Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 558
(upbeat music) - Welcome back in everyone to a fabulous new Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper. We have a fabulous new show to be sharing with you today. Truly a perfect show for the summer and joining us today, we have the producer, Jonathan Fogue and the playwright Fernando Segal. They are joining us to talk about their show, The World's Most Boring Murder. It's playing July 11th through the 28th at the Players Theater and you can get your tickets and more information by visiting theplayerstheatre.com. We are very excited to have these two here. Of course, we cannot wait to dive into the show. So let's go ahead and welcome on our guests, Jonathan Fernando, welcome onto Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper. - Hey, hey, thanks for having us. - Hey, it's great to be here. - I'm so happy you both are here. I can't wait to dive into this hard-hitting drama that you've bringing to us. - Fernando, why don't we start with you as a playwright? Can you tell us a little bit about this great show, The World's Most Boring Murder? - Absolutely, so our show is a comedy where farce, really, it draws us having inspirations of comedy at the large, but also in Brazilian clown traditions. I am from Brazil, I was born and raised there. So I've been here for about eight years now. And at some point in Brazil for about two years, I was part of a traveling troupe of clowns that traveled up and down the country, performing clown shows with like minimum requirements, sometimes on the street, sometimes for people who never saw theater. And I think that is a big force behind my writing or at least my writing style, I think. And this play is the greatest example of that. This is a play that in my mind could easily be done in a sidewalk in Brazil, if need be, or in a sidewalk in New York or in a theater in New York. Anything is possible. There are no real character requirements. There's no almost no set of requirements. So of course we do have a set and we have props. That's not specifically required to do the show. And it's just five very funny and very engaging actors doing their best to make an audience laugh. Though I will say that I recently graduated from Columbia's MFA play writing program. And the greatest compliment that I've ever had was from one of my professors who said that in my writing style was called hiding the veggies, which is you make the audience laugh a lot and feel like they are just eating fast food and having a good time. But they don't know that there's actually nutritious meal hidden behind the fast food and you're eating some vegetables along with your meal. And that's what I tried to do. I would say I tried to make shows that are very, very funny and very, very ridiculous. But that in the end you realize that there's actually something being communicated in there. And there's actually something that I'm trying to say or a message that's trying to be told or almost like almost like a fable in oil, I would say. And this plays a good example of that. I won the audience to laugh all the way on there in the show, but then when they're way back, they suddenly realize they have something to talk about. - I love that. I'm gonna have to steal that description. Hiding the veggies, that is so brilliant. And I love that that's a great way to describe your writing in this show because I think one of the best ways to get a idea or a message to an audience is through comedy, is through laughter because it disarms them, it lets their guard, it makes them let their guard down. And then, you know, they leave and they go, oh, apparently I've absorbed this idea and I had no idea, you know. So I really love that about this show, this is exciting. So where exactly did you come up with the idea to pen this piece? - So the play, which I didn't actually, I talked so much about it, but I didn't say anything about the setup, basically it takes place in a very small town, fictitious small town, where no crime has ever happened before. And the protagonist of the story is the police inspector in this town. And they are middle-aged and very, very, very bored. And they just don't wanna be around anymore 'cause they became a police inspector 'cause they wanted to be Sherlock Holmes or a big detective. And now for 30 years, they've been in this town and nothing has happened. The crime she has to deal with is like, people stealing each other's bread or like neighbors bickering. And that says everything he's ever done in his life. And when the play starts, a very, very gruesome murder has just taken place for the first time in times of times history. But for the police inspector, this is the best thing that could possibly happen. It's like they're having the time of their lives 'cause they finally have something to do. So the play's about the police inspector and their two unhelpful systems who also have no experience in solving crimes. One of them is really based out of lucky from waiting for Godot. So they never speak almost. They have like three or four. They are always on stage but they have about four or five lines. So it's a very clown kind of character. And then you have two other actors who play about half a dozen characters each. So they play a bunch of different parts playing all different people in the town who are being investigated as they search for the killer. But the thing is that the longer they take to find the killer, they might eventually become a serial killer which the dilemma is that a good thing or a bad thing for a police inspector. Like the more people die, the more he has to do with their lives. And my inspiration to writing this play was it's actually based on the very first thing that I ever wrote, which was a one act I wrote about seven or six years ago. I wrote it completely by accident. I was applying for colleges for undergrad and I applied to a different college. And by accident, I applied to the theater program but not as an actor. They have a program that's like either play writing or director and it was really by accident. I had to write something in the application. I had already paid the application process. I was like, I might as well write a short play. And I wrote it and send it to them. And it was this. And it was loosely based on this Brazilian play that I love that is called "Ubinga Mado." I don't think it exists in English. I don't think, I would love to translate it one day. I don't think it exists in English. And it's about this small town and this mayor that gets elected in this small town by telling everyone that he's gonna build their very first cemetery. And he gets elected, he gets a lot of money. He builds the hold of the first cemetery. But then people stop dying in this town. And for three or four years, he can now create the cemetery. And people start hating him 'cause he spent all the town's money opening up this thing and no one died. So there's no use for it. And that was my inspiration, which was kind of like the value of that. Or like, when does that becomes almost like a commodity kind of a thing? Which is what really made me start thinking about this show. And then about two years ago, I was part of a theater festival at the Theatre of Western Springs, which is in a suburb in Chicago. And the one act, the original one act was produced in it. And it was very, it was already been long, three minutes long. And it was very successful there. It seemed like people really, really enjoyed it. Which made me think, I just should maybe turn this into a full thing, a full play. And I kept working on it for the past two years, making different drafts. I was doing my program at Columbia, as I mentioned. And so I had a great place to experiment and to workshop the play and to try things out with great professors and great classmates. And that's how I got to this funny little piece that I have today. So I should say, we also have an absolutely incredible director named Patrick Suez-Keltwell, who's just, they made the show into something else also. It's like, nothing makes a show as the right director. And we definitely have the right director who was able to really open up the show and like find all these things. And I myself, or like even draft after draft, there are things that cannot be found unless you're in the rehearsal room with the right people. - That is incredible. I love all of that. This is so exciting. I love this kind of comedy. This is my kind of comedy. It's just border slapstick, but it's also just really smart and witty. This is fabulous. So Jonathan, let's bring you into the conversation now. Of course, you are the producer of the show. I would love to know, how did you come upon this piece? - Yeah, so Fernando and I met in the Columbia MFA program. So I was in the producing and management track and Fernando was in the playwriting track. And part of the program is that you have these thesis productions that you're part of. And Fernando had produced a couple of his works at Columbia. He and I have been friends for a couple of years here now, but he had this show coming up as his thesis production at Columbia and asked me to produce it. And of course, I said, send me the scripts. Like I'm your friend, but I'm not necessarily gonna produce it unless I love it. And I was like, oh, no, I'm producing this. Okay. (laughs) And it was just totally up my alley. It was like, it felt very much in the world of like 39 steps in "Peter and the Star Catcher," where it's like people switching hats and wigs. And I am the writer and producer of "Stranger Sings," the parody musical that was off Broadway last season. And so this is very much in the same vein of, people double cast and it's scrappy and it's clever and it's creative and there's actors creating things with simple props to like suddenly it's a door and suddenly they're holding up a mirror and they're part of the set. It's just like that, but it has that electricity that I love in theater. So anyway, so we did it, we produced it at Columbia for the thesis presentations and it went really well. We sold that out, we had great response. And then we ended up transferring this now to the players' theater for this longer run where we're able to take a little more time to kind of develop some of the story beats and some of the script moments and we have new actors and we have more time to kind of stage it and light it and costumes and stuff. And so yeah, so it's really fun. It's just, it's, you know, it's just a silly, stupid, good time and has heart and so yeah, I'm very proud of it. - As you should be, that is amazing. Now, Jonathan, let me ask, I mean, we are just under a week away from the show beginning performances at the players' theater. What has it been like developing this fabulous show? - Yeah, no, it's been fun because with this run, we have more time, you know, with the director, we have a couple new actors and so we're finding more and the rehearsal room that I think we didn't have as much time to do at Columbia. And so it's exciting because not only do we have that time but we have more time for audiences to discover the show too. You know, we're in a very intimate space. It's 50 seats per shows. It's very, you know, very limited seating, very limited tickets. So a huge part of my work as a producer is getting people to see it and then talk about it because once people hear about how great it is and they have this great experience, this ticket's gonna go flying off the shelves, you know? So, but yeah, I'm very proud of it. It's very fun to get to dive deeper into comedy 'cause I just think, like, you know, with my experience as Stranger Things, it's like the more time you have, the more little nuggets you find within the script and it's, comedy is such a, it's such a, it's such a intricate thing because it's the writing but it's also the acting in the performances and what the performers bring to it. But then it sometimes is also, the lighting has to, like, hit something right and the sound design has to be a certain feeling and the costumes accentuate certain beats and the props have to look a certain. So there's just all these little pieces of comedy that when they come together perfectly, it just makes this golden experience. But it takes time to kind of find some of those nuances and, like, again, from Stranger Things experience, like, every time we got to do it again, it just got funnier and funnier and funnier 'cause we find, oh, that works. Oh, that's what this is. That's what that moment needs to be and so that's what we're finding with the show. Fernando, do you want to say more 'cause I know you're literally rewriting what you're working on and so on? - I absolutely agree with you. I always say this thing that I think that Brazilian theater makers often say in the U.S., which is that what Americans call device theater, Brazilians just call theater. And I believe in that. I don't think that's always the case, but I feel like with comedies, and me specifically as a player to write with comedies, I think it's very important to have a very collaborative and open space for suggestion and things like that, with the casting and the director and, like, do that from the start, that, like, in a comedy like that, like, I am not precious with my words at all, especially 'cause as I mentioned, I really trusted, I really trust my director and I really trust my cast members. So that has been great. Opening up space for seeing new things and new jokes and new moments that come into the play. And it's been very, very revealing that we keep working on bits there. Amazing, so I add them to the actual page. And I'm like, I want every production of the show to always do this that was discovered between the actors. And that keeps happening over and over and over again. We, as you want to mention, had the chance to do three performances at Columbia. It was a way more best-paced environment where no one was really getting paid and everyone was working as much as they could. So that was that and that too, which was tough. We were able to also discover a lot of things in that process. And now we have this privilege to bring the show back after getting feedback from, again, all my professors and all my classmates. So we were able to really listen to what was good and what's not good. In fact, we cut about 20 minutes of the play because the big thing was like, it feels too long. The play needs, it was an hour and 50 minutes long, which for me was the no work. And I really thought it had to be an hour and a half. So we really worked on that and finding those moments and making the play happen so fast. And that was something that we really realized. The pace right now was very quick comedy pace that needs to be and that needs so much rehearsal to get to that place where the actors are comfortable to just do their thing in a quick way that's also still very engaging and very fun and so precise of what they are doing. And I'm very happy that we got to that place now. - That is wonderful. I love all of that. This sounds like the perfect textbook example of good comedy writing right now, like that, yeah. Amen. So Fernando, stick you with you for this next question. I'm curious to know, obviously you're the playwright. So is there a message or a thought you hope that audiences take away from your piece? - Yes, I'm not gonna talk too much about it 'cause as I mentioned, they are the vegetables that are hidden in the meal. And that truly, I am very interested in the theatrical effect, so to speak, which is when you have a show that is mostly one thing and then it really becomes something else for this moments or for its ending or whatever. I feel like there's lots of plays that we say pull the rug from under the audience, so to speak. But more than just in a plot way, in a really like a tone way even or style way, like I think Fairview was a great example of that, which is a show that I absolutely love, that just completely changes right in front of you and becomes something completely different. I'm not nearly that bold, but we do have a big tone shift for a moment in the play, which is when suddenly the audience should be realizing that some of the things they've been laughing in, are not supposed to be that funny. It's almost British theater, I'm Marty McDonnis, I'm doing things, which is the audience is laughing at this horrible, horrible thing, and then they should be like, "Why am I laughing at this absolutely terrible thing?" And the effect that that causes in an audience member, I'm really interested in that. So there is definitely something that I'm trying to communicate or a message that I'm trying to relay on that I'm not gonna just say it, but it definitely deals with the place of police enforcement in our society, at the value of individuality in our society, which such broad themes that I'm just saying there. But then what we do try to talk about that in a much more specific way, to make an honest one about that, the place of comedy in our society and who we laugh at and who we don't laugh at. We've been really, really heavily on the clown aspects of the play for Columbia. We actually use clown noses for some of the actors, which we're not doing anymore, 'cause we found something else that we wanted to explore. But there is something interesting in that, the place of the clown in our society and things like that. That's definitely all things that I wanna explore. But as of right now, I can say to people coming to see the show is like, no, you're just gonna have a good time. You're just gonna laugh and have fun, 'cause then when that stops happening, I'm hoping the effect takes place. We're all gets bold. - I love it. That is exactly what popped in my mind. The more and more we talk about the show, I'm like, this just sounds fun. John, are there anything you'd like to add to those ideas? - Yeah, I think what's special about, I mean, for my own, both Fernando and I see so much theater, we usually are each other's theater buddies too. So we see a lot of different shows, and I think both of us, what resonates is the stuff that is able to have a certain takeaway from it, that it doesn't feel light and fluffy, but it also doesn't feel so heavy that you kind of, it takes you down with it. And I feel that a really good comedy is hard to pull off. I mean, I've seen a lot of shows where it's really funny for the first 30 minutes and then it just loses steam entirely, and then suddenly by the end, you're kind of exhausted. And I think what makes a good comedy work is having that mix of really intelligent writing with really intelligent acting and physical choices, 'cause if the whole thing is slapstick for 90 minutes, it can get exhausting. But what Fernando has written, which I love, is that it's a really witty, clever, workplace script that has slapstick elements. So you're laughing at different types of things throughout the show without just laughing at it. Funny bit, funny bit, funny bit, you know what I mean? So that's what's fun to me, is that it has that rhythm that allows you to kind of stay with it all the way through. And it's a surprise box. It's got these moments where you're like, "Oh my gosh, wait, this person's playing this character now, and now there's this whole bit with this character." And these characters come back. And it's just, it's fun because the more you dive into the world that Fernando has created, the more it just kind of continues to surprise you and come up with new things to get you laughing. And yeah, it's just, it's a lot of fun, so. - I love it, yes. If anything you take away listeners, the show is fun. Fun, fun, fun, this is great. - And I'll just compliment that by saying that we do, we have the benefit of having the murder mystery aspect of it in the comedy too, which is, I guess it's a whole genre now to have them, not now, it's been for a couple of decades now. But murder mysteries, there are comedies, those are comedies, those exist. But I find that those are especially interesting 'cause you have, Jonathan mentioned the twists and that is, it comes from that genre. I feel like it's hard to have sometimes comedies that have that many plot twists and things like that. But when writing this play, I think I'm a huge research guy. I think they're doing research is a very important thing, but it's also something that I really, really enjoy doing. And then when I was going to write this play, the first thing that I did was just research playing murder mysteries first, like the classical things or things like Colombo or things like, you know, classic plays and classic movies and Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. And then after that, I went to the second level, which is the spoofs, like things like glue and murder by death and our scene, I can love things like that, that take a spin on the genre. And I do find that they are most successful when they are able to have the structure of a murder mystery, which is like very, very, very specific and full of twists and very intricate while having comedy throughout, which I think it's a very, very useful device because the audience always wanna know what's gonna happen next and never get that, which sometimes can happen at comedy, which is, it's really funny, but I don't know if something is really happening or if we're going somewhere, like if the story is moving with the comedy, which I think is the toughest part, which is balancing out the plot with the jokes. And when do you have too many jokes, which is mostly my problem at times? Again, I was really lucky to have my director 'cause when I was working on the play at Columbia, a comment that I often heard from people was, you have a lot of jokes. You should find the jokes that you need, the jokes that you don't need. And my director Patrick was the opposite. They were like, there's no such thing and still many jokes. Like you can have as many jokes as you want. So we're able to find the balance between having, as many jokes as we want, but also not do knowing when the plot needs to be bigger and the jokes need to settle down a little and find that perfect balance, which I do think we were able to do. And now we have this show that, yeah, it has a lot of plot twists and a two. As a matter of mysteries, I do hope we try our best, but you should not figure out who the killer is throughout the play and so the very last 15 minutes or so. And those are also who parts of the play, I don't expect that excited for people to see. - That is wonderful, fantastic. Loving this. Jonathan, I want to pass my final question for this first part onto you. And that is who are you hoping to have access to the world's most boring murder? - The great thing is we're at the player's theater, which is literally on the same street as the comedy seller and the blue node and all these really great venues. And I think what's fun is that there are audiences who are already in that area for entertainment and especially for comedy with a comedy seller right in the next door. And so I'm hoping that being in that space where people are already looking for a good laugh that they take a chance on our show, which might be new to them, but it's right there. And it's the perfect show for 90 minutes of non-stop laughter and surprises and storytelling. And so yeah, so I hope it's young audiences that maybe don't go to theater a lot, maybe do go to the comedy scene and look for something new. I think this is the perfect show for them and we're on the right spot for them too. (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. Pick your brains, if you will. And I want to start by asking the two of you, what or who inspires you? What playwrights, composers or shows have inspired you in the past or just some of your favorites? And John, can I actually start this second part with you? - Sure, yeah. I mean, it depends on, I have so many. It depends on what avenue or what hat I'm wearing, I guess. No, I mean, you know, I'm a writer and a producer. So I think as a writer, my comedy sensibilities, I love, I grew up on Saturday Night Live, my Python, the Simpsons, Star Kid, just like satire is so like in my blood and in my taste and my style. I just love being able to like take something that's familiar and then subvert it, you know? Like I love that kind of theater, even if it's not a parody per se, like what Fernandez written is so fun because it's subverting the murder mystery genre while also being a murder mystery at the same time. So that's fun. So those are big inspirations. You know, I also love like Annie Baker, Brainy Jacobs Jenkins, Lucas Nath, Jackie Sibley's Jury, those are some of those playwrights that I will go see anything they do. Yeah, I just love, I love storytelling that both captures real life and also, yeah. And also is subversive and finds a new, a new surprise to something that feels familiar. So, and I love dark comedy. I just think dark comedy is a lot of fun, so. I love that list. That is a fabulous list. Some of my favorites on there as well. Fernando, what about you? What word who inspires you? Yeah, so as Jonathan mentioned, we see a lot of theater and I have a problem, which is not really a problem, but for some people might be a problem, which is that I mostly like what I see. It's very hard for me to see something that I really love theater. And it's very hard for me to see a show that there's not at least something for me to get out of it, like the moments that I enjoy. When it comes to what I like, unfortunately, it's impossible to make you list all other things that I like because I like a lot, different kinds of theater and different playwrights and different directors that work today. Big inspirations for me, growing up in Brazil, as I was preparing to come here with my New York theater dreams, like many people around the world has. The content I had with, I had never been to the U.S. before. And the American theater rarely makes its way to Brazil in translations or in productions, because it is really not a problem. They're like, the Yankees and the capitalists, that we don't want that stuff. So they really are not about American theater. But the way that I had to connect with it was mostly to a reading. So I spent a lot of high school reading, European and American theater, thinking that I was getting ready to come here. And in this journey, I definitely found the playwrights that I feel like really, really shaped me. People like Harold Pinter is someone who, it's a lot of people don't find funny, but I find him remarkably funny. And I had, and it's crazy, I always think about that. I was like 17, and all the way in Brazil reading Pinter by myself and having the best time. When I say these people here, they're like, what is wrong with you? Why would 17 year old enjoy reading Pinter? But I did, and people like Marty McDonough, people like Harold Churchill, people like Big European playwrights, like UNESCO and Pirandello, Brynoceros is definitely something that, I feel like anything you see that I write, an audience member can be like, you read Brynoceros, you very clearly have read Brynoceros. And yes, I love Brynoceros, and it's all over everything that I write. So these are definitely all really big inspirations, but also I was able to discuss two years. I've been working on and off as a Sandy Ruth sins assistant, who is this incredible playwright, that mostly writes comedy. She wrote the stage adaptation of the Clue film, which I just mentioned was a reference for me, that's really popular right now. And she wrote the cottage, which was on Broadway last season two. And she's a big, big person when it comes to, would come back of comedy, that importance of farce in the world, which is something that you've never, never seen. Like New York theater today, it's so, so rare to see how farce. Not even big places like Broadway, where it's really rare, but anywhere in the off off-Broadway, off-Broadway, it's really hard to just see plays there trying to be these really well-written comedies and really funny comedies. And she has been a huge influence for me, as an artist and as a playwright, for sure. And just the idea of bringing back farces and the power of farces, that not just as an entertainment, but what it communicates. So all those people, they usually like write these plays that are trying to be really funny, but also trying to be meaningful and have their place in the world, and plays that can be done anywhere, like rhinoceros, which can be done in any country, at any point. It plays like the visit. It was also a really big influence. Some back at place, all these stuff is like, yes, theater that can be done anywhere, accessible to anyone, funny to anyone and communicate something at the same time. Those are all big influences. - I love that. Another incredible list. That's a fantastic. I love both of your inspirations. This is so wonderful. And that leads to my favorite question to ask guests. And that, of course, is what is your favorite theater memory? - I have one, and it's impossible to pick a favorite 'cause I have so many, but I think the one that jumped to mind was, I happened to get tickets last minute to see the performance of company, the recent revival, the first preview following COVID, and I'd never seen company before, but I knew the music and I'd always wanna see a professional production, and so I bought, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go or not. I was excited to see it, but I wasn't necessarily dying to be at the first performance, and then they were building up to first performance, and I was like, "Oh gosh, I wanna see this." And so I casually, one morning, looked to see if they had any tickets left for the first preview, and they had two tickets in the rear mess, and I was like, "I should go, I should go." And so I bought two tickets and got in the theater, and they had all this like, they had party hats for everyone, and they had little tote bags, and stickers that said first preview, but you know, and it was post COVID, it's everyone was, they had just, they had done a couple of weeks, or a couple of performances of previews before COVID shut them down, so it was this big, grand return, and I'll never forget, they brought the, you know, the lights came down, they brought, before the show started, Mary and Elliot came out on stage with the mic, and just said, "Hey, thank you so much for being here." You know, this is so meaningful, we're back from COVID, like we're so grateful to share the show with you, and before we do, I want to introduce you to the cast company. They raised the curtain, the whole cast is standing there, everyone's standing ovation, just freaking out, so excited to hear them on. Before the show's even started, and then Patti LaPone stuffs forward and gets huge applause and whatnot, and she takes a microphone, and she comes out and she says, "I want to dedicate this performance "to Stephen Sondheim," and she gestures to Stephen Sondheim, sitting in like the fifth row orchestra, this is two weeks before he passed away, and he was there, and it was just, the whole room went nuts, and it was so surreal and emotional to be in the room watching his show with him, and of course then the show was just incredible, I had like seven standing ovation during the show, like ladies who launched probably like a five minute standing ovation, it was just insane, I'd never seen a show like that, and then they came out of the show, and there was like a thousand balloons in the street, because it's the birthday theme from the show, and it was magical, and then two weeks later he passed away, and it was so like, I can't believe I got to be in the room with him, you know, right before that moment, so anyway, so that was, and I just loved that revival, and I just thought it was so well done, and yeah, that was a really, really cool, man from the theater, but I've had many of those, so I feel, I feel very lucky to have more memories beyond that one too, so. - I love that, what an amazing memory, what an amazing memory, thank you for sharing that. Fernando, what about you? What is your favorite theater memory? - Again, I seconded there definitely many, as I mentioned, seeing Fairview was definitely a very powerful experience to me, and as a play that you can read it, but seeing it as half of the show, there's no way around it, but an experience that I often think about, and I often talk about, was that when I first came to New York, again, I had read a lot of theater, but I hadn't really seen a lot of it, and that was a day, I think I was here for about a couple months, I lived close to the public theater, and at the time they had lottery tickets, to day tickets that were always tried to get, and on Wednesday, which for some reason, I did not have class, I don't know why, but I got lottery tickets to see plenty, that they were, they had plenty matinee, Leonardo just sweat at night on the same day, and I had, at that point, I probably have seen like two or four plays, I don't know, it really was recent here, and it was just a lovely day of theater, as one would expect, but especially the performance of sweat, was something that was really, really impactful to me, as an audience member, as a writer, as everything, I remember my reaction to it was in part, that I wrote my first film like play, which was a terrible play in a barn, no one will ever read, but it was still just a visceral reaction to seeing that show, and also I think Trump had won the election, something like three or four days before, so because of that, after the play, there was like a big talk back, to talk about you know, sweat is a play that deals with our life, why do people vote for Trump, like who are the people that do this, and are very interestingly, and there was just this kind of community feeling to it, at the public with the talk back to the artist, that all I could think of is, I wanna be a part of this, like I wanna find a way to be in any way, shape or form, a part of this community, or a part of this thing that seemed so important, it seemed so engaging and so interesting, and so important to be there, and it only became more meaningful to me, 'cause I had a man's huge privilege of learning under Lynn, 'cause she's the main teacher, the main professor at Columbia, and she's also just the most wonderful person, and she gave me the opportunity to translate her work to Portuguese, and her work does not exist in Brazil, and the first play that I have translated is sweat, and it's gonna be published in a couple months in Brazil, and it's gonna be the first full-length play that I have published, so it's a translation, obviously not my play, Lynn did all the hard lifting, but it's still, it's crazy to me, it's almost like not destiny, but it does seem like it's something, after all these years, eight years after I saw the show, and it was the thing that almost made me wanna do theater, it's still a play that's so important to me, it's so meaningful to me. Yeah, I became a huge public theater fan, I would oftentimes say the public theater is like almost like a second home to me, and a lot of it is just because of this one day where I saw six hours worth of theater, probably, and yeah, and felt like I was part of something bigger, and felt like I was part of this people that had meaningful things to say, and meaningful things to do when supported each other, and helped each other, that was it, that was the thing that really made me a theater person. That was amazing, congratulations on this translation, but also just what amazing memories right there, both of you were great memories, thank you both so much for those, that's wow, wow, well as we wrap things up, I would love to know, do either of you have any other projects or productions coming on the pipeline, we might be able to plug for you? Yeah, I'm producing a new musical at the Tank Theater in the fall, or the Tank I think is the, would be the name. It's called "Gollum Owned a Tropical Smoothie." It's a musical about Gollum from Lord of the Rings who owns a smoothie shop in Panama City Beach, Florida, and he basically, it's such a weird show, and I love it so much. It's basically about these three young adults who work at the smoothie shop, or two young adults who work at the smoothie shop, this kid who basically has moved to Panama City Beach, and he doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life, and his sister is kind of taking care of him because their parents have left, and so it's really these three young adults that are kind of trying to figure out who they are in the world, and their boss happens to be Gollum, and there's this evil overlord of all these smoothie shops named Smeagol, which is the same puppet, but a different wig, (laughs) and basically Smeagol is trying to shut down all of the Tropical Smoothies in the area to take over as the smoothie kingdom, which is the big kind of corporate overlord there, and so, anyway, so poor Gollum and his shop are getting shut down, and so these three young adults realize they find their purpose in trying to save the smoothie shop, and in turn, the whole piece is really just about, what do you do with, how do you make sense of a world that doesn't make sense, you know? There's like, why does Gollum own Tropical Smoothie? No one really knows, but he does, and that's what matters, and so it's just, it's a very funny show, it's got lots of puppets, it's got humans as well, but it's incredible music, and the two guys who wrote it play the Gollum puppets, so they're like in the show as well, and it's got lots of subversive humor and pulling back the curtain, and it's really fun, so that's coming up in October, and, yeah, some other stuff in the pipeline that I probably can't talk about yet, but, you know, I'm a producer on Queen of Versailles with Kristen Chenowal with, and in Boston this summer, a co-producer, and so that'll be fun coming up. Yeah, more to come, we'll see. Fernando? - Yeah, I definitely have a lot of things that I am working on, and when it comes to the near future, I recently was part of the Valdez Theater Conference, and I had a full-length play right there, which is very much so in the style of this play, and so a big far, even bigger, 'cause it just has so many parts in it, but it's a farce with the backing of punch for trying to communicate something and all that, and some of the readings involved it, and Valdez, I go into Bibrach in New York, I heard, they're bringing about five of them to do it here, and my play is one of them, and that's coming in about two months. I'm not sure the exact date yet, that's something that's gonna happen, and I'm like really excited for. I'm also, I am really not an actor, though I went to undergrad for acting at NYU. That was an experience that mostly made me realize that I was not as much of an actor in some of my classmates that really, really wanted to do that, and I realized more and more that I really, really wanted to be a writer more than an actor, but about two years ago, I was in a French-Brazilian movie in Brazil, mostly 'cause my older brother was a screenwriter in it, and seemed like something fun to do, and all my things were like, but there's incredible Brazilian actors that has a palm door, and it's like this huge person, I was like, "Sure, I would do that, I just wanna be in a room with her," and the movie's coming out soon, it's coming out in September, so I'm not, I'm a supporting role, but a good supporting role in it, and it is coming to the US too, I don't know the exact date yet, but it's called Madame Dubochet, and it's the real story about the first woman to be a doctor in Brazil in the 19th century Brazil, and she's like 80th century Brazil, and she's like French immigrant. Is that really cool, sorry? And that's coming out in September, probably. If you hear about French-Brazilian movie coming to New York or something, yeah, it should be this one, that's all I'll be not sure, though. - That is amazing, amazing. So you both have some really amazing stuff in the fire that we need to keep tabs on, and that is a great lead into my final question, which is if our listeners would like more information about the world's most boring murder, or about either of you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you, how can they do so? - Yeah, we're on Instagram and TikTok at most boring murder. You can follow us there for updates. Well, you know, we've got lots of little things we'll be tossing out to our audiences and fans there, and I'm on Instagram as well. You can find me at J-T-H-O-G-U-E-2. J-T-Hogue, too, at Instagram and Twitter and TikTok, even though I don't really post in TikTok very much. And then my website is JonathanHogue.com, if anybody wants to follow that as well, so. - You can, yeah, you can definitely find me in all the social medias with my name. If you just look up Fernando Segalio, probably, you find me, but you can also look for my writer's name, which is Fernando Pusar Segal. I use my mom and my dad's last name for that, 'cause I think it's cool, I don't know. You can easily find me that way. You can find me on new play exchange, which I think is something that all play right to look into, it's a pretty good program. And if you want to see more on my work there, you can find both the play that was read about these and we'll have our reading soon is there and also a play, a full play that I wrote that's about presenting immigration, and it's not really that funny. But a Jack last year, I've had a few performances at Jack last summer, and you can find that too, if that interests anyone. And yeah, that's probably the main outlets to see what I'm up to. - Well, wonderful. Well, Jonathan Fernando, thank you both so much for taking the time to speak with me today, for sharing this amazing, amazing and fun show. I cannot wait to see it. So thank you both so much for your time. - Of course, can't wait to have you there. - Lily, thank you. - My guests today have been the incredible artist, the producer, Jonathan Hogue, and the playwright, Fernando Segal, who joined us to talk about their exciting new work, The World's Most Boring Murder. It's playing July 11th through the 28th at the Players Theater, and you can get your tickets and more information by visiting theplayerstheatre.com. We also have some contact information for our guests, which we'll be posting on our episode description, as well as on our social media posts, but you need to run. Don't walk, head to theplayerstheatre.com, get your tickets now. You will not be disappointed with this show. This is a perfect summer show. It's a great comedy. We're gonna be there. So let's come on out and make it a stage whisper night out of the theater. Again, the show is called The World's Most Boring Murder, and it's playing July 11th through the 28th. So until next time, I'm Andrew Cortez, reminding you to turn off your cellphones, unwrap your candies. - And keep talking about the theater. - In a stage whisper. - 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 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. Other music on this episode provided by Jazzar and Billy Murray. 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