Vixens<\/span><\/strong> is also tame compared to the parade of women-in-prison (WIP) films of the Seventies and Eighties, staged deliberately as a comedy. Why?<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> [Laughs<\/em>] I wanted Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong> \u201ctame\u201d for a reason. I\u2019m certainly not a prude, but I think it takes a certain talent to write four-letter words. Quentin Tarantino<\/strong> can do it. David Mamet<\/strong> can do it. Most people can\u2019t. To me, if I was to throw in a bunch of four-letter words, it would have taken away from the comedy, and I wanted to focus on that more. There are a lot of sexual innuendoes but they were played for laughs.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> It\u2019s not like you\u2019re trying to become the next John Waters<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> Right! I\u2019m not! I just wanted to concentrate on the humor and the plot, and I thought everything else would get in the way. Most audiences going into [Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong>] knew I was poking fun at this genre, so I didn\u2019t really need to have people running around topless.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/Images\/CUBlog%20Art\/cu_cagedvixens_blondes.jpg\" "\\"Maggie")
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JP:<\/strong> Given the types of things you <\/em>do derive humor from in Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 the cute political barbs like with the Richard Nixon<\/strong> portrait [in the warden\u2019s office], the brassy Barbara Walters<\/strong> type reporter, the out-of-nowhere Dr. Seuss<\/strong>-ish Siamese twins connected at the scalp \u2013 you\u2019re obviously not going the direct <\/em>homage route on this.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> No. We wanted to take this setting that we expect [from the genre] and I just brought my own style to it. I don\u2019t know if you remember the scene where they\u2019re all choking each other\u2026<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> The \u201cchoke train.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> That was my salute to John Woo<\/strong> because, in all his movies, everyone\u2019s pointing guns at everyone else and so we thought, \u201cLet\u2019s do something different, let\u2019s grab each other around the neck instead!\u201d<\/p>\nThe genre was basically just an outline. In a sense, a lot of these \u201cgood bad\u201d movies \u2013 most bad movies are just bad<\/em> \u2013 but the few that are actually good bad movies are movies that take a chance, they get a little bizarre. It\u2019s like, \u201cWomen with bad attitudes, let\u2019s see just how far out I can get with this!\u201d<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> [The cast and crew] gave Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong> a slight edge of its own, a character of its own, and it worked. The audience certainly enjoyed the play<\/em>.<\/p>\nYour blurb in the program says you\u2019ve been doing shows at the Station for more than 20 years, as both a director and actor. What has been your favorite production?<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> As a director, probably either Tony n\u2019 Tina\u2019s Wedding<\/span><\/strong> or Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong> because they are so different [from one another]. I guess, Caged Vixens<\/strong><\/span>. The neat thing about it is the difference between it and anything else that I\u2019ve done. It was all [orchestrated by] me and, so, everything was on the line.<\/p>\nYou direct someone else\u2019s play, and you get actors that have certain ideas on how a role should be played. Lots of times, they\u2019ll argue with you and think, \u201cWell, your<\/em> concept is wrong! I\u2019m right!\u201d With this, when the cast read the script, they all liked it, they all believed in it, and they were all excited about it. They knew this was the very first production [of Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong>] and there was just an energy and excitement with the whole cast and crew. They did everything they could to make it work, especially the actresses.<\/p>\nYou couldn\u2019t really tell, but every night they had to put make-up on their legs because they were just black-and-blue from all the bruises. They were very proud of who had the most bruises.<\/p>\n
JP:<\/strong> You mentioned John Woo earlier. The fights [in the play] are stylistic and definitely choreographed as opposed to [having the actors] merely throwing mock punches. It\u2019s almost as if they danced their fights instead of fighting their fights.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> We wanted it somewhat theatrical, a combination of dance and fights, some of it was more dance and some of it was more fights.<\/p>\nI had a dance choreographer and a fight choreographer, and I really couldn\u2019t have done it without them. Richard Barrows<\/strong> is a theater professor at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts<\/strong> [at the University of Illinois<\/strong>]. His wife Heather<\/strong> played “Marie.” I was going to do the fights myself and she said, \u201cYou know, my husband does this for a living. Would you like him to do it?\u201d I said, \u201cSure!\u201d We hit it off immediately and I knew it was going to be fine.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/Images\/CUBlog%20Art\/cu_cagedvixens_brunettes.jpg\" "\\"Mindy")
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JP:<\/strong> I loved when [the inmates] came out and did their pseudo-burlesque thing for the audience. Of course, \u201cMoms\u201d [played by Janice Rothbaum<\/strong>] brought the house down.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> She\u2019s 72 years old.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> Really!<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> Yeah, she was great.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> There was a lot of physical motion [such as having] characters chase each other on and off the stage. I think that gave Caged Vixens<\/strong><\/span> a cinematic sweep. Even though it was a full house [when I attended] you didn\u2019t have that many people present on the whole, it was more intimate. And, because you\u2019re closer [when sitting in the audience] to the stage, every action seemed more amplified and forceful.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> That\u2019s the neat thing about the Station. I was in a show called Candide<\/strong><\/span>. We had five different stages and the audience was between the stages. To get from stage to stage, we swung on ropes over the audience\u2019s heads! It was fun, the audience loved it.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> I\u2019m not familiar with Candide<\/span><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> It\u2019s a spoof of operas. So, everybody gets killed.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> Just like in this one, an opera in its own right.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> Yeah. [Laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> The Station Theatre is basically a \u201cvolunteer operated, community supported\u201d theater. As evidenced from the bios of the cast and crew in the program, there are many walks of life represented. Assistant director David McDaniel<\/strong> is a graphic designer and radio personality, two of the \u201cvixens\u201d are school teachers\u2026<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> Another one is a lawyer! [Points to picture of Traci Nally<\/strong> as \u201cSheila,\u201d leader of the Brunettes prison gang.]<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> How did this varied mix of backgrounds factor into the show?<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> I think sometimes people come tired or in bad moods because of work. One actor had to fire a person [in real life] on our opening night because the person was being sent to a women\u2019s prison. True story! She had lied on her application.<\/p>\nMost of this cast, I had worked with before in Tony n\u2019 Tina\u2019s Wedding<\/span><\/strong>. They all auditioned for me and I liked working with them and they fit the parts. I wanted a lot of age [range]. A lot of people who auditioned were 17, 18\u2026<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> I think the overall maturity [of the actors] helped. They\u2019re more real.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> Yeah. No matter how good you are, you need that age and experience to bring to a role. That\u2019s kind of where I stayed away from parody because, in a real B-movie, all the girls would be [young and] gorgeous.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> It\u2019s like you could walk by them on the street. That makes it all the more believable, as believable as something like this could be.<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> I wanted the audience to just have fun, and I think I achieved that.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> Will we be seeing a Caged Vixens II<\/strong><\/span> in the near future?<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think so, just because I don\u2019t like sequels. Although, I already know what it would be if<\/em> there was a sequel. Marie is now a cripple and she becomes the warden. The prison is going to be shut down and they put on a show to raise money. Caged Vixens II: Babes on Parade<\/span><\/strong>!<\/p>\nBut, that\u2019s not going to happen because I don\u2019t like sequels. I should never say never, but that\u2019s the sequel. If there is one. But, probably not. I loved doing this and I loved working with everyone and I\u2019d love to do it again, but<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> By day, you work at a video production company. How do the things you do in the studio differ from the things you do live on stage, and do you prefer one over the other?<\/em><\/p>\nMT:<\/strong> Well, the things I do at work are industrial, and it\u2019s boring. There\u2019s not a lot of excitement. You do what the client wants and the client\u2019s always right, even when they\u2019re always wrong.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t know which I like better. There\u2019s something about being live on stage that you can\u2019t duplicate, unless you\u2019ve been there before. On the other hand, if something\u2019s on film, you can go back and enjoy it time and again but, on stage, it\u2019s gone [once the performance is over]. You can videotape a stage performance but it doesn\u2019t look good. It\u2019s flat. They\u2019re just two different things.<\/p>\n
I wanted to do a film version of Caged Vixens<\/strong><\/span> but in order to get a real prison feel, one<\/em>, I need a location, and two<\/em>, I would need extras because you can\u2019t just have eight prisoners [like in the play]! But I didn\u2019t have any money or budget for that. The script is available if anybody wants to make a film out of it!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/Images\/CUBlog%20Art\/cu_cagedvixens_choke.jpg\" "\\"Mindy")
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JP:<\/strong> Tell us about the film project that you <\/em>are currently working on.<\/em><\/p>\nMT: Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong> proved to me I could write something full-length, so my goal is to write a full-length movie, shoot it on video with professional equipment, raise enough money to transfer it to film, and then enter it in the big contests like Sundance<\/strong>. HOOP DREAMS<\/strong> and SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE<\/strong> were shot on video and then transferred to film, so I know I can do that.<\/p>\nThe movie I\u2019m working on is called DOGS IN QUICKSAND<\/strong>. I don\u2019t want to say a whole lot about it because I\u2019m not real sure where it\u2019s going, to be honest with you! It\u2019s basically about a small town and what happens to the small town when there\u2019s a murder, and it\u2019s a comedy. It\u2019s not real wild like Caged Vixens<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\nJP:<\/strong> Is it entering
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/Images\/CUBlog%20Art\/cu_cagedvixens_inmates.jpg\" "\\"The")
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