Stanford Grad Channels Shakespeare

On the program today in Sacramento as part of Nor Cal All-Stars Part 1, a Shakespeare-inspired comedy riff.

Everyone knows the famous line "All the world's a stage...", from As You Like It (a remark made truer than ever by the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election). Less commonly quoted is the next bit of that passage, "And all the men and women merely players."

It is from that portion that writer-producer Savannah Kopp was inspired for her short Mere Players. Per a recent interview with her California hometown newspaper The Davis Enterprise, the premise for the 18-minute short is a great one:

The film focuses on "a young actor named Jerome, who goes on blind dates with his gay roommate’s unsuspecting girlfriends... presenting himself as as a bum, a corporate jerk and an obsessive compulsive disorder out-patient. After three professionally successful (as an actor) but romantically disastrous dates, Jerome faces the most challenging night of his acting career when his oblivious roommate invites all three of his dates over for a party--which becomes the film’s climactic scene,” Kopp said.

Kopp wrote the script for Mere Players a few years ago, while attending Stanford. It was filmed at the end of 2015, and now is gradually making the rounds. The film was directed by AFI alum Dan Levy Dagerman.

And, as is often the case when something screens in a creator's hometown area, the site of today's shorts compilation event, the Crest Theatre, holds special significance for Kopp. It is where she saw a lot of movies, growing up.

In the case of this particular screening, it also could not have worked out any better. Most historians agree that The Bard was born on this date in 1564.

[Mere Players Facebook page]