Frederick Ponzlov
Encyclopedia
Frederick Ponzlov is an American
thespian, television and film actor
, screenwriter
, theatre director, and acting teacher known for his work on stage and for writing the award-winning film Plots with a View
(USA title Undertaking Betty).
Theater Company and is co-founder and artistic director
of the Long Beach Repertory Theatre. He was trained by Sanford Meisner
of the Neighborhood Playhouse
in New York City
, and as a former casting director for HBO, he teaches and coaches acting classes in Long Beach, specializing in the Meisner Technique
.
Ponzlov wrote Plots with a View
(USA title Undertaking Betty). In 2002, Variety
wrote the film is "An enjoyable and entertainingly cast fable about love, death and fitting revenge, "Plots With a View" strikes a near-miraculous balance between the silly and the morbid." When the film screened in Los Angeles
in 2005, Kevin Crust of Los Angeles Times
made note of "the zany spirit of Frederick Ponzlov's script."
Of his work as one of the news anchors in the 2008 play Tragedy: A Tragedy, Hoyt Hilsman of Back Stage
wrote "The actors do solid work here, notably Ponzlov as the anchor and McCray as a field reporter." and LA Weekly
theater critics wrote "Gifted with gravitas and eloquence, the four graveyard-shift journalists in Pulitzer finalist Will Eno
’s sharp satire on round-the-clock spin are honing panic that the sun has set and may never rise again",
Of his performance in Much Ado
at the 1978 Colorado Shakespeare Festival
, where director Edgar Reynolds reset the original Shakesphere play Much Ado about Nothing
into the American
Southwest, William Babula of Shakespeare Quarterly
wrote the character of "Dogberry was played as the 'gringo', a somewhat anachronistic Texan with badge, six-guns, cowboy hat, spurs, and drawl. The role was handled admirably by Frederick Ponzlov, and it was amusing to observe the working-class Mexicans of the 'Watch' trying to make sense of the 'gringo' before deciding he was a fool.".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
thespian, television and film actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, theatre director, and acting teacher known for his work on stage and for writing the award-winning film Plots with a View
Plots with a View
Plots with a View, released internationally as Undertaking Betty, is a 2002 British dark comedy written by Frederick Ponzlov, directed by Nick Huran, starring Brenda Blethyn, Alfred Molina, Naomi Watts, Lee Evans and Christopher Walken. The film began filming in Caldicott, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK...
(USA title Undertaking Betty).
Career
Fred Ponzlov has been acting and directing stage work since the 1970s. He directed numerous plays at the BellflowerBellflower, California
Bellflower is a city in Los Angeles County, California, and is a suburb of Los Angeles. It was incorporated on September 3, 1957. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 76,616, up from 72,878 at the 2000 census....
Theater Company and is co-founder and artistic director
Artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...
of the Long Beach Repertory Theatre. He was trained by Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner , also known as Sandy, was an American actor and acting teacher who developed a form of Method acting that is now known as the Meisner technique....
of the Neighborhood Playhouse
Neighborhood Playhouse
The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is an actor training school at 340 East 54th Street in New York City, generally associated with the Meisner technique of Sanford Meisner.-History:...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, and as a former casting director for HBO, he teaches and coaches acting classes in Long Beach, specializing in the Meisner Technique
Meisner technique
The Meisner technique is an acting technique developed by the American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner.Meisner developed this technique after working with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at the Group Theatre and as head of the acting program at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse and...
.
Ponzlov wrote Plots with a View
Plots with a View
Plots with a View, released internationally as Undertaking Betty, is a 2002 British dark comedy written by Frederick Ponzlov, directed by Nick Huran, starring Brenda Blethyn, Alfred Molina, Naomi Watts, Lee Evans and Christopher Walken. The film began filming in Caldicott, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK...
(USA title Undertaking Betty). In 2002, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
wrote the film is "An enjoyable and entertainingly cast fable about love, death and fitting revenge, "Plots With a View" strikes a near-miraculous balance between the silly and the morbid." When the film screened in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 2005, Kevin Crust of Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
made note of "the zany spirit of Frederick Ponzlov's script."
Critical recognition
The Los Angeles Times notes: Director Fred Ponzlov, who guided the recently closed “The Cherry Orchard” at the New Community Theatre of Irvine, says he is in love with the play. He worked in a production of it at Milwaukee Rep years ago and says he has seen or worked on a couple of hundred stagings. “The play is bottomless,” Ponzlov says. “It’s about people going through incredible changes. It sort of ties in to the coming millennium. Change is coming, and either people go with it or they can’t.” Indeed, the timelessness of Chekhov appeals to all these artists. His philosophies, so pertinent 100 years ago, still resonate at the end of this century.Of his work as one of the news anchors in the 2008 play Tragedy: A Tragedy, Hoyt Hilsman of Back Stage
Back Stage
Back Stage is an entertainment-industry brand aimed at people working in film and the performing arts, with a special focus on casting, job opportunities, and career advice.Back Stage publishes a weekly tabloid-sized trade magazine in the U.S...
wrote "The actors do solid work here, notably Ponzlov as the anchor and McCray as a field reporter." and LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
theater critics wrote "Gifted with gravitas and eloquence, the four graveyard-shift journalists in Pulitzer finalist Will Eno
Will Eno
Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York.His plays include Tragedy: a tragedy, The Flu Season, King: a problem play, Thom Pain , Middletown, Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions and an adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt titled Gnit...
’s sharp satire on round-the-clock spin are honing panic that the sun has set and may never rise again",
Of his performance in Much Ado
Much Ado
Much Ado, Bernard J. Taylor's musical version of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, was recorded as a concept album in 1995, featuring Paul McGann, Peter Karrie and other West End stars. It received its world premiere at Stratford-on-Avon in 1996. It was partly inspired by the Kenneth Branagh...
at the 1978 Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Colorado Shakespeare Festival
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival is a Shakespeare Festival each summer at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the outdoor Mary Rippon Theater and indoor University Theatre. The Mary Rippon Theater hosted an annual summer Shakespeare play starting in 1944. The Colorado Shakespeare Festival...
, where director Edgar Reynolds reset the original Shakesphere play Much Ado about Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
into the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Southwest, William Babula of Shakespeare Quarterly
Shakespeare Quarterly
Shakespeare Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1950 by the . It is now under the auspices of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Along with book and performance criticism, Shakespeare Quarterly incorporates scholarly research and essays on Shakespeare and the age in which he...
wrote the character of "Dogberry was played as the 'gringo', a somewhat anachronistic Texan with badge, six-guns, cowboy hat, spurs, and drawl. The role was handled admirably by Frederick Ponzlov, and it was amusing to observe the working-class Mexicans of the 'Watch' trying to make sense of the 'gringo' before deciding he was a fool.".
Filmography
- CelebrityCelebrityA celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
(1984) (TV miniseries) - Fatal VisionFatal VisionFatal Vision is a best-selling true crime book published in 1983 by journalist and author Joe McGinniss. The following year it was made into an NBC television miniseries under the same name. Fatal Vision is the real-life story of Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, M.D., who in 1979 was convicted of the...
(1984) (TV movie) - Murder, She WroteMurder, She WroteMurder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...
(2 episodes, 1985–1986) (TV) - Strange VoicesStrange VoicesStrange Voices is a 1987 television film about schizophrenia directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman. The film, based on actual events, was criticized as inferior to other made-for-television movies about the disorder, including Promise...
(1987) (TV movie) - Laguna Heat (1987) (TV movie)
- Turner & HoochTurner & HoochTurner & Hooch is a 1989 comedy film starring Tom Hanks, Mare Winningham, Craig T. Nelson, and Reginald VelJohnson. It was directed by Roger Spottiswoode; the film was originally slated to be directed by Henry Winkler, but he was terminated due to "creative differences"...
(1989) - L.A. LawL.A. LawL.A. Law is a US television legal drama that ran on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994. L.A. Law reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights,...
(1 episode, 1989) (TV) - Locked Up: A Mother's RageLocked Up: A Mother's RageLocked Up: A Mother's Rage is a 1991 TV movie starring Cheryl Ladd and Jean Smart about a mother wrongly convicted of drug trafficking. This movie highlights the problems children of imprisoned mothers go through....
(1991) (TV movie) - Full EclipseFull EclipseFull Eclipse is a 1993 science fiction crime film directed by Anthony Hickox. Starring Mario Van Peebles and Bruce Payne, the story is set in Los Angeles where the police department has assembled a unique squad of officers who possess the ability to turn into werewolves. The tagline of the film...
(1993) (TV movie) - What's Love Got to Do with It (1993)
- Ancient Prophecies (1994) (TV movie)
- Death Benefit (1996) (TV movie)
- Ally McBealAlly McBealAlly McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...
(1 episode, 1999) (TV) - The Dismissal (2008)
- Forfeit of Grace (2009)
External links
- Fred Ponzlov at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Frederick Ponzlov at Internet Shakesphere
- Frederick Ponzlov at Allmovie
- Frederick Ponzlov at New York Times