Actor's Studio, nor the deconstructivism

Deconstructivism

Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of...

 of downtown New York theater.

Directing

Uecker initiated and directed the world premiere of Williams Guignol, a production which paired The Chalky White Substance with The Travelling Companion under the aegis of the Running Sun Theater Company. http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3889592137/sizes/l/http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3890383850/sizes/l/

Uecker also produced and directed many of James Purdy's short plays off-off-Broadway. He directed "Sun of the Sleepless" at Theater for the New City, two one-acts by James Purdy, with Laurence Fishburne

Laurence Fishburne

Laurence John Fishburne III is an American film and stage actor, playwright, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, as Cowboy Curtis on the 1980's television show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and as singer-musician Ike Turner...

 and Sheila Dabney. Uecker became associated with Theater for the New City upon directing a play by Dr. Larry Meyers.

Uecker subsequently directed Purdy's full-length plays Foment http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3890309209/http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3889594875/ and Rivalry of Dolls.

For eight years in New York City, for the Running Sun Theater Company, Uecker taught a detailed yet distilled approach to the Meisner

Meisner technique

The Meisner technique is an acting technique developed by the American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner.Meisner developed this technique after working with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at the Group Theatre and as head of the acting program at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse and...

 and Strasberg

Straßberg

Straßberg is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 August 2009, it is part of the town Harzgerode...

 systems which were synthesized in exercises uniquely developed and taught by Kim Stanley

Kim Stanley

Kim Stanley was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances....

.

These classes were offered twice per week, 4 hours per session, at free or low not-for-profit cost to students. It was developed for actors who simply could not afford the more expensive schools in New York City.

Influences

Uecker's influences are eclectic. He has coached and/or directed the following dynamic range of actors: James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini

James J. Gandolfini, Jr. is an Italian American actor. He is best known for his role as Tony Soprano in the HBO TV series The Sopranos, about a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and career in the Mafia...

, Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter is an American actress. Hunter starred in The Piano for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for Oscars for her roles in Broadcast News, The Firm, and Thirteen...

, Brett Butler

Brett Butler (comedian)

Brett Butler is an American actress, writer, and stand-up comedian, best known for playing the title role in the comedy series Grace Under Fire.-Early life:...

  Laurence Fishburne

Laurence Fishburne

Laurence John Fishburne III is an American film and stage actor, playwright, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, as Cowboy Curtis on the 1980's television show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and as singer-musician Ike Turner...

, Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Ellen Gilbert is an American actress, writer, and producer, primarily in movies and television. Gilbert is best known as a child actress who co-starred as Charles Ingalls's second daughter, Laura Ingalls Wilder, on the dramatic television series Little House on the Prairie...

, Sam Trammell

Sam Trammell

Sam Trammell is an American stage, film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Sam Merlotte in the HBO vampire series, True Blood, which saw him nominated for a 2009 Scream Award for "Breakout Performance - Male."...

, and Jason Hale

Jason hale

Jason Hale is an American actor, theatre director, and teacher. Hale spent over a decade working as a professional actor, performing at many New York and regional ensemble theaters and acting in several independent and feature films, but he is better known for directing and teaching Viola Spolin...

. Uecker's major influences may be grouped by the following: 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...

's East Village

East Village, Manhattan

The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...

 artistic scene, the American playwright Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

 http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/tennessee_death_myth_OjzkpyFjmyFnwEmBXQVSKK and playwright, novelist and short-story writer James Purdy

James Purdy

James Otis Purdy was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who, since his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been praised by...

.

The East Village, New York City

His associations with Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin

Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...

, Lindzee Smith http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3889649743/, Jim Jarmusch

Jim Jarmusch

James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...

, Sara Driver

Sara Driver

Sara Driver is an independent filmmaker born in Westfield, NJ. She produced two early films for Jim Jarmusch, helping him to gain international attention and success...

, and Kiki Smith

Kiki Smith

Kiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...

, Bibi Smith, and Seton Smith, as well as http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3890212547/ Crystal Field of The Theater for the New City http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3897360080/ and Ellen Stewart

Ellen Stewart

Ellen Stewart was an American theater director and producer and the founder of La MaMa, E.T.C. . In the 1950s she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.-Biography:Ellen Stewart was either born in Alexandria, Louisiana or Chicago,...

 of La Mama

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for...

 may be counted as essential to his creative development.

Uecker also was influenced by Candy Darling

Candy Darling

Candy Darling was an American actress, best known as a Warhol Superstar. A male-to-female transsexual, she starred in Andy Warhol's films Flesh and Women in Revolt , and was a muse of the protopunk band The Velvet Underground.-Early life:Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest...

, perhaps most famous for her work in Paul Morrisey's "Trash" and Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

's “Flesh”. Uecker lived with Darling during her ascendancy into the public eye.

The Method

Another influence on Mr. Uecker was his comprehensive study of Method Acting

Method acting

Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...

 technique as transmitted to him by the original group of teachers in America who studied with or embodied training principles of Constantin Stanislavsky a famous acting

Acting

Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....

 teacher and author of in Russia, to wit: Sandy Meisner, Lee Strasberg

Lee Strasberg

Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...

, Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...

, Harold Clurman

Harold Clurman

Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...

, and more markedly Kim Stanley

Kim Stanley

Kim Stanley was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances....

 (whose method of teaching acting Uecker would later represent under the aegis of The Running Sun Theater Company.

Uecker also was an assistant to Harold Clurman

Harold Clurman

Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...

 at the Actor's Studio in the Playwrights and Directors Unit.

James Purdy

Uecker encouraged James Purdy

James Purdy

James Otis Purdy was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who, since his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been praised by...

 to return to his original theatrical roots. It is a little-known fact that Purdy started writing plays as a child, crafting them to win his elder brother's approval. Purdy would act all the characters in the plays, and play them out using stick-figures, which is consistent with the early origins of Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

.

Uecker urged Purdy to write full-length plays with a foray into the productions of his smaller theatrical works which Uecker produced, directed, adapted, and/or acted in. http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3889630315/ James Purdy & the Works (see the Tennessee Williams section later in this article). http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3889628675/ was one such workshop production at the Ensemble Studio Theater. Images of the productions are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/sets/72157624984066036/

Uecker collaborated with Purdy on a large-scale, substantive edit (or heavy edit) on "Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue", a novel which won the New York Times "Most Notable Book Award". http://www.amazon.com/dp/0688172261 Uecker also was associated with the creative development and substantive editing of the last two publications of Purdy's lifetime, "Moe's Villa and Other Stories", a collection of 13 Purdy short-stories http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009PMP18, and "Selected Plays" http://www.amazon.com/dp/1566637988, a collection of 4 full-length plays.

The relationship with Purdy produced 9 full-length plays, 30 short plays, as well as a novel and a book of short stories. Uecker brought the mainstream press' attention back to Purdy by helping to land a lifetime retrospective review of Purdy's work in the New York Times Book Review. The result was a long essay by Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

, who framed Purdy as "the outlaw of American fiction" and praised him as "an authentic American genius."http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/books/review/27VIDALL.html

Uecker acted, directed, and produced many of these shorter works Off-Off-Broadway

Off-Off-Broadway

Off-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...

 which he helped develop. http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/sets/72157624984066036/

Tennessee Williams

Uecker sees his work with Williams and Purdy in their late periods as organic extensions of his earlier influences. By encouraging the development of lasting works of poetic realism by these American, English-language masters, he may be credited with helping to expand the canon of commercially viable, or producible, works of heightened realism.

Uecker began his work with Williams on the afore-mentioned Williams one-act play called “The Chalky White Substance” http://www.flickr.com/photos/42196233@N07/3889592137/sizes/l/. Over time, Uecker became a general assistant to Mr. Williams, and also intermittently functioned as a literary assistant to the smaller works.

Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

 attended the afore-mentioned workshop performance and, inspired by the show and the adaptations of Purdy's work to stage (which Uecker had facilitated), Williams hired Uecker the following day to assist him as well. At that time, Williams dedicated his one-act play, The Chalky White Substance, to James Purdy

James Purdy

James Otis Purdy was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who, since his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been praised by...

. http://books.google.com/books?id=C0VqlNhXxnAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+travelling+companion+and+other+plays&client=safari#v=onepage&q=&f=false

With Williams, Uecker creatively assisted and edited (the edits being a light edit) many of Williams's later one-act plays, many of which have found their way into print and are becoming produced and recognized. Uecker was one of the few people permitted free access to Williams during his creative process http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenman2008/2763557056/. Uecker also edited "A Monument for Ercole”, which was loosely based on Raul Castro. The Uecker edit was approved by Williams with copy-edit corrections in Williams's hand (the original manuscript which features the mark-up is likely viewable at Harvard University in the Tennessee Williams collection.

Uecker was hired by the Executors of the Williams' Estate (The Bank of Miami and John Eastman

John Eastman

John Eastman may refer to:* John C. Eastman, California law professor, politician and chair of the National Organization for Marriage* John H. Eastman , Louisiana politician* John Eastman , Ohio politician*Lee & John Eastman...

), for the purpose of cataloguing, authenticating and preserving Mr. Williams' later work because of Uecker's extensive and first-hand knowledge of the genesis of Mr. Williams' later manuscripts.

Uecker referred to his experience by Williams' side as a reference which guided his work on Williams' plays after Williams' death.

After Williams died, Mr. Uecker became more involved as general and literary assistant to James Purdy

James Purdy

James Otis Purdy was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who, since his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been praised by...

.

Mr. Uecker recently spoke at the grand opening of the newly renovated Tennessee Williams Welcome Center in downtown Columbus, Mississippi. http://www.cdispatch.com/lifestyles/article.asp?aid=7802