Amy Jo Jackson

On the Season 3 premiere episode I sit down with the wildly talented Amy Jo Jackson. We discuss everything from their work in Red Bull theatre's new production of Titus Andronicus (starring Patrick Page) to our mutual obsessions with early BBC comedies!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is a cold read of August Osage County with improv. I'll be playing Gene Fordham. Amy Joe will be playing everyone else. Yes. Here we go. Yeah. Phantom of the Opera, 1925, Lon Cheney.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yeah, he really hurt his eyeballs with all those special effects. Or was that Boris Carloff?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

No, but they're they're showing it with the the scene in Color Restored.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

The scene. Yeah. That that seems thrilling. The one where uh let's see, he plays that organ real loud and shakes the girl's brains out her eyes.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I guess.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

That's what I remember.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

My my favorite scene in Lon Cheney and The Fan with the Opera 1925.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Boy, you know what other movie I really liked was R S Nick and Ole Lace. That Cary Grant.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

I know. So cute. Cute as a butt. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Wow, you sure got a lot to say, Gene.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

I've seen the one with Claude Rains.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Are you thinking notorious? Because that is not our snick and old lace. That is another Cary Grant picture altogether. That has Ingrid Bergman in it. I don't remember it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

So hot. I was just a kid.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

You were a kid when you were seeing notorious? Well, I probably shouldn't have showed you that. Then there's there's a lot of death in that one. What? Yes, they they poison Ingrid Bergman and then they they shoot Emile or they drop him off a cliff. I don't know. I mean, yeah. I'm telling you, I just re-watched it, and this is what happens. It's not my fault. You was a kid when you saw notorious.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Fifteen.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Alright, well, that's not too bad. You can have an appreciation for Alfred Hitchcock when you're 15. What? I don't know what you are talking me in circles round for, Gene. It doesn't sound good. Alfred Hitchcock?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

That's disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Now, look, we do not need to be grass. It's the man's name.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Food. From the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Gene, I I think you need to go lie down.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

What do you smell?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

What I don't know. Are you smelling toast?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

I think you smell food from the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Oh God, you're having a stroke, Gene. What are you I need? I think you need to lie down. Let's get a cold compost.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Oh, I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

I d I do know. I once took a CPR class and shirt. Wouldn't you doubt my prowess? Oh, come on, Gene.

unknown 2:31

Oh, it's hot.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yes, you're having a stroke. You're having a medical advance.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, really hot.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yes. Oh my god, Gene, I gotta get you an ice pack.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah. Jesus Christ, Gene. Say something.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Well, Gene, if you aren't gonna help yourself, I don't know what you want me to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

That would be great, because I just smoked my last bowl and I really needed to get fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Alright, well, you're not having a stroke, you're a drug addict. I really needed to get fucked up. Oh, well don't I uh I was fucked up. I am scandalized. And you was making fun of the name Alfred Hitchcock. You're bad. Who's the one talking about joints and bowls over here?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Genus. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Gene was remarkably unhelpful.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah, G that was maybe the worst scene to choose. But funny. Yeah, it was very funny. It worked for a while because it was like so So yes ending whatever you're scared. You know, literally yes ending the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I will just talk about Alfred Hitchcock as well. That was very impressive. Look, I do love, I do love notorious excellent film.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Oh hell yeah. Oh boy. We had to watch that in uh in grad school. God, it's so it's so frickin'.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

I went for my birthday this past year. Um, that they were screening a bunch of Hitchcock at the Paris during May, June, and so I I just like got a bunch of people. You know, it's like now the Netflix theater, but they also do a yeah, they also do a lot of really great programming of like older films and all sorts of stuff. So, like, what have I been to see at the Paris? I have been to see 8 Femme, which is a French film from 2001 starring Catherine Deneuve. Oh my god. One of my faves. Um, so I went to go see that and then notorious for my birthday. I'm going to All About Eve tomorrow, I think. And uh I went to a screening of death by lightning because I was on the I was on the SAG nominating committee this year for TV, so I got to go to that screening.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

That show is fucking.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Well, and I only watched the first episode because I was trying to cramp. And my partner's like, well, I'm not gonna wave here, I'm gonna finish all of them. I'm like, it's really good! I wanna see it all. So I've got to watch the other three episodes. But they were all there. It was like their premiere, so it was really easy. They all did a QA panel afterwards. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

I love that. Welcome to Working Class Acts. I am here today with an incredibly talented individual. A crazily talented individual. Theyslash all is a performer, playwright, compute composer, lyricist, and award-winning cabarettist. As a writer, they have two plays on the uh Kilroy's list, excuse me, Hatchetation and Peggy and Ben, which I saw and was very, very good. And their work has has been developed with the O'Neill Theater Center, National Music Theater Conference, untitled music project, She Collective, Greenwood Lake Theater, and Red Bull Theater. She's been commissioned by EST slash loan and flat rock playhouse, and has been a finalist for the Larson, the Stanley, and Ashland New Play Festival, and the recipient of the Litzahol. That was me saying that. Emerging artist grant. Bistro Award-winning cabarettist for their Tennessee Williams solo show, The Brass Menagerie, which was so fun. I watched that. I watched half of it when I was on the treadmill this morning. As an actor, Amy Joe has worked at WP Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Red Bull, the The Old Globe, Regency Girls, Company 14, Weston, Speakeasy Stage, Flat Rock, Nantucket Performing Arts Center, Arkansas Rep, and many more film and TV credits include Here They Come, Sister Tammy, and Dicks, the musical, A24, and just like that, High Maintenance, and the singing voice of an animated crab in Under the Boardwalk, Paramount. AJJ, ooh, AJJ is also an accomplished voice text dialect coach, most notably for the Tony Award-winning production of Broadway's Kinky Boots, BFA from Boston Conservatory. Folks, I'm here with Amy Joe Jackson.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

That was exhausting. Who else?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

That was too much.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I wrote it and I apologize.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Amy Joe, how are you doing? I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I'm delighted to be here.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

I'm so glad you're here. We met a few months ago via our friend Andy Ingalls doing a little Shakespeare. We did our uh a little cold read Shakespeare.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Of Much Ado About Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yes. And we all did our best Keanu read Don Juan.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

When because we we had talked about like what's your relationship to the play before we started reading? And we all kind of talked about Keanu. Of course. As as John the Bastard. And then when it when it got to you, I think you were the first one that had a line, and I saw you like look up and make eyes at all of us, like, are we doing this? I was like, You did it, and I was like, that's right. It was so exciting. I was like, all I really want is to just uh do Keano the entire And we did Buraccio so good. So yes, I was like, this person is Ken.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

It was so fun. It was so, so fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Amy Joe, where are you originally from? Um I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and Littleton, Colorado.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Ah, another Texan. Yes. Are you a Texan? No. I've had many roommates who are Texans.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Oh, well, I don't like to lead with it, but you ask. So there it is. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

You know, did you like growing up there or I mean it was a place.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, fair enough. The food is great. Most places are a place. Um, you know, and I it was a suburb. When I moved to Colorado in high school, people would be like, Did you ride a horse to school? I'm like, I've seen more horses here. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

I was gonna say, I feel like Colorado is more of a.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I know, but they they have their own ideas about uh what the rest of the world is in relation to them. They're like all very outdoorsy and and uh but I don't know, it was very interesting and to to go from a place that was like just a suburb to another place that was just a suburb in the mountains. Do you know what I mean? Like from the plains to the mountains, but um yeah, I mean it was one of those I I I don't know. It was fine, but I've never not wanted to live in New York City. Like since I can remember having thoughts, yeah, yeah, I've wanted to be an actor and live in New York. So it was always like not even like, oh, I resent this place, but I was like, I'm leaving this place at my desk as soon as I can. Less about less about the place and more about where I wanted to be. Um and then you know, Colorado was beautiful, but the also just like Texas has a far more, at least like where where I grew up, a far more like just better infrastructure, sure. And more like uh competitive arts programming, you know, even though like in Colorado, like a lot more uh like the football players actually came to see the shows in Colorado and they uh did not in Texas, but there was just more more of a community, maybe well it not not even that, just just like uh a more rigor because it was more competitive, uh like the choir program was like insane. Like, like, and I mean that to mean like it was both good and it was also deranged. I was like, why do we care this much about Soulfeg? You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. But so it that kind of thing were just like Colorado everyone was like, oh, you know, like a lot just a lot more laid back to a point where I was like, this is not my speed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, um, it went so far as like how I like to to work and the kind of time I like to put into a thing. Totally. Um, but again, I was like, I'm I'm out of here. These mountains are pretty. I gotta go to a pedestrian city.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

So when did you uh catch the proverbial bug?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

I did I I didn't I do really think I was born with it. Like I've I've truly I'm I'm like not being hyperbolic when I say of I've never genuinely wanted to do anything else. Like and my my aunt, my mom's sister was like, Oh yeah, since you were four, you're saying I'm gonna move to New York and be an actor. Like, I don't I don't know where I got that idea in my head, but I think it was because also I watched a lot of um my mom like loves Rogerson Hammerstein and Julie Andrews and all that. So I grew up watching all the old movie musicals and I I just knew Broadway happens in New York City, yeah, and I want to do that. Totally, and I so I don't I don't remember any other uh option occurring to me. There there was a while in elementary school where I got I realized like people were like thought that was like like saying you want to be an astronaut is like saying you want to be an actor kind of thing, and so I started saying, like, this is that much better, but I started saying I wanted to be a zoologist because that seemed more serious. And I was like, I like animals. And I remember being in the fifth or sixth grade, and we were like broken off into small groups, and the teachers coming around, and we're all talking, we're supposed to be talking about like careers that we could have, whatever. It was like a social studies class or something, and the teacher like comes over and talking to us, and she's like, Well, what Amy, what do you want to be? I was like, um uh, you know, maybe uh an actor or or a zoologist. Maybe I even just led with zoologists because I was really, you know, trying to make it less great. Exactly. She's like, Oh, so you'll take a lot of science classes. I'm 10. And I went, Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Hell no.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I absolutely's like, oh, I won't be doing that. So I'm gonna be an actor. Like, which is what I always knew I was gonna do, but the only thing felt like I was for other people's benefit. Yeah, um, but I dropped that facade as soon as I was like, science, that won't be happening for this guy? No.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

It's so interesting to me, like growing up because when I grew up, it it took me a little while to get to acting, but I feel the same way that like it was always the thing I wanted to do, but like I realized it through other things. I I was like, oh, I want to be a cartoonist, I want to be, you know, a firefighter or whatever. There was like so many things I wanted to be. Yes, that is literally what it came down to. I was just like, no, I just want to like put on their clothes and pretend to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I want to do the poll and then I want them to go do the dangerous part. Do you draw? Are you good at drawing? I I'm quite I'm pretty good at it.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I'm good at like real life drawing. If I can see it, I'm pretty good at drawing it. My brother is an amazing like cartoonist. Like he he he draws so I've never so unique. I don't see anyone who like draws like him.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

I played Alice and Bechtel in Fun Home, and I was in a small theater. I mean, it's my favorite thing I've ever done, but we were in a small three-quarter thrust theater, like 250 seats, something like that. And so because of the layout of the space, and because the audio, like if we wanted the audience to feel like they were in the house with us, yeah, yeah. I'm I'm terrible at drawing. But I was like, I want them to be able like they were like, oh, we can have it printed. I was like, no, I want them to be able to like hear the scratch. I want to be really drawing. I don't want to also feel like I have to hide when I'm drawing. I want to be able to be drawing and have them feel like they're part of it. So we the stage manager and I had developed this. Uh, I I like went through and cut out a bunch of like photocopied and cut out a bunch of the actual Bechtel drawings from the cartoons and like taped them on the thing, and then we photocopied it super, super, super light, pasted it into a sketchbook, and that way I could trace it. And no one could see that's brilliant. But it was it was great, and then like during tech, because the other two Allison could draw. So we're during tech and we're doing some bit where I'm on stage with small Alan, like we're on a break, so I'd put my my pad down, and then we come back. She's like, Heymy Joe, did you draw this? I was like, Yeah, well, you know, I traced it. She was like, Oh, I was gonna say you've gotten better. Burned by a 12-year-old. But she was right. But it is the kind of thing where I was just like, Oh, I've I've always just it's it's like that and and dance are are you know, uh I've never longed really to be able to unlock the mysteries of science, but like like I love visual art and like you know, physic physical, like movie. It's it's just a sort of form of expression that I'm you know, I'm good at plenty of forms of expression, so like it's just me being greedy, but it's like no, I feel that I wish it could like capture that anyway at all.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

I feel like too, that's like a thing that like uh like our age of artists really want to be uh good at a lot of things because it feels like exactly you kind of have to be, yeah. Um, and so that that's just funny. That's all I had to say about that. We have to do a lot of shit. That's so true, so true. So you left Colorado, you moved to the big city. No, I moved to Boston. Oh, so the medium city. Boston's not a big city.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Look, compared to when you what like the tea stops, the the the M the MBTA, as my grandfather always called that. Oh, because he got his he got his uh masters in Boston. So I was like, Are you taking the MBTA? I was like, yes, yes, sure. Grandpa's taking the tea. Um but the MBTA, the stops are so close to one. Like once you moved to New York and come back, because my brother was two years below me at school, so I'd come back a lot. And I was just like, this is you could like spit and you're there when you think about how much further the stops are apart in New York. And then I went back and did a contract in the winter, and I was like, oh, oh, I get it. They they should be less space in between them. I can't walk anywhere, it's just snow and ice. I get it.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Oh, yeah, but so you went to Boston Conservatory.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

I did, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

How was your time there? Did you enjoy it? Yes and no.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yes and no. You know, I went I wasn't married to doing a musical theater program, but I went to the best program I got into. Right. Uh which was that. And also I knew the acting training wasn't gonna be what I wanted, but I also knew that was where my curiosity was. So I was like, well, I'm gonna seek that out anyway. And I knew I wouldn't push myself vocally because I just didn't care. Um, and I I'm in hindsight really glad that I did that because it forced me to push through a lot of my discomfort with like it's so funny that cabaret is like one of the things that I do now and that people, if they know me at all, like know me for because it's all singing stuff out of context. Granted, you're building a new context, you know. But I would get so nervous at a recital or something like that. We're just like, I'm singing this one song, and it's just like about the vocal and not, and yes, it's about the performance, but you know, it's it's much more about how well are you singing the thing. Yeah, and to just have to be on your feet singing all the time. I did push through to a new low. I got I got past that discomfort so much faster than I would have if I had just gone to a straight acting program. But you know, it was a bit middle school in its like pettiness and competitiveness, and I've just never cared for that. Yeah. I, you know, as I'm I'm very ambitious and I I'm competitive with myself. I like hold myself to an incredibly high standard of excellence, but I I I just don't I never understood needing to be the fiercest. I'm like, can we all just like delight one another and like play? Apparently not. So, but I you know, I met some people that you have liberation up on your your wall here that one of my dear like my college roommates was in that. Oh, you know, and so like the people that I'm like still very close with and that I'm I'm grateful for. Um, but I do want it it's one of those things, and I don't like to live in a state of just regret, but I do wonder, like, oh, having now worked with a ton of people professionally from a bunch of different schools, I'm like, I would have been much happier at Carnegie Mellon or a place like that where it's like the acting and the focus on that isn't thought of as like, oh well, okay, if you care about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

I'm like, of course I care about that. Well, I mean, in musical theater, of course, like uh it's the the notion of like telling the story through song is like has become less important sometimes when I see like musical theater performances. That's a very good idea. Yeah, no, no, no, yeah, for sure. But like I feel like sometimes with commercial theater in particular, it's like they really want to sell the like can you hit this crazy I know? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Well, it to me is a post-Wicked syndrome situation, like to to and that is an oversimplification, but to me, because wicked came out when I was in college, yeah. So I felt the shift in the expectation for femme voices to some extra. I'm like, look, now I I don't want to say sing like that because I have no desire, uh, but like I sing really high and really loud in part because that's the expectation. And I was like, well, if I want to work, I gotta figure out how to unlock other skill sets because I'm really like a legit soprano with like a lot of range. Yeah. But guess what? There's not a lot of it's like you want to play the mother abbess in the sound of music, and that's it, or do you want to do something else? So um, you know, it's it's a it is a sort of, and I'm sure there's been so many permutations of that throughout the ages and ours that we've been in for a while. It's just like the the American idolification of of Broadway. Wow, that's a very good way of putting it. The kind of like over riffing, which I think we're like moving out of a bit, thank goodness. But there were years. Oh, where I was like, Where I felt like I hear the words.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, exactly. Where it's just like, what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, and I'm not a riffer, like I'm not an agility, like you know, it a coloratura you can be a coloratura and not be a coloratura soprano. The coloratura is the the the agility part, is the you know like I it's I almost laughed like that too. Yeah, but it's like I don't have I have like thick chords, I have a big like trumpet of a voice. So it's just I don't uh I don't and I also learned to sing not by listening to Mariah Carey like a lot of my friends, but Liza Manelli and Barbara Streisand, you know. So it's like I can give like a little bit of that shading, but it's just not what I do, and I so that's partially like my disinterest comes from being like that's just not how I storytell. Yeah, but I'm also like if I can't, if I can't receive the story, what do we do? This isn't a pop recording, this is a musical. And I feel like there are places for that kind of color to come in, but I think it was really over overwork for a while. But I do think we're moving out of it. But yeah, the expectation is like hit the high note, make us cheer. And I and I then you see someone like Audrey McDonald, and it's like, well, when it's good, do we care? Like when the storytelling is right, exactly. And she's someone who has a glorious instrument, but like for me, it's never about her vocal. It is it's how she's it is the storytelling, and it's just like I I went and saw her Mama Rose, a show that I know very well, and I've seen a number of people do. And I like had both of my hands like during her rose's turn, I'm getting emotional. I had both of my hands over my mouth, just stifling audible sobs. Like, and I've I I love going to theater. I'm very moved by performers, but that that happens like very, very rarely.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I'm like, Where it's like, I can't control this right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

I don't know how I'm going to endure this in the best possible way, you know? Ugh. And that's not that was not a show where she was like, Let me show you my like the beautiful contours of my voice. It was like, let me show you the parts of my voice that I'm not in control of. Like, yeah, very gritty, yeah, and in a way that I found thrilling because it was not about showing off. And look, I'm I'm an absolute show-off, I'm completely guilty of this. Like when I sing Mama Rose stuff, you better believe it. It's loud, there's a lot of vibrato, you know, but exactly. Exactly. But it's you know, but when I think about what do I actually like, what am I drawn to, it's like, well, some like that. It was like, I I kind of don't care if you like my voice, fuck you for caring about that.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

This is kind of the perfect segue into your cabaret your work. And uh, as I mentioned before, I watched about half of the brass menagerie this morning, and I was uh loving it for a lot of different reasons, which like mainly learning a lot more about Tennessee Williams in this really fun way.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Oh, great. Um we love to be nerdy uh and stupid simultaneously.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

That's the best way to learn, though, I feel like you gotta be stupid while you learn. No, but what I was really impressed by was just your ability to garner so many different types of voices and also. So the all the different musical styles that are in there that you're taking from other shows, which I also think parody singing or like using music that already exists with lyrics attached to them and then changing them is way fucking harder. I love that. So learning it's just a song.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Because I'm assuming probably most of your listeners have not seen me perform the brass manage. The brass manage is great. It's set up like a uh a lecture, a musical lecture on the women of Williams, and it is dumb. Um like the first big set piece is Maggie the Cat doing her act one like harangue, her loving harangue to brick, uh, but to the music of cats. Yes. Um and wouldn't you know Maggie the Cat scans perfectly with Jellico Cat. Um that so I I went away and I like wrote the whole thing and then I brought it to my music director to be like, now how do we stitch this all together? So and the I knew I was really on to something when he had to walk away from his piano. He was laughing so hard. When I get to, I got hit with the hot buttered biscuit at lunch. That killed me too. Step away, and I was like, okay. We're and so um, yeah, how far did you get?

SPEAKER_00 23:57

I think I got um oh, I just got through the uh the Italian uh Oh Rose tattoo. Yes, yes, I loved that one. That one was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

That was very fun. So what's fun uh I don't know, my favorite thing to do too is like because I'm I'm I I'm a funny person, I'm a funny performer. And so I'd be interested to hear also your thoughts on the back half because like it gets it gets really stupid, and then I'd like drop us into something like more real. And then the back third is me playing all three Wingfields um to the score of gypsy. Um which you'd be like if you st step back and think about you're like, Well, that that really works. Actually, you've got a domineering mother, and you've got like kids, like two kids with uh various attachments to doing or not doing what their mother wants, and uh so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Well, that was the other thing about it too, was the music that you've chosen for each person, even though they're from totally different shows. I was like, these are all great choices that work so well with the the character's life.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

I like didn't grow up listening to anything that was popular at the time. Like for instance, I should have like if taken this'll age me, but the taking the temperature of my peers, I should have been a huge Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Sink and Backstreet Boy stand. Yeah during the pandemic, when I was writing songs for uh a show of mine, uh there was one that I was thinking might want to feel like boy band, and so I was like watching a lot, I was like, Oh yeah, like I knew a bunch of the songs because I went to malls, yeah, but um I was watching the music video for I guess it's Backstreet's back, and I had never seen it, and I was like, why that Halloween party? You know, and like and I'm like, I like think I put something on Instagram, people were like, Amy Joe, what the hell? I was like, why would I watch it? Why would I watch this? They're like being around. I was like, no, no, no. At my high school parties, we were watching exclusively Waiting for Guffman and Monty Python and the Holy Grail and occasionally Rocky Horror. We weren't watching Backstreets Back, the music video. So like I grew up just, I mean, as my like, you know, Hitchcock uh uh little tangent earlier might have given away, like kind of more obsessed with stuff that was around before I was born.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Um, and that all you know, the golden age of musical theater was, you know, the 50s and 60s, if you're you know, uh and so I uh grew up very well versed in all that because that was what I was interested in doing. It was the kind of music I like to sing and I was interested in. So then when I was building this show, I have really strong referential retention in that way, you know. So as I was like poking around and being like, well, what does this want to be? When does this want to be, you know, I just some some things came about really quickly. Like the the rose tattoo thing, that was a joke that I had like the first day that it came up, but I was like, Oh my god, you could just do Bet Midler's the Rose, yeah, but just sing it in a heavy Italian accent. It'd be stupid, that'd be so funny. And like that didn't require any parody lyrics. And a lot of other things. I think when I initially decided to do it, I thought it was gonna be a bit more like this song paired with this character. And then as I started working on it, I was like, no, I gotta rewrite a lot of this. But my favorite thing with parody lyrics, which I've been doing since like I don't know, fifth grade. Um really? Wow. Yeah, like for after not after school, for like school extra credit projects, like I would I would rewrite lyrics of they would give you extra credit for writing parody songs? Not for necessarily that, but like if uh like sometimes you if you did like a video a creative project on something related to what you're doing, you could get a little extra credit. Or or if like there was a project and it was a little free form, I would always try to do like write a play, write a parody lyric, write a poem. I wrote I wrote in the eighth grade an entire lengthy, let's call it retitative. I was calling it a rap at the time of the entire plot of Midsummer Night's Dream. Oh, I love it. Um, it wasn't good, but it scanned correctly and it rhymes because even in like the eighth grade, I was like, no, I understand rhythm and meter, please, you know. But um, but yeah, my favorite thing to do with parody lyrics is especially with big songs that people know, you know, is like how closely can I hew to the original? Can I obviously you want to keep the rhyme scheme and and the scansion as much as you can, because that's really what's also gonna sell it, but also like how close can you get to the original rhyme?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

That's the thing that I think some parody people don't consider. And I'm like, that if you gave the vowel is the same, so good.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

It really like, or if you just change, you keep the setup of the rhyme, but change the fulfillment. Yes, you know, uh that like that sort of thing. Like so, did you see did you get to Suddenly Last Summer? Had that happened yet?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

I think I j I think I got about halfway through that one or something.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

So it goes to a place, I'll just I'll just I'll spoil it for you, and you're listening. It gets so Suddenly Last Summer, you know, uh ends up being about cannibalism, of course. Yeah, oh yeah. And so like that's one where I mix a bunch of different musical theater songs, it's not like one show in particular, so it has you know, uh she's doing like some of her monologue that she's under, she's she's under the uh the truth serum that Dr. Sugar gave her. Like, what happened next in the vision? And she's I have her start singing uh from Funny Girl, people, people who eat, people and they're hungry, it's people just stupid. Yes, but keeping the hook as close to the same.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah, it's the perfect kind of parody.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

At the end, it then goes into because then like Dr. Sugar, which I had my my MD like be the voice of Dr. Sugar, and that's probably like what happened next, come on, Kathy. And so then I have him start the underscoring to being alive, very famous underscoring that on the recordings have all the other people being like, come on, add him up, Bobby, add him up. So I have him start that underscoring being like, add him up, Catherine. So like the musical theater nerds get that reference, but it pairs exactly with the Williams as well, and then singing Eaten Alive instead of being alive, you know, just again being like, What's the closest thing that's still gonna like feel like it's honoring the original while completely subverting the expectation? And like I I think we really got we really got somewhere with the colour.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

If you're if you're a connoisseur of musical motifs, you're gonna love the breast.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

And that's that's the thing that I said, I think, because because the capture I sent you is from January 2020. One of the few I noticed that too. I was like, oh my god, they did this right before the world no more. So because I did that then, I I I've done it like I did it five years in a row because I did it at the duplex in 2019 in a kind of a like I hadn't come up with a framing device yet. Uh and then I did it in 2020, as you saw, and then I took it to 54 below in 2021, 2022, and did have a whole A V like PowerPoint thing. So a lot more visuals and it's very, very fun. I have the the more statistics. More statistics. Well, and I have it's called Stanley Kobotsky, and it's a little like Wally with Marlon Brando's face on it. Uh my partner did that uh uh visual edit for me. Um but yeah, just just more dumb jokes, basically, is the thing. But um yeah, yeah, I'm really I'm really proud of it. It's really uh it's also just like I started doing cabaret like uh 2014, partially just because I was looking for something that felt like it challenged me. Um because I, you know, get hired to do a lot of stuff I'm good at, or that I'm it just it just doesn't require that much of me. Do you know what I mean? And I like to put my whole self into something so I can do that, but when you're like, well, it just doesn't, it's not I'm not being challenged. It's like how do I work out and how you know, and then so started doing a lot of just um I I don't I'm not a big fan of like confessional cabaret unless you're you've got a really good story to tell. Do you know what I mean? So I get you too. You're like, and then I moved to New York City. I'm like, why do I care? So did we all exactly this whole room. I saw Cheetah Rivera do one like that, but I was like, but the reason I care is because when you sing these songs, you're also the person on the original cast album. So I grew up listening to you sing, and now I'm hearing you sing it live and talk about the show. That's interesting because you're Cheetah Rivera. Yeah, yeah. But most people aren't. So I I don't know. I just I I so I looks kind of framed. Like, it's a party in my living room, but my living room happens to be 54 below, and you're all invited. Like that kind of vibe. So so brass was the first, like more tightly structured thing that I wrote, and that kind of then led me to being to the realizations like, oh, okay, I could actually really write something if I wanted. That isn't because because I do think of cabaret as like collage. Um, and I'm very intentional with my set lists, and I, you know, I I I don't know, I love putting together a set list. I I love it. Um, but but there is something different to okay, well now I'm going to like take an another step forward into like I'm gonna write the music, I'm gonna write the dialogue and all that. But I but doing brass menagerie because I did it was such a heavy lift with all the parody lyrics and the and the framing device, I was like, oh I I could I could do this. I have more to say maybe than I than I was giving myself credit for before that. So that was like summer 2019, then I did the first iteration of brass, then I did that in January 2020. But in between then I had written the libretto for my musical hatchetation, and then the world shut down, and I always knew, kind of like you were saying, like a part of me always kinda knew I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't know that that's what it was necessarily. Like I knew I was gonna try to write the music, but I hadn't allowed myself to say that because it felt like it felt like I don't know, well, who do you think you are? You know, yeah, but then the world shut down.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

I was like, yeah, like why am I not giving myself permission?

SPEAKER_01 33:23

It is amazing what we will do to take up less space.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Well, it's it I think it it's this interesting thing. I think our our generation in particular, like we got very much sold on the notion of like you go and get a good education, and then that's your thing. Yeah, and that's it. And then you as an artist, you can't really do that, or like not now, not anymore. I feel like you need to have so many different outlets to feel fulfilled and also just to like like put yourself out there, yeah. Because the industry has grown, to my opinion, a bit more elitist over the many years, and so you have to do a lot to get seen hi, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

There's more people in it, yeah. There is, you know, you listen to cast recordings from look, there's there's been incredible renowned vocalists all through the history of recorded sound, right? But you listen to like a cast album from the 70s versus now, and it's like the expectation of your skill set is astronomical. And you you listen to like the original Brigadoon cast recording. You have the ensemble, but you also have the pit singers, and then you have the ensemble who would come on and dance. Agnes Agnes de Mille's dancers weren't the same people who were singing like I'm in the pit singing the theme of the show. You know, and now it's like, yeah, they're the same people, yeah. You know, those are the same folks, and so it is yeah, it's like, well, what? I I can't like do Agnes DeMille choreography. So what hoops can I jump through to ensure that I can still get a job, you know, yeah, to make myself valuable in another way.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

And also, as you said, just be creatively fulfilled, which is why I started No one does cabaret to make money.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

They don't. Uh news flash. No, but I think it's also that thing of just like I it only helps you as an artist, too, to like learn these different forms and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Like it it unlocks different neural pathways, and you Well, and I think once you've also I did my very first cabaret show in September of 2014, and I got off that stage and I did feel a bit like I'd left the planet and come back.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Like I remember wandering kind of dazed back in.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Wait, was it like a so the your first solo show?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

My first solo uh yeah, yeah, my first solo show. And it was, you know, it was an hour.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

My pants doing my first solo show. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I'm I really I could but the thing is I came back, I did feel like I left the planet, but I can't, I but I could feel this. There's something about this that is so right. Like there's I've always felt more comfortable on stage than like in person. You know, I'm and I'm one of those people to I love being in a rehearsal room, but I will never claim that's my favorite part of rehearsal because that would be a fuck fucking high. We're clowns, we need the audience, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's great, you know, and I feel like there's this like virtue of like my favorite part is rehearsal. I'm like, well, good for you. I like a good rehearsal room too, but I've been in a lot of bad rehearsal rooms. Yeah, but I can get in front of an audience and and not, I'm not gonna like leave my castmates in the dust, but uh, but we can it grows into something else.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Totally. It's so it's funny you mentioned that because I I I played the clown in Winter's Tale at Hartford Stage a couple of years ago, and it it is one of those things where it's like I love being in the rehearsal room as well as well. And the first time you try a joke and it like really gets a laugh from everyone behind the table, and you're like, oh great, that works, but then you're still rehearsing for like two more weeks, and everyone's everyone's gotten used to the joke. Yeah, they're saying they're like, What's next? Uh, and so it you can get in your head about it too, and just be like, I want to know that this is still fresh to the fresh, to fresh eyes. Absolutely. Amy Joe.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yarp.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Yarp! Did you just quote Hot Fuzz today?

SPEAKER_01 37:03

I absolutely did.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

That is my favorite movie. I love the coordinate utility.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

I um say that so often. I say that so often that I forget I'm even quoting hot fuzz because it's so much apart.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

The Hound from Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Well, which is not a show I watched. I'm bad at television. Oh, okay. Anyway, I'm bad at TV. Well, he's great in hot fuzz. Who isn't great in hot fuzz? It's the Dalton.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

He is so great.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

So well cast. Lucy Punch. Oh my gosh. Perfect use of Lucy Punch. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

And Olivia Coleman has like maybe 10 lines of the city. Well, she was doing a lot of that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Like, did you did you ever see Green Wing, the TV show? Okay, let me set it up for you. She's in it, but she's just one of many. It's a British comedy. It is basically a medical soap opera, but written by and performed by comedians. Oh my god. So it is deranged. It's it's um Tamson Grieg, Steven Mangen, and like uh uh uh Melissa Gomez and uh uh like uh Mark Heap and so many great I think Oliver Chris is in it. Yeah um is Oliver Chris in it right there, yeah. He's definitely in it. Um all these all these Brits that I'm obsessed with. Yeah. Like Stephen Mangan. So I saw the uh uh uh Norman conquests when it came through New York. Nice and it I love I can't communicate to you how much I loved it. It was just so I mean, number one, the plays are so good, but this is like the best you'll ever see it acted, yeah, you know, and I became like I had the hugest crush on Stephen Mangen, like playing this like absolute, like just shaggy dog kind of character. And so then, you know, I still have just like such fondness for him, but he's hilarious. And you should, I feel like you would absolutely love it. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

I love I love BBC comedy. That was like I grew up on it, like I love spaced uh black books.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Uh I see, I grew up like on a slightly earlier like because my parents loved Black Adder, a bit of Fry and Lori and Jeeves and Wooster. Like from the age of eight, we're like watching a bit of Fry and Lori non-stop in our house, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

So like it's Jeeves and Worcester?

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Yeah, oh yeah, that's Jeeves and Worcester. I actually never watched it all the way through, and I've been well there's a lot, I mean it's a long, it's a lot of episodes, you know, but it's so funny because Wodehouse, my god, could that man right? Like the books are so the short stories are so funny, but it's you know, it's Stephen Fry and Hugh Lori.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

They are in their so good.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

So when House happened, yeah, everyone's like, oh, this guy, I'm like, don't talk to me. Like you don't know my man, you my favorite. Um, but yeah, uh they're that so I grew up like on all of that, and and I think spaced in Blackboards was like a little younger than my parents, so it kind of missed me a bit, but um he is also Lori, is a superb jazz pianist. Yes, well, you can say and they use it a lot in a bit of fry and lorry.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

You did he was it was so he was so fucking good. He was so good.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

There's one of the sketches. I mean, they do a ton of sketches on a bit of fry and Lori where he's playing, and he plays as as Bertie Worcester a lot. Like there's this one song that he does where he's like abbreviating everything, and I think it is just like a real song of the period, but as performed by Hugh Laurie, he's like, it really doesn't pay to be a gloomy pill, it's absolutely most ridiculous positively still, and Stephen Fries is in the background like, oh, stop singing this stupid song. And that is, yeah, that that they raised me. Those men raised me.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

I love it, I love it. This is Lipton Classics. This is where we do the classic inside the actors studio questions, uh, hosted by the rest in peace, James Lipton. Uh, but these original questions were by the French journalist Bernard Pivot. And so Mon Dieu. Mon Dieu, Pivot. I speak so much French. So much French. Here we go, Amy Joe. Oh. You ready? Oi. What is your favorite word?

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Oh, I should left prepared.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

No, it's funny. It's better when you do it in the moment. Favorite word. God, I love words. Words, words, words.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Hamlet said a lot of them, didn't he? Um, favorite word. I'm just gonna go with like good mouthfeel and not necessarily mean.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

No, I think that is the better thing. Great.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

You know what I like actually?

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Sorry, I did not mean to cut you off.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Cut me off.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

But I think it's good mouthfeel and mouthfeel that f feels like the definition of the word. You know what I mean? Yes, I like bulbous. Bulbous. Bulbous. Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Yeah, I do because I teach voice and text. And this is the thing I I've tried to communicate. This is the thing I have tried to communicate. And I really wish more people would understand how helpful it is to your acting if you use the consonants. Um great. Let's go with ostentatious.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Ooh, ostentatious. What is your least favorite word?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Well, now I might go with meaning.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Well, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Yeah. Oh God, I just I was having a conversation. I'll cut out all any possibilities. Oh, we'll talk about that. So I this is no I I I like this color, but the feeling of gray. Gray. Yeah. Gray. Gray. Yeah. Where I was just like, I've made myself gray so that this person stops picking on me. And I'm like, I'm I'm not a gray, I'm a sparkly person. Wait, in this show that you're working on? Not this show. Oh, oh, I was gonna say, no, this one, the no, this castmate and I were kind of swapping. We're swapping stories. And we were just talking about how we had both recently, not re I mean, like in in the last couple of years, post-pandemic, I've both like worked with a few people that have made us just like feel like I've got to like shut down to come to work. And I'm like, I didn't go through a pandemic for this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

No, no way. No freaking way. No. Yeah. Fuck him. What turns you on?

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Uh unbridled enthusiasm.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Oh, I like that. What turns you off? There's a theme here you're seeing back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Yeah, bullies.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

That's a great answer. What is your favorite curse word?

SPEAKER_01 43:58

There are so many good ones. I know. I s I use fuck the most. You've got the fricative and the plosive, what's not to love.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

It's pretty fucking great. Fucking sick. Fucking awesome. Fuck! What sound or noise do you love?

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Like an old-fashioned baritone. Gordon McCrae. You know? Gordon McCraa singing the end of soliloquy, you know? Love it.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Rich, rich tones that we don't write for any longer. What sound or noise do you hate? Tenors? Gratuitous riffing? Um I mean not a bad answer.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Not not a bad, not untrue. I don't think I don't think it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

I don't think that's petty. I think gratuitous riffing is gratuitous.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Yeah. Let's just say that. Where where it's for the sake of showing off and not for the sake of ev even what the song needs. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Uh look, I wear a lot of hats in one industry, so I have a ton of things. They're wearing a lot of hats right now. I'm wearing so many cloches.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

And you're listening to this and not watching it.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Well, seven hats on my so many cloches. Um God, I would be bad at a lot of things that are No, that's not true. I would be adequate. You don't want me doing your taxes, you know, but like I'd be that's a great answer.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

I'd be so bad at that. Oh, what would you like to attempt though?

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Oh, what would I like to attempt? I'm doing a lot of things I like. I like I mean I the writing is a thing that still feels pretty new for me because I picked it up like really late 2019, early 2020. So that's that's you know, only in the last five years. And yeah, yeah, like that's a musical. It is um and uh that's all I'll say about that. Um for for someone to be in your mid-30s and discover there's this whole other set of things that you are good at and have aptitude for and and and enjoy was I I can't describe the level of like thrilling that that was and freeing, um, even beyond the cabaret stuff because like the plays can exist whether I'm in them or not. Like you saw a reading that I wasn't in, you know. Um and like that I don't that that was just something I never saw for myself. So it it is a thing that I do now, but still something that feels new enough to feel like that's a thing that it took me a while to claim. Like I I I got announced that my my musical is going to the O'Neal, and a lot of people were like, You write? Like I wasn't out as a writer, you know, before people were like, Wait, so um, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing the things I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

I don't think but that's great, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

But as far as like what I'd like to attempt, I feel like I've taught. I've I've worked at Starbucks and I don't do that anymore, you know. Um, I don't know. I feel I'm I'm pretty thrilled with what I am doing. Yeah, that's wonderful. Okay, that's great. Is that a cheating end stuff? No, that's not cheating.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

I don't think that because that that honestly I I've gotten into writing in the past couple years too. I'm like on the cusp of finishing a play. Like tomorrow, I'm so close. I finally figured something out.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Nothing beats typing end of play.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Oh my god, and nothing feels better than that moment where you're like, I've got all of this going on at the start, in the middle, and then I have this end. And I just need to tie those pieces together, just that tie, and I finally figured it out this week, and I'm like, ugh, it feels so good. It feels so good.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Just like because I I I'm working on a piece now and I finished a very loose first pass. Like I went from outline to first draft pass, knowing like, and as I was writing, I was like, oh, there's a scene missing here, and I know what the content need, I know what it the the two characters that need to be in conflict need to be in the scene. I don't know what that is, you know. And then I was like, well, now I have to go back and reshape a lot of stuff in order for that to happen. And I finally, like yesterday on this no day, yeah, was able to like unlock and sequence that, and I was just like, God, that feels even better than finishing the draft. Because I know I know it's better, yeah, and it's more settled, and it's like a big step, and there's just something so satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

So satisfying.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

I made that. Yeah. Well, and you do woodworking too, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yeah, it's so you like literally make things with your hands, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Which that's good for you. I can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

It's fun. It's fun. This side table right here I built. You made? I made that. How thrilling. You can't see it, but it's cute.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

It's a triangular shape.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

What profession would you not like to do? I feel like you kind of answered.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yeah, look, my my taxes. Yeah, my father and my my mom's father are both accountants, and it's like they're good, they're good at my dad likes numbers. So it's not even like uh I wouldn't want to be an accountant. I'm like, I know who's good at that and how his brain works. And my mother, my mother was praying. My brother and I would get the math brain, and instead we're like, sorry, we like English and history, just like you, mom. She's like, uh, well, at least I have people to go to. Yeah. Well, I'm my brother doesn't like to go to the museums, but she's like, at least I have someone to go to museums with. I'm like, you sure do. Yeah. Let's go look at every Da Vinci sketch in this place. Um, but so like I I just know it would I would be bad at it and it would feel oppressive to me.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at Zipperli Gates? At Zipperley Gates.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Ooh, for both a lapsed Baptist and a recovering perfectionist. This one's tough, right? Like, how do I frame this? Um, thanks for being nice.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Thanks for being nice.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

Thanks for being nice, maybe. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

I think that's a nice answer.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Thanks for being. Maybe that's also just where my brain is at this point in the industry. Yeah. I just want to work with nice people who are fun. I just want to go play. I don't I want to do good work. I want to do rigorous work with fun people. Who cares?

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Who cares if it's a good thing? I'm gonna hang out with people I like. Isn't that what it's all about at the end of the day?

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Isn't it about a good hang and about the bits?

SPEAKER_00 50:13

I love the bits.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

We love the bits. Well, Amy Joe. Yarp. The yarp. That was Lipton Classics. Fantastic job. Um, let's talk about some stuff. Let's talk about the show you're in right now that you are rehearsing right now, but when this comes out, I think you'll be mid-production.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Fab. Yes, I'm in Titus Andronicus. Titus Andronicus with Red Bull Theater starring Patrick Page. So wild. Yeah, it's going great. It's a really warm room. Everyone, everyone's very kind and very funny. Um, I'm playing the nurse, so it's a pretty small part, but I do come on with a child and then die on stage. Love it. We're doing all the, we're we're staging all the fight stuff tomorrow. Spoilers.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

If you don't know the end of Titus Andromeda. Unnamed nurse doesn't make it. Um It seems like uh, at least from the poster that I have or the the mailer that I got. Yeah. It seems like a different kind can you talk about how it's like design the design of it or like what's the other one.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

What I know so far, yeah, we're it's kind of like set in a like a not too distant dystopian future, shall we say? So like Rome is meant to stand in for pretty clear, like maybe America in 50 years, sure, you know, kind of thing. But it's but not not hammering any of that. Do you know what I mean? Like um the wonderful Matt Ament is playing Saturninus, and he's such a like I just think I mean he makes me laugh so hard because Saturninus is such a brat. But I just I I just always think watching over that he's just like, ain't I a stinker? Is like what I always that's the that's the subtext for everything. But it it is in the best way, and when you see it, you'll understand like he this guy is a stinker. Oh my god, he knows it and he loves it, but like, but there is something about that kind of um loose canon who's very ego-driven that feels, I don't know, resonant, you know, but yeah, he's just doing his it's nothing that is meant to explicitly reference any political figures we might recognize, which I always appreciate.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

I think that's always better.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

It helps because an audience can come to it on their own terms, exactly, exactly. Yeah, you know, I'm like, I don't need to go like see some of these things that like have like recognizable figure. I'm not like I I see it on my phone whether I want to or not, you know. So it's it's like uh a way of grappling with where we are in a genuine way without with with without it, yeah, trusting the audience to put things together for themselves and also be able to like we've had a lot of talk in the room about Putin too. Like we've actually had a lot of talk about like because that feels like actually like contemporary Russia feels like with their system feels a little bit closer to what we're doing. We're not doing anything that feels Russian, but you know what I mean, insofar as like the autocracy and all and that kind of thing feels like actually the notion of his authority and and like how he behaves. It's it's like a society that has gone like really uh like very religious, you know, like in in our rendition. So and it's also stuff that's in the text that then we're just like highlighting, we're just like really bumping up. Um, and you know, Patrick and uh Jesse Berger, the director, have been talking about doing this adaptation for like four years and kind of like I think initially they were discussing about like doing it in rep with um the Tempest, uh with him playing Prospero, but then I think they at a certain point decided to settle on like focusing on Titus. So Patrick's also the one who's done the adaptation, but adaptation's a strong word, but there's like a lot of like because of the size of the cast and because of like the the the way that they're trying to sculpt the the kind of like contemporary lens on the narrative. There's a lot of like what if we cut this part of the scene and pasted it a little earlier, just stuff like that that makes also because it's an early Shakespeare, makes it leaner and clearer. Sure, sure. Um, and so that's been really fun to be in the room with Patrick. But Patrick today, as we were staging the the last scene, the which is famously a banquet, there's a certain point where he just goes, food fight. So, but yeah, everyone is lovely and funny, and and you know, we we'd spent a lot of time at the table going around in a round robin way. So, like you uh you'd go around the table, whomever it was, including like the ADs and everything, and and all the us who are playing the much smaller roles and understudying. I'm also I'm understudying Tamara, Basianus, and Quintus. Oh my god. So um, yeah, I've never done three. I was gonna say that's quite a and I'm on stage with them on my regular track. A lot of the time, I'm like, this is my brain.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

You're going up to the performance, be like, do not get sick.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Well, like, because I understudied at the globe, but it was it was a lead, but it was one art. And that's just so much. Even when I'm on stage with her, I'm like, I can watch the video.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

And even if it's like more, it's like at least it's one person's one line, yeah, as opposed to this, which is like discerning three.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Yeah, it's three, and and and like Tamara is I'm finding a lot other than like she has this one great speech when it's the first time she and Aaron are alone in the woods together. Yeah, and it's a very uh Frankie Faradani, who's who's wonderful, who's playing Tamara, was describing it. We were doing our table work as like it's very Titania, like the language is very lyrical and poetic and like descriptive of nature and everything. And I was working on that speech the other day. I was like, this is so hard to memorize. And I was like, I've played Titania, and I was like, and so was Titania, actually. I found Titania difficult to stick in the brain because so much of it was descriptive and evocative rather than action-driven. But then, other than that, everything else Tamara has is like, do this, I'm not doing that. We should do this, think about this. Oh, it's the you know, it's very uh action action-driven. Whereas like Basianis and Quintus are much more not necessarily reactive, but there's just a lot of like, yes, I will do that in this formal way. And so that's a little harder to stick in the brain. But it's you know, it's good, it keeps keeps the brain young. But um that's the hope. That's the hope. I gave up Sudoku, so I'm really relying on understudying to do that for me. But but yeah, you know, it's it's fun, but I it feels like everyone has a voice in the room, which as yeah, as someone playing a smaller part, but get getting to go around and do the tablework that way where like you'd read a line and then like paraphrase it and it would open up conversation, and yeah, it it helped, I think, all of us feel like we're all allowed to speak, you know. It's not like we're gonna be stepping on anyone's toes. If we're like, well, no, what about this, you know? Yeah, um, which is always great. You never want to feel like I I I'm not allowed to open my mouth in this room. Yeah, it's a very, very on site. It's you know, and it's all like actors who've done every kind of thing in the theater, you know, and it which is is great. Everyone's just like warm and swapping stories and blowing. Everyone knows all the Shakespeare references, and it's just like a room of nerds, yeah, which I love.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Love it. And when does the show start?

SPEAKER_01 57:09

We begin previews at the Signature Center on March 17th, and we open the 29th or the 30th. End of the mirror just right over there.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

Good.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Well, I'll be there regardless of what day it is, and then we run through mid-April, potentially longer, but I don't fantasy. Check the website, you know.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

Uh well, when this is coming out, you'll be mid mid-run.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

We will be slashing and dashing all over that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Exactly. That's right. Amy Joe. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks, man. This is so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

Yeah. Oh my god. Well, one one clown to another. Exactly. Takes one to know one.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

Takes one to know one. Yarp. Yarp. Yup. All right, y'all. That's this week's episode. We'll see you next week. Bye.