This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Martín Acuña: Hi, everyone. I am Martín Acuña, and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:18] Martín Acuña: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Backstage Talk. Today's guest is an exuberant, multi-hyphenate performing artist, writer, and body positivity activist on the rise.

[0:25] Martín Acuña: In 2019, Stephanie Lexis founded Broadway Body Positivity Project, an initiative to make all theater spaces equitable for actors of all body types and abilities. This is a very close to my heart topic, and I've been super excited for this conversation. So, Stephanie, welcome to Backstage Talk. I am honored to have you.

[0:58] Stephanie Lexis: Oh, really? Oh, that's so sweet. I'm, like, so excited to be here right now.

[1:04] Martín Acuña: Okay, let's go to the beginning of everything. What made you choose the thespian path in life?

[1:12] Stephanie Lexis: Okay, so I think there were two memories. One was when I was about five or six, and my mother took me to a dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker at the American Ballet Theater in New York City. And, you know, I knew how The Nutcracker would go. But in the dress rehearsal, everyone just, you know, they were doing their performance, and then they stopped. And everyone broke character. And then I saw, like, the girl playing Clara talking to the conductor or the director, and my mind was blown. I was like, I was like, what? You mean, it's not just magic they're doing? Like, there's a whole process to this? And it kept stopping, going, stopping, going. And I was just, like, mesmerized by that. No, knowing that they were just like, human people, like me, you know, who had to keep trying and learning to make this spectacle.

That definitely, that's, I think that's where I got, like, the bug, as they say, or that's where I was bit by the bug. I forgot what the expression is. Another experience was when I was around the same age, and I went to a children's museum. And this girl was having a birthday party with her friends. And as part of her birthday package, they got to act out Cinderella. So obviously, the birthday girl got to be the princess. Her friends got to be the evil stepsisters and the evil stepmom. And so they needed someone to play the Prince Charming. And I was like, oh, darn, I wanted to play, you know, one of those roles. And the person running the program was like, any takers? Anyone want to play the prince?

Anyone? Anyone? And I just thought, you know what, I'm just gonna go for it. I raised my hand, knowing that, you know, I probably wouldn't play a role like that. But then I realized, when I was doing it, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm using my imagination. And I could play people who are different than me and have a good time doing it. And so that I think those two moments solidified that, that I'm creating magic through art was my path.

[3:18] Martín Acuña: I love it. I love it. And how powerful it was to start using your imagination at such a young age. And knowing that, as you just said, you could play different characters without having to be the typical role, or the typical performer for those characters. I love that. I love that. And I feel like that's the joy of being a child is that we rely so heavily on our imagination. And we're not afraid to use it. We don't question it. You know, that's why, you know, when you look at kids play, you know, it's, it's kind of like, you know, how like an improv, the principle is yes, and you never deny what the other person is saying. It's kind of like that, when kids are playing, if a kid says, Oh, look, there's a purple dinosaur, the other kid is gonna say, No, there's not a purple dinosaur, they're gonna either like be scared of the purple dinosaur or give the dinosaur a hug.

You know, so so it's, I think, you know, and I, you know, when I think about why I've created Broadway Bopo, I realized, I think a lot of adults have lost their imagination, which is a shame, because we're in an industry where we should really be using it.

[4:24] Stephanie Lexis: Yeah, I agree. So let's dive a little bit into Broadway Bopo. This is an initiative you started for an equitable space for actors of all body types. Tell me a little bit about the journey you had in musical theater that led you to found Broadway Bopo.

[4:46] Stephanie Lexis: Yeah, so, you know, I grew up, you know, like every other kid, theater kid, I did like, you know, the school plays. And when I was around 13, I realized that not only could I could sing, but I could sing, you know, especially like with a pretty operatic voice. And so then I realized I really could do musical theater, especially like an ingenue type of role, especially like Golden Age. So like, Carousel, My Fair Lady, that kind of stuff. And I, you know, my instructors and my peers, everyone thought I was gonna head down that path. And, you know, I started working with theater companies and opera companies, there was a point where I thought I was gonna become an opera singer. Like, it was weird.

When I was 14, I had music teachers asking me if they could recommend me for Juilliard. It was weird, just too much too young. But um, no, I decided I wanted to be on the musical theater path. And, but at the same time, I was struggling with an eating disorder. I've had binge eating disorder since I was 11 years old. And with the eating disorder, you know, my weight would kind of was kind of like a rollercoaster because I'd go through periods of binges. I, you know, naturally, I was eating probably like three times the amount I was supposed to because, you know, so and I noticed that, you know, I wasn't getting certain opportunities when I was on, I guess, the higher end of the weight spectrum.

And I noticed I was getting praised by acting teachers and other people whenever I was losing weight, although usually when I was losing weight, because I was too depressed to eat. I should have given a trigger warning for this part. So trigger warning, weight loss, I talk eating disorder. And yeah, I noticed that, that I wasn't getting the opportunities that I felt that I deserved. I specifically remember something in high school, I was in the running to play Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. And there was three girls in the running and the girl who got, I heard from my best friend that the girl who got the part said, and I know he was telling the truth when he said this, because she was not the nicest person.

But the girl who got the part said that the third girl wouldn't get it because of her skin color, and that I wouldn't get it because I was fat. And so and that kind of that kind of stuff really stuck with me. And unfortunately, I hated to see that was also happening in the professional world. You know, I remember being in a production with this one theater company in New Jersey, because that's where I'm from. And I think one of the ingenues, one of the lead ladies was told to lose 20 pounds by the director. So I just noticed that these instances kept happening more and more often, the older I was getting, I was in this intensive that was designed to help you succeed on Broadway. And the head of the program, you know, said I could never play a Disney Princess kind of character because I'm not this.

And when I say I'm not this, she literally stuck up her pinky. And that I mean, that again, I remember going to like the smoothie shop next door and getting a belly buster shake, because I realized that the industry prizes, you know, a thin body type. Yeah. And then also when I went to college, you know, I was cut from the musical theater program after three semesters, mostly because my technique was going nowhere, my mental health was a mess. And so I, I agree with them on cutting me for that reason. But then they also said they did not know how they were going to cast me in for their future repertoire classes. And I'm thinking, use your imagination, like, you know, there is. And then I remember one of the professors telling me as I was in disbelief that I was getting cut, that she said to me, you know, right now, just make a list of roles that you can realistically play.

And I said, well, I've played Cinderella in Into the Woods. And she replied, Oh, do you do you really think you can realistically play that role again? And in my head, I'm thinking, yes, because I could sing the role, I have the spirit of the role that, you know, the essence of the role. But then I realized, oh, wait, I'm not thin. And so this really, I'm giving you a really long answer. But, um, you know, this, you know, at the time, I was just accepting it as the status quo. But then, you know, years, so like, flash forward to 2018, you know, around this time, you know, body positivity and body diversity, and representation, were part of the dialogue, and not only in theater, but, you know, in society as a whole.

And around this time, I was like, trying to plot my next attempt at, you know, an epic weight loss. And while I was trying to plot that, I started to think to myself, I guess I had like this epiphany, I was like, you know, even if I got the ingenue body, what kind of messages is sending out to all the young kids that come to the theater, that the only way that you can portray someone who is worthy of love, and someone who's considered beautiful is if, is if you are already thin, or if you lose weight to become thin. And that just didn't sit right with me. I was kind of, you know, kind of thinking about my own inner child, you know, and how, how I was, you know, like, I was raised to believe that I was beautiful.

And I would hate it if another, if any child were to feel that they were, that they had to change themselves to be loved, you know. So I thought to myself, you know what, I can just play the roles I want to play now. So let me do a photo shoot, in which some in which people of my size get to dress up and sing as leading ladies and ingenues. And, and I got really excited. And I started talking to some actresses I know, and I started putting this project together, which is still in motion. I'm aiming for a summer 20, summer 22 debut for this photo video shoot. But I was, then I was thinking to myself, you know, I want to post these photos and videos somewhere. But I don't want to just put it on my personal social media.

So I thought I need a platform, something that is bigger than myself. So thus creating Broadway Body Positivity Project. But also with that, I thought it's not just going to be about weight stigma and fatphobia. It's also going to, I want to think, I was thinking about my friends from college who were disabled, BIPOC, little people, and how they were overlooked, even though they were so talented. And so I wanted this to be about the marginalized, while also dismantling the culture of body shaming and dieting for everyone in theater.

[11:20] Martín Acuña: I love it. I mean, it is such an incredible initiative and the work you've been doing since 2018. Deep down, I know it is changing the industry, even if it's hard to do, even if it takes a lot of time, but it is. So I want to ask you, what do you think it's been the impact you've had in the theater community and specifically in performers?

[11:46] Stephanie Lexis: Yeah, so I think, one, I've created a space where people can feel empowered. And I'm going based off of, I'm really not saying things based off of what people, other people have said, but I think, you know, there's power in numbers. I mean, whether that's a good or bad thing for anything in life, but like, you know, I think by, I think people feel like now they have a sense of community, people feel empowered, people feel like they have a space where they can raise their voice about these issues. I also, I think one of the ways this Broadway Bopo has been effective is that it has empowered a lot of actors to audition for the roles they deserve to play. I remember this one year I got this DM on Instagram from an actress who said that she went out to audition for Elle Woods.

[12:43] Stephanie Lexis: As a plus-size actress, and she got a callback, and she said it was because of Broadway Bopo that she did it, that she went out. And I think she ended up getting cast as Vivian, which is also a role that's typically portrayed as slim, so I thought that was a win either way. But yeah, people all the time tell me, I'm going to go audition for this role now because you've inspired me to. Also, we have a private Facebook group, and I know in that group, some people will go there for advice or for empowerment. There was this one story where someone was involved in a production where they wanted to use a fat suit, and they went to the group to look for advice, and long story short, that person actually ended up convincing that theater company to not use the fat suits after all.

So little things like that. And then also, what's also great is that we have caught the attention of, I guess what you'd call the gatekeepers or the industry leaders. We've caught the attention of, because Broadway Bopo has a team, we're a team of four. It's me, Stephanie Lexis, Maurice Randall, Ben Locke, and Grace Barnett. And we've been connecting with casting directors, producers, and they want to hear what we have to say. And we have some great ideas about what we can do to create realistic change. I love it. Now that you mentioned change, I want to ask you, how can we start changing those unhealthy habits in the industry, those standards? Do you have a baby steps plan of action you can share with us?

[14:21] Stephanie Lexis: I would say as far as baby steps go, I think one of the first things we could do is just make all theater zones a diet and body image talk-free zone. As soon as you enter that theater space, whether it's the rehearsal room, the audition room, backstage, the stage, you do not talk about diet culture. You do not talk negatively about other people's bodies. You don't talk negatively about your own body. I'm not just talking about a director-to-actor relationship, also actors among actors. Sometimes you could be on your lunch break and you could be talking about how you want to drop that last five pounds or something. And that could be triggering to someone else. So I think, you know, just eliminate that talk altogether.

And I think that will make everything just so less tense and toxic. And I don't know if this is a baby step. I mean, maybe it's more like a toddler step or a kid step. We need more diversity behind the table in every aspect. Ability, disability, race, size, everything. Because the reality is, as human beings, we bring our lived experiences to everything that we do. And if we're only being seen through one gaze, then we're going to have limited opportunities for amazing storytelling. I mean, think about it. If you had a casting team and producers and directors, and they were of all different shapes, sizes, abilities, races, everything, it would be very different if it was all just, you know, cis than white men, you know?

It's going to be different. So I think that's really important. And something that I highly recommend to all college theater programs is that they assemble a student casting committee. Whenever one of the professors casts a main stage, have three to four students that cast along with them or does a mock casting or something. Because again, I think, you know, Gen Z and then Generation Alpha and all those following generations, they're going to be the leaders in like 10, 15 years, maybe even less, you know? And we need their perspectives. And because America is getting more diverse by the day, you know, we need those diverse viewpoints. And also, I think it's important to know that students do have the power to, you know, just because someone's a professor doesn't mean they know everything. And their views can be antiquated, you know? So I think, you know, student or not, if you're a theater maker, your opinion matters. So I think giving power to the students.

[17:00] Stephanie Lexis: I love it. Yeah, I love it. For me, it's been so inspiring to start to see people that have curves, that are chubby, that are big in different productions. And I can recall when I saw Waitress a couple of years ago on Broadway, and I saw Charity and Jill Dawson. Or right now on Diana, on the pro shot, you have Bruce Dao, which I had as a guest a couple of episodes back. And it was so inspiring to see my body type on a Broadway stage. And I think representation is something that is truly important right now, not only on body types, but on everything.

[17:46] Stephanie Lexis: Yeah. Now that you mentioned that we should give the power to the students, where do you think this will go in the future? As far as representation goes on the stage?

[17:51] Stephanie Lexis: Yeah, I think we're headed in the right direction. I hope it doesn't stop. You know, right now, I think we're seeing in a kind of like a kind of an influx of body diverse representation. I can give a few examples. So this month, I'm going to see a production of Beauty and the Beast at the Olney Theatre Center in Maryland. And what's really exciting about the production is that the performer playing Belle, Jade Joseph, is, you know, a plus size Black performer. And Evan Ruggiero, I hope I pronounced Evan's last name correctly. But Evan is playing the Beast and is a disabled actor. Specifically, he's an amputee. And that has been getting some pretty major press, which is really exciting. And for all the right reasons, you know, and I think a lot of people are responding positively to it, which is good, because that's what we need.

We do need a positive reaction to these things. Because unfortunately, you know, as much as we love theater for the art, you know, things have to sell because, you know, capitalism, whatever. But I'm so glad that people are positively responding to it. You know, there's also the actress Sis in the National Tour of Oklahoma. Sis, she is playing Ado Annie. And that's really exciting. Again, we're seeing, you know, we're seeing Black and plus representation, but also LGBT representation, which is really awesome. And then there was Ebony Strong, also a plus size Black woman as Elle Woods in Woodstock Arts' production of Legally Blonde. I did an interview with her. Oh, that just, and what was really, oh, can I say what was really awesome about that too, was that, was that they didn't wig her, they didn't put a blonde wig on her.

She wore braids, and they just like dyed a little bit of it blonde, which I thought was really awesome to see natural hair being embraced. I thought it was really cool. And that should be normalized, in my opinion. And then, and also I'm just hearing from people who report, who, people who message me on Instagram, they're telling me that in their local community theater production, they're plus size, and they're getting casted onto new roles. And that just makes my freaking day. Oh, and then one more example. There's another example. Oh, I know that I don't know if I'd call this body positive casting or by diverse casting, I'd call it authentic casting. But I'm starting to see that when they're when a role is written to be disabled, they're actually being played by a disabled person, which for me should just be the basic minimum requirement for that.

But I know that when they did A Christmas Carol on Broadway, the two actors who played Tiny Tim were both disabled. So that was really awesome. And then even more recently, Annie Live, which was on NBC a few days ago, Alan Toy, who played Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is an actual wheelchair user, like FDR was. So and, you know, it's so funny, I don't do well on Twitter at all. Twitter is like my least, like, that's the platform where I have the least pull. I made one tweet about it, and I got so many retweets, so many likes about that, which I felt was really encouraging, because I think that it means a lot of other people want to see that authentic representation. So yeah, so but ultimately, things are starting or looking up. But what's really, really, what is so critical is that we never rest on our laurels, and that we keep pushing for more and more representation.

[21:01] Stephanie Lexis: Oh, and then I guess another example could be Beanie Feldstein in the upcoming revival of Funny Girl. I mean, some people are arguing, is Beanie technically plus size or is she not? I think the reality I just what I'm taking away from it is, is that, you know, whoever plays Fanny Bryce is usually on the slimmer end of the spectrum. So it's nice to see someone who's maybe not doing that, because I think that could open more doors for other actresses who want to play that role. And more importantly, but and also, I'm just really happy they cast, authentically cast a Jewish woman for that part.

[21:46] Martín Acuña: Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think it was last week that Wicked announced that they were looking for a performer that...

[22:01] Stephanie Lexis: For the movie.

[22:01] Martín Acuña: Yeah, the Wicked movie for Nessarose, for that character. And that was, that is just like, yes, we are headed on the right path. We are going there. And that is amazing.

[22:08] Stephanie Lexis: Yeah, and I really, some people have their doubts, which I understand, because we all have been, we've been burned so many times by the industry. But I trust John M. Chu to really deliver on this authentic casting. And, you know, with movie technology, you can make anything happen. So if anyone has doubts that this could work out, please don't, you know, I'm really glad that I think some people are going to now be more educated about wheelchair using people, because the casting notice used terms like ambulatory and non-ambulatory. And hopefully, you know, through Broadway BoPo's TikTok, I explained what the difference was. But I hope now people realize that, I just hope people are more educated about those who use wheelchairs and how it's not what you necessarily think, and that we should not make assumptions.

[22:56] Martín Acuña: Yes. Stephanie, if someone wants to contact you, to work with you, to be part of Broadway BoPo, where can they find you? You've mentioned Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, but what's the best way to contact you?

[23:09] Stephanie Lexis: If you like have a serious inquiry, like where you have just a lot of things you want to say to me, just email me at broadwaybopo at gmail. And if you do want to DM me on social media, I prefer it be on Instagram, because that's where I am most of the time. So yeah, but it's broadwaybopo on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Yeah, yeah. If you want to just follow me there too.

[23:34] Martín Acuña: I love it. One last question before we wrap up. What's your top five favorite musical theater shows?

[23:46] Stephanie Lexis: Okay, all right. Ragtime. I did that show, it changed my life. Into the Woods. Oh, I miss you, Stephen Sondheim, so much. I also did that show, which I mentioned before. That show also changed my life. Okay, three more. Okay, this is hard. Oh, gosh, why are you doing this to me? You know, I gotta say Phantom of the Opera, because my grandmother raised me on it. Oh, and the other two. This is really hard. There's just like, oh, the last two spaces. I feel like I need to put another Sondheim show in there, because I love Sondheim. But I don't know. This is hard. This is really hard. I'm trying to think of like, you know, I did Carousel, so I have a soft spot for that. So I'll put Carousel on there. And then The Color Purple. I saw that, the revival, and it was stunning.

[24:37] Martín Acuña: I love that. I love that. Stephanie, thank you so much. I have loved this conversation. It's been an honor. I know that Broadway Bopo will change this industry upside down. And I am so happy to have you over here on the show. Thank you so much for joining me.

[25:01] Stephanie Lexis: Thank you. This is really nice.

[25:05] Martín Acuña: Thanks, everyone, for listening to this new episode of Backstage Talk. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Backstage Talk Podcast.