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NH Unscripted with Deirdre Bridge

Getting to chat with friends makes for some of the best NH Unscripted episodes and this one with Deirdre Bridge is a great example of that. This get together was supposed to happen earlier, but, got delayed. (Okay, I forgot about it and was cutting my grass! There, you happy?) I was curious about her role in the tKapow production of Paradise Now! as well as what it was like to work at the Bank of NH Stage, but, as the conversation continued things just kept going off the rails!! Deirdre cracked me up and then tossed me under the bus a couple of (well deserved) times. I really enjoy our theater community and chats like this one are big reasons why. Enjoy.

Duration:
44m
Broadcast on:
31 Jul 2024
Audio Format:
mp3
(upbeat music) Uh-huh! You are back listening to N.H. Unscripted. You know, when you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go to N.H. Unscripted, I did not say downtown, but that's okay. I am your pitilla clock like hosts, Ray Dudley. Glad to be out of bed, got my neighborhood jacket on, my bell bottom pants and my medallion. Happy, happy, happy. I'm like some kind of anachronistic shoot from the 70s. Anyway, you are listening to N.H. Unscripted. We are coming to you from the Hollywood square like digs of the WKXL studios. Yep, I'm in the center square. Just like old Paulin used to be. 1450 AM on you Sony Walkman. 103.9 FM on your transistor radio. The rich kids have the 16 transistors. I only used to have the eight, but that's, I'm gonna let that ride right there. 101.9 FM for the beautiful folks in Manchester. Yes, yes, yes. We have a URL 'cause we're cool and that's where all the cool kids like to hang out. Nhstalkradio.com is our URL. All right, I got that business on the way. Let me thank my sponsor, Lakes Region Fence. They're up in Guilford. You know, listen my friend, it's getting towards the end of the summer. And I have so much to say about theater in the summer. But anyway, I digress. Look at that dilapidated piece of, you know what, in your yard. And you're calling it offense, it's a disgrace. It's a disgrace. It's old, it's dying. Like everything else in your yard, your veggies, it's all gone. Get rid of that thing. Go to lrfence.com. lrfence.com. There's a link there. You can get a free estimate. You know us old folks, we love free. We love coupons, we love free. Yes, we do. Ah, that's why we like buffets. Anyway, I digress, lrfence.com. You can go out there. Matt will give you a free estimate for a brand new fence. On town, yeah, I'm kind of giving you a heads up. They're four to six weeks out. Yeah, that's gonna put you into the fall. 'Cause you waited, I warned you earlier. Go out to lrfence.com. They have reams and reams and reams and reams and reams of photos of the great work they do. I have been on their job sites. I know Matt, he's a personal friend of mine. Their work is exemplary. lrfence.com, that's lakes, region fence, they're up in Guilford. They are a tremendous sponsor. Thank you, Matt, for all you do. Good luck this week. Matt is, by the way, in a little shove before us. Oh, I have a guest. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Here I am just re-- Deirdre Bridge is in the house. Good morning, Deirdre. Good morning, Ray. How are you? Well, as you can tell, I'm off on one of my rants. My old man rants, they're just-- I don't have a TV to yell at right now, so I'm just going on a big, long-winded rant. I'm good. That's a long way to say. That's a long way to say I'm good. I'm good. How are you? I am doing well, thank you. I have not seen you-- Well, we haven't talked in a long time, but I haven't seen you since you were in Deirdre Kapow's recent show, Paradise. Paradise now with an exclamation point. Now. I do want to talk about that, but in the meantime, first, I really literally-- how are you? We haven't really talked about it. I know. No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm sort of having a chill summer. Yeah. My kids are home. Yeah? We were at the beach last week. Did I see a picture of your daughter with you on Instagram? My daughter just turned 19. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, she's a beauty. We went to Piketty Place. You're so proud, Mom. We reduced the average age of the visitor by six years or so. It was awesome. I loved it. How many kids do you have? I have two and a half. I have a stepson and two children that I birthed. OK. So she's the youngest. She's 19, and I was on who's 20. He's going to be 21. And my stepson's 35. Are either in college or are they out? They're at snow. They are. They're at snow when they live on campus. That school is huge. It's crazy. It's the largest private university in the United States. There's 170,000 students, but they're all online. Yeah. So the campus has, like, I don't know, under 5,000, I think, which is cool. Yeah. Yeah, their online presence is absolutely insane. Yeah, it's wild. And their campus is gorgeous because they have all of these online students who sort of subsidized the campus, right? For all the kids who live there, but it's great. Yeah, that's the one right off. It's in Manchester, right? Yeah, it's right on the Manchester Hooks that line. Yeah, you can see it from '93. I think you go south. Yep, yep. Yeah, I've been in one of their halls. Oh, I was there with Donald Tong. We did a play there together, right? Oh, yeah. That's-- now I recognize you. Maybe we did. Maybe we did a play there together a few years ago. Oh, my god. Oh, I would be embarrassed if I get embarrassed, but I don't, so-- I do get embarrassed. But I have secondhand embarrassment for you, right? Thank you. I knew I shouldn't have got out of bed. Anyway, I do want to talk to you about Paradise Now because I didn't know what to expect when I saw it. I love Kapow anyway. Their work is tremendous. But I wanted to talk to you specifically about the process that you went through, working with Kapow, being in the bank of New Hampshire stage area. Give me a general overview of how your whole experience was with that project itself. You had done other stuff with Kapow before? I've done stuff with Kapow before. But I think four other plays before Paradise Now with Theater Kapow over the past eight years or so. So I've worked with a lot of the people. But that project, in particular, had some people who I haven't worked with before. And that was really exciting whenever you know what other people are bringing to the table. And you don't know how the dynamic is going to be, and it was great. So do you do their workshops? I used to do them frequently. I have not done one in a really long time. They do-- I believe it's the third Saturday of every month in perpetuity, like forever they've been doing this. They're so devoted to training. And I used to do it quite frequently. Recently, I was working a job that I was working on Saturdays, and I wasn't able to go. So I haven't done it in a long time. But their training is fantastic. Yeah. I wanted to-- well, long as we have an hour, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that as well. Do they use that as sort of a filter for potential people they want to work with? I mean, it's not a prerequisite, right, to take their stuff? No, it's not a prerequisite. I don't know that it's used in that way. I think it's more of an opportunity, maybe for people who haven't had a chance to study a lot of different styles of theater, or haven't had a chance to really work on something that isn't script-based, because it's not based on a project. It's just based on sort of growing your tools as an artist. That sounds kind of private. Oh, I think this is a family show, right? I think it's really more something that they offer as a service to the community. Yeah. And it's great. Yeah, you like them? Have you learned a lot about them? Oh, yeah, I really have. Just Makahun, who is one of the founders of Theater Capone-- I don't want to speak for him, but he does direct the majority of their shows. He's not the sole director that that company uses, but he directs the majority of their shows. He is very much interested. It seems to me as an actor in sort of like how things look from the audience's perspective in terms of stage pictures, but also in how the proximity of the actors and how they relate to each other, how just space changes relationships. And I don't know. Maybe he would get on here and say, that's not what I think at all. But that's what it feels like as an artist working with him. Your interpretation. And so that's my interpretation. And so in particular, the first few times I did their training a few years ago, the training was very much about just changing your space or changing your posture or changing something without even using words, just in terms of the way that it makes the space feel to other people around you, changes the perception of what you're conveying, which is, I think, really fascinating. Yeah. I had done some stuff back in-- some in high school, some in college. Back then, they were just calling them like theater games, where you were either somebody or something that you were not normally, and then you would have to act or move in a certain way that you wouldn't normally do. It's not in your DNA to do it. And I found it to be fascinating and very productive, because all of a sudden, you're like, oh, oh, I can do that? I didn't realize that was acceptable, or you talk about the proximity of two actors. You don't realize how important that is until you're either on top of them or kind of far away. You don't realize how that personal space really is important on stage. And I think we perceive it as audience members innately, without even thinking about it, is you perceive how much space is this person taking up? How much power do they have on stage? How much of a smaller space is that other person taking up? Or who's moving in which direction as they're approaching each other? A lot of it, too, is based on the viewpoints, which I cannot remember them all, but it's proximity and direction. And I can't remember what they are. There's like seven or eight of them. But yeah, it's really fascinating. And I think, too, as an actor, I come from a place very much of sort of envisioning what this person-- Oh, yeah, no, no, go ahead, finish this. What this person might look like moving? And then I sort of inhabit the space physically first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man, starting off great. There's a bridge in the house. Oh, I knew it was going to be a good one. You are listening to NH Unscripted. I am your host, Ray Dudley. Happy to be out of bed. We are coming to you from the HR-puffin' stuff like these of the WKSL staff. She laughing? I am. 1450 AM, 103.9 FM, in Concord, 101.9 FM. All the beautiful folks in Manchester. NH.radio.com is our URL. You and I have a lot more to chat about. We'll be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] Sherley Shirley, but Burley, banana, banana, both of these. Guess what I was listening to this morning. Hm, yeah, I got trapped into my mind. Welcome back to NH Unscripted. I am your host with the Bunny Slippers on Ray Dudley. We're here for big bridges in the house. And we're talking mechanics, which I absolutely love about theater. Theater, um-- I'm picturing you with Bunny Slippers, right? With just Bunny Slippers? Well, never mind. Like how do you fire a scene in Georgeang trilogy? Walk it down to school, hallways. We're not going to make it. We're not going to make it to the full hour of telling you. The one other thing before we get into Paradise Now, you also forget as an actor. You tend to think you're an island, that you're kind of alone. But the other thing about like the theater games and the theater workshops is a lot of them now make you understand you're actually a team. And that things you say, do, move, affect everyone on stage. You just don't seem to exist to do your monologue and walk off. They seem to be very team focused in a lot of their stuff. Yeah, they very much are. I mean, I don't think there's a theater company that I've worked with that builds an ensemble in quite the same way that they do. I mean, they really have that relationship between the actors and the relationship between the characters and mind as they build a show. When I say they, I mean, it varies, right? When I do Paradise Now, we actually auditioned last fall for that show. And there was a director who was going to work on the project who cast us, who wasn't able to direct the show, and they hired a different director to actually direct the show. Wanda struck us. She's fantastic. She directed Desdemona for them. And she also directed Dance Nation there. And so she had a cast that had been cast for her to direct, which is an unusual situation. I'm sure for a director to have going in. But regardless of who actually cast the show, it was really exciting to see the different people. And I think a lot of us didn't realize who we were being considered for when we walked in the room. Oh. And I think maybe the director wasn't necessarily thinking about who we were being considered for when we walked in the room. So it was really about how we all related to each other in space. Did you audition from the script? Most of the audition was not from the script. Really? Most of the audition was really about playing games and how would you approach this? And if you were this character, how would you say this? And now someone's going to throw an adjective out, and then you're going to have to say there's a line in that adjective. So it was really just about seeing what people's ranges were, what people's comfort levels were, how people related to one another, and then putting the pieces together from there and going, OK, I think this would work for you, and this would work for you. So when I walked in, I thought, oh, I think I'm auditioning for one of these two characters, because they're two of the older quote unquote characters it seems in the play. And that's not the role that I walked out with. And I think that I wasn't suited for either one of them, actually. So it worked out great, yeah. So you had a chance to read it ahead of time? It's not very one. I've never heard of it before. Not that you know that. Oh, right in here about it? Oh, duh. Yeah, no, it's not very well known. I mean, I think that was the US premiere of the play. It's a British play that I think premiered in 2022, or they're about-- it's fairly new. So yeah, I don't think really anyone had heard of it. The cast was strong. Yeah. I knew two other people, Kerry and Katie. I didn't know anybody else besides you. Shari, also, maybe-- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I keep trying to get her on the show if she refuses. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. But it was a strong cast. And there was some stuff in there that I did not see coming. Katie's evolution and what had happened in that, her, with her character, did not see that coming. And it's funny because I have been involved in some network marketing companies. And I could so easily see that happen when the reveal happened. And I'm like, oh, oh, I know some people who did that. And it did not end well. That was pretty fascinating. How did you enjoy working with all of them? Was some of them your first time? Yeah, yeah. It was my first time working with both Maddie and Kerry who played the younger couple, Carla and-- oh, my gosh, I can't remember the character's names already. But I had never worked with either of them before. I had worked with Shari. I had worked with Katie. I had worked with Kerry, Barbara, who played the voice of Fiona. Yeah. It was also our costumer. And she was our costumer for Dance Nation. So oh, my gosh, I know I'm going to leave somebody out. Because it's been a while. And my brain is foggy, but-- OK, you can put that on me. So truthfully, we were supposed to get together earlier, except Ray decided he needed to cut his lawn and forgot to show up. But your lawn looks great, I'm sure, especially with that beautiful fence. But anyway, yeah, so it was the first time I'd worked with a few people. And it was really-- it was exciting. It was really an exciting project to work on. How did you like to play itself? I liked it a lot. Well, I thought that it was really interesting that each of the characters-- I meant some coffee while you did. --was so different from the other. I mean, obviously, that's the ideal. But for those of you who are unfamiliar, paradise now is a sort of comedy written by an English playwright about a multi-level marketing company and the six women who are involved in the company. But what was interesting was that each person who joined that company joined for a completely different reason. Yes. I mean, primarily-- That's very noticeable. They did a good job. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously like, oh, let's make a living. You can do this, you can work on your own time. You can-- Own your own business, yes, yes, yes. It's flexible, it's all the things. But it was interesting how really all of them were looking for something, whether it was some sort of validation or looking for community or out of loneliness or to prove to themselves that they were worth something. I mean, it was really just more than making a living. But each of those characters really was so different. Had any of your co-actors ever been involved in multi-level? I think most of us were involved at some level, some way, shape, or form over time. So it was interesting to hear people's stories about-- I mean, there weren't that many stories. But it was interesting to hear the ones that we did hear about what people's experiences were, negative, positive, or otherwise. Yeah, I got to ask you about a scene that I absolutely confused. I have no idea. Forgive me. There's a point where you're all sleeping on the floor. That was the sleep about living. And I'm like, right? Get it together. You know, I would have called it a sleep ballet now that I think of it. Well, what's interesting-- I didn't get it. I know. I know. What is going on here? In the script where the character descriptions are usually written on that first page, the character descriptions and paradise now were all about how the people sleep. So this person's in a somniac. This person sleeps for 14 hours a time and wakes up and still not feeling rusted. This person is up and down. So there was sort of this insight into their level of slumber, anxiety, restfulness, inability to relax, or drive, or whatever. That was really the only hint you had of who the person was other than their approximate age. Oh my god. Yeah. So this sleep ballet was sort of a resolution to that. No, it wasn't. But maybe not for the audience. You've seen West Side Story, right? Yes, I am. You know how there's the ballet in West Side Story, where everyone's doing a very slow cha-cha on low light and everyone gets that, right? Yeah. OK, so well there. There's no comparison. But thank you for trying. We saw it. It doesn't work. But nice try. You didn't-- Yeoman's effort there to bail out that. Seriously, I started coming and I'm like, what are they-- Oh, wait, no, it's called the sleep choir. I'm sorry, the sleep choir. That didn't help. There was no singing. They were all sleeping. Right. In unison, in harmony. Oh my god. Oh my god. OK, my apologies to the author. But I had to ask. I'm like, what? What is going on? It was kind of beautiful. It was. It really touched my feminine side, I have to say. Oh, downhill from there, downhill from there. Was that the first time you had worked at the Bank of New Hampshire stage? No, we did Dance Nation there in 2022. Yeah. Dance Nation, we did at Derry Opera House and at Bank of New Hampshire stage. So I had only worked there once before. But it's a cool spot. Is it for an actor? Yeah, I mean, it was built as a music venue, right? So it really lends itself towards that environment where it's kind of an intimate environment. There's that little bar restaurant upstairs. There's drink rails along the side of the house. I found the bar. But it's nice to be in a space where the audience is all pretty close to the space that you're working in. And I think that's just a nice environment. Yeah, how about the facilities? I mean, like dressing rooms and all is it-- The dressing rooms are beautiful. The LED wall is amazing. So I mean, that was what we used to show the bowling alley. And I think that's really cool to be able to have projections and stuff on that space. It is a little bit limited in terms of wing space or very limited. It looks it. So whoever is directing and designing the show has to be super inventive about how they approach that. But that is not my problem as an actor. Oh, I know this. Oh, man, that's good timing. Hang on, right there. We're going to put a pen in it right there. You are listening to N.A. John scripted. We are signed, sealed, and delivered, baby. I am your Stevie Wonder like host Ray Dudley. We are coming to you from the YMCA like digs of the WK XL studio's very deep in the heart of Concord. Yes, I can smell the chlorine from the pool all the way over here. 1450 AM, 103.9 FM. That was at Concord, 101.9 FM for the beautiful souls and Manchester. Uh-huh-huh-huh. nhtockradio.com is our URL. Deirdre bridges in the house. And we're chatting business, acting business. We'll be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back to N.A. John scripted, where you make them a dream come true. I am your hauling-out site host Ray Dudley. We are coming to you from the fantasy island-like digs. It's at the WK XL studio's deep lane, deep lane. Yes. That's a terrible interpretation or impression. It's the best I can do. It's still earlier in the morning. 1450 AM, 103.9 FM on your Sony Walkmans. That's in Concord, 101.9 FM. You can hear us. Beautiful folks of Manchester on your Sony Walkmans. nhtockradio.com is our URL. I'll give you a little bit more info later about what's happening out there. This show can be heard every Wednesday and Friday morning at 9 AM. Yeah. Think of us as your coffee partner. Yeah. Yeah, like, kind of car 54s. You know, Tutti Mouldoon sitting there with his buddy. And never mind. I digress, obviously. [LAUGHTER] Deirdre. I had a line referencing car 54 one time in a show. What? Yeah. Do you recall it? The line was just like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. No, car 54, where I am. Yes, that's the tagline. You are good, girl. Have you been out to see any theater this summer? No. I'm a bad theater patron this summer. Wow. Wow. I have been-- it's been a busy summer for me. I honestly get to more stuff in the winter. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Winters are dark, you know. After four, there's nothing else to do. People tend to collect at my home in the summer. So I don't get out much. I drink coffee. That's two of them. I drink a lot of them. I drink a lot of them. I saw The Jersey Boys. Oh, yeah. At the Winnipasaki Playhouse. And really, really enjoyed it. I had been looking forward to it for quite a while. And it kind of-- you know, it's funny. Some of it kind of caught me off guard because of the way. Have you seen the movie? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so there's a few different things in there. And then the way they use some of the songs, and they kind of put them in where you're like, mmm, OK. I had the same thing with Mamma Mia. Some of the things were kind of forced for songs to make representation of something that I think really wasn't written for. But I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It was packed, the Winnie, you know. That's a great space, too. I'd love to work in that space sometimes. I've never worked in that space. What, never? Oh, my God, I love it. And you talk about a place that's kind of tailor-made for actors, so all of the green rooms are downstairs. Dress your rooms in green rooms, dowel downstairs. And so-- and there's like six, seven different private rooms you can have, those two of them kind of group ones. But so it's three or four-- Group homes. Group homes for actors. Yes. You know, look at the wheelchair ramps for us, old folks. [LAUGHTER] But then they have a couple of other rooms where you can go in just like before you go on, go over your lines and stuff, very quiet, you know. And they get the green room with the TV so you can see there's a camera on the stage. And you can see what's going on up there. It's very accommodating for actors. Very accommodating. They have a huge door that they can bring the set in. Nice. Yeah, and they can build it right there. And then the set-- the stage itself is set up so that it can be either presynium type or thrust. Oh, gosh, and it seats like 2.30, something like that. But you wouldn't-- it's intimate. You know, you're-- Yeah, it feels like a really close space when you're in there. Oh, yeah. It is a great place. And then there was a ton of stuff I wanted to see. I did go see Cat up at Jeans Playhouse in Lincoln. Not my favorite musical. I went with Matt McGoggle. And I'll bet six times I said to him, what's going on? I don't go, what are we-- what is going on here? The songs are OK. It was like I couldn't find a thread for what really was happening, why they were there, and what was going on. And so it was just like song after song after song. And finally, to shut me up, he just said, Ray, it's a review. Just enjoy it, you know. Yeah, it is a weird show. It is a weird show. And I grew up reading the T.S. Eliot poems, the Cat poems, as like bedtime stories when I was a child, which is what the musical is based on, the T.S. Eliot poems. They-- the cats in cats bear no resemblance to the ones that were in my brain as a child, of course, so-- I'm shocked. You know. Do it that way, too. There is so much dancing. Oh, my god. I talked to the kids afterwards because I was also in secret garden with them. That's kind of the reason I went. I told them I'd go. And I said, how y'all haven't lost, like, 30 pounds from-- it's nonstop dancing. They're singing, I think, just to give them a break. But it's the whole thing is-- Oh, yeah, it's a great dancer show. Holy Toledo. That was really amazing. And now, have you been up to jeans? Another great theater to act in. We work together there, too. [LAUGHTER] What? Did we not do Christmas girl? They were together? Few years ago, right? [LAUGHTER] Dang it. [LAUGHTER] What is happening to me? I'm so glad I'm such a-- I knew you looked familiar. I'm such a memorable artist to work with. [LAUGHTER] Dang. [LAUGHTER] Oh, man. Cut to the quick again. That's the-- wait, hang on. That's the sound of the bust running me over. That did or threw me under. [LAUGHTER] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we did. But that one-- that was a tough haul. There were a lot of people in that production. And of course, now they've taken it over to the Colonial with Powerhouse. And now, there's a whole city involved on stage at one time. That's awesome. It's crazy. It's like 80, 90 people. [LAUGHTER] They need air traffic controllers to control everybody on stage there. But they do it, but it's still Joel's show. So it's identical, except it's just larger, you know? And now, the one that he does at Gene's, much smaller cast, a lot of doubling, tripling, output and roles and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I knew you looked familiar. I thought maybe I just, you know, gave you money on a street corner somewhere. [LAUGHTER] No, but you could. I would accept it. Thank you. You go fund me. Thank you for offering. My Venmo is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So have you not paid any attention to any that's going on? Are there any shows that you're like, or that you had friends in this summer that you thought maybe you might like to go see this so much happening? I know there's so much happening. I had a lot of stuff on my radar that's sort of at every week that goes by, stuff just like falls off. Like, OK, I guess I can't see that. I guess I can't see that. I guess I can't see that. It's like summer's so short. Yeah, yeah. You know, our growing season, our beach season is like so short that it just flies by. And I rarely get to see much in the summer at all, which is unfortunate. I wanted to see Chicago. Little Shop is coming up. I want to see that. Oh, I do want to see Little Shop. Yeah, this is Lacage, he's playing up at the Winnie. The weather vein is busy up there. I was over the other day walking by the barnstormers. I'm like, oh, I even forgot this data was out here. There's just so much. And that doesn't include like all the stuff that like a gunkwit, you know, a hack my tack and all that kind of stuff. And I don't even-- what's going on, Don? So I don't have any clue what's going on at the palace or, you know, Don and Derry. Well, so cruel intentions is going on. Yep, cruel intentions is happening. And what was just happening? I don't know. I've lost-- Heathers. Heathers is coming up. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, they already did it, right? They already did. Yeah, that was one that was on my radar that I missed out on. And I found that I'm with you though. If I found if I don't tack it on to my calendar, I really-- I don't get there. So are there-- what's on your schedule? I can't tell you. Oh, just you and me. I know. I do have something planned. I'm doing a show in September. OK. But it hasn't been announced yet by the theater company. OK. So I-- oop, I can't say. But I am doing a show the weekend of September 20th. OK. Somewhere in the state of New Hampshire with some people. That means rehearsals are going to start soon for you. They are going to start in a couple of weeks. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Is it a well known? And we had a read through already. You did, and are you happy with them? I am thrilled two pieces. Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to be with them. Oh, I'm so intrigued. Yes, I cannot wait. Oh, man. I'll have to get you back in when things start. It's an awesome cast. I can't say anything about it yet, because it's not my job to announce it. But it's an awesome cast. No, what is your job? You're here. And I love that I get to play sort of the most-- maybe most grounded person in the show, which is really unusual for me. That's not kind of funky. So, yeah, it's going to be-- Do I know anybody else in it? I think you do. And you're playing that close to the best. All right, all right. Is it-- I won't force you in it. I need 20 questions. I know. I was tiptoeing. I'm tiptoeing. Is it in southern New Hampshire or further up north? I'll leave it there. It's not in the Lakes region. OK, OK. And it's somewhere in the-- In New Hampshire. --southern-ish, middle-southern. I see, I see. Yeah, well, you know we used to be friends, remember those days? Well, it's until you called me out for not recognizing you in nine plays we've been in together. What is your approach to learning your lines and stuff? Do you have a-- oh, hang on there. Ooh, good timing once again. I will try to remember that question on the other side. Thanks, because I'm old. You know I wrote it. I'll write it down and learn my line. You are listening to NH Unscripted. We are coming to you from the gong show like digs of WKXL studios in Cancun, 1450 AM, 103.9 on the FM bands as a conquered base for your Sony Walkmans, 101.9 FM and Manchester, NHTalkRadio.com is our URL. Deirdre Bridge is in the house, and we've got one more block to go, and stuff. I've got a lot of questions. Welcome back to NH Unscripted. We're only the good die young. And that's why some of us are still here. I am your Billy Joel like those great. Deirdre, we are coming to you from the Taj Mahal like digs of the WKXL studios in Cancun. My god, it's cavernous in there. Everything just echoes off the walls. It's so huge. You are listening to us on your Sony Walkmans. All your transistor radios turn on the AM band, 1450. That's where you'll find this, 103.9 FM. Those are conquered based, obviously. 101.9 in Manchester for the beautiful souls down there. NHTalkRadio is our URL. Out there, there is a button where you can click to listen live. Live live, you believe that? You get up in the middle of the night, click that button. You'll be able to listen to, I don't even know what goes on at 2 AM in the morning. I'm either blacked out, no I shouldn't say that. I'm pretty busy at that hour of the morning. Yikes, I knew it, I knew it. Anyway, you can also find the archives of this show plus all of the other great programs that take place here. You can just go out and you'll find them, it says, on demand and you can just demand to hear an episode. Whew, I kind of made it to that without too much problems. Deirdre is still here with me. I'm still here, right? Wow, wow, wow. What I asked you before the break, do you have a system that you use to learn lines? I do. You do. It varies a little, but yeah, I pretty much do. I do a lot of writing them down. I write them, I'm a writer. You know, like writing incursives, especially longer lines. And that's the only way that I really cement those little weird connector words, like is it two or four? Is it all over from, you know, all those weird things we're trying to be, really, particular and true to the playwright's words? So I do, I'm a writer, but I also record, I don't use a line learner app, I should use it, I don't, I just use like a voice memo app, and I will record my cues and my lines. And then I will record just my cues with spaces. And I just run lines with myself in the car, whatever. Yeah, you have anybody who runs lines with you normally? No, when my kids were little, I used to make them run lines. Yeah. I don't want to do it, please don't make me do it. But now I just, yeah, I just do them by myself. Yeah, my wife refuses, she's like, no, no, I'm not getting there, I don't care, I don't want to know about it, I don't care about it. She's like, there's a reason I don't do theater, you do theater, right? Okay, learn your own line. That's your hobby, you do it, I'm gardening, you know. So yeah, I picked up a lot of the kids, a lot of the younger people, I shouldn't call them kids, but are using apps nowadays for... The line learner app is great. Is it? Yeah. I've never used it. Yeah, because you put in all of the lines, your cues, your lines, whatever. And then you can, you don't have to record things multiple times. You can say, now I just want to hear, you know, my cues, or I just want to... Really? Yeah, it's cool, but I just haven't, I just don't use it. I'm so old school, I really am. It's funny, I'm very fortunate, and I think I've told this story before, that I have the ability to when I first highlight my lines. It's something, it's like speed reading, and it kind of picks up, I get like three quarters of all my lines during my highlighting period. It was just pretty fascinating, but then the other one quarter, all those little things that trip me up, the little sentences that maybe you don't say yourself, you wouldn't speak that way, and your mind can't quite grab the wiring to figure out the there from the the... Yeah, a lot of times too, I'll just rehearse the last two words of ascendants in the next two words of another sentence. So I'll remember what comes next, almost like when you're learning a song, and your mouth knows what's coming next, even if your brain hasn't quite cut off. Yeah, yeah. Which happens. Right? You think. It's kind of terrifying when that happens. I have a project coming up with Donald Tongue, and it's a Robert Frost poem that he's doing. He already did a home burial, and they filmed it and it's winning all these awards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you seen it? It's beautiful. Yeah, it is beautiful. So he asked me to be involved in the next one, but I'm scared to death because it's a Robert Frost poem, and it has to be accurate. But don't you think things written in verse are easier to learn? Like I think Shakespeare is, even though the words are stuff that we don't necessarily say, it's easy to learn because it's bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. Yeah, there is the cadence thing. The other thing I think about Shakespeare is it makes me question what's, why it's being said like this. Because the way they used to talk is not the same, some of the meaning is different. And so I actually have to stop and really look at what does that word mean? What is he trying to convey here? Whereas if it's just our normal average everyday American language, we tend to be very flippant with it. And it's very cursed. And we think we know what the author means by things, and so we just say it. Now Robert Frost, I was noticing in his poems, there are certain articles, and I mean that in the English grammar way, like the. He won't use it in some cases. And so I might say, oh, I'm going to go to the home today, you know. But he'll say, I'm going to go home and- No, it says the home right, but I get your point. Well I actually worked at the Frost Farm. Anyone need to hear the bus sound again? I worked at the Frost Farm as a tour guide for a couple of seasons, and one of the things that was really cool there is they had a phone in 1908 that was a party line. So he could listen to what his neighbors were saying, because they shared their phone line with like four other homes, and his kids, his daughter in particular, Leslie said that he used to eavesdrop, and that's where he would get inspiration for the cadence, because so much of his poetry is more informal, like the way people speak, as opposed to being this flowery romantic poetry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would listen to the cadence of people's actual speech. So the kids would ask him what he was doing, and he would say, shh, I'm doing research. Research. That's what we used to say in the- Oh my God. Okay, I can got to get that, can I doubt? But it throws you off, because we're so used, it's like hearing the kids say like all the time today, right? Like this, like you know, and it went like that, and like you know, and so when you kind of have to strip that out, you pause mentally. Yes, yes, that's true. Because you're tempted DNA wise to throw in what you think is going to be there, except it's not there. And I'm kind of nervous, because obviously it's a film, and I'm sure there'll be somebody on set who, as the script is like, no, he did not put that "the" in there, old man, and- It's a beauty of film, right? You can have as many takes as you want. I know. Within budget. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's really nice. It's digital, right? So it's not like they got to waste film film. Right. Like the old days, they would- Right. I can imagine what would have cost if you had to redo a scene 30, 40 times, like hitch cocker, yeah, it would be devastatingly. So you have a project which is- Shall remain unnamed at this point. It's a project that has nothing to do with Robert Frost. That's your hint. You don't know. Look, you are. But is that the only thing on your calendar for the rest of the year? Yep. On purpose? Are you just having- I've kind of slowed down a little bit. I mean, even ever since sort of theaters reopened in 2021, I haven't done nearly as much as I was doing before. And, apparently, it's just sort of like what's happening with like my family and, you know, stuff like that. And some of it is sort of like, gee, maybe I can relax a little between projects and- You know, it's an interesting dynamic. I'm glad you brought that up. Not enough people, I think, reference the impact that the thing had on theater, right? So I had that same feeling. All of a sudden, we stopped. And I went, "Oh, I kind of like this. I like being home. You forget you're on this train ride or whatever, the wheels to keep on turning." Well, especially you were very prolific, and I was very prolific before. I mean, what did you do a year? I would do like six to 12 projects- Oh my God, yeah, yeah. And I was doing commercials, and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's- and then also maybe doing some like play-reading in between or, you know, and it does. It's consuming. Yeah. It's great. I love it. But you forget that like, "Oh, this is what a home cook meal tastes like." I know, isn't it crazy? Oh, isn't it crazy? This is what's on television nowadays. I'm like eight o'clock. I can go to bed. Oh, I can condition my hair. That's not something I've said, but I'm glad you brought it up. But yeah, it's- yeah, I definitely have slowed down. It's funny, when I did Secret Garden, and actually last year, Joel's been very good to me, Joel. Marcy. Yes, thank you. Up at jeans. Mm-hmm. He's been a very good friend, and he invites me up to when they periodically need a fat old guy. And they're like, "Great. We've got a spot. The wizard." Right. Right. That's- that's the description. I think it's in the character description. Fat old guy. Anyway, he- so he brings me up and I turned to Matt McGonagall the other night. I said, "Because he is now in little shop of horrors." And I said to him, "Matt, you and I are going through the same thing where we say, 'Yes, we'll do the project.'" A week or two, and we're like, "Why in the world did I say yes to this?" And then once it goes up, you're like, "Okay, that wasn't too bad." Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's that point in our life. Yep, for sure. Deirdre. Thank you for coming by. Thank you for having me. It's so great to be here. Oh my God. If I know. I- I know. I've probably- we probably met last week, and I just didn't even know it. You are listening to NH Unscripted. I am your host, Ray Dudley. We are coming to you from the rowing and Martin laughing like digs of the WK XL Studios in Concord, 1450 AM, 103.9 FM on you. Sony Walkman's 101.9 FM for the beautiful folks of Manchester, NHTalkRadio.com is our URL. Deirdre, thank you once again. Thank you. Hey. I don't think she meant it. I don't think she meant it. I don't think she meant it. I don't think she meant it.