Amy Jo Jackson

WEBVTT
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This is a cold read of August Osage County with improv.
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I'll be playing Gene Fordham.
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Amy Joe will be playing everyone else.
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Yes.
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Here we go.
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Yeah.
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Phantom of the Opera, 1925, Lon Cheney.
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Yeah, he really hurt his eyeballs with all those special effects.
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Or was that Boris Carloff?
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No, but they're they're showing it with the the scene in Color Restored.
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The scene.
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Yeah.
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That that seems thrilling.
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The one where uh let's see, he plays that organ real loud and shakes the girl's brains out her eyes.
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I guess.
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That's what I remember.
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Yeah.
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My my favorite scene in Lon Cheney and The Fan with the Opera 1925.
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Uh-huh.
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Boy, you know what other movie I really liked was R S Nick and Ole Lace.
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That Cary Grant.
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I know.
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So cute.
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Cute as a butt.
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Yeah, I know.
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Wow, you sure got a lot to say, Gene.
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I've seen the one with Claude Rains.
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Are you thinking notorious?
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Because that is not our snick and old lace.
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That is another Cary Grant picture altogether.
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That has Ingrid Bergman in it.
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I don't remember it.
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So hot.
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I was just a kid.
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You were a kid when you were seeing notorious?
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Well, I probably shouldn't have showed you that.
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Then there's there's a lot of death in that one.
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What?
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Yes, they they poison Ingrid Bergman and then they they shoot Emile or they drop him off a cliff.
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I don't know.
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I mean, yeah.
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I'm telling you, I just re-watched it, and this is what happens.
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It's not my fault.
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You was a kid when you saw notorious.
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Fifteen.
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Alright, well, that's not too bad.
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You can have an appreciation for Alfred Hitchcock when you're 15.
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What?
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I don't know what you are talking me in circles round for, Gene.
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It doesn't sound good.
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Alfred Hitchcock?
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That's disgusting.
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Now, look, we do not need to be grass.
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It's the man's name.
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Food.
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From the kitchen.
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Gene, I I think you need to go lie down.
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What do you smell?
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What I don't know.
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Are you smelling toast?
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I think you smell food from the kitchen.
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Oh God, you're having a stroke, Gene.
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What are you I need?
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I think you need to lie down.
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Let's get a cold compost.
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Oh, I I don't know.
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I d I do know.
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I once took a CPR class and shirt.
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Wouldn't you doubt my prowess?
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Oh, come on, Gene.
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Oh, it's hot.
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Yes, you're having a stroke.
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You're having a medical advance.
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Yeah, really hot.
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Yes.
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Oh my god, Gene, I gotta get you an ice pack.
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Yeah.
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Jesus Christ, Gene.
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Say something.
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Well, Gene, if you aren't gonna help yourself, I don't know what you want me to do.
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That would be great, because I just smoked my last bowl and I really needed to get fucked up.
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Alright, well, you're not having a stroke, you're a drug addict.
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I really needed to get fucked up.
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Oh, well don't I uh I was fucked up.
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I am scandalized.
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And you was making fun of the name Alfred Hitchcock.
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You're bad.
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Who's the one talking about joints and bowls over here?
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Genus.
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That's it.
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Gene was remarkably unhelpful.
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Yeah, G that was maybe the worst scene to choose.
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But funny.
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Yeah, it was very funny.
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It worked for a while because it was like so So yes ending whatever you're scared.
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You know, literally yes ending the whole thing.
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I will just talk about Alfred Hitchcock as well.
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That was very impressive.
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Look, I do love, I do love notorious excellent film.
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Oh hell yeah.
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Oh boy.
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We had to watch that in uh in grad school.
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God, it's so it's so frickin'.
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I went for my birthday this past year.
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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.
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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.
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So, like, what have I been to see at the Paris?
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I have been to see 8 Femme, which is a French film from 2001 starring Catherine Deneuve.
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Oh my god.
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One of my faves.
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Um, so I went to go see that and then notorious for my birthday.
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I'm going to All About Eve tomorrow, I think.
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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.
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That show is fucking.
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Well, and I only watched the first episode because I was trying to cramp.
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And my partner's like, well, I'm not gonna wave here, I'm gonna finish all of them.
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I'm like, it's really good! I wanna see it all.
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So I've got to watch the other three episodes.
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But they were all there.
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It was like their premiere, so it was really easy.
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They all did a QA panel afterwards.
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Yeah.
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I love that.
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Welcome to Working Class Acts.
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I am here today with an incredibly talented individual.
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A crazily talented individual.
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Theyslash all is a performer, playwright, compute composer, lyricist, and award-winning cabarettist.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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That was me saying that.
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Emerging artist grant.
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Bistro Award-winning cabarettist for their Tennessee Williams solo show, The Brass Menagerie, which was so fun.
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I watched that.
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I watched half of it when I was on the treadmill this morning.
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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.
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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.
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Folks, I'm here with Amy Joe Jackson.
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That was exhausting.
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Who else?
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That was too much.
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I wrote it and I apologize.
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Amy Joe, how are you doing?
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I'm good.
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I'm delighted to be here.
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I'm so glad you're here.
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We met a few months ago via our friend Andy Ingalls doing a little Shakespeare.
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We did our uh a little cold read Shakespeare.
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Of Much Ado About Nothing.
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Yes.
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And we all did our best Keanu read Don Juan.
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When because we we had talked about like what's your relationship to the play before we started reading?
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And we all kind of talked about Keanu.
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Of course.
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As as John the Bastard.
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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?
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I was like, You did it, and I was like, that's right.
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It was so exciting.
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I was like, all I really want is to just uh do Keano the entire And we did Buraccio so good.
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So yes, I was like, this person is Ken.
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It was so fun.
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It was so, so fun.
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Amy Joe, where are you originally from?
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Um I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and Littleton, Colorado.
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Ah, another Texan.
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Yes.
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Are you a Texan?
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No.
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I've had many roommates who are Texans.
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Oh, well, I don't like to lead with it, but you ask.
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So there it is.
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Fair enough.
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You know, did you like growing up there or I mean it was a place.
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Yeah, fair enough.
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The food is great.
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Most places are a place.
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Um, you know, and I it was a suburb.
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When I moved to Colorado in high school, people would be like, Did you ride a horse to school?
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I'm like, I've seen more horses here.
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What do you think?
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I was gonna say, I feel like Colorado is more of a.
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I know, but they they have their own ideas about uh what the rest of the world is in relation to them.
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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.
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Do you know what I mean?
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Like from the plains to the mountains, but um yeah, I mean it was one of those I I I don't know.
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It was fine, but I've never not wanted to live in New York City.
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Like since I can remember having thoughts, yeah, yeah, I've wanted to be an actor and live in New York.
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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.
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Less about less about the place and more about where I wanted to be.
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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.
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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.
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Like, like, and I mean that to mean like it was both good and it was also deranged.
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I was like, why do we care this much about Soulfeg?
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You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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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.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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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.
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Totally.
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Um, but again, I was like, I'm I'm out of here.
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These mountains are pretty.
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I gotta go to a pedestrian city.
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So when did you uh catch the proverbial bug?
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I did I I didn't I do really think I was born with it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Totally, and I so I don't I don't remember any other uh option occurring to me.
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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.
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And I was like, I like animals.
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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.
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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?
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I was like, um uh, you know, maybe uh an actor or or a zoologist.
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Maybe I even just led with zoologists because I was really, you know, trying to make it less great.
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Exactly.
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She's like, Oh, so you'll take a lot of science classes.
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I'm 10.
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And I went, Oh no.
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Hell no.
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I absolutely's like, oh, I won't be doing that.
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So I'm gonna be an actor.
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Like, which is what I always knew I was gonna do, but the only thing felt like I was for other people's benefit.
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Yeah, um, but I dropped that facade as soon as I was like, science, that won't be happening for this guy?
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No.
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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.
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I I was like, oh, I want to be a cartoonist, I want to be, you know, a firefighter or whatever.
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There was like so many things I wanted to be.
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Yes, that is literally what it came down to.
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I was just like, no, I just want to like put on their clothes and pretend to be a little bit more.
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I want to do the poll and then I want them to go do the dangerous part.
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Do you draw?
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Are you good at drawing?
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I I'm quite I'm pretty good at it.
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I'm good at like real life drawing.
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If I can see it, I'm pretty good at drawing it.
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My brother is an amazing like cartoonist.
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Like he he he draws so I've never so unique.
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I don't see anyone who like draws like him.
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I played Alice and Bechtel in Fun Home, and I was in a small theater.
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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.
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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.
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I'm I'm terrible at drawing.
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But I was like, I want them to be able like they were like, oh, we can have it printed.
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I was like, no, I want them to be able to like hear the scratch.
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I want to be really drawing.
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I don't want to also feel like I have to hide when I'm drawing.
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I want to be able to be drawing and have them feel like they're part of it.
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So we the stage manager and I had developed this.
00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:21.600
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.
00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:23.039
And no one could see that's brilliant.
00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:28.000
But it was it was great, and then like during tech, because the other two Allison could draw.
00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:36.159
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.
00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:37.840
She's like, Heymy Joe, did you draw this?
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:39.600
I was like, Yeah, well, you know, I traced it.
00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:42.240
She was like, Oh, I was gonna say you've gotten better.
00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:45.759
Burned by a 12-year-old.
00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:47.759
But she was right.
00:13:48.159 --> 00:14:02.399
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.
00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:12.559
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.
00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:23.200
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.
00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:26.480
Um, and so that that's just funny.
00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:28.000
That's all I had to say about that.
00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:31.039
We have to do a lot of shit.
00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:33.360
That's so true, so true.
00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.480
So you left Colorado, you moved to the big city.
00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:37.919
No, I moved to Boston.
00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:40.000
Oh, so the medium city.
00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:42.240
Boston's not a big city.
00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:50.159
Look, compared to when you what like the tea stops, the the the M the MBTA, as my grandfather always called that.
00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:53.200
Oh, because he got his he got his uh masters in Boston.
00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:55.200
So I was like, Are you taking the MBTA?
00:14:55.360 --> 00:14:56.799
I was like, yes, yes, sure.
00:14:57.279 --> 00:14:58.559
Grandpa's taking the tea.
00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:01.919
Um but the MBTA, the stops are so close to one.
00:15:02.159 --> 00:15:05.679
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.
00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:11.279
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.
00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:14.720
And then I went back and did a contract in the winter, and I was like, oh, oh, I get it.
00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:17.120
They they should be less space in between them.
00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:19.919
I can't walk anywhere, it's just snow and ice.
00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:21.200
I get it.
00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:24.000
Oh, yeah, but so you went to Boston Conservatory.
00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:24.720
I did, yeah.
00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:25.679
How was your time there?
00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:26.879
Did you enjoy it?
00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:27.360
Yes and no.
00:15:27.919 --> 00:15:28.399
Yes and no.
00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:33.919
You know, I went I wasn't married to doing a musical theater program, but I went to the best program I got into.
00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:34.240
Right.
00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:35.039
Uh which was that.
00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:39.440
And also I knew the acting training wasn't gonna be what I wanted, but I also knew that was where my curiosity was.
00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:41.279
So I was like, well, I'm gonna seek that out anyway.
00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:44.559
And I knew I wouldn't push myself vocally because I just didn't care.
00:15:44.799 --> 00:16:01.039
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.
00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:02.879
Granted, you're building a new context, you know.
00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:06.159
But I would get so nervous at a recital or something like that.
00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:16.159
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.
00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:19.200
Yeah, and to just have to be on your feet singing all the time.
00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:21.519
I did push through to a new low.
00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:26.240
I got I got past that discomfort so much faster than I would have if I had just gone to a straight acting program.
00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:34.159
But you know, it was a bit middle school in its like pettiness and competitiveness, and I've just never cared for that.
00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:34.399
Yeah.
00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:38.960
I, you know, as I'm I'm very ambitious and I I'm competitive with myself.
00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:46.159
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.
00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:50.080
I'm like, can we all just like delight one another and like play?
00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:51.039
Apparently not.
00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:58.480
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.
00:16:58.559 --> 00:17:04.640
Oh, you know, and so like the people that I'm like still very close with and that I'm I'm grateful for.
00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:24.720
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.
00:17:24.799 --> 00:17:26.160
I'm like, of course I care about that.
00:17:26.319 --> 00:17:37.599
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.
00:17:38.240 --> 00:17:38.720
That's a very good idea.
00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:40.480
Yeah, no, no, no, yeah, for sure.
00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:48.319
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?
00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:48.880
Absolutely.
00:17:49.119 --> 00:17:59.440
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.
00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:04.240
So I felt the shift in the expectation for femme voices to some extra.
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:12.480
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.
00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:20.720
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.
00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:20.960
Yeah.
00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:22.160
But guess what?
00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:29.359
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?
00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:39.519
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.
00:18:39.599 --> 00:18:44.720
It's just like the the American idolification of of Broadway.
00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:46.559
Wow, that's a very good way of putting it.
00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:50.160
The kind of like over riffing, which I think we're like moving out of a bit, thank goodness.
00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:51.759
But there were years.
00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:53.839
Oh, where I was like, Where I felt like I hear the words.
00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:55.359
Yeah, exactly.
00:18:55.519 --> 00:18:57.039
Where it's just like, what's going on?
00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:03.839
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.
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:13.039
The coloratura is the the the agility part, is the you know like I it's I almost laughed like that too.
00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:22.400
Yeah, but it's like I don't have I have like thick chords, I have a big like trumpet of a voice.
00:19:22.559 --> 00:19:30.319
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.
00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:37.440
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.
00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:42.480
Yeah, but I'm also like if I can't, if I can't receive the story, what do we do?
00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:44.799
This isn't a pop recording, this is a musical.
00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:51.200
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.
00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:53.119
But I do think we're moving out of it.
00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:56.640
But yeah, the expectation is like hit the high note, make us cheer.
00:19:56.720 --> 00:20:02.720
And I and I then you see someone like Audrey McDonald, and it's like, well, when it's good, do we care?
00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:05.200
Like when the storytelling is right, exactly.
00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:09.839
And she's someone who has a glorious instrument, but like for me, it's never about her vocal.
00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:19.599
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.
00:20:19.759 --> 00:20:24.319
And I like had both of my hands like during her rose's turn, I'm getting emotional.
00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:29.359
I had both of my hands over my mouth, just stifling audible sobs.
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:33.519
Like, and I've I I love going to theater.
00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:38.160
I'm very moved by performers, but that that happens like very, very rarely.
00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:41.200
I'm like, Where it's like, I can't control this right now.
00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:45.519
I don't know how I'm going to endure this in the best possible way, you know?
00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:46.640
Ugh.
00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:53.119
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.
00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:55.759
It was like, let me show you the parts of my voice that I'm not in control of.
00:20:56.079 --> 00:21:01.279
Like, yeah, very gritty, yeah, and in a way that I found thrilling because it was not about showing off.
00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:04.880
And look, I'm I'm an absolute show-off, I'm completely guilty of this.
00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:07.200
Like when I sing Mama Rose stuff, you better believe it.
00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:10.880
It's loud, there's a lot of vibrato, you know, but exactly.
00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:11.920
Exactly.
00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:17.519
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.
00:21:17.599 --> 00:21:23.759
It was like, I I kind of don't care if you like my voice, fuck you for caring about that.
00:22:04.800 --> 00:22:08.960
This is kind of the perfect segue into your cabaret your work.
00:22:09.120 --> 00:22:20.560
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.
00:22:20.800 --> 00:22:21.360
Oh, great.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:25.440
Um we love to be nerdy uh and stupid simultaneously.
00:22:25.840 --> 00:22:29.200
That's the best way to learn, though, I feel like you gotta be stupid while you learn.
00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:37.680
No, but what I was really impressed by was just your ability to garner so many different types of voices and also.
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:53.519
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.
00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:54.960
I love that.
00:22:55.120 --> 00:22:56.560
So learning it's just a song.
00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:01.759
Because I'm assuming probably most of your listeners have not seen me perform the brass manage.
00:23:02.080 --> 00:23:02.880
The brass manage is great.
00:23:08.320 --> 00:23:15.360
It's set up like a uh a lecture, a musical lecture on the women of Williams, and it is dumb.
00:23:15.600 --> 00:23:26.640
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.
00:23:26.800 --> 00:23:27.039
Yes.
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:30.560
Um and wouldn't you know Maggie the Cat scans perfectly with Jellico Cat.
00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:37.440
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?
00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:43.200
So and the I knew I was really on to something when he had to walk away from his piano.
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:44.080
He was laughing so hard.
00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:48.160
When I get to, I got hit with the hot buttered biscuit at lunch.
00:23:48.560 --> 00:23:49.840
That killed me too.
00:23:50.560 --> 00:23:52.080
Step away, and I was like, okay.
00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:56.640
We're and so um, yeah, how far did you get?
00:23:57.039 --> 00:24:03.120
I think I got um oh, I just got through the uh the Italian uh Oh Rose tattoo.
00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:04.480
Yes, yes, I loved that one.
00:24:04.800 --> 00:24:05.759
That one was really fun.
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:06.640
That was very fun.
00:24:06.800 --> 00:24:15.440
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.
00:24:15.759 --> 00:24:24.880
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.
00:24:25.039 --> 00:24:31.200
And then the back third is me playing all three Wingfields um to the score of gypsy.
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:36.080
Um which you'd be like if you st step back and think about you're like, Well, that that really works.
00:24:36.320 --> 00:24:46.720
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.
00:24:47.039 --> 00:24:54.720
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.
00:24:54.800 --> 00:25:00.800
I was like, these are all great choices that work so well with the the character's life.
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:05.759
I like didn't grow up listening to anything that was popular at the time.
00:25:06.080 --> 00:25:17.759
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.
00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:39.759
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?
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:45.759
You know, and like and I'm like, I like think I put something on Instagram, people were like, Amy Joe, what the hell?
00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:47.519
I was like, why would I watch it?
00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:48.320
Why would I watch this?
00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:50.160
They're like being around.
00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:51.039
I was like, no, no, no.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:57.440
At my high school parties, we were watching exclusively Waiting for Guffman and Monty Python and the Holy Grail and occasionally Rocky Horror.
00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:00.240
We weren't watching Backstreets Back, the music video.
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:14.960
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.
00:26:15.120 --> 00:26:15.440
Yeah.
00:26:15.600 --> 00:26:26.800
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.
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:29.279
It was the kind of music I like to sing and I was interested in.
00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:35.440
So then when I was building this show, I have really strong referential retention in that way, you know.
00:26:35.600 --> 00:26:38.240
So as I was like poking around and being like, well, what does this want to be?
00:26:38.320 --> 00:26:42.960
When does this want to be, you know, I just some some things came about really quickly.
00:26:43.279 --> 00:26:52.640
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.
00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:54.720
It'd be stupid, that'd be so funny.
00:26:54.800 --> 00:26:56.960
And like that didn't require any parody lyrics.
00:26:57.360 --> 00:26:58.160
And a lot of other things.
00:26:58.240 --> 00:27:03.920
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.
00:27:04.080 --> 00:27:06.560
And then as I started working on it, I was like, no, I gotta rewrite a lot of this.
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:11.360
But my favorite thing with parody lyrics, which I've been doing since like I don't know, fifth grade.
00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:11.920
Um really?
00:27:12.080 --> 00:27:12.320
Wow.
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:20.960
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?
00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:28.160
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.
00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:36.480
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.
00:27:36.560 --> 00:27:43.600
I wrote I wrote in the eighth grade an entire lengthy, let's call it retitative.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:49.039
I was calling it a rap at the time of the entire plot of Midsummer Night's Dream.
00:27:49.120 --> 00:27:49.600
Oh, I love it.
00:27:49.840 --> 00:27:58.160
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.
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:07.039
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?
00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:16.400
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?
00:28:16.800 --> 00:28:19.920
That's the thing that I think some parody people don't consider.
00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:24.480
And I'm like, that if you gave the vowel is the same, so good.
00:28:24.800 --> 00:28:30.000
It really like, or if you just change, you keep the setup of the rhyme, but change the fulfillment.
00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:33.039
Yes, you know, uh that like that sort of thing.
00:28:33.360 --> 00:28:36.080
Like so, did you see did you get to Suddenly Last Summer?
00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:37.039
Had that happened yet?
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:39.759
I think I j I think I got about halfway through that one or something.
00:28:40.080 --> 00:28:43.360
So it goes to a place, I'll just I'll just I'll spoil it for you, and you're listening.
00:28:43.600 --> 00:28:48.720
It gets so Suddenly Last Summer, you know, uh ends up being about cannibalism, of course.
00:28:48.800 --> 00:28:49.279
Yeah, oh yeah.
00:28:49.600 --> 00:29:02.320
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.
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:03.200
Sugar gave her.
00:29:03.600 --> 00:29:05.519
Like, what happened next in the vision?
00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:13.920
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.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:16.160
Yes, but keeping the hook as close to the same.
00:29:16.560 --> 00:29:18.160
Yeah, it's the perfect kind of parody.
00:29:18.560 --> 00:29:21.279
At the end, it then goes into because then like Dr.
00:29:21.360 --> 00:29:24.560
Sugar, which I had my my MD like be the voice of Dr.
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:27.440
Sugar, and that's probably like what happened next, come on, Kathy.
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:36.320
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.
00:29:36.560 --> 00:29:39.759
So I have him start that underscoring being like, add him up, Catherine.
00:29:39.840 --> 00:29:56.640
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?
00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:01.279
And like I I think we really got we really got somewhere with the colour.
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:06.160
If you're if you're a connoisseur of musical motifs, you're gonna love the breast.
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:11.840
And that's that's the thing that I said, I think, because because the capture I sent you is from January 2020.
00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:13.759
One of the few I noticed that too.
00:30:13.840 --> 00:30:18.480
I was like, oh my god, they did this right before the world no more.
00:30:19.120 --> 00:30:27.039
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.
00:30:27.120 --> 00:30:34.880
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.
00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:37.360
So a lot more visuals and it's very, very fun.
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:39.200
I have the the more statistics.
00:30:39.440 --> 00:30:40.240
More statistics.
00:30:40.320 --> 00:30:46.960
Well, and I have it's called Stanley Kobotsky, and it's a little like Wally with Marlon Brando's face on it.
00:30:47.120 --> 00:30:50.320
Uh my partner did that uh uh visual edit for me.
00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:54.080
Um but yeah, just just more dumb jokes, basically, is the thing.
00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:57.039
But um yeah, yeah, I'm really I'm really proud of it.
00:30:57.120 --> 00:31:07.120
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.
00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:14.960
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.
00:31:15.120 --> 00:31:15.759
Do you know what I mean?
00:31:15.840 --> 00:31:21.600
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.
00:31:21.759 --> 00:31:31.840
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.
00:31:32.080 --> 00:31:32.480
Do you know what I mean?
00:31:32.560 --> 00:31:33.360
So I get you too.
00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:35.440
You're like, and then I moved to New York City.
00:31:35.519 --> 00:31:36.720
I'm like, why do I care?
00:31:36.960 --> 00:31:39.200
So did we all exactly this whole room.
00:31:39.360 --> 00:31:47.519
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.
00:31:47.840 --> 00:31:51.279
So I grew up listening to you sing, and now I'm hearing you sing it live and talk about the show.
00:31:51.360 --> 00:31:53.200
That's interesting because you're Cheetah Rivera.
00:31:53.360 --> 00:31:53.600
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:53.840 --> 00:31:54.800
But most people aren't.
00:31:55.039 --> 00:31:56.560
So I I don't know.
00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:58.560
I just I I so I looks kind of framed.
00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:02.880
Like, it's a party in my living room, but my living room happens to be 54 below, and you're all invited.
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:03.920
Like that kind of vibe.
00:32:04.080 --> 00:32:18.400
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.
00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:21.840
That isn't because because I do think of cabaret as like collage.
00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:27.200
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.
00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:28.240
I I love it.
00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:37.680
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.
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:46.160
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.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:51.680
I have more to say maybe than I than I was giving myself credit for before that.
00:32:51.759 --> 00:32:57.200
So that was like summer 2019, then I did the first iteration of brass, then I did that in January 2020.
00:32:57.279 --> 00:33:08.400
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.
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:16.800
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?
00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:18.480
You know, yeah, but then the world shut down.
00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:23.279
I was like, yeah, like why am I not giving myself permission?
00:33:23.600 --> 00:33:26.720
It is amazing what we will do to take up less space.
00:33:27.039 --> 00:33:30.400
Well, it's it I think it it's this interesting thing.
00:33:30.560 --> 00:33:38.400
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.
00:33:38.560 --> 00:33:39.759
Yeah, and that's it.
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:47.440
And then you as an artist, you can't really do that, or like not now, not anymore.
00:33:47.600 --> 00:33:54.160
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.
00:33:54.480 --> 00:34:04.400
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.
00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:06.880
There's more people in it, yeah.
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:15.039
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?
00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:23.840
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.
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:27.599
And you you listen to like the original Brigadoon cast recording.
00:34:27.759 --> 00:34:32.320
You have the ensemble, but you also have the pit singers, and then you have the ensemble who would come on and dance.
00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:38.239
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.
00:34:38.559 --> 00:34:40.559
You know, and now it's like, yeah, they're the same people, yeah.
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:45.519
You know, those are the same folks, and so it is yeah, it's like, well, what?
00:34:45.599 --> 00:34:48.559
I I can't like do Agnes DeMille choreography.
00:34:48.639 --> 00:34:54.480
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.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:54.880
Yeah.
00:34:55.119 --> 00:34:59.599
And also, as you said, just be creatively fulfilled, which is why I started No one does cabaret to make money.
00:35:00.559 --> 00:35:01.200
They don't.
00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:03.039
Uh news flash.
00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:10.720
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.
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:25.280
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.
00:35:25.599 --> 00:35:25.840
Yeah.
00:35:26.159 --> 00:35:28.159
Like I remember wandering kind of dazed back in.
00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:30.400
Wait, was it like a so the your first solo show?
00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:33.680
My first solo uh yeah, yeah, my first solo show.
00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:34.720
And it was, you know, it was an hour.
00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:38.079
My pants doing my first solo show.
00:35:38.159 --> 00:35:38.240
Yeah.
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:44.720
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.
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:47.039
There's something about this that is so right.
00:35:47.119 --> 00:35:50.639
Like there's I've always felt more comfortable on stage than like in person.
00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:57.920
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.
00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:03.440
We're clowns, we need the audience, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
00:36:03.519 --> 00:36:07.760
I think it's great, you know, and I feel like there's this like virtue of like my favorite part is rehearsal.
00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:08.720
I'm like, well, good for you.
00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:11.680
I like a good rehearsal room too, but I've been in a lot of bad rehearsal rooms.
00:36:11.760 --> 00:36:20.720
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.
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:21.599
Totally.
00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:33.680
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.
00:36:33.840 --> 00:36:45.680
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.
00:36:46.639 --> 00:36:48.480
Yeah, they're saying they're like, What's next?
00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:56.400
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.
00:36:56.960 --> 00:36:57.280
Absolutely.
00:36:57.599 --> 00:36:58.480
Amy Joe.
00:36:58.720 --> 00:36:59.119
Yarp.
00:36:59.599 --> 00:37:03.200
Yarp! Did you just quote Hot Fuzz today?
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:04.880
I absolutely did.
00:37:05.200 --> 00:37:06.960
That is my favorite movie.
00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:09.519
I love the coordinate utility.
00:37:10.079 --> 00:37:12.000
I um say that so often.
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:16.880
I say that so often that I forget I'm even quoting hot fuzz because it's so much apart.
00:37:18.079 --> 00:37:19.200
The Hound from Game of Thrones.
00:37:19.519 --> 00:37:20.480
Well, which is not a show I watched.
00:37:20.559 --> 00:37:21.280
I'm bad at television.
00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:21.840
Oh, okay.
00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:22.880
Anyway, I'm bad at TV.
00:37:23.200 --> 00:37:24.559
Well, he's great in hot fuzz.
00:37:25.519 --> 00:37:26.559
Who isn't great in hot fuzz?
00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:27.680
It's the Dalton.
00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:30.000
He is so great.
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:31.360
So well cast.
00:37:31.519 --> 00:37:32.240
Lucy Punch.
00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:32.639
Oh my gosh.
00:37:32.880 --> 00:37:33.760
Perfect use of Lucy Punch.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:34.320
Oh my gosh.
00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:37.840
And Olivia Coleman has like maybe 10 lines of the city.
00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:39.680
Well, she was doing a lot of that kind of thing.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:42.159
Like, did you did you ever see Green Wing, the TV show?
00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:45.519
Okay, let me set it up for you.
00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:48.000
She's in it, but she's just one of many.
00:37:48.159 --> 00:37:49.920
It's a British comedy.
00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:56.159
It is basically a medical soap opera, but written by and performed by comedians.
00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:56.800
Oh my god.
00:37:57.119 --> 00:37:59.119
So it is deranged.
00:37:59.519 --> 00:38:14.240
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.
00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:16.159
Yeah um is Oliver Chris in it right there, yeah.
00:38:16.240 --> 00:38:16.800
He's definitely in it.
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:20.159
Um all these all these Brits that I'm obsessed with.
00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:20.480
Yeah.
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:21.519
Like Stephen Mangan.
00:38:21.680 --> 00:38:25.519
So I saw the uh uh uh Norman conquests when it came through New York.
00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:30.400
Nice and it I love I can't communicate to you how much I loved it.
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:43.280
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.
00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:49.280
And so then, you know, I still have just like such fondness for him, but he's hilarious.
00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:51.360
And you should, I feel like you would absolutely love it.
00:38:51.440 --> 00:38:52.320
It's great.
00:38:52.800 --> 00:38:54.320
I love I love BBC comedy.
00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:58.480
That was like I grew up on it, like I love spaced uh black books.
00:38:58.639 --> 00:39:05.599
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.
00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:13.760
Like from the age of eight, we're like watching a bit of Fry and Lori non-stop in our house, you know.
00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:15.519
So like it's Jeeves and Worcester?
00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:17.119
Yeah, oh yeah, that's Jeeves and Worcester.
00:39:17.360 --> 00:39:26.159
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?
00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:30.000
Like the books are so the short stories are so funny, but it's you know, it's Stephen Fry and Hugh Lori.
00:39:30.400 --> 00:39:33.119
They are in their so good.
00:39:33.200 --> 00:39:37.840
So when House happened, yeah, everyone's like, oh, this guy, I'm like, don't talk to me.
00:39:38.240 --> 00:39:43.200
Like you don't know my man, you my favorite.
00:39:43.680 --> 00:39:58.800
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.
00:39:59.039 --> 00:40:01.280
Yes, well, you can say and they use it a lot in a bit of fry and lorry.
00:40:25.510 --> 00:40:30.230
You did he was it was so he was so fucking good.
00:40:30.710 --> 00:40:31.349
He was so good.
00:40:31.590 --> 00:40:32.390
There's one of the sketches.
00:40:32.470 --> 00:40:36.870
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.
00:40:36.950 --> 00:40:56.950
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.
00:40:57.269 --> 00:40:59.590
And that is, yeah, that that they raised me.
00:40:59.670 --> 00:41:00.710
Those men raised me.
00:41:01.110 --> 00:41:02.789
I love it, I love it.
00:41:05.590 --> 00:41:07.910
This is Lipton Classics.
00:41:08.070 --> 00:41:15.990
This is where we do the classic inside the actors studio questions, uh, hosted by the rest in peace, James Lipton.
00:41:16.070 --> 00:41:19.269
Uh, but these original questions were by the French journalist Bernard Pivot.
00:41:20.070 --> 00:41:21.269
And so Mon Dieu.
00:41:21.829 --> 00:41:23.349
Mon Dieu, Pivot.
00:41:23.590 --> 00:41:24.550
I speak so much French.
00:41:24.950 --> 00:41:25.829
So much French.
00:41:26.470 --> 00:41:28.230
Here we go, Amy Joe.
00:41:28.470 --> 00:41:28.789
Oh.
00:41:29.190 --> 00:41:29.990
You ready?
00:41:30.230 --> 00:41:30.550
Oi.
00:41:31.110 --> 00:41:32.950
What is your favorite word?
00:41:33.349 --> 00:41:35.269
Oh, I should left prepared.
00:41:35.990 --> 00:41:36.550
No, it's funny.
00:41:36.630 --> 00:41:37.590
It's better when you do it in the moment.
00:41:37.990 --> 00:41:38.630
Favorite word.
00:41:39.030 --> 00:41:40.230
God, I love words.
00:41:40.550 --> 00:41:41.990
Words, words, words.
00:41:42.710 --> 00:41:44.230
Hamlet said a lot of them, didn't he?
00:41:44.630 --> 00:41:46.309
Um, favorite word.
00:41:46.470 --> 00:41:50.630
I'm just gonna go with like good mouthfeel and not necessarily mean.
00:41:51.030 --> 00:41:53.269
No, I think that is the better thing.
00:41:53.590 --> 00:41:54.230
Great.
00:41:54.870 --> 00:41:55.910
You know what I like actually?
00:41:56.070 --> 00:41:57.750
Sorry, I did not mean to cut you off.
00:41:57.990 --> 00:41:58.789
Cut me off.
00:41:59.110 --> 00:42:07.349
But I think it's good mouthfeel and mouthfeel that f feels like the definition of the word.
00:42:07.510 --> 00:42:07.910
You know what I mean?
00:42:08.230 --> 00:42:09.510
Yes, I like bulbous.
00:42:09.910 --> 00:42:10.390
Bulbous.
00:42:10.630 --> 00:42:11.110
Bulbous.
00:42:11.990 --> 00:42:12.710
Yeah, you know what I mean?
00:42:13.030 --> 00:42:14.710
Yeah, I do because I teach voice and text.
00:42:14.950 --> 00:42:16.710
And this is the thing I I've tried to communicate.
00:42:16.870 --> 00:42:17.990
This is the thing I have tried to communicate.
00:42:19.349 --> 00:42:24.710
And I really wish more people would understand how helpful it is to your acting if you use the consonants.
00:42:24.789 --> 00:42:27.030
Um great.
00:42:27.269 --> 00:42:30.150
Let's go with ostentatious.
00:42:30.470 --> 00:42:32.309
Ooh, ostentatious.
00:42:32.710 --> 00:42:34.789
What is your least favorite word?
00:42:35.110 --> 00:42:37.190
Well, now I might go with meaning.
00:42:38.070 --> 00:42:39.030
Well, that makes sense.
00:42:39.190 --> 00:42:39.670
Yeah.
00:42:39.910 --> 00:42:41.510
Oh God, I just I was having a conversation.
00:42:41.670 --> 00:42:42.630
I'll cut out all any possibilities.
00:42:48.309 --> 00:42:48.870
Oh, we'll talk about that.
00:42:51.430 --> 00:42:58.630
So I this is no I I I like this color, but the feeling of gray.
00:42:59.030 --> 00:42:59.670
Gray.
00:42:59.910 --> 00:43:00.470
Yeah.
00:43:00.789 --> 00:43:01.269
Gray.
00:43:01.510 --> 00:43:01.910
Gray.
00:43:02.070 --> 00:43:02.230
Yeah.
00:43:02.550 --> 00:43:08.710
Where I was just like, I've made myself gray so that this person stops picking on me.
00:43:08.870 --> 00:43:11.590
And I'm like, I'm I'm not a gray, I'm a sparkly person.
00:43:11.829 --> 00:43:12.870
Wait, in this show that you're working on?
00:43:12.950 --> 00:43:13.269
Not this show.
00:43:13.349 --> 00:43:17.750
Oh, oh, I was gonna say, no, this one, the no, this castmate and I were kind of swapping.
00:43:18.070 --> 00:43:19.190
We're swapping stories.
00:43:19.510 --> 00:43:30.630
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.
00:43:30.710 --> 00:43:32.789
And I'm like, I didn't go through a pandemic for this.
00:43:32.950 --> 00:43:33.269
Yeah.
00:43:34.710 --> 00:43:35.430
No, no way.
00:43:36.390 --> 00:43:37.030
No freaking way.
00:43:37.190 --> 00:43:37.349
No.
00:43:37.430 --> 00:43:37.829
Yeah.
00:43:38.309 --> 00:43:39.190
Fuck him.
00:43:39.430 --> 00:43:40.870
What turns you on?
00:43:42.070 --> 00:43:44.550
Uh unbridled enthusiasm.
00:43:44.789 --> 00:43:45.990
Oh, I like that.
00:43:46.390 --> 00:43:47.510
What turns you off?
00:43:47.750 --> 00:43:50.390
There's a theme here you're seeing back and forth.
00:43:51.670 --> 00:43:53.190
Yeah, bullies.
00:43:53.829 --> 00:43:54.950
That's a great answer.
00:43:55.510 --> 00:43:57.670
What is your favorite curse word?
00:43:58.150 --> 00:43:59.510
There are so many good ones.
00:43:59.750 --> 00:44:00.070
I know.
00:44:00.470 --> 00:44:02.470
I s I use fuck the most.
00:44:02.789 --> 00:44:05.190
You've got the fricative and the plosive, what's not to love.
00:44:05.829 --> 00:44:07.349
It's pretty fucking great.
00:44:07.910 --> 00:44:08.789
Fucking sick.
00:44:09.110 --> 00:44:10.630
Fucking awesome.
00:44:11.510 --> 00:44:15.030
Fuck! What sound or noise do you love?
00:44:16.150 --> 00:44:18.630
Like an old-fashioned baritone.
00:44:18.950 --> 00:44:19.829
Gordon McCrae.
00:44:20.550 --> 00:44:20.870
You know?
00:44:21.110 --> 00:44:24.150
Gordon McCraa singing the end of soliloquy, you know?
00:44:24.470 --> 00:44:24.950
Love it.
00:44:25.269 --> 00:44:29.910
Rich, rich tones that we don't write for any longer.
00:44:30.550 --> 00:44:32.870
What sound or noise do you hate?
00:44:34.150 --> 00:44:34.710
Tenors?
00:44:34.950 --> 00:44:36.070
Gratuitous riffing?
00:44:36.390 --> 00:44:38.150
Um I mean not a bad answer.
00:44:38.390 --> 00:44:40.390
Not not a bad, not untrue.
00:44:40.710 --> 00:44:42.150
I don't think I don't think it's a good thing.
00:44:42.950 --> 00:44:43.910
I don't think that's petty.
00:44:44.710 --> 00:44:47.590
I think gratuitous riffing is gratuitous.
00:44:47.990 --> 00:44:48.390
Yeah.
00:44:48.710 --> 00:44:49.510
Let's just say that.
00:44:49.590 --> 00:44:55.510
Where where it's for the sake of showing off and not for the sake of ev even what the song needs.
00:44:55.910 --> 00:44:56.230
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:56.390 --> 00:44:56.870
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:57.030 --> 00:44:57.750
Fair enough.
00:44:57.990 --> 00:45:00.630
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
00:45:01.430 --> 00:45:05.829
Uh look, I wear a lot of hats in one industry, so I have a ton of things.
00:45:05.990 --> 00:45:06.950
They're wearing a lot of hats right now.
00:45:07.110 --> 00:45:07.990
I'm wearing so many cloches.
00:45:08.230 --> 00:45:09.910
And you're listening to this and not watching it.
00:45:10.230 --> 00:45:13.829
Well, seven hats on my so many cloches.
00:45:14.230 --> 00:45:18.630
Um God, I would be bad at a lot of things that are No, that's not true.
00:45:18.789 --> 00:45:20.309
I would be adequate.
00:45:20.470 --> 00:45:24.470
You don't want me doing your taxes, you know, but like I'd be that's a great answer.
00:45:24.630 --> 00:45:25.349
I'd be so bad at that.
00:45:25.510 --> 00:45:27.269
Oh, what would you like to attempt though?
00:45:27.510 --> 00:45:29.190
Oh, what would I like to attempt?
00:45:29.829 --> 00:45:31.829
I'm doing a lot of things I like.
00:45:32.309 --> 00:45:42.150
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.
00:45:42.230 --> 00:45:44.630
So that's that's you know, only in the last five years.
00:45:44.710 --> 00:45:46.950
And yeah, yeah, like that's a musical.
00:45:48.070 --> 00:45:56.470
It is um and uh that's all I'll say about that.
00:45:56.710 --> 00:46:21.670
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.
00:46:21.750 --> 00:46:23.910
Like you saw a reading that I wasn't in, you know.
00:46:24.070 --> 00:46:29.349
Um and like that I don't that that was just something I never saw for myself.
00:46:29.430 --> 00:46:37.910
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.
00:46:38.230 --> 00:46:43.990
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?
00:46:44.230 --> 00:46:50.550
Like I wasn't out as a writer, you know, before people were like, Wait, so um, I don't know.
00:46:50.630 --> 00:46:52.550
I feel like I'm doing the things I want to do.
00:46:52.630 --> 00:46:54.470
I don't think but that's great, you know.
00:46:54.630 --> 00:46:57.829
But as far as like what I'd like to attempt, I feel like I've taught.
00:46:57.990 --> 00:47:03.750
I've I've worked at Starbucks and I don't do that anymore, you know.
00:47:03.990 --> 00:47:05.829
Um, I don't know.
00:47:05.990 --> 00:47:08.230
I feel I'm I'm pretty thrilled with what I am doing.
00:47:08.470 --> 00:47:09.430
Yeah, that's wonderful.
00:47:09.670 --> 00:47:10.309
Okay, that's great.
00:47:10.630 --> 00:47:11.670
Is that a cheating end stuff?
00:47:11.910 --> 00:47:12.630
No, that's not cheating.
00:47:12.789 --> 00:47:17.349
I don't think that because that that honestly I I've gotten into writing in the past couple years too.
00:47:17.750 --> 00:47:20.470
I'm like on the cusp of finishing a play.
00:47:20.630 --> 00:47:23.430
Like tomorrow, I'm so close.
00:47:23.590 --> 00:47:24.870
I finally figured something out.
00:47:25.269 --> 00:47:26.550
Nothing beats typing end of play.
00:47:26.710 --> 00:47:35.349
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.
00:47:35.990 --> 00:47:44.150
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.
00:47:44.870 --> 00:47:45.590
It feels so good.
00:47:45.910 --> 00:47:50.710
Just like because I I I'm working on a piece now and I finished a very loose first pass.
00:47:50.870 --> 00:48:01.910
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.
00:48:01.990 --> 00:48:03.190
I don't know what that is, you know.
00:48:03.269 --> 00:48:06.230
And then I was like, well, now I have to go back and reshape a lot of stuff in order for that to happen.
00:48:06.309 --> 00:48:13.990
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.
00:48:14.550 --> 00:48:20.550
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.
00:48:21.349 --> 00:48:21.829
So satisfying.
00:48:21.990 --> 00:48:22.550
I made that.
00:48:22.630 --> 00:48:22.789
Yeah.
00:48:23.030 --> 00:48:24.710
Well, and you do woodworking too, right?
00:48:24.789 --> 00:48:27.750
Yeah, it's so you like literally make things with your hands, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:27.990 --> 00:48:29.430
Which that's good for you.
00:48:29.670 --> 00:48:30.710
I can't do that.
00:48:31.030 --> 00:48:31.430
It's fun.
00:48:31.510 --> 00:48:31.750
It's fun.
00:48:31.990 --> 00:48:33.190
This side table right here I built.
00:48:33.349 --> 00:48:33.750
You made?
00:48:33.910 --> 00:48:34.230
I made that.
00:48:34.470 --> 00:48:35.110
How thrilling.
00:48:35.349 --> 00:48:37.190
You can't see it, but it's cute.
00:48:37.430 --> 00:48:39.430
It's a triangular shape.
00:48:40.710 --> 00:48:42.789
What profession would you not like to do?
00:48:42.950 --> 00:48:43.990
I feel like you kind of answered.
00:48:44.230 --> 00:48:45.829
Yeah, look, my my taxes.
00:48:46.070 --> 00:48:54.470
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.
00:48:54.630 --> 00:48:56.789
So it's not even like uh I wouldn't want to be an accountant.
00:48:56.870 --> 00:49:00.150
I'm like, I know who's good at that and how his brain works.
00:49:00.309 --> 00:49:02.309
And my mother, my mother was praying.
00:49:02.470 --> 00:49:06.870
My brother and I would get the math brain, and instead we're like, sorry, we like English and history, just like you, mom.
00:49:07.110 --> 00:49:09.190
She's like, uh, well, at least I have people to go to.
00:49:09.430 --> 00:49:09.590
Yeah.
00:49:09.750 --> 00:49:13.590
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.
00:49:13.670 --> 00:49:14.789
I'm like, you sure do.
00:49:14.950 --> 00:49:15.269
Yeah.
00:49:15.430 --> 00:49:18.789
Let's go look at every Da Vinci sketch in this place.
00:49:19.190 --> 00:49:25.750
Um, but so like I I just know it would I would be bad at it and it would feel oppressive to me.
00:49:26.150 --> 00:49:31.910
If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at Zipperli Gates?
00:49:32.150 --> 00:49:33.269
At Zipperley Gates.
00:49:34.789 --> 00:49:38.870
Ooh, for both a lapsed Baptist and a recovering perfectionist.
00:49:39.030 --> 00:49:40.789
This one's tough, right?
00:49:41.110 --> 00:49:42.390
Like, how do I frame this?
00:49:42.630 --> 00:49:45.510
Um, thanks for being nice.
00:49:45.750 --> 00:49:46.710
Thanks for being nice.
00:49:46.950 --> 00:49:48.309
Thanks for being nice, maybe.
00:49:48.950 --> 00:49:49.510
I don't know.
00:49:49.750 --> 00:49:51.510
I think that's a nice answer.
00:49:51.829 --> 00:49:52.390
Thanks for being.
00:49:52.710 --> 00:49:56.309
Maybe that's also just where my brain is at this point in the industry.
00:49:56.789 --> 00:49:56.870
Yeah.
00:49:57.110 --> 00:49:59.030
I just want to work with nice people who are fun.
00:50:00.070 --> 00:50:00.870
I just want to go play.
00:50:00.950 --> 00:50:02.230
I don't I want to do good work.
00:50:02.390 --> 00:50:05.110
I want to do rigorous work with fun people.
00:50:05.430 --> 00:50:05.990
Who cares?
00:50:06.070 --> 00:50:06.870
Who cares if it's a good thing?
00:50:07.030 --> 00:50:08.230
I'm gonna hang out with people I like.
00:50:08.390 --> 00:50:10.070
Isn't that what it's all about at the end of the day?
00:50:10.789 --> 00:50:13.110
Isn't it about a good hang and about the bits?
00:50:13.430 --> 00:50:14.150
I love the bits.
00:50:14.309 --> 00:50:15.030
Come on.
00:50:15.269 --> 00:50:16.550
We love the bits.
00:50:16.789 --> 00:50:17.829
Well, Amy Joe.
00:50:18.070 --> 00:50:18.550
Yarp.
00:50:18.789 --> 00:50:19.910
The yarp.
00:50:21.430 --> 00:50:23.349
That was Lipton Classics.
00:50:23.590 --> 00:50:24.710
Fantastic job.
00:50:24.950 --> 00:50:27.590
Um, let's talk about some stuff.
00:50:27.750 --> 00:50:34.630
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.
00:50:34.950 --> 00:50:35.349
Fab.
00:50:35.670 --> 00:50:37.990
Yes, I'm in Titus Andronicus.
00:50:38.070 --> 00:50:41.110
Titus Andronicus with Red Bull Theater starring Patrick Page.
00:50:41.590 --> 00:50:42.150
So wild.
00:50:42.309 --> 00:50:43.510
Yeah, it's going great.
00:50:43.670 --> 00:50:45.590
It's a really warm room.
00:50:45.910 --> 00:50:48.390
Everyone, everyone's very kind and very funny.
00:50:48.550 --> 00:50:55.110
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.
00:50:55.349 --> 00:50:55.670
Love it.
00:50:55.829 --> 00:50:58.150
We're doing all the, we're we're staging all the fight stuff tomorrow.
00:50:58.309 --> 00:50:58.630
Spoilers.
00:50:58.950 --> 00:51:00.470
If you don't know the end of Titus Andromeda.
00:51:00.710 --> 00:51:02.550
Unnamed nurse doesn't make it.
00:51:02.710 --> 00:51:08.150
Um It seems like uh, at least from the poster that I have or the the mailer that I got.
00:51:08.309 --> 00:51:08.550
Yeah.
00:51:08.789 --> 00:51:13.670
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.
00:51:13.990 --> 00:51:22.870
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?
00:51:23.110 --> 00:51:32.710
So like Rome is meant to stand in for pretty clear, like maybe America in 50 years, sure, you know, kind of thing.
00:51:32.870 --> 00:51:35.670
But it's but not not hammering any of that.
00:51:35.750 --> 00:51:36.470
Do you know what I mean?
00:51:36.710 --> 00:51:46.789
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.
00:51:46.950 --> 00:51:51.510
But I just I I just always think watching over that he's just like, ain't I a stinker?
00:51:51.670 --> 00:51:54.630
Is like what I always that's the that's the subtext for everything.
00:51:55.190 --> 00:52:00.390
But it it is in the best way, and when you see it, you'll understand like he this guy is a stinker.
00:52:00.550 --> 00:52:23.590
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.
00:52:23.829 --> 00:52:24.950
I think that's always better.
00:52:25.269 --> 00:52:28.870
It helps because an audience can come to it on their own terms, exactly, exactly.
00:52:29.110 --> 00:52:35.590
Yeah, you know, I'm like, I don't need to go like see some of these things that like have like recognizable figure.
00:52:35.750 --> 00:52:42.309
I'm not like I I see it on my phone whether I want to or not, you know.
00:52:42.470 --> 00:52:58.150
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.
00:52:58.230 --> 00:53:07.670
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.
00:53:07.750 --> 00:53:17.750
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.
00:53:18.150 --> 00:53:26.070
It's it's like a society that has gone like really uh like very religious, you know, like in in our rendition.
00:53:26.230 --> 00:53:31.910
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.
00:53:32.070 --> 00:53:49.750
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.
00:53:49.910 --> 00:54:02.950
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.
00:54:03.030 --> 00:54:10.230
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.
00:54:10.550 --> 00:54:11.030
Sure, sure.
00:54:11.269 --> 00:54:14.870
Um, and so that's been really fun to be in the room with Patrick.
00:54:14.950 --> 00:54:23.110
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.
00:54:27.110 --> 00:54:34.390
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.
00:54:34.470 --> 00:54:42.070
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.
00:54:42.150 --> 00:54:45.110
I'm also I'm understudying Tamara, Basianus, and Quintus.
00:54:45.269 --> 00:54:45.590
Oh my god.
00:54:45.910 --> 00:54:48.070
So um, yeah, I've never done three.
00:54:48.390 --> 00:54:51.590
I was gonna say that's quite a and I'm on stage with them on my regular track.
00:54:51.670 --> 00:54:53.750
A lot of the time, I'm like, this is my brain.
00:54:53.990 --> 00:54:56.870
You're going up to the performance, be like, do not get sick.
00:54:57.590 --> 00:55:02.950
Well, like, because I understudied at the globe, but it was it was a lead, but it was one art.
00:55:03.190 --> 00:55:03.990
And that's just so much.
00:55:04.230 --> 00:55:06.789
Even when I'm on stage with her, I'm like, I can watch the video.
00:55:07.349 --> 00:55:14.070
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.
00:55:14.630 --> 00:55:23.269
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.
00:55:23.430 --> 00:55:28.710
Yeah, and it's a very uh Frankie Faradani, who's who's wonderful, who's playing Tamara, was describing it.
00:55:28.789 --> 00:55:36.950
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.
00:55:37.110 --> 00:55:38.470
And I was working on that speech the other day.
00:55:38.550 --> 00:55:40.070
I was like, this is so hard to memorize.
00:55:40.150 --> 00:55:44.550
And I was like, I've played Titania, and I was like, and so was Titania, actually.
00:55:44.630 --> 00:55:50.870
I found Titania difficult to stick in the brain because so much of it was descriptive and evocative rather than action-driven.
00:55:51.030 --> 00:55:55.829
But then, other than that, everything else Tamara has is like, do this, I'm not doing that.
00:55:55.990 --> 00:55:57.510
We should do this, think about this.
00:55:57.670 --> 00:56:01.829
Oh, it's the you know, it's very uh action action-driven.
00:56:02.390 --> 00:56:10.390
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.
00:56:10.550 --> 00:56:12.309
And so that's a little harder to stick in the brain.
00:56:12.470 --> 00:56:15.349
But it's you know, it's good, it keeps keeps the brain young.
00:56:15.510 --> 00:56:16.950
But um that's the hope.
00:56:17.829 --> 00:56:18.390
That's the hope.
00:56:18.550 --> 00:56:23.990
I gave up Sudoku, so I'm really relying on understudying to do that for me.
00:56:24.230 --> 00:56:40.870
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.
00:56:40.950 --> 00:56:42.870
It's not like we're gonna be stepping on anyone's toes.
00:56:42.950 --> 00:56:44.870
If we're like, well, no, what about this, you know?
00:56:44.950 --> 00:56:46.550
Yeah, um, which is always great.
00:56:46.630 --> 00:56:50.630
You never want to feel like I I I'm not allowed to open my mouth in this room.
00:56:50.710 --> 00:56:52.070
Yeah, it's a very, very on site.
00:56:52.230 --> 00:56:56.870
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.
00:56:56.950 --> 00:57:00.630
Everyone's just like warm and swapping stories and blowing.
00:57:00.789 --> 00:57:05.190
Everyone knows all the Shakespeare references, and it's just like a room of nerds, yeah, which I love.
00:57:05.510 --> 00:57:06.789
Love it.
00:57:07.030 --> 00:57:08.870
And when does the show start?
00:57:09.110 --> 00:57:16.789
We begin previews at the Signature Center on March 17th, and we open the 29th or the 30th.
00:57:16.950 --> 00:57:19.110
End of the mirror just right over there.
00:57:19.590 --> 00:57:19.829
Good.
00:57:19.910 --> 00:57:29.670
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.
00:57:31.910 --> 00:57:33.750
Check the website, you know.
00:57:34.070 --> 00:57:38.789
Uh well, when this is coming out, you'll be mid mid-run.
00:57:38.950 --> 00:57:41.030
We will be slashing and dashing all over that stuff.
00:57:41.430 --> 00:57:41.750
Exactly.
00:57:41.829 --> 00:57:42.390
That's right.
00:57:42.630 --> 00:57:43.430
Amy Joe.
00:57:44.150 --> 00:57:45.030
Thank you so much for coming.
00:57:45.269 --> 00:57:45.670
Thanks, man.
00:57:46.070 --> 00:57:46.710
This is so much fun.
00:57:46.870 --> 00:57:47.030
Yeah.
00:57:47.190 --> 00:57:47.670
Oh my god.
00:57:47.829 --> 00:57:49.750
Well, one one clown to another.
00:57:50.070 --> 00:57:50.470
Exactly.
00:57:50.710 --> 00:57:51.590
Takes one to know one.
00:57:51.910 --> 00:57:52.630
Takes one to know one.
00:57:52.789 --> 00:57:53.110
Yarp.
00:57:53.269 --> 00:57:53.590
Yarp.
00:57:53.910 --> 00:57:54.390
Yup.
00:57:56.070 --> 00:57:56.950
All right, y'all.
00:57:57.030 --> 00:57:58.630
That's this week's episode.
00:57:58.710 --> 00:58:00.870
We'll see you next week.
00:58:01.269 --> 00:58:01.670
Bye.