May 13, 2025 • 34 mins
From the shadowy Pine Barrens to the stages of New Jersey's most atmospheric venues, "The Devil and Daisy Dirt" brings cryptid folklore to life through an extraordinary blend of puppetry, murder ballads, and feminist storytelling. Our fascinating conversation with creators Alex Dawson and Dan Diana reveals the magical collision of their creative worlds.
Despite growing up a thousand miles and a decade apart, both men were shaped by similar influences – creature features like The Dark Crystal, wooded landscapes that fired their imaginations, and a deep connection to folklore. Alex, now a Rutgers University creative writing professor, brings literary depth and musical sensibility informed by his Southern upbringing, while Dan contributes Hollywood-level creature design expertise honed through work on productions ranging from Marvel blockbusters to indie horror films.
Their theatrical creation doesn't merely rehash the familiar Jersey Devil legend, but transforms it into something more nuanced. The massive 8-foot devil puppet (surprisingly small compared to their 13-foot outdoor creations) serves as a backdrop for exploring deeper themes about humanity, nature conservation, and dismantling patriarchal systems. Most powerfully, their protagonist Daisy's musical moment of resistance consistently draws cheers from women in the audience.
Ready to experience "History with bite"? Follow the links in our show notes to catch this selling-out production before it vanishes into the Pine Barrens mist. Have you encountered any Jersey folklore worth sharing? Let us know in the comments!
🐐 Jersey Devil, reimagined — folklore meets punk puppetry
💪 Feminist tall tale — Daisy Dirt flips the damsel trope
🎻 Live bluegrass score — haunting, foot-stomping Americana
🎭 Gothic vaudeville vibes — think Labyrinth meets Johnny Cash
🐾 8-ft creature suit — part monster, part misunderstood legend
🌲 Deep NJ roots — Pine Barrens myth told by locals, for locals
🕯️ Folklore meets horror — poetic, dark, and weird in the best way
🎤 Critically acclaimed — praised by Weird NJ, WNYC, Joyce Carol Oates
🎒 Professor-led storytelling — Rutgers meets backwoods gothic
🎭 Upcoming Performances in New Jersey
Links:
Tickets to The Devil and Daisy Dirt
Pinelands Preservation Alliance
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey Jeanette, Hi Rachel, so we just got off a
really fun and interesting andmaybe weird New Jersey-ish
interview.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, Spooky scary, creepy.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Haunted With Alex Dawson and Dan Diana.
They are the co-producers andmany more things than that of a
show called the devil and daisydirt, and we're going to put up
all the links of where and whenyou can see the show.
But um, alex is a professor ofcreative writing at ruckers, and
(00:38):
dan, he has a 3d printingenterprise but creates these
incredible puppets.
And um, he does all this likemakeup and creature creation,
basically right yeah, and theshow looks so good and so
entertaining and so enjoyable.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We're gonna go.
They're gonna be at tyrannieshere in our area, but they're
touring new jersey and you cango onto their website.
We'll put it on our website,their link, and you go there see
where they're going to be.
The show is selling out, whichI'm not surprised.
It looks like a total, what Iwould say a hoot of a time.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, and also just has like mystery and music.
Beautiful music is so good.
Yes, bluegrass folk music it'slike horror, folk mystery and
Pine Barrens and Jersey it'shard to explain.
But it looks like it has somany links so that you can see
(01:38):
what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, but I also wanted to point out something
that we talked about in theinterview.
But I also wanted to point outsomething that we talked about
in the interview.
This isn't particularly aboutthe New Jersey devil, but it has
references to it.
It has a nuanced, and they saidthat they didn't.
They, you know they didn't needto tell that story again, cause
everybody knows that story.
But does everybody know thatstory, rachel?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
No, Did we know that story when we moved here?
No, I didn't know it for years.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, as I say in the interview, I learned it on what
we do in the shadows, notbecause they represented it
correctly but because I was likewhat is the story?
But here's the story, a quickstory so that people know before
we get into this greatinterview is that the New Jersey
devil?
I have it here.
It's a legend about being inthe pine barrens.
(02:27):
There was a woman over 250years ago that had 13 kids and
she was tired of having kids andshe cursed the last one and
said let this one be the devil.
And supposedly this one becamethe devil, went through the
chimney and all this kind ofstuff and now haunts the Pine
Barrens and it's hooved and haswings like a bat, has wings like
(02:52):
a bat.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, I love how I put my arms up like that Like a
bat, wings like a bat.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes, and people seem to still see it out there in the
Pine Barrens.
So that is the legend of theJersey Devil, and so with that
we will introduce you to thisnew show that everybody needs to
go see.
Yes, hello everyone, welcome toLost in Jersey.
(03:19):
It's nice to have you both.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Good to be here, thank you.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Oh yeah, thank you.
It's Rochelle and Jeanette.
Yes, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Is it Rochelle or is it Rachel?
It's Rachel.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
It could be Rochelle.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yes, I mean it could, I could be, yeah, whatevs.
It's such a common name that Iappreciate that you gave it a
flair.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Rochelle.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yes, I'm going to go forward with that.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
My name is really boring and you actually said it
correctly, but it reallyactually is much more impressive
.
It's Jeannette.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It is, it's really.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Jeannette.
Jeanne, sequa, exactly, it'snot Jeannette.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Jeannette Chopin at Target Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Anyway, all right, okay, well, welcome.
We just learned about your showand it's fantastic looking.
We're excited to learn moreabout it and learn about both of
you, so let's get started.
Tell us first, alex you're theone that I first made contact
with, so tell us about yourselfand about the show.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Oh you got to sort of weave in how you got to New
Jersey.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Because I grew up on a horse ranch on the border of
Alabama and Georgia and I cameup to Jersey for art school.
I teach at Rutgers Universityin the English department now,
but way back when I went toMason Gross School of the Arts,
which is part of RutgersUniversity, and I was a visual
artist.
I got in because I was.
(04:52):
There was a storm wreck sawmillon the outside of town that was
run around with chain link.
It's where me and my friendsused to.
We used to go practice beingsuperheroes when we were like 10
, 11, 12.
We used to do these sort offlips and jackknifes into these
big mounds of mill dust.
But then, as I sort of grewinto a teenager, right, I got
(05:13):
into graffiti, right in thisvery rural town, right, this
town of 500.
And I would do all these sortof elaborate murals and it was a
very dangerous place to be.
Of course our parents didn'tknow we hung out there the
buildings were collapsing and,um, I photographed all those
sort of murals, all thisgraffiti, right, this sort of
urban art in this in the middleof the Piney woods, and um, I
(05:37):
got into Mason Gross, um, uh,through that and um, you know,
dan and I talk a lot about howwe grew up, a thousand miles
apart, a decade apart, butbasically fed by the same things
, right?
So I grew up on seeing movieslike the Dark Crystal.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I love the Dark Crystal.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Yeah, things like you know the Thing, all these sort
of creature features of the day,and Dan, I think mostly would
rent the I would see, I woulddrive an hour.
I wouldn't drive myself, but mymom was enlisted me as a movie
buddy at a very young age.
So seeing movies are moviesright.
Because she, her husband didn'tthis rancher, this cowboy, my
(06:19):
stepdad didn't want to see anyof those movies and so she would
take me and so I'd see a lot ofthese, these really challenging
, scarring movies for a kid.
But I fell in love with themand Dan I believe I'll let him
talk about it rented them on VHStapes at the neighborhood video
store.
He grew up here in New Jerseybut we both had access to woods,
(06:41):
so I think my woods wereprobably a little bit more
substantial.
My stepfather owned a thousandcarnivorous acres filled with
swamps and and uh lagoons and umcarnivorous or yeah, that's
what I want.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I was thinking okay.
I was like that seems reallydangerous.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
And I don't know about that.
Creativity, it becomescarnivorous.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
you know, it's funny because according to my mom that
probably is a better wordbecause my mom, whether or not
she was trying to make the hot,slow world of Alabama a little
bit more interesting or sheactually believed in these
things, I mean she just wouldtestify to witches in the woods.
You know, hair like beard, mossright, the sort of gray and
(07:29):
wispy.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Oh, witch's hair.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
And she said there was a whole world out there
covered up in katsu.
You know, forgotten things.
So she very much sort of fedthis kind of.
I had these movies, my mom'sactual belief in the occult and
witches and ghosts, and I had mystepfather's love of outlaw
country.
You know he would sit on thelake, you know, hanging his beer
(07:56):
bottle off his finger, you knowsinging along to Poncho and
Lefty and all those thingsmashed together to sort of
create my voice and my style.
I'll let Dan talk about hisupbringing, but we met on a
production of Nosferatu 15 yearsago.
Dan did the makeup.
We kind of found each otherthere and realized that we now
(08:16):
had a new stand in for that.
You know that childhood friendthat had held our camera, that
had watched our back, that hadsort of our sidekick from back
in the day.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
That's nice that you were able to find each other in
that way and support each other,even though you're bringing
different skill sets thatmatches and marries to create
your visions that are similar.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
So when he suggested I think itwas him that suggested the
Jersey devil, I felt, you know,we sort of took a couple of
trips down to visit, you know,the Pine Barrens and I felt very
at home there.
I felt like I could write anauthentic story, you know set
there, using my own ruralupbringing.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
And take it away.
I'll let you.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Oh boy, you're from Jersey, right?
So yeah, I was born, born inPlainfield, new Jersey, growing
up in the suburbs, you know Ididn't really have a giant
forest or carnivorous pine landsor anything like that.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Not everyone can yeah .
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So, I would, you know , after the hockey game was done
and my dad was passed out onthe couch, I would, kind of, you
know, look over, make sure hewas asleep and crawl over to the
TV and, you know, flip aroundto find something.
And I stumbled upon this showcalled Monster Vision with Joe
Bob Riggs, and it was thiscowboy sitting in a set that
(09:38):
looked like a trailer park, with10 gallon hat, talking about
how monster movies were made andinterviewing people who made
them, and interviewing peoplewho made them and then showing
those movies and everycommercial break he'd give you a
little bit more info about howthis was done or how they got
this screened at a localdrive-in or something like this,
and I was just drawn to it.
Then, when I grew up, I livedby a small lake that had some
(10:00):
woods around it.
Through friends, I'd met a guywho was a kid at the time, at my
age, and we lived equidistantaway from a local uh video
rental store.
So every Friday we would get onour bikes, we would meet at the
video store, rent, rent a stackof uh, you know, whatever tapes
look the coolest on the coversuh, regardless of the content
(10:20):
inside and fire up the VCR andjust stay up all night watching
this and pointing this out.
And how did they do this?
And you know, man, it'd be coolto make something like that.
And so we got a little older,acquired an old camcorder from
one of my aunts and went to thewoods and started making monster
films.
After high school I'd gone to atrade school in Pittsburgh that
(10:41):
was opened up by the effectsartist, tom Savini, who worked
on a bunch of stuff in the 70sand 80s very well respected.
In that scene it was kind ofset about a half an hour south
of Pittsburgh in like the veryrural mid-Monongahela Valley.
Fun fact about that town is itwas kind of looked like a zombie
apocalypse had rolled throughthe main street of town.
(11:02):
Perfect.
So that was fun.
Learned how to do all thetechnical stuff.
Fun Learned how to do all thetechnical stuff.
Came back to New Jersey, youknow, played music, did art
stuff for a while, lived in NewYork City for about eight years
or so and that's about when Alexand I met and we did the
Nosferatu thing.
We loved it so much.
We actually mounted our ownversion of Nosferatu in an old
(11:24):
community theater based in asmall church that was built in
the 1800s that still had thewood rafters and stained glass.
But that's where the stage was.
That's awesome.
I ended up moving out west toLos Angeles.
I knew one guy who did thatstuff out in LA, so I got a job
with him and moved out there,packed my truck up, left my
office job and went out to makemonster heads for a living, as
(11:45):
you do.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Tell us some of the places that you worked in
Hollywood I did some set worksand puppeteering some makeup
stuff, prosthetics.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I worked on Marvel films all the way down to you
know a $30,000 monster film inthe woods where, you know
radioactive maggots are bitingteenagers' heads off.
So you know kind of thespectrum there.
But my girlfriend at the time,my now wife, we both had some
opportunities to come back eastgood work opportunities so we
did that in 2019.
And then when I came back, thefirst order of business was for
(12:15):
my fiance and I to get married.
So we did that, upstate NewYork on top of a little mountain
and Alex was our officiant.
He married us.
Actually, we're like who's goodwith words?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh, yeah, Alex.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Wonderful.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So, and I think even at the wedding.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
You know, we got married under a full harvest
moon on Friday the 13th.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I was going to ask what Perfect.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, alex and I after the wedding saying all
right, well, now that I'm back,what are we going to do?
Yeah, so that year we plannedto do like a little DIY haunt in
Alex's backyard where we wouldinvite the town and kids to come
through and they'd walk throughthe backyard.
We had these stations set upwith lighting and characters and
each station had a little scenethat would be acted out as
(12:58):
people would come through and ittold this story of the woods
and the Jersey devil and kind ofa PT Barnum kind of monster
hunter who was on the hunt forthe Jersey devil and you follow
him through these differentareas, ultimately leading past
the witch in the woods, and thenthis you know 13 foot tall
Jersey Devil puppet that I wouldmake jump out of the woods with
the light and the fog.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Oh my gosh, that must have been amazing to watch the
kids' reactions.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You know, and that was the thing we were expecting
to scare him out of the yard.
But they ended up just stayingLike ogling at this huge monster
puppet and we had to push themout of the yard to get the next
people through.
So I think in that moment wewere like all right, we got
something here.
Alex wrote the story and sentit to me and I read it and it
just it really struck a chord inme, and not that it's such a
(13:42):
unique or original theme, butone that I do adore is typically
what people view, as themonster isn't necessarily the
monster.
It's second banana to theactual monsters, which are
humans, and especially theseterrible men who are around our
lead character, who want to killthe Jersey Devil.
(14:04):
And it's up to our heroine toyou know, to prove herself.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I read that people in the audience a lot of times
cheer at certain scenes.
When this is happening, for theprotagonist and the antagonist
it's like a little bit of afeminist like take on it, which
I really appreciate that, and itmakes it for a fun evening for
people to finally get theirvengeance.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, a little vicariously through this lead
character.
Yeah, actually we added, youknow, alex wrote the lyrics to a
song.
Our balladeer Arlen, he, youknow, put music to it and then
he and our lead Jackie worked onthis duet and you know we
hadn't really heard Jackie sing.
She is our second actor playingDaisy here.
We wanted to give her thisvoice towards the end of the
show to kind of really drivehome that shift, that redemption
(14:55):
story.
I think the first time we didthe song, and on the line where
she really, you know, sticks itto the man, so to speak, yeah,
like about a half a dozen womenlike cheered out in the audience
.
So we're like, all right, thisworks.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Well, you know, it's funny because one thing dan and
I were talking I mean dan, danand I have always been like
almost always, on the same page.
I mean, you know, we never,we're never making concessions.
You know, I definitely.
You know, dan's a co-producer,he's obviously the puppeteer and
the fabricator, but wecollaborate on using.
You know, like I said, he's aco-conspirator, yes, um, and I
like that word we always pusheach other further.
You know, you know I don't knowif y'all have ever played those
(15:34):
improvisation games, but thewhole, the whole point of
improvisation is you can neversay no, that didn't happen.
You can't, you can only take itone step further.
And yes, and exactly but.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
but yes, and Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
But not everybody I've collaborated with feels
that way.
And Jackie's amazing andArlen's amazing and Jackie, the
possibility of a song, you know,sort of came to fruition with
Jackie, because Jackie wouldsing and our first Daisy could
not.
I wrote this song and the wholeidea was that it was almost a
murder ballad and Arlen andJackie both pushed back on it
(16:09):
because, as Jackie said, it wasa little stabby, you know, and
literally, literally, thecharacter is fantasizing about a
possibility of the next man whotouches her.
What she'll do, you know, andshe's surrounded by she's no
woman has ever felt that way.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I can't relate at all .
No, yes.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
But, but.
But you know like it's.
You know, as I said, I grew upon murder ballads, big part of
country and Western swing andall that, but most of them ends
with the woman not breathing atthe end, right.
So this flips the script.
It's a murder ballad, obviouslyfrom the reverse perspective.
You know, more like WandaJackson has a great murder
(16:48):
ballad which is unusual in thePantheon of these male driven
ballads.
And I think they were still alittle hesitant, but I am so
thankful for that cheering.
I think it really.
I mean, they did it beautifully.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
The music I did listen to quite a bit.
The music is just so good.
I think that that, and inaddition to what I've seen
online, just the set, thestoryline, which seems hilarious
and just so entertaining, andthe puppeteer, and then you top
(17:23):
it off with, like this musicthat just seems like it's such a
wonderful, you know, collectionof things that for the audience
to enjoy.
Did you come at it or initiallywith thinking that it would
have such a musical direction,or was it more about the visuals
?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It was always going to be these elements you know
and it's sort of like you knowyou get to get.
You know what are your friendsgood at, and you know Arlen is
an old friend as well and youknow we've collaborated on sort
of other projects.
It was always going to be likeyou know the narrator.
It's sort of like a PineBarrens our town, I think I say
online, meets a cryptid ET.
(18:00):
So you got your narrator right.
Or the stage manager in ourtown.
That's me.
I also play like a villainousdeer hunter named Tasty Murder
and, you know, a witch in thewoods named Effie Evergreen, and
then you have the ballad deerright, and we're sort of
bouncing this story back andforth between us, right, and
then you have this fever dreamof action that occurs in the
(18:23):
middle.
And you know, throughout theplay, daisy, who has been sort
of you know it's, it is, it'snot even slightly feminist, I
mean in so much as you know, youknow, a 55-year-old man can
write, a 55-year-old white mancan write a feminist kind of
sort of piece, right, you know,it's very much about dismantling
(18:45):
of this sort of patriarchy.
And during the whole play,daisy has action, but very few
lines, right, you know, and andthey're, they're sort of very
practical, move the plot forward.
Lines there's no, there's nointeriority, right, ok, I don't
give too much away, but she sortof she, she laughs for the
(19:06):
first time and then she gripsthe steering wheel so hard, her
dishpan hands go white and startto shake and she yells, and
then she gets up and I bring themicrophone over and she sings
and it's this pouring forth ofemotion.
I think it was always a problemfor us.
I think that we were trying tofigure out and Daisy was so
(19:27):
contained that she was trappedand she was sort of boxed in by
these men and we ended on a noteof possibility but we needed to
hear her roar.
But anyway, it was always goingto be these things.
You know, I knew.
You know every project I everenvisioned.
Dan and I have worked togethera number of times on things you
know we just did.
(19:47):
There's an outdoor sort ofmuseum on things you know we
just did.
There's an outdoor sort ofmuseum.
It's a historic village inPiscataway called East Jersey
Old Town, at the far end ofJohnson Park, and that you know
they have a bunch of.
You know they have an oldPuritan church and a blacksmith
barn and a wagon shed and theyhired us for several years to do
these 16 performance theatricalkind of moving haunts.
(20:10):
Right, you know that overlaphistory and horror.
You know history with bite ishow I think of it History with
bite.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I like that yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
The last one we did one with George.
You know, george Washington wonthe revolutionary war because
he turned all his men intowerewolves, you know.
So if men with mustaches makehistory, what do men completely
covered in hair do?
And then the last one we didwas sort of the Terminator meets
the Crucible.
It was sort of time travelbootstrap kind of paradox with
(20:43):
Puritans, and Dan created this.
You know, when we do stuffoutside the creatures are 13 or
14 foot tall.
So this devil though eight footand huge in any space it's in,
is very small for Dan.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well, let's, yeah, yeah, one of that.
Yeah, so go ahead.
How?
How exactly are you?
You know, what is yourpreferred place to do these
large?
Is it a church or is it?
Is there a particular placethat you want to do these?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
This show in particular, which is kind of the
first venture of Alex and Ikind of, with this format moving
this live.
We can just go into really anyroom that's tall enough for us
and set up in an hour.
Do the show break down in ahalf an hour and we're, and
we're out.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
A funny thing about your performance.
Perform your performance list.
A little tie-in to myselfactually we saw where you're
coming and we we are inmontclair and you're coming to
tavern, which we're so coming tosee the show.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I can't wait I was just there.
I was just there on sunday forlike a street, walnut street
fair.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I don't know if you guys are right yeah, but you
have this quote on your sitethat says um, the the devil
didn't go down to Georgia, hewent to PA.
But at Tierney's I actuallyplayed with my band.
The devil went down to Georgia.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yes, if you ever need a fiddler.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
If you need a fiddler Rachel is.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I mean, she's so good .
Yeah, make sure you get herbusiness card.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
So good yeah, Make sure you get her business card
right.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I mean, yeah, I'll send you her video.
She takes down the house everytime she plays.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
We want that.
We want that.
So bad yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I think, as we move forward right, it's always this
the two things we want.
To stay relevant, I think is.
You know Alex wants this likethe outlaw country folk,
bluegrass, musical element blues.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And then mixing with the cryptid, because I mean, we
have a whole backstory aboutwhat cryptids are, where they
come from, what they do.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I hadn't learned about what a cryptid was, or I
hadn't even heard the word untilI was researching for this
interview.
If you can give our listenerssort of a description of a
cryptid and then the JerseyDevil and how that?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I think it comes from what?
Cryptozoology, which is thestudy of these animals, that
there's no scientific proof thatthey exist but people actually
believe that they've seen themGenerally comes from folklore
campfire stories and things likethis, and of course, in our you
know internet media world thatwe live in, that those kind of
(23:15):
stories spread more likewildfire than staying around the
fire.
But we want to look a littledeeper.
It's like well, this isfolklore, let's lean into that.
There's got to be some magicbehind some of this stuff.
And so we just try to like kindof pull those threads and put a
little bit of magic and wonderback into the world wherever we
can.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
The cryptid is a symbol of nature and I think
when we did the PinelandsPreservation Alliance, we did
their giant dairy barn downthere.
I mean they paid us and theypaid us well, but we did it as a
fundraiser for the Pinelandsand they raised tons and tons of
money because it was four soldout shows.
There's a lot of messages inour, in our work.
(23:52):
You know they're not just hey,look at these cool effects.
We certainly believe in thesort of feminist message, but we
, we believe right in ournatural world and you know all
our, our imagination was wasfueled by artifice and things
people had made.
You know people like Spielbergand and Carpenter, but it was
(24:13):
also fueled.
You know people like Spielbergand Carpenter, but it was also
fueled.
You know we both spent all the.
You know it was our imaginationin the woods, you know, and
using the woods.
I mean we were doing makeup andusing latex masks, but there
was so much already there, right, there was so much shadow and
just you know, just wonder andyou know, and magic.
(24:33):
That was just there in thenatural landscape.
I want to say real quick aboutthe places we look for.
So Dan said we can go into aroom.
But as we sort of leaned intothis, I think the first we
started in a sort of a cow punklistening room in central New
Jersey called the Old FranklinSchoolhouse and in the kind of
patriarch of that place, theGertrude Stein of that place,
(24:56):
wrote a grant.
So Middlesex County sort ofgave us the seed money for this
and then we would go anywherethat would have us, you know, I
mean within reason.
You know bars, and we did somelibraries and stuff Within
reason.
You know bars and we did somelibraries and stuff.
But then we started, you know,really hit upon this idea of
kind of running a vaudevillecircuit and really looking for
places that we loved, you know,places that had a lot of
(25:19):
atmosphere.
No-transcript, we're doingPhilomoka, which is a venue in
(25:43):
Philly that was originally astoreroom for mausoleums.
So we're really interested.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's so cool.
The space is important.
Yeah, the space is part of theshow, the atmosphere.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
And people seeing it multiple times because of how we
try to work the space whenwe're there too.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I'm sure it changes the show too.
It influences how it plays out.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I want to ask you a question about the Jersey Devil,
because you talked about in theshadows, you talked about the
pine barrens, and is there anymention in your show of that?
Speaker 4 (26:17):
So we, we don't tell the story of the Jersey devil
that sort of well tried you know.
Bit of folklore that everybodyknows.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.
It's like you do hint on it,though you say you know so and
so you know he died a few yearsago.
Some say he was shot, some sayhe was eaten by something that
flew out of his chimney.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
You know what I mean, so we make you know.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Alex makes little little pinpoints of recollection
.
But no, we don't tell like theMrs Leeds story that's been done
a million times.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Well, the funny thing is is that not everybody does
know about the Jersey Devilstory, so we'll recap it at the
beginning, about a little bitabout it.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
And a little side note I want to say it before,
but we kind of lost our place.
My wife and Alex's wife behindthe scenes have been an
incredible amount of support,inspiration, I mean a lot of
like really.
I think the way it flows sowell, the way certain parts
connect and really hit the markwith different types of people,
(27:14):
especially women, I mean thatcomes from our wives.
You know what I mean.
I mean we do what we can.
Again, as to, you know,middle-aged white guys with
beards, you know we go as far aswe can with our creativity, but
you know we, we definitelybring in our better half, so to
speak, and we definitely bringin our better half, so to speak.
And actually I think Sarah, mywife, is technically like our
assistant director.
She's sat in on many, many,many rehearsals and gave a lot
(27:37):
of feedback and direction.
When Alex has this idea, he'slike what do you think about
this?
It's brilliant.
He's like, yeah, christythought about it.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Great, that's great to hear.
I was going to say yeah, Sarah,even in on uh rehearsals with
the baby when you teach, becauseI, I, we, we did see that.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I'm sorry we didn't mention that sooner.
Creative writing and the wayyou teach writing at ruckers do
you find that the kids growingup and and as times have changed
, do you find that theirquestions about what they feel
okay to write have evolved?
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I think one of the the things that I really do and
it's surprising how you need tosort of give them okay to write
have evolved.
I think one of the things thatI really do and it's surprising
how you need to sort of givethem license to write.
You know, like a lot of themhave parents from other places
and you know this idea, you knowof including words that the
average reader might notunderstand right, giving them
license to use words in anotherlanguage and to not italicize
(28:32):
them, to not other them in anyway.
I mean, if you have a character, you know an abuela or somebody
you know like, have that abuelaspeak in Spanish.
You know, and what that doesfor the immersion you know.
I talk about writing from thatperspective, immersion versus
translation.
So it seems they do needpermission.
They're uncertain that they cando that.
(28:52):
I teach one class in children'sliterature and kids are very
good at I mean, they don't knowmost words.
So, you have something like theBFG, which is, you know, Raoul
Dahl is making up, you know,prods sprinkled, you know, and
they figure out what it is.
And so I push this with notjust other languages but with
the specialized vocabulary of asubculture, you know, I mean, if
(29:15):
somebody is in the military, oryou know if somebody is a
farmer, or you know a mechanic,or you know whatever their
interest is.
Yes, you have permission to usewords and in fact I demand that
you use words that the readerdoesn't know, that you use words
that the reader doesn't know.
So it's more, you know, sort ofgetting them comfortable,
(29:35):
because constantly the studentsare reaching beyond themselves,
right, which for me, you know,I'd have to be comfortable with
that, but for the students it'slike getting them comfortable
reaching within themselves.
And yes, I have something tosay and yes, my experience is,
you know, Valid and worthsharing.
(29:55):
In almost every instance whollyuncommon, you know, it's not
even.
You know like.
We've all fallen in love,hopefully fallen out of love,
experienced the loss of a lovedone, but it's, like you know,
helping the student, the writer,find that very specific
experience they had with thatuniversal experience.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I got about five minutes.
If there's anything you want tosqueeze out of me right now,
I'm happy, to happy, to get itfor you.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, no, let's go ahead and wrap Do you have
something, rachel quickly.
What we usually do as we endthese shows, by asking you to
tell us something that you loveabout New Jersey.
So we'll go with you first, dan.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I love and especially after living in Southern
California, I noticed, you know,I missed autumn.
I love the autumn season,especially in North Jersey, up
into, you know, right around theborder of New York State.
It's just something you know, Ithink, since reading like
Bradbury, you know, with thefallen leaves crunching
underfoot is just something thatalways brings me to a really
(30:55):
warm place inside of myself.
I also love the difference inkind of geography, the diversity
, and you know, beaches andmountains and forests and cities
, of course, the access to thearts and culture which you know
are abound around here.
And you know, the pizza is good, it's true, those are great.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
We agree with all of those.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
And what about you, alex?
I'd probably say I mean I lovea lot of things about New Jersey
.
I mean I love all that weirdNew Jersey stuff.
You know it was through theproject We've one been able to
perform in some of those weirdNew Jersey places but obviously
become friends with the Marksand you know so.
You know Gravity Hill and youknow the Devil's Tree and you
(31:43):
know places like that.
But I have to say Lucille'sright, mama's Meatloaf at
Lucille's.
OK so Lucille's Luncheonette inBarnegat is where this all
started.
It was probably about six orseven years ago.
We were coming back fromRipley's Believe it or Not
Museum in AC.
My wife Googled you know whereto eat we had just seen you know
, what they sort of threw up andsaid was the skeleton of the
(32:06):
Jersey Devil, you know, at themuseum.
And so this place right came upand it had.
You know, there were picturesthat had a giant wood carving,
you know, like about seven feettall, the Jersey devil, sort of
right in front.
It was great.
I mean, it was on AnthonyBourdain's food trail, you know.
So it was this tiny space with,just like you know, half a
dozen stools, half a dozentables and they were wearing a
(32:29):
shirt that said I ate with theJersey devil, right, and that,
of course, you know that firedmy synapses and I was like, oh,
I ate the Jersey devil.
What about an appetite contestin which the prize is Jersey
devil meat?
And I just went down a coupleweeks ago with my, my friend,
and they had heard about the youknow the show, and oh, we have
(32:52):
the copy of Weird New JerseyMagazine and you know, they were
just really, you know it's justa great place and in the play
it's not exactly that place,because I say the food's good.
But you know the place ispopulated with some, some mean
men, and I'm not suggesting inany way that lucille's
luncheonette the real lifelucille's is populated with
(33:15):
those men, yeah, you want totalk about a warm, a warm
embracing place.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I mean, yeah, that's lucille's, that's cool, that's
cool.
Well, that's great, we gotta gooh my gosh, we're definitely
going, yeah down there yeah, Imean south jersey is like to the
jersey devil what roswell is toyou know the great, the grays.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
That is a perfect closing comment today I love
that that is great.
The roswell of new jersey, thatis great.
Well, I I'm excited to see thisshow yeah, and I'm so glad that
we got an opportunity to hearabout the behind the scenes and
how it all came about.
Yeah, and we know it's sellingout, so we'll definitely get our
(33:55):
tickets early and tell peopleto do the same.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Thank you, Jeanette and Rochelle Rochelle, Rochelle,
Rochelle Rochelle.
Thank you, what is she?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
getting at the night.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Jeann, I only want room for one of us.
Alex's theme.
You know he likes to.
You know, flip, be subversiveand flip the script.
I'm the exotic one.
I mean you get to be from Texas, that's more exotic.
Yeah, that's super exotic.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
All right, thank you guys so much, it was a pleasure.
Bye, bye, bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,itunes and Buzzsprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
Hey Jeanette, Hi Rachel, so we just got off a
really fun and interesting andmaybe weird New Jersey-ish
interview.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, Spooky scary, creepy.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Haunted With Alex Dawson and Dan Diana.
They are the co-producers andmany more things than that of a
show called the devil and daisydirt, and we're going to put up
all the links of where and whenyou can see the show.
But um, alex is a professor ofcreative writing at ruckers, and
(00:38):
dan, he has a 3d printingenterprise but creates these
incredible puppets.
And um, he does all this likemakeup and creature creation,
basically right yeah, and theshow looks so good and so
entertaining and so enjoyable.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We're gonna go.
They're gonna be at tyrannieshere in our area, but they're
touring new jersey and you cango onto their website.
We'll put it on our website,their link, and you go there see
where they're going to be.
The show is selling out, whichI'm not surprised.
It looks like a total, what Iwould say a hoot of a time.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, and also just has like mystery and music.
Beautiful music is so good.
Yes, bluegrass folk music it'slike horror, folk mystery and
Pine Barrens and Jersey it'shard to explain.
But it looks like it has somany links so that you can see
(01:38):
what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, but I also wanted to point out something
that we talked about in theinterview.
But I also wanted to point outsomething that we talked about
in the interview.
This isn't particularly aboutthe New Jersey devil, but it has
references to it.
It has a nuanced, and they saidthat they didn't.
They, you know they didn't needto tell that story again, cause
everybody knows that story.
But does everybody know thatstory, rachel?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
No, Did we know that story when we moved here?
No, I didn't know it for years.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, as I say in the interview, I learned it on what
we do in the shadows, notbecause they represented it
correctly but because I was likewhat is the story?
But here's the story, a quickstory so that people know before
we get into this greatinterview is that the New Jersey
devil?
I have it here.
It's a legend about being inthe pine barrens.
(02:27):
There was a woman over 250years ago that had 13 kids and
she was tired of having kids andshe cursed the last one and
said let this one be the devil.
And supposedly this one becamethe devil, went through the
chimney and all this kind ofstuff and now haunts the Pine
Barrens and it's hooved and haswings like a bat, has wings like
(02:52):
a bat.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, I love how I put my arms up like that Like a
bat, wings like a bat.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes, and people seem to still see it out there in the
Pine Barrens.
So that is the legend of theJersey Devil, and so with that
we will introduce you to thisnew show that everybody needs to
go see.
Yes, hello everyone, welcome toLost in Jersey.
(03:19):
It's nice to have you both.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Good to be here, thank you.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Oh yeah, thank you.
It's Rochelle and Jeanette.
Yes, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Is it Rochelle or is it Rachel?
It's Rachel.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
It could be Rochelle.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yes, I mean it could, I could be, yeah, whatevs.
It's such a common name that Iappreciate that you gave it a
flair.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Rochelle.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yes, I'm going to go forward with that.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
My name is really boring and you actually said it
correctly, but it reallyactually is much more impressive
.
It's Jeannette.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It is, it's really.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Jeannette.
Jeanne, sequa, exactly, it'snot Jeannette.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Jeannette Chopin at Target Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Anyway, all right, okay, well, welcome.
We just learned about your showand it's fantastic looking.
We're excited to learn moreabout it and learn about both of
you, so let's get started.
Tell us first, alex you're theone that I first made contact
with, so tell us about yourselfand about the show.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Oh you got to sort of weave in how you got to New
Jersey.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Because I grew up on a horse ranch on the border of
Alabama and Georgia and I cameup to Jersey for art school.
I teach at Rutgers Universityin the English department now,
but way back when I went toMason Gross School of the Arts,
which is part of RutgersUniversity, and I was a visual
artist.
I got in because I was.
(04:52):
There was a storm wreck sawmillon the outside of town that was
run around with chain link.
It's where me and my friendsused to.
We used to go practice beingsuperheroes when we were like 10
, 11, 12.
We used to do these sort offlips and jackknifes into these
big mounds of mill dust.
But then, as I sort of grewinto a teenager, right, I got
(05:13):
into graffiti, right in thisvery rural town, right, this
town of 500.
And I would do all these sortof elaborate murals and it was a
very dangerous place to be.
Of course our parents didn'tknow we hung out there the
buildings were collapsing and,um, I photographed all those
sort of murals, all thisgraffiti, right, this sort of
urban art in this in the middleof the Piney woods, and um, I
(05:37):
got into Mason Gross, um, uh,through that and um, you know,
dan and I talk a lot about howwe grew up, a thousand miles
apart, a decade apart, butbasically fed by the same things
, right?
So I grew up on seeing movieslike the Dark Crystal.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I love the Dark Crystal.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Yeah, things like you know the Thing, all these sort
of creature features of the day,and Dan, I think mostly would
rent the I would see, I woulddrive an hour.
I wouldn't drive myself, but mymom was enlisted me as a movie
buddy at a very young age.
So seeing movies are moviesright.
Because she, her husband didn'tthis rancher, this cowboy, my
(06:19):
stepdad didn't want to see anyof those movies and so she would
take me and so I'd see a lot ofthese, these really challenging
, scarring movies for a kid.
But I fell in love with themand Dan I believe I'll let him
talk about it rented them on VHStapes at the neighborhood video
store.
He grew up here in New Jerseybut we both had access to woods,
(06:41):
so I think my woods wereprobably a little bit more
substantial.
My stepfather owned a thousandcarnivorous acres filled with
swamps and and uh lagoons and umcarnivorous or yeah, that's
what I want.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I was thinking okay.
I was like that seems reallydangerous.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
And I don't know about that.
Creativity, it becomescarnivorous.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
you know, it's funny because according to my mom that
probably is a better wordbecause my mom, whether or not
she was trying to make the hot,slow world of Alabama a little
bit more interesting or sheactually believed in these
things, I mean she just wouldtestify to witches in the woods.
You know, hair like beard, mossright, the sort of gray and
(07:29):
wispy.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Oh, witch's hair.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
And she said there was a whole world out there
covered up in katsu.
You know, forgotten things.
So she very much sort of fedthis kind of.
I had these movies, my mom'sactual belief in the occult and
witches and ghosts, and I had mystepfather's love of outlaw
country.
You know he would sit on thelake, you know, hanging his beer
(07:56):
bottle off his finger, you knowsinging along to Poncho and
Lefty and all those thingsmashed together to sort of
create my voice and my style.
I'll let Dan talk about hisupbringing, but we met on a
production of Nosferatu 15 yearsago.
Dan did the makeup.
We kind of found each otherthere and realized that we now
(08:16):
had a new stand in for that.
You know that childhood friendthat had held our camera, that
had watched our back, that hadsort of our sidekick from back
in the day.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
That's nice that you were able to find each other in
that way and support each other,even though you're bringing
different skill sets thatmatches and marries to create
your visions that are similar.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
So when he suggested I think itwas him that suggested the
Jersey devil, I felt, you know,we sort of took a couple of
trips down to visit, you know,the Pine Barrens and I felt very
at home there.
I felt like I could write anauthentic story, you know set
there, using my own ruralupbringing.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
And take it away.
I'll let you.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Oh boy, you're from Jersey, right?
So yeah, I was born, born inPlainfield, new Jersey, growing
up in the suburbs, you know Ididn't really have a giant
forest or carnivorous pine landsor anything like that.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Not everyone can yeah .
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So, I would, you know , after the hockey game was done
and my dad was passed out onthe couch, I would, kind of, you
know, look over, make sure hewas asleep and crawl over to the
TV and, you know, flip aroundto find something.
And I stumbled upon this showcalled Monster Vision with Joe
Bob Riggs, and it was thiscowboy sitting in a set that
(09:38):
looked like a trailer park, with10 gallon hat, talking about
how monster movies were made andinterviewing people who made
them, and interviewing peoplewho made them and then showing
those movies and everycommercial break he'd give you a
little bit more info about howthis was done or how they got
this screened at a localdrive-in or something like this,
and I was just drawn to it.
Then, when I grew up, I livedby a small lake that had some
(10:00):
woods around it.
Through friends, I'd met a guywho was a kid at the time, at my
age, and we lived equidistantaway from a local uh video
rental store.
So every Friday we would get onour bikes, we would meet at the
video store, rent, rent a stackof uh, you know, whatever tapes
look the coolest on the coversuh, regardless of the content
(10:20):
inside and fire up the VCR andjust stay up all night watching
this and pointing this out.
And how did they do this?
And you know, man, it'd be coolto make something like that.
And so we got a little older,acquired an old camcorder from
one of my aunts and went to thewoods and started making monster
films.
After high school I'd gone to atrade school in Pittsburgh that
(10:41):
was opened up by the effectsartist, tom Savini, who worked
on a bunch of stuff in the 70sand 80s very well respected.
In that scene it was kind ofset about a half an hour south
of Pittsburgh in like the veryrural mid-Monongahela Valley.
Fun fact about that town is itwas kind of looked like a zombie
apocalypse had rolled throughthe main street of town.
(11:02):
Perfect.
So that was fun.
Learned how to do all thetechnical stuff.
Fun Learned how to do all thetechnical stuff.
Came back to New Jersey, youknow, played music, did art
stuff for a while, lived in NewYork City for about eight years
or so and that's about when Alexand I met and we did the
Nosferatu thing.
We loved it so much.
We actually mounted our ownversion of Nosferatu in an old
(11:24):
community theater based in asmall church that was built in
the 1800s that still had thewood rafters and stained glass.
But that's where the stage was.
That's awesome.
I ended up moving out west toLos Angeles.
I knew one guy who did thatstuff out in LA, so I got a job
with him and moved out there,packed my truck up, left my
office job and went out to makemonster heads for a living, as
(11:45):
you do.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Tell us some of the places that you worked in
Hollywood I did some set worksand puppeteering some makeup
stuff, prosthetics.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I worked on Marvel films all the way down to you
know a $30,000 monster film inthe woods where, you know
radioactive maggots are bitingteenagers' heads off.
So you know kind of thespectrum there.
But my girlfriend at the time,my now wife, we both had some
opportunities to come back eastgood work opportunities so we
did that in 2019.
And then when I came back, thefirst order of business was for
(12:15):
my fiance and I to get married.
So we did that, upstate NewYork on top of a little mountain
and Alex was our officiant.
He married us.
Actually, we're like who's goodwith words?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh, yeah, Alex.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Wonderful.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So, and I think even at the wedding.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
You know, we got married under a full harvest
moon on Friday the 13th.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I was going to ask what Perfect.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, alex and I after the wedding saying all
right, well, now that I'm back,what are we going to do?
Yeah, so that year we plannedto do like a little DIY haunt in
Alex's backyard where we wouldinvite the town and kids to come
through and they'd walk throughthe backyard.
We had these stations set upwith lighting and characters and
each station had a little scenethat would be acted out as
(12:58):
people would come through and ittold this story of the woods
and the Jersey devil and kind ofa PT Barnum kind of monster
hunter who was on the hunt forthe Jersey devil and you follow
him through these differentareas, ultimately leading past
the witch in the woods, and thenthis you know 13 foot tall
Jersey Devil puppet that I wouldmake jump out of the woods with
the light and the fog.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Oh my gosh, that must have been amazing to watch the
kids' reactions.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You know, and that was the thing we were expecting
to scare him out of the yard.
But they ended up just stayingLike ogling at this huge monster
puppet and we had to push themout of the yard to get the next
people through.
So I think in that moment wewere like all right, we got
something here.
Alex wrote the story and sentit to me and I read it and it
just it really struck a chord inme, and not that it's such a
(13:42):
unique or original theme, butone that I do adore is typically
what people view, as themonster isn't necessarily the
monster.
It's second banana to theactual monsters, which are
humans, and especially theseterrible men who are around our
lead character, who want to killthe Jersey Devil.
(14:04):
And it's up to our heroine toyou know, to prove herself.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I read that people in the audience a lot of times
cheer at certain scenes.
When this is happening, for theprotagonist and the antagonist
it's like a little bit of afeminist like take on it, which
I really appreciate that, and itmakes it for a fun evening for
people to finally get theirvengeance.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, a little vicariously through this lead
character.
Yeah, actually we added, youknow, alex wrote the lyrics to a
song.
Our balladeer Arlen, he, youknow, put music to it and then
he and our lead Jackie worked onthis duet and you know we
hadn't really heard Jackie sing.
She is our second actor playingDaisy here.
We wanted to give her thisvoice towards the end of the
show to kind of really drivehome that shift, that redemption
(14:55):
story.
I think the first time we didthe song, and on the line where
she really, you know, sticks itto the man, so to speak, yeah,
like about a half a dozen womenlike cheered out in the audience
.
So we're like, all right, thisworks.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Well, you know, it's funny because one thing dan and
I were talking I mean dan, danand I have always been like
almost always, on the same page.
I mean, you know, we never,we're never making concessions.
You know, I definitely.
You know, dan's a co-producer,he's obviously the puppeteer and
the fabricator, but wecollaborate on using.
You know, like I said, he's aco-conspirator, yes, um, and I
like that word we always pusheach other further.
You know, you know I don't knowif y'all have ever played those
(15:34):
improvisation games, but thewhole, the whole point of
improvisation is you can neversay no, that didn't happen.
You can't, you can only take itone step further.
And yes, and exactly but.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
but yes, and Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
But not everybody I've collaborated with feels
that way.
And Jackie's amazing andArlen's amazing and Jackie, the
possibility of a song, you know,sort of came to fruition with
Jackie, because Jackie wouldsing and our first Daisy could
not.
I wrote this song and the wholeidea was that it was almost a
murder ballad and Arlen andJackie both pushed back on it
(16:09):
because, as Jackie said, it wasa little stabby, you know, and
literally, literally, thecharacter is fantasizing about a
possibility of the next man whotouches her.
What she'll do, you know, andshe's surrounded by she's no
woman has ever felt that way.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I can't relate at all .
No, yes.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
But, but.
But you know like it's.
You know, as I said, I grew upon murder ballads, big part of
country and Western swing andall that, but most of them ends
with the woman not breathing atthe end, right.
So this flips the script.
It's a murder ballad, obviouslyfrom the reverse perspective.
You know, more like WandaJackson has a great murder
(16:48):
ballad which is unusual in thePantheon of these male driven
ballads.
And I think they were still alittle hesitant, but I am so
thankful for that cheering.
I think it really.
I mean, they did it beautifully.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
The music I did listen to quite a bit.
The music is just so good.
I think that that, and inaddition to what I've seen
online, just the set, thestoryline, which seems hilarious
and just so entertaining, andthe puppeteer, and then you top
(17:23):
it off with, like this musicthat just seems like it's such a
wonderful, you know, collectionof things that for the audience
to enjoy.
Did you come at it or initiallywith thinking that it would
have such a musical direction,or was it more about the visuals
?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It was always going to be these elements you know
and it's sort of like you knowyou get to get.
You know what are your friendsgood at, and you know Arlen is
an old friend as well and youknow we've collaborated on sort
of other projects.
It was always going to be likeyou know the narrator.
It's sort of like a PineBarrens our town, I think I say
online, meets a cryptid ET.
(18:00):
So you got your narrator right.
Or the stage manager in ourtown.
That's me.
I also play like a villainousdeer hunter named Tasty Murder
and, you know, a witch in thewoods named Effie Evergreen, and
then you have the ballad deerright, and we're sort of
bouncing this story back andforth between us, right, and
then you have this fever dreamof action that occurs in the
(18:23):
middle.
And you know, throughout theplay, daisy, who has been sort
of you know it's, it is, it'snot even slightly feminist, I
mean in so much as you know, youknow, a 55-year-old man can
write, a 55-year-old white mancan write a feminist kind of
sort of piece, right, you know,it's very much about dismantling
(18:45):
of this sort of patriarchy.
And during the whole play,daisy has action, but very few
lines, right, you know, and andthey're, they're sort of very
practical, move the plot forward.
Lines there's no, there's nointeriority, right, ok, I don't
give too much away, but she sortof she, she laughs for the
(19:06):
first time and then she gripsthe steering wheel so hard, her
dishpan hands go white and startto shake and she yells, and
then she gets up and I bring themicrophone over and she sings
and it's this pouring forth ofemotion.
I think it was always a problemfor us.
I think that we were trying tofigure out and Daisy was so
(19:27):
contained that she was trappedand she was sort of boxed in by
these men and we ended on a noteof possibility but we needed to
hear her roar.
But anyway, it was always goingto be these things.
You know, I knew.
You know every project I everenvisioned.
Dan and I have worked togethera number of times on things you
know we just did.
(19:47):
There's an outdoor sort ofmuseum on things you know we
just did.
There's an outdoor sort ofmuseum.
It's a historic village inPiscataway called East Jersey
Old Town, at the far end ofJohnson Park, and that you know
they have a bunch of.
You know they have an oldPuritan church and a blacksmith
barn and a wagon shed and theyhired us for several years to do
these 16 performance theatricalkind of moving haunts.
(20:10):
Right, you know that overlaphistory and horror.
You know history with bite ishow I think of it History with
bite.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I like that yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
The last one we did one with George.
You know, george Washington wonthe revolutionary war because
he turned all his men intowerewolves, you know.
So if men with mustaches makehistory, what do men completely
covered in hair do?
And then the last one we didwas sort of the Terminator meets
the Crucible.
It was sort of time travelbootstrap kind of paradox with
(20:43):
Puritans, and Dan created this.
You know, when we do stuffoutside the creatures are 13 or
14 foot tall.
So this devil though eight footand huge in any space it's in,
is very small for Dan.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well, let's, yeah, yeah, one of that.
Yeah, so go ahead.
How?
How exactly are you?
You know, what is yourpreferred place to do these
large?
Is it a church or is it?
Is there a particular placethat you want to do these?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
This show in particular, which is kind of the
first venture of Alex and Ikind of, with this format moving
this live.
We can just go into really anyroom that's tall enough for us
and set up in an hour.
Do the show break down in ahalf an hour and we're, and
we're out.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
A funny thing about your performance.
Perform your performance list.
A little tie-in to myselfactually we saw where you're
coming and we we are inmontclair and you're coming to
tavern, which we're so coming tosee the show.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I can't wait I was just there.
I was just there on sunday forlike a street, walnut street
fair.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I don't know if you guys are right yeah, but you
have this quote on your sitethat says um, the the devil
didn't go down to Georgia, hewent to PA.
But at Tierney's I actuallyplayed with my band.
The devil went down to Georgia.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yes, if you ever need a fiddler.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
If you need a fiddler Rachel is.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I mean, she's so good .
Yeah, make sure you get herbusiness card.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
So good yeah, Make sure you get her business card
right.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I mean, yeah, I'll send you her video.
She takes down the house everytime she plays.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
We want that.
We want that.
So bad yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I think, as we move forward right, it's always this
the two things we want.
To stay relevant, I think is.
You know Alex wants this likethe outlaw country folk,
bluegrass, musical element blues.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And then mixing with the cryptid, because I mean, we
have a whole backstory aboutwhat cryptids are, where they
come from, what they do.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I hadn't learned about what a cryptid was, or I
hadn't even heard the word untilI was researching for this
interview.
If you can give our listenerssort of a description of a
cryptid and then the JerseyDevil and how that?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I think it comes from what?
Cryptozoology, which is thestudy of these animals, that
there's no scientific proof thatthey exist but people actually
believe that they've seen themGenerally comes from folklore
campfire stories and things likethis, and of course, in our you
know internet media world thatwe live in, that those kind of
(23:15):
stories spread more likewildfire than staying around the
fire.
But we want to look a littledeeper.
It's like well, this isfolklore, let's lean into that.
There's got to be some magicbehind some of this stuff.
And so we just try to like kindof pull those threads and put a
little bit of magic and wonderback into the world wherever we
can.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
The cryptid is a symbol of nature and I think
when we did the PinelandsPreservation Alliance, we did
their giant dairy barn downthere.
I mean they paid us and theypaid us well, but we did it as a
fundraiser for the Pinelandsand they raised tons and tons of
money because it was four soldout shows.
There's a lot of messages inour, in our work.
(23:52):
You know they're not just hey,look at these cool effects.
We certainly believe in thesort of feminist message, but we
, we believe right in ournatural world and you know all
our, our imagination was wasfueled by artifice and things
people had made.
You know people like Spielbergand and Carpenter, but it was
(24:13):
also fueled.
You know people like Spielbergand Carpenter, but it was also
fueled.
You know we both spent all the.
You know it was our imaginationin the woods, you know, and
using the woods.
I mean we were doing makeup andusing latex masks, but there
was so much already there, right, there was so much shadow and
just you know, just wonder andyou know, and magic.
(24:33):
That was just there in thenatural landscape.
I want to say real quick aboutthe places we look for.
So Dan said we can go into aroom.
But as we sort of leaned intothis, I think the first we
started in a sort of a cow punklistening room in central New
Jersey called the Old FranklinSchoolhouse and in the kind of
patriarch of that place, theGertrude Stein of that place,
(24:56):
wrote a grant.
So Middlesex County sort ofgave us the seed money for this
and then we would go anywherethat would have us, you know, I
mean within reason.
You know bars, and we did somelibraries and stuff Within
reason.
You know bars and we did somelibraries and stuff.
But then we started, you know,really hit upon this idea of
kind of running a vaudevillecircuit and really looking for
places that we loved, you know,places that had a lot of
(25:19):
atmosphere.
No-transcript, we're doingPhilomoka, which is a venue in
(25:43):
Philly that was originally astoreroom for mausoleums.
So we're really interested.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's so cool.
The space is important.
Yeah, the space is part of theshow, the atmosphere.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
And people seeing it multiple times because of how we
try to work the space whenwe're there too.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I'm sure it changes the show too.
It influences how it plays out.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I want to ask you a question about the Jersey Devil,
because you talked about in theshadows, you talked about the
pine barrens, and is there anymention in your show of that?
Speaker 4 (26:17):
So we, we don't tell the story of the Jersey devil
that sort of well tried you know.
Bit of folklore that everybodyknows.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.
It's like you do hint on it,though you say you know so and
so you know he died a few yearsago.
Some say he was shot, some sayhe was eaten by something that
flew out of his chimney.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
You know what I mean, so we make you know.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Alex makes little little pinpoints of recollection
.
But no, we don't tell like theMrs Leeds story that's been done
a million times.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Well, the funny thing is is that not everybody does
know about the Jersey Devilstory, so we'll recap it at the
beginning, about a little bitabout it.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
And a little side note I want to say it before,
but we kind of lost our place.
My wife and Alex's wife behindthe scenes have been an
incredible amount of support,inspiration, I mean a lot of
like really.
I think the way it flows sowell, the way certain parts
connect and really hit the markwith different types of people,
(27:14):
especially women, I mean thatcomes from our wives.
You know what I mean.
I mean we do what we can.
Again, as to, you know,middle-aged white guys with
beards, you know we go as far aswe can with our creativity, but
you know we, we definitelybring in our better half, so to
speak, and we definitely bringin our better half, so to speak.
And actually I think Sarah, mywife, is technically like our
assistant director.
She's sat in on many, many,many rehearsals and gave a lot
(27:37):
of feedback and direction.
When Alex has this idea, he'slike what do you think about
this?
It's brilliant.
He's like, yeah, christythought about it.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Great, that's great to hear.
I was going to say yeah, Sarah,even in on uh rehearsals with
the baby when you teach, becauseI, I, we, we did see that.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I'm sorry we didn't mention that sooner.
Creative writing and the wayyou teach writing at ruckers do
you find that the kids growingup and and as times have changed
, do you find that theirquestions about what they feel
okay to write have evolved?
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I think one of the the things that I really do and
it's surprising how you need tosort of give them okay to write
have evolved.
I think one of the things thatI really do and it's surprising
how you need to sort of givethem license to write.
You know, like a lot of themhave parents from other places
and you know this idea, you knowof including words that the
average reader might notunderstand right, giving them
license to use words in anotherlanguage and to not italicize
(28:32):
them, to not other them in anyway.
I mean, if you have a character, you know an abuela or somebody
you know like, have that abuelaspeak in Spanish.
You know, and what that doesfor the immersion you know.
I talk about writing from thatperspective, immersion versus
translation.
So it seems they do needpermission.
They're uncertain that they cando that.
(28:52):
I teach one class in children'sliterature and kids are very
good at I mean, they don't knowmost words.
So, you have something like theBFG, which is, you know, Raoul
Dahl is making up, you know,prods sprinkled, you know, and
they figure out what it is.
And so I push this with notjust other languages but with
the specialized vocabulary of asubculture, you know, I mean, if
(29:15):
somebody is in the military, oryou know if somebody is a
farmer, or you know a mechanic,or you know whatever their
interest is.
Yes, you have permission to usewords and in fact I demand that
you use words that the readerdoesn't know, that you use words
that the reader doesn't know.
So it's more, you know, sort ofgetting them comfortable,
(29:35):
because constantly the studentsare reaching beyond themselves,
right, which for me, you know,I'd have to be comfortable with
that, but for the students it'slike getting them comfortable
reaching within themselves.
And yes, I have something tosay and yes, my experience is,
you know, Valid and worthsharing.
(29:55):
In almost every instance whollyuncommon, you know, it's not
even.
You know like.
We've all fallen in love,hopefully fallen out of love,
experienced the loss of a lovedone, but it's, like you know,
helping the student, the writer,find that very specific
experience they had with thatuniversal experience.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I got about five minutes.
If there's anything you want tosqueeze out of me right now,
I'm happy, to happy, to get itfor you.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, no, let's go ahead and wrap Do you have
something, rachel quickly.
What we usually do as we endthese shows, by asking you to
tell us something that you loveabout New Jersey.
So we'll go with you first, dan.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I love and especially after living in Southern
California, I noticed, you know,I missed autumn.
I love the autumn season,especially in North Jersey, up
into, you know, right around theborder of New York State.
It's just something you know, Ithink, since reading like
Bradbury, you know, with thefallen leaves crunching
underfoot is just something thatalways brings me to a really
(30:55):
warm place inside of myself.
I also love the difference inkind of geography, the diversity
, and you know, beaches andmountains and forests and cities
, of course, the access to thearts and culture which you know
are abound around here.
And you know, the pizza is good, it's true, those are great.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
We agree with all of those.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
And what about you, alex?
I'd probably say I mean I lovea lot of things about New Jersey
.
I mean I love all that weirdNew Jersey stuff.
You know it was through theproject We've one been able to
perform in some of those weirdNew Jersey places but obviously
become friends with the Marksand you know so.
You know Gravity Hill and youknow the Devil's Tree and you
(31:43):
know places like that.
But I have to say Lucille'sright, mama's Meatloaf at
Lucille's.
OK so Lucille's Luncheonette inBarnegat is where this all
started.
It was probably about six orseven years ago.
We were coming back fromRipley's Believe it or Not
Museum in AC.
My wife Googled you know whereto eat we had just seen you know
, what they sort of threw up andsaid was the skeleton of the
(32:06):
Jersey Devil, you know, at themuseum.
And so this place right came upand it had.
You know, there were picturesthat had a giant wood carving,
you know, like about seven feettall, the Jersey devil, sort of
right in front.
It was great.
I mean, it was on AnthonyBourdain's food trail, you know.
So it was this tiny space with,just like you know, half a
dozen stools, half a dozentables and they were wearing a
(32:29):
shirt that said I ate with theJersey devil, right, and that,
of course, you know that firedmy synapses and I was like, oh,
I ate the Jersey devil.
What about an appetite contestin which the prize is Jersey
devil meat?
And I just went down a coupleweeks ago with my, my friend,
and they had heard about the youknow the show, and oh, we have
(32:52):
the copy of Weird New JerseyMagazine and you know, they were
just really, you know it's justa great place and in the play
it's not exactly that place,because I say the food's good.
But you know the place ispopulated with some, some mean
men, and I'm not suggesting inany way that lucille's
luncheonette the real lifelucille's is populated with
(33:15):
those men, yeah, you want totalk about a warm, a warm
embracing place.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I mean, yeah, that's lucille's, that's cool, that's
cool.
Well, that's great, we gotta gooh my gosh, we're definitely
going, yeah down there yeah, Imean south jersey is like to the
jersey devil what roswell is toyou know the great, the grays.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
That is a perfect closing comment today I love
that that is great.
The roswell of new jersey, thatis great.
Well, I I'm excited to see thisshow yeah, and I'm so glad that
we got an opportunity to hearabout the behind the scenes and
how it all came about.
Yeah, and we know it's sellingout, so we'll definitely get our
(33:55):
tickets early and tell peopleto do the same.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Thank you, Jeanette and Rochelle Rochelle, Rochelle,
Rochelle Rochelle.
Thank you, what is she?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
getting at the night.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Jeann, I only want room for one of us.
Alex's theme.
You know he likes to.
You know, flip, be subversiveand flip the script.
I'm the exotic one.
I mean you get to be from Texas, that's more exotic.
Yeah, that's super exotic.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
All right, thank you guys so much, it was a pleasure.
Bye, bye, bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,itunes and Buzzsprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
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