Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 630
(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back into a fantastic new whisper in the wings from stage whisper. We've got a very exciting show in store for you today. We have a playwright joined on us who I had the distinct honor of meeting at a theater one evening, and she's actually a follower of the show, which is even more incredible, but she's got several works out there, which is just mind-blowing, and she's joining us to talk about one in particular today. Of course, I'm speaking about the playwright Lily Welsh, and she is stopping by to talk about her piece, Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It's coming to a theater near you and hopefully to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival next year. That's right. We are already talking about next year's Ed Fringe Festival, but trust me listeners, this is such a fun and exciting piece. You were gonna love learning more about it. So let us not waste any more time. Let's welcome on our guest, Lily. Welcome into Whisper and the Wings from stage whisper. - Hi. - I'm so glad we were able to make this happen. It's so good to have you here. And we are talking about this piece that recently had a run here in New York City, Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Congratulations on the run. - Thank you. - I would love to start by having you tell us a little bit about what the show is about. - Yes, yes. So Manic Pixie Dream Girl is about a student named Ava who has a kind of a traumatic experience with an older man and finds out that he is writing his grad thesis about what happened. And that's kind of the play within the play. And so throughout this kind of surrealist world of the show, she's kind of haunting his thesis while he in turn is haunting her poetry 'cause she's a poetry student. - I love that. I love the layers and that that's fantastic. So what inspired you to create the show? - Well, when I was a freshman in college, that was kind of in the middle of the Me Too movement. And there was, I was kind of looking around, I was freshly 18 and I think a lot of young women and not even women, non-binary men like realize, you know, once you turn 18, especially if you look young for your age, there's kind of a weird shift that comes around and then being in the middle of all this, all that was going on in the world. And especially at my college, I believe that there was about five big cases that went out just my freshman year, including a situation where a very popular senior wrote a musical about them assaulting someone. And, you know, being 18, being in the adult world for the first time and seeing all this stuff happen. You know, it was, there was a lot of rage, a lot of like, a lot of complicated feelings, not to mention my own experiences that I had went through and was going through at the time. And I always write my best work when I'm working through those complicated feelings. So when I was a sophomore, I just started writing this play 'cause I had been ruminating on all these feelings and also a little bit how much I hated the movie, 500 Days of Summer. - Wow, what a, what a plethora of inspiration there. - Yeah. - So now, I mentioned that you have just come off of a very successful run here in New York City. I believe it was down at the tank, if memory is-- - Guess it was. - Yeah, so you're now getting ready to mount it again, particularly for next year's Ed Fringe Festival. Tell me what it's been like developing the piece and getting it up on its feet. - Oh man, it's been nuts. So I've, so I've been not doing this play for a while. Actually last year, it did reading a staged reading over at New York City Center and that was produced by Daisy Theatrical. You can follow them on Instagram at DaisyTheatricals. I highly recommend they're great. And that was super successful, but putting it up again at the tank, I, it was, that was a nuts experience. I was very glad for them to have me. That was a part of their Lime Fest, which was a festival for them, underrepresented gender playwrights and artists. And that was a great time, but it was also stressful 'cause I was, 'cause at New York City Center, I had a lot of, I just had to be the playwright where, whereas with the tank, my director, AKA my best friend in the Hawaii world and back in, and I were wearing a lot of hats, but we also had some great support from the people of the tank, of course. And from my amazing cast, who a lot of them were prized their roles from the New York City Center. So that was great. - That is so wonderful to hear. So wonderful. I'm curious to know, is there a particular message or thought you hope that audiences take away from it? - Yes, I think what I want audiences to take away from is kind of what's in this modern world, like the kind of complex feelings that can exist around a type of relationship that I think is actually more common than you would think, like these kind of deep, really emotionally intense, not necessarily very long relationships that you get into when you're very young. I would say it's part of its kind of a warning to people who were the age of the character, the age that I was when I was inspired to make this piece, you know, 18, 19, 20. Like this is the kind of situation to watch out for, this is the red flag, but it's also kind of shining a light, at least I hope it is, that on what behaviors that are very normalized, that aren't necessarily okay, like the fact that in the world of the piece, this man, this 29 year old man is hanging out with a teenager, it's very normalized. She doesn't see anything wrong with it. He definitely doesn't see anything wrong with it. And it's kind of, there's a lack of accountability that I think audiences going in can see and kind of recognize and maybe look at the behaviors of people around them and see like, oh, this is what I should watch out for. These are the people that I can mark in my brain and be like, oh, maybe I should be careful around them. Maybe I should make sure other people are, you know? - Absolutely, absolutely. Well, it was such an important piece that you've created. I would love to know going forward as future productions are mounted of this, who do you hope have access to the piece? - I would love it if people, like when I first started writing this play and this is kind of interesting, I was 19 when I first wrote the first draft or 1920 and I was, you know, actively in a situation more similar to the character Brenda in the play and it would take me like a year after I first started writing this play to get out of that. And I think if 18 year olds, young artists, 19, 20, if they could see this play and maybe kind of see the kind of power that they have as an artist that they don't have to diminish themselves to kind of be the muses for others, just 'cause it's exciting. And just because when you're that age, you want that attention that there is choices to find that attention with other people, with friends, within yourself, I would love if this play had the power to do that for people who were like me when I was a teenager, you know? (upbeat music) - Well, for the second part of our interviews, 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 wanna start by asking you my regular first question, which is what or who inspires you? What playwrights, composers or shows have inspired you in the past or are just some of your favorites? - Oh, absolutely. I was waiting for this question. I have been obsessed with Oscar Wilde for so long. My very first play, you know, has whole, it's called "Cogan Wonder." It's on "New Play Exchange." We'll probably hopefully have it up in like the next five years, but I just like, that's basically just like swaths of the ballad of breading jail. I am so inspired by aestheticism. I love aestheticism. That's present in all my plays, that kind of, and like it's how I kind of put that into surrealism. I'm a big fan of Paula Vogel. I love Paula Vogel and Decent is probably like, I've never cried so hard at a play than I did watching in Decent on PBS. And how I learned to drive is actually a big inspiration for this play. I'm a big fan of Carol Churchill. She, I love her style. I take a lot of, so I dabble a lot in surrealism in my plays and I take a lot from her, Cloud Nine, that kind of stuff. And Dave Malloy, who I actually recently had the pleasure of working with as a I house manager at a certain theater. I don't know if I should tell where I work on the internet, but I, you know, worked, I got to manage a show of his and that was, and I actually got to tell him like, oh, hey, your work changed my life. And he was like, oh, thank you. And he was so gracious about it that I walked away from that being like, oh, God, did I just boost the ego of a man? But he was so lovely. - I love those inspirations. Some of my favorites as well. I would love to know now, what is your favorite part about working in the theater? - Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, I think just being an artist, I was, and my mom used to be an actress. I was raised in a very artistic household. And artists and theater people, especially, at least for me, like they are the most fun people. I like, if you spend like more than like any amount of time with me, you will know that I kind of have a tendency to wind up in weird situations. And that is how I like to have my life. And that is, and the theater. And the theater is just a world where you can never be bored, where you're always having these adventures, where you're always meeting the best, most exciting people. And even when there is like, quote unquote drama, there's something like really indulgent, and something really understanding, you know, that it's just, you meet the best people, you meet the worst people. And if you love living in extremes, which I do, like theater is just the place, it's the world, it's the safety, I adore every aspect of it. I want to live, breathe, it's, I could not imagine doing anything else. Like, you know, that's saying, like, if you could do anything else, do it, 'cause it's so hard, like, I literally cannot do anything else. - I love that, yes, yes. Well, I wanna snowball off of all of that into my favorite question, which is what is your favorite theater memory? - Oh, well, I was actually, oh, I mean, I got a couple. I definitely wanna shout out like literally a couple weeks ago when I finished two shows in two days, two different shows in two days, and that was the most insane feeling in the world. And the last one was on my birthday. So that was incredible. Definitely seeing great comets. If that was, I saw great comets. The week my grandpa died, actually, who I was very close to, he grew up, he's the one I grew up with, and, you know, living with us. So it was a, it was a huge loss. And to see just such an incredible theater piece, it was a gift for my high school graduation. That talked about grief so profoundly. Like, that was the reason that I had to go up to Dave Mulloy and be like, I love you, even though I didn't go into details, 'cause I still had to work with him. I don't wanna scare him. But I, that was one of the, just sitting there and the people, I was actually sitting in front of one of the clarinetists, 'cause the band for that musical was all around, and she saw my face journey going through it, like me crying, me doing all this stuff. And so she made sure I got extra of all the little shakers and props and stuff that they gave out to people in the band cats, which was just such an act of kindness. Definitely also seeing Def West Spring Awakening, just that really opened my eyes to what theater can be and what you can do with that medium, because, and I'm gonna be crucified by musical theater fans. I don't like Spring Awakening, but then I saw that show and I'm like, oh my God, this is what this show could be. This is what, like, the actual, 'cause I don't know, it might just be my deep seated annoyance with Liam Michelle. But, like, before I saw that, I finally got what, how deep and meaningful that show could be when put through the lens of, like, that, like the language barrier being part of the lack of communication between the young people and their parents. And I just, and I was like, oh, you can restage things and reform them and, like, put them in different contexts. My 14-year-old brain's exploding. So those are probably my top three. - I love those, those are amazing though. Thank you so much for sharing those. As we wrap things up, I would love to know, do you have any other projects or productions coming down the pipeline? We might be able to plug for you. - Yes, well, as I said, my team with Manic Pixie Dream Girl we're gonna be looking into fundraising coming up for Edinburgh and also, like, possibly another run in New York. So definitely keep an eye out for that. I'm also a company member with Infinite Variety Productions. That's IBP and I'm working, we're gonna, we're all working on this, some devised piece right now based off of our in-house composers' discography. I'm gonna be working on that in a couple weeks and then we're hopefully gonna, that's gonna evolve into presentation. So keep an eye out for that as well. And I'm trying to think what else, I always kind of have something. You know, just, I mean, I know the next thing coming up is plugging my socials. Everything's gonna be on there 'cause I am great at advertising myself. And by that, I mean, I'm great at posting about myself a lot. I'm a Leo, it's fine. - I love that. Well, it sounds like you've got a lot of irons in the fire, which is exciting and I'm greatly into my final question, which is if our listener has been like more information about Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or about you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you, how can they do so? - Well, my Instagram is Lily, L-I-L-Y, underscore Welsh, W-E-L-S-H2. So Lily underscore Welsh too. Manic Pixie Dream Girl has its own Instagram where we'll be posting about this and also where we'll announce our fundraisers and announce any other runs and collaborations, be boosting anything. We're really trying to get this full production. The line fest was more of a, it was scripts in hand. We really want this like fully premiered, love this play. So that'll be at Manic Pixie Dream Girl Play on Instagram. And then also like I said, I'm a company member at IVP. So follow IVPNYC on Instagram. That is where you can get all the information about all our upcoming shows. We have our Bronx outreach coming up with our show. I believe that's I'm excavating the Rising Star. Our device pieces that we're going to be, that I'm about to start working on and our international work with Blooming Butts. So all that's on that Instagram. And I'm also on New Play Exchange. Lily Welsh on New Play Exchange. Read my stuff, please God. Tell me I'm good, I need to know. Well, Lily, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing your amazing work. You are fantastic, you are good. You are good enough, strong enough, and people like you dug on it. No, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I can't wait to see the show. I'm so excited about it. I know it's going to be here in New York very soon. And then at the end, Fringe, which is exciting. So thank you for your time. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. This was so wonderful. I've been a fan for a while. And I was so insane running into you at the theater. I mean, not that insane. I feel like you're at the theater a lot. I'm so glad that we met in person. And thank you so much for being an audience member. That means the world to us. Thank you. My guest today has been the amazing playwright Lily Welsh, who has got so many works out there, it's insane. But we talked today about one in particular, her incredible, timely, and powerful piece, manic, pixie dream girl. It just finished a run at the Tank Theater here in New York City as part of Limefest. And now it's going to be coming to a theater near you and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival next year in 2025. In the meantime, we've got some wonderful contact information for our guests on the show, which will be posted in our episode description, as well as on our social media posts. But whether you want to get involved in putting the show on or you want to get a chance to see it, the show again is manic, pixie dream girl. And it's coming to a theater near you. And we want to add for our American listeners that election day is November 5. Make sure you are registered to vote, have a plan to cast your ballot, and do your democratic duty. You can find out how and where you can register to vote by visiting vote.gov. The future demands that we fight for it now. 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 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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