Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.
This is Night Light with Pete Chihuahua.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now a guy who appreciates a nice hot meal at a fair price.
Pete Chihuahua.
It's true,
folks.
A nice casserole.
would be good to write about now.
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My guest at the moment is John Roach and John we've gotten some nice texts my friend Dave texts in can't wait to see the movie sounds great.
Tom from New Berlin says powerful Pete thanks I think you mean that directed at John Tom but thank you for the text he's the one that made the documentary.
Tom also says what a great interview looking forward to the film.
Pete Love.
Well, I have love for John.
I'm so glad you're here, John, and you just made a great film.
You're my new best friend.
You're my new best friend for life.
Because when we met on the set at WHA, it was like...
Well, my God, haven't I known this guy for 40 years?
It is weird.
I told Mary, but Corny Donlan, the producer of Director's Cut, where we met, because you were on that show as well.
We only had five minutes, though.
But I said, I feel like I've known this guy my whole life.
And I'm a huge fan of your work, John.
We'll get to some of the things you've done in just a minute.
But I'd like to just spend a few more minutes, if we could, on your amazing documentary, A Road at Night, which you can see at the Barrymore Theater, April 6.
at 7 p.m.
John, you'll be there, right, for a Q&A?
Yeah, we're doing a Q&A.
Jason Joyce is the moderator from The Isthmus, and Darnell Moore will be there.
Jarell Moore will be there.
Rashard will be there, as well as George Hamill, who served as the EP.
That's excellent.
And another text came through from the 608.
My son's film, I hope I'm saying this name right, LeVon Blackburn's Mendota, A Symphony of a Lake, will be screened
with your film, John, right before.
Oh, I didn't know that.
I believe.
Yeah, right before A Road at Night, they always put a short or two before the feature films.
And she says, it's a delightful look at Lake Mendota through all four seasons.
It took him 16 months to film and edit.
Well, thank you for the Tech 608 and break a leg to your son.
That sounds like a lot of fun.
And it sounds like a great group of films that whole night because A Road at Night will headline the event.
John, I love, you know,
Like I'm a transplant to the Wisconsin community and to the Madison community.
I've been going down to Madison now for about 10 years and It's nice to feel part of that because it's such a great city.
It's such a great university.
The history is incredible.
I love this story From your documentary.
It's Andy Kilbride telling the haircut story Howard Moore could tell something was going on with him So he says he offers to cut his hair and I'll let you take it from there
Sure, well, both Howard and Andy are seniors and they've had this fantastic success.
But you know, when you're graduating, you're thinking about jobs and where you're going next and Andy was struggling.
I don't know if his minutes were cut a little bit or he wasn't maybe wasn't shooting.
He was a very good guard.
His name was killer and he was really a good basketball player.
But he was struggling with this personal life and everything and there's a lot of pressure on these guys and he was depressed and.
Howard noticed it at practice in the locker room.
And he said, Andy, you OK?
He walked up to him in the locker room, kind of quiet, subtle bocce, and said, hey, killer, you OK?
And Andy said, anyone else I would have said, yeah, I'm fine.
But with Howard, I looked at him and said, no, I'm not.
And he goes, Howard goes, come on over to my house tonight.
I'm going to cut your hair.
Now, I don't know if he'd ever cut Andy's hair before.
And Andy had hair issues, which he managed very well into adulthood.
But Andy's going, well, I don't need a haircut.
And he goes, come on over.
I'm going to cut your hair.
And so he sits him down in a chair, puts a sheet over his shoulders.
He goes, tell me what's going on.
And Andy said, I will never forget that.
for the rest of my life.
And that's who Howard was.
That's who Howard was.
He was a leader is what he was.
He
was a natural born leader.
Well, that certainly comes across.
I've never felt more.
Honestly, you just the picture you paint, John, with that community, basketball, sports, Madison, all of it.
And these guys come across as family in the film.
And one of the quotes I love about Howard, that I think it was said more than once in your documentary, maybe once by a player and a coach, he was the single best teammate I ever saw.
Now, if you're not...
Andy Kil... I mean, excuse me.
That was Stan Van Gundy.
who went on to coach Orlando Magic, won an NBA championship.
Now he does color for the NBA.
He was an assistant and then a head coach after Colfield left.
And he and Howard remain close through the years.
Andy has a quote in the dock where he goes, well, everyone talks about culture.
And you know, we coaches like to talk about it, but really the people who make the culture are the players, especially guys like Howard Moore.
Howard wasn't getting a ton of minutes, but he was helping.
He said Howard was the kind of guy who came in and thought playing on the scout team.
How can I make Mike Finley better today?
How can I make Tracy Webster better today?
And I have to tell you, Pete, I played basketball in high school.
I couldn't do that.
I hated playing the scout team.
I quit because of it.
And it takes a special guy to be that selfless.
And I have to say, Jennifer was a star as well.
She had her master's in engineering.
She was a woman of color in the UW Engineering School in 1992.
So she was a rarer abyss and went on to get her graduate degree.
And she was a force of nature herself.
They in you cover that in the doc where you say she's like the same as Howard.
They both would engage with anybody.
Just spread the joy around the campus.
But I love that the best teammate like there's so much to be said for that because so few people are Michael Jordan or LeBron James.
Right.
And if you're a great teammate, there will always be a spot for you.
One other thing I wanted to ask you that that took place is tell the story.
John about John Roach is my guest.
He's the director of a road.
which you can see at the Wisconsin Film Festival, April 6th at the Barrymore Theater.
There are still tickets remaining, folks.
So if you're in the Madison area or feel like a road trip, come on down to Madison, and it's a great film festival and a great film.
I love the way John, that Howard campaigned for the assistant coaching job with the Badgers.
I think he was coaching at UIC or Ball State or something.
He wanted to go back to Madison.
He
had been at UIC, yeah.
He had been at Bradley.
Okay.
And then,
I think he came from Bradley the first time with Bo.
Okay.
And, yeah, and he would, you know, Bo said, every time I saw him, he would work me a little bit.
He didn't go over the top.
And, you know, when you're a coach in Bo's position, there are guys working you all the time for an assistant's job.
Everyone wants in on the Big Ten.
Everyone wanted in on Bo's program because it was ascendant.
Yeah.
And, and then when
you know, Bo did his due diligence.
He had Howard and Jen into his office and he offered the job to Howard.
And Howard started to cry.
And Greg Guard says, well, Bo always wants to tell everyone that Howard hugged him first.
He didn't.
He hugged Jen
first.
Then he hugged Bo.
And Bo goes, I've offered a lot of jobs.
I've never had anyone hug me, you know.
Wow.
There's just a lot you know Pete you're so into you see you get it There's so many beautiful moments in the midst of the tragedy.
Yeah, you know, there's these counterpoints And there's forgiveness, you know Howard Asked all those people Howard was a man of faith Howard is the man of faith his families are people of faith and they have hope and Howard is improving incrementally But when he was
in his hospital bed in Ann Arbor.
Having lost his wife and daughter, his pastors from Madison Blackhawk Church came to Ann Arbor and they got next to the bed and Howard said, well, we have to pray.
So they prayed.
And then they said, amen.
And Howard goes, wait a minute, we have to pray for that young woman who died in the other car.
Oh, wow.
Two, because her family is mourning as well.
That was the woman who killed his...
wife and daughter.
That is
powerful.
That's Howard.
By the way,
I want to get one plug in.
There is a website to help the Moore families.
It's domore434.com.
34 was Howard's number.
Do more for 34.
And I would say that there is a fundraising component to this documentary, which we're proud of, frankly.
But it's also, aside from helping support the Moore family,
George Hamilton, Valentine, myself, we all believe that we're serving Howard and Jennifer and Jayden's memory to communicate what happened for the greater good, to have something good come from this accident.
So someone will have the courage to grab their keys from their friends or call an Uber or cut someone off, because frankly, the bartender was complicit in this too.
If you see this doc, it's pretty powerful emotionally, and hopefully that emotion will stay with people and affect behavior.
Talk about, we have to do another break in about a minute, John.
And I hope you can just finish this up until the news is online.
I feel like I'm
sitting in the village bar.
We just posted to, it's domorefor34.com.
If you're listening on the stream, that website is listed there as well.
And PJ joins us and says, the women's hockey UW Badgers won the national championship, as like John just said before, that's a pretty cool thing.
For a minute.
By the way, Mark Johnson, you could, you know, we've had Eric Hayden, we've had Ron Dane.
Mark Johnson gets my vote as the greatest athlete from Madison, Wisconsin ever.
Not only did he win eight championships, he beat the Russians.
Which, by the way, I wish he would do again.
All right, when we come back, we'll have a couple more minutes with John and then we'll let him get on with his evening.
But I want you to tell also,
You know, Howard should get credit, and you give him credit in the film for recruiting one of the greatest basketball players in the history of UW.
And he
is the one
who brought him to the program.
And we'll talk about that and tell you who that is right after a very short break.
It's Pete Schwab.
And Nightlight, great to have you with me hanging out with John Roche here on a Monday night on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back.
Tomorrow night on the show, actor from The Cleaning Lady.
Cleaning Lady or Cleaning Woman, Conrad?
The Cleaning Lady.
It's a female cleaner.
We know that.
It's Bob Chikini.
He will be here.
Bob was also in Godfather III, a phenomenal actor, and then a local comedian, Kristen Leidy.
That's tomorrow night on Nightlight.
Right now we have a few more minutes with our friend, John Roach, who made the film A Road at Night.
You can see A Road at Night at the Barrymore Theater, April 6th at the Wisconsin Film Festival.
There are still tickets.
It's gonna be a great night and a really good event.
And we learned about another film that will open for A Road at Night.
We have a few more minutes with John.
John, did Michael Finley try to give you some filmmaking pointers while you were making this?
Mike's got some great credit.
Yes, he does.
He did The Butler, which is a tremendous film with Forrest Whitaker.
And Mike is a very interesting, imposing guy.
And Howard played a critical role in getting Mike to come to Madison and also Richard Griffith.
You and I both played our Chicago dudes.
Howard Tracy, Mike Rashard.
And to a lesser extent, Andy, he was farther south from Chicago.
They were products of the golden age of high school basketball in Chicago.
It was King basketball with their famed coach, Sonny Cox, where we
started
late, where Simeon, you know, Gordon Tech, all, there were just, there was a tremendous amount of talent coming out of there.
DePaul had had a good run in the 80s, but Mike was heavily recruited, but.
undervalued by a lot of recruiters.
He was kind of skinny.
He hadn't really bloomed yet.
But Howard said, you know, was with him on his visit.
And he just said, Mike, if you come here, I got you.
I will take care of you.
And there's a poignant scene where Mike says, you know, Howard is still taking care of me today.
Geez.
And and Michael went on to have
a 14-year career in the NBA.
He was the leading scorer for Wisconsin until Alondo Tucker came along.
And the thing that all these guys love to drop is the year they made it to the tournament for the first time in 47 years, they beat the Fab Five by 20 points.
Yeah, that's a great one.
All right, the other guy that Howard is responsible for bringing to the university as a coach was Frank Kaminsky, which that 2015 doesn't happen.
Howard
recruited Frank.
He was on Frank early.
Yeah,
Chris Konger who played with the Badgers with Howard during that era and he was one of the leaders on the team as well.
He went on to have this glorious career at Lake Forest College where he broke all the winning records.
He was a tremendous guy.
And so he and Howard, you know, Chris would be recruiting in the same circuit that Howard was.
And very early on, Howard was on to Frank.
and Chris Congress said, Howard, if you bring Frank Kaminsky to Bo Ryan, you're going to get fired
because
Chris didn't think much of Frank when he was a sophomore, but Howard was a big gangly kid as a sophomore too.
And he knew how things can come along.
I think Frank was at Bennett Academy or
something
like that in Chicago.
And Frank,
went on to become the player of the year in 2015 and I think is still kicking around the NBA.
And Frank said in no uncertain terms in the documentary, if it wasn't for Howard Moore, I would not have come to Wisconsin.
I didn't look anywhere else because Howard was on to me early and he knew my game and his word was good.
And that's one of the great things about your film is just hearing other
teammates and other students or coaches talk about Howard Moore.
Definitely check it out, ladies and gentlemen.
If you can get to the Barrymore Theater on April 6th, a road at night, it's a great film.
I'm trying to think, I've just got a couple more minutes.
John, what was the, I want to ask you two more questions and we've got about three minutes.
What emotional toll did this film have on you having to sit there with this footage and watch these gut-wrenching scenes for days at a time?
Yeah.
So my oldest daughter, Katie, and I want to mention to my son and his compatriots in LA, my son, the singer, songwriter in LA, they did the score for the film and did a wonderful job.
I saw the title credits.
Yeah.
There are more roaches in the credits than a Brooklyn apartment.
because Bill Roach was a shooter.
He's not related.
My brother Jim was a second unit director.
My son JT helped write the score.
But my daughter Katie said, dad, this is going to be hard on you.
It was hard on all of us.
Danny Boyle co-wrote it.
Joe Fung shot and edited it.
Joe is a master.
But we all knew that what we were going through was nothing compared to the burden that the Mores carry every day.
And what sustained us is that
it was our hope that our work will help lighten their burden.
And, you know, this was a work of passion.
And everyone bought into it.
Everyone bought
into it.
That definitely comes through.
We've got another text on the stream from John O'Neill, who says, thanks for this interview with John Roach.
Although the events are tragic, the film sounds amazing.
Thanks again, John.
That's very well put.
That's exactly...
what I think people will come away thinking was that it was a sad but uplifting story.
John, one of these days, we'll have to have you back on, even though we kept you for an hour.
I still didn't get to everything.
I wanted to ask you about the straight story.
We'll do that next time.
John Cole wrote the straight story, which was...
Directed by David Lynch and shot here in Wisconsin and I want to ask you about the sports writers on TV a show you created in Chicago Sports radio before there was sports radio, but we'll have to do the both of those next time Good luck with the film John best of luck with the screening.
I hope I'll be down there I don't know what they have scheduled for me, but I'm hoping I'm hoping
for you in some of the after-film events Peter.
Okay,
I'll be there
buddy
I owe you a beer for this.
Thanks for helping promote the work.
Oh, my pleasure.
It's great work.
So keep it up.
And yeah, we'll see you soon.
Thanks so much.
Okay, Pete.
Thanks so much.
All right.
That's John Roach.
Check out a road at night if you can do it.
You will love it Conrad too, because you're a big Wisconsin fan.
Oh yeah, I'm
checking a
note.
It was the perfect film for me to watch after seeing that loss two days ago, because you just see what a community UW-Madison is.
And not just athletics, athletics are certainly a huge part of it, but just the whole community as a whole.
Were you yelling?
I love Tanjay.
But oh my gosh, I wanted, they were down for so long, I just wanted to come down and launch a three and try to steal it.
Yeah, I can't believe he, I don't know, he was, it looked like he was baiting for a foul.
It wasn't the best shot I've seen.
But he still had a great game.
He had a great game.
Great kid.
I
haven't been this, you know, hype for Wisconsin basketball since Bronson Caning or Frank Kaminsky.
So
I
appreciate the season that he had and
it was fun to watch him.
Absolutely.
We've got
We've got Ezekiel Drew's coming up after the news.
We will read your text.
We ran out of time, and it wasn't the best text tonight for the subject matter that we were discussing anyway.
But I will read text we didn't get to tomorrow night, so please tune in as well.
We've got pre-recorded content with Ezekiel Drew's coming up.
You won't want to miss it.
It's a really fun project.
It is coming up next on Nightlight with Peach Waba on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Hey, this is Adam Brody and you're listening to Night Light with Pete Schwab on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back.
This is Night Shift.
Night Shift.
This is Night Light.
That was Night Shift.
That's a great song.
It's weird, but...
One of my favorite Commodore songs, two of them actually I think have nothing to do with Lionel Richie.
He was gone by the time Night Shift came out.
That was a song written for Marvin Gaye and Jackie Rob... Jackie not Jackie Rob... Jackie Wilson and Machine Gun.
It's one of my favorite songs.
It was used in the movie Boogie Nights and there's no there's no lyrics.
So maybe Lionel Richie had something to do with it but
you always think Lionel Richie when you think the Commodores.
I don't know, should we change the name of the show to Night Shift Conrad?
It sounds cooler, I think.
Oh, you know what?
That was a test, and you funked miserably.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited to welcome my...
Next guest tonight like tonight.
This is a guy we've had on before he is not dressed as impeccably as he usually is but He's dressed like an actor, which is what he is.
He's a Milwaukee actor and a film festival founder and he joins us tonight on the stream Mr. Ezekiel Drew's hey, buddy
Hey, Pete.
Good to see you again
is the suit at the dry cleaners.
What's going on?
I love that fuchsia suit
Well, you know what?
I'm in the process of trying to find a new pink suit, so that one's still around, but I'm in the process of trying to get a new one.
I would imagine
they're not easy to find, I would imagine.
Or maybe they are.
There's a bunch that are out there, but if you want a quality pink suit, you've got to do some research and they're not going to be cheap.
And that was pink, not fuchsia?
I remember it as fuchsia,
okay.
Well, it's kind of like Magento, which is, you know, shade of pink,
so.
It's an eye catcher, regardless.
It's a great piece.
It's great.
They're great threads, so.
Yeah, thank you.
But I like the lid.
You're still dressed very cool tonight, and it's good to have you on the show, buddy.
Thanks.
Good
to be back.
How are you?
I'm good.
You know, we're gonna rate a...
That get into tech week soon for for edgy in the musical.
So that's that's some exciting times coming up here
Yeah, well, that's the kind of the whole reason you're here, right?
So we can jump right into that What what do you have tell us first of all about the musical it's based on a the cult classic edgy in the movie Yeah, and typically with a cult classic a lot of times people haven't seen it, but maybe this will direct more eyes toward
the film, but tell us about the story and about what's coming up.
Yeah, so Edgy and the musical really versus the film, the film is obviously has all the different settings and everything versus the the stage play in order to condense it so that way it's not too overwhelming.
You've got two main functions of the stage.
You've got
the interrogation cell where Ed is being interrogated by the sheriff.
And then you've got everything that's going on, either in Ed's memories or his fantasies of what's going on, which is where like a lot of the song and the dance stuff happens.
Okay.
Now, for those who don't know necessarily a lot about Ed Gein, can you kind of give us a little background on him and why he was the inspiration for this, for this show?
Sure so and I'm sure that you know people who might have seen Dan Davies talk about it before Dan did you know like three years of research about Ed Gean so Dan's grandfather
knew the sheriff that arrested Ed Gein.
So Ed Gein is a serial killer and a grave robber and he did a lot of nasty things so I don't want to go into a lot of the really bad things that he did but he was you know he was arrested because he had so many bodies and pieces of bodies and stuff in his house and he you know murdered some some different women and stuff and was kind of you know doing some uh some sexual things to the dead bodies and stuff so that was you know that's you know a lot of what
you know, is out there about him.
You know, there's been a lot of stuff about him in the media over the years, different films that are based on him, including like Psycho, you know, especially with like the whole mom talking to him and stuff.
So there's, it's, you know, it's a gross subject for people to talk about.
with the musical especially about Ed, we're not trying to glorify him or anything.
That's not the point of the musical.
It's really just a treatise in terms of trying to find out how did Ed become this monster that he really is.
You know, there's a lot of stuff about him.
He was abused both physically, sexually and stuff by his parents.
And he just, you know, he also just didn't have a great relationship with a lot of people.
He held a lot of that in, was very nice to people.
You know, he would watch, you know, children and stuff for people.
But, you know, it wasn't until after, you know, all this stuff came out that people were like, oh my God, this is...
This is Ed, so it really threw up a lot of people about how he was.
You talk about how graphic, some of the things he did, gross you said and graphic and some of the things he did after people died and all that kind of stuff.
How much of that do you guys go into in the stage show?
What can people expect?
Like, it sounds...
Funny.
Ed gained the musical.
It sounds whimsical despite the things that he's done.
What is the show like from a tonal standpoint?
I would say in general, so during like the musical, you know, elements, you know, it's kind of more lighthearted, but there are, you know, it's tongue-in-cheek, dark humor.
There's a song that's based on all of my favorite things from the Sound of Music.
It's called My Demented Things, where he lists all the different things that he likes to do to these dead bodies, like make them into lampshades on lampposts and stuff.
And, you know, it's...
It gets a little graphic in terms of like the words that are used to describe what he's doing.
It gets pretty, pretty out there.
So, but I would say like, you know, there's no like, you know, graphic Goron stage or anything like that.
A lot of it is just described.
And, you know, tastefully, if you can, you know, use that word when talking about him.
Yeah.
Um, who do you play Ezekiel in the show?
I play a game.
Oh dear.
Is that affecting?
Is that a fact?
How much research did you have to do?
Did you pull like a Al Pacino and really immerse yourself in the role or what?
I actually had, because Dan did so much research into it, and I had a lot of conversations with Dan about, like, here's how he is in these scenes, like, this is the stuff that led up to this point.
We talked a lot about the original film, like, hey, how much of this was based on real?
How much did you embellish and everything?
And it was all pretty much like spun on, like, this is all stuff that he did.
a lot of names and stuff are altered just for privacy sake of people.
But I mean, there's, there's, you know, I know a lot more about Ed Gein than I ever really now care to have known, but it's all in there now, baby.
For those.
All right.
So Dan Davies, who is a Northeast Wisconsin based actor, has been on the show several times.
And he's a great guest, very talented guy.
For those who might not have seen his work or heard him on the show, tell us a little bit about Dan.
So Dan is, man, he's probably one of my favorite people and part of it because I actually brought him on when I shot my feature film, Happy Birthday.
He played a deranged president.
So Dan, I had never met Dan before.
I didn't know.
I came back into the acting scene back, you know, like two, three years ago, had no idea who he was, didn't know about.
Ed Guy in the musical or anything.
So Dan and I met.
He's a very fantastic guy.
He had an audition for a show for like five years before he auditioned for my feature film.
But Dan is like, you know, if there's two things that I can say about Dan is that he loves God and he loves his alcohol.
So in that order.
Well, no, sometimes it depends on the day, I suppose, but he would tell you that
You know, his order of things is God, family, you know, alcohol probably.
All right.
Yeah, I've heard that.
Well, I've heard that from Dan, actually.
It's not even hearsay.
It's Dan makes no bones about the fact that he likes to toss a few back, which is great.
My guest right now is Ezekiel Druze.
He's a Milwaukee based actor and founder of a film festival.
We'll get a plug in here for a momentarily, but we're talking right now about Ed Geene, the musical in which Ezekiel plays Ed Geene.
The show runs April 4th through the 6th, just a couple of weeks away at the community, the time, community theater in Oshkosh.
How can people get tickets Ezekiel?
Where do they go to find out more information?
Especially like, let's say you got a couple of kids that are middle school age.
Is it appropriate?
Like, what kind of rating would you put on it?
No, no,
no, it is, it is not appropriate for children.
Please don't bring your children to this.
There will be some audience interaction.
So if you bring your children to this, I will interact with them.
So, you know.
What if they're from
really dysfunctional families and they're already kind of used to this sort
of thing?
Well, then,
by all means, let's
just bring it in.
Maybe it'll help heal them.
Yeah, maybe.
Or it might make them worse.
Who knows?
I would say I would rate this as probably maybe later years of high school into anybody that can stand having a squeamish talk about certain sensitive topics.
OK.
But if you want to get tickets, you can definitely go, I believe you can go to edgenethemusical-play.com and that'll take you to the website of that, or you can go to the Times Community website as well, so if you can get tickets off
there.
How did you get involved with this show?
You play Ed Gein, which I assume is the lead.
I know Dan plays a sheriff.
Did you have to audition for this?
Or did Dan take one look at you and say, oh, no, this is the guy?
Well, it was really funny.
So I know that originally Dan was actually going to do.
He was going to revive the show and play it himself.
But in his own words, he called me when I was up in DC back in November and said, hey,
I'm a bit too old and I've also, you know, been drinking too much and been smoking too many cigars over the years.
I don't think I can actually pull off singing anymore.
So I was racking my brain and you came up as the number one person that I thought about asking to do this and I was like, oh,
well,
you know, let's see if we can make this work.
And we worked out timing wise and
That's all she wrote, baby.
That's pretty cool that he's willing to not be the lead and know his limitations.
I don't know what age Ed Gein was, but if he didn't cast himself for those reasons, that shows, to me, serious dedication to his own project, so good for him.
So you're a singer, then, Ezekiel.
I didn't know that about you.
You must be able to sing if you're in this musical.
How many numbers do you have to do and who wrote all the music for the show?
Oh, man.
I don't, I'm trying to think, I think there's probably somewhere between seven and 10 songs.
I'd have to count them all.
I won't bore you with that right now, but in terms of who wrote it and stuff, I mean, a lot of it's, you know, parody of existing numbers.
Like I said, you know, before, like my favorite things turns into my demented things, but Dan wrote all the lyrics.
He wrote the whole stage play.
Some of the music is original, which was written by Will Kaiser.
From when the when the original film was made So, you know, there's there's a lot that goes into it But you know creatively Dan, you know pretty much put pen to paper for all of it
That's really cool.
Did you guys have you guys seen it yet with an audience like I know that there was a film that this is based on and this is a stage show different energy Have you seen it with the crowd yet?
No, at this point, I'm not sure if we're going to have any kind of preview night or anything.
We might just to kind of see how people react to it.
But as of right now, it's all just been an internal just the casting crew watching everything.
That's so cool.
What can you tell?
How long is it, first of all, Ezekiel?
I would say it's somewhere between an hour and a half, an hour and 50 probably.
And how do you guys want people to leave the theater?
Do you want them to leave laughing, shaking their head?
Honestly, like, it's a legitimate question.
Like, what do you, what does Dan want from the audience?
Sure.
There are some very intense scenes.
especially just like we're seeing, you know, where Ed is interacting with his father.
That should probably scar people emotionally or with his mom.
Like that should scar people in a different way.
But there's a lot of humor in it as well.
So I would say, you know, I think that what Dan was looking for is he was looking for people to understand, you know, just how it is that monsters are made.
And we can look at this through a lens where we can laugh, we can be shocked, we can, you know, maybe even cry, you know, if people feel so moved to.
But at the end, no one should feel sympathy, Brad.
This is not like, oh, if only, no, it's, this is, this is just basically about how this guy became a monster.
Great answer.
We're going to do a very short break and we'll come back and have a couple more minutes with our guest, Ezekiel Druze.
I'm going to ask him about his really cool film festival, which just had its inaugural event just a couple months ago.
We'll be right back with more Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media radio
network.
Welcome back.
This is Night Light.
I am Pete Schwabba.
The world premiere of the musical play adaption of the cult classic film Ed Gein the Musical is April 4th through the 6th at the Time Community Theater in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Just down the road here from downtown Green Bay.
Pardon me.
Originally aired.
Did this air?
Ezekiel, am I reading this right?
This aired nationwide on PBS?
The movie?
Yes, sir.
Yep.
No kidding.
Just in Wisconsin here, nationwide.
I think it was nationwide.
That's
incredible.
Yeah, it's a cult classic across all the states.
Oh, that's fantastic.
And you guys got some good press from USA Today, I saw recently, which is kind of exciting.
Yeah, very exciting.
How does the film, last question about the show, how does the play compare to the film?
Was the film a musical?
The film was a musical.
I think there was actually, if I remember correctly, I think there was actually less music in the movie.
There's been some additional songs that Dan added into it, basically just to kind of flesh it out, especially because...
you know in a film like you've got liberties where you can have a lot of b-roll versus in a stage show like you don't you don't have a lot of b-roll you're gonna you got to fill in that time you can't just have a lot of silence on stage
right uh hey before we let you go buddy tell us about this film festival uh you created you said you just got back into acting two or three years ago in addition to that you started this uh really cool the milwaukee film awards right am i am i getting that right
Milwaukee Independent Film
Awards.
Tell us about this really cool festival and are you gonna do another one?
I would assume you want to.
Yeah, yeah, yeah with with the Milwaukee Independent Film Awards.
So we're in season two right now.
So we're, you know, I think we are up to just over 80 submissions actually into season two.
We had like 157 for our first one, which is
you know, kind of crazy.
If you talk to Dan, I talked to Dan and he said he's been doing his festival for like six or I think he's going on seven years and he's had, you know, maybe just, you know, around like two to 300.
So we're kind of like, you know, it's crazy the amount of films that we're getting in.
And I think it's probably just, you probably see a big change in terms of that independence scene.
A lot more people are trying to get in there, trying to get, you know, seen and heard and
And that's, you know, the whole goal of doing the festival was to make sure that people are getting seen and heard.
And if they want feedback on their films and stuff, we can do that for them.
I don't remember who the guest was, but a couple of weeks ago, we had someone on who had a film in your festival and was.
absolutely in awe of what you were able to pull off when it came to venues being kind of spread out and the compact amount of time for the festival.
So tip of the hat to you.
That must have been exciting for you.
Yeah, we
had like 44, 44 films screened over three locations.
That's amazing.
What's the acting climate like in Milwaukee?
You're a Milwaukee based actor.
Is there a lot going on there or is it
the kind of thing where you have to move somewhere bigger to do the things you want to do or can you do it from right there?
I
think, you know, just as an actor and then also as a filmmaker, I will tell you that, you know, if you're looking for things to act in, you know, anywhere in Wisconsin, you know, there's there's always something to go on their Facebook pages.
There's, you know, if you can get an agency, there's a couple in Milwaukee area, there's some that are up in the Green Bay or Appleton area and stuff.
I, you know, I even, you know, I just, I'm working on a proof of concept for a sequel to, or prequel sequel to my, my future film.
And so I'm, I'm bringing in some, some actors as well.
So if you're looking at trying to, to get into the Milwaukee area for, for acting, or if you're willing to travel around the state, or if you're willing to drive down the Chicago or something like that, there's always opportunity, whether it's theater or film, there's, there's opportunity out there.
Do you think getting the incentives passed in Wisconsin, if those are enacted, will that really boost film production or do you think people that are here are going to make their films here anyway because they want to do it in Wisconsin?
Personally, I will tell you that the incentives and stuff that people are talking about, that's great.
Will that make more films happen here?
I think that's probably going to probably get more outside investment because a lot of people who are here that are in Wisconsin already know that if they want to make films, like they just got to make it happen themselves.
And whether it's self-funded or if they have to do, you know, crowdfunding or whatnot, they'll find a way to make it happen.
Will, you know, those incentives, I think, you know, if they're tax incentives, if they're rebates or something, that'll bring in more outside people who are like trying to get Zag productions and stuff.
But the people who are here, they already know they want to do it.
They're going to make it happen.
It's just another incentive for those guys.
That's a great answer.
And I love your entrepreneurial spirit.
That's so exciting and kind of infectious.
Real quick, again, tell us where people can find out more information about Ed Gein, the musical.
You can go on either edgeinthemusical-play.com.
where you can find it on Facebook.
There's plenty of information all over there.
If you start tapping the search function, you can just type Ed Gein.
Typically, you'll find, I think, one of the top search results is going to be Ed Gein, the musical.
Excellent.
All right.
It's the world premiere of the theatrical play adaption of the cult classic Ed Gein, the musical April 4th through the 6th at the Time Community Theater in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
We are talking with the actor who will play the lead role of Ed Gein, and I cannot thank you enough for your time tonight.
Ezekiel, thanks so much.
Keep up the great work.
Thanks Pete.
Good to see you.
You too.
That's Ezekiel Drew's and check out the Milwaukee Independent Film Awards.
That's a pretty cool pretty cool thing I'm always in awe of people who are willing to do entire film festivals because they Just see what these guys do in Milwaukee or I'm sorry in Madison for the film festival coming up there It's so much work.
So that's very impressive All right, thank you to everybody who was part of the show tonight.
Thank you for your text Thank you to John Roach.
How cool was that?
That was that was awesome
Wisconsin Badgers gives you a sense of pride and we learned a little bit about Howard Moore and the Badgers and what a great community.
UW Madison is fantastic stuff, and thank you to Ezekiel Drew's.
We will be back tomorrow night.
Conrad, who we have tomorrow night?
I don't have my, oh, my sheet open here.
I'm lost.
No, here I got it.
Okay, yeah, you're gonna help me with that last name anyways.
Bob Giacchini.
Okay, there we go.
And local, Bob Giacchini is in the show, The Cleaning Lady.
He'll be here tomorrow, and Kristen Lighty will be here, a local comedian.
That's another night, though.
Tonight was fun.
We'll do it all again tomorrow night.
On behalf of the lovable producer, Conrad, I'm Pete Schwabba, saying good night, Wisconsin.
Two, three.
