Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 588
(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back into another fantastic whisper in the wings from stage whisper. We're heading back downtown to the Lower East Side for another fantastic festival being brought to us by Frigid NYC. Today we're talking about the 2024 Little Shakespeare Festival, which is happening August 1st through the 17th at Under St. Mark's. And tickets and more information are available at frigid.nyc. We are enjoying my several of the productions that are happening at this wonderful festival, including Sean Gordon with Walter Schlingers, Romeo and Juliet. Not only came from fools in the forest, Justin Hay and Mona Zaidi from my own private Shakespeare, be Cardi from One My Cucums and Connor Mullen from As You Will. These are just a snippet of some of the amazing works that are being presented at another fabulous festival from our friends over at Frigid NYC. So let's not waste any more time. Let's welcome in our group everybody. Welcome in to whisper in the wings from stage whisper. So happy to have all of you with us. I wanna start by having Connor tell us a little bit about this festival 'cause you are the curator of the festival as a whole. So Connor, can you tell us a little bit about the 2024 Little Shakespeare Festival? - Absolutely. So the festival came about a number of years ago when we noticed how much Shakespeare plays started to tick up in Frigid's space during the summer. And I became the curator of the festival after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 when we still have restrictions to the point that they wanted to limit the number of people in the space. So the restriction was you need to have five or fewer performers. So we turned it then from just our Shakespeare Festival to the Little Shakespeare Festival. And that idea of Shakespeare in a small space, being done in unusual ways in ways that you couldn't really do in a much larger space became sort of this idea that we came back to year after year. This year, the theme is comradery in community. It's a theme that is woven throughout so much of Shakespeare and I picked that theme for us this year partly because I have since last year, one thing I've been thinking about is how much I enjoyed the sense of community that was built in the festival between the various participants and how much I've enjoyed finding that sense of comradery and some other theater festivals, the Fringe Festival that they do every year in March. I felt like this great sense of community with so many of the other performers working as a volunteer there. So I said, okay, we're going to take that thing that is implicit and make it explicit. So this is about looking at Shakespeare and trying to find an idea of how do we connect to other people, how do we fit into a community with comradery and community and these other shows? That is so, so wonderful. This is fantastic. Now, I wanna welcome in all of our artists and I'd love for all of you to tell us a little bit about your piece. So Sean Gordon, let's start with you. You're the playwright and a performer in Walter Schlingers, Romeo and Juliet. Tell us a little bit about that show. - Yeah, totally. I mean, there's a whole lot that I haven't like figured out how to nail down succinctly but I'll describe the gist is that Walter Schlingers, Romeo and Juliet is a fictional live reading set in a Brooklyn basement. Walter is a 22 year old recent English graduate and he has spent two years devoting his life to this essay that only he seems to love and this is sort of his last ditch effort to share it and make it the best that it can be. - That is fabulous. Let's jump to Natalie Kane, the creator and director of "Fools in the Forest." - Absolutely. So in "Fools in the Forest," our jumping off point is we're exploring what would happen if the exiled lady and full characters of "As You Like It" never run into the lords in "The Forest of Arden." So we've removed all the male love interests and male supporting characters altogether and rearranged and reimagined Shakespeare's text to tell a story that's just about Rosalind Celia, Touchstone, J. Cleese, and Phoebe who are really five of the most fun and juicy characters in that original text and what impact they would have on one another when they all cross paths. - That's very fun. Let me jump to Justin Hay, the playwright and performer of my own private Shakespeare. Tell us a little bit about that. - Sure. It's catastrophe meets Shakespeare. It's a personal memoir that takes things that have happened in my life and it kind of mashes them up against scenes from Shakespeare that kind of illustrate the feelings, the emotions, the horror of what we've gone through. End of a marriage, the death of a father, life-threatening illness. So things that all of us go through at some point or another, but they all come together and they resonate against scenes from Shakespeare. - That's very cool. Be Carty, the director and curator of "When Mike You Comes," tell us about this show. - Yeah, so it's actually a device show that I'm working with with several of our resident acting company members that Hamlet isn't dead. And sort of the thought process was what would happen if there was sort of a waiting room where characters are expected to wait before their cue comes for each show. And specifically with this sort of idea of camaraderie that was posed by Connor, we were interested in this idea of what happens to sort of the consistently forgotten and cut characters. And I think specifically Hamlet isn't dead. We're a contemporary Shakespeare company that has been victim to someone who has cut smaller roles or sort of given them to different characters. And we are curious what happens to the reality of those characters when they are forgotten and they're not going on stage anymore. And so yeah, the whole show sort of proposes this whole new reality of what happens in this world to characters who are consistently forgotten and sort of pushed the sidelines and forced to experience a community when they have been isolated for so long. - It's fantastic. We love all of our friends over at Hamlet isn't dead. This is so wonderful that y'all are back with this. Finally Connor, I gotta come back to you because on top of being the curator of the festival, you've got this fantastic group that we have gotten to see perform a several times now. And it's wonderful, it's called As You Will. You're one of the performers. Tell us about your group, your show. - Absolutely, we're back because I'm in charge of the festival and so I put myself in because nepotism was alive in Shakespeare's time and I keep that tradition alive today. As you will is an unscripted Shakespeare show, meaning we get a title from the audience of a Shakespeare play that does not exist. It cast titles have been 1601 a space odyssey. The dog in the backpack, McDonald's was one and many others. And then we, over the course of 45 minutes, perform that Shakespeare play. We do it using the themes, language and verse, love William Shakespeare. We speak in IMBEC pentameter, we have rhyming couplets, we have messengers and witches and horrifying deaths. And I wish I could tell you I knew it was gonna be good but I haven't seen any of the shows that we're gonna do this year 'cause I don't know what they are yet. I will say the shows in the past have been good. So if you believe in data trends, which I think you should because Shakespeare did, you will enjoy this show, it's a great time. - I love that. Hareda nepotism, we love it. Well, listeners, as you can tell, there's a wide breadth of shows being done and these are also fantastic. So I wanna dive a little bit more into these works. And Natalie, I wanna start with you and "Fools in the Forest." What inspired you to write this show? - Absolutely. So this is a great transition 'cause this is a new piece that we're doing for the first time for this festival. So as Connor was saying, little Shakespeare festivals theme this year of camaraderie and community really was my jumping off point as far as thinking what group of characters in a Shakespeare play I would like to spend more time with and see, build more of a community amongst themselves. And I zeroed in on this group and as you like it, some of which are characters that really don't interact much with each other in the original play. And zoomed in on that and really ran with it from there. I'm as you like it is one of my favorite comedies. So it's really fun to dive into that text in a new way. And then, although we have rearranged the plot and reimagined the plot, I really started from the jumping off point of what each of these characters, what we learn about their core qualities and desires at the top of the original play. And in some cases, especially for some of the fools, they don't go on that much of an arc within the original play. So we don't really see a lot of progression beyond those first things we learned. So I really took that as my starting point and then worked from there. If they were to go on an arc surrounding that initial desire or that touchstone or J-queese voices, what would that journey be? - That is so fantastic. I love it. - Sean Gordon, tell us about what inspired you to pen Walter Schlingers while you're in Juliet. - Yeah. Well, it was an idea that I had back in college with my roommate at the time who is now directing it. And their name is Dixie O'Connell. And it's just been a dream to follow this idea from start to finish with them. But it was born out of like two simultaneous ideas. One of them was let's make the most crazy version of Romeo and Juliet that we possibly can. And then we were also simultaneously really inspired by the community of artists we found ourselves around. And so there was a lot of time that we spent, you know, meditating on that. And like what young artists means? What does it mean to be a young artist? What that term entails? And those two ideas kind of fed into each other. So we follow Walter Schlinger, this recent graduate, and kind of how he is navigating his changing relationship with the world around him. - That is so fascinating, loving that. And our final playwright I'd like to turn to is Justin Hay with the show My Own Private Shakespeare. Tell us what inspired you to write this? - Well, in a sense, life inspired me to write it. So I went through these things. And actually, as I was going through them, I was conducting Shakespeare workshops. And it was in the workshops that I realized how much these things were resonating with me. So my father just died. And here we were doing a bit from Hamlet where Hamlet is talking to the ghost of his father. Wow, and it just, it really hit me. Or we're looking at the Macbeths thinking, what if their marriage is falling apart? What does that look like? How does that impact them? Huh, maybe they're gonna use murder to kind of see if they can heal their marriage. So it was this kind of thing. And, but it was years later that a bright ray of darkness by Ethan Hawke. I read it and something clicked. And I thought, hey, I think I have something. If I can put together all these things that have happened, put them together with some scenes, I think I have a play that has a real shape to it. - That is fantastic. I love that. I wanna bring in a voice we haven't heard yet. And of course, that is the director of My Own Private Shakespeare, Mona Zaidi. Mona, tell me what it's been like developing this piece. - Yeah. So developing this play has been an amazingly interesting process. Justin came to me during, we had worked together before on a couple of smaller shapes, Shakespeare based projects, but we both have a real shared love of classics, of literature. And we've been talking for a while. And he came to me at the beginning of COVID and very, very modestly said, you know, got this thing I'm working on, you know, could you have a look, I think it's something. So I had a look and the first draft was great, but there was, you know, when you're dealing with autobiographical work, I think in artists, there's always this ambivalence between showing and hiding. And I felt with that initial draft that, you know, we had a really candid conversation and I said, look, you're cheating your audience if you don't make this dangerous, right? You're cheating yourself and you're cheating your audience. If this doesn't feel dangerous when you perform it, if you aren't revealing yourself to the point where it feels really vulnerable, then I think you're cheating yourself and you're cheating your audience out of the real experience that's possible here. And so he sort of listened to me and I think the key word that I said is this has to feel immediate. You've got to grab people by the shirt and say, hey, this is really important. And I think that's a note sort of generally applicable to classic text, if you don't grab people and really explain to them why this is so urgent that they understand what you're saying, I think that you lose them, right? Because the modern ear isn't accustomed to all that text. So Justin came back with a second draft and it was electric. Like right away, I felt, I was choked up at the end of just reading it and I thought, okay, you've got something here. And what he was able to do was take something that was very particular and specific to his life and translate it into something that's like universal and timeless by showing how he went through this very particular experience. But then by bringing in the Shakespearean text, all of a sudden it was, oh my gosh, this is a human experience. We've all, we all have had the father relationship. We've all had love that didn't turn out the way we were hoping, we've all been there. And so through that, I think he was able to transcend what was particular into what was universal. And that's what got me really excited about the project. - That is so fantastic, so fantastic. Well, B, I wanna come to you and I wanna ask that same question 'cause you mentioned, you know, when my cue comes as this devised piece. So what's it been like developing it and getting it ready for performances? - Yeah, it's been a crazy hectic process. It all started out early May with Sophia Carlin, our creative director at Hamlet Isn't Dead. She sort of reached out to me and was like, okay, I want you to direct a show, we're gonna devise it. So what are your ideas? And when I sort of stayed up writing this list of things from this, you know, theme that Connor gave us of camaraderie. And we had our meeting and I gave this first idea of, okay, what if we have all of the sort of unnamed characters? We have J Quiz from As You Like It in our show, but it's J Quiz Du Bois who shows up at the very end and has one line basically solves the whole show and then leaves. And so she was sort of in love and we just hopped into it and we didn't start rehearsals until just over a week ago. And so it's been a crazy fast process of development and you know, I come from a devised program from school that's where I came from for graduation and I've never worked with a group of people who worked so fast so quickly. We had one rehearsal I remember just last week where we had sort of had all the big conversations about what the show was and answered all the big questions because for me it was just a basic idea and you know, you bring it to actors and they're like, okay, this doesn't make sense though because of this and this because they think of those things. And I was like, listen guys, it was just an idea. Can't see it, we're gonna build it together. And now that we've really had the chance to do that, they've had the ability to, you know, improvise an entire world. They, we started just a little park bench exercise and suddenly it turned into an hour and a half of them doing the entire show just on their feet in the moment. And, you know, it's really coming together in a beautiful way that I've never really experienced in a devised process. And I think it's a large part of it is because they're sort of this meta theatrical element to it all that they're actors playing characters, talking about what it means to be forgotten. And we are actors and we are artists who very much experience that feeling of sort of going from show to show and just sort of, you know, keeping your head down and letting yourself move forward. So it's been really beautiful and a really vulnerable experience which I wasn't expecting to just sort of have these open conversations about what it means to actually be on stage and what it means to be remembered and our legacy and where the joy of performing actually comes from if it is being on stage or if it's simply being in a group of people and giving permission to be silly weirdos, which I prefer that version personally. But yeah, it's been a really beautiful development and a crazy fast process that I'm really excited to see what's going to show up on stage. - That is so wonderful. And Bia, I want to stick with you first on this next question 'cause you kind of touched on it already, but is there a message or thought that you're hoping the audiences take away for when my cue comes? - Absolutely. I mean, if we didn't have a message, I'd be a little concerned about the value of theater. But I, you know, similar actually to what Mona was getting at is I think that the classical text has sort of this untimely manner about it. There's a reason why we're still doing it so many years later. But there's something about the urgency of it all and the right here and right now. And, you know, when Sophia first told me that the prompt was camaraderie, I immediately think that that is something that we as a society right now and as a world need to really open our eyes too. I think there's so much hate going on the world and so much sort of unnerving conversations happening in the space. And the biggest thing we always forget to do is just remember that we are all people and just simply listen and hear each other out. And the power of actually being a community of love and listening rather than of denial and rejection and all those things. And so for me, I think that the beauty of this show is simply what it means to actually take a seat back. And I mean, these characters are literally forced in a waiting room where they're forced to not do anything for a second. And I think that's something that we collectively as an audience should really experience with them of actually pausing in life, listening to these characters, hearing what they actually want, what they desire, what they've been feeling all these years of going on stage and all these years of doing the same show over and over again and actually really listening to them and hearing what it means to be an individual, what it means to perform, what it means to have your own passions, all those things. And really, that's my goal at the end of the day is that the audience is there and just listening and open to hearing what these characters have been struggling with for, I mean, thousands of years at this point. - You're so wonderful, I love that thought. Sean, how about you? Is there a message or thought you hope audiences take away from Walter Schlingers, Romeo and Juliet? - Yeah, 100%. I mean, in terms of, there's a lot and that's sort of part of the play is Walter himself has a hard time finding one message or theme that he can succinctly stick to. But I think the play will be a successive audiences. You know, the play is an invitation to reflect on youth and second adolescence. So if audiences feel their journey, feels the audiot are seen in some way, I mean, we come to Walter and he's put on stage at this really vulnerable and internally tumultuous time, which really kind of, you know, the audience of the play is really watching this one character go on a series of discoveries all smashed down into about an hour. And I think that it will be a success if people reflect on the play as a, you know, it's about defining yourself and what that entails and about growing and that's a pretty universal experience. So my hope is that even though it's a one person show, it's an opportunity for us to meditate on those themes together as a collective, 'cause I really believe in the conversation that happens between performer and audience. - I love that. That is fantastic. Mona finally with you and your show, my own private Shakespeare is their message or a thought you hope that the audiences will walk away with. - Yeah, that's an intriguing question. I mean, I'd be interested to hear what Justin has to say about it as a writer, but for me, I really try to avoid, I try to avoid intellectualization of the work into like, like, if the work is working, it doesn't speak to your head, it speaks to your heart. You know what I mean? So if I was to give you, I could give you sort of a clever spin on it and say, well, that's the moral of the story, but actually that's exactly not what we wanna do. At the end of the play, there's a very moving closing scene in which the character's journey comes to the point where after all this suffering that he's gone through and really getting to like the lowest point, he has this moment where he comes into, he's listening to an old recording of Lawrence Olivier. Speaking Othello, and he's saying, you know, it is the cause, my soul, it is the cause. And he says, I was 14 years old, I didn't understand what the hell he was talking about, but something, it was something about it that just moved me to my core. And he's reflecting in this moment of just the catastrophe of his life, everything has fallen apart. And the words keep coming back to him. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul. And as we were discussing the play, I think that what's so meaningful about it is that ultimately the cause of all his suffering is mortality itself, it's life. That is the nature of life in this veil of tears that we live in, which is that are the people who love you hurt you, the things you dreamed about fall apart and collapse, you're never the person you hope you are going to be. Life doesn't turn out the way that you thought or were told it was going to turn out. And that's what you have to live with. Can you live with that? And can you find joy and beauty even in that? So, again, that's an intellectualization, but in the play, I hope that nobody comes to that through their head. My hope is that your heart feels a journey and your heart is moved by it. And at the end of it, there's a sense of, just a slime kind of sense of peace and acceptance that comes at the end of it without tying anything up with a bow or telling anybody, frankly, how they should, how it should work out or how it shouldn't. There's no lesson here. It is a realization more than anything else. - That is so fantastic. I want to jump over to Justin, you're the player, right? And I want to start off with my final question for this first part with you and ask who do you hope have access to your work? - It's a lot to ask, but I hope that people who don't have an experience with Shakespeare will come. And they'll hear these words and understand them maybe for the first time, try to deliver them with real clarity, tying them in with very real things, which I hope give them some clarity as well. We had, we've done it a number of times. We did it in Toronto. We did it at the Edinburgh Fringe. And in one of the Toronto performances, a group of very young people came and they said that they had never been to theatre before. And they said, "Is there a more theatre like this?" That, I can't imagine a better response, you know? So, yeah, people who can be surprised by this piece, that would be lovely, rather than Shakespeare scholars or, you know, regular theatre folks. It's an unusual piece and quite intense. And I think it can take people by surprise. - That is such a wonderful answer. Oh, I love that response from the audience. Yes, that is a great goal to have. Natalie, how about you? Who do you hope have access to your piece, fools in the forest? - Certainly, and I'm gonna tie this back a little bit to the previous question as well, since not surprisingly for a festival that is centering around camaraderie and companionship. That is also a central theme of our play and we have put together all female identifying cast and team for this project. So, for these characters in this story, we're particularly examining female companionship and support between a lot of characters that are coming in, having been fairly isolated before the story starts or in a society where they didn't feel they could fully be themselves. And in some cases, they are characters that remain very isolated from each other within different subplots of the original plot of as you like it. So, in our play, we are seeking to bring them together and give them that companionship and support and see what develops from there. And that really extends to the relationship we'd like to have with our audience. I really hope that we have something for everyone. There's a lot of the characters that we've kept are fools. So, we have a lot of humor. We have a lot of verse with a contemporary spin using wines and witty sections that you may have heard in new ways. We have a love story. We have all these different elements coming together in a way that's hopefully going to be fun and surprising and maybe cathartic bringing together these characters that have not gotten to speak to each other in the hundreds of years that they've existed in some cases. And I think above all, it's for anyone who has watched as you like it or watched any of the pastoral companies and thought, maybe they don't want all these characters to go back to court and go back to that hierarchical and patriarchal, very binary society at the end of the play. What if we could have a different ending and a different outcome? So, if you have wondered that, hopefully this play is for you. - That is so fantastic. And I want to bring this first part of the interview to a close with you, Connor, the curator of everything. Who are you hoping have access to the 2024 Little Shakespeare Festival? - You know, I often default in when asked this sort of question to kind of what Justin said, people who aren't necessarily caught up in the world of Shakespeare, but Justin said everything he said so eloquently. So I'm going to swerve in a different direction. I, another group that I really hope will show up for this festival in general is people who love Shakespeare and are obsessed with Shakespeare, because I think that a lot of the shows we're doing in this festival offer challenges or questions or new ways of thinking to people who are saying, you know, I've seen Hamlet done every way that it could possibly be done. And whether it's unscripted or it's what if we just took these characters and shoved them in the forest on their own? Or, you know, what if no exit waiting room was here? Like, whatever it may be, I think like, I love the idea of having a Shakespeare festival where it's really about challenging what Shakespeare can be as opposed to sort of just celebrating what he is. And I think that though that isn't the theme of this year, that is what I see in so many of these shows. So if you like Shakespeare, should be here. If you don't like Shakespeare, you should also be. (upbeat music) Well, for the second part of our shows, we love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better. Pull the curtain back, if you will. And I want to jump straight to my favorite question to ask guests, and that of course is, what is your favorite theater memory? Yes, yes, Justin, please kick us off. - I was living in Glasgow, and the Citizen's Theater is a famous theater in the '80s. And there was a production of "Perendello's" Henry IV with Greg Hicks. It was an experience of watching Greg Hicks perform in this role, and I did not want him to leave the stage. Felt so emotionally tied to him that is the play-ended, just eight for him to stay. And it's a memory that certainly stays with me. - That is an incredible memory, thank you for that. Yes, please, yes, Natalie. - Sure, I can go next. I always have difficulty picking one favorite, but a favorite theater memory that I often like to come back to in my experience as an artist, specifically, is going back to when I was a student up at the National Theater Institute, and I think it was our first day there, or at least our first weekend there. I was there as director, very new, definitely still in college. And I was given a very experimental nonlinear text to work with for a short, intensive production exercise we were doing. Not like anything I had ever directed before and had this discovery that I could apply all these ensemble movement exercises and choral speaking exercises that I had learned from my work in classical theater and bring that to this new work. And they gelled really well together and created something really cool and interesting and felt very theatrical and exciting and just sort of sparked an interest in bringing together all these different types of background and training, which has become a really important aspect of my work. - That is fantastic. I love that story. Thank you for that. Mona, hit us with yours. - All right, this is a good one. So I was doing a masterclass with, I think it was Luke Kerrigan. He's the head of the director of the National Theater of Scotland. And he was in Toronto for the Luminato Festival, big arts festival we have here. He was directing, I believe it was Henry. I think it was Henry. I don't think it was Richard III. Anyway, it was Shakespeare. He was directing and they had converted. We have this massive abandoned power plant here that they had converted into a temporary theater and it's very dangerous looking and cool, but it had been abandoned before. I don't know how long. So they had set up a theater in it. And so I was, as a part of the masterclass, you got to sort of participate in the thing at a key moment in the play. What no one knew is that raccoons had gotten into the fake blood makeup backstage. So at the key moment in the play, somebody opened a door and like seven raccoons covered in blood, came barely out across the stage. It was amazing. It was amazing. And seeing the actors completely sawn foie, just keep on going, yeah. It was incredible. - Oh my gosh. That was a very good memory. You definitely didn't override that. That was incredible. Wow. - I just wanted to correct something that I said. It wasn't Shakespeare, the play that I saw the raccoons come out. It was actually, there were historical Scottish original work called the James Plays. And they were excellent. And I would be very remiss if I said it was Shakespeare because it was specifically not Shakespeare. They were contemporary Scottish historical pieces called the James Plays. So I just wanted to correct that because my Scottish friends would have my head. - John, hit us with yours. - Yeah, totally. So the producing body of Walter Schlinger or the company that we're doing it through is with a company called Blowworm Theater. I mean, it's a group that I helped start, but unbiasedly it's one of my favorite producing groups of Shakespeare's work and work by dead playwrights. And each, this is my due diligence of just hyping up the company, but each one of their performances holds a special memory. But we did Romeo and Juliet last summer. And I, Mona's memory reminded me of another. So I'll cheat and steal and share too. But last summer, we did Romeo and Juliet. I directed the piece and through a very footloose style conflict with the town board, we lost our performance venue for the final night of performances. So that meant the cast having to walk into a new space, we ended up doing it at the house in the backyard of this very lovely family that hosted it and has been a friend to the company. And I just remember sitting in the audience, knowing that the cast had maybe five hours, maybe probably less to really familiarize themselves with the backyard as a performance space. And just watching the actors really live Romeo and Juliet, roll in the grass together. It, like it gives me chills just to think about like that beautiful moment of, you know, completely divorced of any input that I had as director. I directed a show in a completely different space, but to just see the actors like really embody Shakespeare's work is beautiful. And then to piggyback off of Mona's story on our second night of performances, I remember we had to hold right at the top of Juliet's Gallup of Pace monologue because a skunk had emerged from a deep orifice. We were doing outdoor Shakespeare. So, you know, we have to call hold actors, please clear the stage. And with a skunk, you just kind of have to wait until he decides he's done. So the skunk got his moment in the limelight on stage. That's something I'll absolutely remember for years and years to come. - Wow, those are fantastic memories. Thank you for sharing those. I'm starting to sense a theme here. We're gonna be diving in on the vermin roll, rabbit hole, so be me. What is your favorite theater memory? - Yeah, mine's gonna be kind of selfish. And unfortunately not vermin themed, but yeah, so my junior year of college, I had the privilege of being able to study abroad and see just Spain actually, which is a town little outside of Barcelona. And for our final while I was there, we sort of had this proposition as directors where we had like a 20 minute show that we could do in just this warehouse in the middle of Spain. And we could really do literally whatever we wanted. It was just, you got 20 minutes, do something. And I'm someone who, you know, I come from a devised background. So with that, I sort of always like to perform and write and direct and do a little bit of all of it. And so it was sort of a moment in my life where I felt like I needed to do something really personal and something very sort of dangerous, I think is the best way to put it. And so I sort of crafted this 15 minute piece that compared my entire sort of life events to the life cycle of the cicada. And it was a super dark sort of twisted movement based piece. And I had three people from all, like I had three actors join me and one was from England, one was from Portugal, one was from Hong Kong. And I never really had any rehearsals with them other than 30 minutes before the show. And I was basically, because we were so rushed, I just had to dump all my life to them in five minutes and be like, all right, this is what this moment is about. Let's just improvise something. And for the show, they're growing pain at me and flipping me over and flopping me on the ground. And just all of this sort of chaos is happening on stage. And I've just, I've never really felt such relief from anything I've ever done except that. And then that was sort of one of those moments where I really understood just like the power of theater, not only as an audience member, 'cause I've always understood that. And that's been something since I was four years old watching movies and old theaters that like I always understood the power of watching, but I never got those just like healing moments on stage myself and doing something that was so personal and so dangerous with people who I hardly knew and yet they were performing my life with me was such a healing, powerful moment. And probably the first time ever where I've performed and afterwards had no doubts about the quality of it or what it had to mean or if anyone liked it or anything, because it ended and I was like, oh yeah, I did that. I had that moment. So yeah, I think those moments when we as artists can feel like we've truly healed and we've shared a part of ourselves that goes beyond ourselves and goes beyond anything that a human can actually put words to. Those are the moments for me where I just, I gush for theater and I gush for the art. - I love that. What an amazing memory. Thank you. And bringing us home Connor, tell us your favorite theater memory. - Yes. So as of this month, as you will, has been performing improvised Shakespeare for 10 years and are one of my favorite theater memories was actually our very first performance, which was we had me and two other people who founded the group, George Heider and David Gromer, were all college graduates from the same school in Saratoga Springs and we were working for a theater company there for the summer that does Shakespeare, Saratoga Shakespeare Company. And we were acting in their show and they were putting together a benefit dinner for people who donate to them. And we went to the guy, the artistic director of Sir George Shakespeare and said, hey, we have an improvised Shakespeare show that we could, we were ready to perform. Can we perform it at your donor dinner event? And he said, no, you have to do another performance first that if I like it, I'll let you go to our donor dinner event. So we were trying to figure out what we're gonna do. Eventually, we reached out to a local bookstore and said, would it be okay if for like three hours we did Shakespeare in front of your bookstore? Wonderful bookstore, wonderful store, Northshire books. If you're ever in Saratoga Springs, hit 'em up. We went out in front and performed every kind of Shakespeare thing we could possibly think of. We did random Shakespearean monologues. We did scenes that we made up. We did sonnets that we made up. We did, at one point we did jumping jacks and chanting 'cause we were just out there for three hours. And the artistic director came by. We knew when he was gonna come by. We did like a short Shakespeare play for him. And one, he agreed to let us perform at the dinner which says a lot about his character and not necessarily in the best way. And two, we made $23 over the course of that three hours. Thank you very much. And we have continued to be as successful and as profitable over the course of all these 10 years. That is an amazing memory. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you all so much for sharing those fantastic memories. Well, as we wrap things up, I would love to know if our listeners would like more information about your shows or about you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you. How can they do so? So Sean Gordon, tell us about how we can find more information out about Walter Schlingers, Romeo and Juliet. - 100% well, you can of course find out about Walter Schlingers, Romeo and Juliet or any of these lovely plays at frigid.nyc. But if you're feeling particularly hungry for Walter Schlinger, you can follow Glowworm Theatre on Instagram. That's G-L-O-W-O-R-M. Theatre spelled with an R-E, not an E-R. You can also follow me personally on Instagram. I have a lot of great content of vacations and other theatrical work that I do at UnderscoreSeanS-E-A-N dot Gordon Underscore. And then my shows, to tell her, will be on August 4th, 8th and 16th, starting at nine o'clock the first performances and then seven o'clock for the final performance. - Thanks. Natalie King then fools in the for us. Tell us about your show and how we can get more info. - Absolutely. So the little production group that we are producing, the banner we are using for this, is Ladies and Fools. And our focus is contemporary spins on classical material. And so you can follow Ladies and Fools on Instagram. We are at ladies.and.fools. And you can come and see us at frigid at The Little Shakespeare Festival on August 3rd, 8th and 16th. We also incidentally have another small fringe classically inspired show, also coming up in the same couple of weeks. We will also be with a different group of actors, but same company, and I believe the same types of audiences was it would enjoy. We are doing a piece called All the Daughters of Viola's House, about the breaches rolls from Shakespeare, but also a number of classical female identifying playwrights, over at the So Many Shakespeare's Festival in Brooklyn, The Vino Theatre. And that information is on the same Instagram page. - Very cool. Justin, hey, I'm Mona Zaidi. What about your show, My Own Private Shakespeare? - We are performing August 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. And you can find out more at themodernclassictheatre.com. Mona, do we have other? - Yeah, we're on Facebook. And I think on Instagram at My Own Private Shakespeare, if you search for it, you'll see Justin's Handsome Face, a little beat up, perhaps, but yeah. And those are the best ways to find out more. - Be Cardi, what about when my cue comes? - Yeah, so we have performances on August 1st, 11th, and 17th at 7th. And then we have performances on the 3rd and the 15th at 9, I have to remember those dates. To find out more information about the show, or also we have auditions for pair clays going on right now at Hamlet Isn't Dead. We also have Cymbeline coming up. You can follow us at Hamlet Isn't Dead on Instagram or go to our website. If you want to stalk me personally, I'll be flattered. It's a b.cardi23 on Instagram. You could take me out on a date and everything I'm broke and I love it. So yeah, that's how you find out more about when my cue comes or me. Either or. And finally, Connor, tell us how we can get more information about you as you will or the festival itself. - Absolutely. So, you know, the best way to learn about me is honestly through as you will. So I'm gonna say you can find as you will on Facebook and Instagram at improv as you will. We are also on TikTok, if you're a TikTok person. We've got some clips from our various shows there as well. The festival, oh, and I should say as you will's performances in the Frigid festival are going to be on the 2nd of August, the 4th of August, the 10th of August, and the 17th of August. You can check the website for the exact times, but I think they believe they're all evening performances. And the festival itself, if you want to know about any of the shows or the other shows that are in the festival, I would go to frigid.nyc, our website. And from there, there's a festivals tab or you can just see what's playing this week. There are other shows that are not Shakespeare that Frigid does that I think are pretty great, although the Shakespeare is obviously the best. No question. So please check out that other shows in the festival. - Fabulous. Will Sean Natalie Justin, Mona, Bea and Connor, thank you all so, so much for taking the time to speak with me and for sharing this incredible, incredible plethora of fabulous shows that are part of this wonderful festival. I'm so excited about this festival. I look forward to seeing some, if not all of your shows. So congratulations on all of this and thank you so much for your time today. My guests today have been several of the artists who are part of Frigid New York's presentation of the 2024 Little Shakespeare Festival. The festival itself is playing August 1st on the 17th at Under St. Mark's and you can get your tickets and more information by visiting Frigid.NYC. We also have some contact information as well as the dates of all of our guest shows that will be posted in our episode description as well as in our social media posts, but hurry right now over to Frigid.NYC get your tickets. Under St. Mark's is a beautiful, wonderful venue, perfect for indie theater, but it is not huge. So you're gonna wanna get your tickets while you can for all of these fantastic shows. Again, the festival is playing August 1st through the 17th and you can get your tickets at Frigid.NYC. So until next time, I'm Andrew Cortez, reminding you to turn off your cell phones, unwrap your candies, and keep talking about the theater in a state-based-- - In a state-based fair. - In a state-based fair. - Thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review, like and subscribe. - You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at stagewhisperpod. - And feel free to reach out to us with your comments and personal stories at stagewhisperpod@gmail.com. - And be sure to check out our website for all things stagewhisper and theater. You'll be able to find merchandise, tours, tickets, and more. Simply visit stagewhisperpod.com. Our theme song is "Maniac" by Jazzar. Other music on this episode provided by Jazzar and Billy Murray. You can also become a patron of our show by logging on to patreon.com/stagewhisperpod. There you will find all the information about our backstage pass as well as our tip jar. 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