Matt Werner's writing about music, culture, travel, and life in SF and NYC
Oakland Unseen First Season Launches!
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
The first season of the web series Oakland Unseen is online! Oakland Unseen is Oakland, California's premiere source for fake news in the tradition of the Daily Show. Watch the series on YouTube.
Interview with Daveed Diggs in 7x7 Magazine Back in 2012, I called Daveed Diggs's Small Things to a Giant my favorite album of the year. I liked how he addressed gentrification in Oakland , made Gertrude Stein references, and put together a stunning album with his collaborators Rafael Casal and Chinaka Hodge. Well, he's back, and this time with a Grammy. Diggs is an Oakland hip hop artist/actor who's currently starring in the hit musical Hamilton on Broadway. He won a 2016 Grammy award for his performance on the Hamilton cast album, and 7x7 Magazine recently published my interview with Daveed Diggs . The 7x7 interview is just an excerpt, and I've put the full interview below. Meet the Oakland-Native Who Stars in Hamilton Interview by Matt Werner Transcription by Korin McGinty Broadway’s breakout musical Hamilton is coming to San Francisco in 2017. Daveed Diggs, a rapper who grew up between Oakland, Albany, and El Cerrito, plays two of the leads: Marq...
Agnus, a crime drama I co-wrote and co-produced, ran at Theatre Row at 42nd St & 9th Ave in Manhattan in January and February, 2018. My co-writer and co-producer, Ise Lyfe, played the title role of Agnus, an odd-looking man who is accused of a heinous crime. The show is set in a futuristic prison barge 30 years in the future, and it explores issues around the criminal justice system and technology. My pitch is that it's a crime drama like "A Few Good Men," but set in the future. Politically, the show was well-timed for the New York audience, in that Donald Trump had been in office less than a year, and he had already tried to establish a 'Muslim ban' and was detaining migrant children at the southern border for indefinite periods of time. Our show addressed these political hot-button issues such as racial profiling and unlawful detention, and we hosted a series of talkbacks and a residency in the space for nonprofits to use our theater for events on dark n...
Burning Man: The Musical had its world premiere on Broadway On Demand and Streaming Musicals on August 27, 2021. Watch the film now . After working with the composer Gene Back for 6 years, we’re excited to announce that our satirical musical comedy has been turned into a feature film. It was shot on a soundstage with 10 actors during April, 2021. Watch the behind-the-scenes on the making of the film on YouTube . To learn more about the background on this project, read my interview with Oakland Magazine .