This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jennifer Apple: Hello, welcome to the Empowered Artist Collective Podcast.

[0:04] Jennifer Apple: I'm your host, Jennifer Apple, a multi-hyphenate actor, educator, acting coach, writer, dog mom, and founder of this vibrant community that champions artists as they carve out their own unique paths in this wild industry.

[0:17] Jennifer Apple: Whether you're just starting out in the thick of it, or seeking a bit of artistic fuel to expand your toolbox, you're in the right place.

[0:24] Jennifer Apple: In this space, we'll have honest conversations, share actionable strategies, tips, and resources, and delve into the messy yet beautiful journey of living a sustainable creative life.

[0:34] Jennifer Apple: We unmask the reality of life as an artist, from navigating career highs and lows to nurturing your full human well-being.

[0:42] Jennifer Apple: I chat with women and non-binary guests who share their personal stories, helpful learnings, and hearts to help you unlock your artistic potential, expand your knowledge, and show up fully and fearlessly in your artistry and daily life.

[0:55] Jennifer Apple: Before we dive into this week's conversation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

[1:01] Jennifer Apple: If today's chat resonates with you, please leave us a review.

[1:04] Jennifer Apple: It helps us reach even more incredible artists just like you.

[1:07] Jennifer Apple: And hey, feel free to spread the love.

[1:09] Jennifer Apple: Share this podcast with a friend or post it on your socials, making sure to tag @EmpoweredArtistCollective and @JenniferApple_ so we can chat with you there.

[1:18] Jennifer Apple: All right, grab a cup of something cozy, settle in, and let's get to it.

[1:22] Jennifer Apple: How can curiosity become a roadmap for directing meaningful human-centered theater?

[1:27] Jennifer Apple: In this episode, as part of our Director Mini-Series, I chat with director and dramaturg Amy Marie Seidel, who shares her approach where sound, scent, light, language, and presence all carry weight.

[1:39] Jennifer Apple: Amy talks about her relationship with Tectonic Theater Company, being mentored by Moisés Kaufman, and her experience with Here There Are Blueberries and Machinal.

[1:48] Jennifer Apple: She offers a powerful reminder of the importance of following artistic curiosity without judgment, creating space for rehearsal room humanity, trusting the brilliance of your collaborators, and embracing the flexibility of creating in real time.

[2:01] Jennifer Apple: Together, we reflect on the power of letting go of rigid expectations because the more forms we allow ourselves to explore, the more layered and resonant our work becomes.

[2:10] Jennifer Apple: This episode is a reminder that directing isn't about control, but rather about connection, listening, and staying awake to the magic unfolding before you.

[2:19] Jennifer Apple: Enjoy.

[2:20] Amy Marie Seidel: I'm Amy Marie Seidel. Welcome to the space.

[2:21] Amy Marie Seidel: Thank you so much for having me. Truly, it's an enormous honor.

[2:27] Jennifer Apple: For anybody who does not know you, who are you today?

[2:31] Amy Marie Seidel: Today I am an artist. Uh and today my brain is at least 95% inside of uh the theater, inside of specifically a play that I'm working on right now called Machinal that's going up at City Center.

[2:47] Amy Marie Seidel: Uh but I also today, since it's my day off, I'm trying to take care of the other five percent of me.

[2:54] Amy Marie Seidel: And I uh I have a little perfume class later today, planning on getting some bagels, maybe looking at some trees.

[3:02] Amy Marie Seidel: So that's that's who I am today.

[3:05] Jennifer Apple: Just looking at the trees, are we gonna engage with the trees in any way?

[3:08] Amy Marie Seidel: I might I might hug them. I've I've been known to do that before.

[3:11] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, I feel like the older I get, the more I feel the need to touch a tree.

[3:16] Amy Marie Seidel: I I mean I tell people to touch grass all the time, but I feel like the tree uh holds more weight.

[3:21] Amy Marie Seidel: There's something about like you know, what depending on the tree, like how you can hold anyway.

[3:25] Jennifer Apple: This isn't a good thing.

[3:26] Amy Marie Seidel: Oh no, absolutely I can't get deep into it. I recently went to Muir Woods.

[3:31] Amy Marie Seidel: Uh when I was working at Berkeley Rep. It's a it's a very short drive away.

[3:36] Amy Marie Seidel: And those trees are just unlike anything I've ever seen before.

[3:41] Amy Marie Seidel: And I I had a full-on spiritual experience at Muir Woods, hugging trees, um just uh living my best nature nymph life.

[3:50] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[3:51] Amy Marie Seidel: I went to grad school out in San Francisco, so I know those trees quite well.

[3:55] Amy Marie Seidel: And I feel like uh it's one of those things that you think you know them and then you go back, and then you think you know you've experienced a version again, then you go back and then you're reminded over and over and over again about I mean, for me, this just becomes like an existential thing about just like size and your role and the on the earth and like nature and like your genes.

[4:17] Amy Marie Seidel: It's like, all right, this is a perspective moment. We need this more often.

[4:20] Jennifer Apple: You know, my favorite thing about them is they're so large that they basically suck up all of the rainwater resources for the forest, but they don't keep it all to themselves.

[4:31] Amy Marie Seidel: They're one of the few trees that can actually take up water with their leaves, and so they just take up like enormous amounts of water, and then they send the water through their roots to the other plants uh in the forest floor, and so they're teaching us all how we should be sharing our resources.

[4:49] Jennifer Apple: Ugh, ugh, it's so beautiful.

[4:51] Amy Marie Seidel: And also just like noting the nature behind you in your little corner for anybody who is not tuning in visually to the video.

[4:56] Amy Marie Seidel: There's like a beautiful little, it feels it feels like a little Muir Woods moment, but in in New York.

[5:03] Jennifer Apple: My piece really is uh gaining a bud just now. Very exciting.

[5:06] Amy Marie Seidel: I would pull mine too, but it's far away.

[5:09] Amy Marie Seidel: But mine is as well. One's dying, but one's thriving, and I think that's also a metaphor for life.

[5:14] Jennifer Apple: Bingo, that's exactly how it goes, right?

[5:16] Amy Marie Seidel: Just obsessed. Also, just a tangent before we dive into all of this.

[5:19] Jennifer Apple: Can can we talk about your perfumery? Or maybe this is part of the story.

[5:24] Jennifer Apple: How were how are we here?

[5:26] Amy Marie Seidel: How are we here? That's an excellent question. Um so I uh I sought out to find a signature scent a couple years ago, and I was like, it's time.

[5:35] Amy Marie Seidel: I'm an adult. I'm gonna go find the scent that is perfectly me.

[5:39] Jennifer Apple: Were you always into perfumes, or this was just like a moment?

[5:41] Amy Marie Seidel: I was into smells.

[5:43] Jennifer Apple: Okay.

[5:43] Amy Marie Seidel: Notably the boat gas station is my favorite smell in the world.

[5:48] Jennifer Apple: Um should I know what this is?

[5:50] Amy Marie Seidel: No, just like a gas station meant for boats.

[5:53] Jennifer Apple: That has a I okay.

[5:54] Amy Marie Seidel: No, no, I didn't know. And it smells like gas, but also dirty lake water.

[5:59] Jennifer Apple: Okay.

[6:00] Amy Marie Seidel: And that's what I like about it. But I've always sort of like smelled things, like sort of huffed things like gasoline, or that's horrible.

[6:08] Amy Marie Seidel: Or like, you know, other people.

[6:09] Jennifer Apple: Were you a marker fan in school?

[6:11] Amy Marie Seidel: Like oh my gosh, smell of the mark.

[6:13] Jennifer Apple: I have understanding.

[6:13] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah. Scented markers also. I was very into just smelling things.

[6:17] Amy Marie Seidel: And then when I went on this signature scent finding journey, I in keeping with who I am, I couldn't pick one without smelling every fragrance that is offered on the market.

[6:28] Amy Marie Seidel: Just like when I was looking for a rug, I said, have I looked at every rug on the internet before I make this decision?

[6:34] Jennifer Apple: Very, very research oriented.

[6:36] Amy Marie Seidel: And uh so in doing all of this, I just got more and more curious and was like, Well, what notes are in these perfumes? What natural ingredients make up these notes?

[6:46] Amy Marie Seidel: What and then I started being able to sort of smell something and really discern what was in it, and I found that so exciting.

[6:52] Amy Marie Seidel: And so I started taking classes, and uh I've taken quite a few classes with um the Institute for Art and Olfaction out of LA now.

[7:02] Jennifer Apple: Wow.

[7:03] Amy Marie Seidel: Um, and among other sort of like indie perfume teaching places, but um it's just been like so wonderful to get myself into the soft animal of my body and out of my head.

[7:18] Amy Marie Seidel: Because it's very hard to intellectualize the sense of smell.

[7:22] Amy Marie Seidel: Um but it's very easy to feel and feel how it brings us back to memory and nostalgia.

[7:27] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[7:28] Amy Marie Seidel: And so I actually bring fragrances into my rehearsal room.

[7:30] Amy Marie Seidel: I bring uh an entire bowl of samples on day one, and uh people always in breaks will smell them and exchange their thoughts about them, and then if they really like it, they'll just take the sample home.

[7:43] Jennifer Apple: I love this.

[7:44] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, it's fun. I feel like we don't often get to share scents, like in like with a T, not like scents, like or like to sense of like sense just like ASMR that like, but just because it is such a personal thing, I feel there's something about that particular yeah, like that.

[8:05] Amy Marie Seidel: I don't think I've ever been like, let's share scents that I relate to that means something to me, and then share that with you.

[8:14] Jennifer Apple: It's more like here's a picture and you can see this thing, or here's right this food that you're tasting that means something to me, like the other senses are different than these sensors.

[8:23] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, smell I think is entirely undervalued in our current society.

[8:27] Amy Marie Seidel: It is so animal of us to have that sense, and it is it is something that we still use to keep ourselves alive in terms of does this food smell good or does it smell like it should be thrown away, you know?

[8:40] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, um, and it it is useful to us, but it also is just I think an untapped sense of pleasure and connection.

[8:48] Amy Marie Seidel: And I found a really wonderful community in the perfume world um where people are really doing that, and it it's one of my favorite things.

[8:55] Jennifer Apple: I love it. Can we talk about the marriage then of this with your directing and how maybe that informs it?

[9:01] Jennifer Apple: How it's probably some sort of loop and cycle and circle, I'm imagining.

[9:05] Jennifer Apple: But how did we come to the creative part in the directing land from that with that in conjunction with and all of the absolutely.

[9:14] Amy Marie Seidel: Well, the directing came far before the smells came.

[9:17] Amy Marie Seidel: Well, the smells were always there.

[9:18] Amy Marie Seidel: You just maybe weren't.

[9:21] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, was always there.

[9:23] Amy Marie Seidel: But uh yeah, I mean, I just I think we hyper specialize in our society a lot.

[9:31] Amy Marie Seidel: We're told that we have to be the best at some very niche and specific thing.

[9:36] Amy Marie Seidel: Whereas I'm a theater director, I'm a person who is interested in smells, I'm a person who likes to write things, I'm a person who interviews and edits those interviews into stories.

[9:36] Amy Marie Seidel: I'm a person who I like to paint in my spare time.

[9:53] Amy Marie Seidel: I'm not very good, but I you know, all of that is this uh expression.

[9:58] Amy Marie Seidel: And um during the pandemic, I learned more how to play ukulele, and I wrote some bad songs and you know, sang, and I just think that uh the more that we're in touch with our different modes of expression, especially in the theater, when you're directing, you are in you are expressing yourself through so many different forms simultaneously.

[10:21] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[10:22] Amy Marie Seidel: Um, you're collaborating with so many different experts simultaneously.

[10:26] Amy Marie Seidel: Uh just one singular moment of a play will have light, sound, potentially smell, uh staging, picture, acting, emotion, uh, color, all of these things just uh so as a theater director to be as in touch with as many different elements as possible, I think is is essential.

[10:50] Jennifer Apple: I love it. How did you become that part of yourself?

[10:53] Jennifer Apple: Or how did you discover that this was a calling, or how did you know that this was the land you wanted to fall into?

[10:59] Amy Marie Seidel: I guess I'm asking you to like let's go back just to hang out.

[11:02] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, I I'm happy to go back. It definitely I there is a moment that it began for me, like so many people.

[11:07] Amy Marie Seidel: Um, I was three years old and uh my parents took me to see a professional production of Fiddler on the Roof in Atlanta, Georgia.

[11:16] Amy Marie Seidel: Okay, where I'm from.

[11:18] Amy Marie Seidel: Uh, and my mom was like, All right, we're gonna stay for 15 minutes, the kid's gonna start getting antsy, and I'll take her out, and Joe, you can stay for the rest of the play.

[11:27] Amy Marie Seidel: And I sat there for that three-hour production, eyes glued.

[11:33] Amy Marie Seidel: And from then on, I watched the two VHS set of uh the Fiddler on the Roof film from the 70s until I wore out that cassette tape or cassette tape, VHS tape, and uh forced all of my little like four, five, six, seven, eight-year-old friends to watch it with me.

[11:54] Amy Marie Seidel: And they were all like, maybe let's watch the Barbie TV show.

[11:58] Amy Marie Seidel: And I was like, maybe let's watch Fiddler on the Roof.

[12:00] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[12:00] Amy Marie Seidel: Um think about intergenerational change.

[12:04] Amy Marie Seidel: And uh, you know, I I was very intense as a child, and honestly, I still am.

[12:09] Amy Marie Seidel: Um but then that passion sort of I started playing the cello when I was in fourth grade.

[12:15] Amy Marie Seidel: And I had this very uh single-minded desire to play in the pit orchestra of the Fiddler on the Roof to play the cello.

[12:25] Amy Marie Seidel: And then I I moved when I was uh around 12 years old and they didn't have an orchestra at that school anymore.

[12:33] Amy Marie Seidel: And so instead of doing orchestra, I did chorus and very easily sort of slipped into the theater kid world.

[12:39] Amy Marie Seidel: And I was bullied a lot in fourth and fifth grade. I was a very chunky kid, and I was a big old, and I didn't really find my place until I found theater and I felt welcomed, and I think that's all it takes is for someone to feel like they belong, and then to be seen also, I think to be seen.

[13:09] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, absolutely.

[13:10] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah.

[13:12] Amy Marie Seidel: And the other little weirdos in the theater world, and the funny thing is these people I'm talking about, I met when I was 11 years old and they're still my best friends. I love it and you know, those of us who did Oklahoma together in the seventh grade, we saw each other and we still see each other, and I think that that's usually all it takes to want to engage in something for the rest of your life is to feel like you belong. So that was the very early impetus for me. And so from then on, I was like, this is what I'm doing for the rest of my life. And as the overambitious human that I am, I knew that Broadway was in New York. Yes, and Broadway was the theater, you know, 11-year-old brain, it's like Broadway, and NYU was also in New York, which was Broadway.

So from the time I was 11, I said, okay, I'm going to NYU for musical theater. And I just sort of did everything in my power to make it happen. And then I was on the plane at 18 years old to New York, moving to New York, and I thought, I did it for like five seconds. And then I thought, but what do I do now?

[14:23] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[14:23] Amy Marie Seidel: Like I didn't realize that after you get the goal, it sort of continues. And I actually had this existential moment because I was like, I only got to sit in the satisfaction of reaching my life goal for about five seconds, and then I started having new goals. Um and freshman year of college, I read this book called Mastery by George Leonard. And something that it talks about is we're so used to just looking up the ladder and climbing up and climbing up and climbing up. And once we reach the next rung, then we just look up and we climb up and we climb up, and we never appreciate the rung that we're on.

[15:04] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[15:05] Amy Marie Seidel: And the real way to sort of become the best at a craft is to be where you are and really enjoy and invest in that part of the process. And so from then on, I fail at this every day, but I try to instead of just looking up, looking up, I try to like look where I am and enjoy the moment that I am in now because I am so naturally ambitious that I'm like, no, chill out for one second and appreciate this moment. But long story short, I went to NYU for musical theater, 8:30 a.m. ballet, the whole thing, tap dance, you name it. I couldn't find myself again in that world. I didn't see myself in that world, I didn't feel like I excelled enough in the dancer or music world. And I studied abroad and then I came back and I did a clowning show with the director Orlando Pobotoy, who is an absolute genius, and then I did a project of a production of the Lair Me Project, which is a show by Moisés Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project.

And it blew my little musical theater mind because I learned that all the people who made this play, they went to Laramie, Wyoming, they learned about the story, they interviewed people, they came back with all of that material, they wrote the play together in a collective, they devised it, and then they were in the play together. They oftentimes played the people they interviewed in Laramie, and I just I had no idea that was an option. And so that really changed my life, and I decided that I wanted to do anything I could to work with Tectonic Theater Project.

[17:07] Amy Marie Seidel: And of course, the first email that I sent them very eagerly did not get a response at all. But then I had a friend who was an intern there, and they said, Hey, you might be good for this thing. They're looking for a PA for Moisés Kaufman, who's the artistic director there, just for this gala that they're working on. And I was like, Yeah, sign me up. You know, free work, no pay, who cares? I get to be a part of this exciting thing. And I was like, what does it entail? And my friend Zina, she's like, you know, coffee, copies, you're competent. No, no worries. And I was like, yeah, okay. I'm like, you know, straight out of college. And the first day of rehearsal for this gala, which all I know by the way, is it is a gala for the company. That's all I got. And the first day I get a text from Moisés Kaufman, who I had never met at that point, and he says, Hey, I'm gonna be like 90 minutes late for rehearsal. Can you run rehearsal?

[17:30] Jennifer Apple: Wild.

[17:30] Amy Marie Seidel: And I was like, um, sure. And so I walked into the room not knowing what we were working on or who these people are at all. No, nothing. I know nothing. I walk in and it's Zach Grinier in the room who I only recognize from The Good Wife. And we're working on a play called 33 Variations. We're working on a scene from it, which is a play I now know, but unfortunately at that time I did not know. Nobody told me I should know it. So we listened to the variations, the music that the play is based on together, and we had like the most amazing meditation on this music and what it brought up for us and what it might bring up for the character, and I BSed my way all the way through that. And at the end of it, Moisés comes in and they actually start staging the scene.

And Zach is like, You're such a promising young director. I would love to follow you. And I was like, uh, you know, in the back of my head, I'm like, I'm not a director. He's like, Yeah, you're the associate director for this. I'm like, mm-hmm. Yeah, I was not. So that was kind of how I got thrust into directing for the first time. And very long story, as short as it can go. From there, Moisés just appreciated the fact I think that I had a portable charger that he could use. And doubt it was only that, but short. Well it was at least that. And he kept on asking me back for the portable charger.

[19:38] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[19:39] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, exactly. And then I started just naturally making notes of everything and doing a bunch of research, and Tectonic's work is always so research-based. And so I just started having the answers when they were like, oh, what date did this event happen? And I would just be able to answer. And so from that he asked me to be a dramaturg on one workshop, eventually dramaturg on production, eventually an associate director for a couple different projects, and then a divisor, eventually a company member. And most recently it sort of culminated in I've worked for nine years on Here There Are Blueberries, which is a play that just went up at New York Theater Workshop where I was the associate director dramaturg and one of the divisors of that project. So my home company has definitely been Tectonic Theater Project after all those years, and Moisés has been really the reason that any of my career has done anything whatsoever. So that family to me is everything.

[20:45] Jennifer Apple: I love it. Thank you for sharing all of that. Again, this series exists to show, you know, I really am fascinated by the idea that language dictates so much of how we operate and move through the world, and yet we all enter the same words differently in some way. You know, and the idea that, you know, thus far we've shared, you know, you'll be the third in the series thus far, that everybody labels themselves as director, and that all three of these human beings do it differently, have landed there differently. And I think for me it's really important to show that like words hold emotional meaning and different access points for everyone. And that if we all can understand that that is the human experience with like relating to one another, then like I think we'll be more okay.

So it's beautiful to hear first of all that like arguably this now title that you have was bestowed upon you from somebody else but B in a space that you didn't even think that you were doing it. Like there's something very beautiful to me around you just simply showing up from where you were in the space that you were called to in a way that you could only do in that moment and then somebody experienced that as directing and then told it to you and now here you are not because of that and only that but I just think that there's something quite beautiful about that.

[22:13] Amy Marie Seidel: It is quite beautiful.

[22:14] Jennifer Apple: Yeah that people sometimes mirror things we don't know or see within ourselves or we experience it differently than the way it's being received and vice versa.

[22:22] Amy Marie Seidel: Absolutely I definitely had to be told that I was a director. And then once I was told that I was like oh that makes so much sense. I had directed in high school a short play as a part of a little festival that we did and I thought it was just a sort of fun you know moment for me and that I was gonna go and off and be a performer. But then once Zach and then Moisés told me, No, you're a director I was like, oh, that actually makes all of the things about myself make sense. It also it's a word that is so total in terms of the art form, similar to what we talked about before, is that you're sort of taking care of the entire piece, you're taking care of the entire vision. It's good for somebody who's a little bit of jack of all trades, and is able to step away and collaborate with the people who are the experts in each of those elements.

And that's something that I really learned working with Tectonic and the way that we devise theater. For people who don't know, we devise theater with a method called Moment Work at Tectonic. And one of the things that that does is it sort of turns the typical way that we make theater on its side. So usually there's a playwright who comes out with a play and hands over the words to usually a director and producer who then start working with designers, and then they bring in a company, and then like it all sort of is bottom up in that way, and it's all dictated by text.

[23:58] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[23:58] Amy Marie Seidel: And Tectonic really likes to turn that on its side and say, what if we created theater with the understanding that all the other elements of the stage tell just as much story as text does? When you think of your favorite moments, the most impactful moments in theater, usually the things that stick with us aren't necessarily specific words. They're usually sort of visceral events that happen that combine maybe music, maybe lighting, maybe costume, virtuosic performance. And so we say, what if we bring all of those things into the room from Go? And it's kind of amazing how many things can be told through the other elements. We've had all of our designers in the room very early on working on Blueberries, for instance, and we knew we wanted to play with these sort of desks that their drafting desks so they can move up and down.

And so we were playing with these desks, and then we had our lighting designer David Lander there and our projections designer David Bengali, and Bengali starts projecting onto the front of the desk as it's turned down. And then David Lander takes these LED tube lights that he had and he duct tape them to the desk.

[25:14] Amy Marie Seidel: So they create this frame. And then that's how the form of how we tell that story come to be. And so much of that story in particular is told through images. And so the way that we highlight those images and project them and use them as a part of the story is unique because we had all of those elements from early days.

[25:39] Jennifer Apple: Hi, actor friends, talking to you. If finding the perfect monologue has you feeling stuck, I've got just the thing. I've put together a free monologue selection toolkit just for you. It's packed with resources, free and paid options, plus tips for choosing, editing, and customizing pieces to showcase you. Head over to jenniferapple.net slash freebie and stop avoiding the auditions that ask for a monologue or waiting for the perfect piece to simply fall into your lap. Dive into this free toolkit that I set up just for you that'll set you up to feel agency over your process and artistry. That's jenniferapple.net slash freebie and get started on finding your next go-to monologue.

[26:18] Amy Marie Seidel: I'd love to hear your process when you have either set idea or when you come up with idea and then go to do the idea, or if you are working the more usual way of like text up, or what is what would you say would be your directing process, or is there one?

[26:35] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it's hugely different depending on the material. Um, for instance, Machinal that I'm directing right now is a pre-existing work written in 1927 by Sophie Treadwell. Um, it's pre-existing, the text is there, it's also very heightened text, it's very much an expressionist piece. Um, taking young woman who's at the center of the story, what's happening inside of her and expressing it outwards through unconventional poetic rhythmic and repetitive text. Um and so we are taking that play and we are extending that expressionism to all the other elements as well. So that one is very different from you know, something like Here There are Blueberries, where it starts with us doing interviews and having to create something from the ground up.

But uh for Machinal, I still incorporate a lot of those devised methodologies just because that's who I am and how I work. So the first day of rehearsal for Machinal, we did a little devising session and we played with all of the noise making machines that we had in the space. And we did an exercise where everyone sort of creates a tiny little bit of theater with these noise making machines. What can they do that is unique? What in what ways can we use them in this production that maybe you wouldn't think initially that we would use them that way?

[28:02] Amy Marie Seidel: And Moisés always says this, which is the actor is the most underutilized resource in our theater. Because yes, absolutely. But yes.

[28:34] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, so often it's felt like I think in rehearsal rooms that that's not welcome, that that is overstepping your position as the interpretive artist. And I think that's just a waste because also, you know, there are people in our rooms who have very specific virtuosities. And if I just said to them, okay, you're gonna stand here, you're gonna do this, and then this is gonna happen. I might not even know that, you know, for instance, there's an actor in our company, Soph Metcalf, who is incredibly athletic and has a lot of gymnastic abilities. And if I didn't know that, then we wouldn't be using them in the show, and much maybe for better and or maybe worse, now we have Zof doing like the most athletic show because they can and they're all they're eager to share and offer and you know see what their instrument can do.

And there are other people in the company who have immense musical talents and dance talents, and because we know all of their tools and their they have this ability to offer those things, there are things happening in our play that if it just came from my mind, I wouldn't even know to ask folks to do certain things. Um so it's just my job to really pull out all the tools that we have with our unique group of people and to set what those are and to curate the overall experience of the audience in terms of both dramatic as well as theatrical tension and build and making sure that it's satisfying for the audience.

[30:09] Amy Marie Seidel: But um, I don't know. I'm I it's boring to me if it just all comes out of out of my head.

[30:15] Jennifer Apple: Yeah. When you finally get folks in a room and you you know have an idea maybe in your brain of like what the thing is becoming, knowing what the people you have in the room have to offer or what they're willing to share. Do you you know go home at night and draft a little plot of like, okay, I know that this person's super athletic and this person knows how to play the ukulele, and this person is an incredible jazz singer, and then this person's like amazing with classical text, and this person does some like really cool vocal sounds that are on whatever, and then you go home and you're like, okay, this can all kind of come together, or do you in real time be like, okay, can we access all of your you know skill sets and just see what happens in this circumstance, and then you build from there with the like are you a separate person or with?

[30:58] Amy Marie Seidel: That's a that's a good question. I think it's a little bit of both. I usually sort of sketch with the company. So sort of like a general idea of something with the company, and it's like, oh, Timmy Dial is an amazing vocalist and has just like you said, like jazz vocal abilities, and that actually makes a lot of sense here in what we were already thinking in terms of this dance pass, sort of covering up the transition from scene two into three. So this is a perfect place for us to try that little thing that we already sketched, that little thing that we already tried. And what if it crosses stage and then that actually changes the location that we're in from the beginning to the end of it? And sort of marrying, I do kind of go away and marry whatever we're finding with how it best serves the story that we're telling, I think.

And then once we come back into the space, inevitably, you know, I always say the worst thing that you can do as a director is be unprepared. And the second worst thing that you can do as a director is be inflexible in what you've prepared.

[32:03] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[32:04] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah. So uh it's a little bit of both, where it's like I've laid out exactly what I think it will look like, and then you can't cover your eyes, ears, and nose to what's happening in the room though, and what what's working, what's not working. And I appreciate my company so much and and all the actors that I work with and indulging my off the wall ideas as we try them. And then I always know that a room is great when when something doesn't work and you end up on the floor laughing, giggling, yep. Rather than something doesn't work and like the vibes are horrible.

[32:41] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[32:42] Amy Marie Seidel: Cause it's like, no, we like we're gonna try big things, we're gonna make big swings, and some of them are gonna be bad.

[32:47] Jennifer Apple: Yeah. I mean, it's also like we're forgetting that it's called a play, like we're playing. I mean, like, yes, like again, language, I this has become my adult thing of just like really, I don't know how this has happened, but like really like words, like this is play. We are there is a play that we are producing ultimately that is like end results, but what are we doing in the process? Like we hopefully are playing to get there, like it's process, right? And so to undermine that is in and of itself its own like beautiful exploration, I think, in my opinion, undermines the final conclusion of the play. Because what are you actually doing? And what are we what are we creating if not enjoying and or falling and giggling our way through it? I don't I don't quite see the purpose personally.

[33:29] Amy Marie Seidel: And also I think that a product always reflects the way in which it was made. Um I think there's an energetic transfer from the company and where the company is and the mindset and in the community to the audience. Something we talk a lot about with Machinal, which is a play that shows the face of the machine of modern society, modern meaning 1927, but it's written in such a way that because of the expressionist forms, it's super timeless. And uh it's very obviously an allegory for the machine that we live and work in, especially as women, but in general in our society. And something I'm sort of obsessed with is making every single day in the rehearsal room so radically human because we're trying to tell the story of this machine, and we can't tell the story of this machine while acting like this machine.

[34:33] Jennifer Apple: Yes.

[34:34] Amy Marie Seidel: And so I also you know have incorporated in inside of this piece with my choreographer, Madison Hilagas, who's a literal genius. Um, all of these moments with the company where we really see the humanity. So there's this sort of lens on this machine play where we see a company helping each other to do what they need to do. There's moments before and after the play where we really get into that before we slip into the allegorical part. Um and so the human inside the machine, we have to convolute ourselves, we have to fit into it, it. It hurts, it squeezes us, it's not right. And yet, how do we make that work on us in order to get by? And um what could it look like if if we could just be human?

[35:28] Jennifer Apple: I love that. I love that so much. Um speaking of humans, how do you go about finding the folks that you tend to work with? Do you have obviously like when you're working in Tectonic, you know, there's a company and it has a different kind of you know inherent structural system because it's it's its own thing. But you know, even within that, or if you are moving beyond that, do you have certain folks that you're like you are my people and I pretty much you know go with you and ride with you through and through, or is it like dependent upon the project? I need a different kind of person. How do you find your assistants, associates, all of that? Like they're you're humans in your bubble.

[36:07] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, I um I follow my heart generally, and and I have such a wonderful wide community of folks. Um if you look at the designers on Machinal, for instance, I've met them through so many different ways. Hanji, our costume designer is amazing. They actually costumed me when I was in a production at NYU all the way back then. And they gave me a corset, but also an ass corset, which has always stuck with me. Um I think it is, then like we all we all could use one in our scorset. Um, yes, I played I played the widow in the taming of the shrew, and Hanji really, really costumed me down. So um I've always wanted to work with them and I've asked them a couple times, and finally it's come to fruition here, and we're working together on this incredible, um really tight concept of suiting.

So everybody in in the production is working from layers of suiting that um have over the course of time being through the machine. There are, for instance, like one of the buttons might be buttoned wrong, but it is then sewn so that that is the natural way that that garment would work, sort of the way that we sew ourselves into the machine to sort of make it work. Um, and so Hanji and I are having a lot of fun with that. Um Rochelle and I worked on Here There Are Blueberries Together, Rochelle is the set designer. Um Colleen is our lighting designer, and Colleen and I worked together on um both Paradise Square and The Great Gatsby. And so it's just, you know, you find your heart people and the people who you just know align with your values and with your aesthetics and um with your level of curiosity.

[37:55] Amy Marie Seidel: I just think all these people share that curiosity and that wanting to find new and interesting ways of expressing through our art form. And yeah, you start a little one-person parade, and then over time you just look behind you and in front of you and around you, and you just sort of end up having a beautiful full parade of wonderful weirdos who are just as curious. So I love that.

[38:27] Jennifer Apple: Have you been using the same monologue for years? Are you gearing up to apply for BA, BFA, or MFA programs and need pieces for that process? Or maybe you just have no idea where to even start with monologue hunting. I get it, and that's why I offer monologue sourcing. This is a unique process where I find monologues chosen specifically for you. So many artists pick pieces based on external labels like type or for roles rather than finding material that represents who they truly are. So here's how it works. We'll meet virtually and you'll share all about who you are, your passions, values, beliefs, and everything in between. Don't worry, I will help guide you through this process. Then I'll get to work finding monologues that fit you like a glove with years of experience sourcing pieces for hundreds of artists.

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[39:44] Amy Marie Seidel: Do you have specific assistants or associates? And if you do, how do you find them? Or if you don't, where do they find you?

[39:52] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, so my friend Grace, who is my associate director on this, God bless Grace. She's a genius. Because I'm about to associate again too. I still associate all the time. So I'm about to associate for Mark Bruni on Billie Jean at Chicago Shakespeare. Bruni and I work together as well on The Great Gatsby. And I'm like, oh my gosh, Grace is so much of a better associate than I am. Oh my gosh, she's so good. Everything is a friggin' spreadsheet, and it's like so total in its thoroughness, and that is not my particular skill set. And so I'm learning a lot from her. I actually met her working on The Great Gatsby. She came in and observed and then kept in contact with me. And so now we're working together, and boy am I glad we are.

We have such complicated tracking and transitions in Machinal, and everything sort of comes out of these desk drawers, and it's like multiple different drawers, and like which one of the things goes in and comes out at any given point, and I just am always looking over to Grace, help. And she always has the answers.

[41:11] Amy Marie Seidel: So that is one way, but I think it's always for me, it's always been different. It's similar to with designers, it's just like does my heart pull towards your heart? Are our curiosities aligned? Everyone has their own unique strengths when they associate. And mine, as I said, are very different from Grace's. What would you say are yours?

[41:40] Jennifer Apple: Come on, clean in.

[41:41] Amy Marie Seidel: Well, no, the problem is that I always think that I have the directing answers to things, and so I'm like over-eager, and I'm sitting there like squirming with how I'm gonna fix the thing, and it's honestly exhausting, even for me, and I know for everyone who I associate for. They love me. We all have very good relationships, but I'm sure I'm insufferable. But it's because I’m curious and because I care so deeply, I can't see something in front of me and not care so deeply. So that's my level of, I guess, I want to reframe it.

[42:24] Jennifer Apple: So I mean I'm not your therapist, but I want to reframe that in a way that becomes your superpower because what I hear, which is not how you said it, was that you are so present with what is happening in front of you that your creativity is sparking at rapid fire in a way that you have so many ideas that I imagine whoever the director is on said project is super excited to have you as a sounding board and also a collaborative partner to bounce said ideas off of is what I'm hearing.

[42:57] Amy Marie Seidel: It's true. Thank you for reframing that for me. It is true. And I will take that. Thank you.

[43:02] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, that's what I'm hearing, and that's what I'd love, you know, for the narrative to continue being because you know, so much of it's that actually not that I'm here to like, you know, boof, but like we are all so we're taught to just certainly as women to make ourselves palatable and small and to not take up so much space and to you know make sure that we don't have egos and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And ultimately, like I think you know, what I've been continuously grappling with with myself as a person who inherently has an energy that I don't do much and I do take up space, and that has been like, you know, my Achilles heel for better or for worse. But there's something about us belittling the greatness of ourselves that actually A doesn't give people permission beyond and around us to also do the same for themselves, but also like it feels really cool to be next to somebody who when it's not done in a cocky way, just like when they know who they are and they share who they are and their brilliance, you're like, I want to see it, or like I want to experience like there's something that is it's a chemistry energy thing of like relating and actually bonding and actually fascination.

And so for me, I just like I want all of us to just be able to own what we do in a way that just gives other folks permission to do that for themselves and then also gives ourselves permission to continue just like growing and expanding because like everything's so hard anyway.

[44:31] Amy Marie Seidel: That's right, you know.

[44:33] Jennifer Apple: So you are brilliant at being an associate because you wouldn't continue being called back to do it by these incredible folks if you weren't, and they didn't know that they needed you to do their vision without you next to them. So yeah, I'm just affirming that I can cancel my therapy appointment for the week.

[44:51] Amy Marie Seidel: I don't know, it is true. It is true. That is my that is what is special about me, and that is correct. That is what also makes me the director you are exactly, yeah.

[45:03] Jennifer Apple: And I hear it from the way that you're talking about your collaborative processes is like how much you admire the folks that you choose to work with or you have the privilege of working next to, is like there's a clear admiration that there are people who know things that you don't know or operate in a way that you don't work, that like you get to then soak up at like a sponge, and that only informs your collaboration and creativity, and that isn't inherent for everyone. Like, I just you know, like that isn't a thing that everybody feels, and that isn't how everyone operates, and that that is then your special sauce. I think that is a beautiful thing that people are like, Oh yeah, like full collaborator when we're working with Amy. Like that's it, like real collaboration at the core of the work, and yeah, like full sensorial, all encompassing vision of entering into the craft, which is pretty dope, I think.

[45:57] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah. Thank you. I never something I said to myself very early on, the first time I did a major regional gig was when I was working on Paradise Square at Berkeley Repertory Theater, and I saw the costume shop for the first time, and Tony, our costume designer, was sort of showing us different fabrics and how we were putting them into these, you know, 1860s garments and how we were creating all of these really lush costumes with so many different fabrics on each one, and I just was in such awe. And I felt in that moment I was like never lose this awe at being able to and Matt, who is our wig designer, was you know, watching him pull through every individual hair on those wigs and make something that is just astonishing.

And like we get to work with these artists, artisans, people who are at the very top of their field doing something I could never begin to imagine being able to do. And inside of, you know, it's so easy to just look at a wig and note it and be like that hairline's too far back, you know? And it's like, okay, we can give a note on a wig, but let's also imagine how virtuosic it is that we get to have this wig in the show.

[47:21] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[47:22] Amy Marie Seidel: So that's something that I just never want to lose.

[47:25] Jennifer Apple: Well, you've had that since your Fiddler story. There is this deep sense of awe the second you sat down in that chair and watched Fiddler. Like I think, you know, if we really were to dial back, and again I'm not a therapist, so what do I know? But I've been therapized my whole life and my mom's a social worker. So I think it's just like in my, you know, deep, deep blood here. But you know, everything goes back to just like our childhood. For better or for worse. You know, it's like and so the more we can go back to that, yeah, that joy, the awe, the inspiration, the thing that before we were all of life beat it out of us. Like that arguably is what we were all ultimately consciously or subconsciously, I think searching for is like really just connecting again to that core thing that just makes us feel alive.

It makes us feel full and curious. And you know, I remember when I studied abroad in Italy, the Accademia del Arte, so it was like very physical theater mass work. And I remember one of our classes in our first I don't know week of being there was like a full day and I've taught this in master classes in like truncated versions, but that was a full day starting the day as babies and then going through till you die in your physical body. And I did we did a version of that in grad school as well in my physical theater class and I I guess I've also again taught this but to do a full embodiment for like hours of what does it feel like not just like skipping of like baby to toddler to teen. Like we're going like age by age by age in your body and noting these like little small micro, micro, micro movements.

They have to be micro in order for you to span an entire lifetime and to actually feel that shift within your body and your spirit and your soul to know what those little things are, and then come your old age in that same body that you've now aged over the course of hours in to feel the things that have had to shift was a really, I think important and valuable lesson for me as an actor for sure, but just also as a human, where we take for granted that there are these little things that we know in our bodies that we don't consciously know in our minds anymore, or vice versa, that we think ourselves out of. It's like, no, your body's lived through the thing, and it knows deep down that childhood awe and wonder of just experiencing something for the first time.

And what a beautiful thing that we as artists can do that when we encounter new work and material and a new room of collaborators that you've never ever, ever been with beforehand, and that this amalgamation of energy in one space, you all get to discover together for the first time. Like what a beautiful thing we get to do. And then it's actually it's such a beautiful extension as a director, always thinking of what happens when you see this for the first time because you're taking care of the audience in that moment as well.

[50:27] Amy Marie Seidel: Because the audience will be brought into the space and see it for the first time. So the more that we can take care of that first time energy, those you know, new eyes on something that yeah, we don't we don't want to lose that because that also means that we're taking care of the people who are coming in to our space with those new eyes.

[50:47] Jennifer Apple: Yeah. Besides the beautiful like box of perfumes, how else do you feel like you take care of folks?

[50:55] Amy Marie Seidel: I um I start with the colour. Audience or in the room, yeah, either room. In the room I start every day, I always at the beginning of the process ask for folks to think about um what warmups they love. And every single day we start with a warm-up led by a different person from the company. So we've done everything from like uh religious singing in the round to massage circles to chakra work to uh yoga to our uh one of our brilliant tap dancers, Veronica, had us all turn around and she did you know tap dance rhythms and we had to replicate them, not looking at her. Um and so everyone has their own virtuosities, and so I that's another way of bringing it into the space is to give the gift of sharing those things and sharing the moment of connection with everybody at the top of the day.

Um so I always I love that practice. Um I always like to share food. I think it's very important to share food with people. Um, and so always at the beginning of processes and specific days during as well, making sure that we have food to share and time to eat together. Um that's something Orlando taught me, Orlando Pobotoy, who was my clowning teacher, who did a very similar exercise where we had to be born into the world. Um so I think I think sharing food is is important, and um I check in with folks a lot. I just I just sit down and be people with people at the end of of the rehearsal or at the beginning of the rehearsal. Just say, what do we need? What are we lacking? What are we um feeling?

Um the this part of the desk isn't working for us. How can we address that? How that that's making this job harder? Let's let's look at that. Um so that the actors don't feel, you know, left behind by creative or like their thoughts, feelings, and experiences aren't valued. Um because they they should be.

[53:01] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, it's a very really simple answer, but what about for the audience? Taking care of the audio.

[53:08] Amy Marie Seidel: Well, my dramaturgy practice um is very much uh I I phrase it in this way where um we are taking care when we're looking at the dramaturgy, we are taking care of um the time a play was written in, we were taking care of the time a play was written about, we are taking care of the time the play is being made in, and we are taking care of audiences present and future to this play. And so for instance, when we were working on Here There are Blueberries, we had to take care of um the mid-2000s, we had to take care of the World War II era, which it was about, we had to take care of um bringing the show into all the individual cities that we bring it into, and we change things about it because those cities have different audiences and the person who we really have at the front of our mind all the time is the kid in Ohio.

Yeah. And we really want that play to resonate with the kid in Ohio. And how can we make sure that the kid in Ohio and the aristocrat in New York come to the play and both get um something out of it where they can go home and they can actually assess their own place in society, their own role in the well-being of other people. And um, and I think that often comes from forms, heightening forms. Um, rather than talking directly about something that's happening right now, if we can allow for the things that the theater does well to heighten them, to get us rather than in a thinking place and a feeling place about these things, then um it it's more likely to stand the test of time, which is exactly why I think Machinal has done that.

[55:04] Jennifer Apple: I love that. If I were somebody who is wanting to put more of a directing hat on, and it's newer to me, or I guess I've done it and no one's ever told me that that is what it was. What would you recommend would be your like director starter kit for folks?

[55:23] Amy Marie Seidel: Okay, well, this is um uh my my very nerdy answer, which is go to the library. Um I'm such an immense fan of the public library system um as well as the university library system. I'm always at the special collections. Um I think just following your where your curiosities lead you without judging them is the quickest way to get genuine inspiration. And I when I was in in school, I uh I had a professor who gave us this assignment to write a monologue from the perspective of a specific person who she gave us and to perform it in their idiolect that they would have had at that time, and none of these people ever had any voice or video recording of them. So it's something that you had to generate.

And I was given Alice Liddell, and that's Alice from Alice in Wonderland, uh, the real person who it's sort of based on um, and her letters with Lewis Carroll, who wrote it. And I actually got to go to um NYU's special collections, and I got to touch and go through all the letters between them. And it was just the most satisfying thing to touch those objects, to look at those uh the way that their handwriting was, you know, the way that it indicated the time, the turn of the century from the 18 to the 1900s and their ways of thinking, the ways that intimacy has changed over time, and that just like I was oozing inspiration and I wrote way more than we had to write. I worked on that way more than we had to for that assignment.

But it was one of those first moments that I felt that. And then now in my practice as both a dramaturg and director, which I I actually distinguish very little between those those roles and those duties. But I'm always in special collections, I'm always wanting to touch and wanting to be as close to primary sources as possible. And when you can't be uh at those primary sources, for instance, if I really wanted to watch the uh very first production of Les Miz, for instance, then I always love going to the um New York Public Library uh Toft Theater on Film and Tape, going to these places and being able to take in theater that we weren't maybe alive for or that we weren't able to see, um, and just watching plays that really work, watching plays that really do the thing, um is I think one of the most satisfying, exciting things to do.

The other thing for uh a person who's feeling like they might want to go into directing is just reaching out to the folks who you admire and just getting in the room with them. You're I mean, I've been so fortunate to work with people through uh an assisting and associate lens who every time I try to go to grad school, they're like, why would you go to grad school? You that's what this is. And I'm like, oh, I've been getting paid modestly, but getting paid to essentially go to grad school for a very long time, working with with brilliant artists. And part of what it took was sitting next to Moisés, my mentor, and every note that he would give or everything that he would say, I was having very similar thoughts already. And it wasn't that I needed to learn to have those inspirations, it was that I needed to learn to trust them and to listen to them.

[59:21] Jennifer Apple: I love that. Thank you for sharing. I think it's helpful for folks to be affirmed in maybe things that they already know or to hear things multiple times in different ways, or to hear things for the first time and be like, oh, it doesn't have to be something that's like monumentally huge. It's like, oh, let's send a little love note. Let's go to my library for the first time. Let's get Libby and download a bunch of things and listen to them or watch them or read them. Um, I think it's I think it's wonderful advice. So thank you for that.

[59:50] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah. For anybody who wants to reach out and learn more, work with you. What within your boundaries is the best way for people to find you?

[1:00:03] Amy Marie Seidel: Yeah, you can pretty easily find my website, AmyMarieSeidel.com, pretty easy. And um, I'm always, you know, there are there are definitely moments when I have an influx of people who want to chat. And I'm like, I always I'm like, yes, how is September? Um, but I I just love chatting with people and um meeting other curious minds. So for sure, um you can reach me through my website and uh yeah, I look forward to it.

[1:00:31] Jennifer Apple: I love it. Thank you so much for going on this journey and uh being so open and present and thoughtful and curious and uh vulnerable in all of it. I it again, it's so palpable to me, even through you know, this medium, how much you care about the work and the art and the craft and the collaboration above all. And I just I think it's so special that you are in rooms making with people and how lucky we are to have work that you are helping facilitate or being a part of in our zeitgeist at the moment. I'm just really, really grateful that you're in this space and that you shared um your work and your process here with our listeners. So thank you.

[1:01:24] Amy Marie Seidel: That's actually making me emotional. Thank you. That means the world. Um, one of the community agreements that we always start with in my processes is it's okay to cry. Always the reason that I always write that is yes for everybody, but mostly for me, because I'm a I'm a big crier.

[1:01:40] Jennifer Apple: Same.

[1:01:41] Amy Marie Seidel: I'm like watching you like start to tear up, and I'm like, oh cool, I'm just crying now, also. So here we are. Um, on that note, thank you for being in this space.

[1:01:48] Amy Marie Seidel: Thank you so much. What what a gift it is that you bring to everyone as well, having these very candid human discussions. So thank you. We all benefit.

[1:01:56] Jennifer Apple: Thank you.

[1:01:56] Amy Marie Seidel: Thank you.

[1:01:57] Jennifer Apple: That's it for today's episode. I hope you walk away with some fresh insights, feel inspired, and a little more empowered to take the next step on your artistic journey. Remember, whether it's a small shift or a big breakthrough, every step forward counts. You've got this, and we're here cheering you on every step of the way. If you found today's episode helpful, don't forget to hit subscribe so you'll never miss out on the discussions we have each week. And if something today really resonated with you, please leave us a review. It truly is one of the best ways to help other artists find our podcast and join in on the conversations. Plus, we feel the love too when you do. And don't keep all this goodness to yourself.

Share this episode with your people or post about it on social media. Be sure to tag @EmpoweredArtistCollective and @JenniferApple_ so we can see what's landing for you and keep the conversation going. As always, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being a part of this incredible community. Keep creating, keep thriving, stay empowered. I'm Jennifer Apple. Until next time.