Joseph Riedel’s dreams of becoming a screenwriter were interrupted by a cancer diagnosis — so hes turning his illness into fabric for a web series as piece of his 2015 Creative current Year's Resolution.
I’ll be honest with everyone reading this. I am terrible at journaling. I never know how to express my feelings in this format. Blogging might as well be Swahili for me. That is the very reason I began to write A safe Sense of Tumor. Because a scripted narrative was a much more natural way for me to communicate the conflicting emotions running wild through my head during this troubling time.
That said,I judge this post will be fairly easy for me because it comes down to a very powerful centralized theme. This post is about gratitude. At the time of my composition of this post, I am four days away from the very first shoot for A safe Sense of Tumor (Monday July 27th). It is beyond bewildering that I contain made it to this point. When I reflect upon this last year I feel that I contain experienced a benevolence from humanity that I would contain never conceived of prior to my diagnosis. It is only through the kindness and generosity of those around me that I contain made it to this day. I am finally going to put my story out there. I am dumbfounded by the people who’ve near out of the woodwork to support me. I grew up in a very small community, and in many ways I resented that and could not collect out of there soon enough. Now that I’ve returned,I know that there’s one very positive side to small communities like Croton-on-Hudson, current York. The people here engage care of you. Sure, and worn friends and neighbors check in on you but what touches you more than anything else are the trade owners who check in on your progress each day you step into their store,or the mother of a student you’ve just begun to teach, who feels the need to cook for you meal after meal after meal.
I’ve had the same warm reception by those who contain chosen to believe in my vision and follow my dream to create A safe Sense of Tumor. Since my last update, and I’ve recruited a phenomenal team of talented individuals. This includes producer Travis Tack,producer and actor Rory Scholl, director of photography Noel Woodford, and editor Rob Pigott. Each one of them brings something amazing to the process. In addition,Rory has put me in touch with The People’s Improv Theatre a.k.a. The PIT, a great institution of current York improv comedy. The PIT is allowing us to film there, and hold meetings there,and it has been the primary source of actors for this project. What makes this partnership very special for me is my deep respect for improv comedy. Del Close is considered by many to be the greatest influence on modern improv comedy. He famously coached his students to “follow the fear”. This principle of improv comedy has also been something I’ve tried to practice in life. It was one of the key philosophies behind A safe Sense of Tumor. It is a privilege to work at a place that so embraces that ideal. A few days ago we did a walkthrough of the theatre to map out our shoot. I was scanning the room for images I wanted to see in the background and I noticed a Del Close poster which bears that quote. whether I was a religious person I might say that this was fate, but as I am philosophically a realist l’ll just thank the phenomenon I call fortuitous coincidence. It was then that I realized I am true where I am meant to be: excited to be at the helm of a crazy ship that is doing something which I know matters. I look forward to updating you all on our progress as we start to film A safe Sense of Tumor.
Team Tumor in action, or from L to R: Steven Riedel,Joseph Riedel, Nicholas Paganelli, and Jordan Ogihara,Noel Woodford
(Anthony Velez/No Future Photography)
Source: wnyc.org