Podcast appearances and mentions of Marsha Norman

Welcome to Season 04 Episode 09 - the "Arizona" edition - of Notes from the Aisle Seat, the podcast featuring news and information about the arts in  northern Chautauqua County NY, sponsored by the 1891 Fredonia Opera House. Your host is Tom Loughlin, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor and Chair Emeritus of Theatre and Dance at SUNY Fredonia. Guests on this episode include: Mr. Fletcher Dickmann, Ms. Karma Guida, Mr. Byron Ramos Maldonado/Alicia's Lens; Mr. Phillip McMullen, Mr. Mike Lee/The Secret Garden; Mr. Joe Newberry, Ms. April Verch/Newberry & Verch. Notes from the Aisle Seat is available from most of your favorite podcast sites, as well as on the Opera House YouTube Channel. If you enjoy this podcast, please spread the word through your social media feeds, give us a link on your website, and consider becoming a follower by clicking the "Follow" button in the upper right-hand corner of our home page. If you have an arts event you'd like to publicize, hit us up at operahouse@fredopera.org and let us know what you have! Please give us at least one month's notice to facilitate timely scheduling. And don't forget to enter the giveaway for a pair of free tickets to Newberry & Verch by Saturday March 15 at 12 noon! Listen to the podcast for the question and answer. Then email your answer to operahouse@fredopera.org. Make sure you put the word "Giveaway" in the subject line. Thanks for listening! Time Stamps (Approximate) 03:47  Alicia's Lens/ Dept. Theatre and Dance SUNY Fredonia 17:26  The Secret Garden/Main Street Studios 35:21  Arts Calendar 40:40 Joe Newberry and April Verch Media "I've Been Around"; traditional Apache song, sung by Harrison Burnett, White Mountain Apache Reservation "How Could I Ever Know?", from The Secret Garden original Broadway cast recording; Marsha Norman (book/lyrics) and Lucy Simon (music); performed by Rebecca Lukor, 1991 "Arkansas Traveler", traditional folk tune performed by Newberry & Verch, The Greystones, Sheffield UK April 2018 "Back Up and Push", Ward Allen, composer; performed by Newberry & Verch, Northern Lights Folk Club, Edmonton, Alberta CAN, February 2024 "Arizona", K. Young, composer; performed by Mark Lindsay, from the album Arizona, March 1970, Columbia Records Artist Links Department of Theatre and Dance, SUNY Fredonia Main Street Studios Newberry & Verch   Box Office at SUNY Fredonia Lake Shore Center for the Arts Main Street Studios Ticket Website Register Here for the 1891 Run/Walk for the Opera House BECOME AN OPERA HOUSE MEMBER!          

THE SECRET GARDEN  Book & Lyrics by Marsha Norman | Music by Lucy Simon | Adapted from the novel by Frances Hodgson BurnettWorks Consulted & Reference :The Secret Garden (Original Libretto) by Marsha NormanCreating THE SECRET GARDEN Produced by Broadway Podcast NetworkMusic Credits:"Overture" from Dear World (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Jerry Herman | Performed by Dear World Orchestra & Donald Pippin"The Speed Test" from Thoroughly Modern Millie  (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan | Performed by Marc Kudisch, Sutton Foster, Anne L. Nathan & Ensemble"Why God Why" from Miss Saigon: The Definitive Live Recording  (Original Cast Recording  / Deluxe)  | Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lyrics by Alain Boublil & Richard Maltby Jr.  | Performed by Alistair Brammer"Back to Before" from Ragtime: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens | Performed by Marin Mazzie"Chromolume #7 / Putting It Together" from Sunday in the Park with George (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim | Performed by Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Judith Moore, Cris Groenendaal, Charles Kimbrough, William Parry, Nancy Opel, Robert Westenberg, Dana Ivey, Kurt Knudson, Barbara Bryne"What's Inside" from Waitress (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles | Performed by Jessie Mueller & Ensemble"Lily's Eyes" from  The Secret Garden (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Marsha Norman | Performed by Mandy Patinkin & Robert Westenberg  "Maria" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording)  | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Evadne Baker, Anna Lee, Portia Nelson, Marni Nixon"My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording) | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Julie Andrews"Corner of the Sky" from Pippin (New Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz | Performed by Matthew James Thomas“What Comes Next?” from Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda | Performed by Jonathan Groff

A famous musical about a famous piece of English children's literature that might not be for kids? Sounds like a job for No Script. This week, Jackson and Jacob discuss The Secret Garden (Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon), a musical full of ghosts, special effects, and singing orphans. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.patreon.com/noscriptpodcast  ----------------------------- We want to keep the conversation going! Have you read this play? Have you seen it? Comment and tell us your favorite themes, characters, plot points, etc. Did we get something wrong? Let us know. We'd love to hear from you. Find us on social media at:  Email: noscriptpodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/No-Script-The-Podcast-1675491925872541/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noscriptpodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/noscriptpodcast/ ------------------------------ Thanks so much for listening! We'll see you next week.

Dylan and Connor are joined by Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years, The Bridges of Madison County). We're recording a pod about hope, OKAY?! Y'all… Jason. Robert. Brown. On DRAMA. The twins are absolutely gagged to be joined by one of their all-time favorite musical theatre songwriters. Jason is a busy, busy man. We're joined by him ahead of his solo debut at Carnegie Hall while he's also juggling an album drop of his 2019 Town Hall concert with Stephen Sondheim, the Parade National Tour casting process, The Last Five Years on BROADWAY's pre-production, and writing three new projects. As if that wasn't enough to discuss, the twins dive deep into JRB's history to discuss his concerts at SubCulture, the early days of TL5Y in Chicago and off-Broadway, some untold stories about where and how he wrote Bridges alongside Marsha Norman, and TEA about “Being a Geek” from 13. Jason has worked with Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Shoshana Bean, Jonathan Bailey, Jeremy Jordan, Kristin Chenoweth, and more legends than we can even count. Stick around for stories about Parade, Songs For a New World, and Stephen Sondheim.Follow Jason on InstagramSee Jason at Carnegie Hall on October 25th! Follow DRAMA. on Twitter & Instagram & TiktokFollow Connor MacDowell on Twitter & InstagramFollow Dylan MacDowell on Twitter & InstagramSubscribe to our show on iHeartRadio Broadway!Support the podcast by subscribing to DRAMA+, which also includes bonus episodes, Instagram Close Friends content, and more!

Be personally thanked in an upcoming Film Courage video - https://ko-fi.com/filmcourage Want to see the video version of this podcast? Please visit Youtube here: https://youtu.be/IfyLTBxYLY8?si=OLRVNJX8o1rjw_XY Sheila Houlahan is a Webby Award Winning Indian-American actor, singer, producer, writer and advocate. Sheila played the supporting role "Paige Callahan" opposite Denzel Washington in the Warner Bros. feature "The Little Things", which was written and directed by John Lee Hancock. She also has a role in the Michael Bay thriller "Ambulance". In 2021, Sheila was the executive producer for a feature film adaptation of Marsha Norman's Pulitzer-winning play "Night, Mother" in partnership with Twitch.tv; this film was a "hybrid" film, mixing pre-recorded segments with live performance that was recorded and edited in front of a live audience. Over 8000 people watched "Night, Mother" live, and since then, the film has received critical acclaim and has been screened at 68 festivals in over 24 countries. "Night, Mother" has over 64K views on it's flagship Twitch.tv channel and has been praised for its' fresh, innovative approach to filmmaking winning over 60 awards including the Webby Award for Virtual and Remote Entertainment & Media. Sheila is a Celebrity Champion for Project HEAL, a nonprofit organization that helps people suffering from eating disorders source affordable treatment options and pay for treatment. She is also an ambassador for Ability Magazine's platform AbilityE, a casting portal that seeks to increase inclusion and representation of differently-abled talent and creatives on both sides of the table in Hollywood. CONNECT WITH SHEILA HOULAHAN https://www.sheilahoulahan.com https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8369559 MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS Why Beginning Artists Shouldn't Analyze Their Work When Creating - https://youtu.be/GeBQM32zIX8 What It Really Means To Write For Money - https://youtu.be/7-FQe10nnZA 99% Of Books Won't Make Their Money Back - https://youtu.be/yXWSPE6xTxk Fears And Doubts That Hold Artists Back - https://youtu.be/2s5mp1RY5yQ Artists Don't Have To Believe In Themselves To Have Success - https://youtu.be/F137IANXaF4 Big Difference Between Success And Failure - https://youtu.be/liwPpUr5eVE CONNECT WITH FILM COURAGE http://www.FilmCourage.com http://twitter.com/#!/FilmCourage https://www.facebook.com/filmcourage https://www.instagram.com/filmcourage http://filmcourage.tumblr.com http://pinterest.com/filmcourage SUBSCRIBE TO THE FILM COURAGE YOUTUBE CHANNEL http://bit.ly/18DPN37 SUPPORT FILM COURAGE BY BECOMING A MEMBER https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs8o1mdWAfefJkdBg632_tg/join SUPPORT FILM COURAGE BY BECOMING A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/filmcourage LISTEN TO THE FILM COURAGE PODCAST https://soundcloud.com/filmcourage-com (Affiliates) SAVE $15 ON YOUTUBE TV - LIMITED TIME OFFER https://tv.youtube.com/referral/r0847ysqgrrqgp ►WE USE THIS CAMERA (B&H) – https://buff.ly/3rWqrra ►WE USE THIS SOUND RECORDER (AMAZON) – http://amzn.to/2tbFlM9 Stuff we use: LENS - Most people ask us what camera we use, no one ever asks about the lens which filmmakers always tell us is more important. This lens was a big investment for us and one we wish we could have made sooner. Started using this lens at the end of 2013 - http://amzn.to/2tbtmOq AUDIO Rode VideoMic Pro - The Rode mic helps us capture our backup audio. It also helps us sync up our audio in post https://amzn.to/425k5rG Audio Recorder - If we had to do it all over again, this is probably the first item we would have bought - https://amzn.to/3WEuz0k LIGHTS - Although we like to use as much natural light as we can, we often enhance the lighting with this small portable light. We have two of them and they have saved us a number of times - http://amzn.to/2u5UnHv *These are affiliate links, by using them you can help support this channel.

Book Vs. Movie: The Color PurpleThe 1982 novel Vs. the 2023 movie musical"The Color Purple" is a novel by Alice Walker that tells the story of Celie, a young African American girl in the early 20th century. Celie writes letters to God, sharing her struggles with abuse from her father and later from her husband, referred to as "Mr."The novel tackles racism, sexism, and the societal challenges of the time. Characters undergo personal growth, and the story emphasizes empowerment, self-discovery, and breaking free from societal constraints. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award, and Steven Spielberg directed the 1985 film adaptation.It was adapted into a musical with a book by Marsha Norman and music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray. The musical premiered on Broadway in 2005 and has since been staged in various productions worldwide. One notable aspect of "The Color Purple" musical is its powerful and soulful score, incorporating jazz, gospel, and blues elements. Between the original novel and the latest adaptation--which did we prefer?In this ep, the Margos discuss:The life and work of the complicated/controversial Alice Walker.The plot of the story and changes in various adaptationsThe music that was created for the theatre.The cast of the 2023 film includes Fantasia Barrino (Celie,) Taraji P. Henson (Shug Avery,) Danielle Brooks (Sofia,) Colman Domingo (Mister/Albert,) Corey Hawkins (Harpo,) Phylicia Pearl Mpasi (Young Celie,) Ciara (Nettie,) H.E.R. (Squeak,) David Alan Grier (Reverand,) Deon Cole (Alfonso,) Jon Batiste (Grady,) Louis Gossett Jr. (Ol' Mister,) Tamela J. Mann (First Lady,) Aunjaune Ellis-Taylor (Mama,) Elizabeth Marvel (Miss Millie,) Stephen Hill (Buster,) Adetinpo (Mary Ellen,) Tiffany Elle Burgess (Olivia,) Terrence J. Smith (Adam) and Halle Bailey as Nettie.Clips used:“Keep it movin'.”The Color Purple (2023 trailer)“Hell No!”“Family Dinner”Oprah at the 2005 Tony AwardsMusic by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray.Book Vs. Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts. Join our Patreon page “Book Vs. Movie podcast”You can find us on Facebook at Book Vs. Movie Podcast GroupFollow us on Twitter @bookversusmovieInstagram: Book Versus Movie https://www.instagram.com/bookversusmovie/Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D. Twitter @BrooklynMargo Margo D's Blog www.brooklynfitchick.com Margo D's Instagram “Brooklyn Fit Chick”Margo D's TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@margodonohuebrooklynfitchick@gmail.comYou can buy your copy of Filmed in Brooklyn here! Margo P. Twitter @ShesNachoMamaMargo P's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shesnachomama/Margo P's Blog https://coloniabook.weebly.com/ Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 MarketingFollow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine

Book Vs. Movie: The Color PurpleThe 1982 novel Vs. the 2023 movie musical"The Color Purple" is a novel by Alice Walker that tells the story of Celie, a young African American girl in the early 20th century. Celie writes letters to God, sharing her struggles with abuse from her father and later from her husband, referred to as "Mr."The novel tackles racism, sexism, and the societal challenges of the time. Characters undergo personal growth, and the story emphasizes empowerment, self-discovery, and breaking free from societal constraints. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award, and Steven Spielberg directed the 1985 film adaptation.It was adapted into a musical with a book by Marsha Norman and music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray. The musical premiered on Broadway in 2005 and has since been staged in various productions worldwide. One notable aspect of "The Color Purple" musical is its powerful and soulful score, incorporating jazz, gospel, and blues elements. Between the original novel and the latest adaptation--which did we prefer?In this ep, the Margos discuss:The life and work of the complicated/controversial Alice Walker.The plot of the story and changes in various adaptationsThe music that was created for the theatre.The cast of the 2023 film includes Fantasia Barrino (Celie,) Taraji P. Henson (Shug Avery,) Danielle Brooks (Sofia,) Colman Domingo (Mister/Albert,) Corey Hawkins (Harpo,) Phylicia Pearl Mpasi (Young Celie,) Ciara (Nettie,) H.E.R. (Squeak,) David Alan Grier (Reverand,) Deon Cole (Alfonso,) Jon Batiste (Grady,) Louis Gossett Jr. (Ol' Mister,) Tamela J. Mann (First Lady,) Aunjaune Ellis-Taylor (Mama,) Elizabeth Marvel (Miss Millie,) Stephen Hill (Buster,) Adetinpo (Mary Ellen,) Tiffany Elle Burgess (Olivia,) Terrence J. Smith (Adam) and Halle Bailey as Nettie.Clips used:“Keep it movin'.”The Color Purple (2023 trailer)“Hell No!”“Family Dinner”Oprah at the 2005 Tony AwardsMusic by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray.Book Vs. Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts. Join our Patreon page “Book Vs. Movie podcast”You can find us on Facebook at Book Vs. Movie Podcast GroupFollow us on Twitter @bookversusmovieInstagram: Book Versus Movie https://www.instagram.com/bookversusmovie/Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D. Twitter @BrooklynMargo Margo D's Blog www.brooklynfitchick.com Margo D's Instagram “Brooklyn Fit Chick”Margo D's TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@margodonohuebrooklynfitchick@gmail.comYou can buy your copy of Filmed in Brooklyn here! Margo P. Twitter @ShesNachoMamaMargo P's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shesnachomama/Margo P's Blog https://coloniabook.weebly.com/ Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 MarketingFollow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine

In this episode, writer, researcher, and New York City historian Keith Taillon (@KeithYorkCity) discusses Leonard Bernstein's New York City, looking at three of his big musicals: On the Town, Wonderful Town, and West Side Story and the neighborhoods that tell their stories. We also talk about the song "I'm Here" from Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, Stephen Bray, and Marsha Norman's 2005 musical The Color Purple. You can write to scenetosong@gmail.com with a comment or question about an episode or about musical theater, or if you'd like to be a podcast guest. Follow on Instagram at @ScenetoSong, on X/Twitter at @SceneSong, and on Facebook at “Scene to Song with Shoshana Greenberg Podcast.” And be sure to sign up for the new monthly e-newsletter at scenetosong.substack.com. Contribute to the Patreon. The theme music is by Julia Meinwald. Music played in this episode: "Opening: New York, New York" from On the Town "Christopher Street" from Wonderful Town "Ohio" from Wonderful Town "Jet Song" from West Side Story "I'm Here" from The Color Purple

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY  Book by Marsha Norman | Music & Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown  |  Based on the novel by Robert James WallerWorks Consulted & Reference :The Bridges of Madison County (Licensing Script) by  Marsha Norman & Jason Robert Brown"Tony Award Winning Duo Marsha Norman and Jason Robert Brown Discuss ‘Bridges of Madison County'" in American Theatre by Suzy Evans"Opening the Bridges Vault, Vol. 1" by Jason Robert BrownMusic Credits:"Overture" from Dear World (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Jerry Herman | Performed by Dear World Orchestra & Donald Pippin"The Speed Test" from Thoroughly Modern Millie  (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan | Performed by Marc Kudisch, Sutton Foster, Anne L. Nathan & Ensemble"Why God Why" from Miss Saigon: The Definitive Live Recording  (Original Cast Recording  / Deluxe)  | Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lyrics by Alain Boublil & Richard Maltby Jr.  | Performed by Alistair Brammer"Back to Before" from Ragtime: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens | Performed by Marin Mazzie"Chromolume #7 / Putting It Together" from Sunday in the Park with George (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim | Performed by Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Judith Moore, Cris Groenendaal, Charles Kimbrough, William Parry, Nancy Opel, Robert Westenberg, Dana Ivey, Kurt Knudson, Barbara Bryne"What's Inside" from Waitress (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles | Performed by Jessie Mueller & Ensemble"Wondering" from The Bridges of Madison County (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown | Performed by  Steven Pasquale"Maria" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording)  | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Evadne Baker, Anna Lee, Portia Nelson, Marni Nixon"My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording) | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Julie Andrews"Corner of the Sky" from Pippin (New Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz | Performed by Matthew James Thomas“What Comes Next?” from Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda | Performed by Jonathan Groff

All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: “‘night, Mother”1983 Pulitzer winner “’night, Mother” by Marsha Norman Marsha Norman Wikipedia pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_Norman ‘night, Mother Wikipedia pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27night,_Mother ‘night, Mother read more The post All the Drama: 1983 Pulitzer Prize Winner “’night, Mother” by Marsha Norman appeared first on BroadwayRadio.

We're back for another SCRIPT TEASE! This week we break down The Color Purple musical, by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, and Marsha Norman, based on the novel by Alice Walker. We'll talk about our impressions from the Denver Center's production, critical plot points, and the beauty found in these characters. This dialogue features so much thought, heart, and humor (because you know we can't do an episode without that). Every Thespians Dream: a podcast from two lifelong theatre kids talking all things theatre! Join Ty Eatherton and Kiera Sweeney in each episode as they discuss their own theatre fantasies and knowledge! Theme Song, "Thots Thots Thots" by Nick Rogers Cover Art by Madi Spillman

In this episode of READ MORE PLAYS hosts Ricardo Frederick Evans and Jennifer Sassaman discuss the musical The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman & Lucy Simon!  Theme music by Kalyn Harewood, with additional music by Bob Sassaman.Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for updates and discussions you can participate in.  Support us on Patreon to get bloopers, dramaturgy, and other bonus content. Please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode, Jennifer talks to Gizel Jimenez about how to show up and be yourself no matter the room you find yourself in. Gizel shares her personal journey in this industry, as well as her upbringing, family trauma, and personal growth through it all. They talk about acting as a vessel of expression, envisioning your future, and surrounding yourself with your accomplishments. Plus, they discuss the need for finding healthy releases, pushing boundaries of expectations, and reminding yourself of your worth.  About Gizel: Gizel Jimenez will recur in AppleTV+'s upcoming series, Bad Monkey. Previously, she recurred on Showtime's Dexter: New Blood and played a substantial role in Lin Manuel Miranda's Netflix film, Tick, Tick...Boom! She made her Broadway debut as Nessarose in Wicked. Off-Broadway: Avenue Q (first ethnic actor to portray Kate Monster), Miss You Like Hell (Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominations), Big River (Encores!), and Party People. Starred at NYS&F in Alice By Heart; Williamstown in Marsha Norman's Secret Soldiers. National tour: West Side Story. TV: NBC's Law & Order SVU, HBO's Divorce, Neighbors (web series).  CW: This episode briefly mentions losing a parent, grief & trauma. Gizel's IG: @gizeljimenezofficial Want to coach with Jennifer? Schedule a session here! https://appt.link/jenniferapple Monologue Sourcing Promo Link! https://empoweredartistcollective.com/podcastpromo Learn more: https://www.empoweredartistcollective.com/podcast EAC IG: @EmpoweredArtistCollective  EAC TikTok: @EmpowerArtistCollective EAC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/empoweredartistcollective/ Check Out Our Merch! https://www.empoweredartistcollective.threadless.com/ Any thoughts you'd like to share? Email us at EmpoweredArtistCollective@gmail.com  

In this episode, community-based theatre director, deviser, workshop facilitator, producer, and educator Rose Ginsberg discusses abolition in musical theater and how those ideas are present in the stories of various musicals. We also talk about the song "You're Never Alone" from the 2014 Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman musical The Bridges of Madison County. You can write to scenetosong@gmail.com with a comment or question about an episode or about musical theater, or if you'd like to be a podcast guest. Follow on Instagram at @ScenetoSong, on Twitter at @SceneSong, and on Facebook at “Scene to Song with Shoshana Greenberg Podcast.” And be sure to sign up for the new monthly e-newsletter at scenetosong.substack.com. Contribute to the new Patreon. The theme music is by Julia Meinwald. Music played in this episode: "You're Never Alone" from The Bridges of Madison County.

THE SECRET GARDEN is one of the most beloved musicals of all time. Go deep behind-the-curtain on the making of the show with Grammy-winning composer Lucy Simon, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter and novelist Marsha Norman and host, acclaimed director and choreographer Warren Carlyle. This special episode includes a performance by Sierra Boggess, singing “Come To My Garden”. Featured Song: COME TO MY GARDEN / LIFT ME UP from THE SECRET GARDEN Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Marsha Norman Performed by Sierra Boggess Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for part two of our deep dive inside the beloved musical THE SECRET GARDEN with Grammy-winning composer Lucy Simon, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter and novelist Marsha Norman and host, acclaimed director and choreographer Warren Carlyle. This special episode includes a performance by original show stars John Cameron Mitchell and Daisy Eagan singing “Wick”. Featured Songs: LILY'S EYES from THE SECRET GARDEN Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Marsha Norman Performed by Anthony Warlow and Philip Quest WICK from THE SECRET GARDEN Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Marsha Norman Performed by Daisy Eagan and John Cameron Mitchell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Me'sha Bryan is currently starring as Celie in the UK tour of The Color Purple.Directed by Tinuke Craig, this is a co-production between Leicester Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome, first seen in 2019 before being revived digitally in 2021. Based on Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple is adapted for the stage by Marsha Norman, Allee Willis, Brenda Russell and Stephen Bray.Me'sha's theatre credits include: understudy Sarah in Ragtime (Piccadilly Theatre), Vocalist in Been So Long (The Young Vic), Shenzi in The Lion King (UK Tour), Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act (Dublin), Young Girl in Desire Under The Elms (Sheffield Crucible), Washing Machine in Caroline Or Change (Hampstead Theatre / Playhouse Theatre), Amiens in As You Like It (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre) and Suzanne/Mimi in Romantics Anonymous (Bristol Old Vic).Me'sha works extensively as a session singer and vocal coach, and has also worked on screen. The Color Purple tours the UK until 5th November. You can see it in Wales, Southampton and Norwich.Hosted by Andrew Tomlins. @AndrewTomlins32  Thanks for listening! Email: andrew@westendframe.co.uk Visit westendframe.co.uk for more info about our podcasts.  

RNIB Connect Radio's Toby Davey is joined again by Vidar Hjardeng MBE, Inclusion and Diversity Consultant for ITV News across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands for the next in his regular Connect Radio audio described theatre reviews. This week Vidar was reviewing the audio described performance of The Color Purple at the Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre on Saturday 17 September at 2.30pm with audio description by professional Describers Nadine Beasley and Kate Taylor-Davies. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker and adapted for the stage by Pulitzer Prize and Tony award-winner Marsha Norman, The Color Purple tells the story of courageous heroine Celie, as she journeys through joy, despair, anguish and hope in her own personal awakening to discover her unique voice in the world. Vidar began by telling Toby that The Color Purple was a real compelling story, well performed with a great cast and nice to have the opportunity prior to the audio described performance to go on a touch tour of the set, costumes and props along with chatting with some of the cast as they had just finished warming up for the afternoon performance.  The Color Purple continues on tour around the country and more details can be found by searching for The Color Purple UK Tour in your favourite web browser.  (Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)

Back in 2016, North Carolina Theatre was getting ready to present a production of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-Winning play, WIT. Prior to that, I was able to get in touch with one of its stars, Daisy Eagan. With 3 Broadway credits to her name, Daisy made her main stem debut as a child in the original production of LES MISÉRABLES as a former Young Cosette and Young Éponine. Her last appearance was in JAMES JOYCE'S THE DEAD from way back in 2000. Though she is perhaps best known for originating the role of Mary Lennox in Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman's 1991 stage musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel, THE SECRET GARDEN. Daisy not only got to be in a cast that also included Mandy Patinkin, Rebecca Luker, Robert Westenberg, Alison Fraser, and John Cameron Mitchell, but at just 11 years old, she became the youngest female to have ever won a Tony Award. *I do not own any of the content used in this podcast. Follow Daisy Eagan on Twitter: @DaisyEagan If you love this show, please leave us a review. Go to RateThisPodcast.com/karereviewspodcast and follow the simple instructions. Follow Kare Reviews at www.karereviews.net and on Twitter: @KareReviews Also please visit the newly launched Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/jeffreykare?fan_landing=true Follow Jeffrey Kare on Twitter: @JeffreyKare If you like what you've heard here, please subscribe to any one of the following places where the Kare Reviews Podcast is available. Anchor: https://anchor.fm/jeffrey-kare Apple: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/kare-reviews-podcast/id1453846013 Google: www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy85NWFhZDFjL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/6GL69s4zoDQmBcZf3NALTG Breaker: www.breaker.audio/kare-reviews-podcast Overcast: overcast.fm/itunes1453846013/kare-reviews-podcast Pocket Casts: pca.st/47Vw RadioPublic: radiopublic.com/kare-reviews-podcast-6rMdXk --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jeffrey-kare/support

Shows Discussed: Part 1: Circus Valentine Part 2: 'Night Mother Part 3: The Bridges of Madison County SUBSCRIBE. RATE. REVIEW!! THEME and Stingers: Ryan Thomas Johnson Original Song by: Pam Quinn IG: @theatre_theater_pod Twitter: @the_theatre_pod Gmail: theatretheaterpod@gmail.com tiktok: @theatre_of_the_absurd Resources below FGM Education Resources https://www.fgmeducation.com/post_resources/fgm-medical-resources/ BLM Donation and Education LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/NationalResourcesList Black Owned Businesses in LA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18w-0RBhwBBlXDN9kRV9DVSCAGSCjtHb9K0Pq2YBv18U/htmlview?usp=sharing&pru=AAABcpXptV0*XfoiE2Ay5SJUCEO3tXROGQ&urp=gmail_link MPJI https://marshap.org/ Petitions https://linktr.ee/petitions_123 https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor https://www.change.org/p/adams-county-district-attorney-justice-for-elijah-mcclain-48a81830-f891-4b04-ba28-c2625b916b96

Shows Discussed: Part 1: Circus Valentine Part 2: 'Night Mother Part 3: The Bridges of Madison County SUBSCRIBE. RATE. REVIEW!! THEME and Stingers: Ryan Thomas Johnson Original Song by: Pam Quinn IG: @theatre_theater_pod Twitter: @the_theatre_pod Gmail: theatretheaterpod@gmail.com tiktok: @theatre_of_the_absurd Resources below FGM Education Resources https://www.fgmeducation.com/post_resources/fgm-medical-resources/ BLM Donation and Education LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/NationalResourcesList Black Owned Businesses in LA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18w-0RBhwBBlXDN9kRV9DVSCAGSCjtHb9K0Pq2YBv18U/htmlview?usp=sharing&pru=AAABcpXptV0*XfoiE2Ay5SJUCEO3tXROGQ&urp=gmail_link MPJI https://marshap.org/ Petitions https://linktr.ee/petitions_123 https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor https://www.change.org/p/adams-county-district-attorney-justice-for-elijah-mcclain-48a81830-f891-4b04-ba28-c2625b916b96 Update Description

Shows Discussed: Part 1: Circus Valentine Part 2: 'Night Mother Part 3: The Bridges of Madison County SUBSCRIBE. RATE. REVIEW!! Scene: 'Night Mother Performed by: Cj THEME and Stingers: Ryan Thomas Johnson Original Song by: Pam Quinn IG: @theatre_theater_pod Twitter: @the_theatre_pod Gmail: theatretheaterpod@gmail.com tiktok: @theatre_of_the_absurd Resources below FGM Education Resources https://www.fgmeducation.com/post_resources/fgm-medical-resources/ BLM Donation and Education LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/NationalResourcesList Black Owned Businesses in LA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18w-0RBhwBBlXDN9kRV9DVSCAGSCjtHb9K0Pq2YBv18U/htmlview?usp=sharing&pru=AAABcpXptV0*XfoiE2Ay5SJUCEO3tXROGQ&urp=gmail_link MPJI https://marshap.org/ Petitions https://linktr.ee/petitions_123 https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor https://www.change.org/p/adams-county-district-attorney-justice-for-elijah-mcclain-48a81830-f891-4b04-ba28-c2625b916b96

THE SECRET GARDEN COMPOSER: Lucy Simon LYRICIST: Marsha Norman BOOK: Marsha Norman SOURCE: Frances Hodgson Burnett's book The Secret Garden (1911) DIRECTOR: Susan H. Schulman CHOREOGRAPHER: Michael Lichtefeld PRINCIPLE CAST: Daisy Egan (Mary), Alison Fraser (Martha), Mandy Patinkin (Archibald)  OPENING DATE: Apr 25, 1991 CLOSING DATE: Jan 03, 1993 PERFORMANCES: 709 SYNOPSIS: After her family dies of cholera, young Mary Lennox is sent to live with her austere, widowed Uncle Archibald. At night she is convinced that she hears the sounds of crying and discovers that Archibald's bed ridden son, Colin, has been locked up out of sight for many years. Determined to bring sunshine to the boy, Mary begins to discover the other secrets the house protects. Director Susan H. Schulman traces the development of The Secret Garden as the first collaboration between an all-female creative team in a Broadway musical. Amongst a female writing team (Marsha Norman/Lucy Simon), producer (Heidi Landesman), and design team (Florence Klotz/Tharon Musser), there are noted recurring instances of significant memories reading Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel about a little girl struggling with life in a new home. By broadly describing the educational and professional obstacles overcome by three women involved in the premiere of the musical in their studies at Yale School of Drama, a bleak case is outlined for gender parity within commercial American theatre. Despite mixed reviews, audience responses to The Secret Garden were collectively positive and led the show to international success. This chapter examines the ways later female-helmed Broadway productions, such as Waitress, have benefited from or even overshadowed The Secret Garden.  Susan H. Schulman: Broadway credits: the Tony Award-winning musical The Secret Garden as well as its highly-successful U.S./Canadian national tour (Drama Desk nomination), the revival of Sweeney Todd†at Circle in the Square (Tony Award, Drama Desk nomination), the revival of The Sound of Music (Tony nomination Outstanding Revival) and Little Women and its successful national tour. For her direction of the premiere of Violet at Playwrights Horizons (New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical), Susan received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Director. She received an Obie Award for directing Sondheim and Furth's musical Merrily We Roll Along at the York Theatre. Susan also directed the national tour of Sunset Boulevard with Petula Clarke as well as three productions for City Center Encores. She has directed for regional theatres throughout U.S.A., Canada and Australia, and most recently a new musical in Denmark. Susan is a graduate of Yale Drama School, Hofstra University and New York's famed High School of Performing Arts. Susan holds a full professorship at Penn State University where she heads the Graduate Program in Directing for the musical theater stage. SOURCES The Secret Garden, Original Cast Recording, Columbia (1991) The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, published by Samuel French Inc (2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 297"Dexter: New Blood"Actor: Gizel Jimenez.#dexter #dexternewblood #ticktickboom Gizel recurs on Showtime's Dexter: New Blood and plays a substantial role in Lin Manuel Miranda's Netflix film, Tick, Tick...Boom! She made her Broadway debut as Nessarose in Wicked (first Hispanic actor cast as Nessa on Broadway). Off-Broadway: Avenue Q (first ethnic actor to portray Kate Monster Off Broadway), Miss You Like Hell (Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominations for outstanding lead actress in a musical), Frozen (Princess Ana at the Hyperion), Big River (Encores!), and Party People. Starred at NYS&F in Alice By Heart; Williamstown in Marsha Norman's Secret Soldiers. National tour: West Side Story. TV: NBC's Law & Order SVU, HBO's Divorced, Neighbors (web series). @gizeljimenezofficialInstagram: Monday Morning Critic Podcast.Facebook: Monday Morning Critic Podcast.Twitter:@mdmcriticwww.mmcpodcast.comEmail: Mondaymorningcritic@gmail.comYouTube: Monday Morning Critic Podcast

Guest Isaac Stephens joins me this week as we discuss 'Night Mother by Marsha Norman.

In all its forms, The Color Purple is a powerful account of generational trauma in the Black community. The novel by Alice Walker was published in 1982 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 before being adapted into a movie by Steven Spielberg starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. In 2005, the musical version opened on Broadway starring LaChanze with a book by Marsha Norman and a score by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. Ten years later, the musical came back to Broadway in a 2015 revival and won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical.  Actor Isaiah Johnson, who played the role of Mister in the original Broadway cast of the 2015 revival production, opposite Cynthia Erivo, joins us to discuss the musical as we look at the character of Mister and generational trauma. What does it mean to carry the trauma of your ancestors? How does this type of trauma affect people, specifically Black Americans? What tools are there to heal this trauma for those experiencing it? And how can non Black people support Black healing? Experts Curtis Smith, Cymone Fuller, and Dr. Schekeva Hall weigh in, as well. Create the Change Begin or deepen your mindfulness practice (resources from Moment of Mindfulness here) Seek out a therapist with cultural competency training Search Therapy for Black Girls, Psychology Today, Alma, etc. Consider a restorative justice process to heal pain and trauma in lieu of punitive justice For members of the Black community: Build relationships and unify Black people  Check out the youth organization Jack and Jill of America or any of the 10 on this list Discover the Black Feminist Project Tell your truths, your stories, express yourself For members of non-Black communities: LISTEN.  Read Dr. Yael Danieli's book International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma Find more research on generational trauma via the International Center for Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma Read “Breaking the Chains of Generational Trauma” Learn more about generational trauma Explore the work of Dr. Joy DeGruy Referred to in this episode Michaela Angela Davis Clips from the Schomburg Center Color Purple panel “Lynching Memorial” aka The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama What is generational trauma? What is mindfulness? Moment of Mindfulness LLC What is restorative justice? Impact Justice Statistic: Children of Holocaust survivors over-represented 300 percent Generational Trauma in Indigenous communities and its impact Ruthie Fierberg, Host Ruthiefierberg.com  IG: @whywetheater / T: @whywetheater IG: @ruthiefierceberg / T: @RuthiesATrain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Season 4 premiere, Tori and Mabelle talk with award-winning writer, educator and activist Marsha Norman about her career, the importance of women writing about women, her work as an educator, and the architecture of a play. Other topics discussed include conjuring the Writing Spirit, setting a 2-year deadline to finish a play, pastafarians, writing from rage, and her upcoming book about how to write a musical. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Intro: Gina is co-hostless and doing her best. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, RATE, and REVIEW you beautiful Survivors!Interview: SUNY Geneseo, Boston University, Tisch, Juilliard, Playwriting MFAs, competition in writing programs, Marsha Norman, Cry It Out, MAID on Netflix, Hollywood sea changes, female-centered shows, domestic violence, emotional abuse, Hulu, theatre is behind, denial, making mistakes, bad reviews.COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT (unedited):1 (10s):And I'm Gina Polizzi. We went to theater school2 (12s):Together. We survived it.1 (14s):We didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all2 (21s):Survived theater school. And you will too. Are we famous yet?1 (34s):Hello? Hello. Hello survivors. This is Gina. This week. We are sons' cohost, just one host today. I'm missing my better half BAAs. His boss is actually attending to a friend who got terrible health news this week. And she is in her very boss like way being there for her friend and being the amazing person and friend that she is, which is why everybody loves buzz. Anyway, she'll be back next week if you're not. But today we have, honestly, you guys, this is the interview I have been waiting for.1 (1m 19s):Molly Smith. Metzler is a writer extraordinaire. You may have heard of her latest project made number three on Netflix entering its 28th day online, which has some very special meaning for Netflix that I hope to know more about one day and previous to me being the showrunner for maid, she also worked on shameless and several other successful television shows. And before that she was a playwright. And actually I got to know her work because I directed a play of hers called cry it out.1 (1m 59s):And it was a fantastic experience. And I started communicating with her over email when I was directing. And I was so impressed with the way that she responded to me. I mean, a that she responded to me at all that she was available to me at all. And not something you always get with a playwright and B that she really took her time with her responses and see that her responses ended up being pretty impactful for me, just not necessarily related to the play, but as a person. And I'm a little embarrassed that when I talked to her and I told her the way that she had impacted me, I just started seriously just crying, crying, crying.1 (2m 45s):And I was having this thought like, I, this is not a moment I want to be crying. And I'm generally in life. I, I welcomed here as, as a person who struggles to access their emotions. I do. I welcome a good cry, but it not want to be crying to Molly Smith Metzler in this great interview. But you know, it is what it is. If I'm going to be honest, I have to be honest. I can't be choicy about when I'm being myself. That's my, that's my mantra. Recently you have to be yourself in all the ways. Some of those ways are ugly and disgusting and you know, unsavory, and some of them are fine and some of them are be even beautiful.1 (3m 31s):So I'm working on embracing the, a mess that I am, but I really think you're going to enjoy this interview with Molly. She's fantastic. Even without the always wonderful presidents, presidents presence, maybe she should be president even without the always wonderful presence of BAAs. We still managed to have a great conversation and actually that whole experience of her at the last minute, not being able to do this and this being the first time we're doing this with one host, turns out to have been a good thing for us to go through, to learn that.1 (4m 14s):Yeah, sometimes we're not both going to be available and sometimes when I'm not available, she'll be doing an episode on her own. So, you know, whatever we're growing, changing learning, Hey, we're in 22 countries. Now, if you have a, not a subscribed to this podcast, please do. If you have not rated this podcast or given it a review, please, please, please, please, please, please do it seriously. Please do it, please. I'm begging you. Please do it, but okay. Anyway, here's Molly Smith message.0 (4m 53s):Well,1 (5m 0s):No problem whatsoever. Fortunately, my partner is Jen. Her very good friend just got diagnosed with cancer yesterday and she's with her right now helping. So she's not going to be able to join us. This is actually the first time we're doing an interview with just me. So we'll see how it goes.3 (5m 23s):Yeah,1 (5m 24s):It is. And she just, she has a lot of experience with, with cancer. So she's sort of like the first people, first person people call, which is like,3 (5m 38s):Yeah,1 (5m 38s):Exactly, exactly. But anyway, congratulations, Molly Smith. Metso you survived theater school and you're going to have to clarify for me because it looks like you went to four schools, but you didn't go to four theater schools. Did you?3 (5m 52s):I went to four schools. I did. They're not all theater schools, but I went to undergrad, SUNY Geneseo in Western New York and I was an English major. And then I went to Boston university and got a master's in creative writing with a concentration in playwriting. And then I went to Tisch and got an MFA in playwriting dramatic writing. And then I went to Juilliard, which is, you don't really get a degree there. It's called an artist diploma, but it's just finishing school basically.1 (6m 20s):Oh, okay. So the decision to, to do the MFA, were you thinking at that time that you, maybe you were going to be a teacher, I'm always curious about MFA's and writing because you know, if you learned what you needed to know and you know, why not just put yourself out there and be a writer?3 (6m 40s):I think it's very scary to take that jump. The thing about school that I got addicted to is that I'm actually way too social to be a writer. I like being around other writers and every, and every time you get a graduate program, you're with a bunch of writers and you have deadlines and you kind of, you know, it's a really public way to study writing versus alone in your apartment while way to say, you know, and I kept getting academic support to attend the programs. And so that was part of it. I'm not sure I would have gone deep into debt to get all those degrees, but I think giving me aid, I kept going. Yeah.1 (7m 16s):Okay, fantastic. And did you always know from day one that you, I mean, since you were in high school anyway, that you wanted to be a writer that you wanted to write dramatically?3 (7m 26s):I always loved writing. I had journals and I'm from a very young age. I love to write, but I had a sort of more academic feeling about it. I thought I was going to get a PhD in English and join the academy and be a professor. And I didn't know, I was creative in the sense of dramatic writing until my senior year of college. When I took a playwriting class, I didn't know I was a playwright. And I also didn't know. I was funny. Those two things emerged at the same time. Wow.1 (7m 54s):Oh, so you didn't have experience with theater before then?3 (7m 58s):Well, I grew up a ballerina, so I had a great sense of the stage and the relationship between an audience and someone onstage. I really like, I understood light and the power of an audience, but I, no, I didn't grow up a theater nerd at all. I grew up a nerd nerd, like an actual,1 (8m 18s):So that must've been like just a whole new, exciting world. Did you decide pretty much right away that you were going to be getting your MFA when you discovered that you liked to play with?3 (8m 27s):Yeah, I did. I took this introduction to play right in class and it was one of those things. People talk about this, like in a romantic relationship where you're just like, it changes your whole life. And I didn't have that in a romantic relationship, but I had that with playwriting. One-on-one where, you know, I just, I, it came, I don't want to say easily to me cause it was really easy to play it, but it came, it was like a big release in my life that I arrived at playwriting and loved doing it. And it's like a big jigsaw and you can stay up all night doing it. And I knew from the very first, basically from the first act of a play that I wrote that it's what I wanted to do. I'm very lucky. It was very clear.1 (9m 5s):Yeah. Yeah. That is really lucky. So we have talked to almost 60 people now, the majority of them have been actors. So we've really delved deep into like everything about being an actor, especially at the age of undergrad and what that's like to be growing up, you know, just growing up and then trying to figure out yourself well enough to be an actor and all the stuff that comes along with that, including, you know, the competitive best with your cohort. But I imagine that's what it, well, I don't want to imagine what it's like, what is it like with your cohort when you're all writers and you're presumably reading each other's work critiquing each other's work, does it get really competitive?3 (9m 55s):I suspect that it can, you know, I feel very lucky cause I have never experienced that directly in a graduate program situation. Part of it is I think I went to really great places where everyone had gotten in was incredibly talented and brought such a unique point of view and voice that none of us were trying to raise the same place. So it was really easy to just support each other. And also it's fun, you know, you're reading it aloud. So if something's in the south, you're trying an accent and it's super bad cause you're a playwright. So I found it, you know, I became close with the other writers and I mean, I'm married. One of them, I call him my husband, he and I were in the same graduate program at Tisch. And there is something beautiful about meeting someone in a writing workshop because you're just sort of naked.3 (10m 41s):It's all, you know, I imagine it's like, I understand my actors fall in love too. It's like, you're just so vulnerable and you know, each other in a deep way. But my experience has been that writers are pretty, pretty darn supportive of each other. And if you're not, you kind of don't fit in, like if you're a jerk, if you're competitive jerk, like you're not meant to be a playwright, playwrights need to love people. Cause that's what we do, you know? Yeah.1 (11m 1s):Yeah. That's a very good point. Actually, we talked to CISA Hutchinson yesterday and basically said, yeah, isn't she awesome?3 (11m 8s):She's in a beautiful inside and out like just, but yeah.1 (11m 12s):Yeah. She, and she echoed the same thing in what you're saying. So I guess we're going to stop asking this question about competition. It's just that it's so much of a part of like the act. And I think it's part of just how the program is structured. I mean, you're literally up for the same parts against each other and they PO posted on a wall and everybody shows up to3 (11m 35s):Absolutely. And you know, I was at Juilliard where they still cut people. You know, that system has changed a little bit, but I was at the, the version of Juilliard that was structured to drop 10% of the class out. And I feel like you don't get, I don't know. I learned a lot about that cause they cut playwrights as well. And I feel like that doesn't, that doesn't bring forth good creative work from anybody that pressure of, you know, is Sally going to get cut instead of me that's that's, that's not good skills. I don't think1 (12m 5s):It's true. And at the same time, like a lot of the people who were cut from our program went on to have better careers than the majority of us. So it's just like not a lot of rhyme or reason to it.3 (12m 15s):It's like SNL. Yeah. I mean, yes. It's not a predictor. You got it. Right.1 (12m 20s):Exactly. Okay. So you graduated or you've finally finished school with Julliard after doing it for, for a number of years then what happened next? You were, you were married or you're in a relationship and w how did, how do two writers figure out what their next steps are going to be when school's over?3 (12m 40s):Well, I don't know how to writers in general would do, but I can tell you how Colin and I did it, which is that we we've never been competitive because we write really different plays. Like I am talking to, you know, especially as a playwright, my, my work tends to, I mean, I've written Boulevard, comedy. It's like, I really like to laugh. My husband's play is everyone's on meth and they're an Appalachian. It's like, we are, we are really young and yang. And, but I think being, I really recommend being married to, or spending your life with another writer, if you are a writer because they get it and they get you in like a deep, deep way. So if you have to stay up to four o'clock in the morning, cause you're inspired and you have to finish the scene, you know, there's, there's just a, there's no jealousy about that.3 (13m 25s):There's an acceptance. And our, it really, I think I often say, I don't think I'd be a playwright. Certainly won't be any of the things that I am a mother, you know, like everything is because it's all. And I, I had someone who believed in me more than I believed in myself and at points that is everything because, you know, your play opens in New York, you get just the worst reviews in the world and you take, you know, you'd take to the bed and you don't think you're ever going to write again. And it's so important who you decided to spend your life with because, you know, con only saw me as a writer first and foremost. And you know, it's like at the same goes for him. So we, yeah, but just technically do we have money? You know, we lived in a apartment in Brooklyn that we got to kind of like a hookup.3 (14m 9s):My husband was, he managed the bar downstairs, so he knew the guy. And so we got this apartment that we could actually afford, but we both worked full time waiting tables and bartending. And then if I get into the O'Neil, for instance, he would do extra bartending support me being at the O'Neil. And you know, he went up to LA for a few months and did a bunch of meetings and screenwriting stuff. And I supported him with the Juilliard money. Like we just have always worked it out. And for the last handful of years, when we finally don't have to, we can both be working in. It's great.1 (14m 39s):Yeah. That's nice that, by the way, that makes so much sense about the difference in your writing because in watching made, you know, I remember getting to the end of the first episode that he wrote and not, not having known throughout the episode that he wrote it and being like, wow, this is really, really different than Molly's writing. And of course it, it was his, and I kind of tend towards that darker stuff too. So yeah. And by the way, the series is fantastic. It is so good. And how you were having such a moment, you're getting great reviews. People are loving. I saw even today, it's number three on Netflix. How are you doing with success? Because people assume that it's all great, but I'm guessing it's not.1 (15m 23s):And I'm guessing it's kind of scary too.3 (15m 27s):Oh, well this is all pretty, just great. You know, like I think there's probably two things that are tricky about it, which I'll tell you in a second, but the fact is, it's just, it's great. Especially because it's made, you know, made is the closest to play writing. I've done for the screen. I see the show as 10 individual plays and it's really just about cleaning and feelings. It's the most character driven thing I've seen on TV in a long time. There's no murder. There's no cool accents. We're not in Hawaii. It's just about one woman's cleaning and feelings. And every time we turned in an episode, I thought Netflix would call and be like, you know, this is too weird.3 (16m 9s):Like the couch can't eat her. That's just too weird, you know, but they let me make this like, you know, artistic, I think like they're beautiful thing. And I didn't really believe that they were going to air it. And then I didn't really believe that people were going, gonna watch it. And so the fact that the fact that it is exactly what I wanted it to be and people love it. It's very, I don't really, I think it's really exciting just as a writer, it's exciting. It's like, oh, maybe we can return to doing harder things on the screen and on the stage again, you know, I think audiences weren't deterred by the fact that it was difficult, you know, they leaned in. And so I feel like it's really, it's mostly just fantastic.3 (16m 49s):I am surprised that people love it this much, but no, I'm just, I'm so proud of it. So it feels great. That's all there is. Do it.1 (16m 57s):What were the, you said there you'll tell me about the two things that have been challenging.3 (17m 1s):Yes, it is challenging. I, and I know you'll relate to this, but coming up in the theater, there are so many of us that, that are just working hard and waiting tables and waiting for a break. And that was me as well. And you want to help every single one of those people and you want to help every single one of those people whose cousin is also in LA. So like, that's the part that's really hard for me is that I can't, I can't do for everyone. And I want to, and especially theater people, like if you, if someone sends me a cold email that the subject is like a MF playwright, like I read it and then I, you know, I, I can't help it.3 (17m 42s):So that's a little hard cause I want to be good to everyone. And, and can't so that's, that's hard for me. And the other thing that's just hard is, you know, I spend my life in sweatpants and now suddenly have to do a bunch of stuff where I look, I have to look very, you know, Like, you know, writers or writers were writers for a reason. And so, so suddenly I have to like I to buy lipstick. And so that part of it is a little being articulate. Like next to Margot, Robbie is very difficult for me, but1 (18m 14s):I didn't realize until just today that she was the producer. So she's, she's the person who optioned the book.3 (18m 20s):So she and John Wells got the book together. John Wells is a very famous producer. He did west wing ER, and shameless, which is how I know him. I worked in my last four seasons of shameless is a writer on the show. So when he and Margo got the book, LA had just done cry it out, it was cried out, was up like, like had just closed when they got the book and it's a play about moms. And I think they were like, oh, we know a person who writes about moms and they handed me the book. It was so kismet.1 (18m 49s):Wow. That's fantastic. And, but you had to, I mean, I read the book too. You had to create a whole narrative. That's not in the book. So how does that, I'm curious about that process and how it works. Is it that you kind of sit down as the show runner and hatch a basic idea that you, that you then have some writers help you with or do you have to outline all of the stories and everybody else just writes them? Or how does it work?3 (19m 20s):Well, it's a, it's a little bit different with every project. Oh, I'm with a story like made, you know, whenever the memoir I learned so much, like it was, it's really an educational tool and I didn't want to sacrifice any of that. On the other hand, when you go and sit down with your husband or wife and Saturday night to watch Netflix, you don't want to lecture and you don't want to like TV, shouldn't taste like TV, shouldn't taste like broccoli, right. It should taste like it should be a sneak attack. Kind of like my plate is like, I like to sneak people into learning something. So I knew kind of off the bat that that made was an incredible engine, the memoir, and that I wanted all the takeaway to be the same. But I also knew that we were going to have to create a lot of story to do that.3 (20m 1s):So to answer your question, when I first said I would do the book and when we were taking out and pitching it to Netflix, pitching it to HBO, you know, all the places I would have to say, this is what I'm going to do. You know, we're gonna, we're going to do 10 episodes. Her mom's going to be a huge character. Her dad's got a huge character. We're going to really build up. Sean. We're going to get to know some of the people in the houses we're going to get to know Regina, she's an invented character, but this is how she'll structure in the plot. And you really have to know the nuts and bolts of what you're going to do. And the tone of it, like it's kinda like giving a 45 minute presentation on what the show will be. And then hopefully someone like Netflix is like, okay, great. Here's, here's a green light and get your writer's room. So then you hire a handful.3 (20m 42s):If you're lucky, you know, I could, I didn't have any, no one told me what to do. I got to hire whoever I wanted. And I hired only four writers, three of whom are playwrights, three of whom. I'm sure. You know, cause it's Colin, Becca bronzer, Marcus Garley so really accomplished playwrights. And then Michelle, Denise Jackson, who is not a playwright, but should be like, she's an honorary playwright, you know? And so w and then the five of us sit down and we take what I've said, you know, about the show, the 45 minute presentation, and we flush it out. What are we doing in every episode? What does this look like? And that, that process in the writer's room is the closest, you'll get to a table read in the theater, you know, where you're just at the table, you're reading that play.3 (21m 24s):And then you talk about it for, you know, nine days. That's a writer's room is that every day. So it's very, very, very cool experience and everyone's sharing secrets and, and we disagree sometimes and we do puzzles and there's a lot of talk about lunch.1 (21m 43s):That's what everybody says.3 (21m 47s):But also what was cool that mean is that these five, these four writers and me, the five of us, we all really connected to different things in the memoir. And we also, all of us come from all of us can relate to the memoir in different ways. And so you get five different perspectives on something. And I think, you know, Becca brown center did so much of the writing of Regina, and I think she could really connect to Regina. And, you know, that character would not feel quite as beautifully drawn if Becca weren't in the writers room. Like, so, so much of it is it's a dinner party. And the result of that dinner party is character. You know? So it's really, it's the most important thing you do is those writers.1 (22m 26s):That is okay. So I also just learned that today that you didn't write that Regina monologue, because, and this is about my own projection that when I'm watching it, I'm going, oh my God, this is so similar to Claire, Claire. Is that the name of the character and cry it out. That lives up high, up on the hill.3 (22m 45s):Oh, Adrian. Adrian.1 (22m 47s):Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. I was thinking, I was thinking, it sounded like an Adrian, my likes. So that's fascinating that, that,3 (22m 53s):Well, let me explain one further thing, which is, so that's how the show gets written. And yes, Becca brown said, I wrote that monologue, but the other thing that the show runner does is it is my job to then go through all 10 episodes and make sure it sounds like one person wrote them. And, and so the showroom, so you kind of divide the writing in the room and then all funnels back to me and I rewrite it or fix things. Or sometimes, you know, sometimes you're doing a major rewrite sometimes you're just like with Regina monologue, it was so beautiful. You know, we, we had to cut a couple of things for production, but like, it's, it's back as work. And, but it's, that's what TV writing is. It's like, there'll be stuff that Becca wrote in episode seven that she didn't write, or, you know, like TV is very collaborative and then it all funnels through the showrunner who does a pass to make sure it's, it's up to the standard that I want.3 (23m 44s):It's totally what I want. You know, it is, it is a writing job as a group, and then it is ultimately one person's writing job it's book. Does that make sense?1 (23m 51s):Yeah, it does. And thank you so much for answering that question because I have always wondered. And also even on television shows that have, have a different director, every episode, I'm always thinking, how are they keeping true to the tone, but not now, now I understand it. Well, I have so many things to ask you. I want to talk to you about just one thing is that you have said that you love writing about class, which is a big part of made and your, and your place. But, so I want to talk a little bit about that, but I also kind of want to talk maybe first about the thing that you said you were surprised that people like to made, and I've heard a lot of female writers express, something like that.1 (24m 36s):I'm surprised. And maybe people just say it in a way as, as you know, not, not trying to try to be humble. Right. Okay. But I believe that you are surprised by it because it does seem like a kind of recent thing that the universe is allowing us to tell women's stories and having them at the forefront. I mean, it seems really pretty recent. And so are you, do you feel like this is you're part of a big sea change in terms of what's being represented on screen?3 (25m 7s):You know, absolutely. I was talking to Netflix yesterday and they said last year it was Bridgford, you know, these are a lot of things, but they were saying last year, people, the surprise was everyone loved Britain and love Queens gambit. And this year one loves squid game and loves made, which cracks me up. But, but they think to be in the same sentence as Queens gambit as the limited series. I mean, I think that's so exciting as a female writer, because she was an alcoholic kind of like piece of crap who was amazing at chess and went on this like beautiful arc that was not traditionally feminine. It was usually that's a man, like that's usually a male going through that and were riveted by his addiction and his dysfunction and made his, you know, I think we're continuing what Queens gambit did as well.3 (25m 50s):Like it's, you know, Alex has a lot of things, but she's not a woman. She is a character going through an arc and she makes a ton of mistakes and she, you know, is a product of where she comes from. And that is enough to carry a show. And I feel like that is it you're right. It's so recent. And I therefore assumed it would be treated like a, you know, like a niche, you know, maybe 500,000 people will watch it kind of like, cause we don't show up for those shows, but all of a sudden we really show up for those shows and we want to see a multidimensional and rich and layered woman at the story of her own dance story. It's really like exciting.3 (26m 31s):It's exciting.1 (26m 33s):That's what I think about stuff like this. I just imagine, you know, the people who are traditionally in charge of these things, I just mentioned it, but I imagine a bunch of guys sitting around being like, can you imagine people really want to hear about these dang? I mean, I feel like it must be a surprise to, to sort of the old guard that, you know, because of course everything does have to be motivated about what's going to be a return on your investment. And that, that that's understandable. It's I'm not saying anybody's bad for that, but it is curious to me that there was just this, there was an assumption that if you made a female centered show, nobody would want to watch it.1 (27m 16s):Except for every time they make a female centered, anything people want to watch it. Why is this keep being a surprise?3 (27m 24s):I think it's going to stopping a surprise pretty soon because this cracked me up. But my friend was doing a pitch yesterday at Hulu. And I guess like the conversation kind of organically came up with like, well, what's our main, you know, like what's the, you know, the producer was in it, but like, you know, people are starting to look for the, the queen scam, but you know, trying to look for the female, you know, the unconventional sort of what's the would be a surprising female story. We're starting to like, not only are we starting to have it at the table, that the market is the, market's starting to recognize that we're going to get eyes on the screen and it's, you know, I shouldn't be so surprised by made.1 (28m 5s):Right. Right. And it helps that we have people like Margot, Robbie and Reese Witherspoon and females who are having more of a say about what gets produced, you know, with what, what books get optioned and then what gets produced.3 (28m 17s):Absolutely. And, and more and more women are taking those jobs and taking those positions. And it's a good, it's a sea change. I also dare say, I think TV and film has ahead of it than theater. I have to say, I think1 (28m 29s):Girl, that's another thing I was going to say. Cause you had a quote in something I read theater is behind theater is so behind and this is, unfortunately it came as a surprise to me. Like when I woke up to the fact that theater is so behind, it was sad and it also doesn't make sense. It also, you know, it should be it's, it was 40 years ago. It was the most progressive part of art, I think.3 (28m 55s):Yeah. Well the theater doesn't treat women as, as minority voices and they have, and like that's, what's so crazy is we've, you know, I think we've carved out space for there's so much equality and, and like, it's exciting to see the programming in theaters change. And like it's not just white men anymore. That's all, that's very, very exciting. But heterosexual women stories that mother's stories about our struggles stories about, you know, me and my friends, there's no space for us on the New York stage. There's no space for my friends and I on the New York stage. And I feel like, and then, you know, you don't go up in New York, then you don't go all across the regions.3 (29m 36s):And I think a great example is actually cried out because that had a huge regional presence because I think people are starved for players like that, that are about women and just, you know, and not women on Mars and not, not necessarily, you know, like it just normal women, women having, you know, the Wendy Wasserstein plays of today are not produced in New York. And it's, it's a, it's a huge issue I think.1 (30m 0s):Yeah, yeah, it is. So, okay. So the other thing is that you love to write about class, which I find fascinating. I love to read about it in any case, what is your personal connection to your fascination with that issue?3 (30m 17s):Well, I think I grew a group of the Hudson valley, the daughter of two teachers. So, you know, I, I, I can't relate to made, for instance, in the sense of, I always had food and I always had a certain amount of like structure and S and security, but I, my parents were incredibly well educated and they kind of like my dad went to Cornell and it was sort of something we heard a lot about, even though we didn't kind of grow up in a moneyed area or money to house, there was a sense of, there was a sense of you could scholarship your way into the next strata. And I think that I find that fascinating because it's just not true. I, it's almost impossible.3 (30m 59s):It's almost impossible to change your class in America. And it's, it's, I feel like those walls are getting higher, not lower. And I watch people through everything they have at, at, at those chances to change, you know, change their stripes. And I just think the way we, we work in this country is we it's, we've made that harder and harder. There is no bootstrap narrative there. It does. There's no bootstraps it doesn't, it's not a thing in this country. So I find that fascinating because I felt very jipped. You know, I felt like I worked very, very hard and like I was always getting A's and being sophisticated and like, I couldn't graduate and get a, you know, a little studio in New York and intern at a publishing house.3 (31m 42s):You know, like a lot of my friends who came from money could, and there's just, it's so ingrained in our culture and it makes me mad and it's not, you know, it's not fair. Especially when I had a child and started thinking about cried out and just the way we treat that money directly affects maternity leave in this country too. And like, I can't compete with somebody who has a trust fund, you know, I had to put queer where I could afford her. And it's just bullshit that you can claw your way out of the class that you're born into. It's it's extremely rare. So I love that1 (32m 16s):It's bullshit and it's really dangerous cause it makes people feel so inadequate when they can't, you know, and that, that's also a great scene. I think it's in the first episode. Yeah. It's in the first episode when she goes and she's talking to the social worker and she's saying, so I can't get a job because I don't have a daycare and I can't get daycare cause I don't have a job. So I have to get a dog to prove that I didn't deserve daycare. I mean, it's, it's also3 (32m 40s):Backwards. Yeah. You're at a humongous disadvantage. If you are born into, you know, if you're born into poverty, you're at a humongous disadvantage in this country and it's like getting worse. That's the other thing is it's not, I mean, I have to leave. That's part of why made is, is touching so many people's sense of justice too. It's like, oh yeah, it's getting worse. Like, why aren't we talking about this? It's you know, Alex and I are, are not facing the same problems. And it's just by where I was born and where she was born and you know, you what family, your brand and who dictates so much of your struggle.1 (33m 17s):Yeah. And, and that, that the sort of historical narratives would have you believe that it's, it's the opposite of that and that, and that everybody left England to get away from that. But then yeah, just creative things I think here. So another thing that I heard or read that you said that really took my breath away is you said that when you became a mother, your, you didn't say your resolve for your career. You, the phrase that I that's sticking out to me, as you said, I went from being the secretary of my own company to the CEO. And it just, that just really like hit me in the center of my chest.1 (33m 58s):Can you just say a little bit more about it? What, what you meant by that?3 (34m 3s):Sure. I think that we'll probably like probably like many women when they become moms. I, I was frustrated that I had, I had this thing that I was good at, that I had studied for so many years that I've given so much time and love to my playwriting career and that it did not love me back in the sense that I could not afford to take core to a music class, you know? And it made me very, it made me very frustrated that, you know, I, I had devoted my, my self to this, this field that I had a passive relationship with. Like I was waiting for someone to call and tell me they were going to do a reading or, you know, or I was waiting for my career to start.3 (34m 50s):And I think what happened when I had, when I had Cora was I, I wanted to provide for her. And I also wanted to, I wanted to show her that you could be tough and you could be an active participant in your career like that. I didn't have to wait for it to happen. And so part of it was, I was, I just kind of said the things we all want to say out loud as a women, but I actually said them, which was like, Hey agents, what the F I am funny and talented. I want to work in TV. I want to take a music class with my daughter. What do I have to do to do that? And I you'd be shocked. I think how freeing and wonderful it is to just stand up for yourself and to make demands. And, you know, and I wanted to, I wanted to take an expensive music class with my daughter and I wanted to have a career.3 (35m 32s):And I was like, I'm not going to wait for it to happen because I know if someone gives me a chance I'm going to do, I'm going to go far in this field. Like, cause I don't know. Does that make sense? So I kind of like, wait, I said, waiting for the phone to ring and started making the calls.1 (35m 45s):Yeah. And also what I'm hearing is you stopped just blindly participating in the myth that everything can only work a certain way, which I feel like is something that we can all relate. I mean, it's something that boss and I talk a lot on this podcast about like just making so many assumptions about what, what we're definitely not entitled to have and what we're, you know, let's definitely for other people and not for us without ever once actually saying that out loud or asking for what we want. And actually yesterday chiefs have said the exact same thing. She said she, she was trying to be humble and say it's because she doesn't know how the system works. So she didn't know, she couldn't ask which you know. Okay. Maybe, but it's very inspiring to hear that.1 (36m 29s):Now you could just decide what you want to do with your life and your career. You could decide that you want to have a work-life balance and then have it.3 (36m 37s):Yeah. And you know, I think actors have this too. We are always waiting for the phone to ring. And at a certain point, I think that's a really tough way to be a mom because you can't count on anything and you're spread so thin. And I'm just kinda like, no, I'm going to generate, I'm going to generate this. And I can't really define the moment, but I will say for me it was emotional. I, I stopped, I stopped letting theater. Tell me how to feel about myself a little bit theater. I mean, it's a little bit like the terrible boyfriend that you just can't leave. Right. Like I would be like, I would be like, here's my new play. Do you love it? And they'd be like, maybe, you know, maybe we'll do a reading of it.3 (37m 19s):And I'd be like, let's my full heart. And I love you. And then, you know, and I finally like kind of broke up with that boyfriend in the sense that like, no, I'm really good at this. And like, I'm going to go where the love is. And I'm going to figure out how to pay my bills doing this and maybe you'll miss me and come back. You know, you know, it's hard as an artist, you can't let someone else tell you what your worth is. And theater is very conducive to that.1 (37m 40s):Yeah. Oh my God. That's so true. And that's, by the way, like a big part of the character of Alex, she does that too. I mean, she, with not that much to leverage did still find a way to just be very active about asking for what she wants. And I can see what you're saying about how, how having a kid makes that very clear. Whereas maybe you don't feel so I'm entitled to ask for what you want when it's just you, but when you know that it's somebody else who's depending on you, then it's that it doesn't feel like you're asking for yourself. It feels like you're asking for your family.3 (38m 15s):Yeah. And you see injustice with fresh eyes when you have a child, you know, because I don't know. I feel, I feel like certainly in my case, I w I would, I was so focused on being a good collaborator, being polite, being like, you know, you know, being grateful for the breadcrumbs that I got, you know, in my life. And I mean, honestly, it was a professional change, but it was primarily an emotional change. I was like, yeah, I don't want breadcrumbs anymore because my daughter deserves better than breadcrumbs. And so it just sort of filtered across all the fields, but yeah, another had does that.1 (38m 50s):Yeah, it does. It does well. So I don't know if I ever told you this, the reason I was looking through our emails earlier, as I wanted to see if I, I was sure I had said this thing to you, that I can not find in my email. So I'm going to say it to you now, which is that when I was directing your play, I wrote to you just about some things that I wondered if we could change. And you gave me the most thoughtful responses, which was, is to say you didn't invalidate that I was asking you, but you still stood up for what you, for the integrity of the play. I feel like I'm going to cry. I never saw anybody do that before.1 (39m 36s):And it was a really great, I wish I wasn't crying as I started to say this to you, but it was a great thing to, it was a, you were a great role model for me in that moment. And I always appreciate that. So thank you.3 (39m 52s):Oh, Tina, thank you. Well, you know what, thank you for wanting to have a conversation with me about it. Cause like I also think that's the sign of a fantastic director that you let me into your process and your thoughts about it. And I know you did a fantastic job with the play cause I had Scouts in that area who saw it and you know, so whatever you were, whatever you were working with, you artistically, you certainly landed that ship for you. You know, landed that plan beautifully.1 (40m 15s):Thank you. I had, and I had so much fun doing it. So tell me about some of your mentors. We had a nice discussion the other day about the power of mentors and some people go kind of through their whole training and never really feel like they connect with a mentor. Did you have mentors along the way?3 (40m 35s):Yes. I'm very lucky. Actually. I'm very lucky. I'm sure most people who go to Julliard and say this, but I, in my case, it's, it's really, really true that Marsha Norman was a wonderful mentor to me. I met her at Tisch and Tisha's a funny place because it's a larger program. You know, you don't have that. One-on-one with your professors that you do with Juilliard where there's just a handful of you, but, and I didn't stand out at Tisch. I sort of, my husband was, you know, my husband's sort of the star over player at, in class and I hadn't found my voice and I was sort of, I just wasn't like the star student and she was, she saw something in me and I don't think she saw like a Polish playwright yet, but she saw, I think there's just, she saw a way to help me find my voice.3 (41m 18s):And she hired me as her assistant coming out of that MFA program. And I always think like it was sort of charity work because she didn't need an assistant. She was so on top of her life. But I think she wanted to let me hang out with her and see how she conducted her business. So she was working on law and criminal intent. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was on set with her. I get to do research with her, for the scripts. She was doing the color purple and I got to go to rehearsal usually just to bring a coffee that I could watch. And it was, you know, she's also a mother and I don't know it was really, it, it was so generous of her because I got, I just got to see that you, what a woman in power looks like and, and a woman on her voice.3 (41m 59s):And she also says no a lot. And I grew to really respect that. Especially later when I became a mom, but you don't F with Marsha. I mean, she'll shut stuff down. She's really, I mean, she's such a generous person here. She did this thing for me, I'm a total stranger, but she's also like she knows her worth. So I was very grateful. It's been those years with her. And then, and then she invited me to Julliard. And then when I was ready really gave me, I mean, Juilliard is so much pressure. And the thing about Julia is you have to know what your voice is to go there. And so it's almost like she was helping me find my voice. And then when I found it gave me this incredible opportunity to go to Julliard. So sh honestly like very, very good to me in such a mentor in a very lucky.3 (42m 41s):And then on the west coast, I've had a wonderful mentor in John Wells because he, he's just one of the most terrific showrunners and producers, but it's funny cause I, everybody knows that that's not a secret in LA, but to work for him as a writer and to be in his writer's room. I learned so much from him about how to empower the people around you. How did it become like, you know, there's so many toxic writing rooms and toxic jobs with my friends, tell me, and it sounds terrible, but everyone at a John Wells show is thrilled to be there and very lucky to have that job. And they know it and like just that there's a way to do things gracefully. So he, and, and then he got this book and handed it to me and gave me my first chance to be a show runner.3 (43m 23s):So I had a, I've been very lucky to have him as a mentor on this coast1 (43m 28s):And the toxic. I've heard a lot of stories too, about toxic writers' rooms. And maybe that's also something that's going to get phased out because like so many of these things, you just, you just need more samples. You need, you know, you need more samples in your dataset so that, you know, I mean, if 99% of everything is run in one certain way, then there's little, there's little chance that it's going to change. But when, when the tide starts to shift, maybe there's a little, few more samples in your dataset that show, well, you can just be a regular nice person and still get the same, you know, get the same job done. That's that's nice to hear.3 (44m 9s):Yeah. Yeah.1 (44m 12s):So dah, dah, dah, oh, one, another favorite line from made is when Alex is talking to her dad about, I think this is, might be at the last episode or near then. And she says, she's trying to tell him that her or her, whatever boyfriend abused her and her, father's not taking it in. And she says, do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth right now? That was another thing that really hit me because, you know, denial is really not a passive thing. Like you have to work pretty hard at defending your denial on something.1 (44m 56s):And I'm really familiar with saying something that feels, you know, that's a truth for me to people who, I mean, act as if you're, you know, like you're invisible and that turns out to be a really shaping force in a lot of people's lives. And you know, so anyway, I'm just curious about your own relationship and experience with denial.3 (45m 22s):Well, I love that you love that moment because I remember with that scene feeling like something was missing. And I remember, you know, I know a lot of it denial, but what I really know a lot about is gaslighting and denial is a form of gaslighting where you're just like, I'm, I'm not going to acknowledge a reality. And you know, I learned this tool a few years ago from a fantastic therapist that like, it's okay to just pause and be like, but you actually are hearing me, right? Like this is English. And you understand these words like, and I've, I've actually tried that tool in my life and steal at someone, not, not like, not be able to confirm that they're hearing the words.3 (46m 3s):And so it was when I, and then when I put it in the scene that it felt like, oh, that's what was missing is just this, like, how far are you going to take this denial? And he still can't write. I mean, I think Billy might nod, but he doesn't say anything. Like, I think gaslighting in denial and emotional abuse, I mean, I could write 40 Marsha was about this. I am fascinated by it. And the thing we don't talk about it as a form of abuse. And we should, it's like weirdly I think as well as violent, if not more violent than physical abuse, because you don't realize it's happening like Alex in the pilot, she doesn't know she's a victim of abuse and she is such an, a victim of abuse, which I hope we demonstrate in the show that you have to go on that ride with her, but you know, it's so corrosive and there's nothing worse than having someone tell you what what's real is not real day after day, year after year.3 (46m 56s):Like this is an area that I know a lot about I sent you do to1 (47m 1s):Yes. And actually my kind of where I put my energy in terms of recovery is with codependency and denial and codependency, or just, I mean, that's, that's the it's denial is the perfume of codependency. It's just, it's everywhere. And what I think really gets triggered for people who want to keep pretending, like they hear the words you're saying is because I find this in my family, like the way that denial really shows up in my family is if I acknowledge a truth, that's too true. I think what happens to other people is they feel that if they even just validate that that's my truth, that that somehow means that they have to acknowledge it for their own selves and their own lives.1 (47m 51s):And that's really like the forbidden thing that, you know, that people who don't want to go there can't do, they can't, it's like the Pandora's box. If I start to look at, you know, if I acknowledge that, what you're saying about this is true, then I can't help, but start to acknowledge all of the other things as well.3 (48m 9s):I think what you just said is, is brilliant because I think people think denial is just inactive, but it's aggressive. It's so aggressive. It's really violent, you know, intense denial that gaslighting of like, I will not even acknowledge. I hear the words you're saying it's, it's, it's so active. It's I mean, it's so aggressive. What you said was really, really smart really. Right. Yeah. And I love the people. I love the people are flipping out about Hank with me. Like how does he just sit there and let Sean treat her like that? And like, you know, and that's what I mean, I think she's mistreated throughout the show, but I think what Hank does to her in that moment with the denial is, is I think a lot of us recognize that.1 (48m 49s):Yeah. And I really appreciate the w the way you rolled out this whole concept of emotional abuse, because even I who feel like I've spent so much time working on this stuff, and I was a therapist, even I was found myself being like, oh, he didn't hit her. You know, she left, he didn't hit her. Hmm. I really had to check that in myself. And I was because one of the things that denial, I mean, in the absence of act, you know, saying you're wrong or whatever, and it's just, I don't hear you. You just assume that what you're saying, isn't valid, it's it becomes this thing that you do to yourself where you, you know, if somebody invalidates you enough, you start to invalidate yourself.1 (49m 38s):So I loved how you rolled that out in the series that are people talking to you a lot about that.3 (49m 45s):Yes they are. And how about in episode eight, where you are like, oh, Sean's changed and he's turned around and he's going to be a carpenter, you know? And like you it's in you, you find yourself. Or at least I did. And I assume it seems like audiences to just kind of like, oh, maybe this is a happy, love story. Like maybe he like, you know, and, and that, you know, that is all by calculated manipulative writing that I like my secret agenda with me. It was, you know, and I claimed 10 hours cause I wanted, I wanted the audience to go on the actual experience of that cycle and to get thrown off by it and caught up in it like, oh my gosh, I'm back, I'm back. And I'm in the pit, how did this happen?3 (50m 26s):And I wanted to show you how it happened. I also was like, I dare you to wash made and tell me that that's not domestic violence because it is emotional abuse is violent. It, what happens to her is violent. So that was like my secret mustache totally goal with the show.1 (50m 43s):Yeah, no, it, it hit, it totally played. And, and I think the other thing that's great about that is that when we have seen depictions of violence against women in film, I mean the best we could entail television, the best we could have hoped for is some woman who's abused who isn't a total idiot, because mostly what it is, how it's portrayed is some dumb person who doesn't, who's too dumb to know she's being abused. So therefore she goes back and also the various, the subtle, wow. I don't know if it's settled, but the, the subplot with the first roommate that she has when she goes to the, not roommate, but you know, the woman who lives in the shelter with her who introduces her to, you know, how, how to do life there.1 (51m 31s):I love I, that was heartbreaking her story of, because it is that you, you, you, yes, in the audience were saying, yeah, maybe sh maybe Sean is a good guy. Maybe, maybe all he really needed was to sober up and become the good person he was meant to team.3 (51m 50s):Yep. I mean, it's funny. I did an interview yesterday where this gentleman was like, is Sean okay? Like, does he end up okay. In life? And, and I, and I found myself sort of being like, I've never really thought of that cause he, you know, he's fictional, but I, I don't know. I'm not sure that that guy is ever going to make it out of that trailer, you know? And I'm not sure that he's going to get sober and be a great dad. I'm not. But I do feel like when he says at the end, I'm going to get sober and come see her all the time. I don't believe him. And, and I think that's his TV show, right? That's his cycle that he has to break. But my goal was to show that he's caught in his own cycle too.3 (52m 29s):Like, we are all kind of caught in our own cycles and it's so hard to break, you know, an Alex barely makes it out. And most women and men in her situation, the show ends in episode eight under the, in the pit. Most people don't get out of the pit and she is so smart and driven that she can, but she's the exception and not, she's a great exception. Yeah.1 (52m 53s):Yeah. Yeah. So we're, I want to be honoring your time. I told you we're only going to talk for an hour, but, but before we begin to wrap up, I just want to ask you, so since we've spent a lot of time talking about your success, let's hear about some of your failures. What have been some mistakes that you've made, maybe, maybe you maybe even like when you, when you made first, the transition from playwriting to writing and Hollywood, what were some of the mistakes that you made along the way?3 (53m 23s):Well, I, I think the, one of the great learning opportunities I've had as a human being, not just as a writer, was my first big production as a playwright in New York. And it was, you know, I was barely out of school and I felt I'm just so grateful for the opportunity. You know, it was a big production with stars in it and fancy director and everyone there was fancy except me and the process I have to say kind of went that way, like, like, huh, there's this element of it's actually, it's when I play close up space is about a dad and a daughter. It's about grief and pain and there's a lot of magical realism and I'm sure it's far from the perfect play, but it got obliterated by the press and squarely blamed on me the most inexperienced person in the production.3 (54m 11s):But what I learned from it is that I knew things about it were wrong. I knew immediately things about the production were wrong and I didn't use my voice. I didn't, you know, what happened with the play is my fault. I didn't, I didn't ring the bell. I didn't say, well, I didn't refuse the rewrites. Like I, you know, and everybody there had good intentions. Everybody wants to have a hit play, but people saw it a different way than I did. And, and it was wonderful people. There was no reason why I couldn't have said, Hey, yo, this isn't what I wrote. And I really, it was a crushing blow to have that play go so badly and to, to get such her, I mean, if you went for that and just Google it, it's the worst reviews. It's like, one of the, one of the reviews was like, is she sleeping with the director?3 (54m 53s):Like, why did she even get this product? You know, it's just straight on misogyny. I mean, it was, it was so mean, but what it taught me was I, since that moment I've really listened to my gut. And if my gut says this isn't right, I say it, and I don't worry about how it's going to come across. It sounds like I did that with you, but I have my sense of like, no, and, and it, and I learned the hard way in that moment that nothing is more important than your own gut. And so, and, you know, kind of re I had like a, kind of, a lot of momentum as a playwright really stop that momentum. It sent me into a deep depression. I mean, the, I lost so much because I didn't listen to my voice.3 (55m 36s):So that was my big theater lesson, which is applied to everything. But the big mistake I've made in TV to film, I've actually been really, really, really lucky and worked with fantastic people. But I think that stuff can go sideways here. It's a, it's a funny town, you know, and I've worked with wonderful people, but once in a while, you know, something's happening and then it just disappears. And so, you know, like that, you're gonna, you know, I, right before me and I came so close to having another job that I really wanted and was passionate about, it would have been my first time kosher running something, show running something, and, you know, we were all but celebrating.3 (56m 21s):And then the whole thing fell apart because the actress wanted her friend to write it and like bull, bull, crap. Like that happens all the time in LA. And so it's a hard time. It's a hard lesson the first time, you know, where I was like, oh, people don't, you know, like my agent sent me champagne. Like it was, it was happening. And then it very suddenly wasn't. And so I think it made me realize that don't pop the champagne until the contract is signed1 (56m 51s):And put that on a t-shirt.3 (56m 57s):That was a tough lesson to learn though, because I was like, wait, oh my God. Like, I went from like sky high to, and you know, nobody really, nobody apart, it was just very sobering. So,1 (57m 7s):And writing is so personal that it's really hard not to take both the criticisms to heart and then the, the opposite of the criticisms. And, you know, it's, it's hard not to make it. It's hard to stop making it about personal validation. You know, when, when somebody likes or doesn't like your stuff. Yeah. That's the journey I'm on right now. Not making it about, you know, like if somebody didn't like my play doesn't mean they don't, it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they like me.3 (57m 40s):Yeah. You know, that's, I'm glad you're learning that because I also can tell you, I just staffed a writing room for the first time. And so that experience was really opening because I read unbelievably fantastic things and I didn't meet with them because, you know, you're designing a dinner party with five people and you kind of have to, and like you, the truth is, like I said, I passed on a lot of wonderful writers whose work I freaking loved. And like, can't wait to read for the next thing and have mentioned and recommended to other people. And that's part of it is like, you don't know how people are experiencing your work and the fans that you're building along the way. And I think we quickly assume the worst. Right? I know I do. But like, but the fact is like, you don't, you don't know how close you got it.3 (58m 24s):My guess is you're getting close to stuff and you don't know. And aren't able to know that1 (58m 29s):At the end of the day, the only thing you have control over is whether or not you go back to your computer later that day and just keep writing.3 (58m 36s):Yeah. You got to run, run your own race, which is so hard to do. I mean, listen, it really, really is. But yeah. The only thing you, the only thing you can control is your output true. Which is horrible. I mean, I, I, for the first time, in two years that don't have anyone calling me today to be like, where are the pages? You know? Like, I mean, part of it too is it's, it's helpful when you have deadlines and pressure. That's why I love to grad school because I'm the second Monday of October, I was reading my play out loud. And so I had to go right. You know, make sure I write it. So I also feel like that's, without that, it's also, that's a hard thing about feeling like you're not moving forward too, is that lack of deadlines.3 (59m 19s):But again, you don't, you don't, you don't know how far your work is going and how who's reading it and what it will lead to the next time. And I mean, I've gotten, I've gotten rejected on so many things that have led to a meeting later, you know, like so many things that, so many jobs I wanted that I didn't get, but then later someone's like, oh, we read her for that. We should meet her for this. And I didn't get that job either, but, but it's like, it's just funny. So yeah,1 (59m 48s):Like leaving a whole blanket of your career and you never know, you know, w where this, where the threads are going to end up.3 (59m 55s):Absolutely. And every time I get bummed out, which is a lot, because I'm a writer, all writers gets on debt. I, I try to think about and visualize the stack of things. I'm going to write in my life. And when I get terrible notes or when I get clobbered with notes and I feel depressed, I also think about the stack of work that I'm going to do in my life and how this piece that I'm writing right now is just one of them, you know? And that, that's my, that's my real tombstone like that pile, you know?1 (1h 0m 22s):Oh, I love that. What a great image and what a great note to end on.4 (1h 0m 37s):If you liked what you heard today, please give us a positive five star review and subscribe and tell your friends. I survived. Theater school is an undeniable Inc production. Jen Bosworth, Ramirez, and Gina plegia are the co-hosts. This episode was produced, edited, and sound mixed by Gina for more information about this podcast or other goings on of undeniable, Inc. Please visit our website@undeniablewriters.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you.

Intro: Boz is in the clear!Let Me Run This By You: secrets, scorched earthInterview: We talk to Chisa Hutchinson about her new film The Subject, Vassar, being a high school English teacher, NYU Tisch,  The Lark Play Development Center, New Dramatists, having a sleepover with Tina Howe, She Like Girls, Amerikin at the Alley Theatre, NYT reviews, 101 Reasons Not to Breed, Bad Art Friend, Haagen-Dazs, The Evansville Regional Airport, Three Women on Showtime, Lisa Taddeo, Playwrights as Screenwriters, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Tony Gerber, Richard Wesley, Stephanie Allain, Di Glazer, having an intentional career.COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT:Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (8s):And Jen BosworthGina Pulice (10s):and I'm Gina .Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (11s):We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.Gina Pulice (15s):20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (21s):We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?Gina Pulice (33s):You don't have cancer.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (35s):No, I do not have cancer right now. Do not have cancer at this moment. Who knows the next week. Yeah, no, it was, it's been quite a thing. Like I, I, you know, right. My cousin Dalia, who is what become one of my best friends in our adult lives, which is amazing. I never had any family that like, I truly liked as people know, that sounds so terrible, but I know exactly like good friends. And she says, you know, the brain is a problem making machine and it is that's, you know, it's also solves them, but it also creates them.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (1m 17s):And look, I'm not saying that that the ch that it wasn't possible that I had cancer, but like all the evidence pointed oh, right. The emotional evidence pointed to I had cancer. Like I made an emotional face based on my past and my parent, my mom's past and my dad's path. And I made a really strong case that I had cancer in my head and look, it's possible. So that's the other thing that is so, so compelling about the human condition. Is that like, and what Dr. Oltman used to say to me, it was like, look, you're not, you're not delusional. You're not psychotic. You're not, so you're not making up things that are like, aliens are going to come down and take you, your fears are based in, in things that have happened to you and other people and people you love.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (2m 6s):So it's not as though this idea, this idea of like, you know, right. It can't happen. You know, like it, I know in my body of, you know, my body of work that I've done in my life, that people die all the time of cancer and get cancer all the time, as we all do, I have a more intimate knowledge is because I lost my mom from it and saw the actual process. But I'm here to say, like, if you're freaking out about things, most of the time they're things that have happened to you or other people. So they're valid freak freakouts. It's just that they don't actually happen to be true all the time.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (2m 47s):So like weird.Gina Pulice (2m 49s):It's almost like you want to say, Thank you brain for protecting me because you know, you you've correctly picked up on the fact that when things are Sort of looking like this, it's, it means something bad, but you can relax now. Right. Because it's not that right.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (3m 7s):And it's actually not while I appreciate you brain, you're not always dealing with, with, with what's the reality, the truth. You don't, you don't. Yeah. You don't get an unfortunately brain. You don't get to, you're not a psychic, like you're just not, you have evidence. And then, so, so I had, you know, for, for our listeners, you know, like I had, I've had pain and history of weirdness on my left ovary. And it's really interesting. The cyst that is most, this is so crazy. This is how, this is what the brain does. So I'm like, okay, left side. I'm sure I have cancer on my leftover.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (3m 48s):Like, that's, what's going on. It turns out the right one, the cyst is bigger. I have one on my right. They didn't see me yesterday or two days. And the, and the, the right one is bigger and actually contains more blood and fluid. I feel nothing on my right side. So that is also to goes to show that even if you do have cancer, it could be in a place that I don't. But like, you don't know where it's coming from. So like, even your feelings are wrong, your pain body is wrong. So like, you really don't know. So it was so funny. She was like, yeah, your left side, even though it's more active, there are a lot of simple cysts. So, you know, for this is like a women's health thing. Like people don't do any Reese. I shouldn't say that there's not a ton of research done because it's a woman's issue.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (4m 32s):So it's not like, unless it's breast cancer, like nobody gives a shit about like women's cancers usually. So, cause that that's what, you know, got all the funding. So, so, so cysts grow all the time, all the time and women, they come and they go, those are simple cysts. If you have endometrial cysts or complexes, that is not, they don't come and go. They just stay. So I have several on my left side that come and go one that stays. And one that stays on the right. They don't know what's actually causing the amount of pain, but they think it's probably the left one leaking. The other thing is like, I would have sworn I had a cyst, the size of a grapefruit. If you would've asked me, I would say, it's probably grapefruit size.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (5m 15s):It's that? It's an inch on one of them. That's nothing. Well, I mean, it's not nothing cause the ovaries two inches, but like w it, you just can't always trust what your, what your feelings are. Like, it's valid, you're in pain. But like, you don't know what it looks like until, you know what it looks like. And I think that that's the whole thing I'm coming around to, which is just go to the freaking doctor, please, if you have the resource, even if you don't like find them create, I don't know, like ask somebody, but like, you know, and I've gone to plenty of free clinics and they're not glamorous and they're not exciting, but they, they, they still have an ultrasound machine, you know?Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (5m 56s):So like, get, get it, get shit checked out. If you can easier said than done. But if it's an emotional fear based response, that's stopping you and not a resource-based response, you got to work through it and go, even if it is resource-based, there are, you know, there are ways around that. But like, especially if it's, you have all the resources, but there is something internally in you that is going, I don't want to know, believe me, I get it. But you want to know, you really want to know it's the only way through anything is getting the data. It's so annoying, but it's true.Gina Pulice (6m 35s):I agree. 100% with what you're saying, and this is why people love to join cults because the fantasy, the thing that's being promised in a cult is there is a finite number of answers. I, the cult leader have, there is a clear path to the number of steps that you have to take to get, you know, it's, it's everything we wish life would be predictable or seemingly predictable controlled, highly structured, you know, without a concern like to be in a cult is to not be in a process of discovering what happens next.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (7m 24s):Exactly, Exactly. And it's so compelling. It is so comforting to think, oh my gosh, this person and this entity knows everything. I never have to worry again. That's really what we're saying is I never have to worry about anything. Again, the problem is it's just make believe. And you actually do have to worry because the person is usually a sociopath or psychopath and it doesn't actually do the trick. They think, you think it's going to do the trick. And it usually does the trick for a while for people like our guests, Noel was talking about like, it serves a purpose until you start questioning and then you're in real trouble because then it's like, how the fuck do I get out?Gina Pulice (8m 10s):Yeah, exactly. Well, I am very happy that you, I mean, I'm sorry that you're been in pain, but I'm happy. It's not for some worse reasons.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (8m 19s):The other thing I have to say that is so interesting that I just wanted to, to, to me anyway, that I wanted to bring up was like, okay, I may not have in the Hollywood right now in the Hollywood industry, a team of people that are like on my side, but I'm S I swear to God, my medical team has, is filling that hole. So I just got an email from my cardiologists. Who said, your, your gynecologist thought you were amazing, loves you. How did it go? Like, that's the kind of messages I get from my, of medical experts. And so I read and I like started crying and I realized like, oh, I'm not getting it from my career team.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (9m 3s):Like, I've talked about getting nasty emails from potential managers and stuff like that, but I am getting it from the medical team. They're like, amazing. They're like, you are the best. We love you. And I like,Gina Pulice (9m 17s):What if they gave awards for being a great patient?Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (9m 19s):I would Get something for Shot.Gina Pulice (9m 21s):You would get like a gynie award. I'mJen Bosworth-Ramirez (9m 23s):Like the best guy, knee, patient,Gina Pulice (9m 26s):And the, and the, and the statue is just like, you know, the uterus.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (9m 31s):Yeah. I mean, anyway, so that was really interesting to me. Cause I was really touched this morning when she wrote me. I'm like, who, what doctor, what? It's, she's a, she thought you were amazing. I was like, Hey, that's cool. Well, at least somewhat, you know what I mean? Like, I'll take this. It's so funny.Gina Pulice (9m 46s):Well, the truth is you are amazing. And the difference is with between people who know you and people who don't know you, I mean, that's just what it is. Like when people get to know you, not 10 out of 10 people who know Foz agree. She's amazing. It's just, you know, you have to convince people to get in the door. That'sJen Bosworth-Ramirez (10m 6s):It?Gina Pulice (10m 7s):Yeah. All right.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (10m 9s):I'm with you, my friend. How do you feel about all the post?Gina Pulice (10m 14s):It's just, it goes on. It's done. It's just a saga. Yes, we should.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (10m 22s):We don't have to be explicit, but like you, you,Gina Pulice (10m 24s):I can be explicit because fuck those people,Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (10m 27s):Will you left an organizationGina Pulice (10m 28s):It's called Theatre Artists workshop. And I left them because aside from a handful of members and everybody that was on the board, it was one of the more toxic environments I've ever been a part of. And I quit. And I'm the only one who quit effective immediately. Everybody else is staying. Two people are staying on and then everybody else is staying through through 2021. But when I tell you the way that people are responding, we couldn't have crafted it better ourselves. If we said, let's, let's create, like, if we were making this movie and this whole conflict happened, we'd say now what's a way that people could respond.Gina Pulice (11m 17s):That would exactly prove the point of what they were saying toxic in the first place. And two, that the fact that most people are doing that and have zero awareness. So essentially what's happening is that people are reacting to our letter. That goes step-by-step and explains the ways in which we've been abused, right? People are responding to this with a combination of don't take things. So personallyJen Bosworth-Ramirez (11m 46s):Sure. Of course, that's the number one abuser thing to do,Gina Pulice (11m 49s):And just completely invalidating ignoring what we've said about the abuse. They, everybody finds something that's in the letter to take issue with and makes their whole thing about that or, and says nothing of, and by the way, I'm sorry, you were abused. Or, and by the way, you know, and people are saying, thanks, but I'm into this thing recently. I hollow gratitude. Miss me with your hollow gratitude. I don't care. I do not care. I could wallpaper my bathroom with your thank you is right. It's not what I need. I need you to change your behavior.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (12m 28s):Absolutely.Gina Pulice (12m 29s):Forgive me if I said this to you already, but I'm likening it to, you know, when COVID happened and everybody puts a sign in their front yard saying, thank you, frontline workers. Yeah. And they're banging pots and pans at 5:00 PM in New York city. Like, and the frontline workers are going, I don't think I don't need your sign, like get vaccinated and wear your mask. Right. And everybody's like, I know, I know the,Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (12m 54s):Without a mask on and like at their concert. Right.Gina Pulice (12m 58s):That's exactly it. That's exactly right. And, and, and I shouldn't be surprised. We all myself included are kind of in a way, programmed to not see our own bad behavior and to not want to take responsibility, but it just goes on anyway. So, but it goes on in a way that I can choose how much I want to engage with.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (13m 18s):And also it's like it to me from the outside. It's so clear that you made the right choice. If this is the response, like they just proved, like you said, they proved the exact point there that's insane. And, and too, and you made the right choice. Like why would you stick around and be beaten down after you've made a stand? And then they continue to try to beat down that doesn't, that's insane if you stayed like that's insane.Gina Pulice (13m 44s):Yeah. Yeah. To give one just chef's kiss example. In our letter, we, we, one of the things that we said was when we tried to introduce our DEI policy, the very first thing we decided to introduce was content warnings. And we did it in the most careful way, like to, to hear about a content warning about something you're going to see presented at the workshop. You have to click down the email. Like you can choose not to see the content warning, right. Because everybody was complaining, it's art and we need to slap people in the face with it, whatever you can choose, whether or not.Gina Pulice (14m 25s):So it's literally like if I, if I'm allergic to peanuts, I'm going to read every nutrition label. Cause I want you to make sure that if I'm not allergic to peanuts, which I'm not, then I don't really need that information. It's no different than that. Right. That alone caused our first member to quit saying if he couldn't use, if he could, he could, if he could. I mean, it wasn't even related really to the content or if he couldn't use the N word, he couldn't theater and in that same evening.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (14m 57s):Bye, bye. See you later. You're not going to make theater. We're all not here. You're not gonna do it here. Thank you.Gina Pulice (15m 4s):Oh yeah. Two of our members who are from marginalized, societal groups got stood up or, you know, spoke that night and said the ways in which they've been marginalized at TAW. And that, I mean, it was crickets, not one single person gave any support. And we had listed that in our, in our letter. So this email we received from one of our members last night opened with I'm a board member of a condo complex. And we recently oversaw a renovation that made our building double in value.Gina Pulice (15m 44s):We, as a board, had to sit and listen to a tenant or what resident, whatever. Talk about the color of the paint in the laundry room for 30 minutes. And he bolds and underlines 30 all caps, 30 minutes. Okay. It goes, it goes along with being on the board and I thought, okay, so you're comparing you pace. Exactly. You're comparing.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (16m 15s):Bye bye, byeGina Pulice (16m 34s):Name and saying it all is because the thing I wanted to run by you this week is about secrets. I am. I'm all the way done with secrets. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not saying like, if you tell me something in confidence, I'm not saying I'm not going to keep that a secret seat. That's not the kind of secret I'm talking about. I'm talking about the kind of secrets where, you know, you know, so I, I have written personal essays that reference my family as personal essays do. And you know, and I'm sure a lot of it has rubbed people the wrong way. I in particular wrote an essay in which I compared somebody in my family to Scott Peterson and, and that person let me know in the creepiest possible way, which is to say this person that, yes, we just happened.Gina Pulice (17m 32s):We are not friends on Facebook. He's not even to my knowledge, this guy has zero social media presence. I receive, I open my phone. There's a notification. So-and-so liked your post. My heart skipped a beat. I mean, it was like my blood turned cold. I went, you had to scroll pretty far down on my timeline to find that post. And it's the only one he liked. Are you kidding me? Your face is exactly your face of surprise. That exactly. Thank you.Gina Pulice (18m 13s):Oh, I really appreciate you validating that. Okay.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (18m 15s):That's so it's because two things you're super intelligent and also we like crime weirdness, but also it's fucking creepy.Gina Pulice (18m 26s):It's fucking creepy. That's weird by the way, about any post, if anybody who I'm not friends with on Facebook likes a post that's way down the feed.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (18m 38s):Well, if that's something you're not friends with on,Gina Pulice (18m 42s):Yeah. The whole thing is creepy. The whole thing is 1000% creepy. So part of the thing that I struggle with in writing personal things is airing the dirty laundry, you know, telling the secrets. And I really do try to tell only the secrets that are mine. I really try not to tell anybody else's secrets, but in general, it's so exhausting to be in this perpetual state of protecting a bunch of people who would never protect.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (19m 16s):There's the key. I mean, like, I think that's the kicker, right? It's like, and I think it speaks to a bigger issue. Like we're all protecting this in these institutional institutions and, and companies and things that are destroying us and we've been projecting them for years. And I think it speaks to why we started the podcast unknowingly is that to protect, we wanted to stop in our way and stop protecting institutions that harmed us whether some are assholes right out some aren't some are, but like institutions harm people. Like I just think that that's the way, right? That's just how it is. It's capitalism, it's democracy, whatever it is, they harm people.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (19m 58s):So I think we're trying to shed some light on that and say, no, we're going to heal from that. And I don't think you can heal from it unless you really process it. And some of that is bringing the secrets into the light and no, and people don't like that.Gina Pulice (20m 12s):People don't like it. And you and I have had many conversations following interviews where we said, do we bleep this person's name? Do we cut this thing out? And with the exception of one person who we interviewed, who then said that they didn't want us to air the interview. Nobody has said, I regret saying that. Can you, and, and when they're here talking, I mean, we've encountered people feel such a freedom and a relief and they have no problem naming names. Right. And so it's been our thing of like, do we protect this person's identity? But the other thing is, here's the, here's the part in the whole dynamic that I'm trying to own for what I do in this, in this situation about the secrets and everything.Gina Pulice (21m 1s):I wrote something personal, I published it on our website. I promoted it on social media. Theoretically. I want everybody in the world to read it, except this one guy. Right? Like that's, that's my logic. There is, it's really flawed, right? Like if you're going to be brave, then you have to be brave. Right. You can't be brave only when it's convenient.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (21m 31s):Right. I totally agree. I mean, I think that, and I think it's really great to have the conversations about like, okay, like who are we bleeping and why? And someone on, you know, on this podcast who we, I don't think we've bleeped, but she gets a lot of bad press as Susan Leigh.Gina Pulice (21m 50s):She really does get a lot of bad press.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (21m 52s):I mean, and, and, and, you know, I'm like, man, should we have been bleeping or out, but,Gina Pulice (21m 59s):But she did it. I mean, it's her, she is the person who should be carrying around the shame for her behavior. Not the people who she harmed the, you know, it's not there. And that's the other thing that we have usually all the way backwards is that we make the people who experienced the pain, shut up about it. Yeah. It to, to protect us. And who did the pain. Yeah. Right.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (22m 25s):Yeah. Just, yeah, it's, it's all backwards. And again, it's like, you know, she works for, she worked for an institution and they, they, you know, they should, she grew upGina Pulice (22m 34s):And a time and she's, and she's probably the victim of a lot of sexism. Like it's only, it's all of a piece, but the fact remains that at, at that time, maybe she's a completely different person now, but the fact remains that at that time, she did and said a lot of really racist thingsJen Bosworth-Ramirez (22m 51s):And hurtful and other ways, like, just, I mean, I think racism is hurtful, but like other types of hurtful besides racism, just like weird shit, you know, that hurt people. And I, I mean, it's just their truth. And I think it's actually up to, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a co it's a, it's kind of a complicated issue and yet it's not complicated. It's like, you're right. We're just protecting the people that hurt us all the time. That's like when I got, when I got that very nasty email from, from that manager, my first response was in, this is interesting. My first response was to drag him through Twitter.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (23m 31s):Like I was going to put his name and say, I got this. It was so hurtful. And I feel like as a woman, as a Latina, that to get this email about fucking formatting, when I'm trying to break into the business is the condescending. I wanted to drag him. And then I thought, okay, there's a difference between speaking your truth and dragging someone. I don't know the difference exactly. Like, I don't know where the nuances lie that make them different, but dragging someone in Twitter versus, and I don't blame people for dragging people on Twitter, either like that. I'm not saying like dragging people is wrong.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (24m 12s):I think some people need to be dragged. I mean, we've talked about Louis C K's of the world and the Weinsteins do, who deserves to be dragged, who does it. And that's really what I wrote my pilot about, but like, I just didn't feel, I think every person has to decide if they're going to keep secrets, why, or if they're going to drag someone why, or like put it in on social media, straight up, this person did this. You have to be, I have to be prepared to deal with the full consequences if I do that. And I'm just not willing to deal with the full consequences of dragging this guy on Twitter. I'm just not, I'm just not, I don't feel certain.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (24m 51s):Now there are people where if something happened, I would work it out and I might feel certain to drag their ass. But it was interesting. I think everyone has to decide for themselves where the line is of when I'm going to expose someone to the fullest, et cetera, or an institution to the fullest extent and leave the individual out of it. I don't know.Gina Pulice (25m 12s):Right. Well, and you, and you don't want to do anything. That's gonna harm you. I mean, if you, if you were in a certain place in your life and you did like people dragging that guy would never have hurt you, then you could've, you could've made that decision. Yeah. And I'll also just say for anybody listening, who knows me in real life and, and who've, I've hurt and misbehaved, I invite you not to keep that secret. You know, I, I invite you to drag me if it's something that, I mean, for the thing, for my, for the sins of my past, if anybody is, you know, holding on to that and never has told me, or whatever, like I'd rather hear about it, I'd rather know, and try to make amends and to party so that I I'll feel that I have the right to participate in this, keeping those secrets, telling the truth culture that I really try to, you know, I really try to stay within.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (26m 16s):Right, right. So, wow. I forgot. I was going to say something else about That's a lot like that. I just feel like, yeah, this whole, this whole notion of keeping, keeping it, you know, and they say in program, like you're only as sick as your secrets. And I think it's really true. And I think there's a way of, of working through the secret that won't bring further harm to yourself versus versus versus doing something that exposes you further. You know what I mean? And brings, and bring, could bring more abuse or you have to look at, I mean, you know, like it's like, except when to do so would injure yourself for others.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (27m 3s):But, but, but, but, but dragging is about sort of injuring others in a way. I don't know. It's like really interesting. I don't know,Gina Pulice (27m 11s):You know, that saying, or I think, I don't know if you call it, call it a saying, is it kind, is it truthful? Is it necessary? Well, I know you're supposed to aim for all three. Yeah. To my way of thinking, you really just need two out of a three. It can be truthful and necessary, like talking about Harvey Weinstein. It's not kind, but that's okay. It didn't need to be constant. So yeah. So that's, that's, that's that tends to be my barometer is if it can't be kind, at least it has to be truthful in this. Yes.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (27m 43s):Agreed. Agreed. And I think that's, I think for me the necessary part, it's like, okay, well, can I, can I proceed to function as a, you know, trying healthy human being without doing this? Or do I need to do something about this to proceed and live my life and feel like I'm living in integrity and that I'm, I'm doing the right thing by, by me. And sometimes you just, and, and also also, right. Sometimes people, people get, they get hurt. Yeah. But they also didn't think about that when they were abusing others. SoGina Pulice (28m 21s):Yes. Oh yeah. That's the other thing that came out with this board thing, you know, when we were writing the letter, somebody said, okay, so this is, we acknowledge, this is scorched earth. You know, this is a scorched earth thing, which I'm very, that is how I think about things a lot. I, I tend to think about scorched earth, but I, it occurred to me when she said this, how come nobody's ever worried about skirts, scorching the earth with me, right? How come no one's ever worried about burning a bridge with me? You know, like, yeah. Maybe it is scorched earth. But if you, if your takeaway from what I've said to you is that I'm the asshole.Gina Pulice (29m 4s):That's fine. I don't care. That's completely fine. Go. I wish you well on your journey, right? It wasn't for you. I guess for this letter, it was for me to say to you, I mean, if you didn't want to receive it, that's your business. Right?Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (29m 22s):Well, Today on the podcast we're talking with CISA Hutchinson. She says a graduate from Vassar and NYU, and she's a teacher, she's a playwright. She writes for television and we found our conversation with her extremely focusing and motivating. So please enjoy our conversation with CISA Hutchinson. Hi, good morning. Good. Where are you? Which coast are you on? Are you on the east coast?Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (30m 2s):Okay.Gina Pulice (30m 3s):I guess what, I just had to pause, watching to come talk to you, your movie, your amazing movie. Yes. Oh my God. I'm in the scene with the mother right now and it's so good. It's so good.Chisa Hutchinson (30m 23s):Yeah. That's that? Yeah. You know, it's so funny because when I wrote, I wrote it as a play initially, and I was, when I was writing that part, I was like, this is why people don't like theater, just two people talking like whatever, we're going to be full board. But like, I don't know. Everybody seems to like really be engaged by that part. So,Gina Pulice (30m 51s):Oh no. Yeah. There's nothing boring about this movie. It's called the subject. Everybody go check it out. But before I forget, she's the Hutchinson. Congratulations. You survived hotter school. You survived theater school to fancy theater school.Chisa Hutchinson (31m 7s):Well, yeah, sort of. Okay. So I went to Vassar college for undergrad. Yeah. Which was interesting because I knew it was a good theater program, but I didn't know that it was mostly geared toward writers and directors. Because when I, when I sent him down, there was like literally one dramatic writing class taught by a screenwriter who was like, oh yeah, I guess you can write plays if you want. Really like, learned much about the craft of playwriting while I was there.Chisa Hutchinson (31m 46s):But, but I had a good time and I did a lot of independent studies in the English department and the Africana studies department, just to like, you know, learn about plays theater, you know, scripts plays that weren't, you know, Shakespeare or insulin or checkoff or whatever. Right. So that was undergrad. And then I worked for a few years as a high school English teacher.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (32m 21s):My mom was a high school English teacher and it was, it was intense. Where did you teach?Chisa Hutchinson (32m 28s):I taught at Westtown school, which is a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania, like 45 minutes Southwest of Philadelphia. And then I taught at Sage hill school in Southern California, orange county, California, which was like a whole other planet. Okay. Like I felt like a whole ass in orange county, California and teaching there. Yeah.Gina Pulice (32m 60s):I feel like the, the cultural translation from the east coast to orange county might be one of the biggest riffs chasms that there is there. It's quiet.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (33m 13s):I was just going to say, you're the first guests that we've had on. And we've had many that I've been like really sort of, no, not that I'm not excited to talk to everybody else, but your, your, I was telling Gina before this, that your bio is the greatest written bio I've ever read in my life. So I told her I'm the queen of queries. Like I write a bad-ass query letter, like, but you are the baddest ass of bios. Like, I, I love that stuff because for me they're usually so down boring, but you're, and same with queries.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (33m 54s):Like, I, I love to write a good query cause it's kind of a challenge how that bio is. You write it like in a second. I mean, I know it's a little thing, but it's a really important thing to me becauseChisa Hutchinson (34m 7s):So long ago I don't even remember, but I just wanted to, I was like, oh, well, you know, there's going to be plenty of chance to send the short, dry, you know, you know, like formal bio. So I was like, I want my website to be, you know, I went to bio on my website to be, you know, to give a sense of like who I am as a person.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (34m 30s):I feel like I, I was like, I with, and it's an, it's the words are economic. It's not like, it's like this long thing, but it's really short. And it's also so compelling. Anyway, I just, I just that's like my just, just, yeah, I have from zoneGina Pulice (34m 50s):It's on her website, everybody, chisahutchinson.com. You can check it out for yourself. It's veryJen Bosworth-Ramirez (34m 54s):Funny. Very good.Gina Pulice (34m 56s):Okay. So by the time you got to T I mean, so what I understand your grad school choice was rather intentional to be about play writing and you picked maybe probably the, one of the best schools did that. Oh. Or maybe you disagree,Chisa Hutchinson (35m 16s):Funny story about the no, no, I loved it. I knew I absolutely loved NYU. I'd probably learn more in one semester there than I did four years. That I'm sorry. I feel like I'm talking smack about vets. I'm really not trying to like smack talk Vassar. It's just, it's really, I think they're doing better now. They've hired a playwright that I really loved to teach playwriting there. So that's, I think progressJen Bosworth-Ramirez (35m 47s):We've had the thing where it's like, I I'm coming to the, the sort of realization that a lot of undergrads are kind of like, well, we'll give it a shot. We don't have a awesome, we're going to really do something good luck. And then you'll go to grad school and really learn. I mean, that's how I kind of feel. So I know you're not talkingChisa Hutchinson (36m 8s):Because I really had a wonderful time at the ribs of great, the great place. And I learned through experience, just not so much through the cracks. And then NYU, it was literally the only grad school I applied to. And that was because I had, I had a workshop production. It was my very first workshop production of a play ever at a professional theater company or not really the Lark play development center, which has since Closed.Chisa Hutchinson (36m 49s):And it makes me so sad because that police was like American idol for playwrights. And like, it was the place people knew to like go to the Lark, the Lark and new dramas are like the two places that everybody knows like, okay, you want to find the next half play. Right. And go to this place. Right. So I had my very first production of a, of a full length play at the Lark and they hooked me up. Oh, hardcore. I w at me, it was so many different people who I still work with to this day. Like, I, I love the LARC. Like everyone I met at the Lark, I have kept and I keep working with them. But the game changer was they set me up with Tina Howe as a mentor.Gina Pulice (37m 33s):Yeah, I did. I did one of her plays and theater school.Chisa Hutchinson (37m 38s):That woman is a genius as a wacky genius. Okay. First of all, she's like, I think back then she had to be in her late sixties, early seventies. I don't even know. Nobody knows how old you, how so? No. She is like this waspy, like proper wasp of a woman of a certain age, you know, who apparently responded like exuberantly to my, to my plate. She liked girls, which, which is about like, again, you know, teenage inner city lesbians, you know, like, so it was really weird to have her be like this, but what she responded to was like, I have like surreal elements in that play.Chisa Hutchinson (38m 25s):And she was, she knows what she's all about. That surreal stuff. So they sent me up with her. They were like, you should have dinner with her after, you know, your, your presentation. And I was like, yeah, yeah, cool. So I had dinner with Tina, how well we just like talked and talked and talked to this little gas so late that I was like, oh shit. Like, I'm about to miss my last train back to New Jersey. And she was like, oh, oh no, you will do no such thing. You will not, you are not taking the train back this late. You are coming home with me. And I was like, oh, okay. So you know how so I had a Latina, how, when we woke up and she made me breakfast and she's just talking, she's had you, do you have an MFA?Chisa Hutchinson (39m 11s):You need any of that say, and I was like, no. She was like, well, you have to not have to apply to grad programs. If you're going to apply, you should apply to some people at NYU. My best friend works at NYU and used to reply. And I'm going to write you a letter of recommendation and you're going to go to LA. So literally I put together like a found out that the down deadline for the application was literally the next day. So I application together in a day and like hand delivered it to the department of dramatic writing and I, and cross my fingers and was just like, all right, well, I'll tell me to apply.Chisa Hutchinson (39m 55s):So I applied and I got in, I got in with a full, a full ride and yeah, I had just an amazing, I love my professors there. They were so dope. And what they do is they make you write. So I concentrated in playwriting, which was a really smart move apparently, because playwrights are like the hot shit in Hollywood right now. But yeah, I concentrated and play writing, but they make you write in other mediums also, as you know, it's mandatory. You have to also take TV writing. You have to also take screenwriting. Yeah. And that is, turns out is a very smart way to structure your Germany.Chisa Hutchinson (40m 39s):We're all working everywhere now. You know, like if there's no, there's so much, you know, cross fertilization happening.Gina Pulice (40m 50s):Yeah. That's fantastic. So we only know about the playwriting program at, I think one other school. So at Tisch, did you, did you write stuff? They then got produced there by the students? I mean, like acting playsChisa Hutchinson (41m 6s):Is the only thing that they don't, because they're not what they try to do. They do have like one collaboration class where they bring in, they try to bring in as many professionals as possible because they want like the one sort of student variable, like the one factor, you know, to be student and everything else to be professionals. So they would bring in professional directors and professional actors for it. Wasn't yeah, it was, it was a little bizarre because it felt like you were just siloed from these people that you should be probably, you know, it'd be making connections with.Chisa Hutchinson (41m 49s):So it was a little ad in that respect, but I see, I get the philosophy behind it. Like I get that. They're like, we want to minimize the minimize or maximize the professionalism.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (42m 4s):Right. I mean, it's, it's, it's just sounds like a really like super bad-ass program that I have a friend, a playwright friend named Michael Allen Harris. I don't know. He just graduated from loved it, loved it, loved it. And now, and I have this thing of going to a lot of grad schools now I'm like, I have a master's in counseling psych. I started a screenwriting program then dropped out because they were assholes. And then I'm like, now I'm like NYU grad school. I, you know, but anyway, I, I love this idea that you okay. Cause I'm, I'm in LA right now. And there's a lot of people that are like, and playwrights are hot shit in Hollywood.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (42m 47s):Right. But I love the idea that you didn't go into playwriting to try to be a hot shit in Hollywood, unless you did. And I'm just making thatChisa Hutchinson (42m 57s):Like live theater, it just fits a medium that just affords you so much nuance. And like, there's just so many idiosyncrasies, you know, like you can do things. And I literally teach a class at the university of Delaware. I call it writing in 3d. It's just a playwriting class. But what I do is I make them do small, you know, short writing assignments. And each assignment is focused on some aspect. Some, some topics, some themes, some something, right. Some element that just takes on a whole other texture when it's live.Chisa Hutchinson (43m 40s):So like the first assignment that they get is like nudity. Right. Which c'mon, you know, like it's D you know, we see cities all day long on the screen, like, and it's no, no big. Right. But like in a live theater, that's a whole other thing. Right? Like nudity, you suddenly, you're like forced to really think about the significance of the nudity when it's like right there in your face. Right. So nudity, silence, silence in a theater is different from silence anywhere else, you know, like you can't really do silence and I'm novel, you know, it's like, well, it's a blank page. Right.Chisa Hutchinson (44m 19s):So with audience participation, like you literally can't do that anywhere else. You know? So yeah. Each assignment, I really try to get my students thinking the possibilities that, you know, they can take advantage of those in, in theater that they can't really get anywhere else.Gina Pulice (44m 41s):You're just making me think of something that makes me so sad, which is that a lot of us do approach just anything performance-related through theater, because it is so singularly special. And then as you have this line in your bio, you write these plays that have more than five characters and deal with themes of race. So they're probably never going to get produced. And actually the way, the way I met you was at the national new play network in Sacramento. I mean, I met you like passing hello, where they did a staged reading of your play America, which looks amazing. Has that ever been produced?Chisa Hutchinson (45m 19s):That is literally, it has been postponed twice pandemic postpartum, but it's where I'm going to start rehearsing for that in January, at alley theater in Houston.Gina Pulice (45m 30s):Fantastic. I'm really happy to hear that. So, you know, so theater gives us all of these things that we can't find elsewhere, and then there's zero money spent on it so that people like you only end up getting to do, you know, bring their brilliance, not only, but you get paid by bringing your brilliance to film and television, it's just kind of sad. You know, that there's, it's not a viable option to really make your living as a playwright.Chisa Hutchinson (46m 0s):It is. It is. I I'm not, if I knew how to fix it. Right. I, I would, but you know, I think we just need to just do the best we can. And every day I wake up feeling great. I mean, even on a, even on a shitty day, and I've had some pretty shitty days, especially like this past week or so, where, I mean just where you just feel gutted and, you know, come out and, or whatever. And you're like, just want to crawl into a cave. But then I'm like, literally like sitting in a house that you bought with, wow, you're doing, you're doing will pay.Chisa Hutchinson (46m 49s):And the fact that I get to do what I like in whatever capacity really, right. Like, okay, theater doesn't pay me enough to live on, but please screen, you know, screen writing or I get to teach. Like I get to talk to sit around every week, just telling young people, like I hear is why words are cool. And then they get all excited. And then they like present their work in class and then they get all, like, they get attached to each other's characters and things know like when they're reading over beating and workshop and it just, it just like tickles my soul.Chisa Hutchinson (47m 35s):So like, why, you know, why, why would I be sad about really anything?Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (47m 43s):Can I ask you a question about the gutted nearness of, so did you say I, you sort of brushed over it, but like the governess of, did you say reviews like of your films? Okay. Okay. So here's my question. Here's my question. Because you're someone that's working in an industry that I am like, oh my God. You know, because I'm me, I'm like, they've got it made, you know, whatever it's garbage. I know. But when a review, cause we talk a lot about, on this podcast about resilience or, and I'm obsessed with the idea of resilience or bouncing back, whatever you want to call it. What happens inside you that you're able to say, bitch, keep going. Like, what is that moment for you?Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (48m 24s):Because I'm, I had a week where a asshole said some asshole you things as they do. And then I had to like regroup and keep on with my, my situation. So what did for you, how do you do that as someone, you know, how do you do it?Chisa Hutchinson (48m 40s):Okay. So this is a thing that comes with time. This writing shit, like it's a war of attrition is, is really, really only the people who stick around are the ones who get to succeed on any level really. Right. So if you stick around long enough, right. If you just don't let, when someone kicks you in the face, right. You just kind of have to be like, get up and keep walking. What, what, what did it for me? I think it was like the third or fourth, like mixed review that I got in the times for a play prediction.Chisa Hutchinson (49m 28s):And, and then I thought, bitch, this is, this is your fourth review. And the TA, one of them was like really good, you know, like of all the reviews that I've gotten and I'm picking on the times, because of course that's the one that everybody sees. Right. But like whenever, you know, the reviews come out and some of them are like really fuses and wonderful and that's like fuel and it's, it's awesome. They're usually on the, like really rinky-dink like platforms with like 300 followers. Right. But, but you're like, oh, somebody gets it.Chisa Hutchinson (50m 8s):You know, like somebody, somebody out there, guess what I'm trying to do too bad. Those somebodies they're not the ones with the giant platforms, but it's okay. And so you read those and you absorb them, but then like if you just sort of take a step back and like, I, you know, like I didn't realize, you know, these reviews aren't actually keeping me from getting work. I mean, it would certainly help to have a great review right. In some, you know, in the, whatever the Washington post, whatever, right. Like whatever, big, whatever big platform, it would certainly help to have a great review, but I'm still working.Chisa Hutchinson (50m 49s):Like I still get work, even if, you know, I haven't been anointed by the New York times. Right. Like, so it really is just a matter of like hanging in there. Like, I, I hate to sayJen Bosworth-Ramirez (51m 2s):I love that because, because that is something that I, and we have control over is hanging in there versus having control over whether, whoever at whatever paper or whatever, whatever loves me. I have no control over that, but I can control whether I hang in there or whether it's worth it to hang in there or not. So that's actually something you can actually do. So I like that. It's like, I can do thatChisa Hutchinson (51m 26s):And I'll work on the next thing. Just be working on the next, keep writing happens that when I find that I like get over bad routes, the fastest when I'm already in the middle of the next project. Sure. So like right now I'm working at, so you mentioned the subject just got released this past week, last, last week. Oh my God. How's that week. We just had our premiere party a week ago already, but yeah. And the reviews have been mixed, you know, some people like really get it. And some people I'm like, you are completely missing the point. Like you're completely missing the point and it's very frustrating, but I don't even really have time to be too concerned about it because I'm like, I'm literally in a writer's room for a Hulu show right now.Chisa Hutchinson (52m 16s):So I'm really, I'm, I'm my revision actually is due today after like, I'm going to have to like, you know, I was right in that. I have like 10 more pages that I need to trim, but yeah, I, I can't, I don't, I don't have time to while I can just, you just gotta be like all up in the next thing, all that.Gina Pulice (52m 35s):And it does make sense that review, I mean, reviews are, people have feel all kinds of artists have feelings about reviews, but it really makes sense that a writer would have a hard time, you know, just for example, ignoring reviews because your life is about words and that's what that's, what's happening in a review is the people are assembling words to, to decide, you know, pass judgment on whether or not you have something interesting to say,Chisa Hutchinson (53m 3s):When you write about something personal or when you write about something about which you're passionate, that it feels, so it feels like they just took a knife to your heart, you know? Like it feels so like, yeah, let me just swallow my pride with a chaser of napalm, you know, just like BR like, it just burns you on the inside and you, you just, it feels like you're never going to get over it, but you will. You do, you do the next thing and yeah,Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (53m 35s):Really. I mean, ultimately it's like, you know, fuck you and goodbye and good luck and onward, but I love the idea of moving. I always be, cause people used to tell me like, just keep writing and I'd be like, go fuck yourself because I don't want to keep writing. I want someone to like my last project not, but it's true. Like if I can shut up and, and, and stop feeling, sorry for myself, I, I look, it feels good to feel sorry for myself for a little bit. But I feel like if I can actually do something rather than ruminate and create more work, then the steam comes out of it. Just because simply there's not enough space in my brain to keep thinking about what Joe Schmo said in his last email.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (54m 21s):So it is that it's just like focus on the writing, you know, sounds so easy to do, but it's actually, for me, a self preservation thing to keep writing, instead of ruminating on all the things that went wrong with the last, the last project or whatever, you know?Chisa Hutchinson (54m 38s):Yeah. And I'm very lucky also to be doing this in a time where there's Instagram and TikTok because I have like, literally I have like a little collection of videos specifically that I just, that no matter what the hell is going on, like they always make me,Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (54m 59s):I love that made me laugh minus the stone guy shoveling. Have you seen, okay, so this is an old one, but it, if anyone out there has, there's a guy who's trying to shovel snow and he cannot get it together. And he keeps falling and it's sort of a metaphor for my life and he just keeps it at the end. He just goes, fuck it. And show that shovel. And there's someone filming his neighbors filming, cracking up, but quietly not trying to make fun, but like in a way that like, man, we have all been there. The dude cannot shovel to save his life. And I was like that. I relate to that shit because it's just like, you're just shoveling and falling in your own shit and falling and someone's bike going way to go.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (55m 44s):I feel you. So with the Tik-toks, I, I, that's a really good thing to do. You keep them for when you feel bad, you watch them or just whenever.Chisa Hutchinson (55m 52s):And then when I'm just like to set for words, you know, I just need to watch a video of big fluffy dogs ripping down the stairs. No, with the voiceover that's like curse. It just, oh my God. It gets everyJen Bosworth-Ramirez (56m 7s):Time,Chisa Hutchinson (56m 9s):Every timeJen Bosworth-Ramirez (56m 11s):I love it, I want to see it. I'm gonna look it up. It's a dog cursing like a voiceover.Chisa Hutchinson (56m 16s):I really wish. Yeah. And he's like this, there are three, three big fluffy fucking dog. You just want to like squeeze them. They're so fucking big and fluffy, you know? And they're like, there are these concrete cores outdoors right there, like three or four stairs. And they're running along the top, the top stair, I'm about to make their way down. But because the coloring and the, you know, how shallow, because of the way the stairs are built on the color, you don't, if you have no depth perception, right. Which those dogs clear would be not.Chisa Hutchinson (56m 57s):It's hard to know that it's not just like grown, we'll go running along the stairs. And one of them that one in the front is like, oh, I can't wait to the, and then I can't wait to get to the, and then he goes Like tumbles down the,Gina Pulice (57m 18s):Okay, we're going to have to try to link to that in our show notes. So people can check it out.Chisa Hutchinson (57m 23s):I will, we send that to you because it cracks me up.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (57m 29s):I'm obsessed. And you're making me see why fails are so important. Like, I love fail videos. I watch news bloopers all day long because what it is is people trying their best to be sincere and be like, I take themselves so serious. I'm going to do my job. And then all of a sudden, the chair falls out and they're like still trying to do their goddamn job. And they're like, and anyway, I'm the news. And you're like, I love it because I feel like that 90% of my fucking life, I feel like I'm like, I could still do this while my legs are being taken out from under me. So anyway, Tik Toks and fails. Yes. They're worth something. They're really good.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (58m 10s):I'm sorry.Gina Pulice (58m 12s):No, no, no. That's okay. No, but that's how it was. No, but it's, I mean, it's germane it's on the topic of survival is we all have ways of surviving the everyday banalities and everyday horrors of life. So you, right before we talked, started talking to you for the podcast, we always do another section of just us talking before. And we were talking about secrets and we were talking about, you know, especially as it pertains to your profession and personal writing, the dangerous territory that you start navigating when it gets into the territory of like family secrets. And I don't mean, you know, so-and-so whatever cheated on his wife.Gina Pulice (58m 57s):I just mean maybe more like a thematic secret where we're protecting this abusive behavior. We're protecting this abusive personality. And I recently in my life made a decision to stop doing that in, in, in multiple arenas, but specifically in one and my awakening about it is all about, I'm not holding anybody else's secrets anymore. It's not me. If you don't want me, if you don't like that about me, then you probably need to reevaluate your relationship with me. I'm done holding on to other people's secrets and actually your movie touches on that a lot.Gina Pulice (59m 42s):And I'm just curious about your own relationship professionally speaking to secrets and how you navigate that test, the difference between say or the potential chasm between saying something that's really true for you and saying something that could somehow hurt you in the future.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 0m 7s):Wow. That's that sounds serious. That's a serious question. I'm kind of with you as far as like, like my husband, for example, he knows he has known from year one when we first started dating that. Like, if it's happening to you while I know you, like, if it's happening between us, like that should it's part like, like that's like, that's, that's fatter. Like I'm gonna, I will use that. Like as an I don't care if it really sort of is a little unschooled, do you?Chisa Hutchinson (1h 0m 47s):Oh, okay. So for example, I wrote, I wrote a book called 101 reasons to not breed. Yes. Lemon. One of the reasons is like kids, if you miss me, like, they're just messy. It's shit. Right. So what I did was I don't have kids. I don't want kids. I'm very clear on this. Right. But I do have a husband who just doesn't even see mess anymore. Doesn't realize when he's like leaving stuff for, so I literally just spent a good few months just taking pictures and text messages that he left around her.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 1m 33s):I mean, ridiculous fucking message. Like socks on the kitchen, counter, dirty socks on the kitchen. I'm like, fuck. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will take a picture of the toilet that you did not cross blew it up. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, I will put, I will literally put your shit on. I will put your shit out there for the world. See if you don't start cleaning up after yourself. Right. Like, so that's okay. Like that's a kind of a funny, you know, version of, of, of that. Right. But there are some other things, there are other things, I mean, in the same book, I actually talk about my mother and my biological mother who gave me away when I was three.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 2m 19s):But like before that, I mean, some of my earliest memories are of her like beating the shit out of me, you know, her and my stepdad beating the crap out of me at three, you know? So yeah. I don't, I don't, I have never had qualms about putting I'm like, you didn't have qualms about putting your fist to my, my little face. Right. So I'm not going to have qualms about like, putting that out there and trying to turn it into a positive, in case there's someone else out there who is feeling some type of way about the fact that their mother abandoned them or whatever, you know, like, I just want to let you know, like, I'm connecting with you, right. You are not alone.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 2m 59s):Right. And you know, you find your family where you can and that's sort of the message of the book is that you don't actually have to like grow grass root, right. Or, or even honor the fact that someone grew you right. In order to, to have family into it and to feel that that familial love. So that's what the book is, is supposed to doGina Pulice (1h 3m 28s):Truett fruit. Oh crap. Okay.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 3m 32s):I love it. So yeah, I, I will, I don't, there's really no such thing as a secret withGina Pulice (1h 3m 40s):You don't have a, a quandary about it. You just go straight .Chisa Hutchinson (1h 3m 47s):I do. I will let people know though, because I don't want to, you don't want to be bad art friend. Right? LikeGina Pulice (1h 3m 56s):Our friends on this podcast,Chisa Hutchinson (1h 3m 58s):I will let you know. I'm like, Hey look, because I left my husband and I'm like, look, I'm putting, do you see these pictures? You know, you see all these shit, you left around the house. Yeah. I took pictures of all of it and it's going in the book. Right. Like he knows, you know, his step, I just, or I'll ask if there's something like, I'm like, ah, hi, how do you feel about me too? Because here's why I'm thinking it will serve the story really well. Or here's why I think it'll help other people connect with it. Or, you know what I mean? Like, I I'm, I'm very clear on like, why I need a particular thing why I need to expose dirty laundry. Right, right, right.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 4m 39s):So, and as long as I can voice that, like most folks are okay with it. Well, what really cracks me up is when the people don't even recognize themselves in yourGina Pulice (1h 4m 49s):Oh, right. They'll or they'll, they'll tell, they'll tell you the character that they know you meant to be them. And it's not, it's like an admirable character and that's not who you areChisa Hutchinson (1h 4m 60s):Now that ain't too.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (1h 5m 2s):I have a question as it relates to like, and I told you to, before this, I was going to ask you this. So I sent him a letter to someone, a query, and I said like, I'm a Latina, I'm a middle aged woman. I'm getting into television bubble. Anyway, I got a horrific, crazy response. And my initial response was to drag the motherfucker on Twitter, but I didn't do it. What, what do you think about, I don't even know if drags the right word out, whatever it is. It was a terrible situation that I felt. And my first response was, I'm going to get this motherfucker. I did not do it. I did not do it. But what do you feel about people that are go, go on social media or groups or whatever.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (1h 5m 44s):I just, what are your thoughts on saying on, on, on doing that? Cause people are doing it a lot, you know? And, and I don't, I don't necessarily Gina and I talked about like, I'm not sure it's a terrible thing. I just, it wasn't right for me to do in that moment also, becauseChisa Hutchinson (1h 6m 1s):It's not a terrible thing, but it's not a great, I mean, it's not very everyone. Like, I, I don't really do it so much because I feel like it's giving them too much power or it's, it's that thing of like, okay, yeah. Dwell, dwell on it for five minutes and then move on like that, because that's, that's really how you can get back at those motherfuckers, right. Is to just like go on with your life and be happy and, you know, find joy elsewhere. Right? Like that's and, you know, to, to dignify their, their fuckery was, you know, you are strongly worded Facebook posts.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 6m 47s):Right. Is what is it doing? You know? I mean, would you feel better? It might make you feel better just to kind of like, get it out there. It also might help you connect with, you know, other people who have experienced a similar thing. Right. And, you know, maybe they were feeling isolated or alone and they're in their failure or in their, whatever it is. Right. So, I mean, I'm not gonna say it doesn't have its uses. Right. But as far as like, is it getting back at that personJen Bosworth-Ramirez (1h 7m 18s):And also, right.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 7m 22s):I really I'm just, so this is a lesson that I'm really just now getting around to like learning in a, in a sort of visceral way. Is that like nobody cares? No, I literally just today was, well that's right. Post, because I saw on IMD be the subject. There are a couple of, and it's really just a couple, like, there are a couple of really awful, I mean, Pete, just users who were just like, you know, clearly expecting it to be a comedy because Jason business owner or something, Make movies fun again, you know? And I was just like, oh dude.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 8m 3s):And they're the ones who, who will take the time to like post over review or post it's their, I can't even call them props because they would have to be thinking I would have to have brain. Right. But I did, like, I went on Facebook, like the closest I'll come is like, I went on Facebook and was like, Hey, y'all alert if you enjoy the movie, like, please rate it. Please post a review because these guys like their opinions, shouldn't be the stand in for everybody. Else's right. And that's, that's really about as close as I'll come. But even that I'm like, I was torn about doing that because I'm like, doesn't even, does it even matter?Chisa Hutchinson (1h 8m 47s):Like,Gina Pulice (1h 8m 48s):And it gets back to this whole thing about reviews because I saw your post and it's specifically men over 45 or something like that. And I thought, yeah, but who else is writing these things, but men over 45, like I'm guilty of loving something and then not writing it down anywhere that I love it because it's, so it's such an, it has become such an important part of art making, like how are people receiving it? And is it getting enough views? And is it getting enough, you know, clicks. And to me it's always just like the person who ha, who wants to take their time when it's not positive to tell you that you put your heart and soul into something and they didn't care for it.Gina Pulice (1h 9m 31s):And I don't understand the impulse, actually.Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (1h 9m 34s):This is the biggest demographic of voters, by the way. I think too, like I I'm just saying like, these are people that like really when they feel something, they feel really entitled to just like trash it. Or I think the, the, maybe the rest of us are so busy surviving. We don't write nice reviews. I don't know. But I started to write good reviews because I realized that for people, for people in that are trying to make projects, whether it's in the arts or not that it actually matters that the rest of us speak up because those voices, like you're saying don't need to be the loudest. Cause they're not, they're not the only voices out there. There's this is people that take the time to click away. Same with the guy who ran the time to use his time to write me a nasty,Chisa Hutchinson (1h 10m 17s):You know, like they're, they, they have a sense of self-importance that I think the rest of us not. And I'm just like, ah,Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (1h 10m 27s):Right, right. So I think the way to counter it is for the rest of us to start for me anyway. Cause I'm, I'm guilty too, of like not when something is great, not saying like, Hey, I love this product. Even if it's a candle, like we have a friend that makes candles, you know, and Gina, you posted about it. That matters. That's that? It's like, I got to take time out of my day, even though I'm busy hustling and all this stuff to like support the things that I do, like so that the loud, loud ass, old white dudes, don't just get to have the whole market cornered on reviews, like come on or whatever. So I think,Chisa Hutchinson (1h 11m 7s):You know, to bark the thing that I like out of existence, right? Like, because that is a thing that can happen too, when there's a perception that like, oh, well nobody wants this. Right. But the only people who have been, you know, it'sJen Bosworth-Ramirez (1h 11m 22s):And it's like, oh, this movie, this movie, or this project or whatever didn't do well, no, no, it actually did fine. It was just that the people that were screaming the loudest and felt entitled to scream, you know, people, we think that we give them importance. So it's like, we have to take back the, the importance of like, you know, the other voices it's just goes about like other voices in the room that aren't, aren't being heard.Chisa Hutchinson (1h 11m 45s):People kno

Sheila Houlahan is an Indian-American actor, singer, producer and writer. Houlahan can be seen in supporting role Paige Callahan in Warner Bros. feature film “The Little Things”, written and directed by John Lee Hancock and starring Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto. The film premiered on HBO Max January 29th, 2021. She is available for interview regarding the project. Sheila Houlahan is the executive producer and showrunner for a new hybrid feature film adaptation of Marsha Norman's Pulitzer prize-winning play Night, Mother, a show that details concentric circles of grief, isolation and suicide. The film screened exclusively on Twitch, and utilized Twitch's innovative platform for live performance interwoven throughout the film. Houlahan played the role of Jesse in the production, with award-winning actress Ellen McLain as Thelma/Mother. John Patrick Lowrie directed the project, with rising-star cinematographer Trevor Roach at the helm of creating a truly innovative visual storytelling methodology. Legendary photographer Eli Reed handled the still photography for the production. The adaptation is set on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the isolation and mental health crisis generated by a world forced to remain in lockdown for over a year. Houlahan's goal with the project is to use it as a platform to discuss the impending mental health crisis that has already began to plague people around the world from living in chronic isolation. She hopes that this film can be a gentle reminder that nobody is truly alone, despite how we may feel, and that it will take a collective spirit of grace to get through the trauma of COVID-19 together. The film aired live on Twitch on September 24th, 2021, and can be viewed at https://www.twitch.tv/nightmotherontwitch .As a singer, she has collaborated with Slumdog Millionaire's composer A.R. Rahman with performances including “"Jai Ho at The Venetian in Las Vegas,” a feature in his 20th anniversary music video of his hit classic “Maa Tujhe Salaam,” and “The Rahman Song Cycle” and “Lord of the Rings The Musical” with the Seattle Symphony as the primary soloist. She can also be heard on the Cirque du Soleil soundtrack for “Volta” as well as the soundtrack for the hit video game “Destiny 2." She is a Celebrity Champion for Project HEAL, a nonprofit organization that helps people suffering with eating disorders pay for treatment. She is also an ambassador for Ability Magazine and their new platform AbilityE, which seeks to increase inclusion and representation of differently abled talent in Hollywood. Houlahan uses her strong following on Instagram as a platform to spread awareness and to help end the stigma surrounding mental health. W: https://www.sheilahoulahan.com/T: https://twitter.com/sheilahoulahanIG: https://www.instagram.com/sheilahoulahan/Find the link to "Night, Mother" here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1159138021Damien Swaby Social Media Links:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/filmmaker_damien_swaby/Twitterhttps://twitter.com/DamienSwaby?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5EauthorWebsite http://filmmakingconversations.com/If you enjoy listening to Filmmaking Conversations with Damien Swaby, I would love a coffee. Podcasting is thirsty work https://ko-fi.com/damienswaby

Radijo teatras Marsha Norman. „Labanakt, mama“. Režisierė Elvyra Žebertavičiūtė. 1994 m.

Led by a guiding document by scribe Marsha Norman, Mark and Kenny break down the seminal and genre-shattering (now classic) documentary, celebrating it's 30th (!) anniversary this year. Will Mark ever pronounce Wuthering Heights correctly? Will Kenny ever share a viewing experience of TorD with his husband? Will a restored full version of the concert footage (or the deleted footage) ever see the light of day? And why aren't Madonna and company eating anything on that hotel veranda with those Perrier bottles? “Basta, per favore!” Madonna: Truth or Dare Official Trailer (1991)Madonna's Response to the Vatican Press Conference on July 11, 1990

In this episode, journalist and podcast host Mark Blankenship discusses the Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman musical The Bridges of Madison County. We also talk about the song "Keys (It's Alright)" from Stew andHeidi Rodewald's 2007 musical Passing Strange. 

"The most important thing is to show up and write every day. Don't wait for inspiration to strike." Kate Gersten is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at The Juilliard School under the mentorship of Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang. Her play Benefit of the Doubt was produced at The Juilliard School, and was further developed at the Roundabout where she currently is under commission. Her other plays include A Body of Work, (also developed at Roundabout), The Untitled Priscilla Presley Musical (Ambassador Theatre Group with Dolly Parton), Be Your Best Friend, (2012 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist, developed at Roundabout), Father Figure, and Exposed! The Curious Case of Shiloh and Zahara (Stage 13, MITF, Outstanding New Play award.) Kate has been a writer on the Golden Globe winning TV series “Mozart in the Jungle” (Amazon), the Golden Globe and Emmy nominated NBC comedy “The Good Place” starring Ted Danson and Kristen Bell, and the upcoming musical comedy “Schmigadoon” from Lorne Michaels and Apple. She has developed two pilots with FOX with Steve McPherson/Lionsgate and Jamie Tarses/Sony respectively, and has developed pilots at Showtime (also with McPherson), and CBS, with Working Title/CBS Studios. Kate is a three-time recipient of the Lincoln Center Le Comte de Nouy Prize. In addition to her studies at Juilliard, Kate did her undergraduate studies at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television.

He is a composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director, and performer – who has been hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of his generation, including the generation-defining ‘The Last Five Years,’ his debut song cycle ‘Songs for a New World,’ and the seminal ‘Parade,’ for which he won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Score, he also received two Tony Awards for his score for ‘The Bridges of Madison County,’ a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel. A film version of his epochal Off-Broadway musical ‘The Last Five Years’ was released in 2015, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan and directed by Richard LaGravenese. His musical ‘13,’ written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish, is now in production with Netflix to be adapted for the small screen. For the past four years, he has been the artist-in-residence at New York’s SubCulture, where he offers a sold-out concert every month with stars of Broadway and the music world. He is the winner of the 2018 Louis Auchincloss Prize, the 2002 Kleban Award for Outstanding Lyrics and the 1996 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Award for Musical Theatre. The New York Times refers to him as “a leading member of a new generation of composers who embody high hopes for the American musical.” And his songs, including the cabaret standard “Stars and the Moon,” have been performed and recorded by Ariana Grande, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Billy Porter, Betty Buckley, Renée Fleming, Jon Hendricks, and many others. And The Writer Is…Jason Robert Brown!This episode is sponsored by ABKCO. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Holdup, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman, takes place at the end of America's wild west, as two young men encounter one of the last western outlaws. This period piece has few technical requirements, which will make it suitable for most theaters, from community to professional. There are, however, some challenging themes which may make it inappropriate for younger performers. Music Credits: Delightful D Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

7.5 out of 10 - Above Average! www.latheatrebites.com Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved victorian classic, The Secret Garden, blossoms anew in this enchanting musical by Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon. When young Mary Lennox loses her parents to a cholera outbreak in India, she is sent to live with her uncle, hermit Archibald Craven, who lives in an imposing, secluded manor on the British heath. Inside the haunting house upon the hill, Mary finds a reclusive, long-suffering collection of souls. Since her aunt Lily's death, Mary's uncle has pushed away his surviving loved ones, leaving his bedridden son, Colin, alone. Sickly Colin, hidden away in the depths of the manner, bears the guilt of his mother's death on his crippled shoulders. When Mary discovers her Aunt Lily's hidden garden, locked shot and overgrown with vines, stubborn Mary is determined to revive the beauty that once was. Surrounded by spirits from the past, who both warn and welcome her, determined Mary begins to peel away the layers of sadness that cover the house and the garden, showing us the power that “one small girl” can have when she “wants things to grow.”

Today on the Peer Review, we discuss mental health while also looking at the play and movie 'Night, Mother by Marsha Norman. The play is about a daughter, Jessie, and her mother, Thelma. It begins with Jessie calmly telling her Mama that by morning she will be dead, as she plans to commit suicide that very evening. The subsequent dialogue between Jessie and Mama slowly reveals her reasons for her decision, her life with Mama, and how thoroughly she has planned her own death, culminating in a disturbing, yet unavoidable, climax. We also give statistics on Mental health for college students as well as helpful hotlines for those who may be in need. Please feel free to leave comments if you would like to start a dialogue, or feel free to E-Mail us with your thoughts, feelings, and even submissions. We would love to hear from you and are always looking for new and interesting topics for the show! And of course as always, we would love to have you as guest. Send your submissions to theroughdraftycp@gmail.com Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy!

CONTENT WARNING: This play/episode contains serious and lengthy discussions about mental illness and suicide.  Marsha Norman's "'night, Mother" may be one of the darkest plays discussed on "No Script" thus far. It follows the story of Jessie and her mother Thelma. They live together in a country home. One seemingly normal evening, Jessie tells Thelma that she plans to kill herself. What follows is a harrowing, gripping theatrical experience. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob try to make sense of this American tragedy.     ------------------------------ We had so much fun talking about this play, and we’d love to keep the conversation going! What were some of your thoughts if you’ve read or have seen the play? What are you favorite themes? Characters? Plot Points? Or do you disagree with us on any of our thoughts? We’d love to hear from you. Check us out on social media or email at: Email: noscriptpodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/No-Script-The-Podcast-1675491925872541/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noscriptpodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/noscriptpodcast ------------------------------ Our theme song is “Blessed” by Purple Planet Music. Credit as follows: Music: http://www.purple-planet.com ------------------------------ Logo Design: Jacob Mann Christiansen Logo Text: Paralines designed by Lewis Latham of http://lewislatham.co/ ------------------------------ Thanks so much for listening! We’ll see you next week. ------------------------------

Ilana interviewed JASON ROBERT BROWN live on the stage of City Center after the Encore Series Presentation of his song cycle "Songs for a New World" on the day his latest album "How We React and How We Recover" was released. In this intimate conversation Jason talks about being "adopted " by Hal Prince, his longtime collaboration with Daisy Prince, the joy and pain of winning Tony Awards for shows that had closed quickly and how he wrote the title song for his new album on the morning Donald Trump won the election and more.... Jason Robert Brown  is the ultimate multi-hyphenate – an equally skilled composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director and performer – best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of his generation, including the generation-defining “The Last Five Years”, his debut song cycle “Songs for a New World”, and the seminal “Parade”, for which he won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Score. JASON ROBERT BROWN has been hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and his “extraordinary, jubilant theater music” (Chicago Tribune) has been heard all over the world, whether in one of the hundreds of productions of his musicals every year or in his own incendiary live performances. Jason’s score for “The Bridges of Madison County,” a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel, directed by Bartlett Sher and starring Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale, received two Tony Awards (for Best Score and Orchestrations). “Honeymoon In Vegas,” based on Andrew Bergman’s film, opened on Broadway in 2015 following a triumphant production at Paper Mill Playhouse. His major musicals as composer and lyricist include: “13”, written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish, which began its life in Los Angeles in 2007 and opened on Broadway in 2008; “The Last Five Years”, which was cited as one of Time Magazine’s 10 Best of 2001 and won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics; “Parade,” written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theatre in 1998, and subsequently won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best New Musical, as well as garnering Jason the Tony Award for Original Score; and “Songs for a New World,” a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, which played Off-Broadway in 1995, and has since been seen in hundreds of productions around the world. As a soloist or with his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, Jason has performed sold-out concerts around the world.  His newest collection, “How We React and How We Recover”, was released in June 2018 on Ghostlight Records. His previous solo album, “Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes”, was named one of Amazon.com’s best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records. For the new musical “Prince of Broadway,” a celebration of the career of Harold Prince, Jason was the musical supervisor and arranger.  Other recent New York credits as conductor and arranger include “Urban Cowboy the Musical” on Broadway; Oliver Goldstick’s play, “Dinah Was,” directed by David Petrarca, at the Gramercy Theatre and on national tour; and William Finn’s “A New Brain,” directed by Graciela Daniele, at Lincoln Center Theater. Jason has conducted and created arrangements and orchestrations for Liza Minnelli, John Pizzarelli, Tovah Feldshuh, and Laurie Beechman, among many others. Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner.  He lives with his wife, composer Georgia Stitt, and their daughters in New York City.  Jason is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802.  Visit him on the web at www.jasonrobertbrown.com.

Laine MacNeil breaks down a monologue from Marsha Norman's play "Night, Mother". Laine worked on this play in acting class, with her real life mother as her scene partner. She fills us in on that process, and talks about what it was like working so intimately with one of the most important people in her life. Laine used a lot of childhood memories when preparing for this role, and it really paid off. Listen for yourself and see if you can spot the moments she is reliving real childhood memories. Laine is represented Russ Mortensen at Pacific Artists Management.

It's Thursday, and that means our peripatetic theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, joins Tom in Studio A to review one of the region's many new stage productions. Today, Judy's reviewing the newly-revived traveling production of the Tony-Award-winning The Color Purple: The Musical, whose six-day run at The Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore continues through this Sunday, October 22.The musical draws liberally from both Alice Walker’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel of the same name and from Steven Spielberg's Oscar-laden 1985 film adaptation (starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey), which tell the poignant four-decade-long story of Celie and Nettie, two sisters who survive sexual abuse, incest, racism and heart-breaking loss.The original musical production of The Color Purple ran on Broadway from 2005 to 2008, earning 16 Tony nominations, including nods to the book by playwright Marsha Norman and the music and lyrics of Brenda Russell, Ailee Willis and Stephen Bray. In 2013, director John Doyle ----reimagined---- the show, and his revival took Broadway by storm. It ran from 2015 until this past January (2017). Doyle's at the helm again with this new, revised national touring version of his Broadway revival.

Adam Szymkowicz is a playwright based in New York City. His plays have been produced throughout the U.S., Canada, England, and around the world. Adam’s plays include The Wooden Heart, Deflowering Waldo, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Hearts Like Fists, Kodachrome, Marian (or the True Tale of Robin Hood), Rare Birds, Incendiary, Clown Bar, The Adventures of Super Margaret, The Why Overhead, and many others. Adam received a Playwright’s Diploma from Juilliard, an MFA from Columbia University. He has written articles for Howlround, New York Theatre Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail and has interviewed 1000 playwrights on the Adam Szymkowicz blog. Adam shares with Marc about his inspiration for writing plays, lessons learned from his mentors and teachers including Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang, the questions he always asks before starting a new play, how he likes to work with directors and actors, and his theater heroes and the contemporary playwrights whose work he admires. This post Adam Szymkowicz - Playwright Spotlight appeared first on Talking Theater. Also, please click here to Subscribe. Thanks so much for listening!                    

Kayla Cagan, whose debut novel PIPER PERISH is out now, on fighting the green monster, the ultimatum that led to her first book deal, and how she wrote a book one day at a time (30 minutes a day).   Kayla Cagan Show Notes Eugene O’Neill Leave it to Beaver (TV show) Dukes of Hazard (TV show) Choose Your Own Adventure Sweet Valley High The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy The Emperor's New Clothes The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Stephen F Austin State University Samuel Beckett (playwright) The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel The Zoo Story by Edward Albee  Marsha Norman (playwright) Christoher Durang David Lindsay-Abaire (playwright) David Auburn (playwright) Robert Hass (poet) Maria Ines Gul (illustrator) Rookie magazine     John Cusick at Fiolio (literary agent)     Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo On Writing by Stephen King Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Host William Powell, The King of DC Media, welcomes Highwood Theatre's Directing Fellow Madison Middleton and cast of the theater's upcoming professional production and season opener 'Night, Mother written by Marsha Norman.    'Night, Mother - Thelma and her thirty-year-old daughter, Jessie, live together in a comfortable, country home. With their plans of manicures and small talk, the evening seems to be a normal one until Jessie brings down her father's old gun from the attic. Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize winning drama ruthlessly exposes the extraordinary within the routine, the urgency within the normal, and the sorrow within the mundane. Buy tickets by clicking here: Friday, September 23 at 8:00 PM Saturday, September 24 at 8:00 PM Sunday, September 25 at 2:00 PM Friday, September 30 at 8:00 PM Saturday, October 1 at 8:00 PM Sunday, October 2 at 2:00 PM

Join me for an article by playwright Marsha Norman (http://marshanorman.com/On_Playwriting.htm) and some reflection on a recent project of mine, and check back next week for another full episode of The Compass. - Leah Walsh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After an unscheduled delay caused mostly by a certain male sibling’s recent life changes/laziness, Novel Ideas returns with ‘night Mother by Marsha Norman. We read this play because it is award winning and unlike our previous two plays, written by a female playwright. We brought back special guest Jessica Showers (at least at the time of recording) […]

Bob Wilcox and Gerry Kowarsky interview Maggie Ryan (Artistic Director, Insight Theatre Company) after reviewing (1) LEGALLY BLONDE, THE MUSICAL, by Heather Hach and Laurence O'Keefe & Nell Benjamin, at Stages St. Louis, (2) WEST SIDE STORY, by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, & Jerome Robbins, at The Muny, (3) THE SECRET GARDEN, by Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman, at Hawthorne Players, (4) MARY POPPINS THE MUSICAL, by Julian Fellowes, the Shermans, George Stiles & Anthony Drewe, at The Muny, and (5) THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, adapted from Shakespeare by Beverly and Gerald H. Bailey, at Clayton Community Theatre.

Clive James on his new translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy; Terence Conran on his friend Eduardo Paolozzi and Marsha Norman on adapating The Colour Purple for the stage. We hear Paula Milne's Cultural Exchange and actress Cush Jumbo talks about playing Josephine Baker. The comedy trio Pappy's discuss their new TV series Badults and architect Richard Rogers looks back on his career.

With Mark Lawson. The World's End is a new comedy film from Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright, completing a trilogy which began with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Hot Fuzz. Adam Smith reviews. Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning dramatist Marsha Norman discusses how she adapted Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple as a musical for the stage. The show is about to receive its British premiere. Marsha Norman also reflects on how she teaches the art of writing for musicals. Badults is a new TV comedy which follows the exploits of three childhood friends who made a pact to live together when they grew up, but find themselves struggling to adapt to adult life. The show is written by and stars Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry, also known as the comedy troupe Pappy's. They discuss their move from the live comedy circuit to the small screen. In tonight's Cultural Exchange, American writer David Sedaris chooses the TV programme Ru Paul's Drag Race. Producer Dymphna Flynn.

On February 27, 1986, SDCF held a conversation on Effective Playwriting with Stephen Porter and Howard Rossen moderated by Stephen Fife, on effective playwriting. In illustrating their points, they use examples of the various techniques of playwrights including Somerset Maugham, David Mamet, Marsha Norman, Pinter, Shaw, Simon and Williams.

Bob Wlicox and Gerry Kowarsky review (1) THE SECRET GARDEN, by Marsha Norman & Lucy Simon, at Stages St. Louis, (2) BYE BYE BIRDIE, by Michael Stewart, Lee Adams, & Charles Strouse, at The Muny, (3) RESTORATION, by Edward Bond, at St. Louis Shakespeare, (4) SHE LOVES ME, by Joe Masteroff, Sheldon Harnick, & Jerry Bock, at Insight Theatre Co., (5) LA CENERENTOLA, by Gioachino Rossini & Jacopo Ferretti, at Union Avenue Opera, (6) THRILL ME: THE LEOPOLD & LOEB STORY, by Stephen Dolginoff, at Max & Louie Productions, (7) SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, by Lawrence Kasha et al., at The Muny, (8) DEBBIE DOES DALLAS -- THE MUSICAL, by Erica Schmidt, et al., The NonProphet Theater Co., and (9) ANNIE, by Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin, & Thomas Meehan, at Hawthorne Players.

Bob Wlicox and Gerry Kowarsky review (1) THE SECRET GARDEN, by Marsha Norman & Lucy Simon, at Stages St. Louis, (2) BYE BYE BIRDIE, by Michael Stewart, Lee Adams, & Charles Strouse, at The Muny, (3) RESTORATION, by Edward Bond, at St. Louis Shakespeare, (4) SHE LOVES ME, by Joe Masteroff, Sheldon Harnick, & Jerry Bock, at Insight Theatre Co., (5) LA CENERENTOLA, by Gioachino Rossini & Jacopo Ferretti, at Union Avenue Opera, (6) THRILL ME: THE LEOPOLD & LOEB STORY, by Stephen Dolginoff, at Max & Louie Productions, (7) SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, by Lawrence Kasha et al., at The Muny, (8) DEBBIE DOES DALLAS -- THE MUSICAL, by Erica Schmidt, et al., The NonProphet Theater Co., and (9) ANNIE, by Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin, & Thomas Meehan, at Hawthorne Players.

Jason Robert Brown, who prefers the title "songwriter" over "composer," talks about why he spends so much time performing his own material and engaging directly with his fans. He discusses writing all of his songs "in his own voice"; his short time at Rochester's esteemed Eastman School of Music; coming to New York, getting work in piano bars and how that led to rehearsal pianist jobs; the evolution of "Songs for a New World" and whether it began as a collection of existing songs or whether the material was newly created for the show; the nature of his collaboration with William Finn on the vocal arrangements for "A New Brain"; how he got hired for "Parade" after Stephen Sondheim passed, having the opportunity to choose his collaborators when the musical team was assembled for "Parade", and the changes he has made more recently to move the show away from Hal Prince's vision; how the origin of "The Last Five Years" began out of a desire to be free of collaborators and how it fuses "Songs for a New World" and "Parade"; why he enjoys writing incidental music for plays; his sojourn in Europe and his decision to return to the U.S. by moving to Los Angeles; the origin of "13" in a handful of songs that he happened to share with Michael Ritchie of the Center Theatre Group, the "trauma" of Broadway and subsequent revisions to musical; and the status of upcoming projects including the film version of "The Last Five Years", the "difficult, scary" chamber musical "The Connector", his collaboration with Marsha Norman on "The Bridges of Madison County", and the long-aborning stage adaptation of the film comedy "Honeymoon in Vegas". Original air date - May 11, 2011.

Jason Robert Brown (1999 Tony Award winner for Best Original Score for “Parade”), who prefers the title "songwriter" over "composer," talks about why he spends so much time performing his own material and engaging directly with his fans. He discusses writing all of his songs "in his own voice"; his short time at Rochester's esteemed Eastman School of Music; coming to New York, getting work in piano bars and how that led to rehearsal pianist jobs; the evolution of “Songs for a New World” and whether it began as a collection of existing songs or whether the material was newly created for the show; the nature of his collaboration with William Finn on the vocal arrangements for “A New Brain”; how he got hired for “Parade” after Stephen Sondheim passed, having the opportunity to choose his collaborators when the musical team was assembled for “Parade”, and the changes he has made more recently to move the show away from Hal Prince's vision; how the origin of “The Last Five Years” began out of a desire to be free of collaborators and how it fuses “Songs for a New World” and “Parade”; why he enjoys writing incidental music for plays; his sojourn in Europe and his decision to return to the U.S. by moving to Los Angeles; the origin of “13” in a handful of songs that he happened to share with Michael Ritchie of the Center Theatre Group, the "trauma" of Broadway and subsequent revisions to musical; and the status of upcoming projects including the film version of “The Last Five Years”, the "difficult, scary" chamber musical “The Connector”, his collaboration with Marsha Norman on “The Bridges of Madison County”, and the long-aborning stage adaptation of the film comedy “Honeymoon in Vegas”.

Jason Robert Brown, who prefers the title "songwriter" over "composer," talks about why he spends so much time performing his own material and engaging directly with his fans. He discusses writing all of his songs "in his own voice"; his short time at Rochester's esteemed Eastman School of Music; coming to New York, getting work in piano bars and how that led to rehearsal pianist jobs; the evolution of "Songs for a New World" and whether it began as a collection of existing songs or whether the material was newly created for the show; the nature of his collaboration with William Finn on the vocal arrangements for "A New Brain"; how he got hired for "Parade" after Stephen Sondheim passed, having the opportunity to choose his collaborators when the musical team was assembled for "Parade", and the changes he has made more recently to move the show away from Hal Prince's vision; how the origin of "The Last Five Years" began out of a desire to be free of collaborators and how it fuses "Songs for a New World" and "Parade"; why he enjoys writing incidental music for plays; his sojourn in Europe and his decision to return to the U.S. by moving to Los Angeles; the origin of "13" in a handful of songs that he happened to share with Michael Ritchie of the Center Theatre Group, the "trauma" of Broadway and subsequent revisions to musical; and the status of upcoming projects including the film version of "The Last Five Years", the "difficult, scary" chamber musical "The Connector", his collaboration with Marsha Norman on "The Bridges of Madison County", and the long-aborning stage adaptation of the film comedy "Honeymoon in Vegas". Original air date - May 11, 2011.

Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire talks about returning to his South Boston roots with the play "Good People", how the characters are amalgams of the people he grew up with in that private neighborhood and why he chose it as the setting for a play about the class system in America. He also talks about moving beyond his "Southie" roots as early as seventh grade, when he received a scholarship to a private school and how he had to learn to fit in there; his earliest plays, written for his classmates at that same private school; his theatrical studies at Sarah Lawrence College and later at The Juilliard School; his professional "Plan B", a career in arts administration, fostered by his work at New York's Dance Theatre Workshop; his excitement at his first New York production, "A Devil Inside", at SoHo Rep, which began his long collaboration with (and perpetual atonement for) actress Marylouise Burke; how Manhattan Theatre Club, now his longtime creative home, showed early interest in, and then almost passed on, his breakthrough play "Fuddy Meers"; the origin of "Kimberly Akimbo" in a chance comment by a friend about his infant daughter; his candid thoughts on "Wonder of the World" and why it shouldn't have too elegant a production; his experience with writing musicals, including "High Fidelity" and "Shrek", and why he'll always write both the book and lyrics for any future musical projects; his shift to naturalism with "Rabbit Hole" and how the film differs from the play; why he's still part of a writer's group and how the group helped him to strengthen one particular character in "Good People"; and how he has always followed Marsha Norman's advice to write about "the thing that frightens you most." Original air date - May 4, 2011.

Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire talks about returning to his South Boston roots with the play "Good People", how the characters are amalgams of the people he grew up with in that private neighborhood and why he chose it as the setting for a play about the class system in America. He also talks about moving beyond his "Southie" roots as early as seventh grade, when he received a scholarship to a private school and how he had to learn to fit in there; his earliest plays, written for his classmates at that same private school; his theatrical studies at Sarah Lawrence College and later at The Juilliard School; his professional "Plan B", a career in arts administration, fostered by his work at New York's Dance Theatre Workshop; his excitement at his first New York production, "A Devil Inside", at SoHo Rep, which began his long collaboration with (and perpetual atonement for) actress Marylouise Burke; how Manhattan Theatre Club, now his longtime creative home, showed early interest in, and then almost passed on, his breakthrough play "Fuddy Meers"; the origin of "Kimberly Akimbo" in a chance comment by a friend about his infant daughter; his candid thoughts on "Wonder of the World" and why it shouldn't have too elegant a production; his experience with writing musicals, including "High Fidelity" and "Shrek", and why he'll always write both the book and lyrics for any future musical projects; his shift to naturalism with "Rabbit Hole" and how the film differs from the play; why he's still part of a writer's group and how the group helped him to strengthen one particular character in "Good People"; and how he has always followed Marsha Norman's advice to write about "the thing that frightens you most." Original air date - May 4, 2011.

Marsha Norman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Hull-Warriner, and Drama Desk Awards for 'Night Mother, which received its world premiere at the A.R.T. in 1982. Her play Traveller in the Dark also premiered at the A.R.T. in 1984. Ms. Norman won the 1992 Tony Award and Drama Desk awards for The Secret Garden; and the John Gassner Medallion, Newsday Oppenheimer award, and the American Theatre Critics Association Citation for Getting Out. Other plays include Third and Oak, The Laundromat, The Poolhall, The Holdup, Traveler in the Dark, Sarah and Abraham, Loving Daniel Boone, and Trudy Blue. Published work includes Four Plays and a novel, The Fortune Teller. Television and film credits include Face of a Stranger, starring Gena Rowlands and Tyne Daley. Grants and awards include National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; Ms. Norman also serves on the council of the Dramatists Guild. Ms. Norman was born in Louisville, Kentucky; received her B.A. from Agnes Scott College; and her M.A. from the University of Louisville. Since 1994 she has served on the faculty of The Juilliard School.

Marsha Norman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Hull-Warriner, and Drama Desk Awards for 'Night Mother, which received its world premiere at the A.R.T. in 1982. Her play Traveller in the Dark also premiered at the A.R.T. in 1984. Ms. Norman won the 1992 Tony Award and Drama Desk awards for The Secret Garden; and the John Gassner Medallion, Newsday Oppenheimer award, and the American Theatre Critics Association Citation for Getting Out. Other plays include Third and Oak, The Laundromat, The Poolhall, The Holdup, Traveler in the Dark, Sarah and Abraham, Loving Daniel Boone, and Trudy Blue. Published work includes Four Plays and a novel, The Fortune Teller. Television and film credits include Face of a Stranger, starring Gena Rowlands and Tyne Daley. Grants and awards include National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; Ms. Norman also serves on the council of the Dramatists Guild. Ms. Norman was born in Louisville, Kentucky; received her B.A. from Agnes Scott College; and her M.A. from the University of Louisville. Since 1994 she has served on the faculty of The Juilliard School.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman compares the gathering and rituals shared by theatre and houses of worship; explains why she could never have written "'night Mother" now that she's had children; talks about her specific goals in crafting the lyrics for "Lily's Eyes" in "The Secret Garden"; considers whether playwriting has actual rules and can be taught; and compares the story of "The Color Purple" to the classic tale of Cinderella. Original air date - October 20, 2006.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman compares the gathering and rituals shared by theatre and houses of worship; explains why she could never have written "'night Mother" now that she's had children; talks about her specific goals in crafting the lyrics for "Lily's Eyes" in "The Secret Garden"; considers whether playwriting has actual rules and can be taught; and compares the story of "The Color Purple" to the classic tale of Cinderella. Original air date - October 20, 2006.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman compares the gathering and rituals shared by theatre and houses of worship; explains why she could never have written "'night Mother" now that she's had children; talks about her specific goals in crafting the lyrics for "Lily's Eyes" in "The Secret Garden"; considers whether playwriting has actual rules and can be taught; and compares the story of "The Color Purple" to the classic tale of Cinderella. Original air date - October 20, 2006.

The writers' life is the topic for authors Christopher Durang ("Miss Witherspoon"), Lisa Kron ("Well"), Marsha Norman ("The Color Purple"), John Patrick Shanley ("Defiance") and Diana Son ("Satellites").

The writers' life is the topic for authors Christopher Durang (Miss Witherspoon), Lisa Kron (Well), Marsha Norman (The Color Purple and a Tony Award for The Secret Garden), John Patrick Shanley (2005 Tony Award for his Best Play Doubt) and Diana Son (Satellites).