Watching the skies and the stage
Is there a life form in another galaxy like Michael Dale Brown — one who lugs a camera around on location shoots and helps operate a small community theater?
He wouldn’t rule it out.
Brown, who serves as co-president of the Costa Mesa Playhouse’s board of directors and has directed, acted and written for the Westside company, has another passion that goes well beyond the theater at 661 Hamilton St. For the past two decades, the Costa Mesa resident has shot footage for the documentary “Alien Highway” about fellow UFO enthusiasts, and his work will premiere this weekend at the Laughlin International Film Festival in Nevada.
Meanwhile, Brown has terrestrial concerns: The playhouse’s next production, “Greater Tuna,” is set to open Nov. 1, and set design is underway. With an electric drill humming in the next room, Brown spoke with the Daily Pilot about his life in film and theater — and his hunch that someone is watching us from above. The following are excerpts from the conversation:
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Does working in theater make you a better filmmaker, and vice versa?
I think so. All my creative life has been doing both theater and film. I started out in theater in school, and then grew into filmmaking, and then left theater in my early 20s to concentrate on filmmaking and screenwriting — and then came back to theater, actually, once I got into my 50s. I hadn’t really done much in the way of theater for 30 years.
How many films have you made by now?
Well, I’m really more of an amateur filmmaker. I started out doing weddings and that sort of thing. “Alien Highway” is my first full-length feature documentary, and I started making that 20 years ago, going out to Nevada looking for UFOs. One of my passions.
You’re a member of the Mutual UFO Network still, correct?
Exactly, yes.
So do you actually believe that UFOs exist?
I do. But I’ve never seen one.
Do you know anyone who has?
I’ve talked with a lot of people who believe they have seen UFOs. I’ve talked with a lot of people who believe they’ve been on UFOs. I don’t always buy everybody’s story, but I do believe that there’s enough evidence like that, enough people who’ve experienced things, to believe that there’s something out there.
If you go back to the beginning of time, humans have always had art of some kind. You know, they’ve always had plays, novels, paintings, whatever it is — we have this need to see ourselves projected in an artistic way. Do you ever wonder if aliens do the same thing? Do you think there’s alien art somewhere?
[laughs] Of all the people who claim to have been abducted that I’ve heard talk, or read their books and everything, I’ve never heard any of them say anything about artistic endeavors by the aliens. The aliens, for most of them, are pretty robotic and scientific and not much in the way of personality.
But do you think that’s the way our astronauts might come off to aliens?
Certainly. Astronauts are all military types.
So maybe we’re seeing all the scientific aliens, but all the artistic ones are back on the home planet?
I would expect that that’s true. We’re seeing the Christopher Columbus of the aliens, the ones who go out voyaging. The artists stay home and don’t want to have anything to do with all that. Or they’ll come in after they’ve colonized and set up their arts. But I’m sure there must be artistic aliens out there someplace.
I hope so.
I do too. It would be pretty sad if they went through without any kind of entertainment, other than kidnapping us.
Do you believe that’s actually happened?
Talking with as many people as I have, it’s hard to deny it, because too many of them sound very credible.
Let’s talk a little about your theater career. What finally brought you back into the theater world?
I’d always kind of been on the sides of the theater world, because my wife was a theater actress and had long been involved with a theater in Long Beach called the Found Theatre. And we had a friend who was involved with the Found Theatre, and she was going to be directing “The Diary of Anne Frank” here and she invited my wife and I to audition for it. And we did, and we were in the play, and that was about 2003, I think.
And while we were working on that play, they were looking for a director for another play down the line, “Biloxi Blues” by Neil Simon, and I said, “Well, I think I can relate to that,” because it’s about guys in the Army during World War II, and I’d been in the Army during Vietnam, and I said, “Well, I’d like to do that.”
On the website for the Costa Mesa Playhouse, one word that you use is “affordable.” You talk about how you want to have an affordable community theater here on the Westside. What would you say your typical audiences are? Do you get the feeling that a lot of them come from right here in the neighborhood?
A lot of them come from the general area. We have a lot of senior citizens who are regulars here, and most of them are regulars at three or four of the community or smaller theaters around. And a lot of them say they like us the best. But our general audience is people who live within a 10-mile radius, I’d say.
Do you ever plan to show your UFO documentary here at the playhouse?
It’ll probably happen. We haven’t really decided. It may happen. I showed it once at the Found Theatre in Long Beach, and it’s played at a couple of UFO convention film festivals, but the Laughlin film festival is the first real film festival. But, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if we do have a screening here.