Lynn Stalmaster News

On Friday, November 15th at 7:30pm, the Ridgefield Playhouse Film Society 'Documentary Film Series' presents 'Casting By,' featured on HBO and distributed by Submarine Deluxe. The international film festival award-winning feature documentary, puts the spotlight on the casting director and takes us on a fast-paced journey through the last 50 years of Hollywood history spotlighting filmmaking's unsung hero - the casting director.

The unsung heroes, the casting directors, will have their time in the spotlight in Casting By, a Ridgefield Playhouse Documentary Film Series event, at The Ridgefield Playhouse on Friday, November 15, at 7:30 p.m. This event will profile the last 50 years of Hollywood history including the box office sensations Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with?Director Tom Donahue (pictured), Executive Producer?John Balis, Producer?Ilan Arboleda, Casting Director Gretchen Rennell and Film Editor Jill Schweiter. For tickets ($10 adults, $7.50 seniors, $5 students), call or visit the box office at (203) 438-5795, or order online at ridgefieldplayhouse.org.

Two one-of-a-kind film events are coming to The Ridgefield Playhouse beginning Friday, November 1, at 7:30 p.m. with Hidden Hills?starring Ted Trent and Tim O'Leary, in a Northeast Film Premiere. This is a comedy that turns social conventions on their heads, i.e. being overweight is ideal and being gay is the norm. A post-screening Q&A with actor Tim O'Leary and his sister comedienne Christine O'Leary will allow audience members to learn more about how the film came to be. Then on Friday, November 15, at 7:30 p.m., Casting By, a Ridgefield Playhouse Documentary Film Series event, will shine the spotlight on the casting director and profile the last 50 years of Hollywood history where the old studio system was forsaken and the New Hollywood ushered in movies like Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with?Director Tom Donahue, Executive Producer?John Balis, Producer?Ilan Arboleda, Casting DirectorGretchen Rennell and Film Editor Jill Schweitzer.

Afforded unprecedented freedom and power by television, casting pioneers like Marion Dougherty and Lynn Stalmaster were iconoclasts whose exquisite taste and gut instincts ultimately helped change the old studio system and usher in New Hollywood through landmark movies like 'Midnight Cowboy,' 'The Graduate,' 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and 'Bonnie and Clyde.' They broke away from traditional typecasting and brought new kinds of leading men and women to the screen, among them Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler, Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman.

Afforded unprecedented freedom and power by television, casting pioneers like Marion Dougherty and Lynn Stalmaster were iconoclasts whose exquisite taste and gut instincts ultimately helped change the old studio system and usher in New Hollywood through landmark movies like 'Midnight Cowboy,' 'The Graduate,' 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and 'Bonnie and Clyde.' They broke away from traditional typecasting and brought new kinds of leading men and women to the screen, among them Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler, Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman.

HBO Documentary Films heats up the summer with compelling new films on Monday nights, kicking off a new ten-week anthology series Monday, June 10, exclusively on HBO.

HBO Documentary Films has acquired the U.S. television rights to Tom Donahue's feature documentary film CASTING BY, it was announced today. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday evening to an enthusiastic crowd and will next be screened at the New York Film Festival.