Taylor A. Purdee

Taylor Armstrong Purdee is an American director, actor, screenwriter, and folk singer. He is best known for his appearances on American superhero television dramas, as well as his work preserving the documentary films of Academy Award winning Actress/Director Lee Grant. In 2017 it was announced that he would make his narrative directorial debut with the musical film Killian & the Comeback Kids.^[1][2]

Personal life[]

Purdee is the son of actor Nathan Purdee and documentarian Roberta Morris Purdee. Born in New York City, Purdee was raised primarily in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania.^[3] Working with the family's production company Karmic Release in his teens, Purdee graduated from the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts before attending New York's Fordham University.^[4]

Film[]

While still studying at Fordham, Purdee began work on "This is Honduras," a documentary exploration of life in and around San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the murder capital of the world. Filming in Honduras between academic terms, Purdee edited the film over the next few years. A private screening was held for the film at the Paramount Pictures screening room in New York City before the film premiered as the highest grossing selection of the 2016 Chagrin Documentary Film Festival. The film is expected to be released in time for the 2020 political season.^[5]

While at Fordham, Purdee participated in New York's scene appearing in "Pee Pee Poo Poo Papa Face," an experimental piece with text by Young Jean Lee,^[6] assistant directing the New York premiere of Maria Irene Fornes' play .^[7] and overseeing some technical aspects of the beloved Off-Broadway Argentinian spectacles Fuerza Bruta and .^[8]

In 2015 it was announced on YouTube that Purdee was organizing the preservation and potential re-release of several documentaries directed by Lee Grant.^[9] Ahead of Grant's appearance at the 2017 Turner Classic Movies film festival, The Hollywood Reporter and LA Times reported that Grant and Purdee had co-directed a short YouTube video highlighting the public mistreatment of Hillary Clinton at the hands of her male opponents during the 2016 presidential campaign.^[10][11] Later that year it was announced that had begun production on Killian & the Comeback Kids, a musical film written and directed by Purdee, starring Taylor and Nathan Purdee, Kassie DePaiva, John Donchak, Shane Andries, and . Shot entirely on location in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania the film features an original soundtrack created by Purdee's folk-rock group .^[3][12]

During Killian & the Comeback Kids' post-production period Purdee appeared on the superhero TV shows Gotham and Iron Fist, as well as the surprise Finnish hit . He has voiced radio ad campaigns for At&T, Bank of America, Ragu, and Spam.^[13][14][15]

He has created documentary content on film history for NBC Universal, focusing on subjects like Peter Biskind, Kirk Douglas, Warren Beatty, and Lee Grant. Most recently he and co-produced an acclaimed documentary short for Kino Lorber's blu-ray re-release of Hal Ashby's Academy Award nominated debut film The Landlord.^[16][17]

COVID-19[]

Purdee served as the curator for a collection of documentary films directed by Lee Grant which was re-released theatrically for the first time in late 2019, beginning as part of a retrospective on Grant's work at New York's Film Forum.^[18] The extended life of the documentary collection in theaters was cut short by theater closures at the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. Purdee was asked to reimagine the series as one of the earliest examples of a virtual cinema release. Adding a series of program notes and new or unreleased interviews with Grant, as well as excerpts from the Kirk Douglas archive, the series was renamed 20th Century Woman: The Documentary Films of Lee Grant. It became the "first virtual repertory series"^[19] and received critical praise for bringing Grant's films back into the public eye and highlighting the plight of independent movie theaters during the crisis.^{[20][21][22][23]}

In August 2020 Playbill announced that Hope Runs High would release Purdee's musical film Killian & the Comeback Kids as one of the first new films and only independents to return exclusively to American theaters during the crisis.^[24]

Music[]

Purdee began playing folk music and busking in the parks and subways of New York City. This quickly coalesced into a duo with scientist and songwriter Liam Higgins, a childhood friend. The group's first major work is the original soundtrack and score for Killian & the Comeback Kids, though it has been reported that they are in the midst of recording a long form concept album. The band cites artists as disparate as singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, Bob Dylan, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and Weird Al Yankovic as inspiration.^[12][25][26]

References[]