Casting for "The Reel Deal," a competitive reality show. Producer states: "This is a multi-platform new media reality show where celebrity led teams make an Academy Award quality short film in just four days. Contestants may audition for either actor, director, composer or writer roles on the teams." 21st Century Pictures Group |  Adryenn Ashley, Producer

THE REEL DEAL AUDITION - ADAM NELSON - ACTOR Adam Nelson's 90 second audition for The Reel Deal. For more, visit www.AdamNelson.me Music by MatthewEWrightMusic | Ambient Instrumental Rough draft | Matthew Wright | Wildwood, United States #TheReelDeal #TheReelDealAudition #TheReelDealContest | The Real Deal Audition | The Reel Deal Contest | The Reel Deal

So many things you wish you did not live to see. 

More than we can measure, Phil was a masterpiece of humanity and he leaves such a blank space upon the canvas. 

Hoffman was unlike anyone I have ever met. 

When I proposed to Alison in Paris, upon our return, while hustling through the gates of Heathrow, who do we see but Phil ambling before us. That trademark side-grin glowing. We hug, clap backs and spin some yarn. I take his mighty congratulations as a benediction. It’s a glorious way to prepare a marriage. 

When Alison opened Chocolate Bar, Phil became a regular. He and his family would swing by for cookies or ice cream. Often, late at night, he would come in alone where he would sit for hours reading scripts or working on characters. He’d keep his back to the door and go completely unrecognized. If sighted he never caught on. He was completely engrossed in his work.

Living across the street from a West Village park our children would sometimes play together. Skateboards and basketball. Football and rollerblades. And in this remembrance, as our kids grow up in parallel, my heart is torn asunder for Mimi, their kids Tallulah, Willa and Cooper, and his family at the Labyrinth Theater Company which he helped found in 1992 with University of the Arts alumnus from the class beneath me. 

On September 24th, 2001, twelve days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Phil agreed to participate in a celebrity edition of The 24 Hour Plays which I co-produced with the original founders Tina Fallon, Kurt Gardener and Philip Naude. An incredible group had amassed to perform over those dark days. 

Phil and I were cast by Frank Pugliese's play A Living Room opposite Marisa Tomei and Fisher Stevens. We spent the day running lines, trading smokes, telling tales. Truth is, he was running lines. I was trying to appropriate every single aspect of his creative prowlessness. I wanted to gather his incredible genius. Figure his mad method. It’s so incredibly rare to have that kind of proximity. To be the fly on the wall of technique. To witness one of America’s greatest actors build a character within the span of 24 hours. To witness the fire of his kind of artistry. I just wanted to absorb every single atom.  

It was an amazing cast: Rosie Perez, Benjamin Bratt, Billy Crudup, Mary-Louise Parker, Julianne Moore, Marisa Tomei, Kyra Sedgwick, Lili Taylor, Natasha Lyonne, Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, Robert Sean Leonard, Drena DeNiro, Catherine Kellner, Brendan Sexton, Jared Harris, and Sam Rockwell. But to me, Phil was starlight. The gold standard. Rumpled and unparalleled. 

He was as 'everyman' as it gets. But in that mundane humanity was a kind of flickering genius that burned so brightly that it was impossible to look away. He was fully naked under his characterizations. Scars and inadequacies abound. He seemed like a throw back to another age and yet he was so fully modern. So of the day. Every single character was imperfectly original. Every single moment had a kind of earthiness. Textured with true grit. Soiled. Those lines which filled a white page, were born from deep below his flesh and bone. They muscled their way past the tissue that holds hostage to all of our feelings, the kind you never want the world to see. For him, that was purpose. 

In the neighborhoods of New York, I watched as mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and actors of similar prominence would engage him. Each and every one of them: Awestruck. Sure they tried to play it cool, act city casual, but you could see the flop sweat. The excitement of trading pleasantries with a guy you truly admired. I count myself as one of them. And for a city that prides itself on appearances, Phil -- with his stained and unkept attire -- maintained amazing power. He never appeared to put on airs, or pretend to be anything more than what he was. A father. The guy at the bar. The man on the bike. The kid in the candy store. 

There have been many characters among us: Peter Lorre, Bert Lahr, Edward G. Robison but absolutely no one threw down like Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of performance. He made us look up at film screens and down on floor boards with a deeper appreciation for the little guy. There in the auditorium, lost in the hypnotic trance of disbelief, we knew we were watching a master of artificial miracles.   

God rest his soul and bring comfort to everyone who loved him. 

Dim the lights. Let the camera rest. 

October 2, 2001 - Like the players in an indie film lover's dream, a thicket of movie and theater thesps turned up for The 24 Hour Plays after-party at Spa. Natasha Lyonne, Liev Schreiber and Lili Tay lor hit the hip downtown club's VIP room, coming straight from the Minetta Lane Theatre, where six short plays were written, staged and performed, all in the course of 24 hours (get it?), for one night only, to benefit families affected by the World Trade Center tragedy (ticket sales alone raised $30,000). Once safely offstage,

Philip Seymour Hoffman confessed to being a bundle of nerves, forgetting his first line. Luckily, the ubiquitous actor quickly ad-libbed his way back on track during his scene with Marisa Tomei and Adam Nelson.

Also crowding into the celeb-filled space were Billy Crudup, Mary-Louise Parker, Fisher Stevens, Rosie Perez and chameleon Sam Rockwell (remember his loathsome character in The Green Mile?), who cut a mean rug on the makeshift dance floor with Pearl Harbor co-star Catherine Kellner.

SEX AND LIES | SEDUCTIVE ACTS
 By Guy Giarrizzo and Scott Manus Directed by Guy Giarrizzo
 Theater 3 | Review  by Nicholas Moore

Every  time  you  glimpse  up  at  an apartment   window,   imagine   two people   are  inside,  engaged   in   hot, unholy  sex. Wait,  you  don't  have  to imagine,   it's  really  happening . . And these two commit this act in the face of one very simple truth: sex and love in the  city can  be  a  dirty business.  For those  brave  enough  to  hunt  it  down (like our bedroom lovers) and join the emotionally exhausting rat race, filled with  shame and bitterness,  Seductive Acts, smartly directed by Guy Giarrizzo, will gladly indulge any of your anxieties and/or paranoia concerning the matter. Martin   (Adam  Nelson)   and  Paige (Andrea Maulella) met in their therapist's waiting room and fell in love­ kind of. Well, they're both desperate and coming off bad break-ups (as opposed to good ones), and they do have great sex with each other ...sure, they fell in love. In actuality, that's just a word for it; both are a little self­ absorbed and distracted, so they're not quite sure what they've got yet. The desperately neurotic duo live in a sitcom-like world swarming with love-starved singles willing to swallow their bitter frustrations and  hold out for true romance. If that's even one of the options. It's a city where your friends, thankfully, are more screwed­ up than you, and answering machines talk back, making sarcastic quips at your feeble, failed efforts to find somebody to love. The script, co-writ­ ten by  Scott Manus and Giarrizzo, is light and enjoyable live television. Each scene is fueled by just one idea which is usually dragged a bit too far,

But the play's clever moments are nailed by a terrific ensemble cast headed by the quirky, manic performances of Adam Nelson and Andrea Maulella.

It deals with three Manhattan  cou­ples: Bill (Michael Bassett) and Danielle (Dana Bledsoe) are devoted to sex. Jonathan (David Folwell) and Blythe (Malindi Fickle) are devoted to­ love, while Martin and Paige haplessly drift somewhere  between  the  two. And they're all a little mixed up, try­ing  to  sort  out  that  sometimes dis­turbing   prospect   of   an   authentic romance. Each actor in the cast has a unique  charm  and  comic  timing  of their own. They find the bittersweet chemistry  within   each  relationship and rise above_ the light weight of the material, bringing  life and blood  to otherwise stereotypical characters. Seductive Acts dutifully tries not to overdo its down -to-earth intentions and fails on that count only when the relationships lapse into repetitive, diched melodrama. Still, Giarrizzo's direction keeps the pace relatively brisk. In the end, he delivers a slick, tightly packaged, slice of life and love in mean Manhattan. If you  happen not to have cable television and were curious about HBO's new series, Sex in the City, check it out live and in the flesh at Theater 3.

Next up was the rooftop of Flo's Diner, the starry-night site of merriment for young Director Morgan J. Freeman's Desert Blue, with his cast Sara Gilbert, stunning babe Kate Hudson (daughter of Goldie Hawn) and Brendon Sexton Ill, who also gives a pedigree performance in Pecker. 

When Kate Hudson spilled wine on actor Adam Nelson zinged back,
"Never mind. But could I get you a fork for those spaghetti straps?"

Hudson, who told us "Rules are meant to be broken," was in major party mode, heading over to the Permanent Mid night bash at Syn, where she joined Very Bad Things director Peter Berg, along with Cameron Diaz, Jon Favreau and Jeremy Piven. Slinky Permanent  Midnight star Elizabeth Hurley savvily kept her distance from the fun-lovin' party­hearty crew, though Janeane Garofalo didn't. Ben Stiller - who gets our best-male-shoes-of-the­ night award -briefly dropped by before heading out, first to Bistro 990 and then to the funky Matador.

Sleeping City was originally produced as part of The 24 Hour Plays Benefit for The New York State September 11 Victims Relief Fund on February 24, 2022 at the Henry Fonda Theater in Los Angeles. It was directed by Gregory Mosher and featured the following cast
PROFESSOR BRINE ... Jared Harris
BEN ... Seth Green
LOIS / DORIS ... Gina Phillips
OTTO ... Adam Nelson


The 24 Hour Plays to aid The NY State WTC Relief Fund which debuted and closed in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24th, 2002 at the Henry Fonda Theater. Produced by Workhouse, the cast included Jane Adams (The Anniversary Party), Christina Applegate (Married with Children), Jennifer Coolidge(Best In Show), Portia Di Rossi (Ally McBeal), Seth Green (Austin Powers), Adam Goldberg (Beautiful Mind), Clark Gregg (State and Maine), Paul Guilfoyle (CSI), Devon Gummersall (Relativity), Jared Harris (Mad Men), Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Buellers Day Off), Mila Kunis (Black Swan), Ann Magnuson (Making Mr. Right), Gina Phillips (Jeepers Creepers), John Ritter (Three's Company), Sarah Silverman (Gary Shandling Show), Ione Skye (Say Anything), Adam Nelson (Dogs), Brooke Smith (Series 7) and Adam Tomei (The Truman Show) who appeared in six short plays, each written less than a day before the curtain raised. Under the direction of Morgan J Freeman, David Lee Strasberg, Neil Pepe, Tom Quaintance and Mike Uppendahl, six plays written by Beth Henley, Neil Labute, Bruce Vilanch, Hilly Hicks, Alexandra Cunningham and John Belluso. Program included introductory letter from then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.