Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 585
(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back into a fabulous new whisper in the Weens from Stage Whisper. We are bringing you more coverage of the She NYC Summer Theatre Festival and we've got a great artist in store for you today. Joining us today, we have the composer, lyricist and book writer Natalie Elizabeth Weiss, whose new work "Borderland" is playing as part of the She NYC Summer Theatre Festival, July 30th through August 11th at the Connolly Theatre. You can get your tickets and more information by visiting shenycarts.org. We've recently already had another of the shows that are part of this festival, Anna. We can't wait to bring you this new musical as well. So with that, let's welcome on our guest, Natalie, welcome to Whisper and the Weens from Stage Whisper. - Hello, so great to be here, nice to meet you. - You as well, thank you so much for joining us. On the day of this recording of this beautiful, beautiful day here in New York, I am so excited to dive into your piece "Borderland." This sounds incredible. And of course, you are the composer, lyricist, book writer. Woman of many hats, this is incredible. So why don't we start by having you tell us a little bit about what "Borderland" is about? - Right, so "Borderland" is based on a real life woman from the 19th century, who was a sexologist. And she claimed that she got her insights about sex from an angel. So when she first, you know, she is the first person to put the words female orgasm in print. And people were very interested in what she had to say and interested to figure out how they could have sex without using contraception, which was illegal at the time, all contraception. And in the state of Connecticut, you know, you could go to jail for using the withdrawal method. It was like really strict. And she had a method called male continents, which is essentially being able to become multi-orgasmic as a man without ejaculating. So that was what she was suggesting. And people said, how can you possibly know about this without a husband? Is it a illicit experience? No, it isn't. I'm married to an angel and we make love on the "Borderland" between this world and the grave. So it's kind of an exploration of the "Borderland" between insight and madness, and kind of saying yes to the grave and no to like, what is reality? It must be this, or it must be this, kind of like a blended way of thinking. - Wow, wow, what a story. Now I just want to give her a, this is a real person. This was a real-- - Ida C. Craddock. And her name sounds like idiosyncratic, which is just a gift from the gods, the gods, gods. Yeah, so she, yeah, and she was not very well known 'cause a lot of her work was destroyed, but she was the first person accepted to University of Pennsylvania, the first woman, accepted there, and then they changed their minds after she was accepted and went another 50 years before accepting a woman. So from that, she kind of had this wound that I relate to, it's like, well, I'll show everybody, like, well, I'll show you how professional I am. Like you think XYZ and then life ends up giving you opportunities to show people what you can do. And what she really wants is credibility. If she gets credibility through, like Ivy League schools, or through being a spiritualist, a cultist, you can channel angels or whatever, she wants that credibility so that she can actually change in our world when, you know, this is a time when people were getting pregnant like 18 times and their bodies would just die at exhaustion. You know, so there was a lot of need for legal funds to birth control. - It's amazing. So I'm just curious to know what was the antithesis? What's the inspiration that drove you to write this piece? - Well, my husband is a sex guru. No, I'm just joking. I mean, he's wonderful. People like storm him after the show, like, tell us more. No, Radio Lab, another great podcast, covered the publishing of the first biography about her, which is written by a Princeton dude and it's so fascinating. And it's a, you know, they were calling it a sexy ghost story. So there was a kind of a lift of information around Idaho when that book came up. And a couple of people did podcasts about it and a friend told me about it and the rest of the history. - That is an incredible inspiration. And yeah, shout out to Radio Lab, it's a fabulous show. We love NPR and PR. So as we are rolling in to this year's festival, I'm curious to know what has it been like developing this piece, this iteration of this piece? - We are not calling this our premiere. We are calling this like the cavalry performance of it. So it's just, you know, like a fun rock band putting on a show for you. And some of the themes are very lofty and some of the themes are very like sperm adjacent. It's been cool doing it for this because the set of time is so short that I've had to re orchestrate everything. It was originally orchestrated for string quartet, percussion and 10 vocalists and someone on synths. And then all the actors were also making white noise in different ways, like wrestling plastic or pressing like compressed air, like you clean your typewriter with. If you just go bringing the trigger in and out, you get like this whole range of white noises from there. So I had a lot of stuff going on and we don't have enough time to might check all of that. It's a festival and that's been a real gift because I'm going back to kind of what are the basics for me which I think for a lot of people, the basics would be like just going back to the piano, just having the piano do it. But the basics for me is like a sampler because I grew up as a DJ first and working and writing songs around loops. So that's what we're doing here. We're doing looped beats and bass lines with live instrumentation on top. All of the actors are instrumentalists. We have a really good cast and I'm excited to see you see it. - I'm excited to see it myself. - And the joke is that Anthony Comstock, I mean, and ultimately Ida killed herself rather than go to jail and die there. The prison conditions on what is now Roosevelt Island which was then referred to as damnation Island were so bad that if you went to prison there, you were gonna die there from malaria or murder or something. It's like, it was a death sentence just to go. And she knew if she went to prison and died there in obscurity, the drama of death itself would be wasted. So she's like, how can I use my transition into another realm as a way to like make my final stand? And actually Comstock brags that 12 people committed suicide because of him. And I have X, Y, Z square feet of lewd materials and she said in her suicide note, if seeing lewd materials does debauch the brain and he's seen and intercepted more than probably anyone else 'cause he's the one in going and checking if it's lewd or not. Like, what should we assume about the condition of his brain at this point? And so, you know, it's, he's a pervert. Like he's like a total pervert. And I think that's clear from his own work. And so we have some songs for him that kind of show different colors of what's occurring. Oh my gosh, this makes me so happy. - Yeah. So the funny thing is, is that she is not advocating for any of the buzzy marginalized groups. You know, she's essentially writing to heterosexual married couples and telling them this is how you guys can have the amazing sex that makes you closer to God and prevent unwanted pregnancies. And some of her stuff, you know, you look at it now and you would definitely want to go through and replace some of the pronouns and change husband to partner or whatever, you know? But I think that's something that gives me a little bit of freedom is like she is a flawed hero and we have to have like cultural literacy or cultural compassion for the time in which she wrote this and what the ideas were at that time. So it's kind of like, it's like, there's no real way to win an advocacy 'cause it's not like a hot topic, but it is another way is like kind of a saving grace because it's so far out of the realm of buzzy, you know, things that are promoted now as being important causes that I can really say, you know, this is just a story about a woman. And I find that as the more specific people get, the more universal it is, like that show brilliant on baby reindeer on Netflix. Have you seen it? - No, no. - Oh my gosh, you have to see it. It's this like Welsh bartender who's stalked by this woman and it's all these details that are so real. It's based on his life and everyone loves it. And I think largely because like going into the details, even embarrassing ones or whatever, it just the resonance is deeper and people can relate to that. Yes. - Well, I'm curious to know with all this fantastic material, these fantastic ideas that you're bouncing around, what is the message or thought you hope audiences will take away from this piece? - There's a line in the finale. It says like march into the borderland, either or is boring, man. So that's kind of like a low key way of saying my message, which is abandoned black and white thinking and embrace the grays, embrace the multiple possibilities of the borderland. - I love that idea, love it. - And I had to explore it so much with this character 'cause it's like, was she bad to commit suicide? So many people had pain. Was it brave for her to commit suicide? Maybe it was both. You know, there's so many issues like that around this woman. So she's a great kind of template for examining that concept. - I love it. I want to ask you now, my final question for this first part, which is who do you hope have access to borderland? - I would love it if, well, my number one audience for musicals is generally people who don't like musicals. I come from, like I said, I'm a professional DJ and my background is like playing in bands and playing like experimental live electronic things. And you say musical and it's just like, it's like it just sounds so cheesy. And I just love for those people to come and just show them that even if you don't like it, I have just like so much courage is being shown on stage. Like the only way to show courage is not to make like grating noise in a museum. Like you can also show courage through like skillful dance and things like that, but other than that, I would love to get some like legit occultists in there. People who, you know, might themselves be involved with sex magic, I'd like to get some on the other side, like serious atheist secularists who think there is no possibility of that, no possibility of like divine or spiritual communication. So it must be ex-wisey happening in the brain. You know, the more diversity I can get, the more I can explore my main theme. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Well, on the second part of our show, we love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better, pull the curtain back, if you will. - Okay. - I would love to start with our regular first question, which is what or who inspires you? What playwrights, composers or shows have inspired you in the past? Or just some of your favorites? - Bjork is a big role model to me. She's been using sample based music very seriously for a long time and incorporating it with, you know, grand orchestras and different Icelandic choirs. She's always treated it like it's just as valid as some fonic music. And she's extremely interested in aesthetics. Like, I saw a great musical recently. I'm not gonna say what it is 'cause I'm about to diss their flyer. Their flyer, which got mailed to me, is like the most boring illustration. And I'm like, this looks like a 13 year old could have done this in Canva, like in one second. There's no, this is not capturing me on an aesthetic level in every component of it where I feel like Bjork really thinks her stuff out. And she wants the cover art and the book that comes with it in the video game and all of that to be like coming together in a way that has a unified production value. So I generally hate theater art, but Fun Home is great. I say that because Fun Home posters right behind you. - I love that. I love that, that's a wonderful list of inspiration. I love that. Let me ask you now, what is your favorite part about working in the theater? - Being around other humans. Yeah, as a DJ, I spend all week like prepping, like basically booking gigs and prepping for gigs. And then on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I do them all. And when I like go in, I do a thing where I see people at a distance and that I leave. So it's very solitary. Every aspect of it, even though you would think that it's like a people person's art form. So when I have theater stuff and I get to be around people, especially people who like skip down the street, like musical theater people, I'm just like, (hums) gets a breath of fresh air. It'd be like with spooky people who can't stop singing and like being silly, like I love that. It makes me feel like I'm at home. - That's a fabulous answer. I love it. And a good lead into my favorite question to ask guests, which is what is your favorite theater memory? - That is such a great question when I saw it. I knew exactly what I would say. I have memories from very early childhood. I think especially because my best friend at that time and I stayed in touch through adulthood. So we would remind each other, remember when this happened, remember when this happened. So I had a lot of clear pictures. And one of them was when we did Goldilocks and Three Bears at our preschool. And they were gonna have, I was Goldilocks. I probably just demanded that it be that way. And I was gonna come in from the side. And then I said, what if we split the audience and I came from the back and I just started singing from the back. And it was, and they let me do it. They look like a cool idea. And it just was, I never was interested. I also, I always wanted things to be like immersive. And I think that memory makes me, it makes me happy because that's something I do like myself and my own work is that, you know, we're trying to hit you on a number of levels. - I love that memory. That is fabulous. We love a good how did it all start kind of memory. So that is beautiful. Thank you so much. - You're welcome. - As we wrap things up, I have two last questions for you. On the first beat, do you have any other productions or projects coming on the pipeline that you might be able to plug for you? - Yes. A musical I wrote called Camp Wanna Tochi. It was a collaboration with now Tony nominated book writer Becca Brunstetter and Glitchop Pioneer Machine Drum. It ran off Broadway. And now we're working with Zaden Marin on making it a feature film. So it's in development. It's really cool because these are also Broadway people like Neil produced some like a hot, he's producing the new smash show. And then he goes and when he produces movies, he's coming from that same mindset. And he cares about plots so much and it's just so fun to work with. And, you know, it's always been my dream to make a movie musical. So that's what's on the docket for next. We'll see if it actually happens, but that's what the, my time is slotted to be working on when I'm done with this. - Amazing. And my final question for you is if our listeners would like more information about borderland, what about you? Maybe they'd like to reach out to you. How can they do so? - Yeah, to learn about the show, you go to borderlandlive.com, borderlandlive.com. And the easiest way to learn about me is just djnadley.com. Yeah. And if you look me up on Insta, I'm DJ Natalie NYC. There is a Natalie Weiss who isn't me. So you have, if you just look up Natalie Weiss, you might find someone else with brown hair who's involved with musical theater, but you've got to look up DJ Natalie or Natalie Elizabeth Weiss. - Well, Natalie, thank you so, so much for your time today, for sharing this incredible show. As I said, I'm so excited to see it. I can't wait. It's going to be a blast. So thank you very much. - Amazing. Thank you so much. Have a great day. - My guest today has been the amazing composer, lyricist, and book writer, Natalie Elizabeth Weiss, who show borderland is part of the She NYC Summer Theater Festival. It's happening July 30th through August 11th at the Connolly Theater. And you can get your tickets and more information by visiting shenycarts.org. We also have some contact information for our guests, which will be posted on our episode description, as well as on our social media posts. But again, run, don't walk, get to She NYC Arts Center or get your tickets. They're going to go fast. They're going to be gone before you know it. And you don't want to miss this great new show, Borderland. Part of the She NYC Summer Theater Festival, July 30th through August 11th. 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 stage whisper. - Thank you. (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 stage whisper and theater. You'll be able to find merchandise, tours, tickets, and more. Simply visit stagewhisperpod.com. Our theme song is "Maniac" by Jazzar. 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