THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT:  (The original cast in Jupiter Florida)

The Right To Remain Silent was a concept Brent Briscoe came up with so we didn’t have to do the same material that everyone else did in acting class.  We both have a fascination with the complexity of social issues and enjoy comedy and drama.  So I wrote a monologue loosely based on what happened to me in college when I was pulled over by the police and did the piece for our Master acting teacher Charles Nelson Reilly.  He loved it and went on and on about it.  Then Brent did a monologue based on his experience as a pizza delivery person in LA and Charles called Burt Reynolds up and told him he has to see our play.  Burt called me up and said he wanted to do our play in Florida at his theatre. “I told him I was honored” and when I said, “When do you want to do it?”  He said “Next week”.  Not wanting to miss the opportunity I ignorantly agreed – the only problem was we only had two monologues and had to write, produce and direct an entire play in a week.  Impossible!  But because we took the opportunity, were blessed, lucky, had fellow actors with the same work ethic as us from Burt’s school and had some talent we pulled it off with great reviews.  From there Mr. Reynolds hired us to rewrite his CBS movie The Man From Left Field with Reba Mcentire.  He then hired us to write for his series Evening Shade and our career took off.  The Right To Remain Silent was published into a play and later was made into a Showtime movie and was nominated for 2 cable Ace awards and won a cable Ace Award for best supporting actress Amanda Plummer. Seizing the opportunity, working hard and taking a leap of faith is the lesson I always try to pass down to young artists.   What would have happened if we had not done those things?  Life is about choices … seize the opportunity when it comes.