So what do you do when you’re an Oscar-winning actor with a penchant for activism and the board of your own theater company says that due to the recession, “we can no longer afford to produce theater,” as “it would be less expensive to do nothing”? Tim Robbins is “not very good at doing nothing,” as he says, and so he grabbed his iPod instead and started booking musical, comedic, and other acts to perform over the next two months at the tiny Actors Gang theater in Culver City, CA.
Upcoming musical acts set to perform for 100 lucky ticket holders are Tenacious D (this Sat.!), Jackson Browne, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, John Doe, Jill Sobule, Tom Morello, Jenny Lewis & friends, and Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard.
Actually, Gibbard is also cryptically listed as appearing with “friends,” which makes makes me wonder if his new wife, She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel, might show up for a little indie Sonny and Cher affair.
“I have all these artists on my iPod and most of them on vinyl,” Robbins told Flavorwire in a recent Q&A. “I admire them all as great songwriters.” What else is on his iPod? “Everything from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to Rufus Wainwright to the Dead Kennedys to X to Neutral Milk Hotel,” he added.
How ‘bout giving Neutral Milk Hotel a ring, Mr. Robbins? For tix and the full WTF?! Festival calendar go thataway.