BRATTLEBORO — “110 Llandaff,” a short film written and directed by Jane Burton, an instructor in improvisation at the New England Youth Theatre (NEYT), begins shooting in Brattleboro on Sept. 9.
Burton's semi-autobiographical film, stars David Koechner, Paula Pell, and Cassandra Dunn. It also boasts a supporting cast of 18 NEYT actors.
The story concerns 13-year-old Mary Jo Parker and her physically and emotionally dysfunctional family, which Jo's parents, Dorothy and Peter, hold together with silence and humor. Two of Jo's five brothers suffer with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, an inherited, degenerative disorder.
Struggling too is Jo, one of only two girls in the family, and something of a tomboy. She feels she is a disappointment to her parents, and that her younger sister, Bethanne, is the ideal daughter her mother had always wanted.
No one in the family addresses their concerns out loud, and the Parkers are fragile people.
“Yet if life is often painful, it is also hilarious for a family who refuses to be defined by various kinds of disabilities,” says Burton.
Sundance connection
The film will be produced by Sundance Award-winning producer Roberta Munroe, who programmed Sundance short films for five years and later wrote “How Not to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer” (Hyperion, 2009).
Burton described this text as provocative and practical, and said it was her guide in making the film. Burton sent Munroe her script for “110 Llandaff.” On reading it, Munroe was so impressed she asked to produce it.
Burton said she believes that she was also lucky to have two experienced actors attach to the project: David Koechner, a character actor and comedian best known for playing Champ Kind in the “Anchorman” films and Todd Packer on NBC's “The Office,” and Paula Pell, the comedy writer, producer, and actress best known for her work writing for “Saturday Night Live” since 1995.
Sandy Klein, the film's production designer, says this project got off the ground “the way such a thing should: through a lot of fortuitous connections. And Jane worked very hard to make those connections.”
Living the writer-director's story
The film follows a day in the life of Mary Jo Parker, who “follows multiple layers of of innocence and denial as she confronts three realities of who she is and where she is headed,” says Burton.
On that day, Jo decides to run away from a family that doesn't understand her; she learns a family secret from a cousin; and she has cause to question her sexual identity.
That said, sexual orientation, disease, and disability don't define the children in this film, Burton explains - their love for one another does.
“[The film] will examine how a family can be loving in the most sarcastic ways and brutal in its silence about what is happening,” Burton says.
Burton adds that she hopes to portray the Parkers as sometimes hilarious as they attempt to deal with life's problems.
“The overriding reality of this family is that what their experiences look like from outside, and what they really are like inside, can be quite different things,” she says.
Burton says she knows about this from personal experience.
“I grew up in a family of seven kids in the late 1970s, and two of my dear brothers had DMD. My goal in this film is to show that those who are disabled can be key members of a family. As it is autobiographical, the character based on myself learns to deal with things that would be obvious to those who have lived with such a disease in the home.”
The film will show how being gay in the 1970s was a very different thing than being gay today,” she adds.
A truer representation of disability
A unique contribution of the film, Burton says, is that it touches on many topics that have yet to be explored honestly in film. Principally, it gives a different perspective on the lives of the disabled, she says.
“People with disabilities are as integral to the family as any other member,” Burton explains. “Sometimes they are the wisest, although the family dynamics around the disabled are different for every family.”
For this family, she says, the disabled were the focus and the moral compass of everyday life. “Which is not to say that every member of the Parkers is not equally important, especially as each person connects to all the others – or chose not to.”
The film is the result of 12 years of work, and is adapted from Burton's memoirs. In many ways, this started as a letter to her son, for whom she wanted to provide a record of her life, struggles, and successes. She says her own mother passed in 2002, and many questions lingered.
When Burton's son became seriously ill, she stayed home to care for him, and poured more into the writing. When she showed some of what she had written to a television-writer friend, he said, “I hate to tell you this, but your work is good. I never want to encourage writers, because being a writer is an awful life.”
Jane embraced the writer's life, which gave her relief from anxiety about her son's health - he has since made a full recovery.
Project still needs funds
Burton finally decided that film would be the ideal format to tell her stories. This set her on the path of seeking funds for her 45-minute film, a struggle which still continues even now as Burton prepares to begin shooting.
“We have gotten large grants for our project. Much of our support has come from the community - $5 or $10 here and there. Besides money, the community has volunteered so much: time, food, places to film, and many other things that are needed to make a film happen,” she says.
Although “110 Llandaff” takes place in Pennsylvania, Burton is committed to shooting in the Brattleboro area with Brattleboro children from NEYT, where she teaches improvisation.
She's been playing with improv since she was 15 and became involved with youth theater as a performer and student at the Upper Darby Summer Stage. Four years later she began teaching improvisation for that same theater.
“Youth theater opened the door to my future and provided me with friends who remain among the closest in my life. I fell in love with improv at 15 and remain so today.
“Improv is an art form in and of itself and performances of skilled improvisers provide an exciting theater experience for performers and audiences alike. Improv also provides skills that will help actors perfect their acting and provides skills for everyday life. The joy that improv has given me has driven me to teach it to all willing students,” she says.
One of Burton's early students was the SNL head writer and later star of NBC's “30 Rock,” who has remained a lifelong friend.
Will any of “110 Llandaff” be improvised?
“There is a strict script which we will follow, but with actors who are as wild and crazy with improv as Pell and Koechner, who knows what will happen. Let's just say I am not one of those directors who must follow their own script word for word, and shies away from the free range of improvisational acting. We'll just have to see what happens. That is part of what makes filmmaking such an exciting idea.”