WAITING FOR GUFFMAN

Star of Texas Award

The imminent appearance of a noted critic sets the stage for comedy during a local theatre production in Christopher Guest’s 1996 film WAITING FOR GUFFMAN. Lockhart and Austin served as locations for the fictional Blaine, Missouri setting where Guest, starring as director Corky St. Clair, seeks to create an impressive, over-the-top production of Red, White and Blaine that he hopes will be Broadway-bound. The Texas locales gave Waiting for Guffman the Everyman anonymity it needed, masquerading as small-town Missouri. Alas, the eccentric Blaine locals are more enthusiastic than talented, and rehearsals proceed with sharp humor and bare-bones direction until opening night when the mysterious critic finally appears – or does he? Like Mercury Theatre actors for the new millennium, Christopher Guest’s stable of gifted actors – Parker Posey, Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara (accepting for the film), and co-writer Eugene Levy – celebrate the quirky human character with deft comic precision and style.

Catherine O'Hara

Catherine O'Hara long ago stole our hearts with her astonishing array of daffy characters and caricatures on the Second City Television series. In the 90s, she joined Christopher Guest’s legendary coterie of actors in such films as Best in Show, For Your Consideration, and A Mighty Wind, for which she sang in character at the Oscars. For her hilarious portrayal in Waiting for Guffman of Sheila Albertson, the travel agent who’s never been outside her town, she accepts the Star of Texas Award on the film’s behalf.