Artist Spotlight: Michael Dermansky

Any Fringe can be a great vehicle to a new show.  Writing and developing a show takes time, and when you’re pouring everything into that piece, you need a different kind of audience than you would get elsewhere.  Fringe is good for a test.  It’s sort of a smaller scale type of thing, and audiences going in know they’re going to be seeing something a bit different.  You get to talk more about it, and continue to make it into something that will, someday, be absolutely grand.

At Philly Fringe this year, I will be seeing the one-person show, My Needy Letters to Keith Urban, written and performed by Michael Dermansky.  This looks like a show that’s going to be intense, but absolutely beautiful.  I never would have imagined something with a title like that, but thank goodness someone did, because I think we can add a really good time to intense and beautiful.  All the different elements listed in the description have already gotten me excited.

Typically with interviews, I number answers out to match the questions, but Michael did something a little different with me, and I want to stay true to what he wrote and how he wrote it.  In his words, you can really see how much he loves what he does, and how much insight he has to what he has written.  The questions I asked Michael about the show are listed below, and his beautiful write-up follows them.

Here were the questions I asked Michael about.

Infomercials get a bad rap.  Why use something like that as a basis for a show?

What is the importance of portraying a stay at home dad?

Stay at home dads are still judged for being that.  Do you think you make it more acceptable?

How do you balance out all the different topics that are listed in the play summary?

How do you work comedy into a story like we’re told we’ll be seeing?

The voice of the person pitching his or her infomercial is so American. I’m interested in who we are, or who I am, and why do I decide to buy what I buy. I think deep down, I bought Kieth Urban’s 30 Songs in 30 Days guitar learning program because I just wanted him in my life. So I’m not just buying the product, I’m buying the man. It’s like joining a cult. Buying something for an infomercial is embarrassing, but relatable because it’s real and a lot of people must have bought things from infomercials or they wouldn’t be on the air any more.

In My Needy Letters to Keith Urban I actually find myself morphing into an infomercial guy, trying to emulate my hero. I announce that in my one person show  I am merging the memoir and the infomercial, creating a new form: the Memoricial. And then I proceed to sell the audience my merch, little pins of ideas I have. 

I don’t think I am up to making being a stay at home dad more acceptable or being an advocate for dads. I’ve met some really cool stay at home dads who are friends with the moms and super easy going, but me personally, I feel a little bit awkward and ashamed. It’s not manly not to have a job and live off your wife’s money. That shame can be kind of powerful. So the only way I could talk about it was in confiding it to a close friend, who in this case is Keith Urban. 

Keith’s persona is super kind, understanding, supportive, a man you’d want as a friend. I admit I’d seen him before as a judge on the hit show American Idol. He replaced Simon Cowell as a judge. Simon was super mean. Would break you down with his straight forward masculine truth telling. Keith would build you up. So not only is he a nice guy, but he married a woman more successful than he is, super star Nicole Kidman. He naturally was the perfect celebrity for me to befriend, as we both are dads with two daughters and married into money.

The fun thing about the device of having a show that is a series of letters, as each letter is a new story. So it’s like getting 18 short one person shows and I am also the narrator and ultimately transform myself into an infomercial salesman, like my hero. I tell Keith things that you’d tell a friend you were writing letters to, my daughter’s gender neutral B-mitzvah, my father’s death, my sister being jealous of all the money I have. Really fun stuff. I think I am able to weave comedy into it just from the set up of my talking to someone the audience knows probably will never return my friendship, but maybe by some miracle he will.

I hold a seat for Keith for when he does show up.

This is my first full production of the show, I’ve been developing for five years! I’m really excited to premiere it in Philadelphia. My daughter, Emma, who is a character in the show, goes to Bryn Mawr and she is promoting my show!

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What a show we are definitely in for!  I love all that I learned from what Michael had to say.  This has obviously been a journey for him, and I’m sure it’ll be a journey for the audience as well.  Just as he is excited to premiere it in Philadelphia, I’m excited for him to premiere it here as well.  I think that Fringe will make a really good fit for Michael and this show, and I absolutely can’t wait.  I’m hoping to talk to Michael after seeing the show as well, but there will definitely be a post up after!