The local surfing and acting community is buzzing with of an HBO Max series, entitled “Ke Nui Road,” filming in the epicenter of North Shore watersports.
Producer John Wells is launching “Ke Nui Road,” focusing on the North Shore surfers and lifeguards, zooming in on the relationships between an elite crew of heavy-water lifeguards and the young adults and tees they train and mentor in a junior lifeguard program.
One intent of the contemporary drama is to capture the pulse of the lifeguard profession that embraces the dangers, the beauty, and the struggles of the unpredictable currents and waves, amid the island-style spirit of aloha.
Clearly, this one will require and hire a bunch of water-experienced swimmers and surfers, plus crowds of extras if a surfing meet is part of the agenda.
John Wells
To the regulars who live and love the water culture, the film’s title will immediately ring a bell of recognition. The location is the epicenter of the project; Ke Nui Road is a brand of sorts, with an element of attraction and adventure, where residents and surfers traverse. In heavy wave season, the road becomes a character of sorts, too, fighting for survival along the coast, where the Pacific Ocean can unexpectedly spill into the shoreline properties of residents, while surfers try to catch the waves, as part of the mainstream surfing tradition.
Matt Kester (“Animal Kingdom”) will be an executive producer who also will provide the script.
There’s no word on how many shows will filmed, but the camera-hungry crowd here is excited about casting that’s still under way, because series “regular” roles are likely to be filled with Hawaii actors/athletes.
As one online post advises, “Time to check in with your agent.”
Wells has numerous TV and film credits, but he is best known as a showrunner and exec producer of such series as “ER,” “Third Watch,” “The West Wing,” “Shameless,” “Animal Kingdom,” and “American Woman.” …
Comedian Frank DeLima is doing his part to encourage island residents to get vaccinated.
He’s launched “Do Da Vaccination,” a parody to Little Eva’s oldie hit, “Do the Locomotion,” nudging folks to get vaxxed and possibly win prizes, like airline miles or Las Vegas trips as a bonus.
He initiated the tune on his own, recording a simple self-taped video in which he shares his original lyrics, with a repetitive, “come on, come on do the vaccination for free.”
Frank DeLima
Then he got a call from adman Patrick Bullard, who asked DeLima if he could do one of his parodies to promote the State Department of Health’s bid to beef up the total of residents who haven’t yet been vaxxed during the pandemic. When he informed Bullard that he already had tune in the can, Brooks Baehr, Covid 19 response administrative assistant with DOE, contacted DeLima and sealed the deal to utilize the parody and the comic was taped in front of a “green screen,” enabling DOH to show the vaxxing progress over the past few months.
This gave DeLima an opportunity to “act” while performing, significantly upgrading his parody.
DeLima has been vaxxed; but he also has history with DOH, earlier doing promos on face masks, hand-washing and social distancing, in the early stages of the coronavirus dilemma last year.
But the wealth of prizes also ramps up the interest in vaxxing, perhaps now convincing the anti-vaxxers to cross the bridge.
“You know you really have a chance to win real big now,” he sings on the ad spot airing on local TV. “But first you gotta have da vaccination.”
He rattles off some of the current carrots: a year-long auto lease from Auto Source Hawaii, a $1,000 dining prize from Merriman’s, and 100,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles.
But if you’re already vaxxed, you still can try to snag one of the prizes. Gov. David Ige earlier this month authorized a website to register to qualify for the prizes.
Go to www.higotvaccinated.gov register, before the June 30 deadline.
Then wait to see your name is pulled from the hat, as DeLima sings. …
As youths in high school, a summertime job meant raising some bucks for college.
Back in the day, summers for most juniors and seniors meant a job at Hawaiian Pine, which later became Dole Cannery, in Iwilei.
Packers at Dole Cannery
Besides Dole, there was Libby’s. And Del Monte. Canneries depended on youthful hires when school was out. And Dole’s mammoth water tank, in the shape of a gigantic pineapple, dominated the Iwilei spectrum and could be seen from airline flights and from elevated Honolulu homes until tall condos blocked the views.
Girls customarily worked as packers, getting itchiness because of the acidity of fresh pineapple in the process of packing pineapple in tins.
Boys commonly had warehouse jobs, lifting boxes onto stacks on skips, prepping for delivery. I had a job in shipping – a checker – monitoring the skips.
Dole’s pineapple water tank
Some youths even spent summers harvesting the pines on the farms on Molokai or Lanai. Tough job, hot days, physically challenging. It was grueling, until payday.
Perhaps over the next decade or so, summers for many meant seasonal jobs at McDonald’s.
These days, however, kids have a thing about working at fast food outlets. So nowadays, many adults fill the ranks of cooking burgers and breakfast items or cashiering at the front counters.
So what was your summer job? Loved it or loathed it?
How do you spell fun? Try M-A-N-0-A-V-A-L-L-E-Y-T-H-E-A-T-R-E.
Hawaii’s off-Broadway theater group, Manoa Valley Theatre, has temporarily forsaken its cozy performing space in Manoa to stage “The 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee” at a larger venue at Kaimuki High School now through June 27, and the move is W-I-S-E.
With social distancing protocals, the seating space is not fully utilized, though with larger potential audiences, MVT has enabled this competent and charismatic performing ensemble to reach out and touch spectators in a more cavernous site. It might be a disadvantage for the piece, since intimacy is sacrified, but the location at a bona fide school gives the material more relevancy.
“Bee” cast, from left: Nick Amador, Hailey Akau, Moku Duran, Ellie Sampson, Malachi McSherry, Bailey Barnes; rear, Garrett Taketa, Rona Lisa Perretti, Austin Sprague. Photo by Brandon Miyagi.
The premise of the musical involves six diverse kids (played by adults) competing in the rituals of a spelling bee, with two adult moderators and a comfort counselor who are joined –in a rare instance of four walk-ons not previously cast, though pre-chosen 48 hours before curtain time to allow for pandemic clearance — to compete in the fray in spelling out words, asking for definitions and also requesting the word to be used in a sentence.
For the record, the four “guest” contestants wear a face masks; the others don’t. The competitors also wear random numbers, an assumption they’ve already beat other spellers in unseen preliminaries.
It’s all about the ritual of growing up, finding your niche in life, with someone victorious by the final curtain.
I saw the show, which opened in 2005 at the Circle in the Square basement theater on Broadway, and it requires the actors to possess eccentric idiosyncracies to reflect the spectrum of life. Some elements are real, others a skosh contrived, but the mix is what makes the show curious and contagious: we can connect with our middle school years.
The contestants are Nick Amador as Chip Tolentino, a seasoned Boy Scout, who suffers from sinus and cannot control his erection; Bailey Barnes as Logainne “Schwarzy” Schawarandgrubeniere, who has two dads, both gay; Malachi McSherry as Leaf Coneybear, who is both frenetic and awkward; Moku Duran as William Barfee, who spells by tapping out alphabets with his feet; Hailey Akau as Marcy Park, an overachiever who speaks six languages, who has managed to skip two grades, but is a virgin; and Ellie Sampson as Olive Ostrovsky, who has to catch the bus to the bee since her mom is in India for spiritual reasons and her dad’s at work and unable to pay the $25 bee fee.
Cassie Favreau-Chung as Rona Lisa Peretti, the announcer; Austin Sprague, as vice principal Douglas Panch, the other announcer; and Garrett Taketa, as Mitch Mahoney, the comforter; are the adults.
Some antics are absurdly funny, like the veep who keeps mispronouncing Barfee’s name as Barfait, as in parfait; and Barfee’s practice of footsieing his way through his spelling.
Some lulls in the action might be flaws in the book by Rachel Sheinkin, from a concept by Rebecca Feldman, and for a musical, William Finn’s music and lyrics never quite achieved sing-along status.
Still, director Michael Ng provides the glue to keep everyone in tow, giving credence to this segment of academics, and Darcie Yoshinaga’s musical director and choreographer Dwayne Sakaguchi provide occasional moments of hilarious movement to augment the awkwardness of teen spellers.
The moral: not everyone wins in life, and not many are stellar spellers.
MVT’s production is timely, in that Disney will soon be releasing a movie version of this minor work, which likely will attract a major audience on film.
Remaining performances: 3 p.m. today (June 20), 7:30 p.m. June 24 and 25, 3 and 7:30 p.m. June 26, and 3 p.m. June 27.
A Willie K fundraiser on June 25 will cap Maui’s Willie K Month observance at Da Playground.
Festivities will include a live auction and a silent auction plus performances by the Willie K Band featuring Kaleo Phillips and Gretchen Rhodes, along with Amy Hanaiali‘Ii Gilliom and her band, during both shows.
The first show, at 4 p.m., will feature a live streaming and a live auction, with bidders required to be on hand. Among the items to be auctioned is a Willie K guitar, and bidders must be present to participate. A concurrent online silent auction also will prevail, on the Willie K Facebook page. Doors open at 3:30 p.m
Willie K.
The second show, at 8 p.m., will feature a concert format with Gilliom and the gang, though an online silent auction – via the Willie K Facebook page – will streami live and bidders need not be present. Doors open at 7 p.m.; the silent auction concludes at the end of the concert.
Admission is $40 general admission, $60 for VIP access on Maui. Tickets are available at daplaygroundmaui.com.
Willie K, of course, is the beloved island performer known for his expansive musical styles including Hawaiian, pop, blues, jazz, opera and more. Willie Kahaiali‘i died of lung cancer on May 18, 2020 at age 59 and was a magnetic concert draw for two years as an anchor entertainer at the Blue Note Hawaii club at the Outrigger Waikiki resort.
Amy Hanaiali’i Gilliom
He and Amy were musical partners in the 1990s, recording an album together, and both benefitted by the relationship, earning Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in the process. With a reunion album recorded live in a concert, Willie and Amy were nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005. …
‘NCIS’ chatter
There’s talk but no confirming evidence about the possible appearance of Mark Harmon, the founding father of the “NCIS” legacy, on whether he might make a surprise appearance on the local spin-off, “NCIS: Hawai‘i.” Since filming already under way for the first episode, the hope that Harmon might guest on the premiere episode is slim.
Mark Harmon
There was worrisome tension, too, about his sort-of anticipated departure from the flagship show, because he hadn’t committed to the series in which he has starred from the get-go till the last minute. Yes, Leroy Jethro Gibbs will be part of the 19th season of “NCIS,” but details are scanty on how huge his visibility might be.
And there was a real possibility that season 18 might have been the last, since Harmon had cut back his participation as the show headed toward its finale.
His sked remains iffy this coming season, too, as he might adopt the regimen of co-star David MCallum (Dr. Ducky Mallard), whose appearances were minimal the past season or two. Even CBS Entertainment honcho Kelly Kahl has indicated that CBS wasn’t sure how many episodes Harmon would appear in and that the studio would “work around his schedule.”
So we shall all have to wait till Sept. 1, when the new season of “NCIS” kicks off at 8 p.m. Mondays, preceding the newbie, NCIS: Hawai‘i” at 9 p.m. …
