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The smash Off-Broadway hit THE BOMB-ITTY OF ERRORS has been nominated for a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critic's Circle Award, and won the Jeff Award in Chicago and the Grand Jury Prize for Best Show at the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. It continues to be performed all over the world.
AUTHOR BIOS:
Two time Emmy-nominated writer Jordan Allen-Dutton attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he co-created and starred in the smash Off-Broadway hit THE BOMB-ITTY OF ERRORS, nominated for a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critic's Circle Award, and winner of the Jeff Award in Chicago and the Grand Jury Prize for Best Show at the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. With the success of BOMB-ITTY, Jordan and his collaborators signed the first ever three-tier deal with MTV and Paramount going on to produce, write and star in the hip-hop sketch comedy series, Scratch & Burn for MTV in 2002. From there he was invited to be a fellow at the Sundance Screenwriting Lab with the screen version of Bomb-itty. His next play written with Erik Weiner, NERDS, a musical comedy about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, was work shopped at New York Stage and Film Festival, premiered at the Philadelphia Theater Company in January 2007 where it won Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Original Music at the 2007 Barrymore Awards. Jordan has also produced and written television such as Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew, NBC's The Sing Off, Snoop Dogg Fatherhood on E!, HBO's Brave New Voices and the MTV Movie Awards where his comedy material has been performed by Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell among others. He was nominated for two Emmy awards for his writing on Robot Chicken, Seth Green and Matt Senreich's show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. He currently lives in Los Angeles and is working on a Pilot for Comedy Central and his latest musical PHENOMENON, a behind the scenes expose of a very corrupt television singing competition.
Jason Catalano lives in New York and is still acting, writing, and rapping.
Gregory Qaiyum co-created, co-directed and starred in the award-winning, internationally-acclaimed, Funk it Up About Nothin'--a musical, hip-hop "ad-RAP-tation" of Shakespeare's classic, Much Ado About Nothing. The Off Broadway smash hit THE BOMB-ITTY OF ERRORS, which GQ co-created and starred in, has since toured around the world. Along with his brother and the other Bomb-itty guys, G wrote and starred in a hip-hop/sketch comedy TV show, Scratch and Burn (MTV). G's screen credits include the movies Drumline, Taxi, I Think I Love My Wife and Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn. He wrote, directed and starred in the film Just Another Story (Showtime), has had prominent roles in Boston Public (Fox), Numbers (CBS) and co-starred in the one-hour drama Johnny Zero (Fox). He recently guest starred in John Herzfeld's pilot, S.I.S (Sony). Together with his brother JQ, he recorded The Feel Good Album of the Year. Originally from Chicago, he received his BFA from the Experimental Theatre Wing of Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.
Erik Weiner was born and raised in San Francisco and graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Erik co-created and starred in the MTV sketch comedy series, "Scratch & Burn". He made his feature film debut in the 20th Century Fox romantic comedy, "Brown Sugar", alongside Taye Diggs, Mos Def & Queen Latifah. Erik acted on HBO's Unscripted, directed and executive produced by George Clooney. His latest play, NERDS, written with collaborator Jordan Allen-Dutton and music composed by Hal Goldberg, won Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Original Music. Erik served as Head Writer for the 2010 and 2011 MTV Movie Awards. He received two Emmy Award nominations for writing on Robot Chicken. Erik won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance By An Ensemble In A Drama Series, playing Agent Sebso on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, executive produced by Terence Winter and Martin Scorsese. He lives in Los Angeles with his fianceé, Kerry.
Jeffrey Qaiyum, a Chicago native, currently resides in NYC and Venica, CA. His credits include: THE BOMB-ITTY OF ERRORS (dj, composer, co-producer), SCRATCH AND BURN (composer, actor, writer), JUST ANOTHER STORY (composer, actor, assoc. producer, music video co-director).
Check out their play with Samuel French
THE BOMB-ITTY OF ERRORS
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Question and Answer:
Q. THE BOMB-ITTY OF ERRORS is, as you fine Gentlemen call it, an "ad-RAP-tation" of Shakespeare' s THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. What was it that drew you all to this particular Shakespearean quasi-comedy as source material? Tell us a little bit about how the journey of adapting Shakespeare into a part play, part rap concert began.
To take you back to the beginning of the Bomb-itty
We gotta travel to 1998 in New York City
Picture four crazy students at NYU
Who like to rap and like Shakespeare too
We would freestyle on rooftops, have cyphers in the street
When we slept we would even be snoring on beat
We thought adapting a play would be fresh and cool
We ran through all the plays that we'd studied in school
We thought Shakespeare plays seemed ripe to transform
R&J could be "Homie-yo and Juliet", Tempest, "Crazy Ass Storm"
We could write Hamlet, call it "Jamlet", or Othello, "Oh-hell-no"
Comedy of Errors, had four parts, lot of heart - ready to go
Q. You are all not only writers, but performers as well! You were all in the original production of BOMB-ITTY at The Bleecker Street Theatre, and have gone on to perform in several other productions of your play as well as maintain your separate careers as TV writers, lyricists, musicians and actors. Do you consider yourselves performers, or writers first? How does performing help you as a writer, and vice-versa?
We love writing, performing, all-nude sunbathing
No particular preference just straight up creating
In acting school we learned how to cry fanatically
And how to laugh on cue and die dramatically
We would play kings and we would play fools
And when we put pen to page, those emotions are tools
When you act the words that you yourself have written
You understand the rhythm cause you've had more time with 'em
Plus if you're an actor who writes the whole play by yourself
You can make yourself funnier than everyone else
Q. When you first performed this piece, you did it with four men and one DJ on stage. But in your authors' notes in the script, you say that the piece is malleable and open to interpretation. Who do you see as your ideal market for this play? Do you think high schools could produce it?
We've seen it done with both Misters and Ma'ams
We saw it translated to Dutch in Amsterdam
You can do anything that you want with the play
It's very true to Shakespeare in that way
You could do the whole production inside of a boat
You could do it skydiving, you could cast it with goats
And it will still be an incredible blast
It's fun for all generations, future and past
It's the perfect play for college or high-school
Because it's so high energy and fun, hip and cool
And if you're worried that some of the language might be too risqué
We wrote cleaner lines we suggest in the script of the play
Q. What was it like collaborating on this project together? Can you tell us a little about your writing process when you were working on this script?
We would each write scenes and read the rough drafts
And we knew we had gold when all of us laughed
We would stay up late at night during our junior year
Improvising stuff and drinking bottles of COFFEE
At New York Stage and Film we did a workshop
Andy Goldberg came on board to make sure we didn't flop
We kept what worked and we threw out the lion's share
And after 2 million rewrites we were 75% of the way there
Then Daryl Roth produced it, to her we're devoted
'Cause it opened Off-Broadway and the Bomb-itty exploded
Q: What inspires each of you to take on a new project?
It has to be one of three things: to be funny
Or it has to inspire us, or it has to pay money
Q: Have you ever come across a production that made you see one of your plays in a new or unexpected way?
We're so grateful cause every production is insanely fun
From Philly, to Florida, across the sea to London
And the Netherlands was nuts, we loved it so much
To hear words like "Dope Artichoke" translated to Dutch
And there were Girls in the cast, they really impressed us
Definitely much sexier than we were in dresses
If you're doing the show, maybe you'll see us there
Just look for the crazy guys waving our hands in the air
Q: Any new projects in the mix for you all? Any more group collaborations coming up?
The Q Brothers are always up to somethin' somethin'
Making more add-rap-tations: Funk It Up About Nothin'
And Madsummer Nights Dream and they've been commissioned
To do Othello at the London Olympics is their new mission
And Jordan and Erik have new musical on tap
Called "Nerds" - Steve Jobs sings and Bill Gates raps
Jordan's got another musical called "Phenomenon"
And a new show for Comedy Central, word is bond
Erik acted on Boardwalk Empire on HBO
And is writing on the Emmys and other TV shows
Jason Catalano is still reppin' NY
Acting and rappin' and keepin' it fly
We're hoping to do a Bomb-itty soundtrack
And who knows? Maybe one day the Bomb will come back
And we'll do the whole show from our retirement home
And we'll still rock the house and minds will be blown
But until then if you want to keep up on us and the Bomb
Check the website: BOMB-ITTY.COM
Peace!
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