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[0:10] Charlie Murphy: Hello, hello, and welcome to Mapping the College Audition, a podcast where we explore the landscape of the college theater world and try to demystify this daunting audition process.

[0:20] Charlie Murphy: I'm your host, Charlie Murphy, director of MTCA. That's Musical Theater College Auditions. And today we've got a two legit to quit show lined up for you.

[0:30] Charlie Murphy: I feel like I pronounced a lot of the words weirdly in that intro. It was demystifying and landscape. I kind of sounded British. Whatever, we're keeping it all in. We have got Beth Malone of Fun Home fame on the show today.

[0:44] Charlie Murphy: Um, I was really excited to chat with Beth, and she did not disappoint. Um, I think she's really a great example of the kind of artist that I was excited to have on this show when we conceived those two episode types of talking to colleges and then talking to artists, uh, as I think she's a really interesting person for young career artists to try to walk in her shoes.

[1:04] Charlie Murphy: Um, so I really think you'll enjoy this episode where we talked about Beth closing down her first college and then going on tour with a rock band and then her journey back to undergrad and eventually going to grad school. We talked about some of her success in the commercial world. Uh, she called Ring of Fire a big piece of turd.

[1:23] Charlie Murphy: Uh, we talked about her experience with Fun Home. We talked about how type has affected Beth, and we try to put a little bow on this runner of type we've talked about a lot. We may bring it up a couple other times, but I'm not going to keep hitting it so many more times with so many of the artists.

[1:36] Charlie Murphy: Um, we talk about writing a musical with an Indigo Girl. We talk about Zero Plastic, which is a big thing that Beth is trying to do for the Broadway’s community, and we talk about Beth's advice to keep not quitting. Um, before we get into the episode, though, it is mid-October.

[1:53] Charlie Murphy: The pumpkin spice pre-screen season is in its full ripeness, and I know many of our students are starting to excitedly look forward at early auditions coming up. Um, Leo and I just got back from Pittsburgh Unifieds, where I also got to see many of our amazing MTCA students and meet some non-MTCA student listeners, which is always a thrill as well.

[2:12] Charlie Murphy: Um, and it was also so nice for me personally because my mom lives in Pittsburgh, and so she got to hang out with Solvi and Elizabeth, especially because Solvi just started walking last week. Those of us who've been with me for the whole journey, you saw me through pregnancy and birth, and now I have a child who walks.

[2:28] Charlie Murphy: It's unbelievable. Um, and really fun for my mom to be one of the first people she walked to. Um, for any grandmas among our listenership, you will know how precious and exciting a moment that was. And of course, in true mom slash grandma style, she fully exaggerates it all.

[2:44] Charlie Murphy: Um, she was like watching Solvi while Elizabeth and I were at dinner with our friend Hillary, who's currently teaching at Carnegie Mellon. Shout out, Hillary. Uh, and my mom relays the story back that apparently Solvi ran into her arms when I called or when she called.

[2:57] Charlie Murphy: Ran. She says she ran. I mean, I might believe a stumble, but the kid just started to walk a few days ago, and now she's trying to sell me on a run. Next, she's gonna be telling me she was like reading her books or speaking French or who knows.

[3:09] Charlie Murphy: Um, but I will say on a more serious note, as exciting a time of year as this is, and I know many of our students are really excited right now. I also know how stressful it is every year.

[3:19] Charlie Murphy: Um, Beth at the end of the episode gives some advice about keep not quitting, which is ironically very similar to the advice I gave at the end of our last webinar where we were discussing early auditions. I think this is definitely a time of year to dig deep, to hold on to the vision of that dream, and to keep going.

[3:37] Charlie Murphy: The process gets a lot more fun later, I promise. But right now it is very stressful and hard for everyone, no matter how much you've prepped, though certainly it's easier if you set yourself up more with preparation. But wherever you are, you can do it.

[3:50] Charlie Murphy: So I just say to you, keep going. There is a light at the end of this tunnel. Be kind to yourself and just know you are far from alone in the stress of this crazy process. Okay, on that lovely note, let's get to this episode with the wonderful Beth Malone.

[4:13] Charlie Murphy: Well, we are honored to be joined by the wonderful Beth Malone. Uh, Beth spent a few years at Loretta Heights College before attending Northern Colorado, where she completed her BA and got an MFA in acting from UC Irvine. Can't wait to talk about that educational um journey.

[4:30] Charlie Murphy: Uh, she's been on Broadway’s in Fun Home, for which you got a Tony nom, Ring of Fire, Angels in America, off Broadway’s, and things like the Unthinkable Molly Brown and the Marvelous Wonderettes. She's been on your TV screens in The Good Wife and Bluff City Law and many others.

[4:43] Charlie Murphy: Seems like a lot of law stuff. That's a law and order. Seems like a lot of lawyers. Um, and films like Hick the Comedian and a cameo in the recent Tic Tic Boom I saw. Uh, she's also made a one-woman show, and I'm so excited to talk about a show she's currently developing called Starstruck with one of the Indigo Girls writing the score.

[5:01] Charlie Murphy: Beth, welcome. How are you doing?

[5:04] Beth Malone: I'm good, thank you. How are you doing?

[5:06] Charlie Murphy: I'm doing all right. I'm so happy to have you on the pod. Um, and I want to start with, if you can, to journey back a little bit, because we're gonna take you thus through that journey of all the different education.

[5:17] Charlie Murphy: When you were 16, 17, if you were thinking about, hey, I think I do want to be a performer, or what you thought you wanted from your artistic and general life, what were you looking at in the college? What made you end up at Loretta Heights? What made you what kind of journey were you exploring as you thought, hey, I think I might wanna do this if you felt that way?

[5:34] Beth Malone: When I was uh starting to formulate a post-high school plan, um Loretta Heights College was the only thing in Colorado where I lived that was sort of conservatory training, and every great actor uh in our region seemed to have come from there. So I was looking at those folks and going, okay, so they all seem to know something, and that program seems to be really turning out um really exciting performers, talented people, and I wanted to uh just be one of them, wanted to be part of it, and um so I went there and I only got to go as a freshman, and then it closed.

[6:15] Beth Malone: The whole school closed. It was just You closed it down. It was because of you? Devastating. No, no, this is it. Now we gotta we gotta shut this down right now. So that was a drag, and I didn't know what to do. Um, so I went on tour with a rock band for a year, and that really just kind of like derailed my trajectory.

[6:35] Beth Malone: I think if it hadn't closed, I probably would have gone all four years and gotten an undergrad really early. Or, you know, at that time, like Le Miz was auditioning, and I would I had sent like a I just I think that my my I I sent an audition tape for for Le Miz and and I got response like they invited me to come to audition, but I didn't go because I was too scared, or I just didn't realize like I should go.

[7:00] Beth Malone: And I think if I had had a program of professional um minded instructors saying, okay, Beth, here's how you're gonna do this, you're gonna book a ticket, and we're gonna go to a hotel, and we're going while we're there, we're gonna meet an agent, you know, like anything except for, oh, thanks, that's exciting. Um, well, if I'm never in New York, I'll look you up. Click, you know, like that was nuts.

[7:27] Beth Malone: So that was what happened. Um so you were so you talking about the kind of fear of maybe jumping to New York for that audition. Was there some um specific I want to stay in Colorado goals for you in high school? Were you saying, I do want to stay nearby, or what made you say this is the only one in Colorado and therefore I was gonna stay there?

[7:46] Beth Malone: It was the year, it was the it was the era of fame, the TV show fame. So I mean, it was all this big romantic idea of like you gotta go to New York and you gotta be on Broadway’s, you know, and that whole thing. And I I never thought, well, I want to stay in Colorado forever. Uh, I just didn't have a realistic path because it was all just a fantasy, you know, it was all just as much as like I want to go to Oz and live with the Munchkins, you know, that's what it felt like.

[8:12] Beth Malone: It was like to be raised on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, to be like, I want to go to Broadway’s was like basically like saying I want to go to Oz. I want to go live, you know, with where Glinda lives.

[8:26] Charlie Murphy: Um, you did do it. You got to live where Glinda lived.

[8:29] Beth Malone: I did, but it took me a long time to figure it out. It took me a long time to battle like um my ideas of like what they were as opposed to what I am, you know, to to to reconcile that I'm I'm one of the people that gets to go there and be on the stage and be, you know, with the fancy people that I revere, you know, it took a long time for me to to get my own head around it and and stop demystify it a little bit, you know.

[8:57] Charlie Murphy: And what about your parents? Were your parents supportive at this time? Did they see that dream as as far away off as you saw it? And they were like, ah, Beth, I would do anything else. You should get a degree in science, or how did they feel?

[9:08] Beth Malone: No, I just think my dad was like, you should learn to type, you should get your real estate license, and you know, that sort of thing. Because he just was afraid and didn't really have he doesn't know idea of my mom was a little bit more like you can do anything if you just dream, and but with no like skills, no, no like uh reality check-in.

[9:26] Beth Malone: It's like how do we do this? Let's let's let's there's a systematic path, you know, there's no like uh fundamental set of instructions to get from here to there. It's like it was all just like this pipe dream.

[9:40] Beth Malone: So, in order to figure out the actual nuts and bolts of it, it was all me. I had to do it and all on my own, and and really I just did it incrementally, and school was a complete and total resource for me.

[9:55] Beth Malone: I I the structure was really good for me because my I I came from kind of a chaotic upbringing, and to to get into a training program where I, you know, where I could develop some good habits and uh some reliable technique and um you know, network with people and and be, you know, with with our people. That was all just really, really positive for me.

[10:23] Charlie Murphy: So get catch us back up to the journey.

[10:26] Beth Malone: So, yeah, so you're you you closed on undergrad with a a bad monologue or whatever you did, and then you went to a rock band for a year. Now you've decided you're gonna go to Northern Colorado. Kick take us now through the UCR Vine experience.

[10:37] Beth Malone: Okay, well, I did like I went to I went and I started working at this like dinner theater also, and and I and I got my equity card. And then I went back to undergrad with an equity card um because I went to University of Northern Colorado which is this um pretty good program now I don't think it was as good back then when I went but it still was like everyone who got kicked out of the Retto Heights was like looking for a place to be so we all kind of ended up up there.

[11:01] Beth Malone: And um and it was it was pretty good but now I think it's very good. University of Northern Colorado UNC in Colorado is a great theater training program in this town.

[11:12] Beth Malone: So I did that and then I kept getting jobs because I had already tasted professional theater so I kept leaving oh I'm just gonna take three months off and do this tour or do this equity gig or da da da you know so I just it took me a long time to finish.

[11:28] Beth Malone: I didn't finish till I was 26 years old. So I got my undergrad at 26 but at that point I knew like my undergrad degree was gonna be toilet paper. I thought undergrad degree in theater what am I gonna you know what is anyone really gonna do with that except for work.

[11:46] Beth Malone: So if I'm not gonna work as a professional actor I could see like waitressing in my future so I was like I'm gonna get I'm gonna jump right into URDA's I'm gonna go to UC Irvine I'm going to get my master's so at least I can teach at a university if if if this doesn't you know become my if I don't become a performer I want to become a at least a teacher.

[12:09] Beth Malone: But this was just like a And that was the motivation for grad school was but was backup plan basically it was like I'm already working but I don't know. I I need more of a degree if I want to teach eventually.

[12:18] Beth Malone: Like at the point where I was like, I'd never I'd never worked in New York yet. I'd never made more than a I'd never made more than a thousand dollars a week. You know, there was like this. I was like, I was a practical person who was looking at the future thinking, I I want to have health insurance and I want to have a 401k and a house and I wanna and at that point I'd met my wife and I I was with her throughout this whole journey.

[12:40] Beth Malone: So, you know, she's very pragmatic, and she was like, Well maybe you want to get a master's degree and like we'll have like a stable college professor life in some cool like ski town you can teach theater. I mean, it was a great idea, right?

[12:55] Beth Malone: But um then as we move and I graduated and I got a great education at UC Urbine. I mean, I didn't even study musical theater, I studied acting with the great Robert Cohen, and um, you know, he's written a lot of textbooks that we've all read, Robert Cohen, and he was a teacher there at the time, a professor, and um got a lot of really amazing skills.

[13:17] Beth Malone: That program was um heavy based on like uh vocal vocal technique, vocal production. Um for you mean like acting voice technique there, acting voice technique, and then also um movement and then acting.

[13:33] Beth Malone: So it was a three-headed monster that that program was like really, really movement-based, really, really vocal production based, so you can go on and do like Shakespeare festivals and and that is a really employable um journey for a lot of people who end up, you know, you get to go to a Ashland, Oregon, and spend 10 years doing Shakespeare.

[13:56] Beth Malone: That's like you consider yourself like blessed in that way.

[13:59] Charlie Murphy: But you have many musical theater skills. So how how are you at the time are you still taking voice lessons? Are you just blessed with a voice from the gods that you don't have to practice? Or how how are you then keeping up those sort of musical theater skills beyond just the acting skills?

[14:11] Beth Malone: I kind of like hid I hid the fact that I could sing so that I would be taken seriously as an actor during that time. And then at one point I I did um come in with guns blazing, and they were like, wait a second, um, you're a you're a musical theater star. That's what you are, and I was like, okay. And then, and then they started casting me, you know, like that, which was great.

[14:36] Beth Malone: But then by the time they had done that, I had already proven myself like without having to sing. You know what I mean? I just didn't, I didn't know if I could act or not. And I think I wanted to prove it to myself. So I just kind of was like, I don't want to rest on the big belty voice. I want to see if I could act, and that's why I went there. I didn't go to a musical theater program, I went to an acting program.

[14:59] Charlie Murphy: All right, so then now you've graduated from UCR Vine. Are you immediately hitting a splash now in New York City? Do you move right there? How do you now make the journey to still some years here before we're gonna hit Fun Home or even just hit?

[15:11] Beth Malone: Yeah, I know. So Shelly and I move up to LA and I started working in TV commercials. I just started booking a ton of TV commercials. If you YouTube me, you'll see me with like this husband and that husband and holding a dog and you know, rappelling off a cliff and looking at the target dog, you know, like tons and tons of like McDonald's, you know, it's just it was like 10 years of making great money because that was the time it was like right before the internet.

[15:40] Charlie Murphy: I know the archaic before you knew these would be permanent, yeah.

[15:43] Beth Malone: Before you knew YouTube you for all these commercials. It was like, I mean, the internet was happening, but it wasn't like internet usage was just being negotiated with SAG and things like that that have made commercials a lot less lucrative, I think. Um I haven't made a commercial one in a long time. Once I played opposite Norbert Leo Butz in a Pillsbury biscuits commercial, so you can look that up on YouTube. That's fun.

[16:03] Charlie Murphy: Oh my, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes for sure.

[16:07] Beth Malone: Yeah, for sure. Uh and then and then like I was doing musical theater regionally in around LA to keep my insurance weeks up and to have fun and to make money, but also it wasn't a career move, I don't think doing musical theater in Los Angeles isn't like anybody's like life goal.

[16:28] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, it is not a theater town.

[16:29] Beth Malone: That's not what you go to.

[16:30] Charlie Murphy: It's not a theater town.

[16:31] Beth Malone: People go see it and it's nice, but it's not like respected or anything. It's like it's a way to keep your health insurance, and but it's not like anything really like I I and I got an agent and I started auditioning for things, and then I got I got I got Ring of Fire out of LA. I went to an audition in Los Angeles and booked a Broadway’s show.

[16:53] Charlie Murphy: So I was like, wow, oh my gosh.

[16:55] Beth Malone: And it was like I was playing opposite Jared Emmick and I was coming from nowhere, and I thought, oh my god, I've hit the lottery. I had no idea it was gonna be just big piece of turd.

[17:10] Charlie Murphy: You should you feel comfortable describing it as a big piece of turd?

[17:12] Beth Malone: This is what's gonna be on the bottom. I'm sorry, but yeah, I mean, I thought it was we when we were out of town in Buffalo, New York, people were off our feet before the curtain came down. We were like Beatles in Buffalo. And then we transferred to New York City and it was not as well received. I've been I went to the TKTS booth once during the day, and I I just was like talking to the TKTS guy. He had no idea who I was, and I was like, So what do you think of that Ring of Fire? And he's like, Oh no, no, don't cause any of that.

[17:42] Charlie Murphy: So I mean the TKTS, the TKTS guy was telling tourists, oh God no, God no. This is the problem.

[17:49] Beth Malone: The poor TKTS guy. He's through ruining it for you. You know, that's where you got your get your samples. Terrible.

[18:00] Beth Malone: So I had this season where I was like off Broadway’s and then Broadway’s, all in like 2007. I was like, this is the year I'm making my New York, you know, like I'm breaking through. And it was like, I'm moving back to LA, you know. And I just moved back, and then I did Sister Act in its formative stages around LA. That took a coup that took a year, and then when it transferred, it took so long to transfer. I was literally 40 years old when it transferred. And they cast someone 20 years younger than me. Not 10 years younger, 20 years younger than me when I lost that part. I was like, oh. Okay, well, I can't. I look young for my age, but still.

[18:40] Charlie Murphy: I don't look quite young.

[18:42] Beth Malone: When I look back at that though, I was like devastated, and I thought, oh no, my life's over, my career's over. I thought that was gonna be the thing. Um I would not have gotten a Fun Home. That if I had played that young nun and had been, you know, the town of Broadway’s really kind of they do pigeonhole you.

[19:03] Charlie Murphy: They do.

[19:03] Beth Malone: You know, they look at you and they're like, oh no, she can do this and she can do that. And now now after Fun Home, I've had an issue like just being seen for anything else, you know.

[19:12] Charlie Murphy: Uh-huh.

[19:13] Beth Malone: So they just want you to do that again and again again. Yeah, they just they're like, and then that's why I have this pair now. And I've been, I just shot uh I got a series regular on an Apple TV show this year, and I just finished shooting. That's that's what I have to do because uh Broadway’s is very temperamental as far as like who's trendy.

[19:31] Charlie Murphy: I want to get into both of those questions, but before I dive too deep into that, just tell me a little bit about the Fun Home experience. Um, you know, I know you've done a number of amazing shows at that point, but it seems like that was a pretty incredible opportunity in a special role in a special production, you know. I know something Elizabeth often will talk about of like post-Jagged of just like there are so few like excellent leading roles for women past a certain age. You know, once you're past 25 or 30 or whatever, it's like there's only there's a limited number of roles you go. There's this is so meaty, and I really can dive into it. So and this seems like it was one of them, right? So, what was the experience of working on it, developing it? What tell me all about that?

[20:06] Beth Malone: Yeah, it was a miracle. It was like kind of a bolt of lightning from the blue sort of thing. I was really literally thinking about like transitioning out of the business again because I had had a period of time where I just couldn't see a way forward after I came back to LA and then uh then the loss of Sister Act, and I just thought, you know, I really thought, okay, well, I'm not sure what's gonna happen next, so I have to start thinking about like using my master's degree to go teach college. So I was in the middle of building a CD when my my agent was like, Hey, you want to put yourself on tape? I'm in LA again for this thing that's going to be at the public, it's just a reading, just a reading.

So the way Fun Home came to me was like no pressure. It wasn't like, hey, you're auditioning for a Broadway’s show. It was like, hey, just like uh read these few lines into the camera and we'll send it and see what what they think. And it was like a day later, they called and said, Yeah, they like you to do it.

[21:07] Beth Malone: So it was started as a pinprick. It wasn't like uh I always had like a putting a lobster in cold water and turning the heat like from a cold. Slowly boiling it. Slow boil. When I when I started receiving the songs in my inbox, and when I started receiving the script, it immediately felt special and giant and magical. And I learned it, I was very protective of it. I wasn't talking about it a lot. I you know what I mean? Like when you get something that's so good you don't even talk about it, you're like uh don't want to drink it, don't want to ruin it. Oh no, this is good. And and it just like I had no idea if it was commercial, and it wasn't commercial, like it really wasn't. It's not a commercial show, even to this day.

Which is it's just a miracle and it and everything, you know, like to have a lesbian leading lady to have a a stone butch down center was so audacious anyway, but to also get to have a fully rounded character that wasn't just uh, you know, a punchline or something like that, and to have it be gay because I mean otherwise, like musical theater has a terrible lineage of of like using the word dike to elicit laughter. It's just like I can cite like several, several cases in which the word dike is as a punchline, and it's rejective, it's it's really um, it's very damaging, way more damaging than than we know. You know, it just has this cumulative effect of just becoming a persona non grata if you're a lesbian, you're just invisible.

To be able to be in that room while that thing was being built, those minds were cooking away at like uh trying and failing and like writing beautiful scenes and then taking them out and throwing them in the trash. You know, just it was it was just an incredible, grueling experience of trying to figure out how to tell this story, how to take a graphic novel and make a musical out of it. First of all, it was like just a real like uh challenge to what what panels to show and what to not like what is important about this book. So to be riding shotgun on all of that was um it was really something else. I know I learned um uh it was like six master classes because it took forever, you know. We would do a 29-hour reading, then we'd go away for three months, then we'd go into Sundance and we'd do like a month-long thing where we'd work on it every other day, and then we'd take it off.

Then we would do this intense like lab production, and this lab production, we were at the Shiva, and that's the that's the one right behind the box office, and it was just this flat stage and a couple of like stadium benches, and uh then all of all the the celebrities started showing up, and that's when I knew like this is something.

[24:07] Charlie Murphy: I was just gonna say, is that is was there the boiling water at some point you're going, oh crap, like did was there a moment where you then noticed of this is you know, maybe going, it's not only maybe going, but it's definitely going. It's not only definitely going, but it might be a hit, it might be a Tony. I'm like, are those things happening for you? Is there one moment that happened, or was it all just literally slowly seeping in?

[24:27] Beth Malone: It was an incremental thing. It was like first, first of all, we became like this buzz, you know, that way, way long time ago in this in the Shiva production. We went away, then we came into the Newman, and then we became to like like we extended and extended and extended. We were the ticket to get. And then we thought, I mean, there's this possibility that we could transfer, like this show show could transfer. And you know, all of the producers that came along, like Barbara Whitman and and uh Mike Isaacson and Kristen Kaskey, those three came on at some point while we were at the Newman. And at that point, I thought, this is bigger than we think. And then all of a sudden, this thing that was in my inbox, Fun Home.

It was this weird little title. It was private. It was my own little secret show. People started saying Fun Home on the street. Like, you know what I mean? When you start hearing the title out in the world, you're like, wow, it's it's now it's been reading my email. What's happening? Yeah. It was really something, you know, to watch it. And now it's like, oh, it's a cast album. Oh, it's a book with it with a title on it. It's not just like a piece of paper or something in my book. It's Fun Home now. It's in the world. So to watch something get born like that is pretty wild.

[25:39] Charlie Murphy: Okay, let's take a short break. And on the back end of this break, we're gonna get into some of those very conversations about type and the way the industry looks at you and some exciting stuff. We'll be back.

[25:51] Charlie Murphy: All right, we are back with the great Beth Malone, and we're gonna talk. She hinted at it a little bit. We're gonna talk a little bit about type, um, because we've been doing a little runner on kind of discussions of type in the past few months. I always emphasize to our college students or college auditioning students, how little a consideration they should make it in their college material, that they want to work from their authentic selves from the inside out rather than the outside in. Certainly that's true in the college world, or at least that I say it is so. But I do think it's important to draw that distinction that the business has not necessarily evolved to that point where anybody can play any role.

That's just not, we're not yet at that point, even though hopefully we will be at some point. But so I just love to hear kind of like how has the conversation about type or the way that you if you want to think of it as a brand or the way that you're viewed, how has it impacted your career through the years and and where is it now if it's changed?

[26:41] Beth Malone: It's interesting. Before Fun Home and after Fun Home, it was like a seismic shift in my in my um, you know, perception. People, that's why when I did, I did this photo shoot in the middle of Fun Home where I I got dressed up in full drag and I was like put on a wig and makeup and eyelashes, and then in front of the camera, I took the wig off, I took the eyelashes off, and I turned into Allison from that female presenting thing. Because I just wanted to uh uh uh pull the curtain back on gender costuming and and discuss and discuss people's perception, and and it just it wasn't really even that well received at the time, or I think it was just like a little before the moment where I was trying to say this the um disservice we do by by s you know I was talking to Elle Morgan, who is in in uh a strange loop, and she's a trans woman, and uh, you know, she can play any female part that you want her to play, but you have to get out of your own way and see her as that, you know, just like she she doesn't have to play a black trans woman.

That is not what she has to play. She can play any woman. She really is a stunning performer who's got a giant toolbox, and and if you want to have a kick-ass actress in your play, you might consider her. You know, so I think it's a really, really hard um thing to just get past people's perceptions. And I'm not really sure how to do it, but I'll just tell you that they are there, they do exist, and you are gonna be up against them. But that I still think that doesn't mean that you play toward that. I think you still don't consider that when you when you are uh thinking about what what material to use for your audition, still just lean into your your authentic self, the the most uh self-self that you can, because ultimately the world will catch up to you. It just might take a while.

[28:48] Beth Malone: Uh-huh.

[28:49] Charlie Murphy: But do you find yourself consciously playing against, like, I mean, you mentioned with your hair, which I had that same question to note of, like, you look on, if you get the image you or whatever, you look on, you have 16 different hairstyles.

[28:59] Beth Malone: Sometimes it's short, sometimes it's long, sometimes it's gray, sometimes it's like we're just, we're going, you're showing me all these different options.

[29:05] Beth Malone: Is that something you consciously think about in terms of like what my brand is or my brand can encompass? Or is it just like I live my life and sometimes you catch me like this? Um, I I I don't think about it as the brand new, but I I think like I was failing to be cast as a stone butch on television. And that's really what I after Fun Home. I mean, people are not writing musicals for me. They're not. They're not like going, oh, let's have Beth Malone in our musical. I don't know. Um if if Fun Home, you know, completely eradicated my usefulness in musicals forever. I'm not sure. Um I just did Molly Brown, but it was like it would get it to go to Broadway’s was like pushing a rock uphill. We had to eventually cook it in off Broadway’s, and um, you know, getting that done was really hard with me at the center.

You know what? There was a Broadway’s producer who literally said, if you put Sutton Foster in the in the role, uh uh we'll do it. And and that just speaks to that that whole thing of like how bankable someone is, and that all of that has has to do with perception. You know, uh I I cannot tell you how to how to battle that because I haven't successfully uh navigated that myself. All I can tell you is um I'm not gonna let it change the way I attack material. I want to um continue to listen to myself more and more, and not less and less. Because I think that's the thing you do when you're f when I was first out and about, I was like looking outward, trying to see what was there and be that. Okay, so that's that's like and that's why I did so many commercials.

I was really good at it. Baker, it was a big faker. Um, but great at it and got a lot of money for it, so that was good. But um it was ultimately like I'm not this isn't my life. I don't want to this is a I can't this can't be it. I can't make my career out of this. I don't want to look back and say like I was a commercial actor. That's when I started to do the work that drew the right people to me. You know, my the work I was doing made my people find me instead of me trying to pursue pursue something elusive. I I just did the work that I wanted to do, which was write a solo show. And then that solo show, um, I got a a lesbian musical out of that, and then out of that, Lisa Crohn saw both things.

And so that made that phone call when they said, Hey, will you put yourself on tape for this? I pretty much already had the part, but I didn't know it. Because at least it was like, I think this girl will be the one. And as you move forward in your career, you're not necessarily saying, I want to play a lot more Butch lesbians or I consciously want to play a femininely presenting straight woman or something like that. You're just saying, I'm I'm gonna go for the stuff that's interesting to me. Well, for TV, I'm like, I just want to get a job. So I will go. Give me a TV job, whatever that means. I guess I go for everything. But I wasn't booking Butch Lesbians on TV. I would, they would think that they were gonna get Alice and Vectel, and when I would show up, I mean, even on TV, I just don't, I don't have like the bravado and the swagger of those sexy ass male presenting um charm machine butch lesbians that I revere.

I revere them. I'm just not them. I was playing one in Fun Home, but on the in a theater, I can get away with it. In the theater, I can get away with it because people cannot tell what I really look like behind the glasses and the short hair. They see glasses and short hair and a t-shirt and and and they cannot tell what I really look like. And then when I would go, God, you know, it was weird. When I would go to sign autographs, sometimes when people be like, oh, you're pretty. And it was like insulting slash flattering, and also about something more and upset, you know, like, and the fact that I grew my hair out and people are so happy about it, that also pisses me off. You know what I mean? And yet, I did grow my hair out because I wanted to um upset the apple carton and just like take the rug out from under people who think they know what I am, you know.

[33:31] Beth Malone: I'm really curious if Fun Home was happening today as opposed to when it did, if we are enough farther along in our conversations of just the just the language being in the culture of being able to say, like, oh, a masculinely presenting female or whatever, like would not have been something that we would have thought like I I mean I I think we we were more categorizing people as opposed to understanding maybe spectrums of oh you can be this but still present as this and you know I wonder. I would I wonder if people would felt differently at the stage doors. You know, and it's very much like even then it was not as evolved as now, and there was like a blanket of like a stone butch, you know, like a stone butch is one thing, but like a butch dike is a definitely specific thing, and Alison Bechtel is not a butch dike.

I mean, if you're gonna like stratify what kind of lesbian, she's like more like a bookish, nerdy geek lesbian. The fact that she's male presenting just was like butch dike. So it's like uh it's just not that simple. It's not that simple. Of course, what we talk about and all this stuff, it's like nobody is like nobody is the one thing. Nobody's the oh, all the quadrants go and you're just exactly that. I'm like, you're that, but I'm also totally this, and I'm also I'm also you know, myriads. I always say this. I try always saying like when you close your eyes and you feel yourself like residing in your body. Do you feel female? Do you feel male? Do you feel gendered, or do you just feel like a person?

You know, I I always feel like I'm a person, I'm not a lady person. I I yeah, I don't know. The gender conversation's interesting to me. I think it's uh it's a fascinating. Yeah. I mean, the back when from Shakespeare, Shakespeare, I was they used to say, uh, I I felt my mother come up in me. It was like, so we even understood then. Oh, yeah, my my mother lives in me. And and all, you know, this would be men saying that on the on the battlefield, basically saying that they were the feminine side was coming out. It was like, of course we have those, of course. Anyway, we could go deep, deep down the gender thing. But I have to talk about Starstruck because this seems like the most amazing, brave, cool thing.

Um this happened if I understand this during the pandemic, you now reach out, and and I understand the indigo girls were like someone you really revere, someone that you really admire, and now you've reached out to them and and proposed this idea of doing a musical project together. Tell me the story.

[35:52] Beth Malone: And I did, and and it was just Emily Sailor's, not Amy Ray. I don't know Amy Ray, I only know Emily. Um, and I knew her um in this very peripheral way. I'd met her a couple of times, and I had this idea to write a lesbian Cyrano where the writer of the letters happens to be a woman. So when Roxanne realizes that it was not Chris, it wasn't a man with a big nose, it was a woman. So um that is that was the the great premise. Yeah, like the footnotes um of of what the idea was, and then uh called Emily and I pitched it, and she was like, Yeah, that sounds cool. Like, like that. And now you're the dog who got the car, and you're like, now what do I do? Or do I actually have to do this? Which is amazing.

And then the thing about Emily is like she wrote, you know, half of the indigo girls songs, and she owns the rights to all of them. And uh I can use indigo girls' songs in them in the show, but they're really Emily's songs. So the indigo girl songs that you know and love that Emily wrote, um, some of them are in our show, and then there are a lot of uh original tunes also. And we're in the middle of writing it. Yeah, you're writing the book. So in is that something you've done before? So yeah, have you, I mean, it just seems like wow, there's a whole not only it's brave to be like, I'm now trying to work with this person I really admire and and give that a shot, but also you're trying a new art format. I from the bio, at least I didn't see she's written many musicals before.

[37:18] Beth Malone: No, I wrote my solo show, you know, I co-wrote it. Um, I watched them write Fun Home. So it's asinine that I think that I should be writing the book of the Indigo Girls musical. It's asinine that I don't hire a a book writer. And I've thought of it. Wonderfully asinine, yes, we agree. I know, but I but like what if it's like what if I'm wasting her time? You know, that's the the the things that go through your head is like, what if I'm terrible at this? What if I'm wasting my her time? But every time we have a reading, I just get the most lovely feedback, and I think you know, um it's getting better and better, and I'm learning a lot. And I'm co-writing it with um uh uh another writer who's never written a musical.

So you would think if I was gonna co-write it with someone, I would have gotten someone in the room who knows what they're doing, but I didn't choose that. I chose a different writer, a a poet, actually. So that is also asinine, but this is what I'm doing, and uh it's just painstakingly slow. But we do have uh a lot of interest in it because it's Emily.

[38:21] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, and because it's you, come on, because it's you too.

[38:24] Beth Malone: Yeah, but I wouldn't think people would be like, oh, good idea, write a musical, because that's easy, because it is so hard.

[38:30] Charlie Murphy: So hard, yeah.

[38:31] Beth Malone: Oh hard to do. Oh my god. And if you change one thing, it like retroactively screws you from the beginning. So we, I mean, like the revisions, oh my god. Where does that bravery come from? Especially during a pandemic, I think when many of us were like shrinking into a turtle shell of, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? Where what makes you say, I've already had this really successful career, but I want to take this new, difficult, difficult, brave leap in many different ways? Where did that come from for you? What what made you say, Yeah, I can do this? I can yes, and this?

[38:58] Beth Malone: I don't know. I just think part of it, you can see it as bravery, but part of it is like fear. I was, I'm afraid of giving in to despair. Desperately afraid of giving in to despair. I I I don't want to ever allow myself to go to a place of hopelessness because it's a terrifying place for me. I think people are like, oh, I can feel that. I'm gonna sit here and feel this. I'm like, no, I am not feeling that. I'm going to say, what can I do today? What can I do today? What would I have done if I had more time all those years? I would have, because this has been my mental shelf for a lot of years. And I was like, well, I have no more excuses. It's not like I don't have time. I have time. Time to grow my hair and write a musical. Those are the things those were my projects. That is what I'm doing this pandemic. But I mean, Shakespeare wrote Lear during a pandemic.

[39:58] Charlie Murphy: That's what I heard.

[39:59] Beth Malone: Oh yeah. I know. I was I've been reading the Lear of Year or the Year of Lear this whole time.

[40:00] Charlie Murphy: The year of Lear?

[40:06] Beth Malone: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, and tell me a little bit about so like what was it like working with, you know, an idol? I mean, I'm sure this happened in different ways of people you've revered. But but are are you able to? Is it just another pal in the room, another collaborator, you know, after a couple sessions, or or do you sometimes remind yourself and to the point of saying, I don't want to waste your time, or I don't want to, you know, if you go, God, this person's you know, so so good at this, and I'm new at this. Like, do you do you ever feel that inferiority? Or how does it work in terms of your working relationship?

[40:31] Beth Malone: I'm a huge nerd. You know, I'm a huge indigo girls fanatic. I'm a huge nerd. I've seen them in concert more than I've seen any other group in concert. I mean, like of a a lesbian of my age, they were just like very, very um important in my formative years, and every single every single album of theirs, like I coincide with a different season of my life. I mean, they really were the soundtrack of my of my early life, um, the indigo girls. So to sort of um have all that, and then also you have to set it down in order to work. You have to. Like when I had to start giving Emily notes, when I had to start giving Emily Sailor's like a criticism or like a a note, like I'm talking to her this morning about what is quantum field theory, and I'm giving her all kinds of texts about like here, watch this video and this, and because I want to like I want to push her writing in a direction I am influencing the way Emily's writing right now, and that uh arc of being a person who's like, I can't really talk to you because I love you, you know.

I just love her so much that it's a hindrance. And she's told me in the past, she goes, the only thing that's gonna stop this is like you being an idiot. You've got to knock it off. Like, you know, I'm just a person. You know, she doesn't say that, but there were early times where I was just like, I can't function. I just I'm too big a fan. I can't. It is so crazy that this is someone who's influenced you and influenced your musical taste, I'm sure, for the rock band that you're in, and all these, and now you're influencing their musical taste in even in subtle ways as you're pushing them. Unbelievable.

[42:13] Beth Malone: And she's written some gorgeous songs, gorgeous original tunes. And I have, you know, she's let me noodle with her lyrics a little bit, and that is also insane. Like we've co-wrote a couple things now, and it's like wild. I was I was gonna say, why is quantum field theory in Sierra Not de Bergerac? What's is that a is there like a really important? I'm just trying to remember. I have read the original. It's it's a very it's a broad adaptation, let me just say it's a broad adaptation. Um, and you know how Syrano is a uh astronomer. Uh-huh. So that is we have adopt we have adopted that and we have set this um in a dark sky reserve. A dark sky reserve is uh a place where they do um external lighting compliances, so you don't no light in the win the night sky with light bleed and glare and stuff like that.

Um so there is an astronomer and it's Syrano, and she is uh a person who who believes in physics above all else. Uh-huh. And not God. And then Roxanne comes and makes her believe in God, sort of, you know, like that's the short, that's the short of it. It's like oof. 2023 on Broadway’s. We're calling it right now. It's coming, it's happening. Is that true? Am I predicting it correctly?

[43:35] Beth Malone: I would say 24, probably.

[43:36] Beth Malone: 2024 on Broadway’s, it's happening.

[43:39] Charlie Murphy: Thank you. Um, tell me a little, also I saw according to the internets that you're an LGBTQIA activist. Um, I would just love to hear a little bit about like what does that look like today? Because it's something that I talk a lot about with our students, you know. You know, often they're asked in like a college interview of like, hey, what's a current event or a political issue that you really care about, right? And we sometimes just have like discussions of like, how do you foresee their art mingling with their activism? You know, like if they mingle together, if they're two separate things. I just would love to know like what for you has that experience been, you know, in the past and now.

[44:17] Beth Malone: Um, well, I think when you are really visible, if you're a visible um lesbian in the arts right now, I think activism kind of finds you. You don't have to pursue it because there's still a ton of injustice out there, and there's a lot of LGBTQIA youth that are homeless and suicidal. Um, there's always an opportunity to donate your time and energy to a cause, you know, to Covenant House, to, you know, to places that are outreaching. Um, there are several um places I donate to that are really um worthy, worthy causes because they do, they really do um they provide beds for people who need a safe place to go.

[45:11] Charlie Murphy: And was your experience you said that it was sort of you were being sought out? Like, is the experience like I'm sure young people of uh you know exploring their sexuality or young women who know that they're a lesbian, are they seeing you immediately and saying, You're my idol, I want to be like you? Like, do you feel like the weight of that responsibility being a visible member of the LGBTQIA community?

[45:30] Beth Malone: Yeah, there's um, you know, during Fun Home, the second act of Fun Home we said was like the stage door where you just go out to the long line of folks who traveled from the far reaches of the United States to see this particular show, and you just listen. You just listen to them and their stories and what they want to tell you, and that is part of it. Um, and if they need help, you try to hook them up with the right um organizations, but you know, that's that's it's is a very heavy deal. And the need is so immense still. Uh, there was a New York Times reporter who wanted to do a story kind of uh along the lines of like gay is now like not a thing, you know, it's so accepted. So what's the next thing? And I was like, you know, I'm not gonna contribute to that story because it's not true and it's dangerous. That's dangerous. Like, get out of New York City, get anywhere else.

[46:28] Charlie Murphy: Uh-huh.

[46:29] Beth Malone: You know, there's been this horrible, horrible backsliding that we've all witnessed over the last four or five years, and it isn't done. We're not done. It's just like there's been so much damage. Um, and you know, uh there's this real um dangerous human nature that has been emboldened across uh the culture right now. So we have to make sure that we're protecting our most vulnerable right now, and that is uh LGBTQ youth and that.

[47:04] Charlie Murphy: And let me ask you an absolutely impossible follow-up question. Okay, which is as someone who's writing a musical with a lesbian lead or a lesbian one of the leads being a lesbian actor, do you feel? I guess, do you feel conflicted in some ways of showing what feels like it might want to be prescriptive or or sort of like uh a vision of a lesbian leading character that is in some ways challenging societal norms, or in some ways that they go, this is moving the conversation forward, versus I guess the feels like the conflicting impulse as an artist sometimes is like to show all the complexity and truth and flaws, especially as we as we mix art and activism. Sometimes the art can become a little bit prescriptive, or can go, it should be the story goes like this and this, because it can't fall into this trope, or it can't fall into this, even though you're like, but maybe my character is gonna fall into this trope, or he's gonna have the same flaws that every other person has, or you know, I guess I wonder how does that conversation have you aware of like Twitter as you're thinking about what am I writing for this for my lesbian leading lady to do?

[48:08] Beth Malone: It's interesting, you know, like the whole thing that happened with Jagged and um I wasn't talking specifically about that, Beth. I don't know where you got that idea. I remember it. Oh my gosh, that's why Michigash. And I I was very I was following that very closely because uh my dear friend Lauren Patton is at the epicemorg. From Fun Home, but um I am I am doing something on purpose as a response to that. I have to say, like, there is definitely a part of this show that is a response to that conversation, and what I said before about gender identity and like feeling like a like a human underneath all of it. Of course I have an agenda. Of course, I have a message for the people about gender rolled up in my little show.

And of course, it's going to draw a shitstorm of abuse. I can already hear it. I I I don't care. I don't care. I need to say what I want to say about this. In this time, I want to unite people and not continue to separate and label and subsect and sub-label and everything like it. It's important. I understand how gender is important, and I want to honor people who are feeling targeted because they are not uh allowed to present in the way that they want. But at the same time, we have a a failing world, and we have a lot of energy going in these other directions that could be better put to use. I just think our our energies could be better put to use right now.

[50:01] Charlie Murphy: It's it's so interesting. Yeah, and we talked about this with Shakina Nayfak who's on the pod. Um, but the just sort of the idea that like also like art is not supposed to be an after-school special, it's not supposed to be necessarily like exactly how you expect it to be and how you want it to be in your life, you know. So the all that it's like it it's so it's a complicated, it's a big complicated mess, of course. This show doesn't have to be your truth, it doesn't have to be your truth, it can just be a character's truth. This is her journey, this is her truth, it doesn't have to represent all gay people across the globe, and it's not gone.

[50:34] Beth Malone: Yeah.

[50:35] Charlie Murphy: Okay, on a slightly lighter note, we're gonna play a little game. So, as a frequent listener and fan of the pod, I know you'll know we play a unique game with all of our artists. Sometimes we get adventurous, but this is a simple and snappy one. It is what I'm proud of because I think it's very difficult. So I'm hoping you're ready for a difficult game.

[50:51] Beth Malone: Oh god!

[50:52] Charlie Murphy: Here's how this works: it's a simple categories game. I'm gonna give you a song lyrics slash quote, and you're gonna tell me if it fits into one of these three categories. Is it an indigo girls song? You should do pretty well at that. A song/slash quote from a show from your illustrious career, which to be fun, we're calling that an on did I go. So it's either indigo, on did I go, or none of the above, which could be something I made up, it could be from a different pop song, a different play, whatever, and we'll call those don't pass go. So it's either indigo, on did I go, or don't pass go. Makes sense?

[51:26] Beth Malone: Okay, okay.

[51:27] Charlie Murphy: It's gonna start off easy, but it really gets hard. Like I gave Elizabeth some of these this morning. She's like, these are hard. So I'm sorry, apologize. It gets difficult. I was literally just googling for different quotes. So we'll see how we do. Okay. Quote number one, if we dare.

[51:40] Beth Malone: Well, darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.

[51:45] Charlie Murphy: Indigo.

[51:46] Beth Malone: Indigo, easy. We started you off easy, all right? Am I falling into nothingness or flying into something so sublime?

[51:53] Charlie Murphy: On did I go.

[51:54] Beth Malone: On did I go. That was you did that very well too. On to the home. Beautiful. That was from Fun Home. That was changing my major.

[51:57] Charlie Murphy: Okay. All my life I've painted with Anger's brush.

[52:04] Beth Malone: Indigo.

[52:04] Charlie Murphy: Very good. From Keeper of My Heart.

[52:06] Beth Malone: Okay, great. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.

[52:12] Charlie Murphy: None of the above.

[52:13] Beth Malone: None of the above. That was King Lear. How ironic that we're talking about King Lear.

[52:16] Charlie Murphy: Okay, great. We're doing great. You're 444 so far. It's gonna get harder. Okay. You can keep the drums, but the sticks have got to go.

[52:23] Beth Malone: I feel like that is a none of the above.

[52:25] Charlie Murphy: None of the above.

[52:26] Beth Malone: That's from Full House.

[52:27] Charlie Murphy: Full House. Not Fun Home, but Full House. I tried to be funny there. Okay, great. Um, I find it very, very easy to be true. I find myself alone when each day is through.

[52:37] Beth Malone: That is an on did I go.

[52:39] Charlie Murphy: On did I go, though you thought it was a crap hole. What did you call it? A big fart or something? I forget exactly what you called it.

[52:46] Beth Malone: Sneaky turd.

[52:48] Charlie Murphy: Sneaky turd from a ring of fire. That's very good. Okay, here we go. Oh, Tony Cash is lovely, and that was an amazing lyric. Like, he's a brilliant songwriter. It's just was like, we didn't have an idea. Your work. So far, you've closed down a Broadway’s show and you've closed down a college. This is you, is clearly the issue here.

[53:03] Beth Malone: That's me.

[53:03] Charlie Murphy: You're halfway done, you've yet to miss one, which I cannot imagine you're gonna get all these without missing one. We'll see how you go. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

[53:13] Beth Malone: That's gotta be indigos.

[53:15] Charlie Murphy: You would think it's Star Wars.

[53:16] Beth Malone: That's Yoda from Star Wars.

[53:17] Charlie Murphy: I was like, don't pass go, but I thought it sounded like an indigo lyric. Oh my god!

[53:20] Beth Malone: Okay, I just told you you'd miss one. Okay, here we go. I'll talk about it. I think if you touch me, your hand might fall off or something. Worse things have happened to people who touched me.

[53:29] Charlie Murphy: On did I go.

[53:30] Beth Malone: That is very good. You recognized it. You recognize it, but you don't know where it's from. Angels in America, that's right. Very good, very good.

[53:36] Charlie Murphy: Okay. The slings and arrows, the passage narrows, the story harrowing, the word becomes flesh.

[53:43] Beth Malone: None of the above.

[53:44] Charlie Murphy: That was an indigo.

[53:44] Beth Malone: That was indigo's from a song called When We Were Writers.

[53:44] Charlie Murphy: When we were writers. I tried to fool you with the Shakespeare record. I love that song, and I had no idea what the lyrics are. It's very hard to hear lyrics read.

[53:56] Beth Malone: Yes, it's the slings and arrows, the passage narrows, the story harrowing, the word becomes flesh. I have no idea if that's how it's said in the song itself, but okay. You're still doing great. You've got like a B plus here in terms of your presentation. That's Emily Salier's writing right there. P.S. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, then a man swear he loves me.

[54:18] Beth Malone: That is none of the above.

[54:20] Charlie Murphy: That's none of the above. That's much ado about nothing.

[54:22] Beth Malone: Okay, we're great. Somehow Shakespearean songs, some some so similar. Okay. Only a couple more. They told me, be sensible with your new love. Don't be fooled thinking this is the last you'll find.

[54:33] Beth Malone: On did I go.

[54:34] Charlie Murphy: Yes, from the Marvelous Wonderettes. It's very good. I'm impressed with it. You're showing an impressive knowledge of your own career. I made Cameron Adams do this with like parts she'd understudied, and she was like not doing well with it. She's like, I forgot all of this stuff from 15 years ago. Come on. Not fair.

[54:48] Beth Malone: Okay.

[54:49] Charlie Murphy: What's the point of money if you're not gonna spend it on the people you love?

[54:53] Beth Malone: On did I go.

[54:55] Charlie Murphy: On did I go? That's from Tick Tick Boom, which will count as an on did I go. You were in then the great little sequence there.

[55:01] Beth Malone: Okay.

[55:02] Charlie Murphy: Let the poets write that he had the tools for greatness, but the voices of his better angels were shouted down by his obsessive need to win.

[55:10] Beth Malone: I have no idea.

[55:11] Charlie Murphy: Of course, let's call it a don't Pascal, then, right?

[55:14] Beth Malone: That's that's from a West Wing quote. We've done West Wing and every single one of these. We have to squeeze it in when we can.

[55:18] Charlie Murphy: Okay, great. Last but not least. Okay. If I didn't have a car, but I did have a guitar, and I played to my advantage when you let me.

[55:27] Beth Malone: Oh.

[55:28] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, that's indigo girls.

[55:29] Beth Malone: That's indigo girls. Song titled Elizabeth, which we thought would be appropriate to add. Okay, you did amazingly well with this game. I really was worried that you're gonna get like two out of 14. So you did amazingly well. I'm very impressed with it.

[55:40] Beth Malone: Thanks.

[55:42] Charlie Murphy: Um, let's just wrap a little bit. We talked a bit about kind of branding in the larger sense, we talk about type, but we've been also doing a little run around social media, um, because I think it's something a lot of our uh young listeners, especially in college, right out of college, are very interested in. Um, and in an episode that's gonna run probably right before yours, we chatted with one of our former students who's like a TikTok star, like literally bought an apartment from TikTok Mike, which is insane to me. Um but I kind of we've also had some artists who say I really avoid it. I really uh avoid the fear of it. So I would just love to hear like, is it something you consciously use in your career?

Um, and especially now living in Colorado, where you it's like it's not you've someone who may not be native with technology in the same way that like a 14-year-old or whatever it is right now. Like how do you use technology, social media, the whole thing to sort of consciously I don't know, brand yourself or be or or or sell yourself from from afar?

[56:30] Beth Malone: I feel like I'm I'm a probably like a a C minus student with the whole thing. Like the trivia. I just ha had someone like I'm doing a concert for the to benefit the actors' fund, and I wanted to put it on so people would buy tickets so that they could get money. And I it's a really, really good idea for actors' fund to get money. The only thing that's gonna have to happen is like Beth Malone is gonna have to figure out how to put link in bio. And so, what the hell? How do you do that? Well how does one do that? And what part of the thing do you push? So this is where I am with it. I'm not a TikToker, I enjoy it. People send me things. I'm obsessed with just uh drag queen who sings about potato salad.

I think her name is Cupcake. I love her, but only when people send things to me like your like your favorite lesbian aunt, you're like, oh, I'm gonna send my favorite lesbian aunt this really funny TikTok, and she's gonna get a good laugh out of it because she knows how to push the button that says play. That's about it. So I wouldn't follow it and I wouldn't do it. There's nothing I would do on TikTok.

[57:36] Charlie Murphy: Oh my god.

[57:36] Beth Malone: I mean, like what what the pressure.

[57:38] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, what about an Instagram or a Facebook or do you do you have any Oh I do f I do Instagram, but I don't like I use it to have any consciousiness to it? Yeah, what do you what are you thinking about as as terms of what you're putting out into the internet?

[57:49] Beth Malone: Mostly I use it to promote things unless I happen to take a really good picture that I love and then I put it on because it's just like it's about a visual, you know, tick uh uh Instagram is supposed to be like about a visual thing that like goes whack, I think. So once in a while, when you take a great picture, like, oh god, I have to post that.

[58:09] Beth Malone: It's just so good. Um, don't use it to be like, here's what I'm eating, and here, you know, here's what I'm doing now. I'm not like that. I'm not like that. Right. And are you a worry aware of like what is your private and public life and how much your public life do you put online or how much your private life I should say do you put online publicly? Do you think about that kind of thing? Especially maybe in someone the world of uh, you know, we're talking about activism and and sort of how people might look up to you. Are you conscious of that in terms of your social media using it? Well, slightly conscious of it. Like when I go to an opening night and I'm like, I'm gonna wear something, I'm gonna do the red carpet, and those pictures are gonna go out there, and so people are gonna see what I look like tonight.

That is, I mean, like, that is what opening nights are for. So that like Jenny Anderson takes your picture and it ends up on Instagram, and people are like, oh, you grew your hair. You know, that's about it. But it's like, you know, it's not fulfilling anything except that for me, you know. I keep a diary, so like I don't need to keep my diary on the on the social media, but I do use Facebook and um once in a while people were like, why don't you ever post a picture of your wife? And I'm like, oh, because it's my wife and that's my life, you know. I don't, I'm not selling anything, you know. I usually use it to be like promote this and promote that. Um totally or promote something like even like a social issue that I feel like you know, people need to be aware of this plastics thing.

I if I had one goal in my larger life, my goal before I leave this planet is to get single use plastics out of Broadway’s. I want our industry that we know and love to lead the way on this. If you go out to Brooklyn, go to BAM, you're gonna get your your water's gonna come in a cardboard box. Yeah. Because they can do it. I can you can afford a non-plastic cup, you would think. Amen. But no, it's not, it's not the single use plastic cup, it's the water bottle. When you get a water and you they hand you that plastic bottle of water, I want out of our industry. It's it's it's not that's that's what I want. So this is you know, it might take 10 years, but I'm I'm going to do it. I mean, certainly, I mean, that is the kind of thing I think if when when Starstruck comes to Broadway’s, I mean, is that not the thing you could kind of insist, hey, at our theater, this is what we're gonna do, and this is what you know and Molly Brown, I spearheaded this thing called a zero plastic production, where from day one to day to the closing, we're never gonna provide that ubiquitous case of uh this you know, shrink-wrapped plastic uh water bottle case is not happening in our show.

You bring a water bottle or you go thirsty, everybody. Because we're gonna you know we're gonna get this bubbler and you're all gonna so that I know it's boring, but this is this is my this is my I'm a cat, you have to pick a small goal. Everybody just has to pick one small goal, and this is what I can do, and I think I can actually do it. It's a lot of plastic in the landfills. Because I don't think I don't think our Broadway’s houses are recycling like they say they are. Oh, we're we're strapping a lot of tea here. So first we've got the the turd nugget that was the first show. Now we're accusing Broadway’s. How's this gonna be? We're about to be um what's it called when they aggregate? They're gonna aggregate.

To prove me wrong. I anyone who listens to this, I challenge. Show me the recycling. Show me the truth of the recycling. Um Beth and wrapping up here, I just would love to ask, you know, if you have a piece of advice for some of our young artists, you know, some of them are 16, 17, some of them are graduating school, some of them have already graduated school, but they're looking in, let's say they want to be Beth Malone when they grow up. I just want to be just like her. Maybe not take the specific path of Luretta Heights and all the things, but but if they want to be you when they grow up, uh what advice would you give? What should they do to sort of get to be you or their own version of you?

Boy, oh you know, uh pick someone better, A. But like B, next question. Yeah, just pick someone better. Um I I I like just keep not quitting. You have to keep not quitting. The only way you're gonna guarantee yourself to fail is if you aren't there. I have a fear of stopping. I feel like that drives me. Uh it's not like a good thing, it's like a fear, I think. But it does drive me, and I think something drives me every single day I'm working um on this job. Every single day my mind is working on it. I truly love it. So it feels like uh need and not a choice. Loving you is not a choice. It's who I am. It's the way I feel about theater. I'm like, ugh. I just, I just I'm I'm a I'm an animal of this of this business.

Um, not the business, but just like the craft of it. I I love it. For sure. That's such good advice. Keep not quitting. I like that as a phrase of it's not not just keep diving in, but it's like keep just you gotta keep not quitting. Keep picking yourself back up on the mat. No. Did you quit? Oh, okay, then you're definitely gonna fail because you quit. Yep. That's so true. Um, well, thank you so much for the time today, Beth. This was so wonderful. We know people could follow you at the Beth Malone on Instagram. We'll put we're gonna put that Norbert Leo Butz in you uh commercial in the show notes. We'll put information about Starstruck for them to check it out and all these exciting things.

Uh is there anything else that we need to plug? Anything else that you go, hey, we really should they should know this about me? No, it's just you know, zero plastics. That's my thing. Zero plastic, like the zero single-use plastic container. Next time you go to pick up that water bottle, think twice. You know. All right, so you can leave a rating and review on this episode where you say, Beth, because of you, I'm giving up plastic and we'll you know like it back or whatever. Let's all do that. Um Beth, thanks for the time. It was such a joy. Thank you.

[1:04:08] Charlie Murphy: Hot diggity dog. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Beth. Uh I found her to be so warm and smart and open and funny, basically who I want my daughter to grow up to be. Um, and just like a really cool artist. For our younger listeners, go check out the Indigo Girls or ask your parents. Um, I think you really dig them. Um for today's deeper dive, I'm probably not gonna add a whole lot of new information. Um, but I thought I might use this moment to kind of conclude our runner on type a bit. For what it's worth, I actually thought this was one of the most interesting um conversations about type or branding, even though of course we didn't necessarily come up with to any, you know, genius universal conclusions, which is not to say there aren't any helpful tidbits you can take away from these conversations, but I think there probably aren't any true hard and fast rules that apply to all people across all quote unquote types.

Um, but truly the reason I keep bringing it up is just to make sure I made clear for our current students and parents or people who had been in TCA students and parents, how strongly I believe that from the college process, you should work from the inside out, not the outside in when exploring your college audition material. And I do think in that process, if you hear any high school directors or teachers or coaches who are less informed about type, you know, you should definitely do XYZ because you look like ABC or any anybody who's kind of overly branding you or trying to polish you, run away from those people. You gotta talk to some artists in this process. If that's the kind of advice you're getting, you know, come seek out MTCA or or someone else who's really um artistic, not someone else who's really artistic, just make it us.

But if it wasn't us, it should be someone else who's really an artist and understands the artistic process, not just the sort of branding, casting director, that kind of thing. There isn't with college a way to kind of solve the process by manicuring a perfect look and singing songs that are just right for your look, etc. You know, it's so cheesy, and you hear it again and again from these schools. I mean, literally, look at the number of schools who say this exact words, but or these exact words, but it really is about the authenticity of who you are, right? It is so important to lead with the authenticity of who you are as an artist and a human being and let them decide what to do with you, right?

That's the college side of it. But for the professional side of it, as you've heard a number of these artists say, I still tend to come down pretty hard with Beth and a lot of others on the side that it is still what you should continue to do, that you're gonna have a more fruitful and sustainable and satisfying career by continuing to tap into your authentic artistry and leading from there. However, where I will say I know it to be capital T true from the college perspective that this is how you should approach your process, I think it is a much more complicated question or decision for yourself as a young professional. Exactly what that means, where you draw the line for yourself as an artist is an incredibly personal choice.

I mean you've heard Beth talk about not wanting to do nothing but commercials, that she was doing a ton of commercials, and that wasn't what you wanted her whole career to be. And let's just be honest, when we talk about like commercials, the world of that commercial audition is very little about artistry and a ton about what you look like, what you sound like, how you want to brand yourself. It can certainly in some cases be about your quick wit for like fun or funny commercials, but even that is often not true. Um I don't tell a lot of stories, Mark Group, but I'll tell I remember going in for a Docker's commercial. Uh Docker's is like a pants company for you know people who are under whatever 25.

Um it was pretty shortly out of school, and I just remember thinking like how incredibly similar we all looked. They like clearly were bringing in someone who looked a whole lot like me, with the biggest difference being just like a bunch of different waist sizes. So there was like super buff version of me, slightly buffer version of me, super skinny version of me, slightly plumper version of me, like all the different kind of waist sizes around people who looked a lot like me. That's what commercials are. They are trying to sell a product, and you really, in a lot of ways, are kind of a prop to sell that product. There's not normally a ton of artistry involved. That's not to say there aren't artistic commercials out there, blah, blah, blah.

You know what I mean? And while I would say that is less true in the theater and musical theater world, there are absolutely aspects of this in the Broadway’s community. But basically, the more money something costs, the more money something expects to make, the more it starts acting like one of those commercials, or at least a mix of that, right? You might have some of the real artistry, the directors fighting for this, but then the producers are talking about XYZ in terms of who's got the most Instagram followers, who's got you know more commercial considerations. It's never gonna be quite the same extent as a true commercial audition or industrial or that kind of thing. But that certainly is gonna exist.

The reason I say all that is not to say that you should therefore necessarily play into type. Again, I'm saying maybe not would be my general advice in some of the ways that you know we we've discussed on these episodes. But mostly just so that you're not shocked when you encounter it. You know, the reason I'm doing this is what I'm telling you is true about the college world in the way that artists think, right? The vast, vast majority of these college programs are run by former actors, sometimes current actors still former directors, sometimes current directors. They're all artists, right? The people who run these these programs. Whereas on the other side of the the table and in the real world, there's a whole world of casting directors, agents, managers, producers, studio executives, some of those people also happen to truly be artists, but not everyone you encounter will think about art artistically in the way that we're talking, right?

You're gonna hear a lot that's gonna sound like it's gonna counter some of this like inside out thinking that I'm advising you do and some of this authentic artistry plays that I'm talking about right. You know the first time you hear an agent tell you that hey you gotta cut your hair or hey what if we started selling maybe a part of your identity whether that's like we got to sell your gender identity or you got to sell your race or sell your sexuality or something like that, right? How you navigate that moment is really up to you. And I think it's a totally valid path in my opinion if you want to say hell yeah this is my truth anyway let's just make some money off this aspect of my identity that I already embrace.

If it's just about do I have to change clothing or change a hairstyle or something like that, totally up to you, right? Or if you want to say, hey, I know that may make me more attractive commercially, but it just isn't authentic to me. It's not how I want to live my life, it's not how I want to put myself out there in the world. That's totally okay too. So it's really not me recommending one of those or over the other. But, you know, as we talk about this sort of ever shift shifting world that we're living in, you know, I do think there is less aggressive typing than there used to be maybe 20 years ago, where it would not be uncommon for someone to say, hey, uh, you you gotta lose 10 pounds to fit your type.

You know, that's that's not gonna work, right? That that does, you know, that's certainly less than it used to be, but that does still exist out there. You're gonna see people who are gonna do stuff like that, if not exactly that, right? Even as you feel the shift, it's never a clean shift and it never happens all in one. Um and we also, the other reason I bring this up is we are gonna have some more of these commercial industry type guests on the pod. Um, I have one recorded already with an awesome manager, it's Jeff Soffer. Um, and I'm scheduling with people in the casting director and the agent world as well. And I really just want to kind of sprinkle them in. I don't want to make it all about that side of things, since I do really want to keep this as a conversation about artistic paths from artists, right?

I don't want this to kind of become a how-to. I think it's just kind of a different kind of pod of like how to make your resume and how to go find an agent. You know, we'll dabble with that kind of stuff, but I don't I think we're really gonna keep it more about the artistic paths that you can take. Um, but I do think it'll be helpful to hear from some of those really artistically minded members of that part of the business as well. To hear those episodes and many more, you better hit that follow/slash subscribe button on your podcast feed. That is, unless you've already hit it, in which case I don't want you to hit it again, because that will unsubscribe you, unless you're choosing to do that out of principle, because you don't want to hear any more commercial sounding podcasts.

I respect that if so. Otherwise, you can reach out to us with questions directly for the pod at mailbag at mapping the college audition.com or hit me on Twitter, Instagram, at Charmur7, where did you see it? I did post, it happened, it was wonderful. If you're interested in working with MTCA for help with your individual prep for your college audition journey, please check us out at mtca.nyc. You can also follow us on all the social mediums in the show notes. Two of my young artists out there mapping their journeys. Keep not quitting. We'll see you next week.