November 26, 2023 • 55 mins
Isaac Mizrahi chats with Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner, Michael R. Jackson about why getting rejected by Liz Phair was the best thing that happened to him, the invaluable advice Judith Light gave him, his unforgettable dating experience and more.
Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Michael R. Jackson @thelivingmichaeljackson.
(Recorded on October 24, 2023)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Darlings.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I have a few shows coming up, firstly at Cafe
Carlisle on November twenty eighth and twenty ninth. The show
is called It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Isaac,
And in case you didn't realize, that's going to sort
of be like a little holiday show, So it's going
to be totally fun. My band stories I'm gonna regift
because it's around the holidays and I need to make
(00:23):
room for my new.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Regifting, So there's that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Also, I have another show on December one in Stony Brook,
which is in New York, and that's going to be
really fun too. Please go to my website Hello Isaac
to get tickets Hello Isaac dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Finally, I did make contact with this fair to ask
for permission to use these songs in the musical, and
she said very kindly no, And she wrote in the
note to me, I didn't ask the Rolling Stones to
lend me their songs. I use them for inspiration to
write in my own I advise you to do the same.
This ended up being like crucial advice because even though
(01:04):
I really loved those mashups and thought they were cool,
her telling me through this letter that I needed so
God really focus on writing my own music to make
the piece ended up being like crucial advice. Oh my God,
I used and I was like, Okay, well now I've
got to like figure out how to wow like my
(01:26):
own truly my own musical engine. And I think a
lot of great songs came out of it as a result.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi and
in this episode I talked to Pewett Surprise and Tony
Award winning playwright, composer and lyricist Michael R.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Jackson.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Hello, Isaac, It's Michael R. Jackson. I can't wait to
mix it up.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I was on a panel that was set up by
New York One to talk about the theater and one
of the people was Michael R. Jackson, who I just
couldn't wait to meet, and we kind of had this
weird connection on that panel and I made a mental
note like if I ever get a chance to talk
to Michael R. Jackson again, it would be like such
(02:20):
a pleasure. And anyway, I invited him to be on
the podcast because I'm just such a big fan and
I feel like he has a lot to say about
stuff that I value that I love a lot, things
like the theater, things like art and culture and New
York City. Anyway, not a minute to waste. Let's get
(02:40):
right into it, Michael RT.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Jackson. What a pleasure to be talking to you. I
am a gigantic, gigantic fan.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Of yours, as I am of yours, Darling.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Okay, I'm gonna start off with this one question, and
you just slap me if you think it's it's something
you don't want to answer.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
How old are you, darling?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I am forty two years old.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Forty two years old. I'm so fascinated by your generation.
You have a lot of responsibility. Man. You have a
lot of scary shit in the future, and you're dealing
with a lot of scary shit from the past.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Let me ask you a silly thing. Do you go out?
Do you go to like clubs? Do you go to bars?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I don't, I'm a total homebody.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Did you ever? Did you ever go out?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
When I was in my twenties and I had just
gotten to New York because I got to New York
as an eighteen year old, I tried to do that
to the extent to which I was able to, but
I was pretty miserable with it. It was not my scene, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I mean, like, it's weird because I don't really know you,
but I know so much about you based on some
of the stuff in Strange Loop and like what I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Oh, you think biographical?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
You think you know, not out of biographical but self referential.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
For well, so far, darling, you're batting like you know
one hundred percent of what's in the show, right, But
I do wonder about that because you're an artist, right
And for me as a young artist, I mean, I'm
from New York City and it was scary for me
going out too, you know, but I did it. I
did it a lot, and I did it as like
(04:23):
a teenager, like a fourteen year old I was going out.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Well that's sort of how I feel like when I
sort of look back on my life, and I like,
I've had so many conversations like this with other gay men,
specifically who are older than me. And I've been having
these conversations since I was twenty two years old, where
they were like, go out kill yourself, that's crazy, window
(04:50):
fuck everybody. And I like look back on like, oh, yeah,
I should have done that. But the thing I always
think is yes, but I needed to have started doing
that when I was eleven.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Exactly like what I did.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I'm serious because by the time I was like in
my late twenties and early thirties, I was like, yeah,
going out him over it. But I will say, I'm
telling you this, I don't know. Do you have like
a relationship in your life? Do you have like a
significant other?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Argument a lone madder. I'm a lonely spinster. I did
just go on a hilarious date. I didn't want a
date for the first time in a long time the
other day that was very nice but had a very
funny ps to it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, you want to tell us about it or what
I wanted.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
To date with this guy who I met on tender
hinge one of.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The two of those and nice, I like it or
read it.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And then it was a nice date, but like because
I hadn't been out on a date in a long
like a long time, in the moment I was thinking about, like, oh, well,
how do I feel about this? And how I felt
about it had nothing to do with him. He was
like a nice guy, but I was like in real
(05:57):
time sort of sorting through my what do I want
or need or whatever. And part of our conversation we
were talking about like what the experience of being on
apps was like, and I mentioned that one of the
apps that I was on was Riah, and I told
him that, like Riyah, I hate it. It's like so antisocial.
(06:18):
It feels weird, Like the one experience I had on
Riah literally ended up being a hookup with someone and
I don't like it. And I was just trying him
how it worked. And then after the day we sort
of parted ways. And then the next day I was
watching a movie and I checked my phone and on Riya,
you have to get recommendations from people to get on there,
(06:40):
and he asked me for recommendation. Oh that is amazing,
which just felt like so like that and that is
my That is like in a nutshell my life. That
is like like so I'm Michael R. Jackson experience.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Except here's the thing, like you're from a generation where
you might remember before apps like my I do. I
don't have any of those apps on my phone. I mean,
I'm a happily married guy, but you know, I would
never know how I would feel crazy me.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I mean, I don't know how. I mean. That's the
thing about it is, like you know, I do remember
for the apps, and like I like, I remember like
going into bars and I was like terrified, terrified. But
it was because again, like I didn't have any like mentors.
I didn't have a circle of friends to tell me
what to do or to do positive reinforcement or anything.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Any people just never do. But yeah, go, But I feel.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Like whenever I look back on in like the sixties
and seventies or whatever, and I hear people like that,
you found your tribe, you figured it out. But like
I like arrived from Detroit, Michigan to New York City
in nineteen ninety nine, and I had no one. I
literally had no one.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But I want to say, like, you know, as a
gay person growing up in Brooklyn, New York, amongst Hausitic Jews,
I had no one either. When I moved to the city,
I was twenty one years old. I was working at
Perry Ellis. I met some people and I was terrified.
I was working at Jeffrey banks You know Jeffrey banks Is.
He's a great designer, a great American designer. And one
(08:20):
of the other assistants, this darling young man, was like,
you're coming with me to a gay bar, and I
was like, I am, you know, And I went with
him to Uncle Charlie's, and like you said, it's like
you walk in and you feel this intense kind of
bond with these people, and though you don't want to
fuck every single one of them, or like even meet
any of them, at least you feel like you're in
(08:41):
a place where you are right somehow.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
As opposed to like a crazy big old.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Sorts thumb or someone on an app swiping left or
right and then going to meet someone who looks like
something on a picture and then looks completely different in
person and is completely different.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
From what they write.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
And there was another to mention of this for me,
which was that coming from Detroit, weirdly, I actually did
have a group in Detroit. Like I always called it
the black a teenage storyline, because like I grew up,
like there were all of these boys like all over
the place, and like there was this whole sort of
underground Melrose Place situation going on where everyone was just
(09:21):
sleeping with everyone, and one day these people were dating
and then the next day that other people dated. It
was like a whole thing. But even within that, I
felt on the sort of outside of it because I
didn't have like free reign to run around the way
that they did, Like my parents sort of kept close
tabs on these, so I couldn't like sneak out of
the house or things like that much. And so then
(09:44):
like I left that to then go to New York City,
And when I got to New York City, it was
like a different culture. It wasn't like black ay boys.
It was like very white, and that was something that
I really had to like wrap my brain around, and
it took me many years to like figure out how
(10:05):
to even navigate it. And even then I was like,
oh my god, I hate this so much. Like the
scene of it and like the culture of it was
so not really what I was interested in. But I
like quote unquote had to assimilated to it and then
like assimilating to it like all the feelings that come
along with that. And so then I went through that,
(10:28):
and then I got to a point where I hated everyone,
and then I just wanted to kill all the way
hey man, just wanted to stab them and their fucking eyes,
and like rick their throats out and toss them in
the Hudson River.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, me too, you know, for other reasons.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Sure, but like and so then that was a whole thing.
And then I found like my friends. But then by then,
like the app world was starting, and then that was
a whole new thing to figure out.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Right right, a whole new thing, just downloading the fucking apps.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
And then PREP and then like just so many things,
like new things.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Oh honey, Prep, I can't even are you kidding me?
Prep is never going to be in my world never
never will never prep, darling.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Never.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I mean, we'll see, maybe I'll get there. Eventually.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
You will get there. If you have to get there, darling,
you will get there. So let's start from the very beginning.
Let's talk about you as an artist. Where'd you go
to college? N YU, of course, And what did you
major in at NYU? Did you major in playwriting or acting? Well?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I ended up focusing on playwriting, but broadly it was
dramatic writing.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Dramatic writing. Wow, that is so broad I can't even
believe that.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Do you think that your education prepared you for like
the adult world that you live in?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Now? Well, to backtrack a little bit, I was very
focused on writing from like a young age and all
through my high school year, I took creative writing as
my elective. And then on top of that, we had
writers and residents come into our creative writing class who
(12:09):
I worked with. And then one of those writers and
residents also did a private writing workshop outside of school
that I took for like two years. And so I
came to NYU even though I hadn't been focused on playwriting,
I like was very much like I want to be
a writer professionally. Like that was like always on my
(12:30):
mind from like age fourteen.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Was it a novelist you wanted to be? Was it
a journalist?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I wanted to write for soap operas?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
God, Darling, I thought I was shallow. I thought I
loved you. Now I really loved you. Are literally like
some like crazy teenage girl or something.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, in a way, in a way, it's great. It's great.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Me too, me too, by the way, you know, anything
glittery or dramatic or mellow dramatic. By the way, Darling,
I love melodrama. Yeah, it's my favorite, my favorite of
all things.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It's pretty great anyway.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So you came to NYU, and you studied dramatic writing.
And then did you have a well, I know you
had a job. You had several jobs, and I.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Did some of everything, some of.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Everything, and you continued to push forward and write stuff
and get involved.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
What made you decide to become a theatrical or a playwright.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
So, you know, as I mentioned, I was really into
soap opera writing, and my plan was somehow I would
become the head writer for One Night to Live. That
was like going to be what I was going to do.
And so I interned at all my children in the
production office. I intern at ABC daytime. Like I was
very focused on that. But because I was in school,
(13:49):
you know, I was taking my playwriting screenwriting classes and
they would send us to the theater a lot. And
also I had grown up doing children's theater. My mother
and I used to go and see show so I
loved theater, but I developed more of an appreciation for
it in New York going to see Broadway, off Broadway,
(14:09):
experimental theater or whatever you know we would see, and
then taking my playwriting classes and reading plays. I just
started to fall in love with theater and with play
plays and musicals specifically, and so even though I still
had this idea that I would do.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Was there one that you saw?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I mean, there were so many, but the one that
I often reference is the Brian denn Key Death of
a Salesman. Really yeah, that like had a huge impact
on me.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Michael R. Jackson, this is so surprising. You know, Sandra Bernhard,
She's one of my best best friends.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I love I love Sandra Bernhard so so so so
so so so so munch.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Well, who doesn't, who doesn't. I don't know if you
know this.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Her big inspiration when she was a little girl was
seeing Carol Channing and Hello Dollies.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Which I never saw until Bette Midler. I had never
seen it until Bete Miller was in it.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Bet Midler kind of killed that. Yeah yeah, I mean
she killed it.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
But the point is that, like for me to hear
the Death of a Salesman starring Brian Dennehy was the
thing that made you go like, hey, Arthur Miller playwriting,
like wait a minute, just a minute, you know, yeah,
that's a great great I love to know that. You
said you didn't have any like gay kind of mentors
who took you to gay clubs and showed you how
to do stuff. But was there like somebody who had
(15:28):
mentored you as a writer that you have a great
deal of I don't know what like.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
In your past.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I mean, so when I went to grad school also
at n RAYU, and I went pretty much straight through
like I did three and a half years at n
YU undergrad, then had like a semester off and then
I started in YU.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
So I would say like my mentoring more happened once
I was studying musical theater writing specifically. So that was people.
Bill Finn was one of my teachers, and he was
someone who I really respected.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Bill Finn, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Michael John Lecusa, and all of my teachers at NYU.
You know, someone whose name you may not know like
that that I really started to come into my own
voice in that program and the graduate musical theater writing program.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right, And how integrated was that experience for you?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Was it what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Were I mean racially, socially, sexually? Yeah, recognize yourself in
that program? Was it something that you had to kind
of suspend disbelief? Again?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
No, you mentioned the NYU grad program was like exactly
the right place at exactly the right time. It had
such an interesting mix of people who were also in
different stages of their lives. It wasn't like just a
room full of like twenty two year old There was
like one of my classmates was an older gentleman who
(17:03):
had had a whole life. He was an Episcopalian minister
who loved musical theater and decided to go back to school.
There were some people who were closer to my age.
There were some people who were older. A dear friend
of mine in the program had like sold her house
in Minnesota and like come and like come to the program.
And so we all like were just coming from wherever
(17:24):
we were. One of the students is from South Korea. Like,
it was a real mix and we all just we
were all just coming for the love of musicals.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
This is amazing, and you know that is such a
unifying thing, right. I always love these stories of people
who come from outside and get involved, not just in
the theater in New York City, because but it is
a real it is a real capital of for theater,
isn't it New York City, But any kind of theater.
(17:54):
It just kind of brings people together in this incredible way,
like Alan Comming. I did this talk with Alan coming
and it's amazing. You know, he has a really really
really dark past, like his father was abusive and it
was crazy. He was a drunken and I don't know
how he made it, you know, I don't know how
the soul came across. And he's not just a great artist,
he's a fun guy.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, And I think about you and the adversity that
you've faced, you know, like, tell me a little bit
about that, because I just assumed that there was some
truth in Strange Loop, and that's what resonated with me,
was this kind of thing where you kind of looked
at the religion and you looked at the beliefs or
that one Usher character looked at the beliefs of his mother,
(18:37):
and it was like, I'm sorry, you know, I just can't.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I mean, that's what I loved. I loved the violent
reaction against like that's what to me felt right about
that play. You know.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
So you know, part of the reason why I'm always
very you know, stern and specific about not describing the
show as autobiographical. And I'm saying that for a reason.
It's because it's not a one to one ratio of
like actual events per se, but it's about the emotion,
like that, this is what it felt, it's what it
felt like, and so I just it was important to
(19:09):
me and working on a strange loop to just try
to as much as I could capture the emotional reality
of what it feels like to bump up against like
the religion and the homophobia and sort of the alienation
the game the exactly and just the alienation overall, and
(19:34):
to also weigh that against how much of that is
external and how much of it is internal, and how
do you reconcile those two things?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I mean I have to tell you, like I don't
like relevant theater. I don't necessarily need theater or something
or art to be relevant. As a matter of fact,
I don't like it when it's relevant. Because you were
talking about how this is not necessarily autobiographical, and you're
really strict talking about that congratulations, you know, like try
getting through any interview with anybody not posing it that
(20:05):
way or saying wow, you know, strange loo, but it
was so politically correct, so relevant. So but that's bullshit
because your play was good, not because of that. It
just happened that the subject, and you are fat, black,
and queer, and so those things together make up like
everybody goes, oh, I'm hugging this big, fat black queen
or something.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You know, it's like fuck that. Fuck that right a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, So like I and I'm glad he raised that
this question about relevance because anytime, like I now read
a description of something that's coming and I hear relevant
timely of the moment, It's like a huge, huge red
flag for me, and I'm like, oh no, this is
gonna be I'm gonna have to go eat my fucking
(20:50):
vegetables and like right, and and and on top of that,
I'm like whenever you say something like of the moment,
I'm like, well, guess what, the moment has already past
by the time you get there. So I was not
in a strange loop interested in relevance or timeliness. Oh
and also it literally was impossible because that musical is
(21:13):
about twenty years of processing an experience and then compressing
it into one show. So then like that's another reason
why it's not me because like Usher, the character is
twenty five going on twenty six, I'm forty two. So
like there are things about a strengthuit that I look
(21:35):
at that don't even necessarily reflect what I think today
or tomorrow, of course, you know, and so and so
like and but the expression and the sort of articulation
of rage that was what I was going for.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Right, Well, you got it. You you achieved it, darling,
you really did.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
That's what stayed with me was the rage against and
also the sadness of having to have such rage against
someone like your mother and your family that you're supposed
to be accepted by, and no matter what, they can't
bring themselves to say the words.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
They just can't or you think that they can't.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Like again, because it's the thing that's triggering me, I
don't want.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Them to be Basically, I don't want them to Okay,
it's too late. You should have said the words. You're
too late.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Bye bye. I mean that's how I feel. I don't
know how you feel, becore well.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I mean. Another reason why I don't describe this out
of biographical per se is because like, I am very
close to my mother, and like in our relationship is
different than it was when I was seventeen years old,
but like the things about her that I made it
as a seven year old hated or thought I hated
(22:45):
or whatever. Are the things that today I love, that
I appreciate, like we both have grown as people over
the years, and that's very very important to me.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Well, can I just say one thing. This is going
to sound so mean and horrible.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
But give it a minute, because you know you're gonna change,
and she's gonna change, and it's going to change again once.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Wet you ready for a little story. This is a
very name droppery kind of story. But I used to
be quite good friends with Steve Sondheim, right, and I
had also a really really fraught relationship with my mother
and Steve had a really fraught relationship with his mother.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Darling.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I don't know if you ever read anything about it,
but she was a monster, right, And my mother is
not such you know, she's she's she can be very like,
you know, push buttony and screw turning. But at one
point she said something that was so mean to me,
and I called Steph and I was like, that's it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I hate her.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I'm so excited. It's one emotion that I feel now,
pure hatred. And he said, okay, Darling, give it a minute.
You know, just give it a minute, you're gonna go back.
She's gonna pull you back anyway. So I'm just telling
you that you feel like this with your mom, I'm
going the opposite way. She's probably gonna do some stuff
that you're gonna hate again, and you're gonna have to
(23:58):
come around to get I'm serious.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, I hear you, But I mean, but I have
to say, like she and I are like in such
a such a really good place because I understand her,
like I see her as an actual human being in
a way that I did not as a young person.
And because I see her as a human it makes
(24:21):
it difficult for me to ever rely on my feelings
as like a way of like understanding her behavior, even
if she does or says things that I like object to.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And you've separated sort of enough so that you feel.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, I've done Like so I mean so much work
to like understand that, like my feelings are not.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
They're not the truth.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I mean, they're they're real, Like they're real to me,
but I can separate them from the true narrative, the
tangible like what's happening in.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
The moment, and that was how old is your mother?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Uh? Seventy four.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Wow, she's a chicken, darling. She's so young, she is
so young. All right, call me in twenty years. We'll
talk about this again in twenty Okay, I'm serious. All right,
So let me get some of these things out of
the way, Like how the fuck do you write a play, darling?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
How do you do that?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Hell, I know, I love that answer.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
That's like every piece is different. I don't have like
a process of how I do everything that I do,
Like a strangely began extremely organically as a monologue that
was just at the time I had just graduated from undergrad.
I was living in the middle of nowhere and to
make a queen's in this old lady's house, and I
(25:50):
was just like afraid. The Iraq War was about the start.
Like people were walking around with them sixteens or whatever
in the subway for the first time. I'd never seen that,
Like it was just a different time, and I was
just like, I don't know what I'm doing, And so
I just began writing this monologue that was just a
sort of testimony of like what it felt like to
(26:11):
be that in that moment emotionally. And then once I
went to grad school. About a year later or six
months later, I began writing my own songs, and the
songs also had a kind of personal touch to them,
and then I started trying to put those into the monologue,
(26:34):
and then the monologue began to shift as I started
putting those songs into the monogue. And then like it
was just a process of a slow process of discovery
of figuring out a structure and who the character was
and how was I going to differentiate Usher the character
from me the playwright, even though there was an obvious
(26:57):
sort of overlap, he was a kind of all her
ego and the piece just came out of that. Whereas
my next show after that, Weggirl in Danger, was more
plotted out, like it was a plot based sort of thing.
And so then I followed the like sort of just
building a play that way. So I can't give you
(27:20):
like a this is how you do it like because
it just depends on what it is.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Well, was there a break? Did you get a big
break in terms of the show itself or or yourself
is a playwright?
Speaker 3 (27:31):
So I started writing them my love and I started
writing the songs, and like in between I was like,
this is very on and off there was, it was
not a continuous journey. And then there was this theater
company that was starting to develop called Musical Theater Factory
that was started by this oneman named shakinan ne Fact.
She was starting a new sort of musical theater development hub.
(27:53):
And she said, do you have anything that you want
to bring in to work on? And I said, well,
I've got this showed up and sort of working on
on and off for many years. And prior to that,
I had done a one nan show version of the
monologue song thing at Oursnova. And then that was where
like I had an experience where I was like, oh,
I don't want to be in this. This is not
(28:13):
about me. It's not about the performer or even me
the figure, Like it's not about Micha lar Jackson. It's
about a character that's drawn from my experience. And like
I did some development there. Then I went to the
Musical Theater Factory and then I did some work on
it in the writers group there, and then she said,
(28:34):
you just need to do a residency. So I called
up a director friend, we did a reading, it went
over went really well, and then from there that was
where the trajectory sort of slowly began. I just got
little opportunities to present excerpts of it. There's this one
funny night where we presented like some songs at fifty
(28:55):
four below and Tony and Tony Danza was there and
we sang a song called second Wave that has to
refrain the second wave feminist in me is at war
with a dick sucking black gay guy and then afterwards
black a man. And then afterwards we went out to
Tony Danza to say hello, and he he goes, Hey,
(29:16):
it's the dick sucking blook goes and like no, it
was just such a funny moment.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
The boss down.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
And then from there we did end up doing a
full concert version of the show at the the four below,
and then Player to Horizons invited us to do a
reading for them, which ended up happening on the date
Trump was elected.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Oh God, and so but.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
The reading was really really good, but in part I
think because people had come to it with all of
their feelings about that day, just not knowing what to
expect from like this a random reading on Tuesday or
Thursday or whatever day it was, and it was a
really powerful emotional reading. And then from there a commercial
(30:01):
producer became interested because nobody would sort of wants to
touch it after that, and so he felt like he
just wanted to help it find a life. And then
I did some more work on it. We did another
industry reading like nine months later, and then from their
Players Horizons said they would do it, and then we
(30:23):
did it at Players Horizons in twenty nineteen, and then
it went really well, and then the Great Plague of
twenty twenty came. Then I thought my career was over.
Then the Pulitzer came in twenty twenty, in May of
twenty twenty, and then by twenty twenty one we were
(30:44):
doing it in DC, and then we got a Broadway
house in December of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
This is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Sorry, December twenty and twenty one.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Right, Well, I would like to ask you about failure,
because it's almost like, if I look at the whole
story that you just told me, it can't be about
one success that led to another, to another and to another.
Was there a failure or a few failures that you
learned from that you could not have lived without that
(31:16):
really shaped you?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Do you mean specifically in terms of a strange loop?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, yes, or is there one failure because you said,
at one point in this whole thing, you thought your
career was over, right, like everybody did. The minute COVID happened,
we were like, Okay, get as much you know, bacon
as you can, because're gonna have to live off bacon
for the rest and toilet paper, you know, whatever it is.
Was there a great big failure in your career or
in a Strange Loop, whichever you think is a more
(31:45):
relevant answer.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Speaking of the word relevant and how we hate it.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I don't know that there's anything that I would characterize
as like a failure, but like, there definitely were moments
where I maybe had a setback or I had to
read calibrate, but those moments I think helped me move forward.
So like in an early early draft of A Strange Loop,
(32:10):
I'm very obsessed with the singer songwriter Liz Fair, like
he's in my little triumthrant. It's her tore Amos and
Jiminy Mitchell, like they're my like holy Trinity. Right, And
there was a version of the script where I slashed
Usher had put these mashups of my music with Liz
(32:32):
Fair songs from her first album Exile in Guyville, and
this is going to culminate in a final mashup of
the Liz Fair song that was called Strange Loop on
her first album with a song that I had written
called Fanboy. And in the course of the musical, Usher
was trying to get Liz Theair's permission to use these
(32:54):
songs in the show, as I was doing in real life,
and I was having great difficulty in making contact with
her over like a long period of time, until finally
I did make contact with this Fair to ask for
permission to use these songs in the musical, and she
said very kindly no, And she wrote me this email
(33:16):
that was like because the whole conceit of it was
that her album Exile in Guyville, was, as legend goes,
was a song for song response to the Rolling Stones
album Exile on Main Street, and so he writes on
Guyvill and then my piece was, in its own sort
of way, a kind of response to Exile in and
(33:39):
it wasn't song for song, but it was like speaking
to that album and to the character within that album.
And she wrote in the note to me, I didn't
ask the Rolling Stones to lend me their songs. I
used them for inspiration to write in my own I
advise you to do the same. This ended up being
like crucial advice because even though oh I really loved
(34:01):
those mashups and thought they were cool, her telling me
through this letter that I needed so really focus on
writing my own music to make the piece ended up
being like crucial advice. Oh my god, I used and
I was like, Okay, well, now I've got to like
figure out how to wow like my own truly my
(34:22):
own musical engine. And I think a lot of great
songs came out of it as a result. And then
in subsequent years I've become acquainted with her and we're
friendly and we're like little pinpals and email sometimes, and
it feels like a real full circle moment that came
because Jeeves said, no, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Of course, this is like the very definition of what
I'm talking about when I asked this word about failure
or about some kind of a setback that actually sets
you forward so much more than you would have expected
had it gone the way you thought.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Right, That's what I'm.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, it was great, But I mean, like I want
to talk to you about like what some people refer
to or like what we might have to think about
as like the new show business, right, which has very
little to do with the old show business, which is
so scary, Darling.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It's so scary.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I mean two words social media go.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I mean it's a hellscape. It's really depressing. It's like artless,
it's airless. It's it's narcissistic but also van piric. I
like fin this phrase, this phrase called like narcissistic vampires,
who's who only see themselves but they have no reflections, right,
(35:42):
And that's what I sort of feel about this era
in art in general, but in theater for sure. And
it's very confusing because I don't know what to do
next other than to just do what I always do.
But I also am very cognizant of the fact that
like the sort of social medification of everything, and also,
(36:04):
like we just got through with this writer strike, everyone's
sort of realizing that streaming was a huge mistake. There's
no monoculture, so we can't really relate to each other.
Everything's bifurcated, and so there's not a real sense of
community or looking toward the arts is like a big
(36:26):
sort of melting pot, but one that shared with everyone,
even as people talk about inclusion. And that's what I
find so ironic about it, is that, like, you hear
so many conversations about inclusion, and yet because of the
tech and the sort of digital revolution, everything's like totally
(36:51):
siloed off, and so how can it really be inclusive
of anything?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Exactly? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
And of course it takes me right back to the
top of our conversation. We were talking about just the
whole idea of like human interaction, of meeting somebody physically
in a room.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
These things are all related, related.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
They're all related.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
The Barbie movie, did you like adore it? Did you
gag the way everybody else gagged me?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Either?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I thought me either. I love Greta Gerwig. I think
she's amazing. But you know, it didn't feel like there
was a movie there. It felt like a bunch of sketches, right.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
It was a vibe.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
It was a social media vibe. It was it was
like an exerptible social media construction, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And I look at that and I think, but.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I felt the same way about Oppenheimer.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I didn't see Oppenheimer. I thought, can I stream it?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
You got you got three hours to kill all right?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I will do.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
But you know, honestly, if they would shoot something, I
would go see it in a movie theater. Right now,
it's all CGI, it's all special effects, it's all amplification.
So why should I go to a movie theater to
see it?
Speaker 3 (38:09):
And you know what's so interesting. In the last couple
of months, I got rid of all my streaming services
except for Amazon, except for accept for Amazon because I
like to order stuff from there. That's my digital overlord.
But like what I do on Amazon is I just
rent movies all the time, like in the old days
when we would go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video or
(38:30):
whatever and rent a movie. And so like I'm finding
myself just watching a lot of these old movies and
watching so many of them, and then I'll go and
see something new, and I'm just like, y'all, we need
to go back, we need to go back. And then
I go to metrograph a lot now and like they'll
screen something And I just went there the other day
(38:53):
and I saw it to Live and Die in La
the William freaking movie, and it was it's just night
and day. Like these movies like these were like movies cinema,
I know, even they weren't cinema like great cinema. They
were like exciting to watch, Like I watched Adventures in
Babysitting like a couple of months ago. It's still just
(39:13):
as like fun to watch it, and it's not like
an ad for something.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Right right, which basically Barbie was. I don't care what
you tell me.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
I watched interview, I wat I watched an interview, a
lot of interviews with Greta and Margot Robbie where they
like talked about making it, and like one thing that
they kept saying was that we made sure to tell
them to tell that, like we're gonna protect the brand.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Really yeah, oh we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Be a little critical, but like people are gonna love Barbie.
But also like I just felt fundamentally watching it, like
Barbie's not even really a character. Barbie's a plastic worshac
test that you can project onto whatever you think and feel,
which is why ironically, and the advertising they're like, if
(40:01):
you love Barbie, you're gonna love the movie. If you
hate Barbie, gonna loved Barbier's like because Barbie can represent
whatever you want. If you want Barbie to be, you know,
your anti patriarchal, you know, warrior princess. Then she will
be that if you want her to be, you know,
the way that women understand their body bodily autonomy, she
(40:22):
will be that. If he wants God, if he is
an accessory, if she's a whatever. And so I sort
of felt like all of the discourse around it, all
of the sort of politics around it, were all just accessories,
no different than a handbag or earrings that you stick
in Barbie's ears, and all the endless, relentless marketing was
(40:44):
just like that was the story. And also think about
the fact that, like, this is a billion dollar movie
that was like the thing of the summer, and now
it's October twenty fourth, and I don't hear people talking
about Barbie.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I know, but I brought it up only to kind
of like a little circle around everything you're talking about
in terms of this art that we're missing, this content
that we're missing. Because when it first started happening Instagram,
I was like, oh, fun, Instagram, you know, or whatever
it was. I was never into Facebook. I could never
bring myself to do that. But oh, oh really, well
(41:20):
mine was Instagram. It still kind of is. And I
always thought when it first started happening. However, many years ago,
I thought it relies on content, it relies on great art.
But now what's so scary is it feels like, because
Hollywood is run by these numbers, that it's going the
other way and there is no there there and they're
(41:41):
relying on these numbers. So they do something like Barbie
in order to quench, and then it's this huge, scary success,
which is what really freaks me out just a little bit.
And then I think about like you, and I think
about me, and I think about people who want to
make stuff, you know, that actually has content and a
little bit of story. By the way, can I tell
you what you need to see? Speaking of Amazon, there's
(42:03):
this movie called Cassandra. Have you seen that? Oh my god, darling.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
First of all, it's the sexiest thing in the world.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
It's about this Mexican sort of wrestler and it's played
by that incredibly sexy person from Mozart in the Jungle
called Oh anyway tonight. Okay, you're welcome, Right, I'll check out.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Have you seen Riting in the Sun?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
No?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (42:27):
It's this indie movie that's playing on Movie which is
like a random stream thing, and I recommend it. It's
like a gay themed movie, but it's really it's wild
and it goes to like some really surprising places. And
that's what I was like, Oh, this actually zigged where
I thought it was gonna zag. I love And you
(42:49):
can just like sign up for like a free week
long trial and just watch it and get rid of
it if you want to get rid of it. Okay,
it's a contemporary thing that's been made that I actually
thought was really good. And then the other day when
the guy sent me, he wanted to look for the
recommendation on Rayah, which again I don't hold this ouse
if he's watching this, like, I don't hold this against
(43:09):
you at all, Like it's totally makes sense.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
But call me again, Call me again though date number two.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
No, he doesn't have to call He doesn't have to
call me again. He doesn't want to. But while I
was watching a Stranger by the Lake, do you remember
this movie Stranger by the Lake. It's a French movie
from twenty fourteen. It's also this game movie that I
highly recommend. It's super sexy.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Do remember it? I remember, I remember every moment. There's
a lot of nudity.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
There's a lot and there's a lot of that in
Riting in the Sun, and it's unsimulated sex. It's like real,
real sex is happening in both of these movies and
they're wild. Anyway, that's all those are my record.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Now.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Wait, I want to bring this back. Are you working
on something right now?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah? I have a new musical that's a collaboration with
my collaborator, Anna K. Jacob. He's a composer. We're doing
an adaptation of the two thousand and seven indie her
comedy Teeth Oh, about the evangelical Christian girl who discovers
she has vagina dentata teeth her vagina. Wow.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Wow, Wow, that's a great idea. I want to see that.
Can that happen tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (44:15):
It'll be in the workshop Febuary.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Get it up. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
It'll be in February. We'll be at Playit's horizons, so
me start previews. So I'm working on that.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Does that give you hope when you actually have as
a country?
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah, it's it's a funny thing. Is like I go
through these like peaks and valley sometimes like by the hour,
but it's when I'm working on something and like actually
doing the work of like putting it together and figuring
it out, that I start to feel like the wind
(44:50):
in my sales again, Like we just started recording the
cast albums from my last show, White Girl in Danger,
and just being in the studio and like being like,
oh music, singing recording.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yes like that people.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Then I like get the win in my sales again.
So I have to sort of like be in a
process to feel hopeful. I don't. I'm not currently feeling
hopeful about like the industry. But I wrote this song
a couple of years ago. THO was inspired by Judith
Light where she's given me some really he'd given me
this really great advice that I put into the song
(45:26):
where she said the industry will always be the industry,
so fuck it, you know. And so I have to
like hansting balance like doing my work with not getting
too worried about the industry, even though I do feel
like I'm also like i'd sort of come around to it.
I'm like everyone's always like get rid of gatekeepers. I'm
like more gatekeepers, please please bring them back. Bring back
(45:49):
people who actually had some fucking taste, and you don't
have to be and you don't have to be like
a total snob about it. But a little bit of
snap read goes along way about.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Saying critics, what about critics?
Speaker 3 (46:04):
I think I think the critics have also degraded me
too alongside. And so like, now we're in this weird
thing because a big part of what I noticed in
culture is that everything is about affirmation, not to mention
relevance like it's relevant affirmation. And now because everybody's wanting
to sort of reconsider the canon and reconsider history, anythings
(46:28):
are fine, but you just sort of toss it all
out and then act as though your own sort of
not particular your opinions.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Are are like are as relevant or.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
That they have any like meat to them. And also
you can't even argue with them because to argue or
to debate itself ideas are like seen as some sort
of like oppressive tacticspression, And I'm like, no, fuck that
ideas are meant to be debated, that's dissected. Pick the
part like all the time, and so like the thing
(47:02):
I just keep wishing is that the critics were just
being more thoughtful that they were actually And also I'm
not just going along with consensus.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Right, taking more risk and saying I hate this. You
need to say I hate it. That's your why I
hate it?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
You say online people always say, why can't you just
let people like things? My friend and two may say
is why can't you let people not like things?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
And why?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Because here's why. Here's why, Darling. You ready to quote
the fabulous Judith Light. The industry will always be the
fucking industry. That's why Judas Light, She's always right, always
she is all.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I have a final.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Question that I always ask, like all my guests, I
don't know how you feel a bit better.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Bits.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I read them every single day, the little ones, the
big ones. Okay, so you die, let's say about one
hundred and four or ninety eight, however old you want
to be when you die.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
What does your obituary say, Darling.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
He did it his way?
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Does it say that English or does it say it
like in.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Like everything, like seven different languages.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
He did it his way?
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Oh my god, m.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
I feel like I have to pimp for you. I
feel like there's someone out there. I mean, if you're interested,
because I am very good at that. I'm a very
big yent to.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Listen, I offended or something no serious.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
No. Sometimes people are like, I don't need your damn
relationship advice.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Fuck you, get out.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Of my mind. I need all the advice I can get.
I'm not getting any younger. So if you've got somebody
out there, like and keep it in mind. But the
big thing with me is that I have to be
able to talk to you about anything. And you need
to not be like, oh my god, you're a heretic.
You had a thought that's like not approved, Like.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Well, you mean you're talking about the person you're gonna
be with. You need to be able to like really well, okay,
and I give you now.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Think of me as Judith Light. I will give you
some advice. Time is the price of love, Darling. Time
is the price of love. You will meet somebody who
you like, and it's not going to feel like eating
your vegetables. It's going to feel like, actually, like you
really want to be with that person because they're heaven
and you just want to have sex with them and
be and have fun and just go out to places.
And then in twenty years you go like, hey, we
(49:23):
talk about all this shit and it's unbelievable and he
can listen and I hate his fucking guts and he
loves me and all that.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
And that's that's ideal. But like a couple of years ago,
I was going out with this guy who we started
talking about something, and then he very sort of mysteriously
said something to me, and I didn't clock at the time.
He goes, you're really not a static thinker, And at
first I thought that was a compliment, but then I
(49:49):
realized that he didn't need it as a compliment, right,
he meant it as like danger Oh God.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
By static, you mean like from one idea to the
space of idea.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Like considering new ways of scene or considering like another opinion.
Like I'm not afraid I'm not afraid to engage you know,
an idea that's dangerous. I don't even think of ideas
as dangerous, Like they're just ideas that are meant to
be considered. And and you agree, you don't agree, you
(50:22):
toss it, you change your mind, you change it back.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Why because you're not afraid of Like.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
I'm not afraid of heterotoxy at all.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
And here's another thing, I don't think that you're afraid
to be poor.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
If you have to be, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
It's like people are afraid to open their mouths because
they're afraid if they say something they're going to cut
off there And what's speaking of some time? What's that
great thing? And merrily we roll along? Burn your bridge
is Darling.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Burn na Bridge and Nada's bridges. I burn light the way.
But here's what I will say, like, and this is
something I am dealing with now, is that because so
much of like free speech has just migrated online me,
it's not really free. And so I do feel stifled,
and I do feel often like I can't say what
(51:07):
I think because I'm actually hemmed in into like this
weird now cortex. And so the places where I feel
free are like when I can actually write. And that's
sort of where my free expression goes. It's into my work,
into if I'm writing an essay or a poem or
a song or whatever, because there no one can judge
(51:30):
me and they can't control me or like hansel me
or whatever, you know, And I want that freedom with
a person.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
I was gonna say, the other place that is available
to you is at a dinner table with me, or
a lunch table or a breakfast table with me. I
feel like we have to do this constantly. We have
to have like meals together all the time.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
I will happily, happily meet you anytime.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
I'm not kidding. I'm inviting you. This is an open invitation.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Then I can talk to you about and then I
can talk to you about fame fact.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
I'm gonna lift which is.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
My favorite, and I can tell you my life, oh
my god, and I love like watching you in it
with your.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
With my doing Shakespeare Darling shakes clown thing, which I
may I know, I know, of course you know. Well, anyway,
is this something you want to promote?
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Yeah, come and see teeth at Clart's Horizons in the winter.
It's gonna be a while, right. If you like any
of my music, you can find me anywhere you listen
to music Strange loop like You're own Danger coming soon.
I also have some old albums on band camp, and
you want to listen to some old songs to mine?
Speaker 1 (52:39):
So any of that, well, I love that, Thank you,
thank you, thank you. You are a dream boat. And
I am so gonna pimp for you. I can't wait.
I'm not I get ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
I like, give me, hit me out.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
Okay, darlings, I was right. My intuition was that Michael R.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Jackson is the smartest person on earth, only because I
thought his show, A Strange Loop was like the smartest
show I've ever seen, and I loved it so much
and it resonated with me so deeply, Like I really
left that theater thinking that I hadn't gone through something
(53:25):
like that in the theater for a very long time.
Like it made me think and it made me feel.
And here's the thing, I don't know him terribly, terribly well,
this is like the second time we've met. But I
feel like I now know that he's like a good person,
and so I now feel like I have a friend
in the world. And like, stay tuned because there's going
(53:48):
to be so many dinners and lunches and I'm not kidding,
like I am literally going to force this person to
dine and lunch with me on a regular and often basis. Anyway,
thank you so much for tuning in. It was so
much fun. Maybe you know, spot us at our favorite restaurants,
me and Michael having dinner at some point. Darlings, if
(54:11):
you enjoyed this episode, do me a favorite and tell
someone tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate the show.
I love rating stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
(54:47):
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at. I Am Isaac, mssragi. This is Isaac, Missrahi,
thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd
say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by
Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia.
(55:11):
The series is hosted by me Isaac Musrahi. Hello Isaac
is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse
Burton and John Assanti, and is executive produced by Ron Howard,
Brian Grazer, Karl Welker.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
And Nathan Cloke at Imagined.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Audio production management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing
by Cedric Wilson original music composed by Ben Wilson. A
special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katamak and I
AM Entertainment
Darlings.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I have a few shows coming up, firstly at Cafe
Carlisle on November twenty eighth and twenty ninth. The show
is called It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Isaac,
And in case you didn't realize, that's going to sort
of be like a little holiday show, So it's going
to be totally fun. My band stories I'm gonna regift
because it's around the holidays and I need to make
(00:23):
room for my new.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Regifting, So there's that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Also, I have another show on December one in Stony Brook,
which is in New York, and that's going to be
really fun too. Please go to my website Hello Isaac
to get tickets Hello Isaac dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Finally, I did make contact with this fair to ask
for permission to use these songs in the musical, and
she said very kindly no, And she wrote in the
note to me, I didn't ask the Rolling Stones to
lend me their songs. I use them for inspiration to
write in my own I advise you to do the same.
This ended up being like crucial advice because even though
(01:04):
I really loved those mashups and thought they were cool,
her telling me through this letter that I needed so
God really focus on writing my own music to make
the piece ended up being like crucial advice. Oh my God,
I used and I was like, Okay, well now I've
got to like figure out how to wow like my
(01:26):
own truly my own musical engine. And I think a
lot of great songs came out of it as a result.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi and
in this episode I talked to Pewett Surprise and Tony
Award winning playwright, composer and lyricist Michael R.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Jackson.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Hello, Isaac, It's Michael R. Jackson. I can't wait to
mix it up.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I was on a panel that was set up by
New York One to talk about the theater and one
of the people was Michael R. Jackson, who I just
couldn't wait to meet, and we kind of had this
weird connection on that panel and I made a mental
note like if I ever get a chance to talk
to Michael R. Jackson again, it would be like such
(02:20):
a pleasure. And anyway, I invited him to be on
the podcast because I'm just such a big fan and
I feel like he has a lot to say about
stuff that I value that I love a lot, things
like the theater, things like art and culture and New
York City. Anyway, not a minute to waste. Let's get
(02:40):
right into it, Michael RT.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Jackson. What a pleasure to be talking to you. I
am a gigantic, gigantic fan.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Of yours, as I am of yours, Darling.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Okay, I'm gonna start off with this one question, and
you just slap me if you think it's it's something
you don't want to answer.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
How old are you, darling?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I am forty two years old.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Forty two years old. I'm so fascinated by your generation.
You have a lot of responsibility. Man. You have a
lot of scary shit in the future, and you're dealing
with a lot of scary shit from the past.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Let me ask you a silly thing. Do you go out?
Do you go to like clubs? Do you go to bars?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I don't, I'm a total homebody.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Did you ever? Did you ever go out?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
When I was in my twenties and I had just
gotten to New York because I got to New York
as an eighteen year old, I tried to do that
to the extent to which I was able to, but
I was pretty miserable with it. It was not my scene, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I mean, like, it's weird because I don't really know you,
but I know so much about you based on some
of the stuff in Strange Loop and like what I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Oh, you think biographical?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
You think you know, not out of biographical but self referential.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
For well, so far, darling, you're batting like you know
one hundred percent of what's in the show, right, But
I do wonder about that because you're an artist, right
And for me as a young artist, I mean, I'm
from New York City and it was scary for me
going out too, you know, but I did it. I
did it a lot, and I did it as like
(04:23):
a teenager, like a fourteen year old I was going out.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Well that's sort of how I feel like when I
sort of look back on my life, and I like,
I've had so many conversations like this with other gay men,
specifically who are older than me. And I've been having
these conversations since I was twenty two years old, where
they were like, go out kill yourself, that's crazy, window
(04:50):
fuck everybody. And I like look back on like, oh, yeah,
I should have done that. But the thing I always
think is yes, but I needed to have started doing
that when I was eleven.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Exactly like what I did.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I'm serious because by the time I was like in
my late twenties and early thirties, I was like, yeah,
going out him over it. But I will say, I'm
telling you this, I don't know. Do you have like
a relationship in your life? Do you have like a
significant other?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Argument a lone madder. I'm a lonely spinster. I did
just go on a hilarious date. I didn't want a
date for the first time in a long time the
other day that was very nice but had a very
funny ps to it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, you want to tell us about it or what
I wanted.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
To date with this guy who I met on tender
hinge one of.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The two of those and nice, I like it or
read it.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And then it was a nice date, but like because
I hadn't been out on a date in a long
like a long time, in the moment I was thinking about, like, oh, well,
how do I feel about this? And how I felt
about it had nothing to do with him. He was
like a nice guy, but I was like in real
(05:57):
time sort of sorting through my what do I want
or need or whatever. And part of our conversation we
were talking about like what the experience of being on
apps was like, and I mentioned that one of the
apps that I was on was Riah, and I told
him that, like Riyah, I hate it. It's like so antisocial.
(06:18):
It feels weird, Like the one experience I had on
Riah literally ended up being a hookup with someone and
I don't like it. And I was just trying him
how it worked. And then after the day we sort
of parted ways. And then the next day I was
watching a movie and I checked my phone and on Riya,
you have to get recommendations from people to get on there,
(06:40):
and he asked me for recommendation. Oh that is amazing,
which just felt like so like that and that is
my That is like in a nutshell my life. That
is like like so I'm Michael R. Jackson experience.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Except here's the thing, like you're from a generation where
you might remember before apps like my I do. I
don't have any of those apps on my phone. I mean,
I'm a happily married guy, but you know, I would
never know how I would feel crazy me.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I mean, I don't know how. I mean. That's the
thing about it is, like you know, I do remember
for the apps, and like I like, I remember like
going into bars and I was like terrified, terrified. But
it was because again, like I didn't have any like mentors.
I didn't have a circle of friends to tell me
what to do or to do positive reinforcement or anything.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Any people just never do. But yeah, go, But I feel.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Like whenever I look back on in like the sixties
and seventies or whatever, and I hear people like that,
you found your tribe, you figured it out. But like
I like arrived from Detroit, Michigan to New York City
in nineteen ninety nine, and I had no one. I
literally had no one.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But I want to say, like, you know, as a
gay person growing up in Brooklyn, New York, amongst Hausitic Jews,
I had no one either. When I moved to the city,
I was twenty one years old. I was working at
Perry Ellis. I met some people and I was terrified.
I was working at Jeffrey banks You know Jeffrey banks Is.
He's a great designer, a great American designer. And one
(08:20):
of the other assistants, this darling young man, was like,
you're coming with me to a gay bar, and I
was like, I am, you know, And I went with
him to Uncle Charlie's, and like you said, it's like
you walk in and you feel this intense kind of
bond with these people, and though you don't want to
fuck every single one of them, or like even meet
any of them, at least you feel like you're in
(08:41):
a place where you are right somehow.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
As opposed to like a crazy big old.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Sorts thumb or someone on an app swiping left or
right and then going to meet someone who looks like
something on a picture and then looks completely different in
person and is completely different.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
From what they write.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
And there was another to mention of this for me,
which was that coming from Detroit, weirdly, I actually did
have a group in Detroit. Like I always called it
the black a teenage storyline, because like I grew up,
like there were all of these boys like all over
the place, and like there was this whole sort of
underground Melrose Place situation going on where everyone was just
(09:21):
sleeping with everyone, and one day these people were dating
and then the next day that other people dated. It
was like a whole thing. But even within that, I
felt on the sort of outside of it because I
didn't have like free reign to run around the way
that they did, Like my parents sort of kept close
tabs on these, so I couldn't like sneak out of
the house or things like that much. And so then
(09:44):
like I left that to then go to New York City,
And when I got to New York City, it was
like a different culture. It wasn't like black ay boys.
It was like very white, and that was something that
I really had to like wrap my brain around, and
it took me many years to like figure out how
(10:05):
to even navigate it. And even then I was like,
oh my god, I hate this so much. Like the
scene of it and like the culture of it was
so not really what I was interested in. But I
like quote unquote had to assimilated to it and then
like assimilating to it like all the feelings that come
along with that. And so then I went through that,
(10:28):
and then I got to a point where I hated everyone,
and then I just wanted to kill all the way
hey man, just wanted to stab them and their fucking eyes,
and like rick their throats out and toss them in
the Hudson River.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, me too, you know, for other reasons.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Sure, but like and so then that was a whole thing.
And then I found like my friends. But then by then,
like the app world was starting, and then that was
a whole new thing to figure out.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Right right, a whole new thing, just downloading the fucking apps.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
And then PREP and then like just so many things,
like new things.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Oh honey, Prep, I can't even are you kidding me?
Prep is never going to be in my world never
never will never prep, darling.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Never.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I mean, we'll see, maybe I'll get there. Eventually.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
You will get there. If you have to get there, darling,
you will get there. So let's start from the very beginning.
Let's talk about you as an artist. Where'd you go
to college? N YU, of course, And what did you
major in at NYU? Did you major in playwriting or acting? Well?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I ended up focusing on playwriting, but broadly it was
dramatic writing.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Dramatic writing. Wow, that is so broad I can't even
believe that.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Do you think that your education prepared you for like
the adult world that you live in?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Now? Well, to backtrack a little bit, I was very
focused on writing from like a young age and all
through my high school year, I took creative writing as
my elective. And then on top of that, we had
writers and residents come into our creative writing class who
(12:09):
I worked with. And then one of those writers and
residents also did a private writing workshop outside of school
that I took for like two years. And so I
came to NYU even though I hadn't been focused on playwriting,
I like was very much like I want to be
a writer professionally. Like that was like always on my
(12:30):
mind from like age fourteen.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Was it a novelist you wanted to be? Was it
a journalist?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I wanted to write for soap operas?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
God, Darling, I thought I was shallow. I thought I
loved you. Now I really loved you. Are literally like
some like crazy teenage girl or something.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, in a way, in a way, it's great. It's great.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Me too, me too, by the way, you know, anything
glittery or dramatic or mellow dramatic. By the way, Darling,
I love melodrama. Yeah, it's my favorite, my favorite of
all things.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It's pretty great anyway.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So you came to NYU, and you studied dramatic writing.
And then did you have a well, I know you
had a job. You had several jobs, and I.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Did some of everything, some of.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Everything, and you continued to push forward and write stuff
and get involved.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
What made you decide to become a theatrical or a playwright.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
So, you know, as I mentioned, I was really into
soap opera writing, and my plan was somehow I would
become the head writer for One Night to Live. That
was like going to be what I was going to do.
And so I interned at all my children in the
production office. I intern at ABC daytime. Like I was
very focused on that. But because I was in school,
(13:49):
you know, I was taking my playwriting screenwriting classes and
they would send us to the theater a lot. And
also I had grown up doing children's theater. My mother
and I used to go and see show so I
loved theater, but I developed more of an appreciation for
it in New York going to see Broadway, off Broadway,
(14:09):
experimental theater or whatever you know we would see, and
then taking my playwriting classes and reading plays. I just
started to fall in love with theater and with play
plays and musicals specifically, and so even though I still
had this idea that I would do.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Was there one that you saw?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I mean, there were so many, but the one that
I often reference is the Brian denn Key Death of
a Salesman. Really yeah, that like had a huge impact
on me.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Michael R. Jackson, this is so surprising. You know, Sandra Bernhard,
She's one of my best best friends.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I love I love Sandra Bernhard so so so so
so so so so munch.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Well, who doesn't, who doesn't. I don't know if you
know this.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Her big inspiration when she was a little girl was
seeing Carol Channing and Hello Dollies.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Which I never saw until Bette Midler. I had never
seen it until Bete Miller was in it.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Bet Midler kind of killed that. Yeah yeah, I mean
she killed it.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
But the point is that, like for me to hear
the Death of a Salesman starring Brian Dennehy was the
thing that made you go like, hey, Arthur Miller playwriting,
like wait a minute, just a minute, you know, yeah,
that's a great great I love to know that. You
said you didn't have any like gay kind of mentors
who took you to gay clubs and showed you how
to do stuff. But was there like somebody who had
(15:28):
mentored you as a writer that you have a great
deal of I don't know what like.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
In your past.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I mean, so when I went to grad school also
at n RAYU, and I went pretty much straight through
like I did three and a half years at n
YU undergrad, then had like a semester off and then
I started in YU.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
So I would say like my mentoring more happened once
I was studying musical theater writing specifically. So that was people.
Bill Finn was one of my teachers, and he was
someone who I really respected.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Bill Finn, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Michael John Lecusa, and all of my teachers at NYU.
You know, someone whose name you may not know like
that that I really started to come into my own
voice in that program and the graduate musical theater writing program.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right, And how integrated was that experience for you?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Was it what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Were I mean racially, socially, sexually? Yeah, recognize yourself in
that program? Was it something that you had to kind
of suspend disbelief? Again?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
No, you mentioned the NYU grad program was like exactly
the right place at exactly the right time. It had
such an interesting mix of people who were also in
different stages of their lives. It wasn't like just a
room full of like twenty two year old There was
like one of my classmates was an older gentleman who
(17:03):
had had a whole life. He was an Episcopalian minister
who loved musical theater and decided to go back to school.
There were some people who were closer to my age.
There were some people who were older. A dear friend
of mine in the program had like sold her house
in Minnesota and like come and like come to the program.
And so we all like were just coming from wherever
(17:24):
we were. One of the students is from South Korea. Like,
it was a real mix and we all just we
were all just coming for the love of musicals.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
This is amazing, and you know that is such a
unifying thing, right. I always love these stories of people
who come from outside and get involved, not just in
the theater in New York City, because but it is
a real it is a real capital of for theater,
isn't it New York City, But any kind of theater.
(17:54):
It just kind of brings people together in this incredible way,
like Alan Comming. I did this talk with Alan coming
and it's amazing. You know, he has a really really
really dark past, like his father was abusive and it
was crazy. He was a drunken and I don't know
how he made it, you know, I don't know how
the soul came across. And he's not just a great artist,
he's a fun guy.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, And I think about you and the adversity that
you've faced, you know, like, tell me a little bit
about that, because I just assumed that there was some
truth in Strange Loop, and that's what resonated with me,
was this kind of thing where you kind of looked
at the religion and you looked at the beliefs or
that one Usher character looked at the beliefs of his mother,
(18:37):
and it was like, I'm sorry, you know, I just can't.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I mean, that's what I loved. I loved the violent
reaction against like that's what to me felt right about
that play. You know.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
So you know, part of the reason why I'm always
very you know, stern and specific about not describing the
show as autobiographical. And I'm saying that for a reason.
It's because it's not a one to one ratio of
like actual events per se, but it's about the emotion,
like that, this is what it felt, it's what it
felt like, and so I just it was important to
(19:09):
me and working on a strange loop to just try
to as much as I could capture the emotional reality
of what it feels like to bump up against like
the religion and the homophobia and sort of the alienation
the game the exactly and just the alienation overall, and
(19:34):
to also weigh that against how much of that is
external and how much of it is internal, and how
do you reconcile those two things?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I mean I have to tell you, like I don't
like relevant theater. I don't necessarily need theater or something
or art to be relevant. As a matter of fact,
I don't like it when it's relevant. Because you were
talking about how this is not necessarily autobiographical, and you're
really strict talking about that congratulations, you know, like try
getting through any interview with anybody not posing it that
(20:05):
way or saying wow, you know, strange loo, but it
was so politically correct, so relevant. So but that's bullshit
because your play was good, not because of that. It
just happened that the subject, and you are fat, black,
and queer, and so those things together make up like
everybody goes, oh, I'm hugging this big, fat black queen
or something.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You know, it's like fuck that. Fuck that right a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, So like I and I'm glad he raised that
this question about relevance because anytime, like I now read
a description of something that's coming and I hear relevant
timely of the moment, It's like a huge, huge red
flag for me, and I'm like, oh no, this is
gonna be I'm gonna have to go eat my fucking
(20:50):
vegetables and like right, and and and on top of that,
I'm like whenever you say something like of the moment,
I'm like, well, guess what, the moment has already past
by the time you get there. So I was not
in a strange loop interested in relevance or timeliness. Oh
and also it literally was impossible because that musical is
(21:13):
about twenty years of processing an experience and then compressing
it into one show. So then like that's another reason
why it's not me because like Usher, the character is
twenty five going on twenty six, I'm forty two. So
like there are things about a strengthuit that I look
(21:35):
at that don't even necessarily reflect what I think today
or tomorrow, of course, you know, and so and so
like and but the expression and the sort of articulation
of rage that was what I was going for.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Right, Well, you got it. You you achieved it, darling,
you really did.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
That's what stayed with me was the rage against and
also the sadness of having to have such rage against
someone like your mother and your family that you're supposed
to be accepted by, and no matter what, they can't
bring themselves to say the words.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
They just can't or you think that they can't.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Like again, because it's the thing that's triggering me, I
don't want.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Them to be Basically, I don't want them to Okay,
it's too late. You should have said the words. You're
too late.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Bye bye. I mean that's how I feel. I don't
know how you feel, becore well.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I mean. Another reason why I don't describe this out
of biographical per se is because like, I am very
close to my mother, and like in our relationship is
different than it was when I was seventeen years old,
but like the things about her that I made it
as a seven year old hated or thought I hated
(22:45):
or whatever. Are the things that today I love, that
I appreciate, like we both have grown as people over
the years, and that's very very important to me.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Well, can I just say one thing. This is going
to sound so mean and horrible.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
But give it a minute, because you know you're gonna change,
and she's gonna change, and it's going to change again once.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Wet you ready for a little story. This is a
very name droppery kind of story. But I used to
be quite good friends with Steve Sondheim, right, and I
had also a really really fraught relationship with my mother
and Steve had a really fraught relationship with his mother.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Darling.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I don't know if you ever read anything about it,
but she was a monster, right, And my mother is
not such you know, she's she's she can be very like,
you know, push buttony and screw turning. But at one
point she said something that was so mean to me,
and I called Steph and I was like, that's it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I hate her.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I'm so excited. It's one emotion that I feel now,
pure hatred. And he said, okay, Darling, give it a minute.
You know, just give it a minute, you're gonna go back.
She's gonna pull you back anyway. So I'm just telling
you that you feel like this with your mom, I'm
going the opposite way. She's probably gonna do some stuff
that you're gonna hate again, and you're gonna have to
(23:58):
come around to get I'm serious.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, I hear you, But I mean, but I have
to say, like she and I are like in such
a such a really good place because I understand her,
like I see her as an actual human being in
a way that I did not as a young person.
And because I see her as a human it makes
(24:21):
it difficult for me to ever rely on my feelings
as like a way of like understanding her behavior, even
if she does or says things that I like object to.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And you've separated sort of enough so that you feel.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, I've done Like so I mean so much work
to like understand that, like my feelings are not.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
They're not the truth.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I mean, they're they're real, Like they're real to me,
but I can separate them from the true narrative, the
tangible like what's happening in.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
The moment, and that was how old is your mother?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Uh? Seventy four.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Wow, she's a chicken, darling. She's so young, she is
so young. All right, call me in twenty years. We'll
talk about this again in twenty Okay, I'm serious. All right,
So let me get some of these things out of
the way, Like how the fuck do you write a play, darling?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
How do you do that?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Hell, I know, I love that answer.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
That's like every piece is different. I don't have like
a process of how I do everything that I do,
Like a strangely began extremely organically as a monologue that
was just at the time I had just graduated from undergrad.
I was living in the middle of nowhere and to
make a queen's in this old lady's house, and I
(25:50):
was just like afraid. The Iraq War was about the start.
Like people were walking around with them sixteens or whatever
in the subway for the first time. I'd never seen that,
Like it was just a different time, and I was
just like, I don't know what I'm doing, And so
I just began writing this monologue that was just a
sort of testimony of like what it felt like to
(26:11):
be that in that moment emotionally. And then once I
went to grad school. About a year later or six
months later, I began writing my own songs, and the
songs also had a kind of personal touch to them,
and then I started trying to put those into the monologue,
(26:34):
and then the monologue began to shift as I started
putting those songs into the monogue. And then like it
was just a process of a slow process of discovery
of figuring out a structure and who the character was
and how was I going to differentiate Usher the character
from me the playwright, even though there was an obvious
(26:57):
sort of overlap, he was a kind of all her
ego and the piece just came out of that. Whereas
my next show after that, Weggirl in Danger, was more
plotted out, like it was a plot based sort of thing.
And so then I followed the like sort of just
building a play that way. So I can't give you
(27:20):
like a this is how you do it like because
it just depends on what it is.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Well, was there a break? Did you get a big
break in terms of the show itself or or yourself
is a playwright?
Speaker 3 (27:31):
So I started writing them my love and I started
writing the songs, and like in between I was like,
this is very on and off there was, it was
not a continuous journey. And then there was this theater
company that was starting to develop called Musical Theater Factory
that was started by this oneman named shakinan ne Fact.
She was starting a new sort of musical theater development hub.
(27:53):
And she said, do you have anything that you want
to bring in to work on? And I said, well,
I've got this showed up and sort of working on
on and off for many years. And prior to that,
I had done a one nan show version of the
monologue song thing at Oursnova. And then that was where
like I had an experience where I was like, oh,
I don't want to be in this. This is not
(28:13):
about me. It's not about the performer or even me
the figure, Like it's not about Micha lar Jackson. It's
about a character that's drawn from my experience. And like
I did some development there. Then I went to the
Musical Theater Factory and then I did some work on
it in the writers group there, and then she said,
(28:34):
you just need to do a residency. So I called
up a director friend, we did a reading, it went
over went really well, and then from there that was
where the trajectory sort of slowly began. I just got
little opportunities to present excerpts of it. There's this one
funny night where we presented like some songs at fifty
(28:55):
four below and Tony and Tony Danza was there and
we sang a song called second Wave that has to
refrain the second wave feminist in me is at war
with a dick sucking black gay guy and then afterwards
black a man. And then afterwards we went out to
Tony Danza to say hello, and he he goes, Hey,
(29:16):
it's the dick sucking blook goes and like no, it
was just such a funny moment.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
The boss down.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
And then from there we did end up doing a
full concert version of the show at the the four below,
and then Player to Horizons invited us to do a
reading for them, which ended up happening on the date
Trump was elected.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Oh God, and so but.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
The reading was really really good, but in part I
think because people had come to it with all of
their feelings about that day, just not knowing what to
expect from like this a random reading on Tuesday or
Thursday or whatever day it was, and it was a
really powerful emotional reading. And then from there a commercial
(30:01):
producer became interested because nobody would sort of wants to
touch it after that, and so he felt like he
just wanted to help it find a life. And then
I did some more work on it. We did another
industry reading like nine months later, and then from their
Players Horizons said they would do it, and then we
(30:23):
did it at Players Horizons in twenty nineteen, and then
it went really well, and then the Great Plague of
twenty twenty came. Then I thought my career was over.
Then the Pulitzer came in twenty twenty, in May of
twenty twenty, and then by twenty twenty one we were
(30:44):
doing it in DC, and then we got a Broadway
house in December of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
This is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Sorry, December twenty and twenty one.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Right, Well, I would like to ask you about failure,
because it's almost like, if I look at the whole
story that you just told me, it can't be about
one success that led to another, to another and to another.
Was there a failure or a few failures that you
learned from that you could not have lived without that
(31:16):
really shaped you?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Do you mean specifically in terms of a strange loop?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, yes, or is there one failure because you said,
at one point in this whole thing, you thought your
career was over, right, like everybody did. The minute COVID happened,
we were like, Okay, get as much you know, bacon
as you can, because're gonna have to live off bacon
for the rest and toilet paper, you know, whatever it is.
Was there a great big failure in your career or
in a Strange Loop, whichever you think is a more
(31:45):
relevant answer.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Speaking of the word relevant and how we hate it.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I don't know that there's anything that I would characterize
as like a failure, but like, there definitely were moments
where I maybe had a setback or I had to
read calibrate, but those moments I think helped me move forward.
So like in an early early draft of A Strange Loop,
(32:10):
I'm very obsessed with the singer songwriter Liz Fair, like
he's in my little triumthrant. It's her tore Amos and
Jiminy Mitchell, like they're my like holy Trinity. Right, And
there was a version of the script where I slashed
Usher had put these mashups of my music with Liz
(32:32):
Fair songs from her first album Exile in Guyville, and
this is going to culminate in a final mashup of
the Liz Fair song that was called Strange Loop on
her first album with a song that I had written
called Fanboy. And in the course of the musical, Usher
was trying to get Liz Theair's permission to use these
(32:54):
songs in the show, as I was doing in real life,
and I was having great difficulty in making contact with
her over like a long period of time, until finally
I did make contact with this Fair to ask for
permission to use these songs in the musical, and she
said very kindly no, And she wrote me this email
(33:16):
that was like because the whole conceit of it was
that her album Exile in Guyville, was, as legend goes,
was a song for song response to the Rolling Stones
album Exile on Main Street, and so he writes on
Guyvill and then my piece was, in its own sort
of way, a kind of response to Exile in and
(33:39):
it wasn't song for song, but it was like speaking
to that album and to the character within that album.
And she wrote in the note to me, I didn't
ask the Rolling Stones to lend me their songs. I
used them for inspiration to write in my own I
advise you to do the same. This ended up being
like crucial advice because even though oh I really loved
(34:01):
those mashups and thought they were cool, her telling me
through this letter that I needed so really focus on
writing my own music to make the piece ended up
being like crucial advice. Oh my god, I used and
I was like, Okay, well, now I've got to like
figure out how to wow like my own truly my
(34:22):
own musical engine. And I think a lot of great
songs came out of it as a result. And then
in subsequent years I've become acquainted with her and we're
friendly and we're like little pinpals and email sometimes, and
it feels like a real full circle moment that came
because Jeeves said, no, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Of course, this is like the very definition of what
I'm talking about when I asked this word about failure
or about some kind of a setback that actually sets
you forward so much more than you would have expected
had it gone the way you thought.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Right, That's what I'm.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, it was great, But I mean, like I want
to talk to you about like what some people refer
to or like what we might have to think about
as like the new show business, right, which has very
little to do with the old show business, which is
so scary, Darling.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It's so scary.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I mean two words social media go.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I mean it's a hellscape. It's really depressing. It's like artless,
it's airless. It's it's narcissistic but also van piric. I
like fin this phrase, this phrase called like narcissistic vampires,
who's who only see themselves but they have no reflections, right,
(35:42):
And that's what I sort of feel about this era
in art in general, but in theater for sure. And
it's very confusing because I don't know what to do
next other than to just do what I always do.
But I also am very cognizant of the fact that
like the sort of social medification of everything, and also,
(36:04):
like we just got through with this writer strike, everyone's
sort of realizing that streaming was a huge mistake. There's
no monoculture, so we can't really relate to each other.
Everything's bifurcated, and so there's not a real sense of
community or looking toward the arts is like a big
(36:26):
sort of melting pot, but one that shared with everyone,
even as people talk about inclusion. And that's what I
find so ironic about it, is that, like, you hear
so many conversations about inclusion, and yet because of the
tech and the sort of digital revolution, everything's like totally
(36:51):
siloed off, and so how can it really be inclusive
of anything?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Exactly? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
And of course it takes me right back to the
top of our conversation. We were talking about just the
whole idea of like human interaction, of meeting somebody physically
in a room.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
These things are all related, related.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
They're all related.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
The Barbie movie, did you like adore it? Did you
gag the way everybody else gagged me?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Either?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I thought me either. I love Greta Gerwig. I think
she's amazing. But you know, it didn't feel like there
was a movie there. It felt like a bunch of sketches, right.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
It was a vibe.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
It was a social media vibe. It was it was
like an exerptible social media construction, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And I look at that and I think, but.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I felt the same way about Oppenheimer.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I didn't see Oppenheimer. I thought, can I stream it?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
You got you got three hours to kill all right?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I will do.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
But you know, honestly, if they would shoot something, I
would go see it in a movie theater. Right now,
it's all CGI, it's all special effects, it's all amplification.
So why should I go to a movie theater to
see it?
Speaker 3 (38:09):
And you know what's so interesting. In the last couple
of months, I got rid of all my streaming services
except for Amazon, except for accept for Amazon because I
like to order stuff from there. That's my digital overlord.
But like what I do on Amazon is I just
rent movies all the time, like in the old days
when we would go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video or
(38:30):
whatever and rent a movie. And so like I'm finding
myself just watching a lot of these old movies and
watching so many of them, and then I'll go and
see something new, and I'm just like, y'all, we need
to go back, we need to go back. And then
I go to metrograph a lot now and like they'll
screen something And I just went there the other day
(38:53):
and I saw it to Live and Die in La
the William freaking movie, and it was it's just night
and day. Like these movies like these were like movies cinema,
I know, even they weren't cinema like great cinema. They
were like exciting to watch, Like I watched Adventures in
Babysitting like a couple of months ago. It's still just
(39:13):
as like fun to watch it, and it's not like
an ad for something.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Right right, which basically Barbie was. I don't care what
you tell me.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
I watched interview, I wat I watched an interview, a
lot of interviews with Greta and Margot Robbie where they
like talked about making it, and like one thing that
they kept saying was that we made sure to tell
them to tell that, like we're gonna protect the brand.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Really yeah, oh we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Be a little critical, but like people are gonna love Barbie.
But also like I just felt fundamentally watching it, like
Barbie's not even really a character. Barbie's a plastic worshac
test that you can project onto whatever you think and feel,
which is why ironically, and the advertising they're like, if
(40:01):
you love Barbie, you're gonna love the movie. If you
hate Barbie, gonna loved Barbier's like because Barbie can represent
whatever you want. If you want Barbie to be, you know,
your anti patriarchal, you know, warrior princess. Then she will
be that if you want her to be, you know,
the way that women understand their body bodily autonomy, she
(40:22):
will be that. If he wants God, if he is
an accessory, if she's a whatever. And so I sort
of felt like all of the discourse around it, all
of the sort of politics around it, were all just accessories,
no different than a handbag or earrings that you stick
in Barbie's ears, and all the endless, relentless marketing was
(40:44):
just like that was the story. And also think about
the fact that, like, this is a billion dollar movie
that was like the thing of the summer, and now
it's October twenty fourth, and I don't hear people talking
about Barbie.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I know, but I brought it up only to kind
of like a little circle around everything you're talking about
in terms of this art that we're missing, this content
that we're missing. Because when it first started happening Instagram,
I was like, oh, fun, Instagram, you know, or whatever
it was. I was never into Facebook. I could never
bring myself to do that. But oh, oh really, well
(41:20):
mine was Instagram. It still kind of is. And I
always thought when it first started happening. However, many years ago,
I thought it relies on content, it relies on great art.
But now what's so scary is it feels like, because
Hollywood is run by these numbers, that it's going the
other way and there is no there there and they're
(41:41):
relying on these numbers. So they do something like Barbie
in order to quench, and then it's this huge, scary success,
which is what really freaks me out just a little bit.
And then I think about like you, and I think
about me, and I think about people who want to
make stuff, you know, that actually has content and a
little bit of story. By the way, can I tell
you what you need to see? Speaking of Amazon, there's
(42:03):
this movie called Cassandra. Have you seen that? Oh my god, darling.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
First of all, it's the sexiest thing in the world.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
It's about this Mexican sort of wrestler and it's played
by that incredibly sexy person from Mozart in the Jungle
called Oh anyway tonight. Okay, you're welcome, Right, I'll check out.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Have you seen Riting in the Sun?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
No?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (42:27):
It's this indie movie that's playing on Movie which is
like a random stream thing, and I recommend it. It's
like a gay themed movie, but it's really it's wild
and it goes to like some really surprising places. And
that's what I was like, Oh, this actually zigged where
I thought it was gonna zag. I love And you
(42:49):
can just like sign up for like a free week
long trial and just watch it and get rid of
it if you want to get rid of it. Okay,
it's a contemporary thing that's been made that I actually
thought was really good. And then the other day when
the guy sent me, he wanted to look for the
recommendation on Rayah, which again I don't hold this ouse
if he's watching this, like, I don't hold this against
(43:09):
you at all, Like it's totally makes sense.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
But call me again, Call me again though date number two.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
No, he doesn't have to call He doesn't have to
call me again. He doesn't want to. But while I
was watching a Stranger by the Lake, do you remember
this movie Stranger by the Lake. It's a French movie
from twenty fourteen. It's also this game movie that I
highly recommend. It's super sexy.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Do remember it? I remember, I remember every moment. There's
a lot of nudity.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
There's a lot and there's a lot of that in
Riting in the Sun, and it's unsimulated sex. It's like real,
real sex is happening in both of these movies and
they're wild. Anyway, that's all those are my record.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Now.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Wait, I want to bring this back. Are you working
on something right now?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah? I have a new musical that's a collaboration with
my collaborator, Anna K. Jacob. He's a composer. We're doing
an adaptation of the two thousand and seven indie her
comedy Teeth Oh, about the evangelical Christian girl who discovers
she has vagina dentata teeth her vagina. Wow.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Wow, Wow, that's a great idea. I want to see that.
Can that happen tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (44:15):
It'll be in the workshop Febuary.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Get it up. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
It'll be in February. We'll be at Playit's horizons, so
me start previews. So I'm working on that.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Does that give you hope when you actually have as
a country?
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah, it's it's a funny thing. Is like I go
through these like peaks and valley sometimes like by the hour,
but it's when I'm working on something and like actually
doing the work of like putting it together and figuring
it out, that I start to feel like the wind
(44:50):
in my sales again, Like we just started recording the
cast albums from my last show, White Girl in Danger,
and just being in the studio and like being like,
oh music, singing recording.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yes like that people.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Then I like get the win in my sales again.
So I have to sort of like be in a
process to feel hopeful. I don't. I'm not currently feeling
hopeful about like the industry. But I wrote this song
a couple of years ago. THO was inspired by Judith
Light where she's given me some really he'd given me
this really great advice that I put into the song
(45:26):
where she said the industry will always be the industry,
so fuck it, you know. And so I have to
like hansting balance like doing my work with not getting
too worried about the industry, even though I do feel
like I'm also like i'd sort of come around to it.
I'm like everyone's always like get rid of gatekeepers. I'm
like more gatekeepers, please please bring them back. Bring back
(45:49):
people who actually had some fucking taste, and you don't
have to be and you don't have to be like
a total snob about it. But a little bit of
snap read goes along way about.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Saying critics, what about critics?
Speaker 3 (46:04):
I think I think the critics have also degraded me
too alongside. And so like, now we're in this weird
thing because a big part of what I noticed in
culture is that everything is about affirmation, not to mention
relevance like it's relevant affirmation. And now because everybody's wanting
to sort of reconsider the canon and reconsider history, anythings
(46:28):
are fine, but you just sort of toss it all
out and then act as though your own sort of
not particular your opinions.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Are are like are as relevant or.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
That they have any like meat to them. And also
you can't even argue with them because to argue or
to debate itself ideas are like seen as some sort
of like oppressive tacticspression, And I'm like, no, fuck that
ideas are meant to be debated, that's dissected. Pick the
part like all the time, and so like the thing
(47:02):
I just keep wishing is that the critics were just
being more thoughtful that they were actually And also I'm
not just going along with consensus.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Right, taking more risk and saying I hate this. You
need to say I hate it. That's your why I
hate it?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
You say online people always say, why can't you just
let people like things? My friend and two may say
is why can't you let people not like things?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
And why?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Because here's why. Here's why, Darling. You ready to quote
the fabulous Judith Light. The industry will always be the
fucking industry. That's why Judas Light, She's always right, always
she is all.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I have a final.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Question that I always ask, like all my guests, I
don't know how you feel a bit better.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Bits.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I read them every single day, the little ones, the
big ones. Okay, so you die, let's say about one
hundred and four or ninety eight, however old you want
to be when you die.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
What does your obituary say, Darling.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
He did it his way?
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Does it say that English or does it say it
like in.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Like everything, like seven different languages.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
He did it his way?
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Oh my god, m.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
I feel like I have to pimp for you. I
feel like there's someone out there. I mean, if you're interested,
because I am very good at that. I'm a very
big yent to.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Listen, I offended or something no serious.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
No. Sometimes people are like, I don't need your damn
relationship advice.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Fuck you, get out.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Of my mind. I need all the advice I can get.
I'm not getting any younger. So if you've got somebody
out there, like and keep it in mind. But the
big thing with me is that I have to be
able to talk to you about anything. And you need
to not be like, oh my god, you're a heretic.
You had a thought that's like not approved, Like.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Well, you mean you're talking about the person you're gonna
be with. You need to be able to like really well, okay,
and I give you now.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Think of me as Judith Light. I will give you
some advice. Time is the price of love, Darling. Time
is the price of love. You will meet somebody who
you like, and it's not going to feel like eating
your vegetables. It's going to feel like, actually, like you
really want to be with that person because they're heaven
and you just want to have sex with them and
be and have fun and just go out to places.
And then in twenty years you go like, hey, we
(49:23):
talk about all this shit and it's unbelievable and he
can listen and I hate his fucking guts and he
loves me and all that.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
And that's that's ideal. But like a couple of years ago,
I was going out with this guy who we started
talking about something, and then he very sort of mysteriously
said something to me, and I didn't clock at the time.
He goes, you're really not a static thinker, And at
first I thought that was a compliment, but then I
(49:49):
realized that he didn't need it as a compliment, right,
he meant it as like danger Oh God.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
By static, you mean like from one idea to the
space of idea.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Like considering new ways of scene or considering like another opinion.
Like I'm not afraid I'm not afraid to engage you know,
an idea that's dangerous. I don't even think of ideas
as dangerous, Like they're just ideas that are meant to
be considered. And and you agree, you don't agree, you
(50:22):
toss it, you change your mind, you change it back.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Why because you're not afraid of Like.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
I'm not afraid of heterotoxy at all.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
And here's another thing, I don't think that you're afraid
to be poor.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
If you have to be, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
It's like people are afraid to open their mouths because
they're afraid if they say something they're going to cut
off there And what's speaking of some time? What's that
great thing? And merrily we roll along? Burn your bridge
is Darling.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Burn na Bridge and Nada's bridges. I burn light the way.
But here's what I will say, like, and this is
something I am dealing with now, is that because so
much of like free speech has just migrated online me,
it's not really free. And so I do feel stifled,
and I do feel often like I can't say what
(51:07):
I think because I'm actually hemmed in into like this
weird now cortex. And so the places where I feel
free are like when I can actually write. And that's
sort of where my free expression goes. It's into my work,
into if I'm writing an essay or a poem or
a song or whatever, because there no one can judge
(51:30):
me and they can't control me or like hansel me
or whatever, you know, And I want that freedom with
a person.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
I was gonna say, the other place that is available
to you is at a dinner table with me, or
a lunch table or a breakfast table with me. I
feel like we have to do this constantly. We have
to have like meals together all the time.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
I will happily, happily meet you anytime.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
I'm not kidding. I'm inviting you. This is an open invitation.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Then I can talk to you about and then I
can talk to you about fame fact.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
I'm gonna lift which is.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
My favorite, and I can tell you my life, oh
my god, and I love like watching you in it
with your.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
With my doing Shakespeare Darling shakes clown thing, which I
may I know, I know, of course you know. Well, anyway,
is this something you want to promote?
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Yeah, come and see teeth at Clart's Horizons in the winter.
It's gonna be a while, right. If you like any
of my music, you can find me anywhere you listen
to music Strange loop like You're own Danger coming soon.
I also have some old albums on band camp, and
you want to listen to some old songs to mine?
Speaker 1 (52:39):
So any of that, well, I love that, Thank you,
thank you, thank you. You are a dream boat. And
I am so gonna pimp for you. I can't wait.
I'm not I get ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
I like, give me, hit me out.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
Okay, darlings, I was right. My intuition was that Michael R.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Jackson is the smartest person on earth, only because I
thought his show, A Strange Loop was like the smartest
show I've ever seen, and I loved it so much
and it resonated with me so deeply, Like I really
left that theater thinking that I hadn't gone through something
(53:25):
like that in the theater for a very long time.
Like it made me think and it made me feel.
And here's the thing, I don't know him terribly, terribly well,
this is like the second time we've met. But I
feel like I now know that he's like a good person,
and so I now feel like I have a friend
in the world. And like, stay tuned because there's going
(53:48):
to be so many dinners and lunches and I'm not kidding,
like I am literally going to force this person to
dine and lunch with me on a regular and often basis. Anyway,
thank you so much for tuning in. It was so
much fun. Maybe you know, spot us at our favorite restaurants,
me and Michael having dinner at some point. Darlings, if
(54:11):
you enjoyed this episode, do me a favorite and tell
someone tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate the show.
I love rating stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
(54:47):
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at. I Am Isaac, mssragi. This is Isaac, Missrahi,
thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd
say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by
Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia.
(55:11):
The series is hosted by me Isaac Musrahi. Hello Isaac
is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse
Burton and John Assanti, and is executive produced by Ron Howard,
Brian Grazer, Karl Welker.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
And Nathan Cloke at Imagined.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Audio production management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing
by Cedric Wilson original music composed by Ben Wilson. A
special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katamak and I
AM Entertainment
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com