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Milana Vayntrub, Jason Alexander among stars of ‘Out of Office’ BY NATE BLOOM SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHT
“Out-of-Office” is an original Comedy Central film that premiered on Sept. 5. The film focuses on how the private lives of “out-of-office” (at-home) workers often gets mixed-up with their work lives. The central character is a young woman who finds out that keeping her job is somehow tied to helping her boss save his failing marriage. (Oddly, character names aren’t available before the premiere.) MILANA VAYNTRUB, 35, plays the young woman. Vayntrub, who is very youthful looking, is best known for playing Lily, the store salesperson in the AT&T TV ads. JASON ALEXANDER, 62, and “Saturday Night Live” vet Cheri Oteri play her parents. From the trailer, it appears that comic actor Ken Jeong plays Vayntrub’s boss. Two African American SNL vets, Jay Pharoah and Leslie Jones, round-out the remaining big-name stars. The film was directed and written by PAUL LIEBERSTEIN, 55. He’s a member of the most remarkable Jewish entertainment biz family that you probably never heard of. Lieberstein was an executive producer of “The Office,” wrote many “Office” episodes, and acted a bit in the series. His brother-in-law, GREG DANIELS, 59, is a five-time Emmy winner—he was a top SNL writer and a top “Simpsons” writ-
er before he successfully adapted the (original) British version of “The Office” for American audiences. He also co-created “Parks and Recreation.” Daniels’ father, AARON, 87, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant, was head of ABC radio broadcasting. Daniels’ wife, SUSANNE DANIELS, 57 (Paul’s sister) has helped develop many hit TV shows and she’s held many top entertainment media posts. She’s now “Global Head of Content” for YouTube. She was LORNE MICHAEL’s (SNL creator) secretary when Daniels met her. The couple have four, probably funny, children. SHERYL SANDBERG, 52, the Chief Operating Officer of Meta (Facebook), married executive TOM BERNTHAL, 50, on Aug. 20. The couple reportedly bought out the Four Seasons Hotel in Jackson Hole, Wyo. for the weekend. The guests included Tom’s brother, actor JON BERNTHAL, 44 (“Walking Dead,” “King Richard”). It’s likely a rabbi presided at the wedding. People magazine reports that the couple did a modified version of the Jewish wedding tradition of the groom and bride circling each other seven times. Sandberg circled Bernthal once and he circled her— then his three kids (with his ex-wife) and Sandberg’s two kids (with her late husband) circled Sandberg and Bernthal five times. Sandberg’s late husband, high tech exec DAVE GOLDBERG, was 47 when he had
Milana Vayntrub (seated at center) and Jason Alexander (to Vayntrub’s left) are part of the ensemble cast of Comedy Central’s new film, ‘Out of Office.’ PHOTO COURTESY OF COMEDY CENTRAL
fatal heart attack in 2015. I presume that Bernthal’s ex-wife, Lauren Pomeranz, is Jewish, too. They divorced in 2020. Reports say that Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN, 60, was at the wedding. This makes sense – Tom Bernthal has long ties to the Democratic Party. He began his working life in the White House communications office during the Clinton administration. He went on to produce many NBC news programs. Currently, he is the head of a big marketing company.
Sandberg will step down from her Meta post this fall but will remain on the company’s board. She got a lot of good press as the author of “Leaning In” (2013), a best-selling guide for professional women. In the last few years, she and Facebook founder MARK ZUCKERBERG have attracted fierce criticism for Facebook’s “shortcomings”— No. 1 being its glacial pace in removing hate speech and Russian/domestic disinformation.
NANCY KRANZBERG — THE ARTS IN ST. LOUIS
Move over, canvas: Works on paper take the spotlight BY NANCY KRANZBERG
I was thumbing through invitations to gallery and museum exhibitions that I had saved and noticed that Philip Slein of the Philip Slein Gallery recently had a large group show featuring works on paper of all sizes by both nationally known and local artists. The show featured abstract and figurative works. I started thinking about what kinds of works would be included in the “works on paper” category and did a little research. Brigham Young University, in a past exhibition of works on paper and photography, described it this way: “Of the 18,000 works in the museum collection, the majority of works on paper are various
forms of prints, drawings and photographs. The works on paper in the collection include excellent examples by masters in the print medium such as Durer, Daumier, Rembrandt and famous Japanese woodblock artists.” The Louisiana State Museum described works on paper in its collection as drawings, prints, newspaper illustrations, silhouettes, watercolors and pastels, postcards and posters. The LeWallen Galleries in Sante Fe, N.M recently featured an exhibition entitled “Fritz Scholder: Works on Paper.” Scholder (1937-2005) was a pivotal figure in American art history, credited with reimagining the portrayal of indigenous
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people in contemporary art. Moving away from the traditional, romanticized stereotypes that had dominated previously in American art, Scholder instead applied the v isua l lang uages of Ger man Expressionism and Pop Art to convey the contemporary reality of indigenous people. Here’s how the gallery described the exhibition: “(It) highlights the wide scope of Scholder’s works on paper, including drawings, collages and paintings on paper, as well as examples of his contributions to printmaking in lithography, serigraphy, lincut, monotype etching and aquatint. His boldness as an artist is in full focus in his works on paper, which allowed him the opportunity to experiment with subject matter, composition and process independently from his paintings on canvas.” The Toledo Museum of Art has one of the best kept secrets. Its works on paper collection includes nearly 13,000 prints, drawings, photographs and artists’ books. Recently, the Saint Louis Art Museum hosted an exhibition entitled, “Impressionism and Beyond,” an exhibition of post- Impressionism on paper. The exhibition focused on the paths towards modernity opened up by Impressionism. Artists such as Degas, Cassat and Renoir also drew with pastels, pen and ink and experimented with lithographs. In fact, it is the period between about 1885 and 1905 that is of most interest in the exhibition. In a press release, the museum noted that, “Mary Cassat elevated color printmaking to new heights through her adaptation of the Japanese aesthetic that was taking Paris by storm in the 1890s, while her Impressionist colleague Edgar Degas sought multiple ave-
nues for experimentation in print. Degas and other Impressionists also developed inventive drawing styles that allowed them to capture movement and intense effects of color and light in their works.” And I found an article about the curation of Paper West-2nd National Works on Paper from 2019, which took place at the University of Utah. The juror, Judith Brodsky, says that it was an exhilarating experience. “The high quality of the work submited and broad variety of technique and content was at first overwhelming,” she had stated. “The question was how to develop a coherent exhibition from such a diverse group of works. After a while, the works fell into groups—woodcut landscapes, surreal collages, a surprisingly set of mezzotints, some beautiful charcoal drawings, a large number of mixed media and a collection of artist’s books. While many works were based on photographic material, there were only a few straight photographs.” As you can see, works on paper encompass a wide range of materials and technique, but the creativity and imaginations of the artists put “the icing on the cake.”
For more of Nancy Kranzberg’s commentary, listen to KWMU (90.7) St. Louis on the Air the first Friday of each month at approximately 12:50 p.m. She also hosts a weekly Arts Interview podcast for KDHX (88.1), available at artsinterview.kdhxtra.org.
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