Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Dating.
Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Actorzilla podcast. I'm your host, James Larson, and today we have on Kevin R. Free.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Kevin is the artistic director of Miles Square theater, and he's also a multi hyphenate artist, a producer, a director, an actor, a writer, were an audiobook narrator. Did I leave anything out, or is there more to that?
[00:00:31] Speaker B: He didn't call me a punk.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: That might be at the end. That might come.
Yeah, that'll be added by the end for sure.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: All those hyphens. Maybe just underachiever would be.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah. What an underachiever.
Yeah. Clearly you're not busy enough. You need more to do.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I got an email from somebody a few months ago saying.
Asking me what my problem was. I needed to sit down somewhere. I needed to just sit down.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: You need to sit down.
Oh, man, that's so funny. So I'm kind of curious, with all those titles, I'd love to hear a bit about your journey. I think on your website, you said that you started as an.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Actor, singer. I had always wanted to do a.
When I was growing up, that was what I moved to New York to be a musical comedy star. That was, like, what I thought was the thing.
And when I didn't book a Broadway show, and I guess I'm not ruling it out as a possibility now, but it's also something that I'm less interested in as far as the grind is concerned, of eight shows a week, my 55, almost 55 year old body.
But I always wanted to do a Broadway musical. And when that didn't seem to be happening, I just started saying yes to all the other jobs that people would offer me. I think looking back on all of the work that I did, that has brought me to here.
What I think people were seeing in me when they were offering me other kinds of work was that I'm a leader, and I think that is the superpower, is that I am good at setting people at ease when the sky feels like it's falling, and making decisions about the emergency decisions that come from producing theater and whatnot, that don't feel like actual emergencies because nobody's going to the hospital. But I'm good at making those decisions. And then I'm also good at making decisions that put humanity first, that put people first, which, of course, is where we are in history, I think in the theater game, which is great, people offered me things. Hey, do you want to do a reading? Do you want to direct a reading? Do you want to teach these young people?
And then from doing that, people thought, oh, he knows what he's doing, so let's give him leadership positions. So then I became an education director and then really started directing things, but not really saying that I was a director. And it was around 2017 when I said out loud that I was a director, that my directing career took off in the way that I wished that my acting career had taken off all those years ago.
And I think that that is because the universe knew that I was meant to be a leader. And so when I said I wanted to be a director, then all of a sudden, all this work came to me, and here I am, 55, actually pursuing a career as a director.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: That's amazing. So you think director is like, your main. Is that, like, you're multi, multi hyphenate, but director leading the charge for you right now?
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
I love audiobooks.
Audiobooks, I get to scratch the acting itch, and I get to play all the characters. So that part appeals to both my ego and just like the actor itch. So I think it's directing and audiobooks are the things that are leading the charge, to use your parlance.
Yeah. I love being a director in a way that I never loved being an actor.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: What about it?
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah, what about it? Well, first, as a director, I'm not afraid of collaboration. I'm not afraid of listening to other people's ideas. I'm not afraid of being voted down. I'm not afraid of disagreement. I'm not afraid when people say, oh, you know what? I think this is a better idea for this moment.
I don't have any ego about any of that. And that feels really nice as an actor, and you know this, as an actor, there's so much insecurity.
I did a wrong thing in rehearsal, and I said the wrong thing in rehearsal so they'll never hire me again. And then you're not in the moment anymore. And then that ruins all of your work. And then you get to tech rehearsal, and you forget that tech rehearsal isn't about you. It's about the director and the director's creative team making decisions to make you look good, but you still, as an actor, feel very like, why aren't they paying attention to me? Did I do something wrong? Is it terrible? I mean, this is all just.
It's par for the course for actors, and I love actors, and I, as a director, remind them all the time. I know that you are creating complex emotion all the time. I know it and I understand it. And I know that when I give you an adjustment it feels personal because your body doesn't know the difference between something that you've made up and what is true to you, even if it's real. I totally understand that.
And I, as an actor, know it and hate it.
Right.
I just hate the insecurity that comes from being an actor. And that's separate from auditions. I loved auditioning. Auditions are fun for me. You did?
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Really?
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I get to do a whole show for somebody in a room. That part is really great. I'm so good at looking at a script, and they give me a thing. I'm great at making choices and just, like, going for it. I love that. I loved that.
And I also, as an actor, never had any doubt that I would have a career.
I think that's divine. I think, God, the universe gave me that. I just never was like, oh, yes, I've been waiting tables for six months, but I'm going to have a job. It's going to be right around the corner. I never had any doubt that I would work.
But when I started working, it was, did I make the right choice in that scene? I don't know. I think my voice sounded funny in that moment.
My accent is inconsistent. I'm the worst. It was so easy to put myself down as an actor and was really unfair to myself. But as a director, I have ideas. I express those ideas. I try to see if they'll work, and sometimes they do.
And I like looking at other act, like looking at other humans and saying, so here's what I think this moment is about.
How can we make that happen? I like telling a playwright of a new play. Here's the feeling that I got when I read the play, and here's what I saw when I read it. Let's try to visualize what the scenic design would look like or what. I'm totally into that. I love it. And even if people disagree with me, I don't ever feel terrible about the disagreements. And I also never get tired of taking responsibility, not afraid to do that.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: What do you mean by taking responsibility?
[00:09:02] Speaker B: If I make a mistake, if I make a mistake for something, about something, I don't need to be right in the same way, and I don't need to pass the buck in the same way. I'm ready. I'm okay. Even as an artistic director, running a whole organization, if something goes wrong, I'm happy to be the person to say, yeah, that's my fault. I failed, right?
Even if I feel terrible about my failure, I'm just really as a director, I'm much better as a leader. I'm much better at accepting failure as a part of the process and not as the end of the process.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: I love that failure is a part of the process. I'm writing it down. That's how important I thought that was.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Oh, great. Thank you. Wow.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Failure is a part of the process.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Not the end of a process.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
I have the same kind of philosophy, I guess, too, that failure is not. What is that? Failure is not fatal or whatever that quote is.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, sure.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: And I think it's so important in the creative arts because to me, that's the fun of it. That's the fun of the work, especially because I think as an actor, the best part is the rehearsal process, because you're discovering you're connecting with people. Maybe you meet new actors and you get to be in the thick of it. And I think that's the fun part. And I think you can't go into that process being like, I know how everything's going to happen. I know how everything's going to work. That's not art. I mean, art is like getting in the thick of it and disagreeing and being okay with that. And obviously, it depends on the room. And I'm sure you've been in a lot of different rehearsal rooms, and there's different vibes with each rehearsal process, depending on who you have in the room.
Obviously you are involved in casting all these shows. Do you look for particular things in actors when you're auditioning people?
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Yes.
It's different for different organizations or processes.
I have a strict no asshole policy. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on your podcast. Sure. Yeah.
I.
I like to find out from people what the people that I love, how they are in rehearsal and how they are in a room. Are they good collaborators? Are they people who only think about themselves?
And I ask those questions. I like to engage people in conversation when they come in to audition because I want to know, for lack of a better expression, robots.
I used to tell students, you're not a robot. Don't come in. And just like, my name is da da da da da, and I'm going to do a monologue from blah blah blah blah blah. Come in with an open heart and look around the room, and if you like the shirt that somebody's wearing, say it. If you like a picture that's on the wall, say it. Just be yourself when you come in, because ultimately you're going to spend more time as yourself in the room with the director than you are as the character when you're there. So if you come in the room and you're just like fun, then the director might want to spend time with you for 7 hours a day.
So there is something to be said for personality, for humanity when people come in.
What that is for me is also leaving room for catharsis. Because in processes now, there are people, I try to do a consent based practice so that we're talking from the first day about consent and where one can be touched and that kind of thing.
And so I want to make sure that the people who are coming in the room not only made theater 100 years ago in 2019, but have made theater post 2020 and are on board with some of the positive changes that have happened in the american theater. So there's that. I like to engage in conversation just to find out about that kind of stuff. And then I don't care about social media and the number of followers that people have. But if I'm doing an independent theater project or I'm doing something at my theater, excuse me, my small theater in Hoboken, New Jersey, I like to see if you have a social media presence. I want to know, are you at least posting pictures of your castmates?
I don't need you to promote the show in the same way that our job is to promote the show, but I would like to be able to cast people who would be talking about doing a show.
I don't do a lot of posting on social media either, but I do post about the work that I'm doing. And for me, it's less about promoting the show and more about putting the name of the theater or the name of the play out in the world. So even if you don't post through, all through rehearsal and whatnot, that you post when it closes, I just did this amazing play. This is what it was. It was at Miles Square theater. I just want to see what your social media presence is like.
What else do I look for? I mean, clearly I look for good actors, but that is also so subjective that I am less concerned about making a good play. I think I'm a good, I cast well, so I'm less concerned about is this play going to be good? And more about is this play going to mean something to all of us by the end of it? Is it going to be a thing that we wish would never end? Is it going to be a thing, or is it going to be a thing that we wish had ended after the first day?
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Is that about matching the personalities in the room or just matching the person to the part, if that makes.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Both.
I just directed the play that goes wrong up at Portland stage, and it was really important to us to have people who could not only do the physical comedy, who could do comedy at all, but it was also people about. People who were game to figure out how to do this play, not off Broadway or on Broadway, but using consent and intimacy practices for now, and who would be willing and able to have a good time in that room.
It's a really funny play, and as we rehearsed, we made each other laugh so much, and it was important to me. I work a lot with people, or I have worked a lot with people who are only about work at all times. There's never a moment where they stop and tell a story. There's never a moment where they're part of a group thing. There's never a moment. And I think that feels like the hardest part about work, when you're. When you're not. You're not.
When you're not allowed. You don't allow yourself to have any humor while you're working. To me, feels. It just feels wrong. It doesn't feel like a world that I want to be in. It's not a world I want to lead. I want us to do the work. I want us to have a good time while we're doing the work.
And our production of the play that goes wrong is really my favorite thing that I've directed in a really long time, because I feel like we made something really funny and really good, and the play that goes wrong is about that thing that we all learned when we were learning to make theater, and that is that the show must go on. And somewhere along the line, the show must go on became very toxic.
Right?
We're missing funerals, and we're missing weddings, and we're missing milestones in our children's lives, because the show must go on. We're singing while we're sick and hurting our voices, like, we're doing all of these things that we really just shouldn't do. If you're in any other business, you get that time off, right?
So the play that goes wrong is about that thing that has become toxic in our community, and that is that the show must go on at all costs.
But the beauty of the play that goes wrong, the other side of it is about that moment that we realized, oh, my gosh, this is what I want to do with my life. This is that conversation between audience and performer. That feels like you just get bitten by that bug, by that feeling of, oh, my gosh, I did something that made people laugh. And also, oh, my gosh, I did an entire thing and everything went wrong. But it was still really wonderful. Look at how great it was.
And here we were in 2024 making this play, knowing that if somebody got hurt, we would stop that. If somebody got sick, we wouldn't do a show, that if somebody had a funeral to go to, we wouldn't do a show. We knew all of this going in. We also knew that we were good at our jobs, and so we weren't worried so much about, is the play going to be good? We were just really worried about moment to moment making the play.
So I feel like, yeah, I'm looking for collaborators who are willing and who are not afraid to be human, with other collaborators who are not afraid to be vulnerable.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: That's the T, James.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: That's the t. I love that I always tell people know it's not about being on all the. Like, I don't know if you know those kind of people in this industry that you know what I mean? They're always performing for other people when it's. And they're not on stage. I'm like, just be a person.
How are you doing? And I've always been that kind of person in the industry, and I value that in other people, too.
I think it's more accepted now, too, I guess. To be yourself, maybe.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I just want to say that I might be one of those people who's always on.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: I don't think so. I think you seem down to earth and cool to me, but I think maybe we'll find out by the end.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: No.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: We'Ll find out.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Okay. Definitely. And please let me know your assessment.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I will.
I love that play, too. I'm kind of curious, like, what do they do for regional productions? Because the set was a huge part of the Broadway production. So does regional theater have that set or no?
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it was designed in. Our production at Portland Stage was designed by the artistic director, who is a scenic designer, Anita Stewart. And we started with a document where she created an excel document that just said, here are the tricks that work with the set. And then we decided which ones we were going to do as we rehearsed, and there were things that we knew that we couldn't do. Like, at the end of the play, the character of Jonathan enters through that door on the upper level and grabs onto a lighting trust that has come down, and then he swings around to the door, and she said, we're not going to do that.
That's not a thing we're going to do. And I was like, okay, great.
And then as they were building the set, we had regular meetings with the technical director and the associate technical director about how they were building things. And we were explaining to them, this is how we think it works. We also had this really great movement coordinator who had been a clown, who had been a mime and a clown for years, who said, here's how we can accomplish some of these tricks.
And so the walls fall down and everything. So some days the walls don't fall.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: It is called the play that goes wrong. Right.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: There have been a couple of performances where the walls did not fall.
Every time something like that fails, we have to have a conversation with the actors.
They ask, well, what do we do? If that happens again, what do we do? What do we do? And I said, okay, here's what we do.
Yeah.
I kind of felt as though, with this whole process, it was nice because I didn't feel like the actors had any problems asking for leadership and asking questions like, how. How do we want this to be safe? So if the wall looks like it's not going to fall, is it going to fall? Like, if it falls late, was it ever going to fall late?
So we had to make a decision about making sure that if it didn't fall when it was supposed to fall, that they were locked in place so that there was no chance of them falling at a different time.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: So, yeah, we did the whole set.
We did the whole thing. We did the whole thing and then decided from there what worked and what didn't. And the script tells you when you're allowed to improvise some things.
And because of that, there are other things that are improvised in our production that are not the same every day. And then there are other moments where, in the improvisation that happened during rehearsal, it has now become that thing, every performance, because the actors in this production are so professional and so accomplished and so smart.
I don't have any bad things to say about this process.
Actually going back to Maine to see it on Sunday to see the closing, is this your.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Are you drawn to a certain type of project to direct, or do you have another process?
[00:25:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes, I'm drawn to them, but they offered it to me, and I was surprised.
I was surprised because I like the play, and it just sort of. I'm a black queer director who does a lot of black queer work. Black and or queer work to be invited to direct the play that goes wrong was like, oh, wait, okay.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Had you worked there before as a director?
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is my 6th play there.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: I've worked there every year since 2017, with the exception of 2020.
Yeah.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: That's awesome. I love Portland, Maine, but I do have to say I'm from Portland, Oregon, so I don't know if there's beef between the Portlands. I know, like, Portland, Maine was first, obviously. But Portland, Maine is beautiful, though.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I think there is beef. And the beef is when you're in Portland, Maine and you sometimes Google doesn't know you're in Maine.
So, like, it gives you search results from.
I mean, I think the beef is between Google and people of Portland, Maine.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Oh, I heard a story where a woman thought she got on a plane and thought she was going to Oregon and she went to Portland, Maine. She had no idea until she got there.
That's probably a Google. I'm going to blame Google for that one, too.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Let's blame Google. Why not?
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Google, we're going to get you.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: We're going to get you in this podcast.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: This is the truth telling. The Google Truth telling podcast.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Google's not going to rank this episode now because any talking smack about Google, I'm sure it's not going to work.
So what brought you to Miles Square theater?
[00:27:21] Speaker B: Yeah, in 2019, I directed a production of pipeline there and had a lovely experience doing that. They invited me back to direct 2020. I directed a film version of the radio play of it's a Wonderful Wife. Wonderful life. Not wife. It's wonderful life.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: That's a sequel. Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: That's the sequel right there. Yeah, that's it.
And so during the pandemic for about a year and a half, actually, starting in June of right after George Floyd was murdered, I started hosting, or not hosting, producing an online variety show called the Reparation show. And it was an online variety show. Then there was a different host every week, unified by the same kind of graphics that we had every week. And then I would do a segment called this week in reparations.
And in my little segment, I thanked the host for being on the show. And then I talked about anything, whatever, didn't matter. But on one episode in late 20, gosh, late 2020 or early 2021, I had the founder of Miles Square Theater on the show, Chris O'Connor, and asked him about a number of things. And he mentioned in our conversation that they now had a succession plan because he was planning to step down and they thought that it would be time for the organization to be led by a person of color.
And he'd sort of made a joke, like maybe hint, hint that somebody I know might want to apply for that job.
And then when they posted the job, he texted me and said, we posted this job. I don't know if you're interested in applying. So I did apply, and then I got the job.
So that's what brought me there.
We're a small outfit, and I want us to be focusing on new and gently used plays.
And I want playwrights to feel like we're a place for them to try out new stuff.
And we're right across the river. We're right in hobo, which is so close to the city. And we don't focus on bringing people from the city to see the shows, but we do because we don't think that a lot of people are doing that. Excuse me. 1 second. What's up?
Okay, that's fine. Just close the door. Thank you.
Because my husband is going to be making a smoothie, and he was afraid it was going to be a bad thing.
You can hear the blender now.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Is it a vitamix or.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: No, actually, it's the nutribullet, but it's the big blender.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: So he's making a smoothie because he's trying to make me feel guilty for not being on a diet right now.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: It's a guilt smoothie.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: It's a guilt smoothie because I've given up, basically given up being an actor, but I still think the world revolves around me.
Of course. Why would he make a smoothie? For his own nutrition?
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Right?
[00:31:14] Speaker B: It has to be for me. It has to be about me. Thank you for letting me walk down this little path while he's blending.
I'll go back to my Miles Square story in a second, unless you're broadcasting this live to the world right now.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: This is going live? This is in Times Square right now?
Yeah, this is right. This is on the Lion King facade.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: I have connection.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Good for you. Good for us.
You're so dry. So funny.
Okay, so at Miles Square theater, I want us to be focusing on new and gently used plays.
And there it goes.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Not. I can't hear it that well.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: You can't? Okay, great.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Okay.
I'm really focused on the new plays and the gently used plays. And we're not begging people from Manhattan to come see our shows, but we are telling playwrights, hey, here's a place for you to submit your new work because we're a regional theater, and we're seven minutes from Manhattan. So if you write a play and we produce it and you think that it's ready for a commercial production, we are happy to offer industry comps to all the people you'd like to come out to see the play, because it just puts us more on the map when you do that.
And it's.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: It's right there. I mean, it's. Is an easy sell as far as a regional theater goes, you know?
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Yeah, right. It's not like anybody has to get on a plane to come see a show at theater.
But I think we've made some courageous decisions since I've been there, and we are in the process of making some more courageous decisions about programming and presenting work there.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Is there a certain type of work that the theater. I mean, that if you're a playwright listening, is there a certain type of play you guys look for or just a good play?
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we look for small cast plays, unfortunately.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Which is how big?
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Less than five.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Less than five.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Less than five people. Five people. So they can be playing a million characters, but we want fewer than five actors in the plays. For now, our contract is the actors equity special appearance contract, which means we get three equity contracts per production. So that also often includes our resident stage manager.
Yeah, so there's that. And then right now, I want comedies.
I don't mind if those comedies are also about the world, but I love a good comedy. We did the world premiere of a hip hop musical called Quarter Rican in March of 2023, and it was a huge success for us.
It brought in lots of new audience members and was really exciting because it was hip hop. There was a beatboxer on stage who created all of the sounds on stage. It was just really very exciting.
We're actively looking for work that will appeal to that audience for next season.
At this point, we think we're going to be producing a world premiere musical, very small cast musical, which will be the first time I think this organization has produced a musical. Musical. Well, Puerto Rican was the first musical. Musical that we produced, I think.
And, yeah, a play that is able to. So our mandate is for our creative teams to be half of color, I like to say half of marginalized community, and we like to be able to cast our plays in the same way.
So if you have something to send me that is like that. And it's funny that we can cast with anybody.
That would be great.
What else?
I don't know. I think I'm easy to find my email address on the website of our theater.
Our email address is my email address, so you can reach out to me and say, hey, I have this play.
Here are the first ten pages, and just send it to me and then I'll read it when I get to it. I'm reading so many things, it's hard to get to everything, but I'll read it when I get to it and get back to you when I can.
I don't know if I answered that question.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: Okay. All right.
I never know what I'm going to love. I never know what I'm going to love and what I'm going to want.
But next season, we're trying to choose things that have, that are kind of recognizable intellectual properties so that we can sell more tickets, so that the following season, I feel like we'll do a season of more obscure titles and then another season that has something that seems a little more recognizable or has, like, a crazy title that will hook people in.
And next season, we're looking for more recognizable intellectual properties.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: How many shows do you guys produce a year there?
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Four shows and two benefits. And next year we will also be producing or presenting, we think, some monthly programs.
Well, I can't really talk about it, actually, because no contracts have been signed. But there are New Jersey artists who have their own work that we'd like know, improv shows and magic shows and those sorts of things just to present them in our space.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: So we're looking for more opportunities like that at this point. We'd like to also in December, have a Diwali festival because we want to make sure that we're inviting the south asian community of Hudson county into our space.
Yeah, all of those things.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: I love that. That's amazing. So that's kind of cool that it sounds like it's kind of flexible. Like one year you guys do more obscure stuff.
Are you looking to have a more set season? Kind of like, you know how certain theaters have certain slots that they have? Oh, we have a musical. We have this.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Yes. So our slots are something in the fall, something for Christmas, something in the winter, like March. Like right now we have a play that we're producing right now that opens in a couple of weeks, and then another thing in the spring. And one thing is normally children's play that we can try to book with school groups.
And this year, our children's play may also be our holiday play at the same time, so that we're combining those things together and increasing the length of the run of the play so that we can then in the evenings, present some of a monthly show or a solo play festival of some sort, just to have a lot of life in the space.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Right? That's awesome.
So my audience that I'm trying to build on this podcast is mostly actors, obviously. And I'm just curious, as someone who's been on both sides of the table, do you have advice for, especially for early career actors or people that are thinking of moving to the city or maybe your past self, do you have any advice that you would give to someone?
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Yes, I do.
The advice is, the advice is be, become a member of a community or two or three or four, like, don't or at least be a part of several communities. If you know of a theater, Miles Square theater is the kind of place where you could just decide to see a ticket and come see the show. And we're such a small organization that we're accessible, that you can reach out to us and ask us questions, and you can come to events and meet us.
And there are other organizations that are like that. It's not the same with the Broadway community, and it's not the same with the off Broadway community. I don't know where to go for them to just sort of meet people. I don't know, but there are lots of independent theater outfits in Manhattan, and what I did was I just sort of knew everybody.
This show looks interesting. I want to go to the show. And back when the New York International Fringe Festival was a thing, I was there all the time, and they always had a lounge where you could hang out. And it just sort of created community among artists. And so I would say, become a part of a community or put your face in the place as often as possible.
When I was the artistic director of the fire this time festival, which is a platform for early career playwrights, playwrights would reach out to me on LinkedIn all the time, say, hey, I want to write for the fire this time festival. And I would say, have you ever seen any of our shows? And they would say, no. And I would say, okay, well, the first thing you need to do is to come to a show, come to the festival and see what we do, and then find me and say hello.
I think the mistake that we all make, and I made it, was thinking that I was going to get off the bus from North Carolina and just make a splash and just believed that that was what, because I was that talented and that people were just going to see me and I'm drinking a malted in a soda shop, and all of a sudden I'm a star.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: What year was this with the malted?
[00:43:06] Speaker B: I'm Rita Hayworth.
Isn't that how she was discovered?
But that's the thing, though, is that we all believe that we're just going to make a splash. It's just going to happen.
And I wish that for everyone. I want that to be your story. I would love for you to take Broadway by storm. I would love that. It is not the way it happens all the time. And I love my career. I've had a wonderful career. I'm not done yet. I really, really love it. But I have had to work very hard to get what I get. And so what I would say to young actors is, put yourself out there all the time. Do it. Go see shows. See the shows. Go to places where the tickets are less expensive, and then find out. And then reach out to every artistic director that you can and just say, hey, I'm around. How do I get to audition for you? Or what? Or anything.
And then recognize when somebody offers you an opportunity that does not pay, that pays you nothing.
Recognize that.
Really think about it before you just say, absolutely not because things have changed, or everybody wants to be paid.
Everybody wants to be paid these days, but things haven't changed enough for theaters to be able to offer pay.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: Right?
[00:44:49] Speaker B: And I'm not telling you to work for free all the time. I'm not saying that at all. That is not what I'm saying. What I am saying is if a person hears about you or knows about you and offers you a gig, that's like for five days and it pays you nothing, but maybe it pays food.
Think about Google it. Google the person who offered it. See if there's somebody that you know who knows them so that you know that they're not the kind of people who are going to suck your blood and leave you for dead. Right.
Recognize that you're putting savings in a bank, and there could be a time when you could take those savings out and use them at another time.
I know for me, I often ask people to do things because I believe in their talent and recognize and hope and pray that there is another time that I can work with them and give them some money. When we work together more than the last time we worked together, I know that that's the thing that I want to do. I also don't have any hard feelings for people who don't want to work for free at all because I am one of those people who doesn't necessarily want to work for free, but I am doing this podcast and you are not paying me to do this podcast because I thought it was important to put my name out there in a way that makes sense. I chose an hour that I was free and I said yes to that. So I think that what we're not teaching our young people is that is how to invest in a career.
I asked you how you knew me. You were like, you keep coming up and I think I keep coming up because I'm always putting myself out there somehow, right? And I'm mid fifty s and I've been around for a long time in the circles of the Tristate area trying to make a career.
And I think that people who don't know me, who look at me and see me working don't know the number of emails that I sent out, don't know the number of times I spoke to my manager today to find out what can we do about this offer that we received? Or should I reach out to this publisher or that publisher to see if I can audition for anything that's coming up.
I'm still in the trenches trying to make a career and it doesn't happen if you don't make it happen. And so I, you know, I just say that to say before you fight the, before you fight the oppressor, know who the oppressor is, which is a whole other thing, is that I don't see myself as the oppressor. If I ask you to do a show that I'm doing also, right, and I'm not getting anything right.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
What I tell people is that I thought the same thing. I thought, I'm going to get an agent and my agent is going to make my career and that's how it's going to work. But now I realize you're your own agent always, even if you have an agent and manager, you are your agent for your life. I mean, like you said, you're doing stuff behind the scenes, you're pitching yourself, you're sending emails, you're getting involved, you're going to shows, you're understanding people, you're meeting people, you're just being a person with other people. I mean, that's how it works. People want to work with people that they know, like and trust and it takes time to develop those relationships. It's not like you said, you don't just get off the bus and suddenly you have a career.
I hope that happens too. But for most people, and it's more rewarding, though, to be in the trenches. And I think people discount the hard work of it, but it's also the enjoyable work.
To me. It's like theater has always been about connection with other people. I mean, you're connecting on stage with another actor. You're connecting with the audience. The audience is connecting with you. It's this exchange of energy that you don't find in any other medium, in my experience.
And that's what makes theater that's lasted for millennia. That's why it's an old art form. It's not like film and tv, where it's a newer art form. It's like there's a reason that it's existed for so long.
And I think, like you said, you're in the trenches and you're trying to make your career work, and I'm the same way. I mean, it's a daily task of figuring out what's next and what's on the horizon and finding the balance between the artistic side and the business side.
Where do you find yourself as far as balancing the business of acting with the art of it? Obviously, you have a lot of roles in that, with everything you do, but you have an agent and a manager.
[00:50:31] Speaker B: I have a manager and I have a commercial agent, but everything goes through my manager.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: We're now looking for an agent for my directing, so that's where I find myself.
[00:50:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: He still submits me for acting jobs.
And if it's theater and it's out of town, I almost always say no to that, to those appointments, because it's harder to focus on running Miles Square theater as an actor than it is as a director when I'm out of town.
So when you say, where do I find myself? There?
Yeah, that's where I am.
With audiobooks and audio projects in general, they just come to me, and then I always add my manager to it.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:33] Speaker B: I get a lot of hits on my website, and.
And so.
And even there, like, somebody offered me something recently to.
To play a part in an audio drama, and I said no, but it wasn't because of the salary that they were offering. It was because the salary was not correct. And it was also because I spend as much time on the things that pay less as I do with the things that pay more.
[00:52:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:16] Speaker B: So if I were to spend an entire day recording this thing that they wanted me to record, it's more than a day because I have to read it in preparation, and then I have to record it. And then invariably they'll say, hey, you mispronounced this word or the tone wasn't quite right on this. Can you do this again?
They're not giving me anything more for my time. And so, so. But saying no to that was hard because I'm still an actor. I'm still like, oh, you asked me to do something. Of course I want to do it. I really want to.
Please. Oh, you love me. Oh, that's great. I really want to do it.
I talked to my manager and he was like, don't do it.
You can't do it. You need to make room for the things that you know that you can do and that people will pay you to do.
And that's mostly because my voice is a thing.
It's the thing that people pay me the most for.
I have to be more choosy about that kind of stuff.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: How did you get involved? So what kind of voiceover stuff do you do?
[00:53:51] Speaker B: Mostly only audiobooks and audio drama. I don't do voiceovers.
[00:53:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: I wish I did voiceovers because they pay so well. Yeah.
The difference between the two is that with a voiceover is you spend like a half hour in a studio for a radio spot or a television commercial or something and make hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And for audiobooks. Audiobooks are like the theater of the voiceover world. You work really hard on them and you do get paid well, but you don't get residuals.
[00:54:34] Speaker A: And it's a lot more work.
[00:54:36] Speaker B: It's a lot.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: Instead of saying one line for a 15 2nd commercial and getting paid the same as an audiobook, you do an entire audiobook.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: That's exactly it. That's exactly it.
I do audio dramas too. I'm the voice of Kevin on Welcome to Nightmail. And right now there's an audio drama out called ask your father that I play a role. I play artificial intelligence in that.
So, yeah, I mean, I think I'm in the voiceover world. In the commercial voiceover world, you're not necessarily an actor. You're just a voice.
[00:55:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:22] Speaker B: With a personality. With a personality that a producer is looking for. And so with the work that I do with my voice, it's still acting. I still have to prepare and I still have to figure all of that out. So it scratches the acting itch for me and it's is plenty.
I don't have to leave home.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: Is there any, do you have any tips on getting into that kind of work? Because obviously a lot of actors during the pandemic kind of were more interested in it because that's the only kind of work that was sort of available for a while.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
The advice I can give is Amazon has a self publishing arm called ACX. So if you go to acX.com and create a profile there, they'll also show you exactly how to build your own studio at home.
But if you record samples of your voice and upload them there, then you can also submit yourself for work. And when you want to do an audiobook demo, it's basically you need to do like three minute samples. Hold on 1 second. Do you need me? Okay, three minute samples from books that you like, and you upload those.
There are people, if you are a member of that very old platform, Facebook, there are a couple of groups where you can join, and they also help you do put up, put together a studio, that kind of thing.
As for how to get a job, gosh, ACX is like, the self publishing thing is really the easiest way.
They'll pay you two different ways. There's a royalty share, or they'll pay you an hourly. And I would say for your first book, do a royalty share so that you can get an idea, but you are definitely going to get the experience. And then you will be able to say to yourself, oh, this is an experience that I like. This is an experience that I want to do.
The experience of doing audiobooks is not fun and games. It is often you're sitting in a studio, like this little room that I'm in right now for four to 5 hours.
And those are short days. That's a short day, I would say, to do royalty share it. See if you like that. And then once you've done the royalty share, then you have a sample of a book that you've already recorded. You can use that as one of your demos, and you slowly replace the little demos that you made on your own in your closet or whatnot, and then you just build from there.
But I will say also that, again, have a healthy relationship with failure, because we don't ever get the thing that we got on the first try. The thing that we're doing on the first try.
It's just not how it works. So you might be a friend of mine just started doing audiobooks, and I had been referring her to people who had employed me for 15 years.
And during the pandemic, she finally got in, and now is not a full time narrator, but she supplements her income pretty well with it. So 15 years.
15 years I had been trying to get her in.
[00:59:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: So it is definitely worth a shot.
[00:59:25] Speaker A: It's a long game, though, for sure.
[00:59:27] Speaker B: But it is a long game, just like a career. Every career is a long game.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: Sometimes I think know there's so many, like, everyone's about the side hustle now, necessarily for most people. I mean, my thing is, even Ryan Reynolds has companies. He's not just acting at all levels of the industry, people have multiple things that they do, and that's the norm. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But sometimes it can all feel like a hustle. Like you're auditioning for audiobooks, you're auditioning for regular theater or film or tv or whatever. And I've found that I need something not stable, but that I need something that I can hang my hat on, that I have more control over.
And I found that through writing.
Kind of what you said about when you decided to say you're a director, like, when you kind of owned that identity, I guess that was a part of you. That's kind of what I've recently found. And I know you're a writer as well, right?
[01:00:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
Such as it is. Yes.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: I try and tell people, too, and I got this advice from another actor a long time ago, but he said, you know, have something outside the industry that, that is of interest to you. Maybe it's a relationship that's. That's a foundation for you or your family or a hobby or an interest or something.
Like you said, don't just be all about the work. Be a person and enrich yourself as a person, because it all feeds into it.
Speaking of that, in your off stage life, I'm curious what your interests or hobies might be.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
Before I started doing audiobooks, I was an avid reader.
[01:01:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:01:25] Speaker B: So when I became an audiobook narrator and the work started to pop off, I stopped reading for pleasure because every time I picked up a book for pleasure, I had to put it down because I had to prep an audiobook.
And I sort of just really hoped and prayed that I would start doing books that were more interesting to me. And I'm finally at that place where all of the reading that I do for audiobooks is super interesting to me. So that part is great.
So that said, when I read for pleasure, I read articles about theater and no lie recipes.
I love reading recipes, especially the recipes that I'm never going to be able to tackle at home, really. So I'm a cook, and I love to cook, and it's one of my favorite things. I actually just started a project, a cooking project.
So bona appetite released.
There were, like, 56 either their favorite recipes of 2023. Hold on. I'm going to look at it. I'm going to look for it right now.
It's.
It's every recipe from the bone apotee 56 is, is what the link is. So the bone appetite 56, I have no idea why it's called the bone appetite 56.
And that's basically a recipe per week for a year.
[01:03:01] Speaker A: Right.
[01:03:02] Speaker B: And so I just decided that I was going to start doing that. Doing this list of recipes, like once.
[01:03:14] Speaker A: One a week kind of thing.
[01:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:17] Speaker A: That's cool.
[01:03:20] Speaker B: There's some of them I'll do, but won't eat.
There's things that I shouldn't have, like the giant panicata.
And as I look at this list, I think, oh, I've done this. I mean, I probably won't make the lamb quima tacos. I'll make them, but I won't make them with lamb.
[01:03:42] Speaker A: Right.
[01:03:44] Speaker B: I could. I like lamb anyhow.
[01:03:47] Speaker A: Tater tot tortilla espanola.
[01:03:50] Speaker B: Which one?
[01:03:51] Speaker A: Tater tot tortilla espanola.
[01:03:53] Speaker B: I mean, come on. Right?
[01:03:54] Speaker A: That sounds amazing, actually.
[01:03:56] Speaker B: Right. So I think I'm going to be doing a lot of these recipes. So I love to cook, and that is, it really kind of sustains me. It feels kind of both creative and also a challenge and not a thing that makes me, if I fail, it doesn't make me feel like I'm a terrible person.
But in general, I'm. I'm good with failure, but I. But I'm not.
I love food, so I feel like if I know what I put into it, I know that I'm not going to hate it, even if I would never serve it to anybody else.
So when I cook anything, it still feels like I accomplished something because I get to nourish myself.
[01:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you have to eat. So that's a good interest to have. I wish I shared that interest because that's one of the things I wish I would have learned earlier, how to cook at least, like, basic dishes.
[01:05:04] Speaker B: Wait, you're in your thirty s, right? Yeah. That's when I started cooking.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: Really? Is it?
[01:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
Okay, listen, people like to talk a lot of shit about Rachel Ray, but I was on an airplane. I was on a jetblue flight when I was, like, 32, 33 years old. And her show, 30 minutes meals came on, and I was watching. I was like, who is this cuckoo?
[01:05:29] Speaker A: On the plane.
[01:05:30] Speaker B: On the plane. And I was just watching her cook. And I found myself really loving watching her cook and loving hearing her talking about cooking. And the fact that she wasn't a chef was really interesting. To me. And then the next thing I knew, I bought, like, some pans that were branded with her name and her 30 minutes meal cookbooks. And I started cooking her simple 30 minutes meals for myself and watching her as I cooked. So that's how I learned how to cook.
The older I get, the more I want to try some complicated things.
And because I'm me, I don't have, like, the only go to meals that I have are eggs.
[01:06:19] Speaker A: Hey, a good egg. Can't argue with a good egg.
[01:06:25] Speaker B: An avocado toast, those are like, go to things for me. But generally speaking, I like to try new things when I'm cooking.
I make things like, oh, this is really great. I'm going to make this again.
[01:06:38] Speaker A: Do you meal prep or do you daily cook?
[01:06:41] Speaker B: Daily cook? Most of the time when I go out of town to do a show, like when I was in Portland doing the play that goes wrong the first two weeks, I knew what I was going to be cooking while I was there because I knew I was going to be extra busy. So I did meal prep at the beginning of each week to be ready to cook the stuff.
But that's not necessarily, that's not always mine.
The prep sometimes is a part of the unwinding of the day.
[01:07:22] Speaker A: Right.
[01:07:24] Speaker B: Grabbing the onions and the garlic and chopping that up and getting it ready to cook is often just part of getting it ready.
And often when I'm cooking, I read the recipe, like ten times before I even begin.
[01:07:43] Speaker A: Really?
That's so funny. Yeah. That is a little obsessive.
[01:07:49] Speaker B: I'll read it, like, ten times before I begin cooking because I'm thinking about, how can I?
It's funny. My husband always makes fun of me. He's like, are you following the recipe? Are you wildcatting?
Wildcatting.
And sometimes I'm following the recipe, but other times I think I can cook the chicken.
Yesterday, I did the first meal that I was going to try, and it's called the halal cart chicken salad.
And so the chicken is supposed to be a rotisserie chicken, and there are pita chips on the salad, and it's supposed to be like, bagged pita chips. But I was like, I'm going to bake my own pita chips. I'm going to figure that out. So I got pita bread and I cut it up and I made pita chips. And it's really good. They're really good chips. And then for the chicken, I didn't have a rotisserie chicken because I have chicken breasts. In the freezer. So I thawed it and I cooked the chicken. But I was thinking, like, what can I do in advance before I'm cooking, before I eat so I can get this done?
And that's often why I will read the recipe, like, ten times, because I want to think about managing my time. How am I going to do this? And then what am I going to. So I'll chop this first.
And I know myself well enough to know that I don't chop fast like the people on tv. So I know that it all has to be prepped before I put anything in the pan.
So I'm not going to chop as I go. You watch those people chopping and throwing them in the pan and chopping and throwing. It makes me too nervous.
[01:09:37] Speaker A: Is it misemplas or where you get everything ready at the beginning?
[01:09:41] Speaker B: That's exactly it, yes.
And so I do that.
I do that first.
[01:09:48] Speaker A: Isn't it stressful, though, to get, like, to make dishes and then to be like, I have to clean these dishes? And that's the part that gets me, I guess.
[01:09:58] Speaker B: I was raised washing dishes by hand. We had a dishwasher my whole life, and my father was like, you were washing dishes?
We never used it.
It was his way of, I guess, teaching us discipline. He was like, what if you get a job as a dishwasher somewhere? I was like, I'm not going to get a job as a dishwasher. I'm not going to do that.
[01:10:18] Speaker A: Maybe one of my first jobs was as a dishwasher at my college, so maybe that's why now I don't have one. Being in New York, not a lot of people have them.
[01:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I love washing dishes.
I hated it when I was a kid, but I really love washing dishes now.
So my husband is really good when he cooks. He's really good at washing things as he goes.
[01:10:45] Speaker A: Right.
[01:10:46] Speaker B: And I'm good at first, and then after a while, I'm like, I'll tackle it later.
And what I think I love most of all is, like, doing something, a one pot meal or like, a one sheet pan meal, so that when the pot is finally on the stove and it's cooking for the next 45 minutes, I can spend that time drinking wine and washing dishes. Right.
[01:11:18] Speaker A: Liners have changed my life because I have this liners for, like, an air fryer. So there's like, a parchment paper liner.
[01:11:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:11:27] Speaker A: And I love that. And then I have a liner for the.
What is it, the slow cooker.
[01:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:35] Speaker A: Which is great.
[01:11:36] Speaker B: Instant pot or the.
[01:11:38] Speaker A: Just a plain old slow cooker. Yeah, it works.
[01:11:43] Speaker B: I'm so happy for you.
[01:11:45] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:11:48] Speaker B: Last week, I made this really good lentil soup with sausage and spinach in my instant pot.
I don't use the instant pot for, like, pressure cooking or anything like that. I just use it as a slow cooker all the time. And this soup was ridiculous.
I mean, it was so good.
[01:12:16] Speaker A: Was it from the bona petite 56 or was.
[01:12:18] Speaker B: It was not, but I think it was a bona petite recipe.
Hold on, hold on. No, actually, it's a New York Times cooking recipe.
[01:12:30] Speaker A: I love the New York Times. I found a coconut curry recipe that's like. Or a coconut chickpea curry recipe that's. That I've made many times. And it's super good.
[01:12:40] Speaker B: Yes. So the emails that they send every day, I read. I read those emails.
[01:12:51] Speaker A: Read the emails from.
[01:12:52] Speaker B: I read them. I mean, I read them. I read them and I click the links on them.
Today's recipe of the day is a lasagna soup, which seems. It's like a deconstructed lasagna, which seems super interesting.
[01:13:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:13:10] Speaker B: There's also in the same email a miso mushroom barley soup, which we were both, which my husband and I were just looking at, thinking, hey, let's make.
[01:13:18] Speaker A: That miso is amazing.
[01:13:21] Speaker B: Food is amazing, James.
[01:13:23] Speaker A: Food is amazing.
I love the detour that we've taken. This is amazing.
[01:13:29] Speaker B: I'm most passionate about things that I'm not.
There's no pressure.
[01:13:34] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:13:35] Speaker B: Passionate about cooking meals.
Less passionate about my work. Work.
[01:13:40] Speaker A: But it does have to do with acting, because maybe I've lived in some not great apartments, and having to figure out how to cook is, like, especially if you're an early career actor, you probably want to save money, and cooking is the way to do that.
And I wish I was a better example of that. But we all got to eat, right?
[01:14:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You're a work in progress. It seems like you cook enough. You make the chickpea curry.
[01:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
I don't know why. Because it's, like, mostly from canned ingredients. It's canned pumpkin, canned chickpeas, canned. So it's, like, easy to have as a pantry. You can have basically all of it as a pantry, but it still tastes really fresh together.
But the one pot stuff I'm totally down with. That's amazing.
[01:14:31] Speaker B: And I think you should continue down that road.
[01:14:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:35] Speaker B: Don't be afraid of it. Allow that to happen, maybe.
[01:14:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:39] Speaker B: Okay. It's good.
[01:14:41] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[01:14:43] Speaker B: Although I have to say, my pita chips today. Really good. I made another batch because I ate them all.
[01:14:50] Speaker A: You make them fresh? How do you make fresh?
[01:14:52] Speaker B: Well, if you get pita bread at the grocery store and if you have kitchen shears, because they're pockets, basically, you could open the pita, and you can.
[01:15:08] Speaker A: Right.
[01:15:09] Speaker B: So you cut them around the edge. So you basically have two round pieces of pita. So I did that with two of the pita pockets, and then I put olive oil on. I made sure that they were covered with olive oil, then seaweed, salt, and I use zaatar seasoning on them.
So make sure that they're covered, both sides, with olive oil. And then you put the salt on there, and then you cut them into little triangles.
Spread them out evenly on a pan. But you cannot use parchment paper.
[01:15:52] Speaker A: Why not?
[01:15:53] Speaker B: I know. I'm so sorry.
[01:15:54] Speaker A: I told you about my liners.
[01:15:56] Speaker B: I know. I'm so sorry that I had to tell you this.
[01:15:58] Speaker A: Foil. Aluminum foil.
[01:16:00] Speaker B: No.
[01:16:00] Speaker A: What?
[01:16:01] Speaker B: No, I mean, maybe foil would be fine.
[01:16:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:16:05] Speaker B: But maybe foil would be fine, actually, because it's another metal surface.
So if you use aluminum foil, make sure it's super flat on the thing.
And I would also say it might be a good idea to heat the pan with the olive oil first.
Or not the olive oil. Heat the pan with the aluminum foil first, right out of the oven, and then put the pita chips all in one layer on the pan. Just because of the two layers, the heat has to go through the pan and the aluminum foil.
So you want them to be directly onto a metal surface.
[01:16:54] Speaker A: Right.
[01:16:55] Speaker B: And I think it would take too long to get the aluminum foil hot enough to make the chips as crisp as you need to be.
425 in the oven for seven minutes.
Take them out. It doesn't matter whether you think that they're crispy enough or not. Seven minutes is all they can bear. Do it. Because yesterday I did ten minutes, and they were a little too dark anyhow. Pull them out of the oven and just leave them on the pan. Let them cool on the pan, and they get nice and crispy.
Put them in Tupperware.
Eat the shit out of them.
[01:17:34] Speaker A: Chef Kevin. I love it.
[01:17:42] Speaker B: You had no idea? I had no idea.
[01:17:45] Speaker A: Rachel Ray, man, I gotta.
[01:17:47] Speaker B: I know.
[01:17:48] Speaker A: I didn't know she wasn't a chef. I thought she was. So her thing is, like, she's not a trained chef or something.
[01:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah. She's just a home cook. She just likes to cook.
[01:17:58] Speaker A: I love that.
[01:17:59] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure she's not a chef. I mean, I don't know, after a while, I felt she fell out of favor with me.
[01:18:07] Speaker A: Right.
[01:18:10] Speaker B: But I am super grateful that I saw her on that jetblue flight and thought, oh, I can do this. I can do this. I'm going to do this. And started cooking.
[01:18:24] Speaker A: I love that. Maybe this is my origin story for cooking.
[01:18:35] Speaker B: Sir.
[01:18:37] Speaker A: Kevin R. Free. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today, and thanks, everyone for listening.
Is there any place to connect with you that you prefer?
[01:18:49] Speaker B: You can go to my website, www.kevinrfree.com. If you want to audition at Milesquare theater for anything, go to my email address. There is Krfree at mile. Mile Square. S-Q-U-A-R-E theater. Theatre.
K r Freemasquin theater.
All of that.
All that.
[01:19:22] Speaker A: Perfect.
Nailed it.
[01:19:25] Speaker B: That was amazing. Nailed it. I think if you google me, you can find me, and I'm happy to respond. I'm happy for you to reach out and get in touch.
[01:19:39] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thanks so much. I learned a lot and I had a good time chatting.
[01:19:45] Speaker B: Great.
[01:19:45] Speaker A: Hope you did as well.
[01:19:48] Speaker B: I did.
[01:19:48] Speaker A: Awesome.
[01:19:49] Speaker B: All right, I will talk to.
