How to Put Together a Staged Reading: an Interview with Jesse Quinones

By Matthew Manson, Writer/Director, WANNABE

Filmmaker Jesse Quinones

I was lucky enough to see a staged reading of Jesse Quinones’s terrific upcoming feature film CALLOUSED HANDS – the wonderful story of a biracial boy struggling to come to terms with his family while preparing for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah.

Since, at the time, I was putting together my own staged reading, I found Jesse’s to be particularly inspirational. It’s really tough to perform a feature film on a stage and keep it fresh, compelling and entertaining – and Jesse did that very, very well.

So with that in mind, I thought it would be useful to sit down with him and discuss the finer points of putting a reading like that together. Here’s our conversation:

M: Jesse, tell me a little about your film.

J: It’s called Calloused Hands and it’s semi-autobiographical. It’s a coming of age story about Josh who’s 12 and mixed race – half black Cuban, half Jewish – who’s got a stepfather named Mike who’s African American. Mike has a dream for Josh to be a big baseball star, but Mike is also an abusive crack addict alcoholic. He puts the family through hell.

The mother, named Debbie, reaches out to her father who she hasn’t spoken to in years. He says he’ll help on one condition – that Josh, his only grandson, has a Bar Mitzvah. So Josh starts preparing with a Rabbi who offers him another way of looking at things. Ultimately, the film is about Josh choosing his own path in life.

M: I think that’s a really powerful message to bring to people, so thank you for that.

I know you recently have been working with Effie T. Brown and doing a staged reading here in Los Angeles. Can you tell me a little about that process?

J: Yeah, coming from a theater background, I like staged readings. I’ve done one rehearsed reading at my house that was just an exercise for the script, and I’ve done another one in London at the Soho Theater – which is a really nice theater in London. I used to be a commissioned playwright for them, so they very kindly gave me the space for free and 150 people showed up – so it was a really nice exercise and we had a one hour Q&A.

So then we thought that since the audience for the film is here in the US, we should do a reading in Los Angeles. We really wanted to see how the film would sit with its intended audience – which is a mix of African Americans and Jewish people. Also, for me as a writer, I wanted to see how it sounds.

We were really fortunate to get an amazing cast. Our casting director was named Chemin Bernard, and she worked her ass off for two weeks. We got great actors, like David Eigenberg – who played Rabbi Brookstein. He was actually the person I wrote the part for, so that was a blessing.

M: How did you prepare for the reading?

J: We rehearsed on the day of the reading. I spent the most time with the kid, because he was in a lot of the scenes – it was sort of a staggered type of rehearsal where I had him in blocks with some of the other actors. [We didn't want to direct the actors too much, so]…we just explored some choices that the actors can make, then I directed that a little bit. The intention was to make it as close as it could be to what it would be like in the film.

M: Say there’s someone approaching their first staged reading – what advice would you give them?

J: There are different schools of thought – here’s mine: it’s nice to get a day to rehearse it, it’s nice to run through it once so you can actually see where the actors might surprise you. Because you generally have a short amount of time, you have the liberty of directing them a little more directly. In a film they might not like it, but in a reading, it’s OK to give them a line reading – or even be on one word or one line and tell them how you want it. The performance is important, but the exercise is the script. It’s a writer’s process really.

M: What is something that you’ve done in a staged reading where you said to yourself, “boy, I won’t do that again”?

J: I wouldn’t not rehearse. Sometimes part of the problem in the way the script might be received is lack of rehearsal. You need to rehearse – no matter how brilliant or talented an actor is, there are always areas you can tweak and adjust. If you’re going to make the most of it, prepare.

M: A lot of people do staged readings for different reasons, what do you think the most important reasons for doing a staged reading are?

J: You sit with a script for so long, and even if you’re one of those types who reads it out loud, it’s a whole different ballgame when you can actually have actors who have a talent and can bring life and a rhythm to it. Even if you do a reading without an audience, just get your actor friends together and have them read your script. Listen to it and record it – it gives you a whole other insight into where things are – where things are strong and where they fall flat.

M: What’s next for you, and what’s next for this project?

J: Next I’m going to do another draft, and then I’ll be coming back to LA and possibly doing a workshop or a lab. When we’re in a really strong place, we’re going to go out and try and attach some cast to it. We’re hoping to shoot it next year in April.

Aside from this, just happily found out that I got into another writers lab in the UK at the BBC, so I’ll be looking to pitch a pilot following that.

M: Thank you, Jesse.

J: Thank you Matt.

Jesse Quinones is a writer/director living in London. His production company can be followed on Twitter: @woolfcubfilms.

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