In The Can Podcast Ep. 24: Jeff Rosenberg

If you ask people about the best mockumentaries about the theatre, they’ll only have one reply: Waiting for Guffman.

And not without good cause.

It’s one of the funniest, most brilliant movies ever made. It has spawned a veritable Sharknado of imitators, as well as solidifying the Christopher Guest style as one of the funniest, most innovative, and above all, useful styles in existence.

So here’s the challenge: make a mockumentary about an amateur musical that doesn’t rip off Guffman at every turn.

Jeff Rosenberg has accepted that challenge and succeeded where so many others could not.

His new film, Orenthal: The Musical, premiered to rave reviews and standing ovations at Michael Moore’s Traverse City film festival. It also screened at the Woodstock film festival to similar adulation. ScreenCraft’s podcast, In the Can, was lucky enough to see the film and sit down for a chat with the director. This 24th episode is an In the Can exclusive treat for the ScreenCraft audience.

Rosenberg is an experienced writer/director who has found success getting his independently produced features to the screen. His first feature film, Relative Obscurity, was started as his undergraduate thesis film, yet attracted such names as Larisa Oleynik (TV’s Alex Mack) and the great Jack Kehler (probably best known as Marty, The Dude’s nervous landlord in The Big Lebowski, and Denny in Love Liza, a film we discussed at length in episode 20 with the film’s writer, Gordy Hoffman) to the cast.

In the episode, we talked about his adventures in Hollywood (with among others, Lindsay Lohan, Faye Dunaway and F. Murray Abraham), his work as a 2nd Assistant Director, and his screenwriting advice to people trying to duplicate his success.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter @inthecanpodcast, like us on Facebook and review us on iTunes. And email questions for our next episode to [email protected]. Our next guest is director Lydia Smith, who has worked on such films as the classic Tim Burton classic Ed Wood and Danny DeVito’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. She’ll be talking about her new documentary, Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago.