Six degrees of Moricz separation

When gathering up a cast and crew of enthusiastic volunteers for his various movies, Bob Moricz puts out a casting call to everyone he knows, starting with his wife, Irina Beffa. In addition to a sizable group of childhood pals, this has yielded people from many areas of Sacramento’s homegrown entertainment scene, including plenty of recruits from SN&R.

Beffa worked at SN&R as a designer from 2000 to 2003 and put the word out to her co-workers. Over that three-year time period, Moricz recruited current staffers Becca Costello (1), Sarah Sol, Angela Hansen (2), Amy Nathman (3), Michele Brown, Sharon Wisecarver, Marianne Mancina (and her husband), and many former staffers—such as Jackson Griffith (4)—and freelancers.

Costello brought Dutch Falconi (of the Dutch Falconi Orchestra) and Xeno (of Xenophilia) and introduced Moricz to the Trash Film Orgy (through which he met Mr. Lobo, Zach Boyd, Darin Wood and Christy Savage, Nick Roberts, Sara Dunn, Ana Lee, Andy Laughlin, Troy Skillman and Roy Barnes) and the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Comedy group (Keith Lowell Jensen (5), Ben Miller, Miles Miniaci, Amber Kloss, Britney Spares and Jonathan Morken).

Sol and her husband, Damian, connected with Moricz at an SN&R staffer’s wedding that Moricz and Beffa also were attending, and Damian introduced Moricz to all his Las Pesadillas bandmates, who then provided the score for The Midnight of My Life (in which they also played zombies) and went on to act in Palace of Stains.

J. Greenberg came from HQ (Headquarters for the Arts), and Sid Heberger’s (manager of the Crest) support has earned her the unofficial title of Patron of Sacramento Arts.

All these people brought in their friends, some of which, like the Sols’ friend Quenton Hamlin, later were separately connected to SN&R.

And this is how Moricz got 50 people to show up on his doorstep last year to film Palace of Stains.