Let’s Get Real
Island becomes fodder for Reality TV
By Laura Raskin

Independent Arts Writer

Reality television has a way of bringing the rich, famous and weird down to earth — and making the mundane compelling.

On MTV’s “Meet the Barkers,” the tattooed drummer from the rock band blink-182 and his former Miss USA wife are not such an odd pair after all. Not when you see them cleaning up after an untrained dog in the living room and arguing over who puts in longer days on the job.

Now Nantucketers may also have the potential to be great equalizers when their lives are showcased on a new reality show.

The New York and Los Angeles-based production company Eyeboogie, Inc. is holding a casting call for a Nantucket reality show at the West End Market on Madaket Road on Monday and Tuesday, June 27 and 28, from noon to 6 p.m.

Woody Thompson, president of Eyeboogie, will be looking for people of all ages who embody Nantucket.

“I’m hoping I’ll get everyone from five to 95 who have different points of view on what Nantucket means to them – bluebloods, prep school kids, dishwashers,” said Thompson. “The only thing they have in common is that they love Nantucket.”

The resulting footage could become a documentary or a series of biographies, pitched to cable television channels like Spike, Oxygen, MTV, VH1, or E!, he said.

Thompson is quick to point out that he wants to stray from the reality shows that are on television today.

“I’m a lot more interested in doing a much more sophisticated show than ‘Meet the Barkers’ or ‘The Osbournes.’ They are made in L.A. They’re built for tacky television,” said Thompson. “There are lots of outlets, including (local) Plum TV, that appeal to a broader audience.” He listed Bravo and former vice president Al Gore’s new channel, Current.

“I do not want to turn Nantucket into the Hamptons or Fort Lauderdale,” Thompson went on. “I hope we do get someone who can tell the history of Nantucket. Or someone to take us to the yacht club or on a lobster boat.”

While Thompson grew up on the East Coast, he is not so familiar with Nantucket. But one of Eyeboogie’s producers, Ted Grennan, has family ties here. Grennan’s brother Ande owns the West End Market.

“We want to see what makes people tick,” said Ted Grennan. “Why people find this island so dear, what it is to them.”

Thompson and Eyeboogie, which launched in 2000, are famous for VH1’s “Pop-Up Video” and its various incarnations on other channels. Thompson produces reality and celebrity clips and has a show, “Open Call,” on the TV Guide Channel.

“It’s difficult to pitch [reality shows] unless you have very unique characters you can’t find anywhere else,” he said.

Thompson explained that he recently moved to L.A. from the East Coast and that he’s found certain ennui there in the summertime.

“It’s summer all year round so nobody does anything. They don’t have these little enclaves where kids grew up. [In Nantucket] there’s locals, retailers, renters. For 90 days out of the year it’s crazy, and then it goes back to the locals,” he said.

“How do we capture something like that, that isn’t ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’?”

Thompson, who will be the executive producer of the show, is tentatively calling it “There Once Was a Man/Woman From Nantucket.”

He is hoping that unique local personalities come to the casting call and show proof of their loyalty to the island.

“Bring pictures of yourself from when you were little on the beach, or show me how fast you can shuck a quahog,” suggested Thompson.