Better Angels opens Oct. 24; plays Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 & 7 pm; through Nov. 22. Tickets: $37-$42. The Colony Theatre Company, 555 N. Third St., Burbank; 818.558.7000, ext. 15 or colonytheatre.org
David Dean Bottrell
The first thing one notices about writer-actor (or is it actor-writer) David Dean Bottrell is the infectious laughter of a man who has landed in the happiest of places on his life and art. Thirteen semi-lucky years as a youthful New York actor segued into a writing career after a play he wrote on a whim landed at the Long Wharf Theatre and received an Off-Broadway run. Hollywood called and he spent another lucky 13 years writing and doctoring film scripts. Then fate pulled him back into acting with a small role in the TV series Boston Legal that took advantage of his proclivity for strange characterizations. That role of the murderous “Lincoln” brought him enough notoriety to begin recharging his acting career and shift it into high gear.
How does he find the time? He laughs loudly, “I don’t have time, it is true, but I am doing it anyway. I got my first job when I was 19 in a summer stock musical and I loved it. I loved the camaraderie, the backstage drama and the intimacy of that work in front of an audience. When I would see plays in Los Angeles I would feel homesick watching the actors up there. I’d think, ‘Wow that is so much fun!’ If I were a believer in ‘The Secret’ I would say I manifested this. I thought it would be fun to be in a play so I dropped a note to a couple of theatres whose quality of work I thought was good: ‘If you need a quirky character actor give me a call.’ I clipped my business card to it because I know what happens to pictures and resumes. The next day the Colony Theatre called me. They just happened to be looking for a quirky character actor.”
The play is Wayne Peter Liebman’s three-character drama Better Angels about Abraham Lincoln (timed to commemorate the great president’s 200th birthday), directed by Dan Bonnell. The character Bottrell plays is Lincoln’s personal secretary John Hay and he is very excited about doing the role. “One of the things that attracted me was the challenge. I play an elderly man recounting the story who then steps into the play as a 25-year-old. This is done without benefit of costume change or make-up. I just have to move from one pool of light to the next. It has been great fun. They were looking for an actor who can go from 25 to approximately 80.”
Bottrell and James Read
He bursts into laughter again, “God bless them. I don’t think of myself as being particularly boyish anymore but I am glad somebody does. The playwright is sort of a Lincoln nut. I mean that in the best possible way. He has done exhaustive research. About a quarter of the play is taken from found text: letters, diaries, speeches, books written by the actual characters. Many times we are literally speaking in the voices of these people who lived this journey in 1863.”
Bottrell, a self-proclaimed weird fellow, began acting as a defense against bullies. “I am from Kentucky. When I was a kid we moved over the river into Ohio and the kids there made vicious fun of my accent. I decided to get rid of the accent so I would listen to newscasters and tried to mimic how they sounded. Whenever my family would allow me to turn the station to PBS I would watch BBC programming and try to mimic a British accent. So from the time I was a kid, my ear was tuned to try and sound different. I have always been pretty good at picking up accents.”
His youthful hobby turned into a fairly successful acting career, then the writing bug bit. “On a lark I thought I would try my hand at playwriting and had some beginner’s luck. My first play Dearly Departed went to the Long Wharf then to Off Broadway’s Second Stage. Overnight I became a playwright. Suddenly I was getting calls from Los Angeles for writing gigs and basically walked away from acting and came to LA exclusively to be a writer. That has been my focus.”
As with so many Hollywood writers, Bottrell has made a good living - produced or not. “As you may have heard you get paid to write a lot of scripts that don’t get made; that’s the irony of the screenwriting business. I have done a bit of everything. I have made pitches, sold spec scripts, adapted novels, written musicals and feature animation.”
Bottrell’s success in the business is due in large part to his sensitivity to the decision makers. “If a director is attached to a project I ultimately try to ally myself with that person because in the end he is the one to make the movie, the one the studio is most likely to listen to. This is the person who will actually shoot the film and put it up on screen. So the studio has to get behind that person’s vision. You are largely a journeyman unless you are directing your own work. The writer is kind of the architect but the director is the contractor who can knock out a wall and put in a new bedroom if he wants. We’re paid for the blueprint but they can put on as many additions as they want.”
Bottrell has navigated Hollywood quite well and loves the work. Hopefully his skills and notoriety will help him create the work he likes best: “The kinds of movies I love are somewhat out of fashion right now: things like The Fabulous Baker Boys and Terms of Endearment - those James Brooks kinds of movies that are very human and very poignant. Smart, funny and heart breaking - I find humor to be this great sort of lubricant, the element that allows you to accept the harsher realities of life. If you can laugh a bit you are much more willing to accept the truth.”
That sense of humor is also a great part of joy Bottrell has experienced in his return to acting. Out of the blue a casting director for David E. Kelley’s Boston Legal asked him to audition. He refused but she browbeat him into submission. The result was a one-episode deal that turned into a major recurring role that brought the show its highest rating ever.
Bottrell and Read
Bottrell’s happy laugh rings out once again. “There was this strange little character part and they just wanted somebody weird. David Kelly took a liking to me and suddenly I was on the show for a couple of months. It kept getting bigger and bigger until we had this climactic episode where I kidnapped Candice Bergen because I wanted her to be my girlfriend. David is probably the best writer ever in television. It was just amazing where he took that particular character.
“That was my 15 minutes of fame. Suddenly I was on the show and didn’t have an agent or picture and resume. I couldn’t have been less prepared but the good people of Boston Legal were incredibly supportive. They were so sweet to me and made that experience one of the best in my life. It reminded me how much fun acting was. To act on that show in particular because the scripts were always so wonderful. Suddenly I thought ‘Wow! Acting is great. Maybe I’ll get back in.’
“Then of course that came to an end and I was thrust back into the pool with everybody else. I was reminded of the lives most actors lead, including going to auditions, doing your best, feeling you did well, then you don’t get the role. I’d forgotten about the emotional rollercoaster. I don’t love the anxiety that is back in my life but when I do book something I really enjoy it.”
Bottrell has taken to the blogosphere to share his success with others. His site is dedicated to folks trying to create a middle-class life in film, television and theatre. The blog at http://www.partsandlabor.tv/ has become highly successful. “As soon as I started doing it I was astounded at how much mail I started to get: people saying how alone they felt in all these experiences. It’s a remarkable experience.”
Photos of Bottrell, McKerrin Kelly and James Read by Michael Lamont
Article by Tom Provenzano
