Laurence Luckinbill on finding the motor that drives the narrative of a book, play, or any kind of story

TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 677.5: Ed welcomes actor, author, playwright, and Emmy Award-winning producer Laurence Luckinbill (The Boys in the Band, The Delphi Bureau, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Lyndon, Hemingway, Teddy Tonight!, Clarence Darrow Tonight!). Larry's autobiography, Affective Memories: How Chance and The Theater Saved My Life, is a page-turning, brutally honest story of how Larry overcame a meager upbringing up in the Ozark Mountains to forge his way into a successful career as a working actor and playwright. While it includes a lot of great showbiz stories from Larry’s career on stage, film, and television, Affective Memories is really a book that transcends genres, evoking many classic American themes (one of which is finding redemption and a second lease on life through the love of a good woman), while also providing insight into what it means to be an actor, the healing power of the performing arts, and the lifetime discovery of what it means to be human. Among other topics this segment, Larry shares the story of how he came to write Teddy Tonight, his one-man show about the life of President Theodore Roosevelt, to illustrate how to find the “motor” that drives the particular story one wants to tell, be that as a play, a memoir, or a long-form work of fiction.