Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
March 28, 2024

Local artists read The Royal Tenenbaums live

By ANNE HOLLMULLER | November 17, 2016

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COURTESY OF JHU FILM SOCIETY The Royal Tenenbaums was the latest film to be performed as part of the JHU Film Society’s live read series.

The JHU Film Society hosted The Royal Tenenbaums: A Live Reading, was hosted on Sunday night. As the Film Society’s second annual live reading, the event  took place at Space 2460 and featured the participation of many local Baltimore artists.

The Royal Tenenbaums, a comedy-drama released in 2001, was directed by Wes Anderson and is based on an Academy Award-nominated script by Anderson and Owen Wilson. The audience, sitting on the floors of Space 2460, enjoyed a comedic respite.

The Royal Tenenbaums focuses on the antics of the Tenenbaum children after the great catastrophe of their young lives, the day that their father, Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) decides to separate from their mother, Etheline Tenenbaum, (Angelica Huston). Hackman was awarded a Golden Globe for his performance, and the screenplay was nominated for an Oscar.

Their daughter Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), who was adopted into the family, is a successful playwright. Their son Richie is a tennis prodigy and artist devoted to his sister. The other son Chas is a math genius and aspiring businessman from whom his father stole money.

After the successes of their youth, the three children have grown up to disappointment. Chas (Ben Stiller) has become overprotective of his two sons, Ari and Uzi, Margot is having an affair with a longtime friend of the family, Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), is smoking in secret and is married to a dull neurologist, Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray), who goes everywhere with Dudley, his test subject.

Richie, (Luke Wilson), meanwhile, has been living on a cruise ship since his nervous breakdown on a tennis court.

The cast of this live reading featured a number of Baltimore artists and innovators who helped the words on the page come to life in a new way than the original film’s star-studded cast. Royal Tenenbaum was voiced by the co-owner and founder of Atomic Books and writer/editor/creator of Mobtown Shank, Benn Ray. Accompanying Ray, actress, dancer, storyteller and teacher Maria Broom voiced Etheline Tenenbaum.

The Tenenbaum children also found new readers in the Film Society’s event. Chas Tenenbaum was voiced by Baltimore hip-hop artist 83 Cutlass. Margot Tenenbaum was voiced by local textile artist April Camlin. Raleigh St. Clair was voiced by author, illustrator, puppeteer and musician Kevin Sherry. Finally, Richie Tenenbaum was voiced by video artist Albert Birney.

Eli Cash was voiced by Baynard Woods; Henry Sherman was voiced by Baltimore hip-hop artist and activist Eze Jackson. the part of the Narrator was performed by the Executive Director of the Contemporary museum Deana Haggag. Finally, the minor character voices of Dudley, Ari and Uzi were voiced by local artist Tommy Waldo.

The doors of the venue opened at 6 p.m., and the reading began at 6:30. There were a number of folding chairs for the audience, but other viewers also sat on the floor on pillows and blankets. Admission to the venue was five dollars and cash only, and there were some cash concessions for sale including baked goods, cocoa and coffee.

Hopkins students and others sat and enjoyed the Live Reading, applauding enthusiastically at the absurdist humor of the screenplay.

Junior Brian McConnell shared his feelings on the event in an email to The News-Letter.

“I really enjoyed myself and loved seeing not only Hopkins folks, but also a bunch of Baltimoreans too come out to the event” McConnell wrote.

McConnell also spoke on the organization of the event.

“So our co-directors (Gillian Waldo and Julia Gunnison) lead the organizing and I guess they just contacted a bunch of Bmore artists they thought would fit the parts, we picked the script a while ago and as people agreed to join the show we announced their casting.” McConnell wrote. “We had been planning to do a read in the month of November for months, and we decided on the script more recently.”

On the topic of what scripts they might live-read in the future,

“Comedies and ensembles have been working very well so far, and since I’m personally a huge fan of ‘conman’ movies, so I’d love to put on Oceans 11, 12 or 13, although those movies are all rather dude-heavy.” McConnell wrote.


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