This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jessica Rush: Thank you so much for tuning in to Mamas Talkin' Loud.

[0:03] Cara Cooper: Jess and I love bringing these stories to you, amplifying the journey of the working artist mom, supporting the struggle, and striving to change the social safety net.

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[0:19] Jessica Rush: This is the way we can continue to raise awareness and change the narrative.

[0:23] Cara Cooper: And if you want more insight into our world, please follow us on Instagram at Mamas Talkin' Loud, on Twitter at Mamas Talkin' Pod, and on our website, www.mamastalkinloud.com.

[0:35] Cara Cooper: The following episode contains sensitive content and may be upsetting for some of our listeners.

[0:41] Jessica Rush: Please listen with care.

[0:44] Cara Cooper: Hi everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of Mamas Talkin' Loud.

[0:48] Jessica Rush: I'm Cara Cooper.

[0:49] Cara Cooper: And I'm Jessica Rush.

[0:50] Jessica Rush: Continuing our Pride Month content, this week's guest is a production stage manager, helming shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Motown, and the upcoming MJ the Musical.

[1:01] Cara Cooper: Together with her wife, they have journeyed through foster care, adoption, an endless array of special needs, and the reality that they are white women raising black children in an unjust society.

[1:12] Jessica Rush: Her story is a lesson in leading with love, always having your heart open for what life may bring, and truly meeting your children where they are every day.

[1:20] Cara Cooper: Here's our episode with Julia Jones.

[1:23] ♪ Musical number: "Mama's Talkin' Loud" — performed by Unknown artist ♪

[1:50] Jessica Rush: Welcome, Julia. We are so excited to have you.

[1:53] Julia Jones: Oh, I'm excited to be here.

[1:55] Jessica Rush: We loved speaking with you for Women's Day on Broadway, and Jess and I immediately were like, we need to have her on for a full episode because we want to know more.

[2:03] Cara Cooper: Yeah, exactly. I was like so intrigued. And I said, who I don't, you know, it's something that neither Cara nor I knew you. Do you know what I mean? Like in this business, I feel like we know almost everybody, at least stage managers too.

[2:15] Julia Jones: Well, I kind of fly under the radar. I feel like that's part of my job.

[2:23] Cara Cooper: But you have an epic resume, so it's unusual that like our paths wouldn't have crossed at some point, you know, with the amount of stage managing that you have done in our industry.

[2:33] Jessica Rush: The question that we always lead with with all of our guests is we first ask about your kids, because that's not something in our industry we really talk about all that much. We aren't really given the space to do so. So that's where we start. So tell us about your kids.

[2:45] Julia Jones: So I have three kids, Olivia, who is 17, Cooper, who is 16, and Ruby, who's 14. They are, I mean, they're teenagers, so that's kind of the awful part, but it's also, I mean, I'm kind of learning to appreciate it. Olivia lives with bipolar disorder. She's doing great. She has gone through more in 17 years than most of us have in 55 years. But she's come out the other side. She's a beautiful, smart, empathetic young woman, and I couldn't be more proud of her. Don't trust her to find anything in your house; she's completely a dope. She's a wonderful dope. Cooper is 16, and he lives with autism; he's on the autism spectrum, and he also has bipolar disorder and OCD. His comorbidity list goes on and on and on, but he's awesome.

He's just got his first group of friends at 16, which is really, I mean, sometimes we thought it would never happen, so we're pretty excited about it. He's a rail fan, which means he likes to go and record trains and he likes to ride trains, and he's found a group of friends that also rail fan, and some of them are older and some of them are neurologically typical, and they sort of take care of him. One of his friends is also autistic, and he has my text number. He's 30 years old. In fact, tomorrow I'm driving to Bear Mountain, and I've been elected to be the person who grills the food. So we got a little grill, and we're going to Bear Mountain to celebrate Nick's 30th birthday party. So it's gonna be me and a bunch of rail fanners.

[5:39] Cara Cooper: I didn't know that term to the audience either. Thank you for that.

[5:45] Julia Jones: Yeah, no, it's insane. But yeah, so he's really, I know one of you has a child with special needs, Cara.

[6:00] Cara Cooper: Yeah.

[6:00] Julia Jones: And it's up and down, you know, they're the most wonderful, joyous people, and then you have moments where you're like ready to pull your hair out. And he definitely gives us all of those. But he's doing well in school. He's remote because he got COVID from his in-person school, and it flipped him out. So even though he's fully vaxxed now, he's gonna stay remote the rest of the year. And then my youngest, Ruby, is super funny. She keeps to herself for the most part. She has a nice group of friends. For the last year, she's pretty much been in her room because of this damn pandemic has sort of scared her into her room. So we get sightings, and she comes out to feed. But for the most part, yeah, she's, but she has a good group of friends, and she does well in school. They were all adopted through foster care. So they came to us from the hospital as foster children, and then when they were legally able to be adopted, we adopted.

[7:33] Jessica Rush: That's amazing, Julia. I mean, and you didn't even really like tell us all that entailed, because I definitely did a deep dive on your blogs, your wife's blog, which I also found, about you know, the intricacies and actually the things you dealt with when you adopted these babies, and how incredible it is.

[7:58] Jessica Rush: Jess looks like you want to say something.

[8:00] Jessica Rush: Well, I was just gonna say, we've never talked to someone who has fostered children.

[8:03] Cara Cooper: No, we haven't talked to a parent who has fostered their children, or any children. So thank you for first off. I'm just super excited because our listeners have not heard this journey to motherhood, this path to parenthood. So yeah, I just, so we are wanting to, like Cara said, she did a deep dive, and like we want to just like get into it because I've often thought about, you know, fostering and the emotional attachment and the roller coaster that can go along with it, because I do have other friends who have fostered their way to parenthood. And those moments where they call you out of nowhere and they say there's a baby, and can you, you know, if can you let us in a little bit on what that's like? Maybe, you know, maybe with Olivia or Cooper. I mean, it's, you know, your first go at it, what that was like with her.

[8:53] Julia Jones: So we've had, I think, we've had about 16 kids in and out of our home over the last 17 years. We tried to, Doreen tried to get pregnant and was unable to. I have had no interest in that after watching my sisters bear children. I thought that's horrible, and I don't have to do that, so why would I? Then we thought about private adoption, but at that point we were, you know, broke from trying to have kids, and so we were kind of like just bringing more animals into our home. You know, with every kid that we didn't get, we brought another animal. So we found out from a neighbor of ours about a system in New Jersey called Foster Adopt. And it puts you in touch. Now I don't think the program exists anymore, because the Department of Family Services in New Jersey has actually changed names; it's not even DIFUS anymore.

They had this program and it put you in touch with children who were sort of earmarked for adoption. Kids that, so our kids were all born polydrug addicted. Cooper was born HIV and Hep C positive. It was the mother had abrupted during childbirth, and those were the antibodies. But we didn't know that for the first year; you know, they test every six months to see if they still are testing positive. But you know, thank God he tested out of those two illnesses. But the, so back to the fostering. We went to our foster care classes when I was doing Urinetown on Broadway. We did our foster care classes, and we got our license, and before we got our license in the mail, we received a call that they needed a temporary placement for a six-year-old.

And so we took her in, and it was temporary. She was with us for a very short time. But I think right away we knew that it wasn't gonna just be adoption for us; that it was going to be fostering because this little girl who had been sexually abused by her brother, you know, she slept in a bathing suit. There were lots of protections, and she was so little. But we were able to give her a little bit of joy. We were able to take her into the city and do little things with her that, and I mean little things, that these kids just don't have an opportunity to have. And then two weeks later we got a call about Olivia, and we went to the hospital, and she had been born eight weeks premature. She was five pounds, two ounces, I think, when we saw her when we met her, and she was just a tiny, the most tiny beautiful thing.

She had withdrawn from heroin and cocaine and crack; they had used morphine, so she was swaddled very tightly, and her muscle tone was really tight. But you just know right away they're yours, and I think with fostering comes a lot of visits and a lot of like people coming in your house and seeing how you raise. It's almost like I think all parents should have to go through some sort of inspection because it made us so aware of the needs of this little baby. Now she had special needs that other kids wouldn't have. And we did a lot of infant massage, and we just, she became ours right away. And then when she was a year old, the system, the way the system works, you have to, the parental rights have to be terminated, and then they have to determine that you are qualified to be adopted parents, and that's how we came to Olivia, and we adopted her on National Adoption Day.

[14:41] Julia Jones: Oh yeah, so that was neat. And then Cooper, we went and picked up Cooper from the hospital, and he was the most beat-up looking little boy. He was uh two weeks old when we got him. Um I went into the hospital first. We could only go one at a time for Cooper, and uh I just fell in love with that little squish face, and um we got him home. Uh we picked him up from the hospital, we brought him home, and we got a call at the same time. Doreen's better at remembering the sequence of events, but we got a call at the same time that there was another baby that needed uh a placement, so and it was right before Christmas, it was three weeks before Christmas, and so we all of a sudden had two infants in our house right before Christmas, plus Olivia, who was 13 months old.

Oh my god, um, for those weeks, and it was amazing. Like we just had uh uh Doreen's folks actually came and there was just we were constantly rocking kids and putting kids to bed and um making bottles and doing laundry and changing diapers. Exactly, exactly. Fortunately, that little girl um went to her biological father, he was in the middle of the classes when she was born. So she just needed a place to be while he finished the parenting classes. And I'm just that was such a happy one because um he was so thrilled and he got her just before Christmas, and it was it was pretty magical. And then Ruby was a phone call and a quick trip. She was eight days old, and we picked her up and brought her home.

So that's so the call just came out of like nowhere, like literally that's how it works. They just say like you're just going about your day, and all of a sudden you get a call and they say there's a baby. Can you take that? Yeah, so uh for the foster adopt, we would say we're interested in another baby, and we were interested in newborns. Um when a baby is available and they need a placement, because the idea with foster care, the basis of foster care is the the goal for the state is to return the children to family. That is their that is their goal. So when you bring these kids in, you know it's with the goal of them returning to family. So I have a funny feeling that's why the foster adopt system phased out, because they couldn't really promise that.

So we we got these kids that were earmarked because all the other all the other siblings had gone into foster care and been adopted. You know, there were reasons, but there were reasons that all of them that they thought that they would need to have adoptive homes. Just in thinking about you said 16 children have come in and out. I assume that includes the three that you have that are yours. Correct. Um I'm just trying to wrap my head around, and I don't know what your wife does for a living, but how given the work that you do as a Broadway stage manager and the erratic schedule that that entails, how did you manage kids coming out and the constant like shifting of dynamic in your house, right?

Going from a certain number of kids to another number of kids, and how do you did you explain that to the children that stayed with you? Like how did that all kind of I don't know. I'm I'm blown away, can you tell? So I I would say that the most the the most pivotal occurrence of that was um when we had all of our kids, uh Ruby was I believe Ruby was six years old or seven years old, um, and she's the youngest. And um I was doing Motown. Um I was in rehearsal for Motown, and Doreen called me and I didn't answer. And um I didn't answer and I didn't answer. And sh we had I was coming home to two additional children. Oh so we 18 uh 18-month-old Kaylee and uh five-week old Jeremiah came into our house on that day, um, and she finally, my friend Matt, who often I work with as a stage manager, Matt Lacey, um, he and I were coming home on the train.

He lives in Maplewood as well, and he got a text from Doreen saying Julia has to call me. And so I I called her and she said, Listen, you're we have two kids that are here. And here I am in production for a show with 42 cast members, and it's it's it was an insanely huge process. We were opening cold on Broadway, so it wasn't gonna be like just regurgitating what we had done out of town. Well, and like and you know, the thing about a stage manager too, your hours like our hours are erratic, but your hours are even longer. So when you're in rehearsal, you know, the actors are called 10 to 6, but you have to be there right at 9, right? To set up or like 9 30. At least, yeah, at least I'm there at least by nine, and I'm usually done.

I mean, when you rehearse at New 42, they kick you out at seven. Blessings on that. Um, but uh I'm I'm usually home by nine at night. Um forget about tech. I mean, you're there, you're you basically don't live home. Yeah, tech you um you leave and that's it. Yeah, but um at the time Doreen was a stay-at-home mom, so that was a change for us because she had Doreen was originally an actress, um, and then she can do anything, she literally is like can manage anything, she can do anything. Um I read somewhere that she's gonna become a social worker. Is that something I feel like I found that on my deep dive? She just she is a social worker now. She just uh passed her state licensing exam and got her master's in social work.

That's amazing. Um, and just got a job with um uh uh organization, she'll be dealing with uh children and families therapy for children and families. Um so yeah, so all of a sudden we were a family of five. Oh my god, and I have to be honest, it was probably the best a year and a half of our lives. You know, we just we found a rhythm of joy within our home. And our kids um, you know, while nothing was perfect, they have uh we just all pitched in, and we Olivia was great with uh Kaylee, who was the 18 month old, and she slept up in the room with the girls. Um, we were renting a house at a time at the time, and Jeremiah's crib was in Cooper's room, and uh and we just became a family of five, and that's just how we lived.

Um probably one of the hardest days of my life was when those kids packed up and went to uh a new home, uh, which was over a year later. Oh that one hurt, yeah. Um I guess I kind of live my life where I just I throw my heart into things first. Um I do it with my work, I throw my heart into my work. It's not always the greatest way to go. Um, because you do, you can get hurt very badly. Um but the feeling that you have, the euphoria you have when you let your heart lead is worth that little bit of pain later. I don't know how to describe it, but after you get over the initial pain, it you've lived that time in a really positive place. And if I didn't live that way, who knows? I don't know what I'd be.

But that's that's how I live, and and that's very much how Doreen lives. Uh she's smarter than me, so she she like kind of has the she has the foresight to know things are coming. Um, where I don't, I just kind of get hit like a truck. Um, but she but um we both lead with our heart, and I think that's that's why we do it. I mean, it's obvious that you do that, that you just say yes to these children, you know, no matter the situation at home. I mean, I can't help but think of the struggles and the things that you have to deal with having children with special needs and and the additional support that that requires, right? Um, I have a neurotypical kid and a a child on the autism spectrum. Um, and what they require is much, it's much different.

Uh, and so I I I am I I'm just gonna say it again. Like I I'm just blown away that you just keep saying yes. That's basically I feel like your your motto like you said you leave lead with your heart and these children needed a place and you knew it wasn't for forever and you just that it was it was they were yours for that year or however long it was. Yeah that that was a hard one because there was a time during that where we were also filing paperwork to to say we would be you know we filled out the paperwork saying we would be willing to adopt so that was a little extra that was a little more difficult. Yeah. Um and you know I'll still I'll see pictures of them and and I'll get a little I'll have to catch my breath a little bit.

But but um yeah I I just I think it's the right thing to do and um through this it's been very hard because I would love to have done it. Um Doreen I think is done she she's definitely done um but I would have loved to have done it and here I am stuck at home without work um and our home is technically too small. We're gonna take a quick break don't go anywhere. We'll be right back I want to touch on something that you shared with us at the Women of Broadway uh forum when you talked about the fact that Cooper uh well, all of your children are identify as black, correct? Where and you and my children are black, yeah. Yes, and you and Doreen are white. Um, and so you spoke with regards specifically to Cooper and the fact that he is larger and he is autistic, and um with the climate the way it is, and even before that, I mean, obviously, we knew there has always been racism and there has always been hate crimes, and there have always been issues with regard to um attacks against people of color.

But I think particularly after the murder of George Floyd last summer, you spoke a little bit about how it sort of came home for you in the sense of your thoughts as he gets older and goes out into the world more, and particularly like with his rail fanners, you know, he's going out and he's not with you all the time, and and what that's like for something too, it's sort of twofold.

[29:07] Julia Jones: Like one, just to be a mother of a child of color and three children of color, and your concerns and the emotions that go with that, particularly with regard to the fact that you as a white woman will never understand what that is. We will never understand what it is to be a person of color on a base level, you can identify with regard and you know these children, they're your children. And as a mother who is white, how this time has been for you and the conversations perhaps that you and Doreen have had, or if you've I mean, I don't know if you've talked to Cooper about it at all because of I don't know where he's at, sort of on the spectrum. That's a big long question. I'm sorry. Do you get what I'm saying?

[29:56] Julia Jones: I do get what you're saying. I mean, I think that it started way before this time. Um, it started way before George Floyd's murder for us because we had to find a balance. We had to find a respect for their world that was different from ours and their world that was the same as ours. For us, it's it what I was saying is it's respecting who they are as black people in this country started way before George Floyd's murder, because we, when they came into our home, they were coming into a home of two white parents. Um, and we needed to find a balance. We cannot raise them as black parents would. It's just not gonna happen. Like where we can that's not our reality. So we had to find that balance of respect of letting them learn who they are as their individual selves and celebrating that, whether it's their hair, whether it's their skin color, whether it's their whether they don't acknowledge it at all.

Um, we had to let them take the lead on that. We couldn't, you know, we weren't going to try to homogenize our children. We want them to be who they are because that's what they're going to be in society. They are going to be black men and women in society. And so they needed to celebrate that for themselves from the beginning. And that started with us respecting that, not trying to dampen that down, not trying to change that.

[32:07] Julia Jones: Um, and when Olivia was in preschool, she had this just beautiful friend um who had just gorgeous brown skin. It was, you know, light brown, beautiful eyes, just a gorgeous little girl. And um, it was Olivia's best friend. And Olivia is darker skinned, very beautiful. My she's unfortunately beautiful. Um, and she was in preschool, and this little girl apparently went to her mom very upset one day because she didn't have as dark of skin as Liz did as Libby. Libby was Libby had convinced her friend that she was more beautiful because her skin was darker. So I I mean, that's always been kind of an amazing thing for me that she that she celebrates that dark skin. She's not, she's never been ashamed of it, to my knowledge.

Uh, if she has, she's never shared it. So um we uh we celebrate it we don't try to hide it we celebrate their hair we celebrate their differences um but then as they've grown older that celebration has turned into more of a reality uh that you're not always prepared for and it's hard to have that conversation with them um I have had it with Cooper I say to Cooper and I police aren't gonna treat you like they treat your friends your white friends you're gonna have to be more polite you're gonna have to not say anything back you're gonna have to I it's he just has to know those rules because it only takes one time with him having a reaction that's inappropriate which he has all the time at home um that he could end up another statistic and he's not a statistic he's my son and so it's scary it's uh that part of it is very scary.

[35:02] Julia Jones: Um we have discussed our differences, you know, our kids clearly they know they're adopted. Um I was just thinking that I was like clearly they see that you are white and they are black. Like it's like there's a visual cue there. Um but we don't think about it anymore, but we've from the from the time they were little, they've known that they've known that they were chosen. Uh that they're they're our family, they're our family by choice. And that it's it's um yeah, we've never chosen we've never hidden that. We've always said that their biological parents weren't able to take care of them, they were too sick to take care of them. Um believing that addiction is an illness, it is not something that you know anyone chooses. Um so we've again, I think it's honesty. Um we don't we're not hurtful, you know, we're not gonna tell them hurtful things, but we do try to tell them the truth.

[36:28] Julia Jones: Yeah. I can't imagine how complicated that is on so many levels, obviously. Um, but even just hearing you speak about telling Cooper that he has to behave a certain way, like that is beyond the realm of possibility in my world at the moment. So and my child is much younger. How obviously she's seven. She's gonna be eight in a c in like a month. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's yeah, but I and obviously I don't have to worry about her being treated differently because of the color of her skin. Um I but I can't imagine having that extra pressure of not knowing if he's going to react a certain way or not. Um because I live that way every day and I don't know what the reaction's gonna be. Um so I can't imagine the extra uh level of nerves that surround that for you.

[37:20] Julia Jones: Oh yeah that is uh that's the most difficult uh of all is that he um thank goodness he is generally a very polite kid uh especially with strangers and with you know he's very quiet and polite he is not like that is not who he is he's he's bombastic and he's unpredictable um and like I said we we never thought that he would find friends um that would accept him for who he was um that weren't cultivated through us right and and in fact his 16th birthday party this is an example this has all happened so fast his 16th birthday party ended up being at a bowling alley it was completely empty because of the pandemic um it was pretty much right after they had opened up in November and um it was three stage manager friends of mine who Cooper loves it was his godfather Matt uh another stage manager friend of mine Rolt I know Rolt oh okay and um Chris Manell uh Rolt Smith Chris Minnel and Matt Lacey and that was his party that was his birthday party and it was amazing we had a great time and um but now he has this group of friends he has this group of buddies that he's can celebrate with and he's um and one of them this Nick who is also on the spectrum who turned 30 has my has my phone number and on a couple of occasions when Cooper has had because as he gets more comfortable his responses are more uh are more himself he's it's and there's been a couple of times where Nick has texted me worried and like Cooper has been kicked out of the train group and we've had to sort of have a little intervention to you know and we've explained to uh a couple of the kids where Coop is and they're his buddies so it's kind of a big deal.

[40:19] Julia Jones: It's a really big deal. I mean, and it gives me a lot of hope to hear you say that. Um, but also you just must feel such joy to see him have a space that's just his that hasn't been created by you, that's been fostered by his wants and his needs and his desires and the things that he likes. And I just must just be the best feeling.

[40:42] Julia Jones: Oddly, he needs me around a lot. So I go on more dinners and birthday parties.

[40:51] Cara Cooper: Your social life has taken off, Julia.

[40:54] Julia Jones: My social life has really taken a turn.

[40:58] Cara Cooper: You're gonna be the griller tomorrow.

[41:00] Julia Jones: I am yep. We're getting up at we're leaving at five in the morning to go to Bear Mountain so they can go rail fanning.

[41:09] Cara Cooper: And I'm not sure what I'm gonna do.

[41:12] Julia Jones: But take a book.

[41:13] Cara Cooper: Take a book.

[41:14] Julia Jones: Yeah. Rail fanning. I mean, I the terms we learned.

[41:17] Cara Cooper: I know.

[41:18] Julia Jones: No, I just love that though. I mean, it's it reminded me when you were talking about it, it reminded me of the conversations we have like with Elliot now. She's you know, she's almost seven, and it's the it's learning how to have the dynamic trick, particularly after a year where we were her only playmates, basically for the pandemic. But when they're, you know, the neurotypical kids, we tend to have to maneuver and learn how to be in a group when we're younger, right? So now that he has this group of friends, you're having the conversations and working through the issues um just a little later, you know, just a little later. But it's we also do have to acknowledge that cognitively, he's he is about an eight-year-old.

[42:04] Julia Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is, it's he's socially 16 and a half.

[42:13] Cara Cooper: Yeah.

[42:14] Julia Jones: Um so it there is a certain comfort he has in me.

[42:20] Cara Cooper: Right.

[42:21] Julia Jones: Of course. Um which we'll see how that goes when I'm back at work.

[42:26] Cara Cooper: That you know the perfect lead into our next question. How did you know? Um, you know, you were doing MJ the musical, correct? When the shot down you are I mean, it hadn't happened yet, but you were in pre-production, I would assume.

[42:43] Julia Jones: Yeah. Um, so heading back to work after the time that we've had, this giant space of time with no work, um, the social awakening that has happened in our country, but also specifically in our industry. How do you how are you moving forward um as a stage manager during this time? How has this time changed you? Um, how do you see your next steps in this industry?

[43:12] Julia Jones: It's interesting. I just got a phone call from a fella, Brian Harlan Brooks, who I worked with on Motown. Extremely like a beautiful man, very smart. We were talking about this a little bit.

[43:33] Julia Jones: Um I have to go in having listened very keenly to what has been said and try to apply that to my life. The one thing that I hope changes is we're not human resources, stage managers. We're not trained that way. We um and yet we're very often put in the position where we are, and company managers. I shouldn't just say stage managers, but that's what I am. So company managers and stage managers are often put in the position where we are to be human resources and we're to be social workers and we're just not. That's not our training. Our training is stage managing. Our training is in a field, a creative field where we're working with people, we're working with creative people and trying to manage shows uh and in some cases very large shows.

Over the years I've heard it. I've heard many mistakes that other stage managers have made that I hear, and I'm just like appalled. Like I can't believe that that's been said or done to an actor. Um then I think back and I think, God, I've done some pretty shitty things over the years because I don't know any better. I'm hoping that we'll get a little more support from producers and general managers in the realm of, and I believe that they're doing this where they'll maybe have some training or staff. I also don't want to become HR. No, yeah, no. Um, I don't have that capacity. I Doreen has studied for two years to become a master's in social work. She has the capacity to deal with those things on a much different level.

I don't have that capacity. Um so I would like to believe that I'm gonna go back in respecting what I've learned by listening to what has been said by uh other managers, um actors, people that I respect, people of color that I respect, um, and what I've heard and continue to grow uh as a manager and support people throughout the process and try to be try to be more of a a support than a uh a yes and no man, you know. Try to support the process and not just be uh everything is either yes or no or up or down, but try to see the gray area a little bit in the middle, yeah.

[47:23] Cara Cooper: A little more.

[47:24] Julia Jones: Yeah, it's something Beverly Jenkins said she was on our show a while back and you know because talk about someone who's had lots of kids. Exactly. We talked to her about all that. But you know that when you're a stage manager, you have, as we have hinted at, you know, actors are emotional beings, right? And there's a a a certain amount of caretaking that just comes naturally with your job.

[47:48] Cara Cooper: Yeah, absolutely.

[47:50] Julia Jones: Um but having this concept of a human resources department for our industry has been floating around for a while. It's something that's come up when Jess and I talk about when you become pregnant and you need to leave a show. You there's not the the HR department that you go to and talk to about the process. It's all specific to your producers and your stage management and your company management. And no none of those people are neutral in that part in that position. You need that neutral party that doesn't have emotions invested in what's going on that's gonna treat you according to those emotions. And our entire industry could benefit from an HR department across the board.

[48:28] Cara Cooper: You know and I agree with you.

[48:29] Julia Jones: Yeah.

[48:30] Cara Cooper: Yeah I mean I know that our company Tina we've had our Zooms about going back and one of the things that is being discussed and trying to be worked out is having maybe an HR person that covers shows specific to producers. Like maybe the Dodgers have one HR person for their shows. And so that because it shouldn't go onto stage management and company management. Like y'all have enough that you have to deal with and it shouldn't be you know people should be able to speak up and and uh and and have things fixed and addressed without a fear of kickback or retribution, you know, with regard to um having you know yeah the MJ general the MJ general managers and producers are pretty great like they're they're working really hard to try to uh affect change and I'm grateful for that yeah um but you also have to lean in as a stage manager no I am not qualified to handle all of those things and I do make mistakes um I like to believe that I'm approachable when I make those mistakes um and that someone can say you know that was not good and this is why and that I can absorb that information um but you I mean you do you're right you do lean in I had um uh an actress on a show who was uh trying to do uh fertility treatments and um she had to do her shots at a very specific time and it happened to be at curtain time and uh she wasn't telling anyone there were only one other person in the company and myself that she shared it with and so we literally had a night and uh where I had to I wasn't calling the show.

I had this particular person in my office um with the with the other actress who was giving her the shot and I had the stage manager hold the show so we could do the shot. I mean, you just end up in the most peculiar positions.

[50:56] Julia Jones: Yeah.

[50:56] Cara Cooper: Yeah.

[51:20] Julia Jones: Um but at least you were, I mean, I have to say, at least you were a woman, first off, because I do feel like that's that would have been maybe an issue as well. Like men, that's something I found now that I'm a mother. When I have a stage manager who is also a mother or a parent, even if it's a man and he's a parent, I find that they are much more accessible and I'm able to be honest and and they understand where I'm coming from when there are issues, as opposed to someone who who is not. It's just what it is, you know. So I'm glad you were a woman and you and Doreen had also been down that road. So you had personal experience and you knew, like, okay, well, she has to make this happen. Let's figure it out, you know. That's awesome.

[52:03] Julia Jones: Right.

[52:04] Cara Cooper: Yeah, well, we actually had never done those shots. I I had no idea what she was talking about. But um, no, you just have to lean in. Yeah, you know, you have to you have to lean in, and I think that's the same thing with uh someone, you know, you have to figure out, you have to lean in and figure out how to make things work. Um, and that includes someone of color. If they come up to me and they say, I don't know, look, half hour isn't enough for me, and I can't also do eight hours of rehearsal. Okay, so let's figure this out. Maybe your call is maybe you're we add 15 minutes to your call and we take that out of your rehearsal hours, and that balances that out. You you have to you have to be able to lean in and you have to be a creative thinker, and um I do think as a parent, now that I've leaned more into the I used to be really against being a parent for an actor when I was younger, I was like, they're not children, and um, and I still don't believe actors are children, actors are incredibly smart, uh actors uh actors are incredibly smart, creative individuals, um, but there's a vulnerability that we are asking you to have, and that vulnerability is can almost take on a childlike quality, and I think that's where that horrible misnomer of actors being children are.

[54:00] Julia Jones: Um, because I I refuse to call an actor a child. Um to me, they are not only my equals, but they're the reason for the season. If we don't have these beautiful people in our lives, we are not going to have the business of show. So um for me now that I've I've given up that sort of you're all adults so grow up and do your job uh and and been turned more into oh well parenting and leaning in and celebrating that vulnerability ultimately is gonna lead to success for the show and so I have I have adopted a sort of a hybrid between between my younger self and and being too much of a mush who gets taken advantage of at every turn well like you said you lead with your heart in your work and in your life right to open yourself up to these experiences but you have this at the head of a stage manager which is the key right you're you're there to like figure it out you see the pieces they're all spread out in a different way like how are we gonna fit these all together and make this work so uh I I feel like you're nailing it Julia I feel like there should be more of you in the world I mean I that's the biggest takeaway from this you and your wife incredible things absolutely absolutely and thank you you know it means so much that you were here to talk to us and and you're just your heart I could talk to you all day Julia it's like we're fascinated because I know there are also things Kara found on the blog that like we haven't even touched on which is it's crazy the way you've made it all work.

[56:00] Cara Cooper: I feel like if if you were my stage manager on a show, I would just be in the office all the time, like talking to you.

[56:05] Julia Jones: I'm not like the actors always sit in the office talking to stage management.

[56:09] Cara Cooper: Like, sorry, I would be in your office all the time.

[56:11] Julia Jones: Yeah, we we have uh I am fortunate that I work with um I'm Matt Lacey, who I mentioned, and another woman, Mary McLeod. I don't know if you know her.

[56:24] Cara Cooper: But I know her from back when she was performing.

[56:26] Julia Jones: Yeah, when she was a dancer.

[56:28] Julia Jones: Um, but now she's a really awesome stage manager. Um but we are often are a destination spot, our office for people.

[56:39] Cara Cooper: Oh, I love that.

[56:40] Julia Jones: I can't wait till we can go back to our destination spots and talk to our stage managers.

[56:45] Cara Cooper: Thank you.

[56:46] Julia Jones: Thank you.

[56:46] Cara Cooper: Thank you so much. This was such an awesome conversation.

[56:49] Julia Jones: And um, and I can't wait to run into you like in the neighborhood.

[56:53] Cara Cooper: We're gonna be we're gonna be close.

[56:54] Julia Jones: You're only like a couple blocks away from me.

[56:57] Cara Cooper: That's right.

[56:57] Julia Jones: That's right.

[56:58] Julia Jones: Over at the Neil Simon.

[57:00] Cara Cooper: So um congrats on that and coming back and things are coming and and Broadway is coming back.

[57:08] Julia Jones: And also just hats off to you, Julia.

[57:11] Julia Jones: Hats off to you and Doreen and um and the good that you are putting out into the world.

[57:16] Cara Cooper: And um thank you so much.

[57:18] Julia Jones: And and hats off to the two of you for putting together some pride material.

[57:24] Cara Cooper: Ah, yes.

[57:25] Julia Jones: We gotta yeah, celebrate all of it.

[57:28] Cara Cooper: I mean, all the stories everyone.

[57:30] Julia Jones: Yep.

[57:31] Cara Cooper: Yeah, no, this is great.

[57:32] Julia Jones: Like thank you.

[57:37] Cara Cooper: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Mama's Talking Loud.

[57:41] Cara Cooper: Special shout-outs to Rachel Spencer Hewitt for our fabulous graphic.

[57:44] Cara Cooper: Kristen Anderson Lopez, Bobby Lopez, and Justin Ward Weber for our awesome theme song.

[57:49] Cara Cooper: Our producers Dori Berinstein, Alan Seales, and of course the Broadway Podcast Network for bringing us to you.