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We talk to Susan Bennett!
We went to theatre school. We survived it, but we didn't understand it. 20 years later, we're talking to our guests about their experience of going for this highly specialized type of college at the tender age of 18. Did it all go as planned? Are we still pursuing acting? Did we get cut from the program? Did we... become famous yet?
I'm Jen Bosworth from me this and I'm Gina Polizzi. 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? Oh, so you love Pasadena.
I just, we love Pasadena. I it's its own. It's just like Evanston. I mean, basically you go where you feel comfortable and we're like, Pasadena is like Evanston let's live here. I mean, it's just so funny.
Do you know who Erika Jayne is?
No,
She's on the real Housewives. She lives in Pasadena in like an enormous mansion. Is there like a whole section town?
So there's a section of Pasadena. South Pasadena is, is really like Evanston, but south Pasadena is so expensive because the schools are good. So that's where everybody moves to as kids. So we don't live there. We live in regular Pasadena, and, but there is a section of regular Pasadena too. That's kind of in the Hills and it is Caray Cray, Cray Cray. So yeah, Pasadena is, is it's like Evanston, like we're in Evanston, like by the lake, there's huge mansions. And then there's also that so huge apartment complexes and that's where we live. So
Yeah, I should have known, you know, they had this enormous gore. I mean, it's one of these houses that so big that she has like a chapel inside, you know, with stained glass and a chair and her, she didn't when the show started, she didn't work and he's a lawyer and I'm like, Hmm, what's wrong with this picture? I mean, even top notch lawyers, I mean the lawyers who make that kind of money or like judge Judy, you know, now your average lawyer. Well, so then like five years later, he, the guy is indicted for taking money from settlements that he would earn settlements for his patient.
No, not his patients, his clients. Yeah. And then, then just take the money.
Sure, sure. And did he went to jail?
No, he's not in jail. Probably having to pay back and like probably, yeah, I think he's just in the midst of, I think he declared bankruptcy. Of course,
Of course. And they still live
In that house. They still live in that. Well, she filed for bankruptcy. I mean, she filed for divorce and the thinking was that that was an arrangement between them to protect the assets. I mean, scumbags people are
Scumbags people that is, that iScuzzy scumbags. It's so true. I, I agree yesterday, speaking of scuzzy scumbags, I went to the, this is not really, but I went to the, so first of all, I, I got a cold and I was like, what? And everyone says, colds are a hugely on the rise because people stopped wearing masks. So I still have my mask on, but people aren't, the things are starting to get transmitted again. But of course I'm like, I have COVID, you know, but cause, but I had excessive sneezing, which isn't really what the allergies and also I'm a terrible housekeeper. So we have dust like seven inches thick on everything.
So that could be, it I'm exaggerating, but it's, it's like my fan has a lot of dust on it. I gotta clean the fan. But anyway, we went to, and this is America, man. We went to the outlet mall, my friend, Jason, I yesterday at, before it opened, because we didn't want a lot of people, but man Americana, if you want to see Americana go to an, a huge, the huge outlet mall at, you know, an hour before it opens you see some interesting stuff. Interesting people, some interesting, you know, I, my friend wanted to go and I was like, oh, okay.
But I wasn't feeling great. So I'm like not feeling great. It's a hundred degrees right now here. And we're at the outlet mall. That is America right there. That right.
Did that that's that reminds me of my version of that growing up was something called the Roseville auction. And it was essentially a, a flea market. It's a flea market. Just everybody gets a little booth and sells their crap. Correct. Yeah. Okay. But in this case it was some things that were new, but a lot of just like a tarp covered with machine parts and yes, guys having serious conversations about how much they're going to pay for this ball bearing or whatever that was. And as you know, it's just funny how, as a kid, you just have a perception of like, this is just how this, everybody has a Roseville auction.
And if my adult eyes, I look back, I think there must have been mess deals going on that place. Some shady ass shit going on. But all I could think was like, they have a popcorn or Slurpee or something.
The other thing is just, you know, it's just, yeah, it's just all about the deals and consumerism. And you know, there are people waiting in line to get into two stores, Tory Burch. I know nothing about Tory Burch and cracks. For some reason there was
The crock store
Was that we were like, what? But I guess people, they become hip now with like hip entertainers. This sounds crazy, but I was researching it because I was like, what is going on? So hip hop stars and like just fashion east does wear Crocs now bright colored Crocs. And they put little sticky things. They put little plugs in their cracks, like bright yellow cracks with like evening gowns. I,
Okay. Here's a, here's the question I have for you. So basically for the last several years ever since the eighties, it became popular again, I haven't liked w well for it, maybe five years ago was sort of the nineties and now it feels like we're fully into the eighties. Yeah. I haven't liked, what's popular in fashion for quite quite some time. And I have a few things about it. One is like, okay, this means I'm old because this, I remember my mother saying to me in the, I guess maybe it was like the eighties or maybe it was the nineties that all the sixties stuff came back.
And she said, I thought it was ugly. Then I think it's ugly now. And that's how I feel about this nineties and eighties stuff. Like it's all so unappealing, I hate pastel colors. I hate earth tones. And I hate high-waisted and washed jeans with wide legs.
So I'm like pick up, pick a style, like either high-waisted and, and, and bootleg, you know, it's so funny because Jay, my friend, Jesus, like what happened to bootleg? Like bootleg was my favorite style. What happened to it? I'm like, Jesus, over it's over, she's a girl high-waisted bootleg. I'm like, Jesus,
This is not coming back. That's not
Tap. That's not happening. But high-waisted why leg w
One person looks good in that type of clothing. And it's like, yeah, but they would look at an absolutely anything they were. So my question to you is more about how, okay, my example of this is, remember when booty boots came out, the, you know, it's like, it's not a boot and it's not a shoe. It's the ankle. When this came out, I thought that is hands down. The ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. I would never wear those in a million years. I seriously. And then they stuck around for quite some time. And by the end of it, I was like, those are kind of cute. And so I have this thing that I think that my sense of style is basically just like people tell me what is looks good.
And then eventually I believe it. Well,
I think that eventually, like anything in psychology, right? It's around, if you're exposed to it enough, you maybe have, you know, what you have, you have Stockholm syndrome of the booties
Of fashion. Like if
You can't beat them, you might as well them, or like maybe you were just exposed to it. So like, I have the same thing with like my, because my niece is sort of the fashionista. She's turning 17 in a couple of weeks and I'm like, oh, okay. She bought these, you know, everyone's into Yeezy shoes, right. That are like, like big clamper, kind of, she has shoes like that. And I'm like, no, no, I will never like these. And then, but because my niece is 17, like five 10 or whatever. I don't know what she is really for just long legs. The easiest don't look so bad, but you're right.
Anything would look good on her. You stick a freaking, you know, bedsheet, a stained bed sheet on her and she could make it. Right.
Right. Yeah. He's these are a great example. I mean, just all of kinase clothing. I, then not one thing that's attractive to me. He, he uses like the ugliest colors, the most bland. And of course he puts it on beautiful people. So it looks great. I haven't come around at all on, on that stuff, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I'm like, oh yeah, that looks really cute. Probably right before it goes out the floor.
It's like, I, now I'm just behind I'm behind. So like things that are yeah. That were cute awhile ago now I'm like, oh, that's kinda cute. So
I think Anna Wintour has it. Right. Which is that she found a hairstyle, a dress style and a jewelry style. That's very flattering to her. And it's not that she doesn't stay current, but she finds the silhouettes that most closely resemble, you know, the thing that's basically her uniform and actually this idea of a uniform, which was introduced to me by Michael Kors and project runway all those years ago when he was like, I wear jeans and this blazer and this white t-shirt, because I don't want to think about what I'm wearing. I want to get up. And I, you know, but it does look pulled together. It always looks clean. It always looks fresh. And I thought, yeah, that's what I need. Like a uniform of like re something that's beautiful and flattering never have to decide what I'm going
To wear. Yes. So I have had a friend named John in New York city and I've lost touch with him. He was like a real eccentric. And he, he did that. He found something, it was banana Republic, something genes, a certain type of gene, a certain type of Canadian army boot that he loved t-shirt and a, and a sweater like a cardigan. He bought $10,000 worth of that one look. And that's all he wore for years. And the guy looks great. He, when he went to banana Republic and thousand dollars, please make it so that I have this number of jeans, this number of shirts, and this number is cardigans and they did it.
And the guy was set for, I dunno, 10 years,
John. I want to be, I'm going to, I want to do that. I really want to do that because you know the feeling when you find something that looks good, you, I want to own every single item of this that ever existed. Like I just recently discovered these kinds of pants that have pockets, but then they also have a smaller zippered pocket within it, which is just perfect. If you want to carry around your Advil. So now I want to buy those in every color. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not, you know, I've never been a trend person. I've never been like a, it's too much energy, like shopping.
You're not a shopper. Like, I feel like, I feel like, you know, you, you don't, yeah. That's not your
Trends. You do the sunglasses. I'm a
Lover. I'm a little behind, but I do do it, but I definitely do it once it gets to target. And by the time it's over. So I do, I do a semi-okay job following them. And I do like, I mean, color is just my jam. Like I love color. Even though I wear a lot of black, I do have I'm looking at my closet right now. Cause that's where I am. And I love color. I just do. I think color, like I'm an, what's her name? Apple, Iris apple. Is that a no, that's my she's like my fashion. I like that's who I aspire to be someday. And I, when I, my new plan is when I make it somehow as a writer and don't have to audition anymore.
Like someone's forcing me to audition. This is so stupid, but here's my plan. So I, I, we make it as writers and I let my hair go gray. Right. So who cares? And then I just become Iris. That's like my,
But guess what? You don't need to wait. Yeah, I think I can do that right now. You can go to a Palm Springs, vintage shop, get some, some Pucci. You need some Pucci prints, some big Pucci prints, some, some crisp color. And you know, the other thing about your hair is I haven't done this, but I've thought about it at a certain point. When you have a lot of gray, just, just dye your hair, gray. I can do that. Yeah. You can just dire. You have to get a really good colorist for it. So it doesn't look weird to your hair, gray and then you never have to worry about it, man.
That's what I might do because I am just over dyeing my hair. I just feel like the, well, when my friend does it, it looks fine. Except then I have dye all the way around. Okay. For like days, like I look crazy. But then when I go to the salon, it's, as we know, it's $200. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it. Also. I'm sick. I'll
Show a hundred. It's 400 here. You have to get a good hair, a three 80 plus.
Right. That's like, you know, that's insane. So I just feel like it's time, I'm really close to being like, you know what? I'm embracing the gray and I'm, I'm just gonna call it and, and go from there and, and we'll see what happens. But yeah,
You're going to look great. I I'm, I'm looking forward to your, I think you're going to look awesome. I mean, you already do look awesome, but you can really have the, you really have the, what you need to have to pull that out.
Okay, good. Good. Because I, I, I don't want to look crazy and I also don't want to look Haggard Lilly. Like that's the best. Yeah. Let me run this by you.
I have after writing that screenplay, which thank you so much for your help. I will say this though. I w I should have done, this is a little, just a life lesson after I submitted it, I went and I read ones that have won in previous years. And I realized that all of the winners did something that I didn't do, which is that they all made their movies have one. They were all just one shot. Oh. So that they could do a lot of dialogue. Oh. You know, so that they could really propel the story.
And, you know, I thought of doing that and I thought it would be uninteresting. I
See. You're, you're kind of a different kind of filmmaker. Like I think your film was like a Western, which is like, it, it's more interesting to me than just a bunch of people sitting around talking to be honest with you. I, I,
The one that won last year was three people in a coffee shop where one person breaks up with one of them. And then by the end of the movie, the PR broken up with person is dating the third person who's there. I mean, it wasn't bad. There was nothing wrong with it. It didn't move me necessarily, but it's like, okay, this is great dialogue. And it it's tight and whatever. And then I just went through is like every single one was one scene, one shot. And for people who don't know, my thing was like multiple settings, you know? I mean, it was
Cool. I think it was special. Like it wasn't, it wasn't, it was also a period piece, which I think is really cool. Like you really went above it.
Yeah. Article realism. I really am into that whole idea of magical realism. But anyway, the point is writing, it just re the act of writing is itself inspirational. Like since Saturday I've have like 50 new ideas for things, including projects that we're already working on. But what about this? What about writing a story? Maybe a movie, maybe a play, maybe a television show where it's a matriarchy, but we never referenced it. It's just a regular slice of life drama where everything is completely inverted.
So, you know, so the opening scene is like, the mom comes home from work and the dad, you know, scatters around scampers around trying to get everything cleaned up and ready. And she sits down in the living room and she puts her feet up and everybody comes in, you know, and you just never make mention of it. It's just, it's just, and the whole experiment of it is let's just see all of the ways in which when we watched this as an audience, we want to say, oh, but that's not right.
That's not how that happens. That's what the man would be doing. And just to have it be all about that, just to have it be all about you constantly having the experience in the audience of things, things seeming off to you, honest,
I, you know, I'm trying to think of anything that's like that. And I don't, I don't, I've not had, oh, Handmaid's tale is a little,
Well, Handmaid's tale is like that in the sense that even though it's this horribly repla repressed society, the story is all about the women. Right. But let's imagine that the Handmaid's tale where it's all the men who are the breeders and the women get to make all the decisions.
Yeah. That's cool. I like it. I like it. I love the idea. And you know, it's so funny. I'm like flash forwarding in my head to like meetings with exacts. And they're like, this will never work. This will never work. That's what they always say about everything before, before things work is this will never work. You know,
It doesn't work until you like put it into the unit. That's the whole thing about art. That's w when it's done, right. It's putting an idea. I mean, it's reflecting, what's already happening, but it's also putting an idea into the universe that the audience hasn't considered until you show it to them. And then it's like, oh yeah. That's, that could be something right.
I mean, that's the horrible thing that seems like the whole point of art. Right? It's like, that could be something and it is something and you make something from nothing. I love this idea. So what got you thinking about that? Do
You remember? I've had an idea for awhile. I had an idea to write something about the world's last matriarchy. Like we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, what's the word anthropologists. And we're coming upon like a previously unknown community of people in some far flung corner of the world. And what we read, what we discover is that they run their whole society in this major ethical fashion. Because even though there have been over eons matriarchies I don't have any, how they re ran at, or my sense is like that they ran in this way that it kind of just worked.
It wasn't, it wasn't how the Patriot, it wasn't toxic. Like the patriarchy, at least that's how it sounds. Right. I'd be kind of interested. Like what if it was toxic? Well, that's
The thing, like, I think that, that look anything where there's one group kind of running the show, it gets toxic. It's toxic,
It's toxic eventually,
But it would be interesting to see what kind of toxic is a matriarch toxic versus patriarchy toxic. And I bet it doesn't get as toxic. And I bet it lasts a bet as cooler for a lot longer.
The other thing that inspired it was that for I'm doing I'm on this committee for something, that's a DEI committee and we're having our first meeting tomorrow and oh, diversity equity and inclusion. And so the, the people who are running the group are sent us like homework to do in advance. And one of the things was a Ted talk. Well, two of them were Ted talks, two great Ted talks. But the first one that was inspirational was a theater director who talked about how there's these two stories that are popular in our culture that are meant to really be just relatable across any division that we have in our population.
And they are Hamlet and ITI. And she tells a story about taking her children to CET when it came out in the movie theater. And she had, I don't know, something like a seven year old boy and a five-year-old girl, and she kind of recaps the story of ITI. And she talks to when they get to the end and the bad guys want to take ETL away and the kids band together, and they figure out a way to Swart the bad guys and get eaten. So she's having the experience of enjoying the movie herself, but she's really enjoying watching her kids and enjoy it at the beginning. They're just like wrapped with attention and it starts to get towards the end. And her son is still wrapped, but her daughter is starting to look worried.
And by the end, her daughter is sobbing. And she says, what's the matter he eats, he went home and she said, why can't I save ITI in the story? It's just a group of, it's really just a group of boys. And the girl, even though she's the youngest, she's just a cute appendage. She doesn't really have anything to do with. And she was saying that her, her daughter felt, cause I guess she's an adult. And so that they've talked about it. Her daughter felt like she was invested in this story. And because it was centered around these kids, you know, she just assumed that the, she just assumed that if she felt so invested in it, that it would somehow be representative.
And, you know, and then she just talked about the fact about in her early theater career, the number of people who said, you know,
You just she's
British. And some guy said to her, there's three female theater directors right now. One is a lesbian. One is crazy and one died or one committed suicide. So which one do you want to be? And, you know, I mean, it was a very simple idea. It was just about representation, but it was about the ways in which all, all our, all of our
Completely
Unconscious expectations are for gender. Wow. I'm going to watch
Today on the podcast. We're talking with Susan Bennett, Susan Bennett went to the theater school at DePaul university, then went on to have a very successful career on stage, as well as, as a voiceover artist and a writer. And she's a kind gentle, warm soul. Please enjoy your conversation with Susan Bennett. Oh, you have consummate setup
Of course, because this is
No, I, but see there's my shoes here. There's like, here's like some old shoe boxes. There's a bag of caffeine. You sound
Amazing. Well,
I do, I do have a good microphone, so I'm, I'm really glad to, but cause I forgot to set Chrome as my default browser, which you have to do. And so I've been like,
It's okay. It happens to a lot of people. Okay. It's good. I'm glad. Congratulations. You survived theater school.
I did that. I did survive theater school. I I, and I'm thrilled to talk about it. I haven't talked about it really in years. I realized that when you guys reached out to me, like, wow, I haven't even, I mean, it's not to say that it's not, it hasn't been like a background player, my whole, my whole adult life. But yeah. So
You were you an, I noticed on your Facebook, it says that you studied a constant rejection rejection as a theater school, or you as somebody who left and never looked back,
What did, what do you mean by never looked back?
I just mean sometimes when people leave the theater school, it was so, I mean, we we've talked to quite a few people who never want to never want it to think about it again, don't want to do this pod because they don't want to relive it, that kind of thing.
Okay. Now I do understand, you know, I guess I've been in both camps at various points in my life, you know, and I think that directly correlates with, or, or used to correlate any way with like how, how well I thought I was doing right. But I kind of feel like now as, at the age that I am at the phase of life that I am is that I really am very grateful for, for theater school because, and particularly this theater school, because when I looked back on it and again, I did this because you guys asked me to be on the pocket when I looked back on it, I thought, you know, none of the great things that have happened to me in my life would have happened to me if I hadn't chosen to go to theater school.
So, but that's not to say that there weren't emotional times or things that I feel badly about even, you know, 20, some odd years on, but those have mostly to do with me and the who I was as a person and who I have grown to be and who I wish I could have been for myself. And for all these people that I know and love and loved when I was in theater school. So, but I feel like it gave me a great foundation, particularly, you know, given where I came from, which was like, you know, Southern girl, I grew up with an, in a religious family and I grew up in new Orleans.
So I kind of had that balancing out the religious man. Yeah. Right. I mean, so that's a good question, but I, I, and I, I'm sorry that people are like, oh, I can't even look back on those years, but I'm, I'm glad to, to be able to look back on them in this context, because it made me realize like everything I have, that's really wonderful in my life or many things that are wonderful in my life, stem from DePaul. Wow, cool. Yeah. That's really low that's. I mean, I don't think we've heard, we've heard people say, you know, like I'm so grateful because I have a lot of things from them, but like to cure that most of the beautiful things in your life stem from some, some way shape or form from the theater school.
I was so curious about that. What does that mean? Well, for example, so what I remember and, you know, I just, I just read this on Facebook actually, is that David college has passed away. And I, I, you know, I saw, and I've seen people's reactions to him on Facebook and, and reactions to his death. And, you know, may he rest in peace? He was my first year acting teacher. And, and when I see people's response to him, like the friends that I have on Facebook, it just puts me in random. Like, I wouldn't know that person. And I wouldn't know there, I wouldn't have these memories of them, which are directly tied to this one person, which are directly tied to one place.
So that's like, one piece of it is like, I guess you could have infinite it's you could have infinite life experiences, but this one is mine. And the people that make it up. And the theater experiences that I had in Chicago when I was first, you know, in theater school, you go and see a lot of plays. I mean, those were seminal things. Like I saw this production of the price, Arthur Miller's the price. And I remember Peggy Roder was in it. And I want to say Greg Vink and not, not, I don't think it was Greg van Claire, but Peggy Roder was in it. And I, and it was at a theater in Skokie.
Okay. And that, that experience for me was really seminal because it was the first time that I had seen a straight play in a theater. Okay. Like I had, you know, I had been to see like cats when it came to the Sanger theater in new Orleans. And, but I had never sat in like an intimate house with actors kind of right there. And in front of me, people that I would come to whose work I would come to know in, in, you know, a place that, that became like this launching pad for so many ideas about theater, like now, I mean the improv idea about creation.
I mean, that is huge in what we do. Chicago was kind of the third coast back then. It wasn't, you know, as linked into New York and LA as it is now, or like Atlanta is now, or even new Orleans is now. So yeah. Like those things were foundational for me. I mean, as Chicago itself, Chicago is an amazing city. Nobody. I saw this thing on, I, I S I can't remember where I saw it. It was like, I wish I loved anything the way that people from Chicago say they love
Chicago.
And it's true. It's true. Like, it's a big city, it was accessible. It wasn't outrageously expensive than my room. I lived like in Lincolns. I lived in Lincoln park and then I lived in Bucktown and I lived, you know, by Wrigley field, like all these things that I look back on with such fondness, even though I know in the moment, I was like, worried about how I was coming across and not worried about like, am I going to be able to remember, remember my lines and this person I'm really in love with this person, or they know all that silliness, which was, which was part and parcel of every young person's life.
So, I mean, there were times where, you know, like for, I don't know, did you guys go to school with Dr. Bella? Did you have,
We didn't have her. I didn't have her, but yeah, she was, she was there when we were there. Are you all, are you, so you were before us? That was one of my questions.
Yes, I was. Yes. I think I was before you, so yes, like, so I had, so I had Dr. Bella and I was a very repressed, very rigid person when I entered the theater school. And naturally I thought it was very edgy, but really it wasn't very good.
Okay. I can relate for me.
Yeah. Okay. So I thought I was cool. Really? I was in a few repressed state. Yes. So we've all been there and maybe that's what the draw to theater school is like, you have this, you, whatever it is that you need, it is, it is kind of based in this need to find out for yourself who you really are, and that's the time of life, but it's definitely what theater school, at least for yacht for undergrad folks was about. And so Dr. Bella's class was technique and, you know, the look, the Bella was very understated person, very, very serious person.
And that for me was very, very threatening because I was very supercilious and very on the surface about things and kind of had this edge that I was putting out in the world. And Dr. Pella was not impressed and had seen 4 million students like me. And she was trying to impart something that perhaps that even a certain point, she realized like this kid isn't ready to understand, like, when she would say like, you'll feel it in your sex, put it there. And I didn't understand what that meant. I didn't understand like, oh, I have memories in my body, in my organism that I can draw upon. If I merely imagine that sensation there, it will go there.
If I imagine that I'm excited and tense and upset, it will go there. If I imagine that I'm really relaxed and I'm, you know, in an essential situation, then I can put it in my body. And my body will communicate things that my face won't communicate that my, you know, that I intellectually can't communicate. Like I will just communicate those things I didn't get. I didn't understand. Did you get it? When I got a C I got a C in technique and believe me, I was like, I wanted to be edgy, but I also want to get good grades. I had been like a great girl. Like I got good grades, goddammit. And so I got the, well, you know what, I think I came to understand that I didn't know what I was doing when I got the C, but it wasn't until, so the, I got the C I realized, like, I don't know what, I don't understand what the fuck is going on.
And then I started acting. I got very lucky when I came out of school, I was in a production of a Layla liaison. And then I did a production of uncle Vanya. And it was in those, it was in those situations where I was on stage with other people who are really skilled and wonderful actors that I S I started to understand, like, it was through observation. It was through kind of understanding, like, why, how are they able to create those over and over and over again? And I think honestly, probably maybe four or five years out of school, I started to kind of understand like, oh, I think now I get, cause she would say things like you're in the desert is very hot.
You're thirsty. You've been out there a long time. And the phone rings, I'm in the desert desert instead of, oh, I'm hot. Like you're, you should be able to imagine it to switch between these states. Right. I have to just say, you know, you're impressed.
Channel.
It's not even impressions for channeling. And I, I shouldn't be surprised for all the work you do with while your body and your voice, you clearly, you know what you're doing. But when you say that stuff about like, it took you four or five years, I don't think I still know that telling you right now. Like when I get a TV sides, I'm like, I forget about my body immediately. I'm like, well, Jen, I don't think have a different thing. I think like, you know, that is like, I just am who I am in my neutral state and I'm comfortable with that. And then I can just allow the viewer to kind of, I'm not good at television.
Like, believe me, I would go in and be like, so I had to sign this television. I had this television job. I had gotten the job, but like somehow I had said the line correctly in the audition and they gave me the job. And it was for this, I can't, I think it was black box. Maybe. No, I was for, it was for, I can't remember the television show, but I was working in a grocery store and I, and this kid has this meltdown on the floor of the grocery store. And I had a line, which was something like, can you take it outside? And I was like, can you take it out?
And the director of, so the director was like, cut, stop. That was great, everyone, great job. You, you, he pointed at me, he's like, take it all the weight. And I said, oh, okay. Of course. Yes. Yes, of course. And so we rolling again and I can, and he's like, listen, listen, you just, you know, this is the director of television and I'm literally like one little ancillary character with the line and he comes over and he's like, yeah. So this is, this is, you know, no, like for me, yes, exactly.
Like he's trying to give me my motivation and I literally am just a person saying, can you take it outside? Right. So that's my, all my kinesthetic
Awareness. Don't
You don't like, if anything, like you need, you need to rely only on that for television, in my opinion, like, you need to just be like, I'm in, I'm literally right here in, someone's doing something upsetting next to me. Can you take it outside? That's it. See if I had done that if I had done that well, did you ever get there? Did you get there? No. No. In fact, in fact, at one point he just said, just say the line anyone's ever feeling like really embarrassed. You know, how it is. If you're feeling embarrassed about your experience on television show, just know like some of us have been
There and kind of, yeah. Your story
Is about that all the time people. And it's, it's a thing about people trained to do theater, you know, good, bad or indifferent. We're trained to sell it to the back row and then to go all the way in the opposite direction. In fact, is that a small acting thing is probably something that had you done it in theater school, you know, people would have had to really work with you to get out of that. So, I mean, it's, it's possible that the, the, the range of ways you're expected to behave any given moment. Yeah. Yeah. I just looked up some of the shows you did, you did the women and Romeo and Juliet.
I don't think I got to see Romeo and Juliet. Who did you play in that? I played the nurse in Romeo here.
It was great fun. I, that was such an exciting experience for me because that was my first like li like lead Mainstage role. Like that was like a first for me and Christina Dara directed it. And it had a really wonderful cast. It had Karen mould, who's now bitch of, you know, bitch fame, who is an amazing, was an amazing actress and just an amazing presence. You know, she played Juliet and then Leonard Roberts, he was Romeo and we had, we had really good chemistry and I remember the audition process for it. And I remember it was a big deal for me too. Cause I'm not very with Shakespeare.
I always felt intimidated by it. And that would come through with this. Like, I don't even know why this is important anymore. I mean, you know, this, this very dismissive sort of attitude toward it, which was like, oh, you, you just really have to embody that you're yourself and speak in heightened language. And that was very intimidating. So it was kind of like, oh my gosh, I am somehow crack this Shakespeare nut. And somebody saw it and I got of roll and it's and it, and we did, it was, you know, set. It was set in the Jewish and Palestinian conflict. So it was like kind of this. Yeah. It was like, yeah. So I remember this, I'm glad that you asked me about this because I was literally thinking about this yesterday.
I was, as I was taking my daily walk and thinking about like, gosh, I wonder what the last we went shows I did. And I haven't thought through that kind of stuff in years, but I remember that was the first time. And this was, I remember this in, it was, we were in tech and no, I think we had come through tech and we were just doing the first run through after tech. And there were some faculty members who were there. I remember looking at, and I'm like, John Jenkins, his glasses. I can see his glasses and his head shape, you know, and Christine was out there, Trudy Kessler.
Might've been there. A couple of, you know, couple of people, people from the theater school were there. And we did the scene where Juliet tells the nurse, like for the first time that she's like kind of fallen in love with someone and, you know, and I talk about her like, oh, she was a little girl. And I remember she did this funny thing. She fell down and she hit her head and she's and she stinted and she went hi. Like I was telling that story, which is not funny in our, the way that we're we talk about, we say those words, that's not funny. And I remember in rehearsal, I was trying so hard to like find the humor in it and find the love and, and find all those things that Christine was trying to walk me through.
And I remember in this one run-through, there was something about it was the first time I'd ever felt that lovely kind of like that kind of lovely zone that you sometimes find yourself in, where you're not thinking about anything and you're not worried about anything. And you're allowing the given circumstances to just carry you along. And Karen was there and she was her lovely, bubbly, you know, life full of life Juliet. And I was able to kind of latch onto that within like the light shining on me, the warmth of the stage. I was like living in my clothes. My feet felt fine. And all of a sudden, like we lifted that scene kind of off the page and played it.
And it was lovely and charming. And it said everything about their relationship that needed to be said. And I remember some of the faculty member, faculty members who were in the audience, like laughing and like, you know, doing those sort of, you know, expressive noises that come across in a very big theater, which doesn't have many, very many people in it. And I remember walking off the stage, like, how did I do that? How do we do that? That was, so it just was the first time I'd ever, I knew I wanted to be an actor, but it was the first time I had ever really felt onstage, like everything fall into place, listening, breathing, living the scene out. So yeah, that, that was a big, that was a big one for me.
And I, you know, that show is received with varying degrees of, of love and affection, but I certainly learned something through it and I did love, I love the privilege of playing. Right.
You just made me think about something that I've never thought of before, which is that when there's a small audience of faculty members, the person who directed the play is having their own experience and judged. And I mean, it was nerve wracking for them.
I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. Never thought about that before, because I was, I was just living in my own self, but like, yeah, they were like our age now and directing a thing and humbly going through all kinds of mechanics and gymnastics in their head about their, their peers watching their work. And I could've cared less about their experience. I know we never thought of them as human beings. We never thought of them. Like, you know, we never thought of them. Of course we thought of them as human beings, but we didn't see them with all their complexities because we hadn't been there yet. And you know, it was like all about us and all about like, I don't know.
That's a good question though. Like what was it about for you? What was it about for you? Like what was being in the theater school about for you at that time? Like you're in your early twenties, what is it about for you? Do you want to learn the craft? Do you want to be famous? I mean, there was one girl who I went to. She, I believe this was my fourth year as she stood up in class. We were, we were talking with Jim Austel Hoff. If you remember hostel prof op, who I learned a good deal from too. And I look back on him like, oh, he, he, he was very canny that one, but she said, you know, he was in it, like, what are you in it for?
What are you doing this for? And she said, I want to be famous. She said, I don't want to have to worry about money. I want to live in a big house. I want to have a lot of people out. Like she just went through it and I, and I sat there and I thought, well, that's really honest. That's really honest. Like, wow, that takes a lot of balls to even know what you want at this age, with that much ferocity. You know? So yeah. I mean, but you're absolutely right now when I think on it, I'm like they wanted, they were so passionate about it, that they tried to impart it to other people. And, you know, if we could have, if we could have understood that a little or I could have understood that at the time.
And I have to say like, Christine was a lovely human being and she actually helped me out in a personal situation in a way that was really shocking to me. And like, oh my God, she's like the sweetest. It gave me a glimpse into what you're talking about right there, like on the street, you know, a block or two from the theater school when she was very kind to me on a day when I was having a really, really rough time. So yeah.
So I'm just know you got a very good role in a very good play. And yet one of your takeaways from the theater school was that you were shrouded in constant rejection. Not at the PID, not at the theaters go. Oh, okay. Well,
I mean, you know what, like that's a joke, like, first of all, it's, I'm just making a joke, like for the amount of like, if you're a professional, like we're professionals, so you go out there and you put yourself out there and the number of times that you put yourself out there relate, you know, relative to the number of times that you actually get the job, that's a lot of rejections. Right. So maybe it was like, you learn how to cope with rejection like that. It was going to be part of the deal. Yeah. Yeah. Which was part of the deal. Isn't it? I mean, you're putting yourself out there. You're putting yourself out there with your like, acting work. You're putting yourself out there with your writing work. You're putting a podcast out there, you know, like they're going to, and no matter what, I put myself out there with like my audio book work and it does not matter how good I know the product is or field abroad.
It is somebody who's gonna say, this person is terrible. This work is terrible. I don't even know how they have a job. They should be taken out in the street, like dragged by the horse, you know? And it's just like, so that, that too is a type of rejection because no matter, come on, like, no matter what you do, no matter how you put yourself out there and you put so much of yourself out there when you're acting and when you're, additioning, when you're doing audio stuff, like, like I do like, like all of us do the lion's share of your experience is somebody saying no?
Yeah. That's, that's true. Well, since you brought up, I'm curious when this thing you're talking about before of being in the zone. And I know Bob and I both know exactly what you're talking about. We've talked about on here and it's this thing that feels very hard to, you know, it's like it's lightning and you either catch it or you don't, but does the same thing happen with audio books?
Oh, sure. Yes. Sometimes. Well, I mean, sometimes, sometimes it's work, you know, sometimes you're just like, good. I can't find the thing. Where's the light switch I'm at. I'm still fumbling in the dark with this. But then sometimes for whatever reason, you find that level of comfort within yourself and with the material and your imagination clicks in and all your, for me, like it is, it isn't the default setting, but it's definitely in audio.
It is definitely a little more common than you would then I ever found on stage. And that's just because of the volume of stuff that I do. And also it's like, sometimes I'm the only judge, you know, like, oh God, that was quite like, nailed it. You know? And, but also like, oh, that this feels right. This feels, this feels like the place that you want to be. So yeah. There's definitely that. Yeah.
I always wonder when I'm listening, because I do listen to a lot of audio books. I'm always wondering whether the performer is really reading what they're reading or just as we can all do read something and never understand it. Because some, every once in a while you get a performance where you can tell that they're not reading it, reading it to for comprehension, because they, the most common thing that they do is instead of pronounced, instead of saying that they read something, they'll say they read something and you know, from how the sentence is written.
Oh, of course. Right.
Where's your, where's your head. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, so I, I just wonder, I mean, because like you say, you have to do such a volume is sometimes does it just feel like you're just getting out there? Yeah. Well,
Yes. And there are times where I'll listen back to something that I've recorded. I literally have no memory of recording that, saying that a woman getting in touch with me, she's a lovely audio book narrator. She's like, I am listed on this audio book that you were the, excuse me, you were the main narrator on and she's she told me the name of him. Like, no, I don't think, no, I don't think that's right. And she's like, oh no, it's you I'm like, are you, I mean, that's very sweet, but I honestly don't remember. I have no memory of granny up and I listened to it on automobile. I'm like, oh crap. I did. I did record that record.
That book. I have no, I have no memory of doing that. And yeah. So, I mean, I think that's, I think to your point, like that's normal because if you're, I literally figured it out. Like I figured it up when I, I was at Macmillan publishers and I was recording a title for them and they wanted to do like a little Instagram thing. And they gave me like this thought bubble and wanted me to write something on it and put it next to my head. And they took a picture of, and put it on, put it out in the world for everyone. And I realize like, what? I don't know, what should I say? And I was like, oh, I've recorded over a million words. And I was like, whoa, holy crap.
And your brain. I mean, our brains, aren't so big. I mean a million words. Right. But you know, when you think about it, think about how much you've talked in your life. Come on now. Oh, a lot.
Gosh. The whole experience of recording books. Do, if anything, to your own writing, to your own sense of
A lot, that's such a good question. I love this question because when, because there is a moment. So I do write you, you both obviously write as well. So when you, there is, you can write beautiful words. Like you can string together some beautiful words or have great thoughts in your head. But structure of any piece is really sort of the difference between it being a beautiful thing in the abstract and like stepping off the page and becoming some living organism, right. That people can relate to and that you can step inside of and that your imagination is drawn into. And so most definitely doing the audio books that I've done has taught me a tremendous amount about structure and it, and luckily I've done it so much that, you know, when I can find the time and the space, like the psychic space to do my, my writing work, then I instinctively kind of understanding this, this needs to be leading more to this needs to lead here.
Some obstacle has to be in place before it can get there. You know what I mean? Like you, you can feel that it's been a huge, like doing audio and reading so many books and books of different in different genres. And seeing that the common thread in all of them is a certain kind of structure and a certain arc over between like two. Now the books are like, there are some books which are just like two 50, like 250 pages, but all the way to like 400 pages, you can really feel that. And you can feel really well-written, you know, beautiful books. They take you there, like it's undeniable. Like you can't not go there with them. So it provides a great sort of frame when you're trying to write.
Absolutely. Which is why people, people always say writers always say, read, read, read, you are writer, read, read. That was something that was total bullshit. And I was like, Ugh. You know? And now after reading, you know, a lot of Stephen King's bulk, oh, I read his memo on writing. Like once a it's true. And just hearing you say that it's true. It's true. The structure is a thing that takes, that creates the space for us to take our reader with us and not let them go and keeps them safe in, in a container, like a vehicle to go totally. Without that they get out the car, they get thrown out the car and I don't want that.
I don't want my reader to get out. I don't want my printer to be thrown on. No, definitely. And there are like, and it, and it does something for your imagination. Like you, because then you start to ask the question that the author wants you to ask, right? Like go like, or think that, you know, the thing that the author is like gonna take away from me, like, I'm pick up, pull that rug out from under you later on, you thought you knew, you thought you knew who had done what you thought you understood. And like, the skill of that is, as we know, it's not something to take for granted. And it's something that you got to work with. And as you say, the reading, like the more you read, the more you are absolutely going to under do you, you're good.
You're going to get it in your bones as maybe, you know what I mean? Like it gets in there and you're like, ah, I just, my gut tells me I'm not, my gut tells me something orbit like water in the desert with doctors. Great call back. I call it
Both of you guys. I recently had this thought, gosh, okay. So one thing I always want to be as a writer and I never am is super real clever, like with real clever plot devices and stuff like that. The other day I was thinking, gosh, really good film book, television. The cleverness is so turned up it's so with, with unexpected,
Unexpected
Endings, and like never saw that coming, gosh, there's only so far. We can go with that. Right. Like, is the pendulum going to swing in the other direction now of like, just very simple, do you know what I'm getting at? Because it's just like, whatever can we all be okay.
Right. Good question. I don't really know. What do you think? I mean, Jen, you're kind of out there. You're doing your . I think the cleverness for cleverness sake is garbage. And I do think that it stems from what you're both, what you Gina, you and I have talked about this. And Susan, what you're saying is that it stems from a place of true knowing in your bones, the characters and the story you want to tell, and the cleverness can come out of that. But I think when it's just for cleverness sake, you get like a mess, it's a mess.
Right. And so I think, but I do also think that on the other, another side of this is that yes, it's going to swing back to the simple Walt Whitman of it all at some point of like the simplistic sort of, I, I think gimmicky and, and, and fast and snappy is going to also swing back. I, I do. But also I would say that having read a lot of your work, that you are probably more clever than you think you are. It's just that, that you write in a different, it's like you have a different kind of oh yeah. Hover
About just my own feelings about things but not writing and just, I mean, even just my son, we watched ocean's 11, whatever film that is. And, and, and things that you just little things that you didn't see coming. I don't know. I just that, that, that type of writing seems completely,
Oh, really? I think that we we're headed there. I think it's practice and it's also 730 drafts. And if I may, I mean, I don't have the experience from writing for television or writing for film. I am working on a pilot with a friend of mine who is a producer and she has a lot more sort of, and I'm, I'm very lucky I'm in a writers group, but a lot of women who are writing for the screen, they're writing for films, they're writing episodic, they're writing all of that. So in, in my opinion, there is that like, there's the thing you're talking about, where it's like snappy dialogue and then maybe the clever, like the clever set up. But so much of it comes from immersion in the form and all these influences of other people, like other, other professionals, a lot of actors, a lot of writers, at least like with the folks that I've been fortunate enough to sort of develop their screenplay or develop their pilot with those people.
Like they particularly love one actor or they see this actor in this, or they see, you know, they've worked, they've workshopped at, at a table with these people. They've given these people a draft to read those people came back with this. It's so collaborative that you really, if you can distill, and you can find who your characters are and you can take those influences and put them in your character's mouth and put them in your characters, like where they're from, where it like flesh out, like, like Jen's talking about like flesh out all those details. It really seems to me, like we forget, like we don't have to create all of that by ourselves. There is a lot to be said for the influence of the art of others and for the opinions of others who are trying to do what we're trying to do.
So, but I know what you mean. I couldn't, I mean, I don't see myself as writing like a caper flick, you know, like, I don't think again, right. Like, you know, an oceans oceans 11, but I could write like this, I could write this piece about X thing that I understand really well. And then from there, let the, the experiences of other people I know, sort of weigh on it. So I feel you, there are times where it's like, I'm not as smart as all the other people that are doing that. It's like, well, it's
Just knowing your care. Or maybe the truth is always just yeah, but that's okay. Just do the thing that you're good at doing like the special sauce, the special sauce
Is you're in your own. So you're writing a pilot and you're also
Writing a novel and I am,
And I'd love, I'd love to know about both of those. Well, the pilot, I can't say a lot about because I'm writing it with someone else. And so we're not, you know, we're just at the nascent stage of it, but I will say I've never written a pilot before. It's a, it's incredibly fascinating to try to pull, like being a person who is steeped in like books and a person who is steeped in the theater and the person who is steeped in like play scripts. You know, it's really a different thing to, to like pack so much information into, you know, very short, you know, exchange like five lines, 30 seconds, one minute, whatever.
So, but that's a really, it's very exciting thing. It has the character who is at the center of that is a woman who is very kind of close to my heart. She's a woman who is dealing with some substance abuse issues and she is kind of trying to get back on top and she's always underestimated. So that loving her as much as I love her. Like, I kind of like falling in love with her being able to do that as sort of taking me on the ride with the pilot. And it's interesting to try to write with someone else, you know, and she's my, my writing partner, she's in Los Angeles. So, you know, figuring out like who we are, how we work together, it's, it's really amazing, but it's something that we've been meaning to do for a long time.
And then the book, the book is a little, the book is a little bit more in my wheelhouse because the T it's about frenemies it's it's centers on these two 14 year old friend of me in their freshman year of high school. And there, one of them is in speech and debate. And one of them hasn't really found her voice yet. And in order to kind of one up her friend, she decides that she's going to start doing speech and debate. And there we end up with this big blank prose, poetry rivalry. So girls anyway, so like writing that has been a writing, that is something that is very delicious to me.
Like when I go back to it and I can set and I can focus on it. And again, I'm working with the writers group has given me a lot of wonderful feedback on that. So, and I'm going to illustrate that, do which, you know, I think like in what time am I going to do all of this, but somehow it all manages to work out. So, you know, those are the two projects. Those are the two creative projects, which are kind of in the forefront of, did you, did you have this showcase experience where you like, I'm going to be famous and a big star? Okay, well, that's kind of, that's kind of interesting. So, so Jane alderman was the casting director in Chicago and the, the woman who taught audition at the theater school at the time that I was there.
And when I applied to the theater school, one of the reasons that I was excited about going was that there was going to be a showcase in New York and a showcase in Chicago. Then the showcase in New York that I had, I wanted to be a stage actress and I wanted to live in New York city. Those were my, those were the things I wanted. And so we, I got to my fourth year and we were told that we weren't going to New York. We were going to Los Angeles. And I was really, really disappointed by that and angry about that because I had banked my whole college experience on being able to take what I had learned and go to New York in like this controlled context and have paid effectively with those years and that energy for time in front of casting directors and agents in New York city, that was to me like that was a huge part of why I chose to, I chose Chicago for a number of reasons, but I, one of the reasons I chose DePaul was because it had that.
And I was really not. I was like, look at me, look at me. I'm short, I'm round. I'm, you know, believe me, women like me. We're not all the rage on television and in movies in Los Angeles at the time that representation has come a long way. I don't have any, you know, like I'm not talking about the sort of re real, like problems with representation that we have faced that are now being addressed. I'm just talking about like skinny blonde, skinny, skinny, Burnett, skinny, like everything was that. And that's what I saw.
And I was like, I, if I go out to Los Angeles, why it is time and money, because literally money, like my parents didn't help me. I didn't have any help from my, from my family. I was doing this with, with grants and scholarships and whatever money I made when I was in college. I was like, I literally, I can't see myself paying for this experience, knowing that I'm not going to see anything on the other end of it. Now, I might've been wrong about that. I could obviously, like, I couldn't see myself as other people saw me from a professional standpoint, but I think I had a pretty good idea. And so I decided I'm not going to go. I'm not going to Los Angeles.
That's not, those are not resources that I can afford to, to lay out for something that I don't feel is going to be helpful to me. And so I was called, like, I was, I told Jane alderman, I'm not going, I'm not going. And she, now Jane was much was beloved by many people. I had a cordial relationship with her, but I certainly didn't have like a, let's have a heart to heart talk about this. And she was like, well, what are you? You know, what are you talking about? This is the chance of a lifetime. And I was like, I don't think so. I don't feel that for myself. And again, I might've been wrong about that, but that was what I wanted to do at the time. So then I went and I talked to Rick Murph, like I was called to talk to Jim Austel Hoff and Rick Murphy and all this stuff.
And, you know, also have, when I went into his office, he was, he just listened to me and he was like, you honestly don't feel like this is a shot for you. Like I said, and I told him everything that I said here, I'm like, I, I plan to go to New York. That's why I keep this. One of the reasons I came here and he's, and he was like, well, I'm not going to make you go. If you, if you don't think it's good for you and he didn't make me go. And so, you know, I, I had the showcase in Chicago and then I got very lucky when I was cast by Gary Griffin and the show beautiful thing, because I got to go to New York and be off Broadway. Like we ran in Chicago for a while. It was a huge hit. I mean, it was full of lovely people.
And I got lucky again when I moved to New York with the second time after I met my now husband, because David Cromer was moving a production of Orson shadow there. And the, they, he called me up and had me come in to read for Joan Plowright and I read for Joan Plowright and he cast me. Yeah. Yeah. So I got really, I got really, really lucky, lucky you knew somewhere in your bones, that that was your path. And then were able to say, I am not going to Los Angeles. I see myself in New York.
And you knew somewhere that that was where you needed to be. Thank God
I do. I think that it's so poetic, by the way, a moment of appreciation for Joan Plowright is truly one of the greatest actresses who ever lived. And even though she did find success in film and television, I feel like she is an example of the kind of person I would have been looking up to like, yeah, that's the kind of career that I see myself having. So it's kind of poetic that that's where I ended up. That's very beautiful. Well, how did you get house of blue leaves?
So again, so I had, I have a relationship with the director, David Cromer. I did several shows with him over in Chicago and then again in New York. And so he was, he was doing how's the blue leaves. This was in 2010. I want to say we, yeah. So it's like we opened in 2011. So, so he was doing how's the blue leaves and the casting was announced for it. So it was Ben Stiller and it was ed Falco and it was Jennifer, Jason Leigh. And then, so I, you know, of course I was kind of like, well, I should pay attention to that. I should pay attention to this.
And so I, I knew that play, I'd seen, I'd seen the kid. I remember I knew, I saw like people would do scenes from that, at the theater school. And I think I had seen some of like a great performances of it, or like a live from Lincoln center, some kind of thing from it, which was with stocker Channing. I want to say. And I'm John Mahoney. I may be getting that. I may be getting that wrong or Christine Baranski. I can't remember, like, it was, I remember vividly like John Mahoney's face and like the final, final scene. So I went and I read the play and there were these three nun roles in the play.
There was Corrina who is like the starlet. There was, you know, the, the guy that the name is escaping me. There's the guy who they talk about the whole time. Like he wants, you know, already wants to, to be able to perform in front of his friend who is now like this, this muckety muck and in film and television in Los Angeles. And so I read the plan. I was like, well, obviously like I'm, if I'm going to be in as, or like, if I got a shot, it's going to be one of these three nuns. Right? Like, so I, I read the play and I had actually prepared like the, I actually prepared myself because I thought if he calls me in, he will call me in for the little nun.
But then it was announced that Holly fiber was playing the little nut. And I'm like, like, I guess, I guess I don't have any shots. And then that of course calls into all these questions. Like when you think about what you're going to like, what you might get, and what's actually realistic. And because of my relationship with David, I kind of felt like, well, it's realistic. I might get at least an uncalled understudy or something. So he finally, finally was called to audition. They for the second nun and the understudy for Jennifer Jason Leigh and which is a fabulous in which I was like, oh my God, I would love to do this, but I want to say something here.
I have really terrible anxiety. And I have shook like a leaf through every audition that I've ever done. Okay. Like, I didn't know about beta blockers. I didn't know about any of that stuff. I didn't know about take a pill. You'll be fine. I was like, I would literally for like three days before hand have to like work myself into the state that I could get into a room and OD an audition, particularly because I auditioned in for that play in front of David in front of John glare in front of David capillary, OTAs, who is the casting director for all three, like lovely human beings.
I had to go in and like, you know, and I came from work. I was working in a wig studio at the time, the optical wig production. I actually make wigs. Yes, I do lots and lots of like strange side things. And you know, so I had been in the wig studio all day. They did my hair for me. They did my makeup for me. This is how like lovely these people were with me. They did my hair and they did my makeup and managed to dress myself appropriately. And I went in and I shook like a leaf in front of them for the whole audition. And I still was able by the grace of higher power. And because David Cromer is David Cromer lifted me up in a lot of ways in my career.
I was able to get that I was cast in that show. I got the call. And I was like, oh yeah, it was really excited. It was like, you know, my agent at the time. And you know, it was a great, it was a wonderful thing. And we went into rehearsals. It was like, Mary Beth hurt was playing the head nun. Holly Pfeiffer was the little nun, Susan Bennett. Yeah. Wow. You know, like you have to remember that every everywhere you go, there you are. Right. So you can imagine it, like, imagine it, I just, as a, and this isn't, I wouldn't S I don't want to call this cautionary, but I would say like, always know that you're there to do the work.
Like always know, like, this is a chance to do the work because the work is really the best part of this whole thing. When you look across the stage and there's this wonderful set of eyes looking really back into yours, and you're doing something together, there's nothing for a person who loves being on stage or loves the theater better than that. You know, like, and I'm not talking about, we're not talking about our personal lives. We're talking about, like, in your work, when you have those moments, you are like, watch someone do something transformational on stage, whether you're on the stage with them, or you're observing them for an audience, like, that's really the stuff of it.
And that's the beautiful part of it. And so I would say like, yeah, that was it. That was this incredible thing that I was, that I was able to accomplish. And that I was lucky enough to be in the room for. But the time on the stage is the time that I really remember, because like, for example, there was one night where, you know, Mary Beth, she, we came through a window, the nuns entered their apartment through a window. And Mary Beth came through the window and she's supposed to have the first line in our little shtick. Like we do our little nun shtick. And then we hang out like in their house being like the audience on stage. Right.
And so she came through the window and she turned, she turned upstage. And I looked at her and I knew like, oh, she's either up, like, she's gone up, she, or something's going on. And so being able to like, be there in space with her and then kind of like step out, you know, away from her and be like, I'm going to construct this thing where I'm going to talk, and I'm going to look at the audience and I'm going to say my lines and I'm going to do anything. And I'm going to add a little bit and I'm going to bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Until Mary Beth is able to turn around and join the scene. And so to be able to like be in front of people on a Broadway stage with other like actors that you've watched like world, according to Garp, tell me Mary Beth Hurd.
Isn't a genius like world, according to garment, let me tell you, she's like, she's sort of unique. Personally. Her perspective is totally unique. So there I am with her and like, to be kind of in service in that moment, to this amazing actress in this play that is like this dreamscape, like you're, there's this, that that's such a fabulously imagined play. Like, you know, those are the moments where you're like, oh, I'm gonna remember this for the, I'm gonna remember this for the rest of my life. Or like when Mary Beth understudy went on this lovely actress named Katie Chrysler black, she, you know, she, she was put in and she was put in like PR you know, quickly, because I forget the situation, but she had to go on and we had had understudy rehearsal together.
So she was like, you know, what do I, you know, I kind of like, I'm going to be right there with you. I'm going to be right there with you. And I remember like her, she, she went on the stage. I was in the wing, she came back up. She was like, what do I do now? And I knew what to tell her to do. And that was that's another moment like that celebrity that's like, we're in the wings. We're do, where does, we're like the secondary character in this play, but we're still on the stage. Damn it. And we still have this whole thing going on backstage. Like, you know, those are the things that I wrote those about that show. I mean, that's a totally different, I mean, it was, it was a real privilege. And, and, you know, I have to say like no greater privilege in some ways, like from an artistic perspective, then doing the show at the 50 seat house, doing the show for like, there was one day when we, I won't go on for too much longer, but there was, there was a day that we did beautiful thing.
We were in this weird gray area before we had been well, before we were moving to New York, we didn't know if we were going to go. And it was a Sunday matinee. And there were, the rule was, is that we would do the show if there were as many people in the audience, as on the stage. And in order to get the number of people in the audiences on the stage, we asked the guy who was cleaning the theater to come in and watch the show. And so like, we did the whole show that was a comedy, you know, like, you know, like a heartwarming comedy beautiful thing. And we did, we finished the show and like, you know, there's like four people like clapping. And then the guy who cleans the theater was like, that was all right.
He said, that is something that all of us remember that guy was like, oh, it was all right.
I love that. What a perfect would have.
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