8.15.2026 - Sofia Costanzo--Writer, Director, Actor

She discusses the world premiere of her play, "Raining on Sunny Street." It will run in Asheville on August 21 and 22. For tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/raining-on-sunny-street-tickets-1992485438583?aff=oddtdtcreator&_gl=1%2A1w6f4sq%2A_up%2AMQ..%2A_ga%2ANzkyOTk5MzY2LjE3ODIzMDQ5MTM.%2A_ga_TQVES5V6SH%2AczE3ODIzMDQ5MTIkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODIzMDQ5MTIkajYwJGwwJGgw&utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=IwY2xjawTtjCBwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMVJDOUFVeTl3T3dKV0xsWUhzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe1vgrLD5EX-L5PiQD3Pv0Sw86u18xzEuYmEe3ed0k-2zArZwa4-gqTpimEho_aem_A7Y9vH_6qi7HOL_HvdBt6g 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good morning. This is the Blaine's World Podcast, where conversations are worth hearing and seeing. You can watch us each week on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. You can also listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And for more information about this show and past episodes, you can visit our website, which is behind me, Blaine'sWorld.net. I'm your host, Blaine Greenfield. I'm coming to you from my soon studio in lovely downtown Fairview, North Carolina. Each week we share positive news and uplifting stories about people's organizations in both Western North Carolina and throughout the country. And toward that end, it's my pleasure to introduce Sophia Casanzo, who's a writer, director, and actor as my guest today. And Sophia, you can feel free to wave to all your fans and friends who are watching this. Give them a big wave. And as you mentioned, that Sophia is a director, playwright, and actress, originally from Asheville, North Carolina. She's currently in a final year studying acting at New York University, is the writer-director of a new play we'll be talking about called Raining on Sunday Street about Hurricane Helene. And let me start off, first of all, Sophia, what I usually do is when I meet somebody, find out a little bit about them. And so as a kid, you grew up where?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

I grew up here in Asheville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Okay, so actually a person who was born and raised in Asheville. As a kid growing up in Asheville, did you always know you wanted to be a writer, playwright, director? Was that your goal as a kid?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Um, yes, actor, I think, was the was the big goal. And writer, director is a slightly more recent, although I um did in in elementary school learn everybody's lines and would tell kids where to go when they were not standing in the right place in Cinderella Jr.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Well, let me put you on the spot. Before Cinderella Jr., uh, did you were you in anything else? What was the first thing you were ever in?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Actually, it was Cinderella Jr. I was town crier number three. I had one line, and in the show, a girl stole it from me, and I was super picked after that.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Now the question is, do you remember that one line?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

I don't. I don't remember it. And I was probably taking a dramatic pause, I think, in the moment, and that was why it was stolen from me.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Because I have this great idea, Sophia. Nobody's picked me up on it yet. But I want everybody to recreate the very first role. In other words, I'd like to do it a fundraiser. I've told Stephanie at different strokes, I've told a lot of people, wouldn't that be cool that like your that Cinderella role? Do you have a video of that somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

I definitely do somewhere. My mom definitely videoed it in the archives.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

And in in your case, they were starting to do videos then. But wouldn't that be cool that everybody just recreate their first role? I think it'd be a lot of fun. So you could since I missed Cinderella, you could show it to me in there. Excepting you said somebody stole your line. You didn't get to deliver it.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah. Yeah. Somebody um somebody did steal my line. So I never got to.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So take me from there. So that was in elementary school. Did you continue acting at that point in time?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I did. Yeah. I acted all throughout um elementary school, middle school, high school. I went to Asheville High School and um was in heavily in the theater program there, the co-president of the Thesbian Society and all that, all that jazz. I also did Chicago, so all that jazz.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Ashville High School has such a great uh theater program. And we'll give a shout-out. Who was your teacher there?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Lori Hilliard. She's amazing, one of my just favorite mentors and and theater people in general.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Okay, so quite an experience there. And then um, you were acting at in Ashville High School Productions. Were you acting elsewhere as well?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, I was um I was interning at Different Strokes Performing Arts Collective with Stephanie Hickling Beckmans, who you just mentioned, um, who's also an amazing mentor and director. And that's really I was I was more learning my my directing style and and um yeah owning that that part of myself when I was interning with them.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And she's the best, you know, in terms of to get to learn from her is fantastic. So you were then kind of learning directing. Uh since then now in NYU, are you still acting and directing?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah, I am. So I'm studying acting at um NYU Tisch. And the first two years I was in the experimental theater wings, so studying acting and um specifically like physical acting, Grotowski, Meisner, that kind of um genre of things. And then in my third year, the first semester I went to Playwrights Horizons Theater School, which is also through NYU, um, and kind of focused more on the playwriting, directing side of things. And then this past spring semester, I spent four months studying in Berlin and studying Stanislovsky and Brecht and all other post-dramatic experimental theater acting things.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Very cool. So now you're back into the actual area. And the stuff you've done, now you've done a bunch of things. Do you have a preference as to acting, directing, playwriting? Do you have a preference?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

That's the uh the question, isn't it? Um, I love them all. Honestly, I think that um each of those things, I'm also a dancer and a songwriter too. So I have many, I hold many um hats, and I think it's important to switch between them to not get like stale in one of them. So when I'm like, I'm not really feeling like acting anymore, I switch on my writing hat and then switch them around.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Tony, in terms of um, I'll ask a lot of actors who become directors, such as yourself, what do they prefer? And many of them say directing, but they don't tell the truth um in that the the real reality is they prefer directing because they don't have to memorize lines, you know. So uh you know, you can write them or uh direct them, but not have to memorize lines. So kind of fast forward then, this play we're talking about. Was this the first play you wrote?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

No, I have um I've written uh many multiple plays before. Um, I think the first play, and and directed and produced actually uh multiple plays before in high school. So Asheville High School has a really awesome program called Quixotica through their theater program where students get to write and direct and act in each other's work. And so I did that uh my junior and senior year. So those were the first. So it's kind of nice now, like three, four years later coming back and being able to produce a full, I mean, those were only like 10, 20 minutes, but this is a full-length show at the same theater, which is really awesome.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Okay, very cool. So talk about then this particular show. Um, what gave you the right? I I can figure out what gave you the idea, but for others, what gave you the idea to write a banner?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, well, um, so I wasn't actually in Asheville during the hurricane. I was up in New York um at school. And but I got, you know, got a call from my parents the day before the hurricane, and they were like, this is crazy out here. There's all this rain, water is like 50 feet in the air, and you know, trees are falling down. And I'm like, oh my God, I have to go to class, you know. So I go to my class, I roll around on the floor, do some acting things. And then um, I get back on my phone and I'm like texting them, nothing, texting, nothing, calling, nothing, nothing, nothing. And then I start seeing the news flooding of, you know, I think that a lot of times people who were in it don't know how scary it was to see it from the outside because I mean, I was seeing just like the worst of the worst, and just my mind was going to the worst of the worst. Um, and so then a few days later, I finally get a call from my parents being like, we're okay, everything's good, you know, some trees are down, the house is fine though. And this is what's happening over here. Um, and I was really um, I mean, I was really struck because I was, this is my home, you know, like I grew up here and this is an event that I was not here for. And I felt so helpless, like I couldn't come and help because my mom was like, Well, no, like A, you have school, and B, like we literally don't have the resources for you to come here and and be here. Like, there is not enough water, there's not enough food, like you have to stay where you are. Um, and so I was like, okay, but I still want to do something. And she was like, Well, you like make art, right? Like, why don't you just kind of, I don't know, make some art, like write about it or something like that. And I was like, okay, this is what I can do. So it started with a song, actually. I wrote a song and posted that. And then I was like, I just have to keep going. I have to keep going. So I had my um second year final project as was like a 10-minute um piece that uh we had to write. So I I came back for winter break and I did interviews um with 15, 20 different community members, officially, and then so many more people I've just talked to and unofficially kind of interviewed. And from that then came this sort of um the the first iteration of it was a lot more um like verbatim theater of just like literally taking those interviews and then performing them myself, kind of Anna DeVere Smith style. And then that kind of transitioned into like, okay, let me write a story about people in the hurricane, a neighborhood in the hurricane, kind of based off of all these stories. And so I produced that 10-minute version at Asheville High. I mean, sorry, no, at um NYU. And then I was like, I have to keep going. So I spent that next summer, last summer, uh, working on a full-length version. And with um different strokes and Stephanie's help, I put on a stage reading here in Asheville, which went great. And again, made me be like, okay, I think I have to keep working on this. And so I went back to school in New York and um they have a theater festival called Broke People's Play Festival. And so they uh picked up my show to do another kind of workshoppy stage reading there with NYU students. So I workshopped some more. And then I was like, okay, this this summer, this is my summer. I want to produce it fully. I think it's time. It's been, you know, almost two years since the hurricane has happened. Um, I've worked on it a lot, and um, and so then I got a grant from New York University, a community engaged theater grant. So they're helping me, and Asheville High School is helping me to finally do the uh full production here.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Now you mentioned the so long. Will the song be part of the show?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah, so um the it's kind of told through music, and there's um Melina and Josh Dillingham are two amazing Asheville musicians who I'm working with to um to kind of beef out the music, and they're kind of telling this story in sort of a narrational style, uh, but with music and with all live sound elements. So, like, you know, the knocking on the doors and knocking on the guitar and that that sort of thing, which I think is is really cool, kind of showcases my experimental background a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So is this something you see yourself eventually doing too to writing musicals as well?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Um, yes, and um I think like my idea of musical and the public's idea of like musical with jazz hands um is a little different. I would consider this more a play with musical elements rather than like um a musical like Chicago or or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

So for the benefit of folks who don't know what the show is about, and that's most people, you gave us kind of a hint. Because Ken like maybe keep it under half an hour, what's the um raining on Sunny Street all about?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

So um it's about a well, it takes place two days during the hurricane slash after the hurricane. Um and it's about a neighborhood, Sunny Street, and the different people in the neighborhood that have to leave their houses, evacuate their houses, and come up to the house on the top of the hill. Um, and you know, these people are all very different, just like Asheville in terms of their belief systems, their ages, their sexualities. Um, and they all kind of have to come together in this house and wait out the storm and then figure out that they're stuck in this house and then how deal with how do we get out? How do we get food? How do we get water? How do we get resources? Just like many people had to.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

So it's similar, it's similar to what happened in Nashville?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

So will we see you if we see the show? Will we see somebody who is you or somebody who was your mother? Will we see people we know in this?

SPEAKER_00 12:53

You will definitely see people you know. You um I I've I've written it, I hope, to where everybody will recognize one of those people on stage, see themselves in one of those people, and see their neighbor in one of those people, and see their grandmother in one of those people. And um, yeah, I think it it kind of is a composite of of what I think everyone, a lot of people in Asheville, or a lot of people I I've known and have talked to.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

So talking then about the writing process. So it seemed that it took you a while to write this over a period of time. When you write and said you've done some other writing, are you the kind of person who sits down at the uh at your computer every morning at seven o'clock and write for three hours straight, or what's your writing process?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Well, um, I you know, I have to think even back to it because it was now a year ago that the first the first big draft was written, but I I kind of did. I was pretty like consistent with it every day. I um I uh I've done The Artist's Way before. I don't know if you know that book by Julie Cameron. And you know, she talks about morning pages in that book. So I I do morning pages almost every single day and have for the past few years. And not necessarily to to write this, you know, I just like word vomit anything, but that kind of primes the pump a little bit for like I'll do my morning pages and then I'll be like, okay, now I'm ready and let me just like boom do it. But I think the my my best moments of like inspiration just kind of like I won't have anything and then I'll just like be driving and I'll be like, oh my god, that's it. And I have to like pull over and I'm just like writing on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

I was saying, as so this is as you're producing this or directing this, getting it off the ground, are you also working on other projects now or other writing things?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I am, yeah, which is um also interesting because the other project I'm working on is very, very different. But um I'm I'm when I go back to um school in the fall, I'll be producing a show that um I'm calling Insatiable, and it's a very experimental kind of it's more like a dance, post-traumatic dance piece that takes place in the future and is um yeah, is it's just very different than this show.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

So talking to you, I'm reminded of like a Mickey Um Rooney, Judy Golan type thing that here's a person just slides down, let's get the show off the ground. You know, it's just you write this, and now talk about the process, then which is really cool after you write it, then to get it off the ground. So you have to find a place to show it at, and then you had to find actors. Describe that process.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah, well, um, so as I mentioned, I I'm working with um New York University has a community-based theater grant and kind of they give you like a mentor and they help you um with that sort of thing. So I I applied for that and I got that. And so I'm working with them. And then I also just I mean, it's been really beautiful because things have just sort of been like falling in my lap a little bit. Like I, you know, I I talked to Lori Hillier to Ash Valhai, and she was like, Yeah, you can we'll give you the theater space. Nobody's using it here. We'll donate the theater space and um Still Point Wellness spa is a spa that my parents own, and they have workshop spaces, so we're using that space for rehearsal space. And um, and then I put out a call to local actors, and I was actually abroad pretty much all summer until about a month ago. So I was doing auditions virtually from like Italy and like watching people's auditions. Um, and I've just had other mentors like um Melina and Josh, um, and other people who have just kind of like wanted to help with the show, and um we're all sort of like coming together and like let's just make this happen, let's just do it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Now talk about the process you just described too, the uh virtual auditions. Have you ever gone yourself through virtual auditions?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yes, I have. Um, and I usually really don't like them as an actor. I I hate self-tapes, uh, just because I feel like it, you know, it takes away the excitingness of being there with somebody in the room. But when you're across the world and that's what you gotta do, that's what you gotta do. Um, but I really found, I think, just some absolutely amazing actors who are just like super excited, super talented, and just like putting their all into this show, which is really awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

So, how many folks are auditioned for the show?

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Um auditioned. I don't even remember. I mean, it wasn't that many, honestly. Um but the cast, there's um seven, eight actually, eight actors in the show, and that's including the two musicians. And um yeah, and we've had some like shifts around, but like finally it's like we've got a a pretty awesome, awesome cast.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

I just thought that must be one of the toughest things at director, producer, to then choose the people you want, you know, because especially if and you've been on both sides, if you have turned down people or they don't get the part, you know, it's tough. But since you mentioned them, um seven or eight people you mentioned the two so far, who else is in the cast?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, so um Jessica Derivage is in the cast, Jason Brodsky, Ren Cash, Natalie Edgens, um, who's um an Asheville High recent graduate, um, Jane Hallstrom, and um a recent addition to the cast, Alexaria Chavaria, who is actually not from everybody else is from Asheville, but she's from Connecticut and one of my good friends from NYU who's gonna be coming in and doing the show.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Okay, I'm excited. The only one I really know is Jane, so I'm really excited. She's going to be in the show, very, very talented um actor as well. And so you've been in now rehearsals for how long for the show?

SPEAKER_00 19:15

For um, this is our fourth week.

unknown 19:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And people don't necessarily appreciate it, but the rehearsal process is how long? Do you meet a couple times a week or days or nights? How long does it involve?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, we um the first two weeks we met three nights a week, and it was actually pretty we were supposed to meet four nights a week, but then you know, we had that that's like heavy rains and like flooding kind of thing happening, and there was that sort of like kind of tornado thing that happened. So we had to cancel rehearsal a few times, which was pretty ironic giving the uh content of the show. Um, but yeah, rehearsals have been 6 30 to 9 30 and the past two weeks every single day of the week at night. So it's it's you know an intensive, intensive rehearsal process. Four weeks is not a long time.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

And people don't realize that you know how much time and effort is into it for a show. You were telling me that's only going to be uh pr shown initially twice. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Yeah. So if people want to see the show, where and when so um it'll be on August 21st and 22nd, which is a week from uh today, which it's August 14th today, um, at Asheville High School Arts Theater at 6 p.m.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Okay. And if folks want to get tickets, how do they do that?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Yeah, I have an eventbrite, so you can just Google Raining on Sunny Street Eventbrite or Raining on Sunny Street Asheville, and it should pop right up. Um and yeah, there's a sliding scale for tickets. And yeah. Oh, also Instagram, if you want to look up the Instagram, it's at Raining on Sunny Street, street spelled S T. And then my personal Instagram is at Sophie underscore one.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

So if um uh people want to see this, who would you say should see this? Who's a director at?

SPEAKER_00 21:07

I mean, I think everybody in Asheville or the surrounding areas. I mean, I think that um my my real hope with this show is that people who have been through the hurricane can see it, see themselves on stage, see their experience mirrored back to them, remember um what happened, but more than that, remember the community that was created. I think like we're in a time now, almost two years past the hurricane, where people are starting to, I mean, as they should, as we all have to, move on with our lives. But I think that it's you know, something big happened to our community, and it's important for people to remember.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Any age limit, young, old, or what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Um the the only um I would say content warnings of the show is um there is a prop shotgun on stage that never gets fired. That's important to mention. Um, and there's some harsh language and uh there's loud thunderstorm sounds. So um I would say maybe about 10, but you know, if your kid is nine and really wants to come see it, then it's an I know.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So talk about then after the show has its first public showing um next weekend, where do you see it going from there? Do you see it you're gonna try to sell it to other people or get other people to produce it?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the hope. I think that this is, although it is about Asheville, it's a story that is um becoming increasingly, you know, in in in other places, natural disasters are happening more and more. And so I think that um it's important right now to um highlight that and highlight not only that, but like the community. I think that like also just as a country and as a world, it just feels very divided right now. And I think that this show is highlights the bringing together of people. And so I really hope that um other theater companies want to produce this show. That's kind of like the next step, maybe producing it in New York in the near future.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Well, it sounds like as a writer, actor, director, producer, you know, all these different nice things, you have a hands full because there's so many different things you have to do. You know, it's it'd be one thing you just wrote it, but you know, to do all of them at once, it's uh time consuming, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yes, definitely is. Definitely is.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

So talk about then uh after you graduate college, if I can ask you, uh, where do you see yourself, say, in 10 years from now?

SPEAKER_00 23:43

That's the golden question, isn't it? Um I uh I want to start a theater company. Uh, first of all, I um I think that my well, my sort of magnum opus goal in 10, 15, maybe 20 years, uh, I'm really interested in the sort of intersection between gestalt therapy and just kind of like healing practices in general and theater. And so I want to create a theater company or more of like an organization that kind of combines those things and um create work out of people's experiences, kind of what I'm testing out, experimenting with this show, actually. Um, so that's what I kind of see my my life's goal, my life's work as, and intermingle acting, intermingle, you know, going abroad back to Berlin and doing some shows there and staying in New York and maybe California. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Okay. And then you mention also, so you write music as well?

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

And so if people want to track you down, um, you mentioned it best way to find out about you is how.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Uh yeah, I'd say um my Instagram, so Fifi underscore one, spelled with an F, um website is coming soon, which will then be on my Instagram. And music release, hopefully also coming soon. So, you know, keep keep on me in the next few years and I'm gonna start letting things out.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

So on the music, is that on YouTube anywhere? Anything available?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Um, I have a few things on my Instagram, but but nothing's quite available yet. I gotta get into a recording studio for sure.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah, it's funny because I'm now into Instagram more and more, but the problem thing that drives me about crazy about Instagram though, it's very hard to find people. So even you as an example, you know, it it unless you know what to look for, I don't understand why people don't use their names. You know what I'm saying? It's uh if you look you up, you can't find you, but if you know the name that you get mentioned, you can find you. So I just thought that's a little strange that people, you know, not you, but Instagram doesn't make that available, you know, tell you more about the first person. Um but you've given the wish, Mark Zuckerberg. Right. If people want to track you down, they can. So anyway, yeah, very exciting stuff. Um, lots of luck with it. I hope to be there. You mentioned uh next weekend it is, and then uh after that back to school.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yep, pretty much. Yeah, yeah. I'll also mention um if anybody wants to reach out to me directly, my email is sofia mcastanzo at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

So so they can find you by by they can find me by email too.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

If if Instagram is too is too hard.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Okay. Well, anyway, very exciting stuff. Uh like I said, I'm I have it down now. I'm gonna try to get there uh next weekend. And I look forward to seeing um you and meeting you someday in person. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Thank you for joining me on this edition of Blends World uh podcast. Also I thank my producer uh Kim Jones, and um let's have an amazing run of two two nights, right? Next weekend. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Okay, thanks for joining me.