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[0:01] Ebony Vines: Welcome to Theatre Geeks Anonymous, the podcast about Broadway flops, scandals, and new work.

[0:11] Pamela Shandrow: Now we'll take a break from our usual episodes to bring you this intermission soad.

[0:17] Ebony Vines: Oh my goodness, we are so excited about today's episode. We are having what we like to call a...

[0:24] Pamela Shandrow: Now you have to sing it. It's an intermission soad. And on this episode of Theatre Geeks Anonymous,

[0:42] Ebony Vines: we have friends. I know you all love it when we have friends on the pod. It is the most fun ever.

[0:50] Pamela Shandrow: And today we have, introduce yourselves please.

[0:59] Carrie Heitman: Hi, I'm Carrie Heitman. I'm thrilled to be here.

[1:04] Kyle Abourizk: And I'm Kyle Abourizk, and Ebony knows me from, from things.

[1:09] Ebony Vines: So many things. Kyle and I met in 2020.

[1:15] Pamela Shandrow: The rando guy that we picked up off the street. I'm telling you.

[1:19] Kyle Abourizk: No, we met in 2020 at the Commercial Theater Institute, which for a while we thought we were going to be the last class because it didn't happen for years. And we started the Think Tank for Theatrical Innovation together, which has been going for six years.

[1:35] Carrie Heitman: Yes. We are very proud of that little group of individuals. We are a team of individuals who come together, who make theater, and we're trying to find new ways to make it more accessible, make it more diverse and equitable because we love theater. And we, you know, it's just like James Baldwin said about America, like you, even though you love her, you can criticize her. And that's how we feel about theater. It can always be made better.

[2:04] Kyle Abourizk: And it has. Because theater should be for everybody.

[2:11] Carrie Heitman: That's right. I know that this is the top of the episode. However, we have taken those lessons into how the show is being offered and presented and welcoming people to the world.

[2:17] Kyle Abourizk: So, we have a child care performance. We have an ASL performance. We have 3 o'clock and 7 p.m. shows to keep it a little earlier, no intermission, 90 minutes. So, we're like trying to be responsible for the whole spectrum.

[2:29] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. So, Hook and Eye Theater is a devising ensemble. What does that mean? It means that we make new work from scratch. Usually, our plays are inspired by history and themes of science. Sometimes we flirt with myths. And yeah, this is the play that we're talking about here. It's called Plan C. This is Hook and Eye Theater's fifth fully staged work.

[2:56] Kyle Abourizk: They have done more than five showings of things over the years. But when you talk about buying tickets to go see a production, this will be their fifth fully staged production.

[3:05] Carrie Heitman: And how many have been with The Tank?

[3:10] Kyle Abourizk: This is our first with The Tank.

[3:16] Carrie Heitman: Amazing. Amazing. So, after our... Well, let's see. Conception work started on this play in 2022. And then we did a couple workshops at a place called The Mercury Store in Gowanus, Brooklyn, led by Will Frears. And then we were at 59 East 59th Street Theater to do a workshop. And then finally this past July, we were at Powerhouse Theater at Vassar. And then Megan was like, all right, let's core production. Here we go.

[3:40] Kyle Abourizk: Megan is the artistic director of The Tank.

[3:40] Carrie Heitman: Yes. Okay. Okay. Amazing. Amazing. Okay. So, tell us a little bit about... I'm curious about the origins of the theater company. So, start out with that and then we'll talk about the show.

[3:54] Carrie Heitman: Sure. Let's see. So, I co-founded the company with my dear friend, Chad Lindsay, in maybe 2012. And we went to high school together. I'm from Michigan. We went to high school together. And then we scattered the wide world of the States. And we found each other again and both sort of looked at each other and were like, I'm bored. I'm bored with the roles I'm being offered. I'm bored with these scripts. I don't care about who's sleeping with who on the Upper East Side. I don't see the people I want to see in this city, in these plays. Let's just make something.

[4:26] Kyle Abourizk: And so then, well, then guess what we did. And obviously our process and our practice and our values have evolved over time. But I would say that we really enjoy the transition from being an interpretive artist, where you're interpreting texts, to becoming generative artists, where you're creating the material yourself.

[4:48] Carrie Heitman: And then we really began to dig into research and building characters from the inside out or the outside in, whatever served what we were exploring at the time. We definitely believe that ensembles that play together usually stay together. And two other of our core beliefs I would say is that I actually believe that audiences can hold contradictions in material, right? So we can put different things together and try to mash it up. Even if all of it doesn't make sense, what could make sense?

[5:31] Kyle Abourizk: So are you saying you respect audiences enough to-

[5:32] Carrie Heitman: That's right. Very much I do. Very much I do. To use their brains.

[5:36] Kyle Abourizk: Yes. Yeah, to use their brains. That's what it is. I think often we're served sort of the same kind of thing, or we have a lot of musicals on Broadway that are adapted from movies. And I personally am allergic to that. I don't understand it. I understand the audience for it, but I'm more like a repetitive cultural diet limits our civic conversation, right?

[6:03] Pamela Shandrow: A hundred percent.

[6:04] Ebony Vines: Listen, you're preaching to the choir.

[6:06] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the reality TV of theater. What are we doing? What are we making?

[6:12] Carrie Heitman: And then all of a sudden that's anything anybody ever saw on TV ever again.

[6:17] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. Listen, reality TV makes money. Let's not like-

[6:19] Carrie Heitman: I understand that commercially, I can't-

[6:22] Kyle Abourizk: Oh no, I didn't. My second part is, does that need to be all that we get? Is that all you're going to get?

[6:27] Carrie Heitman: Right, right.

[6:29] Kyle Abourizk: Well, and especially in the theater realm, like yeah, fine. TV and movies, there's a bit of a higher stake, I guess, in succeeding. Like if you don't succeed, then it's a-

[6:39] Carrie Heitman: For sure.

[6:40] Kyle Abourizk: But like theater is the mirror of society and has been for the entirety of its existence. Like that was what it was created for. And so when you shove the same formula at every single audience ad nauseum, it becomes almost deadening, numbing to what's happening in the world around us. So even when you do see something of importance in one of those musicals or plays that are on Broadway, off Broadway, just something that's more commercially in the arena, you have lost all context. You don't care or it doesn't impact you as much as it could.

[7:20] Carrie Heitman: I have a very dear friend who did her acting studies in a fascist regime. And she and I have spoken at length about this and she's written an article on her experience as well. And I hope to eventually have her on the podcast to talk about this. But one thing she said to me when we're talking about Broadway and the shows that are just like, you know, movies being adapted and all of these different things that are like not new ideas, is she's like, it's also a tool of propaganda to dumb down the minds of the people so that they will accept anything that their government tells them.

[7:57] Kyle Abourizk: Oh God, don't get us started.

[8:01] Carrie Heitman: That's its own podcast.

[8:04] Kyle Abourizk: It sure is. But you know, I mean, it all is speaking to the moment. Like it all is a part of what we are experiencing. It is all.

[8:15] Carrie Heitman: It's like, look over here so that you don't look back here.

[8:18] Kyle Abourizk: That's right. That's right. And let us lull you and comfort you while everything around you falls apart.

[8:24] Pamela Shandrow: Mm hmm.

[8:26] Carrie Heitman: Okay. So I am curious how this play was devised and what was the impetus for the play being devised?

[8:33] Kyle Abourizk: We were just talking about this. I just learned some of this and I'm involved with it.

[8:37] Carrie Heitman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I do want to say that each play that we make has had a different process. We have collaborated directly with playwrights that sort of scribe our improvs. We've had someone from the ensemble scribe from the inside from our improvs and research. And this piece, I have to say, was, you know, I conceived it and it has been co-authored. There are now nine on the ensemble, but I would say 25 different artists over the period of four years have collaborated to the text of this piece.

[9:12] Kyle Abourizk: Wow.

[9:12] Carrie Heitman: And how it started, we work in...

[9:15] Kyle Abourizk: And you're giving them all visibility in the program and in the advertising.

[9:19] Carrie Heitman: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They all get credit.

[9:23] Kyle Abourizk: Look, this gives away a lot about the play, and I hope you both come see the play, but I'm just going to say it anyways, okay?

[9:28] Carrie Heitman: Roe v. Wade fell...

[9:29] Kyle Abourizk: Spoiler!

[9:30] Carrie Heitman: Spoiler! It fell in June of 2022. And I personally was so rocked by this decision. I found it rather unfathomable. Like, I was like, oh, but this is the Supreme Court. Like, we've had this in place for 50 years. Like, what is happening? And then I went to, okay, well, why am I not understanding the beliefs of other people? Why did this change occur at this point in time?

[10:00] Carrie Heitman: And I'll jump cut through some of it. It's more about political concepts of like, what is socially acceptable at time? And certainly we have the... Gay marriage is a good example. It was completely radical until it became acceptable, interracial marriage, like the whole, all these social pressing mores issues.

[10:21] Carrie Heitman: So then I went, ah, but I'm not going to run for office. I can't change policy. I'm not going to pass a bill. So I started asking these questions of like, what is something that I would change my life around to take action on? So Plan C is really about who's willing to cross a line for something they believe in. That is the core of this piece.

[10:53] Carrie Heitman: Secondarily, I am personally fascinated by analog worlds and by women's brains doing things. So I started reading about female code breakers. I've started reading about World War II and I started thinking about how people were solving massive problems by hand. And then in that reading, I stumbled across this woman and her name is Alexandrine von Taxis.

[11:22] Kyle Abourizk: Yes, it is still the von Taxis family in Germany. They're a bit kookaburr, kookabidding on the...

[11:30] Carrie Heitman: We're all a little bit.

[11:32] Kyle Abourizk: Right. Okay. I mean, we all are, but yeah. And she inherited in the 1600s in Brussels during the 30 years war, which sidebar fill in any war. She inherited this post office, which is insane because most women didn't have a job. So her husband passed and she asked the Holy Roman Empire of the time, could she keep running this post office? And she did.

[12:03] Carrie Heitman: And she is said to be believed the first woman who started what is called a black chamber, which basically just means a super secret spy room in the back of a post office. And this is what functioned as early diplomacy, because basically every country, Louis XVI, the United States, every country from then on had this thing called the black chamber.

[12:31] Carrie Heitman: Finally, we get to present day, you see, and what Hook and Eye, what we asked ourselves was, what's a current day black chamber? How do we activate something today? And frankly, we went through a lot of different things. Is it drugs? Is it weed? Is it... We were even considering end of life.

[12:52] Carrie Heitman: ASSISTED... ASSISTED SUICIDE. And democracy rules when you're doing theater like this and we landed on the abortion pill and a very small community in Appalachia, running this college student, Charlotte Gibson, you know, running her family's black hardware store and her being a place where these abortion pills could be distributed to her community. Illegally but quote-unquote safely under the radar. So then of course, here we are where abortion is illegal in West Virginia and almost half the country. And so we're really just comparing and contrasting these two women running these organizations and they're both breaking the law, what they think for a just cause. We'll see if the audience agrees with this.

I don't know. Do you think they will? I personally do think they will. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe some of them won't. No, I do. And the ones that don't need to be in that theater. It's so hard to tell because when you're coming to a show like that, of course, you're going to have that biased opinion, right? I'm not going to go through all that I have to go through. Of course, yeah. I know I just used a lot of words. Please, any question is welcome. Well, I will say, as I will consider myself on the outside of the inside, because I joined this production having been tangentially involved in other Hook and Eye productions. All of them, except the first. Filming them or She, She, She, for example, from 2018, my favorite, because I don't know.

You're right. When you're developing it, when you're involved in it, you just naturally gravitate towards it more. So She, She, She, whole nother thing, different time periods. That needs to be restaged. Preaching to the Choir. Hook and Eye, what they're really good at doing is taking these political or timely historical things, mashing them together, and we're going between two time periods. That's in our advertisements. We don't give you too much detail. But they do it well, and I don't think it's confusing, because if you get through the 90 minutes, you understand everything that just happened. But we do make you work a little bit. We don't give you all the answers. The payoff is at the end.

[15:01] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah, the payoff is at the end, by design. Yeah, by design. I personally love when things make me think, and it sounds like a little bit of a mystery that I need to unpack. I love that stuff so much. It's my favorite. I also think there's a level of ambiguity that I like playing with. I'm a person that doesn't like things wrapped up in a bow, and I know some people really do. There are people that start a novel and read the last chapter, and my mind explodes. Oh, God. But we charge ourselves with, how can we continually surprise the audience? How can we keep them guessing? Because so often-

[15:41] Carrie Heitman: In a way, and it's not about the device of making them guess.

[15:44] Kyle Abourizk: No, no, no.

[15:45] Carrie Heitman: It's guessing specifically to get them to the point that we're trying to make. It's all in support of the narrative and the story.

[15:50] Kyle Abourizk: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[15:51] Carrie Heitman: Sorry, I just-

[15:52] Kyle Abourizk: No, no, no. It's good. You supported it. Yeah.

[15:57] Ebony Vines: I'm curious about, when I was reading about it, I'm curious about what role music plays in it. You know that recording, but-

[16:06] Carrie Heitman: Okay, so let me say this. I am the type of person who, if I go to a play without music, so non-musical, if it's a Harry Potter, you know, Curse of the Child, and they use music as transitions, but they also use it to inform and develop the story, amazing. I'm in, I'm locked. Because when I saw two three and a half hour performances, and we were going all day Saturday, I was very bummed. And then I came out of there being like, this was amazing. So music for me does a lot and music can do a lot. And then this does do a lot for storytelling. So we have, we hired a composer, well, Hook and I hired a composer. And we did a full recording session. And we've been playing with all the music that was, you know, electronically created.

But we recorded with professional musicians at an undisclosed location. And we have music that has things choreographed to it, not sung. We have music as introductory, we have music as transition or tie things together. And so I love when music is thoughtfully used to storytell, because I just love music. And this show does that.

[17:16] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. Ian Williams is our sound designer. And he actually, I'm pretty sure he's the video projection for Mexodus, which is coming back. And I'm super excited. He also teaches at Berkeley School of Music. But I challenged him with, you know, finding music in the 1600s, which are where a lot of the fugues come from, which are highly mathematical. But then in present day, how do I get the fiddle? How do I get the harmonica? How do I get the violins? But like, how do we mash up those sounds together so that all the design elements feed into these mashing of worlds?

[17:54] Carrie Heitman: Yeah, it's very intentional. And I love it. Lots of movement. Some of my actors are like, why is there so much dancing? And I'm like, you're fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it.

[18:03] Kyle Abourizk: Is this the first time Hook and I has hired an external choreographer?

[18:06] Carrie Heitman: Yeah, external.

[18:07] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. So they have a choreographer, Leslie Guyton. And then the assistant is...

[18:13] Carrie Heitman: Adriana DeLillo.

[18:14] Kyle Abourizk: Adriana DeLillo. And so we have like legit choreographers. And, you know, these aren't all dancers, but the movement is very intentional. It's built around storytelling. We like to say actors who move. There are no kick lines in this show, okay? But there is, there's some great stuff.

[18:30] Carrie Heitman: Yeah, there's some good stuff. We're working on some choreography today, actually.

[18:35] Kyle Abourizk: Fun.

[18:38] Ebony Vines: I don't want to ask all the questions, but I do have another question. And then, Pamela, I'll let you ask a question.

[18:43] Pamela Shandrow: I'm just wrapped.

[18:47] Ebony Vines: This one just sort of, it feels like it kind of piggies back off of what I just asked. What do you think is doing the heaviest lifting in the piece? Text, silence, music?

[18:57] Carrie Heitman: Oh, wow. That is a phenomenal question, Ebony. That is, that's a good one. Can I pitch something? You tell me if it...

[19:04] Kyle Abourizk: Sure. I imagine we're gonna have different answers, but go ahead.

[19:06] Carrie Heitman: That's great. We love that. I think it depends on the scene and the part of the show we're in.

[19:11] Kyle Abourizk: Okay.

[19:12] Carrie Heitman: I do. And I'm not just saying that. Like, there are moments in the show that without the music would be absolutely and completely different in the way the story is told and the story is delivered to the audience. And it lifts it up. And then there's other moments where there are things that are said without music that make me want to cry, or make me joyful and happy, or make me laugh. And that is 100% the text. So I'm of a divided opinion. How about you?

[19:39] Kyle Abourizk: I'm of the... The joy of upending the commercial model of theater is that when you work with people over time, some of the heavy lifting of ensemble work is gone because they already know each other so well. Now, I will say for each of our pieces, we invite new artists in. You have to. You don't want things to be stagnant. We always invite new artists. Not everybody wants to work this way over time, right? We dated for 12 years. I think it's a combo, Emily. I really think it's the fact that many of the actors who originated this role are now getting to play the role. So they're so invested. And because of that collaborative investment of like, I wrote this, I made this, I bend every workshop, now they get to let it soar. I think it's just the beautiful of all the elements coming together. I don't think any one of them leads.

[20:42] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. So we're somewhat similarly aligned.

[20:48] Kyle Abourizk: No, I think it's completely opposite. I don't think what either of you are saying is mutually exclusive. Right.

[20:55] Carrie Heitman: Right. Yeah.

[20:57] Kyle Abourizk: I think Ebony and I both, but I performed in musical theater. And part of the reason why I only wanted to do musical theater was because of the music involved. It can be so emotional. It can be evocative. It can be provocative. It extends the story if it's done correctly.

[21:15] Carrie Heitman: That's right. Yeah.

[21:16] Kyle Abourizk: So you have this element, but then I also see what you're saying, Kyle, where it's almost like the soundtrack of a movie where so much of the music informs what you, as the audience member, should be feeling by watching that scene. And sometimes it is silence that's necessary. And then sometimes you just need this grand stinger to let everyone know that this is a big moment, right?

[21:42] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. But that's why this is great. Yeah.

[21:44] Kyle Abourizk: Because this is a devised theater ensemble. It is a nonprofit. It does not have commercial theater visibility. It doesn't have Broadway visibility. And yet the work that they are building is worthy.

[21:57] Carrie Heitman: Yeah.

[21:57] Kyle Abourizk: And thanks, babe. I think, and much like local politics, a lot of the work of theater is being done regionally and in the smaller theaters. All of those grassroots movements, they aren't happening on Broadway. Broadway is the commercial arena. That is the biggest corporation you're ever going to find.

[22:18] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. I'm not going to call out the big regional theaters, but they do make you pay a lot of, Ebony will know, they make you pay a lot of money to use their spaces for things they profit off of.

[22:27] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. So they're somewhat, complicit is the wrong word, but they are not developing work to the extent that off-off-Broadway and even off-Broadway that doesn't intend to go to Broadway is. It's one of the reasons I love this company so much. They don't care. Do we need money and support for people to live and work? Absolutely. We'll take it. Give us money. Yeah. But that is not what drives people.

[22:53] Carrie Heitman: I mean, it's certainly a model that I've never, I don't think I've heard of anybody else doing, where you almost have a co-op happening of both onstage and offstage creatives working together to come up with these ideas. I think it's special. It's so special.

[23:12] Kyle Abourizk: And devised work happens. I am not involved in devised work like Carrie is and has been, but when I was first invited to it, not just with Hook and I, with some others, I wasn't even aware of it. So as a person who just loves theater, I wasn't aware of the devising model as a sustainable concept. And I think Hook and I has for the past 10 plus years, proven it can be successful. And they've steadily grown into new venues and new opportunities as that's happened. That we're a core production of the tank. We're not renting their space. They've invited us into the space to present there.

[23:51] Ebony Vines: Amazing. I'm curious when you were developing the piece, because I actually don't think I've ever devised anything. I've had friends that were very into devised theater making, but I, and then of course, Maggie Keenan-Bolger is like, she loves it. Like that's her favorite type of theater. She's also T3I.

[24:14] Carrie Heitman: She is. She's also T3I. And so I think for me, that was probably my introduction into it being a sustainable model is like knowing her and how much she talks about it. But I'm curious for this particular piece, if you noticed any reoccurring images, themes, or patterns that kept appearing unintentionally.

[24:46] Carrie Heitman: I think the notion of a, well, I think that's, I think it's, I think it's kind of twofold because we're talking about sort of like form and content. So I think content wise, it would be women, uplifting women, or what we think of in terms of a whisper network. We think about man versus society, right? These external pressures. And I think that certainly with the Trump administration, I think just over and over again, we were like, how hard do we go?

[25:21] Kyle Abourizk: That's right.

[25:22] Carrie Heitman: And just yesterday-

[25:22] Kyle Abourizk: As hard as possible.

[25:24] Carrie Heitman: Exactly. Now that one of our actors, stunning, stunning work was like, Carrie, can I add the tariffs in this speech? Because she talks about, is she going to sell the hardware store with Walmart coming in and the dollar store and these tariffs? Would you say the tariffs are bending me over? Yes. So I wasn't at rehearsal yesterday.

[25:44] Carrie Heitman: I was at it, or talked about being at it. I'm listening and taking notes today. And she said that. And I was like, that isn't in the script. That needs to be in the script. And I say it already is. It already is. I love it because it was perfect. It aids the storytelling, and it should be there. But that collaborative approach they take to devising means there's no playwright sitting out in the audience going, you know, those aren't my words. Do I take that? Do I not want that in there? It worked. It's in. That's right. For example, we have a scene in the 1600s where a woman is being basically executed. Right? I mean, think of it in terms of like a Salem witch trial or something, right? She's been caught.

And we're going to have some contemporary dress because like, of course, it's ice. That's right. It's ice agents, right? So like, it's there. And if you've been paying attention or perhaps even if you haven't, there's no way you're not going to fill in the picture. So I guess content-wise, those are the themes that keep coming up. And honestly, though, our job is to, I know this is a little bit of a tangent, but our job is to not make it funny or undercut the matter, but also keep it approachable. I don't know about you all, but I've heard lately, audiences don't want to be preached at and like regional theaters are picking their seasons, making sure they're like, yeah, we don't want to be yelled at or be shamed. Didn't you see that article in the Times?

[27:18] Kyle Abourizk: I did, but this is a recurring theme. This isn't new.

[27:20] Carrie Heitman: I know it's not new, but it's so frustratingly annoying and disheartening. Which is why we give zero Fs and we just push forward with what we're doing.

[27:30] Kyle Abourizk: That's right. That's right. Because otherwise—

[27:32] Carrie Heitman: You should. You know, there's already not enough money. There's already not enough support. There's already not enough visibility. We all feel similarly about this. F you.

[27:43] Kyle Abourizk: When people push back is when you need to push more.

[27:46] Carrie Heitman: That's right. That's right. And this, you know, I will say this show is not in your face. You just have to pay attention.

[27:54] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. Well, go for the ride at least, right? Allow yourself to not understand for a second, but keep going.

[28:01] Carrie Heitman: Yes.

[28:02] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. I've never been disappointed being confused at the beginning of a Hook and Eye show because the payoff is always there.

[28:11] Carrie Heitman: Process repeating or devising. You know, I always wonder if we should adapt, I don't know, Little Red Riding Hood, right? I think there's so many ways into devising and people sometimes take a story that we all know and then say, okay, our version of Little Red Riding Hood. There's something about it for at least the people that are engaged with Hook and Eye that that is less exciting than starting from nothing. Even though, yeah, I mean, we always pull a thread, but...

[28:42] Kyle Abourizk: You can always adapt a story that already exists.

[28:44] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. Finding and making or building a story from other stories.

[28:48] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah.

[28:49] Carrie Heitman: I don't know, it's just more interesting.

[28:52] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. It's not a coincidence that Wicked is so popular right now, right?

[28:56] Carrie Heitman: Right.

[28:58] Kyle Abourizk: I did say popular, but...

[28:59] Carrie Heitman: You did. I saw what you did.

[29:01] Kyle Abourizk: Rayleigh McGuire did this thing with taking an already existing story and just flipping it like 97 degrees.

[29:07] Carrie Heitman: Yeah.

[29:09] Kyle Abourizk: Not quite 180, but like just enough where you're like, oh, which really did make you think like, I love, I love playing the villain. There is always more depth written for a villain than there ever is the ingenue.

[29:27] Carrie Heitman: You are correct. And because of that, I have grown up with this kind of feeling like there must be a reason why these people are doing the things that they're doing, even if they are quote unquote, bad things.

[29:43] Kyle Abourizk: That's right. And so I want to know why. And so when Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister came out, and then when Wicked came out in book form, I devoured them because you're seeing it told from the quote unquote villain's perspective, which you never get.

[30:04] Carrie Heitman: Who wants to hear what the bad guy says?

[30:06] Kyle Abourizk: Well, what if the bad guy isn't actually a bad guy and it's all propaganda? And like, let's just put that in the face of the American audience. And suddenly they're like, oh, I get it. Maybe that guy's not bad. Maybe that woman is not. You know, it's it is such like a it like Ebony said, it makes you think. And that is what's exciting about theater.

[30:30] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. P.S. we're all three dimensional, right? So you might as well show the angel and the devil in all of us.

[30:37] Kyle Abourizk: Not me.

[30:38] Carrie Heitman: That's a blatant lie.

[30:39] Kyle Abourizk: Cut me out of a piece of paper and tape me to the fridge.

[30:43] Carrie Heitman: That's just a lie.

[30:44] Kyle Abourizk: Lie, lie, lie. I, I, I wanted to say about the beauty of devising a piece from scratch with certain people in the room is that you will never be able to create like that piece is very particular to those people in that room at that time. And it's like this beautiful sort of capsule of what each person in that room is going through, thinking about, ingesting and what feels most important and is rising to the surface for them. And there's something like there's something about that that like just heightens theater even more to me because we're already sitting in a room all experiencing something one time. Like we all won't be in the same room together experiencing the thing. But then you're also on top of that. You're experiencing a thing that the people on stage made together and they could only have made at that point of time. And I just really, it's just such a beautiful human thing that cannot be duplicated.

[31:57] Kyle Abourizk: And in this moment where like, it feels like AI is taking over that humanness of that.

[32:02] Carrie Heitman: Yes, yes.

[32:03] Kyle Abourizk: It's just so important. You don't want to hear AI agents in a theater laughing at the show that you're watching so that you can feel like you're with an audience.

[32:11] Carrie Heitman: No, I don't.

[32:12] Kyle Abourizk: I'm not a fan.

[32:13] Carrie Heitman: No, I don't.

[32:14] Kyle Abourizk: No, I don't. I actually do not want to hear that. Ebony, to like lean into what you just said a little more, it's people in the audience seeing this new work that will never be created in the same way because of the specificity of the time, the place, the people, layered on top of the fact that you're in a live production. So the context is different with every audience every night, you know that as a theater lover. Layered on, and this is the part that is like, finishes the key turn for me. All that's great. I love that I'm here for it. We work in this industry. There's also some realism in here that even if you came in understanding a little bit, it makes you think even more or change your perspective even more.

Because Alexandrine von Taxis is a real person, and the abortion pill ban in West Virginia is a real thing, and women are getting arrested, have gotten arrested, probably will get arrested, get arrested for things that men may not get arrested for. Those are still real. And so when you take the live experience of theater as a thing, you see this work that you couldn't have heard about or seen before because it never existed, and you give people real life context, that's what is exciting to be in these spaces with Hook and Eye for.

[33:29] Kyle Abourizk: I feel like a cheerleader.

[33:30] Carrie Heitman: I love Hook and Eye Theater.

[33:31] Kyle Abourizk: You're the best cheerleader there ever, ever was.

[33:35] Carrie Heitman: Thank you for saying yes to our date, our first date.

[33:38] Kyle Abourizk: Thank you for propositioning me for 12 years.

[33:40] Carrie Heitman: So many years ago. Can I talk about one other facet that I find, I think you all, like, can we talk about audience engagement for a second?

[33:51] Kyle Abourizk: Yes.

[33:52] Carrie Heitman: Yes. Like it means so many different things, or site specific, or like how do we make spaces that are invitational for everyone, truly everyone to be in? Why do they even want to be there? And if I'm in an improv show or a comedy show, I guess it's different, but I hate the ones where the audience feels forced to participate, or like, shit, shit, shit, they're coming into the audience, right? Like you know that that audience member doesn't want you up in your business.

[34:19] Kyle Abourizk: Because I'm that audience member.

[34:21] Carrie Heitman: Right? No one likes that. So we're trying to flip it. We've been experimenting with, so secrecy, and letter writing, and the mail, and special packages, and just like that deliciousness, again, of the analog piece of it. We're going to invite the audience to come into the space and sort of engage. Hopefully we have an art installation, that's a separate conversation. Maybe they'll write a letter, with a prompt, that will then get up into our pulley system of our set design, and onto the stage.

[35:00] Kyle Abourizk: From the house.

[35:01] Carrie Heitman: From the house. And the audience, whoever decides to take us up on this and writes a prompt, can decide if they would like their letter to be read during the show anonymously, or not. So we're hoping to use, to sort of, I mean I guess it is priming them, because the questions are pretty open-ended, like either comedic, like tell someone what they need to hear, right? You'd be surprised at some of those answers, versus like, what line would you be willing to cross for someone that you love, right? Just to sort of open up the palette, and now we need to get, you need to come up with some of the more pitter-patter, lighter, lighter...

[35:44] Kyle Abourizk: Funny stuff?

[35:45] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. I'm all about the comedy in this, because this is a dark comedy.

[35:48] Kyle Abourizk: It is a dark comedy, but we should highlight that it is comedy.

[35:53] Carrie Heitman: So there are definitely funny moments, we were laughing a lot today, and hopefully we're not laughing because we know what's happening, and the changes that they're making. But some of the stuff in here is really funny, we have some amazing performers who are part of the ensemble, and have been for a long time. I'm not going to call out names, because then if I don't call them out, I'll get in trouble. I love you all.

[36:11] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah.

[36:12] Carrie Heitman: But yeah, it's a dark comedy. We're not just throwing information at you into a black hole, and hoping you leave the theater crying in shambles, we're trying to deliver to you some light, in a couple different forms.

[36:26] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah.

[36:27] Carrie Heitman: And maybe a little enlightenment, and then some light giggles.

[36:30] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah, that's good.

[36:31] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. That, I did, because I did see on the website, also you all are doing the March Women's History Month thing, but it's letters to women that are...

[36:45] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah.

[36:46] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. That was a partnership with, so that just happened last Friday, that was at P.T. Knitwear, a gorgeous independent bookstore, family owned, it's also a podcast space. That was super fun, Scarlett, we had, that was really fun. We did, so many of our teaching artists are, sorry, many of our ensemble members are also teaching artists, so we do have an education arm too, but I led this particular workshop. And then later in the month, we're partnering with Pregnancy Justice, Plan C Pills.org.

[37:24] Kyle Abourizk: Which you didn't know existed.

[37:25] Carrie Heitman: Which I didn't, I can tell that. Please tell it.

[37:28] Kyle Abourizk: I will. Center for Book Arts. We're gonna have a post-show discussion, a panel discussion, where certainly we talk about reflections of the play, and then these organizations get to tell us what they do and how they do it, and sort of a way into advocacy that feels organic, as opposed to just looking up this website and like, please volunteer, that never really feels very authentic. But Plan C, so we were, okay, the play used to be called The Chamber.

[38:00] Carrie Heitman: Okay.

[38:01] Kyle Abourizk: Makes sense, given the history, what you said.

[38:03] Carrie Heitman: Right, given the history, but no one knows that, right? You're not gonna know that when you see it. So then I was like, well, this is not evocative of the present day storyline at all. This is kind of stuffy. And so we really racked the brains, we did surveys, we, democracy, and finally, we were like, okay, Plan C, because it makes sense. Plan A fails, Plan B fails, what is your Plan C? Like it all—

[38:30] Kyle Abourizk: Plan C is evocative of Plan B, The Pills.

[38:31] Carrie Heitman: Right, right. It's evocative of The Chamber. But, of course, my mom was like, it sounds like a...

[38:37] Carrie Heitman: Sounds like an insurance plan that I don't understand. I'm like, well, mom, it might be, I don't know. I did think it was about abortion as soon as I saw the title. Okay. So that's great. And I'm going to tell you, I didn't know. I had never heard of Plan C. So then after we picked the title and we're like sending it to our graphic designer, we're just signing the poster, like the whole bit. I'm like, Googling, I'm like, Oh my God. Now the good news about Plan C pills is they are an advocacy organization, right? They are not a male to order of the pills. But it's really funny. But I mean, it's perfect. And they're coming to the talk right now. They're like, this is great. They're more than married. They're bringing us stickers. We got all this swag. We're thrilled to make those connections. I think the more we talk about it, the better because the governance of the female body needs to stop. Period.

[39:29] Kyle Abourizk: Right. That's right. I mean, every time anybody's just like, if this were, if it was the other way around. Forget it. Forget it. That's right. Things would be so different, right?

[39:40] Carrie Heitman: That's right. That's right. You're going to make me take a pill to change my hormones. No, I like, I, I am, you know, I'm a cisgender male who's married to a man. And yet I was like many men raised in that environment of toxic masculinity machismo. This is what men do. This is the color she has to represent. Like, yeah, of course. And so women are too, but a whole nother podcast is my thing. There's a book out called on men and boys and about we are simultaneously while we're trying to repair this toxic masculinity thing, we're also creating a new problem, new problem. So I'm very into that, but I'll keep that off to the side. But we have an obligation to support and support is not passive. Support's active.

So my small support is I love this team. I'm part of the show. I didn't do it because it's about women's issues. I did it because it's for Carrie and the people of Hook and Eye who I love. And yet it also has important messaging and things that need to be shared.

[40:45] Kyle Abourizk: And you also need to be directing and exercising your own artistic voice. Okay. So that's the other thing. I'm assistant directing and I'm very scared of it. Carrie has ushered me through. I don't normally do the directing side of things, but I'm very grateful. It's great because this is your first time directing anything or just directing with this.

[41:01] Carrie Heitman: No directing anything because I normally film, I normally produce and I normally edit. Editing kind of is directing because a lot of people don't realize is once you have footage, you are showing it in the order and the way you want it to be developed. And if you're also filming it, you're also kind of doing that, but it's, it's more lonely than working in a room physically with a bunch of people. There's an ownership that I didn't have coming in. And so I was like, I'm, I don't know if I should be doing this, but Carrie assured me, yes. And I've learned a lot because of her experience. You know, and that's, well, that's it. Collaboration is, is kind of the word of the day here, but like just in humanity alone, community and collaboration are what's going to keep the species going.

[41:47] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's going to keep the species going and in your place here as a, as a new and, you know, upcoming, uh, director, you've got this group of people who are all collaborating with you and who are all creating this human pyramid so that you can stand on the top and succeed.

[42:11] Carrie Heitman: And that is called matriarchy. That is called kin keeping. So when I get to the top, I don't put my boot on other people to push them.

[42:22] Kyle Abourizk: No, you sure don't. I need to learn more about that.

[42:26] Carrie Heitman: You can take your shoes off before stepping on someone.

[42:31] Kyle Abourizk: You're right. The pyramid may be not the best visual here.

[42:35] Carrie Heitman: Oh no, but I was leaning into the toxic masculinity. Let's say instead you're standing in the middle of a circle that's surrounded by women who are all reaching toward you to give you, give you their support in both voice and action.

[42:51] Kyle Abourizk: I already wear heels, so I've taken that away from you. What else you got?

[42:56] Carrie Heitman: Well, so you all were stating a little bit about like, um, you said Kyle about like sometimes the beginning can be a little bit confusing. Um, and so I am curious, like what, like what are you hoping audiences do not misunderstand?

[43:16] Kyle Abourizk: That's a good question. That is a good question. And I actually think because we don't allow them to leave the show because there's no intermission, they will actually get it. They will get it. I, my fear going into device spaces, having not been involved with them outside of the Hook and Eye experience was that I wouldn't understand what's going on from an intellectual perspective because they tend to be allowing the audience more space to think because we trust the audience to not need to be spoonfed everything. And I think having gone to Hook and Eye shows before that I was not involved with, I did understand it almost never in the beginning, but that made it that much more satisfying when we got toward the end of the show.

Like the payoff was that much bigger. That in and of itself is satisfaction regardless of the story that's happening. It's like playing a video game, which I love. Good video games don't give you all the answers up front because that makes you not want to continue and not want to invest time and not want to play. Good theater that gives me all the answers up front is just boring.

[44:21] Carrie Heitman: And I do leave it in remission sometimes. I'm sorry to admit it. I do it too. We all do it.

[44:25] Kyle Abourizk: Okay, great. Great. Well, Michael never did it. My husband and now he does. I hope I didn't blow his cover.

[44:32] Carrie Heitman: I haven't done it yet.

[44:33] Kyle Abourizk: This show?

[44:34] Carrie Heitman: Really?

[44:35] Kyle Abourizk: I haven't.

[44:36] Carrie Heitman: Wow. I think I feel bad for the actors.

[44:40] Kyle Abourizk: I feel bad too, but not enough. Because I'm like, the actors, everything I've seen, even if I'm like, this isn't great because there's one, it was, oh. And I was like, but they are trying so hard. There's no fixing this, but man, they're trying.

[44:59] Carrie Heitman: But Ebony, is this a show that has 500 seats or more?

[45:05] Ebony Vines: No.

[45:06] Carrie Heitman: Exactly. So if you're talking about small, intimate spaces of small, intimate productions where those actors are giving it their all and there's something about the content that doesn't work or the space or the direction, I would never leave. Never. I am talking about, I worked at the Roundabout for 15 years as a teaching artist. There are, by the end there, there are many productions that I left because I was like, oh, this is paint by numbers. They don't care about me.

[45:34] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. And it's also like, no shame on the Roundabout. I'm not hating on them. I'm commenting more on that machine. It becomes not interesting to me. I legitimately don't need to see the Glass Menagerie again. I get it.

[45:51] Carrie Heitman: And there's something that happens too if you're watching performers on stage where it will go one of two ways. If it's bad material, bad directing, bad show, whatever it is, there are some shows where you can just see the perspiration, that investment that the actors are making because they believe, they want to make it a good show, right?

[46:12] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah.

[46:13] Carrie Heitman: Then there are the productions where everything is bad and also the actors are like, this is just a paycheck because this sucks. Right? And in those situations, absolutely. Yeah. I'm out. And if you have a friend in the show, you can't leave regardless.

[46:27] Kyle Abourizk: That's the truth.

[46:28] Carrie Heitman: Sure. But no, to hammer it home for your question, Ebony, this show is worth it, I think, at the end of the show. There may be competing narratives in someone's mind, like different people will have different thoughts about exactly what happened and why, but the general sense, everyone's going to be on the same trajectory.

[46:53] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. Hopefully. We'll see.

[46:56] Carrie Heitman: I think so. Yeah. I don't know, but yeah, let's hope. Carrie will ask me my opinion on something and I have a hard time not being direct, so I'll apologize in the beginning and be like, well, da-da-da-da. But give me your real thoughts.

[47:11] Kyle Abourizk: Okay, here's my real thoughts. You're like, whoa!

[47:13] Carrie Heitman: Yeah.

[47:14] Kyle Abourizk: Whoa. That's what we want. This is the first space that you've held back. I know you very well.

[47:21] Carrie Heitman: I don't hold back in T3I.

[47:22] Kyle Abourizk: It's very true. But it's to everybody else, so there's no internal commentary.

[47:27] Carrie Heitman: Right.

[47:28] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. Okay. I have this question that keeps highlighting itself to me, but if it makes no sense and you're like, what? We can skip it. But I don't know, for some reason, where does the piece feel most exposed?

[47:50] Carrie Heitman: If you didn't hear that, that was a sigh.

[47:52] Kyle Abourizk: I saw.

[47:53] Carrie Heitman: I saw. I am here to narrate what would be silence. It keeps highlighting itself to me, and if you're like, I don't even know how to answer that, but I don't know. You just imagine somebody puts the glasses off. I know. I know. I got this. I got this. Where does the piece feel most exposed?

[48:15] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah, it's a very quiet moment. One of the things I feel like we were all aligned about was showing a variety of things that women go through in their bodies, and whether that be with children, with loss, being child-free and celebrating that, or making individual choices that no one else needs to know about. And so one of our characters has to decide what she wants to do with her body while she's alone, and it's a stage direction in the piece where no one else will ever know what she has done, and it's not like the audience ever reads that or is telegraphed, but I feel like that's one of the most exposed moments of the play because I think the play is ultimately about summoning up the courage of one's convictions, and that leads to the choices that we make.

Good, bad, wrong, otherwise, judged, none of it, and I think it's just executed very simply, and I think it will explode in the conversations afterwards of like, why did she do that? Wait, what? You mean it's not perfect and wrapped with a bow? It's not perfect and wrapped with a bow, no. But that's intentional.

[49:44] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. And that's life. Yeah, right. And this show has Mipha Pristone in it, but it is not about Mipha Pristone.

[49:52] Kyle Abourizk: Correct. That is just one of the things that's going on.

[49:55] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. Well, the conversation isn't just about abortion, it's about women's health in general, so, yes, abortion is like the big red button that everyone seems to want to press or not press, but there's little to no research done about women's bodies, and yet all of these conversations are being had without us in the room.

[50:19] Kyle Abourizk: That's right.

[50:20] Carrie Heitman: Medicines prescribed based on different body composition. I actually didn't know that kind of thing until.

[50:24] Kyle Abourizk: And symptoms dismissed.

[50:26] Carrie Heitman: Symptoms absolutely dismissed, ignored, and the studies, right? It's about the studies that have never been done or the funding been cut. And, again, it really often it is the male governance of the female body, period.

[50:40] Kyle Abourizk: Do you want a short personal story that's not?

[50:46] Carrie Heitman: I have a friend who I went to college with.

[50:48] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah, give the anecdote. We're here.

[50:50] Carrie Heitman: Friend I went to college with, she got cancer. That wasn't caused by a man. What was caused by a man was that she never complained about pain. She has a very high pain tolerance. She rode horses. She did a whole bunch of stuff. And after they started on a new medication, of which one of the major possible symptoms was a heart attack or a stroke, she contacted the doctor via text, having really never reached out to him for complaints before. And he's like, it's just heartburn. He insisted and kept it. She had a stroke and technically died, and they brought her back to life, and now she's had to work through years of trying to get speech therapy.

[53:00] Carrie Heitman: Something nobody talked about when I was a kid. So it's this big old question mark. And I think the only thing that has made it a little bit more accessible now is that other women are talking about it in social media. So it's this, you know, this conversation that we can all have, and you're like, Oh, what are your symptoms? And it's, you know, we've taken away the stigma now, right? And it doesn't just mean that you're at the end of your, your childbearing years, it's actually quite a lot more than that. It's quite a lot more than that. It could be 10 years of our life before we even get to that. I mean, I just want to get there, frankly, but you don't want another baby? No, no, no, no, let's just get there.

You know, and it's never I think, the reproductive health of, of me as a specific woman, but also in general has never been about having children, because I don't want them, right? And that's the decision that I've made, right? It, it means so much more, because I'm waking up feeling a certain way, or I'm feeling, you know, I'm having this pain that didn't exist before, or, and, you know, all of these very concerning things that you're, you just from one day to the next, are discovering, right? And it's because nobody has ever talked about it, that the medical institution has felt confident enough not to do any research on.

[54:28] Kyle Abourizk: So wait, isn't the medical advice to just buck up? Like, it must, it's just anxiety. Just yeah, just relax. Well, you'll be fine.

[54:37] Carrie Heitman: Not even I mean, because, you know, I'm absolutely fine with you saying because I think I yelled Perry several times on this podcast. I just forget a word and suddenly you're like, Perry, Perry, but that's how you even found out it was a thing. We were on this podcast. I was yelling Perry and she was like, what's that? Right, right. And now like she knows a ton, like sometimes she knows more than I do. Right. And, and but it is it's like that, that that sharing of information, not making things be so cloaked. Right. And us and us being open with each other and honest with each other and sharing with each other. This is my last question. Oh, yes. 720. So this is my last question. If audience could remember one feeling or image from the show, what would you want it to be?

[55:35] Carrie Heitman: That's hard. That is hard. No, that's good. Let's think of one feeling. I said, yeah. So remember, remember, have one feeling, I guess, or take away a feeling or image. Remember an image from the show. What would it mean? Now there's two of you. So you two can have two different answers. Oh, my. Mine will definitely be different. I we should think about it and then say it at the same time because I'm very curious.

[56:07] Kyle Abourizk: No, absolutely not. That's not happening.

[56:10] Carrie Heitman: Um, you know, I could say something like hope and all that, but I don't want to because the first thing that came to my mind is anger. Yeah. Like, I don't want you to be an angry person leaving the show, but I get really upset. Yeah. And I know there will be some people who are upset and I don't want them to get angry to feel angry. I want them to get angry enough or influenced enough to want to do something. Yeah. Even if it's in a small way.

[56:36] Kyle Abourizk: I think you're going to get that. Yeah, that's the hope. I want them to feel seen. And I think that happens in one of the final images of the play.

[57:00] Carrie Heitman: Because just like I've stood on the shoulders of so many women who came before me. We will keep going. The secret's out of the bag, man. We run the world. That's right. We run the families. We run the world. And there's no there's no time for despair. Yeah. Sure. All the self-care in the world, boundary, like all the things, but there's no time while you have it alive to not keep going and keep doing and keep building and keep supporting one another. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Our answers were very the same.

[57:49] Kyle Abourizk: Let me put them together for you because it seems like that's my job tonight. Great. I love it. We need the synthesis. Female rage isn't new. No, it is not. We are born and raised if you are born a cisgender female, you are born and told your entire life to be more quiet, to be smaller, to just take what you're given and to be happy about it. But that's not natural. And Jamila Jamil says the most perfect thing when she said, if women were meant to submit, it wouldn't be so hard to submit. And so we are told all of these things. And as you grow up, you realize the injustice of it. And we tamp down this rage that fills us and fills us. And as you get older, it gets bigger and bigger. And then it comes out at a time when women are dismissed out of hand because we are no longer fuckable.

That's right. To the male. To the patriarch. That's what they think. Right. Right. And so, Kyle, yes, the anger is going to be there because the anger is always there. Right. And this might spark it a little bit more, which will then help us to see that we cannot despair because what do women know best? We have a job to do and we're the only ones that are going to be able to do it. And I think I'll be even more specific, which I wasn't in the beginning. I want people who are not women or don't identify as women to be angry because that's kind of what's missing. Nothing is going to be new to the women in the audience. Maybe the historical anecdotes will be new. Right. Or the thinking about something in a certain way will be new.

But I will very strongly stand by the fact that most men who are brought up as, quote unquote, men are angry enough and they actually don't know a lot of the things that are very basic knowledge. Or they don't care. Also the thing. But I was one of the people that was outraged once I learned what I didn't know. Right. And there are more of those people out there. Right. That's fair. That's fair. Right. Well, there's no longer, they don't have the opportunity for blissful ignorance anymore. I would contend there's no excuse. And yet I still want to reach them. So the most successful way to reach them is to still like, yeah, get on over here. Yeah, that's right. I hope you don't feel like I'm beating you up, Kyle.

[1:00:29] Kyle Abourizk: Oh, no, no, not at all. Not at all. No. We need doppelgangers of you. We need more Kyle. Yes. We need many more men like you who can see the problem and access their anger over it. Yeah. If men show compassion, they're labeled as weak in many places. And yet, if you look at biology and the adapting of species, science shows that the humility and the empathy and the compassion among species is what actually has led to survival of the species. But so many people just don't. They see it as a weakness. And so.

[1:01:03] Carrie Heitman: Well, for so long, the patriarchy has told us that the only way that you can be a leader is to dominate.

[1:01:09] Kyle Abourizk: Right. And that's not the case at all.

[1:01:14] Carrie Heitman: That's right. And they force women into those positions too.

[1:01:20] Kyle Abourizk: Yes. That's right. That's right. Well, because if we weren't in a position of subjugation, then patriarchy could not exist.

[1:01:28] Carrie Heitman: Right. Right. I love these conversations. You've solved a lot.

[1:01:35] Kyle Abourizk: We have solved a lot. Are you angry? Are you curious? Come see the show. We want you there. Come talk to us.

[1:01:40] Carrie Heitman: Yes. So tell everybody, finally, like the dates of the show, where it is, all of that now, so everybody knows where to go.

[1:01:44] Kyle Abourizk: We are at The Tank, which is on West 36th Street in Midtown Manhattan. We are there for 22 performances beginning-

[1:01:52] Carrie Heitman: 21.

[1:01:52] Kyle Abourizk: No, it's 22. March 12th to April 12th. I counted the other day.

[1:01:55] Carrie Heitman: There's 21 performances.

[1:01:59] Kyle Abourizk: Okay. Oh, wait. There's 22, if you include one that we're inviting someone to as a cameo, that doesn't count.

[1:02:02] Carrie Heitman: Great. So 21 performances. Almost all of them are at 7pm, but we do have three 3pm matinees. And again, to reiterate, we have an ASL performance. We have a child care matinee. If your child is five or older, pretty much if they can go to the bathroom on their own, then we can host them separately while you adults enjoy the show.

[1:02:24] Kyle Abourizk: All true story, and we do have a special cameo every single performance.

[1:02:29] Carrie Heitman: Oh, wow. That's very cool. You don't know who they are.

[1:02:33] Kyle Abourizk: I will tell you that one of the people that was on my invite list for a cameo, her name started with an ebony and ended with a vines.

[1:02:43] Carrie Heitman: Your letter's in the mail.

[1:02:45] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing.

[1:02:49] Carrie Heitman: Yeah. Multiple ticket levels. There's three ticket levels on the website. Please come support. If you want to pay the support or rate or you want to pay more, please do. Ticket sales cover less than 50% of the costs for a production.

[1:03:04] Kyle Abourizk: Yeah. So we'd love to see there.

[1:03:07] Carrie Heitman: Amazing. This was a great conversation. I really am just so happy you both could be here. This show sounds amazing. We can't wait to see it.

[1:03:18] Kyle Abourizk: Yay! Pamela, Audie, thank you so much for having us. What a joy.

[1:03:23] Carrie Heitman: I wish for you and your audience to leave with these kind of conversations happening organically.

[1:03:29] Kyle Abourizk: Thank you. We do too. Yeah.

[1:03:33] Carrie Heitman: All right. You don't need to make all the change. You just need to start making change.

[1:03:35] Kyle Abourizk: Yep.

[1:03:37] Carrie Heitman: Well, that's this episode of Theatre Geeks Anonymous. A wonderful new works intermission. So thank you all for listening.

[1:03:44] Kyle Abourizk: Thank you.

[1:03:46] Carrie Heitman: Thank you.

[1:03:48] Kyle Abourizk: Thank you for listening to our podcast, Theatre Geeks Anonymous.

[1:03:53] Carrie Heitman: You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at TGABway.

[1:03:56] Kyle Abourizk: And on Facebook at Theatre Geeks Anonymous.

[1:04:02] Carrie Heitman: Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Theatre Geeks Anonymous podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network and all your favorite podcast listening apps.

[1:04:08] Kyle Abourizk: Your intermission soad has now concluded. Shut up, sit down, and turn off your cell phones. Or we'll tell Patti LuPone.