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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio My guest today is the artistic

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Speaker 1: director of the renowned Public Theater in New York City.

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Speaker 1: He is also a theater director and dramaturge who is

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Speaker 1: responsible for bringing to life iconic productions such as Angels

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Speaker 1: in America and the Tony Award winning musical Hamilton. Oscar

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Speaker 1: Eustace has produced and directed countless productions across the United

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Speaker 1: States and overseas, notably the twenty seventeen Shakespeare in the

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Speaker 1: Park production of Julius Caesar. Eustace is an advocate for

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Speaker 1: making theater more accessible and is also a devoted professor

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Speaker 1: of dramatic writing and arts at universities such as UCLA,

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Speaker 1: Middleburg College and Brown University. Oscar Eustace is ironically a

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Speaker 1: college dropout and graduated from high school when he was fifteen.

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Speaker 1: I was struck by his independence at such a young

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Speaker 1: age and curious if he would characterize his younger self

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Speaker 1: as self.

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Speaker 2: Sufficient The friend in Minneapolis in Minneapolis, Yeah it actually.

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Speaker 2: I was part of Minneapolis's last ditch attempt to avoid

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Speaker 2: forced bussing in nineteen seventy two, they knew they had

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Speaker 2: to desegregate, So they had a basically all black school,

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Speaker 2: Central High School, in downtown Minneapolis, and they said to

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Speaker 2: any white kid who were in outlying districts that if

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Speaker 2: they would voluntarily bust themselves in, they had to have

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Speaker 2: a B plus or better average that they could participate

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Speaker 2: in Magnet school and get out a year earlier. I

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Speaker 2: had skipped a grade earlier in my academic career. So

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Speaker 2: what they did was take about fifty white hippies, bust

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Speaker 2: them into an all black school, and give them special privileges.

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Speaker 2: It didn't work very well, so I got out at fifteen,

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Speaker 2: but barely. I was actually in high school with Prince

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Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? No? Was he fifteen? Going with

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Speaker 2: you getting out of there? He was black, so yeah,

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Speaker 2: I was. I was older than him, and he was

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Speaker 2: just the weird, smaller kid with the guitar. I just

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Speaker 2: I can't claim that I recognized as genius.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't get it done. But when you say

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Speaker 1: fifty hippie kids, you're in what year? Is this the

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Speaker 1: U fifteen? So when you're fifteen, when you're seventy two?

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Speaker 2: No, actually seventy three is when I graduated that was

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Speaker 2: when I was fifteen or fifteen. But what was that

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Speaker 2: environment like back then?

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Speaker 1: Was it that nurturing of alternative kind of educational patterns

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Speaker 1: and things like that?

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Speaker 2: Was My high school experience was particularly rough, and I

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Speaker 2: wouldn't trade it for anything now, because I went in

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Speaker 2: there with a trajectory that was probably going to land

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Speaker 2: to me in the academy of perhaps in profession, and

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Speaker 2: I came out of there with a very different view

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Speaker 2: of what life was like. And it's a view that

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Speaker 2: although it horrified certain of my relatives, it's turned out

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Speaker 2: very very well for me.

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Speaker 1: Now, your parents, you had a stepfather who based your

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Speaker 1: correct stepfather and my biological mother, but also after he

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Speaker 1: sobbed up my biological father and my stepmother.

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Speaker 2: So I have four parents. How old were you when

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Speaker 2: they got divorce? Your ten? You were ten? Yeah, but

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Speaker 2: they stayed in that general community in the Minneapolis. Well,

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Speaker 2: they actually went southern Minnesota, and when they remarried, everybody

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Speaker 2: moved up to Minneapolis. So I moved to Minneapolis.

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Speaker 1: And when did you you and the crew head over

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Speaker 1: to was the Netherlands? Where did you go?

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Speaker 2: Berlin? Well, I can't keep track of your travels. Yeah, no, no,

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Speaker 2: what actually happened. As soon as my mother and stepfather

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Speaker 2: had an empty nest, which was when I was fifteen,

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Speaker 2: when I went to New York, they promptly decamped and

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Speaker 2: moved to East Berlin, where they spent half of every

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Speaker 2: year for the next fifteen odd years. They were on

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Speaker 2: faculty at Humboldt University, both of them. Yeah, they were

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Speaker 2: committed communists, and so I for the next fifteen years.

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Speaker 2: I moved to Zurich for a couple of years in

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Speaker 2: the late seventies to work at the Shaushpiel House there.

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Speaker 2: But I went and visited them right here. The what

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Speaker 2: house It's called the Schaushpiel House Zurich, and at that

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Speaker 2: time it was the largest theater in the whole German

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Speaker 2: speaking world, had about eighty actors full time year round

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Speaker 2: on and Yeah, to do what founded a experimental second

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Speaker 2: stage called us labor the laboratory which still exists. Howl.

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Speaker 2: Then at nineteen you say it still exists. To the

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Speaker 2: program with Trinity and Brown still exist the insity, So

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Speaker 2: they all lived on so far, right, the public still

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Speaker 2: open too, Right, I haven't killed it yet, I have

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Speaker 2: not yet. We're trying to keep we're trying to keep

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Speaker 2: everything alive. The secondary was in Zurich, but I traveled

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Speaker 2: throughout the German speaking world a lot, and of course

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Speaker 2: took advantage of my parents being in the East to

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Speaker 2: spend a lot of time there as well as in

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Speaker 2: the West. And the that you tour London and Edinburgh

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Speaker 2: when you were fourteen, Yeah, I went around a lot.

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Speaker 2: My parents accepted my independence with a very good grace

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Speaker 2: fought for They didn't encourage you were both. They never

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Speaker 2: took legal action to prevent me from what I wanted.

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Speaker 2: They occasionally disapproved of how wildly I was traveling and

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Speaker 2: how much I wasn't pursuing my education, but I think

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Speaker 2: they fundamentally trusted me, which they were right to do,

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Speaker 2: and although they were worried about why were they right

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Speaker 2: to do that? Well, because you made the most of them,

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Speaker 2: I exactly I did not waste my life, and I'm

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Speaker 2: happy to say that by the time I was about thirty,

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Speaker 2: all of my parents recognized that fully and embraced what

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Speaker 2: I had made out of my life, and so for

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Speaker 2: the last thirty five years or so I had full

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Speaker 2: par mental support. Most of them are dead now, afraid,

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Speaker 2: but I was lucky enough to watch my mother glory

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Speaker 2: in what I had done with my life, which is

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Speaker 2: a feeling I cherish.

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Speaker 1: When do you come back to the United States after

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Speaker 1: the Zurich I moved back.

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Speaker 2: Full time in nineteen eighty one twenty two, and I

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Speaker 2: moved back to San Francisco. Actually, and you were involved

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Speaker 2: in the theater out there for quite a while. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: And I say, San Francisco is where I grew up.

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Speaker 2: That's where I spent my twenty days.

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Speaker 1: You at the Yureka Theater for quite a while, ten

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Speaker 1: years and ten years, ten years.

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Speaker 2: Why where became well, you know when there was a

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Speaker 2: not for profit theater. Oh yeah, tiny out for profit

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Speaker 2: theater in ninety nine seats. It's where I became the

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Speaker 2: artist that I've tried to become. Where I became the

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Speaker 2: person that I've tried to way two ways, very specifically.

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Speaker 2: I had been a committed experimental theater guy. I didn't

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Speaker 2: believe that the playwright had any place in the theater anymore.

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Speaker 2: When I'd come to New York, I'd lived downtown in Soho.

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Speaker 2: I never went above fourteenth Street. I was fully immersed

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Speaker 2: in the experimental theater scene, and at that point in

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Speaker 2: the seventies, you may remember, the counterculture didn't distinguish between

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Speaker 2: politically radical and esthetically radical, and it was all sort

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Speaker 2: of messivecounterculture, and I moved sort of freely in that.

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Speaker 2: But about nineteen eighty, after a couple of years of

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Speaker 2: living in Europe, I began to recognize that there was

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Speaker 2: a dichotomy between my politics, which were quite left, and

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Speaker 2: the work I was doing, and that the work I

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Speaker 2: was doing was appealing only to a tiny fraction of

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Speaker 2: international art audience that I didn't want to talk to.

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Speaker 2: I didn't really have anything to say to them. And

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Speaker 2: I had a real crisis of conscience, you know, Christmas

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Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty weeping in Zurich, listening to Patty Smith's

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Speaker 2: Easter album and realizing that I had to come back

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Speaker 2: to the United States, I had to try to speak

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Speaker 2: to Americans and not be an expat, and that I

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Speaker 2: had to try to make my work reflect the content

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Speaker 2: of my politics, which both meant that it had to

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Speaker 2: carry ideas in a different way. And I had to

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Speaker 2: speak to an audience that I had something to say to.

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Speaker 2: And that is what impelled me to San Francisco, impelled

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Speaker 2: me into the Eureka Theater, where for the first time

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Speaker 2: I'd ripped up my passport to the avant garde, as

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Speaker 2: I say, and for the first semester to do with plays,

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Speaker 2: because I recognized that you needed playwrights to do what

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Speaker 2: I wanted to do, both in terms of.

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Speaker 1: The opposite of what you were doing in that exactly

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Speaker 1: in the seventies, exactly in the Mama.

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Speaker 2: And I have not regretted it for a moment. It

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Speaker 2: was the big shift of my life.

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Speaker 1: I remember coming here, and I always say to people

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Speaker 1: in terms of actors' careers, when I came to New York,

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Speaker 1: Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Klein, Bill hurt Raoul, Julia Cazal,

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Speaker 1: all of them was like merrill. Of course, you made

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Speaker 1: your bones in the theater. You flow out to LA

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Speaker 1: to get a paycheck, and movies were like some fantasy

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Speaker 1: land where you just went out there and if they

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Speaker 1: hired you, great, that's exciting.

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Speaker 2: I'll take the money. It's fun.

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Speaker 1: But I come right back here to do something else.

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Speaker 1: I told Sam Waterston, I said, every fucking guy I

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Speaker 1: knew in New York.

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Speaker 2: Had that Hamlet poster on the wall of their apartment

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Speaker 2: and now I have it on my wall right now.

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Speaker 1: When I read this about you, I to see this guy.

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Speaker 1: Independence is the key. This is what I want to

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Speaker 1: do now. Now it seems like there's a shelf life.

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Speaker 2: Do anything you do. I mean, then you go from

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Speaker 2: San Francisco to La Music Center and then to wrote

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Speaker 2: Istan and the Engineer. In a way that's right now.

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Speaker 2: But something happened to me when I was a teenager

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Speaker 2: and first running away to Soho which is there was

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Speaker 2: and is a great experimental theater called Mabo Minds, which

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Speaker 2: at that time I was a groupie of Lee Brewer

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Speaker 2: and Joanne Accliis. I followed them around the country. I

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Speaker 2: love them, and they were in residence at this theater

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Speaker 2: i'd never heard of, called the Public Theater. And I

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Speaker 2: walked into the Public Theater as a Moble Minds groupie.

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Speaker 2: But I was sixteen years old, and I got imprinted

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Speaker 2: like one of Conrad Lorenzo's little baby ducks, who you know,

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Speaker 2: think the first big moving object they see as their parent.

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Speaker 2: And the Public Theater imprinted me with the idea of

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Speaker 2: what a theater should be. And it didn't really blossom

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Speaker 2: in me till seven or eight years later. But when

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Speaker 2: it did, I feel like I spent the rest of

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Speaker 2: my career going around the country trying to recreate the

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Speaker 2: public theater until I finally got a chance to come

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Speaker 2: back here and run the mothership itself. This has always

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Speaker 2: been my dream job. This has always been my idea,

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Speaker 2: not almost, but since then it's my idea of what

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Speaker 2: a great theater should be. So in that way, I

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Speaker 2: feel like I've been incredibly consistent and not all that independent,

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Speaker 2: faithful to an idea that existed before I was around.

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Speaker 1: Now we're going to get into the public for quite

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Speaker 1: a bit later in a minute, but I'll just hopscotch too. Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, I want to ask you the difference

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Speaker 1: route in San Francisco and LA in terms of theater audience.

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Speaker 2: Well, in San Francisco it was a cocoon. It was

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Speaker 2: a little blue bubble for me, which is why it

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Speaker 2: was the perfect place to grow. Because I at Theoreka

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Speaker 2: I was in San Francisco. You know, I'd been so

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Speaker 2: in the margins everywhere I had been been San Francisco.

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Speaker 2: You know, I got to know city government officials and

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Speaker 2: they treated me like an adult. I you know, I

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Speaker 2: met Harvey Milk I got to know his success or

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Speaker 2: the first the work you were doing was important exactly,

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Speaker 2: and this crazy red diaper baby hippie kid was sort

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Speaker 2: of mainstream, you know. I wasn't marginalized there. So it

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Speaker 2: gave me this again blue bubble within which to grow

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Speaker 2: up and develop my work and become a man. And

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Speaker 2: I will always love San Francisco for that. But then

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Speaker 2: came the time when I needed to start to try

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Speaker 2: to have an impact beyond the blue bubble. And the

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Speaker 2: actual specific thing that took me to La is when

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Speaker 2: a play that I'd been working on for three years

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Speaker 2: was too big for the Erika Theater, and that was Angela.

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Speaker 2: You were working with him, I was working with them.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, I produced Tony. How did you meet him? Well, no,

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Speaker 2: I'm when I was at Eureka. But I was here

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Speaker 2: in New York and I missed a curtain at the

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Speaker 2: public theater of a Lenn Jenkin play and I was

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Speaker 2: furious because I was poor and my trips to New

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Speaker 2: York were few and far between, and I couldn't waste

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Speaker 2: a night. And my friend said, Hey, I've been telling

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Speaker 2: you about this NYU kid, who I think is so

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Speaker 2: tacited and exactly, and he's got a stage reading going on.

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Speaker 2: This said eight thirty, let's go see that up in Chelsea.

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Speaker 2: I was like, oh yeah, christ, I'm going to waste

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Speaker 2: an evening on an NYT read through. Oh so I

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Speaker 2: go up and it was a bright room called Day

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Speaker 2: And within twenty minutes I had one of those moments

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Speaker 2: you dream of, which is I knew not only was

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Speaker 2: I in the presence of a great writer, I was

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Speaker 2: in the presence of somebody who cared about all the

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Speaker 2: things I cared about. I didn't think there was anybody

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Speaker 2: else in the American theater who cared about those things.

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Speaker 2: And the first act of My Room ended at that

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Speaker 2: time with the acts on stage singing the International Communist

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Speaker 2: him the International Ally. And later I heard the backstage

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Speaker 2: and intermission the actors turned to Tony and said, who

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Speaker 2: the fuck is singing along in the audience? And that

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Speaker 2: was me. Sony and I met that night within a

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Speaker 2: few never knew him, never knew him. That was that's

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Speaker 2: where we met. I became and he was in NYU

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Speaker 2: at the times, generally in the directing program, and he'd

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Speaker 2: started writing plays so he'd have something to direct. Then

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Speaker 2: we will let him direct it. He had to write

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Speaker 2: him to direct it. And you know now about a

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Speaker 2: year later, a year and a half later, I did his

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Speaker 2: first professional production. I directed that play Broakroom called a

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Speaker 2: and by that point I commissioned Angels. We'd become the

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Speaker 2: very very close friends.

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Speaker 3: Were commissioned through Mark Tables, through the Eureka, through Eureka,

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Speaker 3: and we worked on in San Francisco until it became

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Speaker 3: clear that this play was getting too big and the

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Speaker 3: Eureka would never be able.

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Speaker 2: To afford it. So Gordon Davidson, who was artistic director

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Speaker 2: of the Market perform offered me a job and I

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Speaker 2: sent him the first two acts of Angels and I said,

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Speaker 2: this is nineteen eighty nine, and I said, Gordon, the

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Speaker 2: Berlin Wall is down, Communism is dead. My girlfriend has

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Speaker 2: left me. I think my theater company is falling apart.

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Speaker 2: I don't know what I believe in, but I believe

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Speaker 2: in this play. If you'll agree to produce it, I'll

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Speaker 2: come work for you. And to Gordon's immense credit, the

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Speaker 2: next day he called me up and said, this is genius.

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Speaker 2: Of course I'll produce it. And I moved to la

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Speaker 2: and worked for Gordon He's the only man I've ever

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Speaker 2: called boss. I worked from for five years and we

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Speaker 2: did Angels there nineteen ninety two.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to the final performance of the final weekends

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Speaker 1: of Angels in America at the Forum. Oh and you

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Speaker 1: had to walk through a gauntlet of gay men with

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Speaker 1: signs that said, I have aids, will you sell me

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Speaker 1: your ticket? Oh my god. They thought they would die

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Speaker 1: and never see the show because they had no been announced.

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Speaker 1: As I recall, that wasn't as wired into the theatrical

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Speaker 1: world as I was. But but I had not been

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Speaker 1: announced that was going to go to Broadway. So I'm

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Speaker 1: going there, going walking through this gartland of like a

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Speaker 1: dozen men to go. And it was also the time

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Speaker 1: when there was like the one decent restaurant downtown where

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Speaker 1: every movie star that went to go see Angels. That

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Speaker 1: was the last weekend. You can see both parts, that's right,

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Speaker 1: and in the after and in the evening the same

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Speaker 1: day they both sections of Perastroika and Millennium first, so

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Speaker 1: we see Millennium, then we see Pastrica. And he went

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Speaker 1: to this restaurant was Jody Foster and the Shell final

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Speaker 1: It's like it's like the Commissary at Warner Brothers.

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Speaker 2: It was every single it was unbelievable, packed with movie

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Speaker 2: stars and we were kids and this just was you know,

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Speaker 2: it was just unbelieved.

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Speaker 1: Saw that last weekend that the show was there when

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Speaker 1: you know, obviously the public has a legacy where they

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Speaker 1: printed a lot of money on the Courseline course line

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Speaker 1: is something that's developed there and they cash in.

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Speaker 2: I know that to Hamilton. I'm not quite sure they

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Speaker 2: had the same deal as they had not exactly the

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Speaker 2: same deal, but good Enough has given us a lot

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Speaker 2: of support. Yeah, yeah, question, that's great.

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Speaker 1: And my question is when someone wants to do a play,

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Speaker 1: how do you decide what plays you're going to do?

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Speaker 1: Do people pitch you like a movie studio you developed

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Speaker 1: all yourself in house?

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Speaker 2: Well, overwhelmingly, we don't pick plays. We are in relationships

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Speaker 2: to writers, and sometimes those relationships are at the very

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Speaker 2: beginning of a writer's career. For instance, we're going to

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Speaker 2: be producing this brilliant play next fall called Initiative by

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Speaker 2: a writer named else Went who this is going to

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Speaker 2: be her first professional production. She's been with us in

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Speaker 2: the Emerging Writers Group for a couple of years. We've

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Speaker 2: gotten to know her I think she is absolutely remarkable.

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Speaker 2: She's never had a production before. It's going to be great.

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Speaker 2: On the other hand, we're also producing this spring Carol Churchill,

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Speaker 2: who is in her mid eighties and we've been producing

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Speaker 2: her for forty five years. We produce Serious Money with You,

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Speaker 2: Joe Joe Force feeding the Broadway world. I was an

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Speaker 2: opening night watching you in Serious Money. I went out

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Speaker 2: with my friend two I think with Joe Allen's and

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Speaker 2: I sat there and I said, I have just seen

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Speaker 2: what I want my life to be. I want to

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Speaker 2: take a radical play, develop it at my theater, the

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Speaker 2: Serious Money I had been at the Royal Court in London,

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Speaker 2: then move it to the public theater and then move

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Speaker 2: it to Broadway. That's my dream for my life.

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Speaker 1: Theater director Oscar Eustace. If you enjoy conversations about theater

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Speaker 1: and the performing arts, check out my interview with internationally

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Speaker 1: acclaimed conductor Pavel Yrvey.

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Speaker 4: I have two girls right now who they're very talented,

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Speaker 4: but they don't know what am I going to do

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Speaker 4: in life. I never had ever that question because I

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Speaker 4: wanted to not only to be a musician, I wanted

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Speaker 4: to be a conductor. Why because my father was a conductor.

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Speaker 2: I loved my father.

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Speaker 4: I think he was having a lot of fun, and

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Speaker 4: we're very close to this day, so it was a

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Speaker 4: done deal. I wanted to be a conductor and I

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Speaker 4: never ever wanted to be anything else.

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Speaker 2: Ever.

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Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Pavo YERVI go

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Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Oscar

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Speaker 1: Eustace talks about the struggles facing the public theater when

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Speaker 1: he first started as artistic director in two thousand and five.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. Oscar

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Speaker 1: Eustace's career could have taken a more commercial path, but

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Speaker 1: he has always stayed true to the nonprofit world. I

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Speaker 1: was curious about this choice and whether Eustace found he

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Speaker 1: had more creative freedom in that space.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's actually very simple, which is, you know,

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Speaker 2: you talk about my independence, and it's certainly true that

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Speaker 2: all four of my parents had doctorates, and all of them,

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Speaker 2: at various points were tenured professors at universities, and I

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Speaker 2: never went to college. So there's a certain amount of

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Speaker 2: rebellion there. But there's another part that isn't a rebellion

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Speaker 2: at all, because I went into the nonprofit theater. I

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Speaker 2: actually took my family's values and applied them to a

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Speaker 2: field that was not the same as their field, but

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Speaker 2: was within a handshake distance. Because the values of the

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Speaker 2: nonprofit theater are not that different from the values that

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Speaker 2: my family spent their lives pursuing, and not only the

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Speaker 2: values of the academy, but their political values. And what

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Speaker 2: I felt comfortable in the nonprofit world because in the

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Speaker 2: nonprofit world, in a way, what you're always asking yourself

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Speaker 2: or trying to find the right answer, is how can

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Speaker 2: I be most of service? What can I do that

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Speaker 2: will help the most? And that's help your society, help

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Speaker 2: your audience, help your city, help the artists you're working with,

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Speaker 2: help the instant And that is so much easier for

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Speaker 2: me to do than to think about how do I

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Speaker 2: help myself? How do I get ahead? I just can't

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Speaker 2: think that wasn't raised that way. And you know, many

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Speaker 2: years ago, my friend Burke Walker gave me that question.

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Speaker 2: He said, ask yourself, where can you be of the

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Speaker 2: most use? And what I loved about that was it

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Speaker 2: allowed me to think about my career without being a careerist.

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Speaker 2: So that question has just guided me and when I

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Speaker 2: spent my five years in LA and I moved there

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Speaker 2: when I was thirty, and you know, among other things,

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Speaker 2: I thought, okay, well film television or in LA and

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Speaker 2: I'll see if I want to do that. Five years

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Speaker 2: in La, I couldn't motivate myself to walk across the

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Speaker 2: room associate artistic director of the taper I could have met.

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Speaker 2: I just had no interest. And after five years there,

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Speaker 2: I just sort of looked at my own actions and well,

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Speaker 2: I guess I'm a theater rat. Better move back to

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Speaker 2: these ghosts. And so I did, because it's funny you

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Speaker 2: use that phase.

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Speaker 1: Because we were talking in our prep and I said,

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Speaker 1: this guy's the theater rat.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely theater rats.

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Speaker 1: But the payton sets, making costumes, handling the parking whatever.

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Speaker 1: Very few of them get to be the head guy

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Speaker 1: at the public theater. Now you're at Trinity, you're only

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Speaker 1: academic or the full time is it? Was it your

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Speaker 1: only academic appointment?

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Speaker 2: Well, Trinity is a Trinity rep. Theater is. Simultaneously, they

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Speaker 2: gave me a courtesy appointment at Brown, which I did

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Speaker 2: not treat as a courtesy. I treated it as a

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Speaker 2: full time job. And I'm very happy to say that

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Speaker 2: in my last three years there, I was able to

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Speaker 2: form a consortium between the Theater and Brown for graduate

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Speaker 2: training that offered MFAs and PhDs. And it still exists,

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Speaker 2: and I'm incredibly proud of.

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Speaker 1: What do you think about people going to degree granting

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Speaker 1: expensive degree granting universities for acting degrees?

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Speaker 2: What do you think about that? I am very happy

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Speaker 2: to say that the Brown program went tuition free a

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Speaker 2: number of years ago, and so people graduate with no

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Speaker 2: debt whatsoever. It's a crime to saddle young artists with

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Speaker 2: enormous debt coming out of school. It makes no sense.

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Speaker 1: Well, the issue from me, I taught a semester, a

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Speaker 1: real semester with a teaching partner, one of their staff,

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Speaker 1: and did this with me in twenty thirteen. So I'm

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Speaker 1: going to do Thursday afternoon for like three hours, one

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Speaker 1: to four or whatever it was with my teaching fellow.

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Speaker 1: And I remember leaving there and we did a little postmarting,

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Speaker 1: which you could tell they were kind of wiggling in

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Speaker 1: their seats. They didn't really want to hear what I

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Speaker 1: had to say, which was I said, you need to

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Speaker 1: have somebody you throw in here as like, you know,

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Speaker 1: the you know the seat we have for Elijah at

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Speaker 1: the meal, I said, because you need somebody who forget

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Speaker 1: the cube to a degree. They can't be below a

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Speaker 1: three to zero, they can't be low a certain set.

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Speaker 1: But let them in as a completely skill based audition.

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Speaker 1: The other kids need to see what good acting is.

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Speaker 1: Because a lot of the people that showed up for

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Speaker 1: my class, they were smart kids, the cubes, they had

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Speaker 1: the SATs, they had everything. They just weren't that talented

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Speaker 1: and they were willing to pull their pants down to

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Speaker 1: take a chance. So you've got a lot of bright kids,

435
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 1: but I'm not what you're Any of them were going

436
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 1: to be actors and you're giving this this very expensive education.

437
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: So I said, let some people in, like three or

438
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 1: four of them. You know, gender, race, everything mixed in.

439
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: Make all those considerations as you need to, but I said,

440
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: let them come in. The other kids going to see

441
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:30,639
Speaker 1: it as a model. And they just looked at me

442
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 1: and said thank you. You know, they walked up. The

443
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: college educations help people become an actor, which make them

444
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 1: better than they already are.

445
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:43,640
Speaker 2: Listen, I really good masters programs. Graduate programs are worth

446
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:47,160
Speaker 2: their weight in gold. You learn things at the graduate

447
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 2: level at NYU, at Yale, at Juilliard, at Brown, any

448
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:53,439
Speaker 2: of the really good programs that you can't learn anywhere.

449
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 2: So there's a certain set of skills, particularly in terms

450
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 2: of verse speaking and working with you and smooth you're

451
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:03,359
Speaker 2: I can learn anywhere else undergraduate. I don't think you

452
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 2: need professional training in the same way. What I really

453
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 2: think young actors, young artists in general should be doing

454
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 2: is learning as much about the world as they can,

455
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 2: because the last thing the theater needs is more uneducated people.

456
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 2: We have way too many people in the theater who

457
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:23,959
Speaker 2: don't know about anything except the theater, and that's not

458
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: what any art form needs. We need people who are

459
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 2: genuinely doesn't matter to me if they go to the university,

460
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 2: but they have to genuinely be curious, ravenously curious about

461
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 2: how the world works, who wags it, who runs it,

462
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 2: who suffers in it, How does this work your place?

463
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,879
Speaker 2: What's your place in it? And how can that place

464
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 2: change not just for you but for other people. And

465
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 2: that broad education, whether again it's you're an autodi dictor

466
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 2: you went to the university, I think it is terribly

467
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 2: important for young people. You got to have something to

468
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 2: bring to the theater. Not just yourself hoping to be

469
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 2: a star, but you got to make yourself into a person.

470
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: Well, when I was in I had a job on

471
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 1: a daytime TV show. I was in the infancy. They

472
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: gave me one show a week. The more they thought

473
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,199
Speaker 1: your character was working in the storyline and popular with

474
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: the audience and the other cast members, the more they

475
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: gave you. But when I'm working one day a week,

476
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: I went down and did a showcase theater at the

477
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,239
Speaker 1: old Van Damn Theater the town of Seventh Avenue. I

478
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: did student films, corkboard at the film school. The Index

479
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: card wanted twenty two year old bartender, you know, wacky comedy.

480
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 2: And I say to people, you guys got to keep

481
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 2: putting it out there. To stay home and just do readings.

482
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: I have a lot of friends about they stay home

483
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: and they just read plays, and I'm like, no, go

484
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 1: out there and just take any job.

485
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 2: You can get any job. You know. The other thing

486
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:50,879
Speaker 2: that I say is I've hired many, many thousands of

487
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 2: people in my life at this point, and I have

488
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 2: never hired anybody because they can do a lot of

489
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 2: different things. They can do everything. Oh he could convincingly

490
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 2: be anything. I hire everybody because they're a specific thing,

491
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 2: because I get a sense that they're a person that

492
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 2: I want, whether it's a playwright, a director, an actor.

493
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 2: You have to become yourself because yourself is ultimately what

494
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 2: gets hired in the theater. And that doesn't mean you

495
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 2: become narrow or specialized. It means you become fully who

496
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 2: you are. And by being fully who you are, you

497
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 2: become somebody that other people are interested in working with,

498
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 2: and who's interested in working with, somebody who's Bland's somebody

499
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 2: who could you know, sort of could fade into the

500
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: woodwork you're interested in. They're not very anything, yeah, exactly.

501
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 2: You know. It's why like in movies or television you'll

502
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 2: have writers' rooms. In the theater, you have a writer

503
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 2: because we're interested in individual voices. We're not interested in

504
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 2: something that sounds like it was written by a room

505
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 2: full of people. And that individual specificity of self is

506
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 2: one of the things I love the theater so much.

507
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: Now, when you leave Trinity and you come to the

508
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: big town here in two thousand and five, yeah, you

509
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 1: come here, and what's the financial condition of the place,

510
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: Because that's I'm always looking at everybody ampon this film festival,

511
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: everybody I worked with, what's the financial condition of what

512
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:17,440
Speaker 1: they're inheriting?

513
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it wasn't great. The public had been

514
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 2: through a really sort of calamitous reduction in the early

515
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 2: two thousands. After nine to eleven, we were stable, but

516
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 2: we were down to about a twelve million dollar a

517
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 2: year operation. We were having to scrape to get two

518
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 2: shows in the park every summer, and we had very

519
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 2: little money to produce downtown. As a matter of facturer

520
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 2: spaces were empty a lot. And when I arrived, this

521
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 2: was a signed to me of what trouble we were in.

522
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 2: There was a faction of the board who thought we

523
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 2: should start charging for free Shakespeare in the park, and

524
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 2: that was the way out of our alma And I'm

525
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 2: very glad to say we turned that around pretty quickly.

526
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 2: Why doesn't the public have a Broadway House? Because oh yeah,

527
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 2: because if we had a Broadway House, then we'd have

528
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 2: to be programming for a Broadway House. And I have

529
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 2: no desire to change how we program what has worked

530
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 2: much better for us. And I have to say I

531
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 2: put our track record against any other theater in the

532
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 2: country or the world is we make shows downtown, and

533
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 2: we make them in an environment where we have no

534
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 2: commercial pressures. We have three hundred seats in our largest theater.

535
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 2: If I do anything well, it'll sell out. You know,

536
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 2: it's just I mean literally, there's no economic pressure downtown.

537
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 2: But what there is is the pressure to let each

538
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 2: show become the best version of itself. And you know what,

539
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 2: that turns out to be a pretty great way of

540
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 2: unleashing the commercial potential of shows. So fun Home, a

541
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 2: show about a lesbian cartoonist whose gay dad commits suicide,

542
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 2: turns into this extraordinarily beautiful show. We opened it in

543
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 2: our ninety nine Sea theater, we move it to our

544
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 2: biggest theater, we move it to Broadwood based one is

545
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 2: which one? Now? The Newman three? How much is the Lewester?

546
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 2: The rest of one hundred and seventy five? That's right?

547
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 2: Didcottish play? Yeah? Yeah, that's right. It's a great It's

548
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 2: a great poster too. But Funhoe ends up winning the

549
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 2: Tony Ward for Best Play, Hamilton. I mean, you name it.

550
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 2: These unlikely shows can take on a life downtown because

551
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 2: you're not trying to make them commercial. You're trying to

552
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 2: let them become themselves, and you know what, people actually

553
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 2: want to see shows that are not cookie cutter, that

554
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 2: are not like last year's here, They're not based on

555
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 2: a movie title. It tends it to be a better

556
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 2: way of making commercial successes than aiming for commercial success.

557
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:47,719
Speaker 2: That's funny you said that about the description you had

558
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 2: the character. Remember saying to George back in ninety eight

559
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 2: when we did the passage. You know, the emblem of

560
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 2: the public theater is like a you know, a black

561
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 2: transgender woman in a wheelchair who's eighty years old is

562
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 2: like the lead character, and will assume we get like

563
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 2: that sounds really good to me. It sounds great to me,

564
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 2: you know, like don't don't, don't bring your shit into

565
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 2: my theater. You know.

566
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: I mean, like, we we do whatever, we do what

567
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: we deal as a great storytelling. But the public does

568
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: have an emblem. The public has a hood ornament of

569
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: all this diversity and all this eclusivity. And is it

570
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: tough to maintain that? What a material that is the

571
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: dna U crave in that area. That's that's really open

572
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,959
Speaker 1: minded that way, but it's just not very good, That's

573
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: what I'm saying.

574
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 2: Great submissions, Well, no, No, it's not that. It's scroll

575
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 2: back to what I said. It's relationships. We don't wait

576
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 2: for material to come to us. We form relationships. I'll

577
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 2: give you a beautiful example this. When I arrived at

578
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 2: the theater. One of the things I says is, Okay,

579
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 2: we get a thousand plus submissions a year from players.

580
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 2: We've got this great. So who's not getting to us?

581
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 2: And we said, okay, folks who don't have an agent,

582
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 2: who didn't go to an MFA program, who I've never

583
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 2: had a New York production, and who actually have to

584
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 2: work for a living, so they have a hard time,

585
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 2: you know, joining writers' groups or you know sometimes even

586
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 2: going to the graduate problems at universities. So let's form

587
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 2: a group that's just those people that people without MFAs,

588
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 2: without agents, without productions, and you're just to make it easy,

589
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 2: will pay them to be in this group rather than

590
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 2: charge them. So we formed the Emerging Writers Group, which

591
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: was is now eighteen nineteen years old and has been

592
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 2: extraordinarily successful. Brandon Jacob Jenkins came out of that group.

593
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 2: Dominique morrisso Mona Mansour, I could keep going and going

594
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 2: else went to I just mentioned that we're premiary next year.

595
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 2: Came out of that group. And when you start working

596
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 2: with writers that early in their careers, when we start

597
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 2: supporting them, the work comes, and not just out of

598
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:56,479
Speaker 2: the EWG group, but just you form the relationships you can.

599
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 2: There is no problem with our work being incredible diverse.

600
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 2: There's no I'm of really high quality work being incredibly diverse.

601
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 2: You just have to go out and develop the relationships

602
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 2: with the artists who make that work.

603
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: In the way that I mentioned that canon of those

604
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: actors who were the theater was something that they just

605
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: needed to come back to in order to play the parts.

606
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 2: And that this is something Julie Ard wherever they went Yale,

607
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 2: highly trained and highly skilled, and you know the most

608
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 2: famous actors, many of them went on to become stars

609
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 2: obviously in that way. Isn't like that now?

610
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 1: Do you think the generations of actors now who are

611
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: succeeding in film and television feel the poll to come

612
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 1: back to the not for profit thee I'm not talking

613
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: about Broadway.

614
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 2: They might get a paycheck. Let me put it this way,

615
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 2: there are a lot of great actors who do. But

616
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 2: it's not a coincidence that I'm now on faculty at NYU,

617
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 2: and I teach in their graduate acting program every year,

618
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 2: and I'm happy to say some of those actors end

619
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,959
Speaker 2: up on our stages. We need to keep making that

620
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: pipeline solid because right now the commercial industries film television

621
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 2: are plucking our talent while they're still in school. They

622
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 2: are plucking them right at the beginning of our careers,

623
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 2: whether it's play rights or actors, and pulling them right

624
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 2: into a digital life. And if an actor doesn't get

625
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 2: a chance, they may be really well trained, but if

626
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 2: they don't get a chance to do Shakespeare professionally at

627
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 2: least a few times early in their career, it gets

628
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 2: very hard to come back and do it again later.

629
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 2: You've got to have that feel of it when you're

630
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 2: a young person, you're just finished your training. You go it,

631
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 2: you do Shakespeare in the park, a couple of you,

632
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 2: understudy a lead, you play a supporting character. Then maybe

633
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 2: ten years later you can come back and do it again.

634
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 2: But if you don't get that grounding right at the

635
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 2: end of it's hard. Same with writers young play rights.

636
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 2: If they get pulled into TV writers' rooms the second

637
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 2: they graduate, they don't have the muscle of writing the plays.

638
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 2: And if you don't get that muscle when you're young,

639
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 2: it's harder to develop in your orders. So a lot

640
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 2: of what and when I say I, I really mean

641
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 2: the whole field is trying to do is make sure

642
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 2: that young people know not that they're going to spend

643
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 2: their whole life monks in the theater. The world works

644
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 2: the way it works, and people are going to work

645
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 2: in film and television, and should be able to work

646
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 2: in film and television, but you got to also have

647
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 2: a home in the theater. You got to know that

648
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 2: that's a place you can return to. And so you

649
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 2: take a writer like Susan Lauri Parks, who we've given

650
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 2: her a salary for the last fifteen years. She's got

651
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 2: a salary and healthcare and benefits, and you know what

652
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 2: her duties are to right place, not even the right

653
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 2: place for us, just the right place. And it was

654
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 2: sort of an experiment what happens to a master writer

655
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 2: in her early fifties when you actually give her a

656
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 2: chair at the theater, give that relationship with a handful

657
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 2: of people. Soon as the when we have that food

658
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 2: issue that we're working to get more happened since she

659
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 2: keeps turning out great plays and Dog Underdog my favorite.

660
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 2: Yeah right, but you know, Father comes Home from the Wars.

661
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 2: It's fantastic that the Plaquear place that she just did

662
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 2: Sally and Tom, or her play about Sally Havings and

663
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 2: Tom Jefferson just a year and a half ago, was wonderful.

664
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 2: And that's not been the norm. American players don't keep

665
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 2: producing great work into their fifties and sixties. But that's

666
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 2: because the theater hasn't made a home for them, and

667
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 2: we need to do that. We need to make sure

668
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,839
Speaker 2: that we've got a place for writers not only at

669
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 2: the beginning of their careers, but as they reach seniority

670
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 2: to keep coming back to theater.

671
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: Director Oscar Eustace, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a

672
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the thing on

673
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio apps, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

674
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: When we come back, Oscar used to shares why he

675
00:35:54,640 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: is passionate about uplifting new voices in playwriting. I'm Alec

676
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 1: Baldwin and this is here's the thing. The Public Theater

677
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: was founded by Joseph Papp in nineteen fifty four and

678
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 1: originated as a Shakespeare workshop. Since then, the public theater

679
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 1: continues its tradition of staging productions like they are free

680
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

681
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: I was curious as to whether or not there was

682
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: a requirement for Oscar Eustace to fill a quota of

683
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:37,240
Speaker 1: Shakespeare productions per year, and how he upheld this tradition.

684
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 2: Heck, now, now, now, are there some years you don't

685
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 2: do any or do you always rot say? Oh no, no, no,

686
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 2: we always have tigiation. And here's when I say have to,

687
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,359
Speaker 2: I mean for mission purposes. And there's two reasons. One

688
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,840
Speaker 2: is he is the greatest playwright who ever wrought an

689
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 2: English language. So he's a stunning role model for every

690
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 2: other playwright we do. You see, this is what play

691
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 2: roight at its greatest can be, and aspire to be

692
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 2: that big, aspire to combine what Shakespeare reminds. But it's

693
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 2: also true that in addition to being the greatest writer

694
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 2: and the history of the planet, the English speaking peoples

695
00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:23,400
Speaker 2: conquered the world and as a result, their greatest writer, Shakespeare,

696
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 2: has become the entry point into the world's culture. Now

697
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 2: that's a fact which you can abhor or applaud, but

698
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,520
Speaker 2: it is a fact. And if that's going to be

699
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,879
Speaker 2: the entry point into the world's culture, it's our job

700
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 2: to make sure that he belongs to everybody, that everybody

701
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 2: has access to him, not just the educated, not just

702
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 2: the elite, not just the moneyed people, not just the

703
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 2: European people, not just the people of European ancestry. But

704
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 2: everybody gets to own him. And that's part of why

705
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 2: we're committed to producing Shakespeare over and over, to make

706
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 2: sure that he belongs to people of all classes and

707
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 2: raises and ethnicities in New York City, and that to me,

708
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 2: is a huge pillar of how we democratize our culture.

709
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 1: Perhaps you're familiar with my friend Dan Wexler, who's an

710
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 1: antiquarian book You know Dan dan Wexler, who's an antiquarian

711
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: book dealer. I'll say this from my listeners. And I

712
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: met Dan who he and his partner with this antiquarian

713
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 1: book company. They came upon a book that they recognized

714
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 1: and was probably undervalued and not a very significant number

715
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars. They bought his copy of Barrett's Alvieri.

716
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: You're familiar with Barrett's Salvieri. So this book, which was

717
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: a writing book of writing, a book of writing instruction

718
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: or whatever. But they get it, and over the course

719
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: of a couple of years they're showing it around the

720
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: world and no one will say they say, I think

721
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 1: it is what you think it is.

722
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 2: It's Shakespeare's copy of Barrett's Aalvieri.

723
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:59,359
Speaker 1: And everybody around the world, Folgers, Oxford, all over the world.

724
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: They go get someone else to say it is, and

725
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: I'll concur it. I'm not gonna say it is. Stick

726
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: my neck because if I'm wrong right then, and and

727
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 1: they think they got his copy notes in there, I

728
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: think you can imagine.

729
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 2: Well, just to say, you know that, that leads my

730
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 2: mind to the whole Shakespeare controversy, that there's this you

731
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 2: know strain, which I'm sure many of your listeners have

732
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 2: heard of people who for the last two hundred or

733
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 2: so years have been claiming that Shakespeare didn't write the

734
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 2: plays that somebody else did. That is entirely a class

735
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 2: based argument, and starting the early nineteenth century, a wealthy

736
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 2: englishwoman was the first to start it. Couldn't believe that

737
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 2: the greatest writer in the history of the English language

738
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 2: was a working class kid, a Tanner's son who only

739
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 2: had a seventh grade education, and so because of that,

740
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 2: decided that maybe Sir Francis Drake actually wrote the works.

741
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 2: And you'll find in all of the you know, the

742
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,959
Speaker 2: Earl of Oxford, all of these theories, it's desperately trying

743
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:05,879
Speaker 2: to prove that it was the nobility. It was the

744
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:12,239
Speaker 2: massively educated person who wrote Shakespeare, not a Canner son

745
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 2: with the seventh grade education. And so it's why I

746
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 2: don't just disagree with the authorship controversy. I despise it

747
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 2: because it's an attempt to re establish the very kind

748
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 2: of class distinctions that we're devoted to tearing down.

749
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: If people want to submit to people submit plays to you,

750
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 1: Yeah they do, and I mean you must be you

751
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:34,360
Speaker 1: must have a lot of submissions.

752
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,879
Speaker 2: Yeah we will. Well, we we ask people to send

753
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 2: a synopsis and a sample because we simply don't have

754
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 2: the manpower person two to read everything your movie. So

755
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 2: you know, if we are intrigued, we then request the

756
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 2: full script. Have you found any pieces you like that

757
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 2: you've done for that, I'm over the transom as we

758
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 2: call it. I'm not sure. We certainly have found people

759
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 2: that we've developed relationships with that. We've then produced pieces,

760
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 2: but it's very rare that we'll actually get a script

761
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 2: and go, oh my gosh, we've got to produce this

762
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 2: play that happens once in a blow mown. It did

763
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 2: happen a few years ago with a wonderful writer named

764
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 2: Sarah Burgess who is still just adore. She wrote a

765
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 2: play called dry Powder about Wall Street, and I read

766
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 2: it and I just said, we've got to do this,

767
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:28,280
Speaker 2: and we did. Tommy Klee directed it in Hanka's area,

768
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 2: and John Krasinski and Claire Danes were and Sanja de

769
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 2: Silva was a fantastic cast, amazing, And you know, she

770
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,839
Speaker 2: turned out to have just studied Wall Street. She didn't.

771
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 2: I mean I read like it was written by an insider.

772
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:43,839
Speaker 2: So every once in a while you'll get these just

773
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 2: missiles that shoot across the sky and you pull it

774
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 2: out and there it is. But people respond to both

775
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 2: of the plane. Oh here was going on? Yes, Sarah

776
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 2: now has more work than she knows what to do with.

777
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 2: And Sarah, come back to the theater. We're waiting for you.

778
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 2: What are you working on now? Well, what's coming up

779
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 2: this summer? You can't say you don't know. No, No, actually,

780
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 2: I can tell you we have This summer. Was especially

781
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 2: excited because we're reopening the Delacorte. We have spent two

782
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 2: years remodeling it. It is going to be absolutely gorgeous,

783
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 2: unbelievably accessible, much safer and drier, and friendly to raccoons

784
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 2: without necessarily inviting them backstage on stage. On stage, they

785
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 2: they are going to do what they want, but we

786
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,839
Speaker 2: need them to not be backstage grisly. So we're going

787
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 2: to reopen with the production of Twelfth Night that Sahim Ali,

788
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 2: my associate logistics director, is directing. I couldn't be more

789
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 2: excited about it. We've got a great cast of public

790
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 2: theater veterans, the petere Nango, Sandra Oh, Jesse Tyner, Ferguson,

791
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 2: Peter Dinkledge, Daphney Rubin Vega. I mean, it's an embarrassed

792
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 2: bill camp of riches. It's just Elizabeth Day. Yeah, so

793
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 2: you're going to do that Shakespeare and then one TBD. No,

794
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 2: we're actually only doing one because we were worried about

795
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 2: construction getting behind. So one the going to start performing

796
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 2: in the first week of August, and then next summer,

797
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 2: the summer of twenty six two shows. Yeah, we'll do

798
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 2: the full nine yards, and then we've got a spring

799
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 2: season coming up which is full of shows that I love.

800
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:16,279
Speaker 2: There's a beautiful show called Sumo which we're doing as

801
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:20,280
Speaker 2: a coproduction of my E Theater, which is about sumo wrestling,

802
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 2: Japanese wrestling, and it's both a fascinating introduction to the

803
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 2: world of sumo and a sort of deep exploration of

804
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 2: Japanese culture and perhaps the most insightful play about masculinity

805
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: that I've ever seen. It's going to be just displayful. Yeah,

806
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 2: it's really well.

807
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: I just want to say the most exciting and interesting

808
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: here lies love. I want all, I want it odd,

809
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: I want it different that I want something I can't

810
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 1: see you know where.

811
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 2: And I love to hear lies love. I love everything.

812
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:51,279
Speaker 2: When I come there, when I have the time, you

813
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 2: can't leave, you know that, right, Well, I'm not going

814
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 2: to leave for a while. I don't leave for a

815
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 2: while for a while, and make sure the theaters in

816
00:43:58,000 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 2: very good hands when I do.

817
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: My thanks to the Public Theater's artistic director, Oscar Eustace.

818
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:12,439
Speaker 1: This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City.

819
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 1: We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin.

820
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is

821
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought

822
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:43,320
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio