True West

and I have distinct wonderful memories of Pompeii like and I think there are a lot of people who come up and go I love Pompeii and probably a lot of people who don't but I sort of I have fond memories of But you had to fit something you had to find something to fit into that window and it's and that's not always like easy to Find the kind of it was all big learning experience, really Yeah, but I was sort of like a hit kind of weird hero

character then right? Well the theater especially was it seems interesting and it's how I wasn't able to see you do like dr Faustus and true West which is one of my all-time favorite production West was wonderful And you did the alternating roles, right? No, we didn't.

No, no, no.

I was Austin.

And I think it's always interesting when a writer does this.

But...

In True West, Sam Shepard, both those characters are him.

He's clearly split his personality between the writer, the sozzled writer, and the crazy guy.

And I'm thrilled both of these gentlemen are graduates of Point Park, and they are here in Pittsburgh sticking around, and they have taken on a really huge show, something...

A play called True West.

Gentlemen, good morning.

Mark Palumbo and Braxton McCollum.

Mark and Braxton, you guys are playing brothers in Sam Shepard's True West.

A small undertaking.

That's right.

One character is very regimented, has a schedule, has a career, has a life, and the other one has none of that, but he has freedom.

No.

I go see, I saw True West by Sam s- uh, s- uh, Sam-

Shepard?

Shepard at NYU, Playwrights Horizons, some place they call it.

So there's just, like, so many eras of this place, so it's important to honor that.

Even our awning, I was in, I was helpful, like, making sure the awning was, like, reminiscent of, like, the '80s when, like, True West existed.

You know, that's all-

Awnings are huge-

I mean, there were some amazing plays even recently in the '90s and 2000s.

It was David Mamet and, um, but, uh, yeah, True...

We ha- we found this amazing photo from Sam Shepard's True West, and we were like, "Oh, that should be the awning." So really-

Great play

Oh.

He did the plays Buried Child, and True West, and Fool for Love, and as far as acting goes, he was in The Right Stuff, The Pelican Brief, and The Notebook.

Mm.

To name a few.

New to the box office top ten that weekend was Love and Basketball.

Monica and Quincy love and play basketball together through many life challenges from childhood to adulthood.

Starring Santa Lethan and Omar Epps.

Oh, I don't remember that one.

in viva rock vegas oh

god

which is a prequel before fred and barney were married to willow and betty what and oof if you thought the first live action flintstones was rough then buckle in because you ain't seen nothing Joe, you have to guess who played Fred Abardi.

All right.

And then in an upper level writing class, they were assigned a group project with two other classmates where they had to write a play.

And so they wrote their play based on True West, a Sam Shepard work.

And their play was called A Night in Tunisia.

So they put the play on.