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[0:00] Teresa Attridge: Ever wonder what it takes to make a new musical sing? Our mission is to give you an inclusive look behind the scenes. We're interviewing the creatives who are changing musical theater one 11 o'clock number at a time. This is your Backstage Pass.

[0:43] Teresa Attridge: Hello, Barnacles! Hi, welcome! Hello, everyone! It's Teresa and Pauls and pals. And let me tell y'all, I am so excited today. This show, when it came across my laptop, I was like, okay, I'm really feeling it. This one's hitting a little close to home, let me tell you. And for a show called Miss America, the show does not miss and neither does Miss Emma Ashford. Everyone say hi, Emma.

[1:09] Emma Ashford: Hi.

[1:10] Teresa Attridge: Hi, everybody! Hi, Emma. Hey, how you feeling today?

[1:14] Emma Ashford: I'm good. I'm good. It's great to meet you both.

[1:17] Teresa Attridge: Oh my god, it's awesome to meet you too. Oh my gosh. Your piece was so moving and heartfelt.

[1:22] Emma Ashford: Oh god.

[1:23] Teresa Attridge: I knew the subject matter, but then it took me on a journey that I wasn't prepared to go on.

[1:28] Emma Ashford: Oh, yeah. I read this on a plane and I don't think I was ready to be feeling as many things as I was feeling, like squished in an airline seat.

[1:34] Teresa Attridge: Not in the middle seat.

[1:35] Emma Ashford: No, I know. Oh my god. Well, technically, I was not. I was in a solo row of a plane. But you know, I was squished anyway. My legs were squished. My heart was squished. My mind though, fully expanded.

[1:46] Teresa Attridge: You just got back from an international trip, right?

[1:48] Emma Ashford: I did. I did.

[1:49] Teresa Attridge: Barnacles, you have to forgive me. I am the product of a 30-hour layover in Sydney, Australia, coming from Singapore. I fly non-revenue, so I had to go Singapore, Sydney, Sydney, LA, LA, New York. And we got delayed in technically the flight in Sydney. We got partway over the Pacific Ocean, a medical emergency. A man had a heart attack on the plane and we turned around and had to go back to Sydney. And then we got stuck there. It was crazy. But you know, I feel like if anything, the feeling of being stuck and not able to make any choices and that everything was happening around me and to me without my consent really factored into this play. So I was truly, I too was feeling very trapped and like I had no say in where I was going to go. But we'll get into that parallel later.

[2:40] Pauls Macs: I think maybe we should introduce the barnacles to Miss Emma. Do we have a fun little bio, a fun little book report? So everyone knows exactly who we are talking to, the genius before us, as it were.

[2:50] Teresa Attridge: We absolutely will. I was inspired by your international travel, Teresa. I want to say a special shout out and thank you to all our international barnacles. So to all our listeners in the UK, that's our top market outside the United States. We're so pleased to have you joining us on Backstage Pass. I also want to say a special shout out and thank you to our listeners in Germany, Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, China, India, and Canada. How's when we eventually do the Backstage Pass world tour, just make sure I'm not booking the flights.

[3:25] Teresa Attridge: So let me read Emma's bio. Emma, thank you so much for being here. We're so pleased to have you. Emma Ashford is a songwriter, playwright, and performer who loves to tell uniquely American stories with her pen and piano. A 2024-2025 Dramatists Guild writing fellow and 2026 Woodward resident, Emma's musical Miss America, which was an O'Neill National Music Theatre Conference finalist in 2026, as well as a Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers' Group selection at Goodspeed in 2025, and also part of the University of Michigan New Works series in 25, had an industry reading this past fall featuring Ali Mazzi, Jordan Tyson, and more.

[4:02] Emma Ashford: Oh my god, Ali Mazzi is mother!

[4:03] Pauls Macs: She is.

[4:04] Emma Ashford: And was mother. She was actually Superintendent Woods.

[4:07] Pauls Macs: I mean, that was my thing is that Woods was mother, but the bad kind.

[4:10] Emma Ashford: The bad, no, it's mother in a different way. It's mother, but it's mother, you know what I mean?

[4:14] Pauls Macs: Oh, we'll get into it for sure. Putting the mother in smother, as it were. Emma's play, The Light Place, was recently named a 2025 Bay Area Playwrights Festival semi-finalist. Her songs from 1660 Vine, directed by New York Theatre Workshop's Patricia McGregor, and also available for licensing with MTI and streaming on Amazon Prime, have been recognized at IndieFest, the Vegas Movie Awards, and the Indie Filmmaker Awards. Emma's songs have been performed all over New York City, including at the Second City and the Musical Theatre Factory. She's a graduate of the University of Michigan's BFA Musical Theatre Program with a minor in musical theatre composition. She is also a proud member of DGF, ASCAP, AEA, Maestra, and SAG-AFTRA. Learn more at emmaashford.com. Did I say all those things right?

[4:59] Emma Ashford: Thanks for that last part too. You said it perfectly. Thank you.

[5:04] Teresa Attridge: Oh my gosh, I practiced. Like, I did practice that bio. I, uh, you know, I always try to bring a little zest to the bios, you know? It's an interesting, it's an interesting exercise. A few things I actually noticed about your bio. I don't usually do this. I don't usually pull things out of the bio, but Teresa, you said Go Blue for University of Michigan. And Emma, we usually talk about the development path a little bit later, but let's just go for it. So Teresa and I both watched a presentation of your show performed by the students at the University of Michigan. Can you just tell us about that experience? We'd love to know more.

[5:31] Emma Ashford: Yes. I was a student at the University of Michigan's Musical Theatre Program, and I graduated back in 2020. And about a year ago, Lynn Schenkel, who is the head of the New Works Program at University of Michigan, she reached out to me, and this was actually a piece that, uh, a very sort of infant form, not to, no pun intended, was a part of this, a part of like a, there was a college version of the show that I showed her my senior year of college, and then I kind of kept her abreast when I picked it back up again in 2022-23. So she asked me what the latest with the show was, and I shared it with her, and she let me know that they're doing this awesome New Works Program, which wasn't there when I was there, but basically it brings in composers and lyricists, and the university students get a chance to do like a two-week workshop, or sometimes a production of a new work, which is really fantastic for actors too, because, you know, so much of what you end up doing as an actor, especially when you first graduate and move to New York City, is a lot of new work, you know, based on my own experiences and everyone I know. There's a lot of exciting new work, and it's a very different muscle than doing, I don't know, Candide. I don't know why Candide came up in my brain, but Candide is excellent.

[6:48] Pauls Macs: Honestly, I was like, that is a musical theater kid reference, do you know what I mean? That was a deep cut.

[6:54] Emma Ashford: Yes, exactly. I feel very similarly in the sense that I think it's really important for students, especially, to be exposed to and do new work. I think it's really easy to try to be a type or be archetypal in the way that you try to practice roles, or doing it the way this person did, or being like, oh, well, I want to do a variation of this riff by this person. And when you have a new show, it really is you having to do the actual work of, like, dig through the script, have the confidence in your choices. I think it teaches actors to develop character more organically when there isn't sort of a reference laid in front of them. And it's really fascinating, I think, for writers as well to hear the interpretations that students have through just their text versus through these, like, layers and layers and layers of other performances. So I think it's really wonderful you're an alumni from Offered That. So shout out to Michigan, to all y'all who went there.

[7:44] Emma Ashford: Yes, no, it's a wonderful, yeah. Before we continue talking about it, I want to discuss the subject matter and read the synopsis of the show, because I think that will be important for this conversation.

[7:52] Pauls Macs: Absolutely.

[7:53] Emma Ashford: Miss America, a dystopian musical tragicomedy, tells the story of Eve, a driven, idealistic, and accidentally pregnant Indiana 17-year-old on the eve of her freshman year at college. After a failed illegal abortion attempt, Eve ends up at the New Life Center, a pilot prison created by the McGowan administration, which has codified abortion as murder. Over the next eight months, Eve, alongside her fellow inmates, must reckon with parenthood, purpose, and the gendered expectations that confine all of us. With comedy, heart, and a sweeping score of pop, rock, and pastiche, this uniquely American coming-of-age musical nods to hits such as Orange is the New Black and The Handmaid's Tale as it confronts what the reproductive laws of today could mean for us tomorrow.

[8:36] Teresa Attridge: And so the reason I want to read that synopsis was it struck me that you were working with students who were around the ages of your characters. It's just a different feeling, a different conversation, I think, when you are working with people who are actually of the age of your characters or around that age. What a great opportunity that University of Michigan afforded you, but what did you learn? What was that relationship like as you were working with these students?

[8:55] Emma Ashford: Yeah, you know, I'm glad you're asking about this because that's what I was really excited about, to go back and be in conversation with the students who, at the end of the day, they had a different experience of their teenage years than I did in many ways, but perhaps most importantly with this show that Roe v. Wade was overturned when they were in high school. And, you know, depending on where they grew up, they had vastly different experiences. And so we actually discussed that. We were able to have some conversations about, like, what was sex ed like in your school, if you had it at all? What was your experience navigating these types of things? And, you know, by and large, perhaps a surprise to no one, but there's not as much support education across the board than I think any of us would like.

And I think that it was also just maybe a lot more natural to them than I was expecting. They're kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Like, I don't know, in a way that's sort of disarming, but also it was affirming in that they were very excited about the show because obviously it is not real life, but there are certain things that do feel very true and felt true to them. That was exciting to work with them on.

[10:05] Emma Ashford: Yeah, and they just brought such amazing energy to the show. And by and large, you know, most of the characters are that age or a little bit older. So it really did lend itself well. Yeah, I really appreciated working with them.

[10:15] Pauls Macs: Absolutely. Now I have to ask, where did this musical sort of begin for you? Like, for lack of a better word, what was the conception point of this show? What made you decide you wanted to write it?

[10:21] Emma Ashford: It was actually I had, I had kind of a nightmare about the universe of the show. I had a pregnancy scare of my own in college, you know, without getting too graphic or crazy. I just had this, I had this dream where I was watching my belly balloon bigger and bigger and bigger kind of in this cartoonish way. I was handcuffed and unable to like do anything about it. Basically, you know, you're just sort of watching something take over your body.

[10:55] Pauls Macs: Yeah.

[10:56] Emma Ashford: And then I woke up the next day, and I kind of had the universe of the show in my mind. And I, and there were also a lot of them at that time, like heartbeat bills going around different state legislatures and such. And you know, I was in the Midwest, I was just curious, you know, if the folks that are putting these forward, you know, if they really got there, what exactly they wanted? What would that society look like? And how would that change things? And what would the stories of those people be? And so that's what made me want to write the show.

[11:24] Pauls Macs: Yeah, I know that at least from my own experience, and his experiences with my friends, we've all kind of had a version of the like scary pregnancy dream, right? Or a scare of our own, right? Where it really makes you reckon with the fact that it's like your body as a vessel versus your body as like your vessel, right? And the idea of like, how much of it are you in control of and who, if anything, is in control of what you get to do with it? One of the things I really appreciated about this script was that you did have a lot of varied perspectives with the inmates that were in the facility. I'm so curious about the facility itself, when we talk about the center, right?

[12:03] Emma Ashford: Yeah. Was there any particular either piece of legislation or something from literature, like you mentioned, The Handmaid's Tale, anything that sort of gave, I keep using these metaphors, and I like gave birth to the idea.

[12:12] Emma Ashford: No, I know, they're inherent.

[12:18] Pauls Macs: Yeah, it's hard to avoid that language.

[12:19] Emma Ashford: Absolutely. To sort of what the actual facility they're held in.

[13:39] Emma Ashford: That is being implemented today with detention centers and ICE and, you know, stripping people of their ability to move freely. So I think that is kind of what inspired it. Yeah, alongside just this space where they could really control and change the trajectory of these people into more what they think is the ideal American woman. And they could be in control of that outcome. One thing that I really resonated with that you said is this idea of if people who voted to make abortion illegal really got what they wanted, what would that society look like? Because the thing that I'm always so struck by is that the people who vote to make abortion illegal also vote against the things that would help prevent abortion.

They vote against sex education. They vote against universal child care. So it's like there's a disconnect, you know, about like what they're actually doing when they make their votes happen. And so that's why I was also struck by what you said about the Michigan students who are like, oh, yeah, it's not true, but it's true. That kind of like disconnect between, well, I'm going to do this thing in government, but I'm not going to be actually considering the consequences of my actions. This whole idea of sending women to prison, I connected that with how mother mortality rates are increasing. Did they not think that was going to happen? To me, the idea of prison is like, it's not true yet, but the fear is like I can see that someday even becoming a reality.

[15:04] Teresa Attridge: I think you're right, actually. And I just wanted to add that there is a robust history of criminalizing pregnant people in the United States, point blank period. Like even today, organizations like Pregnancy Justice help fight cases pro bono for women who say, just as an example, fall down a flight of stairs and miscarry and then are charged with manslaughter or murder under this notion of fetal rights and feticide. Certainly all of these anti-abortion bans that don't permit life-saving intervention when wanted pregnancies head south also make clear this hierarchy of lives. But as you said, Pauls, the same people that advocate for fetal rights aren't interested in the policy that supports those same lives after birth or, you know, with subsidized healthcare, childcare. So I was really interested in all these contradictions and I wanted to explore them.

[16:03] Emma Ashford: Yeah. And I think when we talk about making something illegal, we also need to keep in mind we're making it illegal for the masses, but it is something that people will always have access to either because they are at like a higher level and can afford to leave the country, can afford to cover it up, or people who are having to do it themselves and put themselves in like extreme danger to try to handle a situation themselves. You know, that whole saying is that you can never get rid of abortion. You can only get rid of safe abortion.

[16:27] Teresa Attridge: Correct. So always an important thing to bring up. And let me just say making it a musical, a pop rock musical, no less. I mean, it's a tragic comedy as you described. Again, like obviously we're all here because we love musicals, but one of the powerful things about this show I think is it's a medium people wouldn't necessarily expect, but I think it really packs a punch that this is a story that you are telling in this format. As someone who is a writer who works in various mediums, it sounds like as well, what made this a musical versus like a concept album versus a play versus, you know, just something you were trying to noodle out of your own mind? When did it become a musical?

[17:05] Emma Ashford: That is a great question. Ooh, well, I have definitely been raised in the traditional musical theater world of a character sings when words alone aren't enough. I think that when I first thought of the world of the show, it sort of immediately felt like that. You know, it's so it's extreme and absurd and kind of ridiculous and over the top and tragic and horrible. And also there's, you know, beauty that they find and joy that they find amidst all that. And yes, that just felt, that felt musical to me. And I think a lot of the ideas of the characters and the actions of the show just sort of came, came to me musically as musical numbers. Miss America wasn't the first song I wrote, but it was, it was one of the first songs that I wrote in the show and kind of was like the guiding thesis or principle of like, you know, how can, how can these characters find autonomy and power in this situation and like, you know, you know, find their own joy and like ability to work through being put in this position, like despite having so little control, it's like, where do we still find that?

Because at the end of the day, we're all, we're all in a, in a certain system and we only have quote unquote so much power and it's so, so like, how do you, how do you make the most of that moment and still find joy?

[18:25] Emma Ashford: Speaking of joy, that first number, a little bundle of joy when we're talking about like establishing the world and where we're meeting all of these characters, Raven, Soraya, Helen, Charlie, Eve, right. I mean, really everyone, but our sort of our main pillars of storytelling and seeing them all in their very different world of how they're getting there and what leads them to the center. I think there's something so powerful about the fact that it does feel like these are all people we know, or at least archetypes of people we know. I think that no matter who you are or where you were raised or the politics around you that you are dealing with, there is someone that we all immediately attach to, which I think is just very, very cool. The way that you set that up.

[19:08] Teresa Attridge: Absolutely. Emma, you're so spot on because that is such an appropriate use of the musical theater form that you were just talking about because in this opening number, we meet a lot of the different inmates and come to learn their circumstances and we get so much information about them and identify with them so, so quickly. So we say in this show that often the opening numbers are so hard to write, but I was so impressed by how much I learned and how affected I was by that opening number. Then also amongst all the inmates, there's kind of a main character that we follow, which is Eve. Emma, would you please set up Not Today for us?

[19:40] Emma Ashford: Yes. So along with meeting these other inmates, you also meet Eve, a 17 year old living in Indiana who suspects that she might be pregnant, you learn in the opening number, and it's the summer before she's heading off to her dream college to study political science, Georgetown. And she sees this world around her and wants to resist and has already started being politically active despite her mother's misgivings. And so in this next scene, on the way home from her job, she procures a pregnancy test. When she gets home, she ends up getting in a fight with her mother who feels this path makes her a target and says, you know, I love you and I want you to be safe. And going against the grain and trying to fight with people in power isn't going to make you safe.

Her mother is actually newly religious since the death of Eve's father a few years back. And she's found in that community at her church, you know, a lot of a lot of safety and love, but also their point of view about certain topics has created this deeper fracture between her and her daughter. And amidst this fight, her mom needs to leave for a date. You sort of learn that Eve's mother feels that being with a man is another pragmatic and important point of security for a woman. And in this world, she isn't wrong. But this frustrates Eve, obviously, because she knows her mom actually doesn't even really like this guy that she's going on this date with. All of this ends up boiling over when Eve asks her mother to sign a parental travel consent form, which is a new way that the government is maintaining control over young people who can get pregnant by monitoring their interstate travel. Eve's mom says she doesn't feel safe signing it. Then she leaves for her date. And so alone and facing this impending pregnancy test, this is what Eve sings.

[21:27] Teresa Attridge: Amazing. And who is performing this song?

[21:29] Emma Ashford: This one is me. This one is me. You know, I thought so. This happens all the time on the show. They won't all be me. You sound great.

[21:36] Teresa Attridge: Great. Yes, but this one is me.

[21:41] Emma Ashford: Yeah, with guitar by Clayton Delp.

[21:42] Teresa Attridge: Amazing. Well, here is Not Today performed by Emma Ashford.

[21:56] ♪ Musical number: "Not Today" — performed by Emma Ashford ♪

[25:18] Emma Ashford: To me, to characters through song. I feel like this is just the perfect meeting. You get that sense of determination that she's not gonna live her mother's life. She really wants to get out there. She really wants to make a difference in the world, which we'll continue talking about this. But I think that's also what sets the tragedy of this piece up so well is you meet this powerful, determined young woman and then you see what happens to her as she goes to the New Life Center. I also love that this song is, and I want and it's an I won't. Right? Like, this is a character who we're learning. You should trademark that. It's an I want and it's an I won't. And I think starting a character with a song that not only tells us who they are and what they want, but very clearly where they stand in like this entire issue and like the things we what we learn in this song and from Eve from the very beginning is that Eve is not someone who believes that they're going to compromise or that they need to give up what they want and that they are standing in the face of what's going on and actively saying, no, I will not.

This will not be my life. These will not be my choices. I will not be this person because this is what I will do. And I think that it's not only is it just a great song and the vocals, hello, but I think that when you have a show that is as political and as strong as this, having a character who is not only telling us about their, again, what they want, but sort of like where they are in that specific point in time and contextualizing their relationship to that. I think it's really well done. It's very smart. It's very subtle because it's not a punch in your face. Like I believe that women should have a choice. Like we're not like getting into that. And I just think it feels very natural and it feels very organic, but there is such a clear sense of sort of like the societal push on Eve and Eve's resistance to that, that I think is very, very powerful and very well done in this song.

And for a 17-year-old, right? For a 17-year-old who's like, and you're also establishing her relationship with her mother, which will be very important throughout the course of the show. But that was so well said, Teresa, to say like, you know, it's not just I want in a political piece like this to say it's where I stand. It's an I stand song.

[27:30] Teresa Attridge: Yeah, thank you. And I, the strongheadedness of at least my 17-year-old self, sometimes I'm like, I want to get her back, you know? So I think there's also a beauty and a power in, obviously there's some naivete and idealism of that time in people's lives, but there's also this, yeah, this beautiful like sense of self that is also often there. And that's what I really wanted to come to the front with this character. I remember specifically, because I went to an all girls Catholic high school. So you can imagine the sex ed was not great. But I have a really distinct memory of being 14 in my freshman religion class. Our teacher was talking to us about abstinence, but really they were like, it was the fear mongering way of talking about abstinence.

And my teacher was like, you know, girls, I won't do the voice, but I hated this teacher's voice. And if you're listening, which I know you're not, I hate your voice. She was like, you know, girls, I want you to picture that every sexual thing you've ever done is going to get printed on a billboard and that your parents and your friends and everyone in your community is going to look at that billboard and they're going to know what you've done. And if you knew that that were the case, would you still be doing it? Is that still what you would do? And I raised my hand and she like sighed because she knew what was coming. She was like, yes, Teresa. I was like, I don't know. I think that reeks of pedophilia really, because why do you want to know the sexual activity of a child?

First of all, second of all, I don't believe anybody looking at that has any vested interest in my wellbeing. So I really couldn't care less. And third, what about people who have been like assaulted? Are you putting that to, are we just exposing everybody's personal business? And then I got kicked out of class. I do. I had like, I have this really distinct memory of being so furious and like, I had never kissed a boy. I had like never done anything, but I could like see the shame start to like settle in some of my classmates. And I was like, not today. So I think it's like, it's so hard. I think, cause when you're a teenager, there are people who are not confident or strong enough to like stand in opposition to that.

I love that Eve is. Eve would have been like, fuck that billboard, right? Like it's, Eve is so on the level of just like, there's nothing more powerful than a teenage girl. I've said it on the pod before and I'll say it again.

[29:40] Emma Ashford: Yes. It sounds like you two would be, you'd be two peas in a pod.

[29:43] Teresa Attridge: Oh, Eve is my best friend. I think.

[29:45] Emma Ashford: That's amazing. That's amazing. We're together.

[29:48] Teresa Attridge: And so I'll be the avatar for the listener here. So Eve finds out her pregnancy test is positive. So she tells her boyfriend, Sam and tells him she wants to cross the border into Canada and get an abortion there. But he comes up with an alternative plan. In the world of the show, abortion is illegal in all cases, except if the life of the mother is in immediate danger.

[30:09] Emma Ashford: Yes.

[30:10] Teresa Attridge: Sam's older brother, Michael is a family medicine doctor and Sam knows he has access to abortion pills. So he says they'll go to him and sign whatever necessary paperwork they need to say she has a life-threatening condition. But when they get there, his brother reminds them that as a minor, Eve also needs the parent consent form to get an abortion. So Eve, suspecting her mother would never agree to this, forges her mother's signature. And once they leave, Michael fearing for his own consequences, Michael, the doctor, such as him losing his license or even facing prison time for providing his illegal abortion or whatever that might be. He gets cold feet and ultimately alerts the authorities and reports the abortion attempt.

[30:48] Emma Ashford: That again is true, but not true. There are so many doctors who face legal repercussions for providing abortions. That's not untrue. That's absolutely true. I saw that moment there so clearly and it was so devastating. Eve is then taken to the New Life Center, which is essentially a prison. And there we meet the inmates. And you were just saying, Teresa, that there are people who don't have the strength of Eve. And I think what's great is Emma, you've populated the world with these inmates. And in fact, Eve has a classmate named Helen, who does not want to stand up for herself, who just wants to get through it. Says, hey, you can stand up for yourself, but I'm just going to fly into the radar and get through my sentence.

And so we see that conflict that Teresa was just talking about in the show. And it feels so truthful. There's also, you know, the fact that Helen has seen without giving too much away, the consequences of what has happened to other inmates who have caused a scene, spoken up.

[31:42] Emma Ashford: Mm hmm. The show, I think, does a really interesting job of sort of like showing the harsh reality of it without needing to necessarily indulge in the brutality of it. I think that alongside the fact that like women are often stripped of their agency, we are also like women and femmes and people with uteruses as well, right? Because Charlie is there, who's a character I would love to get into more later as well. But the idea of the way that the exploitation of the pain of a female body or a female presenting body or the idea of like we indulge in the torture of it as an object a lot in media, you think of like Game of Thrones, you think of like Euphoria, even all these shows where it's like the innate exploitation of it and the violence against it for profit, while at the same time being stripped of your ability to even have a say in that.

And I think that it's nice to have gone through the show and know the reality of it without being subjected to it for shock value, you know, which is something that I think is a hard line to walk, especially in a show like this. So yeah, I was very sensitive to that, because this world, and our world tends to fetishize women experiencing pain and the female body experiencing pain. We love a martyred woman. And though there is this constant threat of violence at the New Life Center, that is not all of their experience nor who they are. So I've tried to be cognizant of how much trauma is necessary to portray to get the gravity of the situation.

[33:18] Teresa Attridge: Emma, I would love it if you could talk to us about the world you've created the New Life Center, the prison itself, the people who populate it, you've created such rich characters, the prison guard, or the person who's running the New Life Center, as well as the inmates. Once Eve gets there, we see evidence of physical harm on their bodies. We see that their heads have been shaved as forms of punishment. Discussing how you created that world and the characters within it, I'd love to know more.

[33:44] Emma Ashford: Yes, everyone is at the New Life Center, presumably because they attempted an abortion, and they were caught in one way or another. And you see that at the beginning of the piece, these different people, and you are not sure what brings them all together until you see them in the New Life Center space. The New Life Center is touted as a rehabilitative facility for this administration. They say, we're going to take these sort of wayward women and rehabilitate them, and at the end of their eight months or seven months where they didn't abort their child, they're going to emerge a new woman, a mother, and they're going to be so much happier, and the world will be better for it, and they will be better for it, and they will be able to walk free.

It's kind of their sentence is to carry out their pregnancy in this place, and they kind of don't really want it to look like a prison to the outside world, but it is essentially a prison. So yeah, we have Soraya, who is a Mormon woman who is there and seemingly appears to be quite excited about her pregnancy actually, which is a bit confusing to Eve when she arrives there. There is Helen, who is her high school classmate, who is also like a former teen pageant queen, very sort of type A people pleaser. There's Raven, who is in her mid-30s, and she is already a mom. She is a little bit kind of like, I'm going to do what I got to do to survive in here and keep my head down. And then there is Charlie, who is a trans man at the facility, who also had an unexpected pregnancy with his partner and tried to get an abortion, and it didn't work out.

I was trying to be cognizant of the fact that often, much like women's pain is displayed and kind of fetishized, often also trans people are represented in the same way and always in a struggle. And obviously, this world is even more unkind to someone who is a trans person. It was important for me to maintain Charlie's joy and sense of humor. He's actually kind of like one of the more strong members of the group and one of the inmates that has a more specific relationship with one of the guards, Officer Peck, who is a cis male guard at the facility. He's kind of this bumbling man. His whole family has kind of been in corrections, and he kind of just did what his dad did and really just desperately wants to be liked and is strangely always kind of trying to get the approval of these inmates at the same time, recognizing that he does have power over them, but he is ultimately not popular with any of these people and sees that Charlie is kind of represents a lot of the masculine characteristics that he really wishes he had.

And so they kind of are these foils to one another where he feels very almost frustrated by Charlie's charm and ease with women and confidence and all these things that he wants and also thinks that he should have automatically anyway without giving too much more away. That sort of guides their relationship in a way.

[36:44] Teresa Attridge: The relationship between Officer Peck and Charlie was one of, I think, the most fascinating things for me to read in the script. Specifically, I think Peck represents a really interesting perspective. Peck represents just a really interesting subsect of people who are co-victims of a situation, but having a skosh more power means that you want to exert that power to make it feel like you have power.

[37:05] Emma Ashford: Exactly, exactly. And so watching Officer Peck navigate that through the show and ultimately, you know, again, without giving too much away, understand that sort of position that he is in over the course of the show was very, very fascinating. So there's one other character that I'd really love to focus on, which is Superintendent Woods. And Superintendent Woods sings a really fantastic song called Choices. I mean, that's what's so boo. I mean, it's so boo, right? Boo to Woods, but the song is a banger. But it's also kind of fabulous. So can you please set up? Well, tell us about this character and then set up the song Choices. So Superintendent Woods is the head of the New Life Center, and she is working hand in hand with President McGowan to make this vision a reality.

[37:58] Emma Ashford: She is the face of it, she's the public face of it, and it's also kind of her brainchild. In my mind, she sort of is a cross between Phyllis Schlafly and Christy Noem. Oh my gosh, my brother. You're definitely Christy Noem vibes. I was like, I felt my skin both crawl and rip itself to pieces. Yes, precisely. That's an amazing review. Um, yeah, and so Superintendent Woods, she's sort of teaching them about this new way of how they should view themselves as women. But alongside that, you know, she really believes what she's selling, for the most part. And you know, it certainly at least at the start of the show. She has also lived her life by these new metrics. And when Eve first enters the prison, she's sort of astounded by the positivity she's met with all these people around her who are saying they're so excited to be mothers. And she's sort of like, well, aren't we all here because we didn't want to be. And this is the song that Superintendent Woods sings to her to reorient her perspective.

[39:02] Pauls Macs: Absolutely. And who is performing this song?

[39:04] Emma Ashford: This is the very talented Bella Coppola. Icon. We have oh my gosh, we have so many people have Leanne Antonio, Kelly Bellarmino, Nina White, Katrina Martala, myself and Gian Perez. I think in this circumstance, would it be appropriate to say here's "Choices" performed by Bella Coppola?

[39:22] Emma Ashford: And the company of Miss America. Totally. Yeah. All right. Here's "Choices" performed by Bella Coppola and the company of Miss America.

[39:31] ♪ Musical number: "Choices" — performed by Bella Coppola and the Company of Miss America ♪

[45:09] Emma Ashford: This song is really catchy and bright and poppy. And the thing is, it's also horrifying because of what she's saying. Horrifying. I was, like, horrified by how much I was enjoying the song. You know, I think, if I may, the thing that she seems to represent is the woman who's basically decided to play by the boys' rules to get ahead.

[45:28] Pauls Macs: Yes.

[45:29] Emma Ashford: Oh my God. The patriarchal bargain.

[45:31] Pauls Macs: Exactly. Patriarchal bargain. I read lyrics on the show sometimes. But I knew even then that I had to get through these men to be the queen that I was meant to be. So I worked within their confines towards a job where I'd rejoice. Working through the confines to get what she wants. But she's fully sold out. She's made that bargain, as you said.

[45:49] Pauls Macs: Yeah.

[45:50] Emma Ashford: Not to get too feminist lit on the podcast.

[45:53] Pauls Macs: No, please.

[45:54] Emma Ashford: Go for it. I am begging. But yeah, no, I mean, I've always been interested in the different ways that people align themselves with power. And also, like, I have empathy for the fact that most of us are not in control of all the crap, I don't know if we're cursing on here, that goes down in the world.

[46:11] Pauls Macs: You can fucking swear.

[46:13] Emma Ashford: Okay. You can fucking swear. Fucking can swear. Well, then all the shit that goes down in the world. And yeah, I wanted to show, you know, a lot of different women making different choices in that regard. So, you know, we have Woods and also Eve's mother. I hope also in a lens that you can kind of see how they got there. And ultimately, you know, they might find it unfulfilling for themselves. But, you know, you understand that sometimes you do have limited choices. And people don't always make the right choices. You know, we're only human. And who's to say what's right anyway. But yeah. And so I think I hope that you would groove along with this song. And then.

[46:50] Pauls Macs: I mean, that's what propaganda is, baby. You know what I mean? Like it's the idea of like, how long are you bopping along before you realize you sort of danced yourself into your own prison cell? You know what I mean? The thing that people underestimate about stuff like propaganda is that it's appealing. That's the goal. Like it appeals to a base nature in somebody. So making the song poppy, boppy, like that stylistically makes so much sense for what it is she's trying to do.

[47:18] Emma Ashford: And you also bring up Eve's mom, Diane. We start out knowing like really early because Eve is like, yeah, you know, ever since dad died and you got like hyper religious. I don't want to go to church with you. Like we see where that is coming from immediately. I think whenever someone has experienced like a personal grief or tragedy and you look for community or you look for an answer or you look for, you know, something to fill like the void or give you some sense of peace. It would make sense that Eve's mother would lean super hard into this movement, into religion, into something where it's like, hey, if you play by these rules, like it's going to be okay. The world is going to be fine because people want a fantasy to buy into.

[47:58] Pauls Macs: Absolutely.

[47:59] Emma Ashford: Yeah. I do. Yeah, exactly. It's very alluring, right? No, we all. I mean, you know. Please. I would say about Woods is, you know, the other thing she's talking about is modesty, which is something that is also preached in the church and, you know, telling these girls to be modest. So to me, she also represented the viewpoint for all those who believe that at the end of the day, the women who are molested or sexually assaulted, it's ultimately their fault because they dressed in a certain way. They did something to invite the attention. Like she said, oh, you could have worn a longer skirt. And that's just, again, just feels so, so wrong and so icky.

[48:35] Pauls Macs: We lean on this like false idea of women's modesty being the thing that dictates men's morality a lot. Like it's very, it's very twisted in that even if there were a world in which this rule applied, it would only be because the other side of it had to also apply. That it's like if men weren't going to assault people. And I mean, there is a character who experiences assault. And it didn't matter if, you know, they were doing all the right things. If they were like living this very, you know, sort of idyllic version of the life that they wanted. It can happen to anyone just in the way that a pregnancy can happen to anyone capable of getting pregnant.

[49:15] Emma Ashford: Right. And the idea that modesty culture doesn't ultimately do anything really, except for create an onus to keep blaming victims. Right. It doesn't serve anyone but a perpetrator. So yeah, making women and people with uteruses the sort of moral center and guardians of our world is ultimately, I would imagine, if I weren't one of those people, kind of embarrassing for me. It's like you're saying I have no autonomy to not rape. Like, you know, it's really like.

[49:47] Pauls Macs: I have no control over my actions.

[49:49] Emma Ashford: Like that should feel a little bit embarrassing, right?

[49:51] Pauls Macs: Yeah. You're like, I can't be in government because of my hormones, but you can't control your urges and you can send a nuke to another country. It's like, where? Like, this false. Like, which is it?

[50:03] Pauls Macs: Which is it, babe?

[50:05] Pauls Macs: Thanks for joining us on New York Theater Barn's Backstage Pass, hosted by Teresa Attridge and Pauls Macs. Join us next time as we continue our conversation with Emma Ashford about her new musical Miss America.