Austin Film Festival: “You’re Invited to Tuscan’s 5th Birthday Party!”

You're invited to "You're Invited to Tuscan's 5th Birthday Party!" No, you're not reading it wrong because you're too hopped up on generic soda and sheet cake. "You're Invited to Tuscan's 5th Birthday Party!" is the title of the debut short as a director from Austin acting powerhouse Lee Eddy.

In the short (which plays Wednesday as part of the Best Lil Shorts in Texas 2 package) Eddy plays Tabitha, a woman in collapse and on the phone after a kid's birthday party gone horribly wrong. As in, projectile vomiting, runaway pony, kind of wrong ...

Austin Chronicle: What's the worst thing you ever saw happen at a kid's birthday party?

Lee Eddy: At my youngest's 6th birthday party, he ran around the venue where it was hosted (one of those jump/climb/loud music/complete chaos places) so hard that he had an asthma episode. We did some rounds on his inhaler and got it under control in time for cake and candles. Instantly after taking a deep breath and blowing them all out, he coughed so hard that he puked. I caught most of it in my hand before it hit the cake... and still offered it to everyone who witnessed what happened. Surprisingly, most people took a piece because they had kids and I assume carried the assumption that if the cake was untouched by vomit, it was still good to go. (He continued to vomit outside the venue as party guests left, waving in between heaves.)

AC: What made you finally make the jump into directing for screen?

LE: I've wanted to direct for a really long time, but also wanted to do it with a script I wrote and could act in. I thought that would be too complicated/way-self centered, but then I did a short – Haley Erickson and Taylor Washington's award-winning “Call Me Mommy” – and watched Haley do just that! She co-directed with Taylor, was the star, and was watching playback and shot set-ups while on her mark and I was – OHHHHHHHHHHHHH. LIKE THAT! That was what I needed – to see someone pull it off successfully and with not a drip of ego or vanity in the process.

AC: You're a multihyphenate on this – actor, writer, director. Was that always the plan?

LE: Yes. This film is very personal to me and I really wanted to make it My Vision. The film comes is adapted from a one-woman theater show I performed for a couple of Austin festivals in 2019 (Hyde Park Theater/ScriptWork's Frontera Fest and Out of Bounds Comedy Festival). I knew the material front to back, and it is basically a confessional wrapped in the skin of a comedy, so it's really inside me.

When the strikes hit and [husband Macon Blair] was going to be home and not working on projects for an unforeseen amount of time, it was like "NOW IS WHEN I DO TUSCAN."

AC: As one of the most recognizable names in the Austin scene, you've worked with everyone – so how did you narrow down your crew selection?

LE: Uhhhh... what... most recognizable? names on the scene? I. I don't know how to absorb that so I'm just going to keep typing. (gulp)

First and foremost, my multi-hat directing/acting would not have been possible without this incredible crew.

I knew who I wanted to be on my crew even before I had the final script ready. Macon (of course) and my longtime friend Christopher Shea were down to co-produce it with me.

My sound recordist, Katrina Fairlee, worked on so many films that I've been in and as soon as Katie was on board, I knew we were golden. I want Katie on everything I work on because Fairlee is like a good luck human totem for me.

I worked with Taylor Camarot (my DP) and John Valley (who started as a grip on set and asked if I had an editor yet while moving lights around) on Valley's The Pizzagate Massacre. Love those dudes. Taylor is so freaking talented and Zen at the same time and I've not laughed as hard as I did while sitting by Valley while he whittled down the 30 minute cut to 13 minutes.

I'd asked Yvonne Boudreaux to be an extra in the film with her daughter (because Yvonne's also tall and I figured if she stood next to me in the party seens I wouldn't look like a Lady Giant hovering over the child extras). She said yes, but then asked if I had a Production Designer and I'd just lost the one I'd originally tapped. Again – the strike sucked... but it also gave me a chance to work with EMMY NOMINATED Yvonne. She is a mega talent and I can't believe she was down to work on this pittance of an art budget.

AC: The comedy setup of a rogue pony at a birthday party becomes about Tabitha unfurling, and the pressures of being a mom. How did you settle on a more comedic rather than dramatic setting for that conversation?

LE: My background is in theater and improv, and making an audience laugh is an instant way to gain trust from an audience. If you can cause someone to have an involuntary response like laughing, it makes them more likely to open themselves up to you, to trust you – because laughing feels good. And when you've earned their trust, it feels easier to show them your underbelly of Uncomfortable Thoughts. They'll go down the twisted path with you more easily. And as long as you wrap up with another opportunity to laugh again, the point you were trying to make sticks with them longer.

Plus, I tend to handle hard and complicated emotions with humor. It's my go-to deflection, with openly sobbing being a close second.

AC: There's a pivotal moment when Tabitha says the truth that mothers aren't supposed to say out loud. How was it, as a mother, not only saying them but saying them on camera?

LE: I wrote the Tuscan show a couple days after a therapy session where I learned the term "disenfranchisement grief" – when society doesn't allow one to grieve something that's normally not seen as a loss. It wasn't like "The PEOPLE MUST KNOW!"... it was more for me to process the conflicting feelings I had between grieving my life before-children and celebrating how awesome it was to have my two kick-ass kids.

I think doing this piece in front of a live audience first was what made me ok with doing it on camera. After the live shows, parents/people thinking of becoming parents would linger out in the lobby and find me to say, "Wow. Thank you for saying this out loud. Because yeah. This is what I feel/worry about sometimes, too." And knowing that they felt ok saying this to a stranger kind of told me it would be ok to say this to lots of strangers.

Plus, Tabitha is a character. It's not me. I've never accidentally poisoned people with artichoke dip.

AC: How much fun was it creating all the chaos of the party's destruction – and who had to clean it up afterwards?

LE: That's all Yvonne's bad-assery and watching her transform our house into the destruction that you see is a blast. She made the majority of what you see on screen by hand or pulled it from what I assume is her massive storage closet. I had a bunch of Pinterest boards created with the type of party destruction I was hoping for and Taylor worked on a great Look board... and she just ran with it.

We shot the short in my house so I lived in that total destruction for the better part of a week. I had to put flyers in neighbor's mailboxes to let them know that everything was ok, and apologized that they'd have to look at the mess for a couple days. Everyone was cool with it. It's been a year now and I'm still finding bits of confetti and chewed up gummy bears under floor boards.

You're Invited to Tuscan's 5th Birthday Party!

D: Lee Eddy
USA, 14 mins

Screening as part of Shorts Program 10: Best Lil' Shorts in Texas 2.
Wed., Oct. 30, 7pm, Rollins Theatre

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