WEBVTT - This 'indescribable' one-man show has millions rethinking who they are 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.360 I think we think that seeing each other as a 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.080 passive act, But like when you look at someone, it's 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:09.000 doing something to them. Just just the act of observation 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.440 is doing something to someone. When you look at them, 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:16.200 you're making judgments or assessments, and that's enough to shape 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.880 part of who that person is. We are helping create 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.239 one another's identities at any given moment, and I think 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.200 that we're not very conscious of that responsibility. I think 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:30.320 that that we we have this paradoxical relationship with labels 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.159 where we need labels to navigate and make sense of 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.960 the chast in this world. But then these labels become 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:39.760 the thing that we know each other for, and we 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.760 can't see past them. The labels actually, while they reveal 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.680 one thing, they conceal everything else at the same time. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.360 Who are you? How do you see yourself? How do 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.279 others see you? Just want to impact the other? These 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.840 are some heavy, tough questions, questions we usually don't want 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.840 to think about. But our guest today is asking you 0:00:59.920 --> 0:01:02.640 to think about it. His one man show turned Hulu 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.720 documentary in and of itself is taking the Internet, and 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.840 I will tell you my life by storm. If you 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.520 have not seen it, hit pause right now, go watch 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.640 it come back, and then you can finish listening. It's 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.360 hard to describe Derek DelGaudio. His whole show is about 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.679 labels and how they're an illusion. But for a little context, 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.080 He's an artist, a writer, a performer, a creator. He's 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:28.280 the one behind In and of Itself, one of the 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.840 most successful shows in off Broadway history. Is also the 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.360 co founder of Performers Art Collective Abandoned. While the show, 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:39.200 many people would say is indescribable, I would describe it 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.040 as pure magic. This podcast, the whole idea behind it 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.080 is about thinking outside of our comfort zone, and Derek 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.160 del Gaudio has had me thinking for the last year. 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.880 I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC Anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.160 this is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:09.559 I Heart Radio. A year ago someone showed me this documentary. 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.280 It blew my mind when I saw it. Well, a 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.400 year has passed. In it of Itself is on Hulu. 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.280 People are seeing it and they are more excited than ever, 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:20.760 and I finally have the opportunity to talk to the 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.200 man behind it all. Derek. Thank you so much for 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.400 joining me. Thank you for having me. I know this 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.280 is hard because many people listening haven't seen it. So 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.160 for people who haven't, how would you describe what this 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.840 production is? I have described it as a as a 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:39.840 theatrical existential crisis. Um, And that's the closest I think 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.280 I can get without tainting it with some sort of 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.560 description that might ruin it for people in some way, 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.480 or or or set expectations in a way that it 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:52.440 can't meet. Because if I call it a theater show, uh, 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:55.680 one man show play, none of these things really set 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.840 people up for it. It's just difficult to describe by design. 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.000 So it so it works theatrically and as a as 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.440 a work of art, but it's horrible for marketing. I 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.639 was gonna say, an existential crisis is tough on a 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.440 bumper sticker. Then how was the show born? What is 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.960 it about? What is it about? It's about you? You 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:16.920 just don't know it until it's too late. What do 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:18.880 you mean until it's too late? Well, I mean people 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.120 think it's a show about me because it's autobiographical in 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.160 a sense, and so they think that they're watching a 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:32.720 story that I'm telling about myself. And I'm struggling to 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.800 find my identity. But it's really just a vehicle to 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.440 you know, have you think about your identity and how 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.920 you see others in yourself? Where did it come from? 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.120 I just felt like this was something I needed to do. 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.920 I've stayed in the background for a long time. I 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.280 haven't really stepped into any real spootline. I've done other shows, 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.280 and i've I've worked on things, and but I've never 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.680 I've never done anything to put myself out there like this, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.440 where my name was on a poster, you know, by 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.200 itself like that. And so it felt like something I 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.360 had been working towards. And I knew that if I 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:10.440 was going to do it, I needed to do it 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:12.640 in a way that I felt comfortable with. I felt 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.680 trapped by others perceptions. So I decided to do a 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:22.400 show about that and started writing and putting thoughts together, 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.280 and a year later, that's what I came up with. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.240 When you were creating it, the director Frank Oz asked 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.280 you at one point, are you gonna be okay if 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.479 nobody gets this? Yes, he did, and what's the answer. Yeah, 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.200 I'm fine, I'm doing all right. I had to think 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.320 about it when he asked me that I didn't really 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.000 have an answer for him. This is a show that 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:46.080 requires others, and it requires an audience to do, and 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.240 I didn't have an audience until the very first night, 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.360 so it was very hard to kind of rehearse this thing. 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:55.279 We've went for a coffee and he asked me, very seriously, 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:56.960 are you gonna be okay if no one gets this, 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.560 like if no one likes this? And I was kind 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:02.400 of surprised by the question. I didn't have an honest 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.640 answer for him. And I thought about it, and I 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.760 thought about the work as it was, and I realized, 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.440 like we had already kind of achieved even privately, We've 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.520 already kind of achieved what I set out to do. 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.520 It challenged everyone involved, including Frank, and he's an amazing artist, 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.479 so the fact that it was challenging him too, it 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:24.880 was like, yeah, we've we've already kind of made a 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:26.960 thing here, and so I was. I was proud of 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.320 it even before we showed it to anyone. So yeah, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:33.159 I was okay, And I told him so many people 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.520 listening I haven't seen it. But when you think about 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:42.280 or or as you experience performing it, people do call 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.960 you a magician, an illusionist, a mentalist and you say 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.520 that's not true. That's fine. They can call me that. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.760 That's I have no problem with that. If people see 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:53.200 the show and they want to call me a magician, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.000 if that's what they think I am, there's nothing I 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:56.719 can do about that, and so that's fine. I have 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.800 no problem with that. I do have a background, you know, 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.200 as as a magician, and I have implemented a lot 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.679 of things that I've learned, you know, with that craft 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.960 into this work. It's totally fair for someone to see 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.680 it and think that that's what it is. I don't 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:16.360 necessarily think that that's an appropriate term to use for 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.679 this work. In particular, there's very specific imagery that pops 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.080 into people's minds when they hear the word magician or 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.800 think of magic. And even if they hold magic and 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.800 magicians in high regard, which would that would be rare, 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:36.479 but let's say they did, it's still an inappropriate term 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.920 to go into this with that in mind. My job 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.120 is not to deceive you. That's and it's certainly not 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.080 what this show is aiming that. It's not about you 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.680 coming in and me fooling you and you not knowing 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.320 how things work and having a little bit of wonder. 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.560 That's not what this is about. Is the show a 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.440 true story? Yeah? Every word of every word I say, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.840 every single word I say, not not some of it, 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.400 all of it, every single word is true. Um. So 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.320 the show begins with the words, we're here because I 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.000 heard a story, and in a nutshell, that story was 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.840 I was in Spain visiting a friend of mine and uh, 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.640 while we're in a bar, he introduced me to a 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.960 man who told me a story. As this stranger told 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:22.000 me a story about a sailor who, after returning home, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.800 he didn't have much going for him, so he started 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:30.320 playing Russian roulette for money, literally literally playing Russian roulette 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.280 for money. And it turns out he was very good 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.360 at it, and people didn't know whether it was luck 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.240 or skill. Somehow he maybe he was cheating the system, 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:42.040 but he kept playing and he kept winning. And the 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.600 man who told me this story related it to me 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.559 and he said that that I was like that roulette player, 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.440 the ruletista, and I didn't understand what he meant. And 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.040 the show is an exploration of me trying to understand 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.480 why he might have said that. Why why this stranger, 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:00.560 someone I didn't know, might have compared me to someone 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:02.600 who puts a gun to his seat every single day. 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.240 And so for you, it was so important for you 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.120 to find out what was it about your character? What 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.760 did you put out in the universe that would make 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.280 someone think that of you? Yeah, I mean I met 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.200 a guy who said you remind me of a guy 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.880 who tries to kill himself every day. That made me 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.640 wonder what he saw in me that made him say 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:28.280 that that. That's that's worth exploring. You know why he 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.560 said that, Why he may have said that, And what 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.560 is my life intersect with that story? And how many 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.400 different avenues and where does it intersect and why does 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.440 it intersect? And maybe this is what he meant. Maybe 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.240 this is what he meant. That man saw the show, 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.600 he saw the film. I corresponded afterwards and asked him 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.520 if he would watch the film, and he did, and 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:55.400 it was it was amazing because he absolved me of 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.240 of it. He basically he said, you no longer need 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.800 to carry the bur of being the realtista, which is 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.200 the best thing I think anyone could say to me afterwards. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.480 But did he tell you why he ever said that 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.240 to begin with? Because I asked, there are all sorts 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:17.800 of labels and experiences that we have in our lives, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.360 and some of them may just be accidental, right, some 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.200 of them A girl one day in the fourth grade 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.960 could be told by someone hey, fatty, and that could 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.080 impact the rest of their life. And if you go 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.400 back in time and find that person who said that 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:36.480 to them, that person may be like, I don't even 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.240 know why I said it. I don't want to know 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.480 why he said it now, especially I don't want to know. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:47.120 I just I'm I'm glad he did because the journey 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.920 it send me on was, you know, extraordinary. The relatist 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.560 say is really a metaphor. It's that thing that you 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.440 you you believe people think about you, that you think 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.040 about yourself. Uh, that's he are good or bad. And 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.359 that's because no matter what you say about like I'm 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.240 I'm who I am and I don't care what other 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.000 people think. That's just not how it works. It matters. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.520 It matters what other people think, and it doesn't matter 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.800 like that you need to change your life or do 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.040 anything differently, but it does matter. I remember I talked 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.520 to a philosopher. I talked to a few philosophers while 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.520 making the show, and so this philosopher. He had another 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.040 thought experiment. If you could divide a person's brain in 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.240 two pieces and take half of their character and put 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.800 it into one body and another and the other half 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:36.280 and put it into a different body, which one is Bob? 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.320 And so he drew this on a napkin and he said, so, 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.800 which one is is the real Bob? And I pointed 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.640 to one of them and I said that one, And 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.160 he goes, well, how do you know that? And I said, 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.360 because that's the one I'm calling Bob. And he's like, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.840 that's that's not how this works. I go, sure it is, 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:59.760 and he's like, not, how how? And I said, okay, Well, 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.480 let let's take you, for example, your professor of philosophy 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:08.280 at the school, and that's what people know you as. Yeah, Um, 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.480 what if I could convince everyone in this room that 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.960 you're not weird a restaurant? So what if I cooman 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.280 is everyone in this room that you're not you're not 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.600 actually college professor? Um? And then your name isn't even 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:20.719 what your name is? And then what if I could 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.280 do it with everyone in the city, and then everyone 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.920 in the state, and then everyone in the country, and 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:27.680 then everyone in the world. But if I could get 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.040 everyone in the world to believe that you're not who 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:35.280 you claim you are, you know who who are you? Then? 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:37.840 And he didn't take me up on it, But the 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.280 notion being that, like, it does matter if everyone in 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.480 the world won't acknowledge your existence as you claim to be, 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.720 and they deny you of who you are? What does 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.160 that mean in the context of the world you know 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.120 and others and and identity? Does an existence of acumens 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:56.920 understanding that connection between others and ourselves that matters, and 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:00.240 also realizing that we are others to other people. So 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.120 busy fighting to be seen by others, we forget that 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.560 we are others were judging were But also, like, what 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.840 if we stop fighting to be seen and we just 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.559 focused on seeing others? If you just focused on really 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.840 seeing and acknowledging others, what happens. It's a leap of faith. Yeah, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.200 it's a leap of faith. It's and its vulnerability. I 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.600 don't expect people to be able to accept, you know, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.680 the multitudes of everyone. I know, that's a lot to ask. 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.240 But what you can do is accept the mystery you 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.240 know and embrace the mystery of others, not putting anything 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:35.320 on them or any preconceived notions. What what might fill 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.679 that blank space? If you can just let mystery be 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.440 mystery and allowed to live and breathe, who knows what 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:57.040 we can discover. We'll be back after the break. You 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:01.520 performing this show every night require there's an enormous amount 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.720 of vulnerability in the audience. You see Deray McKesson, who's 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.040 one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, You see 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.720 Bill Gates. The show was supposed to run for ten weeks. 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:14.280 It ran for what seventy? Watching it as a film, 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.400 it appears that it's not The room isn't that dark? 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.959 You can see the faces of the audience. Is that true? Everyone? 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.040 Every single person? Yeah? How hard was that? Right? So 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.560 you're sitting there and not even in a good seat. 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.000 By the way, Bill Gates is sitting sort of off 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.880 to the back on top with his arms folded. Hey, 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:35.920 do you know when those people are there and be 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.120 does it impact you? I mean, I love that he 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.720 had a bad seat. Yes, that one of my favorite 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.320 parts is that he has a bad seat. Yeah, And 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:45.920 that's part of it is like no one, no one 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.920 can have special treatment because they're as special as anyone else. 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.120 In ever, I try to equalize it in that in 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.400 that sense, but yes, it's it's obviously it changes the 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.280 air in the room a little bit when everyone looks 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.040 over and Bill Gates is standing there. It changes things. 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.000 At the beginning of the performance, people are encouraged to 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.559 to choose how they see themselves. Uh, and at the 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.520 end of the performance, I tie that in and I 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:15.160 have private affirmations publicly with these people of how they 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.120 might see themselves. What title did he get? Leader? He 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.200 was a leader? But the best ones are the ones 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.480 where people would surprise us. We had a I won't 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.680 say the name, but we had a very very extremely 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.600 notable person and they chose something very vulnerable. It shows 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.160 add it, you know, and they were really struggling with 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.880 that at the time. It was like shocking to everyone 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.520 because they can tell it was genuine. But how liberating 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.760 for that person. Yeah, it must be to be to 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.600 be seen, to live in that moment of being known 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.400 and admitting the thing that they probably conceal. Was it 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:52.000 hard on you all? I mean every night people are crying, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:57.480 having these emotional catharsis, experiencing the show. So what was 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.840 that like for you to go home? Every night after that. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.320 It felt like I took the S A T S 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.080 And attended a funeral every single day, is what it 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.560 felt like as an artist who devoted this much of 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:13.920 his time his craft focused on identity. Why is that? 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:15.720 Where did that come from in your life? Um? I 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.160 think I've been around otherness, you know a lot that 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.720 grew up with a gay mom, of gay single mother 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:27.160 most of my life, and depending on what someone knew 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.560 about her changed people's perception of her, And so she 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.080 would go from being a normal mother to a freak 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.600 within a single word, which was you know, growing up 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:41.040 in Colorado in the time when it wasn't really you know, uh, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.480 there wasn't a lot of acceptance around me in terms 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.720 of neighbors, the city I was in, and things. And 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.200 so I learned the power of a single word and 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:54.680 how it can change your world depending not on person, 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.280 but on the people's perception of that person. How as 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.960 soon as people knew she was gay, it would absolutely 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.880 change the air around her, um, and how they treated 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.680 her and me based on that. Right, think about your 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.040 your Twitter bio, Right, what does mine say? Probably you 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:16.080 know mom, wife TV anchor, New Jersey native, Right, it's 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:22.520 how we categorize ourselves and inadvertently even classify ourselves. Right, So, 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.840 I think this person went to an Ivy League college winner, 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.040 this person only went to high school? Are they a loser? 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:36.920 As someone who's so acutely aware of the impact of 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.400 labels and identity, how is it for you to exist 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.560 right now at a time when people's political identities, their race, 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.160 they're they're the region. Therefrom in the United States has 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:55.160 become such a deep identification that categorizes people, maybe more 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.560 than we've ever seen in our lives. I started the 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:04.199 show and I wrote started in two and so the 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:09.639 election happened and everything changed and the show became something 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.960 else because people started taking it seriously. Like Charlotte'sville was 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:18.960 a big moment when after Charlotte's Ville, how people started 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:23.600 identifying themselves. It was much more sincere and also the 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.280 kind of you could feel it in the room. The 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.720 room became like a microcosm for the world. When you 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.760 say the room, you mean the theater, the one room show, Yeah, correct, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.119 the theater that I was performing in. You could feel 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:39.040 the atmosphere and of that conversation it was. It was 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.000 really surreal. Yeah, I don't know. It was like I 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.959 was isolated writing and creating it and then put it 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.159 into the world, and it was it was just a 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.600 conversation that everyone is having or ready to have. Then, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.639 being someone who is so focused on this had the 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.359 last four years been hard on you. Right even right now, 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.080 when you look at how conspiracy theories have taken hold 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.960 of millions of people, it's hard for you to witness 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.080 this every day. I wrote a book that's coming out 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.800 next month. It's called A Moral Man. But this topic 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.080 is what the book is about. It's about this subjectivity 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.600 of truth that we're having to deal with in our 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.600 day to day lives. That was that was there before, 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:24.639 but now we've never had people so blatantly exposing the 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.240 mechanics of deception, like in front of our eyes, like 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.160 we use. As a journalist and someone who follows politics, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.600 you've seen it, but I don't think the general public 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.679 was aware of how blatant it is. And and now 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.840 it's part of the dialogue. As a journalist, it's brutal 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:48.280 to study every day the mechanics of deception, like at work, 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.040 and then to go out in your personal life and 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:58.480 watch the reverberations of that work make its way to 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.679 your mom and dad's kitchen table. It's really really hard, 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:05.560 it is, it's really painful. Also, they don't even know 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:10.080 they're being deceived. I mean, it's really it's it's more 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:14.320 of a discussion of truth than it is deception. Like 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.399 the people who march the capital on the sixth, Like, 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.240 as horrible as that is, like I would say, most 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.120 of them believe it. Most of them, it's not. They're 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.320 living fiction as if it's true. They're the marks of 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.560 this you know, scam if you will. But that's what 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:36.440 makes it terrible. It's so obvious and clunking, but it's happening. 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.760 At the same time. It makes you, being a witness 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.080 to this, feel like you're taking crazy pills. Yeah, it does. 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.560 But being able to see through and have the conversation 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:50.280 and talk about what you know, what's happening is really important. 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:54.400 And having the conversation with empathy so that people who 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.359 have been deceived cannot feel like fools, because that's what 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.359 happens is you feel like you've been occurred. So you 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.680 can't leave. You can't leave, and you can't you can't 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.680 admit it, you know, you can't admit. But I think 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.680 that if if even the smartest people admit to their 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.359 own self deception, I mean, then you can start to 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.959 have that conversation, whether it's self deception or being explicitly 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.359 deceived by others. We know what that feels like, and 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.000 it needs to be treated with empathy when we we 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.600 encounter others who have been so blatantly deceived and are 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.400 not living deception. They're living truths, and and it's really 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.840 hard to strip them of those truths and to to 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:35.400 give them new truths to to live by without them 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.680 feeling foolish. And so we need to figure out how 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.280 to how to do that. When you think generally about 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:44.359 your audiences and the feedback you get for most people, 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.600 is it a light experience or a dark experience? I 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.840 think there are some lights you can only experience in 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:53.840 the dark. I think that's what this show is. I 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.680 think that's you know, sometimes some some rays of light 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.600 you know, are so dim, you know, you need to 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:02.800 go to the darkest cave to see him. And I 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:04.960 think that's what this is. I think that there is 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.680 a lot of darkness in it. But and and that's 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:09.800 what that's what any deception that is in the show 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:15.959 and the illusions, the illusion aspects. They are part of 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.959 that darkness, but they are used to create a space 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:23.960 that allows the light two to come in and illuminate things. Hopefully, 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.800 that's if you're choosing to listen. What made you continue 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:31.359 the show instead of ten weeks? It was seventy weeks 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:33.919 and it's seventy weeks. It was at the height of 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.720 its popularity, and you came in one day and said, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.600 I'm done. How did all that work? It just felt 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.600 like you you got it and doing it more would be, 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.320 you know, diminishing returns like I don't, I don't I 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.600 think that. It's just like I don't need to repeat 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.080 myself anymore. They've heard it. I repeated myself over and 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:58.560 over again for you know, for for years, and and 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.520 then as soon as I saw not in okay, they 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.800 heard it. I'm done. Now we're good. I've said it. 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.760 We can go home. And Frank felt that way. He 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.360 was there all the time. Frank Oz, the director, who 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:14.479 is you know, incredible. Two weeks before we closed, we 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:18.440 were still making adjustments to the show. Two weeks, two 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:22.159 weeks before closing night, and our our crew was just 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.520 like what you guys are absolutely insane. It wasn't about 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.240 getting it right. It's like you're trying to say something 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:30.439