Indie Film To Shoot In Warsaw

By David Slone, Times-Union Staff Writer

Shooting of Mickey Fisher’s second feature film will take place in Warsaw this month.

And locals will have a chance to audition as extras for the independent flick.

Leo’s Pride Entertainment and Warsaw-based Digital Realm Productions are teaming up to produce Fisher’s movie “Summer Nuts.”

Fisher previously acted on the Wagon Wheel Theatre stage for four seasons and in two Christmas productions after graduating from college. He then moved to New York, working as an actor there. He decided to get into producing and three years ago made the independent film “The King of Iron Town.” Shot in Ohio, all the post-production was done in Warsaw as Fisher worked with editor Tony Teel and cameraman and post-support engineer Scott Puckett. They found a distributor for “The King of Iron Town” and even showed it at one film festival.

For his second movie, Fisher decided to film it in Warsaw.

“Warsaw is like a second home to me because I’ve spent so much time there,” said Fisher in a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon.

“Summer Nuts” is a comedy about a group of actors from a struggling summer stock theater who form the worst summer softball team ever. Fisher said the story is based on his own true story.

Fisher said he was in summer stock theater with Steve Colella (WWT actor, “The Pirates of Penzance”, “It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman”). A group of the actors decided to join a softball league. Colella and a few of the other actors could play, but the team as a whole weren’t so great.

Most of the lead actors for “Summer Nuts” already are cast and include Broadway veterans such as Colella (“Les Miserables”), Matt Bogart (“Miss Saigon”, “Aida”) and Scott Hunt (“Rent”). The two lead actors from Fisher’s first film also are set to appear – Jonathan Clark, Dominic Bogart – as will Fisher himself. Other Wagon Wheel alum, Rod Thomas (“Beauty and the Beast”, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”) and Jerry Galante (“Singin’ in the Rain”) are cast, Fisher said.

“We’ve got a really great cast of people, a lot of good athletes, funny guys and good actors,” he said.

Auditions for the extras will be held soon and Fisher said an announcement will be made when the auditions are to be held. Some of the extras may have a couple of lines and Fisher said they will be looking for softball players.

Filming will start Aug. 29 and will take eight to 10 days, he said. If possible, Fisher said they will try to get the independent film into some film festivals and their distributor of their first film already is interested in “Summer Nuts”. Worst case scenario, the film will shoot straight to DVD.

Post-production again will be in Warsaw, starting the same day as shooting of the film takes place. Fisher said he’d like to premiere it in Warsaw, too.

Anyone interested in auditioning or more information, e-mail summernutsmovie@yahoo.com

“It should be a lot of fun,” said Fisher.