Can Podcasts Bring Back the Glory Days of Radio? with Sair Kaufman

Can fanbases overlap? Actor and playwright-turned-podcaster Sair Kaufman explores the unlikely intersection of Broadway aficionados and Dungeons and Dragons fans with the new musical podcast, The Reality Shaper. We discuss the genesis of this unique idea, as well as the potential for podcasts to bring back the glory days of radio. 

Find out more about The Reality Shaper podcast at Therealityshaper.com 

You can reach me at chrisbournea@gmail.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

My path was I found success when I stopped waiting for someone to see the potential in what I wanted to create. And I started just creating for myself and for my community.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hello and welcome to the Culture Beats Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Pornay. My guest is Sarah Kaufman, actor and playwright Turned Podcaster. Podcasting is a relatively new technology, but does it have the opportunity to bring back old school radio productions, including musicals? Sarah and I explore this possibility in our conversation. Well, hi Sarah. Thank you for uh taking the time out to speak with me, and I uh look forward to finding out more about you.

SPEAKER_05 0:56

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah, do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself with uh the listeners and the viewers?

SPEAKER_05 1:04

Absolutely. My name is Sarah Kaufman. I'm from the Silicon Valley, but I'm currently located in Brooklyn, New York. I am a musical theater writer and performer doing their best impression of an executive producer for a flagship project called The Reality Shaper A Musical Podcast, which is a DD-inspired fantasy musical told in an episodic audio drama form. So think 11 30-minute musicals, essentially, all telling one longer cohesive story. Um, and it's about a lawful guardsman who gets drawn into this conspiracy, and because he isn't sure he could who he can trust, he teams up with an extremely unlawful thief.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

Yeah. And so uh it's sort of like if Buddy Cop and Enemies to Lovers had a queer love child and then played DD.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

That sounds really cool and very very original.

SPEAKER_05 2:09

Oh, do yeah, well, you just got nerd bingo, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So so uh I was I was reading your bio and kind of got a little bit of a sense of the origin of the uh podcast, but can you kind of talk about what in what inspired this very unique idea?

SPEAKER_05 2:27

Absolutely. In 2020, mid-pandemic, I was completely unemployed, and my friend Chloe was running a DD game. I decided for Chloe's birthday to thank her for running this game that was keeping me going through this time that was really hard for a lot of people, that I would write out my character's backstory, thinking this will be a fun 4,000, 5,000-word little gift for Chloe, whatever. Anyway, I emerged seven days later with a 63,000-word novel.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 3:00

Which that's not a novella.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

I mean, that's a novel.

SPEAKER_05 3:03

It's a novel by uh, you know, by standards. Um I think 50k is like the novel standard, but anyway, um yeah, but I'm not a novelist, despite the evidence to the contrary. I am a musical theater writer. So pretty much the second I sent it to Chloe, Chloe was like uh Reality Shaper musical when. And I was like, well, it's a 63,000-word novel. And uh like that could be adapted into a musical, but it would be a six and a half hour musical. The thing is, I'd just been diagnosed with autism, which means I'd started working in more disability forward spaces, and I started realizing and thinking more about how inaccessible theater is to a lot of different communities. Um, so the blind community, the deaf community, the neurodiverse community, I wanted to create theater that was going to be more accessible, not just to people with disabilities, but also to those who maybe don't live geographically in a place where there's a lot of theater going on, or to people who can't afford the increasingly steep ticket prices that are going on in the theater world. So I started thinking about 36 questions in Strange Woods, these musical podcast projects that had come before. And I was like, what if we took this concept and instead of making a musical that's a podcast, and instead of making a podcast that's a musical, we made something that truly was a blend of both art forms. So it's almost like crazy ex-girlfriend meets uh a 20-sided tavern. Like, I mean, there's no improv, but so it oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, so that's that's really how it came about because I was like, well, if I'm inventing my own kind of genre of what a musical podcast can do, then it can be six and a half hours long.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Wow. Now I have to admit, I mean, despite being the host of the Culture Beats podcast, I'd never heard of a musical podcast. So is it sort of like really? Yeah, what is it? Sort of like what radio shows used to be. Like I know that I love Lucy started out.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

Sort of radio shows. It's not an enormous pool. You could probably fit all of the musical podcasts that currently exist in the back of a playbill, the same way you do on Broadway. Um, the big ones are 36 Questions, which is a musical that is told over three uh three podcast episodes. So it's they've broken the three acts of the musical into three audio drama episodes. So that to me, that is a musical told with audio as the medium.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 6:05

And then you have uh In Strange Woods, which is one of my favorite pieces of media. I highly recommend if you're looking for uh a musical podcast to get into In Strange Woods. In Strange Woods is a narrative podcast, but it is it is told in the format of a uh true crime or investigative uh kind of narrative form. So it's almost like listening to a a true crime podcast like serial. Um, think that kind of vibe, except the characters sing as they would in a musical. So that is taking a podcast and using musical elements to create this new thing. Um I what I'm doing is sort of standing on the shoulders of In Strange Woods. I'm trying to take musical theater writing craft and apply it to an episodic audio drama form. So I really truly would identify this as an audio drama/slash radio show is the word that people use a lot, but it's not syndicated. So I'm very cautious to not step on any radio toes.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 7:15

Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, so audio drama, that that kind of that term kind of makes sense to me because I know, for example, uh Audible and other audiobook formats have started, like, for example, there are audio sitcoms. Like instead of a sitcom that you would watch on TV, it's like a produced uh audio play. Right. You just have you have everything you would have in a in a TV show. You have the laugh track, you have sound effects, you have transition music, but it's just audio instead of uh audio and visual.

SPEAKER_05 7:52

And that's why to me, I think the closest comparison to what we're doing with Reality Shaper is something like Crazy X-Girlfriend or something like Has Been Hotel, which is using the craft of musical theater in a lot of places and in a lot of ways. Except we are applying the craft of musical theater to the entire thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Okay, okay. So, how did you find cast members to to star in this uh musical podcast?

SPEAKER_05 8:22

Yeah, I mean, this season one was made with a shoelace and a dream, so all of them had to be friends. Uh Christian Thompson, who plays our lead, Boris Dragonheart. Uh, he's currently on Broadway, on Hamilton.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

Yeah, he's absolutely incredible. I haven't had a chance to go see him yet, but I do have, I mean, he's incredible, and I'm sure. I met him at the Johnny Mercer Songwriter's Grove up at Good Speed Musicals. Uh and yeah, we just hit it off. He has a fabulous voice. So when it came time to cast our leading man, I was like, I wonder if we can get Christian. And luckily he was down to fit us in between Hamilton rehearsals. So very grateful to him for uh getting us on the calendar. Um, another member of the cast is Maria Wearies, who right now is star in the Lost Boys musical, which just opened on Broadway. So congratulations. If there's any Lost Boys people, if you like the Lost Boys movie, you will love this musical.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Oh, yeah. That's that's one of my favorite all-time horror movies for sure.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

You gotta, you gotta come see this. This is I I saw it in previews, and it is probably my favorite show of the season.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:44

And and I'm a hard critic.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, I'm sure. So, so how much of a heavy lift was pulling off season? I mean, did you do the like write the the book, the libretto, as they call it, the story as well as the music? Well, you'd already written a 60,000-word novel. So oh, yeah, to do well, not all, but I mean at some point.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

Oh yeah, and I have I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by in my community, just surrounded by some of the most fantastic uh composers and writers. So everything about this project was a collaboration. Well, except for the novel. The novel I wrote in a week, but everything about the podcast itself has been a collaboration um with different people who I deeply love and respect, and it wouldn't and couldn't exist without them. Um but yeah. So first we we spent years writing and then we went into production and got most of the yeah, so it's been a it's been a whole journey. We've been working on this pretty much since 2021. So it's been, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

I would imagine uh doing a musical podcast, one challenge is that when you're developing a show for the stage, you can workshop it and have previews where you present it to audiences and you see where the laughs are, and does this line work? And you know, should we take this section out or move it around? Was it hard was it hard uh producing a musical podcast in which or do you have an audience? I mean like a like a like a studio audience, like or is it just no, no, yeah. So you don't really have that immediate feedback from a live audience.

SPEAKER_05 11:30

No, but what I do have is I started posting songs from the project on my social media.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

And I saw which songs were getting a lot of attention and which songs were getting a lot of love. One of them became one of those TikTok sounds a few years ago. So that was a lot of fun. Um and I saw which songs weren't hitting exactly how we wanted them to, and that to me was a great indication that that song needed a rewrite. But you're absolutely spot on in the fact that when it comes to the larger piece, it was difficult, if not impossible, to workshop that. You know, we had some table reads in a few different situations, we were never really able to get through the entire season um in one sitting. So we would then have to split it. Um, but this goes back to that incredible community of artists that I'm lucky enough to be a part of through the BMI Musical Theater Writers Workshop.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:38

Like the the feedback that I get from them is so spot on and so useful. And um at the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Grove, where I met Christian, there was a dramaturg named Rose who did take the time to read through not just our outline or our pitch, but the entire season as it existed and give us feedback on that. So I I I've just been lucky to find people who are willing to provide feedback on on different sections of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Did uh did you direct as well?

SPEAKER_05 13:20

No, it's a good question. Arguably, we it's like the the role of director has been split between a few different people, you know, in the room. You absolutely give notes, you say, can you give it to me a little bit more like this? I know you're not supposed to give a line reading, but can I give you a line reading?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:41

That kind of thing. Um, and that's a certain amount of direction, but then there's also direction that goes into which take are we gonna use? And that that part of direction that has been split between myself and other collaborators. So I I I wouldn't really feel comfortable say like saying we have one director.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Sure. The entire team.

SPEAKER_05 14:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yeah. Was it uh hard at all? You you mentioned a lot of the um a lot of the cast are are friends. I mean, is it hard kind of giving you know direction, so to speak, to a friend of the not at all. Oh, really? Okay.

SPEAKER_05 14:18

Not at all. Uh the uh the people in New York, and especially people who have been working professionally, and if you're on Broadway, you've been working professionally, they don't they don't take it personally. You know, you could say, yeah, it's getting a little, you know, sad. Can we find a way to energize this? And they'll be like, oh, yeah, no, for sure. Um, and and same with same on the writing side and on the collaboration side. Um, it's ever everybody knows that we love each other as people and respect each other as artists, which I think is the most important thing, is respecting each other as artists. Um, and as long as you're operating from a place of respect, I think there's very little feedback that can't be communicated in a constructive and kind way.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Absolutely. Yeah. And I would I would imagine working with friends, you've you've built up trust over the years. So that can actually be a an asset, I would, I would assume.

SPEAKER_05 15:19

Absolutely. I think trust is irreplaceable when it comes to collaboration. If you have someone's trust and they have your trust, that is something to be fought for, and it's also something to be maintained, you know? And and communication is a huge part of that.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah. So talk about what is the um, is there an overlap between the D D fan community and your the theater fan community? Are are those audiences separate? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

Um the uh what's it called? The graph with the two circles.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

The pop or I don't, yeah, I forget what the the Yeah, the intersecting circles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:00

The intersecting uh it's basically just a circle. D D kids are theater kids. Uh sorry, if you're insulted by that, you should probably think about why. No, theater kids are full of emotions and energy, and uh TTRPG players are full of emotions and energy and love to flirt with their friends. It's it's um, I think there's a lot of overlap. I think a lot of theater kids who are not DD players yet are gonna love this podcast, and vice versa. I think a lot of DD players who haven't fallen in love with musical theater yet are about to. At least that's my hope.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah, yeah. I was recently watching, I think it was a YouTube video talking about how um a growing uh trend is hybrid genres, and it it really gives uh a work an advantage when you can appeal to multiple audiences and not just one narrow niche group. So yeah. Yeah. Also, can you, you know, you can talk about you talk about as much or as little, however, you're whatever you're comfortable with. But you you mentioned you were diagnosed with autism. How does how does that affect your daily life?

SPEAKER_05 17:13

Or does it uh yeah, I mean, no, this project wouldn't exist if I hadn't had my diagnosis. I I was diagnosed when I was 22. And a lot of people uh look at me and they hear me say I have autism, and they go, No, you don't. Yeah. Um, which is tough. And there's still a lot of internalized ideas about able uh about autism that are are being broken down. And I think as an autistic person with low support needs, um, as evidenced by my ability to live independently and uh pursue things without a high level of um support and coaching, I I I feel that it's my responsibility not only to show people like, hey, this is what autism looks like. This is what autism can look like, rather. And if you've lived your entire life feeling like you're just on a different wavelength from every single person around you, like you're not alone. And personally, my diagnosis allowed me to find an enormous amount of self-love and self-forgiveness and self-esteem. My goodness. Yeah, yeah. Um, the the ability to, you know, pursue these things that I kind of had thought was impossible before. So for me, a diagnosis I I needed that for me to be able to get the accommodations I needed, not just from the people I work with, but also from myself. You know, the ability to say, wow, I really put my foot in my mouth there. You know, someone who wasn't autistic probably wouldn't have made that mistake. I'm gonna do this repair, I'm gonna, you know, learn the lesson and try to do better. And I'm also gonna forgive myself because there are some things that I've come to terms with that I am always going to struggle with.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:28

And the ability to say that and the ability to say, you know, this is it's it is in my control in some ways, but it's always going to happen to some extent, and accept that about myself and learn to love myself despite that, has been enormous for me. And I never would have gotten there without my diagnosis. So that's that's part one. Part one is I want people out there who feel like they may be undiagnosed, um, who have low support needs to know. This is what autism looks like. Um, self-discovery is a beautiful thing. I highly recommend research and talking to the autistic people in your life. And if you don't have autistic people in your life, congratulations, you're about to get a bunch. Um and the second thing is making space to represent autistic people who have higher support needs. Um, because the second, the the second side of that coin is it's all well and good to kind of show off my autism and say this is what autism can look like, someone who lives independently, someone who does all of these things, but also it can be a really disabling thing. And there are people who are never going to be able to live independently. Uh, and there are people who are going to struggle really hard their whole lives. And it's really important that those people also have a space to be heard and to be represented. So it's two, it's two things and everything in the middle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah. And the good thing is, it seems like in the past decade, uh, awareness of autism and that it's a spectrum, that it's not just doesn't just manifest in in one way, seems like a lot of a lot more people are aware. Unfortunately, it seems like there still are a lot of people. I was actually just recently at a conference where um students with autism were talking about how a lot of uh people you think would know better, like teachers, assume that all disabilities are visible, yeah, and will actually argue with a student who says, I need accommodations, or I have sensory issues, or I need more time to you know complete a test, or can the test be administered differently?

SPEAKER_05 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

So yeah, there still are some challenges.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

I remember my um math teacher in high school would give these really, really long quizzes, like something like 95 math questions.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 21:54

And I could do, I could answer those questions, but I could not. Do it in the 90 minutes that we were allotted to do it. And at the time, I didn't know that I had a disability. I didn't realize that the scratching of pencils around me and the and the muttering around me was taking enough of my brain power that it was slowing me down. I had no idea that I required an accommodation. And that's how I found myself after every after every midterm, after every final in that class, sitting there well into lunch, crying, you know, pouring over these questions that I knew the answers to, but didn't have time to finish while the teacher was like berating me because I was supposed to be done 30 minutes ago. That's what I mean when I say it's so important to be diagnosed. Um there is this idea out there still that getting diagnosed is going to limit your uh like professional opportunities. The opposite has been true for me. The ability to step into autistic spaces and assist with accessibility and accommodations has broadened my professional skills.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

Right. So and I've been paid, like I spent $2,000 to get this diagnosis. And I have made at least twice that.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 23:30

Just just because I got this diagnosis and I learned professional skills and was able to represent myself as hi, I am a person with autism willing to offer help with this.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

And can you talk a bit about the uh intersection of autism and the queer community? You know, the term intersectionality has come up in the past decade. Can you talk about how those two your queerness and autism affect your life?

SPEAKER_05 24:02

Yeah. Well, I'm I identify as non-binary. Um and I prefer they them pronouns, but I don't I don't care. I don't care that much. Um and I well, interesting story. I started identifying as non-binary because of D.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 24:26

I identified as a woman. I'll put an asterisk there for later. Okay. And then I made up this DD character, and I created everything about them, and then I got to the character sheet part where it was like now right in the gender. And I was like, huh. I don't really feel like this person's a man, and I don't really feel like this person's a woman. I feel like they're just an elf. So I just didn't put a gender and it made sense for that character. And then at some point, months into that campaign, I woke up and realized, wow, I'm a lot happier being perceived as not a woman. Interesting, interesting, interesting. When I first heard about being non-binary and had it described to me by some friends, I uh can fully admit that I did not understand.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Really?

SPEAKER_05 25:28

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

I I because you hadn't yet, um, you hadn't yet, you didn't have the self-knowledge, or why do you think that is that you didn't understand?

SPEAKER_05 25:37

I I didn't understand because in my head I was like, doesn't everyone feel like that? Like okay, don't we all feel like that and just perform woman anyway? Like, what do you mean you're just opting out?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:54

Like, yeah, it would be great if we could do that, but what? So I did not understand because I was like, uh, like everybody feels that way. Why do you? And then I slowly came to realize that not everyone feels that way. Sure. Some people do actually feel like uh like woman is not a performance, like man is not a performance, like that is a part of their identity.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Interesting. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 26:23

And the way my sister put it, and I and I think I think this is wise, is if you are comfortable being whatever, being a tomboy, being a a girl who who likes traditionally masculine clothes or a masculine hairstyle, then be a girl who you know enjoys traditionally masculine things. You know, that's mask lesbians have been around forever. They are the original gender non-conforming people, like if you if you look at the history. Um but if the label and the title of woman if if you don't feel like you can perform socially or you're not comfortable being that, then that is that's what makes you, but it's also it's different for everyone. I'm sure one person's experience um being gender non-conforming is uh is not everyone's, like everyone has their own experience. For me, I think as an autistic person, I've I've learned and thought a lot about gender roles and the way that they influence society and the way that they influence how you're treated. And I just found myself becoming a lot happier and liking myself a lot more when I stopped holding myself to the standard of being a woman.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 28:01

When I was able to look at myself in a way that was being a person.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

I'm really glad you were able to come to that sense of self-acceptance, not only with being non-binary, but also with uh your autism diagnosis. And how do you feel that I mean, it seems like in some ways society has become more understanding and accepting of non-bin, you know, the the concept of someone being non-binary, but it seems like you know, society will take two steps forward and then a giant leap backwards.

SPEAKER_05 28:34

There has definitely been a swing of the pendulum uh uh in in recent months, which I have uh noticed, but I don't give it a lot of bandwidth in my mind. Uh I I think, you know, people should do what makes them happy. And uh if being a woman makes you happy, be a woman. If being a man makes you happy, be a man. If being an either makes you happy, do that, you know, and and do that in whatever way makes you feel like you're most yourself.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

I I would imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, that it's easier to be non-binary in a in a more progressive place like Absolutely. I mean, if you lived in flyover territory like I do Columbus, although Columbus is a pretty progressive city, but I mean, if you lived in the middle of the country or the do you think would it might be more challenging?

SPEAKER_05 29:32

Yeah, when I go traveling, I I don't necessarily out myself to everyone who I seek.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Safety, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:41

Right. Well, not only safety, but it's like if someone calls me ma'am, it's not they're not trying to be rude. Yeah, yeah. They're trying to be polite. I'm not gonna, and maybe I'm conflict avoidant, but also it's like, you know, this old lady is is trying to be polite in the way that she was raised to be polite, and I'm not like she's not coming into my room and ma'aming me. I'm coming into her restaurant, and I'm not going to necessarily hold her to the standards that I would hold a close friend or family member to. I really am only out to the close people in my life, which isn't to say that I'm in the closet in any way. Yeah. But I don't correct my barista. Why would I do that? I I don't and I think it's because I've learned to care a little bit less about how other people see me.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 30:33

And for me, being non-binary is about how I see myself and about how my community sees me. And that's who it's important to me. Understands who I am.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Absolutely. And you also mentioned the whole issue, you know, when we were talking about your autism diagnosis, the whole issue of bandwidth. It's like you have to kind of in order to pick your battles.

SPEAKER_05 30:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

I mean, like, for example, you know, I have a unusual last name, you know, Bornet, but you know, most people make up their own pronunciation.

SPEAKER_05 31:03

Oh, I would have gotten that so wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah. No, but but like you said, I'm not going to correct someone that I'm going to see. This is the only time in life I'm going to interact with this person. So why am I going to take my precious energy and correct them when I'm never going to see them again?

SPEAKER_05 31:20

Right. And I I think it also for me, it takes the power away from people who will use things like misgendering and dead naming to try and get a rise out of you.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 31:31

Like I'm kind of like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:35

Don't take it do whatever you want. I don't, I like, I really genuinely don't care that much. Now, uh, I will caveat that that isn't to say that that non-binary people who do correct their waitress or do correct, you know, their barista or, you know, a stranger, that they are not well within their rights to do so. Absolutely, you should do whatever feels affirming to you, but this is how I exist in the world as a queer person. And and and and I think a lot of autistic people do end up being trans or non-binary because gender really boils down to a role that you're performing in society. You know, and I do want to acknowledge there is a well, I don't want to get too far into this. But people who are assigned female at birth, they are going to have experiences that align with femininity, that align with being a woman.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Heteronormativity. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 32:41

And similarly, people who are assigned male at birth are going to have experiences in life that align with being a man.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 32:54

And uh there's a lot of discourse about this, but I think being trans and being gender nonconforming does not uh uh free you from needing to break down your own internalized sexism. Right?

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:16

Like my identity does not mean that I get to like swing completely to the other and be like, oh, women suck, you know? And actually it's interesting because since no longer identifying as a woman, I have become more aware of women's issues.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 33:35

Because I've become just more. I think it's when you're part of a group, you feel like you don't need to research their issues as much or something, or maybe that's just me.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yeah, no, I know I no, I I I get what you're saying. Yeah. But there's more of a maybe more of a curiosity because you feel like kind of a exactly not exactly an outsider, but more objectivity, maybe.

SPEAKER_05 33:56

No, I mean I think outsider isn't an incorrect term, but I consider myself an ally.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Do you mind if I ask where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_05 34:07

California. Yeah. Coastal elites.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Yeah. But I mean, I'm sure there's small towns in California.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

Oh, yeah. Well, I grew up in the Silicon Valley.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Okay, okay. But I mean, I've heard even in New York, I've heard like Long Island is pretty red.

SPEAKER_05 34:22

Oh, yes. Staten Island. You don't even have to go that far.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Oh, yeah, yeah. So I mean, no place is going to be all one uh uh what's the word, ideology.

SPEAKER_05 34:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

So I kind of wanted to uh kind of go back a little bit to uh you being a uh musical theater professional. What got you interested in theater?

SPEAKER_05 34:46

Oh gosh, what didn't? It was finally a space where somebody told you what to say and how to say it. Like I don't know. Anyone who's autistic listening will completely understand what I'm talking about. It is finally a space where someone tells you what to say and how to say it. And then usually there's a happy ending. Um for me, theater was a microcosm of life. You try and say the best thing you can, the best way you can, and you hope that there's a happy ending. And in theater, you know you're saying what you need to say the way you need to say it, because the director tells you how.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:30

And then usually it ends okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Right, right. Was there a show that that was formative that that you saw that show and was like, oh, I want to do this for a living? Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

There's a few. I'll tell you both of them.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 35:43

When I was little, and my mom loves telling this story, uh, we would come to New York to visit family every Christmas, like for the winter holidays. And my mom every year would try and take us to see a show, sometimes too. And this was the year of the producers.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Oh, wow. With with Nathan Lane and uh Matthew Roderick.

SPEAKER_05 36:07

And I love Nathan Lane.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

He's amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:11

Timone in the Lion King was my favorite character in anything for years. For years. And Nathan Lane was just my absolute idol. Um and so we we and and we were we were running late. We were rushing through the streets of Manhattan, it was crowded, it was loud, I was seven, probably. But I was sobbing. I was completely overstimulated, although of course I didn't have the words for that yet. So they thought I was just having a tantrum. Um, but I I was sobbing and crying and and very unhappy. And then we got into the theater and everything was quiet. And up comes the curtain. And then and there's dancing, and there's singing, and there's Nathan Lane, and this voice that I know. And for me, that was just like it was just like magic. But for years, my mom would look back on that story. When I told her I wanted to move to New York, she was like, I don't know. Like when you were little, you you you couldn't handle it, it was too loud for you. And she was just trying to protect me, right? But I did have to sit down with her and be like, mom, you know, I I am an adult now. And I own noise canceling headphones.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Good point.

SPEAKER_05 37:34

Yeah. Um, but the second formative experience I had was in eighth grade, my middle school was doing 13, the musical by Jason Robert Brown, and I was cast as Archie.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 37:50

Uh, it was my first leading role, and I loved the music. I loved the story. It was just exactly the right story for me at that time when I was 13 years old and had just completed my bot mitzva. Like it was that was huge for me.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

What was uh your path to becoming a professional? Did you take classes? Did you how did you get into the industry?

SPEAKER_05 38:20

Yeah, yeah. So for college, I studied performing and I was lucky enough to have a class with Barbara and Selmi, who wrote, It should have been you, if you're familiar. And she took me under her wing and decided to mentor me in musical theater writing. So for the second two years of my four-year degree, in addition to my performing arts BFA, I was uh studying musical theater writing as an independent study under Barb.

unknown 38:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 38:58

And then I and then I I graduated, I got into the BMI Musical Theater Writers Workshop. That I did the two-year program there, and then I was admitted to the Advanced Writers uh Writers Workshop. I also did the Johnny Mercer Songwriters. Uh wait, uh not the Grove, the other one. I did the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project. I think that's what yeah. Wait, there's a poster for it behind me. The 18th annual Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriters Project. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Cool, cool. And uh so I just I want to respect your time, but I just have two more questions.

SPEAKER_05 39:38

No, hit me, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Yeah. So what would what would your advice be to people who young people you know who are like yours yourself that are passionate about theater, that have caught the bug? They want to they want to do live theater as a profession. Uh what is the I know everyone's path is different, but uh has it has the path changed of, you know, is it still the same path of moving to New York and auditioning for every show that you you can, or should you try to post a lot of stuff, skits and um you know, songs to uh social media, TikTok, and you know, reels on Instagram. What what it what is a path to get to break into musical theater?

SPEAKER_05 40:19

There are so many paths. There, there's you could absolutely do it the traditional way. I know plenty of people who just come and start auditioning. Um, my path, and this is I can really only speak for me. My path was I found success when I stopped waiting for someone to see the potential in what I wanted to create, and I started just creating for myself and for my community. That's very powerful. My philosophy is if you build it, they will come. I don't know what that's a reference to. I know it's a thing people say, yeah. But I I have found it to be true. If if you put your passion and your heart into something that will attract the kind of person you need to turn an idea into reality.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

That's a that's a great outlook on the funnily enough.

SPEAKER_05 41:19

Yeah, it shares a lot of themes with the reality shaper, a musical podcast dropping June 9th.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yeah, but but I would assume that um theater is I hate to use the word cutthroat, but very competitive. So having that outlook that you just described is is is a great way to look at it.

SPEAKER_05 41:38

Well, and and the way that I view auditioning is so different now that I'm a writer. I used to, I used, and I this is saying something because I went to college for four years to audition.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 41:49

So I know the ins and outs of auditioning and all the things that go through your head as an actor. And then the second you become a writer, it's okay, who do I know who's funny who can sing? You know, and that's it. That's the only criteria. And once you get to the Broadway level, it's like, okay, who do I know that's funny that could sing? And then you sit through 3,000 people that are funny and can sing.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:12

And you have to choose 12 of them to give a call back to. And it's like, well, you just have to be so spectacular. It's it's unignorable. And there are absolutely people out there who are so spectacular that it's unavoidable. I don't really consider myself one of those people. So I'm like, well, if I, you know, uh well, that being said, I have had Broadway callbacks in the past. So I guess I must be doing something right. But my point is, I think I am too neurotic to sit around waiting for someone to see potential in me.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:49

And seeing the way that my brain works when it actually comes to casting, it's so much of it has nothing to do with how talented you are. You can work so hard and become the most talented person in a room and still not book it just because you're too short. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

It's it's such a subjective business. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 43:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

And the the, I guess the closing question I have for you is what do you think is the future of musical theater? I came across a YouTube video recently where it was very pessimistic. It was talking about how a very small number of companies own all the Broadway theaters, and that's why you see all the revivals and all the reboots and all the, you know, very, very little original content and very little risk taking, even less than there was in the 70s when you know there was stuff like hair and people were being nude on stage and Rocky Horror Picture Show. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of risk taking because the cost of staging musicals is so expensive. And then you know, who and who knows if you know a producer is gonna make their money back. So, what would you what do you think the future? Oh, theater is and in yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:02

Yeah, no, it's I think it's happening in a lot of industries. I think film is seeing a lot of this as well, where um producers are just not willing to take risks on original work.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:15

But consequently, small indie creators, you know, like we were talking about Hasband Hotel recently.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:27

Um who are creating original work, it is making room for people to be discovered because these smaller creators who are working with lower budgets and smaller teams and aren't connected to big corporate machines, they are supplying original work for uh an audience that is hungry for original work. So rather than finding a big old company who was which I did try, I made a pitch deck, I talked to Spotify, you know, uh rather eventually I just got sick of waiting. And rather than waiting around for a big company to see the potential in my original story, I was just like, you know what? People see potential in my original story. So I'll just make it myself. I never endeavored to be a producer, and frankly, it's like if I could delegate that to someone else, I'd love to.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:34

But uh until such a day comes that I have the thousands of dollars it would take to outsource that job, it's gonna be me.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, kudos to you, Sarah, for taking the reins and and taking uh charge of your own fate and creating opportunities for other people. And I look forward to uh listening to the uh Reality Shaper podcast. You said it it they used June 9th.

SPEAKER_05 46:00

June 9th, 2026.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Right.

SPEAKER_05 46:02

And if you're in the New York, if you're listening and you're in the New York area, we have a launch concert going on on June 8th.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_05 46:10

The nerdiest thing going on this Pride Month. So come on by and hear some Broadway performers who we somehow convinced to sing our silly fantasy songs. Uh that's gonna be a lot of fun. And also, if you're in the Colorado, if you live in Colorado, uh, we're gonna be at the audio fiction convention in Boulder on June 14th. So come back, come on by.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Cool. And uh is there a website or a way that people can contact you?

SPEAKER_05 46:39

You can join our mailing list at thereality shaper.com and you can find our pilot episode anywhere podcasts are found.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Awesome. Well, Sarah, I'm I wish you nothing but success in the future. And again, thanks so much for taking the time to share your journey with me.

SPEAKER_05 46:57

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Yeah. Thank you for listening to the Culture Beats Podcast. If you like this content and would like to lend your support, please leave us a review, a rating, andor a comment. That helps other people discover the podcast. Culture Beats is an independent endeavor. Views expressed by guests are their own. Thanks again, and talk to you soon.