You often hear people of various political parties talk about expanding their tent. Shane Scheel, one of the creators of the For The Record shows in Los Angeles, opted not to expand his tent. Instead he had one built for his shows that bring film soundtracks to life with a full band and a cast of actors and singers performing in and around the audience.
The CineVita is the name of his custom-made Spiegeltent which has joined the Hollywood Park area as For the Record‘s home in Los Angeles. They just opened two weeks ago with Tarantino: Pulp Rock. The cast performs songs found in all of Tarantino’s movies including Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and more. The show continues through March 9th. Soon they will be adding shows dedicated to the films of Martin Scorsese and John Hughes to the venue.
Fifteen years ago For the Record began at Barre, Vermont, a shoebox shaped space in Los Feliz that was the bar for the restaurant Vermont. That changed ownership and names and became Rockwell Table and Stage.
Scheel has always been very motivated, very focused on this concept and always looking for ways to create bigger and more dynamic shows that could be performed around the world. With his tent, he plans to do just that. For the Record will begin touring the United States after a year of shows in Los Angeles. Who could have imagined he’d bring traveling shows in tents back?
I’ve know Scheel for most of those 15 years. I’ve seen just about every production he and director Anderson Davis have done. Though it had been a few years since we’d spoken, we picked up right where we left off when we talked last week. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.
Q: I can’t imagine that when you were jamming with Tracie Thoms and a few people doing music from films that you loved that you would ever have imagined that you would be sitting where you are right now.
In the old jammin’ with Tracie Thoms days at show at Barre, Vermont? We had to get L.A. something that they could remember. A show in a bar. That’s what we do. This community of performers that we’ve built and the artists that have come together – from designers and everybody like that – so many of those people are still part of it. No, I couldn’t imagine that this would be 15 years of my life. The soundtracks of Hollywood have become my life’s work.
With your new tent, you’re not in somebody else’s space trying to make it work for you.
Every single inch of this place was designed with 15 years of experience and knowledge of what has worked, what people want. And I think that, more than ever, people want to escape into something completely different. This is not an overnight situation that we just said, let’s build this idea. No. Everything from our history is poured into this place.
A man who knew a lot of things about tents was obviously P.T. Barnum. He is quoted as having said, “No man has a right to expect to succeed in life unless he understands his business and nobody can understand his business thoroughly unless he learns it by personal application and experience.” What have these 15 years of your journey with For the Record taught you that helped guide you into the creation of this iteration?
We’re in the business of entertaining people. We’re in the business of just listening to what what works, what doesn’t work. And I think so few projects have the ability to have this kind of organic growth. So many projects have to just go from 0 to 100 in a very quick period of time. We’ve been able to slowly piece this thing together from one experience to the next. [It’s a] long journey. Sometimes it’s a frustrating journey. But that ability to grow and learn and build new relationships over time really led to this thing. And the idea just keeps getting bigger and greater.
You’re doing a small season in Los Angeles. You’ve got three shows that you’re doing here: Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and John Hughes/Brat Pack. Then what?
I have some news. We’re in Los Angeles for the rest of the year. We’re going to be based here at Hollywood Park next door to Sofi Stadium. And we’re going to sit here for a full year so we can really develop as much content as possible. Then we’ll be able to take the show on the road; the official tour. We’ll be in each city for six months and we’ll be running multiple shows in each market.
How much are the shows changing from what you most recently did with them or how they first originated?
Well, the best part about them is they’re living, breathing things. We don’t have to lock something in and say, here’s the show. This is definitive. Often times, as you know, a new film will come out, a new soundtrack will come out, and we need to incorporate it. Other times, we just learn a better way of putting the set list together. That is the beauty of being able to return to these things over and over.
What this particular venue is allowing us to do is see these ideas fully; completely baked with all the ideas that we’ve had for food and drinks, the way the service happens, the way people walk up to the venue like they’re walking a red carpet. We’re able to create the full experience for the very first time. Every night here is like going to a movie premiere and stepping back in time. And that was always the dream.
Over 15 years, you’ve had a few Tony Award winners and people who went on to become Tony Award winners as part of the ensemble that has been part of For the Record. So I assume part of the success of For the Record gave birth to the success of artists who are probably no longer available to you because of their other commitments. How challenging is it to get former cast members who may still want to do this, but may not be available?
We’ve been doing shows in Chicago, San Francisco, London, New York. We’ve done a lot of productions. People have come to this little family of probably 15 and 20 people and the core has grown to three or four hundred people around the world that have done a For the Record show. There’s a lot of people that are at different places in their career at whatever time. When we specifically talk about Tony Award winners and people that make movies and have busy schedules, one of the great parts of this is the fact that they can come back home. There is always a home for them to go and scratch that little theater itch and be part of this. There’s always a revolving door of talent coming home.
On one e trip to New York there [was] a For the Record performer in six different Broadway shows in starring roles. And it’s been so fun because we do find the most talented people in this city. The city is full of people from all over the world, but they come here and it’s such a unique group of talent that L.A. has.
How do you stay interested? How do you make this experience fresh for you as a producer?
I just keep dreaming. That keeps it interesting. The last three years dreaming this up, building this thing, has kept it super interesting. Every time I do something I’ve never done before, I just keep learning. And the shows become better because we are forced to grow. We’re forced to adjust things. So it always is interesting. There’s never a moment that you’re like, we’ve done it. We’ve seen it.
There’s a lot of people that don’t have that opportunity to go dream big like this. Every day is interesting to me. I love the city. I love the medium of film and music. This is a unique place with all the best of those worlds.
I remember there were discussions at one point of doing a Coppola show. Is that still something that’s on your radar?
I want to be able to develop a lot more shows. I’ll say Coppola is certainly at the top of the list. I’d love to do a Spike Lee show. What are some of the others? I really want to do all the Bond films. Put together A Night of Bond. There’s a bunch of things that we want to develop very badly, and we’ll hopefully be able to do that.
What’s For the Record in 2030 going to look like?
Hopefully I will have a vacation by then at some point. But in 2030, we will have taken The CineVita to at least nine cities. That we will hopefully have taken our unique experience to some of the little pockets of America and have learned a lot and made a lot of new friends. Hopefully we have a lot more shows that are going on, too. [That] we’re able to just continue to create here. So this is my life. I have no regrets at this point for sure.
To watch the full interview with Shane Scheel, please go HERE.
Main Photo: Two cast members in For the Record’s Tarantino: Pulp Rock (Photo by Wes and Alex Photography/Courtesy For the Record)