Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 622
(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back into a fabulous new Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper. We've got an exciting and fantastic show in store for you. I cannot wait to share once again with you this amazing production that we had the privilege of seeing last fall. It was a creator's pick. So I guess I should say it still is a creator's pick and it's being remounted at Classic Stage Company. And joining us to talk about this is one of the members from the cast we have the privilege of seeing. She's reprising her role. Of course, I'm speaking about Alexandra Silver. She's joining us to talk about her production, her upcoming production of Our Class, which is playing September 12th through November 3rd at Classic Stage Company. Tickets and more information are available at classicstage.org. Now we had Igor Goliak on recently to talk to us about these two productions that are the computer companies bringing in association with Classic Stage Company. Of course, that other production being the merchant of Venice. But this pivotal show, Our Class, which is just beautiful and disturbing and just so heartwarming and heartfelt is a brilliant masterpiece that should not be missed. So I cannot wait to dive more into it. And more importantly, I cannot wait to speak with our guests. So let's welcome her on. Alexandra, welcome on to Whisper and the Wings from Stage Whisper. - It's such an honor to be here, hello. - It is such an honor to have you here. We were talking before we started and I was kind of fangirling to you because that production that you all put up a bam, I mean, I'm so glad I didn't really look into it going in and knew it because the ride I went on was out of this world, out of the house. (laughing) It'd be almost a three hour long play, didn't feel like it. And more importantly, the story being told. Holy cow, this is insane. And you all are bringing this back. It looks like almost all of the original cast from the bam production are coming back. So why don't we-- - The entire original cast, yeah. - Yeah, why don't we start at the beginning and have you tell us a little bit about what our class is about? - Oh my goodness. - Surface, our class is based on a true story of a pogrom that happened in a town, a real-life town, Yed Wabne Poland in July of 1941. Where all of the Jews in the town, 1600 citizens of Yed Wabne, were rounded up, put into a barn, and the barn was extinguished, and all of those people perished. And for many years, the perpetrators of that hate crime, it was blamed on the Nazis who were in occupation at the time. This was a town that Poland itself, but particularly this part of Poland was experiencing unbelievable political whiplash at the time, Nazi occupation, Soviet occupation, independence, and in a largely and officially Catholic country with many, many, many Jews in it, so many political and personal chaos occurred. And what this play does so brilliantly is it takes this real-life scenario and it boils it down to one class of the citizens of the town of Yed Wabne, one class of students, five Catholic and five Jews, and what it does is it follows these Polish classmates who grow up as friends, as romantic partners, as neighbors, and we watch them as they turn on one another with really breathtaking and unutterable brutality in traumatic literal life and death consequences. And like I said, it's inspired by these real-life events and it's staggering, it's shocking, it's stomach churning. And not only do we follow the lives of these classmates from the age of five to the age they were in 1941, roughly about 20 years old, we additionally follow the survivors through the end of their lives, sometimes deep through their eighties as they live with what happened. And it really, it spans eight decades of the 20th century, it examines the nature of hate and how we as human animals have the potential for brutality and love. What a perfect amazing of this powerful story. I love that, and also all through it, I think I'll add that it feels like it's structured like the letters being exchanged between a teacher and his class, too. - Well, it's funny, a lot of people think that he's our teacher, but he's not rich Topo plays Abram, who becomes a rabbi. He is, he's not, he's one of our classmates. And so one of the things that's very special about the casting of the piece is that all of us are very different ages in real life. The youngest castmate is Gus Burney, who is 25, and Rich Topo, who's in the 60s. And, but yet all of us are just sort of there as actors playing these classmates from the age of five throughout our lifetimes. So a lot of people thought that Rich was the teacher because he's an older body, but he is, in fact, one of our classmates. - Oh my gosh, thank you for correcting me. Oh, it's okay. - Everything that much more fantastic. In hindsight, looking at those exchanges. Oh, that's amazing. - Rich plays a character, oh, sorry, just to be clear about the letters though. Rich plays a character, Abram, who is one of the Jewish classmates and very, very smart. So the town and his and his shoul come together to send him to America to be educated as a rabbi. And it's initially like a very neutral decision. Such an amazing thing to basically study abroad, but it becomes incredibly important as the events in Europe play out. He is in this space of safety sending letters back from America to these classmates that are still enduring all these events. So yes, the letters are very crucial. But what it really shows is people the exact same age from the exact same place, having a completely different experience of the 20th century. - I love it. And again, just the synopsis you've given us, he's perfect. Now I'm curious to know, we've mentioned, you know, that you're part of the original cast as we call it. You know, that play it at BAM and you're bringing it to classic stages. But if I remember right, this play was done elsewhere before it came to BAM. So I'm really curious to know, how did you come upon this piece? - Oh, it's a great story, actually. So our class is a Polish play, first performed in Poland. And I just should say, very, very controversially received because as you can imagine, you know, the Polish nation is a very complicated place. Not unlike America, you know, our relationship to our history. You know, if you put, if you sort of view it from an American perspective, there are elements of our American history that we feel shame about, don't want to put light to. We have a very specific idea of what it means to be a patriotic citizen. The same is true in Poland with a very traumatic history. So it was received very controversially and played several other European cities up to and including London. The production in London in 2009 at the National Theater is the translation that we use by Norman Allen. And that was the first English language production. And it's played a couple of places in America prior to this New York premiere. This was the first time it ever played in New York. And I think one of the things that made this really special was that so many different international voices were lending itself to the production. The way it came upon me for me was there was a reading that was being done, a very casual sit in a circle reading that was sort of by invitation in May of 2023. So this play has been in some of our lives for a very, very long time. This production of this play has been in our lives for a long time. Igor Goliak, our director, who's also the artistic director of Arlequin Players, which is based in Boston, had always wanted to do this play and was starting to collaborate with the head of the Mart Foundation, Sophia Kepkova and the first time they were coming together to produce something. And they both desperately wanted to do our class. So they collected a bunch of people. And because Igor had done a production of the cherry orchard at the Burishnikov Art Center, the winter before, with a former colleague and friend of mine, Jessica Hecht, the great Jessica Hecht, multi-tony nominee Jessica Hecht, who had played his Madame Rignevsky and played my mother, Golda, when I played Cital, when we both played it on Broadway in 2016 in Fiddler on the Roof. So he said, I need a Jewish actress that fulfills these requirements. I don't know what they were, but Jessica Hecht apparently said, you need Al Silver. And I was invited to join this circle and many, many, many people that are currently in the cast were in that circle back then. And we read the play, discussed it, picked it apart, and it was just a one-day event that we left, and it became clear that it was something that definitely needed to be done. The production was then scheduled. We went about casting it. We even went on a retreat in November before we formally began, we went on a retreat before we began rehearsing it properly for the original production. And at that retreat to reading, picking it apart, going on long walks, immersing ourself in history and getting to know one another, and then began formally rehearsing it in December of last year. So this company and this play has been together for years now. And we will really have spent, from the beginning to the end of the process, two years as a class together. So it's really a level of intimacy, of collaboration, almost feels like the experience of the old world repertory companies, where you know all the little details, all the little facial muscular tics and preferences and personality types, and can really uplift that on stage enough. - I love that. And that is a great lead-in to my next question, which is, what has it been like developing this piece, particularly from the production at BAM, now to this production being done at Classic Stage Company? - Yeah, it's a great question. So one of the things that's really distinct about this piece, a couple of things. The first is that the piece itself, so today's Slabajanik, the Polish playwright, has created this work of beautiful genius. And one of the things that you'll notice right away in the piece is that it immediately breaks the fourth wall and that that witness-bearing tone is carried out through the entire three hours of the play. So what I mean by that, just for anybody listening who doesn't know what I'm talking about, is the actors on stage as these characters, here's what is normally the wall where we suspend disbelief and we go, you all understand audience. There's this silent agreement. You all understand audience that this is not real and that we are not lunatics that are under the impression that this is reality. We are engaging in an exchange of art where you suspend your disbelief and the actors on stage suspend our disbelief and we have this holy communion of witness-bearing to storytelling that's been around since the ancient Greeks. When you pierce the fourth wall, something else happens where you make the audience no longer merely a passive observer, where they just watch as if it's a film and don't participate other than witness-bearing, which is still a huge responsibility. In a fourth wall-cursing play, not only do the actors make direct eye contact with the audience, they engage them with language and they ask the question over and over and over again in this play, what could I do? Which begins very innocently as little five-year-olds going, oh, they were teasing him and I wanted to help them, but what could I do? And of course, that question then takes on increasingly significant meaning as we begin to talk about hate crimes and torture and selling out to the government and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What could I do? What could I do? What could I do? It's not a neutral question. And when a character looks in the eyes of an audience member and asks it to their eyeballs directly, the audience is no longer a passive observer. They are being asked to engage with and participate with the players and the story on stage in an active way. It's extremely confrontational. And it asks a lot of the audience to participate in a forward leaning way, rather than a backward leaning way. And it also, I think, and I've definitely received this feedback from BAM, you tell me, as an audience member, that it creates a level of exhaustion and philosophical thinking and participation that is so draining. But precisely what, in many cases, breadth theater was for, right? This incredibly alienating effect in German, it's called the verfremstunk effect, which is basically like to alienate the audience, to make them culpable to the decisions and the actions on stage and create participation in a circle rather than just two sides looking at each other like a mirror. So that is what, I think, one of the things that makes the play incredibly distinct. And that was very, very difficult to rehearse, right? It was like, how much of that engagement do we utilize? How much do we get them involved? Do we have them come on stage? Do we get them to sing along with us in certain songs? Do we, do we look them directly in the eyes? What is it, right? Do we get them, do we improv with them? And that kind of leads me to, one of the other things that I think makes this production distinct is previous productions, it has been sad. And we've seen and heard from different productions that many of the acts of horror were portrayed realistically in a documentary style type of theater. And for my money, and certainly for e-gores, we have all collectively made a choice to have the acts of horror be played out incredibly theatrically through symbolism, through metaphor, and in many ways through very playful ways that call back to the original five-year-old classroom of the very young children that they were. For my money, I happen to feel, and it might also be the moment we're in, that horror being played out very realistically is something that I feel ever so slightly numb to now because of the nature of the 24-hour news cycle. I feel that, I'll only speak for myself, but I think a lot of audience members would agree, bearing witness to real-time acts of horror, from countless places across the globe that are in crisis, in a non-theatrical way. It almost feels like there's a part of my psyche that goes into protecting my brain and soul from bearing witness in a active way so that I can go to the dentist and still engage with my friends and still laugh at jokes and live my life. We are not built as human animals to deal with a new crisis every 12 hours. That's not how our minds and bodies are built to deal with traumatic events. And so I do think that as a society, there's a numbing that is occurring. And one of the things that is true of theater is we cannot scroll past it. We cannot swipe right or left. We have to stay engaged with the story. That's the nature of theater. We can't look at our phones. We can't leave. We must continue to bear witness without interruption. And I think what Igor has done is that by making some of these acts of horror incredibly symbolic through the use of letters, soccer balls, balloons, talk, that replace things such as rape and murder and torture, we're able to bear witness to them and remain with them and take in the symbolic and emotional truth without bearing witness to the realistic horror. And on some level, I think that keeps us present with the story. And that was incredibly complex and yet also very creative to create as a group. There were days when, I remember one particular rehearsal day where we were put into pairs and given completely random objects. I was put together with Kasmei Jose Espinosa. We were given a ladder. And we were given an hour to come up with using the object in as many ways as possible. That is not the normal and regular use of this object. So we had to come up with ways to use the ladder that was everything but a ladder. And then we presented it to the rest of the company. And at the end, Igor said, this is how I want to use these objects. And this is how I want you to approach everything going forward, that every object in the room from the balloons to a trash can to a ladder to a piece of chalk. Let's not try to use any of it the way it's normally used and see how else we can use it. And it became very, very fruitful. - That is so cool. And I'm curious to know with such a powerful story that you're telling with the true story that you're telling, is that a message or a thought you hope audiences will take away from this piece? - Absolutely. It feels virtually impossible to hold more than one truth in our minds than our hearts these days. But it's what I personally feel compelled to do. There's the visceral response, the outrage, the grief, the loss, the fear, the violence, the death, the injustice, the horror. There's the global proliferation of hatred and othering from every angle. And then there's the relational, the how could you use and the how could you not. Every day, online, in the media and in the street, I feel pain going septic behind everyone's rage. And I think that one of the things that the message of this play conveys is that our class is not history exclusively. It is our present and it is our future. We have to be courageous enough to reckon with that reality within ourselves by making friends with confrontational thoughts by being able to hold multiple truths in our minds at the same time. And rather than asking ourselves, how could they? We have to be able to twist our own psychology into the excruciating moral questions of how might I, what would it take for me to behave in this way? What lengths would I have to be pushed to? Because by acknowledging that by being a human being, we have the capacity for great cruelty. We don't distance ourselves from the perpetrators of these events. We acknowledge that at any moment, we might very well become them. Were the circumstances, quote unquote, just right enough to push us over the edge of our own moral compass? And I think that that's what's crucial. By focusing on the humanity and inhumanity of the perpetrators and not just the victims, we see how we, the audience, each individual, as a human creature, which is also an animal, might very well under the just right or wrong circumstances become a monster. It's interesting. So I think that's the takeaway. And one thing I'll add to it is this, an observation I made doing this play last year that I think about now even more so a few months on, journalism for the most part. Journalism has a paradigm to when a tragedy occurs, always focus exclusively on the victims, to uplift and laud the victims, their names, their humanity, to have that be the memory and really downplay and not focus on creating fame and infamy around the perpetrator of the crime. It's a very important journalistic paradigm because what it does is it accurately, and I think morally puts the spotlight in the correct place for history's sake, right? It's why we don't have many, many, many, many, many movies about the lives of the Nazis, but we have several films about the lives of their victims. What I think is a very, very, very different thing about art, and I mention movies because I'm transitioning to the concept of art, is I do believe that in the late 20th century and through these first years of the 21st, we have actually taken that journalistic paradigm and applied it to art in a way that doesn't serve us as a society because journalism and art serve different social purposes, right? Journalism, well, I should say this with a little bit of an eyebrow raise, journalism, once upon a time, was supposed to perpetuate the absolute fact-based truth. It perhaps has not become that in the last eight years or maybe 10 years. However, that is its aim on paper. Whereas art is supposed to teach us something about our social morality, reflect ourselves, back to ourselves, beyond just facts, but into psychology, into morality, and into the poetry of what it means to be human. And so, foreplay like our class to focus not only on the victims, but also on the perpetrators, on where their humanity blossoms and where it crumbles. We're given an opportunity to look at those perpetrators and not just see them as monstrous and write them off. But to see them as deeply human and perhaps see ourselves in their moral quandaries, hopefully not to judge them, but to see how those things exist in us and to make morally superior choices based on having that reflected back to us. I think that is one of the great things that art can serve. And it's something that definitely happens in our class. That is such an inspired answer. I love that. Some brilliant insight in there. And it's a great lead into my final question for this first part, which is, who are you hoping have access to our class? - That's a great question. It's a huge question too. You know, before our interview began, we were sort of talking about why your platform exists and your desire to uplift more than just the commercial art and commercial artists that are currently in Broadway spaces in the commercial art world. That you want to focus also on off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway. I really admire that because I think that all of those art forms serve different people, but additionally, serve the same people in different ways. And the most important thing is for people, for audience members to be able to have access to walking into the doors at all. One of the things that has been heartbreaking to witness in the last 30-ish years is how expensive bearing witness to art has become. - I hold no grudges toward for-profit art making. I think that art has value. And when art has value to the individual and to society at large, I believe in it costing something. But I also believe in there being capacities for people to pay to get into the doors at a price point that feels accessible to them so that they too may feel illuminated by the artistic experience and the artistic service that art can provide. So first of all, to answer your question, I hope that art class and art in general, but art class and art play can reach people that might not otherwise feel compelled to walk through the doors of a theater and have their hearts and minds changed by the power of witness-bearing and storytelling. So that's the broad answer number one. Broad answer number two is to have access to people that might walk through the doors of a theater, but don't feel moved to walk through the doors of our theater because they're under the impression that this play is not for them because it's a story about Jewish trauma or yet another story about this, this, this, and this that they view it as too challenging, doesn't speak to the oppression that interests them, feels too long, feels too heady, feels too arty or theatrical. And I say to those people, please come, this is not only also for you, it is mostly for you, for people that don't feel that they want to bear witness to difficult stories. Yes, this is a difficult story, but it's also a story of resilience, of love, of hope, and of the power of humanity to continue to endure, and ultimately, because it's such a theatrical piece of theater, for the power of art to change us. So I had so many friends come to BAM that are friends of mine from the Jewish community and from the Polish community that are not necessarily Jewish, that wanted to bear witness to this story because they felt a connection to it. And many, many of them said, I was so lucky and fortunate to bear witness to this, but I wish I could share it with people that didn't feel they had a connection. And I agree with that. I think we live in a moment of artistic hyper-identification. On some level, there are wonderful things about that, that the pendulum swinging in the direction, I think does two things that are good. One, it allows formerly oppressed people to have access to our great Western classics and say, yes, a person that looks like this sounds like this, identifies like this, can play Hamlet and Antigone and Viola and Mamarose. They have access to those pieces and we can see how the great Western cycle is illuminated by new voices. And additionally, theater spaces are offering their stages to those formerly underrepresented people to hear stories we've never heard before as told by members of those groups. Those are two wonderful things that are happening in this new hyper-identification movement. But one of the things that I do think is also happening that can be a negative, is that people are participating in storytelling where they are only able to tell the same story over and over and over again and they feel that they are only welcome to their witness to stories that they're already familiar with. And I wish to continue all of the good things, but reopen the doors to people participating in stories that as actors and theater makers that they formerly know nothing about, so that our acting community and our theater making community continues to be expanded, learning and growing about people in places and time periods and events that do not resemble them, so that they can become more empathetic artists. And that we open the doors to people that think that stories do not relate to them and are not about them. And to be reminded, not only a very specific history, but equally, this is a dialectic, all stories are completely and utterly specific, all people are completely and utterly special and specific. But at the same time, there's no story that we haven't heard before and that we will not hear again, because humanity is universal. So I wish to open doors to people that don't think this play is for them, so that we can be reminded of that. (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, pull the curtain back, if you will. And I know we're on time, so I wanna jump right to my favorite question to ask guests and not have-- - Sure. - What is your favorite theater memory? - Oh my goodness. You know, I suppose, you know, there's so many. I feel so fortunate to have had even at 41, to have already had such a full life, I think, in many ways. I've worked with some of the greatest people in the business. I've been on so many stages that feel like such an honor, but it really is the smaller moments that resonate for me. And I think what I'll say is my Broadway debut happened in 2011, when I was 28 years old, the summer I turned 28. And I was in Terence McNally's Masterclass, the Broadway revival of Terence McNally's Masterclass, which starred Tyne Daily as Maria Callis. And I think playing opposites, one of our greatest American female actors in one of the greatest pieces of theater ever to be written for the American theater, which is really about examining the nature of art. There was just something about that experience and it being my Broadway debut, feeling mentored by Tyne, not only as a leading lady, as a female actor, but as a woman in the world, was just an incomparable experience. It was my second job in the American theater. I had started my life and career in the United Kingdom, in London's West End, and left after nine years in the UK and five years in London. It was my second job. We started it at the Kennedy Center. It transferred to Broadway. It was a very charmed experience for my second job in America. And what I remember was that Tyne in all of her brilliance, in all of her genius, in some ways, I would say, in almost a god-like titanic performance, also was a nervous actor who was returning to the stage after many years, who was a human being that gets nervous, a human being that sometimes forgets your lines, or doesn't quite know what to do, or it was so wonderful to see her as human. So we had a little ritual that was basically, it's called an Italian, where you do the lines of the play in a very, very fast, almost subconscious, unthinking way. So if a play runs for an hour, an Italian might run for 30 or 40 minutes, 'cause you're doing it super fast. It's a wonderful way to get your mouth and mind around the piece before you go on stage. It's a great warm-up, if you will. So before our first preview on Broadway, I went to Tyne's dressing room, and I brought her a tea, and I sat down. And because the play that we were in was largely just the two of us speaking for an hour. I felt like pro tennis. It felt like deep chest. But the greatest tennis match of my life, with the greatest player I'll likely ever play with, but she was nervous to return to Broadway. And I could feel it. My friend, I could feel my friend having a little buzziness. So I went to her dressing room. I brought her a tea. I sat down next to her. And while she put on her makeup and began her Maria Callis transformation, we spoke through the entire play. And when we finished, I'll never forget my last line was, they should teach us that. They should teach us a lot of things they don't. There was this pause. And we had been looking at each other, looking at each other in the eyes, through the mirror, for the entire Italian. And she broke fat gaze, and she looked to me, straight into the eyes. And she took my hand, and she said, I love this, and I love you. And then we opened on Broadway. And I think that's probably my favorite theatrical memory. - That is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. That is so beautiful. Well, as we wrap things up, I would love to know, do you have any other projects or productions coming on the pipeline? We might be able to plug for you. - Of course. One of the great things about this company, our The Compliers, is we are actually in residence at Classic Stage beyond our class. So many, many members of the cast of our class will be reassembling, also led by Igor Goliak in his new imagining of the Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. So we will be at Classic Stage, just a few weeks after our class closes, we're gonna be doing double duty in the last few weeks, rehearsing Merchant of Venice. And I'm thrilled to lend my voice to the great Shakespearean heroine, Horsha. I will be giving you the quality of mercy at Classic Stage opposite the peerless, rich total of Shylock, surrounded by so many classmates. So it's gonna be really exciting and we will be there from the end of November 2, December 22nd. And I hope you join us there too. - Absolutely. And that is a greatly into my final question, which is if our listeners would like more information about our class, or about you, maybe I'd like to reach out to you, how can they do so? - Of course, you can find information about both our class and Merchant of Venice at classicstage.org. You can also follow both plays on Instagram. And if you wanted to follow along with me, my handle on Instagram is @alsilves, A-L-S-I-L-B is in Bravo S, or you can also follow along on my longer format. I'm one of those millennials that still has a blog. So you can find me at AlexanderSilver.blogspot.com. My blog, London Still, has been going strong since 2005, and it's where I share some of my thoughts and reflections in longer format. I'd love to see you in any of those places. - May I say one last thing about being an artist? - I think I really view myself as a theater artist, even as distinct from being an actor. If I were not an actor, if I could not sing, I would contribute to the art form of theater in different ways, building sets, lighting, stage managing. Which I think is distinct from feeling compelled to embody and interpret stories in different formats like on screen. Nothing against it. It's just that the theater really is my art form. And I really view it as a service industry. In fact, that's something that I really learned and learned from and developed with Tindale. And I think one of the things that is so crucial about being in service is that we can be in service of the audience, we can be in service of the playwrights that we interpret our scene partners wanting to do the best for them. And I really do think that those things are important to serve. But the way I really view it is that we're in service to these characters we portray, who cannot breathe or speak or live without us that day. Rahelka, my character in our class, her story cannot be told if I don't show up with my whole self that day. And equally, if my whole self is not available to serve, the way I can serve her is by allowing my understudy to tell her story. Because nothing is more important than Rahelka's story being told. And in doing so, I uplift my scene partners and I serve the audience. And I think that that is a really important way to view all theater making from the off off Broadway world, to off Broadway, to Broadway. That regardless of the commerciality, the profit or not for profit making, whether it's in a basement or on one of the largest stages of the Great White Way, that mission never alters. And believe me, I've graced all those stages. And whether I'm at Carnegie Hall, the West End, Broadway, or in a loft, in Soho, in a made for a site specific space making $200, it's not what we do. It's how we feel about what we do and who we're serving. And I think that that shared mission will keep our theater lights on and the audience is returning. So may it be. - Yes. (laughs) - Love it. - Well, thank you for having me. - Yes, Alexandra, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me, for sharing your just incredible work and your incredible thoughts. I cannot wait for your podcast, for your book to come out. You were so smart. So thank you so much for your time today. - Thank you. It's an honor and hopefully see you at the theater and listeners too. - Yes, guaranteed, absolutely. - Great. - My guest today has been the incredible actress, Alexandra Silver, who is starring in the show, Our Class, which is playing September 12th through November 3rd at Classic Stage Company. Tickets and more information are available at classicstage.org. And we also have some contact information for our guests and the show that we'll be posting on our episode description, as well as on our social media posts. But I'm telling you, this is a creator's pick. You are not gonna wanna miss this. Get your tickets while you still can. I've heard they are going fast. You don't wanna miss Alexandra and her incredible company of co-stars that put on a brilliant show. Tell a powerful story. The show again is Our Class, playing September 12th through November 3rd. 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 state 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 StageWhisper and theater. You'll be able to find merchandise, tours, tickets and more. Simply visit stagewhisperpod.com. Our theme song is "Maniac" by Jazar. 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