Almost exactly three years ago I sat down with Lisa Hammer while she was in town working on Punk’s Dead, the sequel to the classic cult film SLC Punk. Hammer is perhaps best well known for her voice work on The Venture Bros. as the character Triana Orpheus but has been active in both film and music for decades, fronting multiple bands and writing/acting in television and movies.
During the course of our conversation, Hammer hinted at a musical called Sisters Plotz that she had been working on for a while. At the time she had stated it was about 80% finished.
I know that you’re in town working on “Punk’s Dead” I wondered if there are any other films that you have in the chute.
Funny you should ask, I have this thing right here. Basically the feature I’m editing for myself right now with my husband Levi and some incredible actresses called “The Sisters Plotz.” Plotz is a Yiddish word meaning your head is exploding with emotion and joy. So “The Sisters Plotz” is a really joyous kind of a John Watters meets Ray Garden’s kind of 1940’s musical shenanigans freakshow. We have an incredible composer Mary Finezinger who is an award winning BMI composer and the author of the script. Lisa Ferber is an absolute genius, it started from a play that she wrote that we were in. She has this kind of Oscar Wilde dialogue, it’s genius. We turned it into a feature film, we shot it with our own money over a few years. We even got a crane shot in Central Park and a pie fight. We have Eve Plump from “The Brady Bunch” she’s one of the sisters and we have some actors from “Boardwalk Empire” and “All My Children” so if you look it up, it’s “The Sisters Plotz” it’s on Facebook and, news coming on that one. I’m about 80% done with that one. (Full interview here.)
The film has been picked up by Cinevest Interactive, a New York agency focused on independent women producers and directors and it seems a perfect fit for the film that was produced, directed, written, and stars almost entirely women.
From Cinevest Interactive’s announcement:
The Sisters Plotz is a surreal, madcap musical comedy inside the world of three eccentric heiresses: Dada poetess Celestia, manic inventor Ladybug, and dreamy painter Whimsellica. The sisters live in New York City with their darling butler, Reginald also Ladybug’s love interest. Hilarity ensues when they must outwit a snooping gossip columnist, a city councilwoman set on turning the Plotz Mansion into a carousel, and two scheming maids who plan to steal the ladies’ riches and gamble everything at the horseracing track. The film is a loving nod to old Hollywood as seen through a camp indie lens. Imagine “Grey Gardens” directed by John Waters and choreographed by Busby Berkeley!
Starring: Eve Plumb (The Brady Bunch, Blue Bloods), Lisa Hammer (The Venture Bros, Maybe Sunshine), Lisa Ferber (Each Time I Kill) as The Sisters Plotz and Levi Wilson (Not Fade Away, Punk’s Dead) as their adorable butler Reginald
Co-Starring: Allen Lewis Rickman (Boardwalk Empire, A Serious Man), Yelena Shmulenson (Orange is the New Black, A Serious Man), Lori Hammel (Burn After Reading), Mario Corry (Bridge of Spies), Leonardo Salerni (Postcards from London), Aryn Elain (All My Children), John Timothy (Upright Citizens Brigade), Stephen Heskett (High School Confidential), Stephen Winter (My Super Ex-Girlfriend), Andrea Cirie (House of Cards), Lisa Lambert (The Show Off – Tony Award Winner), Melissa Patterson (The Invisible Life of Thomas Lynch), Katie Gilbert (The Pox Show), Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, Chris O’Leary (The Pox Show), and Sal Brienik (Double-Blind).