Meet Troy Conrad, Filmmaker and Photographer

Troy Conrad is an award-winning filmmaker and the creator/co-producer of improvised stand-up show Set List: Stand-Up Without A Net. He has photographed comedy in seven countries, and his images for the upcoming Comedy Central series Roast Battle have additionally been published in Playboy.

Samples from the series can be found via the Instagram hashtag #hallseries and at humansofcomedy.com.

A photo posted by Troy Conrad (@troyconrads) on May 6, 2016 at 8:51am PDT

1. How did you come up with the idea for the Hall Series?

Last August at The Comedy Store in Hollywood, I took a picture with a fisheye lens of the all the headshots on the wall, and something about it looked very different... it felt like I was surrounded by these pictures on the wall. A couple weeks later, Brian Moses was walking through the hallway and I took his picture, and it looked really cool. Then I wanted to see what it looked like as a portrait. Joey Diaz was the first person I asked to stand in the hallway and pose. I loved how he looked. To me, it felt like the pictures of the comics surrounding him were giving him the nod, pushing him forward. I'm very honored that The Comedy Store liked these shots enough to make them a part of the club. Starting on May 10th, they will be on permanent display in the entrance to the Main Room.

2. What sets the photos in this series apart from other portraits?

The thing that gives these pictures a different feel is the imagery surrounding each comic in the shot. There are vintage headshots on the walls of legendary comics--some of those photos go back as far as 30 or 40 years. There is a feeling of reverence being in that hallway, and these portraits seem to capture that feeling of reverence as if the viewer is there.

3. How many photos have you taken for the Hall Series so far, and what are the plans for expanding on the series over time?

I’ve taken over 80 photos of Paid Regular performers at the Comedy Store, and the collection is growing all the time.

4. What other projects have you done involving filming and/or photographing comics and comedy?

I started as a filmmaker, and directed a film called Runyon: Just Above Sunset starring Eddie Pepitone which won awards at the two festivals it was submitted to. I created and co-produce the improvised stand-up show, Set List: Stand-Up Without A Net. With the show, Paul Provenza and I have traveled the world, and I've photographed the show as well as other shows in seven countries. I've also done a lot of photos of comics in New York and Los Angeles. When I saw Roast Battle at the Comedy Store, I was hooked from the beginning. I knew someone needed to be capturing stills for that show, which is unparalleled worldwide for its high level action. I'm there for that show every Tuesday night.

A photo posted by Troy Conrad (@troyconrads) on Apr 29, 2016 at 4:34pm PDT

5. What makes The Comedy Store a vital and interesting venue after 40+ years?

The Comedy Store is vital because of its integrity. There are three rooms that are bustling every night. It's run incredibly well right now. It's a place that is welcoming to comics, and very hard to get into as a Paid Regular performer. But everyone wants to be there. There is so much personality there that makes it interesting. Roast Battle is so unique. Ari Shaffir's "This is Not Happening" is still running there. Joe Rogan is there all the time. Chris Rock came in to practice for the Oscars. Dave Chappelle pops in, and Louis CK drops in. Last night John Bishop just came in from the UK and did his first show in the US in the Main Room. I love watching Joey Diaz. He's one of the real humans of comedy. He's so unfiltered and raw, and is pure joy to watch. He's raised the bar for so many comics there.

The Paid Regular Hall Series Exhibit debuts at The Comedy Store on Tuesday, May 10th 2016 from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. and will be on permanent display thereafter. More info at www.thecomedystore.com

Thanks, Troy!

Meet Deborah Leigh, Author

Deborah Leigh is a former magazine editor who took a sharp turn into the world of law, which she has inhabited for over a decade. She borrows from both of her pasts and her love of Westerns and classic films to tell tales of justice from bygone times. Born literally on Los Angeles's storied Sunset Boulevard, she enjoys including worries thought to be intrinsic to modern urban life in her rustic stories. She has called many cities all over the United States and Europe home and was married in France, where she gave birth in a suburb of a suburb of a suburb of Paris. She's had the good fortune to "walk to work" in Wiesbaden, "run errands in Belgium" when she lived near its border, "catch movies" in Luxembourg while living in nearby Metz, France, and study on a tip of Germany so far south, she once cut her morning classes to go to Switzerland, and was back before lunch. She's lived within bicycle distance of the Atlantic Ocean and crisscrossed the United States several times by train and car. Ultimately a hometown girl, she and her only son live in downtown Los Angeles, where she can see Sunset Boulevard from her living room window.

Learn more about Deborah Leigh by visiting www.darrowpublishing-losangeles.com and by following her on Twitter.

1. What inspired you to write Wake Not the Hangman? I've always been enamored of stories from the past. One of my lifelong favorite pastimes has been watching classic films. I particularly love well-told Westerns because they distill the human experience into one stripped moment, when everything is on the line, with often the only resource being oneself. When I sat down to write Wake Not the Hangman, I knew I wanted to tell a story that took place in the past.

Then, I thought about how, as a small child, I was fortunate to experience some unexpected but much needed friendships while navigating some tough waters and how that feeling that those "island" attachments gave me kind of never wore off. The generosity of spirit I saw in my friends stuck with me my whole life. I'm still grateful to this day. I decided to tap into that and make the unusual relationship between fifteen-year-old Thornton and the slaves his father brings to the family farm the focal point of the story. There turned out to be so much there to plumb. Rather than devolving into a captive/savior story, we really see how many hurdles Thornton has in his life and how he uses banding with others to overcome them.

2. What are some of the challenges when it comes to writing an historical novel?

The biggest challenge is keeping the reader in the time period of the novel by making sure to use period-appropriate language and descriptions. In the science fiction arena, we talk all the time about world-building, but it's just as important to build the right world in an historical novel and then remain loyal to it. You have to do your research to find out how people lived, worked, traveled, cooked, bathed, courted, and everything else in the era in which your story is set. In Wake Not the Hangman, the protagonist is fifteen. There were times when I knew he just wanted to say, "Duh!" but I couldn't let him because he would have sounded like he was sitting at a computer using social media! [Laughs]

So, on the one hand, it's a ton of fun digging into your craft as a writer and talking about things like anvils and water pumps and riding scarves and homemade jellies and fruit liquor and other such things, but on the other hand, some common references that come to mind, as your scene unfolds, are unavailable to you as a writer. And you can't bypass logic. If cars didn't yet exist in the time period in which your story is set, you may have to address how long it takes one character to get to another's house. How does snow factor in? And you have to get your facts straight. If you're dealing with an abused wife, what are her legal options? What did we call China or Finland at that time? Was it a horse and buggy or a rig? Glasses or spectacles? Beer or ale? And so on.

Finally, you have to battle what people's perception of the time period is. You may face, "They didn't have ice cream in saloons!" simply because the reader has never seen ice cream in a saloon in movies or on television. And yet, as you substantiate some obscure fact, you have to do it in a way that drives the story forward and doesn't bore the reader to death.

3. Why did you decide to start your own publishing company?

I decided to start Darrow Publishing so that I would have a centralized place to manage my various writing endeavors, and so that I could ultimately take on the projects of other writers. I'm in the process of developing two creative-minded websites that will be part of Darrow Publishing, and I also hope to release a small package of classics under an imprint that is part of Darrow Publishing.

Having a place and space where I can focus on my writing projects helps reemphasize my goals. I do things for Darrow Publishing that I might be lazier about [laughs] if I were just doing them for me. Trying to grow a brand and a company makes me, personally, work harder and look for innovative ways to branch out. It's a ton of fun!

4. You mentioned your love of classic films. How does your Hollywood Character Arcs blog on Darrow Publishing’s website factor into that?

As you know, social media has, in some ways, replaced writers conferences in the sense that some of the information about process that a writer could gather at a conference can be found online. You can google "show vs. tell" for a wealth of great posts about how to improve that aspect of your writing. And that's just one topic. Meanwhile, there is also a plethora of inspiration, commiseration, and validation available through social media communities.

Darrow Publishing's small contribution to that is to focus on the art of well-drawn characters by highlighting those that stand out in classic films. Every movie is populated with characters, but the good ones have one or more characters, who, even when dropped into a cliché or a typical genre, somehow stand out because they are so well-written. My hope is that writers who read the blog say, "Ahh. I see how that screenwriter pulled that off. Let me absorb some of that technique or mindset or philosophy and apply it to my own writing." Even a simple, "Reading about good writing just got my juices flowing," is great. I use classic films in the hope that the writer/reader-of-the-blog may not be as familiar with the movie or the characters. Hopefully, it frees them to just examine the writing process that gave us the interesting character, with no preconceived notions because they just saw the movie themselves last year. And, if they decide to find the film and see what all the fuss is about, for me that's fantastic. Anytime I can create interest in classic films, I'm super happy!

5. What writing project(s) are you currently working on?

I'm working on two standalone sequels to Wake Not the Hangman that will complete the trilogy, although I hesitate to use the word "trilogy" or "series" because each of the three books really will stand alone. It's more like I simply have three separate chunks of things to say about this gathering of people connected by name and history. Whichever of the three books focuses on them will stand very much alone as a reading experience. I'm also plugging away at a collection of short stories.

Thanks, Deborah!

Meet Tony Francis of Sweet Eve

Initially formed in 2008, Sweet Eve are Hollywood hard rockers with national touring experience under their studded belts. The band has a guitar heavy slightly experimental alt-rock sound that's just on the pop side of being all-out metal. Flying V-wielding front man Tony Francis has a straight-across-the-plate rock voice and belts out the songs while Andre Silva intertwines hooky lead sequences over the bombastic rhythms of drummer Alex Fox and bass player Leo Roriz. Sweet Eve has recently finished recording their debut album and it will be available soon. In the meantime check out the live footage of the band performing "Kings and Queens" at the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go in Hollywood.

Check out Sweet Eve on ReverbNation. Our interview below is with Tony Francis.

1. What inspired the formation of your band in 2008?

My last band broke up when we moved to California and I wasn't finished making music.

2. How has your sound evolved during the process of working together for several years now?

The longer you are working and writing, the more techniques and styles you learn which aids the writing process.

3. Do you mostly do shows in the greater Los Angeles area, or do you tour elsewhere as well?

We're on tour now. Texas this weekend and the rest of America in the next few.

4. What's your songwriting process like?

It's not locked down to anything. Songs just pop into my head. It could be a riff or a lyric.

5. If you could tell our readers anything about Sweet Eve, what would you want them to know?

We're really grateful for our fans. You guys keep us going even when it feels like the world is trying to stop us.

Thanks, Tony!

Meet William Norrett, Author and Director

A graduate of Regis High School in New York City and Duke University, William Norrett is the author of several plays, including The Sophisticated Rogue, The Dealer Was Showing Six, and Brendan O'Lenihan Leaves Three Daughters. He is also the writer/director of the short film collection You Know What This Song's About?. The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription is his first novel. He still lives in Los Angeles, where he runs the website SophisticatedRogue.com.

The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription is available in print and as an e-book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Autographed copies can be purchased through SophisticatedRogue.com. Follow William Norrett on Twitter at @NobleJester or on the Sophisticated Rogue Media page on Facebook.

1. In writing a mystery, how did you draw on some of the traditions/conventions of the genre, and how does your book diverge from other mystery novels?

The noir, especially the "Los Angeles Noir," is a great staple of film and literature but not because of its structure, which is somewhat formulaic. It's not the template that makes The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, or Chinatown fantastic; it's the execution of that template with an individual flavor. With The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription, I wanted to pay homage to the formula while at the same time deconstructing it. I wanted to at once follow the template and pull it apart. So I tried to write a "sarcastic noir."* Each step of the way I tried to take the typical trope of a mystery or thriller, and then twist it slightly. For example, I might say to myself, "Here's the part where the femme fatale usually appears. How can I make that different?" or "Here's a car chase. How can that be off-beat?" Often times that meant creating tension in the story but then somehow deflating it, poking a hole in it. Everything in noirs and mysteries is so, so serious that I wanted The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription to have high stakes but also wink at the drama taking place. I tend to create mountains out of molehills in my own life, so I thought a noir that appeared to be full of danger, fraught with peril, but turned out to be nothing, might make a point and be funny. In a way, I wanted the built-up danger to be exposed as false. I paid homage to noirs like Chinatown and Sunset Boulevard, among others, but hopefully in ways that were also irreverent and amusing.

(*Registered trademark on the phrase "sarcastic noir" pending.)

2. I'm guessing that length might have been one factor behind your choice to self-publish your novel as it can be hard to place longer novels with publishers. What are some other factors that made self-publishing the right choice for you?

Um, I beg your pardon, Mandy--The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription is only 450 pages, a very readable 450 pages. (smiles) Don't scare people off! The key word is readable. (crosses fingers) Actually, I didn't consider length when I decided to self-publish. Besides, when you self-publish with a print-on-demand company you pay by the page, so length is a factor regardless of the path you choose. You can't avoid the incentives to stay brief. No, the reason I decided to self-publish was, I didn't want to rely on other people to determine whether or not I was a novelist. I didn’t want to spend two years sending out query letters, in the hope that some overworked fifty-something literary agent might happen to ask for the manuscript, and then might happen to love that manuscript. I didn't want to pray that agent could convince the overworked twenty-something editorial assistant to pick my manuscript off the slush pile, didn't want to wait for that assistant to persuade his or her jaded forty-something publisher that the novel was marketable, didn't want to drive myself crazy thinking knowing that the publisher wasn't supporting the novel, wasn't promoting it, so on and so forth. There are so many legends about successful novels, classic novels, that were rejected dozens of times, just so much evidence that getting a novel published the "traditional" way is a crap-shoot. I'm not proposing The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription is a classic or anything--again, key word: readable!--but I decided I was going to control what I could control. Now it used to be, novelists could only control writing their novel. No longer. Anyone can publish. So why not? Now, the work of promoting and selling the novel is daunting, but I'm learning as I go, getting better at it, and it's been exhilarating to realize that I can do it. I've made plenty of mistakes along the way, but nothing in the process has made me anything less than excited to write another novel. To me, that excitement proves I made the right decision.

3. How does your experience writing for the stage influence your fiction writing?

Well first, it influences me by reminding me, "Man, writing a play goes by a lot quicker!" Writing for the stage (or screen, for that matter), you get to churn out work with a lot more blank white space left on the page. In writing a script, blank white space is your friend. In novels, blank white space is cheating somehow... But if I'm forced to take my whining out of the equation, the biggest influence on me is in the dialogue. Obviously, there are stage directions and some description in plays, but the bulk of it is dialogue. The dialogue is where the conflict is, where the subtext and tension are, and where the pace of the piece is measured. Plays are meant to be seen, not read, but I try to take that idea of communicating as much as I can with dialogue and apply it to my prose. Even in fiction it's important to write how people talk, and as a writer anything I can do to move the story, and not hang the reader up, is the choice I need to make. Also, writing dialogue for actors to speak has given me experience in hearing things that, while I thought they worked on the page, don't work out loud. Something I find hilarious when I write it, I might hear aloud and go, "Ugh. You're a hack, Billy." Also, writing plays has helped in that, within the overall structure, there are scenes, with their own beginning and endings, their own objectives. Being able to navigate individual scenes and then link them to the overall story, see them connect on stage, helps inform how I do it with my fiction. Loosely treating each chapter as its own scene helps create the chain.

4. How do you utilize your background as a performer when you give readings of your work, and do you have some readings scheduled for 2013?

The few readings I've done so far have been a true pleasure. Obviously, it's a performance, and having acted before helps me when I read, as I can try different tones, pacing, depending on what's getting a good reaction. I have been told I need to slow down, however. But even better has been the help I've gotten. The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription is the name of a comedy group the main character of the novel is in, and is loosely based on a sketch/improv group I performed in for a number of years. So for the readings I've done, I've asked the other guys from the group to read characters from the novel. Though I have always enjoyed watching authors read from their work, the experience is generally straightforward--author stands behind a lectern, reads a chapter, and then takes questions. It can be somewhat staid. As I suspected, having my former troupe-mates read with me has really livened up the experience--almost like making it a play, somehow. It also fuels the speculation about what parts of The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription are autobiographical, which is always a fun game until it becomes incredibly awkward for us all, although none of my fellow actors have gotten upset with me--yet... I do have readings scheduled for 2013, and hope to do more. I'd love to do more. I have a standing offer: anyone who gathers a group, or book club, together and requests a reading within my travel reach can have one. Negotiations willing, I will come to anyone (I cannot promise my former troupe-mates, however, airfare being what it is...) They only have to email me to get the ball rolling.

5. What projects are you currently working on?

Two projects currently. First, a play (Blank white space! Blank white space!), actually a comic musical, that I wrote with two collaborators, provisionally titled, M.V.P., about American presidents and what it means to be a "great" man in the age of reality television. The three of us are hoping to mount the world premiere production in Los Angeles this spring. I think it's got a lot of potential--it's quite funny (hopefully my department), and the music (not my department) is tremendous. Second, I've started my next novel, based on an idea I've been kicking around forever about the afterlife and morality in today's society. Apologies for being vague, but I worry that the more I talk about what I'm going to do, the more I persuade myself I've actually done something with it. So I just need to grit my teeth and move on it. For so many years, I wondered if I had what it took to write a novel, if I could actually be my own sherpa, and climb the mountain. With The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription, I proved to myself that I could tell a story, that I could climb that mountain. I've been thrilled that it turned out even better than I expected. So with this next novel I'm hoping to climb a higher, more ambitious mountain. I'm aiming to finish the first draft by year's end--sherpa willing.

Thanks, Bill!