Rachel Sussman | Producer & Educator

Tony Award–winning producer Rachel Sussman joins host Rodney Veal on Rodney Veal’s Inspired By to explore how purpose-driven theater can change hearts, minds, and communities.

Learn more about Rachel online: https://www.rachel-sussman.com

Follow Rachel on Instagram: @rachsuss

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Promo, Rodney Veal, Rachel Sussman

Rodney Veal  00:10

Well, hello everyone. Welcome to Rodney Veal's Inspired by this is Rodney Veal, the host of podcast, and today I get the great pleasure of having a conversation with someone who is what is described as, you know, an artist, theater director, theater Maven of all things, an educator and an entrepreneur, which I just think is just so fascinating. Rachel Sussman is a Tony, the Tony, award winning producer of suffs, which is a fantastic musical that I've heard the music for, and I am a I geek out in my musical theater lane, as sometimes I do, and also it's coming to Dayton, Ohio in a month. But I don't know when this podcast is going to air, but hopefully it will, but people will know, and they'll have this conversation, and they'll hear you. So it's all golden. Shea was fantastic yesterday. Now I'm sure this will be a part of the conversation and a panel discussion that I witnessed yesterday. But Rachel Sussman, welcome to Rodney Veal's Inspired By 

Rachel Sussman  01:11

thanks so much for having me. Rodney, 

Rodney Veal  01:14

absolutely so Rachel. I'm really super excited because one year you're a fellow midwesterner at heart. Even though you're in New York, you're a fellow with Westerner, and I think that that Midwestern athlete comes through. So what? What was your what? What was the pathway that led you to believing in this magical world of theater? I mean, I'm going back hot tub, Time Machine, back to the beginning, because I just got curious.

Rachel Sussman  01:40

Well, I am very lucky that my parents have always been so supportive of the arts and seen the deep value that it has in growing one's character and curiosity about the world and empathy. And I started like many young people do in dance and ballet class when I was three, my world and I was a competitive dancer, like all through high school, and I found theater, there was a youth repertory company that was available in our like, recreationally in our district, called the knapsack players, and it was grades third, three through five. So third grade through fifth grade. Okay, my parents signed me up, and then my sister, you know, we, we loved putting on shows. I was always the kind of kid doing shows at home and dressing up and into that world. I was into it. This became another outlet for me. And then I started auditioning thereafter for some like community theater shows, and graduated the knapsack players and moved to the next level of this company, which got a little bit more serious. They started doing five shows a year, and it was called the rising stars. This was sixth grade through ninth grade, and it was sort of a boot camp. I mean, you had to audition, you had to find a monolog. Everyone was cast, but we were doing titles. I always joke that sixth through ninth graders probably like the skin of our teeth by Thornton Wilder. I remember mama up the down staircase, the original play text of Les Mis. And then we do one musical a season, but I was really getting this incredible education of the plays, the classics, and learning about how to put on a show every time like it became sort of this routine of here's the process and here's rehearsal, and here's tech and here's dress rehearsal, and then you do the performances, and then you start it all over again. And that was the gift of, I think being in that repertory experience is I learned how to be really efficient in the practical, sort of hard skills of putting on a show. And I got very involved thereafter in my middle school and then my high school theater department. I went to public schools in Birmingham, public schools in Birmingham, Michigan, yes, and we had at groves High School, the groves performing arts company, which was this extraordinary, comprehensive theater program that had classes during the academic school year and a curriculum as well as, you know, a fall musical and a spring play. And I ended up being like the president of that society and got incredibly involved, went to college for studying drama. So this through line was very clear for me from a young age, like there

Rodney Veal  04:59

was no other there's no. So no other distractions. It wasn't like, okay, soccer or maybe, maybe, but you did. I mean, I mean all of it's all of us intertwined, which I love, I love about that. There's something about the Midwest where that could happen, because Dayton has a very similar sort of feel and a vibe that you can I mean, there's just all you could start at a very young age, and people do. And so I just find it very fascinating that it's like that theater and are the arts kind of grab, grab people like that, and move them through

Rachel Sussman  05:30

absolutely and it's also, for me, I think it was a lot of being with my friends. It was a thing for us to do together. It's not a solitary activity. We say theater is the best team sport, and we I became so enamored with musical theater, in particular, the history of musical theater. Grew up watching the PBS American Playhouse production of into the woods at my Nana's house on VHS. And so I went from sort of loving dance and performing arts to sort of really focusing in on theater wanting, and

Rodney Veal  06:13

that's really, that's really, and it's amazing because of that through line. And so as you're, you You're, you're a young individual in college, and you're, it's, you know, that's the point where everything starts to gel. And so that I'm, like, Curiosity is, like, no one ever goes I want to be a producer. I mean, because it's not, I mean, I'm, that's not the

Rachel Sussman  06:33

bloom in the producers.

Rodney Veal  06:35

Oh yeah, he definitely wanted to producer. But I love that. And so, I mean, how do you, how do you kind of gravitate, or does it just kind of what gravitated you towards the producing side of it? Because that is, to me, that's the rich spot. It's like discovery, like you're like, you know? So I'm kind of curious what drove you, what got you there, what

Rachel Sussman  06:56

pushed you. When I was in high school, I studied not only performing, but our theater teacher, who has, you know, continued to be an incredible mentor in my life, taught us about all the other disciplines, about what's going on behind the scenes, the other roles that you could have, one of which I learned was dramaturg and I did a huge dramaturgical analysis on a Michael Fran play called Copenhagen. And he's both well known for Noises Off, but this was another play of his, a drama, and I was so interested in in how the play had been put together structurally, that the pacing, the way the characters interacted with one another. He said to me, if this is interesting to you, could actually study this as well. You know, performing is one lane, and I think for many young people, you're told, there's on stage and there's off stage, and on stage is where you get to show off what you're capable of and off stage is nebulous. It's not quite clear to everyone what it is you're doing. When I got to New York University, studying drama at Tisch School the arts, I did internships for my for credit as a bit of extra credit toward my degree, and I had an internship at an Off Broadway theater where I was working beside the Associate Artistic Director on the development of a new play, and I got To be sort of a fly on the wall for this new play development process, and watching this Associate Artistic Director, the playwright, the director, have these conversations. What are we making? Who is it for? Why are we doing it now? How can it be more impactful? What are what is this character's relationship to this other character, and I watched them have these sort of intimate creative meetings, and then bring actors into the process and do a reading. And I realized I want to do that, like I want to help build the container for this creative work to thrive, and I want to be able to have agency. And as an actor, I felt at the time so much of it was waiting for somebody to give you an opportunity, and I wanted to make my own opportunities, oh

Rodney Veal  09:32

no, and that I could sense that I know that feeling and that vibe, because that's before doing this, which is, which I love doing, was that I was a choreographer, and I love the process of figuring it out. You know? I just was sit and just kind of like, Oh, I love how you describe it as a container, like building the container and working with a group of people to kind of figure out what the hell the elements and it's. It's an interesting alchemy, because you really are kind of pulling the right people together and the right sort of voices into the room and and it just and that experience is very magical. And I don't think a lot of people who aren't in the art world or in the theater world understand that that's just as a sweet spot as being on the stage. And to me, that was the sweet spot, too.

Rachel Sussman  10:22

So totally it's so much more of like the soft skill of, how can you understand how to create an effective collaboration? Who are the right people to tell this particular story? Call it sort of like being a creative doula, or you have to sort of match make, and then you also have to shepherd the work through a process. And there's so many pathways a show can take on its development and and sort of, what platform are you going to share it on? Right? Does it Broadway? Does it belong off? Broadway? Should it? Should it premiere with a regional theater? Where should that work live? And a lot of it will be dictated by the show itself, and it will feel itself to you so it's being able to be in tune with with what's happening culturally, but also where that show is going to have the most impact.

Rodney Veal  11:27

Okay, so that's, so it's, it's, and that's really fascinating to me, because it's like, you know, you talk about the timing, the timing of a show. Have you ever had something where you've had a show where you've said, You know what? This the timing is not right for it or and you've kind of delayed or paused it. I mean,

Rachel Sussman  11:44

has that happened? Oh, yeah, I've worked on shows that have been very successful. I've also worked on shows that, oh, I just wish that, you know, we could have met the moment a little more differently, or taken a step back to really investigate. And I think it's hard, right? When you're in a process, you lose perspective. You do like I love it so much, everybody else will love it too. But one of the the lessons that actually suff's taught me over its 10 year journey to Broadway, it premiered in 2022 at the Public Theater, one of our most prolific nonprofit theaters in New York City. It's where Chorus Line premiered. It's where Hamilton premiered before they went on to Broadway. And it was sort of right in the aftermath of covid, where we were all still masking in the theater

Rodney Veal  12:41

and not sure if the audience levels were coming back,

Rachel Sussman  12:45

factors, variables, yeah, role. And one of the things that I learned is, you know, it actually is in theater if you don't have an audience, and by that I mean like a paying audience, who are going to be objective, who are like, I'm giving you my money to have an experience, and we learned so much from our first audience at the Public Theater, where things were landing what wasn't clear, the pacing of the show. When were folks getting tired? When were folks like perking up? And we got to really use that information and go back into development after that run at the public, because it wasn't a slam dunk at the public, we got a lot of constructive criticism on the show, and we felt like it deserved more life, and went, went back into work with all this new information we'd gotten from audiences. Because, you know, when you're developing a show, and as I said, it's the you know, it's the producer, it's the director, it's the playwright, you're deciding what is, what does an audience want? And then you actually have to share it with an audience and get their feedback. This isn't actually what we want, right? And so you have to use that information. And a lot of shows historically have said, You know what? So expensive the show is not in the right place. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna bid it for it farewell. We gave it the old college try and with suff's, we said, Actually, all of this new information is so useful to us, we're going to continue the work. And then our author, Shea and Taub, went on to sort of redevelop much of the show. I mean, it's the same story, obviously, but sort of how it's told, and the songs in order to make it more compelling and satisfying for an audience. I'm Bonnie miles, membership coordinator of CET. Thank you for listening to Rodney veal's Inspired by this podcast is a production of cet and think TV two local PBS stations as. PBS stations, the work we do online, on air and in the community is supported by listeners like you. If you're enjoying the show and would like to support our work, please consider becoming a member at CET connect.org, or think TV dot O, R G, plus, when you sign up to donate at least $5 a month, you'll get access to special members only streaming videos on the PBS app through passport. Learn more at CET, connect.org or think TV dot O, R G, if

Promo  15:28

you're enjoying this conversation, the art show, also hosted by Rodney veal, is available to stream anytime from anywhere on YouTube or the PBS app. And it

Rodney Veal  15:36

was interesting, was in our in the panel discussion, you talked about that journey with the author, Shea. It's like so 10 years. I mean, I mean, what was the kernel of nugget that really, 10 years is a long time to stay with something? I mean, I'm being very honest. I mean, I mean, I know that dogged determinism, but for our audience, like that's a decade of really deep diving into what was the nugget that said I got to hold on to this? Well, I think the first

Rachel Sussman  16:04

nugget was, if the stuffs waited this long to get the vote, then certainly we can. We will take as much time as we need to to get their story right. I said this in the panel, and it's true, I spent a lot of time during that process thinking, What would Alice Paul do? And she was so relentless. And I think we felt that, and we felt responsibility to tell this story and to ensure that we were telling the story in the most effective, emotional emotionally resonant way that we could and for a lot of I think also, we were very naive, right? Part of, part of the gift of being young is that you think you can do everything you don't know, right? And people ask me, How did you know stuffs would be successful? And I said, I had no idea. I think it was just sort of blind ambition and and this deeply rooted passion for the subject matter, and the intersection of this subject matter with this medium of theater, which I love

Rodney Veal  17:19

so much. I love that. I love that youthful sort of embrace of things. And I do well, because it's, it is true, like all art is a gamble. It's a risk. We take risk, and I think that the risk is rooted in and i That's why this podcast was not for those necessarily, who are all in the arts. It's for for folks who just everyday people. And it's just that they understand, like, you can take risk, you know, like you're like, but and you should. And this was a, this was a risk, because it is about the women's suffragette movement. A lot of people learned a lot for the panel discussion and then a documentary film from yesterday. A lot of people kept saying, walking up to me, saying, I didn't know this, I didn't know this. I didn't know that. I'm like, and I think that's probably a similar sort of situation with soft so, like, I didn't realize, or I didn't know it's it serves such a vital purpose. And I'm like, kind of curious about like, that. You talked about making art that has there was also socially responsible yesterday. And is that like your guide star to the kind of work that you want to do as a producer?

Rachel Sussman  18:32

Yes, I'm very focused on purpose driven work. I think there's a huge part of me, you know, I grew up very culturally Jewish. I'm not religious, but we have this guiding principle in Judaism called tikkun olam, which is this, basically the idea that you leave the world better than you found it. And so I try and take that to heart in my role as a producer, and how am I offering people stories that are going to challenge the way they see the world, deepen the way they see the World, help them understand their lives and spark conversation, maybe debate, but ultimately lead them to do something about it right, where, even if it's just a conversation, there's something to be gained by the experience you have in the theater. And I have so much respect for my colleagues who do a lot more of escapist spectacle work, and I love going to see them too. But nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. But for me, I feel committed to producing work that resonates with the world. World around us that has sort of social consciousness at its center. And I think that's true obviously in stuffs, which has been the undercurrent of my producing career, because I developed it from the very seed of an idea with shea all the way through. But it's also true in projects that I have produced, like liberation, which was on Broadway this past fall. It's a play, funnily enough, it sort of feels like a companion piece to stuffs, but it's a play about a consciousness raising group of women in the 1970s and Parade, which is a musical that tells the story of Leo Frank, who was accused of of murdering a young young girl and as well as the play just for us, which is a piece by Alex settlement, a solo comedy piece about A Jewish guy who infiltrates a group of white nationalists. And so I think that it doesn't have to be a serious drama. I think there are lots of ways to tell these stories. And you know, one of the things that has always been so delightful about suffs is people are laughing just as much as they cry. You know, it's right, absolutely. Because, as I said on the panel, you know, our primary objective is to entertain people, and I think surprise people with the storytelling. And that's very much sort of what motivates me as a as a theater maker.

Rodney Veal  21:40

Oh, that's right. And so the panel that Rachel is referring to as a panel discussion, there was a showing of let Ohio women vote, and in conjunction, kind of, kind of like a lead up to suff's Coming to Dayton and being performed at Dayton live. And the panel, first of all, I was impressed by the panel, like you're there. And the first female chief, just Supreme Court Justice of Ohio, starstruck. I was too, and was like, and, and Shanice Turner, slass, who's our current mayor, who's like, literally only, I think, 70 days on the job. And, I mean, her story is fascinating because it was she ran against an incumbent mayor who she, she handily won. She, she, it was a with a powerful message and what what we saw on the stage and just and, of course, I'm really dear friends with um with Anne, because she's the reason why I do what I'm doing here with the station. She's just a fantastic person and just such a thoughtful filmmaker. And then, and then, I love Marsha. Marsha is just great. So it was like, it was like, what, like, what on a Sunday, like, what is this panel? What was your takeaway from that? I mean, I know you were starstruck with Maureen. Maureen, like, what, what it was, just so, so I'm kind of curious what your thoughts about that panel? What was it like to be on that panel with those women?

Rachel Sussman  23:09

You know, I have to tell you, I do a lot of press for Yeah, you, I'm sure you're like, on tour. I like to say I'm Shea, our author's understudy, you know, when she can't go. And then they had asked me, Would I go to Dayton for International Women's Day, I said, Sure, you know, I hadn't. I hadn't thought about it too deeply. And then I looked at the list of who was on the panel, and I was like, Oh, I really got to get my shit together to look over some of my talking points. And I was like, rusty on stuff from it's been a couple of years since we were on Broadway, and I was so moved by the way the conversation intersected the power of art with civic engagement and with the role of politics and the rule of law to have Justice O'Connor speak about, you know what we can do today to encourage women to vote, to encourage people to vote when you feel like your voice isn't heard, when there's so much voter suppression, and how we can sort of reclaim that and what both Justice O'Connor and Mayor Schloss said about the role of a public servant versus a politician. Oh, that thought about that a lot, because it exists in my business too, in its own way, I think people are either public servants or politicians in whatever industry they work in, absolutely so I found that to be a really interesting lens, and then to just speak more about, you know, the history of the suffrage movement, to see it through Ohio in particular. With Anne's incredible film, let Ohio women vote. That was my first time seeing it. I learned so much about the role women in Ohio played locally and at the state level to impact this national movement. And I think that's something that we, you know, don't often talk about stuffs primarily focuses on on what's happening in Washington, except for, you know, right at the end, when it took Tennessee to ratify. But it's been really incredible to to see as I've sort of been able to follow the journey of suffs on this national tour, how different states and regions within states have been pulled and moved by this musical. And the message of this musical, which I think both just the justice and Mayor affirmed, which is, you can't lose hope. You've got to keep marching. You've got to keep voting. You have to know that there is more work to do, and even if you will not personally accomplish everything, there will always be the next generation. They're ready to pick up the torch and keep it going. And that felt so profound in that audience at the Victoria theater to know that it was there were young people, there were older people, there were people who've been voting for many years, people who probably are about to vote for the first time, and to connect the power of the vote to your voice and to, you know, being heard and making the change that that you want to see both individually and that impact collectively.

Rodney Veal  26:52

Yeah, and it resonated. I mean, it was a very wrapped audience. You know, my experience has always been, if the audience is not engaged. They're out the door, ready to get in the car and drive their 15 minutes in Dayton, Ohio, because everything in Dayton is 15 minutes away. So it's one of those things. It's one of our core as a community. But there was a rapt attention to that, and what I loved was the fact that we had a conversation about creativity and art and media and politics on the stage, and it's from this perspective we rarely hear from, and it was just a diversity of female voices on the stage. And that was what was satisfying to me. I was like, Thank you. Thank you. I'm like, Oh, this the richness and the of the tapestry on that stage really reinforce some thoughts I had about especially as young as I just realized she's a very young woman. I how, I mean, this is a, I mean, this is

Rachel Sussman  27:57

a youthful complexion, I've been told,

Rodney Veal  27:59

Well, you know what? You know, we take our genetics for, you know, we run with what we've been given. And so I love, I love the fact that I was thinking about it on that way home. I was thinking about, I had a conversation with Joey monda on the podcast, and Joey's a wonderful guy. And then I started realizing these young there's a this is youth quake and producing and theater. And I'm kind of curious. Do you recognize I'm observing it far from a distance in Dayton, Ohio, but I'm seeing the work is getting riskier. The work is getting more satisfying. On so many levels, not just entertainment, but it's like, give me nuggets of food of thought. And Utah said that we wrapped some spinach inside of this beautiful just because, you know, it's fun and it looks the songs are delightful and funny and serious, and then they're sad and heartbreaking. And it's, it's about yearning, about wanting, something that so desperately need, is needed. And I just thinking about, like, is there something Do you sense that in New York with, with the current theater scene, that there's this shift? Because the work is, I, I need to get to New York more.

Rachel Sussman  29:19

But yes, I do. I mean, there's a huge rise in my generation of producers doing a lot of work both on Broadway but also off Broadway and in sort of like innovative, immersive spaces, and trying to figure out, how can we reach the right audience for this story, and sometimes Broadway is the right platform, and sometimes it's a tiny little East Village basement that seats 50 people. And you know, we think about how we position a story for an audience, but also. What's the strategy and finding success? Because I do work in a commercial industry. It is a marketplace you are trying, often to compete for eyeballs and attention, and given the place we're in with the attention economy, it makes that all the more challenging. But I also think that audiences are craving more presence and more opportunities to be together, live and in person, so that that remains true. At the same time, we're competing to say, Hey, get off your couch, come out, have a night. You know, it's, it's a schlep for a lot of people to get into the city. We we have audiences who are, are local to New York, as well as a tri state area, and then like tourists from all over, right? And we want to make sure that we are able to find a way to speak to each of them, right? And so it's a lot about how we position the show. How are we, how are we speaking to a specific audience and drawing them in? But I do agree that a lot of my generation is interested in bold and risky work and trying to push the button, I think, both in terms of the actual content as well as the strategy, you know, like new and interesting ways to get get the audience's attention.

Rodney Veal  31:36

No, and it's coming through from that. And I think it's also, I'm seeing this in the other art forms as well. And so this is really interesting questions about relevancy of of like you said, an intention, an attention economy of covid Really, has really solidified. I've noticed artists and art makers really going deeply personal in the work, and then just on all the realms and genres. And it is as a as someone who practices art, and also as someone who's like getting to observe and talk to folks. It is I tell people I am the luckiest man in the world. I get to explore the richness, and it's there. It's so there. So what do you like? How do you I mean, I'm kind of curious, like, when, what, what percolate? How do you percolate ideas and stories to the surface? I mean, you got your antenna. Must be up at all times too.

Rachel Sussman  32:36

I read a lot. I read a lot of scripts. I see a lot of readings of new work. I go to a lot of theater, not just on Broadway, but all over the city, to find new and interesting and exciting voices. And I am always sort of curious. I tend to gravitate toward stories about queer folk around the voices that we haven't necessarily heard from a lot means not, not anything against cis white men, but you know, they've, they've sort of taken up their place in the theatrical Canon for a long time, and I'm interested in centering other voices, and obviously do a lot of work that gives voice to women and non binary folk. So for me, I tend to, I do a lot of reading, and I like to meet with artists and sort of hear what it is they're curious about, and if I'm the right person to help them make that a reality, Oh,

Rodney Veal  33:51

I love that. I love that. And says, and that was something that's one of the statements that Justice O'Connor talked about, the curiosity I was like, when I went to hear someone who's in the lane of interpretation of law talk about curiosity, that I this is where this we are, the sweet spot for that. And so my question is, like, there are a lot of folks who are in the Midwest, what would you tell them in the Midwest here about wanting to follow this pathway into the land of the arts, because I'm always saying, the water's fine, come on in. But what would you say, from your perspective to folks in the Midwest?

Rachel Sussman  34:31

I think that's true. I mean, for all of the loss we had in covid in the arts, I think one thing that we possibly gained is more access to work and artists in the digital sphere. So I think you don't necessarily have to be in New York to experience something. Think there's a lot of work that is now recorded, much of it already was. Like NT live met live. But there's the League of live stream Theater, which sometimes is live streaming Broadway shows. There is the new Play Exchange, where you can learn about playwrights and and their works. Read synopses, and I believe you can even request a script, but so many artists are trying to build their profile now online, and I think, you know, there are opportunities to access work in a way that didn't exist before. And I would encourage folks in the Midwest to get out and also see what's going on in your local community. I know for a fact that that there is my dad is very involved in his community theater in Metro Detroit, and they have done like, some regional premieres of work there, and just because it isn't on Broadway doesn't mean that you can't see it. It's happening. There's art happening everywhere, at the local level, at the touring level in your state. And so I encourage folks to go out and see as much work as they can, because it really in creates connection, but it also introduces you to new work happening in your community and and the impact you can have there as well.

Rodney Veal  36:33

Yeah, that's a that's, that's well said. And I because Detroit is always well, I went to school at Eastern Michigan University, so for my undergrad. So I went there. I'm dating myself. Back in the 80s, I went there for visual arts and political science, and so I ended up being a dancer, which my parents are very confused by. Just they were like, Well, okay,

Rachel Sussman  36:57

public media, so

Rodney Veal  37:00

it all makes sense. It's all tools in the tool belt, as I described it. I'm like, Mom, these are tools of the tool belt. Don't worry, it's all going to work itself out. But it's just this really great advice, because I just feel like a lot of people think they can't wait to get out of the town that they're in. And once again, no, your town is rich with information. Load up, load up, load up, load up.

Rachel Sussman  37:22

Of the like local community members are desperate for work to be there, right? If this is part of why my one my one of my childhood best friends and I started an artist residency program in northern Michigan called the mitten Lab, which is both the shape of the Lower Peninsula also an acronym for a Michigan incubator for theater talent emerging now, and it was focused on emerging artists and bringing new work into the Michigan pipeline, because so many artists, I mean Michigan as you know, just like Ohio, so rich with artists. And a lot of those folks leave, they go to Chicago, they go to New York. And we wanted to say, hey, there is an appetite and a hunger here too. And you know, the folks in this region deserve to see work first. And you know, it's not an over I think about New York or Chicago, they're so saturated. There's so much going on a place where you're going to have a wrapped audience, because there isn't that same saturation. And so that, for me, was the driver of this particular entrepreneurial project, and it was very meaningful. We we started a program with interlock in school the arts, where the high school students would perform in these new works that writers were creating. And it gave students also a skill set. And how do I participate in a new work development process where pages could be changing, and it's not just, you know, a dusty play where the author has been dead for years, but what is it like to work with a living artist? And so we really cultivated this interesting group and this interesting program for not only artists, but for the the young, the next generation of performers and the local community who could come and witness it, I love it.

Rodney Veal  39:31

I love it, which is that, like it's everything, your your education, your art, your entrepreneurialism are on full display, which is so awesome. So Rachel, this has been a delightful conversation, and I'm thank you for taking the time out. I know that you're running off to to go teach and do that life that you do, which is so it is so satisfying, I'm sure to yourself, but it's satisfying to us because it's just validation that you put in the good work. Work from a place that's very specific the heart, it

Rachel Sussman  40:04

pays off. So I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve as a producer, and I want to be able to really create work that's that's going to

Rodney Veal  40:14

connect with people, and it does, and you do as well. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Rachel Sussman  40:20

Thanks for having me again.