CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
By Mitchell Maxwell and MMaxwell Media LLC
Over the last 50 years, I have worked in the entertainment business. The industry has changed so many times and been through so much it is truly difficult to say what it has become and where it will find some sort of safe haven. Yet rest assured, we will survive by looking to the experienced leadership within our industry, those who have navigated us through hard times before.
MMaxwell Media, LLC will adapt to the ever-growing assortment of platforms for our projects in various and expansive mediums. With this company, we will explore these different venues beginning with these five projects.
Windows
The play Windows is written by New York Times bestselling author Tawni O’Dell. It was presented at NY’s famous Town Hall in March of 2024, with an all-star cast. The response to the production was stunning and presently it is being prepared for a commercial move to be reopened for an extended run in the Spring of 2025, followed by a national tour. Additionally, it is the intent of Mr. Maxwell to shoot the new production for a sale to a VOD platform.
Funny, heart-wrenching, and thought-provoking, the dramatic play Windows is a series of vignettes that looks back at the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hard to believe that nearly five years have passed since the frightening time of lockdown when people were told not to leave their homes and were forbidden to see loved ones. When jobs and life savings were lost. When grocery stores were ransacked and weddings canceled. When daily death toll numbers were posted on newscasts with the nonchalance of scoreboard points. When there was no end in sight. Without being political or pedantic, Windows gives the audience a peek behind curtains into the spaces where ten individuals from all walks of life navigate crushing isolation and fear along with poignant and sometimes riotous moments of self-reflection that lead to the discovery of what’s most important to us all: each other.
As an important piece of our nation’s history and an expression of its denizen’s strength in the face of a fearful unknown, WINDOWS is an essential work about the human condition.
Closing the Distance – Trailer
Closing the Distance – Press Description
Closing the Distance – Audio Drama Website
Closing the Distance – Apple Podcast Introduction
Closing the Distance – Apple Podcast Full Series
Here are Executive Producer Mitchell Maxwell’s favorite episodes from the podcast:
Closing the Distance – Being Seen – Starring Kathleen Turner
Closing the Distance – The Man Who Couldn’t Google – Starring Jason Alexander
Closing the Distance – Second Thoughts – Starring Tony Danza
Closing the Distance – Working from Home – Starring Kelli O’Hara
Closing the Distance – Social Distancing – Starring William Hurt
Pay The Writer by Tawni O'Dell
Pay the Writer made its NYC debut in August of 2023, starring Golden Globe winner, Marcia Cross, and written by NY Times, Bestselling Author, Tawni O’Dell. The production, which played the prestigious Signature Theatre in NYC had a successful 7-week run and is presently in pre production for an extended commercial run to open within the next 18 months.
Pay the Writer is a sophisticated comedy drama that delves into the dynamics of a unique forty-year long friendship between a gay literary agent and a world-renowned African American novelist. Heartrending and hilarious, the play follows the complicated personal and professional lives of the two men while also providing an insider’s view of the crazy, maddening, and often side-splitting world of writers and the publishing industry. Witty in dealing with egos and frailties, the play is also wise and sympathetic in its portrayal of an unlikely relationship that began at a time when both men were rejected by society and how together they survived prejudice, heartbreak, and a few bad reviews. Ms. O’Dell originally wrote the first six episodes of the play as a series and it promises not only success and revenue from its stage iteration, but on electronic platforms as well.
When It Happens To You By Tawni O'Dell
When It Happens To You is based on Ms. O’Dell’s memoir about the unquantifiable damage her daughter suffered following a brutal sexual assault. The London Production debuted in August of 2024. Below is the official trailer from that production, as well as the sizzle reel.
Debuted off Broadway in NYC Nov 2019
The London Production debuted in Aug 2024
Irrelevant by Tawni O'Dell
Irrelevant is a volatile, sexy, timely thriller about a beautiful writer attempting to navigate her industry’s views on racism and cancel culture, while also battling personal passions that threaten to push her to the brink of her own sanity. A brave exploration into the many faces of desire and betrayal, Irrelevant is a smart, provocative, relentless work of suspense, with an ending that will leave the audience gasping.
Irrelevant will make its world premier in NYC in 2025
The Naughty List (A Christmas Play)
It’s the night before Christmas and one of the world’s most famous power couples is contemplating divorce. After 323 years of marriage Mrs. Claus is leaving Santa and she’s well aware that her timing is terrible. After a hilarious and heated argument with her husband who has just finished showering and is getting ready to “work late,” she flies the coop in a sleigh with two youthful reindeer-in-training who only make it as far as a Hampton Inn in Paramus, NJ. Will Santa alter his route and come looking for her? Will the man who spreads love to all on this special night remember that the woman he loves should come first?
The Naughty List is a breezy yet moving three-character play about the reconnection between mature sweethearts. It’s full of big laughs, smart insights, and plenty of holiday spirit. The actors will get to experience the fun and thrill of playing this legendary couple as two real people involved in the kind of modern day marital crisis all audiences can relate to. They will also be part of a production filling a beckoning void in our holiday landscape: Christmas movies abound but there are no contemporary Christmas plays. For theatre goers, The Naughty List will be a wonderful gift that leaves them saying, “Now, that was just what I wanted.”
Little Did I Know
A multiple season musical series based on the acclaimed Novel by Mitchell Maxwell and the subsequent groundbreaking Podcast Broadcast during lockdown.
Little Did I Know takes place in the summer of 1976, when the seemingly endless party celebrating America’s two-hundredth birthday was in full swing, in all its glory. From May to September, young men and women recklessly came of age under Cape Cod’s star-studded skies, lit by orange-neon moons.
Sam August seeks his glory during that fantastic summer, his sights set on a career as a theater impresario. Through sheer serendipity, he discovers the oldest barn theater in America, just one hundred yards from Plymouth Bay. Although worn, decaying, and unused for years, August sees the place as the gem it once was. He sets out on a quest to reignite and reinvent–to paint new light, color, and magic on the building’s blank canvas. Infused with an unmitigated ferocity of purpose, he restores the ancient theater and catches lightning in a bottle.
Along the way he falls in love, rails against local corruption, skirts the numerous disasters of his imagined bulletproof youth, and protects the many friends who have joined him on this wondrous roller-coaster ride of a summer.
Little Did I Know is told at breakneck speed, with the urgency of youth. August’s journey is a wild, sexy romp of surprise, challenge, and the realization that the pursuit of big dreams does not come with a road map. It is an education on the human condition, a boundlessly entertaining story that proves the only option is pursuing a life of meaning and consequence is to follow your heart.
Little Did I Know was adapted for the stage and spearheaded by a creative dream team that included three-time Tony winner Doug Besterman, Tony and Pulitzer winner Producer Mitchell Maxwell, and Oscar and Golden Globe winner Dean Pitchford.
Along the way the production was derailed by “the pandemic” yet undaunted it found life in the form of the first Broadway Level Podcast, where, upon its release, it soared to number three on Apple and remained there for the next five months.
Featuring twenty-two original songs backed by a full band and sung by a stellar team of vocalists, Little Did I Know is the story of a group of friends – recent college graduates – who bring a broken-down summer theater back to life in 1976. The summer will be different from anything they expected, and what they experience will resonate throughout their lives. At turns funny, romantic, stirring, and poignant, this is an unforgettable coming-of-age story.
Presently, Little Did I Know is slated for a workshop presentation in the summer months of 2025. It is the intention of MMaxwell Media to return the material to its original stage script in order to present it in a commercial venue and subsequent tour.
Little Did I Know – Introduction 1
YouTube superstar Kurt Hugo Schneider welcomes you to the first Broadway-level podcast musical. Sample a couple of the twenty-two original songs in the show and get the first taste of the story you’re going to be singing along with.
Little Did I Know – Introduction 2
Laura Marano, star of “Austin and Ally” and “Saving Zoe” welcomes you into the world of the first Broadway-level podcast musical.
Little Did I Know – Full Episode Guide
LITTLE DID I KNOW IS PERFECT AS A MULTIPLE SEASON SERIES—Think GLEE five years after those beloved characters finished high school.