7:30 pm | 1 hr 14 min | Documentary, Biography | Mary Louise Wilson will join us for a Q&A after the screening
Mary Louise Wilson, Tony Award winner (Grey Gardens), travels to her hometown of New Orleans to teach acting to skeptical members of the You Tube generation. An examination of the actor’s craft and a brave woman who has devoted her life to it.
An examination of the actor’s craft and the sacrifices demanded by a lifelong career.
Veteran character actor, and Tony Award winner, MARY LOUISE WILSON, age 79, teaches her first acting class to skeptical members of the YouTube generation, smashing their red carpet illusions and challenging them to bring emotional honesty to their acting. Wilson’s class takes place in New Orleans, where she was raised in the 1940’s. She reconnects with her competitive sister, and examines the scars of a painful childhood, a short-lived marriage, self-sabotage, alcoholism, and her reinvention, at age 60, as playwright and star with her acclaimed one-woman show about fashion icon Diana Vreeland.
Features interviews with FRANCES MCDORMAND, MELISSA LEO, TYNE DALY, ESTELLE PARSONS, CHARLOTTE RAE, VALERIE HARPER, and playwright DOUG WRIGHT discussing what it means to be a character actor, whether acting can be taught, what constitutes ‘talent,’ and whether the profession is harder for women. What begins as a study of a profession turns into a meditation on loss, grief, growing older, and that elusive thing known as “stardom.”
First feature documentary directed by RON NYSWANER, Oscar-nominated Writer/Producer (PHILADELPHIA, THE PAINTED VEIL, RAY DONOVAN).
THE ACTORS
Mary Louise Wilson
Frances McDormand
Melissa Leo
Valerie Harper
Estelle Parsons
Charlotte Rae
Tyne Daly
Mary Birdsong
Lisa Joyce
THE STUDENTS
Eleanor Bernstein
Elizabeth Berra
Dave Davis
Gigi Glenn
Max Jay-Dixon
Maebetty Kirby
Sean Knapp
Hope Leigh
Shannon March
Alexis Payment
Maggie Schüler
Zach Serota
Joseph Singletary III
Leeann St. John
H. Stuart Trostle