Happy Friday!
This has been a looong week for me. Hard at work on this new pilot script for the NOT A GENUINE BLACK MAN TV project, producing the huge COMEDY IN THE PLAZA standup concert taking place tomorrow, writing the first COPELAND’S CORNER blog, recording the COPELAND’S CORNER podcast and fundraising for the WAITING PERIOD suicide prevention project plus preparing my newest solo play, GRANDMA & ME, to go into rehearsals next week in preparation for its fall opening. Whew!
I had a great response to the first COPELAND’S CORNER blog, and it’s much appreciated. It’s really an experiment to see if folks get anything valuable from my essays. I’m sending them to everyone on all my lists for the first three weeks. After that, you’ll have to subscribe (don’t worry, it’s free) on a special list to receive it in your mailbox every Wednesday morning. If you haven’t read it yet, please do and
let me know your thoughts. If you didn’t see it in your mailbox, check your spam folder. If you like what you see, please subscribe. You can do that here.
Despite everything, I still managed to squeeze in a few things to tell you about this weekend.
WATCHING
This week, I saw Girl In The Picture on Netflix. I’m a true crime addict and this is one of the most riveting documentaries I’ve ever seen. A lot of viewers are calling it one of the most frightening things they’ve ever seen. It’s the story of a young mother whose body is found on the side of the road in what appears to be a hit and run. It turns out to be so much more than that, especially once it’s
discovered that her identity is false, and she wasn’t who people thought she was. Then, her six-year-old son is kidnapped, never to be seen again. The story has more twists and turns than any writer could credibly dream up. It gets creepier as we learn more about her father…and her husband over the span of three decades. WATCH WATCH WATCH! Just be prepared to be REALLY unnerved by what you see.
RIP OFF!
While I’m on the subject of television, the Emmy nominations were announced this week and let me officially say that Mandy Moore’s omission for her work in the final season of This is Us is a disgrace. She was robbed! Her portrayal of Pierson family matriarch, Rebecca, as an old woman declining into the dementia of Alzheimer’s Disease was some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen on television.
Especially the penultimate episode, The Train. I’ve seen that episode three times and wept like a newborn three times.
The fact that the show was all but ignored by the television academy is ridiculous. It is the best thing that’s been on network television in years. Makes you wonder if there’s a bias against broadcast TV when it comes to the Emmys. With very few exceptions, all the nominations went to streaming and cable shows. There was a lot of good TV on those platforms, but there were good things on broadcast
too.
BOOKS
I’m reading William Shatner’s excellent tribute to his beloved friend and colleague, Leonard Nimoy. Leonard is a cradle to grave memoir about the extraordinary man who created the pop culture icon, Mr. Spock, but it also much, much more. It’s a story of perseverance, determination and resilience as
Shatner explores the multitude of talents that Nimoy possessed. He was an actor, acting teacher, director of movie blockbusters, artist and many other things that most of us (Nimoy aficionados excepted, of course) were unaware of. I highly recommend it.
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