by Jeb Beach (@JebBeach)

NOAH CASEY was part of the orig­i­nal col­lab­o­ra­tion of Matthew and myself, the Actor’s Foundry co-​founders. Way back in the day, Noah and I co-​starred along with Nicole McLen­nan in a pro­duc­tion of Stephen Belber’s TAPE.

Hav­ing worked on scenes from the play in act­ing class with Matthew, Noah, Nicole, and I approached Matthew to direct us. Inter­est­ingly the very same week, another group of actors (Sage Brock­le­bank, Jen­nifer Hal­ley, and Chad Cole) approached Matthew to direct the very same play. Out of that con­flict of inter­est, our two groups formed one pro­duc­tion com­pany called ‘If You Can’t Beat ‘Em Pro­duc­tions’ and put the play up TWICE each night. Jerry Wasserman’s review is still alive and well

This was Matthew’s and my first col­lab­o­ra­tion of art and busi­ness, and it laid the foun­da­tion for the rela­tion­ship that has evolved into the Actor’s Foundry.

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Foundry Actor, Michael Rowe, and his brother are con­tin­u­ally writ­ing, pro­duc­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing some funny stuff. This is the type of proac­tive ‘make your career hap­pen’ stuff that actors need to see not as an encum­ber­ing task, but as golden oppor­tu­nity. As we often say in these parts, ‘the actor that works the most works the most’.

Says Michael Rowe, “We grew up in New­found­land. My brother, Andrew Rowe, was offered a schol­ar­ship to VFS. He moved to Van­cou­ver to go to school, but changed his mind at the last minute. Instead he pooled his money with his room­mate, Andrew Vokey (an expe­ri­enced actor also from NL), and bought a cam­era and some equip­ment. He focused his time on writ­ing. I was a pro­fes­sional musi­cian who’s east coast band “Bucket Truck” was break­ing up, so I moved coast to coast in search of some broth­erly bond­ing and a fresh start at life. Nei­ther my brother nor I had ever acted before and we had no clue how to work lights or cam­era, but the three of us just started to film stuff. Andrew’s writ­ing was always bril­liant and we would try to make each other laugh as much as pos­si­ble and just have fun with it. We have been work­ing at it for about three years now. I fell in love with act­ing and wanted to chal­lenge myself with some dra­matic roles, so I joined The Actor’s Foundry in May.”

We are proud to be able to influ­ence and sup­port actors like this.

Find them on their YouTube Chan­nel, Fol­low them on Twit­ter, or find them on their Face­book Page.

AF alumni Justin Don­nelly wrote, directed, and stars in Pressed. The red car­pet pre­mière is on Thurs­day July 21^st at the Para­mount Kelowna.

The cast includes Luke Goss, Michael Eklund, Jef­fery Bal­lard, Tyler John­ston, Des­ti­nee Duncan-​Klyne, and Jeff Ballard.

“Much thanks to the Actor’s Foundry for help­ing us hone our craft.”

Check here for the full Pressed IMDB Profile.

If you’re in Kelowna on July 21^st, come on down to the premier – 6:30pm.

Check the trailer below – WOW Justin – Con­grat­u­la­tions on what looks like a great film – can’t wait to see it!

Foundry Actor Far­rah Aviva needs your help! She co-​hosted/​helped pro­duce a doc­u­men­tary in Israel to show the coun­try in a light never shown in the media. The Orig­i­nal Promise explores the life and peo­ple in a coun­try that is con­stantly attacked by the rest of the world, whether by bombs or by the media.

They suc­cess­fully raised $600,000 for pre-​production, pro­duc­tion and post pro­duc­tion which was an extremely dif­fi­cult task. The result was a high end film that is beau­ti­ful, real, and heart­felt. The great news is that they now have pend­ing con­tracts with huge net­works, all they need is addi­tional fund­ing to edit the film to fit a tele­vi­sion spot!

They need to raise $35,000 in the next 29 days in hopes to achieve their goal and show­case The Orig­i­nal Promise to the world. It is very impor­tant that the world sees this doc­u­men­tary. If all you can donate is $1 it still makes a HUGE dif­fer­ence! If their goal isn’t met then your pledge is returned to you. But the sad news is that if their goal isn’t met, they don’t get a penny. So please visit this link and sup­port a Cana­dian project that can have a worldly effect. Please also share this with as many peo­ple as you can:

The Orig­i­nal Promise on Kick​Starter​.com

You can learn lots more at the Documentary’s Web­site as well.

Thank you so much!

Fea­ture film writ­ten, and directed by Desiree Lim. The Actor’s Foundry was instru­men­tal in the cast­ing of this project.

4 weeks. 4 patients. The doc­tor is lis­ten­ing, just not to you. Catch a new episode every day, except Wednes­days. The doc­tor doesn’t work Wednesdays.

http://​www​.Fun​ny​OrDie​.com/​T​h​e​S​e​s​s​i​ons

All cast Actor’s Foundry Actors:

Ther­a­pist – Michael Karl Richards
Patient #1 – Kerry James (time’s up)
Patient #2 – Zain Jamal (stalker)
Patient #3 – Liam Sproule (pyro)
Patient #4 – Saman­tha James (mul­ti­ple personalities)

Pro­duced by Car­rie Wheeler

It is a 13 episode web-​series. The episodes are 16mins each, and the full sea­son has the arc of a fea­ture film when pieced together. This is fore­most a story dri­ven show, with char­ac­ter depth and dynamic roles. It will be demand­ing of actors, but gives them the room to shine in every scene. Many reoc­cur­ring Guest Star roles will be cast for this show. The mul­ti­ple action sequences and spe­cial effects will surely excite the viewer, but they are merely the icing on the cake. This show will move the audi­ence while it excites and enthralls their imaginations.

We have shot one episode and plan to release it this March. The rea­son for this is to show the indus­try what is pos­si­ble and excite peo­ple about it’s con­tent as well as demon­strate the style of the show. After which, we will go directly into cast­ing for the rest of the sea­son and shoot out all the episode over a month’s time (sum­mer 2011). It will be shot sim­i­lar to a inde­pen­dent fea­ture film.

This is a thor­oughly planned project with the story already writ­ten, rewrit­ten and made to the higest of indus­try stan­dards pos­si­ble. The pro­duc­tion qual­ity will be among the best avail­able. The episodes will be edited tight and for an intel­li­gent audi­ence mem­ber. Noth­ing is spoon fed. Every­thing seen or heard is important.

The Foundry Actors in the show thus far:

Bran­don Colby Cook
Giles Pan­ton
Reese Alexan­der
Mark Ghanime
Jason Lake
Mehdi Darvish
Tracy Spri­dakos
Aliyah O’Brien
Far­rah Aviva

An Episodic Online Drama Pro­duced for the Web

Dark Web Series Immerses View­ers Into the Secre­tive and Mali­cious Lives of Seem­ingly Ordi­nary Peo­ple in the 1950’s

The True Hero­ines, is an orig­i­nal dra­matic web-​series that explores the lives of three seem­ingly “nor­mal” women who not only share daily tea, but a secret that they can’t share with any­one but each other.

The True Hero­ines offers the tone of Mad Men, the com­edy of Glee and the dark­ness of Heroes. Set in 1951 in the fic­ti­tious town of Par­adise Hill the story cen­ters on Margie Hep­burn, Pearl Andrews and Dot­tie Rodriguez. The three old friends seem like nor­mal every­day fifties house­wives by day, but they hold secret pow­ers of speed, strength and invis­i­bil­ity they can only use around each other. The house­wives work together through domes­tic strug­gles and neigh­bor­hood gos­sip, while fac­ing the secrets, crimes and mys­ter­ies hid­den behind the doors of their-​at the surface-​beautiful and seem­ingly per­fect neigh­bor­hood. Using their spe­cial pow­ers to hunt and seek the truth about Par­adise Hill and its evil cor­po­ra­tion, we find out a lot more than we’d ever expect about the town and all its col­or­ful char­ac­ters. And don’t expect a tidy end­ing to sea­son one. These char­ac­ters are just get­ting started!

The Cast and Crew

The True Hero­ines cast includes Fiona Vroom, Joel Stur­rock, Jovanna Huguet & Paula Giro­day and well-​known TV series stars Ali Liebert (Harpers Island), Neil Grayston (Eureka), Christo­pher Shyer (V), Zak San­ti­ago (The Assis­tants), Denis Simp­son (Polka Dot Door), Gina Chiarelli (Riese) and Bren­dan Penny (Whistler).

The True Hero­ines was writ­ten and cre­ated by Fiona Vroom, Joel Stur­rock, Jovanna Huguet and Paula Giro­day. Con­tribut­ing tal­ent includes producer/​co-​writer Nicholas Carella as well as pro­ducer Lawra Robert­son, Michelle Ouellet(Director), Lindsay Gre­gory (Cin­e­matog­ra­pher), Nicholas Simon (Pro­ducer) and Ali­cia Grunert (Pro­duc­tion Designer), as well as Brian Straum­ford (Asso­ciate Producer).

Web­site: http://​thetrue​heroines​.com

IMDB page: http://​www​.imdb​.com/​t​i​t​l​e​/​t​t​1​7​5​2​7​61/

Twit­ter: http://​www​.twit​ter​.com/​t​r​u​e​h​e​r​o​i​nes