We talk to star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Yale School of Drama alum LeRoy McClain!
Intro: Aaron survived a heart attack! Marriage is hard.
Let Me Run This By You: Love Has Won and the tale of Mother God, Matthew Perry
Interview: We talk to star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Yale School of Drama alum LeRoy McClain about being born in England, being a biracial boy with a British accent in Hawaii, studying at Loyola, seeing community in and discovering a passion for theatre, and the sometimes difficult path of getting an advanced degree at Yale.

Intro: Sometimes the little guy just doesn't cut it.
Let Me Run This By You: Time's a wastin' - giddyup, beggars and choosers.
Interview: We talk to star of Parks and Recreation, Easter Sunday, and Barry - Rodney To about Chicago, Marquette University, Lane Tech,  getting discovered while pursuing a Chemistry degree, The Blues Brothers, Dürrenmatt's The Physicists, playing children well into adulthood, interning at Milwaukee Rep, Lifeline Theatre, Steppenwolf, doing live industrials for Arthur Anderson, Asian American actors and their representation in the media, IAMA Theatre Company, Kate Burton, and faking a Singaporean accent.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (UNEDITED):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth RAMIREZ

2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand

2 (15s):
It. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (30s):
How's your, how's your eighties decor going for your

1 (35s):
New house? Okay, well we closed yesterday. Well,

2 (39s):
Congratulations.

1 (40s):
Thank you. House buying is so weird. Like we close, we funded yesterday, but we can't record till today because my lender like totally dropped the ball. So like, here's the thing. Sometimes when you wanna support like a small, I mean small, I don't know, like a small bank, like I really liked the guy who is the mortgage guy and he has his own bank and all these things. I don't even, how know how this shit works. It's like, but anyway, they were so like, it was a real debacle. It was a real, real Shannon situation about how they, anyway, my money was in the bank in escrow on Friday.

1 (1m 20s):
Their money that they're lending us, which we're paying in fucking fuck load of interest on is they couldn't get it together. And I was like, Oh no.

2 (1m 29s):
They're like, We have to look through the couch cushions,

1 (1m 31s):
Right? That's what it felt like, Gina. It felt like these motherfuckers were like, Oh shit, we didn't actually think this was gonna happen or something. And so I talked to escrow, my friend Fran and escrow, you know, I make friends with the, with the older ladies and, and she was like, I don't wanna talk bad about your lender, but like, whoa. And I was like, Fran, Fran, I had to really lay down the law yesterday and I needed my office mate, Eileen to be witness to when I did because I didn't really wanna get too crazy, but I also needed to get a little crazy. And I was like, Listen, what you're asking for, and it was true, does not exist. They needed one. It was, it was like being in the, in the show severance mixed with the show succession, mixed with, it was like all the shows where you're just like, No, no, what you're asking for doesn't exist and you wanna document to look a certain way.

1 (2m 25s):
And Chase Bank doesn't do a document that way. And she's like, Well she said, I don't CH bank at Chase, so I don't know. And I said, Listen, I don't care where you bank ma'am, I don't care. But this is Chase Bank. It happens to be a very popular bank. So I'm assuming other people have checking accounts that you deal with at Chase. What I'm telling, she wanted me to get up and go to Chase Bank in person and get a printout of a certain statement period with an http on the bottom. She didn't know what she was talking about. She didn't know what she was talking about. And she was like, 18, 18. And I said, Oh ma'am, if you could get this loan funded in the next, cuz we have to do it by 11, that would be really, really dope.

1 (3m 6s):
I'm gonna hang up now before I say something very bad. And then I hung up.

2 (3m 10s):
Right, Right. Yeah. Oh my God, I know. It's the worst kind of help. And regarding like wanting to support smaller businesses, I what, that is such a horrible sadness. There's, there's no sadness. Like the sadness of really investing in the little guy and having it. That was my experience. My big experience with that was going, having a midwife, you know, with my first child. And I really, I was in that whole thing of that, that time was like, oh, birth is too medicalized. And you know, even though my husband was a doctor, like fuck the fuck the medical establishment we're just, but but didn't wanna, like, I didn't wanna go, as my daughter would say, I didn't wanna be one of those people who, what did she say?

2 (3m 52s):
You know, one of those people who carry rocks to make them feel better.

1 (3m 57s):
That's amazing. Super.

2 (4m 0s):
So I didn't wanna go so far as to be one of those rock carrying people to have the birth at my house, but at the same time I really wanted to have this midwife and then there was a problem and she wasn't equipped to deal with it. And it was,

1 (4m 11s):
I was there,

2 (4m 13s):
Fyi. Yes, you were

1 (4m 15s):
The first one, right? For your first one.

2 (4m 16s):
The first one.

1 (4m 18s):
Here's the thing you're talking about this, I don't even remember her ass. What I, she, I don't remember nothing about her. If you had told me you didn't have one, I'd be like, Yeah, you didn't have one. I remember the problem and I remember them having to get the big, the big doctor and I remember a lot of blood and I remember thinking, Oh thank God there's this doctor they got from down the hall to come or wherever the hell they were and take care of this problem because this gene is gonna bleed out right here. And none of us know what to do.

2 (4m 50s):
Yes. I will never forget the look on your face. You and Erin looking at each other trying to do that thing where you're like, It's fine, it's fine. But you're such a bad liar that, that I could, I just took one look at you. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm gonna fucking bleed out right here. And Aaron's going, No, no, no, it's cool, it's cool, it's cool. And then of course he was born on July 25th and all residents start their residency on July 1st. So you know, you really don't wanna have a baby or have surgery in July cuz you're getting at a teaching hospital cuz you're getting a lot of residents. And this woman comes in as I'm bleeding and everything is going crazy and I haven't even had a chance to hold my baby yet. And she comes up to me and she says, Oh cuz the, the midwife ran out of lidocaine. There was no lidocaine.

2 (5m 30s):
That's right. They were trying to sew me up without lidocaine. And so this nurse comes in, she puts her hand on my shoulder, she says, Hi, I'm Dr. Woo and I'm, and I said, Dr. W do you have any lidocaine? I need some lidocaine stat right up in there. Gimme some lidocaine baby. A...

Intro: We should all be paying more for food.
Let Me Run This By You: Who would you be if you were ONLY nature with no nurture. Also, Jack White, Fran Lebowitz, and introducing the flexapology.
Interview: We talk to Jonas Abry! Getting cut, Tisch, being a child actor, voiceovers, Joe Lieberman,  Mother Night, figuring out your identity with fedoras and pipes, Westchester Broadway Theatre, playing the Scarecrow, playing Peter Pan, being a blond-haired blue-eyed King of Siam, playing Michael Banks, Costal Disturbances with Annette Benning, Running on Empty, Slaves of New York, Dorcas Johnson, Police Story, Journey of the Fifth Horse, Meisner Studio, Stella Adler, pivoting to teaching, the performance energy of teaching 9th grade, being Mr. Abry, teacher and Jonas Abry, dad. Also, actor schmactors, Sidney Lumet, being treated like a little brother by River Phoenix, Christine Lahti, Judd Hirsch, Martha Plimpton, rent parties, Apartment 3, smoking cigarettes, and clashing with the Scene Study teacher. Jonas closes by talking about being happy with his choices, leaving acting behind, and embracing family life. 

Intro: Gina and Jen talk pitch decks, learning new skill sets, Circle of Confusion Fellowship, the conundrum of praise, query letters, literary management, and negging.
Let Me Run This By You: codependency, why is it always our job to protect assholes?, invalidation, fear of conflict. Also, Heaven's Gate, Wild Wild Country, post-pandemic travel plans, and LA Influencers.
Interview: We talk to Nick Bowling! Dreams of Gene Kelly, "determining your path", The Lesson, Free Will and Wanton Lust, Mother Courage and Her Children, Kevin Hagan, Tristan and Isolde, building an ice moon with hot burning plastic in a classroom filled with water directly above a computer lab, Mary Zimmerman, Timeline Theatre, The Killing Game, Glascott's, antiques, Pat Tiedemann, PJ Powers, Brock Goldberg. Juliet Hart, John Guare, playing head games as a director, mentorship, Conner Wilson, History Boys, Joe Slowik, and  Jim Ostholthoff.

Intro: Boz leaves her MFA program. We talk about the Midwest approach to "sticking it out", the perils of mentorship, consolidating power and amassing fortunes, 2021 as the Year of Big Asks, hiding out at institutions of higher learning,
Let Me Run This By You: choosing not to cater to White Fragility, "progressives" and their art, 2021 as the Year of Is This a Waste of My Time?,
Interview: We talk to Jess Hanna! Making your living in theatre in LA, Ithaca, Cornell Savoyards, Trial By Jury, Showboat, The Hangar Theatre, You Never Can Tell, Bob Moss, Playwrights Horizons, Bob Fosse, Delroy Lindo in Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Gregory Hines in Jelly's Last Jam, Sarafina, Hofstra, Burn This, Bootleg Theater, Aubrey Payne, making changes at TTS, cast list traditions, SITI, theatre in LA, the importance of making sure your unions are representing your best interests, the realities of making a living as an artist, the importance of early mentorship, and being "in the ring".

Intro: Gina and Jen talk peasant DNA, jobs, the specific experience of being employed by the Catholic Church and how that convinced Nicolas Cage to hire Jen, making the quarterfinals of the CineStory TV writing contest.
Let Me Run This By You: on the topic of Woo Woo culture, does one have to buy in to the whole culture or can they just adopt the tenets? Also, having a finely tuned bullshit meter, the allure of MLMs, spending $90k at the Bodhi Tree, The Power of Now, The Secret, Oprah's podcast,
Interview: We talk to Larry Bates! The agony of clashing with your Audition class teacher, wanting to attend a "prestigious-sounding" school, almost becoming an aeronautical engineer, almost auditioning in New Orleans with a monologue by a quadriplegic character, My Children! My Africa!, the various factors that might play into choosing a school in Chicago (proximity to the Bears among them), living in U Hall, Sanctuary, the bliss of ignorance, choosing to transition away from being the class clown, having to maintain an academic scholarship in a setting where you're being graded on your art, charming your teachers, Antigone, Diary of Anne Frank, A Raisin in the Sun, being pre-cast in Six Degrees of Separation, Peter Pan, The Mountaintop, when people with unrealized artistic dreams are teachers who project their inadequacies on to you.

TRANSCRIPT:
Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (00:00:08):

I'm Jen Bosworth-Ramirez.

Gina Pulice (00:00:09):

and I'm Gina Pulice.

Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (00:00:11):

We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

Gina Pulice (00:00:15):

20 years later, we're digging deep -talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (00:00:20):

We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

Gina Pulice (00:00:31):

Really? I actually, I started to write a blog post. I couldn't,

Gina Pulice (00:00:34):

I've been really like struggling to figure out what I would want a topic for a blog post to be. And, um, so I was looking through my notes folder, where I keep all my little ideas and, and I had always wanted to write an essay about how I've had 37 jobs. And I wanted to write about, yeah, I've had 37 jobs, but of course I don't want to just list all my jobs I have to, you know, and it has to be gearing up to a point, but it got me down a rabbit hole yesterday because I started the essay by talking about how my doing my own DNA revealed I'm 100% peasant. Like there is not one, you know, noble or even anybody living above the poverty line.

Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (00:01:24):

Really. Wow.

Gina Pulice (00:01:26):

And so it makes a lot of sense because when I have a big job, like Aaron is frequently commenting.

Gina Pulice (00:01:33):

Wow. You just, uh, you just keep working, you just, you know, put your head down and keep working. And I'm like, yeah, what's, what's the alternative. But in my family, I think I got my first official job. I mean, it was a babysitter, et cetera, but I think I got my first official job kind of late because I was 17 and my sister worked all the way through high school. She worked, started working at the dairy queen. I think she was just barely 14. And my dad started working early. And, uh, anyway, so it's like, work is like, the work ethic is really, that's the one thing I'll say about my, you know, my family that's unequivocally positive. Is that everybody works hard. Yeah. You know, I have no slackers in my family,

Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (00:02:17):

No slackers. And I think, you know, I, the guy I used to date that then died, he used to say, he used to say, um, loopy. That was my nickname. He would say, loopy, you are a worker, a worker, and a doer. You come from peoples that are workers and doers. You're a real doer. And that can be great. And that can also be a trap. Right. So doing, doing, as we know is, but it's gotten me. I've probably had, I probably haven't had 37, but I've had a lot. And you know that you and I had the same job.

Gina Pulice (00:02:51):

I just, you got to tell everybody the story about the job we had.

Jen Bosworth-Ramirez (00:02:55):

Well, you had at first, so there was a church. Um, I won't name it because I don't know. I ...

Intro: Gina and Jen talk about what it means to be home, zero ICU bed availability in Los Angeles, clarifying the aim of this podcast, what it means to survive, surviving one's desire to be famous, and fame adjacency.
Let Me Run This By You: Hope in a Jar, putting too much stock in beauty products, wtf is a serum?, Noxzema, multi-level marketing schemes, the Kylie Jenner go fund me campaign (in which Gina was relieved to later learn it was not the conspiracy she thought it was), laying down your life at Water Tower Place, the activism of K-Pop Stans, tweens playing dress-up on IG video chat, finding unity and feeling seen via selfie filters, drinking Kleenex, and Veterinarian's Day.
Interview: We talk to Amie Farrell about Into the Woods, The Journey of the Fifth Horse, Joe Slowik, Snow White and Rose Red, Foy Flying,  Kansas City children's theatre, Interlochen, singing Maybe from Annie, rugby warmups, being a healthy person as an actor, the implicit wish for actors to be "dark and twisty", getting people to cry in voice class, David Fincher, Mank, acting technique, a stellar scene from Superman II,  storytelling, and Variant Artists.
We didn't talk Puss in Boots, , The Trojan Women, or the rest of Amie's EXTENSIVE credits!

*This episode was recorded on Election Day, 2020*
Intro: Gina bastardizes a beautiful e.e. cummings poem
Let Me Run This By You: Lack of acceptance, Japanese death philosophy, Unsolved Mysteries, tsunamis, personal responsibility, aggressively fearful flag waving, wearing your fear like a cloak of armor, more on NXVIM, channeling a lil' psychopathy, emotional felonies.
Interview: We talk to Tait Smith! Feldenkrais, feeling in over your head at TTS, Le Mars Iowa the Ice Cream Capital of the World, high school sweethearts, seeing Morgan Freeman and Q-Tip at the Michigan Avenue Bennigans, Brighton Beach Memoirs, crying in your dorm room, expanding your mind in college, smoking and wearing fedoras and pagers, the appearance of confidence, expectations of the college experience (football games and cutting class) as compared to the realities of conservatory life (classes all day and rehearsals or performances at night), viewing fellow alums as war buddies, clicking in Improv class, the fabled Apartment 3, waiting for your re-acceptance letter in the summer, work study, Lincoln Park Foods, Ed Debevic's, Lollapalooza 1994, the unreleased film "Stricken" starring Tait, Jamie Kennedy, Sean Gunn, and Judy Greer. Auditioning sucks. Finding a stage wherever you are and redefining performance and storytelling, life lessons from TTS, differing philosophies about rehearsal, wild improv moments with Peyton Myrick,  the subjective nature of art and the imposed judgment of it that happens in drama school, Epsom Downs, the politics of the cut system, big laughs and good times with Alex Skuby, artists looking for acceptance and validation, Charlie's Ale House in Chicago, having Thai food for the first time with Eric Slater leading the way, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to do yoga and Movement to Music, making enough money to say thanks to Mom and Dad, Antigone, the Adding Machine, Detective Story with Lou Contey, Merchant of Venice, Sisterly Feelings, and LSD. 

Intro: Death Valley, camping, San Pedro, LSD, rageaholics, serial killers
Let Me Run This By You: the perils of not letting you be you, codependency is like an MLM because there is no end user
Interview: We talk to Jen Kober, who says she was "NOT a happy camper" while at TTS. Getting cut, knowing yourself, being among the first fat girls accepted into the program, being taken "back to neutral", comedy, terrible casting, The Birds, Rob Chambers, the value of knowing yourself, TTS then vs now, Columbia College, Second City, Improv Olympic, The Purge, Marty deMaat, Clinton v. Bush, Betsy Hamilton, Sinbad, Phyllis Griffin, San Francisco Comedy Competition, and Vidzu.

Intro: Meet Snoball.
Let Me Run This By You: clothes from Walgreens, coffins from Costco, the infernal unbreathabililty of polyester, shopping at Forever 21 vs Chico's vs Flax vs Eileen Fisher, the promise of the premise with Anthropologie, Mod
Interview: We talk to Eric Slater - talks the life of a struggling actor, Jon Berry and Shake Your Groove Thing, Around the Coyote, (side note: Eric says the first show he did after college was one thing, but it was actually The Big Funk with JABOA Theatre), almost becoming a professional soccer player instead of an actor, Fifth of July, North Carolina, being intimidated by New York City, Lancelot Gobbo's speech from Merchant of Venice, going to drama school in a fugue state, acting as an "unteachable art", whether or not everyone got a warning (Gina was wrong on this - not everyone was warned), Misalliance, Merrily We Roll Along, The Glory of Living, Androcles and the Lion, The Visit, being confrontational, the cut system, counting tiles as an acting exercise, resilience, what he would say to his daughter if she told him she wanted to go to theatre school, and  Fargo.
We didn't get a chance to discuss Bridge to Terabithia or JABOA. Next time!

Let Me Run This By You: COVID, NXVIM, we are all in a cult because everything is a cult.
Interview: Jen and Gina unpack their own memories of and experience with The Theatre School.

Intro: Jen tells us about her Disney audition and a conversation about "getting discovered" myths ensues.
Let Me Run This By You: We talk home decor and what informs a person's personal style. Do you even know what your style is? When did you learn? Then we talk about decorating for the holidays and the potentially dangerous resentment trap that often comes along with it. Should we all just get Prince-themed Christmas decorations? Or what about a fully Anthropologie/Mexican Street Fair/Boho/Bruja vibe? Next: kids discovering the truth about Santa Claus, lazy parenting, and the pressures of creating a perfect childhood for your kids. Then Jen tells Gina a story she's never heard before about ruining an important surprise for a friend. Keeping a surprise is so much pressure! P.S. who gets married in a hot air balloon?
Interview: We talk to Shayna Ferm of The Pump and Dump show, Band of Mothers podcast, and Parentally Incorrect fame about getting into theatre school, audition competition power moves, Boy Gets Girl at the Goodman, Early Edition, Our Town, regrets about learning how to act as a teenager, musical theatre, Carnegie Mellon ballet auditions, Peter Pan, musicals at The Theatre School (wherein Gina erroneously states that TTS did musicals every year - it was actually every other year) The Grapes of Wrath, Michael Maggio, the importance of having a champion, sketch comedy at Invite Them Up, creating your own artistic opportunities, and the magic of The Theatre School relationships. 

Intro: swiping left on the poor man's John Travolta, wilderness therapy for the 1%, Ashton Kutcher.
Let Me Run This By You: the thing that you're most afraid of is probably not what's gonna getcha.
Interview: We talk to actor Damian Thompson about immigrating from Jamaica, the University of Evansville, the Florida Theatre Conference, stuttering, PAVAC, North Carolina School of the Arts, asking for what you want, how letters of recommendation aren't always what they seem, gatekeeping, theatre school with no acting classes, Pericles, zoom theatre.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (UNEDITED):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth Ramirez,

2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

2 (15s):
20

3 (16s):
Years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of

1 (20s):
It all. We survive theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet In Chicago or New York? You can just get crazy, but anyway, go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead.

2 (38s):
No, no, no. So now that the poor man's John Travolta has purchased Twitter for $44 billion, will you be deleting your account?

1 (52s):
Yes. I'm getting off only because I, I, I actually, I just, I mean, I think that he is a, he's in many ways a genius. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna fault him on that. There's, there's, but I don't trust what's gonna happen. Like I just don't wanna be a part of the great unraveling in that way. I don't know. It'll probably unravel then come back together and unravel before it finally goes in one direction or the other. Yeah. I'm gonna also, let's be honest, I'm gonna probably use this as an excuse to get off because nobody fucking retweets my shit anyway, so I'm just gonna use it as an excuse.

2 (1m 30s):
Yeah, yeah.

1 (1m 31s):
It just not working for me. I'm not Twitter famous. Nobody gives a fuck. So I'm gonna just shut it down and then maybe TikTok will be our new thing. Right?

2 (1m 40s):
There you go. By the way, 44 billion, I was like trying to, you know how humans really can't conceive of big numbers, and so I'm always trying to find these ways of like making it, you know, somewhat understandable. And it turns out this, a lot of people do this and, and I read an article about how, Oh, by the way, I used to, I realized apropo of this, I was relying on Twitter 100% for my news. Like I had stopped, I, I used to start with the New York Times and then go to Twitter, and then I stopped starting with the New York Times. I would, I would only go to it if there was a link to it in Twitter.

2 (2m 20s):
And so today I start, I did the times again. And, you know, there's a lot of bad things going on that I really didn't know about because I hadn't been, you know, I really hadn't been paying attention to the news, but, okay, so he, for ostensibly speaking, you could end world hunger with 6 billion. You could end United States houselessness with 20 billion and this is 44 billion. Now, when they say these things, like you could end it, I always think like, yeah, but really how? Right. That doesn't seem right because

1 (2m 59s):
They're, they're still, well, there's like, Right, And also you need, you need, you need systems put in place. It's not, but what, with the resources, I think it is important to know like that's how much resources financially it would cost, and it then it would take a whole fuck ton of work. But I do think it's interesting to, and also who comes up with these figures, That's hilarious to me. There's some person being like, You could end Jen, Jen Bosworth Ramirez as problems with, you know, $150. You know, like that kind of a thing. But, Well,

2 (3m 27s):
I think, I think in the case of the thing I was reading, it was like organization, non-governmental organizations who, their mission is to end world hunger or their

1 (3m 38s):
Mission. So they do. Yeah. My guess is the New York Times is really checking their shit out. So Yeah, of course. And they're talking to nonprofits that, that this is their mission, so they know these numbers. Okay. That is crazy as fuck. And he spent 44 billion,

2 (3m 53s):
He spent 44 billion. And that's the other thing about it, it is starting to seem like these, you know, mega billionaires are just kind of bored and looking for something novel. I mean, you know, him and Bezos are trying, trying to outspace each other and, and it's just like, there's no, you know, it's, it's the thing of like, there's no, there's nothing left to vanquish, so let's just, you know, come up with new things. And I think, you know, I wonder if any of them would be interested in like, having a perspective change. Like what if they had to live without a house for some period of time? What if they had to, you know, like, is there a way that we could mandate just sort of the experience of not being them?

1 (4m 43s):
What, Okay, what you're, what you're talking about is like a mix of like outward Bound meets tough love and like prisoner for a day, like reality show for billionaires. And I am also wilderness therapy. They need

2 (4m 57s):
Wilderness therapy.

1 (4m 58s):
Yeah. Well, I'm convinced that like, if you trapped me in an elevator with them for an hour, they might have a perspective change. Only because, or anyone, anyone that's not in their circle. It could be any, Well, it couldn't really be anyone. Cause like, can you imagine them getting trapped with like, I don't, I don't know my weird neighbor, that would not be good. But like, someone who is psychologically minded like that actually cares about the universe and stuff. If they were, if we, I always think of this, I don't know why, but like, let's say Osama Bin Laden was still alive and then he got trapped in an elevator with me and neither of us had weapons, right?

1 (5m 38s):
We just have our minds and our mouths and our hearts and all our bodies. Could we come to, could we change, Could anyone change anyone being trapped in the elevator for a couple hours? I don't know. But it would be interesting to find out. So this is along those same lines, like you put Elon Musk in the woods, but they have to have either a therapist or some kind of guide because left to their own devices, they're gonna fucking try to colonize the woods, right? They're gonna be like, ah, we could, you know, So they need a guide. Who would be their guide? Gina?

2 (6m 12s):
I think it should be you, frankly. No, I think the woods

1 (6m 15s):
Like, I'd be like's,

2 (6m 17s):
Maybe not in the woods. By the way, how long do you think it would take Osama Bin Laden to acknowledge your presence since you are

1 (6m 24s):
A woman? Oh, that's great. Together in an elevator. That is a really good, that is a really good question. Would he just pretend I wasn't there? And I would dance around? I mean,

2 (6m 36s):
I kind of think he would just pretend that you weren't there. Like, like

1 (6m 39s):
Well, that would even give more impetus to get in his space. I would be like, Oh, this is a game now. So then I would try to be like, you know what I would do? Cause I'm a people pleaser. I'd be like, I love your hair. Like, I would be like, Tell me how you got your hair to look. So whatever

2 (6m 56s):
Matter. Matter,

1 (6m 57s):
Right? Or like, I think you have great bone structure. Like I would just come up with the most because that's who I am. So it would either or he would just strangle me that that could be, he could just strike me.

2 (7m 11s):
That's possibility too. ...

Opening: Jen and Gina discuss microphone woes, professional gamers, and taking pictures of the television.
Let Me Run This By You: Dolly Parton documentary, an idea for a new take on 9 to 5, and comforting watching in a pandemic.
Interview: Jeffrey Brown talks getting into The Theatre School, growing up in an elite musical family, inappropriate audition pieces, the pelvic clock, drumming, discipline, Ric Murphy, the legendary production of Frank Galati's The Grapes of Wrath at Steppenwolf in Chicago, learning acting anew with each project, True Blood, Henry Danger, playing at the Bop Shop, Blue Man Group, trusting yourself as an actor, fearing "getting cut" at theatre school, Don Ilko, and Camp Winnarainbow. We did not get a chance to discuss his film, Vicarious, or his inimitable turn on Doc McStuffins (plus so, so much more), so hopefully we'll have him back!

FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jeff Brown: (00:10)
And I'm Gina, Pulice.

Jeff Brown: (00:11)
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

Jeff Brown: (00:15)
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

Jeff Brown: (00:20)
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

Jeff Brown: (00:38)
Real nook, like window. Cause not. So my chair is high now.

Jeff Brown: (00:45)
Okay. Then we both have a new thing. So, uh, I'm having, I've been having microphone problems and I went online yesterday to find, I tried to get my microphone fixed. Um, I tried to, I'd watched YouTube videos about how to fix it. I figured out what was wrong with it. And when I was watching the video about the guy who fixed it during the video, he, he, he he's using a, um, thought solder, soldering iron. And he, he just like completely melts the motherboard. Okay. So you don't know how to do this either.

Jeff Brown: (01:24)
Brilliant though. That's kind of brilliant.

Jeff Brown: (01:26)
So I go to best buy.

Jeff Brown: (01:29)
Oh no. I went there to try and fix my printer. Go ahead.

Jeff Brown: (01:33)
They had, you know, they're these microphones all sold out because everybody and their mother has started test last month. So, so the one that was left is world of Warcraft.

Jeff Brown: (01:48)
Oh my God. I love it.

Jeff Brown: (01:51)
Get gaming microphone. I love it. Why do you need to make her from here gamer? I don't know what. Yes. I don't see. This is you have to run. I don't know, dude. I don't know if you want to be anywhere in this life as a game, right? You better have good quality headphones, good quality microphone. Because you might be one of the people who gets a serious living. She's just recording yourself, playing video games and having a YouTube channel. Right. That other sit and watch you play a video game. It is the single strangest thing about this generation. It's like the only thing that I, that I don't go, Oh, I get that, you know?

Jeff Brown: (02:43)
Okay. So I'm trying to like equate it to anything that we, I don't think there is

Jeff Brown: (02:49)
The closest I could come to it and it's really not close at all. Like I just remember my mom looking at me when I was, when I would be taping radio. Oh, Oh,

Jeff Brown: (03:03)
Oh, that is yes. Yes. I taped her and I also okay. Okay. That we're getting somewhere now. We're getting somewhere. You know what I did took pictures of the television with my Kodak, Kodak. This camera when Michael Jackson was on that's similar. So cute. I took my disc, my disc Kodak, disc man, this maker, whatever. And just whatever and Kodak disc and that I got for Christmas and I wouldn't, my Michael Jackson was on at the, Grammy's doing his moonwalk. I was taking pictures. The pictures I still have. I found, I think I found one, one. You it's,

Jeff Brown: (03:39...

Intro: Emceeing a memorial service
Let Me Run This By You: Fear and the paranormal
Interview: We talk to Tina Parker aka Francesca Liddy about SMU, Blake Hackler, Andre DeShields, Maria Irene Fornes' Mud, Kitchen Dog Theatre, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Robert Altman's Dr. T & the Women, Birdbath play, Perpetual Grace.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth Ramirez

2 (10s):
This, and I'm Gina Pulice

1 (11s):
We went to theater

3 (12s):
School together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

4 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of

3 (20s):
It all. We survive theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (34s):
So what does mean, What does it mean to mc a memorial?

1 (40s):
Yeah. I mean, I don't know what to call it. I I people keep it host. I'm not hosting cuz the family's hosting. So what it means is that I'm trusted, I think to not, Well one, I've done this twice, you know, I've lost both my parents. So I like know the drill about how memorials go, but also I think I'm kind of a safe person in that I will step in if someone goes kaka cuckoo at the memorial and I also have some, you know, able like, presenting skills. Yes. Right. And I'm entrusted to like guide the ship if it, and if it goes off kilter, I will say to somebody, Hey, why don't you have a seat?

1 (1m 23s):
This is like, we'll have time for this later if you really wanna get crazy or whatever. But that's, and I think it's just sort of steering, steering the grief ship maybe. I don't know. Yeah, look, I don't know. I like that. It's gonna be

2 (1m 34s):
Interesting, dude, people, Oh, honestly, they should have that for, you know, in other cultures where they have like professional grievers and professional mourners, it, it sounds a little silly, but at the same time it's like, no, this is right. Because no, we don't, we never know how to do it. Unless you've lived in a really communal environment where you, you, you, you know, you attend the rights, the ceremonies or rituals of everybody in your village, then you really don't know until, usually until it's thrust upon you. And then it's like, well, you're supposed to be grieving and then like hosting a memorial service. It's such a weird thing. So this could be another career path for you. You could be a professional, you know, funeral mc, I actually, honestly, I hate, I don't hate it.

2 (2m 21s):
I love it. Well,

1 (2m 22s):
And also could be my thank you, my rap name funeral Mc instead of like young mc funeral mc, but no. Yeah, I, I have no, and it's so interesting when it's not my own family, right? Like these are family friends, but they're not, it's not my mother who died. I don't have the attachment to I people doing and saying certain things. I don't feel triggered. Like being, I grew up a lot in this house that I'm sitting in right now, but it's not my, it was not my house. So I don't have any attachment emotionally like appendages to the items in the house where the girls do.

1 (3m 2s):
So I'm able to be here and, and, and be like, this is, this is, I'm okay here. I don't feel overwhelmed. And I think that is a sign that I'm doing the right thing in terms of helping out in this way if I got here and I was like, Oh my God, it's too much. But I don't feel that. And I also think that like, one of the things that I did with Nancy and Dave over the last couple years is like, they were literally the only adults. Well, I'm an adult, only older adults my parents age who are like, Yes, go to California, you need to get out of here, get away from this. They were the, so I that made me trust them. And then we stayed, we had like weekly phone conversations, just like they would each be on a line.

1 (3m 46s):
It was hilarious. And we would talk for hours like maybe once every two weeks, a couple hours. And it was really like a parenting experience. So I feel very close to them and I, what I'm learning is that like, even if other people have different relationships with people, you can have your own. So I know that no one's perfect, but these were allowed, like, you're allowed Gina to have your own relationship with your mom and with your even dead people than other people have.

2 (4m 17s):
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. Back to the plane for a minute. In these situations, what do the flight attendants do, if anything?

1 (4m 28s):
Oh, well I always talked to them before because I, so what I say, I always like to, because Dave, who's, who's a hypnotherapist and a psychologist, he said, Listen, you know, he used to be afraid. And he said his thing was talking to the flight attendants before and just saying like, Hey, I have a phobia. I'm a therapist. I'm working through it. Like just to make contact, right. I don't, I didn't say that exactly, but what I said was, Listen, I say, Hi, how are you? We struck up a strike up, a teeny conversation in that moment where I'm going to my seat and I say, Listen, I'm going to Chicago to like mc a memorial for like someone who's like my mom. So if you see me, so if you see me crying like it's normal. And they're like, Oh, thanks for telling me. And they're, they usually don't get freaked out.

1 (5m 11s):
I'm also not like intense about it. They do nothing. And you know what they, I think and, and she said, Thanks for telling me. I really appreciate it. Because I think they'd rather know what the fuck is going on with someone than thinking someone's about to hijack the goddamn plane.

2 (5m 29s):
Exactly. I was thinking that exact same thing. I was thinking like, especially right now, all they know is it's heightened emotion or it's not, you know, like they, they, they have no, they would have no way of differentiating, you know, what's, what's safe and what's dangerous. So I can't believe nobody's ever done this before. But we, another project that we could do is like airplane stories. I mean there is such, this is one of the few points of connection that humanity still has people that is who can afford to you fly a plane anywhere. But this thing of like, it sucks and it's dirty and it's growth and people, people's, you know, hygiene comes into question and if they're sitting next to you and it's uncomfortable and it's not the glamorous thing that it used to be even when we were kids.

2 (6m 21s):
So it's, it's one of those moments unless you have a private plane where you're sort of forced to reckon with like the same thing that everybody else in humanity has to reckon with. But even on a private plane, and I would argue even especially on a private plane, there is the fear of your imminent death. Like the, the, it doesn't matter if you're afraid of flying or not, it crosses your mind.

1 (6m 42s):
Well, yeah. And I, ...

Intro: Nasty neighbors in the Great Unraveling, The Rest Movement
Let Me Run This By You: Rejection
Interview: We talk to Tina Huang about soap opera acting, LaGuardia High School, the Playwrights Horizon program at Tisch, breaking down barriers for Asian actors, Ammunition Theatre Company, Revenge Porn or the Story of a Body by Carla Ching, Bay Area Theatre, Pig Hunt, starting a fake management company,  Word for Word Performing Arts Company, Intersection for the Arts, Campo Santo, Amy Tan, 1:1 Productions, Karla Mosley, Jeanne Sakata.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth Ramirez this, and I'm Gina Pulice.

2 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

3 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of

2 (20s):
It all. We survive theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

0 (34s):
You

2 (35s):
Part of the building.

1 (36s):
Okay,

2 (37s):
Great. I don't know how it's gonna go.

1 (41s):
I mean, nobody knows how it's gonna go. It's unknowable until we know it.

2 (45s):
That is true. Good morning.

1 (48s):
Good. Margie,

2 (50s):
Your makeup looks amazing.

1 (53s):
Thank you. I'm not doing well, so I'm acting opposite. You know that skill?

2 (59s):
Oh, I know. Oh, that's like, I would say like 90% of adulthood. Anyway. What's happening? What, what is, if you wanna get into it, like what's the overall arching shittiness,

1 (1m 10s):
The overarching thing is just, Well, my neighbor I told you about.

2 (1m 15s):
Okay. And I just wanna put it out there and we'll get into the story, but I wanna put it out there that I, we are in, and we've said this before on the podcast in what I would call, and others like Gina would call probably similar, the great unraveling of our society. So it's like Rome is falling and I, I don't even say it, it sounds so cavalier the way I'm saying it, but I literally every day see evidence of the great unraveling of the American sweater. You know what I mean? Like it's coming out. Yes. Yeah. And we, it's okay. And I think one of those things is terrible neighbors, right? Like, people who are terrible are just getting more terrible.

2 (1m 58s):
So Gina has a neighbor that is very terrible.

1 (2m 0s):
Yeah. People just over the last several years do seem to feel way more comfortable just being extremely hor. Horrible. Horrible. So what, So this is the same neighbor that I've talked about before. And basically the deal with her is it's like she's obsessed with us. And, and like, what she doesn't understand is that we just work very hard to avoid her, you know, avoid interacting with her at any cause. I realized yesterday after she screamed at me that she has screamed at three fifths of my family members.

1 (2m 40s):
She only hasn't screamed at the nine year old and the, and the 14 year old. It's so insane. She's the one who Aaron was walking the dog and he had a flashlight and the dog was really young and he was trying to train him. So he kept like stopping and starting screens out. It's very disconcerting to be sitting in my living room and seeing a flashing light in front of my house, house. Like, he's like, I'm walking the dog. And the same one who when she was walking her dogs and he was walking our dog, she's like, It's not a great time to be walking your dog because her dogs are out of control. And she's yelled at my son a few times. Anyway, so what happened was, I walked the dog, I picked up the poop, I had the little baggy. If it's anybody else's house, I feel comfortable putting it in their trash

2 (3m 23s):
Can. Yeah. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. I hate to tell you people, but poop is trash. There's like nowhere else to put it. So if you, if you are like not okay with pooping in your trash in a bag tied up, then you don't need to live in a society where there are dogs or where there are trash. Cause that's what it

1 (3m 44s):
Is, Honestly. Honestly. And it's like, I feel like a big part of what's driving all this bad behavior is just like, so much entitlement. Like, I'm entitled to have only my trash in my trash can. And it's like, okay, you've never lived in New York City, right? Cause you don't understand anything about cooperative living. And anybody, whether they live in my neighborhood or not, is welcome to put their poop

2 (4m 6s):
Back. Yeah, dude.

1 (4m 7s):
So I'm walking by and I'm talking on the phone stuff, somewhat distracted, and I see this trash can, and I go, I like reach out ever So tentatively, not tentatively, but like, I had barely started to reach out, realized it was their house didn't. And within milliseconds, she is out of her house screaming at me. And I hadn't even, you know, put the poop in there. And I, I'm talking about misbehavior. I mean, I've, I don't think I've ever done this except for like having road rage in the car where the other person really can't hear me. Like I just screamed every obscenity Yes.

1 (4m 48s):
In the book. I, I hope nobody else, I'm sure somebody else heard, but nobody, nobody's contacted me. And, you know, I'll say this, I'm much better about taking a beat. Like, I really wanted to blast her. I really wanted to like write a horrible message to her. I really want, and I, and I don't, I'm not refined enough, well enough evolved enough to like get right to like, what's, what's the need of the matter? But I have figured out that I should probably just not say anything until, until I've thought about it. I had a good long think she messaged me on social

2 (5m 22s):
Media. What

1 (5m 23s):
She said, I'm sorry, I accused you of throwing trash in our trash can. And I just blocked her. I'm just like, you know, I, I, I wanted, what I wanted to say is like, you have no idea how much time we spend trying to avoid you. You are unwell. You have yelled at three fifths of my family, like, never speak to me or my children ever again. Forget I exist. Forget I live right across the street from you because that's what I'm trying to do about you. So

2 (5m 50s):
Instead you just blocked her. Well listen that, that, because when you told me this story yesterday that she, the the reach out on social media hadn't happened. So now I'm like, I think what, before you said that part, I was gonna say like, I think our only recourse is what people do, which is start videotaping the insanity. And I'm not sure that's a really a good solution. Like, I think that like, oh sure, people put it on social media and then there's a laugh, but then we're really laughing at sort of the horribleness and the, and the mental illness of others. And it's their person and who knows how that's gonna negatively affect them or their job or their family. So I don't, like, I understand the, the urge to videotape everything, but I'm not sure that's really the answer with, with non-criminal behavior.

2 (6m 40s):
If it's a crime, then i...

Intro: We are in the Great Unraveling - let's knit a new sweater

Let Me Run This By You: Thin is In, ETHS Drama teacher Bruce Siewerth's abuse of students, iCarly's creator Dan Schneider's abuse of actors

Interview: We talk to Hamilton's own George Washington - Paul Oakley Stovall about family, touring with Hamilton, being fearless, the magic of solving problems behind the scenes, early-age professionalism, quick changes, University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, almost being a Chemical Engineer, Gary Mills, Don Ilko's quiet championship, Ric Murphy's vocal championship, when Jim Ostholthoff called Paul a supernova, Dr. Bella Itkin's career advice, playing John Proctor in The Crucible and Starbuck in 110 in the Shade, Working by Studs Terkel, Betsy Hamilton, being in Caryl Churchill's Serious Money with Gillian Anderson, Yolanda Androzzo, Minneapolis, playing Jason in Steven Carter's adaptation of Medea called Pecong, the X Files, getting shot in both legs, Matt Scharf, Amy Pietz, Monica Trombetta, performing in Frank Galati's Goodman Theatre's production of Good Person of Setzuan with Cherry Jones, Mary Zimmerman's The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Journey to the West, working for the Obama Administration, when Phylicia Rashad directed Paul's play Immediate Family at the Goodman and then Mark Taper Forum, KernoForto Productions, Wolf in Waiting with Danilo Carrera, Frederick Douglass, and finding a second home in Ireland.

Full transcript (unedited):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth Ramirez.

2 (10s):
And

3 (10s):
I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand

3 (15s):
It. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

0 (32s):
Podcast situation.

1 (34s):
Cause I was talking to someone else that had the same thing where they were trying to use video and it's like not working. So it's like tech, it's like nothing ever works. Like that's the other name of my solo show. It's like just nothing ever really works. Like we're always like, well, all this to say too that I have come to the conclusion that we are in the time period of in history that I am now calling the great unraveling. Okay, so we've got the great unraveling going on. Now listen, I, I think it's sad, but also the good news is at the end of the unraveling, if humankind has still made it, we can build a new sweater.

1 (1m 15s):
Do you know what I mean? Like, we're gonna have to create a

2 (1m 17s):
Gonna say, yeah, you get, you go, you keep going on that sweater and you know that there's problems, but you're like, maybe it won't look that bad.

1 (1m 27s):
And no, you have to unravel the thing at,

2 (1m 29s):
At some point you say, and there's that term, the myth of invested co.

1 (1m 37s):
Yeah, I know what you mean

2 (1m 38s):
Is, but it's like when you build, when you buy into this idea, Well I've come this far, I might as well keep going and

1 (1m 45s):
Don't keep going. So

2 (1m 46s):
Time investment. Yeah, no, sometimes

1 (1m 48s):
There's like no, there's no telling like how good it can be to just call it, just call something and be like, I'm calling it, you know, like I'm calling it and, and, and there is a tipping point of like, and I think I've told this story about my drywall holes in my apartment. The first apartment I ever had. Did I tell this story? I don't think so. Okay. This is where we are in history. We are at this point where I was, after my dad died, I lived by myself for the first time ever and I got this little apartment and I decided I was gonna put up a quote floating shelf, right? So you need to put holes in the wall and then you put Molly bolts in, they expand.

1 (2m 32s):
Okay. So, but you, but thing number one, it was like a thousand degrees. No, call it. Okay. Could have called it there. Didn't, in my apartment, no air conditioning thousand degrees. Summer, call it, I did not call it. I proceeded two investigate what your motherfucking walls are made of before you do this. Because plaster does not, it does not work out. So I started to drill holes with my molly with my drill. And I'm like, Oh, oh, that's interesting. The holes just kind of gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And I'm like, Yeah, but I just have to keep going. So I kept going and by the end, and then I had holes about the size of a tennis ball in each, and I was like, Okay, but maybe it'll still work.

1 (3m 16s):
Okay, dude, I looked around and then I moved to the shelf around. So I had multiple holes thinking it was the spot in the wall that was the pr. Oh my God, I'm alone. I don't know what's happening. I have a drill. My dad, dad left me like, I don't know what's happening. So I look around and there are chi, I'm sweating. I'm on the verge of tears and there are literally tennis ball holes all over the walls of my studio apartment. And I just think, and I, I then I stopped and I was like, okay, this is, I don't know what made me stop, but I was like, okay, this is insanity. This is the definition of insanity. Because now, yeah, the whole thing is screwed and I have to patch it all.

1 (4m 0s):
It was the biggest lesson of my life of like, wait a second, investigate before you start a project. And it reminds me of your family's project about the trains. Like how one of your kids is really good about planning and out and stuff. I am not that way and I'm learning to be more that way. So anyway,

2 (4m 20s):
Yeah, that's a part that that is I think a big part of maturing. Like I, I have the same thing. I do a lot of little crafty things, sewing and stuff like that. And the, they always tell you, measure twice and cut once. And I've ne...

Intro: Boz is buying a house!
Let Me Run This By You: 47 year old Gina saw 19 year old Gina doing accent work and Mark Rannin owes me an apology.
Interview: We talk to playwright, director, and USC alum Ryan Wagner about self-diagnosing as a bad actor, protecting your joy, Miguel Arteta, filmmaking, his short film Every Other Week, Growing Up Hip Hop, being a PA, and keeping a cohort of friends to make films with.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (UNEDITED):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth Ruez.

2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Paci.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of

1 (20s):
It all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? I'll be

2 (31s):
Recording this whole time by the way, if I just realized that

1 (40s):
La Tova motherfuckers. That's what I have to say. Okay.

2 (44s):
Universe, what is it that you're trying to tell us about why we can't do this

1 (47s):
Today? Okay, so what we will say is humans of the world, we had started, we thought we recorded 20 minutes ago and really we were just having a great conversation. So

2 (59s):
I guess you missed, you missed a great time. We'll, we'll do our best to recap, but honestly there's nothing like the energy in the moment and I'm not certain I can duplicate it.

1 (1m 10s):
Yes, let's not do that. So let's just, let's just say that I'm in the house buying process, but I also wanna say like, that was good to to to get out and just that, you know, it is really interesting, you know, mercurys and retrograde, all the things that people talk about. But what I'm noticing right this second in the, well, not right this second, like, you know, throughout the day, the last couple days, is that I keep tripping over my own feet. Like literally. And I keep thinking like in any shoes, any kind of, I'm tripping over myself and it's like, okay, what is the message there? And I think one of them is like slow down, but also it's okay if you stumble also.

1 (1m 55s):
Oh yeah. Things are kind of wonky right now. Also, you're buying a house, trying to buy a house, trying to close on the house and moving potentially. So there's a lot going on. But tripping if you find yourself, And the other thing is, I had, yeah, that really mean roommate I had here used to say like she would get super, super clumsy before like her period or during,

2 (2m 19s):
That's how I get. Yep.

1 (2m 21s):
And I'm in this weird menopause situation. So like, or prairie menopause I guess. So all the things are happening. So I'm just saying, and everyone's like, well you don't wanna buy a house during mercury and retrograde. And I'm also thinking, I know and I also think that, yeah, like the whole planet's dying and in retrograde so like, you know what I mean? Like are we really gonna pinpoint the blame Mercury for

2 (2m 44s):
Yeah, let's don't split hairs. The girl needs a house, she needs more space. Space. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I'm excited for you. I think that's gonna be great. I can't wait to buy you a housewarming present. You'll have to send me your Pinterest mood board about how you're gonna Oh,

1 (2m 59s):
The part about this, the best part about this, well, not the best, but one of the parts, and my cousin hates it when I say this, but I have, I'm gonna have a, she shed

2 (3m 8s):
Nice. Your cousin hates it. Yeah. Cuz it's like, is it not PC or something?

1 (3m 12s):
I don't know, it just, she, No, I, she said it sounds like something peeing going on, like there's some bodily function involved, but I think it may be because it's, maybe because it's gendered too. I don't know. But I love saying she she, because of that commercial Yeah, with the lady goes Richard, some, someone burned down a she shed or whatever that for the insurance company Anyway, so I, I am going to keep everyone updated on what's going on there. The other thing I wanted to ask you was, is it fall there? The most important question.

2 (3m 45s):
Yeah, it's great. I mean it's like the weather is getting, you know, cool but not cold and it's still sunny mostly and yeah, no, this is what listen intellectually, I understand exactly what people mean when they say when they live in California and they say, Oh, I missed the seasons. Like if they grew up on the East coast, I, I do really understand that and it is kind of nice to have a change, but I still think I'd be fine without that too. Yeah, I'd be fine if it was just summer, I'll, I'll all year long. Well

1 (4m 19s):
I think because, because for me it's actually not about the weather, it's the nostalgia, right? It's like, oh with the, the things that are conjured up to me Gilmore Girl's style when I think of the fall. Right. And it is, and a lot of that has to do for me with family and like it's around my birthday and I remember walking home from like elementary school and having, being excited that I could hear the leaves crunching and I knew at my house was waiting my grandma and all the amazing

2 (4m 50s):
Oh,

1 (4m 50s):
That's nice. Yeah. But she's dead and the whole thing went to shit and my parents, So I, when I, and it is beautiful, but I also know that for me a lot of the seasons is about memories, right? It's not actually

2 (5m 2s):
Yeah. And I don't have that, I don't have any nostalgia about fall and winter and, you know. Right. Yeah. So that makes, it

1 (5m 7s):
Totally depends on the divide. Hey, by,

2 (5m 20s):
I mean we, we as women have so many mountains to climb and as podcasters. Okay. So Bo and I have talked several times on the show about wishing we could have a camera to record or something that would've captured any of our time in the theater school, whether it was on stage or, or or otherwise. And I don't know about you, but I resigned myself to, It's never gonna happen and we're just always gonna wonder about it. Well, don't count out Ms. Allison Zel, who recorded all of her performance. She was a director, MFA director. So it makes sense to me that she would wanna make sure she had her performances on camera.

2 (6m 1s):
Now I wanna reach out to the other directors of my other workshops cuz you know, I did all the workshops. So Sean Plan again and David Mold, if you are listening and you have video of any of your shows from theater school, please let me know. Okay. So, okay.

1 (6m 19s):
Wait, wait, wait. I just have to say one thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'll mute again. This is fantastic. Also, of course Azel of course because she was like, she was so much more to in my mind, like more sophisticated and grown up and like New York City and all the things. Yeah. So it doesn't shock me, but it does shock me. So proceed.

2 (6m 37s):
Yeah. Yeah. She's the kind of person who probably started doing to-do list when she was like six years old, which is what my daughters like, and those people are forces to be reckoned with. But yeah, so I did, there's a Paula Vogel play called Des Doona, a play about a Hankerchief. And so it's a feminist take on Othello because it's from the right, The fellow is that? Yeah, Okay. I just, I just flashed on Wait, that's not the right place. Yeah. And so my, and I remembered it of course as soon as I saw it I had to do this crazy accent, this crazy dialect. It was like, o...

Intro: Even our lungs need a sense of purpose.
Let Me Run This By You: Boz is buying a house!
Interview: We talk to actor and documentary filmmaker Cullen Douglas about AMDA, Florida School of the Arts, Southeastern Theatre Conference, Tyne Daly, character actors, Jason Priestly, Patricia Crotty, Our Town, Lenny Bruce, Dick Van Dyke, investigative journalism, reusing caskets, David Carr,  Deadwood, playing Bilbo Baggins, being pen pals with Andrea McCardle, singing If I Were A Rich Man,  The Pirates of Penzance, Bye Bye Birdie, Robert Sean Leonard,  Billy Flanigan: The Happiest Man on Earth, Shonda Rhimes, Twin Peaks,  Grey's Anatomy ,  Barry, Bill Hader,  documentary filmmaking, The Humanitas Prize,  Private Practice.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (Unedited): 1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth Ruez.

2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Paci.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of

1 (20s):
It all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

3 (33s):
TikTok and I started looking at the videos and I was like, Ooh, I don't know about this. I think I need to start wearing wake up. So thank you. You

1 (43s):
Look gorgeous. How are

3 (43s):
You doing?

1 (44s):
Yeah, hi. I'm finally, Many things are happening. Many things are happening. So I finally, even though I'm coughing still little, I finally feel like I am, I like kicked the pneumonia bronchitis situation and little mostly thank you. I, yeah, I, we went away and then to Ventura and I slash Ojai and I really rested and I really, there was one day I worked, but I really mostly rested and I just really was like, okay, I need actual ass downtime. And yeah.

1 (1m 25s):
And then I started to heal and I was also on praise God for antibiotics. And then the thing that really helped me really kick it was I hadn't exercised my lungs in a really long time at all because I was so sick that I just was like, Who wants to like walk or, and, and it was 107 degrees, so it's like, who wants to exercise in that? So my cousin, my sister came in town, I, that's like a big eyebrow raise for, to drop my niece off to college. And we went on a hike to Griffith, but like a sloping hike, not a crazy hike. And I was like, I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it.

1 (2m 5s):
And it actually helped my lungs to like feel like they were contributing to fucking something and me like Forgot I

3 (2m 16s):
Like a sense of purpose. Right,

1 (2m 17s):
Right. And also like to, yeah, to have a job. And they were like, like to be exercised and I was like, Oh, I forgot that. Like the lungs. And, and it's interesting in this whole covid situation, like the lungs need to work too. And I never understood in hospitals, cuz I spent quite a long time in them, why they have those breathing like tube things that you blow the ball and the ball floats up. You have to, I thought that was so dumb until I had bronchitis and pneumonia and I was like, Oh, they have to work. Like they have to be expanded. If you don't use them and work them, they get, it's not good when,

3 (2m 58s):
When my dad, you know, my dad had this really bad car accident when I was like nine years old and yeah, he rolled 40 times and he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, which saved his life because he was in a convertible. But of course the reason he got into the accident was because he was drinking anyway. He broke everything. Like he broke six ribs and he had one of, he had to spend one year lying on an egg crate mattress on the floor one year. And for the rest of his life, every time he sneezed or coughed it hurt his ribs. But he,

1 (3m 34s):
Oh, and he

3 (3m 36s):
Had one of of those things like you're talking about. And as a child I could not get it to the height that I was supposed to go. I shuder to think what it would be like right now. Yes. So you're, that was a good reminder to exercise our lungs. I make sure my breathing capacity is good

1 (3m 54s):
And, and, and even wait and, and it's like, I always literally thought, oh, you exercise to be skinny. That is the only, only reason no other, like, if you had asked me, I'd say, Oh, there's no other reason. What are you talking about? But now I'm like, oh, these parts of us need actual exercising. Literally lie. I just, it blew my mind.

3 (4m 19s):
I was lies

1 (4m 21s):
The lies.

3 (4m 22s):
It's endless. Yes.

1 (4m 27s):
Hey, let me run this by you. Oh, I think we're buying a house. What? This is the craziest Oh my not in, Yeah. Okay. This is what went down. So this is so crazy. Miles' job stuff has evened out in terms of like, there's just so much going on that I can't talk about, but which is makes for terrible radio, but podcasting. But anyway, the point is we're we're a little stable, so we went to Ventura and I was like, I fucking love this town. I love Ventura. It's an hour away. It's a weird like, think lost boys, right? Like Lost Boys. The movie is, is really Santa Cruzi, but like, that's what this town reminded of.

1 (5m 9s):
It's not, so it's Adventurer county, so it's like an hour northwest. It's on the beach. And I was like, I love this town. I I I love it here. There's so many brown folk. It's heavily, heavily you Latina. And it's like, so anyway, I was like, I love it, but I bet I can't afford it like anywhere in California. Well it turns out that Ventura is about 500,000 less on a house than la. So I was like, wait, what? So we saw this darling house that was, that is was small but like beautiful craftsman and you know, I'll just say I'll be totally transparent with $729,000, which is still a shit ton of money.

1 (5m 49s):
But I looked at the same exact property almost in, in, in Pasadena for 1.3 million for two bedroom, one bath. Yeah. Two bedroom, one bath got preapproved. I've never been preapproved for anything in my goddamn light. We got preapproved for a mortgage. I couldn't, Gina, I couldn't. But when we got the preapproval letter, like I literally, speaking of lies, I was like, oka...

We talk to Wicked's own Elphaba, Jackie Burns!
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
0 (2s):
Hello? Hello. Hello survivors. How I've missed you. I've missed talking to you boss. And I took quite a number of weeks off. Well, I did. She, she actually continued to record for at least one week while I was gone. And she's got a great interview. We've got a great interview coming up. She talked to Jackie burns, little Jackie burns on Broadway, wicked playing Elphaba. No big deal. Actually. She has a big deal and she's great. And so were all of you. I am heartened because even though we've taken all this time off, we've continued to grow our listenership.

0 (47s):
So thank you to you for listening, for continuing to listen for being a first-time listener. If you are thank you for being here, it's a privilege actually, to be able to have a platform to speak one's mind is truly a privilege. And one, I hope we do right by. We're going to be right back into the swing of things with interviews, regular weekly interviews in the fall. So stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, please enjoy this interview with Jackie burns and I'm Gina Kalichi

3 (1m 34s):
To theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

0 (1m 38s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

3 (1m 43s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (1m 56s):
Here's the thing. Jackie burns. Congratulations. You survived theater school and you also survived this hellish trying to get you on. So squad quest squad cast, which we usually use is totally wonky this morning. And I was like, no, I, because I'm obsessed with you because I'd been researching you. I'm not a musical theater person, but I am one of these musical theater lovers that has so much reverie. And I think it is a sacred thing to sing and I don't really do it. And so I'm obsessed and you and I have the same birthday, October 4, 10, 4, buddy, ten four. So You're a little younger than me, five years, but that's okay.

2 (2m 41s):
I'm still, I'm super obsessed. And I also like I, when I watch, so I'm known for like going to high schools and middle schools and watching musical theater of people I'd have no connection to in what I was at when I was in Chicago, because I adore the art form and I don't do it, but I'm obsessed. So anyway, start, start from the beginning. You grew up in Connecticut. How, and then obviously you're a Broadway star. Are you back working in on Broadway? What's happening with you right now?

5 (3m 13s):
Oh my God. What is happening?

2 (3m 15s):
Yeah. I looked at your, I looked at all your profiles, but I want to hear it from you. Where are you post sort of pandemic. What is happening with your career? Tell us,

5 (3m 27s):
Oh God. Well like every musical theater theater,

2 (3m 31s):
Just say star, just say star, you are a star. You're a musical theater star. Like I understand for someone like I write for TV and I act sometimes, but like I musical theater people when I see them on stage, I'm like, I, the, the, the amount of brilliance it takes and dedication to, I have trouble on set, just moving my body and say, and you sing and move and dance and all the things. Okay. Okay. So what's happening with your career?

5 (4m 2s):
Oh my God. Well, first of all, Jen, I'm obsessed with you because I wish the rest of the world felt the same way about musical theater people because all of I'm most TV and film people are like, oh, you're not a real actor because you,

2 (4m 13s):
No, I would love to cast, listen, listen, what I mean? I would love to catch you and all your cohort when I do, because here's the thing. The body spatial awareness of musical theater folks, to know where they are in space translates onto set. So everyone listening, the 10,000 people that have downloaded this podcast that will continue to hire musical theater folks on television and film because they know bodies and bodies. It's not just a head people. So anyway, okay, go ahead. Sorry. I keep interrupting. I'm just like,

5 (4m 46s):
Nope. I love you. You're like making me feel so good about myself. But as every theater person, all we want to do is get on TV and film.

2 (4m 55s):
Oh, right. It's that's holds true for musical theater folks too. I assume that's where the dough is. Is that

5 (5m 1s):
That's where that money is. Because if you think about it, like once the theater show closes, we don't get a back end of it. So like, that's it. Your paycheck's done.

2 (5m 9s):
There's no residuals.

5 (5m 10s):
There's no residual.

2 (5m 12s):
Yeah. Okay. So, okay. So tell me what is happening now? You said you got your insurance back, which is

5 (5m 17s):
Paula that's hope. It's always helpful. I just did a new musical called a walk on the moon. That was based off the movie. No,

2 (5m 27s):
No,

5 (5m 29s):
No. I'll walk in the cloud. Like very similar. No,

2 (5m 33s):
She's dope. I like to

5 (5m 34s):
Have her with like Viggo, Mortensen, Schreiber. And when it was like back in the day, it's a good movie. Tony, Tony Goldwyn, like directed it and stuff. And he actually came and saw the musical. Did

2 (5m 47s):
He give you a compliment?

5 (5m 49s):
Yes, he was very nice. It was also like super handsome. You're like, hi,

2 (5m 52s):
I have heard. Yes.

5 (5m 54s):
You're just like, hello? Oh, you're married Ella and there's no, no, no, no, no. And my boyfriend's gonna listen to be like,

2 (6m 6s):
No, no, no. That's okay. That's okay.

5 (6m 8s):
No, he knows. He knows that I'm just joking. I'm just stroking on there. No. And then Pam gray wrote it. Who wrote the, who wrote the script as well? Yeah. And it's really good. And we just closed and they're hoping to bring it to Broadway. So fingers crossed. But the problem is, is that Broadway because it was closed for two years. All these shows have been trying to get theater. So that were like low man on the total whole cause it's like two years worth of shows trying to get to Broadway.

2 (6m 37s):
Correct.

5 (6m 37s):
So it's, and we're just like a little show rather than like a big show, so

2 (6m 43s):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But still worked. You have worked post pandemic, which is a huge thing. Okay. So tell me, were you a kid? Who did you grow up? You grew up in Connecticut. I'm assuming, were you a kid? Like you were five and you were like, just ho like you knew you could sing or what, how did that go? How does that, how do you discover that you can freaking sing?

5 (7m 6s):
You're so cute. I'm going to like put your pocket. Your energy is like seven. I'm going to be a best friend now.

2 (7m 13s):
And we'll together. We'll try to, we'll try to have a television show. That's like, I know they did it kind of with glee, but like Glebe, like less sassy and more earnest.

5 (7m 23s):
Yes. I am interested Jen, get

2 (7m 26s):
And throwing some murders because I, I write a lot of murder. Yeah.

5 (7m 29s):
Oh, I love that. That's what

2 (7m 31s):
Musical murders. Great. Okay. So you, you were a kid and how did this happen? That you were like, dude, I can be on stage and sing.

5 (7m 38s):
I just like always was obsessed with it. Like, so I started dancing when I was three and then, but like I used to get on like the little like Hutch, you know, like the fireplace such as my stage and sing, sing to like Michael Jackson's thriller. And I just like, yeah. And I used to, when I used to go to dance, like as I got older, we drove like 45 minutes. My mom drove me very sweet to dance class. And I used to sin...

Toxic showrunners, giving feedback, halitosis, The Taking of Pelham 123, Victory Gardens Theatre, Autism Spectrum Disorder.

FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Kalichi.

3 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

4 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

3 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (34s):
You're committed to that, Joe, how you doing pal

1 (41s):
For your big adventure?

2 (42s):
Getting ready for my Pee-wee's big adventure, by the way, I watched that movie again, not too long ago and I liked it even more. I

1 (53s):
Was so thrilled to hear.

2 (54s):
Yeah. I really, really liked that movie. I think it's so funny. The other thing I, oh, so you had texted me earlier about into the woods.

1 (1m 3s):
Oh yeah. I actually genuinely wanted to know cause is this w two in this episode, are we going to hear from C? Like, is this the,

2 (1m 12s):
He didn't make the cut. I'm sorry.

1 (1m 16s):
Are you kidding?

2 (1m 17s):
I'm not kidding. It just, it did. Well, it was,

1 (1m 21s):
Oh gee. I feel sad in my heart. What?

2 (1m 25s):
I'm sorry. It was just boring. It was just boring. You know, there's an age that kids reach. There's just a line. They go past a line. It's like, okay, you're not as

1 (1m 35s):
Sweet a minute. Wait a minute because it's

2 (1m 37s):
When they're not. So it's it's because she's no, she's self-aware

1 (1m 41s):
I like had the bus time.

2 (1m 43s):
I'm so glad and I'll forever treasure it in my heart as this beautiful, lovely conversation that I, and, and my family and you will love, but it was not giving me it was not giving me. Okay,

1 (1m 57s):
Great. Well, that's important. Like maybe it was a good, like,

2 (2m 2s):
It was a good experience. It was a good experience for her and, you know, and we had wanted to do it. And so when, when, when I did crew for, into the woods, you know, we had to listen

1 (2m 15s):
To that.

2 (2m 18s):
We had to listen to that song or that, that music constantly. And actually, I think that when you, when we were in crew, like we didn't get to see the show

1 (2m 29s):
Ever. Never, never knew

2 (2m 31s):
Listen to something only, and you don't get to take in the whole thing. It's just not the same. And so I had it in my mind that I really hated that show. And when the movie came out, my kids were really interested in seeing it. I kind of liked it. I at least understood the story. I was at least like, oh, this is what this is about. But seeing it on Broadway, I was like, okay, now I get it. I get it. I totally get why. And it's not just that it was on Broadway. Is that I understand what it's about now, because,

1 (3m 10s):
Well, I think, I also think it's so interesting about the theater school aspect, right? So when we were in theater school, we, I didn't have any capacity to understand about loss and love. Yeah,

2 (3m 28s):
Yeah, yeah. So it was great. So I loved to NPV. I loved so I've, I'm actually, I had wanted a lump for a long time to ask you, you told me about a few things that you've watched rewatch haven't hold held up, which we all have those things. It's like, oh, this is not nearly as good as I thought it was, or it's funny, but what has, have, has anything gotten better? Like you didn't appreciate it at the time. And then

1 (3m 55s):
Yeah. So all the like old political movies or movies that have a bent with social justice stuff like, so the taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 is my favorite movie of all time.

2 (4m 11s):
I don't even know what that is.

1 (4m 13s):
You have to, they made a remake with Denzel Washington and John Travolta that's horrific, but the original is Walter Matthau and a bunch of other dope actors. And it's about, it's a train heist movie. It's about New York city and the train thunder, obviously the subway being taken over brilliant acting, brilliant writing, great social commentary about the haves and haves nots anyway. So that has held up and gotten better. But all of John Hughes movies should be burned in a heap,

2 (4m 53s):
Just trash.

1 (4m 54s):
What, what the fuck? What are we doing?

2 (4m 57s):
God, there's so much, we didn't know. There's just so much. We didn't know. And actually that's been kind of, my theme recently is like, you know how we always say, oh man, think about how many people before there was this acceptance around LGBTQ, think about how many people just died and you know, for him, for all of history up until that point, it was just horrible for those people. And I, so I've been wondering recently, well, okay, well, so what's our version of that. What's our thing that we don't know. We, we ascribe something to something that it's not, and that we'll understand later or, or not at all. And one example is autism.

2 (5m 42s):
I have recently learned that somebody I love is on the spectrum and it has really positively changed my perception. It's literally like a person does a behavior and you interpret it this one way and then you learn something. And then that same behavior no longer is interpreted that way.

1 (6m 13s):
Absolutely

2 (6m 14s):
Behavior that drove me crazy made me angry, riled me up. Now I'm like, oh, you have autism. Got it, got it. I'm so sorry. I didn't get it. And actually I'm looking back through my family tree and I'm going, oh, I bet my mom's mom had autism. And actually she had a therapist who said that to her at once. And when my mom told me that I'm like, what? She didn't have autism, but she was on the spectrum. Right. When rain man came out, it taught us that it made us think that all autism was that right.

1 (6m 49s):
Right. Was like savant or like, so on the other end of the spectrum, right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. So autism. Yeah. That's so interesting. Well, you know, I, I think I've mentioned on the podcast that like, I use the word lame and my cousin called me on it and I called someone else on it recently. And that's how change is made. Like literally. And so there is, I'm like obsessed with the idea of how does real change get made? Like not in, just in words, but like, what is the alchemy that happens with change?

1 (7m 32s):
And I know the answer, but I'm doing a lot of research.

2 (7m 36s):
Well, the thing that you just mentioned about using that word reminds me of in medical school or medical training, it's they say, see one, do one, teach one. So when you're learning procedures, you watch it once you do it once and then you teach it, like, that's, that's the, that's the rate at which you're expected to absorb information, but actually that's exactly what you did with that word. You heard that you heard or saw that, that wasn't okay. You started to do the right thing yourself and then you taught somebody else. But that's how change happens.

1 (8m 18s):
Let me run this by you. <inaudible> with this highlight

2 (8m 32s):
Beachy wave, actually, that's funny because earlier today I was like, should I get my hair cut before

1 (8m 38s):
I love that? See what you want? So it change the way change gets made. Okay. I have a little story about a show about show running. Okay. I was talking to it. What I want to ask you. I was talking to a friend and she's dope and she's a new friend and she's fancy. Or, and then I am in terms of where she's at in her career as a writer. Okay, fine. Has this great idea for a series has a lit agent, lit agent says, Hey, every production company read this dope script and th...

Intro: Image management, Glenn Davis, King James, Odd Mom Out, Hamilton, Abbott Elementary, The Method
Let Me Run This By You: Dads and pornography, Secrets of Playboy, The Girls Next Door, Stranger Things.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (UNEDITED):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina <inaudible>.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

3 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (32s):
Yeah, it's it's it's up for debate. So you got to both interview and then see Glenn Davis in a play. So tell us about,

1 (43s):
So I will say that I haven't seen a play. I saw Hamilton in LA, which isn't a play to me. It's a musical and it's also a spectacle and like, I don't know.

2 (54s):
And a cultural and that like, did you ever see, wait, I'm sorry to give a little time out, but there used to be this show on Bravo called odd mom out. And I loved it because it was about a upper east side woman who like, just didn't relate and like clock in that well with mommy culture, which I can really relate

1 (1m 15s):
Over there.

2 (1m 16s):
And there's this scene where she's talking to some other moms or I don't know, just other women. And they were like, have you seen Hamilton? And she says, no. And it precipitates is like very, you know, heightened dramatic thing where like people's jobs are under hinges. Let's say like,

1 (1m 39s):
That's hilarious.

2 (1m 41s):
Yeah. So it's an event you have to, you have to have seen how.

1 (1m 44s):
And so I thought in life, right in pop culture and in, you know, whatever. So, yeah, exactly. So I saw that, but this was the first play I've seen now to be fair. It's also a spectacle in that the mark taper, like the center theater group situation downtown LA has like six theaters or seven theaters. I had not been to the mark taper theater since literally 2000 and I don't know, two and it's gorgeous and quite a deal. And wow, just the facilities. I mean, I'm so used to shithole storefront theater that I was like, oh, this is like, oh, this is fancy. Okay.

1 (2m 24s):
So I saw king James, which is a play. It was a two hander. I didn't know that it's two people on stage the whole time. And it's Glenn Davis and this other character. Who's one of the stars on a show that I love called Abbott elementary, which is hilarious about

2 (2m 39s):
Brunson. I have seen that show, but I heard it.

1 (2m 41s):
Yes. Oh, you would love it. It's high Lariat. And just so, so, so well-written okay. So this guy, Chris Paul, something I'm going to butcher his name. So I won't try is the other character plays the other character in the play and I didn't know what to expect. I love basketball if by basketball, you mean the bulls in the nineties basketball. That's where I stop. So

2 (3m 8s):
I'll do basketball.

1 (3m 10s):
Yeah. I'm into nostalgia. Exactly. That specifically relates to a very niche time in history. Okay. In Chicago. So, okay. So this is a play about LeBron James and it's set in Cleveland and it is set like in the, I want to say the arts and then it spans the time I believe of like 10 years, maybe a little more. And it's just these two characters. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know shit about the play, which is how I like to go in. But Glen gave me was kind enough to give me comps. And I went with two friends and I loved it. I loved it. I at first. Okay. It was so interesting.

1 (3m 50s):
Like I've been spending so much time doing writing and reading television that like, I was like, oh, this is a play. Oh, oh, this is a different thing. It's like super presentational on purpose.

2 (4m 5s):
Right.

1 (4m 6s):
So it's not a, it's not television. And these are like

2 (4m 10s):
Mumble core.

1 (4m 11s):
It's not mumble core. It's not, it's not, they they're they're they can hear us. If we say noises and things make noises and things. So I was like, oh, right, right. The seats were great. And you know, it was a lot of white people in the audience, but like that's who sees theater, right? Like that's who sees this kind of theater. I think, you know, tickets were probably very expensive anyways. So I loved, okay. So you could tell that they, they had to get warm. First of all, I was closing day. We didn't see the closing show. There's there like to show a day kind of people. And so we saw the first show at one and of the last day. And the first scene you could tell, like they had, they were like, just getting warmed up because that's how live theater is by the second scene.

1 (4m 56s):
I was like, oh, these are pros. Oh, these are pros. Meaning the language moves. Now, look, they've done two runs of the show, one in Chicago at Steppenwolf and one here. So they've been the same cast. So they've been working with this material. Right. So they, they know what's going on here, but they're just both like seamlessly like a basketball game or like any sporting event. Like the physicality was brilliant. I just was like, oh, these are pros. Oh, okay. There's no, this is not a stiff cause I'm also used to teaching students. Right. So these are not students of a young students. These are oppressed. And I was like, oh shit, okay.

1 (5m 38s):
This is some real top level acting here. You know,

2 (5m 42s):
I really appreciated when in his interview with you, he said that doing the play expanded his ideas about theater goer, since you mentioned, yes. Typically all theater goers are white and older because they have the time and the money. And because it's, for all of history it's been made for them, it's been made for that demographic. But he was saying, doing this play brought a bunch of people who were not theater people, but who were basketball, people who enjoyed it. And, and that gave me a thrill like, yes, that's what we need because the re the whole perpetuation of the cycle of like, why people don't appreciate or go into theater is because if they don't get exposed to it, you know, at, at a young age.

2 (6m 27s):
And so that just keeps perpetuating itself. And in order for that to change, you have to, you have to sell people on wanting to have more of it. You know what I'm saying?

1 (6m 38s):
Yes. And so I totally know what you're saying. And I, that leads me to this thing of I, so there is this position that opened up for 15 hours a week, being an artist in residence at San Diego state, in the theater department to create art with the theater department there, but also with the community at large. And I have to say to you, if I get it, I applied. And my idea is to do, because I love monologues. Like, that's my jam. So like, what if I want to create some kind of show? That's like a community-based show where people get to write and perform their own monologues in the community in San Diego, not just students, but like the store ...

Intro: Boz loves LinkedIn. Will she emcee the next Beastie Boys event?
Interview: We talk to star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Cynthia Darlow about North Carolina School of the Arts,  performing for Tennessee Williams, the historic theatrical residence for young women called the Rehearsal Club, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, the Webster Apartments, getting the word out about their story through New York Times article, spending the entire day in line to audition at the cattle call for the touring company of Grease, Pat Birch, Vinnie Liff, having the same agent for 55 years, Tony Shaloub, American Repertory Theatre, Cherry Jones, getting furniture for her home made by Patrick Swayze, working with Michael Zegen, the play that got away, and whether or not people should go to theatre school.

Intro: Nightmare, revisited.
Let Me Run This By You: Gina's petty bullshit.
Interview: We talk to the co-Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre, Glenn Davis, about the Stratford Festival, King James, You Got Older, The Christians, being a producer with Tarell Alvin McCraney, Anna D. Shapiro, Audrey Francis, Rajiv Joseph, Alana Arenas, coming from a political family, pay equity, DEI, Seagull, Downstate, regret.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Polizzi. We

1 (11s):
Went to theater all together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

3 (16s):
Years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it

1 (20s):
All. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? Yeah, because the Handmaid's tale came true since we last talk.

2 (36s):
Oh my God. I was just preparing to say to you my new favorite party question, not that I ever go to parties is what country are you going to move to when they ask you to be a handmade? Because I think the trick is the timing, you know, like there's going to be a point of no return,

1 (52s):
Right? You could

2 (54s):
Go to,

1 (54s):
Yeah, I guess I could, I feel like things might be worse there in some ways, but not eventually. Maybe not like now you're right. It's a timing thing, because right now it might be worse. But in about, within a couple of years, it could be better. So you're right. It's a timing thing. So maybe the idea is to like get passports. Well, the problem is when you get one passport, you have to turn in another, I think, unless you're a secret double agent and doing illegal things, like, I don't know that you can be a duel. Oh, I'm confused. We need, that's what we need a guest on that knows about passports.

2 (1m 32s):
Well, I don't know anything about passports, but I will say I, the reason that I would be allowed to have dual citizenship in Italy is because I can prove, you know, that my ancestors came from there. So I probably the same thing is true for you

1 (1m 50s):
Only

2 (1m 50s):
Have to go back one generation immigrants lady

1 (1m 54s):
Over here.

2 (1m 55s):
Right?

1 (1m 55s):
Right. Yeah. It's interesting. I, yeah, I, there are a lot of, I mean, this whole thing has been this whole overturning Roe vs. Wade has been, it has been horrific. And also because I've come from things from this and as you do too, like the psychological lens is trauma lens. I'm like, okay. The reactions, especially on social media have been wild. So what I'm noticing is it's even more hand Handmaid's tailie in that people then other women aren't then sort of policing other people's responses to this.

1 (2m 37s):
Meaning people are like, well, I don't know why you're shocked. So instead of saying, yes, you can have your reaction. People are mad that women are shocked. Other women are like, well, what did you think was going to happen? We, and I'm like, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is part of the deal. Like let people have their responses, let them, so I am not shocked, but that does not mean that it hurts any less or that it, it is my job to tell someone that their outrage is not justified or not appropriate.

2 (3m 15s):
I mean, that's like, that's like telling a little kid, well, your dad hits you every time he gets drunk. What's why are you so surprised? You know, it's like, well, that doesn't make it hurt any less. That doesn't make me any less fearful. The feeling that I have in my body right now is the feeling that I had on election night in 2016. You know, I don't know if I ever told you my story about that, but just like every other reasonable person in the world, I completely assumed Hillary Clinton would win. And I wore my little pants version of a pantsuit to vote. I came home and I had, I didn't invite anybody over, but I made, I had like snacks, like it was a super bowl. And I put up a big piece of paper like that paper we wrote on when we were doing our, our TV show and with a map and I was gonna, I was marking the electoral votes, teach my kids about the electoral college.

2 (4m 10s):
And it's like, and it's just starts going, okay, well, that's not, that's not too bad. And then, and pretty early on, I realized what was happening. And I became immediately exhausted. And I went up to my bed and I fell asleep. And in the middle of the night, I rolled over to check my phone and I saw the confirmed, the worst had happened. And now I have that feeling again. I have that feeling of like, there's no hope.

1 (4m 40s):
This

2 (4m 40s):
Is, this is all bad.

1 (4m 43s):
I, I, I totally hear you. I, miles is famous for saying that. I knew that Trump was gonna win. And I did not, of course, but what I knew was when I went to the polls, it was the weirdest thing. There was this old, weird white guy, and this was in Evanston still. And this old, weird white guy in Evanston, which is very, very, very democratic. But he was handing out these flyers that were like very pro-Trump and very like Trump is going to win and he should, anyway, I had this sinking feeling. I was like, oh wait, wait, wait, this is Evanston.

1 (5m 24s):
And this guy is like, really sure. And also he seems like kind of a crack pot, but kind of not. And I, there was the first time at the polls where I was like, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no. I have a bad feeling about this. And then we went to a friend's house, big mistake for an election night situation. And as the returns started coming in, people started at the party getting drunker. And so getting sadder and getting crazier and saying things like, well that this is fine. Like I'll just move to Italy or I'll just move to. But like, it was like the, the, the denial and the alcohol mixing was really, really, really, really depressing.

1 (6m 8s):
And I was like, I got to get out of here. And so we left before it was called, of course. And, and we, and it was, but I did have this sinking feeling when, when that, when the dude at the, it wasn't at the polls, it was like, I had gone to whole foods afterwards. It's right. And this guy was like putting leaflets on everyone's car that was like, basically get ready for Trump. And I was like in a good way. And I was like, oh shit. If this is happening at Evanston, we've got a problem area. So I wasn't shocked either, but I was very dismayed. And the feeling I have now is that like, literally, I feel like, like I kind of have a migraine today and I feel like I've had a migraine since 1975. That's kind of the feeling I have.

1 (6m 49s):
Like every time something like this happens, I feel like, oh, this feeling again, I have this feeling that I am exhausted and my head hurts and yeah. And then online, it's just a c...

Intro: modern hearing aids are wild, it's always helpful to rate, review, and subscribe.
Let Me Run This By You: Family Court
Interview: We talk to Gary Mills about: Pinnacle Performance Company, Fargo, Trollwood Performing Arts School, drama teachers, Death of a Salesman, Don Ilko, The Mouse That Roared, The King And I, Come Blow Your Horn, Lee Kirk, Ric Murphy, Neil Simon, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Man And Superman, Sam Shepard, Curse of the Starving Class, John C Reilly, American Buffalo, Pump Up The Volume, Dave Koechner, Brian Dennehy, Dog Boys, Atlantic Theater Company, David Byrne, Vince Vaughn, Jim Ostholthoff, The Spotlight Exercise, A Lie of the Mind, Paul Oakley Stovall, the Queen of England.

Intro: Dinosaurs, collaboration, chickens:roost
Let Me Run This By You: Teal Swan
Interview: We talk to W. Earl Brown about Deadwood, A View From the Bridge, Kentucky, family trauma, Dr. Bella Itkin, Don DePallo, Chris Farley, Wes Craven, David Milch, Gretchen Rennell, Leo Burmester, There's Something About Mary, It's Cold in Them Thar Hills, Hamlet, The Imaginary Invalid, That Championship Season, Amy Pietz, George Czarnecki, transcendence in the theater, Waltz of the Toreadors, Stanislavski, depression, Scream, John C. Reilly.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited): 
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
At 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? Oh my God. You get my name. Okay. So, okay. So

2 (37s):
Wait, wait, wait, hang on before you, I just want to say about dinosaurs. I have to give a shout out to somebody that I know. I, I, I know a man named Larry Greeley. Who's I'm not sure how old he is, but he's older than me by a lot. And he just decided one day that he was never going to stop keeping pace with technology because he did not want to be behind the times. And so he's one of these elderly people who you don't have to worry like, but do you have email? He stays on top of it. And also he stays on top of how the culture is changing and he, he adapts and that's like, I'm not saying that's easy to do, but it's so necessary.

2 (1m 22s):
And I'm

1 (1m 22s):
Grateful for people

2 (1m 24s):
Who, who don't become dinosaurs, but it go ahead.

1 (1m 27s):
No, that's exactly it. You, you choose and you and I talk about this all the time. Is it raining there?

2 (1m 36s):
No.

1 (1m 36s):
No. Oh, I hear, I hear tapping. Okay.

2 (1m 41s):
Hmm.

1 (1m 42s):
But it actually sounds really nice anyway.

2 (1m 45s):
Oh

1 (1m 45s):
Yeah. I kinda like it

2 (1m 46s):
Actually actually let me turn it off when I'm editing,

1 (1m 51s):
It sounds like the rain, but it's not, and you'll know, so, okay. And that'll know the shit out of you. Okay. So you said it and you know, to podcast listeners sometimes before the, the talking, we have a talk. And so I, we can say all the things in the names, but suffice it to say, we were just talking about how yes we do the work. It is hard work. It's hard when people call you on your shit. And when you, and when, or when I have to realize, oh, I am using terms that are offensive. And I am disconnecting from the people that I am are in my life. That is not okay with me. How do I adapt? It's very fucking hard. I've spent a lot of money and time in therapy, doing it for my own personal growth work about my family.

1 (2m 36s):
I've spent a lot of time with my husband doing it. It's not easy, but here's the thing. Like, I think it's the only way to live and to not feel obsolete and not feel left behind. So I like to say to like, you know, I know it's adapt or die, but for me, it's like collaborate or fucking die

2 (2m 56s):
A men speak on it. And I, I'm always so surprised that like in this field, which I just feel it's so obviously meant to be collaborative. Like I just don't know. What's the big surprise here. Y Y you know, I was saying to my husband, like why as the student, or as a school, go through all of the effort that it takes to go through this to ostensibly be able to snap into an ensemble, to a group, and then lead people to believe that they're alone in having graduated and not having success immediately or deciding, you know, you want to further refine what your idea is of being an artist.

2 (3m 43s):
I mean, there's absolutely, it's, it's, I'll go so far as to say it's unconscionable that the schools, would it set you up for that in such a way that you felt like you were because also PS, it's great PR for you as a school when everybody can say, oh, not only is it a great program, prestigious, whatever, but going there gives you entree into a community that's like robust and happening. And

1 (4m 10s):
Yeah. I mean, I think that what we have here is a re and we talk about this on the podcast, a reckoning, a forced reckoning, where you've got people saying, Hey, if you don't change you're out. But then the other part of that is how do we, or people in power positions or positions where they do sort of can implement change? How do you help people change? That is the, and you and I are therapists, former therapist. So we know the challenges of helping people change and we're fucking equipped.

1 (4m 51s):
And it's hard. So it is so hard because what they feel like is that they're going to die. If they have to change and a part of them will die, but, and it's really scary and nobody likes it. And I, you know, I will tell, and I've told this story before about my mom, you know, sitting with her, she could not access sadness. She could access anger, accessing sadness to her apparently was like admitting horrible things. Right. And that horrible things probably have been done to her and that she had done horrible things. So we're sitting at this restaurant crossroads on Chicago avenue after my dad died. And I just said to her, you look so sad and it no judgment.

1 (5m 34s):
I mean, I was sad. I was crying all the time. I said, you look so sad. I'm so sorry. And she slammed her glass down in front of everybody at the restaurant. And like almost broke. Thank God. It didn't break. She wouldn't hurt herself. And she said, I screamed almost. I think it was like almost a scream. I am not sad. I'm angry. And then walked out of the restaurant. And I thought, holy shit, this woman educated with it. Hip funny in therapy, all the things boats, right. To public, you know, like Democrat, like fucking, I cannot admit that. She said, how do we expect white, old men to admit that they are, that they need to change.

2 (6m 23s):
That, that at that time is over now and run a new time. I so appreciated what Dave does. Small Shan said in the video that you s...

Intro: Boz is done taking care of people and also she booked a national commercial. Did Gina use the word fatuous correctly?
Let Me Run This By You: Tread documentary, tales of revenge.
Interview: We talk to Severance's Tramell Tillman about the University of Tennessee, ongoing racial disparities in conservatories, wanting to be an orthopedic surgeon and trying advertising before realizing he was meant to be an actor, Xavier University of Louisiana, Hunters with Al Pacino, Howard University, graduating Summa Cum Laude from Jackson State University, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Dr. Mark G. Hendersen, mentors, Jed Diamond, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, micro and macro racial aggressions, The Great Society at Lincoln Center, Brian Cox, the unknown harrowing adventures that sometimes accompany auditions and callbacks, making Ben Stiller laugh, Dan Erickson, being self-possessed, Rachel Tenner, Tigran Babadjanian, having the biggest break of your life two months before a global pandemic, Sarah Edwards, Doug Ellin's Ramble On pilot with Kevin Dillon, Kevin Connolly of Entourage.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
At 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

3 (35s):
Tell us

1 (37s):
I, and she'll never listen to this. So I had like this really hard thing with my sister in terms of, oh, it's just hard. Family stuff is hard. You know, I am just really working hard in therapy to work through some of the trauma that I experienced. And some of it is directly related to things that my sister did. And I'm not saying I didn't do shit either. I'm not saying that I am saying that I don't want to go to Chicago for two to four, my niece's graduation. And I told her, and my niece is like, don't come, I'm moving there in two months. Don't I'm

3 (1m 14s):
Thinking she's coming

1 (1m 15s):
To LA. My sister wanted me there for her, but here's the thing in order for that to happen, you have to have, as we know, emotional shit in the bank for someone to want to come and do the thing for you, when the person graduating doesn't want you there or doesn't care. And it's not enough, I don't have it in me. And I, and I just said that cause, and I said, if you want to talk, she said, you know, it's been on my heart to it's all texts. It's never a call, but on my heart to tell you that I'm really sad that you're not coming. And I said, oh, we're opening the door to what's on our heart. Okay, great. I had been working through all this shit in therapy. And if you want to talk about it, great, if not, but just suffice it to say, it's not a good time for me to come.

1 (2m 0s):
I am dumb taking care of people. I just, I love California. I will get on a plane for certain things. If you needed me to get on a plane, I would be on a plane in two seconds. If you Sasha and Chrissy needed me, I would go on a plane. But I am not because there's stuff in the bank account of love and life. I get it. I trust it. I have been taken care of. And so I am willing now to take care of back, but you, I I'm. So I'm just so like, yeah, I'm done. I'm done trying to take care of people that have, that have done no caretaking. Like I can't, I'm not going to do it

3 (2m 38s):
To get

1 (2m 39s):
It's that how life is. So she, she, she did not write back. She did not write back and that's okay. That is okay. Like I, you know, it's interesting. It's like, oh, people want to talk about feelings. Oh, wait, I could sit. I love talking about feelings. Let's go. But what I'm not gonna do is pretend.

3 (2m 56s):
Yeah. And honestly, like, without really knowing whether this is true, I just feel like sometimes when people say things like it's been on my heart, I just feel like you're just aping something that you heard, somebody else say you don't even really know what that means. Like if you really took a minute to look at what's on your heart, you know, you might, instead of it just being like, I'm disappointed in something you did, you would really be trying to

1 (3m 20s):
Figure out why

3 (3m 21s):
The dynamic that led to this situation

1 (3m 24s):
Anyway. So I just have to do what I have to do, you know? So, okay. So the, the, the commercial was really fun. So part of the,

3 (3m 35s):
I think, believe that was fun. Like, you know, that's the thing that you don't really expect us to be as fun,

1 (3m 40s):
Super fun. And I'll tell you why it is completely not about as we know the thing that's happening. It is about what is happening inside of us while we're doing the thing. And I really well, first of all, you know, to be very transparent, like there's no lines. So my phobia is about forgetting lines and being ashamed and then wanting to die and having the whole production throw like pitchforks at me. Right? Like that is my, so there's no lights. So I know that that's not going to happen. So like, I'm starting from a better place. And then my, you know, it's, it's an early call, which is great for me. Cause then you don't sit around and think, and everyone was lovely.

1 (4m 20s):
Like everyone, because I was reflecting back to my theater school time. Right. And my first job out of theater school was working on early edition. Oh no. ER was the first one, I think an E R was a nightmare for me, because of all the things we talk about on this podcast, I was insecure. I was a jerk because I was insecure, but mostly I was just straight up so insecure that everything I did was tinge with a horrible, like feeling right. And that comes through like, no people feel that shit. Right. So even if you hide it, so I don't have that now. Oh, I might have, if we hadn't done this podcast and I might have, if there were a lot of lines and like, I was really felt pressure, but what I felt was like, oh, I, I, it was my first experience in a long time of feeling like I am a part of a...

Intro: Gina is unwell. The Staircase series and The Staircase dramatization, the impact of having to hide one's sexuality, 
Let Me Run This By You: Boz booked a national commercial! Jodi Sonenberg, Mickie Paskal, Tread documentary.
Interview: We talk to Sumie Takashima about the salvation that some people find in drama, The Hangar Theatre, Tisch, moms, hoarding, Chicago.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice

3 (12s):
The theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand

2 (15s):
It.

4 (16s):
Years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

3 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

1 (34s):
You know, what's going on? Oh, and you're in a new weight. You have a new thing in behind you.

2 (40s):
Yes, I am in my husband's office right now

1 (44s):
At his office away from the house

2 (47s):
I am.

1 (50s):
Oh my God. I bet. Do you want to tell everybody what's happening?

2 (55s):
Everybody's COVID in my house. Do you have

1 (57s):
COVID

2 (58s):
Well, I'm not testing positive for it, but I have symptoms. And when I tell you I didn't sleep one Wayne class night. I mean, like, I didn't, I, this is a level of tired that I haven't felt since I had a newborn baby. I, I, I think I took, I think I took one daytime cough medicine last night. Yeah. Well it said day or night.

1 (1m 24s):
There's usually a different,

2 (1m 26s):
Nobody had said day or night, like, but

1 (1m 31s):
Oh wait, that doesn't make any sense. Okay. Okay. Cause usually when they do that beans, they have

2 (1m 37s):
To keep you a little away.

1 (1m 38s):
They have two sets of pills. Is it, was it syrup or pills?

2 (1m 42s):
It was syrup. It was like a deli, right? Yeah.

1 (1m 47s):
No. They had some kind of crack cocaine in there.

2 (1m 50s):
Real surprise.

1 (1m 51s):
Was it that your family was keeping you up? It was that,

2 (1m 55s):
No, it was that. And I didn't cough, which was great, but I didn't sleep like not at all, but that's okay. Because I watched the staircase, the news,

1 (2m 8s):
Toni Collette. Yes. Yes. I think it's great. And it's way more interesting than the actual story. So I don't know, but like I've seen 40 million documentaries on the staircase and this one is creepier and more compelling than any of the dikes. I mean, she's just so good. And like,

2 (2m 32s):
She is so

1 (2m 33s):
Good. And

2 (2m 35s):
Tell me what you think about the whole story itself. Like where do you fall on the line of whether he was guilty or not?

1 (2m 42s):
You know, here's the thing before I saw this version, I for sure. Thought he was guilty for sure. And now I don't know. I don't know. I am. I am completely. I w I don't know. What do you think?

2 (2m 59s):
Well, it's, it's, it's the most, I don't have a word for it, but it's the most of this thing I'm about to describe it's the most. Oh, I definitely think it was not him. Oh, I definitely think it was him. Oh, I definitely think it was not

1 (3m 15s):
Because

2 (3m 15s):
Every little twist and turn that comes up, it's like really? I think it is. I think the reason it is so vexing and perplexing is because it is a one in one Google Plex chance that the same person would be there for altar. I really don't think he killed her,

1 (3m 41s):
But it's like, yeah, the lady in Europe and all that shit, it's like, wait a minute. He's so fucking unlucky. Or he's like evil. And he just draws evil near him.

2 (3m 54s):
I got to say, I mean, not like I know, but I don't get evil vibes from him. I really don't. I think he's like a nice guy.

1 (4m 2s):
And if you watch interviews of the guy, like, you know, he had some weirdness, but here's the thing. You fucking interview my ass after something like, you're gonna be like, lock her up. She's fucking bonkers. So like, you know what I mean? Like if they interviewed me and after something bad happened, like some God forbid something happened to miles, right. And they're interviewing me and they listened. They go back and listen to our fucking podcast. They're going to be like,

2 (4m 30s):
Oh, this is great. This is exactly. I totally wanted to ask you that we're

1 (4m 34s):
Going to jail. We're going to jail.

2 (4m 37s):
If you, for whatever reason, committed a heinous crime today. And we were watching the docu-series about you. What would be the things that the audience would be going to see? She totally did it. Like, what would be these,

1 (4m 50s):
The, the, the, well, I've just seen, like how I evaded the law with my student loans. And I was like, I have a lawyer, how we talk about how, like, basically you should get away with basically anything you can get away with because we're an end-stage capitalism. They're like, oh, she did it the way I talked shit about like my family. They're probably like, oh yeah, like she was, she had a traumatized childhood. So she's like getting re oh my God. It just never

2 (5m 17s):
Snap. She

1 (5m 18s):
Snapped. She couldn't take it.

2 (5m 21s):
Well, here's what people would say about me. Well, she was never very friendly. She was really pretty cold. Actually had people in my town would be like, I knew it. I knew there was something about her that I just didn't like,

1 (5m 38s):
That's the kind of, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because you have this way of coming off like that, even though it's not, it is not, it is not, I don't see it like that now. But when you talk about it, I'm like, oh yeah, I could kind of see. Yeah. But not really. I don't know.

2 (5m 54s):
It's that old thing of, you know, every, I used to always have the experience that people would say to me when I first met you, I thought you were a real bitch, but now, you know, now

1 (6m 4s):
Got it all. But I think I met you when you were really young.

2 (6m 7s):
We were really young and, and it just takes me a while to, to warm up to people. But anyway, yeah. Check it out. People, if you haven't seen the staircase series, I mean, I watched the documentary too, but the series is,

1 (6m 21s):
It's much more compelling and it's also just like art. It's like the story itself, the documentary is kind of boring. You're like, okay. And then this guy in his Vietnam history. Right. And that weirdness

2 (6m 33s):
Purple heart

1 (6m 34s):
Like that, maybe that, yeah. That's when I was like, oh, he's, nobody's just kind of a weird ego. He is, he's got us low self-esteem. He picks wives that are like, well, the second one, especially the high powered in some way,

2 (6m 49s):
I think too, we underestimate, especially now the impact of having to hide your sexual identity, that it I'll just say people who haven't done terrible things and have had to hide their sexual identity, deserve a purple heart because the aggression and the, and the

1 (7m 12s):
Self-loathing and the frustration and the, and the, it must feel torturous. Just torture us

2 (7m 19s):
Heartbreaks. Whenever I think about like the person, who's just like thi...

Intro: Final Draft is conspiring against us, Beastie Boys' Adam Horowitz, Doris the dog loves the vet, Jim Croce, The Cure.
Let Me Run This By You: storytelling, Risk Podcast, The Moth
Interview: We talk to the creator and producer of You're Being Ridiculous, Jeremy Owens, about offending people, porn, Samantha Irby, Roosevelt University, University of Arkansas, The URTAs, King Lear, Greg Vinkler, Barbara Gaines, Plautus' The Rope, P.F. Changs, Kyogen, Threepenny Opera, Steppenwolf, Brene Brown, Marianne Williamson.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited): 2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

3 (15s):
At 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (34s):
Yeah.

1 (35s):
It was one of these things where it's like, final draft will not let you restart your computer. I'm like, fuck you. Final draft. What did you ever do for me? Final draft writer, duet. They're all, they're all plotting against me,

2 (47s):
But what is, what is, what does final draft have to do with your camera working on this?

1 (53s):
So in order to, to be okay, the bottom line is I need a new computer. Okay. Let's start there second. Okay. That's the first level of problems. It's like the deepest level. And then we, if we go up a little bit into the level of problems, it is that final draft that I might camera in order to use my camera. Sometimes I have to restart my computer because it's so old. Right. So I need to restart,

2 (1m 19s):
You know, I want to do any one thing in the morning I got, are really rev my engine.

1 (1m 26s):
So like, I'm like, okay, well, in order to restart the computer, it's like not letting me restart it because final draft is this because probably final draft is so advanced and my computer is so Jack.

2 (1m 39s):
Totally. And that's how they get you mad. I feel like they all conspired to be like, okay, well let's make it. So this will work on this version. So then,

1 (1m 49s):
So anyway, I see you, you look great. I look like shit. So it's probably better my camera's up.

2 (1m 57s):
So a couple of things I keep forgetting to ask you on here, about how, how did it come to be that you were chatting in the parking lot with Adam Horowitz about your dogs, Volvo.

1 (2m 12s):
We never talked about that.

2 (2m 14s):
We did not.

1 (2m 15s):
Okay. So I rule up, so my dog, Doris, who everyone knows that listens to the podcast and by everyone, I mean, whoever listens to the podcast, you know what I mean? So hopefully it's growing and growing, listen and rate the podcast. Anyway, the point is I roll up to the vet, which I do oh about every other week, because my dog is a very high maintenance. And so she's just so she of course had an ear infection. Cause she has these huge ears that collect all this bacteria. So I roll up and there's an eye and because it's COVID and everything, you have to park outside and wait, but because it's LA all the windows are down and everyone's car and there's this dude sitting in his Kia has electric Kia.

1 (2m 59s):
Well,

2 (2m 59s):
My key.

1 (3m 0s):
Yeah, I know. I know. I did not recognize this human being. He looked like my husband, like fifties gray, maybe had glasses on.

2 (3m 13s):
Why would you like all our knowledge of them is when they were so, so young. Right,

1 (3m 18s):
Right. So young. And I like didn't, you know, keep up with the beast. So it was like, I had other things to do, you know? So I was doing other things. So I'm, I'm like trying to corral Doris out of the car. She's crazy. She's trying to get out. She loves the vet. The backdrop is my dog

2 (3m 35s):
Loves the,

1 (3m 36s):
Oh my God. She races towards the vet with a fury that is unmatched, loves it. I

2 (3m 43s):
Never once heard of this in my entire life. So

1 (3m 45s):
She's really, really excited about the bet. So she's an extra crazy. And I get her out of the carrier to let her sniff around in the parking lot. And I see this gentleman who is the interesting thing about him is that his leg is out the window. Like he's like resting his leg. And I'm like, well, that's kind of weird for like an older dude, but whatever, it's, it's LA like, you know

2 (4m 8s):
That sound's going to say, I imagine that kind of thing happens in LA.

1 (4m 11s):
Yeah. And plus he's probably weighed been waiting and waiting for his dog forever. And so, cause you, you have to wait out there, like they don't want you to leave in case they need you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, fine. So I, and I say, and he says, oh, a cute dog. And I'm like, oh, she's a pain in the ass. And then he's like, what's her name? And I'm like, oh, her name is Doris. And he's like, oh, that was my mom's name. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then we talked about the origin of Doris, cause it's from a Jim Croce song. And Jim Croce is someone, my husband adores the singer. The folks there yeah. Died when he was 29. Looked like he was about 60. When he died.

2 (4m 47s):
He was 29.

1 (4m 49s):
Yes. You know, he looks like David Abbott, Holly, if you ever look at me

2 (4m 56s):
Like a hole, I see it.

1 (4m 59s):
But just bringing it back to the old theater school. So, so yeah. And so he's like, we talked about Jim Croce and he's like, Jim Croce is the first person I remember dying. I had that album. And I said, yeah. And he said, that's in a Jim Croce song. And I said, yes, Leroy brown, Friday about a week ago, Leroy shooting dice. And at the end of the bar sat a girl named Doris and who that girl looked nice. And that's why we named Doris Doris. He was like, I don't remember Doris being in that song. So we get into that. Right. Okay. And then he's like, I'm like, oh, is your dog okay? And he's like, well, she, she, she got a cut on her neck and I'm like, oh shit. And I'm like, is that

2 (5m 38s):
A knife fight in a bar?

1 (5m 39s):
I was like, how did that happen? And he goes, I don't know. But like, you know, since I'm not a doctor, I figured I'd take, bring her to the vet. I'm like good plan, my friend, good plan. So he's like, I'm waiting for him and waiting for her. And I'm like, oh, okay. And then he said, what's wrong with your dog? And I said, oh my God, what? Isn't wrong with my dog? And I said, my dog has a dermatitis of the vulva and an ear infection. And he's like, wait, what? And I'm like, yes, she just she's out. She's got a l...

Intro: David Schwimmer, Zazie Beetz, Grace Gummer, and Joe Sikora teach us about sexual harassment,
Let Me Run This By You: I think a ghost is peeing in my basement. Fulling mills, alcoholics, Johnny Depp, Britney Spears.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (39s):
Hello? Hello. Hello survivors. This is Gina reporting to you on a beautiful spring day. I hope it is a beautiful spring day wherever you are, or if it's not, I hope it will be very soon. We are guests lists in this episode today, as I reported to a couple of weeks ago should happens. We had recorded a great episode with a lovely person and just their audio didn't record at all. You know, just one of those things like internet gremlins, bloody body boss. So we're going to re up with him at some point, but we do have coming down the pike, a few really great episodes, including Glen Davis, the <inaudible> director of Steppenwolf theater company and Trammel Tillman, the actor who plays Mr.

2 (1m 28s):
Mel chick and severance. And if you listen to this podcast, do you know how much I love severance? I'm really, really excited about that one also Sumia Taka Shima. So we've got some really fantastic interviews lined up. I hope you will be tuning in and the upcoming weeks. And just another note to say, thank you so much for your ongoing support and listenership. We really love doing this podcast. Love making it for you. So we love that you enjoy listening to it. And if you haven't already, you should check out our website, undeniable writers.com and our social media.

2 (2m 14s):
We're on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Do you think we should get off of Facebook? Well, do you think we should get on Facebook? Do you think we should get off Twitter? See, I really want to make the great break. I want to get away from social media, but I feel I'm trapped now. You know, because professionally and personally, it's a great way to connect with a lot of people that I otherwise wouldn't be able to connect with, but it's, it's just this equal parts, terrible and wonderful creation, and we're all completely addicted to it. So, you know, who knows what's who knows how this is gonna work out for us?

2 (2m 55s):
Honestly, it could go either way. We could figure out a way to manage this problem and get on top of it and figure out a way to have enjoyment, but not addiction to social media. Or we could all find ourselves waking up in the middle of a Handmaid's tale. I mean, we are kind of headed that way. It's really looking like people want us to live in Gilliad. And for whatever reason, I just don't feel like people who don't want to live in Gilliad are good at making it so that we don't live in Gilead, myself included. What am I doing? I'm donating money.

2 (3m 36s):
I mean, fat, lot of good. That really does so, wow. This is taking a bad turn. I don't mean for it to do that. I really want to express my love and appreciation for you all and my excitement about our upcoming episodes and my wish that you connect with us on social media, that's killing us all. And I hope you enjoy today's episode, which we are entitling. I'm going to have to accept that. I will always look like Dora the Explorer at some point, please enjoy Hey, sexual harassment training.

2 (4m 41s):
So in order for my son to get his work permit, you know, through, you have to go through this training and it said it would take an hour. And I was thinking like, is that really gonna take an hour? It's like one full hour because it's one of these, did you ever have to do it? Yeah. You can't go to the next slide until

1 (5m 2s):
No, no. They make sure your ass is there for an hour. Gina.

2 (5m 6s):
That's right. And you know, I do have to say it is something I really miss about California. People complain about the bureaucracy and the, you know, and in this training, you know, it's infantilizing in certain ways. But like, if you have to make things accessible to all people and it's like, if it's infantilizing to you or you already know it, consider yourself lucky. Well also about the people that don't already know, it like

1 (5m 37s):
Gina, the, the majority of our world, especially those who harass people are in like infants who need hand-holding. So we need to infantilize them because they're fucking infants and they need this shit from the ground. Like, dude, I love it. Like, I love the fact that they won't, that they won't like fast-forward until you wash them. Because you know, these motherfuckers, the people who really need to watch it would fast forward through the whole thing and think they don't need it.

2 (6m 9s):
Yeah. I mean, maybe we actually need to be infantilizing. I am often accused of, You know, expecting too much from people, you know, like I just, the number of times somebody says to me, yeah. But I just don't think most people will understand that or, you know, think about it that way. Anyway, I completed it. And it was so the one you saw did it have like David Schwimmer and Zazie Beetz and Gracie Gummer I guess that was so sweet. And Joseph Cora,

1 (6m 48s):
Cora Joseph. I actually watched it with miles when miles, my husband had to do it for his new job. And I was like, I know all the And they must pay so much. I mean, like I either they're doing it for free or,

2 (7m 4s):
Oh, I assume they were doing it for free. I assumed it was like, we're doing this well. Cause it was through rain, rain made the videos. So I would assume that

1 (7m 13s):
People

2 (7m 14s):
Aren't asking rain to pay them

1 (7m 16s):
Like a million dollar

2 (7m 18s):
Scale or whatever.

1 (7m 21s):
No, my fee is actually 1.3 million for this sexual harassment for

2 (7m 27s):
Video, the second video

1 (7m 28s):
And tire rape video. Yeah. You're going to pay me anyway.

2 (7m 33s):
Hey, how are you? I love your crushed blue velvet.

1 (7m 37s):
Thank you. I, yeah, my, my standard thing now is like, I literally have like 10 meetings a day, which is hilarious. So a lot of it is my students getting ready to launch. So a lot of it is really motivated and highly stressed, 22 year olds that are like, ha who? And I love it. And I love meeting with them and they also are, you know, just exactly where we were the same thing of like, and in fact, a lot of them, yeah. They're ahead of where we were, because at least they know there's a fucking problem,

2 (8m 18s):
Right? Yeah. There, they don't necessarily have their head all the way up inside of the crevice of their ass. Like I did. Exactly. Well. That's cool. Yeah.

1 (8m 29s):
So I'm doing that. And like, I don't know. There was something I thought if you, I feel like I haven't talked to you in so long.

2 (8m 36s):
I agree. Well, I think it's because you have so many meetings. You're busy all day long. Thank goodness you have your new fancy office. How's it working?

1 (8m 44s):
I do. It's working great. We haven't, I'm in the focus room now because we don't have our rug yet. And our rug will mask all the sound. And also, yeah, I didn't to be in a booth. So we have...

Intro: Leak It All, the gumbo of bad decisions.
Let Me Run This By You: Overcoming insecurities, chasing hope, staying curious, and Marilyn Monroe. 
Interview: A Maze by Rob Handel, Just Theatre, New College of Florida, Asolo Repertory Theatre, SF State, playwriting MFAs, Attempts on Her Life by Martin Crimp, Soho Rep, North Oakland, The Civilians, Yale, UCSD, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, underground poker games, the NYC Tombs, Playwrights Foundation, Annie Baker, Sam Hunter, Zakiyyah Alexander,  Soho Rep Writer Director Lab, Adam Bock, Shotgun Players, Anne Washburn, The Bacchae, Eureka Day, left wing anti-vaxxers, Ben Brantley, writing during the pandemic, a pilot about a tech start up run by altruistic vampires, Mike Schur, What We Do In The Shadows, Aurora Theatre Company.

Intro: It's a bad idea not to pay your student loans, The Odd Couple, Severance, chicken nugget bowls, 
Let Me Run This By You: Google is bullying Gina. What's your email archive strategy? We are all mostly old because the window of youth is shockingly short. Some of your dreams are NOT out of reach.
Interview: We talk to T.J. Harris about coming to acting later in life, having a background in business, having a close-knit cohort, Title IX investigations, being the victim of racial profiling while at school, the paradox of slightly shy kids being told they were shy so often that they become even more withdrawn, Our Lady of Kibeho, Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, Sean Parris, Chris Anthony.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
3 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

4 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

3 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

4 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

1 (34s):
Anyway, so I had to like get him out of the house and like men are slow and I just, it's just, it's a really no win situation. So anyway. Hello. Hello Busy. I've been busy. We've all been busy.

2 (51s):
We have been doing the damn thing. Haven't we?

1 (55s):
Yeah.

2 (56s):
Yeah. I have spent the last, what feels like a week. Yeah. I think it's been a week simply reviewing every single dollar 20, 21, like literally and putting it in a spreadsheet, literally like can donuts, can you

1 (1m 18s):
Keep it because you can write off a lot

2 (1m 20s):
Of new machine. Yeah. That's yeah. That's, that's the point of it is to find everything that, that can be written off, but it's, you know, and I'm hunched and my back and my eyes strain, and it's just like, oh my God, Calgon, take me away.

1 (1m 38s):
Yeah. I mean, I think that taxes are one of those things where if you do them right, and legally it's a lot of work, right? It's like,

2 (1m 47s):
You want to skim and

1 (1m 48s):
Be shady, which I don't recommend, because guess what? The IRS is only job is to get your money. Like, that's their only job. They don't have any other purpose on the planet. So like, if you think that's not their job, you're wrong. But anyway, so if you do it right, like you are, it's a lot of freaking work and it also is painstaking.

2 (2m 12s):
And I, and, and it's painstaking. And I think, you know, to, to, to find a silver lining in it, like, I'm so glad I don't have a full-time job because this is the kind of thing that literally, I don't know how people, when it's, when everybody works, how they do it it's

1 (2m 35s):
Well, you can't. I mean, I think it's, that's why people end up in trouble. Like, that's why people end up trying to skin his scam or not doing them and being like, you know what, I'm going to pass on all this. I'm just going to hope for them. And like, that's what I did with my student loans, because I didn't want to, and that's not even as hard as taxes, but I just like, couldn't cope with the ins and outs of doing the work to defer or like make deals, or like get my payments lower. And thus, I had a sheriff show up at my apartment. Like that is where you're headed. You don't know that story. Oh, all right. So I thought, oh, it'd be really cool to not pay my student loans.

1 (3m 15s):
I mean, I didn't really have the money, but I also didn't realize that my student loans were private student loans. Oh boy. So when they're private, you're in big trouble, because guess what? It's a bank that wants their money. It's not the government who has a million other things to do. Right. So the bank is like, no, we want our money. And I did that. Know that the bank hires the Sheriff's department to serve papers when you are being sued for your private loans. So one day I am N in Rogers park at my thinking, you know, nothing of it. Like I, I owed 50 grand and I to like four different banks. Right. It's always, and they sell them to other people and it's a big scam.

1 (3m 56s):
Right. Okay. Fine. But I'm like going about my business thinking, but feeling bad, but like, feeling like, ah, fuck it. Like, who cares? Well, they care. Wait,

2 (4m 7s):
How long were you not paying them

1 (4m 9s):
For a couple of years? Maybe I just said, forget it in 15, 20, 15. I said, no more. And then in 27, 20 17, I'm literally, I kept getting calls. They started calling miles and I was just the guy just pay no attention. Miles, like pay no attention. And of course he's like so trusting. He was like, okay, I'll pay no attention. I'll compartmentalize. And okay. So one day there's a, our buzzer goes off and I'm like, hello. Cause no one ever. He's like, this is the Sheriff's department. Are you Jennifer Bosworth? And I was like, and then I realized, I really quickly, your mind goes, oh, what have I done wrong?

1 (4m 50s):
Right. And it focuses it on the thing. Cause you know what you've done right. Or what I've done wrong. And I'm like, oh, my here is the PA the Piper or the pied Piper or whoever is coming to collect chickens, home to roost all the things. And I was like, and I just said, I have a lawyer go away. And he goes, no, we just, we just want to give you these papers. Like we have to give you these papers. I'm like, no, I have a lawyer go away. Which is the wrong thing to do.

2 (5m 19s):
What also, what was your logic there? I have a lawyer. Okay.

1 (5m 23s):
There was no logic. I would say it was the opposite of logic is what's going on. So I see that they go away because, and so they're paid by the bank. So they just hire the Sheriff's department to serve people. I did not know that it's like, they, they you're there for hire basically the Sheriff's department. So they go and they serve people and they could not serve me. But then what it did was it was really actually a great kick in the pants because I was like, oh, I have a court date now. So no. So what I did was I said, okay, let me find it. So then I was like, I need a lawyer. So, and then on my 43rd birthday or 42nd, 42nd birthday.

1 (6m 10s):
Yeah. 42nd birthday. I went to the lawyer. I found this lawyer fucking brilliant. I can't remember her name right now. She was like legally blonde. She had these long pink nails and her only job was to get people off student loans and, and either file bankruptcy or figure out a way to talk. The loan people doubt. She was a bad-ass and I went there and I was like crying. And I was like, look. And she was like, oh, $50,000. That's nothing. And I was like, oh, she's like, I got people that I was, you know, 600,000 in medical school loans,

2 (6m 43s):
Medical school, that's

1 (6m 45s):
All. But also she goes, yeah, the private loans they ...

Gina made a terrible lasagne. Boz debunks the myth of chicken. Carl Buddig beef bags, Doritos, smoked soup, Colombian food, HOKAs,
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
And at 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (34s):
Hello? Hello. Hello survivors. It is. I Gina reporting to you live. I mean, it's live to me, but it's not live to you because you most definitely aren't hearing it in the exact moment. I'm saying it, but you get the idea. It's Monday night, I'm here at my house sitting in my room where I always record when I talked to boss and I'm I'm, I'm coming on here to tell you that. Hmm. Do you know that expression inside baseball?

2 (1m 15s):
I don't understand when people say, oh, that's too inside baseball. Because for me, all I care about is the inside of something. I don't even like baseball. I'd love to be inside baseball. You want to show me where they get the dirt off their cleats. Great. You want to show me what kind of savvy they have to use on their cracked hands from rubbing? Oh, that says this is going to sound sexual. I don't mean it that way, but from holding the bat. Yeah. I want to see that you want to, you want to tell me about contract negotiations? I mean, I want to hear that stuff. I want to hear that stuff more than I want to hear about, or, you know, like actually watch baseball anyway.

2 (1m 59s):
I'm, I'm bringing this phrase up because I've never understood why people, don't, what people think it's bad to be inside baseball. And also by way of telling you that today's episode is going to be a little inside baseball. We record every week. We interview people every week. And at the very beginning, we had so many interviews stacked up that it was months between when we would record somebody and when it actually aired. But once all of that stack got aired, now we pretty much go week to week and that's fine, unless, and until we have a cancellation or two, as the case is for us right now, we had two back-to-back cancellations.

2 (2m 52s):
So one time when we had this, I put, I repaired an old episode, which I thought was really a great episode. And I'm really glad I repaired it. And then a couple of times we've aired episodes with just BAAs and I talking with no interview. And the reason I like to put something up is because personally, when I listened to podcasts and people take a week off, I really hate that. I really hate when a podcast I'm really used to listening to, you know, coming out on a certain day and like, that's the day I'm gonna, Ooh, it's Tuesday. I get to whatever, walk my dog and listen to my favorite podcast.

2 (3m 33s):
I hate it when those people take a vacation, but that's what I did. I took a vacation last week and boss was going to record one solo, but her interview canceled. And then the person that we're supposed to speak to tomorrow canceled. So honestly, we're probably gonna have the same problem next week, unless something magical happens. And we're able to interview somebody else before this weekends and who I'm saying all this to say, we do have an episode today. It is not previously aired material. It is boss and I talking, but it is not an interview.

2 (4m 14s):
And if that's not your jam that I get it, you can, you can just skip this one. Maybe this is not, maybe this is not the one for you, but if you're like me and you are inside baseball and you like things that are inside baseball. And by the way, I mean, it's not like it's inside baseball in the sense that we're talking about, you know, like the platform that we're hosting our podcasts, it's not actually really inside baseball. It's just not, it's just not our typical episode. Anyway, I also want to take this opportunity to think we have actually kind of a surprising number of listeners in other countries.

2 (4m 54s):
And I have never done something that I've always wanted to do, which is acknowledge all of these wonderful listeners. And so I'm going to do that right now. First we have New Zealand and I happen to know the person who listens to us from New Zealand or at least one of the people. And he Sean Spratt. And he went to theater school with us. And one day we'll have him on the podcast, but thank you, Sean Spratt for your listenership. Very much appreciated. We have listeners in Spain, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Singapore, Russia. Although not for the last couple of months.

2 (5m 34s):
If you know what I mean. France, Jordan, Nepal, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Virgin islands, pork bowl, Rico, Mexico, Austria, Sweden, Palestine, the Netherlands, Morocco, South Korea, Japan, Finland. I heard Finland has great coffee. I'd like to go there someday. Bangladesh, Uganda, Slovakia, Poland, Ireland, Indonesia, and BA. Right? Thank you to all of you, whoever you are out there listening to our little podcast. I appreciate you.

2 (6m 15s):
I do. I appreciate you deeply. I am also going to take this opportunity to recognize some fabulous comments that people have left on apple podcasts in the form of reviews. Something. I also greatly appreciate Larkin and Ellis says what a fun show to listen to and to have communion with other theater folks. So many of us survived, thrived or crashed. That's true. Afterschool and hearing tales of everyone's experience brings such humanity to the process. Jen and Gina are delightful and treat each, each guest with such grace, highly recommend. Thank you, Larkin Ellis.

2 (6m 57s):
Next. We have Zoe incredibly warm, funny and fascinating. These hosts get the best out of their guests. If you are involved in any part of the acting business, this will be a fascinating podcast for you. If you went to any theater school, this could be an opportunity for immense healing and processing things you didn't even know needed more attention. I laughed so hard. I cried. It was bad. It was better than cats. Thank you, Sophie. All right, BJP. Oh, that's I know who this is. This is Brian Brian Polak, who has also a great podcast. I mean, he had an episode on ours, but he's the host of the subtext podcast, which is all about playwrights.

2 (7m 38s):
And very interesting. If you haven't listened to it, please do his latest urban. I don't know if it's his actual latest, but one of his most recent ones features Tracy Letts. So that's cool. Anyway, Brian says not only are the interviews always free range and fascinating, but the conversations between Jen and Gina that begin each episode are warm and fun. It's like catching up with old friends every new time. Every time a new episode comes out. Thank you. Brian Love that. Scott says this podcast is such a gift, exclamation point. Anyone who has dabbled in the fine arts can relate to the conversations that the hosts and guests are discussing. I would also go as far as to say, listening to this podcast is like having a free therapist, especially if you are embarking on a career in the performing arts.

2 (8m 25s):
Thank you, Scott. Lovely Scott. Oh, and then here's one I wrote for myself. Yes I did. This is an inside baseball moment. I wrote my own review because I feel at times very desperate to get reviews. So I wrote one for myself. Love the way it is to interrogate the psychological makeup of actors and others who pursue an education at a conservatory. Thank you, Gina....

Intro: headshots, turning off my self-view, Emotional Brain Training,
Let Me Run This By You: Is Flakiness always hostile?
Interview: We talk to Season 2 of Severance's Stefano Carannante about going to theatre school in Italy

Intro: Crypto bros, missing the great economic bubbles of the early 2000s. We may as well have cotton candy furniture, Severance on Apple TV, Bad Vegan.
Let Me Run This By You: Stage Moms, kindergarten theatre.
Interview: We talk to Joe Basile about Long Island accents, NYU Tisch, Bradley Walker, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process, Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, the Neo-Futurists Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (The Infinite Wrench), perfectionism,  Roundabout Theatre Company,  A Bright Room Called Day, Suzan Lori Parks, Go Humphrey, sock puppet Showgirls, keeping the thread of community after college ends.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
3 (10s):
And I'm Gina Kalichi.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

3 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (32s):
Okay. I'm getting, I'm getting it together. I, Yeah, I woke up with this really interesting idea that I wanted to run by you, which was, cause I was really tired when I woke up and I thought, okay, everyone's tired when they wake up. And then I thought, well, and they always say like, Americans, you know, never get enough sleep. We're always tired. But like nobody ever investigates why really? Why that is that our system is really fucked up. So like, I don't know. I just was like, yeah, we always do all these like expos A's on like sleep or wellness. Right? Like Americans are the fattest and the most unhealthy. And I'm only speaking about Americans because that's where we live. I don't know shit about Madrid.

2 (1m 13s):
You know, I'm sure they're they have their own plethora of fucking problems. But I'm just saying like, we don't actually do the work to like, figure out what is wrong. We're just like, Americans are, this Americans are that nobody's getting enough sleep. And like, there's all these, you know, sort of headlines. Right. And we're not just like, well, why is nobody getting enough sleep? Like what is actually happening? So that was my grand thought upon waking up was like, yeah, like, I don't know. We just never dig deep in this case. We're not big on digging.

4 (1m 46s):
Probably not. I mean, I think our lifestyle overall is pretty unhealthy and it's because of our economic model.

2 (1m 58s):
What I was gonna say, it all boils down to see the thing is the more you talk to people, the more I do the angrier I get, especially like in my office, like slash co-working, like I gravitate towards the ladies and a lot of ladies of color. And we end up sitting around talking about how like capitalism and systematic racism and sexism are all tied together and how, and by the end, we're just so angry. We're like, okay, what can we do? And we're like, okay, well we need to stop putting money in the pockets of this old white man who owns the coworking. But like we have nowhere else to go. So we're like, now we're screwed. So anyway, it's interesting. It's like it all, every conversation I have of meaning with you or with my cousin and it all boils down to the same thing.

2 (2m 43s):
And then you end up thinking, I ended up thinking the really, the only way is mass extinction and starting over with a new species, fresh slate, fresh or revolution, right. Or some kind of bloody revolution, it's going to be bloody because you know, the, the, the, the people in power aren't going to let go as we see. So like, we're not, it's not good is all, but I don't feel necessarily like, and maybe it's because I took MTMA, but like, I don't necessarily feel terrible about it. I feel just like, oh yeah, like we're, we're headed towards this way, unless something drastic happens. And I'm not sure that's a terrible thing. Now I don't have children.

2 (3m 23s):
So I might feel totally different about my children and my children's children and their children, but I just don't, that's not my frame of mind. So anyway, that's what I was thinking as I was so tired, waking up.

4 (3m 35s):
Is there any world in which you and the other women in coworking can just put your, just rent and office?

2 (3m 44s):
So we're starting to organize to like, be like, okay, you know, like who would want to go in on a lease, you know? But the thing is, it's so interesting. It's like, well, maybe it's LA, but it's also the world. Like, people don't really trust it. Like we don't really know each other that well yet. So we'd have to like do credit checks and thank God. My credit is good. Thank God. Now it was terrible. But all this to say is that like also LA so transitory that people are like in and out and, and like my, you know, travel. It's just so it's such a weird existence, but we are talking and there's a guy, a black dude. Who's also like my financial guru guy who like, who works at co-working.

2 (4m 28s):
I met here, he's a mortgage guy. And he's just been like, talking to me all about fucking crypto bros and like how the crypto bros are like, he's like, it is insane. Now, Gina, did you know, now I'm just learning about this world. And he's like, it's all, make-believe basically we live in the matrix and that fucking, there is something called the virtual real estate. Did you know this? Okay, you can purchase virtual squares of real estate, like Snoop Dogg's house, like, like, and people are doing it. And the people who are, it's like a status thing and it's expensive. And the people who are becoming billionaires are the people who run the apps.

2 (5m 9s):
Right. Are the people who created the fucking program. We are in the matrix. And I was like, wait, what? And he showed me the site where you can buy any town. If you looked into your town, people are doing it. It is, it is consumerism mixed with people are buying things that don't exist.

4 (5m 29s):
Okay. Yeah. I feel like this is what happens when people with an unchecked power and privilege, it's like, okay, well, like literally we're just making it up. Let's just have cotton candy, be our furniture now. Like it's. So I tried to get into Bitcoin.

2 (5m 50s):
Oh yeah.

4 (5m 51s):
Like about five years ago, somebody that I went to high school with is rich from Bitcoin. And, and she was like one of the founders of one of these companies. And so the first problem I have is you shouldn't invest in anything that you don't understand. Right. So I tried to read about it and I'm just like, but what, I just kept reading and being like, yeah, but what is it? Right. You know, what's an NFT.

2 (6m 20s):
Oh my God. The NFTs. Oh my God. And his name is Lamont and I love him. And he was trying to teach me about those. And I was like, Lamont. I have to take some kind of drug to understand what you're saying. I don't,

4 (6m 31s):
I have, I, you kn...

Intro: Boz did MDMA
Let Me Run This By You: Will Smith and Chris Rock
Interview: We talk to Katharine Scarborough about The New School, Ron Leibman, Robert LuPone, Casey Biggs, the Actor's Studio, Neil Labute's Fat Pig, Harvard's A.R.T., Shakespeare & Company, Moscow Art Theatre, Biomechanics, Michael Chekhov technique, Michael Chekhov Theatre Festival, Ragnar Freidank, Mabou Mines, Dixon Place, The Brick Theater, JoAnne Akalaitis, Big Girl web series, Jean Taylor, clowning, clown burlesque, improv culture, Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy, actor branding, cultivating a good relationship with agents, One on One NYC.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Kalichi.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
And at 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? So I think the main thing I just want to say is like, I took drugs, but we call it the medicine. Right. Everyone's like in the ma so I did, and I won't, it's still illegal because it's still in third clinical trials, but I took MTMA with a trained MTMA guide. Who's also a therapist whose name I shall not say so that she doesn't go to jail for some weird reasons. And I'm going to tell you, and you probably already know this from your, from, I know you have some like knowledge about psychiatry or about psychedelics in terms of medical use and stuff like that.

1 (1m 12s):
Not that you've done them, but you know what I mean? I know you, whatever the point is, I think it's going to change psychiatry. Like it's going to change

2 (1m 21s):
A hundred percent.

1 (1m 22s):
I had. Okay. First of all, I was scared shitless. So MTMA is the pure forum for people that don't know of, of ecstasy or Molly, but it's, it's, you know, pharmaceutical grade and it's whatever, it's very, you know, whatever, it's a, it's a legit medicine, but I was scared. I was like, I'm going to die. I'm going to take this. This is where for someone that has anxiety more than I have depression, I think now anyway, in my life, the fear was I'm I'm doing something illegal. This is wrong. And I'm going to suffer for it also, like that was the moralistic fear. And then the actual fear of what the fuck is going to happen.

1 (2m 3s):
So for people, you know, just so people know, like you're in this person, rented a house and Airbnb and had a beautiful, I was, it was just me and her and a beautiful, like, amazing bed. That was that she brings in. That's like a foam, a memory foam. It's not as shitty thing. It's like really great. And I even thought that before I was on drugs, right? Like I was like, this is a really good setup. The house was a neutral house. Meaning she picked a great thing, which was there. Wasn't the, the family of the people's art on the walls. It was like pictures of surfing and stuff and like water.

1 (2m 44s):
But like not a lot of people, there were no mirrors. Like I was like, is this made for this? And she's like, no, I just found this. There was no, no, the house was clean. So it felt really good. Right. But not sterile. So that was great. And she had flowers and stuff and there was like a table set up. So then you go in, you bring objects and, and pictures, if you want. And there's two kinds of MDM assisted therapy, right. There's talk therapy you could do with two therapists. I did not. This, this practitioner does not do that kind. She's a firm believer in like letting the client lead their own experience.

1 (3m 26s):
And at first I was like, oh, I hate that. I want you to take care of me. Like I was like, I want all the therapists in the room. Right. It was like a real, and then I said, you know, no, I'm gonna, I'm an adult. Like I can it's. Okay. And also when you have two therapists in the room, they, they, they use the music less. So what I will say is the music was, I would say 90% of what was amazing about this. I don't even like music really. Like, I'm not a music person, but you, you literally have your headphones noise, canceling headphones with th with curated music from MTMA musicians.

1 (4m 7s):
So people that have scientists have worked with psychiatrists and doctors to develop music specifically for psychedelic MTMA journeys it's and it's timed with the medicines. So, because they know, because they've done studies, they know the trajectory of the journey in terms of what you're going to be, what kind of thing is going to be maybe happening. So they time this music. So you put on these headphones and there's like blankets. And I brought my own blanket. And it's you do like beforehand, you say a prayer and like, not a prayer, but like, yeah, like, like a, like a meditation tension.

1 (4m 47s):
We said, I, and believe me, this was not something I took lightly in terms of, I for weeks have been committed to doing it. So then there's a workbook beforehand there's sessions with the therapist beforehand. So it is not a party. This is not, I cannot say this enough. It is a journey and not a party. So meaning that it's a whole thing. It's like a process it's it's therapy. It's it's medical treatment is what it is. Okay. So you have this headphones on and also the music is playing in the room as well, the same music. So that even if you take your headphones off, you hear it and okay. And you have total blackout shades on, on your eyes.

1 (5m 31s):
So a mask that is comfortable and soft, but really dark. And I was like, oh my God, I'm going to die. Like, this is, this is it. This is how I die. And then I was like, you know what? You have so much, like you you've done so much research. You've watched the videos, you know, this is not gonna, they're gonna kill you, but you're scared. Okay. But I just took the pill. I was like, okay, here we go. So I took the pill and then you lay down and you're like, okay, it's not working. Like none of it. And by the way, I've never taken equity in my life. I've taken throughs and I'm taking acid and obviously marijuana I've smoked and stuff and edibles, but never that. So I was like, nah, it's not working.

1 (6m 12s):
And then the music, okay, well, all I can say is it becomes a party for your body and the notes I will share with you in an email that she took....

Intro: teenage hackers
Let Me Run This By You: setting limits with Kanye
Interview: We talk to Josh Sobel about Cal Arts, Travis Preston, Yale School of Drama, Robert Brustein, Fig and the Wasp, Oberlin College, The O'Neill Theater Center, Michael Cadman, Royal Shakespeare Company, Chicago ensemble theatre, Strawdog Theatre Company, Ianesco's Rhinoceros, Rochester NY, Brighton High School, A Chorus Line, Cabaret, horizontal hierarchies, The Wooster Group, change talk vs. change action, Chris Ackerlind, Light in the Piazza, Paula Vogel's Indecent, Samantha Behr, Haven Chicago, The Den Theater, Rochester Philharmonic, Lorenzo Palomo, Ian Martin, Hal Prince, Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches, John de Lancie, Rochester Academy of Medicine, radiation oncology, The Xylophone West by Alex Lubischer, Isaac Gomez's The Displaced, Center Theatre Group, Jeremy O'Harris' Slave Play, Rashaad Hall, Chris Jones' review of Ms. Blakk for President.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
3 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

3 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (32s):
I think, I think my son has fig he's gotten into sort of like the hacking side of things and he always wants to get around all of the restrictions we put on him. Like we have content restrictions, we have time limits. And I think he's just made it his mission. I mean, this is like the theme of his life. He has made it his mission to subvert the paradigm as my husband would say. And it's exhausting because all I can do is try to be like 10 steps behind them and learn like what's a VPN. That's what I, I think what he did. I think he installed a VPN to bypass the internet control that I have.

2 (1m 20s):
Oh

1 (1m 20s):
My God.

2 (1m 22s):
And it somehow how that relates to, I can watch, I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that if I turn off the wifi, I can watch it on my cellular data.

4 (1m 33s):
It's insane.

2 (1m 35s):
Yeah. It's, it's beyond insane. I, and you know, I like, I'm always on this thing where I'm vacillating between letting it go and just trying harder to, you know, impose the limit. I mean, you, I wouldn't, before I had kids, I would not have imagined it was this hard to impose limits on people, you know, because you don't want them to not have what they want. Right.

4 (2m 6s):
Right.

2 (2m 7s):
And, and it's a real battle to like, make myself, give myself and my children limits. It's really hard.

4 (2m 17s):
My God. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I'm stuck on, it's like maybe there was okay. I think I'm like trying to figure out the thing, which is like, I know what I think I know what happened. So you have restrictions on content. Like, and I think a genius, the Kanye trilogy, like completely has all those triggers in it. Like all the things are in it. There's sex, suicide. There's, there's, it's all the things you, I wouldn't want a susceptible teenager to watch. Right. Like just for various reasons, not, not for anything other than triggers. Right. So like my nieces and nephew, the same thing, so, okay.

4 (2m 57s):
So then you set that right? And you're like, no, no, but then the kid or anyone can get a VPN, which then resets, I think the con, but I think you're still on the, you're still, you're still on the content warning site, which is blocking genius. You from watching genius. That is fucking, I mean, it's kind of genius in a way, but it's also so infuriating. It's like, come on, dude. I'm just trying to watch my fucking Kanye west bullshit.

2 (3m 26s):
It's literally just this race of like today I'm on top. And then the next day it's like, oh my God, they, they, they run the show. I'll never forget. There was a scene in the first season of the Sopranos where Tony and Carmel are having a problem with Anthony, or maybe it was with the daughter, a meadow and they're in their bedroom. And he goes, if she finds out, we have no power. We're screwed. And I laughed. It was the time I had watched it after I had teenagers. Yeah. Like that's what it is. We actually have no power. And yet the, the, the con that we're forced to do is pretend like we have all the power.

2 (4m 12s):
It's

4 (4m 13s):
Like

2 (4m 13s):
Covering

4 (4m 14s):
A metaphor also for life about like my mom's friend sent me something that said, you know, I forget it was like her friend had passed away and it's not fair and it's not fair. And I, and it isn't, and that's the thing. Like it, the truth is not fair. Like it sucks. But like, and, and we pretend that things are fair because if we don't, it's absolute chaos. Like if we didn't pretend really that red means stop and green means go, we'd have a real fucking problem. If we all rebelled and said, you know what, fuck you, green means go. And red means stop. And we all sent a mass media thing around.

4 (4m 56s):
There would be chaos. It would be

2 (5m 13s):
The bus. And I guess that's just the headline right there. That's like the headline in the story. Like you took the bus from LA to San Fran, Fran, because gas is so expensive.

4 (5m 22s):
Well, many things. Okay. So driving, it's really a grind on the five coming home, especially it's like, so rough, like, it can be a nine hour instead of five, six hours situation. It's crazy. Cause the five sucks. So, so that was the first like, and then gas. So I wasn't gonna drive cause I did the drive Thanksgiving and it was like, oh God. And then, so I was like, okay, well I'll, I'll just, I I...

Intro: when you don't feel your best, do the thing anyway, Fake Famous, H&M is 40 shades of putty, Stitch Fix, 
Let Me Run This By You: Selfie vacations, Paul Stuart, rent a fake jet, Tevas, we are old enough to accidentally wear cool clothes.
Interview: We talk to Mickey O'Sullivan about body image, sibling relationships, getting bullied, Illinois State University, The Wake, Henry Moore is Melting at The Athenaeum, addiction, Sophia Bush, Chicago PD, Casey Affleck.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina .

3 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

3 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (35s):
Isolation is a funny thing because it's both the thing that you feel drawn towards when you don't feel well. But it's also the thing that, you know, that makes it worse. And I saw another thing that said, the more comfortable you get with you and who you are, the less likely you're going to want to isolate because it does, you know, it it's effort to be who you are when you're, you know, not kind of sinked up. Yeah. That's all just to say that when my kids have their aches and pains and two of my kids are real vocal about every single sensation they ever have in their body at any given time. Like, I can't think of a time where these two leave the house where I haven't heard my foot hurts.

2 (1m 20s):
My shoulder hurts. I have a headache. My stomach hurts. It hurts when I do this. And I, I believe it all. And yet I'm like, yeah, but if you stay home, I'm not going to let you be on a screen. So you're just going to literally be staring at the wall, feeling that I wouldn't, you rather go to school. Right.

1 (1m 38s):
Interesting. But Gina, it has taken me to 46 to actually realize that. So they're like, literally like a year ago, I probably would've been like, you know what, I'm just gonna stay home. And like, I have a headache, but like now I realize like, oh no, I think it's also like, time is slipping by like, I'm getting older, we're marching towards death. Like I got to get outside

2 (2m 3s):
Dude. And

1 (2m 4s):
You know, so like, I, I think it takes some what it takes, but yeah, man, I know that this pandemic has created the sense that the outside world is dangerous because literally it was, so it is like a war in that we, I felt like we were in a war when, when this all started, it was two years ago this month. Right. So right. I came to visit and then all to you and then all hell broke loose. And it, yeah, it created this thing of like the danger is outside the home. And so now it's like so easy to, but I actually realize that I feel worse at home because not only then do I have a headache, I have to deal with my fucking dog.

1 (2m 52s):
Who's a pain in the ass and get triggered by my husband who I think should be doing his job differently. And I hear him because we're in a teeny house. So that's torture. That's worse.

2 (3m 3s):
That's terrible. That's no good. My corollary for that is just, I do spend all of my, I mean, I do my, everything I do is, is at my house. I take care of my house. I take care of my kids and then I write and, and work, work on, you know, artistic stuff when you're home and your office, maybe miles experiences this too. Like you don't, you're never not at work in a way. So you're, I gotta do some, I gotta do something to have more of a separation. Maybe I should just like, bro, did you, did you see what about Bob? When he, he worked from home, but he clocked in. I should know that.

1 (3m 42s):
Well, the other thing that I was thinking, so I, okay. I thought about this cause I was asked. Okay. So I, a friend of mine said, I have this free thing for stitch fix. Right. One of these bottles. Okay. Right. I've done those before I did DIA and co and whatever it lost, its luster, it's a waste of money. Eventually. It feels like, and it's ridiculous. Okay. But good, good news about stitch fix is that, or one of these services is that one. I love the jeans they sent me, but two, you have to leave the house to return the things you don't want or you pay for the things. Right. Okay. So that's a side benefit. And so that got me out of the house and three I'm wondering, I was like, oh, maybe I should send my code to Gina.

1 (4m 26s):
But then I'm like, Gina, doesn't like to shut up. Right. And Gina doesn't like, so they do the shopping, but you also don't strike me as someone who would want to dress up for our meetings.

2 (4m 36s):
Exactly. And I did stitch fix and did it for a while. And then I was like, well, what am I dress for? This is a big conundrum. I have just life in general. And we should tell our listeners that, you know, we're, we're contemplating recording, doing a video recorder recording of these podcasts, which will be great, but then it'll make me feel like I need to, but maybe, but maybe it's okay to feel that way. Maybe it would be actually really good for my mental health to be like, I have to get dressed for my day.

1 (5m 8s):
I think it helps me. I mean, look, I'm literally wearing a tank top and a bra, but like

2 (5m 14s):
No, that's huge. Yeah,

1 (5m 15s):
Yeah, yeah. Right. No, and pants without an elastic ways. So like, I think it helps me in that. And some days it's just a pain in the ass, but it also helps me to think that, yeah, at least I'm trying in some area of my life, which we're all trying in all areas, but I'm just saying it's a visual representation of the fact that like, oh, I'm trying, the other thing about coworking that I like is I get to see other people's outfits. And sometimes they're really cute. Sometimes they're fucking horrible. Like it there's a lot of like 20 year olds that are here at co-working because are 20, 25. I'm a little old. So I like age everyone down, but like a 25 year olds that cause you can rent big offices here too.

1 (5m 59s):
Like for companies like marketing companies. So I see the fashions of the 20 five-year-olds and I'm like, whoa, you are opening my eyes to a whole hell scape of fashion that I did not know existed.

2 (6m 14s):
It's all so bad. It's all so bad. By the wa...

Intro: Boz did not invent timezones, JetBlue, Gina makes an embarrassing mistake, Boz has to run her own job interview.
Let Me Run This By You: The world is coming to an end so do we still have to do yoga and stuff? Feminist Body Horror, Bros in Hollywood, Vincent Kartheiser, there's a FIGHT AT CO-WORKING!!
Interview: We talk to Dave Deveau about being a child actor, Are You Afraid of the Dark, D.J. McHale, the way we stigmatize the bodies of actors (incl. child actors), York University, the Toronto drag scene, Peach Cobblah, Zee Zee Theatre Company, and Carousel Theatre For Young People.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
And Jen Bosworth and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? How you doing? What's going on? Oh my God. I have a similar, I have a similar situation going, whatever that look was. Yeah, you go first. You go first. Okay girl. So, you know, I'm hustling, hustling, trying to get a job. And yesterday, so weird.

1 (49s):
I yesterday we finally miles and I finally figured out like, maybe I should just work at his company because there are good anyway, lovely people, whatever. So I just submit my resume and a cover letter for a job that I, that is supposedly open, write a great cover letter. Cause that's what I Excel at. I mean, anything else goes to shit, but I can really do a cover letter. So no, but so I sent it and then I get this call. Okay. So then I'm going to see in the car, our friend, Erica, our good friend, Erica. So I'm going to see her and we're going to take a walk and talk about this possible documentary. You know that you and I want to make whatever.

1 (1m 30s):
So I get five Ms. Calls from Miami and I'm like, what? I know no one in Miami, like Miami is like a place. I know no one. So I'm like, well, I'm not going to pick up. And finally I'm in, I'm in the drive through of the Starbucks and I make it a habit of not talking on the phone while I'm picking up my drink. So I'm like someone I'm like thinking someone's in trouble. You know? Like that's where I go. I'm like someone's in jail or my knee is whatever. So it's this woman. And she, you can tell, you know, like English is not her first language. That's fine. Like English is barely my first language anyways. So I'm talking, she's like, hi, we have an interview for you today at this company.

1 (2m 11s):
You know the company. And I'm like, oh, okay, well she's like, can you do it at 3:00 PM Eastern time? And I'm like 3:00 PM Eastern time to one to one that's that's noon. Right? Yeah. Noon. I, sorry. I had to do the thing. That's what you were saying. Oh no, no, no. It's noon. And I'm like any it's 1140 at the time or yeah, it's 1140 LA time. And I'm like, okay. So, so in 20 minutes she goes, no 3:00 PM. And I said, okay, just send me the invite. I'll cancel. So I canceled with Erica and then I'm waiting on the invite. And then I get the, I rushed back to put, throw some lipstick on and rush back to coworking to do the interview.

1 (2m 57s):
And I have like a, an invite from her that 5:00 PM LA time. Okay. So then I'm like, okay. So then I call this person and I'm like, Hey person. And then it is a comedy of mother. This is just like a tip of the iceberg of my day. Yesterday of motherfucking errors. She goes, no 3:00 PM. Your time is 5:00 PM. It became it. And then it was, it was so insane. And I'm like, listen, lady, am I supposed to jump on a call in five minutes? Do I click this in five?

1 (3m 37s):
Like at this point I'm shouting. I don't know what to do. And she's like, no, you're not letting me speak. I said, okay, go ahead. And she proceeds to say, I'm looking, I don't know what, she doesn't know that my husband works for the company. She goes, I'm looking at my boss's calendar and we have you. And then she starts talking about mountain time and I'm like, lady mountain time is an hour let later. And then she didn't understand. So I literally Gina, Gina, this is what I said I am. So I didn't know what else to do. It was like talking to a drunk, right. Or a person out of control or a crazy like, like I said, listen, ma'am ma'am I don't, I don't invent or make time zone.

1 (4m 26s):
I didn't know how else to. I said they are a thing that I cannot change. And she goes, what? And they said, here's the thing, like what you're saying? Is it actually making any it's not working? And I go, I don't, I didn't invent time zones. It's a real thing. And she just was quiet. And I said, okay. And I had her boss's email and I'm the kind of bad bitch now where I'm like, I'm just going to cut out. I can't do this. So I just don't have it in me. I'm old. And I'm, I'm just, I know my shit. So I'm like, thank you so much for your help. I got to go. And then I just emailed her boss and was like, listen, your assistant. And I are like having an epic comedy of errors, like time zone, garbage fire.

1 (5m 12s):
What do you want me to do? And she goes, oh, she wrote back and said, no, no, it's, it's one 30 your time, two 30 mountain time. And the other person on the call is in New York. It just, this is the working remotely different times, zones, English being a problem. And also like, I think that it's so interesting. I think the assistant was trying to be assertive and like hold boundaries and thought, I didn't understand that we actually had a fundamental problem about like math. Right, right, right. So then, and then this, and then I said, okay, so I got that settled. I said, I'm going to jump on this call in an hour then.

1 (5m 54s):
Yes. Okay. Then I get a call from the assistant again. And like, hi, she goes, I am so sorry. And I said, you know what it is. Okay. She goes, I, I said, don't even worry about it. I just, I couldn't. I literally said like, Gina, I couldn't take it anymore. Ma'am I had, I had to, I had to do something else.

2 (6m 16s):
Yeah. Yeah. I had to stop. It had though, we were just like Susan powder. We had to stop the insanity. It was just getting out of control. I had a similar comedy of errors with jet blue. Okay. Which is to say, go going back about, no, not even a month. Like actually it was only two and a half weeks ago. You know, we had this plan thing where Aaron was gonna take the boys to Utah and I was taking precedent for them. And I had a feeling that he never booked the tickets, but I didn't, I didn't put that fee.

2 (6m 57s):
It was one of those things. I didn't put it in the front of my brain. So we're sitting around and I go, what time do you leave on Saturday? He says, oh, I gotta look at my email. So he's looking, I could see the panic is going over his face. And long story short, he, he didn't book the tickets. And so I, I said I would do it, but the jet blue website was having a problem. So I would go, I would get everything all teed up. And then when I tried to book it, it would say there was a problem. Correct. So I did that four times.

1 (7m 27s):
They charged you four times. So

2 (7m 28s):
They charged my credit card. I mean like $15,000.

1 (7m 36s):
Yeah, sure, sure.

2 (7m 38s...

Intro: Should we take offense that it's Women's History month? (history has not exactly honored women.) Gina had a rough re-entry from vacation, the Disney enchantment, the expense of having kids, the pleasures of one on one time, Junipero Serra was also a monster, Whitey Bulger, networking.
Let Me Run This By You: Is Drag Race sexist?, Sasha Velour, 
Interview: We talk to Rebecca Spence about Hendrix College, Phantom of the Opera with Linda Eder, Ricky Schroeder and Silver Spoons, Erin Gray, taking the Christmas pageant quite seriously, Syler Thomas, being the preacher's daughter, playing Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and the Stage Manager in Our Town, Tisch, Zelda Fichandler, Mary Beth Fisher, Carmen Roman, Deanna Dunagan, Ora Jones, Amy Morton, Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre, Every Brilliant Thing, Cyrano at Milwaukee Rep, beauty privilege, aging as an actress, Linda Evangelista, how Rebecca sees herself in terms of the cultural shift in American theatre, the accessibility benefit of digital theatre.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Pulice. We went to theater school

1 (12s):
Together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
And it's 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (22s):
And you will too. Are we famous yet? February one, one month behind my friend one month by,

2 (37s):
Well, it's March 1st happy women's history month.

1 (41s):
I didn't even know that's how bad of a woman I am.

2 (45s):
Oh, well I was just thinking like, should we take offense that it's, you know, black history and women's history, like it's all in the past, you know, like why with both of those groups of people, we don't really want to be in the past.

1 (1m 2s):
Oh. And in fact there is a t-shirt that says that people love that. I have the same thought that says the future. Wait, the future of film is female. And I'm like, what about the present of film?

2 (1m 17s):
Right, right. Write

1 (1m 19s):
About like, I don't have a lot of time. I'm 46. Like what are you talking about the future? I mean, I can't be talking about the future. So I, I think the more we can get things in the present, the better off we are,

2 (1m 33s):
The better off we are now you're back. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. I did not want to come back. I did not leave my vacation. I did not wanna leave 80 degree weather and no responsibilities and fun all day. And it was our, a free entry

1 (1m 53s):
Monday, really? For everybody, just

2 (1m 55s):
You or well, for everybody. But for my part, it was getting in on a very late plane, not getting home till one 30 in the morning. It's two inches of ice on my driveway. So I'm like doing slapstick, trying to get my luggage to my door. My daughter's asleep. Oh my, I took the wrong key. I didn't have the right. I didn't have my house key. I don't know what the key is that I took. And so luckily, I mean, I guess I, nobody knows my address, but luckily we have a door that we often leave unlocked and it was unlocked.

2 (2m 45s):
So we got in and I got my daughter upstairs and I said, just go to sleep. I'll take care of everything. And she was like, yeah, of course, of course. I'm like, I'm not taking care of anything right now. So I remembered that we had some snow melt. I smelled, I go get it. And of course, when I walked into this door, that's usually unlocked. I immediately locked it saying like, we really shouldn't be leaving this open all the time. Oh my God. I know what's coming. I think, keep going, keep going though. And then I get my little ice smell and I go to the back and I closed the door because it's 20 degrees. And I don't want to let all the more mare out. And I happily salt my steps and get the luggage and bring it back up.

2 (3m 30s):
And the door was locked because the door was locked and I still don't have a key. And that my daughter is fast asleep. And not only is she slowly, I've already turned on the white noise machine. So if I ring the doorbell, if I had any chance of her hearing me, which it's pretty scant. And in any case, because she's a heavy sleeper, I've now masked the sound and it's cold, it's cold. And you, I immediately would be like, I have to eat this ice melt. That's not sane. That did not occur to me. Here's what occurred to me. I'm wearing leggings a t-shirt and a thin sweatshirt because I was just in 80 degree weather and sneakers.

2 (4m 12s):
I have no hat. I have no code. I have no gloves. I don't even have a key to the car. That's in the driveway because it's my husband's car. And why would I have a key to that? And we do have a garage code that has been broken for like a year. So I guess I should fix that for next time. I'm in this situation. Yeah. And I just tried ringing the doorbell and I tried yelling her name, you know, from down to like I'm in Romeo and Juliet, just yelling up to her window to the family in Utah. They weren't back. Oh my God.

2 (4m 55s):
I'm like, what the hell am I going to do? Walk to my neighbors at two in the morning and, and do what use, oh, and I didn't mind my phone was inside of, oh my God. Even if I had my phone, what am I going to do? Call my daughter. She doesn't have a cellphone. So I was in a real quandary. I was, I was in a pickle. So here's what I'd come to. I'm going to throw a heavy Boulder through our glass door so that I could get in. And then I'm going to tape it up with cardboard because I must get inside of my house. And then I remembered that another security breach we have is that our window in our dining room that goes directly onto our porch is never locked and very easy to climb through.

2 (5m 43s):
So that's what I did. And I didn't get to sleep until 3:00 AM. And that's just, that was just like, that was just, of course that was my reentry. Like there could have been no other reentry because ending your vacation sucks, sucks,

1 (5m 60s):
Bad. It

2 (6m 0s):
Really sucks. The greatest period of time is like the two weeks before your vacation, when you're getting psyched and then your vacation. And then for me, about two days before it's over, I'm like, oh God, I have to go.

1 (6m 12s):
I, I, I mean, you know, we're, I am really bad at transitions. Like I remember as an actor being told that to like, and I remember thinking ...

Interview: We talk to Dave Dastmalchian and John Hoogenakker about a special moment with F. Murray Abraham, finding friendship in a cutthroat environment, having substance abuse and authority issues, mind-f***ery, the cloistered nature of conservatories, using skills gained at TTS on set, taking an eclectic approach to acting, the tricky dance of teaching an art form, PR Casting, Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie, when William Burroughs discovered a copy of the Fledgling Press, a zine which Dave created.

FULL TRANSCRIPT: (unedited):

1 (10s):
And I'm Gina Polizzi. We went to theater school

2 (12s):
Together. We survived it.

1 (14s):
He 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.

2 (21s):
I survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

1 (31s):
Hello? Hello. Hello survivors. What's up? How you doing? Please answer that question, even though I can't hear you. I like to imagine everyone checking in, even if it's just mentally, I for 1:00 AM surviving, but I did not want to come back from my vacation. I had a great vacation. I'll be talking all about it in the next episode, but I, I didn't want to come back and, you know, and it's because I went on vacation that we are not airing a brand new episode this week, but instead we were looking back at a previous episode, I'm going to say it's a hidden gem. Not that nobody listened to it, but that I don't know that it totally got the, quite the play that it should have.

1 (1m 19s):
It's a great conversation with two fantastic actors. The second reason is they both have so much going on right now, Dave in particular, you know, he just came off of dune and suicide squad. He's got a bunch of other things in production right now, including things that he's written. I don't know what is public knowledge or whatever. So I'll just leave it out. He's got a lot of stuff going on. And John is in every commercial I read, literally I feel he is in all of the commercials. So he's very busy with his life and his career. And also he was in dope sick, which if you haven't seen it, you really should.

1 (1m 60s):
It, it, it is both an excellent and well-made P piece of television as well as an important piece of television. Those Sackler people, man, fuck those guys. Disgusting. Anyway, they were delightful. We could have talked for two hours. Maybe one day we'll get a chance to do a part two, but I just thought it would be nice to take a look back. I am not including the first part of the episode, the, our usual intro. And let me run this by you because it's pretty old at this point. But if you want to listen to that, the original episode is still up as this.

1 (2m 43s):
Anyway, please enjoy our conversation with David, a small shin and John who can anchor.

3 (2m 49s):
You got to call her up again and ask her to do

1 (2m 53s):
All right. I'm going to make a note of that right now. Anyway. Congratulations, John and Dave, you survived theater school. No, not barely. You guys. I think you both had excellent theater school careers, but I'd like to hear it from you. Yeah.

4 (3m 16s):
I'm so glad that you're our first duo that we've had on today. The fancy friends. And I wanted to know about your experience like together as well as apart, but like my first question for you is did you love each other right away?

5 (3m 32s):
I don't, I don't know John did you?

3 (3m 36s):
Well,

5 (3m 39s):
I've known Gina the longest and by the way, so good to see you. It's only been 20 years like this. I mean, we've, we've messaged and emailed a lot, but Jesus, this is amazing. Oh my God. So I was roommates with Gina and we were very close and then I left school for a year. And so the school moves forward. Jen, you and Gina were in the same grade. You guys all moved forward. And when I came back, it was a whole new group of people to get to know. And John was one of the first people that I knew when I got back. So I felt very out of place and it was hard to come into cause it's such a competitive environment and it's such a intense environment and I was both competitive and intense.

5 (4m 26s):
So to jump into the fire with a whole new group of people, to kind of, it's hard because you're posturing, you're sizing up, but at the same time, you're looking for connection. You're looking for support and it's, it's such a conflict. And John, I'm not going to get emotional today. I swear to God, but it was like one of the first people that extended such a kind generous since he's got that, that, that inimitable, I'm a cuddler sincerity, which is what makes him such a brilliant actor. But he had that like, look me in the eyes in class and like, Hey, he has a little bit of a draw.

5 (5m 6s):
Like I'm really excited. You're here. And I want to get to know you and I hope we get to work together. And then we went and hung out at his apartment soon after that and maybe smoke something. This is recorded, sorry, John. And then we watched star wars stuff together and that was our bond. So that's my version of this story.

3 (5m 26s):
No, God, we, we had a lot of fun. I have old pictures of you and I, and I Aisha and a snuggling ghanaba you snuggling and which I'm going to send you guys, but yeah, we, jeez. I just remember, I remember Dave's it bullions from day one, his like drive in his, in his positive energy. And I think that is the thing that ha that has, that has been such a, such a driving in Dave's career is that he just never stops. It comes down to energy and positivity and he's constantly pumping that into the world.

3 (6m 8s):
And I think Dave has known for many, many years that it, you know, that that kind of stuff comes back to you. And I think I was drawn to that in Dave. Yeah. From the giddy-up

1 (6m 20s):
You also recognize somehow that he needed you to take on that, stare you in the eye and tell him you want to get to know him vibe. Did you know that he felt overwhelmed coming back?

3 (6m 32s):
I D I think from my perspective, the thing that drew Dave and I to one another was a sense that, you know, in the theater school at the time that we were all there was such a, there was, so it was a lot of mind fuckery going on. And there was a lot of, I think a lot of us in the acting track, especially I know this was the case throughout the school wanted positive reinforcement from teachers. And sometimes I think my perspective was that people were manufacturing emotions and things to achieve that positive reinforcement. And Dave just seemed to be Dave to me, which I really, really enjoyed and appreciated.

3 (7m 18s):
And yeah. And so I think that was, that was, it was, it was Dave's his, his sort of genuine vibe that I was

4 (7m 30s):
Both of you when I've run into you. I mean, you know, I don't, I live in California now, but I've seen you like at PR and Dave ag ran into you, one set of Starbucks in Chicago, the genuineness is unbelievable. So I, I think you're both fancy and I'm sort of sorry, star struck. I, but when I, but there is this sort of, both of you have this sort of face to face, like, look you in the eye, I'm going to have an actual conversation with you. And I think that makes you not only great, great actors, but what's more important to me is great human beings. And I, I don't know. I'm just so glad tha...

Intro: Lost Boys, Chapelle's Show, Dianne Wiest, Brian Cox, Hillary and Bill.
Let Me Run This By You: I need to KNOW what your major malfunction is. Compulsive liars, mushrooms.
Interview: We talk to Scott Torrence about raves, feelng famous as a club kid, and surviving Tulsa.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited): 
1 (8s):
And Jen Bosworth and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? And then we watched lost boys, which by the way, the lost boys is the lost boys, like from the eighties and that movie. It's hilarious. So in a real way, like there's some comedy gold in that movie that both Myles and I were like, like, look, it's a cheeseball eighties movie, but it holds up.

1 (53s):
There's not, there's no real. I'm trying to think of like, look the thing that Dave, there's no people of color in the movie that sucks. Yeah. But in terms of overtly racial, racist, or sexist, sexist jokes, not, and obviously it's creepy and it's a vampire flake, but it holds up, I was shocked. I thought this is going to be a piece of shit. So what is the thought, how did you arrive at watching this movie? So, okay. So that is such a great, that's a great question in that Myles and I never agree on what to watch ever, ever, ever, ever his idea of like, he wants to watch good things, right?

1 (1m 35s):
Like he wants to watch real stuff. I have to be in a very specific mood to watch real shit. I can't be triggered about anything in any way. I can't, it's really lame. Like I can't, so you're a delicate flower. Yeah. And I think it's also, I just am unwilling to use the brain power and the emotional wherewithal to focus on something that's like really good. So, okay. So which is why I thought lost boys. Right. Cause who cares? But it was so good, but Myles likes to watch, like he wanted me to watch the harder they fall, you know, the new sort of Western on I, I watched a little bit and it was, it was, I thought it was really, really well-written, but it was also Uber violent and Uber, like it was just too much.

1 (2m 23s):
So it didn't. Okay. Chappelle show. Interesting choice. We started watching the first season of Chappelle show. Wow. Wow. No, it is not a shocker that Mr. Chappelle is, is having the problems that he is having. Now, if you go back and watch the show, it's really interesting. And I, I don't know where I fall. I do think that if you kill affordable housing, I hate your guts because those were all of my former clients. And also, and just for humanity's sake. So I hate that. And we talked about that on the podcast. Right. And then, but anyway, so we stumbled upon and I was like, let's watch it pops up on my Netflix feed because why not?

1 (3m 6s):
And, and I was like, all right, let's watch it. And I'm expecting it to be so bad. First of all, Diane weest is a goddamn national treasure. She,

2 (3m 16s):
She really is. She really is. She's such a good,

1 (3m 20s):
Okay. So if I had to pick my, I always play this game, my new parents, my parents are going to be Brian Cox and Diane weest. Yes. I mean, it's, it's going to be very weird, but it, it, that if I quirky, I told you how I met Brian Cox and asked him to be my new dad. Excuse me. It's a lot before,

2 (3m 43s):
After all of the time I've spent talking to you about succession and reading Brian Cox's autobiography.

1 (3m 49s):
I just remembered it. I remembered it when I was talking, thinking about Diane, Diane weest lasted. It was before it was during adaptation that Nick cage made. And I like, I somehow it was, he, he was in a anyway. It doesn't matter. The point is I got to talking to him at a party and I was like, I want you to be my new dad. And at the time my dad was still alive. Right. So, oh, wow. Like, you know what his response was. I get that a lot. And he was serious. He said, people project all this shit onto me.

1 (4m 30s):
I believe

2 (4m 31s):
That makes a lot of sense. Oh, wow. Very interesting.

1 (4m 35s):
Yeah. This is like, before I knew anything about anything and right, right,

2 (4m 39s):
Right, right.

1 (4m 40s):
Oh my God. So we watched the lost boys, all this to say, and we just did it because it was something that we both could agree on that wasn't going to cause me weirdness because I'm weird and it wasn't going to four miles or what ends up happening because I, you know, I was watching about a Canadian cannibal the other night and he's like, I can't watch this before bed. Like, I can't under fair enough. Fair enough. But you know who, the stars of this movie are the true stars. Corey Feldman inquiry, aim pain. Yeah. And the other frog brother, they were Hulu like Cory Ames, Hames, his him, Hey right.

1 (5m 25s):
With age Corey Haim's delivery costumes. Oh my God. The clothing, like from the eighties and his delivery and his, his acting chops, his comedic acting chops are like fucking unparalleled. They're like on par with some deep shit. Anyway. So I that's my recommendation wash the lost boys. I wish there were people of color in it, of course, but

2 (5m 53s):
Maybe they'll do a remake, but that seems to be the way that they, they, you know, fix that well, not to brag, but at my dinner, my mellantine dinner last night, two other very special people were at our same restaurant. Whew. Hillary and bill Clinton. Yes. And it was so moving to see them. It was especially her, him. I'm like, I've changed my tune a little bit about him, but, and she is just as energetic and bubbly and, and kind of course, I didn't want to go up up to them.

2 (6m 36s):
I've never done that, but I've never gone up to a celebrity and said, can I whatever, say hello or take your picture with her. But on the way out, they were seated in such a way that you could sort of see in when, when you left. And I just didn't, you know, I just blew kisses at her and she just, you know, waved her hands and gave me a big smile. It was really, really nice. That is so awesome. We it's okay. We didn't deserve her honestly. Right. We would have, we would've ruined it in one way or another. And then juxtapose that with reading this morning. I don't know how I got on this topic. I start reading about what's happening with Kanye right now.

2 (7m 19s):
It's really sad.

1 (7m 20s):
It's

2 (7m 20s):
Really sad. And why are we still in this place where we, don't not enough of us to know that this is not something to joke about. This is not something to salivate over. Like this person really needs help. And the rich, the Oop, the ultra rich in some ways are in a similar position to the ultra poor when it comes to basic things like, you know, health care, we've talked about it a lot with respect to drugs and all the yes, yes. People that are in celebrities lives that ultimately I think lead to their death, but also the, this issue of mental health going, and I'm sorry, but Brittany Spears seems to be going off the rails too.

2 (8m 1s):
I, I'm not saying that it was right. That she was in that conservatorship, but I think she was on meds that she's not on now. And I'm sorry. I wish it weren't the case that really sick mentally ill people needed to take meds, but they do. They just do there's no, it's just the truth. There's no point in like, quibbling about it.

Intro: Boz's brain hurts, Ozark, the ordinariness of crime, drug running in Tijuana, Molly, Jerry Harris and Season 2 of Cheer, unpleasant surprises
Let Me Run This By You: I didn't do anything wrong.
Interview: We talk to Carolyn Hoerdemann about Steppenwolf's From The Page to The Stage, John C. Reilly, tenacity, hyper-empaths, Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, Tarrell Alvin McCraney, feminist theatre, Pump Boys and Dinettes, Faith Wilding, Rob Chambers' Bagdad Cafe, Ominous Clam, Zak Orth, Good Person of Szechwan, European Repertory's production of Agamemnon, Danny Mastrogiorgio, Michael Moore's Roger & Me, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the anti-memoir memoir, and Ann Dowd.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
And 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? I have a place to go to do with, it's not my one bedroom with my dog and my husband, but it's still a lot of work, like an and so, and then on top of that, I mean, I just feel like literally, you know what, I texted you yesterday and you said you knew the feeling like my brain is hurting me, but not in a bad way.

1 (50s):
I don't have a headache. Like I don't, I just was, you know, telling our couple surface, like, I feel like I can literally hear my brain turning and growing and groaning and like working. I've never had that feeling before in my life, which is weird. But like that, that feeling of, oh, I'm doing or knowing that what it was, what it was like, I'm doing a lot of work, you know, like my brain is doing so ridiculous, but that's how I feel, but it's all like, it, it doesn't feel, you know, what it is. I'm used to doing a lot of physical work.

1 (1m 32s):
Like I'm used to my body doing a lot of work. Like whether it's, you know, like the jobs I've had, like even the jobs that I, when I was a therapist account, you know, a counselor at social services, like I spent a lot of my time, like moving cases of diet Coke and cause we were in like a halfway house. So like I did a lot of manual labor and lot and case management and case management management is a lot of manual labor, like taking clients to appointments. And like, so when using my brain now in this different way, like literally I wished I would have been a camera on me when I was redoing my resume and cover letter specifically for the ad industry, because it is like making something out of nothing and also using words to like basically, you know, trick people, not trick people, but you know, get them to think what you want them to think.

1 (2m 27s):
And you think, oh, well she's, you know, television writing. The thing about that is like, you can make up anything like television writing really. You can really say, and then pigs flew out of his asshole and then people are like, oh, that's a weird show. But when you're trying to sell yourself to a particular industry with a particular set of skills, trying to make your skills meld into the skills they want, I was like, I couldn't see. After a while I was like, I don't even know what this, like using words like in this space, you leave space is a big word now.

2 (2m 59s):
So Metta that you are selling yourself to an advertising

1 (3m 8s):
Up girl.

2 (3m 10s):
So the PR how I understand it is there is somebody affiliated with this that is an advocate of yours, a champion of yours. And she wants, she wants you in that industry.

1 (3m 23s):
Okay. Yes, you are understanding. And there's like multiple things here. So she's, she's a screenwriter that I met and she continued on with the master's program. But her big job is her. Her day job is she's like a creative director at an ad agency in the, in the copy department. Right? So she's a big wig and she edits, she's like, she's the big editor there right at this. And I guess they hop around from agency to agency. Look, I don't know how it works, but so she started this new job and she's like, I want you to come work in the copyright. She also gets a very large bonus for every person that comes on that she refers, which I good look, do what you need to do.

1 (4m 6s):
But I think it's like five grand per person that she brings. I that's what I'm led to believe from the website. So anyway, there's like a, and so she literally Gina. So I sent her my updated resume and cover letter letter looked great. And then she applied me for 30 jobs. So then I have two.

2 (4m 27s):
Wow.

1 (4m 29s):
So which sounds great, which is awesome. Copywriting, all different kinds of copywriting. But for each of those jobs, I have to fill out demographic form. So last night I literally was up after myself tapes one self-tape last night clicking. I am not a veteran. Yes, I am Latina. No, I'm not disabled

2 (4m 53s):
Online. I was going to say, why don't they have one form, but it's

1 (4m 58s):
Yeah. It's a different job number. Right? So like every time, oh my God. So then, and sign, you have to sign every, so I literally was like, by the time I went to that, my brain, I was like, what? I'm not a veteran. I'm not a veteran like that. I was like mumbling to myself. And so, so, but I have to say like, you know, it's a good skill to build for. Like, I think that thing about, we only use 5% of our brain. They they've like debunked that right. They've said like that. You can't, but I'm telling you my brain, just like the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day. My brain is like literally growing three side.

1 (5m 41s):
I don't know if it's three sizes, but it's, I can feel my, my, my like pathways changing in terms of the skills that I'm using. So that's great. You know,

2 (5m 51s):
I don't know. I mean, it can't be bad. Nothing. The good news is all of this work you're doing can't lead to anything bad to something. Yeah. Not illegal, You know, honestly, it's really saying something. I finally started watching Ozark. Oh God. And I, what strikes me about it is like, oh, this is not, it's not that this could happen to anybody, but you just think about like how ordinary crime really can be, you know, and how criminals aren't all in a layer or living in a way it's just, it's just moms and dads and, and pe...

Intro: The 90s are back and so is Gina on the Adam McKay train, Joe Vs. the Volcano, Dan Hedaya, absurdism, hating the planet, Don't Look Up, #whatdosingleasianwomendoafterwork 
Let Me Run This By You: putting yourself in a new and unfamiliar context, Michael Shannon's Red Orchid theatre, Wallace Shawn's Evening at the Talk House, asshole casting directors, wearing ear pieces, when Boz got a perm, Art and Science Hair Salon.
Interview: We talk to Jenna Ebersberger about growing up in LA, Columbia College, Second City, the Groundlings, Barbara Robertson, Wondery, My Favorite Murder

FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Kalichi. We went to theater school

1 (12s):
Together. We survived it.

2 (14s):
He 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.

1 (22s):
And you will too. Are we famous yet? I mean, I think the bubble is going to burst a little bit, but I don't think it's going to pop all the way. Like, I don't think it's gonna be over over, but I just think that life is a series of bubbles popping. Right? It's like a series. I see. Everything is so cyclical. And the thing that actually funny enough made me see it truly is watching fashion styles. Right? So like the nineties are really in and I'm like cracking up at coworking and looking around. Cause a lot of my co-working cohort are wearing nineties clothes because they're young and I am just like, oh my God, I, I, it is unbelievable how the things that, and this happens to every generation.

1 (1m 15s):
I mean, we're, I'm not unique. I know this, but like, I'm like, oh, if you want to look at why things are, how things are cyclical, look at the fashion, like, look at what is happening. I make the huge, the mom jeans wide legs.

2 (1m 31s):
Right. But at the same time, how come like the forties haven't come back or the, or maybe they have, maybe they come back in little ways or the twenties I wanna, I want to, or the fifties, even you don't really here. You don't really see, I guess maybe the fifth, late fifties and early sixties had somewhat of a resurgence with mad men. And they did that whole co-branding with J crew. Oh wait, is J crew still a company?

1 (1m 53s):
Yeah, it is. I mean, I think they keep going bankrupt, but then they keep getting saved. So I know it's a company because I shop there at the outlets. So it's still around. I just don't know. They're always, and I think they're all owned by like the gap, right. Or like I had

2 (2m 10s):
UPMC.

1 (2m 12s):
So basically Michael Jackson's estate owns. Yeah.

2 (2m 15s):
Yes. Pretty much. I mean, I wouldn't be, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. Okay. That leads me to this thing. I wanted to give you an update about, which is that I finally finished watching. Don't look up. Oh,

1 (2m 28s):
The MCAT

2 (2m 29s):
I'm back on the Adam McKay train. I thought it was a great movie. I give it a, give it a thumbs up. I completely understand. I've never read specific criticisms of it, but I completely understand that some people don't like it and it had kind of a sensibility to me, it kind of, it absurd a sensibility that a lot of people just don't care for it because it just feels too outside. Like I like a lot of things that get really panned when you know, the flops, like I liked Joe versus the volcano was a total commercial flight. Love

1 (3m 8s):
That movie. I think that movie is fucking brilliant. And I so good. I realized that I get a lot of my language from that movie in terms of, I go, I'm like, oh my God, she's such a flibbertigibbet

2 (3m 19s):
She's such a flibbertigibbet I have a t-shirt that says I'm not arguing that with you. And as a picture of Dan Hidatsa sitting at his desk, I mean that God, I challenge you to find a better piece of solo performance and phone acting than Dan <em></em> in

1 (3m 38s):
Joe versus the

2 (3m 39s):
Brilliant. So good. Yeah. Go ahead. So, so, so don't look up. Yeah. It's well, it's absurd because it is absurd the way that we've completely trashed this planet in such a short period of time and also the way in which we're just, we, we both, we simultaneously know this and just keep doing all the same things that we've always done. Well, yeah. Even people who are climate warriors who are doing the most, I, I feel like it doesn't matter anymore. It's all over.

1 (4m 12s):
Yeah. I mean, I think that I just get this, this feeling that we're too late and maybe, and this is just always what I come down to. And I think it's easier for me because I, in some ways to say this, cause I don't have children, but like maybe this is supposed to be happening since it's happening. Like maybe we did this and then we have to face the consequences. Like we're always so used to being

2 (4m 44s):
Saved or having to face being

1 (4m 46s):
Saved by something or someone like, maybe this is it for us. And look, maybe there's another species that could come and do a better job. Like we, we can't be the only,

2 (5m 1s):
No girl, we cannot be the only ones. And what's funny about the, are you going to watch the movie? Don't look up? I don't want to spoil it for her. So yeah, the whole thing is about, there's a comment coming and the scientists are going to the president and they're trying to figure out how to spin it. And then what they finally come up with this, with this Steve jobs type character that the technology guy played to perfection by mark Rylance comes up with this technological solution to he's going to send these missiles. And they're going to attach themselves to the comment because, because, because the comment actually has this very precious metal that they need to, they need, of course.

2 (5m 41s):
So they it's like this thing where they send these 20 missile, drones, whatever they are that are supposed to attach themselves to the comment and then break it into pieces. It just lands in the ocean and doesn't hurt anybody. But of course it fails. And at the very last minute, Meryl Streep who plays president, her character gets into, she calls. She makes, she calls Leonardo DiCaprio's character and says, listen, we've got these eight pods and they fit four people a piece or something like that. And the idea is if you get in it, you know, it's something that's going to survive Armageddon. So he says, no thanks. And presumably it's just her.

2 (6m 22s):
And maybe this mark Rylance guy, the end of the movie shows 22,000 years later. And those pods land on the planet, I don't know, I guess it's earth, which has been repopulated with dinosaurs and all the pods land and everybody gets out and they they're all they're all girl. Yes. I would never have guessed that. But that's exactly what happened. But before that, what you notice is that everybody who gets out of the pods is all old white people. So that they're gonna, this is the people who are going to repopulate the really planet and then Meryl Streep's characte...

Intro: speaking up for yourself, sharing your wins, jealousy
Let Me Run This By You: Boz explains how she maintains having many close friendships, when Boz called an ex 89 times in 4 hours, What About Bob?
Interview: We talk to Brian James Polak (host of the Subtext Podcast!) about taking a circuitous route to playwriting, Marymount University, Keane, NH, opting for a philosophy major, do you need to be reflected by your parents?, being an RA, when his college guidance counselor told him to go to a trade school, early adulthood financial naïveté, Meisner, improv, Jeremy O. Harris, posthumous playwriting.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
And Jen Bosworth from me this and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? Hello? How are you today? Well, I'm better than yesterday in terms of my, I really spoke up for myself and with my friend and for podcast listeners. I think we did not record this cause we were just having a meeting, but we did record it, but not on a podcast format.

1 (49s):
Anyway, the point is I had a friend that had sort of tried to, or did set a boundary in a really messy way that I did not receive, but, and then I, I was proud of myself. I just called and I like, I it's interesting as I get older, I don't have a charge on things like I wasn't charged about it. I was like, listen, I mean, I was charged about it when I talked to you because that's what you do when you talk things out. But like I just listed, I totally appreciate that you have this issue and you don't want to hear me talk about certain things. Cause that was the whole thing is that she said, you know, it basically comes down to jealousy and envy and I get those things a hundred percent.

1 (1m 33s):
Believe me, if you listen to the podcast, you know, that like all of my theater school experience and until like maybe four years ago was spent basically living in one state of constant, less than feeling and envy. So I don't, but I'm trying not to do that anymore and I'm working on it. So anyway, I just said like, Hey, like here's the thing. If you need to set a boundary, which it sounds like you do to not hear about certain wins of mine, I just need you to know that that's gonna really affect our relationship. And also I've spent, and this is the core I whittled down. I'm trying lately to whittle down to the core issue. And so, because it just saves a lot of time in conversations.

1 (2m 15s):
Like literally it same with pitching, same with anybody like whittle it down. What are you really saying? And what I'm saying is I spent my whole life not feeling like I wasn't allowed to celebrate my wins, which started in my family of origin. I don't want to do that anymore. It's painful. It'll kill me. It lead to depression, anxiety. I'm not doing it anymore. So I said, if we need to take a break in general from chatting for, well, great. I'd much rather do that. Then, then me censor myself. I'm not, I'm not going to do that with people on my free time. Like, I feel like we have to do that in, in professional settings all the time. Or like as adults in, in the world.

1 (2m 56s):
Right. We can't go around saying, I mean, when you can't and you end up in an institution or a jail, so, so, and, and she was totally receptive and was like, oh yeah, I was shocked just because that's not been my experience with people, not her, but people and oh yeah. And myself. And so we're going to, we're going to give it a shot to, to try it again. And then I just said like, literally, I'm not going to look. I everyone's got to do what they need to do, but like, I, I, I L I am not willing to, yeah. Not share to, to hide from people I'm supposedly supposed to be close with.

1 (3m 37s):
Like, I just, it's just not working. It doesn't work out. If it worked out, I would have continued doing what I did my whole life. Well,

2 (3m 46s):
It works out if you're in a people pleasing relationship where all you can get out of it is the satisfaction in any given moment of telling the person exactly what they want to hear. But of course we've long discovered that that is not a great long-term solution because it leads to all of the aforementioned maladies. So good for you.

1 (4m 6s):
Thank you. And, and, and not only does it lead to, you know, certain inevitable death, really it, once you, once I know the, in my heart, it doesn't work. I can't in good faith, keep people pleasing because I don't have the evidence anymore that it actually does anything other than create depression. Like I have that visceral experience. So I, I, I'm not the kind of person, I don't think many people are sociopath aside or psychopaths that like, can pretend. So I I'm like not going to pretend anymore that I can function that way. It's just, it's just a waste of everybody.

2 (4m 45s):
Yeah. And I'm, I'm about to say the world's least profound thing, but it's been profound for me cause I'm just like really getting to it, which is the thing that you run out of steam for, with the people pleasing is just simply the fact that in the effort to please other people, you, you don't please yourself. And so it'd be like trying to fill your gas tank with like Daisy pedals, you know, because somebody wants you to fill it. And it's like, okay, well maybe it'll get somewhere for awhile. But at the end of the day, you still need gas. Like you still need to meet your own needs. You still need to be in charge of your own. I mean, that's it, you need to meet your own needs.

2 (5m 25s):
And so the, the thing that ends up always underneath the people pleasing is, oh, I haven't met my own needs. And funny thing, the needs didn't disappear just because I wasn't, you know, because I chose not to meet them. That's been my thing recently of like, I don't know how I was previously formulating my lack of willingness to take care of myself. I think I was formulating it as like being heroic in some way or being tough in some way, which it just completely isn't, it's just being afraid to like, engage with me and that's, Hey everybody, it's only you at the end.

2 (6m 9s):
So might as well get cozy with you now and figure out how to meet your needs now. So agree. And she received it well. So like, that's the best possible outcome.

1 (6m 21s):
Yeah. She totally received it. Well, we're going to give it a shot, you know, because I talked to you and then I talked to my other friend and my other friend, it just, everyone talks from where they're coming from. My other friend was like, oh, you need to just cut her off. Like you can't ever talk to her again. She's crazy. She's crazy. And like, you, you can't, you that's enough. And I was like, oh man, I could. But like,

2 (6m 45s):
And I can relate to that too. I mean, I can really, because of what that person is saying is like, it's so hurtful, you know? Right. Cause that that's an instinct. We sometimes have somebody hurt us. So they're dead.

1 (6m 56s):
Yeah. And they're crazy. Like write them off as bonkers and you don't have time for it. Here's the thing. I think it's all a wait and see situation. Like, you know, relationships evolve and change. And, and I don't want to like end the friendship right now. I mean, if this continued, of course, but like I give people a chance, you know? But like, yeah. It's so funny.

2 (7m 22s):
C...

Intro: writing comedy, Joss Whedon, unproblematic men, putting public figures on a pedestal, the hierarchy vs. collaboration dialectic.
Let Me Run This By You: White coat hypertension, writing seminars, Boz's success story!, navigating systems for your own benefit.
Interview: We talk to Reduced Shakespeare Company's Austin Tichenor about UC Berkeley, Boston University, law school, surviving a directing MFA.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited): 
1 (8s):
And Jen Bosworth from me this and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? Sean rock is comedic, true crime, serial killer thrillers. I don't know what that means. Great. I'm getting my popcorn ready to be very specific.

1 (48s):
So, and yeah, so I think that that's, I'm sort of finding my way in terms of like what? So I, I, I felt like, okay, I need to bite the bullet because it's also 30 pages. So it's not a lot like compared to a 60 page. Oh my God. So it's half the, not half the work, but like you have half the real estate, which in some ways is harder in some ways. So anyway, I had this idea and I, I have a friend of mine. Who's a comedy writer and I, I, and we were talking about this idea of these two women, sort of a dumb and dumber, but for women. And so we started, yeah. And we have these conference rooms here and speaking of dumb and dumber. So we have these conference from here with glass walls.

1 (1m 30s):
Right. And there's like dry erase markers. And there's, you can see some kind of old writing on the glass walls. Well, so we're writing, I'm writing in my, you're not supposed to write it in the glass walls. It, in fact does not come off the glass, speaking of dumb and dumber. So then I'm like, so someone knocks on the door and is like, Hey, you guys know that you're not supposed to be writing on the glass walls. And literally I've written on the whole wall. And I'm like, oh my God. So it took me an hour to get off with scrubs and I had to use different rag. Anyway, it's the stupidest thing because there's no other place to write in the room and there's no whiteboards, so there's something wrong here. But so in, in step with, with sort of dumb and dumber, but anyway, so we're writing this like half hour comedy about just two women that are really dumb, but they're not really dumb.

1 (2m 24s):
Of course they're genius in their own way. But I liked the idea of like seeing women. Yeah. Just seeing women do really dumb shit like bridesmaids, you know, like you're like, yeah, like that kind of a thing. So I don't know how it's going to go. And we just started and we're like meeting, you know, once every couple of weeks, but like, it's good for me too. I also, there's a to study comedy. Like I'm never in my life, like I've done a lot of sort of study and research about drama and crime, but nothing on comedy. And there's a course, a million classes and stuff like that, which I'm not taking, but there's also like books and stuff that I always shied away from.

1 (3m 7s):
I think it was scared. Like, I don't know how you feel, but like, I feel like comedy is so hard to do right. That like, I just was scared of it.

2 (3m 16s):
Yeah. 90% of the comedy you see is terrible. I mean, and that's just talking about the stuff that gets made. So yeah, no, it's really a comedy is, as the saying goes, whatever it is, death, death is hard comedies. I forget. There's something about death. Something's harder. Writing comedy is harder than death, but that thing that you were saying about the toxic work environment, I've heard that too. And actually I was just reading the New York article about Josh Sweden.

1 (3m 50s):
Oh my God. Yes. And about the writers in the room and that, that one writer and he's reading or shit, and he's like making fun. I mean, he should be fucking, I mean, I shouldn't say that he should be hurt badly.

2 (4m 4s):
So for people who don't know, Josh Sweden was the showrunner of Buffy the vampire Slayer. And he was heralded as a feminist. I mean, icon practically. In fact, when I first heard that he was not who he appeared to be, I instantly flashed, I had this patient who had endured a lot in her life. Let's just say that. And she was extremely feminist and that was her favorite show. And he was her favorite person. And, and I distinctly remember her saying, he's like one of the only good guys in, in Hollywood, something like that, something to that effect.

2 (4m 53s):
And honestly, what the hell, I mean, please write a profile about unproblematic men. I it's gotten to the point where I'm like, is nobody

1 (5m 5s):
I'm doing the right thing. I just, I mean, you said a brilliant line, like which I'm going to steal and put in my script, which is in, in hold my calls, which is he's one of the Hollywood good guys or something like that. I think we all are. So looking for that, that when someone appears to be that we cling to them desperately in hopes that they will save all other men and it never works. Like they're all problematic. And I think of course we're all problematic all humans, but, but this is a special brand of problematic in Hollywood in creating art in, in showrunning land and also just Hollywood in general.

1 (5m 49s):
So like, this is a very specific type of toxic asshole man. And there are so many, so many. And so I agree, I need a profile about, but see, as soon as that comes out, there's going to be a woman that's like that dude. Fuck.

2 (6m 4s):
Oh, yeah. Right, right. Right. So remember when you were getting your MFA and you were had to watch all those old films and you said they were all written by women. What I never heard is when, why did that change and what was the,

1 (6m 20s):
So nobody, they, they ran out of men, journalists, writers to write the sort of storylines for the new, for new movies. Right. For the new art of cinema. So first they were silent. Right. And then, then there were titles, you know, let people wrote. And those were written by usually at the beginning, mostly journalist men. Right. And like newspaper, men like that, then they literally ran out. I think of men, people that could write. Right. So they, so women started submitting write some under fake names under, but a lot under their real names. And they didn't give a shit because they didn't get credit.

1 (7m 1s):
So nobody cared. They were women. Right. Cause it wasn't, they weren't on the screen. So as writers, so women really took over, like they, they, I think they just took over. Okay. So that was going great until I believe what happened was until the, the money men got involved from New York. Yeah. So it became a business. So then the money men financed the films, bankers and then women, I think like the first world war, right. Was what was, was, well, I don't know,

2 (7m 41s):
1917

1 (7m 43s):
Something like, I don't know. We're, we're, I'm dumb. So, but like around there the men had to go to war and the women had to take care of the kids. Right. So there was no one to there. They couldn't, it transitioned to more stereotypical gender roles and women stopped writing and then it just took over for

2 (8m 2s):
Yeah, I see. Okay. Well you're right. I mean, it's also like, it's fine for you to do all this work as long as you're not taking credit, but when it comes time for everybody to really recognize this as an art form...

Intro: Jen has achieved nirvana: she looks like a serial killer! Farsightedness, migraines, deep work in therapy, all families need case management, Gina navigates an interpersonal conflict in a way that she wouldn't mind if anyone on Twitter read about it.
Let Me Run This By You: Is Adam McKay turning into Michael Moore? Don't Look Up, The Big Short, 
Interview: We talk to Joel Butler about stage management, Blue Man Group, and the benefits of saying no to the actor's life.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
And Jen Bosworth Ramirez and I'm Gina Pulice . 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? I can see, I can see, which is so brilliant. You know, like that's important. I didn't realize like, oh my God, I can see you. And my glasses are the same glasses that Jeffrey Dahmer has like, and that wasn't an accident.

1 (49s):
I was gonna say, Dwight Schrute, very similar, a similar style. And I got blue blocker and the anti-glare. So like you, can't straight up just see the screens in my eyeballs, you know, that's good. I can see the most important thing. Like I realized I was living like this. And did you have a headache all the time? And the saddest thing happened at the, at the doctor's office. I mean, sorry. I'm rustling. Okay. The saddest thing happens that wasn't really sad, but so my doctor, my ophthalmologist was this lovely woman. She looked like she was about 12. Like literally, she was like the teeniest loveliest woman. Anyway, she was like, have you had headaches your whole life?

1 (1m 32s):
I'm like, yeah, migraines. And she goes, and I said, and she made this face. You can't our listeners can't see it. I said, what? She goes your period. She said your parents should have taken it. You've been, you've been farsighted for your whole life. You're kidding me. And did you ever go to the eye doctor? And I said, no. They always just relied on the school to see if I could see the Blackboard. And I can see far, I can't see close. She said those migraines may have been like 50% glass. You just needed glasses or you

2 (2m 3s):
Raged.

1 (2m 4s):
You know, it's been a lot of rage lately. And a lot of sadness I've been doing a lot of deep work in therapy and the sadness to the neglect it to the level of neglect. Then I, now I'm realizing that I experienced is, is quite something like, I was like, what? And she goes, she goes, how old are you? And I said, 46. And she goes, when did this? I said, I started having migraines at five. She goes, and they never took you to the eye doctor. And she's like, that is so sad. She was like, she could tell in her face, she was like, oh, that's abusive. Like, she was like, what did they give you for your headaches? I'm like nothing because ibuprofen didn't work. She goes, well, of course, it's not going to work.

1 (2m 45s):
If it's an eye problem, it's also not going to work. I'd be profaned. It's not going to hit.

2 (2m 50s):
Okay. I, I, I, I'm not, I really don't mean to make, make this about me. But when you're telling me this story, I'm imagining how I would feel as you. And I asked you if you felt rage. But then I realized the thing that I would be feeling is embarrassed. Like it was my fault. I was neglected. Okay. You didn't have

1 (3m 11s):
No, I don't have that feeling that it was my fault. I was neglected. I have the feeling of, oh, these like, it is rage. And it's like, oh, they should've probably been chastised. If not given like some kind of ticket, you know, like a ticket from the police saying,

2 (3m 27s):
And we need to have tickets for parents. I, I, back that Eve herself. I'd love to be fine. I'd love for somebody to say, oh, you sent in Oreos with lunch. That's a fine, that's a, that's just like a $3 fine, but still don't, don't send it in Oreos with lunch. I mean, I don't ever do that because I don't send in lunch because I pay for lunch. Right. But the idea being we need, I guess the reason I'm being cheeky, but I guess the reason I'm saying is like, everybody needs to be held accountable. And sometimes we need external means of being held accountable.

1 (3m 59s):
You know, I was talking with my therapist and I really, the feeling is like, someone should have stepped in and said, okay, this family needs help. Like you, you need help like you, but here's the thing. Like, we looked so good from the outside. In so many ways, we had an immigrant success story, right. We had a father who wasn't abusive. We had a, in, in physically abusive in any way or sexually, we had a mom who, you know, we had good-looking, you know, my sister was like really, really above average in all ways. So like, it's so hard. And I know, and I think this is what made the movie, this show addressed.

1 (4m 40s):
It's so hard when a package looks a certain way for us, same with serial killers for us to wrap our head around the fact that something very bad is going on. And we don't want to believe it because it looked so pretty or, or didn't look ugly. Let's just say that. And it's it's, it's it? That is the, the feeling that I've had in therapy recently. It's just that I just long for someone rationally, a rational human being, Tufts stepped in and said, okay, this family needs help. Like, how can we help this family? Like, she's not getting eyeglasses, whether it's, you know, a money thing or, or not wanting to spend the money, or if it's just a, like an oversight overwhelmed.

1 (5m 25s):
My mom was totally overwhelmed with my father was underperforming. Like let's get in there and really try to make a care plan. Or like we needed a case manager, you know, and most families do need some kind of case management in, even if it's light, you know,

2 (5m 43s):
All families do. Do they have that in countries where they have socialized medicine? I bet not. I bet that that's a bridge too far, but I mean a school counselor, I guess, theoretically is supposed to do that. But a school counselor has literally hundreds of students in there, and

1 (5m 58s):
They're not worried about worry about a kid that looks well fed. Isn't ha doesn't have bruises and just literally has headaches. Like that's not a real problem.

2 (6m 8s):
Another example of where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Like imagine literally I don't mean to be a whatever overblown about it, but imagine how different your life might've been.

1 (6m 20s):
Yeah. I mean, I was, I had migraines from five years old. I was barfing and like, no one. And I actually didn't actually go to the doctor for them. Cause I think my mom was like, no, that's not a real problem. Like I never went to the doctor until I was 21 for them. And then they did a brain scan and they, they said, no, your brain is fine. And then they just said, it's hormones, which they always say to women. And no one ever said, maybe you're having you need glasses. This is crazy. It's crazy to me. So I'm, I'm grateful. I have them. They're like, they're like changing my, my world in terms of, yeah. I mean, what the fuck? And I chose on purpose to get like the same thing.

1 (7m 2s):
Jeffrey Dahmer has

2 (7m 4s):
Works for you. It really works for, I dunno, maybe it's having to do with the shape of you...

Intro: Boz celebrates an important milestone, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, when your therapist doesn't talk, when your therapist falls asleep, approach avoidance.
Main Course: We don't believe in resolutions, Danish serial killers, The Chestnut Man, skiing, Elizabeth Holmes, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Sante Fe New Mexico, Heder, control issues, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Cobra Kai, reliably good chuckles.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina poli-sci.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense

1 (20s):
If at all we survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (35s):
Happy new year. Let's just for a moment for 20, 22. Do we need to

1 (42s):
Please, please? Just like, I mean sort of just like, can we just, I really do sympathize with like, or relate to people or like, don't make any sudden moves. Like, let's just, let's just see how it goes, but, you know, and my mom used to say like, expect the worst hope for the best expect the worst, which is so indicative of why my childhood was probably so confusing. But, but you, you, because really you can't do both. Like I was thinking that we cannot, as humans live in that that's crazy making, so it's sort of like we have to choose and I'm going to choose the hope, but I'm not going to be totally shocked if shit goes wrong.

2 (1m 29s):
Right, right. I mean, I think maybe like an adjustment to that would be, you know, your expectations can strangle you to death. So keep your expectations in check, like yeah. Maybe, you know, hope for the best and, and, and know that, you know, it's just a hope and, and it, and it's not a guarantee. And, you know, so when the shit hits the fan it's, or maybe the better thing is like, everything is as it should be in any given

1 (1m 60s):
The real deal, it's

2 (2m 1s):
The real deal. Which, you know, I I've said that to a few people in my life recently, who've been like, Hmm, no, that's, I'm not doing that. I'm not which I understand. And I relate to it and it's a new concept for me, but that's what I'm trying to do right now is I'm trying to say like, everything is as it should be. And

1 (2m 19s):
I mean, what, what 'cause, if, if, if not, like, I think it's interesting because when I, I remember when I got my master's in counseling psych and I went to this, you know, woo hippy dippy school, and one of the things was, yeah, everything is happening the way it's supposed to be happening. And I remember having this conversation with my sister who was like a real and still sort of is like a social justice warrior type and like, you know, equity type. And she was like, that is not true. Like my students who don't have anything, that's not how it is as it should be. And here's the thing, here's the thing. I don't think. I think that I need help in any way and be of service in the ways I feel I need to be of service.

1 (3m 4s):
And what is happening is fucking happening in the moment.

2 (3m 10s):
You could

1 (3m 11s):
Fucking pretend all you want, but if it's happening, then it's happening. Like that's how I feel. Yeah.

2 (3m 17s):
Yeah. And it actually, in some ways you're better equipped to help things get better when you start from the place that it's happening. I mean, cause even just starting from the place of like, it shouldn't be happening. Yeah. I relate to the impulse, but at the same time, it's a little bit of wasted steps. They're like, you just go right to, okay. Well, it's not really for me to decide if it's good or bad or indifferent, you know, it's, if I can do something about it, I should.

1 (3m 44s):
Yeah. And I feel like, yeah. And I also want to say, and thank you for talking after our interview as well to be, but I wanted to say like a year ago today I was in the hospital. So I feel really. Yeah. So that was just, oh my God, it's bringing up all this stuff about like I was talking in therapy yesterday. I like my therapist. It's interesting. She doesn't say a lot. And at first I'm like, you're not doing enough, but she's the first female older figure in my life who has allowed me the space to sort of just talk and then she does interject, but I am so used to wanting, it's not even so much approval, but someone to step in and, and tell me what to do or like more, just give me their feedback.

1 (4m 42s):
But I think that she's doing at first, I thought, is she like, literally she dumb or like what's happening here. But I think that she's doing it on purpose. Like I think there is a method to her madness or to her, whatever she's doing, because it's allowing me to, she's not giving me any answers. And I really look to that for someone to take charge because my, you know, my parents did it, but like I'm an adult and that's not her job is not to take charge of me as a therapist.

2 (5m 13s):
I will say that it's such a fine line because did I ever tell you about the analyst I had? Who fell asleep?

1 (5m 21s):
Yeah. That's not good.

2 (5m 23s):
I mean,

1 (5m 25s):
That's not good.

2 (5m 26s):
That was fascinating. And it wasn't, no, it wasn't good, but, but okay. Now I'm going to argue against my own point. But even then it was like, okay, he fell asleep, like apropos of like, okay, this is what it is. When are you going to do about it? Because the, what I did about it as I left treatment, instead of saying, what the fuck, man, I'm paying you $250 and you're asleep. Right? Like what's the matter with you? Because, because that could have helped him too. Like we could have all benefited, but I just ran away, which is the thing I have done my whole life. And then I'm really consciously trying to work against. And it's hard. It's hard to approach where you have wanted to avoid.

1 (6m 6s):
Yes. Yes. And I, so she, she's very, she's listening cause we're on zoom and she's like, but she doesn't, it's interesting. She doesn't see that much. And we talked about it and she's like, well, what would you want me to say? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I'm not even sure that it's, that it's a bad or a negative thing. I'm just noticing. And she said, yeah, you know, you don't have a lot of experience with, with older mother type figures, just letting you have your space. And

2 (6m 37s):
I was like, just letting you be

1 (6m 40s):
Also it's $8 a session. Like my insurance covers a lot of it. So I'm grateful for that. And she's so anyway, but we were, I was probably talking about that in therapy. About a year ago today I was in the hospital and how life-changing, that was for me and how lucky I feel, not so much that it happened, but that the team that I had was so non shaming.

2 (7m 6s):
Yeah. Yeah. And your health has steadily improved and you're in such a better place now, thank God. Congrats to you. I'm grateful that you I'm grateful that you, you know, survived that and that you've persisted and, and really taken on. You've taken on the task of whatever it is you need to do to not be in.

1 (7m 25s):
Yeah. Thank you. Also, is that the sweatshirt I gave you? Yes.
...

Interview: TikToks about terrible haircuts, Chris Noth, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Ringling Bros Clown College, Notre Dame High School, Steve Smith, Oakton Community College, being the youngest clown in the circus, clowning in Japan, Piven Theatre workshop, Auguste clownery, Reduced Shakespeare Company, losing his wife to cancer, Sebastian Maniscalco, Second City, The By Your Side Autism Podcast, Yes And.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth from

2 (9s):
Eunice and I'm Gina Polizzi.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all

1 (21s):
Theater school. And you will too. Are we famous yet?

3 (31s):
Hello? Hello. Hello survivors. Happy new year. Happy 2022. What is going to happen to us in 2022? It is truly a crapshoot. It is anybody's guess it literally could be anything with this could be the year of yet more plagues. We could have locusts. We could have cow mad cow member, mad cows. We have some more mad cows we could have just seriously like a Chinese throwing stars falling from the sky. Literally could be anything. So, you know, what are we going to do? We're going to hope for the best prepare for the worst. Is that what it's called? Is that what they say? Yeah. Anyway. So for today, for the beginning, part of our episode, we're giving you, but I hope you'll see as a special treat, which is a look back at some previously, what do they call it?

3 (1m 23s):
Lost footage. Is it footage if it's audio? Hmm. I don't know. Well, footage came from video in any case it had to do with film. So you have so audio footage. Sure. Audio footage back from the days before this was called, I survived theater school and we were calling the podcast undeniable. I mean, we recorded a bunch of episodes of that, which have never been aired. And so we thought it'd be fun to take a little sneak peek back at those old days that we recorded actually in 2020, the year that was, will live in and to, and we're gonna play some of it for you tonight. And then after that, we have a fabulous interview with our first ever clown, Matt croak.

3 (2m 7s):
So please enjoy

1 (2m 20s):
The wire is like a parental figure for me. It's the weirdest thing. He is so complicated, but also really true to himself. But anyway, I just posted about like that, those characters and that, and that, and that trueness to themselves is what I love about television. It's like this character is true to themselves. They're whatever that means to them. You know, like it doesn't always look pretty.

2 (2m 49s):
Yes. And, and television has the opportunity to show a lot more of the, the nitty gritty of the reality of a life in a movie. Everything. I mean, I guess if you're just taking a one slice one day in the life of maybe you could get down to that level of detail, but mostly a movie is just sort of giving a grand and often very positive spin on, you know, if the person is not as layered as they can

1 (3m 20s):
And it's not yet to be, it's not as, it's not as like it's it's. Yeah. It's just, there's not enough time. You're like, wait a second. We just had enough time. But yeah.

2 (3m 31s):
So what did your parents make of you watching that stuff?

1 (3m 34s):
They thought I was like nuts. They were like, you're making yourself scared. And I, and I want it to be like, no, you're making me scared. I, this is comforting me. You know what I mean? Like this, I didn't have control over, but I didn't say that obviously I'm a kid, but I, they thought it was weird. Yeah. They thought it was really weird because I would get into America's most wanted was on the same night as unsolved mysteries, I think. And then, and then once we got cable and or once it also like, kind of merged into like big foot UFO. Oh yeah. I got a two foot UFO's all that stuff.

2 (4m 15s):
Well, I think people who get into that or people who feel also on the fringe of whatever, the thing that they're trying to be a part of is right. And it makes perfect, right? Yeah, yeah.

1 (4m 27s):
Yeah. I left. I believed in big foot. I remember watching the California big foot tape that old 70 something, which is interesting. Cause that's around the Kiki time. There's that famous? There's a famous, famous, famous caught on tape. 1970. I want to say eight or nine in Redlands, somewhere in California. And it I'm pretty sure. And it's the sky. You got to look it up. It's the creepiest. And they still can't. They, they can't disprove it and they can't, they can't. And they're like, no, it's, it's a fake, but it is, it is the quintessential Bigfoot movie. It was caught on movie and film.

1 (5m 8s):
And I remember seeing that and be like, oh my God, that's real. That's that's real. And things exist outside of us that we have no, like universes exists multiuniverse is exists. That we are not approving the privy to, until we stumble upon it.

2 (5m 33s):
Did I tell you about the, when I first saw the warehouse that I lived in with Jeff and Rob and booklet?

1 (5m 41s):
No, but I thought of you the other day, because someone we live near a street called Oakland. Yeah.

2 (5m 47s):
So just briefly, you know, my whole plan to move to California after DePaul was with this person who I was calling my boyfriend, who was definitely my boy who told me like, yeah, I want to move to California. And so my interpretation was we are moving to California together and it was so devastated when he didn't want to do it. So on the quick I had to find a place to live and I don't remember why maybe I called Jeff because they were, I knew he was there. He was like, he was there. Who was planning to go there? Or he was there already. And he was like, yeah, we need a roommate. Do you want to come live in Oakland? Never been to Oakland in my life.

2 (6m 27s):
Never met, Rob didn't know anything about it. And so the day I'm moving in, my dad is driving me from Sacramento and he's driving a big pickup truck and we start to get into Oak I'm he already was like, Oakland, are you sure? Cause my dad's fucking racist and we start driving it and we start getting too. It's like first it looks pretty nice. That was a little scary. Does anybody live here? Because it was all warehouses. It was all that first wave of gentrification of, you know, people turning warehouses into lofts.

2 (7m 7s):
And when we finally pulled up, you know, inside, I'm dying, but I'm saying to my dad, this looks great. This looks awesome. My dad's like, are you sure you want, do you want to just, we can just turn right around and go home. So I get out and kno...