Monday, March 19, 2007
Kevin Goes to Broadway
Marc Thompson, voice actor for Kevin Thompson, Mr. O’Neill, and Mr. DeMartino, is getting a chance to act on Broadway — voice act, that is.
This month, a Broadway production based on Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio has opened. Talk Radio is the story of an acid tongued, late night talk-show radio host and the callers that he gets one night. Thompson does voice work as one of the callers — but is not seen on stage, only heard as a disembodied voice until all of the “callers” come out and take their final bow at the end.
The information is from the New York Times and the article is called “The Larynxes That Invaded Broadway.” (Unfortunately, this is select content and you have to register with the NYT to get it.)
The excerpted part of the article gives not only information about Thompson, but also details as to what he’s been up to after Daria:
One of those cogs is Marc Thompson, whose callers include a disabled man speaking almost exclusively in clichés like “When they give you lemons, make lemonade.” A married father of two, he was a minister for the New York City Church of Christ when he was laid off two years ago. The future appeared bleak. “I looked at selling life insurance,” he said.
Instead Mr. Thompson, who holds an acting degree from New York University, started going on auditions. He had been doing voice-over work on the side while preaching and soon found jobs on MTV’s Daria and the Cartoon Network’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He may be most familiar for the Citibank identity theft commercial where two elderly women sitting on a sofa drinking tea have dubbed-in biker-dude voices. “I’m Thelma, the lady on the left,” he said.
When he received a callback for Talk Radio, he was elated, especially because he has limited stage experience. But then he realized he would probably have to reject any offer: the play is peppered with profanity, and Mr. Thompson, who still preaches on occasion, does not curse.
It turned out there were enough callers with mild language that he was cast anyway. “When they told me, I cried,” said Mr. Thompson, who, inevitably enough, ended up playing an evangelical Christian caller. “They’ve been really understanding and gracious. Two years ago I had nowhere to go. I feel blessed, and I think it’s a miracle.”
# posted by James @ 10:49 AM 
