Ballard actor creating TV show set in Seattle

When Rob Polonsky moved to Ballard two years ago, he was in a rut.

He uprooted from Los Angeles and, on a whim, chose Ballard as his new home. “I was unemployed, was knees deep in financial troubles and felt lost,” he says.

But then he started taking acting classes at Gilmore Studio in downtown Ballard. As his acting progressed, he began writing a comedy series from (the former) Vera’s restaurant.

“Ballard inspired me and really helped me rediscover my passion for acting,” Polonsky says.

His writing sessions at Vera’s and acting classes led to the creation of a comedy series called “Everybody’s Watching”, which is about a man who works at a tech company (Microzon) but whose real passion is acting. In order to create the pilot episode and officially pitch his series to festivals, he’s launched a crowdfunding campaign on Seed & Spark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=198&v=P55IPOfeGHU

Polonsky describes the show as “The Office meets Silicon Valley with a hint of Scrubs“.

“This show is for all of us who have big dreams, but are confined by our day jobs,” he writes on his campaign website.

Here’s an excerpt from the Seed & Spark site:

Everybody’s Watching follows Rob, a Program Manager at the Seattle-based tech giant, Microzon. Even though Rob has a “cool” job, it means nothing to him more than a paycheck. Rob wants to break free of his lifeless corporate job to live out his dream of becoming an actor. But the very corporate job that allows him to live a comfortable lifestyle and fund his passion is also the same corporate job that hinders him from pursuing it.

Rob’s full time job is constantly keeping him from pursuing his acting dream. His perseverance for his passion forces him to live a double life. The more Rob fights the oppression of the corporate structure he’s trapped inside of, his two lives merge more and more together creating a series of extraordinary conflicts that turn normal circumstances in his work and everyday lives into exaggerated theatrical genre-twisting performances.

Polonsky says there will be some filming in Ballard, and that the neighborhood will be “sprinkled through the episodes in the first season”, because it’s where the main character lives.

If the crowdfunding campaign reaches its goal of $20,000 (they’re at $7,000 so far), they’ll be filming the pilot episode at the end of June, and will start pitching and submitting it to festivals in the fall.

To learn more about the show, visit the Seed & Spark campaign site.