Sam Rosenberg

Staff Writer

Live from Mulholland Drive, it’s Milken Night Live! Well, not quite. After some deliberation in the beginning of the school year, Milken Night Live will be changing its current live format into a digital format.

Introduced last year by Zachary Brenner ‘14, Benjamin Pitt ‘14, Noah Mintz ‘14, Kyle Latin ‘14, and Adam Stark ‘13, Milken Night Live is a student-run club that offers students to showcase their acting, writing, and directing talents through a live comedy sketch format. However, that format will change for this year, as the students behind MNL will be recording several sketches and then producing it into an hour-long movie.

Although MNL was originally scheduled to have its second show following last year’s debut, scheduling conflicts arose, thus changing the format. “It began out of necessity but then we decided that it would be a cool idea to make it digital,” said MNL actor and student leader Benjamin Pitt ‘14. Pitt also says that even though “it does lose the ‘live’ factor in the name, there are a lot more opportunities to use props and costumes, as well as more jokes that we wouldn’t be able to land on stage.

Pitt isn’t the only one who thinks the new digital format gives a much more creative platform to work with. MNL co-creator Zachary Brenner ‘14 believes that making the show digital will be “beneficial for the future of MNL because it shows that the show is willing to adapt into new environments and can exist in any form.” MNL actor/writer Kyle Latin ‘14 states further that one advantage of the digital format is “not having to worry about line memorization or having to use cue cards.”

Liberty Fuchs ‘16, an MNL actor, is also excited about the show’s new format. “It has its pros and cons,” Fuchs says. “I can’t tell how it will compare to last year’s performance. However, last year was our first time. Hopefully it will be back on stage next year!” Since Fuchs has been a MNL member since its inception, she explained the benefits of having a digital show. “Last year we never got to actually practice on stage, but this year we can rehearse right where we’re going to film.”

MNL member Michael Kalman 14’ also added some insight on why a digital show is better than a live one: “In a live show, many times we have to sacrifice interesting ideas because they just aren’t possible to do live but are possible with post production editing.”

But the question remains: when and where will MNL be shown now that it’s digital? According to MNL member Noah Mintz ‘14, the actual digital show will be released at the North Hollywood Laemmle on March 30th for a one-night private screening. Mintz also hopes that the new digital format will show that MNL has extraordinary potential if it were to continue being digital.

Watch a teaser promo for MNL below: