Episode 075 - Blake McWilliam and Jeremy Holm - TIMBERWOOD

The Viewfinder Podcast with Chris Hadley

Every year in summer camps throughout the country, millions of kids play, learn and gain as many lasting friendships as they do memories. The same is also true for the adult counselors who teach, encourage and occasionally discipline their young charges during their stay.

Surprisingly, as you'll see in the soon-to-debut comedy series TIMBERWOOD, summer camp is as much a coming-of-age experience for the counselors as it is for the campers. The show’s award-winning pilot episode has already been produced, with its most recent showing taking place at the eighth annual SeriesFest in Denver, Colorado.

Joining me on this week's show are the creator and co-writer of TIMBERWOOD, Blake McWilliam - himself a former camp counselor-turned writer and filmmaker - and series co-star Jeremy Holm (best known for his roles in acclaimed shows like MR. ROBOT, HOUSE OF CARDS and many others).

Holm plays Ray Raymond, the no-nonsense owner of a summer camp - called TIMBERWOOD - where its madcap coterie of not quite grown-up counselors sex up, booze hard, prank harder and blow off plenty of steam both on and off-duty. The pilot episode takes place in the week before camp season officially begins, when Ray leads the camp’s misfit employees through the paces of a week-long counselor orientation period.

Yet when the rebellious counselors’ beloved leader Ryan (played by Michael Trevino) suddenly gets busted for weed possession after an otherwise fun day on the job, someone else must guide the camp’s staff into another hectic season. That someone else turns out to be one of Ryan’s many admirers: Liam (played by Giullian Yao Gioiello), who finally has a chance to prove he’s got the personality and the integrity to follow in Ryan’s much-missed footsteps.

TIMBERWOOD also co-stars David Reale as the awkward and frequently self-sabotaging boys’ head counselor William, plus Ariane Rinehart as Kira, a camper-turned camp counselor whose aspirations to be as successful as her ambassador mother put a strain on her otherwise joyous summer, and Jessie Komitor as Cam Gladwell, a brilliant, hard-working and often sarcastic counselor.

Two more members of the show’s cast also co-wrote the pilot episode with McWilliam: AJ Vaage, who portrays Camp Timberwood’s water skiing instructor Olly, and Ian Fisher, who co-stars as Kyle, an emotionally complex newcomer to both summer camp and the camp lifestyle. Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut plays the headstrong tennis instructor Becca, while Layla Khoshnoudi rounds out the cast as the camp’s curious yet outspoken head of drama, Talia.

Filmed at the same upstate New York camp that once employed McWilliam, TIMBERWOOD is, as of now, hoping to find funding for production of an additional 10 episodes for the show's first season. McWilliam and Holm join me to talk about not just the making of this raunchy yet very funny and heartfelt show, but also about how their memories of life at summer camp inspired their amazing work on TIMBERWOOD.

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Music by Audionautix.com