By gina young
Los Angeles Performance Practice’s BRIDGE THE GAPS_FUND (BtG_FUND) awarded artists impacted by the Eaton and Palisades wildfires with $1250 microgrants to support the rebuilding of their artistic practices. Tamir Yardenne is one such artist.
A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Yardenne’s work spans theatre, film, and television. An inspired multihyphenate actor-writer-producer, he is using his BtG_FUND grant to partially fund his current work for the stage, The Young and the Rest of Us. A satire set in the world of soap operas, The Young and the Rest of Us is the story of an Emmy up for grabs–and of a Black actor who has a wake up call to the realities of racial inequity in the industry. Combining elements of classic whodunits with biting critique, the play runs April 2 to May 10 at the Group Rep Theatre in North Hollywood.
This March, Tamir sat down over Zoom with LAPP’s gina young to talk liveness and live performance, soap operas, Carol Burnett, and the urgency of continued wildfire relief.
gina: The Young and the Rest of Us is set in the world of soap operas, which is a world in which you have personal experience. How did your acting experience on soaps shape this script?
Tamir: Growing up in this business, I wanted to play Richard the Third, Constantine, Hamlet… but as a Black, African-American actor, chances are slimmer than my white counterparts, so I thought, “Why not write a character for me, that encompasses all of that?”
My mom used to watch soaps. She was licensed as a nurse practitioner and would come home and watch soaps. My dad used to work all the time and he would say, “Why you watching those soap operas, why you watching those soap operas?” And then when he retired, she had stopped watching them and he turned to her and said, “Why’d you stop watching those soap operas?” And then he started watching them, haha. And then he had passed away, and I auditioned for a role on that soap and got it. I think he was looking out for me and gave me that part.
But I wanted to do something for me. That was the genesis of this project. And this rolled into what I thought was interesting, what I thought was fun, what I thought was engaging. The process has been really life-changing and life-altering in a lot of ways. It’s a lot, on this end of it… you walk into it as an actor but to be writing and producing it is a whole other ballgame.
Are you acting in this production?
I’m understudying, just as a backup. As if I don’t have enough on my plate right now, haha.
You are influenced by Agatha Christie-style whodunits–what inspires you about that genre?
I was an only child, so I had a lot of time to watch a lot of TV. A lot of Mystery, a lot of Carol Burnett… there’s an ode to Carol Burnett in the beginning of the play… I’ve always loved these dark classic movies about detectives and all of that. And I always loved Agatha Christie… it’s a shame she was a racist… I love her work. Genius. Who does that many novels and plays? She was churning out all that work. The thought process it takes. It took me a very long time to gather the mechanics of all of it. I read a lot of her books and plays, and you get to the end and go, “Oh, that was a clue!” The brilliance of what she did from A to Z was incredible. I take my hat off to her.
What kind of commentary are you making on Hollywood with this work?
I’m being a Black man in this culture today. And I understand that I’m a niche… and that I have dreadlocks… but I need to express what that feels like living in this skin. So I have this lead actor character who is prolific in his work, but not given what he feels that he needs.
Also, I wanted to talk about when you forget where you come from. When you forget who you are. When you make it in this business, are you reaching back for others to come up after you? Or are you forgetting who you are?
What drives you as an artist?
It’s changed from when I first started. I used to watch reruns of the Carol Burnett show and I thought, “I wanna do what she’s doing… all those characters? I wanna do that!” And then you become an artist after that, I became a starving artist in New York. And boy I thought I knew it all. I was taking class with Uta Hagen… and I was working, and she would get angry and say “You need to come to class,” and I was like, “but the reason I go to class is so that I can work!” I was so disrespectful. Now I’m watching all these videos of her work online and I have all this reverence for her. Youth is wasted on the young. I’m playing catch up.
I love this craft so much. I thought acting was everything and I couldn’t do anything else, but then out of the necessity of wanting to create something for myself as an actor, I started writing and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this too. I’m so enamored of someone who can sit down and go from conception to completion. It took me three years to finish this piece. I was in the Altadena fires as you know… it was my saving grace to write, to find solace, to find peace of mind. Even though the play is a farce, it contains some of this pain that I was forced to deal with.
As someone who’s worked in television and film too, what brings you back to theatre, to liveness, live performance?
I started in theatre. It was my first love. I didn’t know they were different mediums and that there were different techniques. I’ve learned so many lessons. I didn’t really think about television until one day my agent called me about an audition for Aaron Spelling, and they flew me out here to Los Angeles and put me up at the Universal Hotel, I had a limousine driver… it was magical.
The scene was where we’re at the front door and we notice the apartment has been broken into. For me, it was high stakes. I’m giving DRAMA. And then you hear from the higher ups in the studio, “Mr. Spelling would like you to bring it down.” I didn’t know what that meant! In theatre, you speak to the back row of the house. You project. So I didn’t change a thing. I’m thinking, the stakes are high, so next time around I doubled it. Over the loudspeaker they said “Tamir, this is television. Bring it down 50%.” They sent me home. That was the most humbling thing. After that, I went to commercial classes, I took acting for television. “Oh that’s what this is, it means small, you’ve just gotta think it really.”
But theatre was my first love, and we would love to take The Young and the Rest of Us Off-Broadway.
You mentioned the fires… how did the BRIDGE THE GAPS_FUND wildfire relief grant help you realize this new work?
The funds from BRIDGE THE GAPS were truly a lifeline for me following the Altadena fires. They helped me continue creating, telling stories, and moving forward as an artist. The money has helped me finance this play. I have a little stashed away. From buying a little lamp, to paying $200 for scripts… the costs are never ending. I am so grateful. I allocated that money for my craft and my art. I’m in a position where I can go, “Yeah, let’s get that, we need that.” I can get the things that I need to make it beautiful, to make it wonderful. I don’t feel like I can’t make my dream come true. I have the money for it.
We’re so happy to support. A year after the Eaton and Palisades fires, how do you feel artists are rebuilding?
I think we’re starting to now. Before, you were like a deer caught in the headlights. You don’t know where to turn. We lost so much. And they’re giving you so many things you have to do, papers to sign, and you just don’t know where to turn. For the first year, you didn’t know what to do, and you had to do something. I think now we’re able to breathe a little bit, because we have clarity now, and we want to get back home. Now I live in North Hollywood, but if I don’t pay attention, if I’m listening to music, I’ll find myself driving back East, almost home to Altadena.
I think now artists are able to move forward with more clarity. I mean first you get displaced. You’re unhoused, and what does that feel like. That’s unknown. My house is gone. Everything that I’ve collected over 21 years is burnt in a fire. And you go, where am I? That alone is frightening. And then, are you gonna rebuild? Are you gonna stay?
And I was doing a play at the same time. About real estate. The irony of that. And my phone was blowing up, and I answered it on the break and that was January 7th and my friend was like, “Go home, your area’s on fire.” And I was like no, no. My cat. My cat. That’s all I could think about. And of course that night there’s traffic, and I’m in Beverly Hills getting to Altadena. And when I get there, it’s a cascade of people coming down, and I’m the only one going up the hill. I’m throwing anything in a bag I can, and all I can see is the ridge on fire. And I grabbed the cat and threw her in the car… my baby, my baby. She didn’t know what the hell was going on.
Thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers about The Young and the Rest of Us?
It’s a farce, funny, with some social commentary about the world, and with everything that’s going on today, we need some laughter.
The Young and the Rest of Us by Tamir Yardenne runs April 2nd through May 10th at the Group Rep Theatre in North Hollywood. Get tickets at https://thegrouprep.com/show/theyoungandtherestofus/
