All Fired Up
Shortly before Donald Trump appropriated the phrase “You’re Fired!,” actress Annabelle Gurwitch heard those loaded words herself directly from the lips of writer and director Woody Allen. Little did the Woodman realize that, by firing Gurwitch from his Off-Broadway play Writers Block at the Atlantic Theater back in 2003, he was actually helping her to create not only a theatrical show of her own, but a film and a book as well.
All three of those projects, each titled Fired, use the Allen story as a lynch-pin on which to hang other tales that fit the book’s subtitle: Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized & Dismissed. Among the stars who shared their own horror stories with Gurwitch for the book or film were David Cross, Andy Dick, Illeana Douglas, Patricia Heaton, Felicity Huffman, Judy Gold, and Sarah Silverman. The book was published earlier this month, and the film bows this week in selected theaters across the country.
Not surprisingly, Gurwitch has also immortalized her dark Woody Allen moment of the soul with a witty re-enactment at the top of the film. “We even used the same white-on-black font Woody uses to title the movie,” she explains impishly. “Ah, yes, there are so many formerly favorite Allen films I will never see again, including Crimes and Misdemeanors and Bullets Over Broadway.”
The film version of Fired begins with snippets of the production of Writers Block at Second Stage, and also features the likes of humorist Andy Borowitz and playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis telling their own sad sagas of being fired. It then expands to include appearances from friends such as Gurwitch’s Shaggy Dog co-star Tim Allen, who tells a wonderful true story about his pre-acting days as a tool and dye maker.
But the relevance of the film’s topic goes far beyond humorous celebrity anecdotes. “Every night, after the show, people would stand and wait for me,” says Gurwitch. “Not writers or actors, but people who saw the show and wanted to share their stories too. It seems being fired is the great equalizer. I realized I wanted to tell some of these stories in the film — and that’s how we wound up with Anita Epolito in Lansing Michigan, which in turn led to the whole section on the U.A.W. layoffs.”
“This has been a most unexpected journey,” remarks Gurwitch, who left the sunny climes of Miami Beach to come to NYU to study acting with Richard Schechner. “We did serious shows at The Public Theater when Joe Papp was still there, like The Red Snake, an adaptation of James Shirley’s Jacobean tragedy, and The Cardinal by Michael McClure. I worked with Mabou Mines, appeared at La MaMa, and I was in the 20th anniversary production of Wendy Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women at Second Stage. That’s where I met Carole Rothman, who first encouraged me to do the show.”
Gurwitch now lives in Los Angeles with her Emmy Award-winning husband Jeff Kahn and their eight-year-old son Ezra. She primarily does film and television work, including a guest spot last year on Boston Legal, and she’s also a contributing writer and commentator for NPR’s Day to Day series. But she hasn’t abandoned performing live.
While making a publicity visit to New York earlier this month, she appeared at Comix Comedy Club; she shared the bill with fellow writer/raconteurs David Rakoff and Jonathan Ames, and she told yet another tale of humiliation and rejection, this one based on her stint on Hollywood Squares. She’s also scheduled to make another on-stage appearance at the Uprights Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles on February 7.
“You know, it was never my plan to be a star,” she continues. “I just liked being an actor. My proudest moment in the theater came just before the Woody Allen incident, when I was named one of the New York Times Top Ten Performers of the Year for my role in Murray Mednick’s 2002 show Joe and Betty.”
But she’s taken to her new calling quite well. In fact, Gurwitch cordially invites everyone to visit www.firedthemovie.com, and post a How I Got Fired story of his or her own.
