The Knack and How He Got It: An Interview with Jeremy Adams

The Knack and How He Got It When Jeremy Adams auditioned for the role of Cyril Brass back in 2015, it seemed less like he was auditioning and more that he simply picked up the script and WAS Cyril—the charm, the diffidence, the dandyish swagger were all there at once. For the last five years, Adams has played the martially … Read More

Chasing Aimee

Aimee Decker is one of the rare members of the BRASS company to have performed in all three of our mediums. Twice on stage and once on film she’s played Tommy Moore, one of the cunning criminal cabal known as The Watch and Chain Gang. And this season she premieres as Madame Hao, a Sino-Scot kingpin in this alternate century’s … Read More

Re-Orientation

In the upcoming Episode 34 of BRASS, we’re told that Madame Hao lives in the Chinatown of Edinburgh–a place entirely imaginary in 1886. But in this different world, the historical accidents of the computer age arriving a century early has made for a very different British Empire, and a very different Chinese Empire as well. In our own history, the … Read More

Politics and the Imagination

I rarely look to politics for artistic inspiration. I don’t think most writers do. But even the most apolitical of artists can find their imaginations snagged by momentous events, particularly when that old bromide “we’re living through history” is regularly evoked. Rarely has History, of the national, international and global sort, been so relentless in establishing omnipresence in our lives. … Read More

God Blesses Fools and Babies

I love fools and idiots. The current crop of idiots, those who believe that COVID-19 is a hoax or that the current occupant of the White House a reliable sort of information, really do give idiots a bad name. The classic Idiot, the white-face clown signified by the Fool in the Tarot and the Harlequin in the Commedia dell’Arte, see … Read More

Pandemic Filming 101

Ah, the glamour of film directing during a pandemic. Nothing has gone right for anyone this year. In my own little tale of 2020 disruption, I had planned to film a short, oddball film entitled “Percy & Reggie and the Great Airship Exposition” in March. Inspired by a meeting with Portland filmmaker Jerry Wilson, this light comedy was to be … Read More

BRASS Stacks 14: The Open Window by Saki

Our latest Stacks is this classic story by H.H. Munro, the illimitable Saki. A young man of nervous temperament meets a young woman with a tale to tell. Narrated by our Gwendolyn Brass, the lovely Katherine Grant-Suttie. Podcast (brass-stacks): Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

BRASS Stacks 13: Gabriel Ernest

We return to our favorite short story writer, Saki, for this classic tale of a disquieting encounter with a strange young man. Podcast (brass-stacks): Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

BRASS Stacks 11: When the Door Opened by Sarah Grand

A witty parable about the problem of assuming too much about one’s spouse, “When the Door Opened” was written by the Irish author Sarah Grand, one of the pioneers of fiction dealing with the “New Woman.” It’s read by renowned radio actor Larry Albert, best known for playing the titular detective in “The Adventures of Harry Nile” as well as … Read More