Lady Donalbain of Macbeth

I had the pleasure of participating in this live-streamed reading of Macbeth to help raise money for A Tale Told By an Idiot. The upcoming feature film is a new adaptation of Macbeth told through the lens of a modern Silicon Beach startup, and it’s produced by and starring my friends Brendan Bradley and Ashley Clements. I’m so proud of them, so when they reached out to me for help reading parts on the live-stream, how could I say no?

As with any opportunity to act, I met a lot of new friends… from seasoned Shakespearean actors to talented young entertainers making their mark online. It was a pleasure to get to play with my friends David Nett and Mary Kate Wiles, and to be introduced to the enormous talents of Ryan Garcia and Gabe Greenspan.

I played a number of roles from Donalbain to Angus, but it was the tiniest side characters that were the most fun. Since the new film is set in Santa Monica, I pulled out a bunch of SoCal-specific accents and personalities from my hat. I particularly enjoyed playing Lady Macbeth’s servant as a total valley girl, really emphasizing the final foot in every line of iambic pentameter using uptalk(?). I was also happy to discover a new way to interpret the idea of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane: I played the Messenger in Act 5 Scene 5 as a stoner, using empty beats after Macbeth’s famous “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech to inhale a spliff and really playing up this character’s paranoid uncertainty of what he just saw.

In the end, a great time was had and they raised more money for their production thanks to the viewers and fans. Thanks for having me, dudes!

If you missed it, catch it online here before it disappears forever…