We're diving into the exciting world of the 2026 Rochester Fringe Festival, and let me tell ya, it's gonna be a wild ride!

You can listen to the episode on Just Can't Not wherever you get your podcasts or go to lunchador.org to check it out!

https://player.captivate.fm/episode/73aff5b3-d0a9-4d05-aafc-7aa1b46c083f/

We’re chatting with the awesome Brad Cradock, who’s bringing the comedic thriller "Baby Jane, Baby Jane" and the sequel "Another Middle Earth Press Conference" to the stage. These shows are packed with humor, satire, and a sprinkle of that classic Rochester charm, taking place at the fantastic School of the Arts from September 15th to 26th.

We’ll explore how Brad cleverly intertwines pop culture and politics, giving a playful nod to the likes of Sauron and Joan Crawford while tackling real-life themes in a way that feels fresh and relevant.

So, grab your tickets at rochesterfringe.com, and get ready for some laughs and maybe a few deep thoughts along the way!

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 song means it's time for another episode of Just Can't Not.

Go to rochesterfringe.com to get your tickets today to all of the amazing events.

And they are all amazing events.

And I'm here with a guest.

Guest, why don't you introduce yourself?

Hi, I'm Brad Cradock.

I am the director, author, and producer of Baby Jane, Baby Jane, an original comedic thriller.

And also a another Middle Earth press conference, which is a follow up from last year's.

Nice.

So let's get the plugs out there specifically.

So Baby Jane.

Baby Jane.

Both of your shows are at the School of the Arts.

Yes.

Great venue.

Lots of different venues inside the School of the Arts, which is awesome.

It is the largest venue that we have for the Fringe Festival.

Is it really?

Yep.

Oh, they.

They.

Well, they show showcase more shows than any ever anywhere else.

Wow.

So.

So Baby Jane show is on September 16th, Sunday the 20th, and then Saturday the 26th, first night it's at 8.

The others are at 4pm Those are $18 tickets.

And then another Middle Earth press conference, also at the School of the Arts is September 18th, the 20th, and then the 24th, 6, 36 and 8 O'.

Clock.

$16 [email protected].

So let's start with the.

Let's start with the sequel.

Let's start with the second edition of another Middle Earth press conference.

Now, you know, I think we're of the age who have seen the Lord of the Rings movies in the theater when they came out.

Yeah.

It changes your DNA a little bit.

Right?

It's not sure.

Were you.

Were you already a Lord of the Rings fan when the movies came out?

I'm a big nerd.

Okay.

So, yes, I read the Hobbit way back in, like, middle.

Not even middle school.

I think it was elementary school.

Okay.

And loved the terrible animated movies and loved the Bakshi film and all that stuff.

I read the Lord of the Rings when I was, you know, probably in high school.

I think that's when I read the trilogy.

Sure.

And then every couple years, sort of like Stephen Colbert, I'll read it again.

I did read the trilogy again before I made a Middle Earth press conference.

So to sort of get into the vibe of what can I poke fun at.

I was gonna say, is there anything like, on this revisit that you have, I don't know, learned that was, like, surprising to you as somebody who was already a big fan, is there something that grabbed you just differently because you're looking at it from a different lens?

Yeah, definitely.

We're looking at it.

I'm looking at it from a different lens.

Really.

It is a political satire of our current political system.

I can't imagine.

I mean, the giant leaps you must have made to make these analogies work.

I don't know how you did it.

It's pretty amazing that, you know, the Dark Lord Sauron is pretty much.

You know, I think he might not as.

Might not have been as dangerous and influential as some of our administrators in the government at the moment, but.

Well, I mean, I do remember the part in.

I think it was the Two Towers where, you know, he's such a fan of Mount Doom that he named.

There's Lake Doom and then there's also the Gulf of Doom that we've learned so much about.

And it's like, hey, history repeating itself.

You know, it does.

So getting inspired for this.

It really originally had started with Caroline Leavitt as the mouth of Sauron.

And the mouth of Sauron is based on her personality and her ability to lie.

Yeah.

And from there, you know, it's.

Again, it isn't a very long stretch.

Yeah.

To imagine Sauron as perhaps a certain.

President that we might know of, the Obfuscation Secretary.

So, I mean, it's.

It's got to be.

It's got to be a fun process to.

I guess that's.

It's.

I don't know.

It's maybe not the right word.

Like, it has to be a fascinating process to look at all those things that were considered so over the top and dramatic.

And obviously, you know, Tolkien has so many influences from, you know, his time in war.

Yeah.

And those are obviously his influences.

But history doesn't.

You know, history repeats itself.

So it's.

There's a lot.

And a lot of the themes that he's talking about.

We should remember them.

That maybe being nice to one another would be a better path forward.

See, I don't know what kind of.

I don't know what kind of liberal nonsense you're talking about.

Am I liberal?

I don't know if I'm woke.

This is.

Now, I'm taking the heel route here for a second.

I mean, this is a lush text.

Not as long as people think it is.

Right.

You know, the movies are way longer than the books are.

Well, the Return of The King.

If you get an edition of the Return of the King, it's only a couple hundred pages.

The rest of it is indexing and, you know, just extra stuff.

You know, the history of the.

You know, of Middle Earth.

Yeah.

But people nowadays.

It's a dense book in that.

There's a lot of walking.

Yeah.

There's a lot of travel.

Beautiful descriptions, you know, but I.

There's something about it that is just compelling and definitely dealing with themes that are still important today.

Yeah.

And so because of that, you know, it wasn't.

It wasn't that difficult to come up with some ideas of how some of the events that have been happening to us in the last couple years are sort of riding parallel to basically the themes and the events in the book.

I'm sorry, in the play.

Yeah.

So I've been fascinated with a few things now, working with Fringe last year and then Pittsburgh Fringe earlier this year, I've this whole.

The whole idea of interactive shows and how do you prepare for them, I find a fascinating idea.

Right.

So it's not the interactive part itself, you know, is.

Is fairly standard, but for me, I think about the prep.

Right.

Because I. I think about how do I.

How do I prep so I don't have to think about what I do.

Yeah, it's.

It's a big job for my actress.

Caitlin Kenyon is coming back as the mouth of Sauron.

Oh, beautiful.

My original mouth of Sauron.

And she does an amazing job insulting everyone that walks through the door.

She's just amazing with improv, and that's part of it.

So some of the script is improv, but much of it, it's like 14 pages that she has to memorize.

Oh, wow.

Of script, it's just her up there.

So God love her.

She's done an excellent job portraying this mean character.

It's like, that's often the case.

Like, you know, playing the heel is often playing the bad guy.

Playing the horror villain is like, oh, there's something special about that.

Yeah, playing a villain is what you should be looking for if you want an interesting experience in theater.

You know, you're going to chew on all the scenery.

It's just going to be a great time.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know it.

And, you know, again, you know, as a.

As a satire, we're.

We're poking fun at cruel people and people that are rude and people that are incompetent, you know, and so that.

That adds to the humor, but the actor also has to sell it, you know, that sort of thing.

As you were talking about the interaction.

So in this play, the audience gets to be the journalists, so they're the ones asking the questions.

And those questions are delivered to them as they walk into the theater.

And then she'll call on the actress, Kenya, Caitlin will call on people, and then she'll answer those questions.

And it's amazing just, you know, because it really is an exercise in knowing the part, knowing the question, delivering the lines that she's supposed to say, but making it sound as if this is just off the top of her head.

Yeah.

And it also has to be like, what a luxury to not have to set the tone this time.

Right.

Cause you've already worked with her, the ones like, changing.

Like, you've already set the idea, you've set the tone, and now it's just, hey, what do we want to do better?

What do we want to tweak?

Yeah.

Our rehearsal process has gone.

Has been a little smoother in that, you know, she knows the character, she knows who she's playing.

Whereas last year, you know, when we were working on the show, you know, we had to discover, like, what was going to work, how much.

How little to borrow from reality and from the people that we're parodying, because it is also.

She is her own character.

So it's not a complete parody of Carolyn Leavitt, particularly in this version, because I have other people to poke fun at, such as Pete Hegseth, and I.

Can't imagine how you would do that.

Yeah, right.

You know, believe it again.

It's inspiring is what it is.

These people inspire me to write these comedies.

But Melania also is a big part of this one, whereas she wasn't really mentioned in the first version.

I'm kind of intrigued before we go to Baby Jane, because I want to get into a little bit of your background.

How do you work the balance between something that has a visceral.

There's a visceral thing to people's feelings about the current administration.

Yeah.

And it's in.

Justifiably.

So.

Yeah.

How do you.

How have you found that balance of.

People have often said, oh, this is the easiest time to do comedy.

This is the easiest time to do this.

Comedy is never hard, never easy.

No.

And it's the hardest thing ever.

And I've seen that as so reductive because, yes, you can poke at it super easily, but being genuinely funny is a very different thing.

Just poking isn't comedy.

Yeah, it is.

It's obvious.

Right.

And obvious.

Obvious isn't comedy.

To a point.

Yeah.

How have you found that balance?

Well, you know, part of it is, you know, it.

I'm approaching this more from a satirical perspective.

Sure.

You know, it's not just liberal.

Yay.

I am criticizing liberals as well as I am criticizing conservatives.

You know, there are things about our society and the way people react and act that I am poking fun at those things, but in hope that they might recognize their reflection in the glass, as they say, as Jonathan Swift said.

But the problem is, according to Jonathan Swift, is that Caliban does not recognize his face in the glass.

So satire is probably an acquired taste.

It's not for everybody.

So the humor comes from getting the understanding the situation and then recognizing the folly of humankind, because we're all flawed people.

So the humor comes out of people who think that they are better than everyone else or smarter than everyone else or, you know, in more powerful than everyone else.

And there's a lesson to be learned from that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, I mean, let's.

Let's pivot over to, I would say, a different tone, which is, you know, I don't know if this is an homage, if this is like, in celebration of one of the most just unique movies that you can watch, which is Whatever Happened to Baby Chain?

It is.

It's hard to define what that movie is because it's.

It's, you know, two aging, dominant starlets.

Yeah.

Played by Bette Davis and.

And Joan Crawford.

Yeah.

And these dudes, we're talking the biggest stars in the world in their.

In their aging years.

And this movie is so.

I guess the best way to describe it is it is big in every moment, even if it's not trying to be.

Yeah.

It's arch.

It is camp.

It is drag.

It's so many things, which is a.

You know, why it's been, you know, loved by many different communities.

Yeah, definitely.

The LGBTQ community loves this.

It's big and fun.

Yeah.

These characters are, again, ridiculous.

And we have Amy Canfield playing Baby Jane and Tricia Nees playing Blanche Hudson, her sister, who is crippled, if you've seen the movie.

And, yeah, I always loved the movie, you know, always love both of those women and those actresses.

They're amazing in every role that they played.

Even Joan Crawford's last film, Trog.

She is so genuine in that film.

That may be another.

Maybe that'll be next year's selection.

But if I still want to work with the Joan Crawford material.

Yeah.

But both of those actresses, again, are so stunning to watch, and we're hoping that our actresses are also stunning to watch.

And the play itself is a continuation of the story.

So it's not.

You don't really have to know much about the movie.

If you didn't see the movie, you should go see the movie.

You should, you know, at least rent it or something.

And the.

The two of them are so good together.

I mean, they hated each other on set.

Oh, yeah.

I think that's the whole thing.

Right.

Like, because it's Gives you the motivation.

There's so much richness to.

That's the history of that movie.

And the two actresses are just.

There's so much drama.

Yeah.

Everything about it, from the history to them on set to them as people.

Right.

It's.

It's just big from top to bottom.

And then you.

Then you go.

Even in the future, like other works that are depicting them like, you know, Mommy Dearest.

Right.

Like another movie that is so tied, you know, we.

To the community.

After watching Mommy Dearest, I have to confess that I was rooting for Joan.

So that's the kind of personality I have.

So satire and comedy come naturally to me.

Very, very campy.

But Faye Dunaway also was amazing in that.

Absolutely.

It had to be.

This is another one where, you know, as an actress just had to be so much fun to try to inhabit these again.

The performances were huge as well.

Yeah.

And, like, it just had to be a blast to work through and do that.

How did you again, balance, you know, accuracy.

Yeah, well, you know, accuracy is there to a point, but the vibes of that.

Yeah.

So, you know, this is.

At the end of the movie, Joan Crawford confesses to her sister, so Blanche Hudson confesses to Baby Jane.

Sort of a truth about their lives.

And it's at that point you realize that Bette Davis character, Baby Jane really just wants a friend, you know, and she wants to be noticed.

She wants to be a star again.

And that's where I sort of pick up.

So you might think that, you know, terrible things happen on the beach at the end of that scene or end of that movie, but they don't.

They are coming back from the beach, both sisters, but they're.

They're both there.

And from there on, it's.

It's the.

I try to incorporate, you know, a lot of, you know, humor with.

With the seriousness of some of the.

Some of the understated and subtextual suggestions of what that movie is.

In particular, I'm interested in what happens to us when we get older as actors.

The parts aren't good.

Usually they sort of dry up.

It's harder and harder to get cast or noticed.

And so you sort of sympathize with Baby Jane's character, who still wants the limelight, and she wants to make sure that everyone loves her and sees her, and.

And yet her sister won't give her any of that attention and love.

And it's also commentary for the actresses.

I've been writing a lot of.

A lot of my plays feature older actress.

Older actresses in our community, and I. I try to.

I have a lot of friends in the theater community, and I try to pick someone that I think I would like to work with and then sort of then wrap the.

The story and the development of the.

Of the characters to some extent around those people.

Well, I love that idea, specifically.

Right.

That's.

There's an intentionality behind it.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And I think that ties to your.

To your process when you're thinking about this.

Right.

You're thinking about.

You're not.

You're not getting a blank canvas.

Yeah.

Which is something that, you know, a lot of.

You know, a lot of directors, especially film directors, you know, not to, you know, not to highway anyone specifically.

Cough.

Michael Bay.

Cough.

They want the most blank of canvases.

Right.

They don't want.

They don't want you to know anything other than, wow, this is.

Wow.

You got to look at this.

We all played with Transformers.

Right.

But there's a specific mindset for you that you're saying, hey, I want somebody who has.

Who has lived.

I want somebody that.

Oh, yeah, you're bringing yourself to it because you.

The.

The assumption is, you know, yourself.

Oh, yeah.

And you can bring something to this that I don't.

I might not have even put on the page because I've left that for you.

And for actors particularly, we need to embody all sorts of emotions and understanding of how people live, what they want, their motivations, their relationships with each other.

So when you're young and you don't have a lot of those or a lot of your experience comes from movies or watching other people or even watching your parents, I suppose, which is all good.

But until you actually live it, you know, it's hard to embody some of those elements of.

Of maturity as.

As we are.

It's a different kind of mining.

Right.

Like you're not.

You're mining the idea of something.

Yeah.

Versus mining an experience or even an analogous experience because it's.

There's so many of these.

The nuanced emotions, the nuance of, you Know, it's this.

You might be wistful for something, but you're not sad.

Yeah, you might.

Right.

You might be.

You might be lonely, but you also might be very thankful for things.

And that's the only.

Those kind of things only come with the variety of life.

Yeah.

For you, when you're writing.

Yeah.

How much are you.

You know, obviously these are.

You know, these plays are driving in different directions or you're mining pop culture.

You know, when you're writing in general, do you mind your own history?

Do you think about how somebody else is going to be tackling this?

Or is it just this is.

Hey, I have this.

This thing that popped into my head.

All.

All of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know.

You know, I can't tell you that it's one thing specifically, obviously, after doing.

After writing many, many plays.

It was not a comedy, I have to say.

So that's one thing where, you know, I don't write a lot of dramas, but when I do, you go for it.

I go for it.

I'm not gonna grab you by the jugular.

But I think that's what theater is good for.

You know, it's really an opportunity for us to really confront people with these ideas and with these experiences.

So that one came from my own cancer survival, but also I had friends who had breast cancer.

In fact, the Tricia Neese, who was.

She played the role of the woman in Pink Ribbons who has breast cancer, and she herself had dealt with cancer as well.

So.

Having those experiences and working with these with people that, again, I want to work with wonderful actors and actresses.

That part of it comes from that sort of knowing that person and seeing, like, what kind of role would they be good in.

But then some of it does come from my own experience, you know, my own relationships with my own brother, you know, or my own parents.

I drew a lot on about my parents over the years.

I've first.

The first creative person to have ever mind their parents for content.

You know, I think that's a.

That's a cautionary tale for all parents.

Yeah.

Is that if you have a creative child, you really have to be very careful.

Yeah.

And I guess that goes for, like, you know, a spouse as well.

You know, my spouse, my husband always tells me that someday he's going to be in one of my plays, so, you know, he has to stay with Me or the revenge will be too much.

But overall, though, you know, writers get experience, you know, and also, I am drawing from pop culture.

I am drawing from what I've found.

Well, I'm hoping that people gravitate toward.

Lord of the Rings is already popular, so it's not like I have to drum up some interest in that.

There's an audience out there that likes that and will get the jokes and have read the books.

So when I make a nerdy analogy, they get it, and that's wonderful.

And then for those people that don't like that so much, again, if you like politics, definitely Middle Earth press conferences right up your alley, especially if you like to be abused.

That's for Baby Jane, of course.

You know, I know generally, the Fringe audience, while they are of all ages, mainly we're dealing with an older generation who likes to go to the theater, likes that experience, and most likely they have seen or at least know something about the movie, even if they didn't.

Didn't know it backwards and forwards.

Yeah.

It's not that you have to watch the movie in order to understand the play because we're dealing with issues and those things come out in the dialogue, the character interaction.

So of all those things, you know, you.

You pick and choose, cherry pick this, cherry pick that, build some of the lines.

For example, in Baby Jane, I took directly from the movie, if only just to, you know, for people who love the movie, they might hear a line and go, oh, I remember that line coming from the movie.

Also, these are the same people, quote, unquote, or characters, I should say.

And so even though they're gonna be delivered differently, the actresses do their own thing with these characters.

The intention and the tone and the way in which their relationships have already been sort of set and recognized is already present for the show.

So that's all of those things.

That's awesome, if that helps.

Well, speaking of being present for the show, make sure you go to rochesterfringe.com to get your tickets to either Baby Jane, Baby Chain, which is on the 16th, the 20th and the 26th, or another Middle Earth press conference on the 18th, the 20th and the 24th.

Or go to both.

Yeah, and you should.

And these are over at the School of the Arts, anywhere you want people to follow you for news and other information.

So in the Fringe catalog, there is a website that you can go to.

There's not a lot of information that you're not going to get from the catalog, but you can go there.

I'm a teacher, so that's something else that I should probably mention.

And so the website is mainly for my academic career, my professional academic career, as opposed to my playwriting.

And I do teach a playwriting course and a film studies course, so that I'm sure that has had no effect on anything that I do.

But in reality, I'm around this material all the time, so I'm sure that some of it influences me in many ways.

Well, thank you so much for stopping over.

This was a delight.

Make sure you go to rochesterfrench.com to get your tickets, and we'll see you out on.

Thanks.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.

Enroll now.

Next semester, Mr. Craddock's going to be teaching Baby Jane.

Baby Jane.

And another Middle Earth press conference.