Creating collaboratively! Making original work in new ways! It's all in this conversation between Griffin James and Rachel Klem. They discuss several of Rachel's original shows, her creative process, working with collaborators, and more in this episode.

• Rachel's Website: https://www.rachelklemtheatre.com/
• Argo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPjfmXdLM4E

BIO:

Rachel Klem (she/her) has been a theatre artist in the Durham/ Chapel Hill/ Raleigh area since 2001. She ran Common Ground Theatre for 10 years and taught and directed at NC State’s University Theatre for 15. Rachel has only recently started learning about the wonderfulness of audio drama and really enjoys the collaborative process that it allows. For ASBX: ASBX Shorts, I'm Not Here Right Now.

LISTEN TO ASBX AUDIO DRAMAS:

Master Builder

The New Colossus

Declaration of Love audio anthology

ASBX Shorts

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This is Artist Soapbox.

Through interviews and original scripted audio fiction.

We deliver stories that speak to your hearts and your minds.

Hey, Artist Soapbox.

My name is Griffin James.

And in today's episode, I sat down with my friend and collaborator Rachel Klem.

Rachel is a theater artist, local to the triangle area.

She ran Common Ground Theater for 10 years and taught and directed at

NC State University Theater for 15.

You might remember her as the director for ASBX shorts and I'M NOT HERE RIGHT

NOW, all produced here at artist soapbox.

In addition, Rachel has created multiple original shows, some

of which are discussed today.

We talk about creating new work, the creative process, following

the imagination and more.

I left my conversation with Rachel feeling inspired to create something

new and I hope you do as well.

And I want to thank you all for your time, whether you are listening at

home in the car or for the first time.

Welcome to Artis soap box.

Hello, Rachel, thank you so much for joining me here at

the artist soapbox podcast.

How are you

doing?

Thanks for having me Griffin.

I'm doing great.

Thanks for asking

for anyone who might not be aware, I'm not Tamara

Kissane . You're not no last, not.

It would be so much fun if I were, I'm convinced that Tamara is a

wizard because she is just magical.

She is very magical.

I agree, but I am guest hosting for Tamara and in my episodes, I will be talking

with artists who create original work to learn more about their process and

how they come to create original work.

So I would like to just start off by asking.

How did you get your start in creating your

own work?

Well, I mean, I think I started creating work when I was a kid.

I know I have a picture of me before I was, I may have been four years old and

my sister and her best friend and I, and I had a best friend too, and we made a play

and then we would go around to people's houses and ask if they wanted to see our.

The first play was all about being drunk, which to us, as kids was

hilarious in 1970, whatever three or whatever, that was hilarious to us.

So that's the play.

I think that's, you know, it started that as early as that.

And I don't, I think I'm trying to think, I think through.

College, mostly I did written work and then almost directly after I got

out of graduate school, I started creating work again for the public

hopefully with better subject matter than just walking around, being

drunk, which is not very funny.

Anyway, you

have created.

Such a large body of work and you have hit so many different

genres and topics of show.

You have adapted stories to the stage, including Shakespeare and mythology.

In addition, you have created collaborative pieces of original

device theater with summer sisters.

So I was wondering if you could talk a bit about your process as you are creating

work and how it might change as you are.

Adapting or working with a group.

I

think that for me, all of those processes, it's important for

me to have more than one voice in the creating process, in creating stories

for people, for stage or, or if we did some digital stuff, I think because.

Honestly, I feel like I have great ideas, but I don't necessarily write very well.

I feel like I'm a really good writer of structure, but the sort of the.

The poetic nature of language alludes me.

I, I don't trust myself as a writer.

So I think I lean on other people to help me create stuff because I do trust them.

Mm-hmm . And so that collaborative process is really important to

me and it doesn't bother me.

I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything in the creative process,

because I'm not the strongest writer in the group, but I do feel.

I do love the collaborative process.

I love having one saying one thing and having someone riff off of that

and come up with something else.

And you know, that riffing continues until something becomes

really, you know, marvelous.

And of course I did.

I've done a lot of improv in my life, too.

I was trained as an improviser since a teenager.

So I learned a lot about how to build stories.

With multiple voices, multiple voices.

So someone says something and you build on that.

Yes.

And yes.

And yes.

And yes.

And, and for me finding that moment where that, that brilliance happens together

is so much more satisfying than finding that moment of brilliance by myself.

Like that's, anticlimactic once you've figured out how to do it

with several people at a time.

So I think that.

Kind of collaborative building of story and voice has always been part of what I

do.

I really love that answer.

And I know for myself, a lot of writing has been primarily done in solitude and

I've done a lot of writing courses where we are encouraged to work in solitude.

Wow.

Yeah.

But, um, so it's very refreshing to hear a more collaborative process being.

The thing that works for you.

Mm-hmm and I find that even when I am writing in solitude, I still, I

still find that it works best when I do outreach for that, that collaboration.

Yeah.

Um, a lot of my background is in poetry.

And even after I write a poem, I feel confident in my own skills

to assess whether it's good and.

Needs to be fixed, but sometimes I still just feel so caught up in it

and I'm too close to the work and I, I need to have someone outside of

myself, read it to ensure that I'm not missing anything so that I can

Polish it to the best of its abilities.

So I, I really love that you.

Have that integrated into your own

process?

Well, I would say that's how, you know, you're a real writer because

you feel very strongly about your writing with rightfully so.

I mean, you are a beautiful writer, but I, I don't, I can't ever

see anything good in my writing.

So it's always, for me, it's very easy.

It's never precious and it's very easy to let go of any of it.

mm-hmm . Maybe because of my improv background, I'm super easy to,

very easy to me to see a way just to throw it away and start over.

But I think that's how, you know, you are a real writer and, and as having

read your writing, I know that you're a real writer because you can create.

Words, you can use words in a, in a way that I never could

even begin to, to do well.

Thank you.

I, I really appreciate that.

I have this conversation with Tamara often too.

She says, you're a writer and I'm like, no, you are a writer.

Okay.

I am not.

I'm a storyteller.

I mean, even with that reframing, I still think

that's a fun way to think about it.

Sure.

And I feel like for some people it could even alleviate the

pressure of creating stories.

Like the idea of writing can sometimes sound, uh, so pretentious right.

And so, I dunno, I, I think that is a beneficial way to reframe it as, not as a

writer, but as a storyteller, especially if that is what helps you create the work.

Yeah.

And I mean, I know a lot of people who call themselves

writers, but they don't have.

The body of work, you do so honestly, if it works, it works I guess.

And I commend

it.

That is true.

It is true.

And, and, and it's funny people do, you know, I love your writing.

They say that to me all the time.

And I really just almost always respond with a laugh because I don't

know what to say, but I feel like I lean heavily on my collaborators.

And so that's, I think that's, and that's part of the brilliance.

I think that's part of.

The wonderfulness of it is that we build together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One thing I love about your work in particular, and why I really wanted

to talk to you is that your work incorporates these unconventional

and bold choices into the show.

Uh, the two examples that come to mind are Trailer Park Christmas and Argo.

, uh, I wanna circle back to Argo in a minute.

But for people who are not familiar Trailer Park Christmas incorporates

this immersive element where the audience enters the theater through the

set and the actors continue to engage with the audience throughout the show.

I'm wondering how these ideas came about.

Was the show written with, with that in mind, or is that something

that was integrated later on?

Well, see, here, here, I'm gonna.

Dispel any kind of, you know, awe you might feel, I stole that idea.

there was a wonderful comedy group in San Francisco called Fatel bologna.

And there was a group of four guys who did improv and they did a lot of

classic clowning, uh, shows for people.

And they wrote this play called the Weber family Christmas, and it was set

in their home and the audience came through the door and they were greeted

and they were given snacks and all of that was stolen, stolen, stolen.

when I first moved to, when I opened up common ground theater,

we needed a Christmas show.

So I wrote the brothers cuz I know them.

From San Francisco and asked if we could do their show and they sent

the show to me, allowed me to have the rights to do it, but I felt like

it didn't suit the area very well.

It was about the second coming of, of the Lord, of the king.

And at the end it was.

Elvis , which is a very funny play.

It's a very funny play, but it didn't quite suit us.

So I went ahead and yeah, stole the idea and , at that point, I knew Jeffrey Moore.

We were doing improv together and I asked him if he wanted to help me

write a play, because he seemed like I wanted to set it in North Carolina.

I really feel like.

That's been a part of entertainment that I've always found really fun

is if the people feel connected to it on a personal level.

So I felt like setting it in North Carolina in the west side of

Durham, in Common Ground Theater, we were running Common Ground

Theater needed our Christmas show.

So I worked with Jeffrey Moore because he's most north Carolina person.

I know.

And we, um, we took that premise so solely that premise of arriving

to someone's home for Christmas party and made it North Carolina.

So it became a trailer park.

Jeffrey Moore grew up in a trailer park and it became the people that

we know here in North Carolina, which I felt would connect a lot

more to our audiences, which it did.

I.

You know, we did 11, 12 years.

I think.

So.

Even the

idea of stealing within the art specifically,

that feels less like a taboo.

I mean, I know there's a book out there called steal, like an artist and a

lot of my education as a writer came from Dorian locks who used to teach

with MC state university, but she would tell us all the time that you.

Probably never write anything, truly original everything under the sun

has probably already been said.

And the most that we can do is apply our own perspective and our own vision to it.

And even if the idea was for trailer park, Christmas was stolen.

It still feels like you were able to put your own perspective and

your own viewpoint through it.

And you were able to accomplish something new with this idea that already existed.

Right.

And of course there's no new ideas under the sun.

I mean, mm-hmm, , I don't know where they got the idea from.

As like I said, they are, um, they did a lot of very common

ancient, comedic tropes.

So they, they themselves were, you know, we all beg, borrow and steel and.

You can tell, I mean, just reading Shakespeare, you can see all the stories.

Right.

So . Mm.

So yeah, so I didn't feel, I don't feel bad about it.

No, I don't.

I feel like, yeah.

I took an idea and made it our own, which is what I've I think all artists do.

Yeah.

And it, and I mean, it resonated with a lot of people.

I know myself, I.

Absolutely loved Trailer Park Christmas.

see.

All I can do is laugh.

and I mean, I don't know.

I've lived in North Carolina most of my life, and I briefly

lived in a trailer park.

So maybe.

My experiences are just biased.

well, that's what the, what was the hope when we wrote the

play is that people would connect to it on a personal level and that our,

yes, our own biases of being in North Carolina, we could laugh about that.

We could have fun with it.

Mm-hmm there was not a mean, there's no mean spiritedness in that show,

which is part of what I love about it.

And part of Jeffrey Moore, you know, he sees his people.

I mean, I come from somewhere else, so I had to rely on him, but he

sees his people with so much love.

And that that's that joy I'm talking about being in the room with him,

riffing on, you know, making fun of his people is, is so wonderful to me.

That's, that's the collaboration

I love.

And so to segue, to Argo that I feel like was one of the most unique pieces of

theater I saw to come out of the pandemic.

I feel like a lot of theaters ran right to Zoom and stayed there.

And, and there isn't anything wrong with that.

I, I saw a lot of good zoom theater.

Sure.

But Argo just took an entirely different approach to creating.

And it was just so fascinating for me.

I was wondering if you could briefly describe that process.

Yes.

So Argo was the, the thing that happened with Argo was we would, we

were just trying to keep up with COVID restrictions as they were coming.

So I had seven or eight different outlines for that show.

First one, we were gonna do a full.

Scale production, Mary Zimmerman show mm-hmm and then it, it just

slowly got whittled back and back.

We were just gonna have six people on stage in little pods, and then,

and then we realized we couldn't do Zimmerman's play at all.

It was just too big.

So I, I offered to adapt a script adjacent and the Argonaut script.

I wrote that.

I think I adapted it in four or five days.

Oh, wow.

Yes.

But I had a great source.

I mean, that's, that's the important thing about adaptation is you

have to have a great source.

So I had this source that had a lot of dialogue in it, and I felt like

the language was very approachable.

It was a children's book about the different Greek myths and

the Argonauts was one of them.

And so.

So that was, that made it easy.

So I did write it very quickly and then felt like that Polish was not there.

And then , so that's where Tamara came in and I invited Tamara to come

in and, and be the writer in the room as opposed to the structurist.

And so then the idea was that we would do a audio play.

We had Tamara on board and she's, you know, she's the queen of all of this.

So I thought, you know, I love to figure out what skills and gifts we

have in the room and then go with them.

So it became an audio play.

And then.

My daughter here again, here's where I was inspired or where I stole my daughter was

in a play at high school and they moved to an audio play as well or a zoom play.

Uh, they were gonna, most of the students did zoom plays, but one her director

decided to draw pictures of the actors.

So they tape the actors doing audio and then the, this high

school student drew pictures.

And I'm like, okay, that's brilliant.

Can we add something like this to Argo?

And then also I was inspired by a short that was on Netflix at the time.

and I don't remember the series itself, what it's called, but it was

about queen Elizabeth and the Pope, and they were just little dolls and

they, they did the audio and then these dolls acted out the audio and.

I love that idea.

I had done a show I'd written a show years before where I wrote out the

audio and then took pictures of Barbies.

So that seemed all that kind of like, how can we use this audio, but

then create a visual element to it.

Knowing that one person couldn't do an hour, 10 piece

all by themselves, visually.

Although, I mean, we did actually talk about the set designer at NC

state, Jayme Mellema doing, you know, a design for the whole show.

Decided that was way too much work for one person.

So then we decided to split it up and find student designers to do that work.

So, yeah, it was just really a process of, um, problem solving process, which

I think the making theater is a lot.

It's just, oh, we've hit a wall.

How do we get over it?

How do we get around it?

How do we lean against it for a while?

All that kind of stuff.

And I think one thing that I really appreciated about the

process you took with Argo was the way in which it was able to invite new

artists into the industry and into this creative process of putting on a show.

I remember when I was directing my first play.

That ended up not happening.

Thanks to this funny little thing called COVID . I remember I was talking

to my actress, Reagan and I asked her like, do you think you will do

more theater after this production?

And she, she said she was unsure.

She would like to, but she also wanted to focus a bit more on her visual

art, cuz that was another piece of.

Artistic identity that was important to her.

And then I saw that she was going to be one of the visual artists for Argo.

Yes.

And I, I just got so excited cuz I'm like, ah, this is exactly

what she wanted to pursue.

And now she was, and there was a way for her to do both at the same time.

And I was so happy that there were new avenues for artists to

be involved with the program.

Yeah.

And to put on these shows.

Yeah.

And her work was amazing.

And I mean, all of the artists' work was amazing and I was.

I was blown away actually by the artistry, their artistry just was really above and

beyond what I thought was gonna happen.

I think that sometimes people think young people are not gonna be accomplished or

insightful, or, you know, they're gonna be, their work is gonna be immature.

And this.

Project completely proved that wrong that was some of the most mature, artistic,

creative design work I'd seen, you know, it was just some really amazing stuff.

And Reagan's drawing ability was amazing.

No, I, I absolutely agree.

I just remember it being blown out of the water by it.

Yeah.

And just so fascinated by the modality that was taken.

Yep.

And one of the, think one of the stances we had to take for that project to be

successful was that it was process based that it was really about finding our way.

It wasn't about how it was gonna end up.

I had to remind people many times to let go of the end product.

Like, what if it's not good?

We're in the middle of a pandemic.

It doesn't matter.

We're doing the work.

It doesn't have to be good.

. Griffin James: And I, I mean, I

encourages a new sense of adaptability.

Yeah.

That is very important for people to learn.

But I'm curious, is there anything you learned about theater or about

creating through the process of Argo that you might not have learned through

quote traditional

show?

What I learned through that process was how important creating and making art is.

I learned that the most wonderful thing about Argo was

that everybody came in with.

The spirit of creation and the spirit of letting go of product.

And even though we had to remind ourselves several times throughout, I think that

what it really proved to me different than other plays, which are on, on a schedule

on a really tight schedule in the head.

There's really high expectations of how it's going to be.

Even if you're trying something new, even if you're trying to think out

of the box, there's still so many parameters of traditional theater.

I'm gonna put quotes around traditional, but of, you know, Standard written

piece that you put on stage.

I think we didn't really know what we were doing.

So we were really free in that way.

I think that the fact that we focused on process allowed for a lot of

freedom and pure creativity, which is something that I always found.

We can talk about Summer Sisters in a second.

Cuz I always found like with Summer Sisters we found this pure creativity.

I felt like with Argo, we found.

Pure creativity because there was no, there was no box to be in, you know,

we were making it up as we went along.

And even if we had an expert like Tamara on board, it didn't mean

that , it didn't mean that there were any, any rules to follow.

So I think that that part was, I learned a lot about this sort of.

Creating in a free fall mm-hmm . And I also learned a lot about how important

creating is to, to the human spirit.

, you know, as creators and I'm sure you felt this way when you, your

play didn't get to perform when you're putting that energy in.

And then I think for creative people, when there's no place to put that

energy, We become very depressed and , you know, don't fit in the world.

That's how we fit into the world.

So what I was really struck by was the need for people to create for

these people to have an outlet.

I think a lot of us felt that way in COVID, but the people really needed

someplace to put that part of themselves.

And that is one of the biggest takeaways I have.

That's a

very beautiful answer.

Thank you.

Yeah, sure.

You

just made it up.

Well, I loved it definitely resonated with me.

no, no, it's it was true.

Even still, as we're coming back to teaching classes, putting on plays

that you can tell people need it.

People want it, people are there for it.

And it's it's I think we take it for granted.

Don't we just like anything else.

We take our creative process for granted and it's not until, you know, We can't

do it that we realize, oh, this is, this is, you know, a huge part of me

kind of on topic of thinking outside of the box

and working on shows where the box is entirely eliminated.

I feel like a lot of.

Early career artists or how, even, even people later in their careers who

create original content, they might have these bold or unconventional

ideas, but might be nervous to try them out or to put them to page.

I know a lot of playwrights who shy away from some of these ideas because they want

to be quote, unquote, more producible.

With that in mind.

I'm wondering what advice you might give to these people.

Do you have any practices that you turn to, to ignore that voice of

doubt in the back of your mind?

Yeah.

I think that in the creative process, judgment is not necessarily helpful.

I often find myself, I think I think of myself as being a very self-judgment

person and I practice techniques to.

Excuse the judge from the room.

Hmm.

And let that, that part of my brain sort of shut down, at least in the beginning,

especially with those preliminary ideas.

I just think there are no bad ideas.

There are no bad starts.

And getting started is often the hardest part.

So I, I excuse the judge, I say, okay, you know what?

It's not gonna be good.

I don't.

It may be, you know, I might be stealing a bunch of ideas.

I don't care.

You know, it might not sound the way I want may not go the way I want, but I

think that just allowing myself to be in a place where that kind of judgment

doesn't matter and that's not easy.

I do actual exercise where I visualize my judge and open the door and let

her leave and then shut the door.

So, I mean, that's, that's a physical exercise.

I actually have done with myself, but I think it's got been writing

or putting ideas to paper long enough that, that judge, and again,

back to improv, because if you've done enough improv, you learn to.

Let it go.

You learn to let theater be ephemeral right in the moment

and doesn't have to be the first iteration is not gonna be permanent.

So I think those kind of ideas really help help me.

I do have this feeling I get when I come across a really good idea.

And I don't know what that is or how to explain it, except for that, I get

really excited and I'm like, oh yeah, you know, and then my mind starts

popping and I start, you know, really thinking about things that's happened

about four or five times in my life.

Trailer park

christmas was one of those.

But I think that there, yeah, there's something that.

I think the impetus getting started is the most important part.

And if you can, if you can allow yourself not to get in the way

, that's the, the best you can do.

I love that, especially just the physical act of getting up.

Yeah.

And kicking the judge out.

kicking her out.

Yeah.

I had a wonderful acting teacher who taught me

that and also just the, the idea of getting it out and

acknowledging that it can be reiterated and changed and adopted if necessary.

Well, the first one's not gonna be good.

I just don't think the first for me, the first thing that goes down, the

idea might be good, but the whatever comes from it is, is, is not gonna good

because I think it happens with the brain.

For me, at least with ideas is that my brain starts at the surface.

And then as I start to think about it or research it or right

about it, or do whatever my brain gets to a deeper place with.

So I can't expect where I started to be anywhere, except for the surface I

have to scratch and scratch and dig and dream about what's under the surface.

So there's no way for me in my process that the first parts, the first

iteration's gonna be the right iteration.

Yeah.

And as you are putting these to page and reworking them, do you

do anything to keep yourself.

On a certain schedule, like, do you self-imposed deadlines or where are you

already in collaboration with people?

So you need to get them to it by X time.

Both.

I am often under a, yes, a collaborative deadline, but I'm also pretty, I was

gonna say strict with myself, but maybe disciplined is a better word.

I do set myself up to get something done by a certain day.

I set my own deadlines that comes from, I think, from.

Running common ground theater and having to be the only person who

being the only person working there.

And everything depends on me.

So I, I got pretty good at setting up multi schedules

for myself and following them.

I also know that when it comes time to hit the writing, I procrastinate.

Mm-hmm I hate it.

It feels like going out to, you know, to take a run or exercise.

I mean, it really feels like.

A discipline.

It really feels like I have something eating well, I don't

know all of those things.

It's something I have to do.

Mm-hmm have to make myself do, and I might not enjoy it as I'm doing it

either, but I do enjoy, I do appreciate the discipline and, and getting the work

done, getting further along, or as far as long as I set up for myself to get,

I think, a lot about Dorothy Parker as I'm writing, she has.

Quote, it might be one of my favorite quotes ever.

She once said something along the lines of, I hate writing,

but I love having written.

Yes.

Uh, and that that's me to a tee cause like I call myself a writer and like,

I've a degree in English, creative writing , but at the same time, forcing myself to

sit down and physically write is one of the hardest parts of the entire process.

That's painful.

Ugh.

So painful.

And I tried to ask people about their own schedule system because,

uh, One thing I'm finding is that solitary doesn't work quite as well.

For me, mm-hmm I work better when I am in collaboration because I

can set my own deadlines and I will ignore it because who the hell is he

But, um, right.

But if it's someone outside of myself, there's this.

Obligation or added responsibility to get the pages to them on time.

Sure.

And I find that works better for me, but I'm always just interested

in how people are able to put their pages out because that's just

something I struggle with personally.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I think it's always helpful to have someone to keep you, keep you on track or.

Keep you to your word, for sure.

So

to segue into a bit of a, a, a new topic in trailer park

Christmas, you have this beautiful moment where you pass out macaroni boxes and

you hand them to the audience to use as instruments at the end of the song.

Your character tells the audience to keep the macaroni.

If they are in need of food.

I still think about that and how it is a subtle way to give back

and to talk about poverty without making it a direct confrontation.

Mm-hmm I, I kind of wanna shift gears to talk about tools big or

small that we can incorporate into our work to address social issues.

Yeah, that's a big question.

No pressure.

how can we change the world with art?

no pressure.

um, that idea came to me because I had done that again.

We did that show for lots of years, and those were improvised moments.

Although I would settle on a funny line for those moments, for people who haven't

seen this show, we hand out snacks, we interact with the audience, but this is

a dancing moment where they're shaking the macaroni and cheese like maracas

and I had some sort of funny line that I said for years.

And then I was reading $2 a day, which is a book about poverty.

And we were talking about food scarcity in, at university

theater at North Carolina state.

So it was on my mind.

And that's sort of, that's sort of the same way I'm talking about writing.

It's like, as I'm absorbing information from other places, it was just on my mind.

And I thought I'll just put that in the, I'll just say that, you know, you

can take that home if you're not gonna have something for Christmas dinner,

go ahead and take that home again.

That shows intention is with all the love and the heart that we created that

show with all the love in our heart.

So that specific line did come from me, acknowledging.

Our people live in a trailer park and you know, but also acknowledging

that there might be someone for real in the audience who, who might

need a box of Macon and cheese.

How do we change the world through art?

I think that comedy of course, is always a wonderful in road to be

able to laugh at our vulnerabilities.

I think we're all vulnerable.

And I think that one of the beautiful thing, beautiful things

about trailer park Christmas is we, we laugh at the vulnerabilities

of being North Carolinian.

We laugh at, you know, our own particular group of foibles, which

again, I love and I feel like brings people much closer together.

So comedy is a great way to do that.

Um, I don't know.

I don't know, doing improv, that kind of stuff comes up all the time, where you

process the world around you, you know, you're doing a scene and it's about.

A divorce and of course you're using what you know.

And so that works its way into your improv.

I guess I think that as an artist, it's my job to filter, filter that the

struggles that humans have and present it in a way that we can talk about it.

So for me, it's sort of like one of the is probably the main spark of

creativity is connection, human connection through the good stuff and the bad

stuff, acknowledging the bad stuff.

I really like how, even after you have worked on trailer park

Christmas for many years, you still find moments of opportunity to adjust

it, to incorporate moments such as that and how you allow yourself to be.

Almost permeable.

Yeah.

I think of myself as a bit of a sponge.

I soak stuff up.

I remember a lot of things.

Like they just stick in my brain.

And so I feel like I have a, a catalog of ideas to kind of pull from as I go along.

Mm-hmm . I think with the idea of allowing not only yourself to

be absorbent to new information and to allow the work to be permeable by nature.

I feel like that is something that could be really applicable

to the industry itself.

I know.

Pre pandemic a sentence I heard a lot was, uh, well, this is

how it's always been done.

Yes.

And so they just wanna maintain that status quo and to uphold

that, that tradition and the structure is already in place.

Mm-hmm, just out of peer convenience, but I really appreciate that,

that adaptability and flexibility you provide for your work and

for a trailer park Christmas.

And I feel like a lot of companies could benefit just from the idea.

Being willing to change and to be open to that change.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I agree with you.

I just feel like, I mean, the one, one of the good things about COVID, if one

can say that one of the good things about COVID is that we really have started.

More people, not that plenty of people have already been doing this work, but

more people are really investigating the way we create theater specifically, which

is, is very harmful in its practice.

And I think that the TV and movie industry is very harmful in its practice and

realizing that pumping entertainment out.

Is not as important as people's health mm-hmm, , it's not as

important as artist resiliency.

And I'm hoping that we other people, but I, I particularly am really committed to

finding ways to that we can create content without losing our health and ourself.

It's not, I don't think it's conducive to putting out good art.

Yeah.

I feel really strongly about that right now.

And.

One of the things I do wanna go back to summer sisters, because one of

the great things about summer sisters when Tamara and I first devised it

was that we really wanted to work with women who may have had families

who had jobs, who were, we knew were creative beings, but may have had these.

Scheduling or life challenges that made it really hard.

So we looked to create a very casual and comfortable place where we could, where

these women that we knew existed in our community that were really brilliant.

Artists could come without the punitive or the.

You know, the strict measures that come with theater, you

have to be here every day.

Every time you have to, you know, memorize this amount of stuff.

So we really created it in a way to allow for, to, to break out of that

the way everyone's always done it.

Which I think was really wonderful in some ways.

And we, we got a lot of work done.

We did find in other ways it was hard because if we didn't have that strict

discipline that sometimes we wouldn't have anybody show up and then it

would know then we'd have several weeks where it'd be just the two of us.

So there there's, there's some.

Fine tuning.

But I think that ultimately for theater to survive this break, this

COVID, we have to just reimagine it.

I don't wanna do it the old way.

I'm not interested in feeling pressure and not sleeping and eating, not

eating and, you know, losing my mind.

Oh, it's only for a month.

Well, you know, if you're doing that six or seven times a year, that's too.

And I feel like, I feel like the processes that we do with theater

are really tied into Broadway.

Yeah.

And the structure that they have, because they only have their theater for, you

know, a week before they do the shows.

So when we're in an educational situation where we have the theater

all the time, why do we have to plug, why do we have to squish it

all into one week or one weekend, to be honest, why do we, why do we do.

So hopefully other people are really interested in looking at new ways and

I know they are they're out there.

I've, I've met them them, and I've seen them.

And of course, none of this, even the fact that we're talking about

being new and thinking out of the box, it's not, some people have

been doing this kind of work for.

Ever.

Yeah, I am sure that we could continue this conversation

for hours and I really hope not only you and I, but other people

continue to have these conversations.

Yeah.

I really believe that they are important to have and essential, but, um, as we wrap

up, I do wanna check in and ask if there's anything else you wanted to talk about.

I would like to thank you.

And I also wanna thank Tamara who asked me to do this podcast

lots and lots of years ago.

First, when she first started and I was not in a good place as an artist,

and I had just gone through a divorce and a major death in my family.

And, uh, my self-esteem was really low and I appreciated

her asking and I appreciated her

understanding that there's sometimes that we can't talk about our

art and we need to take a break.

And so I think that what I would say.

If anybody else feels those lulls, those, those lows and highs of

creativity, especially if you're, when you're in that low part that

I think we all go through it.

And at least personally, I understand.

And I hope that if someone's feeling that way, knowing that

for me, that was six years ago or so that it, it does get better.

I dunno if anyone needs to hear that, but.

Here.

I am six years after being asked to do this podcast the first time.

And I'm I'm here and I'm I'm doing it.

So I just, I wanted to bring that up and thank both you and Tamara for continuing

to hold me in your in your thoughts as an artist as I come out of a slump.

And I wanna thank you just for agreeing to be here and for doing

this and just for sharing so openly and vulnerably, I feel honored to be able to

have conversations such as this with you.

You are an artist whose work I greatly admire, and to be able to speak

with you and to collaborate with you has just been such an honor for me.

Thank you.

And I am honored to work with you and know you too.

what

me as you stop.

Tell me more

Griffin

mutual fan club,

honestly, though.

What a, what a, what a great place to end on.

Yeah, just a, a moment of mutual love.

yes.

Established in 2017 Artist Soapbox is a podcast production

studio based in North Carolina.

Artist Soapbox produces original scripted audio fiction and an ongoing interview

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