Show Notes
Intro: Boz is getting an adorable dog, affairs and the ESPRIT outlet.
Let Me Run This By You: KNOW YOUR WORTH
Interview: We talk to Dawn Vanessa Brown about Syracuse, theatre outcasts, making it in New York City, and finding yourself in St. John.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (UNEDITED)
I'm Jen Bosworth from me this and I'm Gina <inaudible>. 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? Beautiful drawers.
1
I feel like it's still at the breeders. I forgot to tell you that. So they send us, they send us videos every week. We pick her up on the third. Yes. And you'll see her when you come, but she's pretty cute. So I have a dog. Everybody is, she's pretty cute. The thing is like, I, you know, I do have guilt about going through breeder. I do have guilt, but that's just the truth. I, my rescue dog, Peewee, Horton, bit me in the face. And, and, and, but my nephew and bit the mailman and was sick and it was a horrible experience.
1
Like, like I spent and also, you know, whatever money's money, but I spent a thousand dollars training him and it wasn't that it was that he had a tumor in his pancreas that was killing him and he was pissed off. So there you go,
2
Dog had cancer. I didn't realize the thing that, that he had cancer. You sends you all the cancer.
1
My husband had cancer, my mom the whole bit, the whole bit. How are you? What's going on on the east coast? How are you doing?
2
So it's not like in your twenties, it's a wild ride, right? It's like a rollercoaster it's twists and turns and your stomach hurts and you feel like there's elaborated and you felt it. Okay. It's in middle age. It's like a, like, you're just riding one of those trolleys kind of slow. And there are like in San Francisco and there's still Hills. And sometimes it is very beautiful, but a lot of times you're just slowly crawling towards your own death. Oh my God. I don't feel, I don't feel like, well, in terms of my own death, it's just that having to deal with death in my family, you know, just of course, makes me think about death and all, its various iterations that, and we don't know for certain cause autopsy is not finalized, but it does seem like she had a burgeoning medical condition that she did, not that she got maybe diagnosed for, but then didn't fill her prescriptions.
2
You know? And honestly like to me, this is how, the way, one of the many ways in which codependency is a killer, like she took care of everybody else. And she, she, there was somebody in her life that had had a stroke and she was taking care of that person and driving him around to make sure he got all of his medications and she didn't do her own. Then she didn't do her own thing. And, and like, it's, it's that, it's the stress of taking care of other people and not taking care of yourself. And it's also this thing that happens too. You know, one of the hallmarks of a traumatized child is that they're like hyper independent, independent to the point that it's not healthy.
1
No, that it's, it's super, actually super harmful and super debilitating and isolating. Yes.
2
And for a time in your life, especially when you're young, it's such a prized tendency, your parents love it about you. And you know, people are always are marveling. Like it's two things like, oh, you're so mature and you're so independent. And those are things that we both my sister and I were told for me, like I've made a very intentional choice to not, to become less independent, but to ask for help, which is, you know, hard for me to do or to, oh, I should say it's, it's not that I don't know how to ask for help. It's this. I don't know how to ask for it directly. I know how to, like, I know how to inspire other people's help, but not in a way that like me owning up to the fact that I need help.
2
And then being like, oh, sure, I'd love to help you. It's like me pretending, like I don't need help. And, and then, you know, basically making it such that the other person has to help me, then I never have to say I need help. So, so I'm trying to take it as a lesson. I'm trying to take it as, you know, like, even if you're not going a hundred miles an hour on the freeway with a motorcycle and no helmet, even if you're not doing drugs, even if you're not whatever, like you can still die from your inability to change.
1
Oh, that's very, very, very deep. I hear that loud E that is I believe. I mean, I believe that is what killed my father. I mean, he killed himself, but interpret that. That's what the root thing was. He could not change. And I it's very easy to like, it's I get it. Like, you know what? It changed sucks in a lot of ways. And it's scary as shit to be told. Here's the thing. If you don't do this, you're probably going to die. But doing this means changing your whole life and your whole paradigm and your whole belief system wants to do that.
2
Who wants to do that? And also there's this thing, this trope of like, you've changed as it's always something negative instead of. Yeah. Well of course you should definitely always be change.
1
Yeah, go ahead. No, no. I was gonna say you ha we it's changed your die. I mean like that and if you want me to die, like that's, it's interesting. Cause I have that no one in my life, because it's a pandemic and I don't see many people are like, oh, you don't eat Jack in the box anymore. And thank God I have a partner that's like, not like that, but I could see where people would be like, oh, come on, just come, come out to, you know, drink or come out to eat with us and you can do it. And I'm like, no, my heart will stop. Absolutely.
2
Absolutely. And another very close member of my family recently, you know, went to the doctor and got, you know, like a very young person, got a terrible report about cholesterol and triglycerides and psych, you know, you could be skinny and have high cholesterol. You could be fat and have local. I mean, it's just so, so you, you have to, we'll take care of it. And the
1
Thing is it's really, gosh, it's really hard to right. It's hard to say too. I was thinking like, okay, like you go to the doctor and they tell you, or you get any news, whether it's a psychiatrist or anyone saying, listen, this is a serious problem. You have. Okay. And they, and they tell you that it's scary and shocking. And, and I'm a bummer, a huge bummer. And like also pissed off. Like, can you imagine she took care of everybody. Else's stuff her whole life. And now they're like, PS, you've done it all wrong. Now you have to take care of you.
1
Like I did everything I was supposed to do. And now you're telling me I have to do one more thing and it's take care of myself. You go fuck yourself. So I get, I, I, that's how I might be. And I also can relate to being my, I can see that my sister was more the independent one. I was just like under the radar. And like didn't say, but my sister was really proactively independent. So I could, and she has, you know, she will tell you, she has hard time asking for any kind of guidance or help in any way. Like not even, you know, like subtle things, probably directions and shit like that.
1
She won't even ask for. And it's like, oh, why do we do this to ourselves? Well, we do this to ourselves because like you said, it's rewarded as children. Right.
2
Rewarded as children. And then there is also something about a woman like, oh, she's so independent, you know, that's like, you know, a valued trait. And yeah. So, so then the other thing I'm just meditating about is that, you know, the, actually I'm writing a blog post about the stories we tell ourselves and how we craft the narrative of our life. And in my case, what you do when there's just a, like a lot of missing information about story. And you know, one of the essential questions I have is like, what was the story?
2
She told her, what was her story? What was her own understanding of her life? Because another thing that happens in death is that you just learn how people have completely different experiences of growing up in the same household and people have. And then when somebody dies, you learn all the different contexts in which that person lived in all the different ways that people knew them. Like this happened to me so often when my dad died, people will come up and tell me things about him that just didn't track with my experience. And for a long time, I was like, okay, well that means you didn't really know him. And it took me a long time to realize, no, no, no. They just knew him in the context that they knew him because it was very self-centered of me to think like, oh no, if you, if you're not representing the same version of him, I knew then you didn't know him really
1
Challenging. It's because it's like same thing with my mom. So, you know, it's, and, and, and I can say this she's gone and it's the truth, you know, she had an affair. Right. And so, oh, you didn't know that. Okay. So I did neither until, until my aunt told me that. And, and, you know, and, and I just thought, I want to meet the guy who she had the affair with to know a part of my mom. I never knew, like, maybe he knew a really happy, awesome fulfilled lady. I don't know. Like, I want that, it's very challenging because it would totally butt up against my version of my mother, but I'm also craving that, but there's no way to, so yeah, it's, it's, we know one version of our loved one or our friend or whoever, and there's like a million versions of them.
1
Yeah.
2
A hundred percent. So w D was this a long,
1
Okay. So the, the, the, the craziness was in like 2015. I was, this is crazy. I was at a bar, a family reunion, barbecue in Chicago. And my aunt and my mom died in 2011. So she had been dead at some time, a couple of years or whatever. And one of her youngest sister said we were, we were all in the backyard and having a cookout. And she like said, you know how your mom had that affair for eight years in front of everybody for eight years. And I pretended that I knew because I was, I just said, oh yeah. And then I called, I was stunned.
1
And I called my other aunt after the party and said, who was in town? And I said, did you know? And she goes, yeah. I thought we all thought you knew, because you were so close to your mom at the end. I'm like, no, I had no idea. My dad knew apparently eight years she would go on. It was all, all in California, in California. She had, cause she go on a business trip to San Francisco and he was, he worked with my mother. I don't know. No one can remember his name. No one can remember what he looked like. They didn't never met him. So they didn't know that, but they didn't even my aunt who is my was close, probably closest to my mom of her siblings, as she was telling me that she was trying to rack her brain to think.
1
And she couldn't remember. So she worked with him. It was a big company though. And so when it all took place in California and, and so the, I don't know anything else. I don't know who to ask. I might ask, but she has some work friends that I could ask, but that's like a weird thing. It's like, Hey, did you know, my mom had an affair? And if you, so, can I get in touch with a guy? He had a family apparently too.
2
Oh, wow. So he worked for the educational testing company? Yes.
1
Yes. Interesting.
2
So do you know what? Eight years?
1
Yeah. Okay. So it was like in the, it was, it was, and this makes perfect sense. It was eight years and it was the most tumultuous time that my sister and my mother had together. So, cause I, I didn't, I was so whatever checked out that I didn't have any kind of relationship with her that was volatile. I just sort of disappeared, but my sister and my mom were going at it. I remember she took us to San Francisco once for the 4th of July when I was 12. So I was around 12. My sister was 13. They had a huge blowout in San Francisco and I couldn't, and I bet it was everyone projected my mom projecting onto her children, all kinds of shit.
1
I remember she left us at the spree member of spree. There was a huge outlet in San Francisco and she loved exactly.
2
She left
1
Us there all day once. And I think, yeah, like we were 12 and 13 and she dropped us off in the morning and we were there. I remember there was a restaurant in it too. It was crazy or like in the outlet, but like she'd left us there from like 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. And I think there was some Shanana and shenanigans going on and my sister barely remembers it and she's dead. So what can we do
2
As a side note? The word shenanigans reminds me on this real house. I've shy. Watch this woman. Who's not a native English speaker. She is, she's talking about something. She's like, you know, I got up to my shit on this, my shit on the ocean. I'm going to start saying that. But the, okay. So what's interesting to me about the whole spree thing and, and you hanging out there. I mean, everybody is just in the middle of their own experience. So like, if that was me, I'd be like,
3
Oh my God, I love this out. I'm so
2
Happy. I get to spend so much time here at my, my memory of it would be all about like how I was experiencing the store and your sister's memory. Might've been, you know, about her thing. And, but what what's hilarious to me in some ways, even, even though a lot of times, this led to drama for the kids, the balls that our parents' generation had on them. Right. Like my mom told me that she remembers her father taking her to this lady's house. And then the kid, her kid would come out and they'd say, go play. And they'd be playing in the front yard for whatever. However long it was that the two of them were getting up to their stuff.
2
And I just, you know, not that I would ever have an affair, but if I did or I wanted to do anything secret, like I wouldn't ever take my kids because my kids notice everything. Like, why are you doing that? If you can't, I can not hide one same thing from them, I guess. It's just because the culture was like that the kids were not involved in things. Yeah. I
1
Think that's right. And I think also your, I a really aware and present parent. I'm not saying that you're perfect, but I'm saying that you have a good relationship with your kids in that there don't seem to be a tremendous amount of secrets. So our family, there were a lot of secrets, right? And so when you're in a culture of secrets, you just hold the secret. Cause your parents tell you to hold whatever secret it is. Even if you don't know you're holding the secret. Like we were at the esprit outlet. And I remember thinking it's interesting. I remember being really happy. Although I also remember thinking we were here a long time.
1
Like I was happy at first. And then I was like, why are we still here? It's like seven hours later. We're still at the spree or outlet in San Francisco. What are we doing here? And I, and my sister just, I did one of those things and she said, she kind of blacked it out, you know? So, but they had a big blow out in a store in San Francisco. I just totally remember.
2
Also the two of you made, I mean, just in the absence of information, we just also make up our own stories. And like, if your child mind thinks like, oh, this is what happened. I mean, I could see you saying something to yourself on to each other. Like, this is what happens in San Francisco. You know, you're expected to just be at the store all day long. San Francisco
1
Is all about you go to a spree for hours a day and eat there. There was like a restaurant in this spree. I don't,
2
I know, I remember the, I don't remember what was near it, but I have a feeling it was maybe like in Daly city or
1
Something. Yeah. It wasn't in San Francisco proper. It was fucking, it was out outlier. But I remember like a spree was so expensive and fancy, so expensive. And I remember it being a huge deal that she left us there. Like she was so, and she must've given us some money, but like I, yeah, it's just a bizarre thing. Like his spree always will have that connotation to me is that company,
2
By the way, should come back, that would be so popular right now. Given how eighties fashion is. So
1
That was some shit that was some, it
3
Was in fact, actually, I'm kind of thinking about a couple of sweatshirts. Yeah. It's
2
Free. And I'm thinking, yeah, that would look good right now. I could, I could. What's
1
Hilarious. Is that it sweaters because you're obsessed with sweatshirt. I'm
2
Obsessed with sweatshirts. And I just realized the other day, my daughter is obsessed with sweatshirts and my son and we'll wear a sweatshirt even when it's too warm because we just like feeling cozy.
1
That's fantastic. I mean, you might overheat, you might overheat, but, but it's
2
Been raining like the entire summer here. It's been cold and raining like more often than it's been anything else. And it's burning hot there and there's no water. We wish we could ship you. Some of our
1
It's like crazy over here. It's crazy. Oh, that's crazy.
2
Do you do, do you have restrictions on like your shower? We don't,
1
But we try to, I mean, there will, there should be, but we try to not. So, so I do this thing in California that I never would think about, which is I don't run the water while I brush my teeth. I don't. They say to actually wash the dishes with the dishwasher because it uses less. I thought that was stupid, but then it's true. Then just run it less. So we just use the dishwasher. We don't take long showers. I never really did. But, and then like sometimes the water I use leftover water. I don't know if it's any good, but leftover water from pasta and stuff to water my plants. It could be,
2
Think that's okay. We call that gray water. I grew up like that. Cause I grew up in California. I never have taken a long shower. I, my showers, everybody makes fun of me. My showers, unless I'm washing my
1
Hair. Yeah. Are like five minutes. Seven minutes. No like 90 seconds. That's amazing. I mean like you just have to scrub your parts a little bit. I don't get
2
What it is to me. It's like you get in, you do all the soap, you rinse off and you're done. I don't know what people are doing. My husband takes the longest shot. I showed his miles. Maybe period.
1
I don't know. They're just like hanging out. I don't know what they're doing. Let me run this by really obsessed with this idea of leveling up. And it sounds so like secret, like the secret or like some power of now bullshit. But here's what I found out. Oh my gosh. I found out what someone else was charging to write monologues. And I was like, Gina, Gina, Gina, Gina to this, I'm done. I'm done. I was like, I'm a ghost.
1
So I was talking to someone and she was like, how much do you charge for monologues? And I told her, I don't even want to say it out loud was very low. And she goes, you need to be charging five times that I charge five times what you charged to write one monologue? I said, what? I was deceased. And she said, and I have, and the reason, and it's one of these things where she said the reason she didn't say it in a mean way, but she said, the reason you don't have enough clients or that you're not is because you're not valuing your work. So like, what would you do with she's like you like luxury hotels. I'm like, yeah, I like a luxury hotel. She's like, what would you do if the four seasons charged a hundred dollars a night, I'd say, oh, there's something wrong with that four seasons.
1
And she said, that's what's going on with your work? And I said, oh my God. I said, I like stopped. We were walking. And I stopped. And I just, my mind was blown. And she said, you basically you're, you're like in a, you have a, like a little cup of water and there's the ocean is like behind you. You can't see it. And I, I, I, it clicked. And I was like, okay, okay. No, all right. I can't be my, my, well, anything's better than $0. Mentality is not helping me, which is why it ends up working at like the am PM. Do you know what I mean?
1
And why I like entertain working there? It doesn't. Or like, or like when I worked at the donut shop, like what, what in the what? And then it's nothing against it. It's nothing against the donut shop. It's my thinking. That is kind of screwy in terms of my intention for working at the donut shop, you know, that's the problem area.
2
So are you going to raise your rates?
1
So I, I, now she was like, someone wants a monologue. She told me, and I was like, Gina, this is I'm the daughter of an immigrant. We do not charge this. It was, she's like $500 per monologue. And I said, $500.
2
Oh my God, I thought you were going to say that you were charging $50. And she was saying, you should charge two 50, $500 a monologue.
1
Gina. I would just be honest. I had been charging $85 a monologue. And, and, and she said 500. She said, no less than 500. She's like, what are you doing? You're 40. What are you doing? And I was like I said, I can't at my, I was shaking. I was so UN and yesterday I had a similar experience with my mentor, where I finally finished the script, 11 drafts in 12 drafts and or something it's done. It's ready. Like, someone else will have notes. But I mean, like my work with my mentor on the script is done and I was talking to her and she's like I said, you know, I just really want to learn. So, so that Gina and I can write and change the industry and I can change the industry.
1
And she said, never get in a room and say, you want to learn. And I, what she goes, when you're meeting with people, you say what you bring to the table. This is not a learning experience. This is you are a bad ass, basically a bad ass, bringing, bringing your expertise to the table. There's no learning and you can keep that to yourself. And I was like, wow, because people, people, I didn't know the way people interpret the way you say things in a way that maybe in Hollywood. And look, I know that you can say, Hey, my vision is to like, really I'm an emerging writer. And I want to, I want to get an a writer's room and I want to meet people. And, and right. But to say like, my vision is to learn how to do television in a writer's room.
2
Okay. So we, now we have a project. You and me, we need to read the book by Mika Brzezinski, which I know she's maybe got problems with she's problematic in some way, she has a book called, know your worth. Oh, I never heard of this. I'm writing it down. And people have referenced it to me tons of times, and I've never read it, but this is what it's about. It's about women changing their mindset from being, you know, oh, I'll just take a handout of whatever you want to give me. I'll just, I'm just, and you know, and we, we shouldn't, I don't know why it takes us so long to learn this message because you and I have talked even on this podcast about like reading things that other people submit for contests that when, and you're just going, like, I would never even submit that because a woman is more likely to not submit something.
2
If it's not really, really good. Whereas Amanda is like, well, let's just give this a try. Let's just give this a try. Let's just try it. So, so I love this I'm yes. The $500. In fact, now that we've been talking about it, it's probably in increased in appreciation. You should probably be charging $600 for your mom, because also you are such a good listener and observer of people that I'm sure that the people you're writing these monologues for it's so perfect for them.
1
Right? Yeah. And they get agents, look, they use them and they get eight. So, and sometimes I was embarrassed to tell her, but I'll just say it because I'm sure other people have this problem too. Sometimes if I am doubting myself, when with my writing and monologues, I have given them for free to say, Hey, I'll just give you this for free. That way the bar is so low that they can't, I'm afraid of, as, as we know, we've talked on this podcast, like I'm afraid of negative or constructive feedback, or like people having a problem with something I've written or who I am or whatever. So, and I, instead of saying, no, I stand by this.
1
If you don't like it, that's fine. Like, but I'm still charging this. And then we can have a conversation afterwards about if you're disgruntled. I just would say, you know what? Just have this monologue. She's like, you will never do that again. You will never know. And I was like, okay. I just, I, it hit me like a ton of bricks is last week. I was like, maybe it was the week before. I, I couldn't believe it was going on. And my mind was blown blown. And I was like, you charge what, what? Oh,
2
That's amazing. That's amazing. You'll never go back. I'll never tell that because
1
Now I know that the truth is the truth. Like, I think that's what saved me. Like denial is not something that is not a skill. I have it, of course, but it's not like my specialty. So like, same with the doctor, shit. Like the doctor told me your heart is this. You got to lose this weight. You got to, I can't pretend that the cardiologists didn't say that to me as much as I want to. I it's in my head. And it's like, I heard it. I saw it. I was present. So I cannot deny it. I cannot same with this. I can't, I can't go back. You're right. I can't pretend.
2
And that's and you shouldn't. Cause you're, you're worth so much more. That is so interesting. I'm all about leveling up to man. I'm all about like, and with the money thing, it's so psychological. Somebody that somebody that I know is very close to me has his own business. And he charges what he charges and he got told by somebody else, you need to be charging twice that, and he started to say, if I try, if I charged twice that then I'll lose my business. And instead it's had the exact opposite effect. People are clamoring. He has a waiting list, you know, because especially, you know, people who have the money and actually even me, oftentimes when I'm trying to choose between things, I will make the assumption that the thing that's more expensive is better.
1
Yes. And I, I think also it's just, yes, I think that's human nature. I think that's human nature. I don't think that is like, I mean the value are we going to, and when am I going? And this is the same with my health. When am I going to value myself enough to do right by myself? You know, like when is the time? And if not at 45, about to be 46, when the hell am I going to do it and I don't see any other time to do it, but now, like I don't, it doesn't seem like, oh, next year I'll start.
0
That seems like a terrible idea at a time. Now, today in the podcast, we're talking with Dawn, Vanessa brown Dawn is an actress who lives on the east coast. And she told us all about her hilarious adventures and not so hilarious adventures and beautiful and messy and hard times being in bed, Syracuse university in the New York city and moving to an island. And she is a great way of telling stories. So please enjoy our conversation with Don, Vanessa brown and lesser
1
As my husband and my dad would say, dad bless you on your journey, you know, and goodbye and good luck. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, congratulations,
2
Don. You survived theater
3
School. Ooh, I did. I did. You survived
2
It Syracuse, right? Are you a New York? Are you have you, are you from New York?
3
No, I'm from New Jersey.
2
Okay. But like close. Close. Yeah. Yeah. So did, did you apply to a bunch of different schools?
3
I mean, honestly, that was back in the day when three was tops in terms of schools you applied to and I applied to Yale blindly, and that was about the time when they were, the Ivy league were doing, they were doing things first off, I mistakenly applied to Yale when I really should have applied, realized it was Yale drama I wanted, but I just, I was, it was a small, it's a Catholic, small Catholic school, you know, parents back in the day, she didn't, you didn't really get any help. And even though my dad was a teacher, I got no help.
3
So it was like a moot point to Yale. And I almost got in, but they had back in the day, they had a quota and they were like, listen, because I applied early decision. They were like, we can't take you because we have enough of you. But if you want to go to Princeton, we can make you, we can, we can possibly see if you could go there. And I was like, no. And then I applied to NYU and never, literally never heard back from them. Didn't apply, never got my application calls again, said, can I have an application sent me enough application, apply nothing.
3
And, and, and money, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't like today, like Olivia applied to, I don't know, 10 colleges money was an object. So I was like, okay. And then I was like, and I did my own research. And I thought, ah, fuck. All right, Syracuse, it looks okay. And, but did you have to audition? I did. I did in the city at Lubin house. What's that? It's a Syracuse university townhouse on the upper east. Oh, oh, I see. Like a satellite location. If you were for alumni, they had rooms. You could stay in if you were hanging out for the weekend. And so one of the drama professors was there over the weekend and I auditioned,
2
How did do you remember? I do. What did you do?
1
Listen, it's not going to be any worse or weirder than what we've heard. I'm telling you right now. I played, I was 18 and played a 49 year old woman who was raped and then tortured and killed the rapist at 1716. Right.
3
That was 17. You did that stuff. I could do it. Right. I did from a Lily Tomlin show something called sister boogie woman.
2
Okay. Is it from a man in the marigolds or? I
3
Have, no, I don't think we did a cabaret at school and I did sister boogie woman. She was supposed to be a preacher and it was one of a Lily Tomlin, standup act. And I did it. That is cool. Was it fun? It was fun. It was fun. But with the other kid who audition next to me, I never forget this. Oh my God. His name was Freddy. And he was so serious. Like, he'd already, he'd done. I hadn't done stock. I hadn't done anything. All I had done was like Catholic school plays Catholic high school plays.
3
And he was so serious. And, and, and, and he was like, you know, I, if you don't mind, I just need a minute to prepare. And I was like, okay, I didn't need, yeah.
1
That's those people that are like, I need to, and I was like, I want to talk to you and see where you're from. And they're like, lady back off. So yeah.
3
So I went in really, really blind. And then when I got there, it was, it was a huge shock in what way, Syracuse. And I don't know if they still do it, but they, their program is completely separate from the university. And Syracuse is a huge RA school. And it's, I mean, at the time it was, they called it, you know, the Jewish princess school, the lung guy, one school and rah school. It had, it had something for everybody.
3
And as an only child from a really closed Catholic school, I couldn't wait. But the culture shock was once I got there, we took classes at Syracuse stage across the street from a psychiatric center down on east Genesee street. And we had to take what you took was called common core. And you, it was like a nine to five job, nine to five freshman year down at the theater. Each part of the theater was, was where you did your classes, dance. Whether it was intro to acting theater history, it was literally costuming.
3
It literally stretched a whole day. And only by about two or three o'clock did you actually get up on campus? And that was wonderful and awful at the same time,
2
Because you didn't get to blend with the others. We told,
3
Oh my God. And we stuck out like sore thumbs. I worked very hard to stay on the edge as it were meaning most of my friends with the exception of two belts, the exception of Patsy sister sister-in-law. Oh, I never heard that. You didn't know that I went to Syracuse with Patsy sister-in-law in turn. And I missed her by like two or three days. Cause her brother and his wife came to visit and I never knew, but you had a place when you went up there, you were, we were like freaks out of water. Even the music department of the school was under the umbrella of VPA, visual, performing arts.
3
And they had a beautiful, beautiful, big Victorian castle up on the hill where all the music students took classes and anything to do with music. But the drama kids were a 15 minute walk off campus across from crazy. And they were walking around. And so, wow. Yeah. Well, I mean,
1
People probably couldn't tell the difference between the theater. Students said maybe that the people who are clients over there, cause we're where you mean like that you stuck out because of the dress and the smoking cigarettes and that kind of a situation
3
You stuck out because, oh my God. Okay. So there were two majors that, that you could take, you, you, you, you, you took, there was music theater, they had a music theater major and they had an acting major and I was an acting major, but you took classes with the music theater kids and the things I learned, I listened to kids vomit at lunchtime, the girls, because the directors of the music theater program way fat shamed you. I mean, I, you know, I got fat shamed and I was in the acting program and I was like, fuck you, there's nothing wrong with me. And you started to, I mean, we, we walked on campus and, and it was punk was big and we are wearing legwarmers like tights and legwarmers with sneakers.
3
And we just think we're so fucking unique. <inaudible> and we didn't know. I mean, I made it my business to know what a keg party was, but the other girls, they just, they didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to hang. They didn't even smoke pot. I mean, it was really we're missing out. They were missing out and they knew they were missing out, but they were so that school, I don't know what it's like. Now that school was so driven and so competitive that by sophomore year, I was one of only maybe five people that actually lived on campus.
3
Everybody went off campus, got an apartment to be close to the theater. Wow. And I was, and that was for a lot of girls that was their college experience. That was not, I was determined that wasn't going to happen. Well, one thing that strikes
2
Me about the way in which the school was such situated was it, then they really did treat it like a conservatory. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, cause that's the experience that we had to not being really a part of our university, unless, unless you lived in the dorms and mixed it up that way, but it's DePaul, the theater school at DePaul, Indiana,
3
Chicago, Chicago. Okay. Yeah.
2
So there was, and I think, you know, and you're what you're describing long hours. I think that has something to do with it. They want in a way they probably don't want the kids to have so much of a college experience because they don't want you to do anything that gets your focus off of, you know,
3
It's true, but you know, you're 18. I was 17. Mean your, your hormones are raging and straight guys were few and far between. And there were a lot, I don't know if I can say there are a lot of just like horny girls who, who, and a lot of young boys, they would not be confused in today's society. They could. I mean, cause you can be anything they could be. I can see now that some of the boys that we were like, what's up with them. They were probably non-binary and they, and, and, and, and, and they floated in and out, but there weren't enough what straight cis-gender boys to, to keep the drama department happy.
3
And it was also, it was also Lily white. Yeah. Me, I sense a pattern, another guy, Gary Brown, and two other girls from the city who left after sophomore year. So it was just me and Gary
1
Out of how many, how many did you, did you end up graduating with, do think,
3
Oh yeah. 50. Oh, that's big. Maybe I'm saying 50, but then no. Oh no.
1
35. Yeah. But still only two people of color. That's insane. Yeah. Yeah.
2
It's consistent though with, with,
1
With the times and with the schools kind of situation with the theater program. Wow. So what about shows?
2
Did you do a show every term?
3
Well, they had a rule that freshmen could not audition. They were strictly common watch and learn, and I loved that. It took so much pressure off and then come sophomore year, you could audition. So I did sophomore year. I did getting out by Marsha. It's not Marsha Mason, Marsha Norman, Marsha, Norman junior year. I got cast in because the perk of being next to Syracuse stage or taking classes at Syracuse stage was that when they needed extras, they would call upon the students.
3
So I got cast in merchant of Venice, merchant of Venice. And then what did I do junior year? And I did something else which, which, which really escapes me senior year was the big year. And it really, I, I scarred as I am from Syracuse, I got my equity card right out of college. They had an agreement with equity that their senior year they would do a bus and truck touring thing, a children's show.
3
And they would cast it from the graduating seniors who all had to audition. And now when I think about it, I said 35. It's probably more like 20. I realized there weren't a lot of us. It seemed huge at the time. And I got cast and I got my card that way.
1
That's I think that's really smart. Oh,
3
I wouldn't, I don't think I would've ever been able to have gotten it. If it hadn't been that way. I
2
Was going to say doing a traveling children's show is about the best training you can get right out of college because you have all of the energy that is required for it. And you really learn about audiences, audiences who are psyched to see you, audiences who are not psyched to see you. People who feel really confident and comfortable just yelling things out while you're performing, you know, it's, it's a real trial by fire situation. Yeah.
1
Did you all have to put up the set and do that all
3
With the set in the back of the van? Yeah. I love that too. Nice. If we all got along that would've made it a lot easier, but we didn't. How long did you do it for, and, but we made it through. Okay. Why don't you do it for month and a half? Okay.
2
So is the curriculum there the same at other places does voice and speech component and acting component.
3
Mary Earl, Mary Earl bless her heart. She was Southern and she was the voice teacher. And she was, I mean, I was her pet cause I could, I can do, I could do dialects, but she was really passive aggressive mean. And then we had Dr. Compel who was theater history and they called him crampy and our acting teachers were, oh, they
2
Were really odd.
3
God. And really, and the men were really damaged. Oh yeah. That was the downside of everybody being around together is that you got to see. And we were, I think we were way too young to see the dysfunction. There was Victor who was, who was it? It is amazing. He was apparently a heavy man and he lost a lot of weight. So he decided to transfer his body issues onto the freshmen class. And it just the pressure, the pressure. And, and then he picked freshmen girls who he liked too educate further.
3
Oh,
1
Wow. I mean, it's not
2
Like an open secret kind of a situation.
3
And then man, who auditioned me, ended up leaving. He was so sweet. I'm sure he's not here now. Carlton Collier and his backstory. I mean, we, I shouldn't know this. Okay. I shouldn't know that he met this woman on an actress or something and she got, they got married, she got pregnant and she left him with the baby. So at the time this was a middle-aged man trying to raise a son. Wow. And I mean, he even came to one of our cast parties and it was, it was, it was just like, oh God.
3
And everybody's like, Carl's in the back bathroom getting high.
2
Oh, oh God. Oh God. It's all too real. It's all true. True.
3
It also sounds so
1
Similar to our experience. Like you really sounds. Yes. So we went to a conservatory, you went to a conservatory, basically. This is what you went to. And I mean, I don't, I'm just saying like, they're so similar. Like the exact same things went on and we probably went to school around the same time. And that time was just a hotbed for inappropriate. Like totally now would go to jail kind of suggestions.
3
Now I would go to jail.
2
One thing that comes up a lot on here when we have guests who are people of color is, is just, well, so w so we've had the range of ages, including somebody who's just, just now graduated from theater school and then people who are more our age. But so the, the just graduated person had a very different experience than the people who are our age. But a lot of people talk about these micro and not so micro aggressions coming from the other students, coming from the teachers. And one of the main ones is just the material. The material always being plays written by white people with white characters.
2
Was it like that as Syracuse?
3
It was to start. I think you have to understand the relationship white people have with a person, a black person who looks like me. Now, granted my hair, I showed you the picture. My hair was cut really short. That was my protest. I don't know why. And they don't know what to do with you. But I, I understood going in because I grew up, my Catholic school had three black people in it. I grew up in second grade. Somebody told me, you know, you need to go back to Africa.
3
And I thought, I'm going to get you suspended. You know, I had, I knew all of that. And I knew the inner workings of white people. And I happened to, to be quite honest, I, I went in and I did not expect them to, I mean, that wasn't even a thought that they would have people of color writing plays that wasn't, I didn't even think of that. And I stood out because I got cast every year because I was good. But I do remember when they did getting out three guys who were my, they were friends, but they weren't friends and frenemies.
3
Yes. Kind of, but we didn't hang out. They were, they were out at a time when it was a big deal to be out. And they were, they were kind of sarcastic and they were mean, and they were like, oh, Hey, congratulations. I said, you know, and something, I said, okay, thank you. And they said, well, we didn't audition. Cause we don't do ghetto theater.
1
Oh, that's just a straight up aggression.
3
And, and I said, it's not ghetto theater. It's poor people doing that. And they were like, well, we didn't. And they didn't have the, they didn't have the intellectual bandwidth to, to have a discussion about this. And I was always someone that I really believed. They knew I was black, but I wasn't too black. And I liked doing classical theater. I mean, we did, there was merchant of Venice. There were other things I liked to doing a lot of stuff. And I did not, I was outspoken, but I was not outspoken until about my senior year about race.
3
So I expected what I got. I was not expecting anything inclusive. They did have a traveling show of, for colored girls and to the other two girls that I told you and, and black women, which was the three of us were encouraged to audition. And that they also had an agreement that that show would go equity. And though those people would get their cards. So I obviously was not cast in that, but the other two girls were, they got their cards and never came back.
3
And it, you know, I, it was what I was used to. It was what I was used to any type of my true friends. Well, one was a social work major. And the other one, she was an acting major, but I knew she wasn't going to stick it through because she had so many other ideas and we lived, we lived on campus and I lived my life. You know, I was around brown people and white people. So when I came down there, I thought, oh, it's okay. I was used to it.
3
I grew up in an all white neighborhood where we were the only black family on the block. I knew the drill and that's sad to say, but I knew I knew the drill. I did not expect anything more.
2
And has theater have your theater experiences since then all been very similar?
3
Yes. Okay. Yeah.
2
Cause I know that's the situation you're in right now.
3
I think theater theaters is, is just so hypocritical. It is not inclusive. Anytime. Any, any person of color wanted to, to act, they had to form their own workshops. I remember there was a place called Frank Silveras workshop. There was God, and this is ancient. And when I knew them, they were, they were, they were, they were closing, it was Negro ensemble company. And they were huge back in the day. And there was a another place, but you know, one theater company for all the people of color in the city is not going to hit it.
3
And, and I understood that. And I, I mean, my experiences in the city were a Bismal. It was hard. I mean, it was horrible and I had to leave and I did leave. Wow.
1
Did you, did you have a showcase like we did where agents and all that stuff at the end?
3
No, just, just the children's show and the equity card. Yeah. Which is great, which is, which is great. But there was no, no Syracuse was too far for them to have,
2
But did, did the school do anything in terms of teaching you about the cause? One of our evergreen complaints is that the school did almost nothing to teach us about like the business. How are you going to make a living?
3
They tried, we had a, how do audition class? Well, if you knew the teacher, you can ACE that, you know, you would, how can you go in cold when you know that person? Because you're stuck with them all the time. You've had dinner at their house, you know, yet her husband is the dramaturg for Syracuse stage stop. We also had another woman who was an equity stage manager come and speak about living in New York. And that was possibly the best stuff I got because, oh, but, but not for the reason that you may be thinking, she started talking about neighborhoods where you could live in.
3
And I, of course was the only black person there. And I remember she said, and you should check out little Italy or Chinatown. And then she looked at me and, and, and the look on her face was like, not you, not you. And I knew I was like, and, and, and, and that, at that point, I mean, my city experiences is a whole other podcast. I mean, th the, the, the housing bigotry was, oh, God, it was rampant. Horrible, horrible. And
2
If you, if you feel comfortable, I mean, I'd love to hear a little bit about
3
It. I, you start out, I, you know, ads and stuff like that. And, and there were shares back in the day. It was, you can share them. I mean, I guess there are, I don't know. And this is how I sound. So you form a preconceived notion. And back in the day, when I showed up at the door, I think aside from the one guy that tried to have sex with me, when I was it's like, you know what? I got to go, even then being, being like 21, I was like, so are you still renting the room?
3
You were like all about the business. Can I still get the room? I can put a million locks on the door. Aye. Aye. By the third time, when I showed up and this happened to me at Syracuse too, with my first roommate, I showed up and they went you're Dawn. And I was like, yeah. And they were like, oh, good, come on. Okay. Come on in. And they would spend a quality five minutes with me and then go, you know what, I'm sorry, we just, we got an offer. And we just ran after that, I thought, okay.
3
And I had a friend from, from home who was, who was black. She come out of Yale and she was much darker than me. And because she was coming out of Yale with invests and with investment banking and investment banking degree, it took her twice as long as a white, as a white girl to get the apartment. But she got the apartment in Manhattan because she had Yale and she ended up going to Harvard. She had that behind her. And that's what it took to get a shit up. It was that the discrimination was so bad.
3
I ended up God taking a leap of faith and thought, all right, I'm going to move to Harlem. I don't know. I think it's going to be okay. It was horrible. But I lived there for five years. I mean, I had crack dealers across the street. I had half the block abandoned. I had a little old lady down the stairs named Ms. Green. May she rest in peace? Who used to look out for me when I came home and, and invite me in for a beer, she'd worked all her life as a domestic.
3
She didn't have a stitch of hair. She wore a wig and she was a domestic. And she would sit and I tell her I was an actress. And she would tell me stories about Lauren Bacall. Wow. That she wasn't as nice. She was not, not, not the nicest lady. Beauty does not seem nice. I don't think she was bitching and it's. And she said, it's a wonder, she's still alive. The way she smoked. It was like a chimney in there. Yes.
2
Because the spiteful people live the longest. Yeah. So did your parents, I mean, did they worry about you going to Syracuse and then living in the city? Did they have concerns about, I mean, you, you were expecting it I guess, but did they?
3
Well, my father, he was an odd dude. He was a high school history teacher and a really popular one. And, but he also, his, his love was he fancied himself an artist. He was going to be a jazz musician or this and that. And he and my parents, my mom divorced early. And he was so pissed off that he would only have sporadic visits with me in between. Like he loved Scandinavia, very strange parenting. And he did not, he honestly did not care.
3
He did not care because he had to pay college and child support and we had to go to court. So he could, he could give a fuck. My mother, as far as Syracuse was concerned, she didn't have a problem. She apparently told me much later. Cause I also lived in another place on the right off of west end avenue and 86th street. It's, it's a nice little building now. But at the time it was an SRO and they were trying to change them over. They had homeless people in them, but they were trying to get college students in. And it was 50 50. And I lived there, but I didn't live with any college.
3
We all had, we all shared a bathroom, but we all had like little studios. I live next door to a man who I thought was dead. But then the other people in our pod came to me one morning, desperate saying, do you realize what he's doing? I'm like, no, no, no. What's he doing? The man was crazy. He was, he was going to the bathroom in bags and throwing them in line, like garbage cans. So I, you know, and, and it was, it was so sad. That was, that was the best Manhattan had to offer me.
3
That's why I was like, let me see Harlem. So at least I had a whole apartment, but I was scared every minute of the day
2
Get like, was there, did you experience any crime yourself?
3
Hm. I didn't. It, it didn't happen. I was so naive. Somebody had told me, you need to have bars on the windows. I was like, fine. I put bars on the windows. I didn't know. I needed to get a lock for them. Oh, right, right. Cause they, they have chorea so you could get out and cause I was right on a fire escape and one of, and the fire escape window that locked, that didn't lock. So I assumed I was okay. It never occurred to me. I needed to get a lock. So I'm sleeping one night.
3
And it's a studio. And I, I know I saw the stop line, Dawn, you can't lie to yourself. I saw the window being opened, the great being opened and a foot about to come through. I woke up, screamed, threw stuff at the window and they left and I thought, oh, okay. And then I talked to somebody and they were like, you need a lock.
3
And I thought, oh my God, why didn't I know. And it turned out that then, then when I call the police and, and that was, that was wonderful. I called the police and they came and, and I wouldn't say they took their time, but they weren't there right away. But when they came and the operator wanted to stay on the phone with me, because I called 9 1 1, but the cops came and they were like, we didn't expect anybody like you to be here. I was like, okay. I mean, I, I had no illusions about the cops and there was absolutely nothing they can do.
3
I bought a, a padlock at that point. Then I learned that my next door neighbor's daughter was a crack addict. And it was probably one of her friends that was climbing in.
2
Oh, I thought you were going to say, and then I learned, you know, that there was a rapist looking for crimes of opportunity,
3
Nothing like that, nothing like that, because this may sound crazy as, as, as dangerous as that part of Harlem was, they knew everybody. I stuck out like a sore thumb. And, and I don't know if you can remember. No, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, you wouldn't know the city in those days. It was a whole, when, when crack was really, really, really big, like late eighties, early nineties, there were lots of high school kids, young, young boys and girls driving around in Jeeps with stereos in the back.
3
And they were the runners for the big dealers. And my street was just, and they knew people. They just, you know, so there was, I never really had a fear of rape mugged shore by some crazy crack head. Yes. And that's enough to make you feel. Yeah, that's
1
That's enough this whole time. Are you acting, are you trying
3
To act, I want you to act, I am trying to ask, but what I also learned was I didn't know how to support myself and I had to draw. So I came out of school after the children's show I worked at, I thought I was going to work at home for a year and that didn't work. I was going to work. I had a job in the library and Princeton, which was very near my house and that didn't work out. It didn't work out with my mom. She was just my role. So I came to the city with like $500 in my pocket. And I had found a place with an older woman who ended up, I ended up leaving.
3
I ended up leaving in six months and going to the SRO and that, you know, things are bad
2
For people who don't know that single room occupancy. Yes. Like, it's like a, it's like a motel. Like, you know, it's
1
Like a motel mixed with the halfway house, kind of a field. Yeah.
3
May they rest in peace? So I, and then I was doing, I was just obviously strictly doing backstage. And that was around the time before everything changed, where if the audition started at nine o'clock, you had to get in line at seven to sign up and then go to your support job and take that lunch hour. Hope they weren't running late. I mean, it was a fuck up. And I fucked up, I saw it. I, it took me a long time to learn. I got to be there at seven. I thought there's no way. There's no way I'm not signing up at seven. And then what am I going to do?
3
I'm going to go all the way back up to Harlem and then come all the way back down to Midtown for my temperature job, because that's what I was doing. I was temping at offices around and it just didn't work. So I dropped out and I worked at an investment, a small investment firm for a year. And I took a computer classes, word, Prague, word processing, as it was back in the day I took all of those classes, had some money in the bank, still living in Harlem, but I was still doing, I was just doing a nine to five. I finally, after a year and a half, I was like, okay. I moved to temp agencies and started stuff.
3
And I got nothing, nothing. I didn't work for years, years, and years. And then I called in a favor after a while I called in a favor and then I moved to Brooklyn and that turned into be a nightmare. Oh my God. I didn't know. This is, it's almost like candied, like you're walking in innocent walking. Well, I moved to first off, I missed the whole park slope Revit. I missed it. I missed it.
3
Somebody somebody offered to you was like, and I mean, he had a crush on me, went to get my pants, but I, you know, it was an apartment and he was like, you should move to park slope. But then he had an end and I thought I can't do it because I heard him make an anti-Semitic slur because we had a, we had a support job and he made the most horrific slur. And I thought, I can't live with you. I, I, you know, and, and I couldn't, I didn't want to tell him, I just said, that's it. So I, I just ended things with him. I moved to crown Heights. Okay. I had no idea, literally, literally on the border line with the Caribbean neighborhood and the Hasidim literally, I took a walk like in that direction for two blocks.
3
And there were for hats and beautiful, beautiful homes, but just men in, in, in a few men walking around and for us, I lived in the Caribbean side. And then I had to run from that place because I didn't realize that because I had never dealt with Caribbean people. This is not good. This color is not good. And somebody told me as we were, I was walking down the street. I didn't stay long. I had to, I had to leave in the cover of night and break the lease. Somebody told me, you know, they're talking about you on this block, but they were using Patois because somebody was selling drugs and somebody was letting somebody in.
3
And I was being like, Susie, good American. And I called the cops. And they were like, you can't, you can't call the cops. And then another story I'm at the mailbox, a woman, a costs me. And she said, you're still here. And she was a sweet woman. She said, get out, get out. Now, this place is full of drugs. They, they, they, they, the real estate agents sold you a bill of goods and she was leaving and she was fearful. She said, they've already threatened me and my kid. And she left. I left within a month. Wow. My gosh acting was, I was still trying, but, and then I finally moved to the meat packing district.
3
And that was great. <inaudible>
2
By live, we get to, it's not an, it's not a nightmare, but I'm curious about the signup thing for audition. So is the idea that everything like it wasn't appointments, everything was open and you just had to go,
3
You signed up for your slot, but you still, you signed up for your slot. It opened up to sign up, opened up at eight o'clock. Everybody was in line to get their slots from like seven. You had to get there at like seven. All the good slots were taken. If you showed up at night, if there were any at all.
1
Well, and if your equity, right, because if your non-equity it's even crazier, it's like people try to get slots and it's still happening. As of five years ago in Chicago, same thing. People would show up three hours early, put their name on a list, coat, go do something, come back, wait on the staircase of the theater, sitting there just for their general audition for a theater. Sometimes it's not even a role.
3
And here's the thing. Somebody else somebody told me is that, pardon me? Those roles are already cast. Yeah. They're already cast not going to get the fucking job because they took all the people. And why shouldn't they with agents and managers? But by law, they have to open up CPAs. And I know who's was, this was this
2
Mostly for Broadway shows or everything. Broadway.
3
You had like second or third cast replacements. And, and, and I already knew that they were a joke because the Syracuse stage shows that I, that I was, that I was in. I saw them, ah, I saw the EPA was in backstage and they'd already been cast and we were already rehearsing. Wow.
1
Yeah. I mean, it's just so sad. And so it takes such advantage of, of, of actors and it it's demoralizing and it's all the things. So how did you end up leaving Manhattan or leaving New York? Were you like I'm outta here? Oh,
3
Wow. Well, that's another story. I, I, I finally had some freedom. I was in Manhattan, loving the meat packing district and my little hole of an apartment and was able to do the called in a favor and a friend. And I said, listen, do you have an agent? Can you get me? And can you do dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And he was moving toward music, but he said, here take my old agent. Her name was, she just recently passed. Her name was Toby Gibson from young talent week. I went to visit her. She, she literally had a caftan on, literally was leaning on her sofa with the, and a cigarette holder.
3
And her first saying, now I'm thinking I'm really cute. Now I'm going for the natural. She's like, you're very plain jawline. You're very, very plain. Wow. And I thought I snapped at her. I said, no, I'm not. I'm natural. Like I have to start wearing more makeup. And the quality of the auditions got was amazing. But the amount of women that had this hair and that looked like me and varying shades, it was like, oh, this must be the black version of what white girls go through. And it was, it was disheartening.
3
It was a little too late. I did get cast in something. I do remember going to five auditions for a pizza hut commercial only to see that girl later in, in the Woody Allen film, the one film where he actually cast a black person. I remember Hazel. I can't even think what that is. Oh, it's a horrible movie. He walks around and she's a prostitute. And I thought, of course she is. Of course. Yeah. And other than that, the, it was just a lot of good caliber auditions. And I'd finally cracked the whole backstage thing. Like I was up, I was doing this, I got this, I did that.
3
I did it all. And after like a year of everything and Toby, I was like, I got to go. I was exhausted. I was exhausted. I was lonely. New York city was a wash in police brutality. I was afraid I'd already been, I'd already run out of, out of a, a black neighborhood. You know? I mean, it was like, where, where, where do I fit? So I did what any, any, any smart person would do? I sold all my possessions, tried to shore up some bills.
3
And I moved to the Caribbean. I moved to Saint John plot twist.
2
I would, did not see that coming.
3
I moved to St. John. I took a preliminary trip. Cause I thought that's what I, because I had taken a vacation and I had gotten to know some local people. And I thought they do nothing all day. Their jobs are nothing. I have been working like a dog. I'm going to the Caribbean. It was as simple as that. And I quickly found out, cause I actually researched this and did do it any island. That's not the United States. You need to have a round trip ticket because they don't want anybody dropping out of society in their island. They got enough. And which is exactly what I was to do.
3
But I ended up going and, and finding that St. John was what I needed to do. I started out living in a tent on a, on a campground and you could live there for a month and then you could find another place to live for a week. And then you could go back to the campground for a month. And as long as I kept my clothes free of mildew, I was okay. I mean, I, I lived on right. A few steps from the beach. There were wild donkeys. There were land.
3
What are they called? Land crabs heard land crabs to huge. And I became friends with the guy who I ran the place. Well, we, we, we, and, and I, I had the most ridiculous blissful time. I worked for a couple of crazy AA members who lived on St. Thomas, by the way, St. Thomas is extremely dangerous. Don't go there. And they lived on St. Thomas and they would come by, they would come by the theory and they would open up. They owned a string of, of, of t-shirt shops. And I worked with Caribbean women at the t-shirt shop.
3
And the first day I was like, then I grabbed what you're doing. Sit down, gotten to be here. They took the bus and then he'll go with the dollar man. And then the other man will take them all around the island, go sit down what you're doing. And then they would steal.
2
And you're like, yes, finally, I'm getting a real education. I hear you.
3
You're you're in a gift. A family take these. And I supplied my face family with a lot of sweatshirts. And St. John taught me a huge lesson that I thought I was escaping. And the bigotry, like bigotry never leaves. There was a huge, huge, you had this wonderful island and they called it paradise. Everybody lived like a hippie. I finally found, oh God, another story. I finally found it. Roommate, her name was Joycelyn and she's 50 years old. And I said, hi, Joycelyn what, what are you doing? She said, oh, I'm having a nervous breakdown here.
3
You want to share an apartment? And I'm so nice. I was like, yeah. I was like, <inaudible> she looked like a mom. And I said, but wait a minute. But she didn't have, she had a teenage daughter. She didn't have custody of her daughter because the father had it. And I said, well, well Joycelyn why are you here? She said, well, I wasn't running meth. And one time, you know, I got by the Texas Rangers and they said, man, can we ask you what is in the back of your car? I said, she said, sure, officer I'm running math. I've got a whole case of meth in the back of my car. And they laughed because she was white and looked simple and they let her go.
3
But it got a little hand. And that was where I learned that most of the businesses, a Caribbean island, most of the businesses were white owned. Most of the white people were southerners. And they bought that particular brand of their particular brand of dealing with black people with them, the black people owned nothing. The Caribbean people owned nothing. The police were so corrupt. This is the police thing. I don't even know if it's changed. You could drive with a beer open, open beer drive around the island and everybody did. But if you didn't have your seatbelt on, it would lock you up.
3
Okay. And I was there and I sold t-shirts and I, I learned about kids young couple of years, younger than me dropping out of society. Wealthy, mommy got a new husband, wealthy husband, husband. Doesn't like you. I knew this girl. She was from Seattle and her mother gave her a one-way plane ticket to St. John. There was another woman and she, I heard her crying on the phone. Mommy, please, can I come back? And ma her mother was like, no, sweetie. You're having such a good time there.
3
And you know, bad stuff ended up happening to her. There was another woman Reeves. They were all lost. Reeves who something happened again, had kids did not have custody of the kids. Don't know what happened. She was a bartender. And her thing was, she went everywhere there, foot everywhere. She tended bar barefoot. She went to the bathroom. Bear, went into a bed. Oh, good, good. That was her. Fuck you to the man.
1
That's like some real white people's stuff.
3
I end, you were never to say Merry Christmas. And this is amongst the ex-pat community. This wasn't the Caribbean people. This wasn't the St John's. This was amongst the white people. And again, only one black person. And that you never said Merry Christmas. You never said happy Thanksgiving because that's when all their trauma was. And they all had trauma stories about, you know, it's the holidays. You drink too much. Daddy raped too. I mean, just messed up stuff. That's who I hung out with.
3
And I would get as a final tip, I would get the park Rangers. There was one, he was Latino. And then there was another black guy. And they were like, what are you doing here? You obviously, you have a degree. You have sense. You have, what are you doing? And I mean, even by telling them they were like, go back and be a yuppie. I was like, but you don't under. Okay. All right. How long were you there? Oh, only a year time.
2
It occurs to me that you, you said about being on the edge and in all of these stories, I mean, you were never in the center right? Of anything. What about that now? I mean, aside from our shared group, that we're a part of like in the rest of your life, do you feel that you're finally getting to be in the center of something instead of on the end?
3
Yes and no. I mean, after all of these experiences and in between all of that nonsense, I had met Jim and had continued dating back and forth. And then when I left, I left and I moved in with him to Westchester. And I, it was, which was like another culture shock. I'm just like, why are you keep putting yourself in these, these things? And I started to, to teach, I made it my own program, which is, you know, and, and, and I started to, to market it and to try to teach drama to schools.
3
And, and for awhile, I was actually an assistant nursery school teacher, which was a blast until a bunch of moms. A lot of whom were Italian, did not like the fact that a black woman was an authority figure to their little kids. And so they started what, I guess you'd say microaggression like Ms. Brown Berenson seemed to snap really hard at Connor today. I'm wondering if you could talk to her about that. And it would just amp up and amp up and amp up. And suddenly when we needed chaperones to take the kids somewhere, we had more chaperones than we needed.
3
And they were all watching me. The pressure was immense. And I ended up leaving there because I thought, please, you're not paying me enough to take this racism. And I was living with Jim and I will say this. I was very lucky not to have to worry about money. That's key. And we, I mean, everything happened in, in, in, in quick succession, buying a house, finding out you have infertility issues, getting married, fixing up the house. Oh, and you have infertility issues and infertility issues.
3
And it takes like years for you to have a baby and fixing up your house and being put in south Salem, which at the time was very much a live and let live type of community. I did not feel I must have stuck out, but I think because of my color and my hair, people were like, who knows what she is. I didn't care. And I was literally able to live peacefully, have a child, raise my child in like a very 1950s mode. I mean, I won't lie it the way being a stay at home mom in, in south Salem is kind of like being a stay at home mom in Richfield.
3
And then in 1950. Yeah, exactly. You know, mommy and me, and there was a whole group of women and was I entirely comfortable? No, because I got a little bit of anxiety and that's my own thing that I was working on. But also I'd never been in a group where it was okay to just be me. It was, I was Dawn the mom, and it was, it was a role that I could hide in and I could heal. I could heal from the business and I could grow internally.
3
And what I will say is one of the best things that the universe has ever done for me is to not have my career furthered during the, during my twenties, that would have been, I'd be dead. I would be dead because there is so much shaming of women, if there was some type of pill or something. Cause I w I mean, you saw the shit I was willing to do. It was all about the business. So if there was a pill that could make me center, I mean, that was the, you know, the time where, you know, size two was supposedly normal. I mean, it's all changed now, but I was, I mean, I was too huge.
3
I was only going to be able to get stage work. I was certainly too big for TV and I couldn't handle it because I had my own personal issues to deal with. So the best thing that happened to me was not having a career because I would have probably hurt myself because of, of what the business wanted you to do. And I was not strong enough, certainly not strong enough to counteract that. Yeah. Yeah.
2
And I think what boss and I both have essentially the same, I mean, for, not for the same reasons, but we had the same gratitude that we didn't kind of keep going full board at the time, because we wouldn't have been able to handle it if we had
3
Gotten success. Oh, yeah, yeah.
2
Yeah. When you hear about what
3
People have done, and one of the things I noticed, because I was going through infertility for a long time and operations and stuff is how many, how many women that quote unquote made it suddenly couldn't have kids because they, their, their, their, their whole thirties, their breeding time was eaten up with auditions and this and that. And, and, and, and whatever it is, the business calls for whatever level. Yeah.
1
It was a lot of like restricting and also treating their bodies really, really, really harshly. And then their body's like, Nope, we want a kid. Nope. Cause what, what, why would we participate in this? You know, but yeah, wow. I am the trauma, holy
2
The trauma. And just the, the way. And I mean, everybody probably could know the way that racism affects your ability to get cast. But what you're describing is just the whole life, just to be able to have a life living in a place where you'd have access to auditions was completely prohibited. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think people don't necessarily realize that about it is the way in which it's everywhere.
3
It's, it's horrible. And I don't know if it's, if it, if it opens up, I mean, now we have so many streaming services. There are so many opportunities for more people, but there, there seems to be just as much dysfunction. Oh, it's still garbagey still going. And it amazes me that anything ever gets done or anything ever gets produced. I can't imagine how, how it happens. There's just so much trash going on. And finally, thank God women are speaking up. It took a long time, a long time,
2
Seriously, a very long time. Well, we're going to have to end, but before we do, I want to say we, the three of us need to write a movie about this Toby caftan, Toby with, is that her name? Yeah.
1
Well, I also love the, the woman having an I'm having a nervous breakdown. Joycelyn Joycelyn
3
Bourbon mother turned meth runner turned drugs. Brilliant.
2
Actually you need to write a book. I mean, honestly, you just need to write a book because you've got such an amazing breadth of experience and it's all it's all about,
1
But acting in other ways and also also such a rich life filled with, but I don't know rich is the word, but I think a book is an order and should be called welcome to paradise. So
2
People can find you at Dawn, Vanessa brown.com, right?
3
Www dot Dawn, Vanessa brown.com.
2
If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe. Give us a five star rating and write a great review. I survived theater school. Is it undeniable and production of Jen Bosworth, Ramirez and Gina plegia are the co-hosts. This episode was produced, edited, and sound mixed by Gina <inaudible>. For more information about us, you can go to our website@undeniablewriters.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Thanks.