April 27, 2020 • 41 mins
Power duo alert! This week, we’re talking with Andrea Beaty, author of the children’s book series The Questioneers (which includes Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck, Architect) and Lauren Gunderson, America’s most produced playwright and Andrea’s collaborator in taking Rosie and friends from the page to the stage. Andrea tells us how a multidisciplinary kid from the Midwest became a famous author by being “gifted with obliviousness,” and Lauren lets us in on her prolific process and shares why theater and science are such a perfect pair.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, just an f y I We recorded this
episode before we were in a pandemic. We thought that
my beautiful context for you indeed, but we hope it
still brings you inside and inspiration during this challenging time.
Hanging there. The Limit Does Not Exist is a production
of I Heart Radio. Hey, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm
(00:29):
Kate Scott Campbell, and you're listening to the Limit does
Not Exist. A podcast for Human then Diagrams, coming at
you every single week and hosted by us. What happens
when you put an engineer, architect, scientist, and future president
all in one classroom. Well, to start, you get one
(00:51):
amazing series of children's books and a brilliant new musical
That's right. Today, we have the incredible pleasure of speaking
with Andrew Beatty, author of the children's book series that
includes Rosie Revere engineer and Iggy Peck architect. Andrew is
joined by former guest Lauren Gunderson, America's most produced playwright
(01:12):
that is correct and Andrew's collaborator in taking Rosie and
Friends from the page to the stage. Andrea tells us
how a multidisciplinary kid from the Midwest became a famous
children's book author via some notable zigs and zags through biology,
computer science, and technical writing, and Lauren lets us in
on her process, from how she chooses her projects to
(01:34):
why theater is the perfect place to tell stories about science.
So let's jump in with Andrea and Lauren, shall we?
Let's do it? So, Andrea, you grew up in the Midwest,
and you were a big reader as a child, including
(01:55):
I love this, A self professed love of Nancy drew
us to time, and in one interview you describe your
childhood as being spent as a detective, world explorer, movie star,
and spy. Sounds like the perfect ven Diagram career. But
then when you went to college you studied biology and
(02:16):
computer science. Okay, so where did the science and CS
interest come from and why did you choose that path
in college? So I come from the Midwest, but a
tiny town of literally three people, and it was very,
very long ago. You know, dinosaurs were not quite still
roaming the earth, but not not much after that, So
(02:38):
we did not have any of the distractions and marvelous
things that kids have now to build their time. So
we had books, and we had the fields to run in,
and our bicycles, and that was sort of it. So
I was one of six kids, and we spent our
days literally running out in the fields, chasing the dogs
and having adventures. So we had to make up our
(02:58):
own amusement, make up our own interpretation of the world,
and it was really fantastic. I think if I was
growing up now, I would never end up being any
kind of creative person because I would be so pulled
into my devices all the time. Maybe that's not true.
I hope it's not true. That so for me and
for our family, because there were not a lot of
(03:20):
places to get in put PBS was a really really
instrumental and very big thing for us. During the day
we'd be off running around to the fields, but boy,
at nighttime it was hey, Masterpiece Theaters on, and Cosmos
is on, and you know nature, and so really through PBS,
I was introduced to this marvelous world of science in
(03:41):
a way that I would not have been otherwise. That
was something I really loved. And one show particularly was
All Creatures Great and Small. I guess it was, which
PBS is doing again. Masterpiece Theater is starting a new
addition of that. This faulty very excited that one really
got me hooked on just animals and science. So I
thought I didn't want to be a vet because I
(04:03):
sounded like a lot of work. But I ended up
really taking a lot of biology classes when I went
to junior college, and then I went to a university
and really fell in love with science. I love the
whole idea of your podcast because I think life it's
just sort of this adventure you go on, and for me,
I'm sort of gifted with obliviousness just to say, I
(04:27):
really never paid me a ton of attention to where
I'm going next. I just say, Oh, that looks interesting,
I'll try that. Oh that looks interesting, I'll try that.
So I've never had a grand plan that really took
me from one place to the next. But when I
went to college, they had a computer class that I thought, Okay,
i'll try that, and it turned out that that was
sort of the avenue that I ended up on because
(04:50):
I did basically a double major, wanted two classes short
with a computer science. But when I graduated, I had
two job offers in one day, and wow, one computers
I know, and which is sounds very impressive, but neither
of them paid well. But what jos more than the other.
So I went into computers and that's how I ended
(05:10):
up there. So you took the job and somehow you
ended up doing technical writing, which you say was great
training because it turned you into a fierce self editor.
So can you tell us what technical writing is and
how you ended up doing that rather than say, writing code.
So I was hired by a company that was a
software company, but I was in the support side of
(05:33):
the company. So I was the person on the phone
all day saying have you turned it off and on again?
And you're red the machine and basically trying to feel
that all the ways people have messed up what the
thing they were trying to do. And as part of that,
the company wanted to start a newsletter. Because we were
always feeling so many problems over and over, we thought, well,
why don't we start a newsletter that will help people
(05:55):
not have to do the same thing wrong over and over.
I asked if I wanted to do it, and I
didn't know anything about editing. I've always been kind of
a grammar nerd so I was very excited about it.
I went out and bought every book I could find
about editing. Well, first off. Technical writing is simply the
process of trying to describe something that's somewhat technical in
terms that people can easily understand that don't kill them
(06:18):
with boredom. And that's kind of yeah, that's all that's
the goal. It's like you're translating and working to engage
at the same time. That's exactly right. So I took
all these these books and I really became a ferocious
self editor. So you know, if I would write a
hundred words, i'd pull back out forty of those, just
(06:38):
getting very spare with my writing. Actually, I've read a
lot of poetry at the same time, which is something
I always tell people who want to be you think
about being writers, is read poetry because it teaches you
what not to put in, it teaches you what to include,
and it helps you understand the value of a pause. Yeah,
so that was helpful. But at the end of the day,
(07:00):
those skills of being able to take this fairly tedious,
boring stuff but make it palatable and make it somewhat
interesting because it was never going to get super interesting,
but getting to the point fast, making it clear and
in sometimes amusing if you can. That's kind of the
heart of writing for children. And even though I had
(07:20):
no idea, I had never thought about being a writer
or being I mean, because a kid. I might have
thought to y'all, well, it's a kid I wanted to
do all those days before all the careers are mine
a safe cracker and oh, getaway car driver, all the things. Yeah. Yeah,
But so when I became a writer years later, after
(07:42):
I moved from St. Louis to Chicago, and so and
I had a kid, and so I didn't go back
to working in the office after that happened. So I
left St. Louis and suddenly my life changed into this
new life is sort of my next life that I
think when you get to a certain age, you sort
of look back, and at least I tend to look
at my life as these different, very distinct episodes that
(08:04):
are sometimes they're clearly connected to the ones that came before,
but sometimes so different. That was a moment for me
when I came to Chicago and I have a little kid,
and then I had two kids, and we're spending so
much time reading picture books. As a kid, we had
Dr Seuss, we had to go down go, but they
were slim pickings in terms of really great children's books,
(08:26):
and suddenly here it is the early nineties, and the
art form that I discovered when reading these books to
my kids just blew my mind. They're so much poetry,
so much information, so much humor. They were just such rich,
wonderful landscapes that I had never thought of. And the
(08:48):
art was absolutely unlike anything I'd ever seen, the quality
of art and these kids books, so that just sort
of opened my eyes to this whole new art form,
and idea started popping in my head. And then I
started writing them down and that was amusing to me,
and I'm like, well, after a while, I thought I
wonder somebody else would be amused by these, And then
(09:08):
one thing led to another and I published some books.
I mean, that's an understatement. You are now a venerated
children's book author with novels and picture books, and I
think most notably a series of picture books called The
Questionnaires that highlights careers in science, engineering, math, and leadership,
(09:32):
which have sold something like, if I read this correctly,
three million copies altogether. Kind of scary number. That's an
incredible amount of books. So tell us more about the
vision for this series of stories. This is Rosie Revere engineer,
Aida Twist scientist, Iggypeck architect and most recently Sophia Valdez
(09:58):
Future press. I love that. Where did you start and
did you have a vision of this as a series
or was it just one book when you started? No,
it was completely a one book thing. I wrote Igpec
Architect because when my son was little, he was that
kid who would build from anything. He would get the
jelly packets of the table of restaurants and powers with
(10:22):
him which nobody wants you to do now, and waitress
of than not a find of using. But I was
always just so captivated by his passion that he had
for whatever he was doing. But you know, he would
build towers out of the soup cans in the pantry.
And I got to thinking, what if there was a
book about a kid who was an architect? So I
wrote this book about Iggy pac and it's really a
(10:44):
book about passion. And the publisher found this magnificent artist,
David Roberts, to do the illustrations, and he brought to
it a level of detail and just really poured his
heart into that book, as I now know he does
with every book. But he brought back in the illustrations
a class of kids like this incredibly diverse, beautiful classroom
(11:07):
of kids. And I should say that he did all
of the illustration. There were no notes for me whatsoever.
He is just the text of the book. Yeah, so
all of that world building really is David's. And I
have to say it ends up being one of the
greatest gifts that anyone has ever given me in my life,
was David drawing that classroom of kids, Because, as I
(11:28):
said earlier, I'm sort of this oblivious person who just
trips merrily along. And Iggy came out, and you know,
I loved Iggy very dear to my heart, but I
really didn't think anyone read it. And I think because
it was so dear to my heart, I kind of
was like, oh, most times you publish a book and
you go out and you think the world's gonna stop
turning for a second, and it's just crickets, nothing happened.
(11:49):
Then you're like, ah, and Iggy was this marvelous little
slow burn where people started giving it to other people,
and the independent booksellers got really behind this book, and
librarian and parents and mommy bloggers and it just kept
building and so the publisher thought well, what about doing
another book about Iggy? And I thought about it for
(12:09):
a couple of years, and I realized I had done
that story and I didn't want to hit the same
notes again. It's like I've done that. But about the
same time the editor and I thought, well, what about
those other kids in the class? And so just by
looking at them, and the thing that David has done
is the kids in that class, they really all have personalities.
(12:30):
So it became sort of this treasure hunt of who
are these kids? And I spent a lot of time
looking at them, and I noticed the girl with the
blonde bangs that swoop over her eyes, and I noticed
that in the four times you see her, you never
see both of her eyes. And I thought the level
of detail that, first of all, it was just subtle
and hidden and would never have noticed had I not
(12:52):
been digging so far. But there are hundreds and hundreds
of hundreds of details in those books like that that
connect all the stories, by the way, lots of Easter eggs.
But I decided, well, what's her story? And so I
got to thinking about it, and I thought, well, I
want that girl to be an engineer, and I wish
I could say that I wanted her to be an
engineer because I knew that we needed girl engineers, which
I did, you know, coming from stem background, I knew
(13:14):
that was really important. But I wanted her to be
an engineer because I wanted to see what David would
do with the illustrations. And I have to say, he
nailed it. He brought back such humor and such joy
and cleverness into those illustrations in her gizmos and gadgets.
So that's where Rosie came from. And then it really
has become this process of looking at David's illustrations and
(13:37):
trying to see what are the personality traits and trying
to unriddle who are these kids based on the clues
he tucks into those pictures. It has been just this
really amazing trajectory that I had never expected. But I'm
having so much fun, and the reception has been so wonderful.
It's such an incredible story of collaboration hearing about you
(13:57):
working with David, and as you mentioned, the stories like
Iggy Pack is really a story about passion. They all
explore these big life lessons like failure and making a
dream into reality and standing up for what you believe in.
What's something that you've learned about your own approach to
life by writing about these heroic young adults. I think
(14:20):
I have learned to trust my instincts more. I think
when you're young, you don't have so many data points
to judge your inner voice, and so I think I've
learned to trust myself more and I've become braver. Is
I think when you get to a certain age, you realize, oh,
I don't have to worry about what other people think.
I know that the story is good, or I know
(14:41):
that I like this thing, And I've really come to
the spot where I can understand that if I feel
strongly about a character, or if it works for me,
if there's truth in the thing that I'm writing, that
that truth will connect to somebody else. And I think
at its core, that's why these books have really reached people,
is because when you look at Iggy, as you said,
(15:02):
it's about passion, and Rosie is about perseverance, and Aid
is about curiosity, and Sophia is about being brave and kids.
I have loved this and was sort of blown away,
but it really struck when Rosie came out that I
started getting emails from from parents who would say, my
daughter tells me she is an engineer. And that's not
(15:24):
saying my daughter wants to be an engineer. She wants
to grow up to be an engineer. She is an engineer.
So we have a five year old who's like, no,
I'm an engineer. Uh. And it didn't work, but I
can fix that. Rosie fixed it. I can fix it.
And I think that happens not because Rosie is How
to be an Engineer book, because it's really not. I mean,
you can learn how to make a hotdog and dispenser
(15:46):
heely in hand and I want thumb, So that's that's good.
But I think it works because there's something true in
that book and and it the truth is that everybody
gets frustrated. Everybody feels down to some point, whether on
purpose or not from other people's how they react to you,
and everybody can persevere. The moment where great great aunt
(16:10):
Rose says, you know, the only true failure can come
if you quit is a liberating moment for kids are like, oh,
it's okay that I fail. So I think the personal
is universal and the universal is personal, and so kids
can see themselves and they say, oh, I've been frustrated.
Maybe I'm an engineer, you know, or for aid to twist,
(16:31):
I'm full of questions. Maybe I'm a scientist. Dat is
full of questions. So this transitive property leads into maybe
I'm a scientist. One of the things we've tried to
do in the Project books is really take that approach
for architecture and engineering and science. And right now we're
working on the Activist book for Sophia and approaching these
(16:51):
topics by saying, a scientist is curious, show us something
that you're curious about. Think of questions, or a scientist
has to persevere or they stick with it, And think
about a time that you have had to stick with
something that was really hard. So the idea of taking
kids and helping them understand you've experienced all these same
(17:12):
emotions that the engineer, that the architects, the scientists do.
Maybe you're a scientist too, Maybe you're an engineer. This
is such important work. It's just so exciting. And really
thinking about having these emotions and then also opening up
these outlets for them and these areas of study. Is
(17:33):
you are just speaking our language absolutely, speaking of writing
(17:54):
stories that people can see themselves in Lauren, You've been
on our show before, back in episode seventeen, The Science
of Drama. You are the queen of writing plays about
incredible women in science. Along with other projects. You've done
work inspired by Shakespeare, political activism, pride and prejudice, a
(18:18):
bunch of different inspirations, and now you've expanded into writing
for film and television and musical theater. We'll get to
that one. How do you think about your slate of
projects at any given time? What are you looking for
when you decide to take on something new? First, thanks
for having me back. Oh, it is our pleasure, Lauren,
(18:44):
with Andrea, who is one of those people that you
never forget meeting. So when I think about what's worth writing,
I mean, that's that's the question, right, because these things
don't happen quickly. So you have to ask yourself what
do you want to spend a lot of time with?
Do you want to spend a lot of time investigating
and turning upside down and arguing in your head with
(19:06):
and speaking languages out loud When I imagine characters, I'm
always saying the lines out loud, which is more than
a little disturbing. For people in my house very oh.
I love that it's so essential because I have to say,
you can always tell the difference when you read something
that's been written thinking about how it would sound out loud.
I just think, because it's not an intellectual argument you're
(19:30):
having in the theater, it's an emotional argument and able
to do both the substance of an idea and the
feeling of it. So when I think about what to write,
that's the conversation I'm having is what can be intellectually
stimulating but emotionally riveting, What can have a revelation at
the end of it that means something to people both
(19:51):
again in a headway in a heart way. And so
stories of science, particularly women in science, have both of
those things right there so much that they are struggling
with Just any scientist, female or not has that struggle
that journey, And part of what I love about Andrea's
books as it does go through that journey, especially Rosie
(20:12):
and and Ada, all of them. They have failures, they
mess up, they don't get it right the first time,
and the perseverance of it is what means a lot
to me as a mom reading them to my little
kids who are science obsessed and that's some of their
favorite parts. But everybody wants that story. What is it
to be resilient? It also makes great theater. Science makes
great theater. Here's the thing, because it is human. It's
(20:35):
a big, huge macro ideas, but human sized, because humans
are the ones with our weird brains that process the
enormous and so for theater maker, I need something that
fits in the human scale because otherwise I can't put
it on stage. So luckily, wories of science we can
get as big as you can dream. But we're watching
(20:58):
a person can front this idea and have this idea
and those beautifully inspiring eureka moments. That's a person on
stage and it is as exciting as any Super Bowl,
you know, last minute score. It's in the world with us.
Um So I want to find a story that does that.
(21:18):
I wanted to blow you away. I wanted to surprise you.
I wanted to make you laugh. I wanted to make
you go, oh my god, that is so like me.
I wanted to make you change your mind about something.
That's what I love writing and what always gets me
back to the keyboard every day. Lauren. It's so exciting
to listen to you talk about the substance of your work,
(21:38):
and that merging of the head and the heart and
the process and practice of your work is also quite profound.
In fact, you have been named the most produced play
right in America more than once as of now, and
so we are not the only ones who agree. And
it's really interesting because part of this is because, as
(22:00):
you are so prolific, you've written so many plays. And
another part is that you've built these relationships with regional
theaters across the country, and many very wisely program your
work continually. And so we have to ask, did you
intentionally take this path with regional theaters or did the
(22:20):
power of these relationships become kind of apparent over time?
How did you build this body of work? I do
write a lot. Why not stop me? I did not
intend for this or have a grand plan that would
have made me much more. I don't know. Coordinated, As
(22:41):
Andreas says, it's a journey. It's like the happy accidents
and kind of keep saying yes to the world as
it presents you with fun choices. And I went to
school in New York City for playwriting dramatic writing, which
includes TV and screen and then afterwards I was planning
on staying, but then I didn't. I came to San Francisco,
did not think I would ever be a Californian, and
(23:02):
here I was. It was amazing town, full of radical theaters,
and I found a home here and kind of always
thought maybe I should have stayed in New York. But
because I didn't, a ton of other amazing opportunities happened,
and a lot of those relationships with regional theaters, And
what was always on my mind is, frankly, writing for myself.
(23:22):
I was writing for the Lauren who goes to theater
and wants to see plays that move her. So in
some ways I was both the writer in the audience
for all of these plays that I've written, and I
think thinking about it in that way makes it less
a story of me outsmarting American theater in a kind
of marketing way or a business way. I'm just writing
(23:44):
for audiences, and I'm writing for the part of me
that just loves theater and wants a play that accommodates
an intelligence and an empathy. And so that's kind of
what I end up doing. And sometimes the answer to
that is I'm just writing to make me laugh, you laugh,
or I'm writing things that make me cry or make
(24:06):
me swoon. And that includes theater for young audiences and
my first major commissions or theater for young audience pieces.
And I adapted Dave Berry Is a Short History of
Nearly Everything, was my very first commission I know, which
is kind of like fifty minute children's play the Universe
(24:27):
at Large, It's Fine. That train led me to the
Kennedy Center, and that led me to meeting Andrea and
the adaptation of her books Aggy, Ada and Rosie in
one musical theater piece. What I love about musical theater,
and specifically musical theater for young people is that it
(24:48):
is so instantly riveting. As soon as someone starts singing,
all children, no matter their ages and adults usually just
snap to attention. So you are really focused on a show.
And that means that we can accomplish a lot. We
can talk about feelings, we can talk about social relationships,
and we can talk about science here here. I started
writing children's theater before I had kids, and now that
(25:09):
I do, it is a whole different experience, such an
amazing exciting thing. Now you have a test audience, you
can see if they laugh at the jokes, right, yeah,
oh yeah. And they got to see the play when
it came to San Francisco and they just absolutely loved it.
I don't think I told you this, Andrea, but you
were just like completely floored and the cat because they
(25:31):
were like, your mom wrote the play. My kids were
like did she? Oh? So we have to know how
(25:55):
did this project come about? How did the two of
you meet or in some way yet connected to turn
this incredible book series into an incredible kids music hall. Well,
Theater Works is a company that that's what they do.
They specialize in taking incredibly popular and important children's literature
and giving it a life on stage. They tour it
(26:15):
all around the country and they bring it to Off
Broadway in New York. And so they reached out to me,
I think knowing in part my history with writing science,
and instantly was like, yes, this is such a great project.
And so Andrew and I remember our first phone call
and being kind of like totally fanned girly on the phone.
And then my co writers, the lyricist Kay Karagan and
(26:38):
composer Brian louder Milk, who are absolute musical theater geniuses.
They do, and then we really met in person the
first kind of presentation when we were showing you what
we've cooked up. Yes, that was so remarkable and cool.
My socks are still knocked off. I was not in that.
That's incredible. So what has the writing process been like?
(27:00):
We'd love to sort of get a little bit of
a peek in it. As you mentioned, Lauren, you're also
working with Kate and Brian and sharing things with Andrea.
So how have you gone about writing the script, Lauren
and how have you continued to be involved Andrea? Well,
the first question was what is our main plot? And
instantly I said that the plot of Iggy Peck Architect
(27:21):
is so great. It's beautifully simple, it's clear, and it's
something we can see on stage. We can build a
bridge on stage, which is of course what Iggy does.
So yeah, so we took that as the main plot.
That's the happenings of the play, and then building songs
that let us get to know each character. So such
(27:42):
fun to have an Iggy song where he literally sings
Architect and all of these octaves and it's very and
Ada sings a song called pop about what it's like
to have an idea and so she pops. She hasn't pop,
she has an idea. So this is great, kind of
really cool tune. And Rose is I think because of
the illustrations in the way that you beautifully wrote her. Andrea,
(28:04):
she's really sensitive. She's the heart of the show. She's
the one that is dealing with this emotional the things
that a lot of kids are dealing with at that age,
a self confidence and feeling like they just want to
give up and they'll never be able to do what
they want to do. And that was a way, I
think to talk to a lot of kids in the audience.
Her great aunt is such a character in the musical too,
(28:25):
and so we it's really wonderful songs with her aunt.
The real fun of writing this together is how can
we take what Rosie is good at, what Ada is
good at, and what Igga is good at and put
them all together so that they can help each other
in this moment of crisis. So that's what's been really
fun is allowing AIDA's science mind and her incessant questions
(28:49):
why why why to bring up some solutions for her
part of their grand plan to build this bridge to
save their class. And Rosie of course has all sorts
of contraptions and ideas to build something to help the
final piece of the bridge get to the other side.
She designed something to do that. So it's really been
fun to imagine the conversation between all of them. And
(29:09):
of course the character of the teacher is it is
like the tiny bit of a villain of the show,
but she's not really and that's you know, she definitely
not fun at the beginning, but we see her grow
and we see her as a learn from and listen
to her students, which I think is a great listen
for adults too. So it's been great and I can't
(29:30):
get the songs out of my head. Oh they're so catchy.
I mean, all of it is so remarkable. I have
to say, just way back from the beginning and theater
Works kind of contacted us and that you know, we're
thinking about the musical. What do you think? Of course,
the answer was why is there a question marketing that? Yes?
And then I remember our conversation we had and I
was just so struck by how deeply and truly you've
(29:53):
just got these books, and you've got the characters and
the big point, and also how you could look at
the world like a child. And you said something interesting
a while ago that you said that you write really
for yourself, then it sort of translates to other people
getting it. And that's exactly how I approached the books.
I'd never write for kids, really, I write for what
(30:13):
do I need to say and what's of interest to
me and what which am I trying to figure out
and also what makes me laugh? And I think that
that's where that idea of something true comes from, that
if you do that and if it speaks to you,
it will speak to somebody else. And I think, Lauren,
you really got that, and for sure you know Kate
and Brian as well, and everyone at theater works really
(30:35):
just made it all come together and this marvelous, fun,
just simply fun project. And I love the way you
intervve the different storylines to make them work together, because
each of those kids does have their kind of their
own thing that they're trying to figure out or their
own approach. And I think it's just wonderful and I'm
so pleased your kids got to see I went to
see it twice. I want to see the early show
and then they live in a collucture or whatever. And
(30:56):
I spent the whole time torn between I want to
watch what's on the stage, where do I want to
watch the kids in the audience that I so it
blew me away because they're leaning forward in their seats
and they're like they're glued to stage. It was Andrew,
what is it like to see these characters on stage?
Just seeing them in three D give you, I don't know,
(31:18):
a fresh perspective or new ideas for future books about them,
It kind of does it. My first reaction, literally was
I wanted to run around like and frank Anstein's alive
and they can sing really well and they can dance
really well. That was just so cool. I think it
brought an energy to how I think about these kids,
(31:41):
because in my mind they're pretty much real at this point,
but now they're peppier than I remembered. I just love that.
I think also like the Miss Lila Greer. I think
that your take on her Lauren has informed my view
of her, and I think she is kind of an
anxious person and Dusch full disclosure. When I first wrote
(32:02):
Iggy Peck, and it was a very long time ago,
she was kind of just the villain and air quotes there.
She's not a bad character, but she was sort of
the nemesis of the plot because he needed someone some
problem to encounter. And I don't know if I wrote
that now, if I would make the teacher that role,
or how it would go. I'm glad it worked out
that way. And but I've now kind of come to
(32:24):
understand her more, and she really is, I think, a
person who has had anxiety and it's a little timid
about going out in the world. That convinces herself that
she can take those steps, and it's sort of led
by these kids, and that's really true in the in
the musical, and I think you lay that out marvelously.
So yeah, I think that informs how I think about her,
(32:44):
which comes out more in the novels now, because in
the chapter books that we're doing about the kids, where
I have time to sort of play out and explore
their families in their world in the classroom a bit more. Well,
the combination of the two of you coming together and
all of these worlds of the story coming together and
Kate and Brian, it's just next level. We cannot wait
(33:06):
to see this show. But Andrea, you share on your
website that your secret ambition is to start in a
Broadway musical. So is this one of those full circle
life moments for you where the maybe we can call
it the strategy of obliviousness has really paid off. It
(33:26):
could be. I do have to say that you could
talk about people being like a triple threat and a
double threat. I am a zero threat this stage zero.
So in my wild streams, yes, you know, actually I do.
I do sometimes when I'm havably hard today writing and
it just needs not be really doing the work I
(33:47):
should do, and I live in my brain I sometimes
think what career would I have if this didn't work out?
And I have to say, a costumer for Broadway does
come to mind, and that when I could be like
maybe a half point threat. So maybe starring in this
when it comes to Broadway is not in the cards.
(34:08):
But maybe a walk on role. Yea, that would be hilarious.
I say hilarious, and producers would say not hilarious, that
would be cool. Well, I will tell you my daughter
is three and a half months old, but we have
read all of these books to her as part of
her bedtime routine, and I cannot wait for her to
(34:29):
be old enough to actually understand what it is you're saying,
and to start asking questions and building things and sort
of being able to use these characters as inspiration to
be her friends as she thinks about how she navigates
the world. Thank you so much for putting this out there,
and Lauren for kind of taking on this incredible opportunity
(34:53):
to make it three D. I can't wait for the
show to come to New York so I can take
her to that. Thank you both for doing this work. Yes,
knowing that you are creating this together and continuing to
do the work that you are doing just makes the
world feel very exciting and full of hope. I'm like
tearing up over here, Liegitimately, I did not expect to
(35:13):
go in this direction, and I am I am like
stopping the corners of my eyes. Um well, what can
I say? And this goes back to the writing for
yourself and trying to write something that's true. Is that
I cried when I write these books. So it's okay.
Thank you. I love that, Lauren. Do you ever cry
when you write? Yes? Yes, Lauren, I have to say
(35:39):
the thing you said about like talking out loud and
writing out loud, I always do that, and sometimes I
don't necessarily write at home so that when you're in
a plopping coffee shop and suddenly you look and you
realize you're the only one in the coffee shop. Um. Yeah,
you know. I love hearing that because I cry when
I make things, and that's always a good sign that
(36:00):
a chord of truth has been struck, you know. And
I also am definitely very experienced at crying in public.
So you're in good company. Thank you so much for
joining us today, ladies. Thank you. I love how much.
(36:22):
Andrea's collaboration with the book's illustrator, David Roberts inspired her
to expand from Iggy's book into the entire series the
story Rosie and Ada and Sophia. Yes, the choices that
he made as he was drawing out the world that
Iggy lived in gave her the insights into the other
(36:43):
students and sparked those stories. It's such an amazing example
of what a great collaboration can do. It's so true.
I love that idea of the revelations that come from
great collaboration. And on that note, how by collaborating with
Lauren to adapt the books into the script for the
musical Andrea was then able to gain new insight and
(37:05):
ultimately I love that empathy for the teacher character. It
really broke open what sounds like is a character that
could be very kind of one color and sort of
became this like multicolored person. It really is the power
of collaboration, especially with creatives who bring their varied experiences
(37:26):
and skills to the project, which is what you and
I talked about all the time, Christina. On that note,
I loved what Lauren had to say about why science
and theater are such a perfect fit for one another.
You know, when she talked about she wants her plays
to be both intellectually stimulating and emotionally riveting, and how
stories and science have both of those things the head
(37:48):
and the heart. For sure. I loved her point about
how science is human. These are big macro ideas for sure,
but they're human sized because humans are processing them, and
the stage is a perfect place to see people confronting
these enormous ideas. Yeah, it reminded me recently of this
(38:08):
talk that I went to by Janna Levin who heads
up Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, and she talked about the
fact that it's kind of crazy that science sort of
gets this reputation of having all of these silos or boxes,
when really scientists are just examining these massive ideas that
(38:29):
transcend boundaries literally and theoretically all of the time. And
when Lauren talked about that watching that on stage is
as exciting as the Super Bowl, I just wanted to
shoot her at my microphone, you know, Kate. When Andrea
talked about her experience as a technical writer and how
(38:49):
it made her a better author for children, you know
who I thought about, Grace Hopper. Uh huh, Admiral Hopper.
She was such a strong supporter of being able to
speak and write simply about complex ideas, and I just
know she would have made an excellent children's book author too.
Oh my gosh, she was such a star communicator. Can
(39:10):
you imagine the books that Admiral Hopper could have written.
I'm picturing like an animated computer named Mark and involving
like a stack of punch cards that goes missing. Oh
my gosh, this is like my new version of the
mixed up Diaries of Mrs Basil Eve frank Wiler. I
love a good reference to the Harvard Mark to computer. Christina,
(39:34):
does Mark go to Harvard is that part of the
character obviously. Okay, Your Gracehopper fan fiction is off to
a very promising start. If any of our listeners have
suggestions for additional plot lines, please you all send them
our way. Yes please, and of course, as always, we
(39:55):
love hearing your updates and questions. You can reach us
on Twitter or Instagram at t L d n E
pod or you can email us at hello at t
L d n E podcast dot com, or you can
leave us a character or illustrator pitch in a voicemail
at a three three high t L d n E.
That's eight three three four eight five three six three,
(40:18):
Then press eight oh three and we'll link to Andrea's
and Lauren's websites more info about the questionnaires series and
some sneak peaks of the Rosie Revere musical, all of
which you can find at t L d n E
podcast dot com. Slash one twenty. Thanks so much to
(40:44):
our producer Mia Coole and t you for tuning in.
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
if you like what you heard, it really helps us
get the word out to fellow human ven diagrams. Until
next time, remember the Limit does not watch existed. The
(41:05):
Limit does Not Exist is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Yeah.
Hey, everybody, just an f y I We recorded this
episode before we were in a pandemic. We thought that
my beautiful context for you indeed, but we hope it
still brings you inside and inspiration during this challenging time.
Hanging there. The Limit Does Not Exist is a production
of I Heart Radio. Hey, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm
(00:29):
Kate Scott Campbell, and you're listening to the Limit does
Not Exist. A podcast for Human then Diagrams, coming at
you every single week and hosted by us. What happens
when you put an engineer, architect, scientist, and future president
all in one classroom. Well, to start, you get one
(00:51):
amazing series of children's books and a brilliant new musical
That's right. Today, we have the incredible pleasure of speaking
with Andrew Beatty, author of the children's book series that
includes Rosie Revere engineer and Iggy Peck architect. Andrew is
joined by former guest Lauren Gunderson, America's most produced playwright
(01:12):
that is correct and Andrew's collaborator in taking Rosie and
Friends from the page to the stage. Andrea tells us
how a multidisciplinary kid from the Midwest became a famous
children's book author via some notable zigs and zags through biology,
computer science, and technical writing, and Lauren lets us in
on her process, from how she chooses her projects to
(01:34):
why theater is the perfect place to tell stories about science.
So let's jump in with Andrea and Lauren, shall we?
Let's do it? So, Andrea, you grew up in the Midwest,
and you were a big reader as a child, including
(01:55):
I love this, A self professed love of Nancy drew
us to time, and in one interview you describe your
childhood as being spent as a detective, world explorer, movie star,
and spy. Sounds like the perfect ven Diagram career. But
then when you went to college you studied biology and
(02:16):
computer science. Okay, so where did the science and CS
interest come from and why did you choose that path
in college? So I come from the Midwest, but a
tiny town of literally three people, and it was very,
very long ago. You know, dinosaurs were not quite still
roaming the earth, but not not much after that, So
(02:38):
we did not have any of the distractions and marvelous
things that kids have now to build their time. So
we had books, and we had the fields to run in,
and our bicycles, and that was sort of it. So
I was one of six kids, and we spent our
days literally running out in the fields, chasing the dogs
and having adventures. So we had to make up our
(02:58):
own amusement, make up our own interpretation of the world,
and it was really fantastic. I think if I was
growing up now, I would never end up being any
kind of creative person because I would be so pulled
into my devices all the time. Maybe that's not true.
I hope it's not true. That so for me and
for our family, because there were not a lot of
(03:20):
places to get in put PBS was a really really
instrumental and very big thing for us. During the day
we'd be off running around to the fields, but boy,
at nighttime it was hey, Masterpiece Theaters on, and Cosmos
is on, and you know nature, and so really through PBS,
I was introduced to this marvelous world of science in
(03:41):
a way that I would not have been otherwise. That
was something I really loved. And one show particularly was
All Creatures Great and Small. I guess it was, which
PBS is doing again. Masterpiece Theater is starting a new
addition of that. This faulty very excited that one really
got me hooked on just animals and science. So I
thought I didn't want to be a vet because I
(04:03):
sounded like a lot of work. But I ended up
really taking a lot of biology classes when I went
to junior college, and then I went to a university
and really fell in love with science. I love the
whole idea of your podcast because I think life it's
just sort of this adventure you go on, and for me,
I'm sort of gifted with obliviousness just to say, I
(04:27):
really never paid me a ton of attention to where
I'm going next. I just say, Oh, that looks interesting,
I'll try that. Oh that looks interesting, I'll try that.
So I've never had a grand plan that really took
me from one place to the next. But when I
went to college, they had a computer class that I thought, Okay,
i'll try that, and it turned out that that was
sort of the avenue that I ended up on because
(04:50):
I did basically a double major, wanted two classes short
with a computer science. But when I graduated, I had
two job offers in one day, and wow, one computers
I know, and which is sounds very impressive, but neither
of them paid well. But what jos more than the other.
So I went into computers and that's how I ended
(05:10):
up there. So you took the job and somehow you
ended up doing technical writing, which you say was great
training because it turned you into a fierce self editor.
So can you tell us what technical writing is and
how you ended up doing that rather than say, writing code.
So I was hired by a company that was a
software company, but I was in the support side of
(05:33):
the company. So I was the person on the phone
all day saying have you turned it off and on again?
And you're red the machine and basically trying to feel
that all the ways people have messed up what the
thing they were trying to do. And as part of that,
the company wanted to start a newsletter. Because we were
always feeling so many problems over and over, we thought, well,
why don't we start a newsletter that will help people
(05:55):
not have to do the same thing wrong over and over.
I asked if I wanted to do it, and I
didn't know anything about editing. I've always been kind of
a grammar nerd so I was very excited about it.
I went out and bought every book I could find
about editing. Well, first off. Technical writing is simply the
process of trying to describe something that's somewhat technical in
terms that people can easily understand that don't kill them
(06:18):
with boredom. And that's kind of yeah, that's all that's
the goal. It's like you're translating and working to engage
at the same time. That's exactly right. So I took
all these these books and I really became a ferocious
self editor. So you know, if I would write a
hundred words, i'd pull back out forty of those, just
(06:38):
getting very spare with my writing. Actually, I've read a
lot of poetry at the same time, which is something
I always tell people who want to be you think
about being writers, is read poetry because it teaches you
what not to put in, it teaches you what to include,
and it helps you understand the value of a pause. Yeah,
so that was helpful. But at the end of the day,
(07:00):
those skills of being able to take this fairly tedious,
boring stuff but make it palatable and make it somewhat
interesting because it was never going to get super interesting,
but getting to the point fast, making it clear and
in sometimes amusing if you can. That's kind of the
heart of writing for children. And even though I had
(07:20):
no idea, I had never thought about being a writer
or being I mean, because a kid. I might have
thought to y'all, well, it's a kid I wanted to
do all those days before all the careers are mine
a safe cracker and oh, getaway car driver, all the things. Yeah. Yeah,
But so when I became a writer years later, after
(07:42):
I moved from St. Louis to Chicago, and so and
I had a kid, and so I didn't go back
to working in the office after that happened. So I
left St. Louis and suddenly my life changed into this
new life is sort of my next life that I
think when you get to a certain age, you sort
of look back, and at least I tend to look
at my life as these different, very distinct episodes that
(08:04):
are sometimes they're clearly connected to the ones that came before,
but sometimes so different. That was a moment for me
when I came to Chicago and I have a little kid,
and then I had two kids, and we're spending so
much time reading picture books. As a kid, we had
Dr Seuss, we had to go down go, but they
were slim pickings in terms of really great children's books,
(08:26):
and suddenly here it is the early nineties, and the
art form that I discovered when reading these books to
my kids just blew my mind. They're so much poetry,
so much information, so much humor. They were just such rich,
wonderful landscapes that I had never thought of. And the
(08:48):
art was absolutely unlike anything I'd ever seen, the quality
of art and these kids books, so that just sort
of opened my eyes to this whole new art form,
and idea started popping in my head. And then I
started writing them down and that was amusing to me,
and I'm like, well, after a while, I thought I
wonder somebody else would be amused by these, And then
(09:08):
one thing led to another and I published some books.
I mean, that's an understatement. You are now a venerated
children's book author with novels and picture books, and I
think most notably a series of picture books called The
Questionnaires that highlights careers in science, engineering, math, and leadership,
(09:32):
which have sold something like, if I read this correctly,
three million copies altogether. Kind of scary number. That's an
incredible amount of books. So tell us more about the
vision for this series of stories. This is Rosie Revere engineer,
Aida Twist scientist, Iggypeck architect and most recently Sophia Valdez
(09:58):
Future press. I love that. Where did you start and
did you have a vision of this as a series
or was it just one book when you started? No,
it was completely a one book thing. I wrote Igpec
Architect because when my son was little, he was that
kid who would build from anything. He would get the
jelly packets of the table of restaurants and powers with
(10:22):
him which nobody wants you to do now, and waitress
of than not a find of using. But I was
always just so captivated by his passion that he had
for whatever he was doing. But you know, he would
build towers out of the soup cans in the pantry.
And I got to thinking, what if there was a
book about a kid who was an architect? So I
wrote this book about Iggy pac and it's really a
(10:44):
book about passion. And the publisher found this magnificent artist,
David Roberts, to do the illustrations, and he brought to
it a level of detail and just really poured his
heart into that book, as I now know he does
with every book. But he brought back in the illustrations
a class of kids like this incredibly diverse, beautiful classroom
(11:07):
of kids. And I should say that he did all
of the illustration. There were no notes for me whatsoever.
He is just the text of the book. Yeah, so
all of that world building really is David's. And I
have to say it ends up being one of the
greatest gifts that anyone has ever given me in my life,
was David drawing that classroom of kids, Because, as I
(11:28):
said earlier, I'm sort of this oblivious person who just
trips merrily along. And Iggy came out, and you know,
I loved Iggy very dear to my heart, but I
really didn't think anyone read it. And I think because
it was so dear to my heart, I kind of
was like, oh, most times you publish a book and
you go out and you think the world's gonna stop
turning for a second, and it's just crickets, nothing happened.
(11:49):
Then you're like, ah, and Iggy was this marvelous little
slow burn where people started giving it to other people,
and the independent booksellers got really behind this book, and
librarian and parents and mommy bloggers and it just kept
building and so the publisher thought well, what about doing
another book about Iggy? And I thought about it for
(12:09):
a couple of years, and I realized I had done
that story and I didn't want to hit the same
notes again. It's like I've done that. But about the
same time the editor and I thought, well, what about
those other kids in the class? And so just by
looking at them, and the thing that David has done
is the kids in that class, they really all have personalities.
(12:30):
So it became sort of this treasure hunt of who
are these kids? And I spent a lot of time
looking at them, and I noticed the girl with the
blonde bangs that swoop over her eyes, and I noticed
that in the four times you see her, you never
see both of her eyes. And I thought the level
of detail that, first of all, it was just subtle
and hidden and would never have noticed had I not
(12:52):
been digging so far. But there are hundreds and hundreds
of hundreds of details in those books like that that
connect all the stories, by the way, lots of Easter eggs.
But I decided, well, what's her story? And so I
got to thinking about it, and I thought, well, I
want that girl to be an engineer, and I wish
I could say that I wanted her to be an
engineer because I knew that we needed girl engineers, which
I did, you know, coming from stem background, I knew
(13:14):
that was really important. But I wanted her to be
an engineer because I wanted to see what David would
do with the illustrations. And I have to say, he
nailed it. He brought back such humor and such joy
and cleverness into those illustrations in her gizmos and gadgets.
So that's where Rosie came from. And then it really
has become this process of looking at David's illustrations and
(13:37):
trying to see what are the personality traits and trying
to unriddle who are these kids based on the clues
he tucks into those pictures. It has been just this
really amazing trajectory that I had never expected. But I'm
having so much fun, and the reception has been so wonderful.
It's such an incredible story of collaboration hearing about you
(13:57):
working with David, and as you mentioned, the stories like
Iggy Pack is really a story about passion. They all
explore these big life lessons like failure and making a
dream into reality and standing up for what you believe in.
What's something that you've learned about your own approach to
life by writing about these heroic young adults. I think
(14:20):
I have learned to trust my instincts more. I think
when you're young, you don't have so many data points
to judge your inner voice, and so I think I've
learned to trust myself more and I've become braver. Is
I think when you get to a certain age, you realize, oh,
I don't have to worry about what other people think.
I know that the story is good, or I know
(14:41):
that I like this thing, And I've really come to
the spot where I can understand that if I feel
strongly about a character, or if it works for me,
if there's truth in the thing that I'm writing, that
that truth will connect to somebody else. And I think
at its core, that's why these books have really reached people,
is because when you look at Iggy, as you said,
(15:02):
it's about passion, and Rosie is about perseverance, and Aid
is about curiosity, and Sophia is about being brave and kids.
I have loved this and was sort of blown away,
but it really struck when Rosie came out that I
started getting emails from from parents who would say, my
daughter tells me she is an engineer. And that's not
(15:24):
saying my daughter wants to be an engineer. She wants
to grow up to be an engineer. She is an engineer.
So we have a five year old who's like, no,
I'm an engineer. Uh. And it didn't work, but I
can fix that. Rosie fixed it. I can fix it.
And I think that happens not because Rosie is How
to be an Engineer book, because it's really not. I mean,
you can learn how to make a hotdog and dispenser
(15:46):
heely in hand and I want thumb, So that's that's good.
But I think it works because there's something true in
that book and and it the truth is that everybody
gets frustrated. Everybody feels down to some point, whether on
purpose or not from other people's how they react to you,
and everybody can persevere. The moment where great great aunt
(16:10):
Rose says, you know, the only true failure can come
if you quit is a liberating moment for kids are like, oh,
it's okay that I fail. So I think the personal
is universal and the universal is personal, and so kids
can see themselves and they say, oh, I've been frustrated.
Maybe I'm an engineer, you know, or for aid to twist,
(16:31):
I'm full of questions. Maybe I'm a scientist. Dat is
full of questions. So this transitive property leads into maybe
I'm a scientist. One of the things we've tried to
do in the Project books is really take that approach
for architecture and engineering and science. And right now we're
working on the Activist book for Sophia and approaching these
(16:51):
topics by saying, a scientist is curious, show us something
that you're curious about. Think of questions, or a scientist
has to persevere or they stick with it, And think
about a time that you have had to stick with
something that was really hard. So the idea of taking
kids and helping them understand you've experienced all these same
(17:12):
emotions that the engineer, that the architects, the scientists do.
Maybe you're a scientist too, Maybe you're an engineer. This
is such important work. It's just so exciting. And really
thinking about having these emotions and then also opening up
these outlets for them and these areas of study. Is
(17:33):
you are just speaking our language absolutely, speaking of writing
(17:54):
stories that people can see themselves in Lauren, You've been
on our show before, back in episode seventeen, The Science
of Drama. You are the queen of writing plays about
incredible women in science. Along with other projects. You've done
work inspired by Shakespeare, political activism, pride and prejudice, a
(18:18):
bunch of different inspirations, and now you've expanded into writing
for film and television and musical theater. We'll get to
that one. How do you think about your slate of
projects at any given time? What are you looking for
when you decide to take on something new? First, thanks
for having me back. Oh, it is our pleasure, Lauren,
(18:44):
with Andrea, who is one of those people that you
never forget meeting. So when I think about what's worth writing,
I mean, that's that's the question, right, because these things
don't happen quickly. So you have to ask yourself what
do you want to spend a lot of time with?
Do you want to spend a lot of time investigating
and turning upside down and arguing in your head with
(19:06):
and speaking languages out loud When I imagine characters, I'm
always saying the lines out loud, which is more than
a little disturbing. For people in my house very oh.
I love that it's so essential because I have to say,
you can always tell the difference when you read something
that's been written thinking about how it would sound out loud.
I just think, because it's not an intellectual argument you're
(19:30):
having in the theater, it's an emotional argument and able
to do both the substance of an idea and the
feeling of it. So when I think about what to write,
that's the conversation I'm having is what can be intellectually
stimulating but emotionally riveting, What can have a revelation at
the end of it that means something to people both
(19:51):
again in a headway in a heart way. And so
stories of science, particularly women in science, have both of
those things right there so much that they are struggling
with Just any scientist, female or not has that struggle
that journey, And part of what I love about Andrea's
books as it does go through that journey, especially Rosie
(20:12):
and and Ada, all of them. They have failures, they
mess up, they don't get it right the first time,
and the perseverance of it is what means a lot
to me as a mom reading them to my little
kids who are science obsessed and that's some of their
favorite parts. But everybody wants that story. What is it
to be resilient? It also makes great theater. Science makes
great theater. Here's the thing, because it is human. It's
(20:35):
a big, huge macro ideas, but human sized, because humans
are the ones with our weird brains that process the
enormous and so for theater maker, I need something that
fits in the human scale because otherwise I can't put
it on stage. So luckily, wories of science we can
get as big as you can dream. But we're watching
(20:58):
a person can front this idea and have this idea
and those beautifully inspiring eureka moments. That's a person on
stage and it is as exciting as any Super Bowl,
you know, last minute score. It's in the world with us.
Um So I want to find a story that does that.
(21:18):
I wanted to blow you away. I wanted to surprise you.
I wanted to make you laugh. I wanted to make
you go, oh my god, that is so like me.
I wanted to make you change your mind about something.
That's what I love writing and what always gets me
back to the keyboard every day. Lauren. It's so exciting
to listen to you talk about the substance of your work,
(21:38):
and that merging of the head and the heart and
the process and practice of your work is also quite profound.
In fact, you have been named the most produced play
right in America more than once as of now, and
so we are not the only ones who agree. And
it's really interesting because part of this is because, as
(22:00):
you are so prolific, you've written so many plays. And
another part is that you've built these relationships with regional
theaters across the country, and many very wisely program your
work continually. And so we have to ask, did you
intentionally take this path with regional theaters or did the
(22:20):
power of these relationships become kind of apparent over time?
How did you build this body of work? I do
write a lot. Why not stop me? I did not
intend for this or have a grand plan that would
have made me much more. I don't know. Coordinated, As
(22:41):
Andreas says, it's a journey. It's like the happy accidents
and kind of keep saying yes to the world as
it presents you with fun choices. And I went to
school in New York City for playwriting dramatic writing, which
includes TV and screen and then afterwards I was planning
on staying, but then I didn't. I came to San Francisco,
did not think I would ever be a Californian, and
(23:02):
here I was. It was amazing town, full of radical theaters,
and I found a home here and kind of always
thought maybe I should have stayed in New York. But
because I didn't, a ton of other amazing opportunities happened,
and a lot of those relationships with regional theaters, And
what was always on my mind is, frankly, writing for myself.
(23:22):
I was writing for the Lauren who goes to theater
and wants to see plays that move her. So in
some ways I was both the writer in the audience
for all of these plays that I've written, and I
think thinking about it in that way makes it less
a story of me outsmarting American theater in a kind
of marketing way or a business way. I'm just writing
(23:44):
for audiences, and I'm writing for the part of me
that just loves theater and wants a play that accommodates
an intelligence and an empathy. And so that's kind of
what I end up doing. And sometimes the answer to
that is I'm just writing to make me laugh, you laugh,
or I'm writing things that make me cry or make
(24:06):
me swoon. And that includes theater for young audiences and
my first major commissions or theater for young audience pieces.
And I adapted Dave Berry Is a Short History of
Nearly Everything, was my very first commission I know, which
is kind of like fifty minute children's play the Universe
(24:27):
at Large, It's Fine. That train led me to the
Kennedy Center, and that led me to meeting Andrea and
the adaptation of her books Aggy, Ada and Rosie in
one musical theater piece. What I love about musical theater,
and specifically musical theater for young people is that it
(24:48):
is so instantly riveting. As soon as someone starts singing,
all children, no matter their ages and adults usually just
snap to attention. So you are really focused on a show.
And that means that we can accomplish a lot. We
can talk about feelings, we can talk about social relationships,
and we can talk about science here here. I started
writing children's theater before I had kids, and now that
(25:09):
I do, it is a whole different experience, such an
amazing exciting thing. Now you have a test audience, you
can see if they laugh at the jokes, right, yeah,
oh yeah. And they got to see the play when
it came to San Francisco and they just absolutely loved it.
I don't think I told you this, Andrea, but you
were just like completely floored and the cat because they
(25:31):
were like, your mom wrote the play. My kids were
like did she? Oh? So we have to know how
(25:55):
did this project come about? How did the two of
you meet or in some way yet connected to turn
this incredible book series into an incredible kids music hall. Well,
Theater Works is a company that that's what they do.
They specialize in taking incredibly popular and important children's literature
and giving it a life on stage. They tour it
(26:15):
all around the country and they bring it to Off
Broadway in New York. And so they reached out to me,
I think knowing in part my history with writing science,
and instantly was like, yes, this is such a great project.
And so Andrew and I remember our first phone call
and being kind of like totally fanned girly on the phone.
And then my co writers, the lyricist Kay Karagan and
(26:38):
composer Brian louder Milk, who are absolute musical theater geniuses.
They do, and then we really met in person the
first kind of presentation when we were showing you what
we've cooked up. Yes, that was so remarkable and cool.
My socks are still knocked off. I was not in that.
That's incredible. So what has the writing process been like?
(27:00):
We'd love to sort of get a little bit of
a peek in it. As you mentioned, Lauren, you're also
working with Kate and Brian and sharing things with Andrea.
So how have you gone about writing the script, Lauren
and how have you continued to be involved Andrea? Well,
the first question was what is our main plot? And
instantly I said that the plot of Iggy Peck Architect
(27:21):
is so great. It's beautifully simple, it's clear, and it's
something we can see on stage. We can build a
bridge on stage, which is of course what Iggy does.
So yeah, so we took that as the main plot.
That's the happenings of the play, and then building songs
that let us get to know each character. So such
(27:42):
fun to have an Iggy song where he literally sings
Architect and all of these octaves and it's very and
Ada sings a song called pop about what it's like
to have an idea and so she pops. She hasn't pop,
she has an idea. So this is great, kind of
really cool tune. And Rose is I think because of
the illustrations in the way that you beautifully wrote her. Andrea,
(28:04):
she's really sensitive. She's the heart of the show. She's
the one that is dealing with this emotional the things
that a lot of kids are dealing with at that age,
a self confidence and feeling like they just want to
give up and they'll never be able to do what
they want to do. And that was a way, I
think to talk to a lot of kids in the audience.
Her great aunt is such a character in the musical too,
(28:25):
and so we it's really wonderful songs with her aunt.
The real fun of writing this together is how can
we take what Rosie is good at, what Ada is
good at, and what Igga is good at and put
them all together so that they can help each other
in this moment of crisis. So that's what's been really
fun is allowing AIDA's science mind and her incessant questions
(28:49):
why why why to bring up some solutions for her
part of their grand plan to build this bridge to
save their class. And Rosie of course has all sorts
of contraptions and ideas to build something to help the
final piece of the bridge get to the other side.
She designed something to do that. So it's really been
fun to imagine the conversation between all of them. And
(29:09):
of course the character of the teacher is it is
like the tiny bit of a villain of the show,
but she's not really and that's you know, she definitely
not fun at the beginning, but we see her grow
and we see her as a learn from and listen
to her students, which I think is a great listen
for adults too. So it's been great and I can't
(29:30):
get the songs out of my head. Oh they're so catchy.
I mean, all of it is so remarkable. I have
to say, just way back from the beginning and theater
Works kind of contacted us and that you know, we're
thinking about the musical. What do you think? Of course,
the answer was why is there a question marketing that? Yes?
And then I remember our conversation we had and I
was just so struck by how deeply and truly you've
(29:53):
just got these books, and you've got the characters and
the big point, and also how you could look at
the world like a child. And you said something interesting
a while ago that you said that you write really
for yourself, then it sort of translates to other people
getting it. And that's exactly how I approached the books.
I'd never write for kids, really, I write for what
(30:13):
do I need to say and what's of interest to
me and what which am I trying to figure out
and also what makes me laugh? And I think that
that's where that idea of something true comes from, that
if you do that and if it speaks to you,
it will speak to somebody else. And I think, Lauren,
you really got that, and for sure you know Kate
and Brian as well, and everyone at theater works really
(30:35):
just made it all come together and this marvelous, fun,
just simply fun project. And I love the way you
intervve the different storylines to make them work together, because
each of those kids does have their kind of their
own thing that they're trying to figure out or their
own approach. And I think it's just wonderful and I'm
so pleased your kids got to see I went to
see it twice. I want to see the early show
and then they live in a collucture or whatever. And
(30:56):
I spent the whole time torn between I want to
watch what's on the stage, where do I want to
watch the kids in the audience that I so it
blew me away because they're leaning forward in their seats
and they're like they're glued to stage. It was Andrew,
what is it like to see these characters on stage?
Just seeing them in three D give you, I don't know,
(31:18):
a fresh perspective or new ideas for future books about them,
It kind of does it. My first reaction, literally was
I wanted to run around like and frank Anstein's alive
and they can sing really well and they can dance
really well. That was just so cool. I think it
brought an energy to how I think about these kids,
(31:41):
because in my mind they're pretty much real at this point,
but now they're peppier than I remembered. I just love that.
I think also like the Miss Lila Greer. I think
that your take on her Lauren has informed my view
of her, and I think she is kind of an
anxious person and Dusch full disclosure. When I first wrote
(32:02):
Iggy Peck, and it was a very long time ago,
she was kind of just the villain and air quotes there.
She's not a bad character, but she was sort of
the nemesis of the plot because he needed someone some
problem to encounter. And I don't know if I wrote
that now, if I would make the teacher that role,
or how it would go. I'm glad it worked out
that way. And but I've now kind of come to
(32:24):
understand her more, and she really is, I think, a
person who has had anxiety and it's a little timid
about going out in the world. That convinces herself that
she can take those steps, and it's sort of led
by these kids, and that's really true in the in
the musical, and I think you lay that out marvelously.
So yeah, I think that informs how I think about her,
(32:44):
which comes out more in the novels now, because in
the chapter books that we're doing about the kids, where
I have time to sort of play out and explore
their families in their world in the classroom a bit more. Well,
the combination of the two of you coming together and
all of these worlds of the story coming together and
Kate and Brian, it's just next level. We cannot wait
(33:06):
to see this show. But Andrea, you share on your
website that your secret ambition is to start in a
Broadway musical. So is this one of those full circle
life moments for you where the maybe we can call
it the strategy of obliviousness has really paid off. It
(33:26):
could be. I do have to say that you could
talk about people being like a triple threat and a
double threat. I am a zero threat this stage zero.
So in my wild streams, yes, you know, actually I do.
I do sometimes when I'm havably hard today writing and
it just needs not be really doing the work I
(33:47):
should do, and I live in my brain I sometimes
think what career would I have if this didn't work out?
And I have to say, a costumer for Broadway does
come to mind, and that when I could be like
maybe a half point threat. So maybe starring in this
when it comes to Broadway is not in the cards.
(34:08):
But maybe a walk on role. Yea, that would be hilarious.
I say hilarious, and producers would say not hilarious, that
would be cool. Well, I will tell you my daughter
is three and a half months old, but we have
read all of these books to her as part of
her bedtime routine, and I cannot wait for her to
(34:29):
be old enough to actually understand what it is you're saying,
and to start asking questions and building things and sort
of being able to use these characters as inspiration to
be her friends as she thinks about how she navigates
the world. Thank you so much for putting this out there,
and Lauren for kind of taking on this incredible opportunity
(34:53):
to make it three D. I can't wait for the
show to come to New York so I can take
her to that. Thank you both for doing this work. Yes,
knowing that you are creating this together and continuing to
do the work that you are doing just makes the
world feel very exciting and full of hope. I'm like
tearing up over here, Liegitimately, I did not expect to
(35:13):
go in this direction, and I am I am like
stopping the corners of my eyes. Um well, what can
I say? And this goes back to the writing for
yourself and trying to write something that's true. Is that
I cried when I write these books. So it's okay.
Thank you. I love that, Lauren. Do you ever cry
when you write? Yes? Yes, Lauren, I have to say
(35:39):
the thing you said about like talking out loud and
writing out loud, I always do that, and sometimes I
don't necessarily write at home so that when you're in
a plopping coffee shop and suddenly you look and you
realize you're the only one in the coffee shop. Um. Yeah,
you know. I love hearing that because I cry when
I make things, and that's always a good sign that
(36:00):
a chord of truth has been struck, you know. And
I also am definitely very experienced at crying in public.
So you're in good company. Thank you so much for
joining us today, ladies. Thank you. I love how much.
(36:22):
Andrea's collaboration with the book's illustrator, David Roberts inspired her
to expand from Iggy's book into the entire series the
story Rosie and Ada and Sophia. Yes, the choices that
he made as he was drawing out the world that
Iggy lived in gave her the insights into the other
(36:43):
students and sparked those stories. It's such an amazing example
of what a great collaboration can do. It's so true.
I love that idea of the revelations that come from
great collaboration. And on that note, how by collaborating with
Lauren to adapt the books into the script for the
musical Andrea was then able to gain new insight and
(37:05):
ultimately I love that empathy for the teacher character. It
really broke open what sounds like is a character that
could be very kind of one color and sort of
became this like multicolored person. It really is the power
of collaboration, especially with creatives who bring their varied experiences
(37:26):
and skills to the project, which is what you and
I talked about all the time, Christina. On that note,
I loved what Lauren had to say about why science
and theater are such a perfect fit for one another.
You know, when she talked about she wants her plays
to be both intellectually stimulating and emotionally riveting, and how
stories and science have both of those things the head
(37:48):
and the heart. For sure. I loved her point about
how science is human. These are big macro ideas for sure,
but they're human sized because humans are processing them, and
the stage is a perfect place to see people confronting
these enormous ideas. Yeah, it reminded me recently of this
(38:08):
talk that I went to by Janna Levin who heads
up Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, and she talked about the
fact that it's kind of crazy that science sort of
gets this reputation of having all of these silos or boxes,
when really scientists are just examining these massive ideas that
(38:29):
transcend boundaries literally and theoretically all of the time. And
when Lauren talked about that watching that on stage is
as exciting as the Super Bowl, I just wanted to
shoot her at my microphone, you know, Kate. When Andrea
talked about her experience as a technical writer and how
(38:49):
it made her a better author for children, you know
who I thought about, Grace Hopper. Uh huh, Admiral Hopper.
She was such a strong supporter of being able to
speak and write simply about complex ideas, and I just
know she would have made an excellent children's book author too.
Oh my gosh, she was such a star communicator. Can
(39:10):
you imagine the books that Admiral Hopper could have written.
I'm picturing like an animated computer named Mark and involving
like a stack of punch cards that goes missing. Oh
my gosh, this is like my new version of the
mixed up Diaries of Mrs Basil Eve frank Wiler. I
love a good reference to the Harvard Mark to computer. Christina,
(39:34):
does Mark go to Harvard is that part of the
character obviously. Okay, Your Gracehopper fan fiction is off to
a very promising start. If any of our listeners have
suggestions for additional plot lines, please you all send them
our way. Yes please, and of course, as always, we
(39:55):
love hearing your updates and questions. You can reach us
on Twitter or Instagram at t L d n E
pod or you can email us at hello at t
L d n E podcast dot com, or you can
leave us a character or illustrator pitch in a voicemail
at a three three high t L d n E.
That's eight three three four eight five three six three,
(40:18):
Then press eight oh three and we'll link to Andrea's
and Lauren's websites more info about the questionnaires series and
some sneak peaks of the Rosie Revere musical, all of
which you can find at t L d n E
podcast dot com. Slash one twenty. Thanks so much to
(40:44):
our producer Mia Coole and t you for tuning in.
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
if you like what you heard, it really helps us
get the word out to fellow human ven diagrams. Until
next time, remember the Limit does not watch existed. The
(41:05):
Limit does Not Exist is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Yeah.
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