I'm Jen Bosworth from me this and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but 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 all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? 
There has to be like meetings and ground rules and things for how the trip is going to go. So, and, and I, it's interesting this dog, having this dog has really opened my eyes to how much moms do. I mean, I have a dog, I don't have a child that I have just have a dog, but like understanding that you have to plan for things and you cannot, you have to be both moms apparently have to be both flexible and planners and be able to, are expected to sort of be pivoting at any moment, but also try to lay groundwork for, for young people. 
I don't know how people do it. I don't know did well this weekend, there was a conversation about, you know, why mom, isn't more fun and I want to be like, you don't want to know something while I'm sitting here, quote, unquote, having fun for you as an activity that I planned and paid for and scheduled and organized and brought the stuff to, while we're here. I now need to be thinking about the problems that are going to arise while we're here, how long it's going to get to take home, you know, how long it's going to take to get home, what I'm going to make for dinner. When I get home, what time, you know, what time their dad is gone? 
Like, it's just, I'm always thinking of a lot of things at the same time. I cannot. So I, I think that most people like I'm not advocating to have kids for people that don't, but have something in your life that is unpredictable needs. Rules causes you to be extremely thinking on your toes, but also having to be stable for it. Oh my God. I am just like, I have so much respect for my friends now that have children. And I just know one iota of what that means, but like in terms of even having to do anything for anybody else, because like for my husband, I can be like, you know what, no, I'm not doing, you know, but it's, if I don't deal with this dog and she's a great dog, she does all great things. 
She still poops and pees. And I mean, I have never, since I have been an adult, so like taking care of my parents as they passed away, like that was a big job, but that, that sort of felt like it had an ending. I mean, you know, and this will have an ending too, but that felt really, you know, finite in terms of my job, this feels like an ongoing project. And to be honest, I haven't had something that has required my intense attention in my whole adult adulthood. That kind of a project where if, if you don't like my job, one thing and stuff like that, but like, I have never felt responsible in this way. 
And I think that it is a very sort of, it's a huge challenge and it's also, it's challenged and lovely and amazing, but it's, it's, it's, it's, I think it's important to, to, to look outside of ourselves and to have a project that has nothing, literally nothing to do with my wants and needs, like nothing. Yeah. Or I would say it has nothing to do with your wants and needs in the sense that the, the thing that you're taking care of their wants and needs don't at the beginning anyway, change because of your wants and needs, but you're having to constantly manage your own wants and needs in the service of the wants and needs of the other person. 
And, and like child-rearing raising a dog to be a dog. That's going to be easy to live with is similar to raising a human that's going to be easy to live with, which means a lot of times tolerating. I think I was talking to you about this when I was there tolerating the distress of, for example, the dog is crying because she doesn't want to be in the crate, but you're doing that for literally for her own good. Even though it's breaking your heart, it's breaking her heart in the moment that you're doing so true. And then it translates to my own shit of my own inner child stuff of, okay, so my inner child wants to eat McDonald's right. Like all the time. 
That's what she thinks. She wants, whatever. That's what she wants. That is not okay. If I want to live a long life and have a heart that keeps going. So it's hard. It's literally, it's helping me to be like, okay, I really want to eat garbage food. Like I just do. That's the truth of what a part of me wants, but in the long run, do I want to be around to enjoy people? Success of writing? Yes, I do. I, if you asked me, yes, I don't. If someone said, okay, so it's like a real, and I didn't learn how to negotiate that as a child, I never learned that skill. 
And I don't know who does, but I'm learning now to say, oh, that thing you do for the dog of like delayed, it's not even delayed gratification. It's like long game health, long game tolerance. You know, people wanting to be around this dog. You know, I got to do the same for me. Like, I, I never realized much work. It is to negotiate with myself when I want to do things that are not helpful. Yeah. And also what I'm hearing you talk about is in the abstract is why people are so pained in their childhoods is because mostly if their parents weren't able to do this important and difficult work and parents of our parents' generation, mostly weren't because it was like, post-war get the food on the table. 
Children should be seen and not heard kind of thing. So chances are, they didn't get to do all of this exploratory in her work so that they really couldn't provide their kids with the things that they needed. So this is why everybody walks around and pain. And this is why 99% of, you know, content out there, especially for women of my, of our age is about drinking wine and, or, you know, otherwise getting stoned to forget that you have all this pain. I have a question in terms of mom culture, you know, there's a, someone was talking to me, she's, she's a mom that does not drink. She's a sober mom. 
But she said that like, there's so much stuff around moms and drink like mom's drinking. It's disgusting. It's truly disgusting. When I may, maybe when my oldest child was a baby, maybe I thought that was kind of funny or cute, but I mean, it, it grilled quickly, first of all, it's just another way in which it's like making people one dimensional and you know what I mean? Like, and, and, and it's a terrible thing to do as a parent to cope. I mean, you know, you're teaching, you want to teach your kid to get off the bottle, but you can't get off the ball. It's yeah. 
It's a, it's a, it's a whole, it's a whole Michigan, as they say. So, so anyway, but Doris is like, just so adorable. She's the most beautiful dog in the world. And I'm happy for you that you're having this experience. Well, I think it's cool. And I also think it's necessary for it's. Like, I never, never thought it would be sort of the Buddhist kind of spiritual situation of like, oh, wow. Oh, wow. Like noticing, like she's really bitey. And she's really this right now. 
And she's really, and, and tolerance for, for uncomfortable, but also tolerance for messiness in general, whether it's emotional or, and I think that I can be, I don't allow myself to get emotionally messy. A lot of the times acceptable emotions, like in my marriage, our anger, you know, like my mom was really good at anger. Like that was her jam. And, but everything else was really not tolerated. So it's like, oh, right, right. When you, when I don't tolerate messy behavior in people that I love, it can be emotionally abusive. 
You know, when you're, when you're so intolerant, it's like, you don't know, you're not allowed to have that emotion. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have to do this. Well, well, that seems not right. So I'm seeing it. I'm seeing that in myself. And I'm also, it's also given me compassion for my mom, but also compassion for people who just like are ill-equipped to handle other people's emotional needs. Yeah. So I am listening to the audio book of a very old book called bird by bird narrated by dented it up. 
Susan Bennett. This episode is airing today. Yes. Narrated by Susan Bennett. So it's really kind of fun to be reading this great book and hearing a familiar voice reading it, but she has a whole section in there about messes. And she says, you know, and she's, she's both talking about literal and metaphorical messes and how messes are truly what art comes out of. And so you're, if you can't tolerate a mess, then it's not that maybe that it's maybe not that you can't get to the heart of the thing, but it's just a lot harder. Whereas if you can tolerate the difficulty of the mess of the moment, you know, and allow it to structure into the thing you need it to be. 
Cause she's, she talks a lot about how writing is so much about writing the thing that it's not about until you can write the thing that it is about, which I really, really relate to everything. I, so right now I am writing a blog post called worst periods, summer period, ever, period. And it's about this is, I mean, I'm sure at some point it'll get worse, but so far this has been my worst summer ever. And I keep starting a different thing because I'm really just trying to figure out what it's about. I all, I feel this connection to is the central idea. And I just have to figure out a way and so have, so I've spent a lot of time writing a bunch of things that it's not about. 
And I do this thing that I think is probably not helpful, which is that when I decided it's not about that, I put that on a different document, thinking that I'm going to write about that one day. Maybe I will, but, you know, anyway, so I have so many, you know, unfinished, short treatises on certain things, the central idea that you just talked about is the central idea, worst summer ever period, or is there a different central idea? No. The central idea is that, well, I guess you could say I haven't landed on it, but what I, what I'm trying to write about is keeping the thread of good times, bad times, like being able to say, yeah, this is what you would call a bad time. 
That doesn't mean this is your life now, or all times are, but it's also because I didn't in so many ways actually ever deal with the really bad times that I had growing up. And like, that's all coming home to roost right now, both through the law processing loss of my sister and through processing, being a parent, I'm just, I ran away from that truly, as long as I possibly could. Now, the message is very clear. Like you just can't it's time. You can't keep avoiding it. So yeah, serious business, but the good news is that the, that it, that high is hard as it is. 
It's like, I just know from an outside point of view, looking at what your life in the summer and stuff is that the shit can only get better. Like it look, we're going to have worst times too, but I mean, in the long con of it, all, this is like the thing that is demanding your attention emotionally, and that is the work to do, and you're doing it. The good news is you're doing it. The good news is you're not drinking excessively or snorted snorting glue that I know of. Let me run this by you. 
And then I wanted to run by you is so I, I be through college and like for four years after I really didn't consume very much of media. We were really busy in theater school. I mean, I maybe went to the movies. Sometimes we didn't have a TV and then I didn't have a TV after college for a long time. So I missed all these big swaths of popular culture. And one of which was the matrix. And I watched it for the first time, the other day now I expected it to feel dated. 
And actually it doesn't feel that dated it's, it's all pretty relevant. And I was having this experience of going, wow, this is a really well-made movie. And that's about as far as it went, I didn't feel anything about it at all. I truly felt nothing. I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't hate any of the characters, but I certainly didn't care what happened to any of them. And it was kind of like, it was kind of like so much of what is so embraced in, in content. And especially now, now I, I understand that I am not well versed enough in what I'll call, like all the big intellectual property movies and stuff that are out there. 
And I did feel very moved by wonder woman. And I did feel very moved by black Panther. But other than that, I, what is it, why does it feel so flat? Because you're into, I think you're really into characters and relationships and storytelling. And from that point of view, and literally for me, the matrix has no relations. Like the relationships are so not developed. They're underdeveloped, I think on purpose. It's about the way the world looks. It's so heavily world leaning. And so the opposite of everything looking from the outside that makes you tick and makes you your kind of storyteller, that it it's just the wrong world. 
It's like, it I'm the same way. Like, I think I like action movies, but I don't, it's not something they never, they never moved me unless there's like, no, like they just don't. I like them. And I can not. It's like, you can appreciate the movie making magic. That is the matrix, but the relationships, aren't the stuff of like, you know, a character drama driven drama. It's not. Yeah. And I said to my son who was watching it with, you know, these characters are so one dimensional, like, I don't know anything about this Neo guy. And he looked at me, he goes, what do you mean? You don't know anything about him? 
He's he he's devoted his life. He has lived two lives, has one life is that he's hacking all over the internet. And then he said something and I'm like, yeah, well you have that. Doesn't I'm sorry, but that doesn't tell me. And I, and that's what it is. I don't know anything about his parents. I don't know anything about a sibling. I don't know anything about his love life. Right. It's and I think for me, those kind of stories, right. For me, what happens to me when I watch those kinds of stories. And I don't know if it's like this for you. It's that because I crave connection. Right? So I'm craving for human connection and to watch stories of connection or misconnection, the whole thing is like a disconnect. 
Literally that phone disconnects, they it's, it's, it's a cold movie in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah. It is cold. And then last night the kids wanted to go see a movie. So we went to see space jam, which the third one, I didn't, I don't know a segment. I didn't, I don't think I saw the original and I had a similar experience like, oh, wow. They worked so hard on this movie. And, and part of it is that it, it purposefully cheekily highlights all of Warner brothers intellectual property. So the, so the main character is traveling through, it's not called the multi-verse, it's called the server verse, the, the Warner brothers server verse and it's passing. 
And, and one thing that's fun about is like, oh, wow, all of these properties are owned by the same game of Thrones and wizard of Oz and Casa Blanca, all Warner brothers, Looney tunes. And it, you know, the cloud, I mean, honestly like hundreds. And that was the other thing, like, okay, so these companies are so happy because they have basically an endless supply of content to pull from, but it's all already imagined content. And I kind of feel like, okay, so there's all this push about representation and stuff like that in Hollywood, but maybe the way that they're getting out of it now is that they just don't, they don't ha they don't have to tell any new stories. 
Right. And so what's going to happen there. Well, I think, I really think we're gonna swing back to the small character, driven it, relationship stories. I really do. I don't, it's like the housing market. It's like, how far can you go before? The thing just, just burst. I mean, and, and capitalism, it basically comes this to basically could be a podcast about the downfall of capitalism also. Cause we always end up, but it's true. It's like how much, how much content can we just churn out turnout charter until, until the relationships don't matter anymore until it's just like this crazy machine and then it it'll it'll eat itself. 
I think. And then we'll get back to like drawing, you know, in the dirt with sticks. I mean like literally, totally. Maybe we do. Maybe we do, because the other thing I read that I started this Anne Lamott book because I finished the Mike Nichols biography, which is very long, but very good, good in the sense that it re he, that guy had as many failures as he did successes, you know, he did the graduate, but then he did like truly a string of movies. I've never heard of that were apparently terrible. And he, through the end of his life, he kept challenging himself. 
He would, he would have a big success in the, in the film. And then he would go direct something on Broadway and half the time it failed. Like he did waiting for Godot with Robin Williams and Steve Martin and bill Irwin. I forget who the fourth person was and it kind of bombed. Yeah. Like, wow, that's crazy. That seems unimaginable to me. So it was very heartening, you know, that through the end of his career, he had things that just really weren't well received. And that's important to tell that story because we are in a very perfection, obsessed society that does make you feel like if it's not going to be perfect to don't do it. 
Oh, this is so true. And I just did a pitching. Okay. So I'm in this like workshop thing and we did for August and we did a pitching round table. It was our first verbal pitching to each other in this class and a woman who I adore in the class, her first time pitching. And we all, none of us have pitched verbally this, our scripts before. So this was like a shit show, like for all of us. And we all knew it and everyone was really scared, but I just said, okay, okay. You're just going to go. And also being the person I am, I'm like, I'm going to, like, there is a part of me. That's like, I'm going to be of service so that I can fail so that I can, other people can see and look, it wasn't a failure because we were all just practicing. 
But this woman, speaking of perfectionism, this woman was pitching her screenplay and her feature and broke down into tears because I think it is so ingrained. I mean, I don't want to know for me on the outside looking, I don't want to pretend to know what really went down, but for me on the outside, I was like, oh, I can imagine you're pitching this thing that you believe in. Like, she loves her. Story's a very personal story. She's never pitched it to a group of people, you know, and she's practicing. And the emotion that came up was so big and she could not finish her pitch or did not want to finish her pitch. 
And I was chatting like a maniac to her, you know, like this is you like, cause she was like, I can't keep it together. I can not. And I was like, great. Like this is you're allowed to be real and vulnerable. And I'm telling you right now, if this happened, I have no idea of this true. But I think it is in an executive session. I bet you they'd buy your fucking script. Like I just, I think is not going to make us perfect. Is the thing that is perfectly us and the thing that people want. I now look, you can, to an extent, like you can't get on there and start screaming and talking about, I mean you could, but right. But hers was genuine and authentic. And she, and I, she said she like, she wanted it. 
Wasn't going to be good enough. And so she, she really wanted the story to be told. Anyway, it was this perfectionism thing and it doesn't exist. It is a lie that we tell ourselves, I don't know why, what do we do? Why are we doing that truly? Why are we doing this? It doesn't help anybody. It never has. And no matter how many times everybody learns this lesson, we're still going right back to, I honestly, I feel I should be like that memento guy and get all these things tattooed all over, like dare to fail and don't forget to breathe. It's okay if it's, you know, some, you know, it's okay. 
If today is not whatever the day you thought it was going to be because the, these are all things that when I'm not in my emotional mind, I remember, but once I really need them and I'm in my emotional mind, I don't, I really revert. I revert to what you know, that guy, Eckhart toll that everyone loved power of now. But anyway, he calls it the pain body. And when I'm in my pain, bud, oh, forget it. Forget it. I don't breathe. I don't, I can't function. I'm a child mixed with like a primal beast and it doesn't work like, and that was my problem with acting. It's like, I, I, my fear, my stage fright about that is that I will be humiliated cause trouble. 
It won't be perfect. It will be, but not only will not be perfect. It won't be accepted. What my, what I, what my work I do. And I'll be, I'll have let people down and Al I'll be like nothing. You know, it goes there. So like, and I'm like, that is that, no, that is not a way to live. But that's the truth of my situation of, of what happens when I'm in my, that pain body. And I really go for it emotionally, a good thing to do. And I'm sort of saying this for everybody's benefit, cause I'm sure you do this. Is this something I would work a lot on with my clients whenever they'd be catastrophizing is I would talk it all the way through and then what, and then what, and then what, and even if they got to, well, oftentimes they would get to, and then I'll die and then it'd be like, but the logic doesn't hold there because you're just talking about being embarrassed or you just talking about being sad or you're just like, but even then it's like, okay, and then you'll die. 
Right. Right. So, so you, right, exactly. So what it's such a good thing to do. And I, and I get to like, I will be unlovable and that's worse than death, but if I can look at, okay, what is the unlived lovability, you know, factor and why does that matter so much then, then, then I'm really dealing with the real stuff. You know, it's like, I'm a failure of a blah, blah, blah, blah, which is worse than death. You know, in some ways, emotionally, it feels worse because yeah. So it's, it's, it's going through the whole thing and, and really, but there are some people, and I don't know how they do it. 
They can just fake it. Right. They fake. And they're like, yeah, I have some fear, but I just show up and I, I don't know these, I don't know who they are, but God bless them who were like, yeah, well maybe it's maybe it's white dudes in their fifties. I don't know. But they're like, oh, I'll give it a shot. Why not? You know who those people are. And it's honestly, it's one of my favorite types of people. I have several good friends like this, the thick skin narcissist, you got to love a thick skin. There's nothing worse than a thin skin narcissist, but a thick skinned. Narcissist is Larry David. It's fun. It's, it's, it's refreshing because I am, I spent all of my time in all of my insecurities and to S to be with somebody. 
It's not that they don't have any insecurities, but it's just not top of my inbox. Right. And they're not obsessive about it. They're obsessive about other things. Like I have a friend and we lost touch and he's in New York and I've known him since I was 18. And he's great. And he's this consummate new Yorker, like Larry David type. All right. The guy, what I would describe call him in my late twenties, early thirties, and talk about my, my love life and how devastated I was and, and how like for an hour and his response would be, well, you know, maybe you shouldn't just like, by the, by the guy a present and like, and also the simplest answers, right? 
Like maybe buy him a heat. You, you said he like has terrible lighting in his house. Just get him a lamp. I'd be like, oh my God, John, what are you talking about? So, yeah. And it was so straight forward and he w he just had the most sort of simple answers for things. And I was like, what are you talking? But guess what? I did buy the guy a layup. It didn't work. But I mean, it didn't make it, it was something to try. It was a perfectly fine thing to try. Oh, that's hilarious. It was practical narcissistic sort of like advice. And he also said that he, this is also someone who, after nine 11, he lived in New York and I couldn't reach him and I couldn't reach him and I couldn't reach him. 
And I thought, for sure, he was dead. I find in the phone lines were down. And I finally reached him. And I'm like, how are you? He's like, I'm terrible. And I was like, oh my God. And literally two days after nine 11, he goes, someone made a screenplay with my same idea. I said, what are you hung up? I hung up the phone. I said, okay. And I clicked. That was his terrible at two days after nine 11 priceless. Oh, that is so priceless. Can you 
Believe it? I want to hang up now. Okay. Today on the podcast, we're talking with Mia McCullough, Nia went to Northwestern and she's a playwright and a filmmaker and a web series creator, and a comedian. And she's not afraid to tell it like it is and the speak her mind, and she was lovely to have on the podcast. So please enjoy our conversation with Mia McCullough. 
I grew up in, I was born in Manhattan, but I grew up in the suburbs of New York, so oh, okay. In Westchester. Yeah. But in non fancy Westchester, we'll get into that. Cause it's sort of part of my Northwestern 
Experience. Yeah. Okay. Mia Macola. Congratulations. You survived theater school. I did. As a student and as a teacher, so led into it before, before we started recording me, I told us that I'm going to teach at Northwestern was like returning to an abusive boyfriend. So you've got to tell us. 
Yeah. I mean, Northwestern is just, it's a very, it's like very cold, not nurturing place, just the institution itself. And, and it doesn't care about its faculty and it doesn't care about its students. And I think because the faculty suffers from neglect, they also then in turn neglect their students to a degree. You know, I also think that higher education in general is like, universities are like a repository for the mentally ill. And so you have a lot of people who don't cope well in the real world who are then teaching college students. 
And then, you know, the, the whole culture of the acting scene at Northwestern was very, like, let's tear everybody down to build them up. And which is incredibly damaging to do, to like 18, 19 year olds. So there was a lot, I mean, you know, and then when I went back to teach there, I was like, well, I'm going to be the teacher that I didn't get to have, or, you know, that I had, but not in the theater department. And yeah. And so, you know, like a lot of my students sort of like came to me like, you know, fireflies to a light or something. 
They were just like, oh my God, you care about us. Do you have compassion? Although I do feel like the culture of the theater department is much better now than it was when I was there. But when I first started, I actually only taught in the theater department for quarter. And then I got, I started teaching in the creative writing for the media program, which is housed under the film department. It's it's for all of school of comm, but like, and like theater people can apply and whatnot. It actually doesn't exist anymore. So I don't know I'm talking about it. Like, it's a thing, but it was, it was a program that I was in. 
I think if I had not gotten into that writing program, I would never have stayed at Northwestern because I found that atmosphere so toxic and abusive and, 
You know, I've never heard it said quite that way, which is amazing that it's a repository for the mentally ill. And I, I, and I, it's very, that's very specific, but I also think that it explains a lot of our teachers. 
Yeah. I mean, for sure. I just, I think that people gravitate towards the university setting when they cannot cope with real life. And I, I do feel like, I feel like, like with DePaul and Columbia, there were a lot more working artists on faculty. I know Jen sort of shaking your head, like maybe not, but 
For sure, Columbia, for sure. Columbia for shirts, 
But like Northwestern, I mean, it was pretty actively discouraged. I feel like among the acting staff, like I know an acting teacher who was there when I was teaching, who applied for tenure and they're like, yeah, you kind of work too much insane. And his students fricking loved him and it was really devastating for them when he left. So, you know, there is a culture of like, no, we don't actually want you to succeed in your art form. We just want you to come here and teach it. And then there also feel like I also felt like my teachers didn't want me to succeed. 
What a terrible thing. Yeah. 
Like there was just a general like, well, we're going to give you, we're going to teach you how to be an artist and we're going to teach you, but we're not going to give you any practical skills. There's going to be no classes on auditioning. And they didn't even, you weren't even allowed to take acting freshman year. That's not a thing at Northwestern, I think still. And I think it's a money thing, honestly, like they say, oh no, it's, you know, you need to prepare and you're going to take all these other base classes and then you'll get into acting in your sophomore year. But I think it's just because they would've had to hire more acting teachers to cover all the students. 
Oh, I see. Cause so many people would have wanted to do it. So it's not a conservatory. It's not, it's just, you take it as a major, you take acting as a major, but you get a BFA. 
No, it's not a BFA when my, my degree is actually a bachelor of science in speech. Hmm. That is, that is the degree. That is that for all the theater majors, not just me. And, and the thing about Northwestern that I actually appreciated was that, you know, they didn't funnel you into one thing. They wanted you to have experience with directing and designing. And so, and they made you do stage crew, which is also like a free labor thing, but, you know, and, you know, set construction and all this stuff, but it was really good to get that broad look at what everything was, because I think, you know, I certainly had a real appreciation for what everybody has to do to prep for a show and to work backstage for a show. 
And so like the, the people who came out like there wasn't necessarily this diva, he looking down on stage hands kind of thing, coming out of Northwestern, 
Which I appreciate, which I, I, and I also, I wonder about the, not a money making scam aside. I wonder about the not acting for if I had not acted because what happened was, I don't know if you felt this beans, but acting first year taking acting classes, there was a lot of sussing out of like who's prettier than I am. Who's the greatest who can really make the teacher laugh with their improv. So I wonder if I, I don't know. I just, it's so interesting how they do these programs. I'm fascinated, but it sounds like it wasn't so helpful to not act for you 
Honestly wouldn't have been helpful in that program anyway, because I don't feel like they ever were trying to teach me to act, you know, I mean, I obviously, I mean, my, my acting teacher was totally just trying to like emotionally destroy me so she could build me back up. And because I happen to live with a mom who has borderline personality disorder, I had walls already. And I was like, I don't know what you're trying to do, lady, but you don't get to come in here and mess around. And so she would be like, well, I, I just don't know how to teach you. And it's like, yeah, cause I won't let you fucking mess me up lady. I mean, and she still did to a certain extent extent, but the thing that, you know, Northwestern is incredibly privileged school and was even more so back in the late eighties, early nineties when I was there and the atmosphere of, well, all the kids who came to Northwestern, many of them came from very wealthy communities that had acting programs. 
Like you could take acting in high school, which was not something, you know, as I was, I was saying to Gina before we started, I grew up in Westchester county in New York, which there is like this assumption of money because much of the county is very wealthy. But I grew up in this very blue collar, like Irish, Italian neighborhood, where people were like owned gas stations and were cops and firemen and things like that. And there was no acting program at our high school. I mean, a lot of the kids were first-generation and their parents were just glad to have them graduate from high school. There wasn't a demand for arts. There was a demand for sports. And so I got to college and I was like, oh my God, these people have had acting classes already. 
And I've really haven't. And so all of a sudden I realized, like I thought I was going to show up, we're all going to be on the same footing. And I got there and I was already behind and I couldn't take action class in my freshman year. 
Oh, so you were behind, but you felt behind now, do you have to audition to get into the Western? Yeah. 
You do not have to audition to get into Northwestern, 
But you know, I have to say recently I looked at, somebody had posted something saying that they're the school that they went to was ranked high in the whatever ranking. And so I of course went and looked in ours because ours was not on the list and, but Northwestern was, and, and so it must be a combination of just the, well, I was going to say student satisfaction, but maybe that's not very high there. I wonder what the, I wonder what the, 
I mean, I think some of it's like prestige and I mean, some students were satisfied. I think, you know, it's one of those things where I want to say there was probably about a hundred theater students per year in each class. And more of them were interested in acting than not. And three quarters of them were probably women, at least two thirds. And I mean, we all know how theater is written and it's written mostly for men. So there were not, I mean, there were all these women and no roles for them, you know, there. So there were, you know, five or six women who got cast in everything. 
And then there were a lot of women like myself who never got cast in a single production their entire time. 
Oh, literally you never got literally, and 
You were like, oh, send us pictures. I'm like, I have no pictures. Like I was off playing cards with my friends. Cause I was like, I mean, I was, I don't want to say I was ostracized, but I was very like, not part of the group, you know? I mean also just culturally, you know, you hang out with people. I saw this better as a teacher than I did when I was a student. But you hang out with people that you can afford to hang out with. Right. You know? So, so your friends divide very much on socioeconomic lines and you know, like I'm not going to go out to the fancy restaurants with the theater kids who have lots of money. So I just hung out with like nice people. 
I met in my dorm, who I'm still friends with and I love and are probably the best part of Northwestern, but they're not part of my theater degree, 
You know, but if you couldn't take high school, if you couldn't take drama in high school, then how did you know you wanted to be an actor? Well, 
I mean, we had our school plays. I started out as a singer. And so I, and I actually was in my first play when I was 10 years old, what was it? Cinderella, the Rogers and Hammerstein Cinderella. The high school was doing it. And they needed like three or four little kids to be in it. And my music teacher sort of said, you should audition for this. Cause I had one of the better singing voices and I got cast and it was like heaven. Like first of all, I was like, oddly mature as a little kid. And so I did better with high school students than I did among my own people. And so that was nice and everybody was warm and the girls were also sweet to me. 
And you know, like I met my first gay person. It was like, the whole world just kind of opened up for me. And I was like, these are my people, you know? And I, and then I did summer theater and I went to music camp when I was in middle school. I really studied singing more. And what to like this fancy music camp in upstate New York that we did that. And my high school had a good music program. Like we had this really good acapella singing. Well, it wasn't an acapella singing group, but it was like a select choir of just like nine of us. And I don't, I did not realize how good we were until afterwards. Like I went to go sing at a choir at Northwestern and I was like, this shit, I'm not doing it. 
You know, it was for non-majors, you know what I mean? But I was like, no, I'm not wasting my time with this, but yeah. So I, and then I started doing plays in high school and middle school and you know, I just, I loved it. 
It's funny how you say that that's where you met your first gay person and that's where you found your people. It's almost like, cause I grew up in a, not poor necessarily, but we'll say socioeconomically diverse area. And in my high school and middle school drama was how you could be introduced to liberalism because otherwise you were going to be pretty conservative from the community that we came from. And, and when I think back with the exception of, you know, actually Jessica chestain, nobody in my high school, went on the PR you know, people like me who were like, so into drama when I went on to, I mean they never, they never did anything related. 
It was really just a place where they could feel like they found their people. It's such an important, serves an important function in that way. So you got there, you couldn't do acting, but did you do other theater stuff your first year? 
Yeah, I, a woman that I had met during the prospective weekend that I came to before I had committed, she was stage managing this main stage show and was looking for an ASM. And I was like, okay, I'll do it. And the guy who was directing the show, speaking of repository for the mentally ill, he was our most mentally ill staff member in that, like he talked to himself regularly. He had an imaginary friend named John and who you would see him talking to when his office door was open. He was in there. Wow, wow. 
Yeah, no, no. And then he was, he directed desire under the Elms and the head of the department was in the show, I think basically to make sure that nothing went totally awry and keep an eye on things. And yeah, Dr. Coakley referred to me as the downstairs maid. That was my nickname as the ASM and, and, and Dr. Coakley was also known for, he was gay and he was, would prey upon the male students, although not successfully. Cause at this point he's really old and gross and no one's going for that. 
But he had cast this guy in desire under the arms who he had decided was very hot. And then that guy decided I was very hot. And then my other nickname became little miss hot pants, 
But what a choice you had there? I was 
Like the first time I, it was like, well, I could, I was behind the curtain. I was backstage. And I was like, all of a sudden, I hear him saying, where is she? Where is that little miss hot pants? And I was like, ready to go kill him. And one of the set designers just like grabbed me and he was like, don't do it. Don't do it downstairs made please. Yeah, no, yeah. That's a better nickname. Yeah. So it was, yeah. I mean, it was fascinating process, but I really sort of was like, I don't know if I want to participate in this anymore. And then, and I wasn't cool enough. I wasn't in the right club crowd for the student productions, 
Like 
Your experience with your mom and her mental illness and her personality disorder really like, cause when I hear you say the, that you were ready to kill him, cause he called you a little miss hot pants. My 19 year old self would have died to been called that. I, and I'm not saying that's correct. What I'm saying is how did you know that that was, oh yeah. 
You know, I knew it was all wrong. I, I, it was interesting part of it, maybe it was that I was almost minoring in psychology. So I was taking all these other classes, but I had a pretty good, a pretty good sense of boundaries. I would call also my high school experience, which was Gina, like you were saying, I mean, very conservative, like even the theater people are still conservative for the most part. And I, I was bullied a ton. And so I want to say like probably my sophomore year of high school, I was like, fuck it. I'm just going to be mean now. And, and people will at least leave me alone. And so, you know, I tried to be more open coming to college, like, okay, not everybody here is going to be an asshole, like high school that everybody but majority. 
And you know, so then I think that was part of it. And, and it was funny. I recently reconnected with one of my classmates, the guy who was in my acting class. And he's like, I always just felt like you totally didn't get sucked into the bullshit and, and knew what was going on and just were above it all. And which was an interesting perspective. Cause I feel, I think I felt more ostracized and outside of it and therefore I'm like, fuck you people 
So common. By the way, we have heard that so many times, you know, people who were perceived as cool cats and sort of above it all, you know, will tell us they were just a mess of insecurity inside. And it was all just defense, which I, at this point, I it's, it shouldn't be surprising, but it's still, it's still surprises. It still surprises us. When we talk to somebody who we haven't talked to since we went to theater school and they're petrified to do this interview or to revisit that whole time in their lives because you know, for many people was extremely traumatizing. So you did get to take acting classes, but then it sounds like they didn't coordinate the be in an acting class and then have be in a production. 
There was, oh 
No, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, no. You could just languish and acting classes and get emotionally abused by your acting teachers was, was more the thing. And, and there was like this hierarchy of, of acting teachers. And there was this one guy, but buyer who everybody was like, he's the best one, but oh, by the way, he also prays on his female students. So be careful. And that was pretty public knowledge, you know, like that was something people just talked to. Isn't the same way that Coakley preyed on young, you know, everybody would have warned the freshmen boys, like just, he's going to invite you over for dinner and just say no, you know? And so, you know, I was like, well, I don't want to deal with that. 
And I had talked to somebody else who had taken a class with this woman and, and I was like, okay, well, I'll just, I don't want to try and compete to get into a class where I might be preyed upon. So I'm just going to go with this other person. And then, I mean, the, the number of predators teaching at Northwestern at that time was just astounding. And, and, and some of them, I think, you know, I did it less in a less gross way. So around the time that the Harvey Weinstein thing came out with the whole, basically when the whole me too movement really just came surging on some genius thought it was a good idea to start a Facebook group called and youth theater, 1995 and before, and they thought that this was just going to be all these memories and people were going to post pictures and stuff. 
And I didn't even know about this page. And then somebody invited me to it. Somebody who knows that I did not have a good experience at Northwestern. And I'm like, why would Amanda invite me to this thing? And I'm like, there must be something on there. And then when I tried to join, it asked me all these questions. Like all of a sudden there was like a block that cause apparently journalists had gotten in there before they did that. So 
Like you had to answer questions to prove that you relate 
Gone there and who was my acting teacher and all that stuff. And so finally I realized that I've been on like allowed onto this page and I go scrolling and it takes a long time because like the people who created the page just posted photo after photo, after photo, after this vitriolic thread, because it didn't want it to be up near the top. And yeah, it was smart and you know, Northwestern people, they're smart. And so I'm scrolling through and I find, I finally find the thing it's like already got over 700 comments on it. I'm like, oh, this must be it. And it's just this, like everybody talking about how abused they felt. And honestly like the people who were sexually preyed upon did not come out and say it, it was more like, oh, well my roommate had this experience with this teacher or my roommate had that experience with that teacher. 
But the thing was that then everybody was also talking about all the emotional abuse that they suffered and that culture of let's tear everybody down. And it was so sad because there were so many people on that thread who just turned away from the arts altogether because these teachers really destroyed it for them. 
Oh, well, that's heartbreaking. Yeah, it is so heartbreaking because, because, because you know what you hope for and what often does happen. I think on the other side is that, you know, that's where people feel safe. So that the idea that this, and listen, we could go on and on about how actually not inclusive theater is and how not that safe its origins are, but you got the last laugh because my God you've had an amazing career. So when did you start figuring out that you were a great writer? 
Well, I went into at Northwestern. I'm like, okay, I want to act, I want to write, I want to direct, I want to do all three of those things. And then acting very quickly. It became like, this is not going to happen. It was so funny. I would go back home over the summers and work at this dinner theater in Westchester where lots of Broadway actors would work. If they weren't doing a show on Broadway and the show I was working on one summer, the woman starring in it was doing the voice of bell and, and beauty and the beast at the same time she was downtown recording it. And I, I remember coming back to Northwestern after that summer and being like, I could get cast on Broadway easier than I could get co cast at Northwestern. 
And knowing that, that wasn't even an exaggeration that I just knew more people who worked on Broadway, who like thought I was cool as opposed to like being at Northwestern where I was like not. And I was, I was like, okay, this is clearly a ridiculous situation. But the writing thing I always knew I wanted to do. And then my freshman year, I was also not allowed to take playwriting my freshman year that like freshmen couldn't get into that class. There was only one playwriting teacher. And then she quit at the end of my freshman year and they didn't replace her my entire sophomore year. There was no play. Right? No. And I was like, are you fucking, and then I found out about this creative writing for the media program, which teaches you to write for television, to write for it's like writing for television, writing for film writing plays. 
And it's all three of those things. And it's housed in the film department and I'm like, well, maybe this is what I need. And so it was like, okay, I'm applying to this. And if I don't get into this, I'm leaving the school because it's not worth it to stay here. And then I had like two of my best teachers, you know, Julia Cameron who did the artist's way. She was my screenwriting teacher. And she had just published the artist's way at that point. And so like that she was an incredible person to be and just really compassionate, really caring. She gave us this exercise fairly early on in the quarter where we got to kill. 
She's like, you get to kill anybody you want to that's your writing assignment is kill whoever you want to. And there were three women in the program who had been in my acting class. We had all dropped on mosque because our acting teacher was so horrible and all three of us picked her to kill and wrote about it. And so she came back in with our papers and was like, who is this woman? And why is she allowed around people? 
Wow. Well, yeah. So that, and that, and that, and what's also fairly sad is that was your only recourse. Like it didn't, I mean, I don't know if you ever went and spoke to anybody in the administration, but I'm guessing that that wouldn't have occurred to you, you know, because it didn't occur to us that we could advocate for ourselves or that, or that if we did that, anybody would take us seriously or do something about it. Yeah. 
Well, and it just felt so pervasive in the department. And then there was so much worse things going like with, with bud actually, you know, sexually preying on people and they doing anything about that. And everybody knew about that. It's like, well, no, one's going to care about Anne being mean to us. And the ironic thing is when I was a freshmen before I had her as a teacher, she had been rejected getting tenure. And people were like, oh, it's misogyny, it's sexism. She should have gotten it. And so I was actually part of a group who like signed a position petition and argued for her to get tenure. And so I argued for her to get tenure. 
And then I ended up with her as a teacher and she was so awful. Right. 
So both what I'm learning and I'm writing about too, is that both things can be true. All things can be true. There's a woman who's being discriminated against because she's a woman in this day. And she happens to be really ill and hurting other people. It's it's like, where do we, it's so complicated to tease out. So yeah. So you, okay, so then you got into this program, so you didn't, 
I didn't leave Northwestern. And I kept writing and I took directing classes as well, which I really loved. And then I started T I sort of snuck into film classes as well, because I was like, well, I'm taking screenwriting and that, and the film department just felt less harmful, you know? And maybe only because I wasn't really in it, I don't know. But I, I just think that like, your teachers are not like psychologically breaking you down and film classes in a way that's excusable. You know what I mean? Like I do feel like that's so much of that, that school of acting teaching where they're just like, oh no, you've got to strip them down to nothing and build them back up. 
And it's, so what 
They don't realize is we're already nothing. Yeah. Right. 
We're just like clay. Yeah. 
Very few of us are walking around thinking that we're, we're the best Christian for both of you guys about just as Chicago as the second city and like, does Chicago have it, or did it have a chip on its shoulder about, you know, its comparison to New York because arguably Chicago is now the premier theater city, like New York doesn't compare at all to Chicago. And I'm just wondering about like some of this abusiveness, we haven't talked to too many people who graduated from New York schools, I guess before, when we talked to people who went to Julliard, we'll hear about a lot of that abuse, but like, I just wonder what the connection might be between these sort of abusive teachers and this chip on our shoulder, about where the second city. 
Well, there is definitely there. I had one experience with this one teacher, Dominic, miss Simi who taught all the musical theater classes, which was like a big interest of mine. Cause I had started out as a singer and I was in this class with him and we had a day where we had to do an audition. Like we had to come in, like we were doing an audition, we had to dress like we were dressed for an audition and it was pouring rain that day. So the outfit that I was going to wear on, like, I don't want to haul this around in the rain, so I just picked something else. It was nice, but it wasn't as nice. Right. And then I got up and I sang some song. I don't even remember what it was. And then afterwards, you know, then he would just tear everybody down in front of the whole class. 
And so the first thing he said was, well, I don't know if you think you look good in that. 
Oh, wow. Oh, thank you, Dominic. 
And I was like, oh my God, here we go. He says, well, you know, when you go back to New York and you're singing in some nightclub and I was like, why does, why does he know I'm from New York? And then I realized, you know, back when we had those like actual physical Facebooks that had everybody's face and where he was from, I was like, he must've looked in there and saw I was from New York. He must have seen, I was from Westchester and just thought I was one of these really privileged kids because he always championed like Brian, Darcy, James, and some other people, he loved to take the little Midwestern bumpkins. Not that they were really bumpkins, but like take them. 
And then like, really like, Hey Broadway, here you go. Like have these wonderful people. But like, if you were already from New York, he was like, totally had a chip on his shoulder about it. And the ironic thing was that I grew up in this blue collar Italian neighborhood and he has this blue collar Italian guy. And I'm like, if you had any fucking idea, like, and, and so the second I put those together, I just totally wrote him off as a human being, you know? And I think because I was able to do those things and I think instead of being hurt, I was just like, look at how pathetic you are. You know, I was less damaged. I was mad. 
I was annoyed. I like did vindictive things in that class. Like there was a, there was a music major who sang some song that was like, she did it so operatic. And I was like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. So for like final performance, like I came in and I fucking blew it out of the water. I did that song and another one and, you know, and like the star guy in the sh in the class was just like, that was amazing. And I'm like, yeah, I know I'm never going to get cast in a play at this stupid school, but, you know, like, so I don't know. I operated out of spite. I feel like at a certain point, 
You know, we were talking earlier that, you know, anxiety, all kinds of things can be motivators. And I think, you know, it is a coping mechanism and it is one that is sometimes you can spike, can activate. And, and, and if you're active, I think you have a chance of getting out and doing something else. So thank gosh, for spite, because I it's like it motivated you to, to, to do stuff as, as opposed to, it seems like it motivated you to take the bull by the horns. You know, I mean, maybe you already came into the school feeling like you could advocate for yourself or that you were in the captain of your own whatever ship, but maybe, you know, it, it does seem like you turn those lemons into that kind of lemonade. 
And I was wondering if the exercise about where you get to kill the person, did H how has that thread gone for you and your writing? Do you ha have you continue to do any of that in your writing? You know, well, I have, I don't have a lot 
Of plays that are super personal to me in that way. I do have my play Lucinda's bed, for sure. I, I, I quoted a lot of people in that play like, you know, who did me harm? I'm like, I am totally taking all the receipts and putting them into this play, but no, I mean, I give that exercise to my students sometimes to, you know, cause I think there's catharsis to be had in it. And I thought it was a really interesting, and clearly we all needed it in that moment to like kill off our acting teacher in writing. And it was fun, but yeah, I, you know, part of me, I feel like I was just more able to remove myself from the department and not be harmed by it versus I don't know how much I was making lemonade. 
I was, I was protecting myself and I was fine. I found another program where I could thrive and that was the writing program. And I got what I needed to out of the theater department. But it was like, there were tracks that you had to have, like you had to have like a, a specialty or a focus to graduate. So you had to have enough acting classes or enough design classes or enough directing classes. And you could decide what that was part way through, but writing wasn't one of the options and part of the reason writing, wasn't one of the options. It's the fucking writing teacher there. You know, they finally did my junior year, but it wasn't, nobody could take my writing classes. So I argued, I said, look, I'm in this place, you know, this special certificate program I'm writing every quarter, like this is going to be my thing. 
And they're like, okay, well, let that be your thing. 
Okay. And what did you get when you say you got, what? You, you got something out of that, what did you get out of the acting department? Like what do you think you took with you that is, that you use Tuesday? Or, 
You know, I think, I think I understand a lot about people's vulnerability and that, you know, like Anne would find out these things that had happened to people and then try and use that in a scene. I mean, and one of the girls in my class, like four of her friends had died in one weekend. One had like, had too much alcohol, some, you know, drinking competition thing at college and died and then a semi fell on a car for like three of her friends. And she was one of the people who Aidid them like that's how traumatizing it was for her. Right. 
And like three weeks later and is bringing it up in class while she's trying to get work. And I'm like, this is not okay. You know? And so I think like just having an understanding of where boundaries should be, you know, but you know, mostly by terrible example. No. Yeah. 
But what you were, you said you almost minored in psychology where you was that the first time you were really learning about these concepts and sort of applying them to your life or had you already sussed a lot out, you mentioned earlier being an oddly mature kid, which, you know, everybody who has a traumatic past will tell it, you know, has that same exact story. They were, they had to be really good. So when did you start thinking psychologically? 
Well, I took a psychology class in high school, oddly, that was one of like the three electives the, my high school offered. And so I would say I started there and it was very much to sort of pull apart the puzzle. That was my family and especially my mom's side of the family and just, you know, be like, okay, well, why is everything happening? Cause my parents were both incredibly private and I couldn't for a long time figure out what motivated anything that they did. And so acting was great that way. And as far as just focusing on motivation, but you know, when you're writing a play, you were also focusing on your characters motivations. And so, you know, I, that, you know, psychology on top of motivation in acting was like really kind of those pieces fit together really nicely for me. 
And I wish I had taken like some more anthropology classes, but I took a bunch of sociology and psychology classes. And I will say, you know, like there was theater history classes that I took that were really good. There, there were things that, you know, I felt like I learned a lot. I liked my design classes, but you know, it wasn't, it wasn't worth being part of this culture where everybody was being torn down emotionally, you know, that was clearly a Mo you know, sort of a through line. I th I feel like there was really only one teacher who, or maybe two who didn't do that, you know, who didn't subscribe to that 
Example of something that they would do as a technique to tear you down? 
Well, there was like a shaming thing that happened during, during class, you know, like the way the teacher would talk to you in front of the whole class. But the worst example that I heard of was, so after that whole thing on Facebook happened, I posted about my acting teacher who was on that page. She had access and could read the stuff and I'm like, I don't care. I know she can see this and I don't give a fuck. And so I posted about, you know, I'm concerned cause she does still teach for the school. She doesn't now, but she was over at N U Q and Qatar, the mid, mid east campus. 
And I actually ended up having students who had her as an acting teacher in the middle east, because they would come and do like six months over in the U S. And I was like, oh my God, she's still pulling the same shit. And so I was like, I have concerns about what's going on because she's the only one who still teaches there and I'd like to do something about it. And one of the people reached out to me and said, oh, I'm on the board actually of the school of calm. And I can, I'll try and talk to somebody, you know, but then somebody else came up and like, cause I started getting all these DMS from people when I posted that. Cause the other thing I posted was for those of you or who were feeling shame about any sort of, you know, sexual encounter or whatnot, manipulation that you experienced with the teacher, like, let me tell you, I've taught there for 10 years and I have been pursued by some of my students. 
And you can still say no, like as a teacher, that's your job to say, no, it's your job to draw the line. It is not your job as the student to draw the line. And so for those of you who are holding shame about it, it's totally not your fault. It's completely not your responsibility, which then my DMS opened up and like people were telling me things. And like one of the worst things I heard was that she made a male student strip naked in class, in front of everybody so that he could be, you know, 
Oh my God. Oh my God, 
That's horrible. 
Yeah. And that person is not teaching there anymore. Is that what you said? No. 
No, not, yeah, no. I believe she's finally retired. Yikes. And like they made her go to some program. They made her like, you know, go to some sensitivity program where she could behave and I was like, okay. Wow. And then she, you know, was maybe a little better, I don't know. 
And then retired and got pension benefits. I'm sure. Great. Wow. I mean, I, you know, what's interesting is that we've talked to, have we talked to any Northwestern? Oh, maybe I had a very different, especially during, you know, during the time period. My guess is, is this the 98 to 92. Okay. Right. So the prime, the prime growth period of I'm sure it was gross before. And I know this period because that's when we kind of went into school. 
So I did not know. It's interesting. You never hear like the, the famous graduates it's, it's interesting of Northwestern or DePaul. Yeah. Talk, say the truth of what went down. It's like, I feel like people are scared and people are like, well now I've made it or I'm successful. So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna share the truth. When, when somebody told us somebody who knew Gillian Anderson, who went to the theater school and she, when she was there the whole time she spoke in a British accent, I was, yeah. Somebody told us she, the whole time she was there, she spoke in a British accent. 
And w Lee later it was somebody I forget. Now somebody asked her about it. And she said, have you heard about what goes on in theater schools? I was protecting myself like her. That was her whole way of not revealing anything about herself. And she has, to my knowledge, never embraced her status as an alum and many alum of many different schools go out of their way to never mention the school they went to because, oh yeah, I actually 
Started well. Okay. So one of the things you were asking Gina was about the New York LA thing. And I think Northwestern way more than DePaul and Columbia, like kids graduate. And they just scattered to the coasts. They very rarely, every once in a while, there's a year where they tend to stay more. And I think it has more to do with there being a recession and nobody being able to get a job. And so, yeah, Northwestern people don't stick around in general, but I also learned very quickly, very quickly because of my first job out of college was working backstage at the Goodman. And it did not take me long to figure out that I should not tell people. I went to Northwestern because I mean, Northwestern students were thought of as elitist and snobby and thought they were better than everybody else. 
And, but also everybody knew you didn't have to audition to get in there. So we're really where you better than everybody else. And so there was definitely like, there was a chip on the shoulder, there was a bunch of things. So I just stopped telling people that I went there. And then when I was teaching at Northwestern, I was like, so I don't tell people that I went to Northwestern and they're like, what? You know, cause they're all like they're to get that Northwestern badge. Right. 
And they were like, why are we paying all this money to, to 
Say we went to Northwestern and I'm like, yeah, well, Northwestern grads are often assholes. Like, so, you know, if you want to be able to say you went to Northwestern, I would say first and foremost, don't be assholes so that you can change that perception. Right? 
Yes. 
Many of them aren't. But the other thing about Northwestern, because it there's so many kids privilege there and acting is a working class job. It is a blue collar job, right. I mean, it is shitty hours. It is shitty pay. It is hard on your body, you know, and you could go years and years and years and not get very far, you know? And, and these kids come to Northwestern with the stars in their eyes and they walk around for four years. Like I'm an artist, I'm an artist. And then they get out there and they see what the reality is. And they're like, I am never going to have granite countertops in a nice house in the suburbs. 
Like I grew up in if I keep doing this. And so they either like become executives or they go to nursing school, you know, 
Seems like what we're saying here is that the only reason the school has this prestige is because of the, there's probably more to it than that. But 
Yeah. I don't know what the prestigious about, well, I don't know why it would be better than others. I mean, it's crowded, there's too many people. There's not enough opportunity for all the people that they have in the program, which I think is probably still true. You know, you can still only cast so many people in so many places when you've got 400 people in your program. 
And some, and ed, Ryan whose episode is airing today, told us that Gale is a dump. Like buildings are terrible. It's like, it's like old growth. And that he, when he, he didn't go there, but he was there for some reason. And he said to somebody who was auditioning, is this what you thought it was going to look like? I mean, Northwestern, let's be clear has an amazingly prestigious. And I think it's earned prestige for its academics and for its law school and for its med school. So maybe it's just transfer prestige to the others. 
Yeah. I mean, I do feel like acting wise, people who are good, who come out of what Northwestern come out, or at least from my time, I don't want to speak from now because I just don't have context for now. I taught in the film department, I ignored the theater department for nine years while I was there. And, but I, I do think a lot of people, like from my time our six were successful, despite their time at Northwestern, you know? I mean, there were probably some really useful things they learned, but like me, you know, it's maybe not the thing you wanted to learn in acting class, you know, yourself. Yeah. 
But what's your journey. I was going to say, so you graduated and then what was your, how did you move forward? Like what did you, how did that go? Clearly you've moved. 
I mean, yeah. With, with a lot of stasis in the midst of all of that, but yeah. I, you know, I came out saying, okay, I'm going to focus on my writing. And I was dating my now husband who graduated a year before me at the height of the recession and got a job. So I was like, okay. So I guess we're here in Chicago. And I also, I really love screenwriting. Like I want, I would love to make lots of films and it's, but it was so expensive. And then, you know, it was, you had to actually film on film. So I had like a, a film that I was like, Ooh, maybe I can make this really low budget. 
And then it got to the point where I was like, well, I can do this. I could produce this. Or I could produce my wedding. And I really can't do both. And I've been married for 25 years. So I feel like that was a decent investment. And I just was like, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna focus on playwriting and Chicago wasn't even an awesome place for new plays right then. But because of Chicago Dramatists, it really sort of became a great place and, and Rebecca Gilman and things like that, it became a great place for new plays. And yeah, so I just sort of stuck around and kept my head low. Didn't tell people, I went to Northwestern, wrote stuff, did things through women's theater Alliance and the Bailey wick directors festival. 
And then finally, I'm not a joiner, you know, I'm really not a joiner. And I think that Northwestern even made me less of a joiner because of the environment there. And I sort of ignored people's advice to do Chicago drama just for a long time. And then I finally went over there and Russ hooked me up with Kevin Heckman at stage left. And that was sort of where everything launched off from 
Is that so Chicago drama, this is it's a writer's lab in addition to being a theater. Well, 
And just not a theater, it's not a producing theater right now. And it wasn't at the beginning, it was sort of a producing theater in the middle for a while and, and found that it was overstretching itself and giving a lot of resources to one or two or three writers, a season, as opposed to its entire group of resident playwrights and not serving everybody as well. But yeah, it is a place that has been developing new work for a long time, both from through classes and then through their network and then through their residency. So yeah, it has been a fantastic place. I think it's less, there's more, there's so much more new play development opportunity in Chicago now, like people sort of got caught wind of that and Steppenwolf started doing what their first look and then Goodman was doing new stages and their writers lab. 
And you know, so everybody kind of has stuck their fingers in there and are doing it well or poorly, depending on who you ask or how your process works. But 
I'm glad you mentioned Steppenwolf. Cause I was going to ask you what it was like, you, you worked with Steppenwolf. Can you share your experience? Good. 
Yeah. You know, it was really good. Honestly, I had, there had been other playwright, friends, mine who had had bad experiences prior to that. And somebody who used to work there when I was, I was talking to her as I was negotiating my contract or getting ready to, and she's like the last thing she said to me before she hung up the phone was don't let them screw 
You. I was like, 
And it ended up, I have never felt. The only thing I felt screwed by was that I didn't realize until opening night that my first play that was produced, there was not running long enough to qualify for the Jeffs. It was like only a three or four. It wasn't, it was shy of the required 21 performances. I think it was like four weekends. 
No, not it's not long enough, but the run of it, 
The show was not long enough. And I was like irate when I realized that mostly because the two performances by Ross Alexander and guidance Swearingen in that play were so phenomenal that I was like, these guys really should be recognized for this work. You know, I didn't care as much for myself, but you know, all these, so many people put work into a play and then for nobody to be able to be recognized for it was aggravating. But no, and you know, I was, I found out I was pregnant like just a couple of weeks before rehearsal started. And I was, I had to tell everybody, like I had to tell the stage manager I had, I, I needed to snack constantly, so I wouldn't vomit. 
And so I had to tell everyone like, I'm sorry, I have to have snacks around me during rehearsal process. And it's rude. And, but we don't want me to vomit, you know, 
No, that's, that's a little more traumatic in some ways, 
You know, so it, but it was good. And you know, there was this one moment where my director during tech, it was his first time directing and tech was overwhelming for him as it would be for any first-time director. And I, I had just realized during the run that night, how to fix the scene, I was like, oh, I, I figured it out. I know how to fix it. And he's like, I don't have space for this right now, Mia. And I was like, oh, it's fine. And I just sort of turned around and was like, I'm going to go home and rewrite it. And the next day, and Sobell who was the new player development person at the time comes in. He's like, so did Tim yell at you last night? 
And I'm like, no, he didn't yell at me. You know? But like clearly Malcolm UN, who was the stage manager at the time who has since passed, he, you know, he saw something happen and he was like, okay, let's make sure that the playwright's okay. And, and it was all fine. Like I didn't take anything personally in that process, Tim was just stressed and I was like excited about my discovery and it all was fine. So that was, that was honestly a great experience. Other than that, didn't qualify for the jobs. 
We can do a whole podcast episode about the ways in just the anatomy of being a woman impedes in your job. Like, I mean, I like three stories popping to my mind that all have to do with having my period. One of which I feel, I mean, I can't be proven and maybe I'm being paranoid, but I feel that this experience tipped off a set of events that led to like dissolving a professional relationship. Literally just like I bled through my pants and I had to leave something and come back to it. And when I came back, the look on this guy's face, he was giving me what he thought was, this was a sympathetic smile, but I swear to God, what I saw in his eyes was see, you really can't do it. 
I, I really, and, and it, and it was like, that was the step one of, and it's, it's fascinating to me. Some of these are very basic things that in some ways as a culture, we're still not that equipped to deal, to deal with, you know, those of us who don't have and it's comical women parts, parts. 
Yeah, for sure. I have been doing this whole interview with a migraine from my perimenopause, so, 
Oh, wow. I am. I have all kinds of stuff. All kinds 
Of migraines too. Oh 
Yeah. I got my I've been having migraines since I was five years old. My God. And they're hormonal. They think they're hormonal even from five years old. So it's crazy heart situation. Wait, let's, let's talk really briefly about, or, or, you know, moderately, briefly, whatever about your, what you're doing and the web series that you 
Did Haven. Yeah. I, so from like 1999, on and off through 2017, I worked at a domestic violence shelter. And pretty early on in that time working there, I was like, this needs to be like a one hour drama series. Like this is like, it's an revolving door of interesting characters and, you know, but I was like, but nobody is doing shows about women and certainly not women of color, which is, you know, PRI primarily, you know, because white women tend to have more money. And so they have more resources and they don't end up in shelters is often not because they're not being abused, but just because they have more resources. 
And so, you know, it's a lot of people coming through that have fascinating stories and there's a lot of like humor and heartwarming stuff that happens that I don't think anybody realizes. So I made this web series called the Haven kind of like as a proof of concept to be like, this would be a good show people. And then, and open television, which is an intersectional group in Chicago based out of Chicago, picked it up for distribution, which was amazing because we're barely like our content is on their mission. Like Elizabeth, Layla, and I, as white CIS straight women are not very mission for them. 
So I was like, oh, thank you for, including us. That's so nice. And then the day they released the show, my mom went into hospice. And so I, I had, I really, I didn't, I was like, okay, well, I'm not marketing this show. I'm doing this. And then I was just kind of getting back into gear February of 2020 when, and then the pandemic hit. And I was like, okay. So it's like, I have this web series out there and you can find it on, on open television and you can find it@thehavenweb.com, but it, you know, and it was a fantastic experience. Like I learned so much, it's almost like I put myself through film school, but I paid other artists instead of paying a school, you know? 
Oh, 
What a great way to look at it. Like that is, that is so maybe that's what needs to happen instead of theater acting conservatories. It's like we learn on the job and we also can you paid other artists to thrive instead of an instead of advisor? 
Totally. I wasn't abusive in the process. I, I don't think I was, but you know, somebody might disagree with me, but it was such a, like that ended up being the thing that made me the happiest was writing people's checks. Like I had no idea that that would be as gratifying as it was to just be like, and like aid to just have the money and, you know, thank you to everybody who gave to us, but like to, to pay these artists and to pay them like, you know, a sag wage, you know, it was a low sag wage, but it was still, you know, and then we paid the crew, like the same as we paid the actors. So it was, 
Are you a go fund me or some type of a campaign? 
We did, we did fractured Atlas. So it was a, what do they call that? It, there, they, they were our 5 0 1 C3 kind of thing. It's like, it's, I can't think of the words right now, mostly because 
Of the way borrow a nonprofit to raise money for your thing. 
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. And you know, and it works nicely and people were generous and, you know, we got a little bit of foundation money as well. And it was, it was a really good experience and I learned a ton from it and I would still love for it to be a one-hour show. You know, I think people assume that any show that takes place in a domestic violence center or shelter would just be depressing, but it's not about the abuse. It's about people starting their lives over 
It's about them surviving. Yeah. 
And was trying to pull away because a lot of women go back. Right. You know, like women, an average of seven times before they leave for good. And so that process of seeing them struggle and try and pull away. And of course we know a lot of the women actually see their abusers while they're staying in the shelter. Like they either logistically have to, because their kids have to see them or, you know, they have to go to court or sometimes they just want to see them, you know, because they love that person. So it's, there, there's a lot of complex stuff going on in there, but you know, like their babies are born in shelter and you see kids take their first steps and you see women get their first job after leaving an abuser. 
And it's just so inspiring in a lot of ways. 
How long did it take you to film? Oh 
My God. We did the first we shot the first episode, the week that Trump was elected, which honestly ended up being this amazing gift of just not having, like, I just couldn't think about it. You know? Like I think I couldn't sit there and stew and be like, oh my God, what's going to happen. It's like, okay. You know what? We're just going to take this group of artists and we're going to do some art and that's how we're going to spend the next five days. And so we did that, which was actually our second episode, but we shot it as our pilot. Cause it was the cheapest smallest. And then in April of 2017, we shot the second one. 
And in may of 2018, we shot the last two. Wow. So it was over like quite a long period of time because we had to, or we had to raise money. 
Right. Right. By the end, were you much more efficient than the, with the first episode that you shot? 
Yeah. In some ways, you know, I, we had different directors each time, so Elizabeth and I co-directed the first one. And then we brought other people in for the other two partially because, well, especially for the last two, we had so many women of color in the show that I D I didn't feel comfortable telling it so much through a white lens. Like our, our director of photography is, is a Latina. And so, like, there was some of that perspective, but I just wanted more, but, you know, then you have to sort of develop a new language again. And, and then we were working with cat Dean who is, was disabled at the time and, and has since passed, but she, you know, so that took more time, you know, it was just like, okay, you're working with a person who has physical disabilities and that's just going to be more of a, a thing. 
So in some ways it wasn't, but in some ways it was, you know, it was, we sort of added new challenges each time. 
And that's the hate, say the name of the website again, where people can find it. It's the 
Haven web.com. 
No heaven, web.com. All right. Cool. Thank you so much, Mia. 
Hey everyone. It's Gina. Just jumping on at the end here to say, if you haven't already please subscribe to the podcast and also please leave us a five star review. If you feel so inclined, if you really love us, please write a review. Having those reviews, whether they're good or not helps us with our algorithm in matrix of it all. So it would be greatly appreciated. I survived theater 
School is an undeniable ink production. Jen Bosworth, Ramirez, and  are the co-hosts. This episode was produced, edited, and sound mixed 
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