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[0:07] Elliott Mattox: We'll take a glass together.

[0:10] Caleb Dicke: This is Equity One, Broadway's Happy Hour.

[0:14] Elliott Mattox: Pour yourself a drink and join us as we chat about life, theater, and everything in between.

[0:20] Elliott Mattox: I'm Elliott Mattox.

[0:21] Caleb Dicke: And I'm Caleb Dicke.

[0:22] Elliott Mattox: Join us for your Equity One.

[0:31] Caleb Dicke: Hi, Caleb.

[0:33] Elliott Mattox: Hi, Elliott.

[0:34] Caleb Dicke: Cheers.

[0:35] Elliott Mattox: Clink.

[0:36] Caleb Dicke: Oh, what a lovely amber colored cocktail this is.

[0:41] Elliott Mattox: Um, welcome to this week's episode of Equity One, Broadway's Happy Hour, where we sit and chat with some of your favorite Broadway fancies.

[0:51] Caleb Dicke: Um, Elliott, how are you doing this week?

[0:53] Elliott Mattox: I am doing really well. It's my last week in Ohio, and I'm coming to New York next week.

[0:58] Caleb Dicke: Are you ready for me?

[0:59] Elliott Mattox: I'm ready for you in two weeks, hun.

[1:01] Caleb Dicke: Exactly. Can't see you until you gotta do that quarantine because I'm not trying to get sick, boo.

[1:07] Elliott Mattox: Exactly, I know. But uh, excited to be there so soon.

[1:10] Caleb Dicke: Oh my god. It has been way too long. I haven't seen you actually since March.

[1:16] Elliott Mattox: Yeah.

[1:17] Caleb Dicke: Um, and that is just the longest we've probably ever gone in our lives without seeing each other in person.

[1:23] Elliott Mattox: Yeah, I agree.

[1:24] Caleb Dicke: Yeah, totally.

[1:25] Elliott Mattox: So how's the last weekend in Ohio treating you?

[1:28] Caleb Dicke: Um, good. A lot of packing up. We're like, um, I had some family time today, said goodbye to everyone because I'm not gonna see them next week.

[1:35] Caleb Dicke: So uh yeah, just packing up.

[1:38] Elliott Mattox: How about you in New York?

[1:39] Caleb Dicke: Oh, you know, things are good, things are fine, things are pretty normal.

[1:43] Elliott Mattox: Uh-huh.

[1:44] Caleb Dicke: You know, trying to stay busy and also not busy, so watching a lot of television and um resting.

[1:51] Elliott Mattox: Okay.

[1:52] Caleb Dicke: Yeah. I went out for dinner with uh with Michael and his brother last uh two nights ago, and whoa, we got really drunk.

[2:01] Elliott Mattox: Love that, love that.

[2:02] Caleb Dicke: We went to Westville on 9th Ave, like so good. If you haven't been, it's so, so good.

[2:08] Caleb Dicke: Um, but I had a lot of margaritas, and then we went to the bar next door and had another nightcap.

[2:14] Caleb Dicke: And I think I ended up bringing a plastic cup of tequila soda in the Uber home.

[2:21] Elliott Mattox: As you should.

[2:22] Caleb Dicke: Isn't there a rule now? You have to eat and drink. You can't just drink.

[2:25] Elliott Mattox: Yeah, I mean, I ate, but it didn't really help.

[2:26] Caleb Dicke: It didn't really help. Um anyway, um, so I'm back on booze today.

[2:35] Caleb Dicke: Uh, but before we get to what we're drinking, we want to bring in our special guests from the Broadway World series, the Chaos Twins, Nik Walker and Sasha Hutchings.

[2:45] Elliott Mattox: Come on in.

[2:48] Nik Walker: Hey, friends.

[2:50] Sasha Hutchings: Hi, what's up?

[2:52] Elliott Mattox: Oh my god, look at all those plants.

[2:55] Nik Walker: Is that a washer dryer behind you?

[2:58] Sasha Hutchings: Yes, no word.

[3:01] Nik Walker: Yes, that's a washer dryer.

[3:06] Sasha Hutchings: Just a board.

[3:07] Nik Walker: Just yeah, in this quarantine time for sure.

[3:12] Elliott Mattox: Um, thanks for joining us, friends.

[3:14] Sasha Hutchings: Thank you for having us.

[3:16] Nik Walker: Thank you mostly for this.

[3:18] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, this is wonderful. I'm excited about this.

[3:21] Elliott Mattox: And our audience knows that now is that time where we talk about what this is, and it's this week's Qcock.

[3:27] Elliott Mattox: And here to tell us more about it is the founder of Qcox, Hansel Tan, everyone.

[3:32] Hansel Tan: Woo! Hey, what's up, Ek Bun? How's everyone doing?

[3:37] All: So, so good.

[3:38] Hansel Tan: You look like you're doing much better on a beautiful roof.

[3:42] Hansel Tan: Oh my god, I'm actually drying off sweat. So uh, I was helping a couple of buddies move from their apartment to one part of Brooklyn to another part of Brooklyn.

[3:49] Hansel Tan: So that hence it explains why I'm at a really fancy location that is 100% not mine because she can't afford it. You know, let's not go there.

[3:58] Hansel Tan: But uh hi.

[3:59] All: Hi.

[4:00] Hansel Tan: Thanks again for providing us with libations this week. What now what do you got for us?

[4:06] Hansel Tan: So this week we have sex slice deceit in the form of a bottle cocktail called a paralicious affair.

[4:12] Hansel Tan: It is a riff of the French 75 champagne cocktail. Instead, we use a prosecco syrup with all spice with a base of pear gin and lots of fun in that thing.

[4:23] Hansel Tan: A little bit of lemon juice.

[4:24] Elliott Mattox: Oh my god.

[4:26] Sasha Hutchings: Wow.

[4:26] Hansel Tan: Oh, I love I'm so interested in like a spicy gin cocktail. Usually I go kind of like more like floral and up, like a little citrusy, but oh we got a little floral in there by the way of elder flower, but um see if you guys all right.

[4:42] Hansel Tan: I'm gonna pour this in. It tastes like elderberry juice.

[4:45] Nik Walker: That's I'm about to say, like, yeah.

[4:47] Hansel Tan: Yeah, this is the yellow flower in there.

[4:49] Nik Walker: Oh come on.

[4:50] Hansel Tan: Well, okay, we got that garnish in there. Cheers, everyone.

[4:56] All: Cheers.

[4:57] Hansel Tan: Oh my god, okay. It kind of looks like um um a smoothie, like a green smoothie almost.

[5:02] Nik Walker: Is that that's delicious?

[5:06] Hansel Tan: Yeah, I could drink this whole thing right here, though.

[5:10] Nik Walker: We've done it.

[5:12] Hansel Tan: I'm going to the rule the rule on Equity One is that it's still one if your glass is never empty.

[5:17] Nik Walker: So that's a great rule.

[5:20] Hansel Tan: That's how I mix my drinks for myself at home.

[5:22] Hansel Tan: And uh this is delicious. There's nothing like a spalf-indue hangover.

[5:27] Nik Walker: Oh, yes.

[5:28] Hansel Tan: This is really, really gummy.

[5:31] Nik Walker: Yeah, we like that.

[5:32] Hansel Tan: Wow. Oh, that's the best one.

[5:34] Nik Walker: Yeah, there you go. Best one.

[5:37] Hansel Tan: Before I go, I just want to say I wish you'd all get progressively more toasted as the hour goes along. So congrats to all of you.

[5:44] Hansel Tan: Big hugs and kisses, and I'll see you next week.

[5:47] All: Yes, thank you.

[5:51] Hansel Tan: And if you handle hands on and if you also want one of these delivered to your door in New York City, you can follow Q Cox on Instagram, Q Cocktails, I believe, is the at.

[6:06] Hansel Tan: And uh you can order your own, and you can cheers like you're drinking with us right now. Isn't this fun in this time where we can't go to bars and stuff to like be able to like actually drink something with your friends?

[6:18] Sasha Hutchings: It's fine.

[6:19] Nik Walker: It's a good thing.

[6:21] Sasha Hutchings: I really want to go to a bar.

[6:26] Nik Walker: Oh my god, me too.

[6:28] Elliott Mattox: What bar are you gonna go to as soon as everything opens up?

[6:33] Sasha Hutchings: Probably well, on Yeho. I've definitely been there.

[6:37] Sasha Hutchings: You can drive by on Yeho on 47th and 10th, and they have like a stand set up with some to-go margaritas.

[6:43] Sasha Hutchings: It's my favorite spicy margarita in the city.

[6:46] Sasha Hutchings: Um, I love it there, and I would probably it won't feel normal again until I am sitting there like consuming spicy margaritas in guacamole.

[6:55] Nik Walker: Yeah, um DJ. They have the bench so you can look out on the street and like talk about people as they're walking by.

[7:01] Sasha Hutchings: I love it like a lunch, but now yeah.

[7:03] Nik Walker: Now you know what? Now they actually do have outdoor seating, and they've gone like a step above.

[7:07] Nik Walker: They have like um plexiglass, yeah.

[7:11] Sasha Hutchings: Uh, out on the street.

[7:13] Nik Walker: Yeah, you ain't getting nothing.

[7:15] Sasha Hutchings: No, no, except a delicious margarita.

[7:20] Elliott Mattox: Nik, what about you? What bar you hopping to?

[7:24] Nik Walker: There is one, there's a bar that's on the opposite side from most of the theaters.

[7:28] Nik Walker: Um, still like still on that Times Square dividing line, the Long Room.

[7:32] Nik Walker: Um has the best wings in the Long Room.

[7:36] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, it has the best wings and the best gold rush ever in my life.

[7:41] Elliott Mattox: And that's that's a gold rush.

[7:42] Nik Walker: Yeah, what is a gold rush?

[7:43] Nik Walker: Gold rush is my that is like my standard drink.

[7:47] Nik Walker: And in what's uh what's crazy is most bars don't know it by the name Gold Rush, they usually know it by Bees Knees, um which is fine, like either way, but basically, simple drink.

[7:57] Nik Walker: It's I use Woodford, so it's Woodford, honey syrup, lemon juice, uh egg white, muddle ginger on the rock shaken.

[8:07] Sasha Hutchings: Nice.

[8:07] Elliott Mattox: Oh my god. That sounds delicious.

[8:10] Nik Walker: It's like a cold hot toddy.

[8:11] Sasha Hutchings: I mean, it's it's medicinal, it's absolutely wonderful.

[8:14] Elliott Mattox: Yeah, no need to no need to have a hot toddy, just have a toddy.

[8:18] Nik Walker: Yes, just a normal toddy.

[8:21] Sasha Hutchings: I prefer a cold toddy, me too.

[8:23] Nik Walker: Oh yeah.

[8:24] Elliott Mattox: I don't know. I you know, I like it hot, cold, medium, all of it. I'll take any temp, um, as long as there's Woodford.

[8:32] Caleb Dicke: Um yes, oh yeah, Caleb, Caleb. Now you're you're not in New York yet, so you couldn't get a cue cocktail, unfortunately.

[8:39] Caleb Dicke: But what are you drinking today?

[8:40] Caleb Dicke: I am drinking a I actually have a Yingling traditional lager.

[8:46] Nik Walker: Can you see it?

[8:47] Caleb Dicke: Like a Yingling, yes.

[8:49] Sasha Hutchings: I love that we're doing the thing. Like this is like YouTubers do, or whatever.

[8:53] Nik Walker: Yes, I also love the color of your nails.

[8:56] Sasha Hutchings: That is a gorgeous color.

[8:57] Caleb Dicke: Thank you. It's like a Robin's egg.

[8:59] Sasha Hutchings: I got them done with my boyfriend for his birthday.

[9:01] Nik Walker: Okay.

[9:02] Sasha Hutchings: They're beautiful.

[9:03] Nik Walker: Oh my.

[9:04] Sasha Hutchings: Do you know? Do you know what the specific color of that nail polish is?

[9:07] Sasha Hutchings: Because I love nail polish color names.

[9:10] Caleb Dicke: I think it was a sweet apple.

[9:13] Sasha Hutchings: I don't know why. But like, you know, it's believe they never make sense.

[9:18] Nik Walker: They're always like, they're always like kind of right, but not really.

[9:25] Caleb Dicke: Yeah. Great. Well, I'm so excited to keep drinking. This drink is so delicious. Like, I honestly can't even deal with it.

[9:35] Elliott Mattox: Okay, so what all has been keeping you all entertained lately? Like, what are you watching? What are you listening to? What's the entertainment?

[9:45] Nik Walker: I just listened to Sasha.

[9:48] Nik Walker: I just I just kind of I'll call her up. I'll just let her talk for like 40 minutes on end.

[9:54] Sasha Hutchings: Which brings me to my entertainment, which is I just talk to these guys.

[10:00] Nik Walker: Yep.

[10:01] Sasha Hutchings: Your plant.

[10:02] Nik Walker: Gorgeous.

[10:02] Sasha Hutchings: I love that plan.

[10:04] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah. Now, have you always been a plant gal, or is this like a new development?

[10:11] Nik Walker: Uh, it's not okay. Well, it has um things have escalated since quarantine, I must say.

[10:19] Sasha Hutchings: Um, I think a lot of people feel that with their plans.

[10:23] Nik Walker: Definitely.

[10:23] Sasha Hutchings: Like, I will show you. Um, this is my fiddle leaf fig, my fiddly thing.

[10:28] Sasha Hutchings: It's little tiny guy here on the ground.

[10:30] Nik Walker: Gorgeous.

[10:31] Sasha Hutchings: I got that at Whole Foods right before like March.

[10:38] Nik Walker: March.

[10:39] Sasha Hutchings: Um, March, like let's say 13th, like on a pandemic grocery run.

[10:49] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[10:50] Sasha Hutchings: Because I was like, and it was like I it's like a nervous plant.

[10:53] Sasha Hutchings: Like I just was like, the first thing I grabbed wasn't rice, wasn't beans, but I filled half of my cart with a fiddly fig.

[11:02] Nik Walker: With a plant.

[11:03] Sasha Hutchings: See, that's interesting. I think you know, there's something there.

[11:06] Sasha Hutchings: There's some kind of like it'll help me breathe. It'll help me feel normal.

[11:10] Nik Walker: I don't even know.

[11:12] Sasha Hutchings: Like, I just remember being like, well, yes, this is coming with me.

[11:15] Sasha Hutchings: And then um, I guess I'll head downstairs to the can go dial.

[11:21] Nik Walker: Like just having a panic attack in Whole Foods and just like this plant though.

[11:26] Sasha Hutchings: But that's true. I had plants that I bought after like an a weird audition.

[11:30] Nik Walker: Or like, you know, I'm just like, I don't know, I need something that can live past whatever happened in that room.

[11:35] Sasha Hutchings: Um I love it. And honestly, on that Friday, who knows what food was there.

[11:41] Nik Walker: The plant might have already might have been the only thing available.

[11:44] Sasha Hutchings: Honestly, I just it was like, I know I can do this for myself.

[11:47] Sasha Hutchings: And it was like $17.

[11:49] Nik Walker: So 14, 14, I think with my Amazon.

[11:52] Sasha Hutchings: That's that's nothing.

[11:53] Nik Walker: Oh my god, Prime at Whole Foods is it's the matrix, but we're in it.

[11:58] Sasha Hutchings: We are in fact.

[12:00] Nik Walker: I don't feel good about it at all.

[12:02] Sasha Hutchings: I do not feel good about Amazon Prime.

[12:04] Nik Walker: It's I mean, and you should be feeling good about it.

[12:06] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, it's it's a deal with the devil. Let's let's be real.

[12:09] Nik Walker: I mean, we know what it is.

[12:11] Sasha Hutchings: Um, it's the mark of the beast.

[12:15] Nik Walker: Yeah, exactly. But it's but it but it's it's so easy.

[12:18] Sasha Hutchings: That's exactly right, Elliott. Like it it is literally the easiest, and all of a sudden these products arrive, and it's you know, your life becomes that much better.

[12:25] Nik Walker: But my god.

[12:26] Sasha Hutchings: My god. I I am not, I am not so uh I do like I said, I I watched Sasha talk to her, and I check in and I'm like, Sasha, like this is this is actually too much at this point.

[12:36] Nik Walker: Like, please stop.

[12:37] Sasha Hutchings: Like, like Sasha, like I'm worried, like, are you okay?

[12:40] Nik Walker: Like, do I need to send someone over there? Like, what's going on?

[12:42] Sasha Hutchings: Uh, and she's always she's always saying she's fine.

[12:45] Nik Walker: I don't believe it.

[12:45] Sasha Hutchings: And then I ask my plants how we're doing, and they say we're fine, and I tell Nik everything's good.

[12:49] Nik Walker: Yeah, and I'm like, that's that's insane.

[12:51] Sasha Hutchings: Um, they're vine.

[12:55] Nik Walker: There you go.

[12:56] Sasha Hutchings: There it is.

[12:57] Nik Walker: But yeah, I have not I I have not ventured to the plant where I have my cat is around here somewhere.

[13:03] Nik Walker: He wanders in and out of uh of the of the landscape. Uh he's probably sleeping in some crevice of this home.

[13:10] Nik Walker: Uh, as he always does. Uh, and normally my wife would be here, but she just left for grad school. So she has abandoned me for education. But uh, yeah, she's out in San Diego at the Old Globe USD. Um, wow, getting that theater education.

[13:27] Sasha Hutchings: Word, and they're gonna be educational. Are they gonna be in person?

[13:30] Nik Walker: Uh, they, so some of their classes will be because it's only, I mean, the amazing thing is only seven students, so they can do socially distanced classes. So I think their yoga class and their actual proper scene study class will be in person, um, even though distanced. Um, but a lot of the other classes like Alexander Technique, all that stuff is gonna be virtual. Um, so that it's a little bit of a letdown. I mean, it's a letdown for students all across the nation, I can imagine. Um, I can't imagine what going into a semester during this time is like, but she's excited to be there, and I could not be more proud of her. And she's worked her butt off to get here, so yeah.

[14:10] Caleb Dicke: That's really thrilling. Um, yeah, but have you all ever—go ahead, Caleb. This is a touchy question. I think it's kind of appropriate. We'll see. Um, OCU just announced that they're going digital all fall. Yeah, would you, if you were a senior this year, would you go to college or would you take a gap year?

[14:12] Nik Walker: I could, I would take a gap year because I think I would just move—I don't know, deferment. I mean, we—I, yeah, I actually agree with you, Caleb. I think, and it's so funny because I'm actually starting, I'm probably gonna be teaching at NYU in the fall, um, which is gonna be fun. But I was actually saying to a lot of students, like honestly, if you got a defer this year, like if there was ever a year to do it, yeah, like yeah, this is half the fun of it is being in the community of your school, and if you're not gonna get that, like yeah, protect yourselves.

[14:12] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, especially at NYU because I feel like so much of the draw to go to NYU is that you're in the city, like you can meet people and go to auditions and kind of like start early where like if you can't do any of that, like oh my god, save your money.

[14:12] Nik Walker: Yes, save your money for sure. I agree. The crazy time when students ask like what do I do or like how are you, I'm like I don't know. I don't know what we're doing.

[15:32] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, yeah, I don't know what I'm doing.

[15:34] Nik Walker: So, and I mean, I don't even say that like you want to be encouraging and I just try to, you know, say like get what you know, work on what you can on your own, but it's a really tough time and I hope there's some—I mean, I hope that the honesty is just like, I don't know. We're in this together. This is a really tough time.

[15:51] Sasha Hutchings: There's literally no right answer.

[15:54] Nik Walker: Like if you were graduating next year, I could tell you like, well, you should have these things in line and this going on and like maybe check and make sure you've got, you know, whatever lined up for yourself. But right now, I'm like, I couldn't tell you what to do. I think just take care of yourself and stay sane and think about what's important to you and then act from there.

[16:12] Sasha Hutchings: Like lead with that.

[16:14] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[16:15] Sasha Hutchings: There's no wrong answer.

[16:15] Nik Walker: It's just all we have.

[16:22] Sasha Hutchings: Listen, if it's no expensive, Broadway now.

[16:24] Nik Walker: This is all we have though.

[16:25] Sasha Hutchings: I'm not mad about this.

[16:26] Nik Walker: I know, I know, I know.

[16:28] Sasha Hutchings: That's actually—and that's, let's be honest, this was Broadway before.

[16:33] Nik Walker: So wait, I gotta say this. So I actually just did a summer camp and there are these amazing, amazing kids, and they all—one of them asked the sweetest question. They were like, uh, oh my god, what are your pre-show rituals? What are you like, what do you do for—and I was like, and literally we were giving like very, you know, PC answers, but in the group there, we were like, you know, nobody say whiskey, nobody say whiskey.

[16:56] Sasha Hutchings: Don't tell them about the shots.

[16:58] Nik Walker: Don't tell them about the shots.

[17:02] Sasha Hutchings: That's exactly.

[17:02] Nik Walker: I have a giant bar in my room. There's like at least $400 worth of alcohol in my dressing room right now.

[17:09] Sasha Hutchings: You guys, when I was doing My Fair Lady and um, Diana Rigg, uh, when she was playing, um, was it Ms. Higgins?

[17:17] Nik Walker: No, Mrs. Higgins.

[17:19] Sasha Hutchings: She played the mom.

[17:21] Nik Walker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[17:22] Sasha Hutchings: So we're like, she's like what? Like, I think she turned 80 when we were there, when we were in—this is 2018. She's a legend. Um, we're in the room, we're having like the talk, like, you know, this is the theater, welcome to the theater, these are the rules, da-da-da-da. Somebody says, no alcohol in the dressing rooms. There's no alcohol in the building, like we don't have it here.

[17:42] Nik Walker: And Diana Rigg was exactly your face, like Nick, and she turns to Harry Hayden Patton and goes, I don't like that. It smells like no booze.

[17:55] Sasha Hutchings: I was like, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

[17:58] Nik Walker: Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Like, what are you talking about? She like didn't—she never didn't have Viv Kuklo like in her dressing room, like whether someone sent it or she had it provided for herself.

[18:09] Sasha Hutchings: Like I was about to say, hey, really?

[18:12] Nik Walker: That's a—that's a rule at Lincoln Center.

[18:14] Sasha Hutchings: You know, uh, uh, did you follow the rule?

[18:18] Nik Walker: That's the question.

[18:19] Sasha Hutchings: Remember, there it was also a rule at OCU, I will say.

[18:23] Nik Walker: Sure, dry campus.

[18:25] Sasha Hutchings: Is that—is that where you guys met?

[18:27] Nik Walker: All three of us, yeah.

[18:30] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, incredible.

[18:31] Nik Walker: It was a dry campus.

[18:33] Sasha Hutchings: Mm-hmm.

[18:34] Nik Walker: It was Caleb and I, our room got busted once.

[18:41] Caleb Dicke: Yes.

[18:42] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[18:42] Caleb Dicke: And this was a really bad story.

[18:44] Nik Walker: Did you get in a search or in like you had a party and somebody came by and both triplet, triplets?

[18:54] Sasha Hutchings: Triplet and females.

[18:57] Nik Walker: Yeah. So there was a party. Also, this was the time where I didn't drink. So I didn't touch alcohol until I was 21. So, like, I mean, I was literally taking like shots of Sunkissed with everyone just to like be part, you know, part of everything. But um, but we got called, they got called on us, everyone hid everything and ran away. We ran to like another room down the hall.

[19:18] Sasha Hutchings: And Darius, right?

[19:20] Nik Walker: And we're the only people. Um, we're the only people in the room.

[19:27] Sasha Hutchings: And Darius was like, you can't come in.

[19:30] Nik Walker: No, there's no reason for you to come in.

[19:32] Sasha Hutchings: Just standing at the door, like being so sassy.

[19:35] Nik Walker: And they came in and they found it was just red stripe in our fridge.

[19:41] Sasha Hutchings: Like a beer.

[19:42] Nik Walker: It was my beer.

[19:43] Sasha Hutchings: It was very.

[19:44] Nik Walker: And they were like empty shot glasses, like in the sink.

[19:47] Sasha Hutchings: Like their glasses, their glasses, but you don't see them on their glasses.

[19:52] Nik Walker: Like, yeah. So the four of us, the three—well, there were four of us in a quad, and they all—the other three roommates were like, no, Elliot doesn't even drink. So this is not fair. Like, he can't—he wasn't part of it.

[20:04] Caleb Dicke: But um, yeah.

[20:05] Nik Walker: Caleb was the only one that did community service, though. Everyone else.

[20:09] Caleb Dicke: What did you have to do?

[20:11] Nik Walker: I worked in an office, um, answering phones.

[20:14] Caleb Dicke: That's what I did for like four hours.

[20:16] Nik Walker: Community service, free OCU labor.

[20:18] Caleb Dicke: Yes, that's more what it sounds like.

[20:21] Nik Walker: Like, were you answering like phones for like a civil rights group?

[20:24] Caleb Dicke: Or like no, it was like for the private university, the private method.

[20:30] Nik Walker: And they're like, I don't know.

[20:31] Caleb Dicke: I was like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, uh, try this number, like golly.

[20:38] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[20:39] Caleb Dicke: Anyway, so I've dodged that bullet, but um, oh yeah.

[20:43] Nik Walker: See, that's why that was tough.

[20:45] Sasha Hutchings: That was tough at OCU, the dry campus.

[20:48] Nik Walker: Sometimes I—but sometimes I wish that I'd gone to a campus school. Like, I really, I really feel like there was so much that I missed out on because like at NYU, like you literally just show up in New York, you know.

[21:03] Sasha Hutchings: Like, it's just like, yeah, I'm welcome to New York, and that's it.

[21:05] Nik Walker: And it's like it's a whole—I mean the amount of trouble you can get in is that much worse because it's not like a closed community.

[21:14] Sasha Hutchings: It's like, no, if you get in trouble, you're just in trouble in New York, and that's just it.

[21:18] Nik Walker: And you know, my buddy, but like people were trying crazy things. We had, oh my god, I think it was like not my—not my roommate, but uh, two doors down from me. I only stayed in the dorms the first year, but two doors down from me, there was some dude growing weed in his closet.

[21:34] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, this is—this is the same dude that ended up cutting off my dreadlocks for his and taping them.

[21:41] Nik Walker: This man cut Zach Velasquez is his name.

[21:44] Sasha Hutchings: Zach Velasquez, if you're listening, I just remembered you, and I hope that you're well.

[21:48] Nik Walker: Um, Zach Velasquez cut off my dreadlocks and taped them to his door as his like, as his like entrance way door thing.

[21:58] Sasha Hutchings: The beads, yeah, yeah, yeah, the beads, exactly.

[22:00] Nik Walker: Taped—this is what we were doing at NYU.

[22:03] Sasha Hutchings: Exactly.

[22:03] Nik Walker: Your face, Sasha. That's exactly right.

[22:05] Sasha Hutchings: This is what we were doing.

[22:08] Nik Walker: Cut off my dreads in the middle of the night, like a sneak thief.

[22:13] Sasha Hutchings: No, no, no, no, no, no.

[22:14] Nik Walker: And like, and like granted, knew that I was planning, I was planning to shave my head anyway, but like did not—did not that night, not that night, did not ask where just not like gone on the door, and uh, that was a whole thing.

[22:29] Sasha Hutchings: That was—

[22:30] Nik Walker: That was NYU as my freshman year.

[22:32] Sasha Hutchings: Not this, not—not this, not like that is too much.

[22:38] Nik Walker: Just the middle of the night.

[22:41] Sasha Hutchings: Why didn't you wake up?

[22:42] Nik Walker: Why didn't you—were you like have you sleeping?

[22:44] Sasha Hutchings: I, yeah, I'm—I was definitely heavy sleep.

[22:46] Nik Walker: Also, I'm pretty sure that I was like inebriated.

[22:49] Sasha Hutchings: Like, like it was freshman year, it was bad.

[22:51] Nik Walker: Freshman year was like, was rough.

[22:54] Sasha Hutchings: Like, like not in terms of my schoolwork was fine, but like, because freshman year was the year that we were actually just talking about this with a group of group people that were in my class.

[23:03] Nik Walker: Like my—so you guys know how the studio system works at NYU.

[23:07] Sasha Hutchings: Like so the way—so the way it's—the way it works is like they, yeah, cap and okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[23:13] Nik Walker: Yeah, they make the pre-existing deals with studios in the thing. I was more classically aligned, so I was trying to, I was in Stella Adler, and then I did classical, and then I did Stone Street.

[23:24] Sasha Hutchings: And Stella Adler is like they pride themselves on being like the studio of Brando and the studio of De Niro, and like even though they're not at all.

[23:31] Nik Walker: Um, and I love—I love Adler, so like don't get me wrong.

[23:34] Sasha Hutchings: But like we were talking about this, and we were like, yo, some of the things the teachers would do to us in that first year, if they were doing these things now, there was no world in which there would not be a lawsuit on their hands.

[23:46] Nik Walker: Because like it was like the whole point the first year was to like break you, like that was the point.

[23:51] Sasha Hutchings: I remember we had—and I'll shut up off after this, but I remember we had one class where this teacher had an exercise called going to China, and you were supposed to come in with like a story about a time that you went to China, and then he was gonna do some imagination work to make the story feel real for you.

[24:04] Nik Walker: So the first couple of people to go would always come in with like some sort of like, you know, we're class clowns, we're trying to do some like jackass story about, you know, like yeah, man, I went to China and like got like mugged, and then I got stripped naked, and I had my wallet stolen from me and like trying to be assholes, whatever.

[24:19] Sasha Hutchings: The teacher would send us out, he'd bring us back in, and it'd be complete darkness.

[24:23] Nik Walker: And I was the asshole that had that story, by the way.

[24:26] Sasha Hutchings: Brought me back in.

[24:28] Nik Walker: I'm like, it's darkness, can't see anything. He's like, give me your money.

[24:31] Sasha Hutchings: I'm like, what?

[24:32] Nik Walker: He puts his arm on my chest, pushes me against the wall. Give me your money. I was like, dude, what are you doing? Give me your money. Now take off your clothes. I was like, what?

[24:41] Sasha Hutchings: This man, by the end of this exercise, had me crawling naked on the bodies of my fellow students.

[24:48] Nik Walker: And like two—and like there was a moment in like I didn't even get the worst one because there was a moment in another person's story where they got stabbed.

[24:55] Sasha Hutchings: This man poured hot candle wax onto that student's back.

[24:58] Nik Walker: I'm not even joking you, y'all.

[25:00] Sasha Hutchings: I'm not even joking you.

[25:02] Nik Walker: Same words.

[25:03] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[25:05] Nik Walker: The safe word is lawsuit.

[25:07] Sasha Hutchings: And exactly.

[25:08] Nik Walker: And you'd always know this teacher's class going forward, like in other like in years above.

[25:14] Sasha Hutchings: Because you'd be wandering the halls, like you'd be like doing your thing, working on your sides, whatever you're doing.

[25:19] Nik Walker: And then inevitably you just see some freshman like open the door to like his classroom and just be like crying on the floor.

[25:25] Sasha Hutchings: And then you just see like his teacher come and grab them and like drag them back in.

[25:31] Nik Walker: You're like, oh yeah.

[25:35] Sasha Hutchings: Shit.

[25:36] Nik Walker: And why that's a lot of fun.

[25:38] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, it was—it was something.

[25:38] Nik Walker: It was something.

[25:44] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think many schools have the mentality to break you down.

[25:50] Nik Walker: Mm-hmm.

[25:51] Sasha Hutchings: Listen, it's a hard business.

[25:54] Nik Walker: Get used to it.

[25:56] Sasha Hutchings: Hey, hey, you better learn, you gotta learn it sometimes.

[26:01] Nik Walker: Exactly.

[26:02] Sasha Hutchings: Look, we're on the other side.

[26:03] Nik Walker: We baby.

[26:05] Sasha Hutchings: I know there's so many stories that just about surviving college.

[26:08] Nik Walker: I know, just surviving, just me.

[26:10] Sasha Hutchings: I don't even know.

[26:11] Nik Walker: Yeah, like because at least in New York, you had reference to like the real world.

[26:14] Sasha Hutchings: Like, I just think that there's like an insular sort of like culture to campus, and like you don't know what they're—and you're going to this place at a very young age, expecting them to tell you like how the world isn't help you succeed.

[26:26] Nik Walker: But it's a business. They are running their business, and so they don't always have like you and your best interests in mind, or like it's a brand that they're building, or there's just all these things that I always felt like we did this thing like OCU NYC, like coming to the city, or just getting into a different learning experience outside of like your program. I think, especially in the summers, like if you can work is really really important, just because it can give you perspective, and just knowing that, like no matter what situation, and that that's the lesson you should learn. Is it no matter what situation you're in, no matter what institution you find yourself in, that like their word is not law, and that like you should test everything against like your own intuition? And I it's just very hard to do at a young age when you're entering the world, and especially for like a career field that is as subjective as ours.

[27:23] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, because you're putting yourself under the judgment of like other people, and that's why we drink.

[27:30] Nik Walker: Yeah, it's tough to educate people in the business because you can build skills, of course, and that kind of thing, and but also you know, for using our school as an example, using OCU is like OCU can only be so in touch with New York because it's literally in Oklahoma, like it can only offer you so much like good advice. The rest of it you just kind of have to figure out on your own. Uh which is like why the, you know, spring break programs, getting away, doing summer stock was the most valuable part of that for me.

[28:09] Sasha Hutchings: Definitely and what was it like being in school, like in New York, in the like in the center of things?

[28:16] Nik Walker: You know what? I loved it, and I will say, like, you know, all joking aside, like I did I love Adler and I still love Adler and I love all the studios I did. And I think that so much of why I loved it was because of the fact that it was in New York. And so you had teachers who were doing downtown theater and then teaching you class that night. And that was something that made all the difference to be talking to people who like knew what it is and knew what it is to do it on Broadway and knew what it was to do it on like 875 a week. Do you know what I mean?

[28:46] Sasha Hutchings: Like, and that I think is so important because then you also learn. I think the biggest thing, and me and Sasha talk about selling chaos twins all the time. The biggest thing that I try to impart to students is like theater is theater is theater, man. Like, yes, like if you want to have a career, if you want to if you want to get paid a lot or a lot to do theater, doing it between 50th and 42nd Street is a great idea, and like go for that. But like there was the I the best theater I've ever seen was in the black box in Boston. Do you know what I mean? Like it doesn't matter where you do it, it truly doesn't matter where you do it.

[29:20] Nik Walker: And I think that that is there's just an appreciation of all kinds of theater that comes from being in school in New York because you are encouraged to seek it out and to understand it in a way that like I know a lot of my friends who might have not gone to school in New York weren't, you know, that Broadway was the thing. That was the thing that you do. And it's like, no, it's it that's that's a thing. That's a really great thing, but like there's there's so much else happening, you know.

[29:50] Sasha Hutchings: I think what you said, like yeah, that's so good because back to like students asking like what to do or like how to be, is the idea that like okay, so theater isn't on pause, like theater is happening all the time, like and there's so many different ways, and we're being forced to find different ways to do it, which is really important when you decide that you want to be a theater actor.

[30:11] Nik Walker: Yeah, but like the business of Broadway, like Broadway is shut down, like doing theater in an actual like physical building, that's shut down. But the exercise of theater, I love to think of theater in like in the same way you might think of church, or you might think of all these other, like there's the institution, and then there is the exercise and the experience of it. And theater is really um, it's about people coming together with ideas and like trying and creatively like expressing them and taking things in and putting it back out and having some it's this whole call and response conversation that is absolutely still happening.

[30:50] Sasha Hutchings: And if you're a young person in theater, I think like even more so, you haven't been boxed into this is what it is. Yeah, so be creative about it, like be creative about how you get your work out there, how you get your creativity out there, or what the exercise is for you, even if it's just writing and then you know, dancing around your apartment, like truly like these it's it's an exercise to me. It's like this is the experience of what it's like to participate in it.

[31:16] Nik Walker: And no, and so so go go ahead.

[31:18] Sasha Hutchings: At the basis of theater is the human experience and storytelling, just always lead with that, and you'll always you'll discover it, like go with storytelling and how you actually feel, and that's theater. You can do that anywhere.

[31:30] Nik Walker: Anywhere, anywhere. I saw, I don't know if any of you saw Irish Rep did the weir, which is one of my favorite plays. If you've never read that play, read that play. It's beautiful and haunting and disturbing and funny as hell. Um, but they did a virtual performance of it this whole week. They've been doing virtual performances of it, and what they did was really cool. They built a kind of a computer generated like mat set because it's only takes it takes place in one just in a bar. So they built the bar virtually. Sasha, kind of like what we did for Whiskeyland. They sent actors green screens, and then they like kind of blocked how they wanted it to be filmed, and like what what you know what where the camera is on this line and on this line, and then they edit it together and like watching it as someone who's seen the weir like more times than I can count. It was just as good seeing it like this.

[32:25] Sasha Hutchings: Like they really did because there was such care put into it, you felt like you were oh yeah, you weren't you didn't feel like you were watching a play because you weren't in a theater, but you were still getting the story, yeah. The acting was still nuanced, and it was it was wonderful to see, truly wonderful, yeah.

[32:39] Nik Walker: Yeah, so you know, go either. I mean, I think that it's what's exciting is that everyone is getting very creative, figuring out a way to make things happen because that's what we have always done in theater. Like this is this is what we do. We like figure out ways to do things, like be it be it, you know, figuring out how to um I don't know, be figuring out how to like bring a you know a wrestling or boxing ring into an audience, Sasha, right in Rocky, or like or you know, anything like that. Like we figure these things out, and so now it's just different constraints on it.

[33:23] Sasha Hutchings: Um which I think is exciting. It's also you know, there's the phenomenon of people realizing more than ever that they can do what they want anywhere, yeah.

[33:35] Nik Walker: Which I think it's gonna make for a lot of like happy artists. I think New York might be missing a couple more people, but I do think that like people are realizing, oh my god, I can do what I want to do anywhere.

[33:47] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, it doesn't have to be in somewhere where I feel like I have to be because it's the center of things, even if I'm not happy there. Um that's definitely been a phenomenon that is um that we're gonna see for this tough.

[34:01] Nik Walker: I think like the it's like the structure again, like the business. I mean, we're talking about like looking at the business differently in so many ways, not least of which is race and representation and empowerment on Broadway of you know, black and BIPOC, like all of that, like what is the structure? But I think also what I think about and what we've said is like some of my most meaningful experiences were regional theater, yeah.

[34:26] Sasha Hutchings: And I think like one of the great things about being in New York is the concentration of talent and ideas, and that like things are can be birthed here that I mean you begin to wonder could they be birthed, could they happen anywhere else in that way? I mean, speaking to like Hamilton, like I don't know. I remember doing it down at the public, and I remember the creative team and producer saying, you know, we want to do we don't want to do an out of town run, like we want to develop this thing in New York City with a New York audience, and that says something, and I think that's valid, but then I also wonder like is it like where is it a divestment of like you know, interest and talent in and being able to pay talent I don't in other cities, like in the world, just like in or in the country at least like um very involved with like actors equity and I can tell you like the point of view of somebody doing regional theater in Oklahoma as like a you know what basically is can amount to a part-time job is very different than somebody who pays their very expensive rent in New York solely on you know their income from theater and then what does that do to the things that we as a union try to like fight for and encompass, yeah.

[35:39] Nik Walker: Or so it's just like I just wonder, like you're saying, like, is there is there opportunity to have like more original work grow out of like American communities, like local communities that are these very specific stories specific to town, but can maybe speak to you know a larger experience and be very special.

[36:01] Sasha Hutchings: And I I mean that's like an ideal, you know, an ideal or an idealistic idea. But I think of a play like Our Town, which is just like you know, they're they're reviving or purported to um in questionable ways. But um, I think of a show like that that it has a very specific like place and time, and that if you can like support art in a very local community in that way, like it's not for lack of talent or interest or I don't know what the lack is, but like maybe there's a way for us to have more everything grassroots everything, which would include like the creation and investment in the in in the development of theater.

[36:41] Nik Walker: Yeah, yeah.

[36:42] Sasha Hutchings: My boyfriend and I talked about this that we think regional theater is going to come back before Broadway, so like it's gonna spread the talent, spread the wealth.

[36:50] Nik Walker: And so we're gonna have a well-rounded community, hopefully.

[36:53] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah. I love regional theater. People are just so proud of like proud of having that in their city and in their town.

[36:59] Nik Walker: And it's just such a rewarding place to like do work. And you're away from like you know the pressure of like everything being a multi-million dollar success.

[37:08] Sasha Hutchings: Like it's just it's just let's try this together. It's really fun.

[37:12] Nik Walker: No, it's gorgeous. And there's and there's some there's some regionals that truly know how to put how to put actors and a company at ease. And um like the first one that comes to mind is Denver Center. I Denver Center I will work at I will pick up the if any time they want to call me I'm like let's go. Like I don't care what I'm doing.

[37:33] Sasha Hutchings: Um and and and that's just that's just one of them. There's so many of them that I could I could name but I I really do feel like so much good work happens.

[37:41] Nik Walker: And it's and to your point Sasha I think out of and and yours Caleb I think out of necessity right because that that was the one thing that I was that that I was laughing about with my buddies with my uh you know my TV film buddies is like right now the two capitals of theater and and film we're we're grounded like we actually struggle we cannot do it we cannot do anything right now.

[38:03] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah you know what I mean so the work is gonna have to go someplace that's safe.

[38:07] Nik Walker: And like I know that I know that Yellowstone is about to gear up and film out in Montana. Do you know what I mean? Like and not that they weren't filming out in Montana before but like they are able to get back to production because they can their whole setup is a western right so they're they are spread out.

[38:21] Sasha Hutchings: That's they're rolling plans to mean like that's the whole point.

[38:24] Nik Walker: So like it's gonna be really interesting to see which what kind of art is actually, not elevated, but but but given a lot more room and resource right now while the the art that kind of needs the proximity kind of not it it's not done. It just it just has to wait a second.

[38:43] Sasha Hutchings: And I think I think that that can be helped, you know, by wearing a goddamn mask.

[38:50] Nik Walker: Um just wear it. I just guys, I literally I just tweeted about this this morning. I had a an infuriating conversation with my friend from Switzerland or who's living in Switzerland right now. Do y'all realize in Switzerland right now, masks nobody's wearing the only time you have to wear a mask is when you're on a subway. Theaters are open, restaurants are open, bars are open, you can literally do whatever you clubbing, clubbing is open.

[39:16] Sasha Hutchings: Club.

[39:18] Nik Walker: I was sitting there listening to this, like, are you all we have it's so simple. It's so simple for just a short period of time.

[39:29] Nik Walker: Like compared to where we are now, like if we had all like if the whole nation had just put masks on for three months. But I'll tell you another thing I have a very serious problem with is that we were told initially not to wear masks because they were afraid that people in hospitals like and they wouldn't have enough PPE. And I just feel like as Americans, we should say, you know what, you're not supposed to tell me not to do something because you're afraid we didn't put enough money and investment and time into an industry healthcare, and you're telling me now not to wear something that's actually gonna protect me and others because we didn't have us like uh an enough of a healthcare infrastructure to to manage all of this.

[40:07] Sasha Hutchings: There's there's sorry to cut you. No, it's because you're right. There's also in other countries, there is a just let's just face it, no matter what your side of political spectrum is, there is a much larger sense of trust between government and its people, and people and its government.

[40:23] Nik Walker: I don't know why.

[40:24] Sasha Hutchings: And I don't I don't know why either. You know, I mean, like, I wonder, oh my god. Um we were a nation of slavery. Anyway, uh the elderberry guys, the elderberry.

[40:45] Nik Walker: Yeah, yeah, wash your hands. Gotta wash your hands. Um but that's but that's what's fascinating, is like other countries that I mean, granted, Switzerland was I think I think found in like 1189. Do you mean they've had they have 600 years on us? Um, but but that said, like, it's just so messed up that we are we are living to this day, we are still paying for the sins of this country in our infrastructure and in our in just like the fact that nobody is able to what do you mean like it's it's just it's just disgusting.

[41:21] Sasha Hutchings: We're young and dumb. Our country is just young and dumb and dumb.

[41:25] Nik Walker: Yeah, I mean, uh it's and it's it it is baffling to me that it is as simple as just wearing a mask. But there is such a there is such a like there is such a lack of consideration of the greater good with so many people in the country, you know, be it with like what your tax dollars go to, or be it like what you want your community to look like. There is such a like lack of um caring for anyone other than that's my dad number one.

[41:59] Sasha Hutchings: I dad. Uh the the other comment was that he was my dad was that he was in the house, but he'd be quiet because he has trolled us. Uh he trolled me. I'll say me.

[42:09] Nik Walker: Yeah, he has trolled you on Chaos Twins.

[42:12] Sasha Hutchings: On Chaos Twins. Yeah, yeah. My dad. That does happen. We love we we love a troll.

[42:18] Nik Walker: Yeah. That is so funny. But what you're saying, even like the greater good, we are not founded on the greater good.

[42:26] Sasha Hutchings: No.

[42:27] Nik Walker: Of the individual, we are, but not the community.

[42:29] Sasha Hutchings: And that's that's the issue.

[42:31] Nik Walker: That's the issue. And that's what we need to do. We don't know how to do this.

[42:35] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah. It's so funny. Like in World War II, we were all on board to like, you know, end the war. You have your victory garden, but like, why didn't they teach us to make our own masks? Like, here's how you make a mask. So we'll save other masks. Like it was politics.

[42:48] Nik Walker: I don't know.

[42:52] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, yeah. One of those things that it didn't need to be. But again, again, again, again, the greater good of one. It was politicized for the greater good of one apex of a human.

[43:02] Nik Walker: Yeah. In the White House. Um, what he thought would be his greater good. I'm hoping that it will be the downfall, to be honest. But um it's beyond it is beyond beyond politics. Like we are we have the capacity to be so much better than this, and it is it is just really it's it's I it would be interesting if it wasn't terrifying to watch people cling to their narrative of the past four years.

[43:31] Sasha Hutchings: Yes, yeah. I've also and I I don't know how you guys or however many we've been a country. Sorry, go ahead.

[43:36] Nik Walker: No, no, no. Four years is about right. It's like four years to wait. We're 400. Like ah in between one of those, you'll find the correct answer.

[43:47] Sasha Hutchings: But it's fascinating. I I uh you know, I was just having this conversation. The idea that like I've had like I've in order to keep my fight up, in order to keep pushing for the rights of of everyone in this country, you have to let go of you truly have to let go of the idea that you will see that progress happen.

[44:08] Nik Walker: That is that is both the the saddest part and the best thing you can do.

[44:14] Sasha Hutchings: You have because I think about I think Sasha, we've talked about this. I think about my mother who is so confused after everything that she put into the civil rights movement. Why this is still a thing.

[44:24] Nik Walker: Wow.

[44:26] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah. Why, why we're still here, and not just not just for black people, but for everyone who's got a struggle in this country. Our LGBTQ, like brothers and sisters, like everybody who's got a struggle in this country. Why are we still here? People have died. That should be it. That's enough. Do you know what I mean? And yet we're still here.

[44:44] Nik Walker: It's never been enough.

[44:45] Sasha Hutchings: It's never it's never been enough. Look at the look at you know, we we talk, I I think about this all the time, but yeah, but you know, you think about Columbine, you think about part Parkland, you think about all these schools where children, you know, the what part of the thing about quarantine was that there haven't been any school shootings, and it's like what this constantly happening, like what and but there's still nothing being done because of uh because of a lie that people have been told that if you regulate guns, you're taking away you're you're going against the constitution, and it's just not the case.

[45:23] Nik Walker: But again, it's that I want guns, me, I want them to feel powerful. I want them, and it's not about that. It's it's it's unfortunately it is it is I don't know when it's gonna change, and you're right, it's a sobering thing to think about, but will we see it? But but you know, but again, in that I find that it's like you have to it just comes down to you don't fight because you're gonna see the end of it, you fight because it's the right thing to do.

[45:51] Sasha Hutchings: Yes, that's that's that's what it comes down to. It's like I I know that my time on this earth was spent trying to make space for everyone, and that's literally all I can say, and the rest of it's like okay, sure, like, you know, uh, and if it and and I hope that I'm proven wrong. I really do, but I just am like, this is it's so deeply entrenched in who this country is that I just I don't know if it changes in our lifetime. I think it changed maybe in the next lifetime, but I don't know if it's ours, and that's and that's really daunting, but also like great, I'll keep fighting, you know.

[46:25] Nik Walker: I don't know. I mean, I'm really inspired by the generation under us and how much how much they know already. And you know, I didn't I didn't realize until until too late that it was important to have a voice and and fight for people and and pay attention. I didn't realize that because I feel like we grew up in a generation where we were like, no, it's gonna be great. See, we worked hard, we have a life, and you can do the same and you can work hard and you can have a nice life. And we kind of like did that, and then we were like, oh wait, but there's so much against us that I actually don't think we can. Like we had we had to realize it, but the generation under us knows.

[47:09] Sasha Hutchings: They know that they're fucked. Like they just know, so it's it's a matter of they're louder about it.

[47:16] Nik Walker: I was like listening to this podcast or NPR. It was like an NPR podcast. They were talking about the financial crisis, and they were talking about millennials, us, and they were like, um, see that like when we were like, I don't know, in our like formative years of like childhood, there was the uh 9-11. Yes. And then there was the as we were entering the workforce or starting to, we had the financial crisis of like 2008, like the game's about in a fallout. And then now as we're like gaining our momentum and like got our those of us who were able to get our feet underneath us who aren't living at home because there's a lot of our like who were already living at home before this. And now we have like a pandemic and another financial crisis.

But I think and then in the middle of that like school shootings, like thinking about what that did to like my understanding um I remember Columbine and I can't remember what year it was, but I remember being young and thinking like you're still watching. You're watching to see what the adults are going to do and they don't do anything. But then you look at like Holt like we didn't do what uh those kids in uh Marjorie uh what's that Marjorie Douglas like yeah yeah in Florida. We didn't do what those kids did. Like I think that they've seen even more and so I just I'm inspired I'm like hesitant too because I'm just like well like it's easy to look to the next generation to be like you guys fix it please.

So I just want to like sort of as a bridge be like a a resource and like and there, you know, but I also I agree Elliot like I think that or that they are like I don't know maybe I'm hoping that they're in like this like sort of sweet spot of like having seen a lot but having not like been sold sort of alive that we don't I don't think I don't think it's too late for them.

[49:07] Nik Walker: No, like I I think I think that like for millennials it's a little too late. I think that we like we tried. We can keep the fight going, but we can't.

[49:16] Sasha Hutchings: I know, but I'm not sure.

[49:21] Nik Walker: We stood in there. We took all of the punches, and I do think we tried, but I do think that who's really gonna reap the benefits is the generation underneath us and the next.

[49:30] Sasha Hutchings: Yes. Um and they deserve it too because they are really badass. Um yeah.

[49:35] Nik Walker: Go ahead.

[49:38] Sasha Hutchings: No, you go ahead.

[49:39] Nik Walker: Oh, I was I was gonna say what we can do is we can I I I do think that one thing this pandemic has done is like we have stuck together. I will say that. And I think I think that even though we know we're not gonna ever be able to stop fighting for these things, I think there is a comfort that I take in knowing that like I'm walking out of this knowing that knowing that several people have my back.

[50:02] Sasha Hutchings: Yes.

[50:03] Nik Walker: And that that is there's several more people than I than I had going into this. And that that's huge. That that makes me feel like okay, we can we can we can do some damage. We can we can take some stuff down before before we're out, you know what I mean?

[50:17] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[50:18] Nik Walker: So absolutely.

[50:20] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah. Well, I wanna we want to get to like our actual interview, lol. I was just thinking, I was like, you guys have like totally of questions, and we were just like, yeah, so this is where I'm at.

[50:30] Nik Walker: So I'm thinking about it.

[50:32] Sasha Hutchings: This is no, this is what we do. These are if we were if we were doing Broadway shows right now and meeting for drinks between this is what we'd be talking about.

[50:43] Nik Walker: Totally. You know what I mean? This is what's on our mind. This is what we want to knock around with. Um, but we do like to ask um all of our guests what first got them interested in the arts when they were a young person. Um so Sasha, let's start with you. What first got Sasha interested in the arts?

[51:00] Sasha Hutchings: I was put into dance at three years old, like every little good girl is. Um, and I just I always feel like I just never stopped. And I think um what sort of kept me going, I think I realized like in my I was always dancing, and I think in my body, I sort of realized that like this is a way for me to communicate things that I didn't understand at a very young age. Um, and I don't think I I don't think I realized that until like literally like a week ago, but um but I think that it was like I was hooked on this process of like things are happening, I don't know what to do with this energy, but I can move and I can make something beautiful with it. And then of course, like teachers who encouraged me and you know, singles me out and and parents who were supportive and just like continue, what do you want to do?

Go for it. Um, I never felt like you know, they were like, Well, you're gonna have to get a real job. I never felt I never had that message for my parents. Um, yeah, and then I just literally it was just I think it was that that dance, and like realizing that like as even though like there are emotions that I can't articulate and maybe haven't even fully experienced yet, but I can experiment and play with those things physically with my body, um, was really powerful and sort of addictive for me. Um, yeah, and I've just sort of followed the trail of like any bread crumb that anyone would leave me since like I've just called everything. My one of my studio directors, um uh who's since passed, but Pamela Arzik, like she gave me the brochure for OCU and was like, You're going here, and I was like, What are you talking about?

[52:42] Nik Walker: I don't even I don't even know if I want to dance. And I remember taking master classes like in New York, she would organize trips and they'd be like, Who wants to be on Broadway? And I would just be like, skiddoo. And she was like, She does. And I was like, I don't even know what this is. Um yeah, and but really, yeah, the addict I'm addicted to the like ability to take something and process it in in other artistic ways, creative ways, and create something really cool in the process.

[53:21] Sasha Hutchings: Yes, yeah. Um relate to that.

[53:24] Nik Walker: Yeah, yeah, for sure. What about you?

[53:27] Sasha Hutchings: No, I think I think it's I think it's similar and different. I think um, so I mean, I know my mom put me initially. My mom put me into theater because I had ADD and she thought it was focus me. Like it was like oldest time. And and it worked and it did work. Like, I mean, it was and and to my chagrin, like it became the thing that I focused on the storytelling. But also when I was young, I was my babysitters were movies and um and books, and and I I I was watching movies that I should not have been watching at that age at all. Like, I think about I think about some of the titles, and I'm like, wow, that's too young. Like, like, you know, you should not don't don't don't watch like like Andromeda Strain at like you know four years old.

Like, don't do that. Um, but I love I I very yeah, I was like obsessed. Like my triumvirate was like Spielberg, Terrancina or in Scorsese. Like, like and that's to this day. That's still like my that's my world, and I love them so much.

[54:23] Nik Walker: Sophisticated palette for a four-year-old.

[54:25] Sasha Hutchings: For like a child, um, but you know, I think I think if I'm speaking, if I'm to speak on it honestly, I think what kept me in and what kept me going, I think that it very, you know, look, all children experience trauma in some way or another. And I think that what what feed and what storytelling in general became to me was just a way when the world was insane, this was how I could control my world. This was this was how I could I could find a story that I could be safe in, and and I could I could I I all of a sudden could determine where this path goes instead of the this thing that was shifting, and and I think that's to this day. I think this is so often when so often I find that this is the only thing that makes sense.

Storytelling is the only thing like I can't I can't tell you how to be an adult oftentimes, but I I can tell you how to write a script, and and that you know, I think has been a real a real blessing and a challenge to like to dip my toe out of this and be like, Great, cool, you got this. So what else do you need to do to function in this society? And um, but yeah, I think I certainly think that's how I got my if you ask me how I got my start, that's how I got my start, and that's how also what kept me in it.

[55:43] Nik Walker: Yeah, that that's a really beautiful thought is that like this is the place that we can make sense of things, and I think that a lot of people feel that way. And you know, Sasha, that's similar to like you were like, I can make sense of this physically, or I can make sense of this through this other character or this play. I think a lot of people feel that way. I think that was a that to me is a very, like, very beautiful, clear way of putting why a lot of people do what we do. I mean, you you said you watched a lot of movies, but did what got you like switched from like just being interested in Score Sacy to like wanting to like do musicals?

[56:20] Sasha Hutchings: The irony is, can I tell you straight up?

[56:23] Nik Walker: Yeah, please.

[56:24] Sasha Hutchings: Not a single thing. I so the fact that I am on Broadway right now is fascinating to me. I did not see this coming at all. I because I said I mean I sang in rock bands in high school and college. Um and and even so, like, so you know, so I have a I have a uh a podcast on BPN, and like that's like what we talk about. Like half of it, it's a movie podcast, but half of what we talk about is like the fact that I have any qualification to be on Broadway Podcast Network is like ridiculous. Um because yeah, it was it was more just like when I got out into the auditioning world, I was a Shakespeare major in school, I sang, and and they were like, cool, let's try some musicals. And I was like, okay. Uh and I tried them, and like I did not book most of them. Like it took it took a very specific musical, like to get me doing musical. And and and really, like, I I Sasha, in terms of like Motown, which I think was that that was that your Broadway debut as well?

[57:26] Nik Walker: No, I had done Memphis.

[57:27] Sasha Hutchings: That was my first original cast. There you go. So, in terms of Motown, which was how we met, and that's a whole song in itself. Like, I I still did not belong there, except for the fact that because like I couldn't sing, like, I mean, or rather, I could not dance like like they needed me to dance. I could not dance, I still can't dance. I don't know how to dance. But they needed, they needed someone who could act, and they needed someone who could sing high, and I could do those things. So they threw me in, and then I was immediately thrown into this world that was the most period black people period that I've ever seen in my life, period. It was like I was I was all of a sudden I had to deal with like first of all what it means to be on Broadway.

Second of all, what it means to be in a musical, third of all, what it means to be in this specific cast with these specific people, and who did not make it easy on me because it's those specific people, and they know who they are, and so like it was just it was just this I mean it it really has been like this game of catch up for me for so off so so you know so much of it because I I stand in awe of what I see uh so many musical theater performers do, and I'm just like I sure like that's amazing, that's incredible. I I don't know. Who are like I've never sung a song in my life, what and they're like it doesn't matter, you can dance, you can fit these costumes, just like sing this note here.

[58:57] Sasha Hutchings: But seriously, that is such an amazing thing that I think people should take in. I think it can be frustrating sometimes, like like in in a way, like because we're told to like get a certain way, you have to like train and you have to know the shows, and you have to like know the canon and know the history and blah blah blah blah blah. And but that's not necessarily true. It's such a crapshoot that it just you just have to be right, you just have to be that person that and that's it. And that's and that's such a lesson because that's that's the only at the end of the day, all you have is yourself.

[59:39] Nik Walker: That's your only weapon. That's it. You know, whenever people ask me, like, how can I stand out from the I'm like, that everything you're seeing in the mirror, that's what you got.

[59:46] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[59:47] Nik Walker: That's it. That's the only thing you got. So you better love that person, and you better do what you do the best that you can do it. And and that's you know, like, like, like, so so um, because Ellie, I know it's because you because you were just doing Beetlejuice, correct? So so me and Brightman have like a script swap that we've been doing, or we like drink and like and like swap scripts and like just read. And what I what I you know, what I love about Brightman is just that idea of like he has I mean, every script that he writes, it's his world. I mean, you can read these scripts and you're like, oh, that's that's Brightman. Like, that's that's it's just so innate to his sense of himself, and I think that is the best, no matter what facet of the entertainment industry you're in. If you know yourself, you're ahead of the game.

[1:00:33] Sasha Hutchings: Totally just know yourself. And I feel like I wish that's what led like your education, like back to what we were starting about is like the rest of this is just suggestion, like it will be helpful for you to know the canon, it will be helpful for you to know music theory, it will be helpful for you to know these things, but at the very like at the beginning and the end of the day, it's you, and like the more authentic and more unapologetically you can show up as that person in the room and just like incorporate all these things into you, but you you lead, and I think so much of what I felt in my education was figure out who you look like or who you what type you fit into or what genre you fit into, instead of just being like, no, just do you, and then like if you see something that sort of looks like that or echoes that, like, you know, ask questions about it, dive in, like do your research, but but then do you, and then again, do you?

[1:01:26] Nik Walker: Like, and I think I I lacked that, and and I mean, I won't even blame that on like an education or teachers. Like, it's just me trying to figure myself out. But I do think that it it would be beneficial for students to understand that there literally are no rules, and like all of these other things are truly suggestions.

[1:01:42] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, I think we we all felt that way. Like, you know, and in my experience at OCU is very like classical kind of training. And I thought that because that was the kind of training that I had that that would be where I would end up. But it turns out I've done everything but anything classical. Like wow. And it's just because who I am as a person is like, you know, cocktails and blah blah blah. Like it's just not who I am. I'm not that person. So like what I fit is what's actually where where I have gone in my career has been actually made more sense with my personality more than my skill setting.

[1:02:20] Nik Walker: I agree.

[1:02:21] Sasha Hutchings: I I think the first time I did a show that I felt like OCU like was preparing me for was maybe my fair lady.

[1:02:30] Nik Walker: And that was like what your like seventh Broadway show.

[1:02:33] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, like it was like down the line.

[1:02:35] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:02:35] Sasha Hutchings: And like I are, you know, and I did like other I did like sweet cherry, I've done some things that were like more like along the lines of like more traditional musical theater. That said, the technique, like how to sing, how to dance, like how to technically do those things is very useful.

[1:02:51] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:02:52] Sasha Hutchings: But then like the like how that comes out always later is just like, well, who knows? I don't know. You can sing, you can sing it. And like, is that what you are gonna end up doing? Who who knows?

[1:03:04] Nik Walker: I I feel like a more what I wish I had learned more of, and you know, is not just how to sing, but how to sing eight shows a week. What you do when you're injured in the middle of the show, how do you get through that? Those are the things that that actually you need to know because those are the things that we have we end up having to learn on the fly. And yeah, and some of us learn it on the fly and we're we're okay and we and we can learn it, but some of us have to pay a real big cost for that. And it's like we actually shouldn't have to pay that like athletes know what to do if they get injured. Do you know what I mean?

[1:03:39] Sasha Hutchings: Sure.

[1:03:40] Nik Walker: So why don't we know what to do if we start to feel a pull on our on our on our you know, scaling? I mean, like we need to these are basic things that we need to know, and I'm shocked that we don't get taught them.

[1:03:51] Sasha Hutchings: Well, I mean, it's interesting resources, like having people more than twice a week.

[1:03:57] Nik Walker: Yeah, yeah.

[1:03:58] Sasha Hutchings: Do you feel like Sasha and Caleb, since you all trained in the dance program at OCU, do you feel like you were taught about your bodies as dancers? Because I don't feel like I was taught as how to maintain my instrument as a vocalist.

[1:04:13] Nik Walker: I think so.

[1:04:15] Sasha Hutchings: I agree.

[1:04:16] Nik Walker: I agree.

[1:04:17] Sasha Hutchings: I think I think that I learned in the dance school, taking the classes that I did, and then I did learn a little bit about how what to know about my body and when to stop and what to adjust and how to do it. I mean, I will definitely say, like, as far as like weight management, like bullshit, no. Screw that, throw it out the window. What now? What is I don't even know what that what is that? Weight management.

[1:04:41] Nik Walker: This is a podcast.

[1:04:43] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, they have they have very I will say they have very specific ideas about image, body type.

[1:04:52] Nik Walker: Oh no, and weight, bye.

[1:04:54] Sasha Hutchings: Nope nope and it's a problem. I've said it, I've I'll say it all day long. I don't care. Like, I will absolutely say because it's wrong and it's very wrong to be talking to young women about their bodies in that way in this day and age so problems none of that caused is not it's bad yeah that said the technical like the things that they do well this and the reason I think it's such a shame that that's such a hallmark of that program and it is is because on the technical side like as far as like training you as a technical dancer I don't know another program that does that other than if you were going to go into a ballet or like a conservatory sort of situation but like if you're trying to dancing you're not getting the different style like if you're trying to go be a prima ballerina or a modern dancer specifically like there's other programs you can go through but if you're training i there's literally no reason that like our Broadway our dancers should not be flooding the ensembles of Broadway because it is that training is insane it is kept me I mean like the injuries that I have sustained on Broadway are because I wasn't doing what they told me I was supposed to do.

[1:06:02] Sasha Hutchings: Wow, truly like I mean I've never like the 45 50 minute warm up that you do before every single thing like the requirement, the development of the technique, the system, like between ballet and jazz and tap, like just the culture of it is built to protect you from injury and protect you in the midst. You can use that to protect you in the midst of injury. The consciousness of your body awareness, I think an unfortunate thing, again to bring it back to that weight thing, is that you divorce yourself from your body and like knowing yourself and being proud of it and taking care of it because there's all this shame around weight. And so you can't do both at the same time. You really just like a person cannot both be ashamed of their body and in tune with it.

So I think full story around it actually being individual, they don't teach you how to be an individual out of C U. They teach you how to be a rocket. So they teach you like this is how you can be a rocket, and you will be so you'll be amazing. So it's hard to realize at 18, 19 who you are as an individual and how to take what they're saying and how to put it in your own body. Yeah, I think that's also you're young, which is you're everything with a grain of salt. The people that are able to go and take the kind of like rocket training, but also be like, I'm also an individual, they knew they were an individual before. I don't think there's a lot of like cultivating of like, no, you can be your own kind of dancer.

Yeah, definitely. Unless you knew that already, then I don't think people get that out of the school. And then they are groomed to think it's you know, and I mean it's like it's a product of a larger thing, like it's a product of like, you know, you want it to be better. That's why the artistic director there and everyone else growing up in societies and in businesses that say, like, you should look this way, and this is how you work. Like, I think it's a lot of factors, not just like one institution being like, this is what you have to do. I think, but I think that that and that ideology is a symptom of a larger thing. And like somebody people ask me all the time, like being a woman or being a woman of color in this business, like how do you, especially a dancer?

And I was like, listen, I've been struggling with that since I decided to do this. Yep. And like going to a school that has like a generic look of like, you know, how to show up for a show, which is like red lipstick and curly hair. And I had a perm, which I was already dealing with stuff from like, you know, Georgia, the South, like telling me that my hair was unruly and I should straighten it chemically. When I come here, it's like, you just have curly hair. And I'm like, what kind of curly hair? Like that curly hair doesn't look like my curly hair. Um, there's all these layers and layers and layers of things, but again, to bring it's just the value of knowing that you have to be yourself and that that is the most valuable thing. And you can't underestimate what an act of resistance that can be, depending on what body you find yourself in in this life. Truly.

[1:09:01] Nik Walker: Wow. Wow, guys.

[1:09:04] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[1:09:06] Nik Walker: Love that conversation.

[1:09:07] Sasha Hutchings: I love this.

[1:09:08] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:09:08] Sasha Hutchings: I'm having so much fun, right?

[1:09:10] Nik Walker: Oh, yeah.

[1:09:11] Sasha Hutchings: Um, well, I do want to talk a little bit about Chaos Twins and how that came about. Um, so how did that all get started?

[1:09:22] Nik Walker: How did it come about, Sasha?

[1:09:26] Sasha Hutchings: Uh-uh. It all started at a little house. A little house in Detroit.

[1:09:29] Nik Walker: Detroit.

[1:09:32] Sasha Hutchings: So me, I will say this. Me and Sasha together as friends, we have, I think there was like an because before we even like actual friends who like hung out and like and like had like a you know, a banter, there was just an understanding, even from afar, that like this mixture should not ever happen. Like everyone was like, yo, you and Sasha should not like please stay on opposite sides of the theater. Please stay on opposite sides of like Times Square. In the wedding of our friendship, when they're like, Does anybody object? Everybody's everyone was like, I have something to say. There was like a line to the altar. Everybody said, please don't do this.

[1:10:17] Sasha Hutchings: So we so during Motown, we did this thing that was so ridiculous. Sasha was Sasha had been, she had left. She had left at this point, but then they called her back to Yeah.

[1:10:27] Nik Walker: Nick and I have also never spent more than two weeks in a building to get in a class together. We've shared two contracts, but only for two weeks. So even producers knew to everything. I was leaving Motown, he was coming in, and I was like, oh, what's that guy? And then I came back for like two weeks to cover. And it was chaos because I was a swing on Motown. And that was already a problem because please don't put me in a room and just give me time to like plot and do and plan. Do you like don't do that? Like already that's an issue. It's bad. It's so bad.

[1:11:09] Sasha Hutchings: And then Sasha came into the building, and like she was she was like, she was understudying, uh, it was more was it still Morgan James or was Tracy McDowell? White woman in Motown.

[1:11:20] Nik Walker: In Motown.

[1:11:21] Sasha Hutchings: Yikes.

[1:11:22] Nik Walker: And uh it was great. Uh but she did it, she's no, yeah, I love Morgan. But she uh she didn't she had a lot of time off stage, and so we came up with this idea that we wanted we wanted to secure the perimeter of the lunt of the theater.

[1:11:40] Sasha Hutchings: I don't know if we came up with it as much as it was something that we became aware of.

[1:11:44] Nik Walker: Yeah, the the the perimeter was not secure, but the perimeter was not secure.

[1:11:49] Sasha Hutchings: No, we did not feel I I would I feel like was it was it after, and I've asked you this before, and I totally forget. Was it after the dude who landed on the building? Was that after because that might have been quite I'm just being real it was after because I was there when that happened and I had left.

[1:12:08] Nik Walker: Yes, what happened?

[1:12:09] Sasha Hutchings: A man landed on the building.

[1:12:11] Nik Walker: A man I'm sorry I'm sorry to bring this up.

[1:12:13] Sasha Hutchings: So we so I did not have this experience at the lunch, so I want you wanna paved away, but it was in the middle. This is it's a it's a kind it's a kind of I mean not kind of, it's a very it's a not a happy story, but it's not at all.

[1:12:20] Nik Walker: It's not at all.

[1:12:27] Sasha Hutchings: But we so cut cut to tone shift.

[1:12:27] Nik Walker: Cut to tone shift shift, here we go.

[1:12:34] Sasha Hutchings: Okay, content warning. We were in the but this is it's also very Motown. Like I if it was any show that was Nick, you're you're messing it up. We can we have to give this its weight and then we can go back.

[1:12:46] Nik Walker: I'm gonna tell it.

[1:12:46] Sasha Hutchings: I'm gonna tell it.

[1:12:47] Nik Walker: Nick can't tell it. He's not responsible enough to do this.

[1:12:50] Sasha Hutchings: I can't think of it.

[1:12:51] Nik Walker: So this basically there was a rehearsal going on, there was a loud thud in the lunch, and they didn't know what had happened, and there was all of this like, you know, okay, well whatever you know, keep going. The next day, people who had gotten to the theater early enough, a man had jumped from the W hotel and committed suicide and landed on the ceiling of the laund. And they had to like because of the building, they had to bring the body down like the stairwell. Like it was like not a good scene, not a good look.

[1:13:29] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[1:13:30] Nik Walker: I would attribute the chaos of I mean, like that definitely fits into like just like a lot, but that's a very different.

[1:13:39] Sasha Hutchings: Also, Nick, like let's talk about like Motown was getting edits a year into the run.

[1:13:44] Nik Walker: Yes, no, no, that's what I'm saying there was nothing that felt safe or secure about it was a crazy place there were too many people like when they put the show on tour there were like 11 less tracks like it was just like a crazy like you're right there were a lot of black people in the building but it was like every person it was an amazing building to be in because it was like the most talented people of color like black people on like in the industry yeah like I mean the voices I literally I was just like okay if I say I'm a singer and Marva Hicks and Ryan Shaw say they're they're singers one of us is lying and it's me it's me I know who it is so it was just there was like all the height of talent and then like a lot of disarray there were I mean I've never been in a show that experienced that many changes like that late in the game is cursed the building was insane also like there was an experience of like we had mice in the building and like somebody found like a mouse like eating another mouse like they were both like crazy things going on all the time so we were trying to we needed to secure the perimeter.

[1:14:49] Sasha Hutchings: See the perimeter needed to be secure so we got costumes okay and and our costume by got we mean assembled assembled I had I I whenever I you know in every dressing room that I've ever had and even on tour I travel with a a case full of nerdom like my comic books my posters like it it truly is just that that's what I need that's what I need to feel I I have like my like my my Walt Disney World uh magic band, like it's like all there, and I and so I had a Wolverine mask um there and I put that on.

[1:15:25] Nik Walker: Sasha put a was it a lampshade or was it No, so I found that later.

[1:15:30] Sasha Hutchings: You had yellow bats, you had yellow plastic bats.

[1:15:33] Nik Walker: You had two yellow plastic bats in his dressing room.

[1:15:36] Sasha Hutchings: I was in the dressing room hanging out, and I was like, what is all this stuff? And so I just started going through it, and then like we just started assembling things.

[1:15:42] Nik Walker: The lampshade, it was it was a fringe.

[1:15:45] Sasha Hutchings: Do you remember the costumes for shotgun?

[1:15:47] Nik Walker: No, you don't because we were in silhouette, so nobody remembers them except for the people that saw us backstage.

[1:15:53] Sasha Hutchings: I hate it.

[1:15:54] Nik Walker: But they were these like fringe go-go dresses, like these really cute, like fringe go-go, like white fringe go-go dresses. And we went down to the costume department in our in our effort to secure the perimeter, and there was a strip of fringe, and I was like, Can I have this? And they said yes, and so then I proceeded to tie it around my face. And because I needed a mask too.

[1:16:15] Sasha Hutchings: I put hello, I was we've been wearing Nick and I have been wearing masks for six seven years.

[1:16:15] Nik Walker: Seven years.

[1:16:23] Sasha Hutchings: And I put I put a I put like a flower through the eye socket. And here was the thing. So we first stop was the stage management office. And please keep in mind, this is during the matinee. Like there's an actual show happening.

[1:16:35] Nik Walker: Okay.

[1:16:37] Sasha Hutchings: And you're two one understudy and one swing come down to the stage management office dressed like this. Not only did our team approve of this, they took pictures of it.

[1:16:49] Nik Walker: I want Shelly Williams pictures.

[1:16:51] Sasha Hutchings: Shelly Williams is the associate director, and I she has a picture of this somewhere.

[1:16:57] Nik Walker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:16:58] Sasha Hutchings: And in the middle of Shelly Williams, just like honestly, associate directing, she was directing the shit out of that show.

[1:17:05] Nik Walker: Yes.

[1:17:06] Sasha Hutchings: To her best ability.

[1:17:07] Nik Walker: Like she also has a picture of the case.

[1:17:09] Sasha Hutchings: She was also very supportive of the Chaos Twins from the early. In fact, when we when we announced that we were doing a talk show together, she actually assumed that it was some sort of narrative show about our madness.

[1:17:21] Nik Walker: Like a web series.

[1:17:31] Sasha Hutchings: But she assumed that our madness would come up with some sort of definitely like a whole situation, which it it may still, it may yet still.

[1:17:38] Nik Walker: Oh absolutely.

[1:17:40] Sasha Hutchings: But yeah, we we went to places that we should not have.

[1:17:43] Nik Walker: I will say this.

[1:17:44] Sasha Hutchings: We walked around the building.

[1:17:46] Nik Walker: The whole building.

[1:17:46] Sasha Hutchings: The whole building, including the parts of the building where there was a show happening.

[1:17:52] Nik Walker: The house.

[1:17:52] Sasha Hutchings: The house.

[1:17:53] Nik Walker: Like with baseball bats and mat like that's what I'm saying.

[1:17:57] Sasha Hutchings: No one stopped us.

[1:17:58] Nik Walker: Not one.

[1:17:59] Sasha Hutchings: My movie Stopious stopped us.

[1:18:03] Nik Walker: They would say, What's going on?

[1:18:04] Sasha Hutchings: We say we're securing the perimeter.

[1:18:05] Nik Walker: And then they'd say, Okay.

[1:18:07] Sasha Hutchings: Okay.

[1:18:08] Nik Walker: Okay.

[1:18:09] Sasha Hutchings: And that's that's how the chaos was.

[1:18:11] Nik Walker: That's the first.

[1:18:11] Sasha Hutchings: That's the first layer.

[1:18:12] Nik Walker: The second layer was when we discovered our mutual love of the West Wing.

[1:18:17] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, which was like that was like a dis a huge discovery.

[1:18:21] Nik Walker: And we started referring to each other as CJ and Josh.

[1:18:24] Sasha Hutchings: Yep.

[1:18:25] Nik Walker: Um, because that that's like that's a truly our fa.

[1:18:27] Sasha Hutchings: That's I mean, I I cannot tell you how much I love that show.

[1:18:30] Nik Walker: I know Sasha, you love that show.

[1:18:32] Sasha Hutchings: Um I've never seen it, it's on my list.

[1:18:36] Nik Walker: You need to watch it, you need to watch it a lot of the news better about the whole thing.

[1:18:40] Sasha Hutchings: It will make you feel yeah, it will make you feel so good about about like life if you watch it, especially during a time like this.

[1:18:46] Nik Walker: Um the third.

[1:18:49] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[1:18:49] Nik Walker: Oh, Alice and Janet, and she is brilliant.

[1:18:51] Sasha Hutchings: When I say she's brilliant on the show, but really she's perfect.

[1:18:55] Nik Walker: It's unspeakable.

[1:18:56] Sasha Hutchings: Um, and then the third thing was our mutual love of activism and of, you know, social justice and getting the good word out there.

[1:19:04] Nik Walker: And we had been doing these Instagram lives.

[1:19:08] Sasha Hutchings: Well, Nik had been doing them. Nik had been doing them with like guests like what, like every 15-20 minutes you would do them and bring people on, and he was like, Sash, will you come on?

[1:19:16] Sasha Hutchings: I was like, sure. You know, of course. He asked, he specifically asked me if I wanted to troll people online, and I said yes.

[1:19:24] Sasha Hutchings: And I didn't really understand what that meant, but I think I showed up, yeah.

[1:19:29] Nik Walker: Go ahead.

[1:19:31] Sasha Hutchings: In a Motown.

[1:19:32] Nik Walker: You showed up with Love Child on your goddamn.

[1:19:35] Sasha Hutchings: I turned up with like the Love Child sweatshirt.

[1:19:37] Nik Walker: Yeah, and like sunglasses, and I just started, and I didn't realize like he had been having like some pretty grounded serious conversations with people about the effects of the pandemic, and I just got on there and just started talking shit.

[1:19:49] Nik Walker: Can I tell you the um like the way that the viewership automatically went up once not even I mean, yes, with Sasha's presence, but also once people realized what we were doing, that we everyone's like, get on this live, like yes, somehow walking this tightrope of like being ridiculous, but also talking about real stuff, yeah.

[1:20:10] Nik Walker: And then somehow, I guess I don't know if Broadway World saw it or what, but then they were like, Yeah, do you want to do this on Um Bravo Room?

[1:20:18] Sasha Hutchings: We're like okay, and what's messed up to the again to this day is like they really gave us the keys to the kingdom.

[1:20:26] Nik Walker: Like there was no, it's like, yeah, tears here's our stream yard account.

[1:20:31] Sasha Hutchings: Like what we're gonna literally amplified chaos.

[1:20:36] Nik Walker: Chaos.

[1:20:37] Sasha Hutchings: We're still waiting for Broadway Podcast Network to like, you know, oh I've actually had these talks with Brit every day.

[1:20:47] Nik Walker: Like I've I'm literally like, yo, why, why? How are you guys allowing this kind of nonsense to continue on your wonderful podcast network?

[1:20:57] Sasha Hutchings: Um look, there's room for everything.

[1:21:02] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:21:02] Sasha Hutchings: Apparently, no, but yeah, BPN is awesome and Broadway World is awesome.

[1:21:06] Nik Walker: And they um they gave us a wonderful space to do our thing.

[1:21:10] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, it's been a good time.

[1:21:12] Nik Walker: And I do, I think we enjoy like the ability to go between like float between very serious things and very important um things, and then just like honestly the chaos of all of it.

[1:21:22] Sasha Hutchings: Like we talked about our show, we're just like it. This is chaos.

[1:21:23] Nik Walker: This is actual chaos.

[1:21:26] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, there's no other time under which like the chaos twins would be brought forth.

[1:21:31] Nik Walker: And here we are.

[1:21:32] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, look, this is the one.

[1:21:34] Nik Walker: This is the origin story.

[1:21:35] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[1:21:36] Nik Walker: No, and it's and and I and I do think I what I what I I think at our best, I think that what we what we hope to do is make these subjects less taboo for people to talk about critically, yeah and and approach and find a way in for everybody.

[1:21:53] Sasha Hutchings: A lot of I mean, a lot of what we talk just because we are black people, a lot of what we talk about are black people issues.

[1:22:01] Nik Walker: Yeah, um, but that realizing that just because of the setup of our country, our issues are American issues, and everybody needs to be able to talk about it, you know.

[1:22:12] Sasha Hutchings: Um it's it's yeah, so I think I hope that we're doing make doing some good.

[1:22:17] Nik Walker: We've I mean, our guests have been really truly amazing people and and continue to try to to try to you know push that envelope a little bit and make some stuff happen, you know.

[1:22:29] Sasha Hutchings: So yeah.

[1:22:30] Nik Walker: And I think that you know, we what you talk about is making these issues a little less daunting, a little more something that you can listen to as a white person.

[1:22:40] Sasha Hutchings: It's realizing that a lot a lot of these issues are not just issues of one community, they're everyone's issues because we all factor in to how everyone lives their lives and is affected in this world.

[1:22:54] Nik Walker: So when race issues become white people's issues, then I think that's gonna be when we make some big big progress because we not only are affected by what we already have been taught to do in our lives, just in existing in a structure, but that we can help better lives just by making some changes in our lives that we might not even know about that we need to change, but people need to look inside everyone and figure it out that way.

[1:23:32] Sasha Hutchings: Figure it out.

[1:23:36] Nik Walker: Oh yeah.

[1:23:37] Sasha Hutchings: Um we're gonna go to um rapid fire segment time.

[1:23:41] Nik Walker: Uh it's time for merch madness.

[1:23:57] Sasha Hutchings: Okay, so I let's talk about that.

[1:24:05] Nik Walker: So okay, so I collect uh musical theater merchandise, um t-shirts specifically.

[1:24:11] Sasha Hutchings: I always have, and uh so this is a segment where I usually um review t-shirts against each other in a versus format and declare a winner.

[1:24:21] Nik Walker: However, in this pandemic where we all want to wear a mask, this is now mask madness.

[1:24:26] Sasha Hutchings: So I have two different masks here that I'm gonna review.

[1:24:29] Nik Walker: Um, and now I I have masks from two different um companies.

[1:24:34] Sasha Hutchings: Okay, so this is a mask from the company that I have been using for a while, which is my uncle's company that makes masks.

[1:24:41] Nik Walker: This is a lovely tie-dye.

[1:24:44] Sasha Hutchings: Okay, it's a really nice color here.

[1:24:46] Nik Walker: Um full coverage, so full.

[1:24:49] Sasha Hutchings: That what's nice is I can I can tuck the fabric underneath my glasses.

[1:24:55] Nik Walker: No fog.

[1:24:57] Sasha Hutchings: No fog.

[1:24:58] Nik Walker: Wow, yeah.

[1:24:59] Sasha Hutchings: I didn't think about that.

[1:25:00] Nik Walker: That's lovely.

[1:25:02] Sasha Hutchings: It's really nice, nice loose earloops, okay.

[1:25:05] Nik Walker: This is good, and it's lined in a color, right?

[1:25:08] Sasha Hutchings: So no stone left unturned.

[1:25:10] Nik Walker: She's tie-dye, and then she's classy.

[1:25:12] Sasha Hutchings: Okay, so we love this mask.

[1:25:15] Nik Walker: Now we have a different brand.

[1:25:16] Sasha Hutchings: Now I do have to say, full disclosure, this these masks took a full two months to get to me.

[1:25:22] Nik Walker: Um they're busy, but they donated their um, they donated, they gave you the option to like donate your shipping fee to um organizations that need help right now, uh, because they took so long.

[1:25:38] Sasha Hutchings: So this is a mask from uh I don't know the company, but I forget the company, honestly.

[1:25:46] Nik Walker: Because it took so long.

[1:25:48] Sasha Hutchings: I ordered it and then they just didn't show up.

[1:25:50] Nik Walker: They get to know love.

[1:25:52] Sasha Hutchings: I know, but it is a really great mask.

[1:25:55] Nik Walker: It's simple.

[1:25:56] Sasha Hutchings: I like the lining, but what I like most about it is the ear, it's an adjustable ear.

[1:26:03] Nik Walker: This is more of a like all day mask.

[1:26:05] Sasha Hutchings: Like, if I know I need to wear a mask a long time, it's gonna be super comfy.

[1:26:11] Nik Walker: Um, so I do have to say that because of the shipping, the shipping was a real issue on this one.

[1:26:20] Sasha Hutchings: I didn't get it.

[1:26:21] Nik Walker: I ordered it, it took so long to get to me to the point where I had to like change the address of where it was getting shipped because I was in a different place.

[1:26:32] Sasha Hutchings: But it is the winner of this week's mask madness because of the long wear possibilities.

[1:26:40] Nik Walker: This is a mask you can wear all day.

[1:26:42] Sasha Hutchings: It's light, it's not pulling at your ears.

[1:26:45] Nik Walker: There's options to like put an actual filter in the mask if you want to um, and there's wire on the nose, and you can secure it around your nose, no fog.

[1:26:57] Sasha Hutchings: Um, so this unnamed company that I can't remember is the winner of this week's merch madness, but they don't deserve the traffic to their page wherever you are, don't order it if you don't have three months to wait.

[1:27:12] Nik Walker: Okay, and who has three months to wait for a mask?

[1:27:15] Sasha Hutchings: No one.

[1:27:16] Nik Walker: Not I need to be wearing it right now.

[1:27:19] Sasha Hutchings: Speaking of masks, Caleb, uh, one of the most famous mask wearers in the um musical theater canon is the Phantom of the Opera.

[1:27:28] Caleb Dicke: So tell us about the game you have for us today.

[1:27:30] Nik Walker: So we're gonna play really fast.

[1:27:31] Caleb Dicke: This is called chandelier, and you don't want to get points in this.

[1:27:35] Nik Walker: And I'm gonna say a question, and you're either gonna say Nik or Sasha, and Elliot's gonna be our breaker, tiebreaker, and whoever has the most points in the end has a chandelier drop on them.

[1:27:47] Sasha Hutchings: Sad story.

[1:27:48] Nik Walker: But we played this with our Phantom of the Opera Friends.

[1:27:50] Sasha Hutchings: It was a hit.

[1:27:51] Nik Walker: So ready?

[1:27:52] Sasha Hutchings: So basically, who is more likely to whatever.

[1:27:56] Nik Walker: Oh, okay.

[1:27:57] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[1:27:57] Nik Walker: And then you answer for items.

[1:27:59] Sasha Hutchings: You guys have been besties for a while.

[1:28:01] Nik Walker: You should know these things.

[1:28:02] Sasha Hutchings: Maybe.

[1:28:03] Nik Walker: We'll see.

[1:28:03] Sasha Hutchings: Okay.

[1:28:04] Nik Walker: So um, who is better at math?

[1:28:10] Sasha Hutchings: Sasha or Nik.

[1:28:12] Nik Walker: I think I am.

[1:28:13] Sasha Hutchings: Okay.

[1:28:13] Nik Walker: Sasha.

[1:28:14] Sasha Hutchings: Okay.

[1:28:15] Sasha Hutchings: Okay.

[1:28:16] Nik Walker: Two for Sasha.

[1:28:16] Nik Walker: Who takes longer in the shower?

[1:28:18] Sasha Hutchings: Sasha.

[1:28:20] Nik Walker: Damn it.

[1:28:22] Sasha Hutchings: Do you agree?

[1:28:22] Nik Walker: Yes.

[1:28:23] Sasha Hutchings: You see this hair? You know what I'm saying?

[1:28:26] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:28:26] Sasha Hutchings: Um, who is more likely to kill a succulent plant?

[1:28:32] Nik Walker: Nik!

[1:28:32] Sasha Hutchings: No, Nik!

[1:28:34] Nik Walker: No, because you Sasha, if I was to have a plant, I would treat it like a plant and water like a plant.

[1:28:38] Sasha Hutchings: I wouldn't talk to it like a human.

[1:28:39] Nik Walker: Look at my succulents.

[1:28:40] Sasha Hutchings: You don't even have any proof because you killed them all.

[1:28:43] Nik Walker: Don't even know.

[1:28:45] Sasha Hutchings: That's why he has so much resentment against my plants, because he killed all of his.

[1:28:53] Nik Walker: This is another succulent.

[1:28:54] Sasha Hutchings: This is um, I propagated this from my grandmother's succulent or day plant in Macon, Georgia.

[1:29:00] Nik Walker: I brought this from Macon, Georgia.

[1:29:02] Sasha Hutchings: Okay, so Elliot, do you who do you who do you vote for?

[1:29:06] Elliott Mattox: I gotta agree with Sasha here.

[1:29:07] Nik Walker: I mean, she's not done.

[1:29:09] Elliott Mattox: We're proper thing so Nik, okay.

[1:29:13] Nik Walker: That's okay.

[1:29:14] Sasha Hutchings: Going on.

[1:29:14] Nik Walker: Who is more of a heartbreaker?

[1:29:23] Sasha Hutchings: I guess that's safe for Sasha.

[1:29:25] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:29:26] Sasha Hutchings: I think we don't know the answer.

[1:29:28] Nik Walker: Okay.

[1:29:29] Sasha Hutchings: Moving on.

[1:29:31] Nik Walker: Who's more likely to re-watch Tiger King?

[1:29:34] Sasha Hutchings: Nik.

[1:29:35] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:29:36] Sasha Hutchings: Oh.

[1:29:39] Nik Walker: Okay.

[1:29:40] Sasha Hutchings: Um, who can hold their breath longer?

[1:29:43] Nik Walker: Nik.

[1:29:45] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[1:29:46] Nik Walker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:29:48] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[1:29:49] Nik Walker: And then last question, who is more sentimental?

[1:29:53] Sasha Hutchings: Nik.

[1:29:55] Nik Walker: She's not wrong.

[1:29:56] Sasha Hutchings: She knows.

[1:29:56] Nik Walker: Definitely.

[1:29:59] Sasha Hutchings: She knows.

[1:30:00] Nik Walker: Four, six, eight.

[1:30:01] Sasha Hutchings: It looks we have eight for Nik and two, four, six, seven for Sasha.

[1:30:09] Nik Walker: So sorry, Nik, you are the loser in this.

[1:30:12] Sasha Hutchings: The chandelier drops on you.

[1:30:13] Nik Walker: Sasha, you get by with one point.

[1:30:15] Sasha Hutchings: One.

[1:30:16] Nik Walker: That makes sense.

[1:30:17] Sasha Hutchings: We're the twins.

[1:30:18] Nik Walker: We're chaos twins.

[1:30:19] Sasha Hutchings: We are chaos twins.

[1:30:21] Nik Walker: That was the closest round of uh chandelier we've ever had.

[1:30:25] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:30:28] Nik Walker: And with that, we are gonna bring this episode to an end.

[1:30:33] Sasha Hutchings: This was such a pleasure.

[1:30:35] Nik Walker: Thank you all so much.

[1:30:38] Sasha Hutchings: On our show. Where can people find you on social media and where can they watch the Chaos Twins?

[1:30:44] Nik Walker: Go ahead.

[1:30:48] Sasha Hutchings: Yep.

[1:30:48] Nik Walker: And you can find me at Nikki Walks and the Chaos Twins is right now, it's a bi-weekly on Broadway World, and it's on our we're actually about to little known little known seek we're about to launch our social media next week.

[1:30:59] Sasha Hutchings: Yes.

[1:31:00] Nik Walker: But uh, but you can find us on Broadway World.

[1:31:03] Sasha Hutchings: You could also find me at Broadway Podcast Network with my movie podcast Little Justice.

[1:31:07] Nik Walker: Um, but yeah, I was I'll either way I'll see you around, you know.

[1:31:10] Sasha Hutchings: We'll see each other in past.

[1:31:11] Nik Walker: Always we're out.

[1:31:12] Sasha Hutchings: Always family.

[1:31:14] Nik Walker: We're you know, we're all working at the Broadway Podcast Network building.

[1:31:17] Sasha Hutchings: You know, our offices are near each other, so we stand around the water cooler and you know it's great.

[1:31:24] Nik Walker: Um you can find our podcast at equity one podcast on Instagram and Facebook and at equity one underscore on Twitter.

[1:31:32] Sasha Hutchings: You can also talk to us via email at equity one podcast at gmail.com.

[1:31:38] Nik Walker: And we're gonna get to well before they find me, they should go to iTunes and leave us a five-star rating and review.

[1:31:46] Sasha Hutchings: It helps us more than you know, and it takes you just a few minutes.

[1:31:49] Nik Walker: Come on, I know you've got the minutes.

[1:31:51] Sasha Hutchings: We're in quarantine, we're all doing the same thing.

[1:31:54] Nik Walker: Um you can find me at Elliot Maddox on everything.

[1:31:57] Sasha Hutchings: Caleb.

[1:31:58] Caleb Dicke: Caleb Dicke, everywhere.

[1:32:00] Sasha Hutchings: And until next time, cheers.

[1:32:04] Nik Walker: Cheers.