I arrived in Los Angeles in 2000 with every intention of building a career as a writer, director, and producer in Hollywood. Coincidentally, Kristine arrived in Los Angeles the same year and for similar reasons, although, at the time, neither of us knew the other. We were just two kids stepping off different buses, both with big dreams and the drive to pursue them with our entire beings.
For my part, it didn’t take me long to realize I had a problem: I loved telling stories. I loved the strange alchemy that happens when a group of creative people walks into a room with nothing but an idea and somehow, together, creates something that didn’t exist before. And although by 2001 the world had conspired to introduce me to both Kristine—now my wife and creative partner of more than 20 years—and Noah Blake, a friend and collaborator since the day we met, I wasn’t nearly as enamored with the business surrounding it.
I also began to understand that I didn’t simply want to make entertainment. Entertainment has genuine value—making people laugh, surprising them, moving them, or simply giving them a couple of hours away from the rest of their lives—but I wanted to do something else at the same time. I wanted to tell stories that might help us understand one another a little better. Stories about the complicated, contradictory people we actually are. Stories that could entertain an audience while quietly asking them to look at something—or someone—from a slightly different angle.
There was another problem I couldn’t have articulated quite as clearly then as I can now:
I hadn’t found my voice yet.
So I stepped away.
The plan, to whatever extent there was one, was both idealistic and practical. I wanted to do work I found meaningful, to create ecosystems whose primary purpose was to help people, and to put myself in a position where, if I eventually returned to theatre and film, I wouldn’t have to wait for someone else’s permission. I wanted the freedom to choose the projects I believed in, the people I wanted to work with, and the stories I thought were worth telling.
And somewhere along the way, I needed to figure out what I actually wanted to say.
Several years turned into more than a decade. Kristine and I built businesses. We helped thousands of people over the years. We succeeded at some things and failed spectacularly at others. We met people whose experiences challenged the way we understood the world.
And I survived cancer.
We survived cancer.
Some experiences strip away the stories we tell ourselves about what we’re worth and how much time we have. Cancer did that for me. For years, I thought I was still searching for my voice. Looking back, maybe I simply needed to accept my voice—and appreciate that it won’t be here forever. At some point, you have to stop waiting until you’ve found exactly the right thing to say and simply say the thing that is yours to say.
Which brings me, somewhat improbably, to Noah Blake’s birthday party.
Kristine and I had never been to Vitello’s. For us, the restaurant had always been associated with one of the most difficult periods in the life of our friend. So when Noah unexpectedly decided to celebrate his birthday there, going felt a little awkward. Maybe even a little weird. But he was our friend, and we wanted to support him.
So we went.
And we immediately fell in love with the place.
Sitting there that night, Kristine and I had virtually the same thought at virtually the same moment: Wouldn’t it be wild to produce a murder mystery starring Noah in the very restaurant his father, Robert Blake, had made infamous through his connection to one of Hollywood’s most notorious murders?
Not a murder-mystery party. Not actors dropping clues between dinner courses. A real theatrical story built around the space itself—one in which the restaurant, the audience, the actors, the food, the history, and the mystery all became part of the same world.
Weeks later, we asked Noah. He thought it was a great idea.
Lives are busy and some time passed, but eventually Kristine figured out the way to set the wheels in motion. That was all it took.
What began as a wonderfully strange idea at a birthday party gradually became A Killer Night in Studio City. But somewhere during its creation, two important things happened.
First, I realized this strange little murder mystery represented something much larger for me. It was a way back. And not simply back to theatre, but back to what I believe theatre can do.
Underneath the murder, the movie stars, the gossip columns, the cocktails, and all the other pleasures of spending an evening in the Hollywood of 1958 is a story about the danger of believing we understand another person before we know their whole story.
It seemed like a pretty good place to begin.
Just as importantly, it became increasingly apparent that we weren’t simply creating one show.
We had discovered an entire format.
Every city has its own history, mythology, characters, secrets, and places that seem to be waiting for a story. A Killer Night Live grew out of the idea that those places could become stages—and that audiences could do more than watch those stories unfold.
They could step inside them.
After more than a decade away, I have no idea where this road will ultimately lead. For the first time in my life, I’m not particularly worried about that.
I know why I’m on it.
And it feels awfully good to be back.
