105. Laughter is the Best Medicine IRL. Matt Young. Queensland, Australia. 04/06/23

Happy global Pride month.  Thanks for joining us as we transcend time and space to rural Australia to play Art Project in the Form of a Pandemy Question with actor Matt Young. Matt began his career in musical theatre in the US and performed across Europe before settling in the Pacific and starting a family.  Matt and Dave discuss the new progressive Pride flag, how his family noticed the sugar glider activity in their yard more during lockdown, and how their apartment became very small very quickly.

Matt Young

Matt shares his experiences, perspective and insights into the pandemy in our fun little game. Special thanks to Nardwuar the Human Serviette for inspiring the game, Art Title in the Form of a Pandemy Question. 

How did the pandemy impact you when you wanted to go out On The Town?

During the pandemy did anything make you Smiley?

Was your summers 2020 and 2021 A Summer to Remember? 

Were there any Pearls in Paradise of the pandemy?

What did the pandemy WRECK and what didn't it? 

How did the pandemy impact The Pacific?

How did the pandemy impact the Heart of the Man?

Thanks for joining us as we unite humanity through stories of hope, connection, and community in the face of the global pandemy. We are all in this together, and we’re glad you’re here together with us. Thanks for taking a moment to like and subscribe and follow the Pandemy Show on social media (Twitter, Insta, FB, and TikTok). Thanks to Giant Value for letting us know everything is going to be alright, Pieper for the art work, and Becky Nethery for copywriting and website design.

Transcript

0:25

Good day and welcome to the pandemic show stories of the pandemic for people living in the pandemic. No one is alone on the pen. Demi show Thanks for joining us. As we unite humanity through stories of hope, connection, and community in the face of the global pandemic, we are all in this together, and we're glad you're here together with us.

Dave: 0:51

Welcome back to the Emmi Show. Thanks for joining us for episode 105 as we transcend time and space to Australia. Who are you?

Matt: 1:04

Hi, I'm Matt Young. I'm a LGBTQI plus actor who also occasionally, an actor who you, who Canadians might know, and hopefully globally. People will know me for playing Captain Cook in the Gemini Award-winning factual mini series, captain Cook Obsession Discovery, as well as a documentary called Gaby Baby, which premiered at hotdogs back in 2015 or 2016. Which was about parents raising, uh, kids in same Sex Parenthood families. And I'm also occasionally a host of Thrash and Treasure, a podcast where musical theater meets thrash music, which meets metal music. And right now I am acting as a. Director and choreographer for a musical called Song Contest, the Almost Eurovision experience at Central Queensland University in Mackay, Queensland. Here in Australia.

Dave: 1:58

Wow. Thank you so much for joining us, Matt Young, as we transcend time and space to Australia to talk about your unique experiences with the pandemic as we play the pandemic shows. Worldwide famous games movie title in the form of a pandemic question Musical theater production in the form of a pandemic question. I just wanna say Happy Pride Month. It's June, 2023 and the world is celebrating global pride. So happy global pride. Matt Young ha.

Matt: 2:32

Happy pride to you. I have my world pride, drink bottle that my husband bought me when he went to Sydney, where they were celebrating world pride during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras this year.

Dave: 2:41

I know here in Ontario on the 4 0 1 corridor, the pride flag has evolved from the traditional rainbow to now a triangle. Rainbow with a circle, and it's to capture the diversity in the movement as well as it captures and appreciates the intersectional of the movement. Now, I'm not a, an expert yet on what all the different colors and sh colored shapes mean, but it's, it in, it includes a much more diverse. group of members of the community, and I think we're in the time now where it's, it's progressive because we're standing up and we're educating people and we're trying to take on homophobia and disinformation. so Matt, my understanding is it's a global progressive pride flag. And are you seeing that flying in Australia, like I'm seeing flying here in Canada?

Matt: 3:41

Oh yeah, we're definitely seeing it flying here. For world pride, um, in Sydney there was the progre, there was the progress shark, which was also painted in the colors of the, uh, the flag. And that got a lot of attention. yeah, so I mean, we had our traditional rainbow flag, which were the colors of the rainbow. And, uh, we've added in. other colors and shapes to, as you said, to include, our trans identifying brothers and sisters and non-binary folk. we've added in some colors to recognize, that all the shades of the rainbow include black and brown, so that we're including, first Nations people and people that may feel, felt traditionally non-represented by a sort of, Old fashioned, 1970s version of, the beginning of pride. You know, perhaps they feel that they've been looked over or haven't been included. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not an expert on the flag in any way, shape, or form, but I'm thrilled to see that we are continuing to evolve and be inclusive and have conversations about what it means to be queer

Dave: 4:45

globally. And Love is love. Happy Pride Month. It's a, it's a pleasure and honor to have you here today on the Pandemic Show. stories of the Pandemic for the People of the Pandemic. No one's alone on the Emmi Show. And yeah, 50 years of the original Pride flag. And now we have the Progressive Pride flag. I know here. Where I live on the 4 0 1 corridor, a lot of the conspiracy theories attacking covid have kind of evolved and those groups now are, are getting upset about, drag queen story time. so we're having to deal with that kind of misinformation and animosity being spread in the community. And I, I teach kids about frogs. I'm not grooming them to be an amphibian. And I think educating people about everything is the key to a future built on justice and EQ equality for all. So thank you so much for joining us here today, Matt Young, and playing our special pandemic game artistic project title in the form of a pandemic question inspired by Canada's own. The one and only n the human based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. All right, before we start our interview, I'd just like to say I'm recording this interview on the traditional territory of the Annabi Ho and Chung Ton Nations on the Upper Canada Treaty territory beside the Haldeman Track territory in southern Ontario. our first question with Matt Young, How did the pandemic impact you when you wanted to get out on the town based on the production of that you worked on on the town? Excellent.

Matt: 6:32

Uh, I love you've integrated, uh, on the Town was the first, uh, professional Broadway tour that I did when I finished NYU in 1994, uh, when I went on tour to Europe through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Uh, performing on the town, which of course has an incredible score by Lena Bernstein, who's from Massachusetts where I was born. yeah, so. How did it impact me when I wanted to go out on the town? Well, sadly, the pandemic really, really played around with me, uh, because I am a very actively working actor and director. Um, I was also working on some casting for an upcoming film that was supposed to be shot in Fiji where I used to live. And so when. Everything sort of ended sort of around the 13th or 15th of March or whenever the Globe decided that now we were going to shut down a bit. I lost about$40,000 worth of work in that one week. Yeah, that was the theater production I was supposed to be directing, choreographing another theater production that I had already started rehearsal for. Well, was in pre-production for rehearsal for that was supposed to happen in July. And then again, that movie that was also going to happen June, July. So, uh, yeah, so that did affect my going out on the town because one, there was nothing to go out on the town to see because we were all asked to stay at home and look after ourselves. Um, but also I did not have the finances to go out on the town.

Dave: 8:00

thank you so much for sharing how the start of the pandemic impacted your financial situation. just in that first little bit of the pandemic hot. Take any dog.

Matt: 8:10

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, luckily I had, I had worked, um, pretty hard at the end of 2019. I had done, uh, some casting on a Netflix show and had done some other things for unicef. So I had some money in the bank, but, uh, yeah, it was a very unexpected blow.

Dave: 8:25

And here in Canada, everything pretty much locked down. Yeah, it was a lockdown. You, you couldn't go anywhere. But now we're in the great reopening and we're doing this interview pretty early on a Sunday because of the time change between Canada and Australia. And it feels good. Reflecting back on the challenges of the lockdowns of 20 20, 20 21, and I think even 2022, to know that now the great reopening is occurring and we're able to get out. Just yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get to fulfill a pandemic dream of going to the Moonshine Cafe in Oakville, Ontario to listen to music on a Saturday afternoon, and that's something I hadn't done. Since the, the summer before the pandemic. It was really tough, I think, for everyone involved not to be able to go out and carry on business as usual when we had those ma major disruptions and we're forced to lock down in 20. 20 ca the Canadian government put out some financial assistance to people in the Serb. It was pretty much a quasi basics income that anyone who experienced a challenge like you did, where their income was impacted due to the pandemic, they weren't allowed to go to work. Their, their jobs were forced to shut. They were given, I think$2,500 a month. You know, not, not gonna change the world money, but not gonna end up out on the street money. Was there any response by your government to support people financially during the, uh, the early uncertainty and lockdowns of the Covid 19 global pandemic?

Matt: 10:03

Yeah, there was a scheme in place called Job Keeper, for people that were in full-time employment, um, or for people that had contracts that were signed, for sole traders. So all of those projects I talked about losing in that one week. I, like none of the deals had been signed, like emails had, we were all in pre-production for all of them. So I had no actual proof for the government that I had these things lined up, even though there were emails, you know, sort of with these sort of. expressions of interest, but there were no contracts. And then as a sole trader it was very difficult for us to access any money. So, yeah, so I was not, Particularly impressed with the scheme over here? Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like I said, I luckily there was, within the arts there was some, uh, philanthropy and so I was able to access some grants from private donors who were looking after artists and recognizing that a lot of us were left behind in the government scheme. Um, so that was good. And like I said, luckily I just happened to have a big chunk of money saved from a previous job.

Dave: 11:07

Thank you for sharing that with us, Matt. when the lockdown happened, were you living in a city in Australia, or were you living out in the countryside? Because it did seem to impact people differently. If you lived in an apartment, it could have been a much more challenging experience than if you live out in the countryside on a rural property where you have lots of access to green space and nature, and you can gather outside with people.

Matt: 11:32

We lived in the city. So it was my son Graham and I, and Graham was finishing his last year of high school. Um, my husband and our other son were in Fiji for most of, for most of the first year of the pandemic. luckily for us. So we were in a unit, a small unit. Luckily for us, we were on the river so we could go. Outside, you know, to sort of the back patio sort of area that was on the, on the river. So I was able to actually get out of the apartment. I wasn't, it wasn't, we, the, all the apartment doors opened to the outside air, so it wasn't like having to get into the lift and all that sort of business. But yeah, but the, the apartment came very small, very quickly.

Dave: 12:11

I can imagine. And what was it like for your husband and your other, your other child, were they not able to get back to Australia because of locked, locked borders and lack of flights?

Matt: 12:24

they were trapped there. We, we sort of did the reverse. We sort of, there was grumblings that something was going to happen. And so Peter, my husband went over there and then he said, can you send Michael over, uh, so that I can be with him and you stay with Graham. And then, you know, it was sort of announced that the, all the flights were gonna be canceled. So we thought, okay, well we'll give it six weeks and then we'll see you in about six weeks time. And then those flight got canceled and those flight got canceled, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There were chartered flights that were extremely expensive that they could have got on. but they ended up in, they ended up sailing back. just the two of them on a 40 foot yacht that we owned in Fiji. they sailed. Neither of them were ocean sailors. Neither of them had really sailed out of the harbor that much, but they were very confident. Uh, they didn't have crew members. It was just the two of them. And what was projected to be an eight day trip ended up being about a 16 day trip, and they sailed from Fiji to Bundaberg in Queensland.

Dave: 13:21

Wow. What an inspiring story of people wanting to reunite with their family and oh wow. What a defining experience that must be for your son getting to sail back to his family during a global pandemic. Whole hot dig dog.

Matt: 13:42

Incredible, right? I tell him he has to always mention this at every job interview. It's quite unique.

Dave: 13:48

The power of love for a family to want to be together, to sail from Fiji to Australia, that's powerful and inspiring story about families getting back together after the challenges of the pandemic. What, a night on the town or a night on the Pacific Ocean that is 16 of them at the ocean. And just jumping over to one of your productions on H B O, while we're talking about the Pacific, how did the pandemic impact. The Pacific based on the work you were involved in for H B O, the Pacific.

Matt: 14:25

Great. Yeah, that was a 10 part mini series. Uh, that was, uh, that was the follow up to Band of Brothers and it was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, which is pretty amazing. And won Emmy Award. I had a very small part in episode two, but an instrumental part, um, in the storytelling for that episode. So I'm still pretty proud of that. lucky stole my moccasin. So people who are fans of Pacific know who I was. like I said, my, my other half of the family was in the Pacific, and it was very, CG didn't play around when it came to, a global pandemic. So immediately everything went into lockdown and people went into quarantine. There were sort of quarantine hospitals that people were met at the airport and taken to that, to that. And there were roadblocks. there was, a curfew, uh, between, I think it started at 7:00 PM and then re was released at 6:00 AM. And then it sort of progressively as things settled down a little bit, it started, started to get a little bit later, but we were covid free at that point. You know, sort of when the big global thing happened, which was somewhere around March 15th, Fiji was, was covid free, but clearly people were able to get, bring with them. Um, and then unfortunately, Yeah, some, it, it's spread in different ways, um, even through load block, through roadblocks and through a curfew. So, yeah, so it, it greatly affected Pacific and obviously it affected me as in the Pacific nation of, well, I guess, Australia, Australia, Austral, Pacific Nation of Australia, because even though my family was only a three and a half hour flight away, there were no flights. And so, yeah, but I mean, I it from what? From what my husband tells me, They took it in stride in Fiji. Uh, the great thing about Fiji is it's an incredibly resilient place. We had a, a category for cyclone whilst I lived there. I mean, we're used to extreme weather events. it's a, it's a very family-oriented, nation and so, and people are pretty compliant, with the government because they're looking out for themselves and for their families, um, in terms of their health. It didn't completely flummox everything, but it was, yeah, it was, it was a time,

Dave: 16:44

On our last episode 104, uh, we were talking, we had the privilege of talking with Jojo Worthington and she spent the pandemic in Quebec, which is right beside Ontario and Canada. And they had curfews there similar to, similar to your experience and Wow. How far we've come. Thankfully. And here in Canada, we are really influenced by the superpower in our backyard, the United States. And I imagine that living in the. South Pacific, you are really, impacted by the superpower in your backyard. China and China seemed to have taken a much different approach as the pandemic went on with stricter lockdowns and really trying to get a Covid zero taken a covid zero approach, which I think was much different than than the United States. do you think that the superpower in your backyards approach to Covid impacted the whole region?

Matt: 17:39

Well, absolutely. I mean, in, in, in Fiji where my husband was, they were going for a zero covid, constantly, at least in that first, first year. And, and for a while here in Australia, we were going for a zero covid. I remember just every day looking at the numbers and the stress of just looking at the numbers because there was number reporting from each state. We, I live in Queensland. Uh, we initially had very low numbers compared to the other major. the ma, the other, I was in Brisbane, the state capital, but compared to Sydney and compared to Melbourne, we had very low numbers, uh, for quite a while, but then people were crossing borders and border restrictions happened between states and then they opened and then they closed. And so it was moving around quite a bit. and eventually it just sort of, they stopped reporting numbers and it just became sort of a, uh, national issue rather than a state

Dave: 18:31

issue. I, I, just reflecting back on those first couple years of the pandemic, I, it's like we say the borders were closed, but I don't feel like they were ever actually closed. And I, I just think about human migration and the human determination to travel and I just don't know how you could ever shut down a spread of a virus, so it never reaches ever anywhere, especially with the passion, the human passion for travel and to be different places. You can look at the American, how permeable the American border is to the south. And now in Canada we're seeing lots of, uh, refugees and immigrants coming across the border from the, from the United States to getting to Canada. So yeah, it, I guess land borders are probably a lot harder than, than, marine borders, but even marine borders. When you think about people trying to get out of North Africa into Europe, people will take extraordinary risks. To go to places where they think they'll be more successful and their family will be safer. Mm mm Definitely. Yeah. Thank you for sharing, what it was like down in the Pacific, uh, during the pandemic and yeah. Covid zero. I know China right now has reopened, but it's still having challenges around, you know, tens and tens of millions of people, dealing with covid.

Matt: 19:52

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and now I live in a small town in Outback Australia, but but we still have these little ways of covid. Um, my friend was just visiting me here in Mackay where I'm working, and she said, oh yeah, I just had Covid two weeks ago. And it sort of seems to fall around these school holiday times when people are traveling and sometimes people go to the major city pretty much every time someone comes from Brisbane or one of the major cities, they just stay at home for about a week whilst they get over. That they've contacted when they've gone away.

Dave: 20:23

It, it, it did seem that covid, the community transmission was really fueled by open schools. Did your children have to, pivot online with their schooling as a result?

Matt: 20:37

Yeah, Graham did our, our, uh, who was in high school, but because he was in his final year of high school in our state, they sort of allowed people that were in kindergarten to go and people that were in their final year of school to go. So I guess they, oh, interesting. They thought that they had met, there was about a three to six to seven week period where they, where no one went. And then they sort of thought, well, we'll mitigate the risk and just allow a small number of. Kids back, you know, the graduating kids with wearing masks and make sure that we social distance and all that sort of business. Um, yeah, so there was online learning for, but for my son, because he was in the final year, it only lasted for about seven weeks before he was able to go back and, um, have classes in person.

Dave: 21:23

And those might have been the seven longest weeks of his short life.

Matt: 21:30

Yes, exactly.

Dave: 21:32

Looking back on that stage of the pandemic just makes me even more grateful for the great reopening that we're all experiencing now. Next question for Matt Young on theater productions in the form of a pandemic question, you were in a play smiley during the pandemic. Did anything make you smiley?

Matt: 21:54

Yes, definitely. Smiley was an incredible story. Um, smiley is a play by GM Klu, who's a Spanish playwright. it's been made into a Netflix series, which some of you may have watched, which is a six part series or maybe an eight part series, uh, which is quite popular here. I'm not sure if it was popular in Canada as well, but Spanish language, uh, series. It's a romantic comedy. I did it with another actor named Sergio. Torres who had been in the Chilean production. And so luckily because Spanish is his first language, we were able to, um, interact quite. Comfortably with, uh, with llm, the playwright. Uh, we did an English language adaptation of it here in Australia. And so this is earlier I talked about one of my sort of shows being canceled in that first week. And Smiley is what I was one of them that I was referring to because we had sort of a season put in place and then that sort of got postponed indefinitely. Uh, but. We were able, so one of the great smiley things about doing a smiley was that we were able to rehearse with each other cuz it was a two person play and our director was local. We went through a director change that we could get someone who was within our state. because it became clear that the interstate director wasn't going to be able to work with us in person. Uh, and we spent a lot of time online. Just talking and getting to know the play really well. SO'S first language is Spanish, not English. He was doing an English translation, so he got the extra time to work on, you know, just integrating all of that. cuz he's relatively new to the English language or was at the time, like four years new, but I mean, I didn't have to learn it in Spanish, so, so that was easier for me. But yeah, I mean actually, I mean, smiley sort of was. Yeah, it, it, it made me smile pretty much during the whole pandemic because it was something to look forward to and I got to spend regular time with two people that I dearly love, Liam Mar director, and so my co-star,

Dave: 23:53

I think about what made me smile in those early pandemic months and years. And I think reconnecting or, or strengthening my connection with the land and nature was something that made me smile.

Matt: 24:06

Yeah, I certainly got to experience nature. Yeah. Just in that little corner of Brisbane that I was in on, on the river, I noticed the trees a lot more. I noticed the wildlife a lot more. We have these, uh, flying squirrel type things called, uh, what are they called? Sugar something. And uh, they're sort of like, Maybe they're possums, not squirrels. But either way, we discovered that they were jumping across the pool like from the big trees to the big trees. So that was a discovery that happened during Smiley was that nobody in the building had noticed them before. Cause we had all been so busy running to, to and from work that all of a sudden, uh, sugar gliders or what they called, and all of a sudden people said, have you seen the sugar glider jump across the pool from that big tree to that big tree from that eucalyptus to that eucalyptus? So that was pretty exciting.

Dave: 24:52

Oh, thanks for sharing that. Now I have to look up a sugar glider to see if it's a marsupial. And do you have possums in Australia?

Matt: 25:00

Yeah, we do. But it's a sort of different variety than the North American ones. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. The ring possums, they look more like, uh, lemurs or even cats,

Dave: 25:10

really. And our next question, based on one of your Hallmark movies, a summer to remember, were your summers 2020 and 2021 Summers to remember.

Matt: 25:23

Well, let me see. Well, as someone to remember, uh, was the first show that I did for the Hallmark Channel. Uh, we shot it in Fiji. I get to play a character named Dr. Bailey, opposite Catherine Bell, who a lot of people know as the Good Witch. So that was pretty exciting. It was a fast and furious shoot. The Hallmark films happened very quickly. I guess we can look at this question from the summer of 2020, uh, 2021, whether we're talking about the northern summer or the southern summer. because my southern summers were actually pretty good, uh, because at, at, especially like the summer of 2020, we sort of, uh, the state borders were opened, uh, the summer of 2021 in Australia. We bought a, a house in the bush. That's when we bought our house in the bush. But if we're looking at the northern summers, which would've been in our winter times, they were pretty miserable. Uh, again, because we were in lockdown, I was spending a lot of time just unmotivated, not sure of what was going to come next, especially after having sort of that resurgence in 2020 of things being open for a while and then going back into this closed sort of thing. So yeah. So. Yeah, so a little bit of a mix for that question.

Dave: 26:35

I like how you identified the northern and southern summers one thing I saw here in Southern Ontario, especially in the summers, and then it carried on into the other seasons, was people were bringing inside outside. So you would go somewhere and the TV would be outside, there might even be furniture outside. People were really doing that to their garages, to thinking that they could gather with the garage door open. people were setting up gazebos and like tents and outside was considered safe did you see people doing that? Where you are moving inside, outside to gather?

Matt: 27:13

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, in general, Australia's a pretty inside outside sort of place. You know, when it gets warm, everyone does move a little bit outside. But what people were doing, which was really fun and funny was that on bin day, you know, when we were putting out our rubbish bins, um, people were, Sending around messages on Facebook or through other, or calling each other. And then we're dressing up, um, in themes, like, in different themes so that, you know, they could go outside on bin day and, you know, not be, not get in trouble for being outside if they were supposed to be inside and they would, uh, They would call to each other across the street and they'd be dressed up and having a bit of a laugh and a bit of a good time. Uh, which is sort of a very Australian sort of Larkin sort of thing to do, to take a serious situation and find the light side of it and then just pretty much take the piss out of it.

Dave: 28:04

That's interesting and thanks so much for sharing that. That's cool. People would dress up in costumes to take out their garbage and everyone would take their garbage out around the same time to get to see each other. Yes, definitely. What an interesting example of how people made a dark situation light and bright. thank you for sharing that. And our next question, you have an upcoming independent feature coming The Heart of the Man. And that is what our next question is, and shout out to all the independent film out there, making the world go Around. Thank you for your work. how did the pandemic impact the heart of the man?

Matt: 28:44

The heart of the Man is a independent feature here in Australia that I'm incredibly proud to be a part of. I'm really moved by it. It's an indigenous led project. I was really honored to be one of the few, um, actors who is not from a indigenous or a people of color background to be a part of this film. it was an interesting film because we started shooting, in. I guess it was January of 2021 and the borders had just been opened for our state, and a lot of people went out at Christmas and New Year's, and so we shot in an interior location. We took all the precautions, but by the end of the first block of shooting, A lot of people were affected, by Covid. I was not one of them, but a few of the cast members and a few of the crew. and so that sort of put the schedule off. but the people involved in that film are my new family. Maybe part of that is because of just that, the difficulties that we went through in those early days, um, with dealing with the pandemic, and we were all longing for connection again because we had been separated from our loved ones. so yeah. So the pandemic impacted the heart of the man incredibly. It expanded my heart. it, it, it. Showed me again that if you follow your passion, this film, when we started, had almost no budget. Uh, we've been picked up by a major post-production house and an, and a distributor who's looking for international distribution for us. So again, it's just about finding that passion project, which, uh, which hopefully the pandemic inspired that for a lot of artists like yourself, Dave, with this podcast and just to stick with it, And then it opened our hearts to the world. We hope so. Look out for heart of the man. Absolutely I, I say to, so I'm directing a show right now at a regional university in Queensland, in Australia, and I'm saying to my students constantly like, make sure that your values match up with the entertainment that you're putting out into the world. We're doing a comedy right now. I think it's so important that we're doing a comedy. Right now a musical comedy, a big brash, over the top musical comedy about Eurovision because people now that we can assemble again, people want to have a laugh and they wanna celebrate, uh, the joy, uh, after a couple of years of some pretty dark times.

Dave: 31:13

I couldn't agree more with you that people need to laugh and we're so fortunate that we're now in the great reopening where people can get out and laugh. I, I follow the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, and. They this week, uh, during one of their productions of spam a lot, one of the original cast members of Monty Python came out and sang, um, sang a song with the cast and crew and spam a lot. I believe it sold out every night and people are wanting to get out and laughed. And, um, yeah, one of your co-hosts on thrash and theater, uh, Spencer. Sure. He said the same thing when he was here. I believe about the pro, uh, the, the theatric, the New York theatrical production, hushed about corn. I believe it's a comedy and how people just need to get out and laugh. Yeah,

Matt: 32:04

definitely, definitely.

Dave: 32:05

Yes, because as, as many of us know, laughter is the best medicine,

Matt: 32:10

the best medicine.

Dave: 32:13

And, uh, I just wanna thank you again, Matt, for your perspective as an actor and a family man, down in Australia, in the South Pacific with the pandemic and the challenges it presented to you in your industry the arts. What do you hope the world is like in after times, if and when we're ever looking at covid 19 in the rear view mirror? Well, I hope

Matt: 32:36

that they look at value in a different way and that value is not always monetary. That value is about family and it's about health and it's about relationships. I'm a little bit over social media at the moment and I think that this is sort of a, you know, sort of a post pandemic or coming out of the come out the pandemic sort of thing where I'm just exhausted by. Everything that has happened on social media with information being passed around, incorrect information being, being passed around, correct information, being questioned. So I hope that people's reliance on social media becomes a little bit less and that they connect with the people that are important to them. I r l in real life. And also just, yeah, again, that, that, that discovery of value and that value doesn't have to monetary value. I was so blessed to be able to, Offer online classes to actors for on, on a free or pay what you can sort of basis, because I recognize that people were unable to work for whatever reason during the pandemic, and so. What, taking away that monetary value and just looking at the craft and, and you know, and the relationships between the actors was amazing. So I hope that that's the big lesson is that value isn't a monetary thing or isn't singularly a monetary thing that there is so much value in so many different places. Matt,

Dave: 34:01

really good points. you're right, there were a lot of nefarious actors. some state players Trying to fuel the flames of division around the world. And it's sad that some people benefit from that. But yeah, it's great that now that we're gathering together, hopefully we can address a lot of that misinformation and help people that have been poisoned by it. come back to community and come back to civility and. turn their backs on the hate and the fear that was propagated by fake news and conspiracy theories during the pandemic. And what a great example of the power of community that you were doing online classes, to help people be better at their passion of acting. and I think it really is that power of community that you demonstrated by that by leading these classes. That have kept so many people saying, and on the, the collective path forward in a positive manner. So thank you so much for that, Matt, and thank you for being a guest here today on the Pandemic Show. Stories of the Pandemic for the People of the Pandemic. Thank you so much, Dave. It's

Matt: 35:07

been amazing

Dave: 35:08

and I hope you have a fantastic pride month, June, 2023, and I'm excited to see the new progressive flag and to learn more about it so we can all become educated because love is love. That's right. Love is love.

35:23

Thanks for listening to the pandemic show. We're all in this together, and we're glad you're here together with us physically distance with us@pandemicshow.com. Pandemic show is on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit stories from the pandemic for the people of the pants. Do you have an interesting pandemic story and want to share email us@pandemicshowedatgmail.com. Thanks to all our guests. Thanks to giant value for seeing us in and letting us know everything is going to be all right. No one is alone at the pandemic show.