Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 553
(upbeat music) Welcome back in everyone to a fabulous new whisper in the wings from stage whisper. It's that time of year, friends. We are approaching the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and we are beginning our coverage of that early with a wonderful event that happens here every year at 50, 90, 59 theaters. It's called East to Edinburgh. And we are joined by one of the amazing shows that is part of that before heading over to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And joining us to talk about this, we have the creator producer and actor, Patrick Nash and the director and actor, Jesse Tendler. They're joining us to talk about their piece, Funny Guy, which is playing at the East to Edinburgh Festival, July 9th, 13th and 14th. All of this happening at 59E, 59 theaters. And you can get your tickets and more information by visiting 59E59.org. We always love giving theater festivals coverage, particularly fringe festivals coverage. This is the largest of them all. I feel like in the world, the most well-known. And we're excited to bring you this, like the pre-show of it that happens here in New York. And a perfect way to kick this off is with our guests and their show. So let's go ahead and welcome them on. Patrick, Jesse, welcome to Whisper and the Wings from Sage Whisper. - Well, thank you. Thank you. We're delighted to be here. - Yeah, thanks for having us. - I'm so excited I have the two of you here. I'm so excited to, one, be speaking with someone who's going to the Edinburgh French Festival, obviously, but two to be talking to you about this show, which I've heard great things about, Bunny Guy. Patrick, why don't we sit with you as the creator? Why don't you tell us a little bit about what Bunny Guy is about? - Okay, great. It is, I would say, a dark comedy, kind of a kind of a power dynamic about two couples. And it involves romance, betrayal, ambition, and kind of greed in this kind of undercurrents of the kind of negative energy that these couples have that is kind of just below the surface, but sticks out in interesting ways. - You're burying the lead a little bit, Patrick. There's also a seven foot tall neon marionette, and that is the conscience of one of the characters who makes an appearance and talks to both one of our leads and the audience. - That's true, but there's the giant neon. There's a character that is made entirely of neon that kind of stalks the stage as a kind of an alter ego and an id, a voice of the conscience of these guys. But yeah, that's kind of a prominent feature of this. But it's woven into the writing. It's more than just a visual gimmick. There's something about his character that is as glaring and garish as his appearance. - I mean, that is incredible. I mean, the story already, I was like, "Okay, I'm hooked." Then you throw in this giant neon marionette, and I'm like, "Go on, this sounds amazing." So, Patrick, what inspired you to pen this piece? - Okay, I've been writing for a long time, but I mostly now have been writing musicals. I, but during the pandemic, I kind of got away from that a little bit, and I started revisiting some of the notes that I had for plays that I'd written or that I conceived of earlier, but didn't really have the time to put down. So, in that kind of quiet period, I had the opportunity to actually write it, like I have a lot of ideas half formed in my head, but I had the opportunity to time it on my hands to actually do it, and I had the opportunity to actually fabricate the neon and get it made. And that was because there was so little else going on, I had the ability and the capacity to actually work on fabricating that, which I made the original neon guy myself in my studio, and I'm also a visual artist, and I do creative fabrication for scenery and so forth, but immersive installations and that sort of thing. But I'm usually so busy with other projects that I can't really put something that's purely a creative project into my studio onto the table because there's other jobs going through. So, this really gave me the opportunity to do it. And what happened was we started, we were going a little crazy during the shutdown, and we took this guy, I made a handful of them, and we brought them out into the streets in New York and set them up in, I think we set it up around Aster Plays one day and at dusk. And it just, like people were really responding to it in a way that was like very exciting. The first ones didn't move at all, they just sort of stood like suits of armor, but then like the next one we made, the next iteration we ended up, he was able to move his arms. Then the next one we made had like this talking capability, just this, you know, the crude neon animation, like the vacancy, no vacancy sign, you know, it was like that level of, you know, it's not like these fancy, you know, and there's something about that, that, you know, this almost sort of steampunk look, you know, that it's like that neon has now, that kind of makes it kind of engaging in a weird way. There's something about the materiality, the glass, and everything like that, that people, you know, people were just sort of crowding around it and asking about it. And then, you know, we, then I wrote the script, you know, and then, yeah, and then that's kind of how it came to life. - That is incredible. Jesse, let me bring you in now. I mean, you're not only one of them, you're the director of course, so how did you came up on this piece? - Well, Patrick and I have actually known each other for 20 years. He did political satire street theater and musical theater together back in 2004, 2005, 2006. And so we've known each other for a long time and it was about a year and a half ago that Patrick and one of our executive producers, same Simon, they reached out to me, the two of them and asked me about directing this. And I read the script and loved it. So I signed on to direct it. And then after we had done a reading of it, Patrick actually said to me, he's like, I think you need to play the role of Bill too. (laughs) I was like, yeah, it's kind of perfect for me. So that's how I ended up both directing and acting in it. And I'm thrilled to be working on it. And we just put together an amazing cast or, you know, five incredible actors involved in it. And it's a lot of fun. - It's fabulous. Well, I wanna build on that a little bit because as we mentioned in the opening and whatnot, this is a, you know, this is like a layover. You're on your way to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. But first, you're stopping here at New York at the beautiful 50, 90, 59 theaters. I wanna know what has it been like developing this particular iteration that you are taking over this summer of the show? - Yeah. So we had, before I talk about this particular iteration, last year we had done some stage readings of it just as like development, you know, workshops to get some notes to figure out what worked and what didn't and what we found out was that 95% of it was working very well. And maybe even 97% of it was working very well. And there were some things that we needed to streamline a little bit, just to make it run a little bit faster, a little bit cleaner. And so over the last year, we've been working on that and just making it run faster and improving the pacing, streamlining some of the language. And then we held casting for it just, you know, about a month, month and a half ago. And one of the things in New York is we put up a post for casting get hundreds of submissions because there are so many talented actors in New York City. So we had to sort through many, many, many, many submissions. And we were fortunate that people, the story really resonated with people. And so we got incredible submissions and we were able, we just from watching self tapes initially, we were able to narrow down significantly and then bring people in for in-person auditions. And then we did like a chemistry call back. And for two of our actors who are playing the roles of Dan and Emma, when we saw their auditions, even their self tapes, we were like, wow, this is, they are probably going to be perfect together and just really nailed the roles. And we had a bunch of extremely talented actors who came in for the in-person auditions. And just like their chemistry was perfect together, Dan is being played by jazz admirers and Karen Gennaro is playing Emma and the two of them together are phenomenal. And I'm super excited actually was interesting because it took us in a slightly different direction in terms of how the characters were originally written. Patrick had originally written the script with the characters being a bit like more closer to like, they're in their mid 30s, let's say. But then we had two actors who are slightly older than their mid 30s who just nailed the roles so perfectly that we were like, yep, we're rewriting this. We're changing that to fit them. So it's actually really interesting just from a casting standpoint that like, even if you're slightly outside the age slightly outside the age range of what the initial casting call was for, if you nail the role and you're talented, people will write stuff to accommodate and change descriptions to accommodate. So yeah, and then our other, one of our other leads is Clara and she's insanely talented. We've worked with her, Patrick has worked with her for years and I've known her for a couple of years also and she's playing the role of Margie who is Bill and Margie are a married couple in this. And she just nails it as well. The Margie is a particularly brutal character. - Wow, wow, that is amazing. So Patrick, coming back to you, I'm very curious to know, I mean, we've got these great characters on the stage. He's sometimes dominating, sometimes larger than life, if you will, literally. What is the message or thought that you're hoping that audiences take away from funny guy? - Well, thanks for that, that's a really good question. There's, you know, like my work in general, I consider it to be like what I call mission driven. It's like I'm trying to say, there's like a, not necessarily a message, but there's a cultural conversation that I wanna contribute to. And this particular piece has to do with materialism, lust, addiction, and the sort of dark underpinnings of human relationships. And sort of fit into that moral universe that I personally connect with. I feel like as a writer, it's important to give voice to the, you know, to what people might be experiencing, but don't as of yet have a context or a vocabulary to really express. So there's a lot of a lot of compulsive behaviors people are acting and doing things that they're not even, they don't know why they're doing it, right? And I feel like in our world today, there's something kind of weirdly unhinged about people's behavior, both individually and collectively, that I really feel it's super important that we explore that. And that we find a way to talk about these things that might, you know, like there's no, like this play does not pretend to have any answers, but it, my goal is to expand the borders of what we can talk about in hopes that collectively the conversation will be able to include solutions to these kinds of problems that we have both personally, individually and also culturally that, you know, that we're facing. - I love that. That is a very important and very timely idea right there. So that's fabulous. Jesse, I wanna come to you for my final question of this first part. And that of course is who do you hope have access to your show? - I mean, I am strongly believed that it's a show that will appeal to an extremely broad audience. So I want everyone to have access to it. I want it to be, you know, the, I would say the, the audience is probably 16 to 85. (laughs) I mean, I guess if you're 86, you'd probably enjoy it too. But yeah, it's definitely aimed at adults. It's not a children's show, but I would like everyone to have the opportunity to see this. And as Patrick said, to be able to have these discussions to think about these societal issues and the issues of greed and ambition and lust and relationship and betrayal and the sort of dark thoughts lurking in our subconscious. I think it's good for all audiences. (upbeat music) - Well, on the second part of our interview, we'd love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better. Pull the curtain, like if you will. And I want to start by asking the two of you, what are who inspires you? What playwrights, composers or shows have inspired you in the past or just some of your favorites? And Jesse, is it okay if I start with you on that? - Sure, yeah, let's see. I, it's, you know, it's interesting. I actually started my career in film and television as opposed to theater. So I've been influenced tremendously by a lot of film and television programs over the years. And theater has also influenced me for sure. But I've been acting professionally in film TV and commercials since I was three and a half years old. I was a child actor and, you know, a hundred national network commercials and a regular on a few sitcoms and starred in a few movies. And so I was influenced by all of the amazing performers I worked with back then. You know, one of the most notable was Kirk Douglas and just his, his work. I got to work with him. He played my grandfather in a film that I starred in and working with him was incredible. And just getting to see somebody like that who's with such an icon and getting to see his, his process and his work was really amazing. And I also, you know, got to work with Ellen Burston and Megan Mulally and Elaine Strich. And Elaine Strich, you know, as a Broadway legend, you know, was one of the most phenomenal Broadway actresses of all time. So working with them was, was definitely a major influence on my, on my career. And just also as a, as a person, you know, working with like Ellen Burston and Megan Mulally, they're just like such kind, thoughtful people and, and having that experience on set day in and day out with them was, was just, you know, very formative. And, and in recent years, I've still continued to act, direct, do some script doctoring, producing. And I also program for several film festivals. So I get to see a lot of new work. And that's one of the things I love most about, about Fringe, about New York City off Broadway and off off Broadway theater. Edinburgh is this just hot pot of amazing creativity. Some, I was actually there last year with a show that I was directing called Two Faces. And that was, I, after having that experience last summer, I was like, I need to go back. (laughs) It's a little bit addictive, but it's an incredible experience. And some of the performers I worked by, or I got to see their performances last year were really inspiring. There was a show I got to see that was kind of a, a magic show with a message. These two goals, the creator of that, it's called Magic for Animals, it was so good. Also a friend of mine, one person, that was a one person show, another one person show that I got to see by a performer and creator, Grant Lancaster, it was called One Room Sleep One Night. And just the character acrobatics that he does in transforming throughout the course of that show were, I mean, it was incredible. So those are, you know, some of my influences are people no one's ever heard of before that aren't, you know, famous. And I just love seeing new work and seeing how people bring life to interesting characters. - That is an amazing list of inspirations that are, wow, what a life you lived. I can't wait to read your book, that's amazing. - Yes, my memoirs will be coming out in about a decade. (both laugh) - Magic, how about you? What are who inspires you? - Hmm, well, I have a, first of all, I came to theater and later in life. I, like, Jessie's been in it for a long time, but I had a long, you know, a long time where I was kind of writing in isolation, you know? But theatrically, like, what, one of the, you know, like, right now, what I'm, I'm gonna say, I really, I really appreciate the musicals of Cander and Eb. I find that, again, there's this thing of the, like, the moral universe of the play where they strike a particularly, you know, with, like, you know, Cabaret, Chicago, there's this kind of, like, twisted hierarchy of value that resonates with me and that with audiences. I mean, and, you know, people talk about, you know, like, writing a, you know, like, you know, well, it's a hero's journey or it's a this or it's an archetypal story, but for me, it's all about creating that atmosphere, right? Where, you know, what makes sense in this world? And, you know, you can have all the hero's journey you want, you can have all the moral, yeah, yeah. But if you don't have that atmosphere, audience is not going to want to be in that world, you know, and as soon as the lights go down, they're either going to be in it or not. And you've got about two seconds to, like, convey what you want. And just, you know, I was, I was thinking about, you know, you're talking about, like, influences, you know, like, what, what would be, when I was quite young, I grew up upstate and my, in 1972, my mother brought, and I did not want to go, I did not want to go to the theater, right? But she took us to God's spell in Toronto in 1972. And that was like this kind of a mind-blowing experience for me where, you know, I could actually experience the, the presence of the actors, the music, the dialogue, the story, all, I mean, it's like firing on all cylinders. And it was a all-star cast that was, you know, I didn't expect it. I didn't know at the time, but, you know, those, the people on that stage were, you know, who had a rough, you know, they're, you know, huge. But that, that experience sort of stayed with me, you know, as, as something that the theater could be. And when, when I started writing for the theater about 10 years ago, you know, that experience kind of, like, guided me really towards musicals. And I know, funny guys, not a musical, but there's something about it that has, like, like, in a way, the presence of the neon as this, it, it triangulates the experience with the materiality of the, the prop or the costume. I mean, it's like, it's a puppet, but it's also light, and it's also this. And that creates a, like, almost a dimensionality of the, you know, that, that I think is like, like, helps it to, it makes it unique in a way that, that, that keeps me interested. That is so brilliant. I love all of that. The two of you, I mean, your source material, if you will, this is fantastic. I want to turn now to my favorite question to ask us. And that, of course, is, what is your favorite theater memory? I have a few theater memories, and these are going to sound a little bit silly. One of them is, like, I, because I was working and acting in New York when I was younger, when I was a kid, we did see some Broadway musicals when I was, when I was younger. And so I, I got to see a lot of the most famous Broadway musicals, like, Les Mids, and Phantom of the Opera, and Cats, and Starlight Express, and I think those really made an impact on me as much as, you know, there's, there's lots of argument over, you know, which is someone's favorite. And, of course, people have their shows. They're like, that shows ridiculous. I don't like that show. But I love all of the spectacle of it. And, you know, seeing Cats as a seven-year-old, I adored it. Seeing Starlight Express was like, oh, wow, this is like a completely different theatrical experience of people on roller skates and, and just the way that you could transform a theater and do something totally different. And then, you know, Les Mids, I, I felt like I was Gavrosh. And, you know, I never lived through a revolution. But I, identified with some of the characters and just was able to feel the music. And, and then, you know, I noticed behind you on the wall behind you, you have the poster of Fun Home, which is one of my favorite shows as well. I, in the '90s, saw Michael Serberis as Tommy in The Who's Tommy, and then years later, you know, Fun Home. And, yeah, those are definitely some of my, my best theater memories, and specifically musical theater, even though as Patrick said, funny guy's not a musical, but musical theater and Broadway spectacles have definitely had an impact on me. That is so, so amazing, so amazing. Now, don't get mad at me, though, because now I, like I say, I, I came into theater kind of later in life, except for that sort of seminal experience as a, as a young child. I, I hesitate to, I don't, I mean, I'm quick to say it was a young child in 1972. But I, like, what I was doing creatively in my 20s and 30s and 40s was, you know, I was, I was kind of a dissipated player in a rock band, you know, in one of these dead end rock bands in the East Village that, you know, just briningly noisy and, and I had, I would have to say kind of, I would almost say like contempt for musicals, you know, I did not, I, I was not having it, you know, I saw cats, I rolled my eyes, I saw, you know, I, people from out of town would come and, and I would have to go and I love, you know, but what happened, I mean, I, I kind of came around, I, I sort of straightened out my life a little bit and I had, I had a couple of kids and the kids went to school and then when I, and they were in, they were, they did theater and I remember my son was in, probably in grammar school and that they did fiddler on the roof and, you know, I was talking a little bit about like the quote unquote moral universe of the play where they can, for some reason, it never made sense for characters on stage to break into song, right. In order to set that up so that it makes sense, you have to, you have to, you know, you have to, like, you have to trick me into buying it, right. I have to be almost coerced into dropping my defenses so that a character can start singing and I can take it in. And when I saw children doing it, it opened my mind to the possibility of adults doing it. And that's when I wrote Bula Land. I'd been a singer songwriter for a long time, but I, I went home and I just cobbled together a bunch of songs that I written and added some new stuff. And, and I thought, you know, at the time, well, I'll try to figure out a loose narrative. And I, I wrote this whole musical. And that was the first musical I wrote. And it, it just, you know, it, it was almost like, like, I had to hear children singing before I could imagine adults singing. You know, I don't know if that makes any sense, but that, that was my experience. That is fantastic as well. I love that. I love that. And I love those stories, those memories, those are so fantastic. Thank you both for sharing those. Well, as we wrap things up, I would love to know, do either of you have another projects or productions coming on the pipeline that we might be able to plug for you? Yes. So I'll start with with funny guys. So yeah, we're doing the run in 50, 50, 59 July 11th, 13th and 14th here in New York City. We're also doing a big benefit party for Funny Guy on the 25th here in New York. We're even doing a stage reading of it that's coming Saturday, the 22nd Vector Theatre Workshop. We're doing performances in London at the end of July at Barron's Court Theatre 25th, 26th, 27th of July in London. And then our full run August 2nd through the 24th at Greenside George Street in the Lime Studio in Edinburgh in the Fringe. So that's for Funny Guy. And outside of Funny Guy, I am working on a couple of feature films that are in development. I have a music video that I just shot recently for a talented artist named Davey Harris that specifically has a climate environmental theme to it, which is something that is involved in some of my other projects as well. I'm the programming director for the Climate Film Festival, which is happening during Climate Week NYC September 20th to 22nd here in New York at DCTV '87 Lafayette Street. So that's one of the projects that I'm most excited about right now as well in addition to Funny Guy. Well, that all's amazing. Wow. Patrick, what about you? Well, yeah. So yeah, Funny Guy is the big thing. I would really love it if you and your listeners could come to the benefit we're having on June 25th at the Kite Club at 40 Avenue C. It's a really cool venue. They have a lot of great programming there. And we're going to be doing this about a week away. Wow, that's really coming up. Yeah, we'd love it if you could come, you know, and it's like I say, it's a benefit, which we knew them on. But in addition to that, I'm, I do these immersive environmental thing environments that and I'm doing one for the Chashima Gala, which is in about a week called Vomitorium, which is it's a, it's a, I do I do what's called activated graphics. It's a strobing environment with red and blue and it's very kinetic and exciting. And longer range, I'm, I'm planning now to do one of the musicals, a lot of musicals I have Bula Land and also Oh, no, my leg are kind of medical related. And I have plans to perform them to do a run in an alternative theater space that involves a kind of a speakeasy theater, right? It's it's in a retail environment that there's a trap door and it leads you into the theater, right? And the there's a per what I call perform formative retail, which is something I've developed. I created something called the no shop where people would come in and have the opportunity to buy these like fake products, you know, and where the actual performance is retail, right, which is a commentary on this, you know, on the, you know, the commercial corporate economy, but also makes you think about what what we're doing. And so yeah, I'm hoping to get something like that going next next summer, either in some of the 60% of vacant commercial real estate in New York City, or in a mall, I would love to I would love to build out an environment in a mall. So that's my that's my short term and long term plan. It's amazing. Some wonderful projects that we need to keep tabs on in addition to your show. And that leads to my final question, which is if hard listeners would like more information about funny guy or about either of you may give like to reach out to you, how can they do so? Well, we have a website www.funnyguy@play.com. There's also Patrick Nash theatrical.com. And that has information about the other shows and other projects I've done. I also have a commercial practice that Patrick Nash design. And that that'll that'll tell you everything you need to know. For me, I would say for this show for Funny Guy, definitely just funnyguyplay.com. And our Instagram account got Facebook, you know, all those social media funnyguyplay. And for me personally, my Instagram is Jesse Ryan one zero. People want to follow me there. I'll be posting LinkedIn is a good way to connect with me. My IMDB page has all my my film credits and upcoming stuff is just IMDB dot me. That's me slash Jesse dash r dash tumblr. So those are probably the best ways. And then my website just jessyartendler.com best way to keep in touch with me. And before we before we wrap up, I actually want to plug a couple other fringe shows as you know, some of our friends in the fringe this year, our our amazing producer, Allison Parker, who we're thrilled to be working with on this is also using a couple other shows at fringe this year. One's called do this one thing for me that's at the Bedlam Theater, and then a show called Unseen at the Zoom Playground. So I want to plug her shows. And then my friend Kelly McCahn, who was at fringe last summer with a show called Catholic guilt that sold out its run is coming back to fringe again this year in Edinburgh with the same show that I'm sure will sell out. So all amazing. Thank you for shouting those out. Well, Patrick Jesse, thank you both so much for taking the time today for to speak with me for sharing this incredible work. I cannot wait to see it. I'm so excited and I can't wait to see the success and the excitement that you bring to audiences over at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So thank you both so much for your time today. Thank you. And I'd be here. Tickets for 59 is 59. Get them now. I actually just checked the website and we've got like four seats remaining at one of the performances, like it's selling out fast. So and tickets, they're only $20, including the fees. So 11th, 13th and 14th of July. Easy, amazing. My guest today have been the creator producer and actor Patrick Nash and the director and actor Jesse Tenler who joined us to talk about their upcoming production, Funny Guy, which is part of East Edinburgh. It's happening July 11th, 13th and 14th at 59 E 59 theaters. You can get your tickets and more information by visiting 59 E 59 dot org. We also have some contact information for our guests, which we'll be posting on our episode description and social media posts. And you will definitely want to keep tabs on these two. They've got some amazing stuff coming on the pipeline that you will want to check out. But right now, you need to head to 59 E 59 dot org and get your tickets while you still can. They are going fast for this fabulous show. Funny Guy happened July 11th, 13th and 14th. 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. 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 Stage Whisper Pod. And feel free to reach out to us with your comments and personal stories at Stage Whisper Pod at 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 Stage Whisper Pod.com. Our theme song is Maniac by Jazar. Other music on this episode provided by Jazar and Billy Murray. You can also become a patron of our show by logging on to patreon.com/stage Whisper Pod. 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