Josh Feye: Hi, there. How are you?

Tiger & Marks: Good, good, good. How’s your Sunday?

JF: It’s great. The sun is shining, thank God. But yeah. All right, so we’re talking about your play called David and Me, which is sort of an autobiographical play about yourself, but also about the artist David Wojnarowicz. What made you decide to take this to the stage?

T&M: It really goes back to when I discovered this work of David’s at the Whitney Retrospective. It was called History Keeps Me Awake at Night. It was July through September 2018. I think at some point before that exhibit, I started reading Close to the Knives, one of his books. He was really just a genius in my mind in terms of painting, collage, photography. There was a room that was just audio where they were playing tapes from a road trip that he did, and just hearing his actual voice telling stories really moved me, as did the entire piece in terms of him living at that time in the ‘80s and ‘90s. He was one of the first major artists diagnosed with HIV, and he died of AIDS. He was first lovers, and then very close friends, with Peter Hujar. He was there when Peter died, and then he moved into Peter’s apartment, where he himself died. So there’s that aspect of the story, and then just how powerful the artwork was, the visual images that he brought forth, really combined nature with culture, like advertising culture, parts of the world that are decrepit and falling apart, queer representation, or explicit representation. All of that was happening in the exhibit, and it really moved me. I kept having these dreams that I was talking to him or that I was him, or that I was looking in the mirror and I would see him. It was just these recurring dreams I was having about him.

JF: That’s cool!

T&M: They’re a little indescribable because I don’t totally remember them, since it’s been a few years. But while I was reading more of his books and books written about him, I discovered The Waterfront Journals, which is a series of monologues based on people he met while traveling and on the road. While he was a teenager, there were periods when he was homeless or not well-housed. So he was living in Central Park, hustling, then on the road, hitchhiking across the country and meeting people in various places. Some of them were lovers, some were just acquaintances whose stories he listened to. These stories range from teenagers to people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. They’re in New York, Minnesota, Arizona, and California. So it’s pretty wide-ranging. I think the through line is that each person has their own actual voice. They don’t sound similar. They sound like really unique voices and perspectives. Some of the through lines are that many of these people were marginalized in some way. He was meeting them in places where people didn’t have the means or capital. So he was meeting people whose stories aren’t often told, and I think that was an important through line. Many of them were queer, not all of them, but many. Some were trans. Some stories are sexual, some are very matter-of-fact and about difficult circumstances, and some are very funny. So discovering that book, I was kind of like, well, what has happened with these, and how can these stories be told? I conceived of maybe putting something up with a few different actors playing all these parts, but I was also noticing my own interest in the life of this artist. Then I thought more about playing some of these parts myself and playing things from his life. Then I came upon this residency that I was very grateful to be awarded. I had a one-week residency (the Barn Lab sponsored by Invulnerable Nothings in Maine) and got to spend time with the work every single day and get feedback every single day for five days. On the fifth day, I did a presentation, and it organically evolved. There were four other artists and a few people running the residency. They started telling the stories organically, like out of a hat. Someone would say, why don’t you pick this story, or I’m going to do this story. They would pick the stories, and then I would perform them. That’s where the idea that there could be a chance-based way the stories are told came up. I thought that because he met all these people while hitchhiking and on the road, he didn’t know he was going to meet them. He met them all by chance. It’s also imperfect in terms of dates, because even though the book is in order, I don’t assume it’s chronological. He was meeting these people and writing these stories between, let’s say, 1976 and the late 1980s. It’s all out of order, and that’s the way life is. We meet people by chance.

JF: I think that’s partially what makes the piece so fascinating to watch.

T&M: Yeah, 100%. I took this show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year, and I had eight performances in a row. The audience response there was really interesting because it was a global audience, mostly people from the UK, but also people from the US and other European countries. I got really good feedback. It connected multigenerationally. People in their twenties who had never heard of this artist connected with the stories and the format, feeling part of deciding the order of the stories. They connected deeply with the tales being told.

JF: I’m curious how New Yorkers react to the piece, because David is so New York in that way.

T&M: I only know what people have told me or written to me, but I also felt that in New York, there’s this ownership of what the New York experience is. The feedback I got was very positive. People felt they were learning things they didn’t necessarily know about New York. I did it at Singers last year, which is a queer bar in Bed-Stuy. There were people in their twenties and people in their sixties or seventies who were in New York during that time, and who were artists then and still are artists now. They told me they were very moved. It was important to them to see part of that story being told now, in 2025 and 2026, that we’re talking about the ‘80s and the sacrifices made by artists and activists at that time. There’s a through line from what David Wojnarowicz and ACT UP and so many activists pushed forward in terms of protest, resilience, resistance, legislation, and ultimately better science that has led us to where we are today.

JF: Do you think we’re so fascinated with that period because nowadays, whenever we try to protest or be an artist in New York, it’s so complicated? It kind of feels like whenever you make something, it falls flat. It felt like you could really change things back in the ‘80s and just do whatever. Now it doesn’t feel like that. Peter Hujar is also having a moment right now because that movie came out about him with Ben Whishaw. Do you think it’s because it used to feel like there was more agency back in the ‘80s than there is now?

T&M: Yeah, it’s a complicated and wonderful question. I think there are many different answers, and I’ll take some stabs at them. We only know the people who built some kind of reputation from that period and whose work is still being discussed. For every person we’re talking about now, there are 10 or 20 or 100 others making work who aren’t part of the 21st-century conversation. David Wojnarowicz himself didn’t really have access to capital until much later in his life. There were periods where he was celebrated as an artist, but it didn’t translate into financial stability. He worked many different jobs and helped many friends. There were times when he was surviving on a sandwich and a banana for days, but he set aside his material needs to keep making work. He was also part of a group of major artists making work in nontraditional spaces. They would take over spaces in Times Square and the Lower East Side. The Civilian Warfare Gallery is important to look at in understanding that period. These people were constantly making work without knowing where it would lead. There was also an aspect of the art world that wasn’t always well managed financially. Wealthy people were buying art, but the money didn’t always reach the artists in the best ways. As for why we’re fascinated with this period, I think it’s because it’s lost. Many of those people are deceased, whether from AIDS or age, and it was a pre-digital world. We forget how wired and surveilled we are now. Back then, if someone you were meeting didn’t show up, there was no way to text them. You might run into someone at a bar or in the park, or never again. There was a sense of impermanence and presence that we don’t have now. People connected as if it could be the last time.

JF: Right. It’s interesting to think about because it feels like we’re in a malaise right now. There’s good work being produced, but spiritually, people feel so lost. I’m curious how we get back to a more fruitful, energetic time. Is there a piece by David Wojnarowicz that really speaks to you?

T&M: It’s called Untitled (Genet After Brassai), 1979, and it’s really intricate. There are black-and-white images of what appear to be workers in a decrepit building. There are angels. There’s a soldier with a rifle shooting upward. There’s Jean Genet surrounded by a halo. There’s just a lot. I think it’s very representative. I also think violence is an intrinsic part of the American story. Another one that I think is worth checking out is Wind (For Peter Hujar), 1987. There are just multiple, multiple layers. He really collages. There’s the window that has air blowing through it, with the curtains blown aside because something’s coming through the window. The backdrop is a sort of beautiful sky, but then it’s being interrupted by a tornado that’s destroying everything on the lower right. So I think the myths of creation and destruction are continually woven through his work, in my reading, and then also nature. There’s a lizard, and there are humans doing things. There’s a baby. There’s what appears to be the wing of a bird, but maybe it’s constructed from a mix of machinery and feathers.

JF: Your play is also very physical. Is that you trying to channel David’s attraction to violence and nature, or did that come from something else?

T&M: Oh yeah, that’s a really interesting question. Part of this is the way that I’m wired as a performer. I don’t remember which of my teachers said this, but it really stuck with me: first the body, then the voice. So the body and the corporeal being experiencing is kind of the entry point for me into performance. When I would look at these characters, there’s me just being me, and in the piece I tell some stories about my upbringing in my normal, air quote, “normal” self. Then there’s a piece that is movement only, and it’s audio that I recorded, but it’s words that he said and wrote about some of his life in the suburbs of New Jersey. That’s just me creating movement. It’s a bit of a score made up of gestures that show up in the other monologues, and it hopefully pulls them together in some way that isn’t necessarily meant to be coherent, but to show that there’s a through line among these characters and him and me. Then I think with each of these characters, I really wanted to give them their due. I feel like it’s my duty, my obligation, to try to represent them as who they were in that moment when he talked to them. I’ll never have met them, right? But there was a trueness to who they were. And as an actor, this is the fun part, playing these very different people and trying to pull up how they talked and how they moved and which way their shoulders leaned and how they pointed to things. Did they stand up straight? Did they lean a little bit? Did they have a New York accent, a Jersey accent, or a flat American accent? Were they old? Really trying to honor, in my imagination, who I think they might have been and giving them distinction through the physical forms that I’m trying to give them.

JF: Can I ask you some Dionysian dream questions?

T&M: Yeah, 100%.

JF: Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, that you’d love to have a night on the town with?

T&M: Oh wow. Does it have to be one?

JF: You can interpret it however you want.

T&M: Okay. “Night on the town” is a really good provocation. I purposely didn’t read these questions because I didn’t want to prep for them, just so you know.

JF: That’s perfect.

T&M: Yeah, there are a lot. I think Raja Feather Kelly, Lucy Thurber, and Mona Mansour. Those are the three that come to mind. I mean, I could go on and on and on, but I think that would be a fun group. I would say there’s so much amazing, amazing, amazing theater. That’s why sometimes I don’t even want to mention one person, because there are dozens more. But work that really touched me was The Fires by Raja Feather Kelly, which was two years ago. The imagery really stays with me, and the specificity of that work really stays with me. I really appreciated it.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

T&M: I’m gonna come back to it, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I think I’m gonna say Vanya on 42nd Street. I feel like everybody probably says that, but that’s okay. I think it really blew apart what those characters were to me. The familiarity between those performers, because they had worked on it so many times and did it in living rooms and abandoned spaces and whatever theater space they filmed in, there was just this great familiarity they had with each other. It felt like they were speaking a common language. I think they were working against the text, and that’s what struck me. I had this conception of what a good Uncle Vanya should be, and they were continually blowing it up. I was like, “Oh, okay,” because it’s really about people and how they interrelate in the present moment. It’s not about how Vanya has always been done. When I first encountered that work, which was a while ago, that idea was novel for me. I would only put it together now by saying that the text has a job to do, and the actor has a different job to do. They’re two different jobs.

JF: Do you feel like the Chekhovian renaissance we’ve been living through is coming to an end?

T&M: I actually don’t think it’s coming to an end. I think the wheel will keep turning, and there are probably more ways to peel it apart.

JF: I’m just curious if the bubble will burst, you know?

T&M: Yeah, I understand your question and where it’s coming from. My intuitive sense is that there’s still more interest in it. I think maybe the question is why. There are some really practical reasons. It’s free. You don’t have to get the rights to it. It’s taught in acting programs. It’s thought of as essential classic theater acting. You have to do Chekhov and Shakespeare. Those are the two primary things. So everyone knows it, and it’s familiar in that way. I think we like things that we know. That’s why Survivor is on season 25-something and Law & Order is on season 27. Across America, if we talk broadly about regional theatre and smaller theatres around the country, it’s a lot of the same plays over and over again. I’ve been in many of those places, and some are great, and I’ve had great experiences there as a performer. But I do question why audiences want this. I think there’s comfort in knowing. Like, I know when I go see A Christmas Carol, I know what happens. I know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Some audiences, not all audiences, like knowing. They like knowing when Yelena grabs the pen from Astrov’s shirt pocket and what that means. They like it when Martha says, “What a dump.” They like it because they know it. There’s something interactive about it. This comes full circle to the piece that I did. The audience likes to interact. They like to know something, and they like to feel like they’re in it in some way. With the piece I’m working on, I literally can’t do it without them.

JF: What are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

T&M: One of my dreams for the future of the American theatre is that it keeps getting more diverse and more fractured and messier. I hope more people who don’t normally take chances on theater go and see it, and try things they wouldn’t normally feel comfortable with. I hope all the lines of perforation between theatre and visual art, music, and dance, which have been there a long time, continue to deepen. I hope all the forms keep working together with more love, respect, and generosity. And I guess everyone’s talking about AI all the time now, right? But AI can never be the person sitting 10 feet away from you, alive and experiencing something. So that will only become more important. It’s a question of what will happen with screens, TV, and film, but there’s no embodied AI. Even if you had a robot, maybe that would be fun, having humans and robots together. I don’t know. But I think we want to see the mirror-neuron experience of sitting across from someone and watching them experience something in real time. We have empathy or some reaction to watching a human being in front of us. It’s just like sports or going to a concert. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know who’s going to drop the ball or hit the wrong note. The dance could be different every night, and that’s what’s so amazing about seeing something alive.

David and Me runs May 18th-20th at JACK.

Follow Tiger and Marks on Instagram.

My friendship with playwright Jove Tripp Thompson began through Instagram in 2024. I had become aware of him through our mutual friend, TwerkinTony. Jove and I would occasionally like or comment on each other’s stories. We then went to see a play together, and a new friendship bloomed! When he learned I was a dramaturg, Jove sent me a new play that he wanted to develop, THAT SHIT EATING GRIN. My initial reaction was one of excitement and gratitude. Here was a playwright who was fighting against the repressive anti-sex 2010s by bringing sexual taboo to the platform, and a perfect balance of tension between order and chaos.

Jove writes in the In-Yer-Face and absurd theatrical tradition. A lot of crazy shit happens in his plays. You will also see hints of Edward Albee’s THE GOAT, OR WHO IS SYLVIA. But the moment inspiration struck for him was when he was talking to an ex who had a friend who performed scat play. The ex could never see his friend the same way.

THAT SHIT EATING GRIN dives into these sexual intimacies and how the people in our lives react to them. Unfortunately, America’s struggle to escape its puritanical roots continues as we still deal with sexual panics! Jove has written, “Sex is very theatrical. Roleplay is super personal. It’s a great exposure of the secret desires within you, the desire to be someone or something else. In this play, the desire is to be a ‘shit-eating faggot.” You will also notice the family in the play will appear very pristine and polished, but underneath, there is something that wants to come out. All the characters have verbal tics that suggest different emotional states, hierarchies, or relationships to one another.

THAT SHIT EATING GRIN is a wild play, and we have striven to channel that energy into this process. It is also a comedy, so you are invited to laugh your asses off. Seeing Jove smile through this process has brought our director, Jeanette Delaney, and me a lot of joy. And when life forces you to eat shit, the best thing you can do is make yourself and your friends smile!

That Shit Eating Grin will have an immersive reading at the Brick Aux on May 4th at 5 pm.

Josh Feye: Hi, Scout. How’s it going?

Scout Davis: I’m doing all right, enjoying the early summer surprise.

JF: I know, it’s amazing. We really deserved it.

SD: I think so.

JF: Scout, you’re my first returning guest of The Dionysian Dream.

SD: Oh my God, honored.

JF: What have you been up to since we last chatted?

SD: Just directing some students at universities, trying to make some work while that’s happening, and bopping around.

JF: And you’ve written and are performing a new piece called The Life and Times of Daisy Forbes.

SD: Yes.

JF: Who is Daisy Forbes?

SD: Daisy Forbes is a showgirl who’s been in the business as long as she can remember. She’s on the precipice of another major tour, and we meet her right before it begins, when she’s left at a bus stop by her tour manager, partner, and the rest of her company.

JF: Yeah, it has this feeling, almost like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, of someone trying to keep going and figure out what they’re doing in life. Did you work with a dramaturg to help develop the piece?

SD: I like that comparison. A little bit, mainly through conversations and consultations with a dramaturg named Maddie Williams. I met her in 2022 when I was a directing fellow at Chautauqua. She’s based on the West Coast, and we worked together on a Rajiv Joseph play. We really connected and stayed in touch. As I was developing the piece, I shared materials with her, both the audio for the lip sync and what became the script. She offered really insightful questions and helped open up the larger themes of the piece and what was happening underneath it.

JF: How long did it take you to compile all the lip-sync material and shape it into a narrative?

SD: This was my first time building something like this. Before, I’d worked with a single source or something more repetitive, but this was about creating a full narrative from multiple sources like TV interviews, music, and musical theater. I was really inspired by drag history and that tradition of theatrical sampling, where lip sync creates a new narrative out of existing material. That was my starting point. It took about three to four months in the fall to compile everything, and then I started editing toward the end of the year. By winter, I had a draft to rehearse with. My sound designer, Camila Ortiz, helped shape the piece and figure out the order and transitions. Each segment feels like a chapter in Daisy’s life, childhood, early performances, relationships, and longing for what’s been lost.

JF: Your work draws so much from popular culture, which I love. It feels important because popular culture is America’s culture. Why is it important for you to bring that into the theatre?

SD: For me, it’s about channeling different voices into one space. It’s like when you’re a kid playing with toys and creating a whole world. I’ve experienced that most vividly in drag and queer spaces, where popular culture is transformed and made deeply specific and personal. That’s always felt connected to theater for me. It also feels like continuing a lineage, bringing in voices from the past to teach us something, make us laugh, or help us see our lives differently. Even when I’m alone on stage, it creates a kind of ensemble.

JF: I love that you reference the audition scene in Showgirls and include that Bea Arthur story about a first audition in New York. You also dance a lot in this piece. How did you develop the choreography?

SD: It developed over time. Some sections existed as standalone performances, which helped me find the character’s movement language. I wanted this to feel like a departure from my past work, where I was more directly myself. This is more of a distinct character, even though it still draws from my life. I looked at a wide range of influences, Busby Berkeley, classic MGM musicals, Showgirls, and even old bootlegs of Jerry Herman shows. I also pulled from muscle memory from my own dance training. It became a mix of styles, all building toward exhaustion by the end, while tracking Daisy’s evolution or regression.

JF: In the show, you wear a tourist shirt that says “I survived my trip to New York.” Why that shirt?

SD: We’ll see if it stays, but I found it while rehearsing in Midtown. I was walking down 8th Avenue and saw it, and it just clicked. The show takes place at a bus stop, which is both literal and metaphorical. It reflects a feeling of being left behind, which connects to my experience as an artist and as a person. As someone who’s been in and out of New York without a real sense of home, the shirt felt like where both Daisy and I were at that moment. It felt like the right place to begin telling her story.

JF: Yeah, I think for people who know what you’ve gone through, it definitely feels like a commentary on your relationship to New York and making art here, and it works really well.

SD: Thank you!

JF: And you know, obviously, there’s Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl. Why do you think there’s such a fascination with showgirls right now?

SD: think it’s one of the most beautiful and resilient archetypes we have, almost like a stock character you could connect to commedia dell’arte. There’s something about the resilience and the ability to survive. Even something like a comeback story feels like a version of the showgirl. I think we really connect to that, especially in queer and trans communities, but beyond that as well. It’s about watching someone with flaws navigate the world, wrestling with obstacles, some that go their way and some that don’t, and seeing how they overcome them. That’s timeless, not just in our field but in the human condition. You can keep retelling and exploring where that resilience comes from. Is it innate, or is it built through hardship? And then there’s also the structure of the industry, who’s in charge, how power operates. Those questions are always tied to the idea of the showgirl. It connects to entertainment more broadly, movies, TV, music, and and reality TV. It’s all part of a larger history, and the showgirl sits right in the middle of that.

JF: Is it okay if I ask you some Dionysian Dream questions?

SD: Sure.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

SD: Yeah, probably All About Eve.

JF: Incredible, great choice.

SD: Thank you.

JF: Last time we talked about your dreams for the future of American theatre, you said you wanted us to get back to the soil. I’m curious, have you found that for yourself or around you yet?

SD: Yeah, in doses. Being with college students right now has been the soil for me. They’re really hungry, curious, and have a lot to say in a lot of different ways.

The Life and Times of Daisy Forbes runs May 21-24 at The Club at LaMaMa.

Follow Scout on Instagram.

Matt Street: Hello, Josh, how are you?

Josh Feye: Hey, Matt. I’m doing well. How are you?

MS: Good. Just taking a little walk, running a couple of errands for the thing tonight.

JF: Oh, nice! So we’re talking about Adult Film: The First Four Years which is a theatrical retrospective happening this weekend. Four years isn’t that long, but it does feel like, culturally and theatrically, there is a lot to look back on.

MS: It’s crazy. It’s the day after it opened, and last night was really wonderful. It was a mix of company members, people who had been there from the start and maybe stepped back, alongside newer people. It was a very emotional experience to get everyone in the room. Marcus (Maddox) made a slideshow of photos that didn’t get printed but that we thought were beautiful. People put headphones on, listened to music, and watched the photos go by. A lot of people told me how emotionally affecting it was, how much it made them look back on what we’ve done and feel proud. When you’re in it day to day, little things get in the way. You get frustrated, and the minutia becomes overwhelming. But when you step back and look at it as a whole, you realize this has done something. The fact that it’s existed for four years is an achievement. And we’ve put on three to four plays a year since 2022, which is crazy. It was a really wonderful experience.

JF: I often talk to Ryan about how what you’ve all created feels like another world, a place where people can do roles that might have been denied to them for financial or educational reasons. Do you feel like you’ve created another world?

MS: Absolutely. We talk a lot internally about a working-class ethos and creating access for people who’ve been denied it because of their financial situation or status at birth. I think we’ve created a place where people can genuinely express themselves and understand themselves as artists outside of a cookie-cutter or BFA/MFA model, outside of professionalizing in that traditional way. It’s about finding your own voice rather than checking boxes, being a good student or a good soldier. There are people who work professionally and do great work, but what we do is often what we actually want to be doing. We trust each other. It’s a community with an open, accepting ethos across backgrounds, but especially for people who need a home and can’t afford one.

JF: For me, coming out of the pandemic, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see people making theatre focused on beauty and exploring the irrational parts of human nature. That’s why I’ve always appreciated Adult Film. So you’re looking back, but also asking where it’s going. Where do you see the company going?

MS: I think we’re trying to stay at the cutting edge of producing. We’ve started conversations with a filmmaker who works in microbudget production, asking how we can build workshops, classes, and maybe make things ourselves. No one’s making a Marvel movie here, and no one wants to. So what do we actually aspire to do? I think it’s getting to the core of what it is to be human right now, and doing that honestly within our constraints. Instead of seeing limitations as a problem, we embrace them. A lot of great 20th-century artists worked that way. Cassavetes had no money and made things through sheer determination. That mindset feels even more necessary now. With digital tools, people can make anything, but we also want to keep strengthening the community. It took us time to realize that we’re not just a training center, we’re building a real community of like-minded people who want to work outside the usual systems. We’re trying to find a way of working that’s more fulfilling, where things aren’t locked in too early. We want to push what it means to be safely unsafe, where people trust each other enough to take risks, knowing someone will catch them. That’s really important.

JF: That’s the foundation of artistic creation.

MS: Yeah, and when you watch professional theatre, it can feel like five great solo performances instead of one cohesive piece. Everyone is strong individually, but they don’t always feel like they’re in the same play. We’re trying to create something where distinct individuals are fully in the same world, sharing a language and pushing each other. That trust lets people take bigger swings, which is something I think is missing in a lot of art right now.

JF: A lot of people are throwing the word “existential” around a lot right now, especially artistically and societally. Do you feel that with Adult Film?

MS: It depends on what you mean by existential.

JF: I mean, questions about where we’re going and how we start a new chapter.

MS: Oh, Yeah. Neoliberalism is breaking down, and people are asking what comes next. I don’t know if it’s an artist’s job to answer that, but it’s definitely important to ask. We’ve been asking those questions since the beginning. What does it mean to live in this world? How do we move forward in a culture that constantly pulls at our attention and commodifies everything? And as artists, we’re in a position to question that and imagine something else.

JF: Theatre is so ephemeral, and you’re also a photographer. Many of your photographs are featured in the retrospective. What’s it like to capture something so fleeting?

MS: It’s joyous. Tarkovsky says something like the theatre disappears, it’s like sculpting in snow, it melts. Every night is different. Capturing it feels like preserving something beautiful. You get to show people what they created, which is a gift. There’s also a sense of play in it. I get lucky because there are so many beautiful moments and bold choices. I’ve shot a lot of the promo as well, and it’s amazing to look back at people over time and see how they’ve changed. I always want the photos to feel like something you stumbled upon.

JF: And it becomes part of theatrical history. How do you think people will see this post-COVID theatrical era, historically speaking?

MS: I hope they see that despite how awful COVID was, it lit a fire under people. It made us realize how much we need each other. The only way to grow as a person and an artist is through community, through people who challenge you and support you. That, to me, is the story of post-COVID theatre. You can’t do it alone.

JF: Beautiful. Can I ask you some Dionysian Dream questions?

MS: Yes, please.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

MS: Yes, I mean, it’s probably a tie between Waiting for Guffman and Vanya on 42nd Street because they capture the duality of doing this ridiculous thing that we do. But I’ll sneak one in that isn’t necessarily about theater, though it is about performance: Cold War by Paweł Pawlikowski. It’s a beautiful film about a woman who’s a folk singer and a man who’s a composer and musician. It’s set around the time of the Iron Curtain, but it’s really this incredible love story while also dealing with what it is to be traveling performers and artists. It’s a really beautiful film.

JF: Oh, the description calls it “an impossible romance.”

MS: Yes, exactly, which is also what it is to be in love with theatre. It’s a constant fight because people are always saying we don’t need it anymore, that we have movies now. They’ve been saying that for a hundred years. It’s fascinating that we’re still having this conversation, especially now that cinemas are struggling. Filmmakers who love film are saying we have to preserve the moviegoing experience or else what’s the point. I feel the same way about theatre. There was that comment from Timothée Chalamet about ballet and opera being dead art forms, which isn’t true. Those forms are these overwhelming, communal experiences. Opera is massive and chaotic and beautiful, almost like being in the presence of something divine. It’s overwhelming in the way an old cathedral is. And ballet is the opposite in a way, it’s about precision. It’s seeing what the human body can do at its absolute limit. Theatre is similar. It’s about creating life in front of people. Actors have historically been seen as tricksters, people who can become someone else and convince you of it. That’s a beautiful thing, and we need it. What’s missing now is that people want you to stay exactly who you are at all times, without stretching beyond that. Theatre lets you see yourself in ways you didn’t expect. It makes you feel like you can be more, and I think that’s important.

JF: That was very well said.

MS: Thank you.

JF: Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, you’d love to have a night on the town with?

MS: Probably Stella Adler. I had a teacher in Louisville who trained directly with her, and the stories were incredible. She sounded like a titan. And then, even though I think he was difficult personally, Kazan. I’d love to talk to him because he really knew what he was doing and approached it like a journeyman. I love that attitude. It’s that duality again. You have someone like Kazan, grounded and practical, striving for greatness through simplicity. And then you have Stella, who’s like, dream bigger, be enormous, rise to the occasion. Those two impulses are what I’m always trying to balance, how to be expansive while also being simple.

JF: For my final question, what are your dreams for the future of the American theater?

MS: I hope New York, and this might sound strange, loses its position as the financial capital of the world so that people can actually live and breathe and make the kind of art the city has always been known for. Theatre happens all over the country, and there are incredible regional theaters, though many are struggling or gone because of lack of funding. But New York has always been a place where new work is born, not just in theater but in politics, literature, and performance. American communism started in New York, and American acting as we know it comes out of places like the Group Theatre and the Actors Studio in the 1940s. That legacy is still shaping what we do now. I hope New York can return to being a place of true creation, where people can discover something beyond themselves. I also think artists used to be in more conversation with each other. Painters worked on ballets, poets collaborated with musicians. Now it feels like everyone is isolated. I find that frustrating. I’d love to see more crossover again. Musicians working on plays, designers creating costumes, painters building sets. At Adult Film, everyone learns how to do everything. People step outside their roles, and that kind of growth is important. It’s not about titles, it’s about stretching into something unfamiliar.

Adult Film: The First Four Years ran April 16th-18th

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Josh Feye: Hey Matt!

Matthew Gasda: Hey Josh, sorry for the runaround. I got another call.

JF: Absolutely no worries. How are you doing?

MG: You say that with such concern.

JF: Well, I’m just very curious.

MG: I’m okay. I’m okay.

JF: I’ve wanted to get you in The Dionysian Dream for a while now. You’ve written a third play in the Dimes Square world, The Last Days of Downtown.

MG: Yes!

JF: Which suggests something very apocalyptic, but that’s not really what you give us in the play, at least at the end, I don’t walk away feeling that.

MG: No, not at all. It begins with dread.

JF: In Dimes Square, Nate says, “we are living through the dumbest time in human history.” And then at the end of Last Days, it’s almost a sort of surrender to that.

MG: Yeah. I think it’s a very different play because it’s located with Terry and not Stefan. Stefan is the character in Dimes who sold a Netflix deal. He sold his book to Netflix for a movie adaptation and is riding high. So in a lot of ways, Dimes is very reflective of the era in which there’s a lot of money. In 2021 and 2022, there’s a lot of crypto money, Netflix money, random people's, and government money. I think that had a big impact in a positive way on freedom of speech because people were less dependent on institutions than they were comparatively before or after. The energy around Dimes Square is not replicable in 2026, and so Dimes Square becomes Downtown. It’s kind of faded back into geography rather than time or vibe. Terry’s a quasi-survivor, winner of this system, but he also is sensing that he’s the scapegoat. By sticking around, he’s become the sacrificial object of the scene in its dying days, and so he’s trying to find at least a conceptual and spiritual way out of this fear and this anxiety and this dread. It’s really Ashley who discovers the way out for him, or who finally sees him at the end, and I think unlocks his own epiphany.

JF: And I noticed that the style that you have for this play, of course, it’s still a lot of people at a party, but I went back and looked at the original Dimes Square script, and it’s written very traditionally in a sense. But when I was reading this script, stylistically you do something different that I haven’t seen from you, where people are talking over each other, and there are a lot of side conversations happening throughout the play. What made you want to write it that way?

MG: I think, like any composer, the more you learn the rules of composition, the more baroque and complex you get.

JF: So stylistically, is that something you’re noticing about how people talk, or are you trying to get at how people aren’t listening, we’re not actually connecting with one another anymore?

MG: Yeah, it came from Doomers a bit. With Doomers, there’s a ton of overlap. I think with each play, I learn a new module in a way. Partly, it’s like deploying a skill that I’ve gotten better at. I think it’s a way of mimicking a kind of natural conversation where, in a group setting, people might be talking past each other, over each other, in different parts of the room, unable to contain themselves, paying attention to their phones. It captures something. What that something is, I couldn’t say for sure.

JF: I know that you read a lot and you’re interested in philosophy, so I’m curious, are there any books that influenced this play?

MG: Girard’s The Scapegoat was a big part of the conception of the play. Even just traditional myth structures in which a king is sacrificed, such as The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer or Roberto Calasso’s The Ruin of Kasch. In the relationship between Terry and Michael, Terry is kind of symbolically killed in the first part of the play. His birthday party is lame, he’s broken, he goes to Stockholm, rumors are spreading, and he feels out of control. A younger, hotter man crashes at his apartment while he’s gone, has parties and sex, and becomes the new king. But Michael also senses that if he lingers too long, he’ll become the sacrificial object as well.

JF: There’s a lot of criticism of romanticism, especially from the character of Dardan Nikolić, who I think is one of the best characters you’ve written.

MG: And that’s going to be a little bit different on stage, by the way, because the actor, who is Albanian/Serbian, is definitely going to riff a little bit.

JF: Yeah, that’s really great. There’s a lot to reckon with Dardan. There’s a lot of political stuff with him, too, that I really liked. He was sticking the knife into a lot of these institutional beliefs about art and culture. Can you say more about Dardan?

MG: Well, I’m a descendant of the Albanian tribe that Dardan comes from (Ghegs), so I share a genetic code with the character and with the actor partially, so there’s an inside ethnic joke there. The character is some kind of projection of myself, but also very much not. He’s simultaneously the character closest to me and furthest from me. I wanted to keep the play in the vocabulary of the first two plays, Dimes Square and Afters, which always have this larger-than-life novelist character who enters in the second act. I felt I had to keep that structure; it would become a standalone play, and I wanted it to be part of the cycle. It had to connect. It had to continue the mythic cycle of Dimes Square. It took a very long time. At first, the character was Spanish, then German. It wasn’t really working, and those actors couldn’t do the show anyway. My associate director, Sofia, knew Uliks from Sundance, and he was the first actor I met who could really carry that part. It was a hard role to cast and a hard voice to find, so that was the last thing to fall into place. He was in Australia this month, so he wasn’t even able to rehearse until this week, so that’s going to be the rawest part of the show, too, but it’s absolutely necessary. I cannot cut it.

JF: It feels like the culmination of a lot of ideas you’ve been playing with. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?

MG: Oh yeah, that’s completely fair.

JF: Why was it so important to write a cycle?

MG: I don’t know. It’s unconscious. Nobody really took me seriously when I wrote Afters, and it wasn’t until opening night that people got it. I wasn’t even sure I had pulled it off until we did it. Last Days too is gratuitous; it’s not necessary, but I felt my own life was going through a lot of changes, and I needed to make sense of those changes. I also had a sense, as you know, that the election last year was a positive shift away from censorship, and I was partially wrong. In hindsight, it was actually the end of an era that was comparatively more free. 2021 to 2023 felt a lot less censored and anxious than this year. I was processing that, realizing I thought I was free and others were free, but that wasn’t really the case.

JF: Yeah, I wondered about that. You’re very critical of Mamdani, too.

MG: And I’m sure that’s going to cause me trouble. As a consequence of his Burkean politics, Terry gets himself into trouble, too, but he’s also misunderstood. People obsess over his politics and miss the artist. That’s a self-portrait and a projection.

JF: I’m glad that you’re documenting it through art, though. I also noticed in this play that you don’t have an epigraph for it, which usually your scripts do.

MG: Usually they do, yeah.

JF: Are you going to put one in, or do you feel like it stands on its own?

MG: It’s a great question. I’m just opening my final draft to see if I toyed around with anything. No, yeah. It somehow, I never had the impulse. So I think as a result, yeah, it felt, maybe it was the result of starting to play with no idea where it was going, the play itself being so laden with discourse. Or just say it’s about, maybe it just started with an idea. There’s no philosophy to guide it, or at least it begins like that. Terry’s in survival mode, so he’s not really thinking. He kind of wakes up from his slumber, but the world has become vacuous. Even Dimes Square was comparatively intelligent to some of the conversation. In Last Days, in some of the group chatter, in Dimes Square, the characters are actually pretty philosophical and are guided by a set of principles relevant to that time. Even if it’s podcast philosophy, they still have a pretty confident worldview. The characters in Last Days just want to go to a funny bar and gossip. There’s actually less aspiration. In Dimes Square, they’re all trying to make things, and in Last Days, the characters express a wistfulness over making things, but Salty is just hoping his parlay hits. Nate is still kind of making music, but he’s been reduced to Bandcamp, and only his ex-girlfriend listens to his music. So yeah, I think, I guess if I had to come up with a cogent answer, it reflects the decline of horizons and the decline of the culture.

JF: Do you miss the early 2020s?

MG: I think I’m realizing I’m starting to, yeah. I think I’m starting to. I didn’t know that I did.

JF: It makes sense with what happens at the end of the play. It’s not sentimental in the traditional way, but it feels like a good conclusion to what had been.

MG: It’s pretty sentimental.

JF: Can I ask you some Dionysian Dream questions?

MG: Sure.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

MG: Oh, My Dinner with Andre. After the Rehearsal by Bergman is also great.

JF: Have you seen Wallace Shawn’s play that’s currently running?

MG: I have to go. I think once Last Days is open, I’m going to go.

JF: Yeah, I want to see it too. Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, you’d love to have a night on the town with?

MG: Yeah, probably Wallace and Andre. It’s a redundant answer, but…

JF: No, they’re great. I feel like My Dinner with Andre was the first podcast.

MG: Yeah, it was, wow.

JF: And for my final question, what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

MG: Total demolition. I don’t know. I think I would like it to, it can’t just be a vector for grievance and pop culture. I think there are some green shoots. There is a return to the existential. I wrote about that this week, but I think it can go way further. There’s just a lot of fear, a lot of fear of being different. I don’t even really mean politically, although everything seems to have become political. There are too many choke points for people making it who have talent, and I think that is unfortunate and must change. It’s the Straits of Hormuz.

The Last Days of Downtown runs in Studio 17 at The Center for Theatre Research until May 30th.

Grayce Toon: Hello!

Josh Feye: Hey, Grayce!

GT: How are you?

JF: I’m doing great. How are you?

GT: I’m good, I think, now.

JF: Yeah?

GT: Yeah, I mean, I think when I last saw you, I was kind of moving through a very pivotal moment in my life, but things have kind of, I feel like I’m normal again, you know what I mean?

JF: Yes, thank goodness! We met at Mikey Maus in Fantasmich.

GT: Yes! And thank God for that, and I think you or I asked the other for a light, and then here we are.

JF: Magical moment. That was my friend Jeanette. Yeah, she brought us all together.

Gt: Oh my God, God bless Jeanette. How is she?

JF: Oh, she’s doing well. She has a job that she likes now and is doing some projects, so I think things are turning around, but we’re in the middle of a Mercury retrograde.

GT: Yeah

JF: We’re just trying to stay slow and steady.

GT: Yeah, I feel you on that. Everything that’s happened to me in the last, can you believe it’s only been a week of Mercury retrograde? Isn’t that disgusting?

JF: It’s been a very long week.

GT: Yeah, kind of the longest week of my life, some would say. I feel the way Mercury retrograde is coming towards me is just, of course I’m asking why did I agree to produce and star in a show fully knowing that our dates for the show, we open the day that Mercury retrograde ends, thank God. So I knew when we signed up for this. I was saying, OK, we’re gonna have to get through Mercury retrograde in order to open. All right. And I just feel everything that we thought was solid is maybe not as solid. We had to dig a bit for a set designer, which we just got locked in today. And there’s stuff where I’m in a back-and-forth right now with a Staples in Inglewood trying to get them to make sure that our flyers are printed correctly, you know what I mean.

JF: Yeah, oh my God. Okay, so we’re here to talk about the play Failsafe, which you’re producing in Los Angeles, right?

GT: Yes, I’m co-producing with my producing partner, Max Tempkin, and I’m co-starring in it with Johncarlo Zani.

JF: You did a production here in New York, and what is the process going into this new production?

GT: That is a good question because I’ve been with this show since its inception. I’ll give you the backstory. My friend Phil Carroll and I, who is the playwright of Failsafe, met at a job in 2023, about three months before I got laid off. And right before I got laid off he said, hey, I have this idea for the show. Would you be interested in reading it if I write it with you in mind? And I said, OK, sure. I read the script, which I just want to note was very different from its current iteration, but I loved the idea. The idea the whole time has been about these two people who are in a suicide pact who keep failing to kill themselves, right?

JF: That’s great!

GT: And when we did it in New York, the iterations of Failsafe have been this. In July of 2023 Phil sends me the first real full draft of it. I read it. We do notes back and forth throughout the fall of 2023. We end up doing a Zoom reading with my friend Connor who I went to school with, and he’s an incredible actor out in LA. We did a reading over Zoom. Then we brought on Lily, who’s our director, and from there they were gracious enough to have me, the other actor, be involved with casting the other role, which I feel a lot of actors are never asked. They’re never asked to be in the room for that, which is crazy to me because you need to make sure everyone vibes, you know what I mean? So they brought me in for the casting process and we cast Johncarlo. Then we did a reading in New York in April of 2024 and ended up doing it later that year in December 2024 at the Tank. The Tank production was its first real staging. It was in the black box space there which has kind of been our home base for the show, doing it in rooms. I mean a theater is a room essentially but you know what I mean, no real stage, truly just chairs in a room. And all that to say it’s been a very minimal set. It’s been very minimal props too. Very important props are used, but very minimal. Then we brought it to Edinburgh in August of 2025. And of course when we did it from New York to Edinburgh, a couple of things in the script had changed. I guess when we did it in Edinburgh, we ended up doing it about 20-something times. So, having done it with New York audiences and then having mostly a UK audience come is very different in terms of what they laugh at. For example, did you know British people don’t really laugh the way Americans do?

JF: I have heard that they’re a much more reserved audience.

GT: I mean, we bill ourselves as a pitch black comedy, right? Incredibly dark humor, but it is a funny show. When we opened in Edinburgh I think the first couple of shows we did not have any laughs and we were saying, whoa, should I kill myself, what’s this worth, what am I doing here? So that was a cultural adjustment. But now being able to do it for an American audience feels more like we know the world of what to expect from certain reactions and certain scenes. I’m excited to do it for a Los Angeles-based audience. I’ve never performed in a show out there, so I’m really excited. A lot of our set is going to be different because we are in our biggest space we’ve ever done, a 96-seat theater. So I’m excited to see how this more intimate way of doing the show will translate on a bigger scale.

JF: And so what was the impetus to bring it to LA?

GT: This idea started towards the end of Edinburgh. I was hanging out with Phil one day, and we just looked at each other and said, so what’s next? And I wondered, what if we do LA, why not? And it’s twofold. One, I knew if we did LA I wanted to do it either right after winter or during Winter, early Spring, something like that. Because winters in New York beat the shit out of me every year.

JF: This year in particular has been really bad.

GT: Yeah, I’ve lived here for 10 years, and this is the worst Winter I think I’ve seen in my whole life. This one tried to kill me, but hey, try again next year, bitch. But doing it in LA is interesting because I think New York is such a theatre-heavy town. Whenever you do a show in New York, it’s OK, the people there are definitely going to be theatre people. And in LA, it’s definitely going to be actors and theater people and hopefully some film people, which I think would be interesting to get their reactions as well. People who maybe don’t totally center their lives around theater and what they take away from seeing a show like this.

JF: Yeah. And could you see yourself being in LA for an extended period of time?

GT: I mean, is it me moving there? No. But I think what I’m going to start doing is swapping my apartment more. Like, literally, because I can’t do what we just went through again. I can never go through that again. So I’m going to be out there for a month. Part of it is to do the show for a bit, and the other part is to get a change of pace and hang out with my LA-based friend group.

JF: Yeah. I’m in this period of trying to figure things out. I’m looking to move, and I’m looking at different cities’ theatre scenes. I’m curious how to go from a city where there’s so much theater to a city that doesn’t have a ton of theater but still has something interesting happening. I’m very curious about it right now. I’m excited for you to go to LA.

GT: I’ll give you a full report when we wrap. Because I’m also curious. I’m joking but also serious. I have a lot of friends I went to school with here in New York who live there now, who mostly still work in theatre. I have two friends out there who are playwrights. My co-producer, my producing partner, lives out in LA. I think a lot of these people are able to have their hands in both pots while still mainly focusing on theater.

JF: Yeah, that’s what I’m curious about. I want to expand. I agree with you. I will always love New York theatre, and it will always have a special place in my heart. I’m just curious about the rest of the world.

GT: At the same time, I think something friends of mine in Berlin, who are not Americans, have told me they really value about Americans is that we naturally have this attitude of if it needs to get done, I’m going to get it done. They feel German culture and European culture can be much more about going through bureaucratic channels and waiting to see what happens. I saw some of that over the summer with things we needed during our time in Edinburgh. It felt as if we were in New York or in America; it would have gotten done by the end of the business day. That’s something I’ve learned to be proud of as an American artist.

JF: What’s it like to produce a show in a city that you’re not physically in?

GT: After Edinburgh, I’m not scared anymore. It felt like a huge band-aid ripping off in a lot of ways about how I thought my career was going to be. Because of Edinburgh, the illusion that I would ever just be an actor is dead in the water. Because if that’s the case, then I’m going to be waiting the rest of my life to work again.

JF: And that’s so interesting, you bring that up, because Sophia Englesberg just put out an article talking about how everybody around her was talking about her being this multi-hyphenate actress, but she was also getting into producing. People were saying, oh, don’t do that because then you’re going to be pigeonholed. But she followed her instincts and just did it because that’s what she wanted to do. At the end of the day, it is just theatre, and we’re just trying to have a good time.

GT: Yeah, it’s also just that these institutions are not saving anybody, I know that much. And the people who hold power in the theatre right now don’t want to see anything I want to do. Every year I’ve lived in New York, there are maybe about five shows I see that I’m genuinely impressed by and so happy I got to see and be in the room for. Everything else, you go home afterward and think, what am I going to eat for breakfast tomorrow morning? It leaves you with nothing. And that’s just not the quality of work I’m trying to do or produce. I also think a lot of these bigger theaters and organizations really try to present themselves as loving new artists. But they only love them if they come with an MFA from Yale. They don’t really care about people who have been working toward this for years outside of these Ivy League, very small, gatekeeping institutions. It’s almost like a frat, if you think about it.

JF: Yeah, the Yale mafia.

GT: The way I got introduced to the show was because I met someone who became one of my best friends through a job we had to work because we don’t have parents supplying our income so we can just sit back and hang out every day. We met out of necessity. That’s at the core of what we all do together. We’re doing this out of necessity because I look around and I don’t really see anything like our show.

JF: I want to ask some Dionysian Dream questions. So I’m curious, is there a theatre artist, living or dead, that you’d love to have a night on the town with?

GT: Oh, I don’t know if I would love to have a night on the town with them. Would I love to have a night out with Sarah Kane? I don’t know. Or Anton Chekhov. I don’t know that I’d love to have a night on the town with that man either.

JF: You can interpret night on the town however you want.

GT: Right, because I’m five years sober. With both of them, that’s a relapse. I can’t do it. Those people scare me. I respect them, but they scare me. Someone I would love to have coffee with would probably be Eugène Ionesco, which sounds like a crazy answer. I was introduced to The Bald Soprano at a fairly young age, and that flipped a switch in my mind. I saw it at a state resort in western Kentucky when I was 16 years old. I’m from near an area of Kentucky called Land Between the Lakes, which is a beautiful lake region. There are resorts and things there, and there was a dinner theater putting up The Bald Soprano, which is insane. Looking back, I’m so lucky I got to see that. When I tell people that story, it sounds impossible. I don’t even know if I’ve seen an Ionesco show in New York.

JF: No, not at all. And that goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It’s so rare to experience dinner theater in New York, let alone The Bald Soprano.

GT: I know. You need to go to the middle of nowhere and watch The Bald Soprano. It literally changed my life. So I have to say, Ionesco. And second would probably be Bertolt Brecht. We all owe it to him. He changed the game. That’s my spiritual grandpa.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

Gt: In the last couple of months, I watched Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) for the first time. I was going through a crazy period in my life when I watched it, so that probably added to the experience. But watching Birdman, I felt like I’ve been all these people. I can see myself in all of them. And the sheer intensity of loving the game. I never expect to make real substantial money from any of this. That would just be icing on the cake. I do this because I’m trying to move the needle away from whatever everyone has decided American theatre should be.

JF: And that goes into my last question. What are your dreams for the future of American theatre?

GT: That we finally stop glorifying the sterilization of the human experience on stage for everyone’s comfort. Especially with bigger organizations. I know they’re all trying to make money, so they’re not trying to offend people too badly. Otherwise, where does the money come from? But I’m in a place where I don’t care about making money from theater because it’s not my sole source of income. That gives me the freedom to push things as far as they can go. A lot of commercial theatre feels like you’re watching a play get close to something dangerous or visceral. You can almost see the actors approaching it, and then you feel this pullback. There’s never an actual moment where it goes there. I’ve especially noticed that since COVID, because theaters are trying to recover financially. But it’s boring as an audience member, and as a theatre artist, it’s frustrating. This is what we’re calling the pinnacle of theater, but there’s no real release and no real experience.

JF: Yeah, and I wonder about that too. We came of age in the 2010s when there was a very sentimental style in playwriting and a traditional way of telling stories. I’m hoping that as that fades, something new will emerge and people won’t be afraid to break things apart and put them back together in more exciting ways.

Gt: Yeah, I agree. I think we need a theater of disgust. A place we can go to lay out everything that is overwhelming and disgusting, situationally or emotionally. A place to experience it all and then leave it there at the end of the night, or keep thinking about it forever. I’m hopeful that’s the direction we’re moving in. Sentimentality just feels like bricks tied to your feet. It feels like the past is clinging to you and not letting you move anywhere.

Failsafe is playing at The Broadwater Mainstage March 20th-22nd.

Follow Grayce on Instagram.

Meaghan Robichaud: Is this Josh?

Josh Feye: Yes, hi Meaghan.

MR: Hi Josh, how are you?

JF: I’m doing well. I mean, as well as I can with how this weather has been.

MR: Are you sick? You sound a little ill.

JF: I was just out walking in the cold for a long time, so I’m adjusting to being indoors again. How are you doing?

MR: I’m good. I’m at work, but I snuck out, so I’m in the Upper West Side. And I’m outside now, and it’s kind of beautiful.

JF: I don’t know if you know this, but I saw your clown as the opener to Mikey Maus in Fantasmich.

MR: Shut the fuck up, you did?

JF: Yes. You put a balloon in my mouth and tossed it across to the audience, and I loved every second of it.

MR: Oh, thank God. Oh, I’m so glad.

JF: You’re such a fun clown and performer to watch, really, really interesting, and I wanted to ask you, what was the thing that unlocked your clown?

MR: Oh. That’s a great question. I mean, I feel like when I first started performing, I started acting in plays, as one does, and I was really into being high dramatic characters. I was really serious. I was very like, I am going to be the most serious capital A Actor there ever was. I was in acting school, and my senior year I was like, when I was a kid, I used to do all these characters. I used to make up characters all the time and play them and pretend to have a kind of talk show as these different characters. But anyway, as a kid, I loved doing that kind of stuff, but in acting school, I was serious. I’m gonna be Hedda Gabler, bitch. And then, of course, I still am. But in my senior year, they were offering a clown class, a physical comedy clown class, and I was kind of like, this is kind of fun. Let me try it. I always thought it was funny. So I went into the clown class, and they were like, OK, you need to make a piece. The only thing you need to do is make a mess and clean it. And I was like, OK. So I come on stage, and I’m like, you know what would be so fucking hilarious? If I pissed on stage. I didn’t actually pee, but it was just this prompt to make a mess and clean it. So I came out. I had to pee really badly, and there was a tiny little cup. I pick up the cup and go behind a flat, and I take a water bottle and just pour it on the ground, but from the audience it looks like I’m peeing on the floor, and then I have to clean it up.

JF: Oh, I love that!

MR: There was something that was just so unhinged about it to me that was so exciting. I’ve done sketch comedy before, and something about that wasn’t vibing with me because I needed to write something down on a piece of paper, and I was like, I don’t have any ideas. I would always take the sketches too far. So I was like, you know what? Something with a clown. That’s just a weird anecdote that maybe doesn’t answer the question, but I think what unlocks it for me is the connection with the audience, the immediacy of it all. In clown, there is this very palpable need and relationship. They call it your rapport with the audience, your complicity. Being able to play games with the audience, being able to connect. I think that’s something I’ve found for me, even in my acting. Even when I’ve been acting in something that’s just a Chekhov play, the energy I’m receiving from the audience really feeds me as a performer. So I feel like that’s what unlocks it for me, what I am getting from the people I’m connecting with in that very moment. I’m trying things, and they are either being incredibly successful or failing incredibly hard. It’s funny that you say you saw Mikey Maus because me opening for that, I felt like I was bombing. I was like, oh my God, what do I do? What the fuck do I do? I remember I sat down in the audience and was like, the show’s about to start. Congratulations, you get to be rid of me.

JF: I think that failure is what makes the clown really fascinating for us in the audience. That recognition of failure is really powerful.

MR: If you don’t recognize that you’re failing, I don’t trust you. I think that’s how you build the complicity with the audience, being able to know when it’s failing. They call it the flop in clown, and clowns are obsessed with the flop. Everyone is always chasing the flop, because the thing about the flop that’s so magical and that you’re always trying to get as a clown, which is this huge elusive thing, is how you save it. In pure failure, because the clown fails all the time, how do you come out from that and get a bigger laugh than you would have otherwise? The flop is when you’re in your most honest state, I suppose, or that’s the desire. You’re most vulnerable, you’re most honest. Which is hard, and a lot of theater doesn’t do that. Theater is meant to be repeatable every night. It’s meant to be the same every show. You’re going to get the show if you see the matinee on Saturday versus the showing at night. Whereas with clowns, it is repeatable, but not always in the same way. I think for me what’s different as I’m making a longer piece, that I’m starting to discover and have to come to terms with because it’s scary, is that I actually don’t want to make a show that is repeatable every time. I want to make a show, and I am making a show, like the show I’m doing at the Brick. It’s going to be different every night. Every show will change based on who is in the room.

JF: So, your new show is called Meaghan Robichaud Is the Greatest Show on Earth.

MR: Yes!

JF: And it’s like a circus.

MR: It is a perverted circus starring a male clown named Spunky, who is probably an amalgamation of all the male clowns and male comedians I despise. I think, unfortunately, and this is true in a lot of forms of comedy, people would agree that it can really feel like a boys club. A lot of great clowns are men. Most of the great clowns that people reference, like Philippe Gaulier, Emmett Kelly,and John Wayne Gacy. I’m just throwing out names of men who are famous for being clowns. And there are very few female clowns. I think I’m trying to explore what it is about the male clown that upsets me so much. Is it that they’re hypersexual? Is it that I think they’re weird and I don’t trust them? Is it like that time in 2016 when all the clowns were found everywhere with knives?

JF: Yes!

MR: I’m thinking about that. I never perform with clown makeup. I did a show, Meow, that someone could pull up the receipts and be like, bitch, really? You’re in clown makeup. But it was a little different. I was dressed as a raccoon.

JF: Well, I wanted to ask, because in Meow, you did a little stand-up routine, Cigarette the kid. Was that the dry run for Meaghan Robichaud Is the Greatest Show on Earth?

MR: I think it was a spark of something. What I loved about Meow is that there were a lot of moments that were improvised, and I really fed off that. Cigarette the Kid was a moment where Matthew and I were like, this is going to be the most loose part of the show. I have a song and three lines that I always say to cue certain things, but outside of that, I have free rein to do whatever I want. What was really exciting for me was to prove to myself that I could carry something like that. There was one show, it was insane, a matinee at 12 p.m., and there were about 20 people there. I went on this big rant and got this guy in the audience to get all up in my face, and I was like, are you going to eat my ass? Eat my ass right now. It just went to another planet in a really exciting way. I think that’s when I realized I was a deranged, mentally ill clown. I’ve done stuff before, but that was the thing where I was like, wait a minute, this is also theater. This works in the theatre space. This isn’t just an exercise at a clown workshop.

JF: Well, yeah, and that scene where you are Cigarette the Kid really honed in for me the eulogy aspect you were trying to do for downtown theater. It felt like a swan song to something that was falling apart before our eyes. It was very scary.

MR: I talk about clown a lot, but I’m also very into bouffon, which is a subset under the umbrella. To me, bouffon is really fueled by anger, and that character was fueled by anger. That was me trying to tap into parts of myself that are angry about certain things or certain encounters with people who are like, it’s over, it’s dead, why even bother? And it’s like, am I too late? I guess I’m too late. I guess everything’s dead. That’s kind of where Cigarette the Kid was, but on crack, times 1000, very unashamedly an asshole about it and confrontational with people. A good portion of the people who came to see the show were those people that Cigarette the Kid is talking about.

JF: Did they catch on?

MR: I think yes and no. I have a bit with millennials, and there were a bunch of millennials who like me, and maybe I was mean to them. But no one confronted me after and was like, fuck you. I wish. I would love to get into it. I wish David Greenspan was there, and I could get into a fistfight with him after.

JF: Oh my God, I would love to see that. That’s a play.

MR: Yeah, David Greenspan, if you’re reading this, you can come to the Brick from March 25th to 28th and fucking fight me.

JF: Oh yes. Well, why do you think clowns are so misunderstood, yet so powerful?

MR: I hate to identify as a clown personally. I don’t know. Everyone says clown is having a moment in New York, and I try to reject that. I try not to be a part of the moment. I think they’re misunderstood because of John Wayne Gacy. People think we’re going to kill them. I never wear clown makeup when I perform. I usually wear some kind of makeup or wig or costume, but I don’t wear clown makeup when I do clown. This show is different. I’ll be wearing clown makeup all the time because that’s part of the character and the world. It’s a circus. It’s leaning into that. It’s leaning into how cringe I find it, leaning into the things I don’t want to do, which is wear clown makeup. I think a clown means a different thing to every person. If you were to ask, every person would have a different definition of what a clown is, and people love to think they’re right. So if everyone has a different definition, and the major cultural touchstones we have for clowns are for someone who has no idea about clowns, they’re probably going to think of a circus clown, a birthday clown, John Wayne Gacy, or the clowns in 2016 running around with knives, which are all clowns in their own right. I don’t know. It’s a good question. I wish I were smart enough.

JF: No, that was a great answer. In the synopsis for your show, you say, “climb up the high wire and dive deep into the memory of a better time, a time when whiskey flowed from the teet of heaven, and everybody loved clowns.” So is there going to be a nostalgic aspect to this play?

MR: I think it’s nostalgia for Spunky. It’s nostalgia for this male clown. He is reliving his glory days in a space that is not glorified. It’s a space that’s actually completely decrepit, and he’s creating this spectacle with nothing. So there’s a gesture toward nostalgia. And it ends in a fart.

JF: Okay, well, that’s so interesting because that feels so much like what we’ve been grappling with for the past six years. It’s almost Chekhovian or like Tennessee Williams, this idea that I’m losing everything and I’m trying to hold on to what I know and put on a performance to keep it going, but it’s not working. Is that a fair assessment of what a lot of your work is trying to deal with?

MR: It’s funny that you say that because this whole project originally started out as an adaptation of Three Sisters.

JF: My God. I love it.

MR: For me, I don’t know if it’s all my work. I think it’s what I’m interested in right now. What lengths do we go to as performers to be loved by an audience? I think I’m grappling with that in this piece. Whereas Meow was born out of my relationship with Matthew Antoci, this is more about my personal relationship with performance, with clowns, with male clowns, with male comedians. I could extend it to male performers in general. And my own capacity for going too far on stage, and what that means for my relationship with an audience. I think it’s really me trying to explore that thing you asked earlier, what unlocked my clown. I think it’s me exploring what the thing was that unlocked it. It was the audience, and what does that mean? What does it mean for me if I fucking need an audience at the end of the day to live? To perform? That’s what I think I’m exploring. I think that’s why the title is Meaghan Robichaud Is the Greatest Show on Earth rather than Spunky T Clown Is the Greatest Show on Earth, because at a certain point Spunky falls away. Spunky is me. Spunky is probably just some fucked up part of my psyche that unfortunately exists.

JF: When you mentioned going too far and extremity in the theater, I don’t know, it’s very decadent, which totally excites me. So I can’t wait to see this show.

MR: Oh my gosh, I can’t wait for you to see it. It’s actually going to be so fun. All the openers are also circus acts, so we have a strong man, a contortionist, and live animals.

JF: I now want to ask you some Dionysian dream questions. Is there a theater artist, living or dead, you’d love to have a night on the town with?

MR: Yeah. I would love to have Philippe Gaulier and go out for drinks, get absolutely blasted, and have a little cheeky hookup in the bathroom. He just died. I just want to know what it would be like. From what I’ve heard, he was a total asshole, in a good way, but also amazing. I don’t know. Mad respect. But I would love to have a little moment, maybe to Basement. I’d take him to Basement.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

MR: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.

JF: Yes, perfect answer. Lindsay Lohan had a dream, and she went for it.

MR: Christ, oh, that girl.

JF: Yeah, I love that movie. Is there anything recently that you’ve seen that you would recommend or that you’re still spinning with after you saw it?

MR: That’s a great question. I saw the Grand Canyon recently, and I would recommend that to everyone.

JF: Oh shit. What is nature doing for you in your work?

MR: I feel like with nature, I need to find some peace. So I went to the Grand Canyon and tried to find a little peace, and there was this amazing view with benches. It almost looked like a little amphitheater with the background being the Grand Canyon. If I could do this show anywhere else, it would be there, and I would continuously threaten to jump. That’s what my head is really spinning over. I can’t get it out of my brain. I haven’t seen a lot of theater recently, just because of life, and that was pretty awesome, I will say.

JF: It’s good to check out for a little bit to remind you of what reality is.

MR: Totally.

JF: What do you love most about New York City theater?

MR: What do I love? That’s a great question. I feel like what I love is how game people are. This is a totally sappy answer, but there are so many people who just do this shit because they love it. I love people who are always down to try new things, to create community in unexpected places. I love people who are like, I’m going to do a show in my basement, or I’m doing a show in my backyard, come. I love stuff like that. I love those little gems of community that exist outside of large arts organizations. I think those are freaking sweet, and you don’t find them in a lot of places. I’m from Boston, and I feel like we didn’t have a lot of that in that community.

JF: For my final question, what are your dreams for the future of the American theater?

MR: Death to Broadway.

Meaghan Robichaud is The Greatest Show on Earth runs March 25th- 28th at The Brick.

Follow Meaghan on Instagram.

Josh Feye: Hi, Theresa.

Theresa Bucheister: Hello, how’s it going?

JF: I’m great! How are you?

TB: So fun to, like, get a Kansas City, Missouri number and be like, oh, I think that’s Josh!

JF: Yes. Oh yeah, thank you for taking the time to speak with me, and I’m happy to speak with a fellow person from the Kansas/ Missouri region. So I really wanted to speak with you about this year’s festival season, and you recently got into theatre marketing.

TB: Yeah, it’s interesting that I am very unintentionally becoming a “PR person”. It makes a lot of sense and is also like - what am I actually doing? When I started The Exponential Festival 11 years ago, it was something I did out of necessity in order to get people to come out and see the shows and write about the shows. Nobody hired me to do that. I was doing it because I had started a thing and wanted people to know about it. And then that extended into other areas of my life, like The Brick. All these years later, based on some kind words and pieces of advice from trusted people, I am like - maybe this is a thing I can and should do. And sometimes I get to do that with my awesome Privy collaborators, Bailey Williams and Julia Greer.

JF: I was talking with someone at PhysFestNYC a couple of years ago, and they said you were so much about community building and just getting people to the shows. It all tracks for me.

TB: This might make sense on various levels with you because you are a sort of multi-hyphenate person… When I’m doing it because it’s my job, I feel this responsibility to be successful at it, though when I was doing it before, I was just doing it because of pure motivation. Because I believe in the artists and the projects, yet I felt no pressure to be successful at it because it wasn’t my job. And so now that it’s my job, I’m like, oh my God, I have to be good at this. What does that mean?

JF: That’s so real.

TB: I feel like that might be true of almost anything because we live in a capitalist society, so it’s like, oh shit, if someone’s paying me, then all of a sudden I have to execute, and if no one’s paying me, then who cares how it goes? But I care very deeply about how it goes for all the stuff that I’ve done for free. Of course. I guess the idea of anyone having any expectations of me didn’t exist as much then. I really don’t mind the idea of doing something just because I love it. However, I unfortunately need money too, and I work jobs, but I’m like, can the thing I love also be the thing that pays me? Jury’s out.

JF: That’s like the plight of the working artist, so yeah, I totally get you. I’m curious, what is your star sign?

TB: I’m a Libra.

JF: Oh my God, incredible!

TB: What is your star sign?

JF: I’m a Gemini, so we’re both air.

TB: My brother is a Gemini and is my best friend, and I feel like both signs are so much about duality, and I’m constantly trying to find the balance between them, and my brother is just violently flinging between all of the sides. But I get it. I get him , and I think that he gets me on a level that other people don’t… not that other people are more one-dimensional than Libras and Geminis, buuuuuut…

JF: {laughs} It’s so linked to what we do as artists, because our astrology is our life path. Did you always know that you wanted to be an artist?

TB: You know, I think so. I am having this conversation with so many swirling conversations, but when you look back at me as a completely free-of-influence type of child, which no one is ever totally free of influence, but the version of myself that had no idea what a career is or why one would make a choice that would lead to another choice, just my pure instinct, it all makes a lot of sense with the person that I am now. Like, I was always trying to turn anything into a theater, anything into a performance space, even before I knew what that really meant. And I was also constantly wanting to put on costumes. My brother and I would put pantyhose on our heads and hop around the neighborhood acting like rabbits. So it’s very exhibitionist too. It was in front of people. It was not just for us. It was like we’re gonna put on these costumes, and everyone will perceive us.

JF: So, when was the moment that you realized that’s what you were going to make your life’s work?

TB: Oh gosh. Yeah, it’s always been (maybe) the fuel of existence. The older I get, the more people I meet probably relate to this... It’s definitely saved my literal life many times as a young person dealing with depression and trauma and not knowing how to actually manage it. I didn’t have the resources available to get help, and so I think that art was a thing that could actually save my life, so then it became very important to me. As a young person, it just became so inherent in my ability to live another day that I can’t really imagine living without it. So there’s that. And then I also think that if I was really bad at it, then I might have had to have had a conversation with myself at this point and be like - maybe this thing can be really important to you, but maybe it’s not the main thing in your life. Over the years, I feel like it is a skill that I’ve honed with time and practice. So it’s an impulse that has been driving me for a very long time, but a skill that has developed, through a lot of hard work, collaboration, experimentation, weird failures and attempts and weird successes… those things have actually made me good at the thing, however subjective that term is.

JF: And so how are you managing being in two places and trying to make work in either?

TB: Yeah, it’s interesting because I honestly got really sort of mind fucked last Friday seeing the rehearsal for without mirrors, the new Jerry Lieblich play with David Greenspan!

JF: Ahhh! I can’t wait!

TB: It’s so good, and it is very much like - a person examines their identity without anyone else to examine it other than themselves. And then I go from that to The First Line of Dante’s Inferno, the Kirk Lynn show that’s at La MaMa, which I highly recommend going to see, which is also sort of about who are you depending on the context of the situation, whether you’re being perceived or not, who’s perceiving you, where you are, are you in the life that you built or have you escaped that life and are you in the forest? So that was Friday, and I’ve been having this whole experience of returning to Kansas and being like - am I myself in both places? And how does that self behave differently in both places while being consistently myself? There are things that are amazing about Kansas that cannot exist in New York and there are things about New York that cannot exist here, How do I exist in both of them is sort of the weird question that I have for myself right now. One of the things I miss the most when I am in Kansas (over the past monthI was in NY), is that I saw 40 shows in one month.

JF: Wow, yeah. That’s such an intense experience.

TB: And within that too, it’s not only seeing the shows but hanging out with people, talking to people about the shows, having this frenetic and intense sort of community of ideas and feelings just flinging around. And then I come back here and I have really great, thoughtful conversations with people, but it’s not even possible to see that much art. And then no one really wants to talk about it in the same way. You go see a show and people get in their cars and go home.

JF: Yeah, I feel you because I’m trying to navigate where I wanna go from New York, cause I don’t wanna be here forever, but I want to be near the theatre. I need it.

TB: I feel like you could go anywhere and not be bored. I can go anywhere and not be bored, but what about the things that feed you? Some of those things can also take away from you at times, of course. I know this will sound weird to you, because we don’t know each other well yet, but I’m a very introverted person. I need to be alone, really alone, and New York can make that really hard. But if I’m an introvert in Kansas, that means I can really go into myself and away from others. I can recede quite a bit. In New York, I can’t recede in the same way, and I think that’s been mostly good for me.

JF: Yeah, that’s interesting. What are you discovering about the art scene in Kansas City and in Lawrence, Kansas?

TB: Well, Kansas City seems to be great, but I don’t know how to drive. That was another big discovery. I was like - I’m going to learn how to drive. Then I was like - no, I’m not. I thought the public transportation had to have gotten better since I lived here 20 years ago. It has not. I can take a Lyft, but sometimes you call a Lyft here and it says your driver will be there in 30 minutes. I’m like - what are you talking about?! So I have to get people to take me to Kansas City. That is hard. Occasionally that works, and I’ve gone to stuff because I’ve bought the tickets and they’ve given me a ride, but it makes me dependent on somebody to drive me, which sucks. So I’m not really getting to experience Kansas City art in the way that I would like. But it also reveals to me - OK, Theresa, if you’re not going to learn how to drive, then you really do need to go to a place where you can get yourself around without needing to drive. I think there are some other cities in the United States that would not be a good fit for me, just because of that.

JF: Are you contemplating going to a different city now?

TB: When I left New York, I was open to anything. I needed to leave. The things that you love can also be the things that hurt you. When I left New York, I was walking with a cane. My nose was bleeding every day. My bank account was negative and I was in a lot of debt because I’d done a lot of things I really cared about but never prioritized my finances or my health. Over time, those things got to a point where I couldn’t fix them. When I was younger, I could bounce back differently or take out a credit card. But physically and mentally, I was learning that I could not bounce back in the way that I had before and that I actually needed to step away to prioritize different kinds of health. In doing that, I was like -New York did this to me! I’m going to leave New York. Then I was like - Oh my God, I miss New York so much. I’ve been back like 12 times in 2025, and I was just back for a month. I don’t know what that says about a slight degree of masochism that I might have, but leaving after 20 years made me feel open to the possibility of something else. I love spending time in Lawrence to be around my family and people I’ve known for a long time. While I know people in almost every other place I’d be interested in living, like LA, Minneapolis, Chicago, Austin, New Orleans, Boston, and both Portlands, none of those places are home in the way that Kansas is home. And none of them are New York. So I feel like my heart lives in two places right now - my Kansas home and my New York home. A year and a half ago I was really open to living in other places, but since then it has narrowed to wanting to spend my time in Kansas and New York.

JF: I wanted to ask you about another big event this year in festival season, Prototype’s revival of What to Wear by Richard Foreman and Michael Gordon. And you’ve worked with Foreman.

TB: It was really interesting. I had my personal experience with it, and I don’t want that to impede anyone else’s, because for a lot of people this was the first Foreman performance they’d been able to see live and not on video, and that’s huge. For me, I was excited I’d get to go. At first, I thought I wouldn’t be able to because there were only three dates and they were evenings when I already had tickets to shows. Then they added a matinee, and I could go. So I had this general excitement and hopefulness. When I got there, and this is my issue, not everyone else’s, I was devastated. I feel like several things were operating on my mind. One, I don’t think certain things Foreman did really well work in a space like BAM. If he had been doing it there, he would have figured out how to make it work, but they did the show based on an old recording and didn’t adjust anything. So certain elements just didn’t work. The plexiglass didn’t work. The strings didn’t work. The lights didn’t work. None of it functioned the way Foreman used those tools to achieve things. I also prefer his plays to his operas. The text in this one was pretty simple and straightforward. There were still some real banger lines, things that make you think. But the plays, and the way actors handle repetition and duration in a play, are so different than in an opera. I think I just personally prefer the plays.

JF: Yeah, I think I do too.

TB: The third thing is very selfish. About halfway through, wanting so much to like it, I got hit with the heavy feeling that I’d never see a Richard Foreman show again. It hurt so badly. I knew that was the case, but I hadn’t fully known it yet. I hope other people read and interpret his works. You can go to ontological.com and access all of his journals for free, even things that never made it into productions. I want to see people’s takes on Foreman. But to see something alleging to do Foreman as Foreman would have intended felt like a lie to me, and it hurt. It was grief. That show made me feel a very heavy dose of grief.

JF: I only discovered him after he passed away, and I wish I’d known about him earlier. He feels so aligned with me in many ways.

TB: I think about people I always assumed I would work with. Catherine O’Hara passing, I was like, wait, we haven’t worked together yet. David Lynch. Anthony Bourdain. People I felt a deep connection to because of how I related to their art or interviews. I couldn’t imagine not working with them someday. Then suddenly you realize you never will. But you can work with the things they put into the world. That’s an incredible part of being an artist. Those reverberations continue long beyond your existence. I was very lucky to work with Foreman. It’s unlikely that I would have, being a kid from Kansas who went to KU and not Yale. But I did, and it has been an incredibly powerful point in my life. His work makes so much sense to me. To some people it doesn’t at all, but to me it hits my brain, my heart, and my body in ways other things don’t. I’m glad his work exists for other people to encounter, even if they never encountered him.

JF: I want to ask some Dionysian Dream questions. Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

TB: I have a few. One is The Playhouse by Buster Keaton. There is blackface in it, which almost everyone did in the 1920s. That doesn’t make it right, obviously, but it bears mentioning. It’s a short where he plays all the characters. He’s the orchestra, the performers, the audience, the stagehand. Technically, to pull that off in the 1920s is wild. It’s seamless and so funny. It feels like a precursor to Monty Python. Then he wakes up and it’s all a dream, but he’s in love with twins. It’s very conscious and unconscious, mirrors, seeing yourself inside everything. Extreme confusion ensues. It’s literally set in a theater. I’d also say The Muppets Take Manhattan. It’s devastating and beautiful, hopeful and incredibly real. Moving to New York to be an artist, getting amnesia and thinking you’re an accountant. It’s so relatable. It was also the first time I realized Manhattan was called that because, being from Manhattan, Kansas, I just called it New York City. My third is Synecdoche, New York, the Philip Seymour Hoffman movie. The idea of what someone would do with a MacArthur Genius Grant and how the story unfolds, replacing yourself with other selves. It’s inspiring and hopeful and also deeply depressing.

JF: Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, you’d love to have a night on the town with?

TB: There are so many, but I’d love to hang out with Bill Irwin. We’ve been in the same place many times. We once sat next to each other at Shakespeare in the Park during The Taming of the Shrew. It was happenstance. I was having a moment. He had no idea who I was. It’s strange to sit next to someone you admire who doesn’t know you.

JF: What would you guys do?

TB: If he drinks, I’d take him to a bar and say, tell me everything. But it might be more fun to do something outside his practice. My favorite place in New York is Coney Island. We’d take the F train down, get a hot dog if he eats meat, or a beer if not. I’d ask, do you want to go to the sideshow first or ride the Cyclone? We’d do both. We’d get our fortunes from Zoltar before riding the Wonder Wheel. Maybe go to the aquarium or walk the pier. Then we’d take the F train back.

JF: What are your dreams for the future of American theatre?

TB: My dream is that artists can continue to test and change the palette of audiences. That we’re not content to feed people the same buttered noodles from birth to death. That we can say, want to try this? Want to try this? Want to try this? Encourage people to step outside what they think they like. If they still don’t like it, that’s fine. But what gives me hope is that people have the capacity to do things outside of what they think they already know. An artist can lead the way.

Follow Theresa on Instagram. Follow Privy Producing Collective on Instagram.

Josh Feye: Hey, Eric.

Eric Faris: Hey, what’s up?

JF: How are you?

EF: I’m pretty good, yeah, just chilling. Oh, did you find, uh, where do you, uh, last time we spoke, you were looking for, like, a sublease, like a minute ago.

JF: Yeah, I know, it has been a while. Now I’m finally settled. Are you still in Ridgewood?

EF: Yeah.

JF: Were you close to the fire?

EF: I just saw a post about that.

JF: Yeah, there was, like, a huge fire on January 6th.

EF: Shit, was that like, like, it was like buildings, like a house?

JF: Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. Um, but I’m excited to talk to you today. So we’re talking about your new play, Cimino’s Defeat.

EF: The idea is a real-life story about Michael Cimino, a filmmaker in the 70s who won Best Picture for The Deer Hunter and then followed it up with Heaven’s Gate, which bombed. After that, he never gets back to that height. It’s the death of the artist, a public humiliation, a deep tragedy. He also goes through a transformation and starts being referred to as Nikki. It’s a huge ego death. Everything changes after that traumatic experience. I was deeply interested in portraying that on stage. It seems dramatically interesting.

JF: Flying too close to the sun feels perfect for the theatre. And the fact that Cimino was given so much freedom to create whatever he wanted, and it just backfired so much. What does freedom mean to you?

EF: Artistically?

JF: Yeah.

EF: I guess freedom would be writing in a vulnerable way without censoring yourself. What you do and don’t write about interpersonally. That would be true freedom in writing.

JF: Do you think limitation breeds creativity, or is total freedom better?

EF: I wouldn’t define it like the Kubrick or Fincher model where someone rules the set. I like collaboration. I’m kind of a stranger to my own material, and collaborators explain it to me. Actors add new life. It becomes something different, and your own self gets sublimated.

JF: I don’t know if you had converted or become a practicing Christian the last time we talked. Has that impacted how you write?

EF: I pray before I write, I say an Orthodox prayer, so I’m receptive. I think a Christian belief I resonate with is that God is love. If reality is made of love, it gives a new dimension to dramatic situations. Tragedy carries a different weight if you proceed with faith.

JF: Do you think that sense of the sublime is missing today?

EF: Yeah, we live in probably the most secular time in history.

JF: How do we break out of that?

EF: I think things move in a macro way. There had to be a departure from spirit. In the next hundred years, we’ll come back with more definition. We had to become secular and capitalist first. The worship before was crude. Everything’s going according to plan. I feel optimistic about the future.

JF: I like that. That’s good. I feel optimistic too.

EF: You know, even like, obviously, the culture has become really mean with politicians and stuff. But I’ve always seen a lot of that, or even the Epstein stuff or whatever, as a kind of purging. Because all of the racism and bigotry and xenophobia was also present in the 1990s, which people like to romanticize now, but it was just kept under. Now, for better or for worse, we see every evil thing or every dark thing right in front of us. It feels overwhelming, and it makes one want to become nihilistic. But I think it’s good. It’s bad to be hearing about all these things, but I think we’re really purging to the point where we’ll be so sick of darkness that it won’t have any luster or appeal. We’ll just naturally choose love. It won’t be because of a sense of obligation. Anything bad will feel passé after a while.

JF: Do you think theatre is an exorcism?

EF: Of what? Like, of the demonic?

JF: Of the spirit itself, or do you think theater should look to aesthetic principles more?

EF: Um, I’m not sure. I don’t really know what aesthetic principles mean.

JF: Well, aesthetics are like beauty. Oscar Wilde was driven by aesthetic principles. To him, the best thing a human being can do is to make the world and themselves beautiful, but the way he viewed beauty was very spiritual.

EF: Mmm. Yeah. That’s good.

JF: That’s kind of how I feel about theatre. It should create something beautiful and lasting.

EF: I agree.

JF: I’m curious, because the Netflix Warner Brothers deal just happened not too long ago, if that’s seeping into the rehearsal room at all.

EF: It got spoken about one or two times. I don’t really think about that stuff. If I understand it correctly, it’s like a monopoly and less theatrical runtime for films. But I see a lot of movies in the city, and there’s such a moviegoing culture in New York that it doesn’t really affect me. I try not to think about unpleasant things. That probably sounds bad, but I don’t know how it would affect the way I live my life, so I don’t really think about it.

JF: And I also wanted to ask, obviously, part of the play is that Michael Cimino made Heaven’s Gate, which was derided by critics. Do you like the movie? And, how do you feel about the role of the critic?

EF: I think the critic is amazing. One of my heroes is Pauline Kael. Criticism can be sublime. I’ve read reviews that are better than the work itself. When criticism is subjective and has its own voice, it’s amazing. My girlfriend and I exchange film reviews and keep track of the critics we like. I love criticism. I have seen Heaven’s Gate, the Criterion restoration. I think it’s great. I think it’s a masterpiece and deeply misunderstood. The films that came after were not very good. I think Cimino was a genius, but when you go through something traumatic and enough people tell you that you suck, it affects your self-image. You start to believe it. He betrayed his instincts, and that’s the real tragedy to me.

JF: RuPaul was so right about how the artist has the strongest inner saboteur. If you listen to it, it brings you down. Can I ask you some Dionysian Dream questions?

EF: Yes!

JF: I remember seeing on your story that you were talking about writing a play about a pop star. Are you still planning to do that?

EF: No. I don’t really share things early anymore because of that. There’s something about revealing things too quickly. I’m rarely blocked, and I can flip a script quickly. There was attention around that project, and I spoke with a musician who shared voice notes about her career. There were several incarnations of the play.

JF: Maybe it’s something to revisit in the future, because I find the pop star to be a powerful archetype that is not explored in the theatre a lot. Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

EF: Yes. Life in the Theater with Matthew Broderick and Jack Lemmon. It’s basically a filmed play. I love Mamet’s dialogue and phonetics. It’s a lesser-known film.

JF: I’ve never seen it. I’ll watch it. What do you love most about New York theatre?

EF: The people. The collaboration. When I moved here, I didn’t have many friends. Now I do, and that’s because of theatre.

JF: Have you seen any good theatre lately?

EF: Blake Robbins. Anything he directs or writes is exciting and experimental.

JF: What are your dreams for the future of American theatre?

EF: I want to bring audiences back. My taste is commercial. I love pop aesthetics. I want big scope, immersive plays, traditional plays without music, something elevated but accessible. Big, sparkly, Angels in America–style work.

Cimino’s Defeat runs at Torn Page from January 21st- February 14th.

Follow Eric on Instagram.

Here is a list of the best theatre of 2025, in no particular order:

Practice at Playwrights Horizons

I initially didn’t like Nazareth Hassan’s play. The satire of the subject matter was annoying, but the more I sat with it, the more I saw how true it is to the contemporary theatre world. Many artists will give up their personal dignity and morals for career success, but the question I keep coming back to is: should we be sympathetic to this? Ronald Peet plays the director and is incredibly cool and seductive toward his actors, which is why we can see how they would all fall into his web, but then there is Maya Margarita’s character, who walks away from the group. I think Practice is one of the best of the year because it has inspired so much conflicting conversation with myself and the people around me, and it has one of the strongest Act One finales we have seen in a long time.

Symphony of Rats and Nayatt School Redux at The Wooster Group

2025 will be known as the year I became Wooster-pilled. My first show was Richard Foreman’s Symphony of Rats, a play about the President of the United States receiving cosmic messages and not knowing what to do with them. Foreman, a titan of experimental downtown theatre, had recently passed away, and the production had a palpable energy that felt like a rollercoaster ride. Eric Sluyter’s sound design particularly packed a punch. Nayatt School Redux recreates one of Spalding Gray’s first monologues with the Wooster Group using old footage, manuscripts, and props. It was a profound contemplation of time, the ephemeral nature of theatre, and the importance of documentation.

Meow! at Loading Dock Theater in the Exponential Festival

Told from the perspective of the raccoons at Grey Gardens, Matthew Antoci and Meaghan Robichaud muse on the collapse of American mythology and experimental theatre in New York. Robichaud unleashes a grotesque clown character called Johnny Cigarette, who believes he has failed and needs the audience for constant reassurance. Meow!’s embrace of failure and decay was exactly what we needed, because sometimes you have to let things die to bring in the new.

The Jove Show at the playwright’s apartment

I normally dread play readings as an audience member. I find them boring and would rather just watch the play, but playwright Jove Tripp Thompson's play reading has stuck with me throughout the year. The Jove Show was produced at the playwright’s apartment, and the audience was prompted to scan a QR code to get different parts of the play, Tonsil Stones. We read it on our phones, putting the pieces of the play together like a mystery. In the world of Tonsil Stones, dogs are attracted to the smell of tonsil stones in humans. While the audience was downstairs with the play, upstairs, you could get T-shirts and art made by the playwright. And while this was not formal theatre, it was an evening filled with energy that we need to encourage for a healthy theatrical landscape. So I say to all playwrights: forget the rehearsal rooms and theaters for your play readings, and just invite us to your houses!

I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan at Atlantic Stage II

Our entertainment culture is so atomized due to streaming and exclusivity that there are very few moments where we all get to share something. There is no centrality in how we view art. The theatre prides itself on its ability to bring people together to share something, but Mona Pirnot’s brilliant one-man play shows that even theatre falls into these traps of exclusivity and decentralization. The actor David Greenspan plays the playwright Pirnot, who is trying to write a play for David Greenspan. I love the moment when Pirnot is having a conversation with her mom about David Greenspan (how he is one of our best actors), and her mom has no clue who he is. I have experienced that moment so many times in various ways.

Vanya at the Lucille Lortel Theatre

Andrew Scott’s performance in the one-man production is one for the ages. He can change characters so subtly, just with one look or by playing with an article of clothing. And out of all the Uncle Vanyas we have seen recently, this one feels like the perfect encapsulation of our time. His performance invokes a loneliness and isolation that many have felt in the time since COVID.

Prince Faggot at Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep.

Jordan Tannahill is a playwright who walks the walk and talks the talk. I have been a great admirer of his work for a very long time. Prince Faggot has so much tension between the Apollonian (the Royal Institution) and the Dionysian (kinky gay sex and drugs). This is what thrilling theatre is all about. I still think about David Greenspan’s fisting monologue and N’yomi Allure Stewart’s royalty monologue that closes the show.

Twelfth Night at Public Theater

The Delacorte Theatre reopened this summer with a star-studded Twelfth Night led by Lupita Nyong’o as Viola. Every actor on stage looked like they were having the time of their lives, and it was pure Shakespeare. The best parts were Moses Sumney’s Feste, who serenaded us with his angelic voice, and Maruti Evans’ simple scenic design of “What You Will” in giant, three-dimensional letters, giving us a lot of room to play and dream.

Bat Boy at Encores! at New York City Center

New York City Center’s revival of the cult classic musical was a welcome surprise at Halloween time. This production is so committed to the weirdness of the material with its use of shadows, puppetry, and camp. A boy, played by the delightful Taylor Trensch, is raised by bats and creates a hysteria in a small town when he is taken in by a suburban family, who show that he is more than just a wild boy. Kerry Butler, the original Shelley, returns to star as Shelley’s mother, Meredith, and belts the roof off the beautiful Art Deco building during “Three Bedroom House.” I really hope this isn’t the last time we see this production in New York.

Burnt Toast at NYU Skirball

A man checks into a hotel with a briefcase containing his mother’s blood, which he can’t live without. This is Susie Wang’s Freudian nightmare, Burnt Toast, which was one of the most shocking and hilarious plays I saw this year. The prosthetic wombs and babies were so life-like and deeply unsettling, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of cutting into babies’ stomachs only to find another baby. Martin Langlie’s sound design made it seem as if the actors were speaking directly into our ears. Nothing feels more like 2025 than the desire to go back into the womb.

Elayna: Can you hear me?

Josh Feye: Yes, hi, Elayna.

E: Hi!

JF: I am so excited to be talking with you. How are you doing?

E: I am doing well. How about yourself?

JF: I am doing really well.

E: I apologize. I am driving, so…

JF: Oh, that is totally fine. We initially connected because you were selling a souvenir program from Cats the Musical, which totally brought me back to my childhood. I used to have it, and it got lost during a move. I wanted to talk with you because you run the Vintage Broadway page, which is very nostalgic and has a lot of theatre history with it. I’ve been following you for a while. How did you get started with this project?

E: Well, I grew up watching musicals on the VCR, of course, not to date myself. I grew up falling in love with musicals. I did my first musical, The Wizard of Oz, when I was six or seven.

JF: Okay, I love it!

E: Yes. I was a poppy. I completely fell in love with being in the theatre. I always wanted to be in that atmosphere, around creative people. My dad ran sound at our local theater, so I grew up watching a lot of rehearsals and knew a lot about the rehearsal process. I acted a lot when I was younger. When I was in high school I did show choir, and we had drama class, but only for one semester before cutbacks. I did not get to do as much acting then. They were renovating our local theater, so I fell out of it for a while. Then I moved and decided to try out again, and I did theater for a couple of years. I got really sick in 2017 and lost my voice. I was intubated, and it damaged my vocal cords. Singing is my first love. Theater is my second love. I have loved singing ever since I can remember. Losing it completely devastated me. I had to learn how to do everything all over again. I was in a dark place. One thing that helped me in my recovery was musical theater. I regained my voice by listening to many of my favorite artists. One of them is Donna Murphy. Donna Murphy is my all-time favorite. I would sing along with her performances and regain my voice, which helped me regain my confidence. That brought me a lot of joy, and I realized I liked sharing the clips that helped me get through a dark time. I was following The Theater Lovers, Will and Rachael. Do you know them?

JF: I’m familiar with them!

E: I feel like everyone I connect with online knows them, but you never know. Rachael and I have gotten close over the years, and she encouraged me to start a page and share things. At first, I was nervous because I did not know what I was doing. I still don’t really know. I just make it up as I go along. That is how it started. I shared things that I loved. I have a lot of useless knowledge, so I would write little facts and trivia about shows, and it just blew up. I connected with so many people, including people I never thought I would connect with. It has been an incredible journey, not what I expected it to grow into, but I am very grateful.

JF: There is a warmth to it, which I admire and enjoy. It is interesting from a theatre history perspective too, seeing how Broadway musicals were marketed in the 1980s. Something I have noticed is that those commercials referenced the audience and what audiences were saying. The most famous example is the Grand Hotel commercial.

E: Oh, my gosh! That one is so quotable. Everyone knows it.

JF: Yes. And a lot of Broadway shows don’t do that anymore where they will include audience testimonials like that. What draws you to these commercials? What excites you about them?

E: Promotion is mostly on social media like Twitter or X, whatever it is called now. While I think it is fine to use what is current, sometimes I wish they would go back to doing commercials and talking to people on the streets. Sometimes shows will do that for their own social media, but it is not the same. There is something nostalgic about it. It is also fun when I share things and read comments like “I remember that,” or “I saw that show as a kid,” or “This inspired me to go into musical theater.” Even actors themselves will reach out and say, “This is a blast from the past.” That is special to me. I love the connection I have with people.

JF: It does unlock memories we have forgotten. I am a big Cats fan, and when I see those commercials, it takes me back to being a child. That wonder can be lost.

E: I feel like in today’s world we really need that. I want to bring joy to people, and I know theatre brings joy. Like you said, it reminded you of happy childhood moments. It does that for me too. Some of my happiest memories were watching My Fair Lady on VHS and singing along when I was four years old. I wanted to be Eliza Doolittle when I was four. Forget Barbie. I wanted to be Eliza. I think it unlocks something in people that brings them together. It is a good community to be part of, and we really need that in today’s world. People are losing that side of things, and we need to find it again within ourselves and our communities.

JF: I feel like you have built another world to be in.

E: It really feels like that sometimes.

JF: It is nice to experience that and to see how great theatre is and how it can make people happy.

E: I think theatre is very healing.

JF: Yes. Is there a show you have come across in your footage that you wish would be revived today?

E: Oh, so many. I also wish I had a time machine so I could go back and experience them for the first time. Gypsy was revived, so I am good with that.

JF: Did you get to see it?

E: Oh my gosh, no. My husband and I saw Back to the Future instead. I was trying to find something he could connect with. He had never seen a Broadway show. His first trip to Broadway was last November. He loves the eighties, and we watched the movie recently. I am a huge fan of the franchise, but he had never seen it until we started dating. I said I needed to correct that. So, we saw Back to the Future.

JF: The stagecraft is great. The show itself feels like a carbon copy of the movie, but the DeLorean is spectacular.

E: I was not expecting that. I turned into a child. I was blown away. I had never stage-doored before, either, which is surprising for someone who loves theater so much. That was my first time, and it was so much fun.

JF: So, did you get to see it with Roger Bart and Casey Likes?

E: Yes, it was wonderful. Oh, you were asking me what I think should be revived.

JF: Yes.

E: A Little Night Music was recent, but I love that piece. I would not mind if it was revived again soon.

JF: Yes, we had the concert production at Carnegie Hall with Cynthia Erivo, but we do need a full production. How do you feel about Andrew Lloyd Webber?

E: I like Andrew Lloyd Webber. The first Broadway show I saw was The Phantom of the Opera, and that feels like the quintessential first Broadway show.

JF: Yes! Maximalism. The romance.

E: I am a Phantom girlie. I wanted her to go be with the Phantom. Then I found out there was a sequel, and that was all I needed to know.

JF: Have you seen Love Never Dies?

E: Not live, but I have seen the Australian cast, and I love it so much.

JF: I still need to watch it. I love the song “’Til I Hear You Sing.” Whenever Ramin Karimloo sings, I am seated. I just showed my boyfriend The Phantom of the Opera for the first time. He really liked it. Now I am in the mood for Love Never Dies.

E: I need to show my husband, but I am slowly introducing him to musicals. He does not sing. He loves it when I sing. I do not love it when he sings because he cannot carry a tune, but I love him. I didn't find a duet partner for life, but it is cute when he tries.

JF: That is adorable.

E: He does a lot of backstage work, so it is fun to do theatre things as a couple. We did Into the Woods last spring together. I was a stepsister, and it was a lot of fun. I also found out today that I have been cast in a cabaret showcase.

JF: Congratulations. Do you know what you are going to sing?

E: I have no idea yet. I did “Send in the Clowns” at my audition, and she asked me to do something happier because many people were singing sad love songs. I posted about it on Instagram and asked for suggestions.

JF: Did you get a good response?

E: I got more than enough. I have an entire catalog from people.

JF: Do you feel like you will be able to narrow it down?

E: Honestly, it is probably going to be Sondheim. You asked if I was a Webber girl. I am definitely more of a Sondheim girl, especially when performing. I prefer Sondheim. I love watching Webber shows, but I always come back to Sondheim.

JF: Sondheim writes for actors, so I think that will be good. I am looking forward to Merrily being released in theaters.

E: I am definitely dragging my husband to that, just like I dragged him to Wicked.

JF: What did you think of Wicked: For Good?

E: I am obsessed. I have never been a huge Wicked fan. I know that probably upsets some people. I have opinions that some do not like. I had seen the stage show, but the movie awakened something in me. I think it was overly hyped, and I have a hard time getting into things that are overly hyped.

JF: Same!

E: Some people have reached out, upset with me. I’m sorry, but it’s my opinion. I am not going to make people feel bad for what they like, and I do not want people to make me feel bad for what I do not like.

JF: Exactly.

E: Some fans of modern musicals can be unfriendly if you do not share their opinions. I did not want that for my space. I wanted a place where people could have their opinions but be kind.

JF: I want to ask a few final questions. Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, you would love to have a night on the town with?

E: Definitely several. Donna Murphy for sure. She is the sweetest person. I am lucky to have a good relationship with her, and we talk. I run a Donna Murphy Instagram page called Donna Murphy Stans.

JF: I was going to ask you about that. What is your quintessential Donna Murphy performance?

E: That is so hard. I have seen many online but never in person. I do not know if I will be able to handle it in person. Passion, obviously, since she originated the role of Fosca. It resonated with me and what I was going through at the time. She handled the audience reactions bravely. They were literally booing her character. I cannot imagine what that was like. She still gave an amazing performance. I feel like audiences today would be more accepting. Also, her Hello, Dolly! performance. I’ve seen clips from it, and it was incredible.

JF: Dolly has been on my mind. My boyfriend just watched it for the first time recently.

E: It is one of my top ten Broadway shows and a dream role for me. The first version I knew was Barbra Streisand’s. I am obsessed with Barbra. She is on another level.

JF: Oh, me too.

E: A night on the town with Barbra would be amazing, though unlikely.

JF: Never say never. Do you have a favorite film about the theater?

E: There are several I revisit. I like things that focus on the Golden Age. The documentary about the A Chorus Line revival is always fun. It is very quotable, like the Grand Hotel commercial.

JF: I always think about Jason Tam auditioning for Paul and making the panel weep.

E: You are making me want to watch it now. I have seen it pop up a lot on TikTok and Instagram lately.

JF: Same. I was watching clips of the Maggie auditions.

E: Yes, it’s so good.

JF: For my last question, what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

E: It has played such an important role in my life. I hope it continues to inspire others as much as it inspired me. I hope people continue to realize how important the arts are. That has been an issue lately. I really hope the arts never die. I am a school librarian and have been in education for five years. Especially working in the South, I feel like people do not always see the arts as important, but they truly are. They inspire people like nothing else. I hope we never lose sight of that. I just hope theatre continues to bring people together.

Follow Vintage Broadway on Instagram and X.

Here is a music playlist based on The Dionysian Dream. Enjoy!

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-dionysian-dream/pl.u-LdbqqBBsxdBaVM

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3r3MtaSLcU7p5soVPEcUey?si=TqJj38NnTxagtXaWh71cgA&pi=pqAGpVSfQsGcl

Josh Feye: Hey, Roman, how's it going?

Roman D’Ambrosio: Hey, good, what's up?

JF: I just got a bottle of Winter Candy Apple from Bath and Body Works today, so I'm doing great.

RD: Oh, cool.

JF: Yeah, I'm getting into the mood for the season.

RD: A holiday flavor?

JF: Yeah, it's apparently the fragrance that Lana wears.

RD: Oh, nice.

JF: I'm really excited to talk to you about your play, Hillsdale, because I went to the reading back in 2023. It’s based on Uncle Vanya. What made you want to bring it back right now?

RD: Well, I did that reading in 2023 before the first-ever public audience, and the reception we got was really positive. I had been workshopping and working on that play since 2020. And so I always wanted to do a full production of it. I was really looking for a space, and so the opportunity came up to do it at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. I think the play has had relevance, and that relevance has just grown as time and history have shown. My hope is to connect some of the themes that Chekhov has with, yeah, I think an emotional state in America.

JF: Yeah, because it's about these people who are, it's like a college reunion, right?

RD: Yeah.

JF: And it's like a fraternity reunion. And there's a lot of tension about conservatives in the play, and all these questions of who they are and their political beliefs. So how did you know this was something you wanted to take on?

RD: I remember when I was an undergrad, I had friends from high school who went to Hillsdale, and I went to visit them for a weekend. I spent time in his frat house at his frat parties, and it was very fascinating talking to these types of students, which was a wide variety of people from different economic backgrounds, many of whom were very privileged, coming from private schools, many of whom were foreign students, and many of whom were lower-class locals in rural Michigan. I was also working on my other play, Homemade Dynamite, which is kind of a sister play to this in the sense that they’re both about American frats. So I was already in this mood of wanting to write about the American fraternity as a dying institution, this last vestige of American masculinity. I wanted to really inspect and look into its failings and the members of that world, those who truly believe in it, and what their failings mean on a larger scale. And whether or not they’re aware of those failings, that, to me, was very fascinating: finding the humanity in people who one might assume are unlikable. That’s why it makes sense to have these little sprinklings of making them as human as possible, I guess. But human might just be another word for unlikable, right? On a broader political scale, I think the show really deals with class differences that just happen to be within a certain type of demographic. But on a larger scale, I think it’s really an elegy for a certain type of person that exists in this country. Having that person come onto the page and bear witness, and really interpreting where those people come from, I think Chekhov is a great tool to do this as well.

JF: I totally agree. Sometimes I feel like there is a misreading of what art is and where art comes from, and the role of the artist. I'm just curious, do you feel like people are projecting onto you these ideas of who they think you are based on what you write?

RD: To be honest, I don’t really think that, I mean, I don’t know what people’s view of me is really, but I haven’t really felt anything like that. I’m a writer that really loves grand expressions, and I feel like I find grand expressions through characters of all different types. I also love to be able to say the thing that’s not being said, or fill in the part of a dialogue that doesn’t get covered, and then wonder and question why that part of the dialogue isn’t getting covered. I’m very fascinated by that. But no, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like that, really.

JF: That’s why I enjoy you as a playwright so much. I think you are far more open to ideas and people in a way that other people just are not. There’s an unease about putting things on the platform, and it gets very sentimental. I’ve never felt that with you, which is why I’ve always enjoyed you as a playwright and enjoyed your plays.

RD: I don’t really view the theater as a platform with X amount of spaces that need to be filled. I really view it as an active work itself, in progress, you know? Kind of like a fire that needs constant kindling and refreshing. I don’t really have a zero-sum view of theatre. Maybe what you’re talking about are people who view theatre in that limited way. But no, I think part of what makes art enjoyable and fun and challenging is being able to put the audience in these new, challenging, and uncomfortable points of view. My hope is really to have this return to love. As sentimental as that might sound, I think love is a very uncomfortable place to get to. It’s also not my type of love, it’s not a genteel love. I like writing characters who are constantly searching for love and understanding, but who also have this impulse to destroy love or destroy the things that could make them happy. I find that in real life. So I just like to write about that. I find my work very much about love.

JF: That’s beautiful. And you mentioned your other play, Homemade Dynamite, which is how I came to know you. I was like, “Roman is the Madonna to my Camille Paglia.” Like, he gets it. He totally sees what I want to see in the theater. And I also feel like you’re bringing a certain glamour and mystique back to the theatre that I really appreciate.

RD: You’re giving me too much credit as a mysterious figure. That’s the last word I would use to describe myself, but thank you.

JF: You mentioned they were sort of sister plays. Do you still want to write that trilogy about the American fraternity?

RD: I do. I’ve just been procrastinating on it. I would love to write a play about the establishment of a fraternity order and maybe have it take place in the 1890s or the 1910s. I think that would be a really fascinating space to occupy. It would also be interesting to write about young people who want to establish something, and figure out what the mistakes and corrupt motivations for starting a frat order might be. I would love to get into that. I think it’s just a project that I want to do, but I’ve been kind of distracted with some other plays I want to work on instead. But yes, that’s always been a larger goal of mine, to have a third one that talks about the beginning and the erection of a frat house.

JF: I’m always fascinated by what you’re inspired by or the questions you pose. How do you find your influences, or how do you stay open to influence?

RD: That’s a really good question. How do I stay open to influence? Well, I guess being open to influence is kind of a daily practice, right? You have to want, every day, to consume the world and allow things to come into you and across you. I would say I think I’ve always had this little trolling impulse in me, even since I was a kid, I loved teasing my sisters in that way. I think that stays in me with a lot of my work. I love to see what the conventional viewpoints of our time are and then try to flip that over, see what the opposite view is, and then go back again and back and forth. Somewhere in the middle, I have a play, I guess. It’s kind of one of the big parts of being a writer, I think. It’s hard to be categorized solely into almost any category, because you have to be able to travel between opinions and tastes, and even, well, you know. But at the same time, you have to be able to carry your principles along those spectrums. To be able to write work that respects your characters’ and your audience’s humanity. Respecting humanity isn’t an easy job, it’s a very tough job, because humanity is not lovable. It’s really hard to give credit to humanity, and so it’s a tough job as a writer to do that. To do it, I think you have to have a really strong mind and a strong ability to hold different concepts in your head. That’s kind of the gift you give the audience: you get to say, “Here’s the intellectual journey I’ve been on, here’s the emotional journey I’ve been on, and here’s what I’ve come up with through these characters,” and then the audience gets to see it and experience it.

JF: I like that you let things just wash over you, and you don’t judge them or pre-judge them in that way. Which I think is really difficult for people nowadays to do. I think people really want something that’s super easy for them to reckon with or that’s comforting. Do you feel like people are turning inward now? Do you sense that?

RD: I think people don’t want comfort, actually. I think people are very interested in things that excite them and challenge them and question the way they view the world. I think people now, more than ever, are very open-minded and wanting to receive something they’ve never received before. The only thing is, I think it has to have a valid emotional core. Audiences can tell if a work is cheaply made or made from a space of convenience. Any work of art that’s worth asking money for should not be made from ease or convenience; it should show that effort has been put into it, that it’s touching something true. I couldn’t tell you what the capital-T Truth is, but I can tell you that when my characters in Hillsdale yearn for someone they love and can’t have them, that is true. It was true when I wrote it; it’s true when my actors do it. And I think it’s true for an audience member to look at an actor on stage and say, “That’s me. I felt that.” The job of theatre is to remind us that we are not alone, which, if you’re an ironic hipster artsy person, you might roll your eyes at. But I genuinely believe that. I want to remind my audience, or maybe not even “remind,” but if someone can see my work and see themselves, then I think I’ve done a good job. That means the play and the writing tapped into something deep, beyond the surface level. That’s why I love seeing a variety of different types of work and a big diversity of works, because no matter where they come from or what kind of work it is, if there’s truth in it, it’s going to speak to you. I hope that my work can speak to people.

JF: Can I ask you some Dionysian Dream questions?

RD: Yeah, of course.

JF: So you have your Substack, and you post a lot about what you’ve seen during the month. What have you seen lately that you’ve enjoyed and would recommend?

RD: Yeah, I saw Endgame at Irish Arts Center. It’s the Druid production, and it was really funny, it was haunting. Endgame was the play that really got me into Beckett. For a long time, I was very suspicious of Beckett, I thought him to be very depressing. But Endgame was so funny and active, and it helped me really see Beckett well. It unlocked all of his other work for me. So I was really happy to see this masterful Irish production. I think it’s running until December, so I really, really recommend Endgame.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

RD: A film about the theatre? I would say Vanya on 42nd Street.

JF: Ah, yeah.

RD: That movie was a huge inspiration for Hillsdale. I watched it a lot when I was writing. There are probably one or two lines from that movie in Hillsdale, actually. I love that movie so much.

JF: It’s interesting because that film was written by David Mamet, and you’re looking at American conservatism in your play. It’s like all the synchronicities. Is there a theater artist, living or dead, you’d like to have a night on the town with?

RD: A night on the town? Terrence McNally. I’d love to drink wine with him in the West Village and talk about opera.

JF: We’re due for a Master Class revival.

RD: Yeah, I wonder, who do you think would be good to play Maria Callas? Honestly, it’s Audra.

JF: Audra’s old enough now that she could play Maria Callas, and that could be kind of cool. Actually, that would be kind of perfect. Maybe ten years from now.

RD: I don’t know, she’s probably the right age now. That would be cool.

JF: And then, for my final question: what are your dreams for the American theater?

RD: That we have more theaters.

JF: Say more.

RD: That we have more theater spaces for people to put up work. We need more theaters. We need more Broadway theaters, more Off-Broadway theaters, more DIY spaces. We need more theater, more and more. We just need more real estate, like literal theater real estate. Even at the top, it’s discouraging for young artists when the only works that can really get done on Broadway have to be large, corporate-sponsored shows. Not that those shows aren’t amazing or good, but making it more accessible for artists to show their work is vital. The audience will find a way to show up, and the artists will take care of the audience. But the artists themselves need more space, more theaters. So many great playwrights I know who have amazing plays can’t find spaces, can’t find theaters. Some of the work I’m really proud of that I’ve been doing at the Williamsburg Art Historical Center is providing space to artists, but even that’s only one stage. We need more theaters. We need, like, twenty more Broadway theaters. I’m not even joking. We don’t need another casino. We don’t need anything like that. We need theaters. We need young people to be able to say, “I’m putting up a show,” as soon as possible. That’s not to say it’s without financial risk or liability, but we need more theaters. That’s my big hope, more space. And if someone can make a theater space and offer a playwright a chance to put a play up, please do. We need them. We need them so much.

Hillsdale runs at Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, November 24th-28th.

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Josh Feye: Hi, Grace!

Grace Walker: Hi, how’s it going?

JF: Wonderful! How are you?

GW: I’m doing well, you know, just enjoying Friday as best as I can.

JF: I know you’re a big Taylor Swift fan, so happy Life of a Showgirl day!

GW: Happy Showgirl day! Crazy, crazy, crazy. What do you think of it?

JF: I love it. I love Elizabeth Taylor. I love that she’s talking about White Diamonds. I love that she’s in love. I’m very happy. What do you think?

GW: For the sake of public record, I am really enjoying the album, and Taylor Swift can do no wrong. But I think personally, for me, I need to listen to the album a few more times before I totally vibe with it, which tends to be how I am with her music. That happened to me with reputation, that happened to me with Midnights as well, and then they ended up being some of my favorite albums by her. So I’m just excited to live with it more.

JF: I feel like a lot of her records recently have been much more like growers than ones you immediately love. With this album in particular, I’m very pleased. Tortured Poets didn’t hit me as hard until a couple of listens, so I get what you’re saying. I also really love that she’s inverting the story of Ophelia.

GW: That tends to be her thing. I mean, she did it with Romeo and Juliet, and now she’s doing it with Hamlet, so we love to see it.

JF: And it’s interesting because, I don’t know how familiar you are with Oxfordian theories about Shakespeare, but the way Oxfordians look at the plays is very Easter egg oriented, in the same way Taylor Swift is with her work. She kind of feels like the dramaturg pop star.

GW: You know, that would be a really interesting dissertation. Sometimes, I think about her music, especially with Love Story and this most recent song, as Shakespearean adaptations. Of course, they’re not necessarily true to the text, but what adaptation at this point truly is? It's interesting to see how she takes Shakespeare through a contemporary lens and adjusts it to her own life. I think about those great movies we all grew up with, like She’s the Man, and how our generation learned about Shakespeare by consuming those stories. To see that people are now consuming those stories through song is really interesting, especially just looking at Shakespeare’s legacy as a poet. I find it very fascinating.

JF: Well, that leads me into my next question, because it’s really interesting that you brought up She’s the Man and how people are taking in these stories and how it’s changed over time. What I’ve admired about you for so long is that I feel like you are changing the perception of who a dramaturg is for a wide audience. There’s this pervasive perception that dramaturgs are very stuffy, academic, and boring, but you’re bringing it to people in an exciting way. You incorporate a lot of popular culture into your work. How did you come into that as your dramaturgy?

GW: Thank you, that’s really nice of you to say. I think for me, growing up, just being in the culture and being so interested in everything going on, connecting theatre to the culture we’re living in was always something I cared about. I love theater so much and all the amazing dramaturgs who came before me, but there were so many conversations they were having where I didn’t necessarily feel like I was a part of them or that I understood the language. Like, I love a moment when people will say vis-à-vis. I think that’s beautiful! But that doesn’t mean it exists within my own vocabulary when I speak, and I acknowledge that a lot of other people probably don’t use that word either. When I started posting videos online, I wanted to make sure that whenever anybody asked me a question or was interested in a form of theater, I took it seriously and brought it to their level. I just think culture is so fucking cool. People are writing dissertations on The Real Housewives. We’re all engaging in this culture, so how do we bring it into the theater we’re consuming, so audiences can relate to it in an entirely new way? That was what I was interested in.

JF: That feels so aligned with what I want to do as well. I feel like Americans in particular have a lot of suspicion about the theater because of our puritanical history. If we connect it to popular culture, then people start to see the boundaries dissipate. It’s really important. So how did you come into dramaturgy?

GW: Sort of by accident, I guess. When I was in college, I was just reading a lot of plays, and then my friends started asking me for recommendations. Then my professors started asking me, and then I started working in the D.C. theatre scene. I remember literally reading every single play they had saved on their drives because I was so interested in the work that was coming out. I became obsessed with finding the next new play that nobody knew about, which is really pretentious of me, but I was excited by that. I wanted to figure out the art form and was intrigued by what was going on. So yeah, that’s how it started. I applied for a lot of different dramaturgy fellowships and apprenticeships, but those positions are really hard to get because everybody wants to read plays. Why wouldn’t you? It’s such a joy! But it was hard for me to break into the industry as a dramaturg. I was mainly doing marketing and communications work. I loved that work, but I also loved dramaturgy and wanted to find a way to bridge the two together. Then the pandemic started, and people were posting videos online talking about musicals. It was really cool to see, but I was like, where’s the conversation about plays? There was so much I wanted to talk about, but I wasn’t in school anymore and everyone felt weird about theatre back then, so I just started posting videos online. The only way I could describe it was dramaturgy, because I was recommending plays and diving pretty deeply into these shows. Dramaturgy was the only word that came to mind, and I’ve just been running with it ever since.

JF: I really enjoy your work. Like when you made a post about plays for people who like The White Lotus. That’s great, because The White Lotus is one of those things everybody’s watching. It’s a portal into another world for people.

GW: Part of what I love about The White Lotus and other HBO series like Succession is how these shows are basically plays. I look at The White Lotus and I’m like, this is Edward Albee mixed with Sam Shepard, at least when you consider the last season. People are consuming plays, they’re just consuming them in a different way. Maybe if we can show these audiences that these plays are still being invented on stage, and the only place where you can imagine them in their full capacity is in a theater, then we can welcome an entirely new audience. That’s a really exciting prospect, and I hope we dive into it more.

JF: I agree. What’s your sense of how people are going to the theater now? Obviously you and I go a lot, but what’s your sense of the general public?

GW: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I always go back to that Fran Lebowitz interview where she says all of the intelligent audiences are dead and gone now. It’s depressing to hear, because in some ways she’s right, but I don’t blame audiences. Maybe that’s an unpopular opinion, but none of us really know how to go into a play. I didn’t grow up in New York City. I grew up in L.A., where the film industry took everything by storm. So I know how to decipher a movie a little bit, but when I started working on plays, that was the first time I was like, “oh, this is what my character is doing.” Then in college, that expanded to, “this is what the play is doing, and here’s how I service the play.” A lot of artists know how to read into plays because of their training, and that’s great. But there’s an entire audience that doesn’t really know how to read into them, because why would they? For me, whenever somebody invites me to their show and wants me to post a video, it’s not necessarily about whether the play is good or not. It’s about what the play is doing and how it’s doing it. If we can do something with that, then maybe the next time they approach a similar play, they’ll have the necessary information or skill set to unpack it. That sounds totally presumptuous. I’m not doing anything major. I’m just a girl with a cell phone! But that’s sort of the way I approach it.

JF: That’s the dramaturg’s dream. I totally get it. And how do people react to dramaturgy on TikTok? You’re big on Theatre TikTok. You recently posted a video filming you on a “date,” acting like you’re a dramaturg on a date. How are people engaging with this art form?

GW: It’s really interesting. Jeremy Strong did us a solid when he said “dramaturgically” in that Succession featurette. So thankfully, more people know what it is. I think a lot of theater people get really excited when I make a dramaturgy joke, because it’s like, “oh, you know what this is,” and “I know what this is.” We have this shared language the public doesn’t totally get yet. What I get excited about is when I post a video about pop culture with the hashtag dramaturgy, and people like my take. They click the hashtag and then see a million videos about different plays or other forms of media they’re consuming. They start to realize dramaturgy can be unpacking a Taylor Swift album or the themes of Melodrama by Lorde. I see so many dramaturgs on TikTok. People who don’t even know they’re dramaturgs. One of my favorite creators is Tell the Bees, who will use his sociology degree to unpack The Real Housewives, cheating scandals, and other pop culture-related things. His videos are really insightful. Whenever I watch them, I’m like, this is dramaturgy. He’ll post a video and 80,000 people will like it. That is dramaturgy, whether people know it or not. Cultural criticism and dramaturgy are all around us. It’s just about getting people to know what it is.

JF: I think you’re a great spokesperson for it.

GW: Thank you.

JF: You’ve done production dramaturgy as well, right?

GW: Yes, and I still do it. I think dramaturgy changes with the room that you’re in. Every single play is a completely different approach. Sometimes, with a new play, the dramaturg is really essential to building it. Sometimes, with an older play, your job is to keep the integrity of the play alive. I remember one time I was working on The Glass Menagerie in class, and I kept saying, “This is what Tennessee wanted, this is what Tennessee wanted.” And the director was like, “Okay, we hear you.” So sometimes it’s about being that voice. Other times, it’s about being a collaborator. I’ve moved chairs onstage. I’ve been in the booth helping with sound. I’ve done it all.

JF: I love that. I love the idea that dramaturgy can be moving a chair. Dramaturgy is a blue-collar job.

GW: Totally. The impossible thing is, dramaturgy is nothing and everything at the same time. It’s really hard to pin down. But for me, the way I approach it is always: what does the play need, and how can I be of service to it?

JF: That’s beautifully said. So, I want to ask about your TikTok writing. How do you decide what to make videos about?

GW: It’s hard. With TikTok, you really need to find the perfect blend between honesty and spontaneity. But you’re also saying words in front of a camera and everybody’s gonna take every single word you say very literally and very seriously, and there are consequences to that. So, it’s a lot, and I think throughout a lot of my videos you can tell how I’m still continuing to figure it out.

JF: Yeah, I’m very excited to see where you take your artistic project, because I think it’s very important. I feel like as Americans, there’s so much untapped potential now for dramaturgy. And so, who knows where we’re gonna go? Because it is one that hasn’t really taken off here. I have my dramaturgy mentors who I look to, and I’m very excited to see how far we can take this. I want to ask you some Dionysian Dream questions.

GW: Amazing. Let’s go for it.

JF: Which playwrights are you most drawn to right now? Who are the playwrights you’re thinking about a lot?

GW: Oh my God, what a question. I really love Daniel Holzman’s work.

JF: Oh my God. Yes!

GW: Yes! I recently read Berlindia, and I was just so energized by it. I’m very intrigued by their work. I also really love Julia May Jonas. I’m excited to see A Woman Among Women return to the New York stage. I think that’s going to be exciting. What she’s doing with her whole series, where she’s taking classic American plays written by white men and subverting them through a feminist lens…I’m just fascinated to see what she does with the rest of them. I saw Problems Between Sisters at Studio Theatre and then A Woman Among Women at Bushwick Starr, and every project she’s worked on, I mean, the way she subverts is so specific and unlike anything I’ve seen. She’s really analyzing these stories from the perspective of motherhood, and I don’t think there are many playwrights unpacking motherhood the way she is. It’s really dynamic. Like Problems Between Sisters was one of the most violent plays I’ve ever seen. You’re watching two pregnant women fight onstage, and when have we ever seen that before? I don’t remember. And it’s not just evocative for the sake of being evocative. It’s a real conversation about what it means to be a woman who wants to be an artist while also having a family, with a sister you’re constantly comparing yourself with. It’s fascinating. Her plays are in conversation with great classic American plays, as they should be, but they’re also great plays even if you’re unaware of their context. But with the added context, they’re even more interesting. So I’m really excited to see more of her work, and I will be seated for A Woman Among Women because that’s going to be amazing.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

GW: Oh, that’s a great question. I really love the Company documentary, which feels like an odd thing for me to love since I’m not necessarily a musical theater girl. But I just love watching those performers approach the mic when they’re about to sing “Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunch,” and their entire body morphs into, I don’t know, like a 6-year-old waiting to open their gifts under the Christmas tree. They just look so elated and present. There’s this intensity they bring to singing in a studio that just feels so theatrical. To me, it encapsulates the experience of being an artist.

JF: It feels like the original Stereophonic.

GW: Totally. I can see that comparison. I also think about My Dinner with Andre. Everyone talks about it, so I’m not unique in that, but I think about that one line Wally Shawn says at the beginning: “I've lived in this city all my life. I grew up on the Upper East Side. And when I was ten years old, I was rich, I was an aristocrat. Riding around in taxis, surrounded by comfort, and all I thought about was art and music. Now, I'm 36, and all I think about is money." And then he launches into this conversation with Andre, where they’re living through art all over again. At my very old age of 27—I’m kidding—I see that with so many of my friends. And I don’t think that’s depressing. It’s exciting that art can continue even if your life or your circumstances change. Being an artist will always be a central part of who you are, regardless.

JF: Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, you’d love to have a night on the town with? And what would you do?

GW: I feel like every theatre artist I’d want to have a night on the town with would make for an incredibly depressing night. But the person who’d probably be the most fun is María Irene Fornés. I feel like we’d have a really fun night together. What about you?

JF: Oh gosh. I’d love to hang out with David Greenspan. He’s a force of nature to me. And going back to Company, I’d love to bring Elaine Stritch back from the dead. She was very influential to me as a teenager.

GW: I love that. And everybody who was part of the original WOW Café! I’d love to spend a night there with all those artists. From all the stories you hear, they were just having the time of their lives.

JF: Yeah, and that’s what it’s about. We’re just trying to have a good time.

GW: Exactly.

JF: And for my last question: what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

GW: I was reading everybody’s responses before and I’m so intimidated by this question. I love American theatre, but I also think there’s a lot of pretension around it. Some of the greatest American plays are the least pretentious, and I want to find a way for theater to continue in that tradition while celebrating it. I love downtown theatre. I think it’s a language a lot of people could understand if we opened it up more. For me, the question I’m pondering is: how do we make this incredibly niche art form more accessible, without sacrificing the intimacy and immediacy of it all? I think my biggest dream for theater is seeing more plays about everyone else. I think everyone else is infinitely more interesting than whatever we’re doing. I think about the plays that came out when I was in college, or right before. It was this golden renaissance of playwriting. Incredible writers developing amazing work. And I think that’s still absolutely happening. But it was so exciting to see how much political work was being produced. People weren’t afraid to program the political, to push the audience, and not just in a formulaic, impossible-to-understand way, but by posing questions we don’t know the answers to or perhaps we’d rather run away from. I talk about Branden Jacobs-Jenkins a lot, but what I love about his work is that he’ll have a character turn to the audience and explain things you might not grasp the first time around. He’s very accessible. He’s never hiding what he’s doing. He’s open, honest, and transparent. At the same time, he incorporates really weird, ancient styles of theater in ways that make sense. So, sorry for the long-winded response, but I guess my biggest dream is to see more plays that can do that.

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Izabel Mar: Hi!

Josh Feye: Hello! Here we are!

IM: Awesome. How are you?

JF: I'm great. Just working my way through the week. I was sick yesterday, but I'm feeling much better today, and I'm happy that we're able to discuss Celine Song’s Family. How are you doing?

IM: I'm good. I'm very much enjoying my two days off. I have done nothing but eat poorly and do chores, which is nice, but I haven't really left my house in two days, which I'm kind of thrilled by.

JF: It's nice to burrow, you know?

IM: That's exactly what it is. I am burrowing.

JF: Yeah, Autumn is coming, so it feels very apt. I'm just so excited to be talking with you, Izabel, because this play is so in your face. I'm like, this is what it feels like being in America. You play Alice.

IM: Yes! Alice is my girl.

JF: She and her two brothers are mourning the death of their father, and that's where the play begins. Then slowly it's revealed that there’s a lot going on underneath the exterior of this family. Which is why we say it feels like living in America. It feels like a mask. But what's different about this production versus when you performed it last year? You're performing it at La MaMa this year, but last year you performed it in an apartment. What are you finding that's different about this production?

IM: Right. Last year, we performed in Alec Duffy’s house, our director, on the bottom floor. It looked like a living room, a kitchen, and a dining space. The play was very literal last year; We took everything at its deepest truth and put people in what I’d consider a familiar environment, like a house. The audience sat in a house, and then we acted in ways people don’t normally act in houses. That’s sort of the basis of horror for that version of the play. We went underneath the floor at one point into a tunnel that led to his basement, where we hung out before the show. We had tunnels, lights, aliens coming down. That was very much that version. When revisiting it this year, Alec said, “I’m not just gonna do the play again.” He needs to be inspired to do work, which I totally get. I have a hard time doing work I don’t feel driven to do. It’s very painful. This time, Alec really locked in once he envisioned the set we have now: a 20 ft by 30 ft American flag encased in a metal cage, we’re in a cage. To me, the biggest difference, besides the setting, is that Family 1.0 felt like an immersive play, and Family 2.0 feels like a rock show.

JF: Yes, I definitely felt that when I was watching it.

IM: That’s great to hear.

JF: And the cage makes it feel like it brings out the animal instincts even more, like we’re spectators watching these people play games with each other. It feels like there are no rules to what they could do to each other. They’re fully uninhibited beings. As you said, it feels like a horror film, and the whole time I was also thinking about gothic Americana and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

IM: Love that. I think a lot about dog fighting, illegal underground boxing rings, cage matches, and survival of the fittest. It’s a freaky thing to witness. From inside the cage, it’s really hard to understand. It’s been complicated to understand what the play looks like from the outside. I want to know, but I don’t need to know. I’m really enjoying my time inside the cage. It’s cozy; we took naps during tech on the flag inside the cage. But from the outside, I’m curious what people will take away. Most of our team has been working on it for over a year. Alec asked me to read the script in February of last year. We all know inside and out what this play means to us, even though there’s no end to discovery. It’s hard to explain when you’re not doing it. My roommate sometimes looks at me like I’m crazy when I talk about it. Once, I was talking about hope, and she said, “I think this play is really hopeful.” I was like, “Excuse me?” And she said, “This is a group of people trying to leave their situation, even if they cannot. None of them succeed, but it only matters if we have hope that they will.”

JF: Because there is a scene where Alice tries to leave.

IM: Yeah, she does.

JF: That’s why the play feels so real. These people don’t have the skills to break something traumatic for them.

IM: Very good point. Nobody’s helping them. They don’t know what it’s like out there. They don’t have any skills. They weren’t taught and never figured them out for themselves.

JF: So it’s easy for them to be stuck in the spiral of what’s happened to them. I’m curious: each of the kids has a different mom. Why do you think they all have different moms but the same dad?

IM: Great question. Really interesting. I’ve been thinking about this more this time around. If you take the play as a larger metaphor for America, which I think is very present, then the father is America. We’re the offspring. Last time, when I’d bring that up, some friends agreed and others said they didn’t see it. This time, on a giant American flag, it’s hard to ignore. But the mothers are still unclear to me. I’ve thought about it, but I have no concrete answers. I think having the same father—America—means we’re all born of this violence. But the mothers? I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it and have no answer.

JF: That’s why it’s such an interesting piece of theatre. It’s disorienting, but in a really good way that makes you keep asking “why.”

IM: Yeah, disorienting is awesome. That’s something we wanted. It’s a disorienting time to live in.

JF: You and the ensemble (Luis Feliciano and Jonah O’Hara-David) play off each other so well. I’m curious, why do you think Celine Song is drawn to the triangle?

IM: I love this. And so is her husband, whom I met at opening night last year. They’re both so lovely. I think trios are fascinating, it’s the perfect number to play conflicting goals and needs. On a technical level, it’s useful—you always have A, B, and C, plus the different pairings and groupings. There are so many possible dynamics. Also, love triangles are great.

JF: It gets devastating at times, the way Alice and Linus treat David because of who his mom is.

IM: It’s really hard to do every night. Easier once you’re in costume and lights, but during fight call, I’m always like, oh no.

JF: I can only imagine how hard it is to detach from that.

IM: Yeah.

JF: How do you feel about playing Alice?

IM: I mean, I love her, and she's my girl. I think that she is very much a victim of circumstance, but also… I don't know. It's so interesting, because I'm like you can't… I guess I'll say what I say about everybody, myself included, and like, you know people my friends date who I'm like, they kind of suck. But it's not her fault that she is the way she is; it is her responsibility. And she doesn't really do anything with that. In fact, she turns around after pretty much having an opportunity to get out and do something different, and she can't do it. For reasons I understand, but maybe don't respect. And she decides to continue the cycle of violence instead.

JF: Do you think that she's scared of what her life would be like if she left?

IM: That is really interesting, because we were talking about this in tech, when we were working on the lighting for when that cage opens, and it was like lights and sounds. It’s sort of a glowing area that she is unfamiliar with. I mean, I think yes, she's scared, but I also think sometimes when you come from something that is so deeply fucked up, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

JF: Yeah.

IM: Like whether or not it's better out there. Will they accept her? She has a face on the back of her skull and is like a feral animal who doesn't bathe. From the outside, we all know it's better. But if you lived your entire life in a cage…

JF: Right. And it's sad that the comfort comes from the violence. But that feels like what America knows so well. America only really knows how to push forward. I've been talking about this a lot because of the anniversary of 9/11. But it's interesting to me that in Japan, when the atomic bomb was dropped, they created Butoh. But after 9/11, we created memes, you know?

IM: Yeah, like more racism, and we're all gutted and rotted creatures now.

JF: There's no transcendent art that came out of it; no new art form was born after that time. Now everything's just cynical. People are ironic about it, detached from any kind of feeling.

IM: Yeah.

JF: It's a weird experience, a weird time to be living. But that's why Family is such a great play, and what great theater does. It puts the grotesque thing, the thing we don’t want to look at, like incest and violence, on the platform for us to contemplate. I'm really happy that you guys brought it back and that I got to see it.

IM: I'm so happy you came to see it. I think I agree. There was something scary about doing it the way we are this time around, something very acutely made me nervous. In a lot of ways, like you said about how people treat 9/11 and memeify it, that aspect of our inability to take things seriously made me nervous. And then, from the other end, the political complication of the criminalization of how we are treating the American flag also made me nervous. How I ended up moving through that was just to be like, all right, fuck all of you people, I am doing this. I'm attacking this with the most honesty and the most anger I have for the way everybody is acting, the frustration I have with the way things are going. Some of it is “fuck you guys,” and some of it is “come on, check this out.” Something about a mirror and confrontation. But yeah, it's a hard world to be in right now. All we can do is make art that we feel matters.

JF: Celine Song wrote this play back in 2014 from when she was a student at Columbia University.

IM: She wrote it as a thesis project, and Justin was her dramaturg.

JF: Okay, incredible! And why do you think her plays feel so wild and uninhibited compared to her later films?

IM: That’s fascinating.

JF: I’m sitting here like, when is A24 gonna ask her to write the horror film we know she can do?

IM: That’s a good question. I hope she does. She’d kill it. My take is she looked at film as an opportunity to explore a medium to its fullest. Endlings and Family are clearly meant to be staged. You couldn’t do Past Lives onstage. It’s about the subtlety of a touch, a look. She’s playing with mediums. Theatre is for scale and immediacy; film for intimacy. That’s my guess. But I hope she does a weird movie.

JF: Yeah, seeing this play, I was shocked this is the same person who wrote Past Lives and Materialists. But now that I think about it, Materialists has absurdity and darkness, so it makes sense.

IM: She’s a secret freak, I think.

JF: Yeah, I like it.

IM: It’s iconic of her.

JF: And the movement—going back to how Family needs to be onstage—it’s very physical. I saw that Dan Safer choreographed it. How much was created by the trio and Dan, and how much is in the script?

IM: I won’t say we do nothing from the script, but we moved away from a lot of it. The script doesn’t detail the violence, just lines like “Linus hits David” or “Alice destroys the flowers.” So we created the physical score. Movement feels very vulnerable to me, but Dan was helpful. I’d say, “I want to do something like this,” and he’d give me some movement language to try. We also worked from photos: Frankenstein, Snow White, and women’s boxing. Dan would say, “Create a movement sequence with these elements—kicks, punching, flying, falling.” We’d bring in movements, then shape them into dances. This time, we’re just in a cage, so the score is shaped by that. I don’t think this play could exist without all the elements: the set, movement, lighting, sound, and us. Alec tied it all together; he really created the perfect team. It’s come together in a way I wasn’t sure it would, though I felt confident because last time went so well. Even then, I tried to quit halfway through, and Alec said, “You can’t quit.” I said, “What do you mean I can’t quit? I’m doing a terrible job.”

JF: Oh!

IM: And he was like, you can't quit. And I was like, OK And then, yeah, so this time around, I was like, let's kill it.

JF: That's the RuPaul inner saboteur coming for you. And thankfully, Alec had saved you, you know.

IM: He really did, and what a blessing he is for that. It was very funny. I did try to quit, and I don't know, I trust myself a lot more this time around.

JF: I want to ask some fun questions. What do you love most about theater in New York?

IM: Oh, there's just such a range. You can see anything. Even the worst plays in New York are better than the best elsewhere. There's something for everyone; the absolute crazy range of performance you can see in New York on any day is immense. I've learned about new theaters, new projects, and new spaces literally every day.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

IM: A favorite film? Oh. Epic question. High School Musical, maybe? I said that as a joke, but we're going to double down on it. Love High School Musical, literally cannot think of another movie about theatre at this moment.

JF: I'm right there with you on High School Musical. That was my childhood.

IM: Yes, it's excellent.

JF: It's all about pursuing your dreams and not allowing people to put you in a box.

IM: Yeah, and how theatre is worth the risk.

JF: Yes! What are you most proud of?

IM: In general, or in this play?

JF: However you want to interpret the question.

IM: Okay, fair. I think I had a revelation, after years of therapy: the goal in my life was never to be the perfect person, but to be a brave and resilient person. I don’t feel like that all the time, but with this play, I feel proud. Proud of the work I've done, and of the journey this play has taken over the last year and a half. Alec wrote us lovely little opening night notes. mine was like, “Izzy, you're a monster, so dedicated to this work. It's amazing.” That's paraphrased, but I felt like, yeah, I was kind of a monster about this fight, but that was the best part. Literally, one of Alec's notes right before the audiences came in was, “Be a freak tonight. Let us see the freak a little more.” That was really freeing, to have a space to do that and be confident enough to say, yeah, I'm going to be a freak.

JF: It's really hard to be seen in reckless, careless abandon. I totally understand the risk of letting go of that voice in your head. So my final question: what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

IM: I think that all theaters, if they have funding, should be taking more risks. Everyone says theatre is dying, and that's correct, because nobody's making interesting, daring work. We're playing it way too safe. Morals are not theoretical. Morals are something to be lived. Art, to me, has always been rooted in morals, values, justice, and all that jazz. If the American theatre is going to survive the next three years, let alone longer, people need to get more comfortable being uncomfortable. Take more risks. There's a lot of boring theatre. I'm sick of seeing boring theater. I'm not going to say anything because I might offend someone. I don't need to see True West again. Okay, actually, True West is a terrible example, because it's a really good play. I don't know what I'm trying to say. I don't need to see Blithe Spirit again. I think we're good on Blithe Spirit. Let's do something else. Let's do something fun. The old people who donate money and are on boards are actually kind of cool. That's why they're on the boards of theaters. Let's give them something cool to see.

FAMILY runs at LaMaMa through September 28th.

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Josh Feye: Hi, Ryan. How are you?

Ryan Czerwonko: I'm doing better than I've been in a really long time.

JF: Yeah? Oh my gosh, why do you say that?

RC: Well, we went on two retreats in a row, to Hudson and to the Hamptons, darling, so I just feel like a different person.

JF: I love it. How so?

RC: The feeling started in Hudson, but it really settled in in the Hamptons. I don’t know, I just feel a sudden sense of peace about certain things, and a lot of things with my physical body and my mental state are integrating. Things are feeling sort of synchronous. Plus, I was just in the sun, eating, going to the beach, swimming in a saltwater pool, drinking wine, and having a wonderful time with my friends and collaborators.

JF: That sounds heavenly.

RC: It was.

JF: That actually makes me so happy, because knowing the trials and tribulations of your production of Sea Gull, it is great to hear.

RC: Well, it’s also interesting because now we have a rough cut of Chekhovian, the documentary about the making of our production of Sea Gull. They’re trying to get it down to an hour and a half, but we all watched it in the Hamptons. It’s amazing, but it was fraught. This process on The Cherry Orchard hasn’t been without its challenges. It’s an indie theater, nothing’s easy, but every problem that has occurred has been an artistic answer we were waiting for, not the volatile, surprising problems we had with Sea Gull. Everything unexpected in this process has felt like, “Oh yeah, of course that needed to happen.” Like, someone in the cast just dropped out the other day, so I decided to make the character a ghost.

JF: That’s Interesting. I was going to ask, do you feel like the people you’re collaborating with now are in sync with you more?

RC: Yes. What happened before had its own kind of syncopation. Sea Gull is about theatre people and all the problems, joys, and challenges they face, things that were also happening to us in real life. Plus, we were making a documentary about those things, so whatever happened, we’d think, “Well, it will be good for the documentary.” That created a fragmented artistic product, which in a way was perfect for that play, because Sea Gull is about that kind of chaos. Everything we struggled with reflected the story. This is different. It’s calmer.

JF: So what are you doing differently in the process from Sea Gull to your latest production of The Cherry Orchard?

RC: There have only been two cast changes throughout the whole process, which is great. In Sea Gull, only four people remained from the original cast, and we recast six other parts with about 14 different actors total. At one point, we had three Trigorins in one week. With The Cherry Orchard, the cast has been stable, and it’s made up entirely of people who were either in the final Sea Gull or who are students at Adult Film. Back when we did Sea Gull, the company was just starting. We didn’t know as many people and didn’t have as deep a bench. Now, even if someone dropped out, I could name ten others who’d love to do the part. That’s created a relaxation that wasn’t there before. We’re also working with a much larger budget, and we know the parameters of this crazy space we’re in. My specific artistic process hasn’t changed, but the scale has. Certain elements we played with in Sea Gull—video projections, dance, anachronistic music—we realized we’d have to quadruple for The Cherry Orchard. I didn’t want to rely on melodrama like in Sea Gull. The Cherry Orchard is much more anti-climactic. Megan Metrikin, who plays Ranevskaya and who played Arkadina in our Sea Gull, is a lifelong Fellini obsessive, as am I. There’s also this Russian director, Nikita Mikhalkov, whose films blend Russian and Italian sensibilities. That’s what I wanted for this, very maximalist, surreal, dreamlike, with ideas exploding against the simplicity of a set that’s just six chairs. I believe The Cherry Orchard is a comedy, and that Chekhov should be fast. I’m not interested in the tired “crumbling aristocracy” line; I’m interested in love and sex. Lubov means love, and I think she’s a woman hurling herself after love, destroying everything in her path, including the orchard, doing it for love.

JF: This is the second year-long Chekhov production with Adult Film. Is this becoming a larger narrative for the story of the company?

RC: Yes. I’d like to do all of the major Chekhovs. My sensibility, love, fun, sex, music, dance, physical acting, and works for Chekhov, and I think it could work for Tennessee Williams and others. But with Chekhov, it feels like the foundation of what acting should be.

JF: I interviewed you early in the process of Sea Gull, and we talked about the broader culture at that time. The pandemic had changed people, and there was a sense that the general public was curious about the inner world. Where does The Cherry Orchard fit in all of that?

RC: When I started this, I was inspired by Nikos Psacharopoulos at Williamstown, who did multiple Chekhov plays with the same actors over many years. I wanted to see if anyone could do this for a year in our fragmented modern world. The answer is yes, even if it doesn’t look like I thought it would. In the time since deciding to do Sea Gull, there have been countless Chekhov productions. Since starting The Cherry Orchard, there’s even been one at St. Ann’s Warehouse. I didn’t see it; I didn’t want it to influence me. We move slowly because we want to, and because we have no money. At one point, I doubted whether it was worth it, with so many other productions overshadowing ours. But then I realized that the madness of our rehearsals, retreats, and performances is priceless. I think Chekhov elicits a kind of madness no other playwright can, and that matters more than anything outside. This project reinforces why I’m doing it. If we do all the plays over many years, it doesn’t matter what else is happening; we’re in it for the long run.

JF: It’s a commitment to something bigger than yourself.

RC: Yes. For me, Chekhov is like my Bible, deeply connected to love, spirituality, and sex. It’s not about success. We sold out Sea Gull, and I’m not worried about selling this out. Our audience is hungry for our take on it. Our madness is catching on, and sharing that with the audience is what matters.

JF: Do you think Adult Film is becoming a theatrical institution in the city?

RC: I can’t tell how people see us, but I know we’ve developed one of the most interesting acting student communities in New York. We’ve done plays in many styles and spaces, Cowboy Mouth in a tiny room, The Cherry Orchard as a 12-person extravaganza, Cemetery Soup at The Brick, which was abstract and experimental, and Lucy Thurber’s Where We’re Born realism. We’re growing quickly. I don’t know if that makes us an institution. What do you think?

JF: I think people have expectations now. When I think of good acting in an intimate space, I think of Adult Film.

RC: Good acting plus the flavor of the material, yes.

JF: Will that change how you operate or talk about the group? At first, Adult Film felt antagonistic, like, “If you’re not going to cast us, we’ll do it ourselves.” Now people know you, so it feels different.

RC: I still think the act of creating any of this is inherently antagonistic, even if I never meant to underline that. We all want to create constantly, and we live in an unfair ecosystem we can’t control, except in how we treat each other and follow through. The energy has shifted, maybe smoothed out. The people this has brought together now have deep friendships, trust, and familiarity. That was lacking before. There’s more possibility and creativity now, and maybe some angst has been replaced by love. We have a sense of self and strength independent of institutions. We’ve still been mostly ignored by the press, so there’s more proving to do. It’s hard to grow without star names or big money, a catch-22. But I don’t focus on that. I just want to do better work and keep the group about people helping each other. The work comes out of that.

JF: It’s a sign of how much the company has grown. And it’s interesting to reflect on making theatre now that there is some distance from Covid.

RC: I feel like that lasted until 2024.

JF: Really? I’d say early 2023.

RC: Maybe. I guess I’m talking about the last dregs of it. Well, I mean, I still feel like it was very… like the process we were doing in Sea Gull was so… man, I don't even know how we… it just felt so moored and so fragile and so disparate. And now it feels like there’s a much stronger platform and container for it. But it was a strange, strange time.

JF: Yeah, it was very strange. But we made it out. I feel like I see the light now.

RC: I do too. Oh my God, I remember feeling so… even when I was starting the group, that’s when, kind of bringing it full circle, I feel better now than I have in a very long time. Even though something was spurring me and other people on to get the energy to start creating this stuff, it was a very dark time. Very confusing, extremely restrictive, and polarized. That’s why it felt antagonistic, because at that time, the social media madness, the groupthink… it felt like you were going to get your head cut off if you did anything counter to what the mob was saying. Even something as inoffensive as doing a play.

JF: Right, and yeah, there was just so much tension in the air.

RC: And I don’t feel that anymore. I also feel like online has lost its power in a lot of ways. Not entirely, but that peak madness of 2021–2022, I just feel like people are back to caring about their own lives a bit more, instead of each new group crisis.

JF: That definitely feels like what this summer has been. There’s not even a song of the summer.

RC: Yeah, Charli XCX was the end of all of it.

JF: Exactly!

RC: I feel like everyone’s a bit more relaxed now, and maybe people are doing things out of enjoyment and pleasure in a more holistic way, which I definitely am. I know it’s really stupid, but I read that “Let Them” book.

JF: I’m not familiar.

RC: Oh my God, it’s this ridiculous self-help book. Basically she just writes the words “let them” about 400 times. Like, 50% of the book is the words “let them.”

JF: I love a good self-help book.

RC: Me too. I’m not judging it. But, you know—you can’t control what other people do. You can’t control your career. You can’t control what people do online, or who writes what. It’s really just about the integrity you have with the people literally in your life. I feel a much stronger sense of that now.

JF: I love that, Ryan. Can I ask you some fun questions?

RC: Sure!

JF: Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, you’d love to take out to dinner or have a night on the town with?

RC: I mean, Nikos Psacharopoulos. Yeah, or wait, maybe my second choice…

JF: I figured you would say Elaine Stritch.

RC: Oh yeah! Who’s some terrible slut or something? I don’t know. Elaine Stritch is a good one.

JF: I feel like you and Stella Adler would also have a good time. Do you have a favorite film about the theater?

RC: Opening Night.

JF: Yeah.

RC: I know that’s the boilerplate answer for everybody, but… I haven’t watched Children of Paradise in a long time, and I rewatched it recently. It was amazing.

JF: Aw, yeah, it’s so good!

RC: Another really good one is Bergman’s After the Rehearsal.

JF: I’ve never heard of that one. Is it on Criterion?

RC: I think so, yeah.

JF: What’s your favorite Madonna album?

RC: My favorite Madonna album? Probably Like a Prayer is her best… no, no, no—my favorite is Erotica.

JF: Oh, good choice. Yeah, that whole period—Erotica, Bedtime Stories, and Ray of Light is absolutely perfect.

RC: Like a Prayer is probably her masterpiece, but… I like all of them for different reasons. Before Hard Candy, of course.

JF: I was literally just listening to “Give It 2 Me” earlier.

RC: That’s Megan’s song. I mean, Megan’s a lifelong Madonna obsessive. We always said it’s Madonna’s The Cherry Orchard.

JF: Ahhh! I can’t wait. Okay, and for my last one—what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

RC: Well… what was that book from Robert Edmond Jones?

JF: Oh, his book of lectures, Towards A New Theatre!

RC: Right, and that quote you sent me where he says something like film is the future of theatre.

JF: Yes, using projections to express the inner world.

RC: Right. I just did this play, Our Class, with the Arlekin Players and Igor Golyak in Boston, and he does similar things with projections, kind of ripping the play apart to tell it in a more abstract way, but still leaving room for grounded, expansive performances. That was really inspiring to see someone farther along working in many of the same ways we do. So I guess just continuing to lean into that. I want actors, people who do both theatre and film… The future of American theatre is blue-collar actors with interesting faces. A mix of different kinds of people—really, for real. And I think the future of American theatre is a focus on the person, the artist, the performer, the actor.

Adult Film’s production of THE CHERRY ORCHARD runs September 18th- October 12th at Rutgers Presbyterian Church.

Follow Adult Film on Instagram.

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Josh Feye: Hi, Andy. It's Josh.

Andy Boyd: Hi, Josh, how are you?

JF: I'm doing well. How are you?

AB: I'm doing all right.

JF: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me about your play Pentheus. I just read it and I loved it. I was so taken with it, and since this is The Dionysian Dream, it feels very apt that we talk about Pentheus and Dionysus and what you've done with this myth.

AB: What I’ve done to this myth, yeah. Desecrated this story.

JF: Well, you’ve taken the story of Pentheus and Dionysus but sort of peeled back or revealed what might be going on in their dynamic. Pentheus wants a pussy, but has to keep presenting this masculine persona, and has to deny it publicly.

AB: Yeah, it imagines a situation in which someone finds themselves in that type of dynamic. It required vast leaps of imagination for me to get there, of course.

JF: So, where did this play come from?

AB: It really came from seeing a production of The Bacchae at NYU. I teach a class at Hunter College. Like an introduction to the arts class. And we always read part of The Poetics, and then part of George Steiner’s Death of Tragedy. It’s hard for students to wrap their heads around what these theorists are talking about if they haven’t ever seen a Greek tragedy, which there aren’t many opportunities to see. They don’t get produced very frequently, despite being the foundations—or maybe because they’re the foundations—of the Western tradition of drama.

JF: Right.

AB: They also have a reputation for being old-fashioned or conservative, which I don’t think Euripides’ plays are at all. I think his plays are incredibly experimental, weird, queer, and unsettling. You get a real sense of his personality in a way you don’t with the other two big tragedians. I feel like when I read Euripides’ plays, I get him. Maybe that’s just me projecting. But especially reading or seeing The Bacchae, I thought: this person has a similar relationship to hegemonic authority as I do. A deeply conflicted relationship. And I think there’s always an urge, when people approach The Bacchae, to sanitize it—especially Dionysus. But Dionysus is out for blood. He wants to be worshiped, and if he can’t be worshiped, he’ll kill you. He’s essentially a cult leader. There’s a desire to portray Dionysus as simply that which gives you access to your deepest desire, and I think he is that—but with a huge caveat: as long as you let him run your life.

JF: Exactly!

AB: You can be on this mountain full of beautiful naked women, but the catch is you’re not allowed to leave. That’s a pretty big catch. So making The Bacchae about believing in yourself or giving voice to your deepest desire is, I think, a misreading, because it ignores the central tension of Dionysus as a character. So in my play I added Tiresias, who appears in many ancient plays. His story of being turned into a woman and then back again—that’s canon, though scattered across texts, not really in The Bacchae. I loved the idea of Pentheus desiring to be a woman and then turning to Tiresias, like, “Oh wait, you did that. How did it work out for you?” Framed this way, the tragedy is that Pentheus prays for her deepest desire but gets the wrong god. That’s something that can happen in a polytheistic culture—you’ve got to pray to the right god.

JF: I always think about this quote from Camille Paglia where she says, “The Dionysian is no picnic.”

AB: Exactly. It’s even unclear why Dionysus shows up. He has a historic connection to the place, being born from the bloody, flaming stump of his mother as a demigod. But the ambiguity is productive. People often think Pentheus’s desire for femininity is occasioned by Dionysus. Euripides even implies it—intentionally poorly, I think—that Pentheus is under some enchantment. I just don’t buy it. Gender transformation and identity transformation are everywhere in classical mythology. The idea that someone would desire to be a radically different type of person doesn’t require enchantment. In Greek and Roman mythology people are constantly transforming. So the idea of a young boy looking at what manhood means in his society and saying “No thanks” feels plausible to me. That was my way in.

JF: I’ve always understood that when someone transforms into femininity, it brings a sense of clarity to their story. In your play, Pentheus finally reaches the height of what she wants and then realizes she prayed to the wrong god—she’s not where she’s supposed to be. It’s fascinating, and it’s also very funny the way you’ve written it.

AB: Thank you. I needed it to be funny. I’m always trying to write things that are funny, and I find Pentheus’s particular form of self-hatred very funny. Part of the dialogue the play has with the culture is complicating the idea that transition gives you a sudden clarity, like “Now I’m the person I’m supposed to be.” The play suggests, “Yes, do it—absolutely transition—but it might not solve all your problems.”

JF: Right.

AB: I transitioned late, just last year. Part of writing the play was imagining what an early transition might have been like for me, maybe even convincing myself there are benefits to figuring out some things before messing with gender. And that was a big source of humor in writing the play: Pentheus thinking, “I want this so badly. I get it. Great, everything’s solved.” And then discovering it’s not solved at all. There’s a tragic but hilarious dynamic in that. There’s even a moment in Euripides where Pentheus dresses as a woman, comes out into the courtyard, and asks Dionysus, “How do I look?” And Dionysus basically says, “You look good, but I have a few notes.” It’s so sad—heartbreaking, really.

JF: Yes.

AB: The notes are arbitrary: a curl out of place, the wrong hand holding a staff, a hem not hanging right. It reminds me of a part of transitioning you don’t see portrayed much. Sp many random people feel empowered to tell you how you should present. That dynamic is so fraught. Sometimes it’s wonderful—cis women friends giving me old dresses or favorite books that helped them find their way into their version of womanhood. But then when it's unsolicited, it can be can be so condescending and so infuriating. So I think that's part of what, and that's, you know, I mean, hat's part of what's so sad about that scene for me. It's just that... just, and then it's in the Bacchae too, like how much Pentheus is just like, “Okay, I’ll take it… I’ll do it, I’ll do what you say.” Like having so little confidence in her own command of her identity, I find so sad. But also incredibly relatable.

JF: And it also kind of gets very horny at times.

AB: Oh, Sure. Yeah, it's very horny.

JF: Which I wasn't expecting, but I guess I should have been because it is all part of the Dionysian revelry. I just wasn't expecting it because the horniness felt like it was coming from the desire for Pentheus to have a pussy.

AB: And that's where the play, you know, starts. Like scene one, Pentheus is praying to Zeus for a pussy. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, this is a complicated thing to talk about. But like, the idea that trans women are motivated by a sort of autoerotic fixation on our own bodies is considered an outdated and offensive idea most of the time. And I’ve never quite known why. I’m like, clearly that’s part of it, right? I mean, maybe it's not for you other girls, but I feel like desiring a body that you can yourself desire, or that you can conceive as desirable, is so clearly central to being trans. I think. I mean, I don’t know, like, again, maybe not for others. And it's been hard for me in terms of my own issues with my body. But having a different relationship to sexuality, to me it seems like—or at least in my experience of transness—it’s been really central. I think that has to do with wanting to be desired. But I think it also has to do with not wanting to inhabit certain forms of sexual roles. Not wanting to be dominant, not wanting to be in charge. And I think that feels really connected with not wanting to be male. Not wanting to assume a position of power—whether sexually, socially, or otherwise. That feels really central to an experience of not wanting maleness. I feel like this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately because, you know, I'm obviously not a man, and I have no desire to be a man. And at the same time, there's clearly something going on with men that is not good. You know, like this whole performative male thing. Like have you seen this?

JF: Yeah.

AB: This is just when a man reads a book and likes matcha. Like the range of gender expression offered to men, especially straight men just seems so incredibly narrow. And it seems narrow in a way that's enforced on all sides. It doesn't seem like anybody wants men, especially straight men, to express their gender in any more expansive or fluid way. I don't know what to do about this.

JF: It’s interesting because back in the day, when Marlon Brando was in his prime, Camille Paglia points out that part of his allure was a kind of bisexuality or androgyny about him. Like Marlon Brando could be very masculine, but there was also a sort of femininity within him as well. And it just kind of feels like it’s much more rigid these days to be a man. And it’s sad that we don’t have any good Hollywood actors anymore—because they’re not allowed to be different.

AB: Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah, I know.

JF: And that’s why I’m really glad you wrote this play, because I feel like it does sort of shatter that taboo of talking about desiring a different body and how that can be intrinsically wrapped up in sexuality. I’m very grateful that you did that in this play, because that’s what great theater and great writers do: they put these taboos on the platform and shatter them, or at least bring them into the light. So I feel like you do that in this play. And the play reads very fast. So I’m very curious how long did it take you to write? Because when I read it, I feel like it was shooting off the hip—

AB: Yeah, I know. I wrote it in Fresh Finder Productions’ writers group, and I think it took about three or four months or so to write it. I’m not sure. But yeah, it looks like I started it in February and then finished, and I think I sent you the play in June? Is that right?

JF: Yeah.

AB: Yeah. I wrote it somewhat quickly. Some plays I do a lot of research for, and I have other plays where I don’t do any research, and this wasn’t a research play. So in that sense, it was quicker.

JF: Were you inspired by Theater of the Ridiculous? It feels like there are elements of that in this play.

AB: You mean like Charles Ludlam? Yeah, or like Theater of the Absurd. I’m sort of in the world of downtown experimental theatre, so I feel like my biggest influences were just my contemporaries. Like Target Margin Theater—I love them and see all of their stuff—and they’re a big influence on this play. But yeah, going further back, definitely Theater of the Absurd, queer theater like Ludlam, and like the weird Tennessee Williams, like Camino Real. That stuff is definitely in there in a big way. Obviously, I love The Glass Menagerie, but there’s certainly more Camino Real in this play. I wasn’t thinking super consciously about influence, but yeah.

JF: I was looking at your list of plays, and you have another play called Bitch, A Play About Antigone. Do you think more writers should be drawing from ancient Greek plays?

AB: That’s such an old play. But sure. I mean, I’m not out here telling people what they should do, but I think those plays are great. They should certainly be reading them.

JF: I’m curious, because your play, like we’ve said before, Pentheus gets what she wants and then realizes it’s not actually what she wants, and the rug gets pulled out from under her. That’s a common theme in ancient Greek tragedies that feels missing in a lot of contemporary storytelling.

AB: Yeah, for sure. I mean, under capitalism, the default narrative is: pursue what you want, you’ll probably get it, and then you’ll be happy. That’s the structure of a contemporary play. Whereas Greek tragedy is different. Steiner’s view was basically that there’s this untamable spirit of chaos and heartbreak that’s inherent in the world. Whereas Aristotle’s thing is that there’s a tragic mistake that leads you astray. But Steiner’s thing is: no, you were astray from the start. There was never any hope for you. Which actually makes sense for more Greek tragedies. If you try to apply Aristotelian logic, you’re like, “Wait, what’s the tragic mistake here?” Steiner’s perspective is: this person went wrong by being born. That’s The Bacchae. You have desires, and that’s sweet, but they’re going to eat you alive.

JF: And that’s why it’s maybe the best Greek tragedy.

AB: Maybe the best play, period.

JF: So I want to ask you some fun theatre questions. You studied with Lynn Nottage. What was the best piece of advice she gave you?

AB: On one of my plays, Osteorados, she told me to end it ten minutes earlier. It was great advice. A lot of her feedback was like that—situational, about a line or character—not prescriptive “how to write a play” stuff. She also taught a class called "The American Spectacle," where we visited sideshows, megachurches, and murder trials, absorbing them as plays. It was amazing, because it pushed me to think about what events could be theatrical besides two people talking on stage. And she was incredibly supportive. I was 23 when I started grad school, but she spoke to me as a colleague and peer. That was incredibly affirming.

JF: Is there a theatre artist, living or dead, you’d want to have dinner with or spend a night out with?

AB: Euripides. You can find out what Tony Kushner thinks about anything, he’s been interviewed plenty. But I’d love to hang out with Euripides. Spend a weekend with him, show him Derek Jarman, bring him to Bushwick. I think he’d be down.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?

AB: I always told people All About Eve was my favorite movie for years. It’s astonishing. Nobody’s gay, but everybody’s gay. Also, Derek Jarman’s Jubilee. Maybe not exactly about theatre, but theatrical.

JF: Would you say you’re drawn to maximalism?

AB: Maybe I’d like to be. I’ll aspire to that.

JF: And for my final question—what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

AB: Hm. I don’t know. I feel agnostic about it. For a while, the dream was: have a hit play, then write for TV. But I don’t know anyone who really watches TV anymore. It doesn’t feel central to culture the way it used to. I’ve always suspected writing for TV is a kind of exile. And now, when I talk to people who do it, they mostly seem miserable. So yeah, I don’t know. Theatre should be something you can make a living at. But I don’t know how to do that.

A public reading of PENTHEUS will be presented at The Tank on August 24th at 3 pm.

Follow Andy on Instagram and check out Andy’s website here.

Daniel Holzman: Hey, Josh, is that you?

Josh Feye: Yes! Hi, Daniel.

DH: Hi! How are you?

JF: I'm doing well. How are you?

DH: I am just fine. I'm on the train back to New York.

JF: Oh, nice!

DH: Thank you for bearing with all my travel-related nonsense.

JF: Oh, of course, anytime. It is that time of year where we're all traveling. I actually just got back from a trip myself, so I totally get it. I'm glad that we’re able to connect because I got to see Berlindia! right before I left, and I feel very lucky that I got to see it. I mean, you’ve created this world where nothing is what it seems, and places are constantly changing, and people aren’t what they seem. Which kind of feels like what living in New York is like.

DH: Uh-huh, totally. It kind of just feels like what living in the world is like now.

JF: I know, I agree. So, when did you start writing this play, and what was the impetus for writing it?

DH: I started writing it in 2019. I was in college, studying in London in a playwriting program, and I wrote the first draft there. It’s hard to know what the exact impetus is. For me, writing plays is often a combination of many things. The dream that the dad has at the beginning, where he outlines what’s going to happen later, was based on a real dream I had when I was coming back from Berlin the year before. In the dream, my best friend from childhood found out his dad was living in this giant club. I wasn’t even thinking of that as the story when I began, but it found its way in. I was far from home, so I was thinking a lot about that. Many of the things that feel potent now, like the place moving, just emerged without a specific reason.

JF: Was Noah Latty, your director for this production, always attached to the project, or when did they come into the process?

DH: I met Noah on the first day of college. We went to school together. In 2019, I was in London, and when I came back, I was supposed to direct a workshop of Berlindia! at school. Noah was in my class and was also directing another project. We were both talking about our pieces. Our show was supposed to happen on March 21, 2020, and of course, it didn’t. Instead, I had a reading with my real family playing as ourselves. A couple of years later, I decided I wanted to do the play for real. It was something I felt precious about, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. About a year and a half ago, something changed, and I knew Noah had known the play for a long time and wanted to direct something. It felt like a good fit and that it would be fun, because for both of us, it was the biggest thing we’d done so far. We wanted to work with as many talented people as possible and push ourselves into a new world.

JF: I found Noah's staging very unique and fun. My favorite scenes were the phone call scenes with Dad. I loved the way that place didn’t seem to matter. It made it even more trippy to watch.

DH: Yeah, Noah did a great job making space not matter while still having a logic to it—an illogical logic. For example, in the dad scenes, he suddenly appears in the room with them even though he’s supposed to be in New York and they’re in LA. It makes no logical sense but feels emotionally right. In the airplane scene, Burger flips her chair around to talk to Ms. M, which you can’t do on a plane, but it worked perfectly. Someone told me after the play that when they saw that chair flip, they knew there were no rules in this world, which was the perfect cue for the chaos to come.

JF: It felt like a contemporary Alice in Wonderland.

DH: Totally. Lots of Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz influences. It’s a classic type of story in the tradition of weird classics.

JF: I feel like that’s exactly what we need right now. Nothing makes sense anymore, so living in an Alice in Wonderland-type of world feels right.

DH: That’s good to hear. I wanted to make something that represented how things feel without being a direct metaphor. The weirdest things in the play reflect how destabilized I feel all the time. I think absurdity is something everyone shares right now.

JF: What’s the most psychedelic experience you’ve had in the theater as an audience member?

DH: Oh, that’s a great question. Do you have one?

JF: Right now, I’m thinking of Psychic Self Defense at HERE Arts Center.

DH: Normandy Sherwood! I missed it live, but watched the video on HERE’s Vimeo. It was incredible.

JF: Any time you add puppetry or fabric…

DH: Totally. Two things come to mind. First, Joan of Leeds, a fringe show I saw in London while writing Berlindia!. A handmade rock opera about a lesbian medieval nun. Everything was made of cardboard, and the backdrop was a shower curtain. Three-quarters through, it opened to reveal a full, realistic modern kitchen. There was a wordless 10-minute sequence showing her trapped in domestic boredom, and making toast until it rotted before escaping. It was never acknowledged again. Second, The Comeuppance by Brandon Jacob-Jenkins. At the end, a character plays a sound only younger people can hear. One by one, you look around and watch as each audience member descending in age order (and in some ways order of dying) stops being able to hear the sound. Then the lights go out, and they play “Graduation (Friends Forever)” by Vitamin C. I left feeling devastated and inspired.

JF: Okay, that’s incredible. When you write, do you consciously aim for the psychedelic, or does it just happen?

DH: It just happens. I try to make myself laugh or cry when I write. I talk out loud, say the lines, and work myself up until I find the right words. When I was younger, I sometimes felt the impulse to “weird it up,” but I’ve learned it’s better to let it emerge naturally.

JF: You’re an Aquarius, right?

DH: I’m a Virgo with an Aquarius moon.

JF: That’s interesting. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication, so being a playwright feels cosmically right.

DH: I kind of agree. I feel very at home writing plays.

JF: Well, what drew you to the theatre initially?

DH: I loved theatre growing up, but I loved film more as a kid. I started writing plays in high school because it was easier to make than making a film. Eventually, I realized I felt most comfortable writing plays. Reading plays like Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is, where the text on the page is used to create imagery, showed me how free the form could be. In college, I read two plays a day for a year, which gave me a solid base.

JF: In the script of Berlindia!, your sister, Neena, did illustrations. How involved were you in that process?

DH: Very involved. We were inspired by Shel Silverstein. After the original production was canceled due to COVID, we decided to turn the play into an illustrated object. My sister is a painter, and her work has always been part of my plays. We read the script together, and when she felt moved to add an image, she did. Some text in the play also gets “animated” on the page. We haven’t done anything as illustrated since, but her work always appears in some way.

JF: I love the multimedia approach to an actual script. It kind of reminds me of Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner. I hope everyone reads the play.

DH: Thank you.

JF: Before we wrap up, because I gotta go try to get Shakespeare in the Park tickets, I have a couple of fun questions. Have you heard Madonna’s new album, Veronica Electronica?

DH: Not yet, but someone told me about it recently.

JF: Okay, it’s very Berlindia! It’s her Ray of Light album reimagined as EDM techno. It has spiritual lyrics with high-energy beats.

DH Okay, I’m in.

JF: Do you have a favorite film about theatre?

DH: All That Jazz is on the top of my head. You know what I kind of love? Have you seen Hamlet 2?

JF: No, but I remember seeing trailers for it when I was a kid.

DH: It’s one of those movies. There’s a particular genre that my best friend Nigel and I watch all the time together. He’s an actor, writer, and director. These are movies that aren’t necessarily very good, but they’re about the theatre, and because of that, we enjoy them. We watched Me and Orson Welles recently, and I thought, Who is this for? Other than us, sitting there watching it on Tubi. Oh, also, the documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened about the original run of Merrily We Roll Along. That one is one of my favorites.

JF: And lastly, what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?

DH: Oh my God, just… more good plays. Maybe that sounds like a stupid answer, but I was talking about this with a friend of mine recently. We were talking about doing Berlindia! and then my friend Kallan Dana’s play Lobster, which was also produced recently at The Tank, and was amazing. We realized both of those plays were just plays. They weren’t trying to be anything else, just really good plays. And it feels rare that we get that, something that’s simply embracing the form without trying to morph into something else. I have no negative feelings toward other types of shows, but I’d love to see the downtown scene really embrace good plays, in all shapes and sizes. I wish I had something more specific to say, but honestly, I just think that would be great.

Follow Daniel on Instagram.

Stephee Bonifacio: Oh, hello! I'm sorry I declined your call earlier. It said "spam risk."

Josh Feye: It’s all good. Yeah, it’s weird with the recording app I have. But hi, Stephee! How are you?

SB: I’m good, how are you?

JF: I’m doing well! I’m really excited to be talking with you because when I saw you posted Just Kids on your story and you mentioned you’re reading it in preparation for Cowboy Mouth at Adult Film, I got so excited. That book is so special to me, and Patti Smith means a lot too, so I’m so happy to be talking with you.

SB: Oh, I know, me too! It's been so fun to share this love for her and the book with others.

JF: Did it make you cry like it did me?

SB: Yes! I’m not quite done. I'm trying to time it so I finish right around opening. I think I’m about halfway through now, but I know I’ll rip at the end.

JF: Yeah...

SB: And I didn’t know anything about Robert Mapplethorpe before. This is kind of my introduction to Patti Smith, too. So when I got to the part where she references him dying, I just started weeping. I had no idea.

JF: It’s such a devastating read, but so rich and worth the grief. In the book, Patti said writing Cowboy Mouth with Sam Shepard felt less like writing a play and more like creating a ritual. Is that something you're exploring in rehearsals?

SB: Definitely. The script has so many games the characters play to connect, and each game has specific rules. It's been really fun figuring out where those games are, what the rules are, and when they're broken. We're definitely playing with that.

JF: Who are you playing in the play?

SB: Cavale.

JF: I'm not super familiar with the script. What’s it about?

SB: Yeah, it’s just Cavale, originally played by Patti, and Slim, originally played by Sam, plus a lobsterman. I’m playing Cavale, Chris Martin is playing Slim, and AJ Molder is playing the lobsterman. The three of us formed a band together, and we’ll play a set at the end of the show. The story is basically about the deterioration of a relationship. Technically, Cavale kidnaps Slim off the street at gunpoint to turn him into the next rock 'n' roll savior. While he's in captivity, they fall in love. The play takes place in a hotel room they’ve been in for an undetermined amount of time—they don’t even know how long. Cavale is described as a dying crow, and Slim is a cat who thinks he’s a coyote. And both are described as “mean as snakes.” There’s something so childlike in the way their emotions swing between extremes because of all the games they play. It’s such a fun show to work on. Exhausting, but fun.

JF: I know it’s described as an absurdist play. Have you done a lot of Theater of the Absurd?

SB: No, I haven’t. Maybe some scenes in college, but this process is mostly brand new for me. That’s probably why I’m finding it so fulfilling.

JF: And you mentioned starting a band. What’s that been like?

SB: It’s been such a joy. I’ve been writing songs since I was eight. Not big ones, but it’s always been for me. I gigged a little in college to make extra money, and I even sold a song last year, but that kind of happened by accident. It’s always just been me and my guitar. But Chris, when we started dating, heard my songs and started drumming on them, and it was so exciting to hear how much bigger they could be with other instruments. Then, when we started talking about this show in September, AJ was teaching herself bass and said she’d play with us. We joked at a party about starting a band, and then when the show came together, it all just worked.

JF: It’s always funny how something low-stakes at first can become something magical and real.

SB: Exactly! All the stuff we’d been talking about just came together at the right time. I didn’t go to a big college with a fancy theater program, I just got to do a lot of plays, which I was happy with. I didn’t study Sam Shepard much. But do you know Catherine Spino?

JF: No.

SB: I met her through Adult Film. She’s a wonderful writer and actor. She put together a night of Sam Shepard readings for his birthday and cast me and Chris to read from Cowboy Mouth. That was our introduction to it. I hadn’t even heard of the play before that.

JF: I remember that! I think the first time I met you, you were about to do that reading.

SB: Oh yeah, that’s true! I was working at the door at Expensive Imagination. But that’s how the show came to us, and from then on we were like, “We should really do this.”

JF: What have you been drawing on to build the show? What’s been filling your creative well?

SB: Reading Just Kids during the process has been amazing. Patti mentions so many people—I give a whole monologue about Johnny Ace, I talk about Nerval and Genet—all people I was unfamiliar with. So I’ve been reading Nerval’s poetry, learning about Genet, and listening to Johnny Ace’s music. It’s opened up my world, and there’s just so much to take in.

JF: Just Kids is like a portal into a New York that doesn’t exist anymore.

SB: Yeah.

JF: Do you think New York could ever regain that sense of freedom? These days it feels like you always have to be super professional, like everything’s LinkedIn-ified. But back then, they didn’t know what they were doing. They were just going for it.

SB: Yes.

JF: Do you think we’ll ever get that back, or is it gone?

SB. I think about that a lot. I feel like that kind of freedom still exists. It just exists in pockets. It’s about surrounding yourself with good people who aren’t trying to compete with you, who truly just want to create with you. It’s about finding your people. And I still think one of the best places to do that is New York, even if it's not in the mainstream. I believe it still exists. At least, I hope so.

JF: It does feel like Adult Film is a theatre group that aspires to that sense of freedom, that reckless abandon that once existed in New York.

SB: I’m really grateful for the community I’ve found through Adult Film. It took me about three years of living here to feel like I had a community of artists who inspired me, who made me want to create and collaborate. It’s been wonderful. I keep meeting more and more incredible people. It honestly feels like a gift to be making art in New York right now.

JF: So, how did you find them?

SB: About a year and a half ago, I took an on-camera audition class with Maria Dizzia.

JF: Incredible.

SB: She completely rocked my world. I went to a small college, so I never had a real acting class taught by someone who was actively working. Everything I had before was either theoretical or theatre history. Being around people who were trying to work, or already working, and being taught by someone like Maria was so exciting. I just kept coming back. Every class I took was wonderful, and eventually, I just stuck around.

JF: Whenever I see you on stage, I’m always struck by how fully present you are in a scene. You bring so much of yourself to what you’re doing.

SB: That means a lot. Thank you.

JF: How do you get there? How do you find that place? It’s really compelling to watch.

SB: I really love being a student. I love taking classes, working, and having places that feel like acting gyms—where I can just show up and work out that creative muscle. I try to practice as much as I can, just because it feels good to be doing it. I think the biggest transformation I’ve had in the last few years is learning how to be in my body. Like most women, I’ve experienced trauma, and it can be hard to fully inhabit your body and take up space. That might sound cliché, but it’s real. Being around artists who inspire me, who build me up, has helped me feel more capable. Doing Alexander Technique also really helped me become more grounded and present physically. I'm obsessed with acting. It’s all I want to do and all I feel like I can do, so I’m committed to figuring out how to be decent at it.

JF: What does theatre mean to you?

SB: Wow, that’s a big question. Honestly? Everything. It’s the one place where I feel safe and truly myself. It’s where I can quiet the noise in my head. It’s also about community and bringing people together to share stories and create empathy. That’s always important, but especially now. If you can get people in a room and make them witness something, even if it’s not their own experience, that’s powerful. People have really lost touch with that. So yes, theater feeds me personally in a very selfish way, but I also think it’s deeply necessary for the world.

JF: People really do underestimate theatre. There's so much competing for our attention, and people often think theatre isn’t for them. But it is. That’s what I love about what Adult Film is doing. They’re showing people that this is for them. It belongs to them.

SB: Absolutely. Adult Film gave me agency in my own art. We did a reading of a Sam Shepard play and then said, “Let’s just do it.” You don’t have to wait for someone else to give you an opportunity. You can take charge of the work you want to do. That’s so empowering.

JF: Alright, let me ask some fun ones. Do you have a favorite film about theater?

SB: Oh man, probably Moulin Rouge. I could say something like Opening Night, which is amazing, but honestly, Moulin Rouge is the one that really moved me. I saw it when I was 16, and I’ll never get over it.

JF: I think they’re playing it at Metrograph this week.

SB: No way! That film had such a huge impact on me. Baz Luhrmann’s maximalism is so rare now. And the way the movie goes from this huge spectacle to something raw and tragic. It’s brilliant.

JF: I remember watching it as a kid. The sexuality went over my head, but I was obsessed with the musical numbers, especially “Sparkling Diamonds.”

SB: I have a clip of me in high school performing the “Like a Virgin” number. I dressed as Zidler. I wore this old red wig and performed it a cappella in my theater class. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being embarrassed about it.

JF: No, that’s beautiful! That’s the kind of kid energy we need to hold onto. It just reminds me of that scene in Just Kids where the old couple sees Patti and Robert in Washington Square Park and says, “They’re just kids.” I think about that all the time. Just being young and having fun.

SB: Reading that book has reminded me that anything is possible. Even though it’s hard here, it reignited my romanticism around art in New York. It came at the perfect time; right when I needed that inspiration.

JF: Which playwrights are you drawn to?

SB: Mostly women. But I’m definitely about to go on a Sam Shepard kick. When something piques my interest, I dive all the way in. I’m not super well-read in terms of classic playwrights. I work hard, but I don’t have a huge repertoire. I did The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood in college. I love her writing. We also just did some of Tennessee Williams’s early one-acts. I love his work. It always moves me, no matter how “basic” an answer it might be.

JF: I don’t think Tennessee Williams is basic at all. He’s incredible—and I think we’re still discovering the layers in his work and trying to absorb what he was trying to show us about life.

SB” Totally. We did Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen, and I grew so much from that. The monologue I had was this manic fantasy where my character lives out her life until death. Some of the most beautiful lines I’ve ever read are in that piece. I feel that way about all his writing.

JF: He’s such a great poet. Have you read any of Tina Howe’s plays?

SB: No, I haven’t.

JF: You should! Especially if you’re into absurdism. She’s known as the American Ionesco. She taught at Hunter College. Her work is zany and very fun.

SB: Amazing! I’m adding her to my notes right now.

JF: Okay, for my last question, this is one I love to ask everyone that I interview: What are your dreams for the future of American theatre?

SB: That it never dies. My personal dream as an actor is just to not have to have a second job. I just want to act, do music, write, make art, and be able to pay my bills. I want that to be enough. For theater more broadly, I hope it stays intimate and community-driven. I want it to stay accessible and inclusive. I hope it continues to build community and foster empathy. I just want it to be a home where all people feel like they can belong.

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Cowboy Mouth runs at Adult Film NYC June 27th- July 4th.

Josh Feye: Hi, Matthew, it's Josh.

Matthew Antoci: Hi, Josh. Oh my God, I always forget my ringtone is Melissa Gorga's On Display—so 2010s Bravo.

JF: That's amazing. I haven’t kept up with the Housewives, but I loved watching the New Jersey and Beverly Hills franchises in middle school. I’m excited to talk with you because you’re one of my favorite performers. And we’ve been mutuals on Twitter and Instagram—we’ve kind of orbited each other for a long time.

MA: Yeah, you’ve come to two of my shows—or more—and I still haven’t shaken your hand or looked you in the eye, have I?

JF: No, we haven’t looked each other in the eye.

MA: Josh, why are you so elusive?

JF: Whenever I go see a show, I like to go in, experience it, and then get out. For me, it’s a spiritual experience. I want to sit with it by myself. Then I’ll message you afterward and tell you how I felt.

MA: Whenever I see a DM from you pop up, I’m like, “Oh, goody.” Now I have someone engaging with the show in a thoughtful way. It’s been a joy each time.

JF: Oh, Matthew, I appreciate that. MEOW!, which premiered at the Exponential Festival this past winter, was one of my favorite plays of the season.

MA: Thank you.

JF: And you and Meaghan Robichaud played raccoons at Grey Gardens.

MA: Yeah, we did.

JF: How did you decide Grey Gardens was the space to explore the decline of experimental theater in New York and America? And how did raccoons become the lens for that?

MA: In 2023, we originally applied to a festival with a totally different project. Meaghan’s cat had just died, and we were going to make something about resurrecting her dead cat. We’d just finished our first show together—I AM MY OWN MILF—which had a team of about five, realized we worked really well together, so a duo piece felt like a natural evolution. We were just going to throw stuff at the wall and see what stuck. At the time, Meaghan had a movie theater in her apartment in Prospect Park—PPLG. We’d go there to rehearse, and after about one and a half sessions, we realized the project was bumming her out. I like starting from a place of established culture, or an unexpected or "uncanny adaptation"— which can range from starting from a song, a person in culture, an aesthetic, a viral tirade, etc. Adaptation is not a perfect term, but close. Anyway, I suggested Grey Gardens because we were already talking about cats, and there are so many cats in that film. Meaghan hadn’t seen it, but she knew Jinkx Monsoon’s Snatch Game version. So she watched it, and something clicked. We made a 20-minute version in 2023, and our theatrical vocabulary then was very “yas gawd,” RuPaul’s Drag Race, rap-verse, snaps and all that. Then, a year and a half passed before we found out we were doing Exponential. We’d grown, lived a little, expanded our cultural and theatrical taste, and had worked together but in different ways. And we realized there was something deeper in the piece about decline. Everyone around us kept saying, “Theater is dead. The underground scene is dying.” We wanted to collide that narrative with Little Edie’s story—her trajectory of coming to New York in the ’80s, her sense of dislocation.

JF: It felt like an end-of-life celebration. It was wild and funny—and honestly, it was exactly what I needed during that awful cold January. It really helped me just… live in that world. And the camera work was fantastic.

MA: Suz (Murray Sadler) is amazing. We were so lucky to have them in the room throughout the development process. I’m really proud of the camera work. Once we realized we were working in a documentary framework, we leaned into that. We were inspired by cinéma vérité—the idea that the content dictates the form– and so wanted to emphasize the hand-held cam, improvised dialogue, and seemingly mundane tasks creating something bigger. We also didn’t use a big Isadora setup. Suz would put a hand over the camera lens to make a cut, or we’d lower the dowser we made with a pulley. That kind of liveness really excited me.

JF: I love that.

MA: Yeah. Anyway...

JF: I’m curious what you think about all the live film used in a lot of productions lately: The Picture of Dorian Gray just opened, and they called it “cinematic-theatre.” Robert Edmond Jones said that would be the future of theatre, using film to project characters’ inner lives. Do you want to keep exploring that kind of work?

MA: My projects tend to, in part, be a response to the project I did right before—I like keeping my artistic voice a little slippery. I’m an Aquarius sun and a natural contrarian. I would never want to be “the person who does live-feed theater.” That kind of over-obedience to a cohesive artistic adhesion—especially in larger companies—has sort of led to their decrease in significance over time, right? To me it’s very natural that artists have wildly different interests across mediums - I want to be able to make dance-theater with no video at all, or a three-act play. I want the freedom to change. So no, I don’t think video is essential or this grand key to unlocking 21st century anything. But for the past year and a half, the two projects I worked on needed it – MEOW! and Babies on the Street. We live in a world of constant surveillance, a world full of screens—so it feels natural to bring that into the theater when it fits. But I don’t think the theater needs screens to be progressive.

JF: Have you seen The Last Bimbos of the Apocalypse yet?

MA: Not yet! They might be among my favorite people making theatre right now. I’m so excited. I’m seeing it on May 15th—Seussical Day—”on the fifteenth of May, in the jungle of Nool.” That’s the date, right?

JF: Maybe. I’ll be curious to hear what you think. A lot of the show takes place online, but there are no screens. It’s such a fresh turn for Patrick (Foley) and Michael (Breslin). It’s incredible.

MA: I know they’ve been working on it forever. I’m so excited.

JF: So, what do you love most about theater in New York?

MA: Oh, surprise! I would say... well, I guess that's not really specific to New York itself. I also love showing up at the theater and unexpectedly seeing someone I didn’t know would be there. I love seeing something that genuinely pulls me out of my seat. It’s about surprise—that’s why I go all the time. I savor that moment of thinking, “I didn’t know someone could do that,” or “I never thought about something that way.” I’m a part of The Brick’s curation team, and right now we’re at the end of the ?! New Works festival. Each night, four or more artists present pieces under twenty minutes. And in every one—well, almost every one—there’s this moment of, “What was that?” (Lorde.) A little seed of risk. I love it. It's almost my favorite thing to see each year because you get it in four different ways. Sometimes I’ll go to an off-Broadway house and not even get that once. I really love the feeling of constant surprise. It’s also great for my fried attention span. I do require consistent entertainment.

JF: What do you hate most about theater in New York?

MA: People hoarding resources at the top. Also, closed-minded curation. There was so much promise in that season at Playwrights Horizons with Alex Tatarsky, Milo Cramer, and Ike, and I thought more theaters would follow that lead, giving downtown artists who’ve been doing work for years the space and support they deserve. But it hasn’t really spread to other organizations the way I hoped.

JF: Yeah, this season felt kind of off. I don’t know. Ryan Hadid’s new show was the first show at Playwrights Horizons this season I saw because nothing they programmed seemed that appealing to me.

MA: I think it's natural for organizations to avoid risks when they’re financially unstable. But is any theater doing financially well? The only one I can think of... well, I probably shouldn’t say.

JF: Alright. So, what have you been dreaming about lately?

MA: Great question. I’ve been daydreaming about lasers. I saw a laser performance and haven’t been able to get it out of my mind—I want to make something using that medium. I’ve also been daydreaming about Scandinavia.

JF: Why Scandinavia?

MA: Because Americans often prop it up as a progressive ideal. Especially American leftists. But when I was there, I had a different experience. There’s this “law” in Norway—it’s not really a law, more like a satirical list of principles—but the people embraced it seriously. It's called the Law of Jante. Have you heard of it?

JF: No.

MA: It’s basically a ten-rule code that embodies the Scandinavian mindset of not standing out. The first rule is: “You are not special.” And many Scandinavians embrace that. I find that idea—set against these dreamy fjords and serene landscapes—really compelling. I’ve been watching a lot of Oslo travel videos, and also the film work of Joachim Trier who made “The Worst Person in the World,” which sort of amaze-bored me with its emptiness.. I’m not sure how it’ll all manifest creatively yet.

JF: That’s really interesting. So, what are your dreams for the American theatre?

MA: Sigh my dreams? That there are enough resources to go around. That there’s no need for illegal spaces—because they wouldn’t have to be illegal. I dream of a shift away from academic institutions being seen as the sole indicator of artistic quality.

JF: Mm-hmm.

MA: And I want more people to be able to make theater for a living—without day jobs. I want more government funding, but with less oversight. If you read Helen Shaw’s piece in The New Yorker, I would love for maybe the past 30 years of deteriorating foundational funding to be reversed. The shifting priorities of these big institutions like Mellon and Doris Duke, and the other one to be reconsidered. Those would be my dreams.

JF: Those are wonderful dreams.

MA: Thank you. It always comes back to that, right?

JF: It does. It’s weird, because of America’s puritanical roots, the fine arts are always going to be struggling here.

MA: Never-ending.

JF: It’s a constant battle. And there’s so little arts education—people don’t realize how interconnected theater is with religion, paganism, and so on.

MA: Yeah, totally. It’s hard. And honestly, I could say I want more theater aligned with my taste, but even the stuff I don’t like deserves to be paid. Everyone deserves that.

JF: Yeah, we need the bad theater too—to make sense of what’s good.

MA: Exactly. I went to a panel at the Segal Center about festivals—curators from all the major New York festivals were there. Meghan Finn said something that really stuck with me: after 2020, spaces like The Tank and The Brick started doing the developmental work that big off-Broadway theaters stopped funding. Our generation, mostly zillennials, is now self-producing and building our own support systems. That’s why we’re hearing such vibrant new voices. It’s out of necessity. The institutions didn’t let us in, so we made our own paths – as obviously so many of us before us did, too. I could name so many people doing this work. We always find a way. I’m a delusional optimist, and part of my practice with Meaghan is convincing her to believe in that delusion. Despite everything, we’ll figure it out. Sometimes, watching a play in someone’s living room feels more urgent—like they spent everything just to make it happen. I wish we didn't have to, but that also hasn’t stopped this incredibly vibrant arts scene from booming. I feel like there’s so much to see and everyone’s doing something, despite the lack of resources.

JF: Yeah, and I want to start finding like... industrial garages.

MA: Yes!

JF: Where are the theater artists performing in those spaces? I don’t know how to find them. If you do, please send them my way.

MA: A great, often under-celebrated resource is the Instagram page performanceart_nyc. You’ve probably seen them. They post lists of performances—they’re out there documenting everything. I’ve met them a few times, and they’re the sweetest. What they’re doing is a serious archive of a particular moment in New York performance history. They take the work seriously—acknowledging and preserving what happens daily, which most people don’t. I’m sure there used to be listings in The Village Voice or whatever, but now, this is kind of what we have. And they’re amazing. If you’re looking for warehouse shows, start there.

JF: I’ve been seeing more Wooster Group shows lately, and I’m just... I’m totally inspired.

MA: I know—yes, Wooster-pilled.

JF: The abandon they have when they perform—it's just so good.

MA: Yeah, I saw the Foreman they did—

JF: Oh, Symphony of Rats!

MA: Yes! Oh my God. You can just feel the hours and hours behind it. That kind of conviction onstage—it’s attainable, and it’s everything. Just having that kind of presence and commitment—that’s half the cost of entry to my heart.

JF: For my last question, who or what are your biggest influences?

MA: Oh my God. Well, we already talked about Fake Friends—they’ve been really valuable mentors to me. I met Meaghan and James La Bella through workshops at Celebration Barn, and that’s where I found a lot of my core collaborators. We all came together under their guidance. They’re just so aggressively contemporary and brave, and have pushed me to be unapologetic and bold – I could go on. To me, they’re one of the most important theater companies working today. Beyond them, honestly, I was raised by Lady Gaga. Everything you need to know about my work is in her—in Born This Way, in her ferocity. I used to perform the VMA Paparazzi routine in my underwear. I’d put my foot on the piano, and my brother—who I shared a room with when I was young, would be like, “Mom, Matthew’s doing something weird again.” But that performance—that sincere bizarreness, that “This is who the fuck I am” energy—it’s deep in my DNA. To value supreme confidence above all. A hot mess presented confidently sort of makes the mess itself gorgeous. Like, when she screamed into the camera during Killah on SNL, that was everything to me, my spine vibrated. Pop music in general is a huge influence, especially how it’s structured around eras. Before you hear a second of music, the story’s already been told through marketing and visuals. Charli XCX with Brat is such a great example and she talks about how she’s thinking about marketing and performances while she’s making the music, which is similar for me. Lorde is just starting to signal a new era, too. I think of all my projects as eras. For me, marketing is a part of the authorship. I’ll spend hours on Canva—though I really should learn Adobe—because I want you to feel the show just from the graphic. So much theater marketing is stale and corporate. I love guerrilla-style promotion. We once rented The Tank rehearsal room, took 300 pictures in two hours, and that became the backbone of our show’s story to the audience. That’s a big part of my practice—being inspired by pop, the work itself prioritizing rhythm and working on an emotional level before cerebral, and by how pop stars present themselves in interviews during their eras. I imagine all the prep that goes into that. Like, “Okay, bring up David Bowie in this interview because that’ll help people get what you’re doing.” I try to mirror that—how I speak publicly about the work is part of the work itself.

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