Article from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Scott Mervis.
A Night at the Gaslight concert will showcase ‘the new Dylan’
Photo Credit: Krystyn Brooke
“116 MacDougal,” the indie movie about the famed ‘60s Greenwich Village folk club The Gaslight Cafe, was announced in late 2017 with Upper St. Clair’s Nevin James in the role of Bob Dylan.
When it begins filming this summer in Pittsburgh, there will be a “new Dylan,” replacing James, who left the project due to what he describes simply as “creative differences.”
Ross Wylde, a 19-year-old San Francisco native and Santa Clara University freshman, will portray the club’s most venerable musician, who was that same age when he started performing at the iconic club founded by Dormont native John Mitchell in 1961.
Wylde and other members of the cast will offer a sneak preview of the music Sunday night with “A Night at the Gaslight, The Festival Concert,” part of the Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival, at the sold-out New Hazlett Theater.
The concert will include, among others, Chris Jamison (“The Voice”) as Tom Paxton, JJ Mason as Woody Guthrie, Rosanna Spindler as Maria Muldaur and, as Dave Van Ronk, Clinton Clegg, who is on tour of the Southwest with The Commonheart but flying back for the event.
David Castro is directing the film and starring as Dylan manager Albert Grossman. Donna D’Errico, who starred in the “Baywatch” TV series in the ’90s, is co-producing with Lynda Schneider and playing an embittered mafia wife.
They delayed filming “116 MacDougal” until they had recorded the soundtrack at Neville Island’s The Vault studio in February with the Grammy-winning Jimmy Hoyson and co-producer Krystyn Schneider.
Wylde is a folk musician who started playing guitar and piano at 5 years old and got into Dylan, whom he’s never seen live, just a few years after that.
“My dad got me into him and I sang ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ at a talent show when I was in second grade,” he says.
The producers found him online performing Dylan songs live — in his sweeter, more boyish voice of early Dylan — and reached out to him for the part.
“Part of the reason they chose me,” he says, “is that there aren’t many young people who know Dylan’s work, much less passionate about singing and playing his songs.”
He auditioned by sending a video of a scene and clip of him singing “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He’ll sing that and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” on Sunday night.
It’s at 7 p.m. at the New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, North Side.
