Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo’s TV Show Isn’t Happening… But He Is Hosting Shakespeare Parties for Fans

Photo by Emily Shur

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo‘s TV pilot “DeTour”,  based off his own experience of being a rock star who decides to leave his band and go back to college, isn’t being picked up for a series, Vulture reports.

“So that whole chapter is closed,” Cuomo told Vulture. “It’s weird; in music if you make an album and your label decides not to put it out, you can bring it to another label and sometimes it can be a big success. At least it gets out. In TV, I’ve learned, it’s not like that. The pilot was made, completely finished, and we can’t show it to anybody! No one will ever see it. It’s a huge waste of money.”

However, Cuomo does have another non-musical activity to keep him busy: As Vulture points out, Cuomo’s begun hosting “Nerd Night”s, spur-of-the-moment events for fans during which he screens productions – or cinematic adaptations – of Shakespeare classics. 

Vulture recounts a recent screening of Antony and Cleopatra and describes the evening in detail; in between conversations with fans, Cuomo snacked on ice cream sandwiches and even took time to perform “Cleopatra”, a song off last year’s Weezer LP Everything Will Be Alright In The End inspired by the play… while wearing a Roman helmet.

Cuomo described to Vulture what the Bard means to him:

He [Shakespeare] shows me what’s possible with language. Obviously, none of us can try to emulate him. But it’s inspiring to know how much power you can wield with words. We don’t know much about his creative process, but I’ve read enough to know this specific example of a way I’ve taken something from him: He worked with sources a lot. In fact, I think only one of his plays —A Midsummer Night’s Dream — was an original story. He would read these history stories and combine different plots. And in the case of this play, that whole speech by Enobarbus about ‘the poop was beaten gold’ — that description of Cleopatra that’s so beautiful — he really lifted a lot of that from a different source. I’ve read the original. So it’s inspiring to know that even Shakespeare needed to rely on the work of people before him. That gives me license to do the same.

Read our recent interview with Cuomo.

Check out Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” video:

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