Skip to playerSkip to main content
Stefan Molyneux
  • 3 months ago
Stefan Molyneux discusses the challenges faced by a millennial in the theater industry post-COVID-19, focusing on ideological conformity that stifles creativity. Molyneux encourages him to transform frustrations into authentic artistic expression, exploring the potential for reclaiming integrity in a politically charged environment.

SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux

Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1

GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!

You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!

See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
Transcript
00:00:00So I am a mixed race gay millennial from the Midwest.
00:00:03Like you, I majored in theater, got my master's degree in Boston, and was finally at a point
00:00:07where I could actually live off of theater with some supplemental work.
00:00:11So I quit my job.
00:00:12I was working as a genius or as a mobile technician at Apple, at an Apple store in Cambridge
00:00:19in Massachusetts.
00:00:23And so I eagerly anticipated a year with the five contracts lined up and enough planned
00:00:26income to actually sustain and even save money.
00:00:29This was December of 2019.
00:00:31So as you can imagine, the year didn't go as planned.
00:00:33I found myself without contracts and broke because of the pandemic, with the whole industry
00:00:38utterly crushed by COVID in a way that no other entertainment-related industry was, at least
00:00:43as far as the arts is concerned.
00:00:44So it has not recovered.
00:00:46In the subsequent five years I've lived, live theater has become an artistic wasteland.
00:00:51I've tried to keep doing shows, but when things began reopening, the environment and the community
00:00:57that I remembered had been transformed into this radical, hate-filled tribe of virtue-signaling,
00:01:02ideologically captured zealots.
00:01:04There is no more storytelling.
00:01:05Everything has a message.
00:01:07Everyone has an agenda.
00:01:08And the idea that anyone in the community would disagree with the opinion of the mainstream
00:01:12urban monoculture has become absurd.
00:01:15They assume you agree with their absurdities, all of them.
00:01:19If you're in theater, you hate Trump.
00:01:20You believe in intersectionality, in critical race theory, in sterilizing effeminate boys,
00:01:25and in more masculine girls.
00:01:27I do shows, and the integrity and virtue of storytelling has disappeared.
00:01:30The people are nihilistic, disingenuous, constantly angry, and every production I've done feels like
00:01:35a parody of what great theater was.
00:01:37I feel lost.
00:01:38I have no respect for my fellow artists, the people I once look up to.
00:01:41I dare not voice my personal opinions.
00:01:43Maybe this production of Wizard of Oz doesn't have to be about the patriarchy.
00:01:46What is wrong with a straight actor playing a gay role?
00:01:49Aren't we just actors?
00:01:50So I keep my mouth shut because literally one wrong comment, social media post joke,
00:01:54and I would never work in that town again.
00:01:56I can't do it anymore.
00:01:57I love performing more than anything else in the world, but I don't love that in order to
00:02:02play any roles, I have to also play the role of one of them.
00:02:05At the end of the day, none of it is good.
00:02:07I spent nearly two decades training and learning and honing my skills for a job in industry that
00:02:11simply doesn't exist anymore.
00:02:13So I have all but stopped auditioning.
00:02:15I have redirected my energy into tech and graphic design, making music when I can, but
00:02:19it is not enough.
00:02:19I go months without singing, and I start to go crazy.
00:02:22I hold on to the hope that the world I remember will come back, that people need theater as
00:02:26a form of human connection to learn to be challenged, exposed to ideas that, God forbid,
00:02:30make them question the narratives, assumptions, and perspectives they hold.
00:02:34Theater's essential purpose, as Shakespeare said, is to hold, as it were,
00:02:37a mirror up to society.
00:02:38But now I feel like it just holds a smartphone with an Instagram filter, and it's too busy
00:02:43affirming your beliefs and agreeing with you to allow any moment of transformative contemplation.
00:02:47Even if there were still an abundance of contracts and well-paying opportunities now, I wouldn't
00:02:51want to be part of this epidemic of the uninteresting and its volatile environment of opinion landmines
00:02:57ready to blast the critical thinking out of any dissenters.
00:02:59What advice would you give to those of us devoted to an industry whose work has been hijacked
00:03:03by mass psychosis and whose workers have become a cult?
00:03:06Do I pretend and drink the Kool-Aid, or do I die of thirst?
00:03:09So great, some great writing.
00:03:12I read that earlier, and I was like, oh, that's the creative juices.
00:03:17It's very nice.
00:03:18Very good.
00:03:18Very good.
00:03:19Very good.
00:03:20And it's funny because you sort of say, I don't like the identity politics, and how do you
00:03:24introduce yourself?
00:03:27Exactly.
00:03:28Well, okay, for context, I guess for context, because it's very easy to be a young white
00:03:37straight male in society and have these opinions.
00:03:40Oh, like, so you're sort of saying, I've got some bona fides because I'm gay, I'm biracial,
00:03:45and so I'm not just some white guy with these perspectives.
00:03:49Is that what you mean?
00:03:50Well, it's also that when I enter in those spaces because of those prerequisites, because
00:03:55of those immutable characteristics, it's already assumed whether or not I was even in theater
00:03:59that I am on that side of things, right?
00:04:01Right.
00:04:01Because I'm part of the LGBTQ community, the black community.
00:04:07It's just, you know, all of that stuff is kind of assumed upon entry into the tribe in
00:04:13any way.
00:04:14So I guess that's why I added for a particular context for you and for whoever's listening.
00:04:19Okay, got it.
00:04:19But no, but no, that's not how I introduce myself.
00:04:21No, in fact, I find those things to be the least interesting things about me.
00:04:25I am what I do, not what I, not what I didn't have control over.
00:04:28Well, now I must, I must ask.
00:04:30I don't, I don't must ask, but I will ask.
00:04:32You don't have to answer anything.
00:04:33When you say biracial, that's quite a, like, putting your hand in the scrab bag, a scrabble
00:04:38bag and trying to figure out what you're going to get.
00:04:40What kind of biraciality are you talking about here?
00:04:43Uh, so, um, I, uh, I'm, I don't know.
00:04:47I always make a joke and say that I'm a mutt.
00:04:49Um, but, uh, I've said that before in front of black friends and they found that offensive.
00:04:53But, um, uh, West, when I did the 23andMe thing, it was a West African, Scottish, Native
00:04:58American and, uh, and a Dutch, very, very Dutch.
00:05:03Ah, okay.
00:05:04So that's, uh, so, and do you know much about the family tree, how this all came about?
00:05:07Is this something that's.
00:05:08No, I don't.
00:05:09I know that I have, I know that because of my last name, I have a clan and a Tarkin in
00:05:13this and Scottish that I could like purchase if I wanted to, um, but, but I've done, I've
00:05:18done a little bit of investigating, but no, I don't, I don't know.
00:05:20Well, my family hasn't kept enough, uh, records and whatnot.
00:05:22And on my mom's side that, uh, her father kind of, uh, her father's family kind of disowned
00:05:28my grandmother.
00:05:29Um, there was a divorce and there was, so there, I have a whole kind of like side of my family
00:05:34on that end that I never knew.
00:05:35Um, and that, that line was kind of broken by a lack of contact because they didn't like
00:05:39my grandmother.
00:05:40I don't know much about that drama.
00:05:41So, um, so I'm kind of, you know, mostly just going by my last name and what I got from,
00:05:46you know, the 23andMe thing.
00:05:48Okay.
00:05:49Got it.
00:05:50Um, and tell me a little bit about your, well, actually I'd love to hear a song if you have
00:05:55something handy, uh, before, I don't know how tired your voice gets, uh, but, uh, a song.
00:06:01Yeah.
00:06:01I mean, you, you're a singer, right?
00:06:02You write music.
00:06:03I, I'd love to hear a song.
00:06:04I do.
00:06:05I, but you know, I, I love hearing people's musical talents in particular.
00:06:11Uh, I envy good singers.
00:06:13So, uh, I'd love to hear a song.
00:06:15I could, I could, I could, I could, I'm not warmed up and I could, I could give you a,
00:06:20uh, I haven't sung in a while.
00:06:21That's another reason why I'm just like, like I said it before, I go crazy when I don't
00:06:24sing for too long, but, um, I mean, I could give you a link to my kind of YouTube reel
00:06:27in general, if you wanted to hear.
00:06:29Would you mind if I included a song, like we could just paste it into the show after?
00:06:35Uh, you don't have to, it's, it's totally up to you.
00:06:39Yeah.
00:06:41I, I, I guess I'd prefer in an ideal world.
00:06:43God, I wish I could, I could say yes, because that would be great exposure, but yeah.
00:06:46Yeah.
00:06:47Okay.
00:06:47All right.
00:06:47All right.
00:06:48I'll, I'll just, you know what?
00:06:49I'll, I'll sing, um, some Bronski beat and I'll just pretend it's you.
00:06:54Okay.
00:06:55All totally set.
00:06:56Totally set.
00:06:57All right.
00:06:57So tell me a little bit about your origin story, your background, your lore, your childhood
00:07:01and all.
00:07:01Um, well, I grew up in, uh, in the Midwest and, uh, in an area where, um, I was kind
00:07:08of, um, uh, the, uh, it was a relatively, uh, well off middle-class neighborhood.
00:07:14Um, you know, I, I kind of, I guess had a slightly less money and had to work a little
00:07:18bit harder than I think my, my, my peers in general, but I was very tokenized because
00:07:22of how, because of the, the demographics of where I grew up.
00:07:26Um, but I didn't really take a sentence to that.
00:07:28Sorry, what do you mean by tokenized?
00:07:29Uh, as the one black guy and all in the group of friends or the one gay person that everyone
00:07:35knew, you know, um, tokenized, does that mean like that you're treated differently or special
00:07:42because of that?
00:07:43Or is that something else?
00:07:45Uh, more of just a, uh, a general sense of reverence when my high school newspaper did
00:07:49a, did a story about, about kids in high school coming out.
00:07:52I was the one that they, they went to whenever there was, when the diversity, uh, speaker came
00:07:56to school, um, as like, they had like a big, um, or a big, uh, thing in the, in the, in
00:08:02the, uh, auditorium.
00:08:03They had me, they just, the administration just came to me and said, would you like to
00:08:07introduce them?
00:08:08Um, because I was charismatic and outgoing and I was in theater, but also because I
00:08:13represented a whole lot more diversity than, than the school in general had.
00:08:18So I, I, I didn't, so I don't say tokenized in a, in a, in a relatively negative way.
00:08:22It was just like, I would have conversations with people like I never, you know, I've never
00:08:26known any gay people before.
00:08:27It's interesting that you don't, uh, insert stereotype here.
00:08:31Um, so, right, right, right.
00:08:33Okay.
00:08:33Um, so, so, you know, um, uh, so I was, you know, I had a very encouraging family.
00:08:39Um, I just, uh, I, I kind of, uh, fell into a theater when it became clear when I was in
00:08:45at like elementary school that I was not able to sit still and be quiet.
00:08:49Um, and my elementary school teacher was like, get this kid into theater.
00:08:52He was one of the directors at the community theater in the area.
00:08:55My mom and I, my mom took me to my first audition and I went there kidding and screaming.
00:08:59I didn't want to do it.
00:09:00But the second I was on stage, she couldn't get me off.
00:09:02So, um, from then on, I was doing theater anytime I could.
00:09:05Um, I started doing choir in high school, which led to learning from, um, singing.
00:09:08I started playing viola in fourth grade.
00:09:11So I was in orchestra.
00:09:12Uh, so that kind of gave me all of my music theory.
00:09:16Sorry, you said viola?
00:09:17Viola, yeah.
00:09:18That's interesting because that's actually technically the gay violin, but that's a proper
00:09:21topic for another time.
00:09:23So go on.
00:09:24I played violin, though.
00:09:25I was the straight violin.
00:09:26You had viola.
00:09:27I wish, I wish I had played violin.
00:09:29I, they, they trick us into playing viola because nobody wants to play viola.
00:09:32You know, all of the, all of the viola jokes are a thing.
00:09:36Um, so I always resented, uh, my, my first music teacher for, for looking at my hand and
00:09:40going, you have a viola hand because, you know, I wanted to play violin, but it also
00:09:44screwed me up.
00:09:45It could, it's also screwed me.
00:09:46It's not, it's sort of a thing, but it also screwed me up because, uh, because reading
00:09:50alto clef, which is the, viola is the only instrument in the entire orchestra, uh, even
00:09:56outside of strings that plays exclusively in alto clef.
00:09:59So I couldn't read any other music.
00:10:00So when I got into choir, I was like, what is this?
00:10:02So I had to learn how to, when I started to do singing too, I was like, okay, now I have
00:10:05to read treble and bass clef.
00:10:07Great.
00:10:07I have to learn two more.
00:10:08Right.
00:10:08Right.
00:10:08Thank you for ruining it.
00:10:09So anyway, so, um, so between, uh, doing choir and, and that in theater in high school,
00:10:16um, I, uh, I started taking dance when I was in middle school.
00:10:19I just kind of like all of these things kind of coalesced into, you know, I love being on
00:10:23stage.
00:10:23I love, I love storytelling.
00:10:25I love the, uh, you know, the singular, um, aspects of it.
00:10:28It's not like being in movies.
00:10:30It's that, that one production that you go and see is the only time that production will ever
00:10:33happen for both the audience and for the people on stage.
00:10:36It's a, it's a unique, uh, kind of, kind of ancient tradition within human cultures that
00:10:40I really appreciated.
00:10:41So I went into musical theater, graduated from, um, uh, from an undergrad in, in, uh, Western
00:10:48Michigan university.
00:10:49And then I went on to Boston conservatory, um, after a couple of years of battling with
00:10:53Sally May and figuring that there isn't a whole lot of news of theater that is union,
00:10:57uh, in the Midwest, I had to get somewhere where there was.
00:11:00And so I, I, uh, looked at, and, uh, there's only two master's degrees in, at the time,
00:11:06there were only two master's degrees in musical theater in the country.
00:11:08One was in San Diego and the other one was in Boston, Boston conservatory.
00:11:11So I went there for my master's and, um, then I stayed there.
00:11:15Um, and, uh, so that's when I graduated there 2018, um, and kind of just entered the, um, the,
00:11:24the theater world of, of new England, which is, um, yeah, it's upwards of like 60 plus union
00:11:29theaters.
00:11:30Um, it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a clicky kind of in group thing.
00:11:34It's hard to get into playing more than just ensemble roles.
00:11:38Like you kind of have to be one of the Boston, they call them Boston favorites.
00:11:41Um, but, but, uh, but you know, it was, it was, it was really difficult because theater
00:11:48school, uh, you said you went to school for theater, right?
00:11:51Uh, I did.
00:11:52Yeah, I did.
00:11:52Um, uh, I don't know if it was the same for you, but my experience with theater school
00:11:57is extremely toxic environment full of people who are more interested in breaking you down
00:12:01than actually helping your, your, your talents or helping foster your talents.
00:12:05I don't mind fostering your talents as long as you're willing to foster their stupid ideologies
00:12:09then.
00:12:10And if you, if you have any questions or criticisms or anything like that, uh, then, uh, yeah,
00:12:15they, they loathe you.
00:12:16Oh yeah, exactly.
00:12:18And I thought, especially when I got to Boston, it was just, you know, it was, that was one
00:12:21of the most toxic environments that, that whole experience that I've ever been through.
00:12:24I almost, I graduated from there, like afraid, afraid in a way that I never was before to
00:12:30get up in front of people because I felt just like the, the idea of, of progress in a,
00:12:37in a class setting is you get up in front of them and you sing a song and they tell you
00:12:40to remember how you're, you know, you're some sort of horrible childhood trauma and then
00:12:45recount it in front of a bunch of strangers.
00:12:47And then you start crying and then you sing your song again and everyone says, wow, that
00:12:50was so much better.
00:12:51Um, right, right, right.
00:12:52Yeah.
00:12:52It's basically, it's a struggle session.
00:12:54Yeah.
00:12:56So it's trauma.
00:12:57Trauma is not, it's not training.
00:12:58Um, so, you know, I got out of that.
00:13:00Um, but I think the real reason, the real benefit to being there was not, uh, the, the
00:13:06geographic location, the access to technology through Berkeley college, uh, through the merger
00:13:10with Berkeley that was happening at the time.
00:13:12Um, so I got a whole lot of access to great, um, great music production technology.
00:13:15And whatnot, um, a bunch of software, you know, I just sat in Berkeley library and stole
00:13:20everything I possibly could so that I could keep it forever.
00:13:22Um, uh, and, uh, then, uh, then I started auditioning.
00:13:26I was doing really well, uh, relatively, I, like I said, up until about 29, uh, 2019.
00:13:32Well, so tell me a little bit about what, cause that's, that's always the big challenge,
00:13:35right?
00:13:35Like what, what was it that happened for you after the school?
00:13:39Cause you know, school, you've kind of guaranteed roles and then, and then what?
00:13:42Um, well, uh, as soon as I graduated, um, you know, there's, there's the, like, you're
00:13:50going to be on Broadway idea of, of being an actor.
00:13:53And, you know, that's really, that's just kind of the, the marketing campaign they put
00:13:58in there to get people into their schools.
00:13:59It's, it's the idea that you can make a career out of theater that isn't being on Broadway
00:14:04isn't really part of, part of, you know, the, the, the, uh, the message that they, they
00:14:10purport to, to enforce throughout, you know, your goal is to be on Broadway.
00:14:15That is the height of being in theater.
00:14:16When, you know, I, I came to realize, especially in my master's degree program that, you know,
00:14:20being in theater or being a theater major, making a career in theater can be any number
00:14:25of things.
00:14:25Um, you know, and, and that doesn't have any sort of geographic location.
00:14:29And after seeing a few shows on Broadway that I thought were utterly, uh, uh, trash,
00:14:34especially at the time, I'm just like, you know what, I've seen a product, I've seen
00:14:36this production done twice as good in some regional theater nobody's ever heard of.
00:14:40I think I need to rethink this.
00:14:42And so, you know, I, I spent, um, as soon as I graduated, I decided I liked Boston.
00:14:47I liked that I could, you know, after 20, I could drive 20 minutes and, and be in like,
00:14:51uh, you know, a nature reserve, see trees.
00:14:54And at the same time there was the city demographic and there was a lot of auditioning in the
00:14:57area.
00:14:58So, and I knew a lot of people, the connections were, were relatively good.
00:15:01So, um, so I, you know, I, I was auditioning for as much as I could.
00:15:05I did a couple of shows while I was in school, though.
00:15:07They kind of discouraged that because of the workload.
00:15:09Um, but, uh, but I, you know, I was, I was getting, uh, pretty consistently good role,
00:15:15uh, uh, consistent roles.
00:15:16Um, not like main, not like lead roles, but I would get cast in something because I was,
00:15:22I was a man, I was a dancer.
00:15:23So I could be in the court, I could be in the ensemble of just about anything relatively
00:15:26versatile.
00:15:27My biggest problem is that they don't really know where to put me in general.
00:15:30I've had actually, um, did a workshop with, um, John Pacino who came to, or not John Pacino.
00:15:35Um, uh, Oh God, I can't remember.
00:15:38Uh, just a really, really great, uh, composer whose name eludes me at the moment.
00:15:41But he, he told, pulled me aside after we did the workshop in school and he said, um,
00:15:46you have a fantastic and very, very unique voice and, and remember memorable presence.
00:15:51And I want you to be prepared for the fact that nobody is going to ever know what to do
00:15:55with you.
00:15:55Um, so.
00:15:57Sorry, but why, why tell me, I'm still, I'm still not sure why they wouldn't know what
00:16:01to do with you.
00:16:01Um, because, uh, there is, um, type is a huge thing and pushing back against your type
00:16:08or whatever your type is like for, uh, being, being a black guy in theater, I mean, gives
00:16:14you a set of pre-assumed probable roles that you'll want to play.
00:16:18The Richie in chorus line, the, uh, seaweed in hairspray, that kind of like, I sing like
00:16:24a black guy.
00:16:24I sing like I, you know, uh, like I got gospel church background.
00:16:27I sing, you know, that kind of sound, um, that kind of like style, that kind of, uh,
00:16:32presentational, uh, um, uh, I don't know if you've seen or heard about, um, uh, Hadestown.
00:16:39Um, you know, they're the, the, the MC in Hadestown is very much like that, you know, but at the
00:16:44same time, my dream roles never really had anything to do with my type.
00:16:49Like I would, one of my dream roles is, is George and George Surratt and Sunday in the
00:16:52park with George, um, which is a role Sunday in the park with George.
00:16:56Oh yeah.
00:16:57Okay.
00:16:57Got it.
00:16:58Um, which is, you know, it's Sondheim.
00:17:01It's, uh, it's not really traditionally black music when it comes to like, it's not gospel.
00:17:07It's not like heavy jazz.
00:17:08It's Sondheim.
00:17:09It's golden age relatively.
00:17:10So, uh, but it, that didn't really matter.
00:17:12It wasn't about riffing like a, like a black singer.
00:17:15You know, I don't want to sing like Usher or Beyonce or whatever.
00:17:17It's really about playing whatever role I think I can really devote myself to.
00:17:22I know that maybe historically speaking, George Surratt probably wouldn't have been
00:17:26black, but that isn't really the point of the show itself.
00:17:30Um, however, if I were to walk into an audition for Sunday in the park with George, uh, I'd
00:17:35have to really, really go against a pre, a pre, uh, preconceptions about what, who and what
00:17:41would play that role.
00:17:42Mandy Patinkin originally played that role.
00:17:44I think, uh, Jake Gyllenhaal played it in the revival.
00:17:46It's, it's, you know, it's kind of got a traditional, this is what we, we assume, um, is going to
00:17:51be, uh, for that role.
00:17:53And then, so I'm always fighting my own stereotypes or my own pre-assumed type when I walk
00:17:58into auditions, um, which means that, you know, it, it makes, it's kind of like the
00:18:04getting, getting someone to consider something that they, cause directors in audition rooms
00:18:08have a, you know, they have an idea of what they're looking for.
00:18:11And if it's not, if you're not that, but you could do something better, it's really
00:18:15hard to get past that, that assumption.
00:18:18Um, so that's what I mean by that.
00:18:19Okay.
00:18:20Got it.
00:18:20Got it.
00:18:21Okay.
00:18:22So you got some, uh, I hate to say secondary cause you know, that are me, some secondary
00:18:27roles, you got some decent stage time and you got to play with the audience and, and all
00:18:31of that, that kind of stuff.
00:18:32So what happened from there?
00:18:34When did you, when did you graduate?
00:18:362018 was when I graduated from, from my master's timing.
00:18:40Oh, the law.
00:18:41I know, right.
00:18:42Right.
00:18:42So this was, so that I had one year of, of a couple of, uh, I went to all of the audition
00:18:47season stuff, uh, but I was still in school at the end of my, my master's degree.
00:18:51So, so the year of 2019 was really when I, I started, uh, you know, going heavy on auditions,
00:18:57revamping my website, you know, getting all of my reels and stuff together.
00:19:00And, um, so I, and I managed to book quite a few roles, um, that would have as of the end
00:19:08of, uh, around late fall of 2019 was when I, I, I had been working, uh, for a year and
00:19:14a half at the genius bar at Apple.
00:19:16And, um, um, when I looked at the contracts that I have, um, that I had lined up for the
00:19:22following year already.
00:19:23And I, I looked at, you know, financially speaking, I wasn't going to be rich, but I could actually
00:19:29live off of this because I had, I had joined, uh, joined Actors Equity.
00:19:33So, uh, as far as the minimum weight, like I knew what at minimum I was going to make
00:19:37for each of these contracts.
00:19:38I did supplemental work, still do a graphic design and UI UX design.
00:19:42Um, and so, you know, I chose to rather than kill myself in a retail store dealing with
00:19:48disgruntled customers all day long, and then going to rehearsals every night, which was
00:19:52absolutely exhausting.
00:19:53I tried that twice and it absolutely killed both of both jobs.
00:19:56So, um, I was, you know, this is what I went to school for.
00:20:00This is what I want to do.
00:20:00And I have, I now feel like I have enough to do it.
00:20:02So I quit Apple.
00:20:03This was the, uh, December of 2019.
00:20:07I quit Apple and then the next three months happened and COVID hit and every single theater
00:20:13shut down, all my contracts were canceled.
00:20:15And, uh, from there I was kind of sent adrift into the world.
00:20:21Um, and so, you know, and like I said, after theaters reopened, it was, it's not,
00:20:26not the same auditioning.
00:20:27Isn't the same theaters when, um, when they didn't go bankrupt, they do shows now that
00:20:31they, that are safe, that they know that they have, uh, the money to do.
00:20:34They do far less contracts.
00:20:36There's precasting is rampant, um, because it's much easier to do a show and precast with
00:20:43people, you know, who you've already worked with that, you know, are going to work well
00:20:46that you don't, you know, that there's, it's much more, much less, um, likely for anybody
00:20:49to take, take a chance on someone that they haven't, uh, put a whole lot of responsibility
00:20:54on before.
00:20:55Um, because they just, you know, if the show tanks or if it's show doesn't do very well,
00:20:59if there's issues, uh, you know, recasting is just difficult.
00:21:01The casting process expensive.
00:21:03They have less administrative capabilities.
00:21:05All of these things lead to theater being, um, kind of, uh, more of a, if you're already
00:21:11in, you're in kind of thing.
00:21:12Uh, otherwise it's very, very difficult.
00:21:15So, um, you know, I've done a couple of productions since then that feel like, um, like I did,
00:21:20I did a production, um, uh, uh, of, uh, Wizard of Oz and it was like, they cast the absolute
00:21:28minimum amount of actors to do way too much each one of us.
00:21:32And it, like, it, it was, it was, it ended up being just, we were, it was a bad show.
00:21:37It was a bad show because we, we didn't have enough resources and it wasn't, it wasn't fulfilling.
00:21:42The whole process was exhausting and, um, not even worth the amount of like energy and
00:21:47time we put into it.
00:21:48And, you know, at the end of the day, it, it made the theater the money that it wanted,
00:21:52that they wanted it to, I guess.
00:21:53But, um, you know, beyond that it was, it was rough.
00:21:55And, and, and so I'm looking at, I look at other auditions that are available and, um,
00:22:01you know, I, I go to them, I get callbacks and whatnot, but at most I'll get cast in an
00:22:06ensemble role playing three, 13 different minor characters.
00:22:09Um, you know, so, and again, it's because, because, you know, okay, well, he's a man
00:22:14who can dance, who can sing, who can play, who's, you know, a, a tenor who's got a relatively
00:22:19low to high range.
00:22:20So we can stick him in 17 different places at once, but at no point am I considered for
00:22:26the, you know, the, the, the lead role or for any sort of like lead supporting character,
00:22:31the specific character, because, uh, it's much easier to put me in a place that they don't
00:22:36have a whole lot of other people for.
00:22:37Um, and so, you know, on top of that, it's just, like I said, there's just less, there's
00:22:41far less.
00:22:42And I get into, uh, I did a production of, um, um, uh, the color purple and, uh, it was
00:22:51way different than I had ever expected.
00:22:55Uh, it's not, it's not, I don't know if you've ever seen or, or read the color purple.
00:22:58Uh, yes, I've seen it, but, uh, but it's, it, it became this weird kind of, are you this
00:23:08kind of like black enough hierarchy?
00:23:10Um, I was called back for one of the main roles.
00:23:14Um, there aren't a whole lot of main male roles in that, but, but the one that I was
00:23:18called back for, I know damn well I nailed.
00:23:23Um, and I don't, I have, I have enough humility to know when I do a good, good or, or, or
00:23:27relatively, uh, bad audition.
00:23:29Um, and I know I nailed that callback.
00:23:32I know that it, it felt very much like the guy who cast, who was cast in the role was blacker
00:23:37than me and that's why he got it.
00:23:39Right.
00:23:39Um, and that kind of like sense of things, like at one point at the beginning of the audition
00:23:43area of the, uh, the rehearsal process, um, one person had to drop out.
00:23:48And so the ensemble, uh, the ensemble role that they filled, uh, there's a sequence in
00:23:52Africa where there's like an African tribal leader, um, character and the person who was
00:23:57set to play that role had to drop out.
00:23:59So another girl who just spent singing it in the ensemble as a placeholder, um, um, we
00:24:04just assumed she would take it, but she, uh, spoke up and said something along the lines
00:24:08of, I don't feel like I'm black enough to be playing, uh, uh, African tribal, this African
00:24:14tribal role.
00:24:15I feel like that's kind of, that could be potentially problematic.
00:24:18First of all, it's like a dream sequence.
00:24:19And so it's not actually like literal anyway.
00:24:22And second of all, what does that even mean?
00:24:25Like what, what, who, what African tribal leader is going to watch this and, and then, and
00:24:29write an angry letter to like, I don't, I don't understand how that kind of, and as
00:24:34soon as someone spoke up, like that person said that the rest of the room was like, well,
00:24:39now we can't do it.
00:24:40Now we can't keep it there because it was said that was said out loud.
00:24:42So now we have to put someone else in and they did put some blacker in it.
00:24:45So it was just like, you know, and, uh, at one point they were talking, we had, we had
00:24:49a blackout night.
00:24:50One of the, one of the shows was, they called it blackout night and it was a night where
00:24:53specifically black people were invited.
00:24:55They didn't explicitly say white people weren't invited, but obviously that's the assumption
00:25:01that you don't, you don't buy tickets to the blackout show if you're not black.
00:25:04Like, like that just, to me is so counter, like, I don't see the, the distinction between
00:25:12that and Jim Crow in my opinion.
00:25:13Like, I don't, I don't, I don't see this, like we need a blacks only night.
00:25:18What, what, what if the alternative they were to have, I mean, what if we did a production
00:25:22of on the town and had a white only night?
00:25:23Like, I mean, I, I just, I feel like this, the conversations around what stories we're telling
00:25:29or whose stories we can tell and why are just like, have, have dissolved into this, this
00:25:35like tribalistic, boring, uninteresting slop.
00:25:40And, and, and I, I find, I find myself like wishing that there was some sort of light at
00:25:49the end of this tunnel, but as far as like what demographics of people became the most woke
00:25:56when woke kind of took over, like, I think the last, the last dregs of woke are going
00:26:00to be left over in the entertainment, the theater and movies like that, that industry.
00:26:06Well, they, and they can keep it going for a lot of time.
00:26:09I know.
00:26:10And they, I'm sure they will.
00:26:12Um, so, so yeah, so that's, you know, that's, that's kind of, I just get, it's, it's exhausting.
00:26:18It's exhausting because I'll sit in a rehearsal room and they'll be just talking about whatever
00:26:21thing Trump said the night before, and everyone has to make a joke about it.
00:26:26Everyone has to have an opinion about it.
00:26:27And I just like, I stay silent.
00:26:29I like, you know, I, I believe I've been a follower of you and, and, uh, people like
00:26:34Jordan Peterson for a long time.
00:26:35And I believe very strongly in the idea that the more you lie, the more you kind of degrade
00:26:40your own soul and sense of integrity.
00:26:42And yet, so, so, so I just stay silent unless someone asks me a question and I try to be
00:26:48as, as unspecific as possible, lest I, you know, give away the fact that I'm not one of
00:26:55them.
00:26:56No, it's like you got to rub yourself in the zombie juice to get through the zombies, right?
00:27:00Exactly.
00:27:01Exactly.
00:27:02So, so, you know, I, I, this is the first year where I've really just kind of stopped.
00:27:08I didn't, I didn't even do the audition season this year.
00:27:10Um, I've kind of transitioned, I've done, I've been doing cabarets with, uh, um, actually
00:27:15more, more like a mini concerts with a group of people.
00:27:17Uh, they're mostly for charity.
00:27:19They're mostly for free.
00:27:20It's all kind of, we don't get paid for it or anything, but it, you know, it, it scratches
00:27:23that itch a little bit.
00:27:24Um, but, uh, but yeah, so, um, it's, uh, it became, it became another thing too, because
00:27:31I, without that, those contracts, without, you know, that amount of, of pre COVID, uh, uh,
00:27:37opportunity, I, uh, I was like, okay, well now I have to have a career.
00:27:41Now I have to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my life so that I can pay
00:27:44bills.
00:27:45Um, because, you know, I had only ever used kind of graphic design and, uh, and UI, UX,
00:27:51UI, UX design as, as a supplement.
00:27:54Um, I never really, you know, I didn't go to school for it.
00:27:56It was more self-taught.
00:27:57Um, and so I kind of ramped that up in the last, uh, year, a couple of years and, um,
00:28:03you know, it's, it's still not the living I want it to be, especially in, in, in Eastern
00:28:10Mass, just the cost of living is astronomical.
00:28:13Um, so I've, uh, kind of had a whole kind of crisis of future in that what, you know,
00:28:21I never really wanted to being on Broadway.
00:28:23It wasn't the height of what I wanted to do.
00:28:24I have other aspirations.
00:28:25I have, um, a whole, uh, different kind of set of goals that at one point I want to
00:28:32get a doctoral degree in, um, uh, uh, what's called, so there's several other names for
00:28:38it, but, uh, biomusicology, uh, or neuromusicology, basically the science of how, uh, music interacts
00:28:43with the brain on a biological level.
00:28:46And, um, because there's a whole lot of really interesting studies that go along with that
00:28:51studies from scientists.
00:28:52And then like, there's like theater, uh, theater therapy and music therapy, but there's never
00:28:58really been a comprehensive, like deep dive into like the understanding from a musical
00:29:04theory perspective, how these kinds of combinations of sounds make your brain remember and feel
00:29:12and, and, and, uh, interact with the world, um, and interact with, uh, other people socially
00:29:17speaking, um, so, you know, like why is it that a minor chord instills this kind of, um, this
00:29:22kind of feeling in everybody, just despite what background they're from or what part of
00:29:27the world, they all feel the same thing when they hear these sounds and why, um, and that
00:29:31has, you know, there's, there's a little bit of, of research into it, but, um, but I feel
00:29:35like there's a whole, um, there's a whole kind of set of potential research opportunities
00:29:39there that I really want to explore.
00:29:41Um, and so that's kind of my, my end goal.
00:29:43One of my end goals is to, is to, is to explore that, um, you know, open an institute.
00:29:50The other thing is, uh, at some point, this is the loftiest goal is, uh, I think the best
00:29:55artistic collaborations come from people who are from different, not just different backgrounds,
00:29:59but wildly different artistic perspectives or cultural perspectives.
00:30:03And that is even less likely nowadays, um, because of, you know, differing perspectives
00:30:10become a hierarchy of which, which perspective is most victimized and therefore most important
00:30:15to, to, uh, to communicate.
00:30:18And so, um, you see far less collaboration, or if you see collaboration, it's less of a collaboration
00:30:23and more of a one, one tribe works with another tribe by conceding that the other tribes
00:30:29message is better.
00:30:31Um, so I think that, uh, you know, so I've, I've had ideas about, you know, creating a,
00:30:36uh, like a scholarship program slash institute that, that creates, um, artistic collaborations,
00:30:41but, uh, particularly musical and, uh, theatrical collaborations between different cultures,
00:30:47cultures that are wildly disparate.
00:30:49Um, so my actual, my, my graduate thesis was, um, was an exploration of this from a music
00:30:56perspective.
00:30:56Um, I took all of the different pieces of my own personal demographic, um, using 23 mean
00:31:02and whatnot and, uh, use all, uh, created a, uh, a like 40 minute production of songs that
00:31:09were interpolated using instruments, using instrumentation and, um, uh, background tracks
00:31:14that I wrote myself using all the instruments that were native to all the different cultures
00:31:18that represent me.
00:31:19It was all, it was all about identity.
00:31:21Your identity is essentially what you do and what you make, uh, given all of the combinations
00:31:26of things that went into you.
00:31:28And so, uh, my advisor was like, there's no possible way this is going to work.
00:31:31You can't put drum instruments like bagpipes and whatnot, along with any sort of electronic
00:31:35instrument or, or, or, uh, or electric guitar or anything.
00:31:38And I was like, I'm going to prove you wrong.
00:31:40And I did.
00:31:40Um, so, um, so that kind of thing I think is, uh, really, really interesting exploring
00:31:45combinations of things you wouldn't, you wouldn't ever think you can combine.
00:31:48Um, so anyway, that's kind of a diatribe on, on where I am and where I want to go, but right
00:31:53at the moment, it's hard to, it's hard to know where, where I, where, where the, the,
00:31:58uh, financial stability aspect of this comes into play because yeah.
00:32:03You know, um, and at the same time, I don't want to abandon, I don't think theaters.
00:32:09God, it's just, it's just so different.
00:32:10It's so different.
00:32:11And it's, it's great.
00:32:12You know, everybody says, Whoa, back in my day.
00:32:15Um, I just remember the first professional production I did over the summer and while
00:32:20I was still in my undergrad.
00:32:21And I just remember what working with, it didn't really matter what you looked like or
00:32:25where you were like, all of these identity political things were not part of the storytelling.
00:32:30They weren't part of the rehearsal process.
00:32:31Um, they weren't taken into account in a way that is detrimental to just telling the
00:32:36story.
00:32:37Um, you know, it just seems like everything is so superficially secondary.
00:32:41Everything is so much more about, um, and I, uh, like for example, um, I don't know if
00:32:45you've seen Hamilton.
00:32:46Um, no, I have a, I have a very, don't bother.
00:32:49I have a very unpopular opinion about Hamilton because I think all it really does is tell a
00:32:53bunch of people that they're already not racist, uh, by what, by, by in essence, uh, and
00:32:59this is something I took from an article I read, uh, to looking at history and, and,
00:33:04and blackwashing it as a way of making, of making things more palatable.
00:33:08And it doesn't like, it doesn't challenge you.
00:33:11You don't walk out of that thinking something new.
00:33:13It's all about just being something, being progressive, being, you know, making this statement.
00:33:20Isn't it cool that we're all singing rap music, even though we're founding fathers,
00:33:23except we had to cut the part about slavery where, where Jefferson and, and Hamilton are
00:33:29arguing about slavery.
00:33:30There's a whole rap sequence where they do that because Hamilton was actually pro-slavery.
00:33:34Jefferson was not.
00:33:35And, uh, because that didn't really work with the message of the show.
00:33:40We couldn't say Hamilton, or Hamilton couldn't be, uh, advocating for slavery.
00:33:45They had to cut that because it was an inconvenient truth of the history that they were trying
00:33:49to recreate.
00:33:49It's just like, you know, that kind of thing is just, if you're going to tell a story,
00:33:53if you're going to look, what is the, isn't the purpose of this to, to, to show someone
00:33:59who, who wouldn't normally go to a show like this, that there's, that there's a different
00:34:03way of thinking, isn't it?
00:34:04Isn't the purpose of any sort of, any sort of like transformative or, uh, uh, entertainment
00:34:09experience for someone to think differently than they already have, not for a bunch of people
00:34:13who are already woke to real, to, to, to, uh, you know, smile and feel good about how
00:34:19woke they already are.
00:34:20Uh, it just, you know, it feels, it feels, everything feels so disingenuous.
00:34:25It feels like, you know, we were the people for diversity.
00:34:27We were, we were the different people.
00:34:28The theater kids were the weird kids, but now it's like, you know, if you're, if you're
00:34:33one of us, you have to believe all of the, it's just, it's, it's, it's so hilariously
00:34:38hypocritical that like, you can't think differently.
00:34:43You can't say differently.
00:34:44You can't, you can't behave differently while they call it progressive.
00:34:50It, it, it baffles me.
00:34:51So anyway, that's where, that's where I am right now.
00:34:55And, uh, you said that you came out, oh, was it high school or something like that?
00:35:00Came out, yeah.
00:35:00High school.
00:35:01And how was that process for you?
00:35:04Fine.
00:35:05Um, I mean, so when did you know and, you know, the, the sort of,
00:35:08I mean, I always kind of knew, um, that was never really a big issue.
00:35:12I had a relatively progressive, uh, family.
00:35:15My, my mom was never really that issue.
00:35:17Like I'm fairly certain that she, her best friend was gay.
00:35:21I always called him uncle Jim.
00:35:22I never really knew that we never really talked about it, but like, but like it wasn't, there
00:35:26was never a, uh, a time where I thought I wouldn't be accepted.
00:35:30Um, I do remember cause we didn't have, there was any sort of like, um, gay straight
00:35:36alliance or anything like that.
00:35:37Um, and so I, I was part of the, the first group of people to, to create that in my high
00:35:42school.
00:35:43Um, we got a little bit of pushback from our administration until our advisor was one of
00:35:48my English teachers, uh, was like, no, we actually, if you, if you, if you stop us from
00:35:53forming this, we can take legal action.
00:35:54But it wasn't like, it wasn't like one of those things that would be on the news now
00:35:57because whatever, you know, we made, we had a GSA, a bunch of kids came to it.
00:36:02And then at one point the school newspaper did a story about kids, a gay straight alliance.
00:36:06Okay.
00:36:06So, yeah.
00:36:08Um, I'm not sure if that's still kind of a thing in schools, but it was, that was kind
00:36:11of the, you know, the thing to do if you, if you wanted to kind of create a group where
00:36:15that was.
00:36:16Yes.
00:36:16Yes.
00:36:17Yeah.
00:36:17Yeah.
00:36:17Yeah.
00:36:17So, um, so yeah, so that, I mean, I came out, like I said, the newspaper did a story on me
00:36:23and like one other student who, um, who came out while they were in his, his story was a
00:36:27whole lot more tragic.
00:36:28His parents weren't really accepting.
00:36:29He had to move out so that I wasn't really all that featured in the story, uh, because
00:36:33my, the process for me wasn't really that, that crazy.
00:36:36Um, but, uh, you know, I, I kind of knew I came out as I, it came out to my friends
00:36:42first and then to some close family member, family friends.
00:36:45And then I told my parents and that was kind of that.
00:36:48So, um, it was never, it was not really an issue at home.
00:36:51Um, I, uh, yeah, so I think the, the only issue my mom was, my mom had was that she would
00:36:58never have grandkids.
00:36:59Um, uh, at least that was her assumption.
00:37:01Um, I still plan on having children at some point, um, one way or another.
00:37:05Um, I have some moral hangups about that recently, especially just thinking about it.
00:37:10Um, I've been, I've been with my partner for over 12 years now, um, planning on getting
00:37:15married as soon as there's, it's more of a financial and like kind of life status.
00:37:21This thing, getting married is very expensive.
00:37:23We want to be, we want to have, it's much more, um, of a priority to get, to get land
00:37:28and, and find, you know, stability.
00:37:30Um, and so, um, but, uh, but yeah, so, uh, so that wasn't really ever an issue for me.
00:37:37Uh, aside from the fact that, you know, I ended up being, you know, the one gay, gay guy,
00:37:42everybody knew that, you know, that everyone was like, oh, I've got this friend, you're
00:37:47gay.
00:37:47Can you answer this question about how all gay people think?
00:37:50Sure.
00:37:51I can answer that for you.
00:37:52Um, so, but I never got a fence.
00:37:54I never found it offensive.
00:37:55I don't like, I don't see those people in white fingers at them because it's just like, when
00:37:59you don't have any sort of information, you need information, you know, no, no, not, not
00:38:03all gay people love to go shopping.
00:38:05In fact, I freaking hate shopping, um, you know, that kind of thing.
00:38:08So, um, yeah.
00:38:13Okay.
00:38:13Uh, all right.
00:38:14I think I, I think I understand as a whole, and I'd love to dive into the sort of theater
00:38:21world and how I could best help you in that area.
00:38:26So you want to say in the theater world, it's repulsive to your sensibilities in the ideological
00:38:32capture, right?
00:38:33I don't want to overly summarize what you're saying, but it's something.
00:38:36Sure.
00:38:37Sure.
00:38:37Yeah.
00:38:37I mean, I mean, sensibilities in the sense that like, I re I remember what it was like
00:38:43when everything didn't have an underlying quote unquote message.
00:38:46I remember when it was just kind of an experience that wasn't rife with this constantly polarized,
00:38:53overly political, uh, uh, umbrella above it.
00:38:59Um, that thought it just feels very, it feels very oppressed by that.
00:39:02It feels like there are certain things you can't really say or do certain shows.
00:39:05You probably just should avoid.
00:39:07And if you do them, you have to make sure that you're saying the right thing or doing
00:39:10it the right way.
00:39:11You know, ideas like a straight person needs to stop playing a gay role when there's a
00:39:15gay person available.
00:39:16Aren't we all just actors like that?
00:39:17That idea wasn't really a thing when I, when I first entered the professional world and
00:39:21now it's like rampant.
00:39:22So, you know, yeah.
00:39:25Right.
00:39:25Right.
00:39:25Or you can put, you can put non-whites into white roles, but never the other way.
00:39:31Ah, of course.
00:39:32Exactly.
00:39:32Right.
00:39:33Right.
00:39:33Okay.
00:39:33Well, I suppose, how close are you to finding it unbearable to be in the theater world?
00:39:44In other words, what do you have to lose at the moment?
00:39:51Um, my mind.
00:39:53No, no, no.
00:39:54I mean, practically.
00:39:55And what I mean by that is, um, you say, oh, one social media post wrong, one, this,
00:40:02one, that, and you're never working in this town again.
00:40:05So how much do you want to work in this town again?
00:40:10More than anything.
00:40:12More than, well, not more than anything, I guess.
00:40:14I guess, uh, and that isn't, that isn't really hyperbole either.
00:40:20Like I've seen, like, because you say, I, it was close when I was in, when I was in
00:40:25my undergrad or my graduate school, um, this was, this was when, uh, Trump was, was going
00:40:31for his first term and I, I found Hillary to be a demonic otherworldly being.
00:40:38And I, and, uh, I, uh, you know, I, I wasn't vocal about it, but I wasn't like, you know,
00:40:44I was pretty sure that I was going to vote.
00:40:46Now I'm going to, now I'm going to have to set up a special folder in my email.
00:40:50Inbox for demonic otherworldly beings who are now highly offended and haven't been
00:40:54compared to Hillary Clinton.
00:40:55So let me just do that.
00:40:57Okay.
00:40:57All done.
00:40:58Yes.
00:40:59All done.
00:40:59How dare you compare us minions of hell.
00:41:02Okay.
00:41:02All right.
00:41:03Right.
00:41:03Right.
00:41:04So, but, but of course, what, uh, one of the, one of my fellow classmates like had to
00:41:07have a sit down with me so that I could tell her why I was a quote unquote Trump supporter,
00:41:12because that is now a, is now a class of person.
00:41:16Um, well, so, you know, that, that, and so, you know,
00:41:20it, it's that kind of thing easily gets around extremely quickly.
00:41:25What that person goes to an audition or that person is behind the table because they're
00:41:29a consulting choreographer for that production and they're in the casting room and my name
00:41:34comes up.
00:41:34And the fact that I am a quote unquote Trump supporter is like that key just kind of turns
00:41:43that kind of like, no, no, we're not really interested in that, you know, that, that happens
00:41:48and it's like a, it's like a pandemic.
00:41:49It just kind of erases through.
00:41:51So, yeah.
00:41:51And the only way that you can really overcome that is if you are such a moneymaker, you
00:41:58know, like some massive, you know, whatever, like some of the action stars, uh, the past
00:42:03and so on, then they'll hold their nose just, but if you know, if you're not a guaranteed
00:42:07moneymaker and the other thing I, sorry, if I forgot to mention this earlier in terms
00:42:11of going with the unknowns, uh, I'm sure you've had this process.
00:42:15I've certainly gone through this process as a director where somebody gives a fantastic
00:42:18audition and then the closer they get to the show, the more they start to choke and
00:42:22you're like, oh God, whereas at least somebody who's tried and true, they've, they've carried
00:42:26a show, you know, they can handle the pressure, you know, that they rise to meet the challenge
00:42:30of the occasion and so on.
00:42:31So yeah, the, the great audition and the terrible stage presence is an unfortunate coincidence,
00:42:37but it does happen.
00:42:38Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure.
00:42:40Well, and that's what I was saying, you know, that's why directors are far less inclined to
00:42:43take any sort of risk for somebody where they haven't worked, they haven't, you know,
00:42:47been vetted in that kind of role before, uh, just because so much more is at stake.
00:42:51So precasting, uh, you know, like, uh, precasting is just a huge thing that, you know, if you're
00:42:55one of the quote unquote Boston favorites, you are pretty much in, in, uh, insured to get
00:43:00a role and to get several roles to be, to have them fighting over you for whatever, because
00:43:05you'll make them money.
00:43:06Right.
00:43:06Um, so.
00:43:09Okay.
00:43:09So, uh, yeah.
00:43:11So what is your, I mean, the, the theater world is a smoking ruin financially.
00:43:16It's become increasingly dependent on the state, which means leftism and it's become
00:43:21toxically, of course, and claustrophobically ideological.
00:43:27And, uh, art is supposed to be about play.
00:43:29It's not supposed to be like everyone has to stand in line in the blood soaked avenue to
00:43:34the revolution or something like that.
00:43:35It's really, it's supposed to be a spontaneity play and fun.
00:43:38And this is a, you know, mother courage and her children, Bertolt Breast style, just grim,
00:43:43horrible.
00:43:44Everything's cliched.
00:43:46You know, all the, all the rich people are fat people with monocles and all the poor are
00:43:50just noble and heroic.
00:43:51And it's, it's, it's also, I can't do theater because it's just also grindingly predictable.
00:43:58And you, you know, it's, it's like, but you go see a, what was it?
00:44:01I watched a movie with Kenneth Branagh.
00:44:03Like it was a, uh, death on the Nile.
00:44:05Right.
00:44:06And I think there are like six people who might've done it and two of them are black and you're
00:44:10like, well, you know, it's not going to be the black people because so, so it's my, the
00:44:15mystery has gone down by at least 25%.
00:44:17There's no way it's going to be the black people.
00:44:20Uh, so yeah, it's just kind of boring and dull and, and predictable and, and so on.
00:44:25Right.
00:44:26Um, and so I guess, yeah, I mean, what is your status at the moment of, of getting work
00:44:31in sort of mainstream theater?
00:44:34Non-existent.
00:44:35I didn't, I did not audition this year.
00:44:36I'm actually, one reason is because, um, the amount of time and effort it takes to do
00:44:42it just couldn't be sacrificed less.
00:44:45I am not able to pay rent.
00:44:47Um, and so, you know, I had to, I had to make some decisions about how important it was
00:44:52to me to survive first.
00:44:55Um, and so if, if, if not only I'm willing to not make enough money, I'm willing to scrape
00:45:00and grind if I need to, if it means that there's some sort of payoff.
00:45:04Um, I've done one, I did one production that I absolutely loved and it was kind of an enigma.
00:45:09It was, um, uh, uh, all is calm.
00:45:11The Christmas truce of 19 of 1914, 1912, um, really beautiful, beautiful, beautiful production.
00:45:19And I loved every moment of that.
00:45:21It was, you know, it, it, it fed my choral background because it's all acapella.
00:45:24It was really, really musically intensive.
00:45:26It was a story about entirely different cultures coming together.
00:45:29And it was in like seven different languages and a bunch of different, really interesting
00:45:33folk stories were, were part of it.
00:45:35It's like, like, like a gem of a production.
00:45:37We actually won the Elliot Norton award that year.
00:45:39So, um, it was beautiful.
00:45:41It was a beautiful experience.
00:45:43It was a beautiful production and I loved it.
00:45:45And those kinds of productions are, I, I've found exceedingly rare, especially now.
00:45:51So, um, so I did an audition this year.
00:45:53I'm actually, I'm part of a, a, a, a team of developers working on a, an application, um, for,
00:46:01um, for a lawyer, um, and, you know, it's just a kind of a startup thing.
00:46:06It makes it, it makes a decent amount of money, but not an application for a lawyer.
00:46:11Yeah.
00:46:12Yeah.
00:46:12Um, like a, um, uh, legal case management software.
00:46:16Um, so it's just an application for, you know, sorry, I got this whiplash.
00:46:20We're diving out of the world.
00:46:21So now we're talking about entrepreneurial tech stuff.
00:46:24Well, yeah, exactly.
00:46:25So, I mean, that was where, that's where my, my supplemental income has always come from.
00:46:28It has been, it has been doing graphic design, uh, tech work, that kind of thing.
00:46:31So, so I've kind of had to ramp that up, um, unfortunately at the, at the expense of any
00:46:36sort of really, uh, furthering of artistic stuff.
00:46:38And because the, the audition, uh, environment is so, it's so ramp or rife with precasting
00:46:45and, and the productions are relatively unfulfilling, the amount of time that I would have to take
00:46:51to do it, it's just not worth it anymore.
00:46:53Um, it's not worth it at the moment.
00:46:54So, uh, when you say it's not worth it at the moment, the time, I mean, you have your
00:47:01songs, you have your audition pieces, and I'm sure all of that.
00:47:04So going for an audition doesn't take that long, right?
00:47:08So tell me what it means when you say it's not worth going.
00:47:11Do you just not think you're going to get the role?
00:47:13Like, because it's not like, well, you need two weeks full-time work to do an audition,
00:47:17right?
00:47:18You just, I'm not, I'm not, it's not exactly a dip in, dip out, but it's not a massive.
00:47:23I mean, doing the production itself is a massive enough commitment to where I, like,
00:47:28if I was, if I'm coming home every night after all is calm and I feel like I'm doing
00:47:33a really, really great thing, I feel like the storytelling is great.
00:47:36The fact that I'm not making as much money as I would if I were focusing entirely on
00:47:39something, something that, uh, you know, the contract that I had to give up in order to
00:47:43be able to do this production because I couldn't do this, you know, the contract for, um, for
00:47:48this, you know, this logo designer, this brand development job, I had to give that up because
00:47:52I chose to do this production, um, because I just want to make sure you're saying financially
00:47:57it's not worthwhile.
00:47:59Correct.
00:47:59Okay.
00:47:59Got it.
00:48:00And it would, it would be, I would be able to take that.
00:48:02I would, I would find a way to take that hit financially if I felt like every production
00:48:05I did was fed that need within me, but I still, I feel just as hungry for some sort of,
00:48:11I would be more willing to do it if I felt like each one of these productions still had
00:48:17that kind of artistic integrity, um, juice that, that, that I, if it wasn't like furthering
00:48:23ideas, you find abhorrent and so on.
00:48:25Okay.
00:48:26And you said also just in terms of financial survival, but you know, I'm, I'm sure you know
00:48:31that old joke.
00:48:32What do they call a, what do they call a drummer without a girlfriend?
00:48:36Homeless.
00:48:37I've not heard that.
00:48:38I mean, wouldn't your partner, I'm not sure what his financial stability is like, but
00:48:42wouldn't your partner, uh, fuel and fund your ambitions if that was necessary for your joy?
00:48:48Yes.
00:48:49And, uh, and I, uh, would be far beyond homeless if it weren't for him at this point, for sure.
00:48:54Um, but I guess, I guess I wonder again, is it really where I want to be beyond the financial
00:49:05thing?
00:49:05Is it really what, like, I love performing for the sense of like integral storytelling.
00:49:11I love, I love it so much.
00:49:12And I like the last few productions I've done, I've gone home and gone.
00:49:15I don't feel like I'm doing this.
00:49:16I feel like I'm doing something else.
00:49:17I feel like I'm playing a part, the part of somebody who's in this tribe and we all do
00:49:22this thing and we all talk about this thing, this, this like weird ideological system.
00:49:26We all have to constantly like push forward with our production.
00:49:29And I, I'm like, well, this isn't why I wanted to do theater.
00:49:34Um, and I guess, so I guess for me, it's, it's less about wanting to, to do theater.
00:49:38It's more about for the service of good, not of corruption, right?
00:49:41Right.
00:49:41Okay.
00:49:42Um, and I don't know how and where to do that anymore.
00:49:44Um, and maybe, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be theater, but I feel like it's, I
00:49:49don't know what that is if it isn't theater, um, anymore.
00:49:52So, yeah, it's not that nobody's interested in exploring the richness of the human condition
00:49:58or challenging established ideas or just being curious about what it is to be alive.
00:50:03It's all, yeah, it's all just ideological and splitting and anti-white and blah, blah,
00:50:08blah.
00:50:08It's a, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty, pretty wretched as a whole.
00:50:12So, sorry, you were saying something else and I interrupted.
00:50:15Sorry, go ahead.
00:50:16No, that was, uh, that was, that was it.
00:50:18So, uh, it feels wretched to do it.
00:50:19I think this is the biggest part of that.
00:50:21Like I can, you know, it's just like, you know, what I was saying before, that feeling
00:50:24of like, I'm, I'm lying to both myself and my peers and this audience right now.
00:50:28And I don't like it.
00:50:30I don't, I'm not serving myself.
00:50:32I'm not serving them.
00:50:33I'm not serving humanity, but by doing this.
00:50:35Yeah.
00:50:35I remember, as I was at the national theater school in Canada, and I remember being in
00:50:40a production of a play called Figaro gets a divorce, which was a sequel to, of course,
00:50:46the famous marriage of Figaro, Figaro, Figaro.
00:50:48And I just remember looking around and like, I feel like I'm in an asylum here.
00:50:54I don't feel like, I feel like I'm in a deeply sick place.
00:50:58Yes.
00:50:59Deeply sick place.
00:51:00This is, of course, you know, decades.
00:51:01And so this is like 40, 40 years ago, a little less, but yeah, a long time ago.
00:51:06So yeah, the rod is deep and the rod is old.
00:51:09And I eventually just couldn't, I couldn't stand it.
00:51:13I just found it, everything just felt weird and, and unhealthy and unnatural.
00:51:18And I've always thought, you know, I grew up on, you know, Dickens and Shakespeare and
00:51:23Ian Foster and so on.
00:51:24And so for me, everything should be, you know, deeply human.
00:51:27You should never feel more connected than when you're doing art.
00:51:29And I never felt less connected and more alien than when I was doing art.
00:51:35How do you, I'm assuming you went into theater wanting to do that.
00:51:40How do you feed that need within yourself or how did you find, kind of redirect that, that
00:51:47kind of like artistic need or that need for artistic fulfillment in general?
00:51:53That is a fine question.
00:51:55That is a fine question.
00:51:55I mean, I, I can write.
00:51:58So I moved to novels.
00:52:01I mean, I produced a play or two and I, I moved to novels and that was my way of sort
00:52:05of staying connected to the sort of humanity question.
00:52:11And I, I believe that art should further the good as a whole.
00:52:15So I, I mean, I still have a, I wouldn't say a lot, I still have a little bit of ideology
00:52:19in there and that's sort of my concession.
00:52:21Like I'm not going to write the novel if it's just going to be nothing about virtue or
00:52:25goodness.
00:52:26And so I have to sort of say to my creative engines, okay, you can let rip, but we're going
00:52:31to have to vaguely drift in the direction of, I'm not like Ayn Rand and, and other sort
00:52:36of people, or I guess people like Bertolt Brecht and, and so on.
00:52:40They're like rigid straight jackets of ideology.
00:52:42Like nobody steps out of line.
00:52:44The salmon all swim in the same fricking current.
00:52:47And, uh, you know, everybody stays on the bus until the bus is at the destination.
00:52:51Nobody looks out the window and I sort of, I'm, I, I, but I'm also not like mad chaos
00:52:55play guy.
00:52:57Uh, I, I do have to have some, I, I like a sprinkling of ideology just to sort of make
00:53:01it good, but most of it's play.
00:53:04So, uh, so I had that option, but of course I went into the tech world as, as you may or
00:53:11may not know, but, uh, so I was sort of able to keep it going, but yeah, the idea of going
00:53:15back into the, uh, theater world, it may be in the very outlying areas in the real amateur
00:53:20productions.
00:53:20It's less of this ideological straight jacket, but I, I, I perceive that to be the absolute
00:53:26opposite of art artists there, as you say, to hold up a mirror to nature and to help us
00:53:31more richly and deeply connect to ourselves and to others.
00:53:35And this is all about divide and conquer and further the revolution.
00:53:41And, and so the endless seeds of hatred that have been plaguing mankind since the fall.
00:53:45Right.
00:53:45So I, uh, I, I couldn't do it, but, um, you, you, you can do it.
00:53:52Yeah.
00:53:53I mean, if you, if you want to be on stage and I can tell you how to do it, uh, it's, it's,
00:53:58uh, and it actually won't be that hard.
00:54:01Okay.
00:54:03Well, uh, do you think that society's a little fucking tired of this work stuff?
00:54:08Yes.
00:54:09Yeah.
00:54:09So write a parody.
00:54:10Write, write a parody about someone trying to keep any vague semblance of humanity, like
00:54:20the producers, right?
00:54:21Mel Brooks.
00:54:22So you could try to play about making a play.
00:54:25You could write a play about trying to keep humanity among these lunatic, uh, bluehead
00:54:29ideologues.
00:54:31And pitch it to who and where.
00:54:33Who cares?
00:54:34Just do it yourself.
00:54:38Yeah.
00:54:38I mean, and I say this from experience though, obviously not a lot of experience.
00:54:43So, you know, take that for all that it's worth, but, um, you just come up with an absolutely,
00:54:49you know, as funny as you can make it as biting as you can make it come up with this funny.
00:54:54I mean, that's the easy part.
00:54:55I just come up with a great play, right?
00:54:57But no, just, I mean, you've got the experience.
00:54:59You certainly got the righteous anger and a lot of the best comedy comes from righteous
00:55:03anger.
00:55:04And so what you want to do is just be, you know, Freddie Mercury, death on two legs style
00:55:12vicious, write down all of your incredible frustrations, how hypocritical and bullying,
00:55:17because the atomization of identity politics is a ripe subject for comedy.
00:55:22Like really kind of biting satire comedy.
00:55:26The best kind of comedy is that which eviscerates the sacred cows.
00:55:29And the more sacred and the more cow-like, he's even got no swing, the better, right?
00:55:33Yep.
00:55:34So, uh, you can just write about the theater world and how impossible it is to do a show
00:55:41when you have these identity politics.
00:55:46It can be incredibly funny.
00:55:49It can be extremely daring.
00:55:50It will absolutely get attention.
00:55:54I mean, there's no way.
00:55:55I mean, it might get a bit, a bit alarming attention and so on because the left doesn't
00:56:00have a massive sense of humor, least of all about itself.
00:56:02But for the average person, I mean, in terms of doing good in the world, if I was still in
00:56:07the theater world, I would absolutely be writing as biting a comedy as I could.
00:56:12I just finished reading the audio book, a comic chapter in my audio book.
00:56:16So I'm sort of in that mood, but I would just write a scathing and biting a comedy as I
00:56:22could about this woke world.
00:56:25And, uh, you would be absolutely shocked at what a chord this will strike because everybody
00:56:32is tired of this relative minority of lunatics running the entire artistic agenda.
00:56:38I guess, I guess there's a, there's a line that I guess I keep, I keep avoiding what making
00:56:46the decision of whether or not I would cross it as to, you know, if I were to do something
00:56:50like that, I can give you a giant list of all the people that I wouldn't, that would
00:56:53never, ever speak to me again.
00:56:55Um, okay.
00:56:56And, and so, I mean, you know, you're talking to the cancel king on the planet, right?
00:57:00So, uh, oh no, the ideologues who hate humanity maybe won't be talking to me.
00:57:06Oh no.
00:57:06Right.
00:57:07Well, not even that so much as I see, I don't, and I don't thought the vast majority of people
00:57:13who are stuck in an echo chamber, they're being forced into that they don't even know
00:57:17exists.
00:57:18Hang on, hang on, hang on.
00:57:19Well, this is why you can't write a biting comedy.
00:57:22Where's this forgiveness thing coming from?
00:57:24Oh, I don't know.
00:57:25I want to feel like there's...
00:57:27I mean, you could be right.
00:57:27Hey, if you can carve me off a slice of that forgiveness pie and shove it down my windpipe,
00:57:31my life would be a whole lot easier.
00:57:33So I'm, I'm, I'm ready and willing to be fed, bro.
00:57:36What do you, what do you got?
00:57:36Well, how are they not responsible?
00:57:39I don't know.
00:57:40I guess the, the average person stuck in this ideology because of their echo chamber.
00:57:45No, there's no echo chamber.
00:57:46We've got the internet.
00:57:47What are you talking about?
00:57:49The internet?
00:57:49Well, yeah.
00:57:50Algorithms are the echo chamber.
00:57:50No, no, no.
00:57:51Who you choose to follow, right?
00:57:53Everybody who's intellectually responsible finds ideas that oppose them.
00:57:57You have to, right?
00:57:58You have to.
00:57:59Nobody's intellectually responsible anymore.
00:58:01That responsibility has been taken.
00:58:02No, no.
00:58:02It has been given over.
00:58:04There are people who are intellectually responsible.
00:58:06But what I'm saying is I, I believe the echo chamber stuff, if you're born and raised in a 11th century Buddhist monastery, okay, I get that.
00:58:14You know, you kind of got a monoculture going on and it's not like you get to read ancient Aramaic or know the sign language of the Cherokee or something like that.
00:58:24But, like, literally opposing arguments or different perspectives or it's, like, it's in your ass all the time.
00:58:32Everybody's got the library of Alexandria up their ass constantly because you put your phone in your back pocket.
00:58:37You have access to all human information, past, present, and, of course, increasingly in the future as we sort of get stuff, new stuff in the pipeline.
00:58:45And so, at a time when, I mean, it's literally somebody who's born in a library and is taught to read everything goes to, like, three books over and over again.
00:58:55You say, well, but they're in an echo chamber.
00:58:57It's like, bro, they're born in a library.
00:58:59We have a library in our ass.
00:59:01Well, so how do you, I mean, to go along with that metaphor, if they are convinced that, if someone has convinced them that every other book in that library except for those three are absolutely demonic and will therefore send them to hell for reading them, they have no interest, they have no, they have no, the fear and anger toward all of those other books overcomes their, their, their inherent sense of curiosity.
00:59:26And so they are convinced.
00:59:29No, it's not that.
00:59:29It's not that.
00:59:30It's that what's, what's the big D word they value so, so much.
00:59:36What's the big D word?
00:59:38Diversity.
00:59:39Right, right, right.
00:59:40Right.
00:59:41So if you value that, so I value all perspectives.
00:59:44I live in a library.
00:59:45I only read three books.
00:59:48Howard Zinn, Communist Manifesto, or whatever it is, right?
00:59:51So, so, but if they claim to value, if they claim to value diversity.
00:59:56And they don't read opposing opinions, they are damned by their own standards.
01:00:00There is no escape from that.
01:00:03Well, that's true.
01:00:04I agree with you.
01:00:06It's really hard to get anyone to see that obvious and overwhelming.
01:00:09But that's why you write a play.
01:00:11You're right.
01:00:13Yeah.
01:00:13I mean, you could write it with songs.
01:00:16You could write it with wild costumes.
01:00:18You could write it with books coming to life.
01:00:20You could write it with Karl Marx popping out of his grave and saying, whoa, guys, guys, too far.
01:00:26Too far.
01:00:27What are you doing?
01:00:28Right?
01:00:29For sure.
01:00:29Santa Claus bringing the gifts of actual diversity dressed as Karl Marx.
01:00:33I don't know.
01:00:34Like this, this, I'd be just, I'd riff all day, right?
01:00:36But, but you could do a lot of things to just make this, because there's no level of absurdity you can't go to that somebody hasn't already done.
01:00:45And so it is a ripe target for satire.
01:00:50That's true.
01:00:52And do you think that, because, I mean, you said that the rot is deep and it's old and that you've experienced it much longer than.
01:00:59Sorry, the use of the rot, you mean the punishment?
01:01:01You said that the kind of rot, this kind of ideological capture, the capture as it, you know, it's deep and old.
01:01:08And do you think the eradication of this rot is possible only if people do exactly what you're recommending more often?
01:01:16Or, you know, do you see the light at the end of this kind of tunnel?
01:01:18Well, I mean, I wrote a woke character, a pretty scathing portrayal of a woke character in my novel, The Present, and certainly struck a chord with people.
01:01:29So, I mean, if art is here for health, then art has to be an antibody to indoctrination, because art is not supposed to be indoctrination.
01:01:37Art is supposed to get you deeper in touch with your humanity and your reason.
01:01:40And so, it's a very powerful thing to be doing.
01:01:51And it's certainly because you've been tormented by this for well over a decade, right?
01:01:59Because you had it in your education, your master's degree as well, right?
01:02:03So, when you've been emotionally charged and tormented by something for over a decade, that's where your creative juices are going to be.
01:02:10Yeah, my partner keeps telling me to write.
01:02:14He's also a decent writer.
01:02:15He's one of those jack-of-all-trades people who also has an overwhelmingly great sense of personal discipline and has found a way to create his own business that's livable.
01:02:25But on top of that, he's a guitarist and an artist and kind of an anomaly.
01:02:29But, you know, he's tried to convince me for the longest time that I can write.
01:02:35Oh, you can.
01:02:35Honestly, like, the letter that you sent was funny, biting, deep, incisive, was great.
01:02:42I mean, that was you just typing, hey, here's what I'd like to chat.
01:02:45So, without a doubt, you can write.
01:02:47Without a doubt, you have the characters.
01:02:48And where is the anti-woke comedy?
01:02:53Right.
01:02:54It's not here yet.
01:02:55SNL did some stuff about this, you know, sort of black lesbian job application in the 90s, right?
01:03:01But where is – now, you might do it and get bomb threats.
01:03:06I don't know, right?
01:03:07So, there may be a reason why.
01:03:09I'm not saying do it.
01:03:10I'm just saying that look into it and certainly give a shot and see if there's enough emotional energy there to write a script.
01:03:18But I sort of think back on –
01:03:21I don't care about the bomb threats.
01:03:22I'm sorry?
01:03:23I wouldn't mind the bomb threats.
01:03:26Right.
01:03:26Yeah, the insurance company might, the theater might.
01:03:29But, no, I sort of think of, like, everybody was completely exhausted with lawyers when Dickens wrote his great anti-lawyer diatribe, because he was a court reporter before he was a novelist.
01:03:42And Dickens wrote his great anti-court diatribe, Bleak House, and that actually led to some reforms, some serious reforms in how legal cases were pursued, because it was just an endless process.
01:03:57So, there is the sort of scathing, the scathing takedown of the pompous and the overindulgent and the hyperimportant, the satirist pricking the vanity, what King Lear did to arrogant elders, right?
01:04:17So, you know, if I were in your shoes – again, please remember, I've been canceled, so make your decisions accordingly – but if I were in your shoes, I would at least try the script.
01:04:29I would at least say – because having a good person that the audience sympathizes with boxed more and more into an immobile, paralyzed corner and making it funny.
01:04:48I mean, it's like the dark comedy of Kafka, or – and I can never remember the name of it.
01:04:53There was a wonderful film set with – based on Bertolt Brecht, I think.
01:04:58And read, please read – Paul Johnson's got a book called Intellectuals, which has a fantastic chapter on Bertolt Brecht and how corrupt he became.
01:05:04But there's a German movie about a director constantly – who's been captured by – ideologically captured and funded by the communists and just how corrupt it becomes.
01:05:17And yet, that level of corruption, I think – I almost can't take the – I know it's dangerous.
01:05:25I get that, right?
01:05:25Because it certainly has had some challenges for me, which is, I guess, natural to their worldview.
01:05:32But it is – they're so goofy in so many ways.
01:05:36I know.
01:05:37That I feel like – and this is why it's a left-hand meme, right?
01:05:41But I feel like if I were in your shoes, I would just sit down and write.
01:05:45And I wouldn't write with the intent of getting it ever done.
01:05:48I would just sit down and write and say, I'm just going to pour everything out about how impossible this world is.
01:05:53And, I mean, you could have incredibly funny dialogue.
01:06:00You would take a Shakespeare play or whatever, right, that's completely innocuous and not based upon, you know, class or race or gender or anything like that.
01:06:08And you would just have it completely atomized by everybody's ideological interpretations.
01:06:13And we can't do this, and we can't do that, and this is better, and this is worse, and nobody can get anything done, and so on.
01:06:19And you'd need a counter-attention, right, whether it's a backer who just wants a fun show for his grandmother to come and watch, or, you know, there has to be someone that can push the agenda forward with the resistance of the left wanting to sort of capture it.
01:06:36Or maybe the lead guy is more based, and he's funding it, right?
01:06:41And so he's hired a bunch of the, quote, best actors.
01:06:45They're all super woke.
01:06:47He's driving it, though, and they need his paycheck, right?
01:06:50So the idea that you would have socialist ideologues greedy for the capitalist money would be funny, too, right?
01:06:56That's kind of comic as well.
01:06:58So whatever, you could sort of set up, because you need both the attention towards the left and you need the attention away from the left to produce sort of the sparks of good comedy.
01:07:06But, and of course, it would be, naturally, there would be a director who would be against the exploitation of the workers who'd be trying to sleep with every female, male, and perhaps even pet cast member that's in the, because that's almost inevitable.
01:07:20Like the moment somebody says that they're against the exploitation of the workers, you know, they're trying to, you know, bend over a course like a pipe cleaner.
01:07:28I'm sorry?
01:07:28Right.
01:07:29Well, as soon as they say they're against the exploitation of workers, they're most likely exploiting the workers in order to...
01:07:35Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:07:35They're either paying them for free or trying to impregnate everything that moves.
01:07:39Yeah.
01:07:39So, yeah, I remember a friend of a friend was in a play, it was in Macbeth, and the director was working his way through the witches throughout the entire production.
01:07:49He was kind of a leftist.
01:07:51Anyway, so I would, because you can definitely write, and you definitely have the emotionally charged experience, and you would absolutely cast yourself in the lead, right?
01:08:04Because, you know, as a sort of gay, biracial actor or singer, you would, you know, imagine you won the lottery, right?
01:08:12And you wanted to put on a play, and you didn't necessarily understand all the woke stuff, you just wanted some really good actors, and you wanted to cast yourself in the lead.
01:08:19Then you would be funding it, and you would have all of that weight and clout.
01:08:24Right.
01:08:24And maybe you just won so much money, you could open it on Broadway.
01:08:27So everybody's just desperate to do it, but also desperate to hijack it.
01:08:30And, you know, there just could be a lot of really funny tension there, because the left normally just runs roughshod, right?
01:08:36Because they control everything, right?
01:08:38They control the media, they control the funding sources, and the theaters, and the unions, and so on, right?
01:08:44But if you won the lottery, and you got to put on a play, and wanted it, I just want to tell a straight story.
01:08:50Not a straight story, you know what I mean?
01:08:53Yes.
01:08:53I just want to tell a plain story, with good characters, rich depth, and human, and I don't want, you know, gay unicorns.
01:09:03I don't need, you know, Peter Pan, who's by species, or something like that, right?
01:09:09So that would be something that a lot of people have faced, this kind of frustration, and to get people to laugh at that, which scares them, is a very powerful thing.
01:09:18So, again, just sort of goofing around here, but I would say that to write, just write it as if it's never going to get put on.
01:09:28Because if you think about it getting put on, it's going to, you can't ever see it from the audience viewpoint when you're writing things.
01:09:33You can only see it from the inside, from the character's viewpoint.
01:09:37So, just pour everything you have out about your incredible anger and frustration.
01:09:41These assholes took away what you love the most.
01:09:43And they took, they took a beautiful thing in the human experience, they took a beautiful thing, and corrupted it.
01:09:50They're like Gollum without a redemption arc, right?
01:09:53So, I would say that just pour it all out, never, ever be afraid of becoming too absurd.
01:10:03Right.
01:10:03I mean, I had flying...
01:10:05There is no such thing.
01:10:06Yeah, I had flying robot angels protecting children 500 years from now, right, in my novel, The Future.
01:10:12So, never, ever be afraid.
01:10:14Always go further.
01:10:15I love comedy that doesn't ever stop.
01:10:18Like, you think there's a line?
01:10:19They just keep going, right?
01:10:21And so, I would...
01:10:22Yeah, have you seen Book of Mormon?
01:10:24I think that was one.
01:10:25That's one of the...
01:10:26Because Trey Parker and Matt Stone were part of the creation of that.
01:10:29They wrote the book for it.
01:10:31It's one of the...
01:10:32Well, I think one of the best book musicals of the latter 21st century.
01:10:37Yeah, I noticed they try that only with the nicest religion known to man, so I wouldn't put them down as particularly courageous.
01:10:43Well, I mean, yeah.
01:10:46If you see...
01:10:47It isn't just about Mormonism.
01:10:48It really does rip apart just about every single mainstream Western religion all across the board.
01:10:53It doesn't pull punches.
01:10:55I think that South Park has got...
01:10:57I mean, we have a new mystery religion of identity politics and so on.
01:11:02And so, I think that...
01:11:05And also, you know, however you would do it.
01:11:07In a novel, it would be pretty easy.
01:11:09How you do it on stage is a different kind of challenge.
01:11:12But one of the things that's, you know, kind of a true meme is that people whose personal lives are a complete disaster
01:11:19truly believe that they have the right to tell everyone else how to live.
01:11:23But it really...
01:11:24So, how you portray the sort of utopian ideology of the people in the play within the play
01:11:32and then compare and contrast it to how absolute a disaster their personal lives are would be something
01:11:38that would give it a kind of bittersweet.
01:11:39To me, comedy that's bittersweet is really, you know, where you like laugh.
01:11:43I thought I'd cry.
01:11:43So, you could also have a little couple of side vignettes in order to...
01:11:50And also, the other thing you could do, which would be pretty funny, just sort of popped into my mind,
01:11:56is you would get 12 actors or 15 actors a night to protest.
01:12:04So, they'd be in the audience and they would throw things at the stage and they would protest like themselves on fire.
01:12:12No, don't have that.
01:12:13But, no, you would have them protest and you would have, as part of the play, the protest and the arguments.
01:12:20You could even throw in some stage combat as they rush the stage.
01:12:23You could have security take them down and then the curtain could come falling down and that's your intermission.
01:12:28And everyone's like, was that real?
01:12:31Like, that to me would be a lot of fun to stage.
01:12:35So, honestly, just make the whole experience.
01:12:38Make the whole, you know, everything that wild and crazy that you could imagine would happen.
01:12:45You could hire protesters to be outside.
01:12:48That's so freaking hilarious.
01:12:49And stuff pamphlets with donation URLs into the hands of people.
01:12:56Like, how dare you go into this monstrosity of a play, right?
01:13:02He's the Mochaccino white supremacist.
01:13:04I don't know whatever they're going to be saying.
01:13:08But I would, yeah, I would just make it the full woke experience.
01:13:13I would even, again, depending on your budget, I would even get Titania McGrath from X, who's like this parody of the left.
01:13:22But I would get, I would buy fake articles and just how outrageous this all is and beat sort of left at the wrong game.
01:13:32And honestly, you could just have a whole campaign to just, you know, this horrifying and make it kind of cool to go and so on.
01:13:40And I think it would be, you know, you could even, you could even, three quarters through the play, you could end the play because a credible threat has been received and you have to clear the theater.
01:13:53And that's the end of the play or something like that, right?
01:13:56Like you could just make it the full, the full experience.
01:13:58Oh, you could also have, you could have prizes for who informs on someone else in the audience.
01:14:05Oh my gosh.
01:14:08Yes.
01:14:08Like if you see anyone or hear anyone saying anything remotely not woke, you know, just put their seat number in or you're going to pick a random prize every night or somebody's going to get a reward.
01:14:18So you could, the full Eastern European Stasi experience, the Eastern German Stasi experience of informing on your neighbors.
01:14:25Like you could just work, it would be a whole, I love the stuff that spills off stage.
01:14:29And so you could just have, I'm sorry.
01:14:31Shine a spotlight on them in the middle of the show.
01:14:33And so this person was, this person is, is not part of the tribe.
01:14:37This person thinks differently.
01:14:39We hate them.
01:14:40Well, and you could actually even have that person be an actor, drag them on stage, put them through a struggle session.
01:14:45Like there could be any, any number of things.
01:14:48Like a, like a Jordan Peterson re-education.
01:14:50Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:14:51Yeah.
01:14:51Something like that.
01:14:52Like just have them re-educated and, um, and so on.
01:14:55You could give, uh, um, rotten fruit to people in the audience to throw.
01:14:59Or like, I don't know, you could just really make it a wild evening that would be completely unforgettable.
01:15:03And again, you know, total brainstorm and just like, no idea is too outrageous about, uh, just what an experience you could make it.
01:15:10And people would come out, it would be like a cleansing fire.
01:15:13Like people would just come out feeling like a million bucks.
01:15:15Like if they finally got to laugh at all of these people who've been driving society crazy for the last 50 years.
01:15:21Yeah, well, I'm forced them to find a way to laugh at themselves.
01:15:25I mean, it's really hard.
01:15:26It's funny to watch people who don't want to be, who don't want to laugh or don't want to be amused, be captured by something that they can't help but laugh at and then catch themselves and get angry that they laughed at it.
01:15:37Um, that's, oh, absolutely.
01:15:39I would break the fourth wall continually and have the actors be completely enraged that the audience is laughing at them.
01:15:46Yeah.
01:15:47Yep.
01:15:47So, I mean, I, I, um, uh, Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author is, uh, a play that's probably worth, cause it's a real sort of famous break the fourth wall play.
01:15:58But, uh, I think that kind of stuff would be, uh, just a riot and people would have no idea what was coming next.
01:16:06They wouldn't know what was real or not, you know, and sort of that Andy Kaufman wrestling thing, like they wouldn't know what was real or not.
01:16:11And you could actually have some ad-libs and have to play sort of change, uh, every night.
01:16:18And I think that it would be something that would then would be worth for people to come back up.
01:16:22What was real and what was not?
01:16:23Well, you'd have to come back to find out kind of thing, right?
01:16:25Right.
01:16:26Yeah.
01:16:27That's a great idea.
01:16:29Um, and also, I mean, just the act of doing it might, it sounds at least a little bit cathartic.
01:16:33Well, it would be, even if for whatever reason you never got it off the ground, just writing it all would just be great, uh, to just, just get stuff out of your system.
01:16:44And, and because what, you know, I think what a lot of people feel is helpless, right?
01:16:48Yeah.
01:16:49And if you were to sort of fight that helplessness and really, uh, give people, uh, you know, sometimes, sometimes you just have to show courage and it breaks the spell, right?
01:16:58And if you wrote, and it is right for satire, hell no, I'll write it.
01:17:01I'm just kidding.
01:17:02I'm kind of busy at the moment, but no, I would, I would, and if you've got a, if you've, if your partner, uh, writes well, uh, that would be really great.
01:17:10I'm sure, I mean, you have a great sense of humor, so I'm sure that the comic stuff would be, uh, enjoyable, but yeah, just, um, and, and satire on art, uh, is, is, uh, long overdue and, and certainly it was what's been going on over the last 50 years, very much overdue.
01:17:29Cool.
01:17:30Yeah, I, I, I will definitely do that.
01:17:32Um, you know, I, I've, uh, been battling this for a while.
01:17:37It's also just kind of like a, what is, what is my future job?
01:17:40What is my, what is the person that I, that I see myself as 15 years from now?
01:17:44Like in the last five years or so, that person has entirely been like, I don't see, I don't want, I don't know.
01:17:50I don't know who that really, that person is anymore.
01:17:51And maybe it's the playwright who, who kind of started the process of, of pulling theater back from the dregs of, of woke mess.
01:18:00So it's a possible, um, do you see, do you see, I mean, like I said before, it's been, it's been like this for so long.
01:18:08Do you see an actual change in the arts or is it more of a kind of like wrangling in of all the people who agree with us?
01:18:15And it just, you know, more turtling of it as opposed to, you mean at the moment, like absent the sort of stuff we're brainstorming at the moment, you mean sort of correct?
01:18:23Yeah.
01:18:23Yeah.
01:18:23No.
01:18:24So art has moved from the provocation of division and hostility to preparing people for actual violence.
01:18:31Right.
01:18:31So this is all of the zombie movies.
01:18:33Uh, this is the horror movies.
01:18:35This is the, you know, the gore stuff, like the 28 days, weeks and years later and so on.
01:18:40So yeah, the, the art is now preparing people for, um, significant levels of violence, which is why everything's just so weird and, and dark and, and, uh, gruesome.
01:18:54Oh yeah.
01:18:55I mean, there are, there are significant levels of violence.
01:18:57The Overton window for what violence is, is acceptable is, has come into a differently interesting place too.
01:19:04So yeah, it does feel like that anger and violence and, and, and radicalism is like the only thing that exists right now for anybody.
01:19:13Yeah.
01:19:14And everything that is nice turns horrifying, like the Midsommar.
01:19:17Oh, what a nice little town.
01:19:18And it's like, oh, right.
01:19:20So no spoilers, but, but yeah, everything, uh, there's no good guys winning.
01:19:24There's no good guys.
01:19:25There's only bad guys.
01:19:26And violence is the only language that's really, really spoken.
01:19:30Which is a shame because that's just not how, I don't know, that just seems to be, we've, we've learned, I feel like we've learned that lesson several times over in several different societies or the course of human history at this point.
01:19:41Like the idea that just beating up a problem is going to solve it is, is, uh, something we should, I feel like we could have, we should have already kind of gone past.
01:19:50Well, it solves the problem if the problem is there's not enough violence for some people, some people, uh, they really thrive on and love violence and, uh, a peaceful society is hell to them.
01:20:01And they just need to, you know, you see these videos of like, uh, Sweden in the 1960s, like everyone, the strollers and walking along in a suit and tie.
01:20:10And it's like, that's hell for some people.
01:20:12They just want nature, red and tooth and claw, and they'll just keep poking society until they get what they want.
01:20:18Why do you think that is?
01:20:19Um, I think there's evolutionary reasons.
01:20:22So a peaceful society gets complacent and a peaceful society is almost always taken over by a more aggressive society.
01:20:30So, uh, it is, um, now technology made that sort of impossible.
01:20:35So there's different ways that they're taking over countries now, as you know, but I think that there's just a bunch of people who evolved to be very, uh, violence because that worked in terms of getting resources.
01:20:45And, you know, the, the horrifying crime of rape that was enacted throughout almost all of human history by whatever conquering tribe meant that the most violent got this spread their genes the most, right?
01:20:54Like one out of every 17 people in East Asia traces their lineage back to like Genghis Khan's balls, right?
01:21:00Which were about the most active outside of the NBA I've ever heard of.
01:21:04So I think that there's just evolutionary reasons for that.
01:21:08And, uh, but we need to be able to identify that and, uh, keep, keep that at bay, which we've sort of lost the ability to do to do so.
01:21:16Because we put people who, um, like violence, like statists, we put people who like violence in charge of our children's education.
01:21:24So it's, uh, it's all downhill from there.
01:21:27Yeah.
01:21:27Well, I've long since decided that if and when I have children, they won't go anywhere near the public education system.
01:21:33Oh, yeah.
01:21:34Oh, yeah.
01:21:34Yeah.
01:21:35So I, I would say, uh, give that a shot.
01:21:37I mean, you can, you can do that on the side and you can do that, uh, while working full time and even entrepreneurial stuff.
01:21:44So I, I would work on, and it, you know, it doesn't have to be what we're talking about here.
01:21:50It could be anything, but the stuff that is the most passionate for you is the stuff that the best art is going to come from.
01:21:58Like Shakespeare, what had word Hamlet after his son Hamlet died, right?
01:22:02So whatever is the most emotional and powerful for you is where the greatest creative fruition is going to come from.
01:22:12Um, and most people who are actors, particularly actors who enjoy more complex texts, uh, can write.
01:22:20And I would not underestimate your ability, particularly if you've got a partner to do that.
01:22:24And, and, uh, finely tuned comic anger is one of the great purifying forest fires through the over tangled human psyche to sort of clear and, and start things in you from a fresh perspective.
01:22:37And, uh, I think it's been quite overdue for a while and yeah, let me know if you, you won't do it and I'll do it.
01:22:43I will do it.
01:22:45Well, I will certainly try.
01:22:46I will certainly sit down and, uh, put some ideas out there.
01:22:49Um, are there any other books you've mentioned the book intellectuals, um, and, and the six characters in search of an author, are there any other books or, or plays or anything that kind of like reflect this idea or have a, you know, a historical kind of reflection of, of what, you know, what's going on right now?
01:23:04Yeah, so, uh, I'm just talking in terms of sort of flexibility of stagecraft.
01:23:09You might want to look into Anne-Marie McDonald's six characters, uh, good night to Stamona, good morning, Juliet.
01:23:14That's a pretty good, um, a good play.
01:23:18Of course, Shakespeare in Love, the movie is a, has a play within a play.
01:23:23Uh, Ayn Rand's The Night of January the 13th, I think it is, or January the 21st.
01:23:27It's a play, which is, uh, a, a crime thriller and the, the, um, the jury is taken for the audience and depending on how the jury votes, the play ends differently.
01:23:39Uh, and so, yeah, I, I would definitely look for the kinds of plays that are, uh, breaking the fourth wall.
01:23:47Obviously, Death of a Salesman's pretty, pretty classic one where the fourth wall kind of comes and goes.
01:23:52I don't think he directly addresses the audience, but there's lots of play in the movement of the story.
01:23:59But, yeah, I remember six characters in search of an author.
01:24:03There's a mistake when the curtain comes down and the character kind of stuck in front of the curtain.
01:24:07They have to find their way back.
01:24:08That's actually the intermission, but it's supposed to be an accident.
01:24:11So I thought that was quite clever.
01:24:14And audience plants.
01:24:15Uh, I was, um, uh, a friend of mine was, was in a play called Catching Salmonella, Catching Salmonella, Catching Salmonella, and, um, there were audience plants.
01:24:27Audience plants can be, can be great in a play, particularly if they're really good and really are believable, then, uh, that's, that's pretty wild.
01:24:38Noises Off is another, I'm just remembering now.
01:24:41Noises Off, the producers, of course, is a great satire on, uh, artistic production and so on.
01:24:47And I'm sure that others will come to mind, but I would, uh, I would look into, uh, that kind of stuff.
01:24:54Fight Club, of course, is a, breaks the fourth wall from time to time as well.
01:24:58But, uh, so, yeah, I, I would just say, like, absolutely no limit.
01:25:01Like, like, no rules theater is the best because it really keeps people's attention when they don't know.
01:25:06And you'll get the smartest people to come because dull people like repetition, smart people like novelty.
01:25:11And I do love that, what the heck is going on?
01:25:14Is this real or is this not real?
01:25:15I think that's really a fertile place.
01:25:18And, uh, I think that would be a lot of fun for audiences to participate in.
01:25:22And boy, would ever, would that ever be something that people would talk about?
01:25:25Like, I went to this play last night.
01:25:27They were yelling from the audience.
01:25:28There was a fistfight on stage.
01:25:30Someone got dragged into the wings.
01:25:31You know, like, there was a, uh, uh, there was a, a bunch of police ended with some kind of threat.
01:25:36Uh, it's like, it was wild.
01:25:38Like, I don't know what the heck was going on, but it was hilarious.
01:25:40The bits that I saw, something like that, I think would be, would be a lot of fun to play with.
01:25:44The UK police broke in and, and cutting somebody off because of a tweet.
01:25:48Yeah.
01:25:48Don't, don't, don't.
01:25:49I wouldn't, I wouldn't have it open in the UK.
01:25:52That's not it.
01:25:53Yeah.
01:25:55Cool.
01:25:56Well, thank you.
01:25:56I very much appreciate this.
01:25:58Um, if nothing else, just to kind of get these thoughts out, writing, just writing that letter
01:26:03to you was, was, was cathartic.
01:26:05It was, you know, like I said, I've got a lot of friends that are, that I've made through
01:26:10the industry and then I've got like my partner, but I feel like the, the, the group of people
01:26:14that I feel like I can actually not be playing the role of myself, of the palatable version
01:26:19of my palatable version of myself for them, that, that, it just gets smaller and smaller.
01:26:23And so, you know, being able to say these things out loud to another human without feeling
01:26:27like I can, I mean, you know, I'm also, there's a relative sense of anonymity and also that
01:26:32most of the people that I know probably will never, ever, ever watch this.
01:26:35Um, well, and if they do, when, when you're out of a particular group trying to hammer your
01:26:41way back in won't work because especially if it's a group that thrives on power, right?
01:26:47So if you've kicked out of a particular group that thrives on power and ostracism, trying
01:26:52to get back in, it's just going to reinforce their power and have to become even more cruel.
01:26:56Right.
01:26:57So you have to abandon the old to get to the new.
01:27:01Now, if you put on a play like this, then you'll meet, I guarantee you, you will meet
01:27:07a whole bunch of new people.
01:27:09And those whole bunch of new people, like through the show, I've met a whole bunch of new people
01:27:13through, through what it is I've done over the last 20 years.
01:27:15So all of those new people, they're going to be your future friends.
01:27:23They're going to be your future companions through life.
01:27:25They're trying to get your way back.
01:27:26As you said in audition this year, it's like, it's almost November, right?
01:27:30So, so that's why I was asking like, how done are you with that world?
01:27:34Now, if you're done with that world, there's no point trying to court them.
01:27:36There's no trying to, no point trying to please them.
01:27:38You know, that old meme, you know, I wouldn't do this because it might offend the left.
01:27:41Well, the left is offended whether you would wish it or not.
01:27:43And so you put on something like this and it will open up entirely new social connections
01:27:51that are completely invisible to you at the moment because you're stuck between worlds,
01:27:54if that makes sense.
01:27:56Yeah, it does.
01:27:58Frustrating kind of purgatory, for sure.
01:28:00Okay.
01:28:01Is there, is that helpful?
01:28:02Is there anything else that, I mean, I, the most practical thing that I can think of is
01:28:05to sort of use your very legitimate and I sympathize with the pain and, uh, you know,
01:28:10hit back and in this way.
01:28:13Yeah, no, no, there's a, there's nothing else.
01:28:14I'm sure I'll have it.
01:28:15I'll call in.
01:28:16And again, at some point, this has been very enjoyable and I, I'm so glad that you're kind
01:28:19of back.
01:28:20Oh yeah.
01:28:21If you want to brainstorm, man, I live with that kind of stuff.
01:28:24So, uh, if you want to fight around with the things that might be fun to do, uh, from
01:28:28a play standpoint, I've written like, I don't know, 30 of these damn things.
01:28:31So if there's anything that I can do to help, uh, it would be a fun.
01:28:34And I think people would enjoy hearing the creative process.
01:28:37So, uh, yeah, feel free to come back in and we can fight around some more with ideas.
01:28:41That sounds good.
01:28:42Um, uh, quick question about the recording is, uh, do I get, I know that you're, you're
01:28:47recording this.
01:28:47Um, do I, am I able to get like a copy of that or how that works?
01:28:50How does that work?
01:28:51Yeah.
01:28:51Yeah.
01:28:51It's a call in show.
01:28:53So it goes out, but I can send you a copy ahead of time for sure.
01:28:56That'd be great.
01:28:57Um, yeah, for sure.
01:28:59Um, cool.
01:29:00Well, I look forward to the nervousness of seeing myself on YouTube.
01:29:04Oh yeah.
01:29:05Don't worry about it.
01:29:06I'll share it myself.
01:29:06Uh, no problem.
01:29:07I can make your voice a little deeper or anything like that.
01:29:10If you want to do a little bit of disguise, that's totally fine.
01:29:13Oh, I think the circumstances will get me away.
01:29:15If there's any, I don't know.
01:29:17I'm not really, I'm not going to like share it on a bunch of social media.
01:29:20This was really more for me anyway.
01:29:21So, okay.
01:29:22All right.
01:29:23Well, keep me posted and I wish you best of luck and I appreciate the chat today.
01:29:26Will do.
01:29:27Thank you so much.
01:29:28Bye.
01:29:28Bye.
01:29:29Bye.
Comments

Recommended

My Dad Dealt METH - I am Disabled! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
7 hours ago
How to Fight LIARS!
Stefan Molyneux
1 week ago
Ferocious Debate on Colonialism! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
1 week ago
How the Mind RULES!
Stefan Molyneux
4 weeks ago
I WANT EIGHT+ KIDS! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
4 weeks ago
Marvel's White Wolf (2026) – First Trailer | Ryan Gosling, Jamie Foxx | Concept Trailer
Netflix
2 weeks ago
Mom beats daughter live on Facebook
Breaking News
10 years ago
Why You Should Get ANGRY!
Stefan Molyneux
2 days ago
My Sister-In-Law Throws Up Her Food!
Stefan Molyneux
3 days ago
My Husband Works Too Much?!? CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
3 days ago
Jesus vs Secular Ethics!
Stefan Molyneux
4 days ago
X/Twitter Questions Answered Jan 2026!
Stefan Molyneux
6 days ago
Do Women Get Angry? Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
6 weeks ago
Why You Choose What You Choose! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
5 weeks ago
How Do I Make Friends? CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
2 months ago
Life in a GROUP HOME! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
2 months ago
20 Years of PAIN! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
7 weeks ago
How to Get What You Want! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
2 months ago
How to Deal with Picky Eaters! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
3 months ago
20th Anniversary of Freedomain 2! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
3 months ago
How NOT to be Bitchy! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
3 months ago
What if Nothing is Real?!? Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
3 months ago
You Want Violence Against Me? Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
4 months ago
When to Believe Experts! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
4 months ago
HOW TO SURVIVE A NARCISSIST! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
4 months ago