This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Emily McLean: Hi, I'm Emily McLean, and I'm the writer of the play TOOTH or Dare that you're gonna hear today on Gather by the Ghost Light.

[0:22] Jonathan Cook: All right, this is Gather by the Ghost Light Original Stories for Radio Theater.

[0:27] Jonathan Cook: I'm Jonathan Cook, your host, producer, and sometimes voice actor on this thing.

[0:32] Jonathan Cook: Welcome back, and thank you all for being here and for leaving all the wonderful ratings and reviews for this podcast.

[0:40] Jonathan Cook: And also, special shout out to fellow playwrights John Bavoso and John Maby for your support and donation at this podcast Buy Me a Coffee Link.

[0:49] Jonathan Cook: And also, all you guys out there, don't forget about our live event coming up on October 21st in Augusta, Georgia at La Chate Noir Theater.

[0:58] Jonathan Cook: Now, if you live or will be in the Augusta, Georgia area in October, I really hope to see you there.

[1:03] Jonathan Cook: And tickets will be on sale for that soon.

[1:05] Jonathan Cook: But you can reserve your seat today when you sign up to be a member at BuyMeACoffee.com/slash Ghostlight, and you can also find that link in the show notes.

[1:15] Jonathan Cook: And now let's have a listen to today's story.

[1:18] Jonathan Cook: This one is a play that comes from Atlanta-based playwright, Emily McLean.

[1:22] Jonathan Cook: Emily's not only a playwright, but she's also a theater educator, a director, and an actor, and today you're gonna hear her dark comedic play called TOOTH or Dare.

[1:33] Jonathan Cook: You were about to meet Andrew and Lydia, a couple whose daughter recently lost a tooth.

[1:38] Jonathan Cook: Unfortunately, they forgot to leave a dollar under her pillow on the TOOTH Fairy's behalf, and now the TOOTH Fairy's a little ticked off that her brand is being negatively affected.

[1:48] Jonathan Cook: Now, gather around the ghostlight, sit back and enjoy.

[1:51] Jonathan Cook: This is TOOTH or Dare, written by Emily McLean.

[1:55] Jonathan Cook: And be sure to stick around after the story to hear an interview with this writer and the voice actors.

[2:06] Kayla Gardner: Oh.

[2:08] Kayla Gardner: Well, this looks like the place.

[2:12] Kayla Gardner: Are you the parents of Natalie Gillis?

[2:17] Andrew Jones: Hey, buddy, look alive.

[2:19] Andrew Jones: Oh, ow!

[2:20] Andrew Jones: Hey!

[2:21] Kayla Gardner: What what the Handre's shh is your daughter named Natalie Gillis?

[2:26] Jamie Johnson Turner: Oh my god, who are you?

[2:28] Jamie Johnson Turner: What's going on?

[2:29] Jamie Johnson Turner: No!

[2:30] Jamie Johnson Turner: Who are you?

[2:31] Jamie Johnson Turner: Oh god, how did you get in the Go call the Are you done?

[2:37] Kayla Gardner: Who are you?

[2:39] Kayla Gardner: How did you get in our house?

[2:40] Andrew Jones: Andrew, call the police!

[2:42] Kayla Gardner: I'm going to ask again, and I really hate repeating myself.

[2:46] Kayla Gardner: So please just answer the question this time instead of screaming.

[2:50] Kayla Gardner: Are you the parents of Natalie Gillis, aged seven, lost four teeth, two top incisors, one bottom incisor, and a canine bottom left?

[3:00] Andrew Jones: How do you know our daughter's name?

[3:01] Andrew Jones: How do you know about her dental records?

[3:03] Andrew Jones: What the hell is going on?

[3:05] Jamie Johnson Turner: Oh my god, have you done something to Natalie?

[3:07] Kayla Gardner: No!

[3:08] Kayla Gardner: More like she's done something to me.

[3:10] Kayla Gardner: Look!

[3:11] Kayla Gardner: Get that out of my face!

[3:13] Kayla Gardner: Is that a cell phone?

[3:16] Andrew Jones: No, it's not a cell phone.

[3:18] Kayla Gardner: This is a tooth berry.

[3:20] Kayla Gardner: And if you look at the screen, you can see it shows the magical being satisfaction rankings.

[3:25] Kayla Gardner: My MBS overall score.

[3:27] Kayla Gardner: You look.

[3:29] Kayla Gardner: Sorry, it's a little close and bright.

[3:33] Kayla Gardner: Let me get let me get my glasses.

[3:35] Kayla Gardner: There.

[3:36] Kayla Gardner: Okay, so what exactly am I looking at here?

[3:39] Kayla Gardner: My score!

[3:41] Kayla Gardner: My satisfaction score has sat in the envy pole position of 93% overall satisfaction for the last decade.

[3:49] Kayla Gardner: I have dominated, beating out the bunny, leaping over the leprechauns, catapulting over Cupid year after year after year.

[3:58] Kayla Gardner: I was second only to Santa himself.

[4:01] Andrew Jones: Look, I don't know what you're talking about, but you need to get out of my house before I call the police, you sparkling psycho!

[4:07] Kayla Gardner: Are are you?

[4:08] Kayla Gardner: Are you really the tooth fairy?

[4:10] Kayla Gardner: And now just look at it!

[4:11] Kayla Gardner: 71% a 71!

[4:14] Andrew Jones: Andrew, call the police!

[4:16] Andrew Jones: Okay, I am.

[4:17] Andrew Jones: Uh uh.

[4:18] Andrew Jones: Uh Whoa!

[4:19] Andrew Jones: Oh my why'd you throw your phone out the window?

[4:22] Kayla Gardner: I didn't throw it, she did something with her sparkly demon powers.

[4:26] Kayla Gardner: Listen up, we're dealing with this.

[4:28] Kayla Gardner: Damn it, would you look at this?

[4:30] Kayla Gardner: I'm even behind the elf on the shelf.

[4:33] Kayla Gardner: Are you kidding me with this right now?

[4:35] Kayla Gardner: And it's all because of your daughter.

[4:38] Andrew Jones: What has Natalie got to do with any of this?

[4:40] Jamie Johnson Turner: Andrew, she's a crazy person.

[4:42] Kayla Gardner: Two days ago, I lost a tooth while I was eating an apple at school.

[4:46] Kayla Gardner: I brought it home and put it under my pillow like always, and the next morning there wasn't any money, and the tooth was still there.

[4:54] Kayla Gardner: My parents said the tooth fairy must have gotten unavoidably detained, and they were sure she would come the next night.

[5:01] Kayla Gardner: I think this is unacceptable service and expect better from the tooth fairy.

[5:06] Kayla Gardner: Perhaps she is losing her edge.

[5:08] Kayla Gardner: Is it time for retirement?

[5:11] Kayla Gardner: Zero out of ten would not recommend.

[5:15] Kayla Gardner: Natalie Gillis, age seven.

[5:17] Andrew Jones: Okay, wait a second.

[5:19] Andrew Jones: She gave me a zero.

[5:21] Andrew Jones: In one fell swoop, she tanked my record.

[5:24] Andrew Jones: It's oh god, I mean, ridiculous, right?

[5:27] Andrew Jones: Like, that algorithm has got to be flawed.

[5:29] Andrew Jones: For one bad rating to have that kind of impact, but but all the same.

[5:33] Andrew Jones: Okay, okay, listen, Miss Fairy.

[5:37] Jamie Johnson Turner: Your fairiness.

[5:38] Kayla Gardner: TF is fine.

[5:40] What?

[5:40] Kayla Gardner: TF?

[5:42] Andrew Jones: Sure, okay, TF.

[5:44] Andrew Jones: We we we did tell Natalie that when we realized we'd both forgotten.

[5:49] Jamie Johnson Turner: No, you forgot.

[5:50] Jamie Johnson Turner: You really want to do this right now?

[5:52] Andrew Jones: I just want everyone to be clear on the facts of the situation.

[5:54] Jamie Johnson Turner: No, you just want to blame me.

[5:56] Andrew Jones: You said you were going to put the money under the pillow.

[6:00] Jamie Johnson Turner: Hey.

[6:00] Jamie Johnson Turner: Hey, yeah, wait, wait a minute.

[6:02] Jamie Johnson Turner: We do.

[6:03] Jamie Johnson Turner: We put the money under the pillow and buy the presents from Santa and hide the eggs.

[6:07] Jamie Johnson Turner: We we do that stuff, right?

[6:09] Andrew Jones: Yes, of course.

[6:11] Andrew Jones: We're good parents.

[6:12] Andrew Jones: You just dropped the ball this one time.

[6:14] Jamie Johnson Turner: Wow, you never miss a chance to No, no.

[6:18] Andrew Jones: What I was saying was, we are the ones who do all the work for all these holiday people.

[6:24] Jamie Johnson Turner: But you're saying you.

[6:25] Jamie Johnson Turner: Like, this score is about you?

[6:27] Kayla Gardner: I don't really have time to get into the particulars of my business with you, but a long time ago, it became clear that unless I was going to be operating on some kind of deficit spending model for all eternity.

[6:40] Kayla Gardner: Yeah, I needed to outsource the labor portion of my business to parents.

[6:44] Kayla Gardner: We all made the transition together.

[6:46] Kayla Gardner: We the International Consortium of Supernatural Beings and Otherworldly Phenomena.

[6:52] Kayla Gardner: So yeah, you people, as parents, do the bulk of my work, but you are trading on my brand, you see.

[7:00] Kayla Gardner: You reflect on my image.

[7:02] Kayla Gardner: And quite frankly, Lydia and Andrew, your work in this area leaves a lot to be desired.

[7:08] Jamie Johnson Turner: Excuse me?

[7:09] Jamie Johnson Turner: You heard me.

[7:10] Kayla Gardner: You need to make this right.

[7:11] Kayla Gardner: Tell your daughter the truth about who really forgot to perform the sacred office of the tooth fairy and get her to take down that horrible review.

[7:19] Andrew Jones: We can't tell her that we're the ones that forgot.

[7:21] Jamie Johnson Turner: That you forgot.

[7:22] Andrew Jones: Okay, Lydia, you've made your point.

[7:23] Andrew Jones: But he's right.

[7:24] Andrew Jones: She's only seven.

[7:25] Andrew Jones: I don't want to tell her that we're the tooth fairy.

[7:28] Andrew Jones: I don't want to spoil that part of childhood for her.

[7:31] Andrew Jones: And I think it's pretty monstrous that you suggest that.

[7:34] Kayla Gardner: Really?

[7:35] Kayla Gardner: Yes.

[7:36] Kayla Gardner: As a matter of fact, I've got half a mind to get on that website and leave a review of my own.

[7:41] Kayla Gardner: What do you think of that?

[7:43] Andrew Jones: You've got half a mind, all right.

[7:44] Jamie Johnson Turner: Hey now.

[7:45] Jamie Johnson Turner: What kind of seven-year-old writes negative online reviews anyway?

[7:49] Jamie Johnson Turner: Where would she learn a thing like that?

[7:52] Kayla Gardner: What's wrong with that?

[7:54] Kayla Gardner: She has as much right to express her opinion as anyone else.

[7:57] Kayla Gardner: She really enjoys it.

[7:59] Kayla Gardner: She's got lots of followers for Polly Pocket unboxing videos on YouTube.

[8:03] Kayla Gardner: Oh.

[8:04] Kayla Gardner: Wow.

[8:05] Kayla Gardner: I'll be sure to check that out.

[8:07] Jamie Johnson Turner: Okay, no need to be rude.

[8:09] Jamie Johnson Turner: I'm not going to ruin my daughter's innocence because you're upset about your Uber score.

[8:13] Kayla Gardner: MBS score.

[8:14] Jamie Johnson Turner: Whatever.

[8:15] Jamie Johnson Turner: So just take your hideous, glittery handbag and get the hell out of my bedroom.

[8:21] Kayla Gardner: I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this.

[8:23] Kayla Gardner: I really was.

[8:24] Kayla Gardner: Remember, you've left me no choice.

[8:29] Kayla Gardner: Oh god.

[8:31] Andrew Jones: Andrew, what's wrong?

[8:33] Andrew Jones: Oh, my tooth!

[8:34] Andrew Jones: My tooth!

[8:35] Andrew Jones: Oh my oh my god, make it stop.

[8:37] Kayla Gardner: Oh, well, please stop this.

[8:39] Kayla Gardner: Please.

[8:39] Jamie Johnson Turner: We're sorry.

[8:40] Kayla Gardner: That's not good enough.

[8:43] Andrew Jones: Oh damn it, Lydia.

[8:45] Andrew Jones: Tell her.

[8:45] Andrew Jones: We'll tell Natalie.

[8:47] Jamie Johnson Turner: Fine.

[8:48] Jamie Johnson Turner: Fine.

[8:49] Jamie Johnson Turner: We'll tell Natalie that we're the ones who are putting the money under her pillow and we screwed up and forgot.

[8:54] Jamie Johnson Turner: And I'll make her check on the review.

[8:58] Kayla Gardner: Excuse me, I didn't quite catch that.

[9:00] Jamie Johnson Turner: I said I'll make her take down the review, okay?

[9:03] Jamie Johnson Turner: Happy now.

[9:05] Kayla Gardner: Stop torturing him.

[9:10] Jamie Johnson Turner: Oh my god, Andrew, is that your tooth?

[9:13] Andrew Jones: You pulled out his tooth?

[9:15] Andrew Jones: That seems like a really unnecessary question.

[9:19] Kayla Gardner: So I guess we have an agreement, right?

[9:21] Kayla Gardner: You're going to take care of telling Natalie the truth and take down the review.

[9:25] Kayla Gardner: I trust I don't have to come back here.

[9:27] Andrew Jones: Yes.

[9:28] Andrew Jones: God, yes, we promise.

[9:30] Andrew Jones: We'll wake her up right now, okay?

[9:32] Andrew Jones: Yeah, she must be a pretty heavy sleeper to stay conked out through all of your screaming and carrying on.

[9:38] Kayla Gardner: Woo!

[9:39] Kayla Gardner: Good for her.

[9:41] Kayla Gardner: Okay, well, I guess I'll be on my way.

[9:43] Andrew Jones: Wait!

[9:44] Andrew Jones: What about his tooth?

[9:45] Kayla Gardner: Fix it!

[9:47] Kayla Gardner: You must have me confused with an oral surgeon.

[9:50] Kayla Gardner: I'm not in the putting teeth back in business.

[9:53] Andrew Jones: So what am I supposed to do?

[9:55] Kayla Gardner: Stick it under your pillow and see if Lydia here gives you a dollar for it.

[9:59] Kayla Gardner: Have a nice evening, folks.

[10:01] Jonathan Cook: Bye.

[10:05] Jonathan Cook: That was TOOTH or Dare, written by Emily McLean.

[10:09] Jonathan Cook: It was performed by Andrew Jones as Andrew, Jamie Johnson Turner as Lydia, and Kayla Gardner as the TOOTH Fairy.

[10:09] Jonathan Cook: All right, so with us now is the writer of the story you just heard.

[10:20] Jonathan Cook: She is a teacher based in Atlanta, Georgia.

[10:24] Jonathan Cook: She's also a director, an actor, and of course, she's a playwright.

[10:29] Jonathan Cook: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Emily McLean.

[10:31] Jonathan Cook: Emily, how are you?

[10:33] Emily McLean: Hey, I'm doing really great.

[10:35] Emily McLean: Thanks for having me on today.

[10:37] Emily McLean: I'm super excited.

[10:38] Jonathan Cook: Yeah, and also, this is a full house.

[10:40] Jonathan Cook: We also got the three voice actors that performed your play that everyone just heard.

[10:46] Jonathan Cook: We have uh Andrew Jones, who played the character Andrew, Jamie Johnson Turner, who played Lydia, and Kayla Gardner who played the TOOTH Fairy.

[10:53] Jonathan Cook: Thank you for being here, guys.

[10:55] Andrew Jones: Glad to be here.

[10:56] Jamie Johnson Turner: Happy.

[10:56] Jonathan Cook: All right.

[10:57] Jonathan Cook: So Emily, for the people out there that aren't familiar with you and your work, uh, tell us uh a little bit of everything about you and your journey into theater and then eventually making your way into playwriting.

[11:10] Emily McLean: Oh gosh.

[11:11] Emily McLean: Okay.

[11:11] Emily McLean: Um, well, I am, I guess, fairly new to playwriting uh in terms of my career.

[11:17] Emily McLean: So um I'm uh a theater educator and I've been teaching now.

[11:21] Emily McLean: This will be my 18th year of teaching high school theater.

[11:25] Emily McLean: Um I'm about to start on Wednesday.

[11:28] Emily McLean: Um, and the uh playwriting kind of I uh got into that really as like a way to have some creative autonomy um that wasn't necessarily associated with my students, whom I love very much and love working with, but it was it was becoming creatively unfulfilling for me as as like a theater artist, right?

[11:50] Emily McClain: Like I was being very nurtured as an educator and as a teacher, but I needed something a little bit more having that kind of adult theater interaction. And playwriting was a really great way to express myself and to have kind of a creative voice that wasn't necessarily associated with me and my role as a teacher. Um, so I finished my first full-length play in 2017. Um, and then I was fortunate enough to have it win at the Essential Theater Festival here in Atlanta. And so they produced it as the world premiere in 2018 that summer. I was a co-winner for that. And then I've just been writing pretty much ever since then regularly. I do a lot of plays that have historical context, right? So some of them are about, you know, female figures in history and that kind of thing or untold stories, that kind of thing, as I is my full lengths.

And then with my 10 minute plays, I do lean more into lighthearted comedy. A lot of it is drawn from my life or, you know, just things that I think are funny. So yeah, like this one. All right. So I want to hit on something you just said. Uh, your first full-length play, you won an award with Essential Theater. You know how many writers out there just got jealous from that sentence when you said that?

[13:19] Emily McClain: Oh, yeah. Um, I've been really, really fortunate. Yeah, that's awesome. But yeah, it was really exciting and a very special, special experience for that. And I've had a fair amount of success, you know, throughout my career so far, and just I love continuing to write and creating relationships with theaters and with artistic directors and directors that I enjoy working with and that kind of thing, and also just the community of playwrights. Um, you know, we were talking a little bit before about Atlanta in specific, but also just the idea of online playwriting communities, I think coming out of the pandemic, that was something that we as creatives found connection in in this Zoom world. Um, you know, and so for playwrights to be able to connect with folks who live all across the country and all across the world and to be able to hear each other's work in venues like audio drama and that kind of thing, but also just like being able to share and get feedback from other artists. It's so valuable and so important. And so, like finding a community of folks that you enjoy working with has been just tremendously beneficial for me as an artist.

[14:35] Emily McClain: I want to dive into this play you wrote that everyone just heard is called TOOTH or Dare. And for me, when I first read it, first off, I'm a sucker for stories that deal with supernatural beings and fairy tales and myths, and especially when the character that we're familiar with, you kind of introduce a different take on them. And you have this sassy tooth fairy who's full of dark humor and her interactions with the couple is just hilarious to me. Uh, so give us some insight on how you came up with this idea and your process with writing out this script.

[15:12] Emily McClain: Yeah, so this play is very much inspired by my real life as a mother, um, because my daughter is a badass warrior princess, and she pulled her own tooth and didn't tell anybody and stuck it under her pillow. And then um, when the tooth fairy didn't show up because the tooth fairy was completely unaware that anything had even happened, she woke me up the next morning and was pissed, like very much like I need to speak to someone about this, and so that just that event and real life inspired this piece of art because it just it was so funny, and um her righteous indignation at like she followed the rules, and I don't know what the hell happened, and now something needs to be done. Mommy, get involved because yeah, it was make a phone call.

[16:16] Emily McClain: Yeah, I was gonna say the tooth fairy left a note and also more money as like an apology restitution for the inconvenience. Um, but yeah, the play came definitely easily from that. Like I think I maybe wrote it in maybe an afternoon, like it just kind of came out. And I love um, like you're saying, the different take on the spiritual or I mean the supernatural being. Um, I love the idea of the tooth fairy as kind of this like sort of dangerous Quentin Tarantino kind of character. Um, and another thing that was inspired by my daughter, who after this whole thing had a lot of questions about the tooth fairy. Like, what does she want with the teeth? Like, what does she do with it? You know, why does she need them? Where does she get the money for them? You know, like it's so it became this very much like, yeah, it is kind of weird. What does she do with the teeth?

[17:07] Emily McClain: And um, I asked her, and Eleanor was like, I think she builds things with them, like houses. And I was like, oh, that's terrifying and creepy. And you know, now it's like the Guillermo del Toro, like house of teeth, right? That the TOOTH Fairy lives in. Anyways, that's but that that was kind of where I went with that character. And I think uh you the hearing y'all read it, it was so funny. So we're just fantastic, fantastic job. It worked out very well. They had a great script to work with.

[17:38] Jonathan Cook: So uh former voice actors here, uh Kayla Gardner, she played the TOOTH Fairy. Uh so Kayla, when I first sent you this script, what were your original thoughts on this character and what was your approach gonna be? How did you uh get into this?

[17:55] Kayla Gardner: Well, I was just excited to be able to play such a fun character that it's out of the box, it's a tooth fairy, but it's not who you would normally think the tooth fairy would be. And I love that she gets what she wants in the end with that twist that I when I was reading it, I was not expecting her to inflict pain on Andrew. Um, so it was really fun. Um, I love playing like gritty characters like that.

[18:24] Kayla Gardner: Um, with the sass, like you said. So um, yeah, I just I had a lot of fun playing her.

[18:30] Jonathan Cook: You did such an amazing job. I had so much fun. Um because obviously I was there when you guys recorded it, but editing it and just hearing everything come together was just so, so great. Uh and so for the couple, uh Andrew and Lydia played by Andrew Jones, coincidentally, also named Andrew, uh, and then Jamie Johnson Turner. So for you guys, um, what what was it? What were your first thoughts on this script when you read it and uh and your your process for getting into these characters?

[18:57] Andrew Jones: Yeah, well, I'm a single dad of three. I have two daughters and an older son. Um, and I 100% am guilty of not communicating with the tooth fairy and having a pissed off child the next morning. I covered quite well, I thought. I balled up a dollar bill and act of like, well, maybe it just fell behind the pillow, and I sort of like, you know, snuck the dollar in like a magician. But um, but my nine-year-old didn't fall for it. So she still has a very distrusting relationship with the tooth fairy. Like she makes sure she writes a note and communicates to me, this is exactly where I'm putting it, and this is where I want the tooth fairy to leave the money. And so um when I read the script, I had to chuckle, and I'm like, this is so my daughter Violet.

Um and then I just yeah, this is like my first adventure into um voice acting and not being people not being able to see me. Um, which I have a face for radio, what can I say? Um and so uh yeah, I just I had a great time, and you know, I hope there's a tooth or dare part two.

[20:24] Jonathan Cook: There you go. Get a sequel in the works. All right, so uh so uh Jamie, what was uh how'd you like playing Lydia?

[20:31] Jamie Johnson Turner: Oh, it was fantastic. So I too have a badass daughter. Um she's 16, so um the TOOTH Fairy cont magic kind of unraveled when she was nine um over a dinner where she point blank asked my husband and me to tell her the truth, the whole truth, because she didn't want to be embarrassed in front of her kid in front of her friends. So the first one was Santa Claus, and when when we told her the truth, you could watch it just unravel, and then it was the Easter bunny, and then it was the TOOTH Fairy, and then it was just you just watched it crawl.

[21:02] Jamie Johnson Turner: Wait, what? Santa's not real?

[21:05] Andrew Jones: Yeah, he always is.

[21:08] Jamie Johnson Turner: Yes, he's real. Yes, and Andrew, Santa's real. Don't crush the stream shit.

[21:12] Jamie Johnson Turner: Okay, but but I read the script first of all. And I was in the living room by myself. And my daughter came out because I was laughing so hard at the end. And she goes, What are you laughing at? And I told her about the script. But I too have been one of those parents. I think if you're if you're a parent, you're probably you've probably done this at least once in your kids' life, where I totally forgot and completely threw my husband under the bus, you know. Of course it was you said you were gonna do it. You fell asleep and you didn't do it. Um, but we had to make it up the next morning because she had this fairy garden, so we sprinkled this dust all through the fairy garden, left her extra money under the pillow and in the fairy garden with a thank you note from the fairy so that she had a little oasis to rest.

[21:57] Jamie Johnson Turner: So no, totally been there. I totally identified with Lydia with the time, you know, she threw her husband under the bus from the point where she turned into the mama bear. She's like, wait a minute, you know, I was that mama bear. Fantastic script. It was so easy to play, it was so fun, and it was so funny. Um just honored to be a part of the cast.

[22:19] Jonathan Cook: No, y'all, they all did a fantastic job getting that exactly right, that dynamic of these people who are both on the same side against this outsider, but then also that power dynamic between their and their relationship and everything, and and who's whose fault is it really? We all know it's Andrew's.

[22:38] Jonathan Cook: Yeah, and um the actors don't know this, but you actually already heard uh kind of a rough cut of the final thing. They haven't heard the final thing yet, so uh so you you have what did you think of uh their recording and their performances of your play?

[22:52] Emily McClain: Spot on. I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it so much. Like I just I mean, and again, like I I wrote it, so I know how it goes, but it's still like it just made me laugh. I mean every every time that the delivery of the line about you know well that sounds like a problem for somebody who puts teeth back in that's not my job you know like that idea of her just being such a I don't know kill bill kind of but a tooth fairy nice.

[22:55] Jonathan Cook: So for the parents in this group here I think we're all parents except Kayla well what is the going rate for uh for a tooth under the pillow nowadays well what is a tooth fairy given we all need to get on the same page about this because like there are some people out there who were just absolutely ruining it for the rest of us I had somebody who was like oh yeah at $10 that shit better be an impacted wisdom tooth we did $10 once she had she had um a crown and when it came out it was her robot tooth so the robot tooth was ten dollars I could see that that's a market rate for the I'll tell you um I messed up early on because my oldest son when he lost his first tooth we we gave him five dollars and then ever since then he remembered that so I think I I think I messed it up so it's like we could we can never go less after that and then when my his younger sister was born it's like she also the tooth fairy owes me a lot of money from from all these teeth that have fallen out over the years.

[24:21] Jonathan Cook: It's true.

[24:22] Jonathan Cook: And it's a set you got to set the bar with that first tooth for the first child. It's like that because that's the standard you can't ever go below that. You know, you maybe could go more with, you know, the special robot teeth or whatever, but yeah, well, no, it was a dollar and it stays a dollar and it is just inflation resistant, like that is you get it. That is it. Uh, so, uh, this play was originally written as a stage play and it's had a stage production history. It even won an award in a comedy play festival in Wisconsin at the Over Our Head Players. So out of all the stage versions that have happened for this play, have you had a chance to see any of them? And do you have any favorites?

[25:04] Emily McClain: I have. Um, so the Snow Dance Festival, which was in Racine, Wisconsin, they had the TOOTH Fairy played as a very large burling bearded man in a twinkle outfit. Um, and that was a fun, that was a fun choice. Um, and I enjoyed that just from a, you know, different variety of casting. The TOOTH Fairy could look like anybody and be anything, and that was really cool to get to see that. Um, and then I got to see a production at Theater Oxford in Mississippi. Um, and they, I got to see that one in person and everything, and they had a really fun, um, just the physicality of the TOOTH Fairy, and she had this very kind of like almost like femme fatale, like, you know, just very dangerous, like she's gonna like pull out a knife out of her purse and cut somebody, and that was kind of cool to see that go down. Um, but yeah, it's, I love about the script is that it does have a variety of interpretations, and people have a lot of fun with it in the times that I've seen it produced. So, you know.

[26:12] Jonathan Cook: Now getting back to your relationship with Essential Theater, I saw that you, I guess, were teaching or heading up a 10-minute play boot camp that they're doing. Is that something still going on? And is that just a kind of a camp for writers that are looking to write 10-minute plays and you kind of do a teaching? Tell us a little bit about that and your teaching process for that because you have experience writing 10-minute plays.

[26:38] Emily McClain: So we do, we literally just finished up our last class of this boot camp cycle today. Um, so I'm in my classroom right now. That's what's where it's going on. Um, but we do, so Essential Theater, um, their mission is about, you know, Georgia playwrights and producing the work of Georgia writers. Um, and so we have kind of an education arm of the theater that I work with, um, with that. And so we teach a playwright intro to playwriting course for people who have never really written anything at all. And then we have this, this is kind of like the next step, or for people who exactly what you said, just they have an idea and they want to just kind of work through the process of 10-minute plays in particular.

Um, I really love and love using them as a teaching tool because they do tend to be pretty structured, right? You've got 10 pages essentially. That's what you've got to work with. And so you need to be able to tell your story in an effective manner within those pages. And so there are some benchmarks that you need to hit in terms of your structure. And for people who are new to playwriting or who are just kind of like wanting to get better at the structure, the 10-minute play format is really nice for teaching that and for building that muscle so that you can then, if you can write a good 10-minute play, you can write a good one act, you can write a good full length, all of that, all of those skills, they translate really well.

Um, but it's mastering it in that more manageable format. Um, so we have, they finished up class today, and then in two weeks, um, they have their showcase of their pieces that they created during the past four weeks. So it's super fun. I love, I love working with writers and just having that community. Um, it's awesome.

[28:26] Jonathan Cook: Yeah, very cool. And since you've written full-length plays as well as 10-minute plays, do you have a preference? Uh, what is your preferred format when you're script writing?

[28:36] Emily McClain: Oh gosh. Um, it really, I guess, depends on, you know, the story itself and what it lends itself to. Like I said, I do tend to write, like my comedies and things, I tend to write in the 10-minute play format just because I kind of, that rhythm feels a little more natural to me in terms of like having the funny setup and letting it kind of develop and we see the conflict coming to a head and then having it be like boom, there's the button, you know, we're gonna torture some dude and pull his tooth out, and then I'm out, right? Like that's the end of play. Um, but in terms of like my longer, full-length pieces, they tend to be a little bit more serious. They still have some comedic elements in them, but it is, that's where I can kind of explore a little bit more in depth with the characters and everything like that in a longer format.

[29:30] Jonathan Cook: Okay. Uh, well, let me hand it over to my actors here. Do you guys have any questions for Emily about the script you performed or just anything in general with her experience or playwriting?

[29:42] Andrew Jones: Okay, so TOOTH or Dare part two. Electric Boogaloo. They hunt down the TOOTH Fairy in her tooth home. In her evil castle of teeth, Game of Thrones style. It's just like teeth, all um, I'm just throwing it out there. That's it.

[29:59] Emily McClain: I love it. I love it. I'm here for it. Sign me up.

[30:04] Jonathan Cook: Uh, so what do you have coming up that you can promote? You know, just kind of take this moment to kind of promote whatever you got going on. I know you have the boot camp going on in two weeks where you're gonna present your students' two-minute plays, but for you yourself, any plays you've written, you got any productions going on where people can see Emily McClain play in a theater near them?

[30:27] Emily McClain: Well, if you are in the Metro Atlanta area, um, the Essential Theater Festival is coming, and so they have two full-length scripts that they're producing in that festival opening up in a couple weeks, and then I have a reading of a play called The Rock and the Hard Place that's also gonna be part of the festival as part of their like bare essentials reading series. Um, and so it's a play called The Rock and the Hard Place, and it goes up August 22nd, um, as it's reading at Seven Stages in Atlanta. Um, and then I have an audio drama coming out from the Larking House out in California, and they're doing my thriller sort of horror psychological drama play called Owl Creek. Um, so they turned that into an audio podcast, and I'm not sure if it's gonna be in like one long episode or if it's gonna be split up into, you know, smaller segments or that kind of thing, but that's coming out and it's gonna be spooky, so I'm excited for that. We, I do like the spooky stuff.

[31:31] Jonathan Cook: Definitely update me on when you're going to be able to do it. I love the creepy spooky, yes, please. Uh, so where can people find you? Do you have a website and are you active on any social media or anything like that?

[31:44] Emily McClain: Uh, yeah, I'm pretty active on Instagram. That's kind of where I hang out and live. Um, I used to be on Twitter and now not so much anymore. So, um, and I'm one of my goals was to make a website this summer. And here we are now school starting in a couple days. And do I have a website? No, dear readers, I do not. So maybe someday. Um, I am on New Play Exchange though, so if people are on New Play Exchange, they can always find my work there. But yeah, um, Instagram, my handle is Emily McClain234. Check it out.

[32:17] Jonathan Cook: All right. Well, thank you for chatting with us, Emily. Keep creating, keep writing and doing all that cool stuff you do. And actors, uh, Andrew, Jamie, Kayla, you guys are awesome. Thank you for joining in on this. Uh, I know this is, uh, we, uh, Emily, I don't know if you know this, but we were just, we just did the play God of Carnage together. So we were all just on stage acting and, uh, and Andrew's kind of humble about, you know, Face for Radio. He's an awesome stage actor. This may have been his first voice acting experience, but um, he's an awesome actor. All these guys are great. Jonathan's the best stage husband I've ever had. We've done it twice.

[33:00] Emily McClain: Okay, all right. That's high praise right there.

[33:02] Jonathan Cook: Hey, I do what I can.

[33:04] Emily McClain: That's right.

[33:04] Jonathan Cook: Well, thank you so much for having me, for including me. Like I said, I love listening to the podcast and have really enjoyed hearing the plays and seeing my buddies get to have their work read. So I was super excited that you asked me, and just y'all did such an amazing job. So thank you so much.

[33:21] Jonathan Cook: Thank you all for listening. And if you are associated with a theater and you would like to produce the play you heard today on your stage, send an email to Gather by the Ghost Light at gmail.com or contact the playwright directly at Emily McClain234 at gmail.com. And if you'd like to have some cool Gather by the Ghost Light merchandise, t-shirts are available at the merchandise link in the show notes, and the year one and year two books, which are also both available at Amazon. Intro and outro music, as always, is provided by artist JK47. And if you enjoyed this podcast, maybe you're a longtime listener, or maybe this is the first episode you've ever heard. Just let us know. Please leave us a rating or a review in all the places that you can, and also be sure to follow Gather by the Ghost Light on social media to stay up to date on new episodes. I'm Jonathan Cook, and as always, stay safe, and I'll see you next time we gather by the ghost light.