We're previewing the Rochester Fringe Festival and I’m hyping Pippa White’s two shows — Voices from Ellis Island (Sept 16 at 8pm and Sept 19 at 1:45pm) and Voices from the Resistance (Sept 19 at 3:30, Sept 23 at 5:45, Sept 24 at 7pm) — all at the JCC in downtown Rochester; tickets are $15 at rochesterfringe.com.

Check out the episode on Just Can't Not wherever you get your podcasts or on Lunchador.org!

https://player.captivate.fm/episode/41046cfb-bc9b-4856-a062-fb6183a739c3/

I’m Chris Lindstrom and we riff about Pippa’s journey from the West Coast to Nebraska and now Rochester, how she turned a knack for accents, hats, and solo performance into living-history storytelling. We dig into what makes a one-person show different from straight-ahead storytelling — the costumes, the dialects, the earnest dynamism — and why those little theatrical choices matter. Pippa walks us through the research behind Ellis Island (fun fact: about 40% of Americans have a connection) and the brave, often-unsung folks of European resistance movements in WWII, showing how history still nudges at today’s conversations about immigration and standing up for others. Expect light moments and heavy ones: we laugh at the hat jokes, then go quiet for the real courage stories, and I promise you’ll leave wanting to learn more — and maybe buy more than one ticket.

Mentioned in this episode:

Joe Bean Roasters

Visit joebeanroasters.com to get fresh roasted specialty coffee either by the bag or with a Perpetual Joy subscription!

Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just Can't Not.

I'm your host, Chris Lindstrom, and we're here doing previews for the Rochester Fringe Festival, the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival, happening from September 15th to the 26th in scenic downtown Rochester, New York.

Go to rochesterfringe.com to get your tickets for as many events as you can possibly go to.

And I'm here with a guest.

Guest, why don't you introduce yourself?

Oh, thank you very much.

My name is Pippa White and I am actually a little bit new to Rochester, but I was so impressed with the Fringe the first year that we came that I thought, well, boy, maybe I can be part of that.

And as I have that kind of performance background, I was lucky enough for him last year and lucky enough to look forward to this year.

Yeah.

So let's get the plugs out for all the shows.

So you're doing two different shows, Voices from Ellis island, which is on September 16th at 8pm, September 19th at 1:45pm Those are $15 [email protected] and then also Voices from the Resistance, which are $15 tickets as well.

Those are happening on September 19th, Saturday at 3:30, the 23rd at 5:45 and the 24th at 7pm and all these shows are at the JCC.

They are.

So you mentioned that you're relatively new to Rochester.

Where did you come from before that?

Well, I was born and raised on the west coast and then I followed a man to Nebraska, as you do.

That's right.

He was my husband and he still is.

And he was a professor at the university there in the law college.

And when I was was in Nebraska, after getting some education myself and then having a couple of babies, I thought, if I'm going to work again, I'm probably going to have to work alone.

And so Nebraska has a very good state arts council.

And I got on their roster and so I started doing what I called one woman shows.

And then as time passed, people began to say, you're a storyteller.

And I would say, no, I do one woman shows.

And they would say, you're a storyteller.

So finally I thought, well, you know, if people want to give me work as a storyteller, I guess I can be a storyteller.

Who's to argue?

Exactly.

Now, I, I've been thinking about this a lot, right.

That what is the difference between format.

Right.

I think format's a choice.

Right.

Format's a choice.

And how you describe it often is indicative of what kind of show it's going to be.

Ah, right.

So, like, I. I think there is a striking difference between a one person show and storytelling.

Although they dovetail together in many ways, I find the one person show is a very pure expression of one person's experience.

There's a lot of honesty.

I think it's earnestness as well.

There's this genuine nature to a one person show and it can be comedic, it can be other things, but there's often this dynamism of tone.

There can be lightness and brightness, and there can be, you know, moments of depth and darkness as well.

Do you think there's a fundamental difference between a one person show and a storytelling show?

You know, someone once said you do story theater, and so maybe that's kind of the one bridge.

It is, it is.

I think so too.

I think I do carry with me little set pieces and little costume touches.

And many storytellers just walk straight up to the mic, you know, and I've got palaver.

I love that word.

But, you know, I am getting asked to storytelling festivals and I enjoy that very much.

And I think that, you know, you can say that the spoken word, however we want to call it, there is tremendous range.

Absolutely.

It's extraordinary how much range there is.

If you go to a storytelling festival, you'll see some that are theatrical like I am.

You'll see others that are not.

But the range is just exciting.

It's kind of exciting, yeah.

And I think that's why I love these kind of.

These kind of performances so much, is because they are so driven by a person, they're so driven by their passions or the things they're obsessed with that it's the things they just can't not talk about.

Right.

It's the name of the show for a reason.

It's like that's what I'm.

That's what I gravitate to, is the people who love things or obsessed with things.

So let's dive into the topics a little bit too.

Okay, so the first one is Voices from Ellis Island.

That is, you know, there's a lot of discussion right now about this, about the, you know, the things that are tied to Ellis Island.

Right.

This is something that was celebrated in the US For a long time.

That Ellis island experience that you're coming through in the proper way, that you're coming to America and you are coming in at the time you've been asked to come in.

Right.

But they did face also a lot of, well, some prejudice, even Some of the rules were changed at Ellis Island.

They eventually made it a rule that everybody over the age of 16 had to be able to read before that wasn't the case.

And it was because citizens here were saying, well, they look kind of scruffy.

Can't you at least make sure they can read right?

You know, like, the romantic ideas that people have about this were never really true.

They were always, always colored.

Yes.

By all of these things.

Especially racism, Especially people of darker skin tones.

Exactly.

Was always a thing in this process.

This is not new.

And people have this romantic ideal of it.

It was never that.

Yes, precisely.

I thank you for saying that.

So when you're coming up with a show to talk about this, you know, this thing, how.

How was that process?

Like, how did you decide how you wanted to have this come across?

You know, I was looking for material.

I had decided I wanted to be on the RO of the Arts Council.

I was looking for material, and I went to Ellis Island Museum, and it's such an extraordinary, wonderful experience.

I was standing in the gift shop, and I was thinking, there's something here for me.

What is it?

There's something here for me.

And then I realized that everyone who came through Ellis island had either a dialect or an accent.

And my mother taught speech for the stage, and advanced speech was always dialects and accents.

So I thought, maybe I can build a program.

And I do have to tell you this, although, please.

I did use some books.

I did write to Ellis Island National Monument and told them what I was doing, and they said, oh, we did that.

We did that in the 80s.

We interviewed all these people.

This is great.

We interviewed all these immigrants who are, of course, still alive at that time.

And then we took all the best stories and we gave them to Broadway actors to read.

We'll send you that for $20.

Wow.

How should I.

Did I luck out?

Yeah.

Did I luck?

So that was one of my primary sources, and it was a primary source.

I mean, what a beautiful thing, too, to also see it in performance context at the same time.

So you can make your choice about how to.

I never saw the Broadway actors.

Oh, okay.

But I just got the.

I just got the script.

Okay, I got the script.

This was in the mid-90s.

You don't want to get overly colored by the performances.

And it's one of those things where the performance can often color the entire experience.

It's not just the words that's true.

It's the choices that you make.

And what they sent me, I think, was it was A lot.

So I think they must have given me some that never even got to their stage.

I don't know.

But I just.

I felt very fortunate because they were great stories.

Yeah.

And the choice to have this be a description about, you know, seven immigrants journey and doing that, was that something that you like?

Oh, I want to reflect on the differences and similarities between all of these experiences.

Yes, that is well said.

Now, the Ellis island years featured a lot of people coming from Eastern Europe, but people were coming from all over.

I did take some of the stories and give them to maybe someone from Ireland, someone from Scotland, just to get a little bit of vocal variety in there.

But all of the stories are.

And in some ways they're the same.

In some ways very different.

In other words, I did choose stories where each immigrant had something once they got to Ellis island that was a bit of an obstacle.

Some more that were worse than others, but to make it a little dramatic.

So you mentioned bringing people in.

So this is acted by different people as well.

Nope, this is all just you.

Right.

I get to play all the parts.

It's gotta be an absolute blast to try to do all these different characters.

It is.

And I use hats to, you know, delineate them, to give each character their own little visual aid.

Are you a hat person in general?

You know, I think I am.

Me too.

Are you?

Are you?

I've really.

I've really started to embrace that side of things.

It's like, you know, embracing yellow color and embracing matching and embracing trying.

Right.

You know, there's this.

There's always these feelings of, oh, you know, trying too hard is kind of seen in a different way nowadays.

And I love that little effort.

Right.

That trying.

Hey, you know what makes you feel good?

It makes you feel good.

Oh, yes, yes.

I've started wearing a lot of the, you know, straw style fedora hats, and they've really suited me.

And I love that moment when you're.

When somebody recognizes the effort.

Exactly.

It's a beautiful thing.

There's history in hats.

Yeah.

A fedora has a history.

Where?

In New Orleans?

Yeah, in New Orleans.

Yeah.

That store that's been there all those years.

Yeah.

And it's same family the entire time.

I think it's about 100 years old.

Oh, my.

And like those kind of things.

Right.

The things that are.

That have stood that test of time.

And that's something where this whole experience.

Right.

This is about time.

Right.

And those, those fashions tell a story.

Yeah.

Because you can look at all the people coming off of those ships and people have gone through a journey and many of them are still wearing suits and are wearing fine clothes for the journey, which is a specific choice.

And it was part of that decorum of saying, hey, I'm showing up somewhere.

I'm gonna show up in my best.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I think is.

I think the best way to think about this.

The whole experience of people coming to America is people are trying their best.

They want to be part of what's going on, they want to be embraced, and they want to bring their best to us as a country.

And they came with such high hopes and they really put those high hopes to work for them.

Yeah.

And I think people are still doing that now.

Right.

I agree.

I mean, with.

I mean, look at the Afghan people that have come to Rochester and that they're building community and building part of something new here in town and what, What a beautiful thing.

And there's.

I had the great pleasure of working with, doing three years working with small minority owned restaurants in Rochester.

And the people now I call my friends, that they are living the purest version of the American dream.

They are making a better life for their families, they're making a better life for their kids, and they're building real community for the people that want it.

Why?

I think it's the best people who are coming.

Yeah.

You know, and we've heard the opposite, but that's not the case.

No, I agree completely.

So, talked a little lot about this show.

Is there anything else I missed that you want to talk about this show?

Oh, only that it has some very light moments, it has some serious moments, all depending on the different characters and what they were experiencing.

But I think it speaks to a lot of people because do you know that they say 40% of us now living in the United States have ancestors who went through Ellis Island.

That's extraordinary.

Almost half of us.

That shows you how many millions of people were coming and how we still have a connection.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's never gone.

A lot of people in every audience I've ever had have had an Ellis island connection.

A personal connection.

Yeah.

So let's talk about the second show.

This is a new show called Voices from the Resistance.

Right.

So why don't you tell me a little bit about this one?

I'll tell you how it came about.

I got a call one day.

This was when I was still in Nebraska, actually, someone called me from Omaha and said, do you have anything about the Holocaust?

And I did not.

And I also feel certain aspects of the Holocaust belong to Jewish people and maybe not me.

And it got me thinking and I thought, so where do I fit in?

And then I thought, well, my goodness, there were all sorts of resistance fighters.

And so this little light bulb went off in my head and so I pursued that.

And the stories, I mean, there are thousands of them.

Again, I have in this case, five characters and they all have very different experiences.

They're from different parts of Europe.

They were tremendously brave people.

And, you know, they absolutely helped the Allies win the war.

That's a historical fact.

Well, and I think this is also one.

It's, it's a very challenging topic.

Right.

So this is, you are working within, you know, one of, you know, the context of the show is one of the darkest, you know, modern periods that we reflect on very often.

And this, you know, I think this is a fascinating time to be doing the show as well.

You know, it's interesting to me.

There's kind of a nostalgia about World War II.

You know, we don't feel nostalgic about the Vietnam War, we don't feel nostalgic about World War I or any other war.

But there is some nostalgia about World War II and this show because it deals with resistance fighters.

It's a little on the darker side.

Because Nazis weren't funny.

No.

Although there is one character who is quite light hearted and she keeps getting arrested and she keeps escaping.

And all of these stories are true, again, so they're fascinating, fascinating people.

Yeah.

And I think that's, you know, there's so many different ways that, you know, and bringing context to today.

Right.

There's so many different ways that somebody can be in resistance to what is happening.

Right, right.

And we look at, we look at the context of this, right.

In a time where, yes, everything was happening, but you didn't always.

You don't know everything in that moment.

Right.

You don't, you know a lot, you know some, but you don't know everything.

That choice to be in resistance, active resistance, it's not passive.

Oh, no.

Right.

There's an active.

There's a choice to be in resistance and to do some of the work is a very specific feeling and a very specific choice that a person makes.

Right.

And you bring that up and there were, there were hundreds of thousands of resistance fighters in Europe through World War II, but it was still a very small percentage of the greater population.

Yeah.

Took Real courage to be a resistance fighter.

Tremendous courage.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's not always the most visible thing too.

Right.

Like, you're bringing context to, you know, people who are not necessarily, you know, the brightest or the most visible individually.

Absolutely.

And that's.

That's context of how things are happening now as well.

Right.

You don't have to be the most visible or even the most vocal in any moment.

You just have to show up.

Yeah.

And to be doing something that is making people's lives better is part of that whole process is being present for others as well.

And sometimes.

Right.

You know, now people just need support.

And it's not necessarily, you know, as, you know, it's an act of resistance to be present for people of all different backgrounds and in all different situations.

Nicely put.

How do you.

How do you.

When you're coming up with this show, do you.

Do you also reflect on current times when you're doing this, or are you really just, like, living in that time frame?

You know, I think I do sort of go back to that time.

Yeah, I do.

Because it was what they were fighting was very specific.

Absolutely.

And so, yeah, I do get swallowed up in it, but as I said, they were such inspiring people to me, that it's a privilege.

Yeah.

And to be doing this at the JCC as well.

Right.

Like, what a.

There was a little weight to that, to be doing it in that environment.

Right.

How did that process go, talking with them about this show and what it entails?

Well, you know, I told you.

Luckily, I had been on their roster last year with the Ellis island show, and I said, I've got another voices show and would you be interested?

And they very nicely said, yes, we are.

So I, again, feel very lucky.

Yeah.

That's kind of a special thing, too, to have that relationship where they also know your.

They know your tone, they know that you're gonna be handling it with delicacy, but also moments of levity and seriousness all in the same time.

Right.

And I know that they have a wonderful facility and they have wonderful tech help, which I need.

And so it's.

I feel lucky.

It's a good fit.

Yeah.

So I want to finish off with talking about your experience as a performer.

So you mentioned that you were in Nebraska and you were trying to find an outlet, a creative outlet.

When you first started, when that feeling came up, did you think that was going to be performing or facilitating or how were you thinking about it at that time?

I knew it was always going to be performing because that's always when I was even a little kid, what I wanted to do.

So.

And I had had opportunities before to work alone, so that wasn't frightening to me.

Some actors who do ensemble work don't want to go out there alone.

Well, it's one of those things where you talk to actors.

One of their biggest fears is stand up comedy because you are left on your own and the only thing protecting you is yourself.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, some audiences are more responsive than others.

Yes.

No, I have great admiration for comics.

I do.

Even in the world of storytelling, there are some storytellers who are very, very funny.

And you know, I think that that's very scary to hope they laugh.

Yeah.

So when you were looking at performing, was it when you were first starting, was it theater, was it other things?

And so what kind of theater did you love doing at that time?

Oh, okay.

Well, as I said, I thought I went out and said, I'm doing one woman shows, but, oh, when I was young, I loved the world of musicals and musical comedies and I liked to sing and dance and that's what I pursued when I was young and wide eyed.

But by the time I started doing this work, I was, gee, I was about 40.

So by that time, actually it has all served me very, very well because all actors will tell you that their careers waft and wane a little bit.

And some of that even depends on lots of things, but age included.

And I love the fact that when you're working on your own, if there's someone who says, yes, I'm interested, you're working.

Yeah.

You have cast yourself, I mean, a little bit.

Yeah.

And produced oneself.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's a beautiful thing too because, you know, like we mentioned, it's a, it's a purity of expression.

But I like that you mentioned the time frame in which that happened.

Right.

Like that earlier time you're working on theater and you have these, you know, ambitious ideas on that side, I'm sure.

Oh, yeah.

But that time when you mentioned you started, that's a time when you have lived.

You have lived more of a life.

You've had more ups and downs, you've had more context, you've had more time to reflect on the things that you care about, which is, I think when these kind of shows can start, start to come on is after having lived.

That's interesting.

It'd be interesting to look at all fringe festivals and they're of course all over the world, although I think the Rochester one is quite exceptional in size and Scope.

But what you say may apply to a great many people in a fringe situation.

Yeah.

So what I'm kind of wondering, you know, as the kind of.

As we're wrapping up, our last question is, so you've done your two pieces on voices.

Do you have something that's in your head that you know is going to be your next thing?

Oh, already?

That's interesting.

I have just done a little something about the boat lift of 9 11, and I'm going to do that at a storytelling festival in about a month.

Wow.

So that will be a new piece.

And yeah, I am always having ideas percolating.

I'll tell you one thing, they call me a history storyteller, which is true.

Everything I do is kind of a living history.

There's an inexhaustible supply.

Yeah, right.

It's inexhaustible if you just do a little research and you dig deep.

There are all those personal stories and so rich.

And I just feel so lucky because they're real drama.

Yeah.

One, I think that's, you know, that kind of dovetails with how I love looking at the world.

Right.

Is if you go in with, you know, a passion for knowledge and you find the things that grab you.

For me, it's been food and drink, but it's also been then culture and history dovetailing with that.

Well, it would have to, because you.

Can't understand it without the context of.

History and geography and culture, ethnic restaurants, you've got a whole new world.

Unbelievable to.

To learn about that stuff.

And I love that, you know, my favorite things are the things you can never know enough about.

Regardless of how much time you spend, you will never know enough.

And what a joy at every stage to say, I don't know enough and I can go learn something else.

And if you want to go learn something and have a good time, go out to either Voices from the Resistance or Voices from Ellis Island.

All of these shows are at the JCC.

Voices from Ellis island on the 16th and 19th, Resistance on the 19th, 23rd and 24th.

Tickets are $15 at rochesterfringe.com and Pippa.

Anywhere else you want people to follow you.

Do you have a website or anywhere else?

I do and I'm having trouble with it.

But let them know that we'll fix it.

I don't know what's the matter with it, but I'm terrible.

I'm a real technophobe.

But yes, I do have a website.

And yeah, I would love it if people would take a look when they can Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for coming over.

Definitely.

Check out all the other shows on the lunch at our podcast [email protected] and we'll be back next time.

And we'll see you out on the fringe.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.

Sam.