Los Angeles-based playwright Brian Wallace has announced that he will share all future performance royalties for his play Balls Alive!, first produced at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA, with the actors. An official signing of the royalty agreement and presentation of the first checks to Whitefire artistic director Bryan Rasmussen and the original cast is set for Tuesday, October 29, at 8pm at the Whitefire prior to the opening night performance of Live Pilots Society. The theatre is located at 13500 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, 91423.
Wallace's comedy Balls Alive!, a short play about an air guitar band of misfits trying to keep it together, premiered at the Whitefire Theatre in the spring of 2017. Within months, it had been produced at a festival in Hollywood, a theatre outside Boston, and it had won awards in Australia. The script was also selected for the 2018 AT&T Create-A-Thon. Most recently, productions of the play have been cheered by critics and audiences in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Texas.
Balls Alive! has been licensed by Original Works Publishing, the company that handles early works by
Bekah Brunstetter (The Cake, This is Us) and
Sheila Callaghan (Shameless). Now that the play is published, Wallace (who pursued a busy stage career in New York before coming to California) will 'pay it forward' by sharing all future performance royalties with the actors.
Said Wallace, "I did five lines on an episode of Law & Order many years ago and still get residual checks. I've worked on dozens of new plays but the actors never have any guarantees of financial participation beyond the premiere. Royalties from Balls Alive! won't be much more than those dwindling residual checks but I don't see a downside. New plays don't happen until other people agree to devote their time and talents to it. If something good happens with the script because of that, then those contributions should be recognized."
Tickets for Live Pilots Society, an evening of five original comedy TV pilots, are available online at
www.whitefirereservations@gmail.com or by phone at (818) 990-2324.
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