Once upon a time (a year and a half ago), in a land far, far away (Los Angeles), a young storyteller found himself at a crossroads.
Fresh out of Emerson College, screenwriting degree in hand, August Gladstone had moved to the City of Angels seeking to launch a career in the film, TV, and comedy industries. He quickly discovered, however, that for all its excitement and glamour, Hollywood also had a much darker side.
“It hurt me spiritually to see how much an art form, something I do to express myself, became so commoditized,” Mr. Gladstone, a 24-year-old graduate of East Hampton High School, said this week. “I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. All of a sudden, it felt like everything I did had to be perfect.”
To soothe his soul, he sought refuge in writing poetry.
“I didn’t know what it was or why at the time. That’s how a lot of people stumble into poetry, right? It began as an escape from the pressure of the other forms of art that I’m doing. This was for nobody but myself.”
Back in East Hampton this summer, Mr. Gladstone released a book of poetry, “Ivy,” which he celebrated with friends, family, and community members at LongHouse Reserve in July. Between two coasts, between film and comedy, he’d discovered a new place to express his creativity.
“As I’ve gotten more comfortable and built a routine in both of these different artistic areas, I have been able to make space to do the mental gap-bridging I have to do,” he said.
In a poem titled “The Smoker’s Kama Sutra,” Mr. Gladstone reflects on the Los Angeles-East Hampton axis:
The most beautiful way to smoke a joint is on your friend’s balcony in Hollywood as the clock strikes
Bang!
On New Year’s Eve.
A blizzard of firework sparks threaten inferno on your headscarf. You stare at the nuclear sunrise, smiling as green haze happiness rolls in. Suddenly, the rank beer smog stank of East L.A. roars away and you’re catapulted to your hometown.
Where the night is dark.
Where you see the stars again.
Mr. Gladstone feels very much a part of both places, L.A. and E.H., at the same time. “I feel like a different person in each,” he said. “East Hampton will always be my home . . . I was a five-minute walk from Louse Point, spending all my days floating in the bay and digging clams with my toes and walking through the woods with my dogs. That’s why I find nature so comforting right now. As opulent as the Hamptons can be, it also has a very beautiful rural world that really only locals get to experience and understand the full depths of. It’s the place I return to in my head when things get crazy in Hollywood.”
“But L.A. has its comforts, too — a lot of activities. I’m always engaged, always up to something. Things in L.A. feel very purpose-driven, and that’s not a bad thing. I thrive on it, but also, it’s not very restful. There is so much wonder here, so it’s opened up my eyes to things I’ve never been able to experience back home.”
He returned to Los Angeles a few weeks ago and began filming a television pilot for an original courthouse comedy he’d written. Called “The Law Brothers,” it’s about two sibling attorneys who promise to get their clients off — because L.A. is nothing if not the natural habitat of the double entendre.
Mr. Gladstone and a team of creative partners filmed “The Law Brothers” on a budget of $10,000. “And it’s going to look like we made an episode of TV for $10,000, but it’s also going to be incredible.”
His goal is to have a finished pilot by early next year. It has been a highly fulfilling project so far, one that he’s worked on after his day job as assistant to a literary manager at 3 Arts Entertainment, a leading production company and talent agency.
“I was working my job for about a year when I realized I wasn’t doing what I wanted to be doing creatively. . . . Something I learned from my parents is, if you want to make art, go make art.”
Mr. Gladstone’s parents are Kate Mueth, founder of the performing arts and social advocacy organization Neo-Political Cowgirls here, and Josh Gladstone, now the creative director at LTV Studios, East Hampton’s nonprofit public access TV station and event venue.
“I feel like a ‘nepo baby,’ but not at all in the sense that they have given me my career or pulled strings to get me into places,” said the younger Mr. Gladstone. “I mean it in the fact that I have gotten to experience a creative and artistic lifestyle from the moment I existed. I have jumped into these creative careers with these incredible guides to turn to and ask questions and get feedback. They are effusive, but I also trust them artistically to a massive degree. . . . Seeing them work in the theater inspired me throughout my entire life.”
As an actor, he appeared in his first stage production — “The Cherry Orchard” at Guild Hall — at the age of 3.
“I was a diva even back then,” Mr. Gladstone said. “I remember asking Mom, ‘Why don’t I have more lines?’ She said, ‘Because you don’t know words yet, sweet boy.’ “
He was acting on Broadway by age 6, playing a deaf Russian boy in a production of “The Coast of Utopia” — a play based on a trilogy of books by Tom Stoppard that in 2007 scooped up Tony Awards for best play, best direction, best leading actor in a play, scenic design, costume design, and lighting design (among others).
Newton’s law of physics, according to Google’s A.I. search algorithm, dictates that “an object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line, unless acted on by an unbalanced force.”
That’s apparently also the law of August Gladstone; he is constantly in motion, rarely at rest. In addition to poet and screenwriter, he is a musician and songwriter, comedic actor, and clown. Yes, a clown: He recently appeared in a buzzworthy production called Stamptown, which has been billed as a “chaotic, raunchy fever dream” that blends “comedy, cabaret, circus, drag, dance, music, and magic.” And earlier this year he was featured on Breaking Sound, a showcase-style platform that highlights up-and-coming artists.
Which part of him comes first, then?
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Mr. Gladstone said. “I am lucky to be in a place where I have not defined myself yet. I can go wherever the wind is taking me and not have to be entirely bound to a prescribed way of being. That’s something I have really enjoyed finding out about myself. It has been hard, because I’ll be sitting at my desk working on million-dollar movie deals and having a script place in a contest, and I will be hating myself because I’m not Paul Simon. I’m figuring out how to have these parts of me co-exist.”
He feels at once old and young, he added — confused, but confident. “I don’t know what the best parts of me are yet, but I do know I am going to keep sharing all of me, whether the parts are good or bad. Not everything I do will appeal to everyone, of course — it’s just the nature of humanity and art — but if it can appeal to someone and make them feel seen, then that’s the greatest honor that I could have.”
