Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 628
(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back into a very exciting whisper in the wings from stage whisper. We have just that up shop down at the chain theater for this year's Spark Theater Festival NYC. And we are bringing you part three of our coverage of the wonderful works that are part of this festival. Of course, the Spark Theater Festival NYC is happening September 9th through the 29th at the chain theater. And you can get your tickets and more information by visiting emergingartisttheatre.org. We have four wonderful shows joining us today. All part and all created or involved by four amazing artists. So let's go ahead and take you through who's joining us. We have the writer and director, Nancy David of Kelton who's here to talk about her show, Mom, Lasagna and Marge. We have the writer and producer, Rebecca Nayahay who's here to talk to us about her piece, Burning. We have the creator and performer Selena Rook who's here to talk to us about her show, Mom Caudone, My Cardboard Box. And finally, we have the book writer, lyricist and composer, Vanessa Baird Jones who's joining us to talk about her new show, Injustice. Four fabulous works, four incredible artists. Let's not waste any more time and welcome in our guests. Everybody welcome on in to Whisper in the Wings from stage whisper. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you all so much for joining me today. And thanks for bringing such a great line up to the conversation. I mean, the title's alone, like, all right. I guess we'll just end there, that's enough. No, I would love to start by having you all tell us a little bit about what your shows are about. And Nancy, if we could start first with you and your piece, Mom, Lasagna and Marge. - Yes. So it's an excerpt from my full length play. Everyone's a stranger, which won California, Long Beach Playhouse's New Works Festival, 2023, and had a reading and a talk back in April of 2023, 2023, and I went out there and both the show and the talk back exceeded my expectations. So I started sending the show and excerpts around and that's where it's at. This is from the second act, sparked a longer excerpt from the first act last year, 2023. And it went very well. It keeps exceeding, I'm very new at playwriting. I've been a book author and an essayist and a new school teacher for 50 years. And I just suddenly started doing this and it's great fun. And Mom Lasagna and Marge is a section after Mom, who's in her 80s, becomes widowed. And Joanna, my main character in her 50s has to decide where she's gonna live. And she's in a nursing home in Florida 'cause she had broken her pelvis and Joanna doesn't wanna leave her there. And they have a fractured relationship. Mom had a nervous breakdown when Joanna was little. Much of the play is about having a mentally ill member of a family and much of it is about a mother-daughter relationship and they have to decide where she's gonna live. And the relationship changes in the 13, the 12 minutes of my excerpt. It's parts of the second act. - Wow, wow, I love that. No, I'm fascinated by that, I think. - Well, I've had some readings of this excerpt, both in New York and elsewhere. And both audience members and the cast came up to me and said, yeah, I don't know what to do with my mother. And I mean, nobody knows what to do with their mothers, including my cast, you know, we've talked about this. And also families, parents and kids and their kids and siblings don't always have the most perfect relationship. And it's very relatable. - That is exactly what I was thinking. I was like, I've seen this movie before. - Yeah, wow. - Well, Rebecca, let's jump to you and your piece, Bernie, tell us a little bit about that. - Well, Bernie is a short piece about a woman who basically destroys the life that she's been living and seeks out her ex. And you find out they haven't seen each other in a number of years and she seeks him out and you find out that she actually really did destroy her life in more ways than one. And she comes to find him because he is the missing laughter in her life that she hasn't had in many years. What's important to say is that she takes this on in a way where she declares her own independence and seeking him out is more of a want than a need. She has already gotten her independence for herself. She doesn't need anyone else anymore, but she wants laughter back in her life. - I love that. Also a fabulous show it sounds like. Selena, I want to come to you with your show, Mon Carton, my cardboard box. Tell me about this. So this is a performance that I developed originally for very young kids. I was just struck by the lack of pieces out there for really young kids that were kind of like good, simple quality. I saw a lot of things that were very cheesy and it made me more and more want to make something that was really aesthetically beautiful, simple and completely adapted to very young kids. So it's a piece that I started working on in daycare centers actually and residencies in daycare centers. So I could test things out on the kids' life and see how they responded. And then as I started structuring it more and more, I found myself bringing in kind of more of my training in writing physical theater pieces so that it started to appeal more and more also to adults. And now I really believe that it's a piece that works both for young kids as young as six months old. They connect with it, they're interested in it, they're surprises for them, but also for adults. And so it's a piece that I hope that audiences of all ages will come to. I have performed it for multi-generational audiences. I've even done it once for an audience that was only adults and they also loved it. I would say that it is a lot of visual poetry. It draws from circus, from clown, from magic, from dance, physical theater and weaves it all together into something that is both funny and contemplative. - That is fantastic, I love it. And Vanessa Baird-Jones, bring us home on this question. Tell us about your piece in justice. - Thank you so much, yes. So in justice tells the story of an ambitious female prosecutor in the justice department. So that's where the title comes from, Ian Justice, who gets the chance to work on a career case only to face corruption and sexism within the department. She then has this choice to decide whether she'll compromise her principles to stay in justice or whether she'll walk away from everything she's worked for her entire career for to chart a new course. What's special about this show is it's very much inspired by my own story. I left the justice department in 2021 and channeled a lot of the pain of that choice into writing this musical. - Wow, wow, that is awesome. Listen, all of you have brought to the table some really fantastic works that have piqued my interest. So I want to keep digging if I may. And Vanessa, I want to keep going with you if I can and just ask, you know, you mentioned this is inspired by your experience in the justice department. Can you elaborate a little bit more about what inspired you to pen the piece? - Sure, so I was myself on a very important big case and this was in the middle of the sort of dark days of the pandemic. And I was torn about staying in the justice department or leaving and I finally chose to leave and it was one of the most painful choices of my life because I had been working there for many, many years. And like the prosecutor in the show, I had specialized in crimes against children and had found that work so meaningful to become a big part of my identity. And right in the middle of that was this moment when the show really began. And it's one of those special creative moments that I think can happen when we were responding to despair, our brain just sort of programs over that despair with art. And I was, it's a crazy story. I was, it was middle of the night, I was dreaming and I was dreaming that I was singing a song. And I woke up, this was about five in the morning, I woke up and I grabbed my phone and I started recording exactly what I was singing in my dream, the same melody, the same words, same lyrics. And that was the first song that we composed in writing this musical. It's now the chorus for the opening number in act two, American hobbies. So that was one of those moments where you're just, you're in this incredibly painful situation and you've had to make a horrible choice. It was the dark days of the pandemic and the joy of creating art really saved me. - Love that, love that Rebecca, I would love to know what inspired you to pen your piece, "Burning." - It's interesting because I started writing it when I was doing the Labyrinth Masterclass many, many, many, many years ago. I wrote the original version of it and I kind of, it sat for a while and then I wrote a prequel to it. I wrote a film version, a prequel that shows her actually causing the destruction in her home and what happens from there. And quite frankly, I picked the play back up because the prequel was very much a, she married a certain type of man and that type of man happened to be running our country at the time. And I felt it was really important to show a private side of what could be going on with the women in that type of man's life. And then so that ended up being the prequel. We've looked to get some funding, we're still trying to get some funding to do that film. But then I picked up the play again and I did some rewrites with that idea that sometimes we leave what is right in front of us and it is really good for us for what we think our lives should look like. And then it isn't until we are deep into that life that one day we wake up and we realize this isn't the life that I sought out to have. So once I wrote that prequel, it kind of gave new life to the play itself. And I wanted to make sure that it was really clear in the play that she is taking control of her life and she is making these decisions and no one else is making them for her. So I really hope the audience walks away with a sense of empowerment, a sense of empowerment about the character and also that lost love isn't always lost. That is fabulous. Oh, what a great inspiration. What a great story. Selena, I want to return to your piece because I love that you've created like this children show, if you will. I just, I find that wonderful because you hit on a really interesting point. A lot of work created for children. It's just very cheesy, you know, a little over the top. So I would love to know what has it been like developing this work you have? Well, I've loved developing it. Absolutely adored developing it. It's, I guess I would say since my goal was to make something simple and aesthetically beautiful, even for me, the process has been very meditative and wonderful. The pieces that the objects that I use in the show are three cardboard boxes, three pieces of paper. And well, I feel like I shouldn't give everything away, but three balls of different sizes. So it plays with threes, rules of three, but it's also about exploring the most that you can do with the least, with very simple things. And I think, you know, that kind of happened despite myself, but now that I've made this piece in retrospect, I do feel that that's something that I really defend in this day and age. For children, I myself have a young child. I've worked performing for kids, teaching kids, you know, for many, many years now. And I really think that that is something that is hard to find and so special when a child is wowed by something simple and an adult too. I think that we're bombarded by stuff and information all the time. And so to be able to relax into something simple is really special. - Wonderful, I love it. Love it. - Nancy, I wanna come to you with that same question. I mean, we kind of touched on the idea that this work you've created, this excerpt from this larger work is very relatable to a lot of people. So what has it been like developing this current iteration of the excerpt that you're about to bring to the festival? - It's been mostly exciting in terms of looking at the relationship, my main character, who is, I guess, my alter ego and mom. And how different it's turning out after dad dies, my character is very attached to her father. I wrote a memoir that came out in 2016 called Finding Mr. Rights Dean. And I found my second husband very late in life. And I put it together. I, when I was doing the book launch, first I love writing dialogue. And I didn't know how much, you know, but most of my essays are mostly in dialogue. And putting it together with the family, I came from, I changed the title of the play, which is different from the memoir, very. So I, where I came from and my family and my attachment to my father, there are a lot of things that kind of held me back. I held myself back from being with the person I longed to be with and that was good for me. And I just put it together. And this part, Joanna and her mother become much more honest with each other without dad as a buffer there. They both kind of used him as a buffer. Joanna was very attached to him and there was a price for that. And they're moving along. - Love that. I love learning that. Thank you for that. - I wanna come back to you, Selena, to kick off this question first. And that is, you know, is there a message or a thought? You're hoping that audiences take away from your piece. - I think that's a really interesting question. I, after I performed that I overheard two adults in the audience say, oh, oh, I get it. It's about life. You encounter problems and then you spring back up and keep going. And I do think the piece could be about that. Yes, it's about that. I mean, in the sense that it has clown in it, it's all about obstacles and finding creative ways around those obstacles to surpass oneself and, you know, not be able to do something in the most simple, direct way, but instead figure out how to do it in a magical, roundabout way. And so that is something that children relate to because they often cannot do things in the most simple, direct way, you know? That's the drama of childhood is really struggling and not knowing how to do things in the world. And as adults, we confront that too, but I think the other additional message I would add for adults is like, we tend to do things too much straightforward, always, you know, in our routine and a show like this offers the idea that like, oh my God, with a piece of paper, you can do that. Like, wow, what am I missing when I just take a piece of paper to jot down the note? Like I could be doing that juggling and magic trick and all of that. So those would be my messages. It's to, you know, enjoy life, look for the poetry in life, look for the magic in life and do great things with very small things, you know? I think for kids, maybe you've experienced this, like you give a present to a young kid that you're so excited to give them and they just play with the wrapping paper. That's what they connect to is like the wrapping paper and the box and so this show is like, embrace the wrapping paper, embrace the box and just play with it, yeah. - I love that, love those ideas there. Vanessa, what about you? What is the message I thought you hope that audiences take away from your piece? - I think if there's one thing I hope an audience member walks out of that theater thinking in their head, it's about the power of creating art, whether that be writing music, whatever form that takes, the joy in that and how that can be sustaining. You know, our show deals with all sorts of hard, complicated topics, whether it be, you know, a systemic racism and prosecutorial decisions, child sex abuse, climate change, the pandemic, I mean, it goes on and on, but the characters really bring these, you know, weighty, complex issues into life. It's their stories that are the heart of the show and the trajectories of these characters is really one of self discovery and an understanding that in these hard times and we've gone through as a country, is a lot of hard times and this show is centered in that. I mean, the show takes place during the pandemic. The pandemic is in the show that during these times, what will sustain us is our shared humanity through creating art and through being able to access music and theater and the bigger story of that is, you know, our creative team includes my parents who are both just these amazing, amazing creators. I was raised in the theater, I was raised creating with them. I mean, I can't remember our time when I wasn't making up songs with my dad and now I get to do it, you know, as part of a creative team. But when I was becoming an adult, you know, when I was thinking about, well, what am I gonna do? Where am I gonna go to school, what am I gonna focus on? I had this sense of, you know, I need to do something. I need to do something in the world and what my parents do is it's great but it doesn't have like a practical impact or effect. And of course, you know, once you discover, once you kind of come through a period like we've come through as a country, you realize that, no, no, no, no, no, creating art is everything. Having those moments of collective understanding in a theater setting, for example, that is everything. And that what we share is human beings, what we're able to create as human beings that matters the most is that and that's what tells our stories. That's how we understand the world, that's how we understand life and that's what humans have been doing for centuries and accessing that is pure, pure joy. And so anyway, so I hope people leave the theater thinking what matters at the end of the day and that is to come together and to be able to share our stories through song, through creative expression. - I love that, listen, y'all are blowing me away with these ideas and thoughts you're going for. This is fabulous. And I actually want to jump off your show Vanessa and bounce back up to you, Rebecca, to kick off my final question for the first part. And that of course is, who are you hoping to have access to your piece? - That's a really interesting question. You know, my piece really deals with ageism and sexism in ways and so it's two-fold. There's the audience of women, and I have a female director, it's a female playwright and an actor. I'd really love women of a certain age to walk away feeling like, and it's not just women, it's men as well, it's a universal story. I want access to be had by people in their, let's say midlife who maybe are contemplating making a change or end up somewhere where they never thought that they would end up. And I hope that this play gives people the courage to step out of themselves and maybe reconnect with the identities that they used to have, or identities they wish they could get back to, or simply having the courage to say, this isn't the life that I want and move forward in that life. So I'd really like people of a certain age to have access to this play and have them think, no, it's never too late in life to make changes or to be who you are. - That is such a good idea. - Yeah. - Nancy, bring us home on this first part and tell us who you hope have access to your piece. - Well, I hope theater people do. Artistic directors and producers and directors. And I hope every people does. I think of every age in terms of connecting. I do know that people my daughter's age and people my age have already registered for my show, which I think is the first one on Monday. And I'm delighted. I think we all have issues with our family. I think we all have mental illness in our family, which we acknowledge or don't, but it's there. Thank you, Michael Phelps and for starting all that. And I think we, some of us have a long time being the right person and finding the right person because where are we? So I think it's, I would like everybody to connect with it. And certainly people in the theater. I love Spark, by the way. They've been so nice. Every which way, my gosh. So, yeah. (upbeat music) - 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 jump right into my favorite question to ask guests, which is what is your favorite theater memory? Yes, Nancy, kick us off. - So I'm from Buffalo. And the first time my parents brought me to New York was in 1956 and I saw the Diary of Anne Frank. And there was no center aisle in the audience. It was on each side. And after the show and the standing ovation, everybody got up, including my sister went one way. My parents went the other way. And I was eight years old and I was the only person left in the theater. I, I don't friend came out again, Joseph Shulkar, and was holding the diary. And I wanted to go up there. I wanted to stay in the theater. And I never, even though I've been teaching my whole adult life, I never wanted to perform. I wanted to do something like that. I was amazed that people even walked out when they did, including my family. And I asked them, we went out to get something to eat after. Why'd you leave? And they said, everybody left. I said, I didn't. I want to stay in the theater. And I have, you know, I've been, I've been living in New York and I go to the theater all the time, Broadway and off Broadway. And I was blown away. I had read the book, School. But I, he's standing there and holding the diary. I just, wow. - That is a beautiful memory. - Beautiful memory. Love a great origin story, if you will. So thank you for sharing that. Rebecca, yes. What is your favorite theater memory? - Well, I remember the first time I was rendered speechless by the theater. I was in college and I was a theater major in college. And I've always been a performer. This is actually the first play that I've written that's being performed, which is very exciting. But, so we went on a seminar to London. And what we did was we went to see all these plays and then we would sit around and we would talk about the plays afterwards. So we went to the old Vic to see Amadeus starring David Soushe and Michael Sheen. And it was, to this day, I have only been rendered speechless by five shows. And I've seen quite a few shows, but only five of them have actually rendered me speechless. And this was the first one. And I was so blown away by David Soushe's, how seamlessly he went through his opening and closing monologues in both acts. And he became the young salieri. And then he seamlessly became the old salieri right before your eyes and you don't even realize the transition until it was done. I literally sat, it was very similar to Nancy. I literally sat in the theater and they were pulling me like, let's go, let's go. And during our conversation afterwards, I literally could not speak. I had, and I always have something to say. Nobody has ever accused me of being speechless. And I couldn't speak. And there was a solid 45 minutes after the show before I could start putting my thoughts into words about what I had just experienced. And that didn't happen again for years until Stephen Adley Girdges is the last days of Judas Iscariot with Sam Rockwell and Philip Seymour Hoffman directing. And that was the second time and that had to be a good 10 years later. So that is such a, I can still see in my mind those monologues and how seamlessly he executed them. And to this day, it's one of my all-time favorite theater experiences. - That is a fabulous memory there. I love that. - Yes, the power of theater. Oh, wonderful. Yes, Selena, please. - So I grew up both in France and in the States as a kid, kind of going back and forth between the two countries. And in France, there's a lot of street theater, especially in the summertime. And my most vivid memories are definitely of street theater pieces that I went to when I was fairly young, together with my parents. And I remember one piece by a group named Jean-eraique Véper where they had rocks that they gave out to the audience, kind of decorated rocks. And the audience was invited to just bang the rocks as we walked down the street. Was such a simple thing, but it made like an orchestra of these rock banging sounds that just completely transformed the streets. And I also remember a show by a group called Golpe F, which does fireworks shows where they had these two birds on fire, starting at opposite sides of the town. And so half the audience followed one bird, half the audience followed the other bird, and then the birds met and fireworks ensued and they made a baby. But I guess, you know, thinking of it now also connected to what I've tried to make with (speaking in foreign language) I think both of those memories, what was so powerful to me was this thing that made me forget all of daily life and just follow the piece, whether it was following a fire, just metal on fire or the rocks. It's fairly simple elements, but that completely like transformed things. And I do remember that feeling of also feeling that my relationship with my parents was transformed in those moments. You know, there was no more of that like, like hurry up, get in the car or you're not moving fast enough or, you know, stop whining or whatever. It was just like all of us were transported by the piece and that feeling is still what I hope for when I go to theater, you know, is to forget everything and be transported. And so making theater, that's also what I hope to do for the audience. - What beautiful memories. Thank you so much for sharing those. - Vanessa, tell us your favorite theater memory. - Sure, so I'm going to tell you one of my funny theater memories, which has turned into one of my favorites because I just love telling the story so much. So when I was a little girl, I must have been like 10 or younger. I mean, I was a tiny girl at this point. Einstein on the beach by Philip Glass was playing at BAM. And my parents thought that it would be a good idea to take me to see this. Anyone who is not familiar with Einstein on the beach is it is a modern opera that involves a lot of actors singing one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, repeatedly for hours. So I get to this show and I must have used the bathroom about 10 times or 15 times by the end of the show because I'm there as this little girl listening to these actors sing. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, one, two. So our whole joke is that like, I love the bathrooms at BAM, which are just these spectacular beautiful bathrooms. But the point of the story as other than being kind of silly is I was really looking back on it now. I was so privileged to be able to be raised by artists who took me to everything. I mean, everything, things that maybe I wasn't ready for. But of course now as a grown up, Philip Glass is amazing. I love his music. I love what he does as a composer. And to be exposed to that at such a young age, even though part of me couldn't appreciate it and ran off to the bathroom, there was, I'm sure, a part of me that did. And that was understanding in some part of me, the complexity of modern music and modern music. And another example of this is they took us to New York City Opera House time and time again up in the nosebleed seats. And me and my brother and some other kids were up there. We were terrible. We'd go out for an intermission and there were these long beads that dangled down into the lobby and we would swing the beads to try and hit people in the lobby. But, and we sat through these and that was like our fun part of the opera. But I remember at some point in high school, I was going to the opera with my dad and it was Tasca. And something in me clicked. And by the end of the show, I had been sobbing and I didn't even realize it. And I just had, you know, water works pouring down my cheeks. And I realized that, you know, I'd been exposed to all this stuff for years and parts of me had not really appreciated, but of course parts of me had and had internalized this beautiful music and all of this incredible art. And so I'm really grateful for that. And I think that that is why I have the relationship with my creative team today. That's enabled us to put on these shows and create this new work. And I'm really grateful. - That is such a wonderful memory. What a fun memory too. Such a child memory, love it. Thank you all so much for those fantastic memories. As we wrap things up, I would love to know if our listeners would like more information about your shows or about you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you. How can they do so? So Nancy, if we could start with you and your show, mom, lasagna and Marge. - The show is September 9th, Monday. And I think it's gonna be first 'cause I have several props. A couple of them are very big. And unless the next person has a lot of fruit hanging from the ceiling and strange things, I'm probably going first at seven o'clock to reach out to me. My email is Kelton, my last name. Then N, number one at newschool.edu. And I have a website, www.nancykelton.com. But yes, when our show is, more about me. I've been a writing teacher, but memoir and personal essay at the new school for 40 some years. And I do workshops at the Strand Bookstore and Broadway. I am sending the full length play out to wherever and to whomever. And I have other excerpts. The spark did a longer one last year and I'm gonna be in touch with other people. The two people who are playing my leads, Joanna and her mother were in my show last year and they were terrific. And I thought for a 13 minute show, I didn't really need a director this time. I know this play. So it's the two rehearsals we had and then we're having a tech on Monday. They have been very good. They just, they float along. And I'd love to hear from anybody. - That is fabulous. Rebecca, what about you? What, tell us how we can get more information about you or your show burning? - Sure. So of course there's the Spark Theater website and that has all of the links for all of the shows. But my show in particular is on September, Sunday, September 22nd at 7 p.m. I'm in a block of other short plays. See, my producing mind is going in different places. So I do have a website. It's my name and I'll just go ahead and spell it since nobody can pronounce it or spell it correctly. So it's www.rebeca, that's two C's, one A. Rebecca, N-Y-A-H-A-Y.com. So I have a website. You can find me on Instagram @rebeca-N-Y-A-H-A. You can find me on Facebook @rebeca-N-Y-A-H-A. And I will have the link for tickets up on my website as well as my Facebook page. And I've got some film projects in the works coming up next. So keep an eye out for those and please follow my page. - You last? Selena, tell us how we can get more information about you or your show, Mong Khapton, my cardboard box. So Mong Khapton is playing at Spark Theater Festival on Saturday, September 21st at 2 p.m. I wanted to add that it is fully accessible to people who are hard of hearing or deaf. So I really wanna encourage like children who are deaf to come but also grandparents who might be hard of hearing to feel, you know, comfortable coming to this show that they will catch every bit of it. You can find more information on my website which is Mong Khapton-M-O-N-C-A-R-T-O-N dot Squarespace.com. And I would be happy if anyone wants to email me. My email is rookcellena@gmail.com R-O-O-K-S-E-L-E-N-A @gmail.com. Yeah, I, oh, one more thing. I do wanna add that there's a new movement for like relax theater, you know, to have theater also be like a space where if people need to get up during the show, it's okay. And that is definitely the case with Mong Khapton. It's a 30 minute show. So it is just right for attention spans that might start to get restless after 30 minutes. So I hope a lot of people will come. I'm looking forward to it. Yes. And finally bringing us home, we've got Vanessa with her show Injustice. Tell us things. Yes, absolutely. It's playing on September 14th at 2 p.m. You can find tickets on the Spark's theater website. You can find out more about me and my work and my website, www.VanessaBearJones.com, all one word. Last name is spelled B-A-E-H-R-J-O-N-E-S, VanessaBearJones.com. We are at work on another musical, Delta Company First Platoon, about two female Marine Corps officers and their trajectory through the World of Terror. So more to come. But I'm very, very excited for people to come and check out Injustice. It has so many different exciting parts of it. There's a rap number. There is, there are all different musical styles throughout the show. There's gonna be projections. We have a full cast. It is very, very exciting. So really hope to see everybody there. September 14th, a Saturday. So it should be easy for people to make at 2 p.m. And plastic. I wanna thank you all so much for taking the time to speak with me today for sharing your incredible shows and just all the insight that you pass on to us. This has been such a lovely conversation. So thank you all so, so much. - Thank you for the interview. - Thanks for having me. - Thank you very much. Thank you so much. This has been wonderful and so nice. - Thank you. My guests today have been four amazing artists whose works are part of the Spark Theater Festival NYC. The festival is happening September 9th through the 29th at the Chain Theater and you can get tickets and more information by visiting emergingartisttheatre.org. We have information about all of these artists and when their shows are going up as well as some contact information which we'll be posting in our episode description as well as on our social media posts. But right now, head to emergingartisttheatre.org, get your tickets for these and the other shows that are part of the Spark Theater Festival happening September 9th through the 29th. - And we wanna add for our American listeners that election day is November 5th. 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. - Ah, 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 Jazar. Other music on this episode provided by Jazar and Billy Murray. You can also become a patron of our show by logging onto patreon.com/stagewhisperpod. There you will find all the information about our backstage pass as well as our tip jar. Thank you so much for your generosity. We could not do this show without you. ♪ Don't wave the narrow square ♪ ♪ I don't care anywhere near your town ♪ ♪ Makes me there ♪