Alex and Taylor Come Up With Characters
From the Archives
•
10-Jun-2021
Two roommates try to come up with character ideas for a comedy show. Alex Ateah and Taylor Rivers direct and star in “Alex and Taylor Come Up With Characters,” a homemade video of rapid-fire silliness. Two friends follow each around the house ad-libbing absurd characters (an old lady who’s suddenly hot, a woman who just figured out what electricity is, et al). Props materialize out of nowhere (Mickey Mouse hats, green screen capes), off-screen laughing leads into on-screen character breaks. It’s hilariously hyperactive — by the end, both performers are fully out of breath — and calls to mind teenage sleepovers and simpler times. We previously featured Ateah as a writer/actor in last year’s quarantine portrait, “wasting time at the end of the world,” about a lonely comedian preparing for a virtual comedy set. -KA.
Directed by and starring Alex Ateah and Taylor Rivers.
Up Next in From the Archives
-
Alex
While shopping at a hip boutique, an unassuming Black woman is forced to reckon with the judgement of a white employee. Aisha Evelyna directs and stars in “Alex,” a social issue drama that pinpoints layers of discrimination and hypocrisy underneath ‘friendly’ customer service. Sydney accompanies ...
-
True Blue
In Atlantic City on a lonely night, two strangers cross paths and share the evening together. A soulful 16mm portrait of two men and their unlikely connection, by director Chris Osborn, “True Blue” draws its characters perhaps as symbols of a faded American dream, but does so with complexity and ...
-
Gas Gets In Your Eyes
Henry loses his vision after being exposed to an unknown toxic gas. “Gas Gets In Your Eyes,” by director Madeline Leshner, is an imaginative experimental drama full of startling images and unsettling developments. The grim prognosis is delivered by an ominous robotic voice, and, before Henry can ...
