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[0:11] Charlie Murphy: Hello and welcome to Mapping the College Audition, a podcast where we explore the landscape of the college theater world and try to demystify the 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 creative show lined up for you.

[0:31] Charlie Murphy: Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien are on the show, and I know Susan from TPAP. You'll see our witty banter. I immediately give her a hard time. It's sort of evident from that very particular branch of the world that TPAP sprouts from.

[0:44] Charlie Murphy: But I also know both of them as a listener and big fan of the Spark File podcast, a really cool podcast you're gonna hear about many times on the show today, which is maybe especially geared toward our alumni student listeners who are out there working to add to their hyphens that go beyond just actor.

[1:00] Charlie Murphy: Um today on the show we talk about not always taking your guidance counselor's advice. We talk about Laura's sports upbringing and the work ethic of 5 a.m. basketball practice that lead you to great producing work. Um we talk about Susan's path through graduate school and discovering teaching.

[1:16] Charlie Murphy: Um we pitch a spin-off show about what it is to date a blue man. Um we talk about the start of Title of Show with both of them working on it. We talk about their creativity practices, we talk about accountability buddies, um, what it is to create more than you consume, and we talk a little bit about changing your choice.

[1:34] Charlie Murphy: Um, I've quoted them on the show as I've said, talking about changing your choice, but now you get to hear it from the original source. Um, and last but not least, we talk about the transferable skills of a BFA. Um, we've said that on many of the college shows, but we get to say it one of the artist shows today, which is something I think is really true.

[1:50] Charlie Murphy: Um, you'll hear on the show today that Susan is an incredible shill for all of her many careers. So we're gonna keep it going with our MTCA shilling.

[1:59] Charlie Murphy: Uh, for those of you who missed last week's episode where we mentioned our junior workshop, um, we've called it Launching Your College Process. It's an hour free webinar with me and Megan at 8 p.m. Eastern on November 9th. That's two weeks from today.

[2:13] Charlie Murphy: If you're someone who listens on episode drop day, which of course is every Wednesday, you know that very well. There's a link in the show notes of this episode.

[2:20] Charlie Murphy: There'll be a link to that. Um click to that workshop, and you just have to put like your email address in, and then you'll get the link for the thing itself.

[2:28] Charlie Murphy: In all seriousness, you really should check out Laura and Susan's show. Um, we hear about it a lot in the thing. It becomes a bit of a runner, but it is really a great um resource for those who are looking for a little kick into their creativity.

[2:41] Charlie Murphy: Um, as far as me, I'm doing great. Uh, you'll hear on the episode that I have a cold, which I don't have currently, I just had back then. We recorded this about two months ago, and man, I was going through a pattern of catching like every daycare disease around.

[2:55] Charlie Murphy: So far, we're doing a little better with all of that, knock on wood. Um, but it is a very busy time of year with our seniors. So many of them are kind of seeing that daunting hill that this process really is.

[3:06] Charlie Murphy: You know, maybe you filmed your pre-screens, but you didn't catch all of your essays, or you didn't notice the extra video supplement you need, or there's just so many boxes to check without even getting into the artistic specifics of just what you have to do in this process.

[3:19] Charlie Murphy: And that's all before we even get into scheduling the actual auditions themselves and then actually doing your live actual callback auditions. Um, so yes, I think they are really feeling it right now, and so are we.

[3:29] Charlie Murphy: It's a nature of what we do. It's October in the world, you know. Um, but I think it means we all deserve a nice tea and a stress-free bath of inspiration and comedy that is Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien.

[3:49] Charlie Murphy: Well, we are so honored to have Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien on the show. They are both multidisciplinary artists. I'm just gonna name a few of those disciplines.

[4:00] Charlie Murphy: Uh, Susan Blackwell is an actor, writer, teacher, speaker, and interviewer. She's a BFA in acting from Wright State University and an MFA in acting from the University of Minnesota.

[4:09] Charlie Murphy: This woman likes degrees in acting. Uh, she created and performed a role in the original Broadway musical Title of Show, and the Off-Broadway musical Now Hear This.

[4:19] Charlie Murphy: She's also appeared on your TV screens in shows like Masters of None, The Sopranos, Madam Secretary, Succession, Billions, and on your movie screens in things like Birdman, Margo at the Wedding, The Post, and PS I Love You.

[4:31] Charlie Murphy: She's also the host of her own talk show, Side by Side by Susan Blackwell on Broadway.com. While Laura Camien is a published playwright, author, screenwriter, and producer.

[4:41] Charlie Murphy: She has a B.S. in communication/theater from Kansas State University. She spent much of her career building the Blue Man Group brand around the world and also formed Bleed Bridge Club Productions, where she developed a number of theatrical shows, including this very Title of Show, co-producing the Tony-nominated Broadway production.

[4:59] Charlie Murphy: They are co-hosts of The Spark File, which is about to be your second favorite podcast when you all listen to it. It's a podcast on creativity and curiosity and inspiration, a lot of the stuff we're gonna get into today.

[5:10] Charlie Murphy: Susan, Laura, welcome on the pod. How are you doing today?

[5:13] Susan Blackwell: We're pretty good.

[5:15] Susan Blackwell: Charlie, I want to jump right in, just right off the bat and let you know. Laura and I, a few years back made this, you know, Laura and I have collaborated on a lot of things together for the past 20 million years.

[5:27] Susan Blackwell: And a few years back, we were like, what do we want to do now? What do we want to do next? We know that it wants to be about creativity. We know we want to share our passion for creativity with the world.

[5:40] Susan Blackwell: And together we co-created The Spark File where we podcast and we're creativity coaches who help people fear less and create more.

[5:50] Susan Blackwell: And I have to tell you, we're really stoked that we decided to do that because it's like the joy of our lives.

[5:58] Laura Camien: It is. It is the joy of our lives.

[6:01] Charlie Murphy: Let's dial it back. You said 20 million years you've been doing this. Let's go back 19.999 million years to maybe when you were 16, 17. I'm gonna ask both of you this.

[6:28] Susan Blackwell: You know, Charlie. It was when I was in, I went to school in rural, rural Ohio. And I just don't know that the people around me had any conception that one could have a career like the one that I have enjoyed in the arts.

[6:47] Susan Blackwell: And so I remember really clearly going to the guidance counselor and saying, you know, I've had some real satisfaction and success in the musicals here at school, and I think I want to study acting.

[7:03] Susan Blackwell: And my guidance counselor said, you know, maybe you should look into journalism. And I looked at my guidance counselor in the eyes and I said, I will. I'll look into journalism.

[7:14] Susan Blackwell: And in my mind, I was like, lady, I'm not looking into journalism. I'm looking into acting. So I really like I really knew from high school. I'm gonna say, like when I was a junior, senior in high school, that I was like, I think I think I am good at this, and I think I want to give it a swing.

[7:38] Susan Blackwell: And I had seen a lot of shows growing up. My parents would take us to see shows at Wright State University, which was sort of the local university down the road.

[7:49] Susan Blackwell: And so I just had it in my mind. I was like, I think I'm gonna go there and I think I'm gonna study acting. And I honestly had no very limited awareness that there was a big old world out there that Juilliard existed and I could audition for it, that Carnegie Mellon existed and I could audition for it.

[8:08] Susan Blackwell: And for a long time as an adult, I was kind of mad and sassy because I was like, why didn't anybody tell me? But I have to say, I love the education I got at Wright State University. I think they do great work, and I had a lot of opportunities there, so I guess it all worked out just fine.

[8:24] Charlie Murphy: Though you still seem mad and sassy plenty of the time.

[8:28] Susan Blackwell: I'm mad and sassy like 23 hours a day, even in my sleep.

[8:31] Charlie Murphy: I love that teacher recommended journalism to you, like that was like such a more stable, easy career too. I'm like, is that like there's just thousands of journalism jobs out there?

[8:40] Susan Blackwell: I don't know. I guess it was performative adjacent.

[8:44] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, and so, you know, I really do believe everyone's doing the best that they can, and I'm sure that she thought she was doing me some kind of a favor, but I was just super clear from a really young age, and I also have to say I'm really fortunate because my parents are.

[9:02] Susan Blackwell: I've talked about this on the Spark File podcast, available wherever you get your quality podcasts.

[9:07] Laura Camien: You could have plenty of times to plug. You don't need to plug it in.

[9:10] Susan Blackwell: Unbelievable. I'm gonna plug until the wheels fall off.

[9:14] Susan Blackwell: Um I had parents who they what I would consider natural growth parents. There wasn't a lot of helicoptering, there wasn't a lot of that sort of thing.

[9:23] Susan Blackwell: But they were sort of they were sort of like, yeah, if you want to, if you want to try that, if you want to give that a swing, they were supportive, uh neutral to supportive, but mostly supportive.

[9:36] Susan Blackwell: And I ended up getting a great, pretty affordable education. And I really, really loved my time at Wright State.

[9:46] Charlie Murphy: Well, and we'll get more into Wright State and then Minnesota as well. Let me ask Laura the same question.

[9:51] Laura Camien: So so back then, we're taking back to 16, 17, we're starting to think about this. It seems like there was at least some consideration of in front of the camera as well as behind or on the stage as well as in other places.

[10:02] Laura Camien: I think that came a little bit later. I was a late bloomer in this regard. My whole family are teachers and coaches.

[10:10] Laura Camien: So I grew up like an athlete and an athlete who like excelled in other ways as well. Because when your parent is a teacher, that's what you do.

[10:20] Charlie Murphy: And what were you an athlete in for those? We have many sports curious people who listen to this pod.

[10:24] Laura Camien: Sports curious. Charlie. Yes. Every season I had to be, I was playing a sport or another. Softball in the summer, volleyball in the fall until I became a cheerleader.

[10:35] Laura Camien: But then my dad said, you still have to play a sport if you're gonna cheerlead.

[10:38] Charlie Murphy: Yes.

[10:39] Laura Camien: Um, you're cheering for the same sport you're playing.

[10:42] Laura Camien: You're cheering yourself on exactly. I well, I of course I'm always cheering myself on but I had to I cheered for the men in whatever that sport was and then played on the team.

[10:43] Charlie Murphy: Yes.

[10:45] Laura Camien: How did you have time did you have like a Hermione time turner how did you do that?

[10:43] Laura Camien: The day started at 5 a.m. I'm not joking basketball practice. Now I'm with you we're up at 4:30 we're at the court by five so with all these athletics there's not a lot of room for artistic discovery and growth quite yet there wasn't.

[10:43] Laura Camien: I mean except that my teachers bless them I'm so thankful that all my actual teachers like during the daytime would go to my dad and say you know she's really skilled in these other things like the speech and debate the theater person the um art people so they were like kind of working on him for years and so by my junior year I auditioned for a show and was in it at you know the show name the show Harvey.

[10:43] Laura Camien: Oh yes and I played the nurse I played the high school nurse that came in yeah and then we did um oh god what was the musical bye bye birdie of course.

[10:43] Laura Camien: Um so when I went to college then I felt like well I'm so far behind all the other kids who were like the theater kids had been doing it for 12 years and so I felt like well I mean I couldn't possibly so I went into ironically, just because the way K State has it organized, the theater department and the speech and communication department is all under one roof.

[12:23] Laura Camien: And so I went in as um communications and I'm a public speaker.

[12:29] Laura Camien: And so I got I taught public speaking, you know, to help pay for my college. And then being adjacent to the theater, much to the chagrin of my speech teachers, they were like, don't go do that.

[12:45] Laura Camien: Don't get sucked in by the theater people. Don't do it. And I eventually had to say, it's happened. I've been, it's like my time and my energy and my love, it's been usurped.

[12:58] Laura Camien: And I'm gonna be all theater.

[12:59] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[13:00] Laura Camien: We sucked you in.

[13:01] Laura Camien: Sucked me in. I couldn't go. But so then it seemed like some maybe post-collegiate education as well, continued that theater nerd.

[13:07] Laura Camien: Yeah. So then I did do as much theater as humanly possible at K State. And then I moved to LA.

[13:12] Laura Camien: I worked with Steve Easton studios. That was all just to save my sister lived there. So that was all just to save money to move to New York, which is where I knew I always needed and wanted to be.

[13:45] Susan Blackwell: Before we do that though, Susan, if you take us to the MFA, what made you go from BFA to MFA? Did you know you needed that immediately? Was that some period of time first between? It's such a good question, Charlie, because I'm sure if you're a listener to this podcast, there's no one right path for, you know, there's so many different paths we can take in terms of our journey into the arts and through arts education. But I knew, I knew when I was I remember doing summer theater between my junior and senior year of college, and I was expressing to the director that I was thinking about graduate school, and the director was like, you don't need it, you don't need more training, you are ready to work, you do not need it.

And I was like, I knew in my bones that I was like a little chick inside of an egg who was not ready to go out into the world and face the professional world yet, and so I almost viewed graduate school as just more time in the incubator, more time to try stuff. I auditioned at Urda's and found an institution where I could have my graduate school paid for and got the old almost free ride. I mean, I taught while I was in school, and that's actually where I discovered my first love, which is teaching. And I was like, imagine my surprise where I was like, I had had my eyes on the prize since high school that I was going to be an actor, and I had this vision of what that was going to look like, and then I started teaching my own classes, and I was like, oh no, I'm better at this than anything else.

So, but that was at the University of Minnesota in a graduate program that no longer exists. May she rest in peace. But and that seems like a pretty normal reason to go from BFA to MFA. Not necessarily the incubator, though, that's very sweet to sort of stay in the bubble. But you sort of wonder when people go straight from BFA to MFA, it may be because I might want to teach that you'd want to be able to do that. I had no, I did not have my eyes on that, and I honestly, again, coming from rural Ohio, I didn't even know until I got there that by having that MFA, I would be able, I would be degreed to teach. I honest to God didn't know it. There were so many things I didn't know. The other thing that drew me to that program is it was a feeder program for the Guthrie Theater.

And I viewed myself, this vision I had as an actor. I was like, oh, I'm going to be a classical repertory actor, and I'm gonna do Shakespeare and I'm gonna do Moliere. And I just really thought that was gonna be my journey. And this is maybe before the BFA program at the Guthrie was performed yet. Is that true? Or had it? That's right. I think that's right. Because I think it's only like 13 years old now, 14 years old, something like that. And what are you taking for, Charlie? An old lady. Well, I don't know. I'm thinking yes, basically. I think that's right. I think that it's like I think Santino Fontana was one of the early people in that BFA program. And he came, he was after Nana Susan had already graduated.

[17:06] Charlie Murphy: Okay, let's get to Title of Show. So I was guessing this might be where you've met, though. Maybe you already knew each other from before.

[17:10] Susan Blackwell: Oh, Charlie, we knew each other for years.

[17:15] Laura Camien: It's true.

[17:16] Charlie Murphy: Terrible guess. I was just remembering. So Laura and I, Laura, if I may tell the story. Nana Susan's on the scene. So I Laura was working with Blue Man Group at that time. I was dating a blue man at that time. So I had occasion to, we were at this gallery opening for a friend. And as part of the opening of this art show, there was a live performance. And it was, you know, sort of like a cabaret of live performance. And Laura Camien performed something that she had written. So work she had originated. And I at the time was curating something we called it the talent show. And it was in the basement of a restaurant. And it was a kind of a mumba monthly or bi-monthly alternative cabaret. And I marched, Laura Camien was I have to say both her names, Laura and Camien, was phenomenal.

The writing was great, and the performance was great. And I she finished, and I marched straight up to her and shook my little finger in her face and was like, I need to know you. Who are you? Where do you come from? What's the deal? Because she was just so she was so good. She just magnetized me right to her, and that's how we met 20 million years ago.

[18:37] Susan Blackwell: Susie about bowled me over with her energy, honestly. It truly was immediately after the performance. And it was like, bam, Susan Blackwell's in my face. I didn't mind it.

[18:47] Laura Camien: I did not mind Susie Black.

[18:51] Susan Blackwell: Take that. And has been ever since. There's an aspect of the story that we do not have time to explore today, but what it is to date a blue man, I just am so curious. And then what it is to divorce a blue man.

[19:05] Laura Camien: Oh my.

[19:05] Susan Blackwell: This is a whole other pod.

[19:06] Charlie Murphy: This is a whole pod. Listen we get like tales from the blue men. You don't even know.

[19:13] Laura Camien: And prior to that happening, because I worked at Blue Man, we have a lot of stories to tell you, Charlie. I feel like this is a whole spin-off podcast, Charlie.

[19:21] Susan Blackwell: That would be and you can swear on that because that'll be a blue pod.

[19:23] Charlie Murphy: So it's like okay, great. No, but let's get to Title of Show. Because this seems like, you know, from the outside of someone who kind of knows what a NYMF show is and seeing it go all the way. New York Musical Theater Festival, don't get it twisted. Now everybody's in the world. That is correct. Well, can we like seeing that going to Broadway? It feels like that's the thing that never happens, but then happens, you know, which is amazing. So I just would love to hear a little bit of about that journey of like what it was like from both ends. So maybe we'll start with as an actor, but then also from the producing end.

[19:56] Laura Camien: I think you have to start it all goes back to Susan Blackwell. Sorry, back to Susan Blackwell.

[20:02] Susan Blackwell: It really does.

[20:03] Laura Camien: So how do we take a NYMF to an off-Broadway to a Broadway? Listen, well, first we got to go back two steps before NYMF because now we gotta go back to 1617, 19.99 million years ago. We do love history.

[20:26] Susan Blackwell: And I was just like, something must be done. And I had started to put some of my own work up at a small theater called Manhattan Theater Source, and they invited me to be a resident theater company. And I did not know what all that would entail. But they were like, do you basically tell us when you want to book the space and it's yours? And I was like, great, I'll do a three-week show in the spring, and we'll do a three-night workshop in the summer and another show and a short play festival. That's what we'll do this year. And so I then I went to my friends and said, I specifically, I went to Susan Blackwell. Um, I had a show I wanted to do, and then I was like, Susan, do you want to write a show?

Because now I've got a theater booked, and we like a fire has been lit under my butt, and therefore should also be lit under your butt. And so Susan says to me, I can't right now write a show, but let's talk to Hunter and Jeff and see if they might want to write a show.

[21:33] Susan Blackwell: Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen.

[21:35] Laura Camien: Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen. And so right there at their kitchen table, Hunter Bell's Kitchen Table, an agreement was made. We will write a musical to go up in that little three-day workshop space in the summertime. And they did. And then at the same time, in the forming of that, they were like, in fact, we want to, we would like to submit what we write into the New York Musical Theater Festival. So we will do this. And if fingers crossed, it gets selected, we'll do it again at the festival, which we did. And how that moves from a festival, first of all, every single person involved dedicates their energy to filling every seat, uh-huh, filling every seat with every single contact they might know in the industry. And on the very last day when it's standing room only, and we're not going to do the show again. There is one seat reserved for a producer named Kevin McCullum.

[22:42] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh. The show time is about to start. There's no Kevin McCullum. It's a true waiting for McCullum. Waiting for Kevin McCullum. We hold the show and hold the show. He arrives, he meets me, he's like, you're the producer? Great. I'm a bit hungry. No. And I say, okay, okay. And I run backstage and we're like, we don't want Kevin McCullum to watch the show while hungry. No, no. Susan, Jeff, Hunter, Michael Barress, myself, we all scrounge our bags and we find like one flat little kind bar and a banana or something like that. And I go running back up there, and I was like, Kev, we're Kev now, right? Yeah, of course. Here's what we've got a banana or this squished bar. And he's like, I'll take them both. So that is how, and then the rest is history. He saw the show and was like, well, clearly we need to be partners and let's move, let's get this show up elsewhere. And then so then that goes off-Broadway, that goes well, and then a Broadway run is the first one.

[23:52] Laura Camien: That's right. And it feels like eternity in between each of those. But yes, it reflects back to the case. Getting an off-Broadway run out of a NYMF show is amazing. Oh my god, this is so cool. Yeah, we were really lucky though, like between Laura and Kevin, that bing bong of I forget the order, but a little bit of R Zenova and a little bit of Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and a little bit of the Vineyard Theater. Cast album, a cast album. They are all little miracles in their own way. And that even in retrospect, I'm sort of like, did that really happen? Was that some crazy Dallas dream that but it really all happened? And but what Laura said is really key there. Like the and that is the work ethic of somebody who used to get up at 5 a.m. to get the basketball practice.

It is it's true. I as you were saying that, I was like, oh, you really do have to have a focus and a work ethic in order to not only do the, I'm doing little quoties, do the fun parts and then just creative parts, but then the business things and the seat filling things and the finding the smashed cliff bar and the banana in order to make sure that somebody's blood sugar is up so that they have a positive experience of the show. All of those things, um they take capacity and and focus.

[25:11] Laura Camien: And now I feel like Laura is she tried before the pod to be too humble about her producing skills, and oh, I don't know. But we're gonna put can we put you to a little bit of the test of what are some of those granular skills or granular things that you were doing beyond the banana and the kind bar, but like, you know, especially for some of our listeners who maybe they've graduated from school at this point, they love acting, but they also are exploring some of those other hyphens and maybe they're writing work, they're trying to produce their work, they're trying to figure out there may be other places in the theater world or in this industry that may be helpful for me. Like, what does that look like?

What what did it look like for the quote unquote pounding the pavement to get it from NYMF to off-Broadway to Broadway in terms of what your involvement was? Why does this feel like a harder question than it is? I think that um I think that you know, that one is once I let go of like my acting career is gonna be a certain way. And I realized, like, oh no, no, no. Part and Susan Blackwell's big big part of this. Realizing, like, oh, when you take your own fate into your own hands, everything is like life feels it feels so every single thing that you do is for yourself and for your friends, and it all feels so good in a way. Um, so it was literally everything from I guess finding that space and making and forming the relationships with the people at Manhattan Theater Source, which I wasn't seeking to be a resident theater anywhere.

I because I didn't know that was an option. Like I didn't know to dream of that. And they, but based on the relationships we formed, we did quality work. They came to me and said, do you want to keep doing quality work here? Yes, I sure do. Then that entails like expanding your mind beyond what you might think is possible right now. So learning everything from like, okay, so I guess that means I need to market this. I need to learn how to write a press release. I need to uh fearlessly invite people. I need to trust the quality of work that I know I'm capable of doing and my friend, the quality of work that my friends are doing.

[27:22] Susan Blackwell: Because prior to that, when I had been involved in a lot of productions, like I just felt like I spent a lot of time and at the end of the day, I didn't feel really proud enough of the work to invite literally everyone I knew. And so again, doing our work in a quality way with people who I knew were putting as much into it as I was, and all of us fearlessly inviting everyone. Um I think we all did that. So I feel, yeah, I think I feel um like, oh gosh, I didn't, it wasn't just me that did all of that. Every person involved, so every actor who signed on board really did more. Is that a cop out? Is my answer a cop out? It might be just a tiny bit. But I think there's something cool in there of like the trust of it all, right?

That like because I do think so many people have asked me that with like, how did you know you could run a company like MTCA? And I was like, I didn't. I just did not know. And then yeah, you learn how to write press releases, or you learn how to make build a shopping cart or do things you're like, I would not have to make it. That's right. You learn everything's figure outable. You learn how to put a budget together. My personal finances weren't together, but the budget of every show I did was tight.

[28:46] Charlie Murphy: Exactly right.

[28:47] Susan Blackwell: Um, and then Susan, I'd love to talk a little bit about, you know, for for I think a lot of uh people really love this show and really interested in in kind of this kind of with I'm gonna say autobiographical work, which is maybe not quite the right word, but like it does seem like very meta in terms of the experience, like you are playing yourself, you know.

[29:05] Laura Camien: We thought a word from the great Linda Berry, which is autobiofictionography. Uh-huh. You know, it's it's autobiographical to a certain extent, but it's it's fictionalized to a certain extent in order to make it viable and vibrant for the stage.

[29:20] Charlie Murphy: So uh yeah, it's I'm sorry, Charlie, was there a question in there?

[29:25] Susan Blackwell: Well, there was about to be you cut me off midway through. I mean, it's really just gonna say, like, what was that like in terms of figuring out like where the line is for yourself, maybe in a healthy way, especially if you now have to play this off Broadway and then on Broadway again and again, of like, where is that line of like this isn't actually me, but it is of course me.

[29:44] Laura Camien: I'm trying to bring myself together.

[29:45] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I feel like there was an intuitive sense of what was um well. The first thing, like to make the cut, it had to be sort of there's that question you ask yourself, like, why are we breaking the silence? Why are we asking people to pay a hundred dollars a ticket to come see this? And so like you want it to be, you want it to be substantive, you want it to be entertaining, maybe funny, maybe uh resonant somehow. So there's that's the first cut that has to be made in order to bring any sort of lived experience, I think, to uh to this stage or to the page or whatever.

[30:23] Laura Camien: But I also think there was an intuitive sense and an ongoing conversation of kind of what was appropriate and what was healthy and different people in that um artistic collaboration, including Heidi Blick and staff, Hunter Bell, Jeff Bowen, Susan Blackwell, Larry Pressgrove, those are the folks that are on stage, had uh different boundaries about and this tried into our next piece, which is called Now Hear This Available for Licensing wherever you get your quality shows.

[30:56] Susan Blackwell: Wow, the plugs the um seriously it's on Concord's website, just check it out. Um but but these these questions did arise about like how what we wanted to share, what we didn't prefer to share and there were times when it was sort of like oh but that would be such a good story and Jeff Bowen would be like absolutely not I just we're not going there.

[31:21] Laura Camien: Um so and you have you have to respect it.

[31:24] Susan Blackwell: So and I think it's an interesting challenge just in terms of like dramaturgy. It's an interesting challenge to know, like, well, there needs to be some conflict, or there needs to be some obstacle or some challenge. And yet when you're pulling from your own life, like as Susan said, you may have like some boundaries around, like, well, I don't actually, I don't want my like, I don't want that to be the conflict of this show.

[31:51] Laura Camien: And then I replay it every night, you know.

[31:54] Susan Blackwell: Um, and so it was it really led to a a lot of uh, I don't know, great conversations and and deep thought about how you build a show and what's what's needed in a show. And it does feel like it's not so different than what our students are doing in their auditions, you know, it's not quite autobiofictional or whatever the word is that you're saying, but it is like they're choosing what to share about themselves.

[32:16] Laura Camien: That's right.

[32:17] Susan Blackwell: That's right. Often they're saying, this is a maybe some trauma that I have or some personal experience I've gone through that I maybe don't want to share because I don't want to do that for 20 auditions. I'm not sure I'm ready to go.

[32:26] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[32:29] Susan Blackwell: Absolutely. And and as you live and you process through things, that may shift. That may shift for you. And you might, you know, either be like, oh, I'm I'm done expressing myself in that way, and now I'm moving towards work like this.

[32:44] Laura Camien: But yes, that makes so much sense.

[32:46] Charlie Murphy: Let's talk a little bit about this side by side, because I don't think you've plugged enough things yet, Susan. So to tell us a little bit about how that came about.

[32:54] Susan Blackwell: I mean, this is like this really cool thing. How did you come up with this?

[32:57] Susan Blackwell: So Side by Side by Susan Blackwell is a show I did for Broadway.com for 11 years, and it kind of I feel like the pandemic kind of um, you know, when when Broadway went nine, it we sort of put it on pause. But it um how did it come about? We were promoting Title of Show, and Broadway.com asked the cast of Title of Show if we would do Man on the Street coverage of the Tony Awards that year.

[33:27] Laura Camien: And I don't remember what year it was, but it was the year that uh the Patty Lapone Gypsy was on Broadway with Laura Bananti. And I'm just trying, I'm seeing the faces that I interviewed that night.

[33:39] Susan Blackwell: But I started doing uh here and there these weird little correspondence spots for Broadway.com. And then Paul Wontoric, the the now and past and future king editor in chief at Broadway.com said, Um, would you like to make something for could we make something together? Do you have any ideas about something you'd like to make?

[34:02] Susan Blackwell: And I pitched him uh some ideas, and he was like, let's do it. And my idea was what if I did when we first started doing it, I think for the first season, it was in like a hot seven minutes. It was a morning, noon, and night friend date with three different friends that we would edit together.

[34:23] Susan Blackwell: So the first episode was me having breakfast in bed with Sutton Foster, me on a carriage ride through Central Park with Jonathan Groff, and me having hot wings at Hooters with Laura Benanti. And then all of that was edited into a hot seven minutes. But uh, but then it just it sort of evolved and we would focus on one person each episode.

[34:42] Susan Blackwell: And you know, I had so many joyous adventures doing that. I was just saying to my husband this past weekend the amount of things that I got to try and do because of side by side by Susan Blackwell, Broadway.com, and Paul Wontorik, weird stuff that I would have never had the opportunity to do with some crazy like Broadway star, like linked arms with me.

[35:09] Laura Camien: It was, you know, having Daniel Radcliffe scrub my toilet was it was it was just like life real life highlights.

[35:15] Charlie Murphy: There was some licking involved, is that right?

[35:17] Susan Blackwell: I feel like you licked a lot of people.

[35:19] Laura Camien: It was a very organic thing that I really like to play with, play around with um the pre-pandemic, pre-pandemic friends.

[35:28] Susan Blackwell: Pre-monkeypox, I like to play around with just like messing with people's personal space.

[35:33] Laura Camien: And very it grew very organically.

[35:35] Susan Blackwell: I was doing an interview with Sutton Foster, and she kept giving me guff playfully, like you and me, Charlie, about holding like the mic and my mic placement, and I that I was standing too close. And by the end of the interview, she was like kind of making up and making like, but now we're friends, and she kissed me on the cheek.

[35:54] Susan Blackwell: And as I turned, I was like, I'm gonna lick her on the face. And I fully licked her face. And it just became this running bit.

[36:04] Laura Camien: And then very as organically as it came, I was like, I don't want to do that anymore.

[36:08] Susan Blackwell: And and I was really in a jam because mostly nobody knows who I am. But there is this little clutch of people in the world who really know who I am.

[36:18] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[36:19] Susan Blackwell: Everywhere I would go where there would be somebody who really knew who I was, they would be like very earnestly asked still to this day. People are like, Can you lick my face? And I'm like, no.

[36:29] Laura Camien: That would be a hard task.

[36:31] Susan Blackwell: Can you lick my face?

[36:32] Laura Camien: Strangers want you to lick their face.

[36:34] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[36:35] Laura Camien: That's like oddly intimate and gross.

[36:38] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[36:39] Laura Camien: I just like I'm thinking of like, you know, sometimes that's celebrities like sign parts of their bodies, but to lick, will you lick my face? That is really what I think someone to do.

[36:47] Susan Blackwell: It's a great way.

[36:48] Laura Camien: My Wikipedia, my Wikipedia page.

[36:50] Susan Blackwell: Did you just get a little bit of a couple of things?

[36:51] Susan Blackwell: With a link study of people whose faces I have licked.

[36:57] Laura Camien: She cannot stop.

[36:59] Susan Blackwell: So just go to Wikipedia.com slash Susan Blackwell.

[37:04] Charlie Murphy: All right. Well, let's take a short break. We're gonna run some ads, plug some of different products that are not our products and not Susan Blackwell's products.

[37:12] Susan Blackwell: And then we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk a little bit about creativity.

[37:16] Charlie Murphy: We're gonna dive deep into creativity.

[37:19] Laura Camien: Woo!

[37:21] Charlie Murphy: Okay, we are back with Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien. And it's time to dive deep into that pool of creativity we mentioned.

[37:29] Susan Blackwell: It's welling up between all of us.

[37:30] Charlie Murphy: I feel ready. Um, we had a really good beginning of this conversation uh about creativity and a kind of risk taking with the great Jonathan Bernstein, who Susan and I share is some TPAP connections with. And I want to continue that.

[37:42] Laura Camien: And uh certainly I want to talk about creativity from a writing perspective, which feels like a lot of what Sparkfile is about kind of creating your own work and and that I also want to just we'll try to shape it around creativity as an actor too and as an artist.

[37:55] Susan Blackwell: So we'll see how much of this can be in the interpretive art as well.

[37:58] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[37:59] Charlie Murphy: Um, I would love to start off, and I'm gonna throw this to both of you and let you pick up the ball wherever it lands.

[38:05] Susan Blackwell: All right.

[38:05] Charlie Murphy: Um, just to hear a little bit about your personal active practice of creativity.

[38:10] Susan Blackwell: So, like if I go to the gym every day, and you know, I didn't be honest.

[38:14] Laura Camien: And you're yokes, Charlie.

[38:17] Charlie Murphy: There's listeners who can't see.

[38:18] Susan Blackwell: I look like Arnold Schwartz and Agri But.

[38:20] Laura Camien: Like this.

[38:21] Charlie Murphy: Charlie is talking out.

[38:22] Laura Camien: Jason Momoa step back.

[38:24] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, exactly. Thank you. That's just for the audio listeners to know.

[38:27] Susan Blackwell: Um, but what does that creativity gym look like?

[38:30] Laura Camien: So, what are you doing on a daily basis or a weekly basis in terms of a creativity practice?

[38:34] Susan Blackwell: Woo hoo. Pick me, pick me.

[38:35] Laura Camien: Laura Camien.

[38:37] Laura Camien: Well, number one, we devised a podcast called The Spark File that is all Charlie.

[38:44] Susan Blackwell: Have you heard of it?

[38:45] Laura Camien: Yes, I've heard of it.

[38:46] Susan Blackwell: Sparkfile available on Concord, blah blah blah.

[38:49] Laura Camien: You're mixing it all up, Charlie.

[38:51] Susan Blackwell: It's on Wikipedia.com, right?

[38:54] Laura Camien: org.gov.

[38:55] Susan Blackwell: Got it.

[38:56] Laura Camien: So we devised this intentionally so that it would train our minds to constantly be looking for sparks of creativity, things that excite us, things that we might want to make something out of.

[39:09] Susan Blackwell: And of course, knowing full well there's more things that come to you than you could ever be able to make yourself.

[39:16] Laura Camien: So we get to identify those sparks on a daily basis, put them in our spark file, write about them, and share them with the world, so that some of these things that we don't plan on making ourselves, someone else might take that idea and make it.

[39:50] Charlie Murphy: Well, let me ask. So this leads me to like in the Spark file, it seems like, and I've I've listened to it, I'll admit. That it seems like often you're talking about maybe a something that you've consumed media-wise that has inspired you, right?

[40:05] Laura Camien: I guess I'm I'm always curious with creative people or people who are trying to stoke their own creativity. Of like what is the balance between consumption and creation for you in terms of what do you take in versus what do you think?

[40:16] Susan Blackwell: It is sincerely such a good question, Charlie. And it's something that I think about literally on a daily basis. I have a post-it on my computer that says consume less, create more. And it is because I do think it's so easy, especially now with like delicious, yummy nugnug pellets of TikTok and things that we can just so easily consume and they go down so easily. We get that little dopamine hit, and it's it's creative, adjacent, like you're watching somebody else make something or do something or build something. And yet if we take a picture of you, you're just like still staring at a screen.

[41:01] Susan Blackwell: And so I it's something I think about all the time. And it's one of the reasons why I love our podcast, The Spark File, available wherever you get quality podcasts. Is that we're we are taking stuff in, and then we are making something out of it. Like it it we have the it's we call it the spark cycle of creativity where we have the spark of inspiration. We actually fan the flames and make something. We write something, we research, and then we get to share it with each other and then shine the light of it out into the world, which in our estimation completes that creative cycle. So I it's a it's such a good question, and it's different for everybody, but in my own life, I am always striving to consume a little bit less and create a little bit more. And it's a it's a practice, it is a real practice.

[41:55] Laura Camien: Well, and do you have any thoughts on, you know, I sometimes feel like I've made this analogy before that, like social media and really even pre-social media, some of the the television streaming stuff that's available to us. There's it it feels like the equivalent of like when fast food became really like easy to get, and you're like, oh, we can just there's junk food, always junk food instead of the American diet became so full of that. Do you think about like what is a varied diet of creative stuff in terms of what you're what you're consuming, even on the less consuming, you know. Are are you watching streaming Netflix stuff? Are you watch trying to see theater live a certain amount of times? Is there some sort of way that you think I I want to take in my plate should be have this many colors on it and this many colors?

[42:36] Susan Blackwell: That is a that's all that's such a good question. Laura, do you take the question?

[42:38] Laura Camien: I haven't consciously um done that, but I do absolutely I take in live theater and as much as I can. And um, yes, I do streaming, and guess what? I force myself an occasional book because I'm just like, remember this art form? I loved this art form, and I am determined not to let my attention span shrink down to seven seconds. So I will insist upon reading, and every time I do read a book, I'm very happy I have. I mean, I feel like some of the prestige TV that's been made in the past 10 years is like incredibly high art and it's amazing, you know. 100% does strike me that consuming it in a certain way is almost anti-creative, that there's a way that you kind of you sit down, you watch the Netflix, and it actually sort of sucks out of you as opposed to pours into you.

[43:37] Susan Blackwell: Right. That's true. And some of it is super passive, but I mean, in terms of the diet, like what's on our plate, I try to vary those forms, if you will. So it's not like, yeah, some books are not as great as uh even a repeat of Game of Thrones. But I like to challenge my brain to take in and process different forms, different art forms.

[44:07] Charlie Murphy: What about you? So in the acting world, we'll sometimes have this conversation about like effort versus ease, right? In terms of as an actor on stage, like what what how much rigor are you putting into something versus how little tension can be in your body, right? I kind of wonder from a creative perspective, and maybe this is a little bit more now on the writing creativity side. How do you strike that tenuous balance between sort of like you know, I gotta write every day, I'm gonna write for two hours versus I'm gonna let the idea kind of come to me and we'll see what happens. You know, I I like that you know, Laura you said, like we have the theater space, so we gotta make something in it or whatever. Like, how much is that whipcracking get up at 5 a.m. person pushing your creative self versus letting the muse leave?

[44:46] Susan Blackwell: Well, one thing I've learned about myself is that the only way anything gets done is by a deadline. So still to this day, if I'm gonna put up a show, I better rent that theater. I better actually the equivalent of it now is we're gonna read a screenplay and we're gonna read it on October 15th. And I know it's my job to put those pages in front of people, and the whole thing falls apart if I don't step up. And for Susan and I, both of us, like in terms of our building this business, like we knew having a partner who has the same work ethic as we as each of us do, and mutual respect. I would never want to let Susan down. And I know Susan never wants to let me down. So having that person on the other end of the line that's like, okay, it was your turn to draft.

Like, we're going to uh we're gonna speak at story conference this year. This is another answer to your what we do creatively to keep ourselves um sharp and scare the crap out of ourselves in the appropriate ways. Um we're speaking in Nashville in a month or so. And Susan, uh, it might be her turn to create the first draft, and she gets it to me by the set the time she said she would. Then it's my turn to write and get it returned to her by the time I said I would. And having that accountability is everything, everything.

[46:14] Laura Camien: So I still feel that way. In order for me to be my most creative, I need to engage in accountability with another person or people.

[46:24] Charlie Murphy: And how do we find that as like an actor? So let's imagine I'm I'm part of Charlie Murphy and there's no company, it's just Charlie Murphy, LLC actor. How do I unless I'm lucky enough to have a personal coach who's with me every step of the day, saying, Did you do your thing? How do I find that same level of accountability if I don't necessarily have to do that?

[46:41] Susan Blackwell: I do think there are communities. I I mean, I I don't know everything that's out there, but I think about um the work that Laura and I are doing with the Spark file, it does provide people who are sort of like past, typically they're past their, they've done college, they've even done graduate school, they've even gone out into their lives and you know, made a life and they seek that they're sort of like, oh, where can I find that support and accountability? And there are programs, I don't know other, I honestly don't know where else it exists, but I it must exist in like writers' groups and things like that. The benefit of ours is that it's a div the the different types of creatives that are part of the SparkBile community that provide and support and accountability for each other sort of deflates any sense of competition out of the game.

And it's if but it could be, it could be that you just identify someone like Laura just said who has a commensurate work ethic with you, is able to show up when you're able to show up. And you could say for the next month, how what if we held ourselves accountable to this is what I'm committing to? What are you gonna commit to? And then just like a little daily or weekly check-in to say, did you do the thing you said you were gonna do? It could be as simple as that. It could be as simple as that.

[48:15] Charlie Murphy: It does feel like something especially, you know, a lot of our listeners are just dressed right out of school, or maybe they're just graduating school now and starting to think about some of these things. It is very easy, it feels like in your young 20s, living in New York City to like be worried about your rent and your yes, I'm gonna show up for my shift. And then, but then I never did go to that EPA I said I was gonna go to. And I know that like the things that actually are most important to you as for your career somehow fall on the back burner and these urgent things. This is where it's very helpful to what Laura, again, to return to what Laura Camien said, that that discipline focus and work ethic to you have to remember when Laura and I were building all of the things that we've built, all of them, we had parallel careers where we had great big jobs, and we found time before, after, sometimes during, to to do our work to fit it in.

And what did that mean in my life? It usually meant like I I don't drink. Because I was like, I don't need to be out like drinking and all the nonsense that goes with that. When I I've made a commitment to Laura that I'm going to learn, memorize the lines that she wrote for me to perform in her play. Like I was, I I think I speak for both of us. Like we were very disciplined and focused and still are, but we derive so much joy out of the work that we do that uh and social satisfaction that it was fine. It was fine.

[49:51] Susan Blackwell: No one could accuse you of not being disciplined and focused. You've plugged 17 things in this 45 minute time period so far.

[49:57] Laura Camien: So it's that just means I'm a uh a shill, a hacky shill. It doesn't mean I'm disciplined or focused.

[50:02] Charlie Murphy: It takes a lot of focus to stay on that.

[50:04] Susan Blackwell: Right this way, folks. Um let's talk a little bit about so we talked about this a bit in one of our episodes on collaboration, but I'd love just, you know, when we're talking about creativity, especially as an interpretive artist, and maybe especially as an interpretive artist, meaning an actor who's not in like a new play where we're kind of creating this from scratch. Let's let's imagine I'm cast to replace a role in the music man. Where do you see that opportunity for you know creativity and curiosity and exploration in that kind of role?

[50:32] Laura Camien: We were just talking about this today with a client. When even if uh an artist has the tiniest taste of being an originating artist, meaning maybe you write, and I mean really craft a monologue that you could use for an audition piece or to get up at an open mic or something like that. You it cracks open this part of your brain where you're like, oh, I actually have informed opinions and agency about how I want to extend my creativity to my whole career and life. So what I mean specifically by that is once you realize that you are not just an interpretive, not I don't mean to say just an interpretartivist, but you're not solely an interpretive artist who is here to interpret other people's visions and other people's words and other people's work.

When you realize that you actually also have within you an originating artist, you can apply that to not just I want representation, but I seek representation, and here's what I am drawing to myself. Somebody who is foundationally sane, kind, good humored, good natured, is very responsive, is creative in their thinking and problem solving. Like you can start getting real specific. And that sort of those finer distinctions, I do believe come from a creative mind who is not just sort of like uh uh you want me to show up and rehearse and do this, I'll I'll do it, I'll do it, whatever you want, I'll do it. But somebody who's really like, I have a say in the landscape of how I'm going to architect my life.

[52:26] Susan Blackwell: And um, yeah, yeah. Does that make sense?

[52:30] Laura Camien: It it does. Yeah. It's it's it feels really it feels like uh because often we'll talk about how these kind of high-level conversations, which in some ways we're talking about like the artistic voice of like, what is my artistic voice within a role or with, you know, or what do I what do I bring to the table, you know? But then I think sometimes, maybe especially in the musical theater, and we've had some conversations about type and some of the the boxes that you're put in, uh that you're not all it's not always clear. It feels like sometimes like that conversation's happening over here, but then I'm here to cover these three roles, and it sort of is my job to do extra. And sometimes sometimes it is, but also I've seen people, we've all seen people who break out and they're doing they are completely serving the mandate that has been that that has been, you know, the how they've been directed.

They're completely working within the rules of engagement and they're bringing to it an inventiveness that is like who bid-doobity, they have given themselves permission to though this is the way I Charlie, in a real nuts and bolts way as an actor, this is the way I think of it. I am now somebody who has had a lot of experience as an originating artist and a lot of experience as an interpretive artist. And the way I think of it is this. I am going to bring choices into this rehearsal process or into this filming situation as if I wrote this script. Uh-huh. I'm going to audition as if I wrote this script. Because when I work from that place, there is a freedom and an experimentation that comes from my originating artist mind.

But because I have decades of experience previous to that as an interpretive artist, my bandwidth as an interpretive artist was I was just like, is this right? Is this what you want? Does this fit the breakdown? Is this is this right? And it was a little bit tentative and a little bit permission seeking. And the other key to this formula is not having attachment to the outcome. So if I show up to rehearsal or if I show up to film and they're like, not that. I'm like, okay, there's a bunch of other choices that my originating might surface for you.

[54:42] Susan Blackwell: Are you still saying the lines of the thing? Or if you're like, I kind of like it better this way, you're gonna change the words. No, working completely within, like to the letter serving the script as it's written, serving what the, you know, because when you're say you're doing a musical or a play, you're part of a larger, it's not just you, it's not the Susan show or the Laura show or the Charlie show. You're part of a larger tapestry. But I really do believe with that creative mind activated, you can be in service to the written word, letter for letter, to the direction that the director is serving you, and you can totally bring a wealth of originating thought. And as long as you don't have attachment to the outcome and you have some flexibility about like you don't like this, what about this?

What about that? It's um it's a fun, it's a fun space to work from. I feel like this is applicable in, you know, it via acting and beyond. But when I was in school, one of the biggest compliments that you could give another actor or could be said about another actor is like they could play anything, they could play anything. And then I got out into the real world and I was it took me a while. And I, you know what I'm angry about this, Susan. I've still got mine this time. Um, it took me a long time to realize the people who were working were not the people who could play anything. They were the people who knew themselves, who knew what kind of work they do. And they didn't waste any time trying to do other kinds of work than what they was in their ballpark, but also what they love. Like ideally, it's the work you love to do and you're good at doing it. And you're not bothered by, oh, but look at that stuff that I don't do. That's fine. That stuff's not for you.

[56:40] Charlie Murphy: It's such a good point. And now, because you made this good point, I'm gonna ask a bonus question. Because we've tried to talk on this pod a little bit about like what it is to like be yourself, because I feel like it's the advice that they get from certainly from us, be your authentic self. We're guilty of that advice. We have everyone's, but it's I mean, it's true, but it's just so much easier said than done, right? Like I and I think, you know, there is a kind of uh of uh young artist who maybe is living in defiance of themselves and is just releasing, I'm gonna truly let my freak flag fly and I know what that is, and I can say yes to it. And those people I think can hear that advice and go, great, I got it, right?

But I think there's also a large pool of artists who go, I I don't know what roles I can and can't play, and I don't know yet what, like, especially at you know, 22, 23, 24. Yeah, I don't yet know what those things that make me me are, and I'm here, I'm trying to be myself. But but like, how do you do that work of discovery, you know, on a larger sense to go, I am now Charlie, and I know what Charlie is and isn't, and I'm gonna just be Charlie all the time. How do you get to that? You guys are 20 million years old. You have to know.

[57:44] Laura Camien: I think that you um something you said, um, like I don't know who I am. I'm playing all these different roles. I think number one, letting it be okay that I don't know who I am yet, and I'm learning. I'm literally in a conscious learning phase, and that's okay. Then from each thing, what did I learn about myself from this role? What did I learn about myself from this experience? Did I learn anything about myself from this play? And that could be things I like, things I don't like, things that really align with me, things that don't align with me. And so as you go, you're learning, and the goal of learning is not like I said before, I want to learn how to be anything to anyone in case they ask me to be. I know I can. That's not the goal. The goal is to get more refined in who you are and what you do, and not the other way around. I think.

[58:43] Susan Blackwell: And and I'll just add lots of therapy really helps. Lots of therapy. Yeah, it really does. The more that you can know yourself, understand yourself, process through the pain, the trauma that may be keeping you shielded or guarded from knowing your true self is really beneficial. I I I really, yeah.

[59:10] Laura Camien: And I'm gonna add in even more to that, which is that it does feel like it is an ever-moving target too. Like even as you're going, I think I got this, and now all of a sudden, like if you'd asked me two years ago if father was gonna be like a big part of my identity, yeah. Like, no way. Of course, like I'm it wasn't because it was not any part of my identity. Yeah, and now it's like this huge feels like it's a piece of me that you're like, Well, that's that is a defining part of myself, and it's something I can do. And it evolves, you know. It evolves two years ago, three years ago, that was not part of me then. I didn't maybe it was permission to spark a seed.

[59:42] Susan Blackwell: Yes, and permission to evolve is a huge thing that we not only did we experience, but we work with a lot of clients who experience like, but I said I was going to be this. And I said that so many times when I was younger. What what does it mean for me to let go of that? I'm gonna quote you guys. I don't know which one of you it was who talked about changing your choice. Yeah, but I I remember hearing that early in Spark File, and I thought that is such a good because sometimes we're just holding on to what 17-year-old Charlie wants, right?

[1:00:11] Charlie Murphy: That's right. Now Charlie 27 doesn't feel that way anymore.

[1:00:14] Susan Blackwell: That's right. Like to feel the pressure, and that pressure is backed up maybe by school debt, and all like Laura said, all the times you've declared I'm gonna go to Broadway. And then so 16-year-old may have been banging that drum, 16-year-old you, and maybe the 36-year-old version of you is sort of like, I think I want to change my choice. It's very easy. I remember times in my life when I was at a crossroads of I think I want to change my choice, and it was achy. Like it was painful to be like, well, if let's talk about identity evolving, if I'm not that thing that I have declared I am for years and years, then what am I? And and not having a solid answer of what you're stepping into, if not this and that, is it it can be very it can be very painful.

So I if you're listening to the sounds of our voices, and you are you're somebody who because this is a great podcast, and I don't mean the podcast in general, I mean this episode. Available anywhere you want podcasts, Apple Media, etc. Quality podcasts.

[1:01:22] Laura Camien: Um it's I just want to say like all I'll speak for all three of us. We most human beings have been at those crossroads where it's sort of like oh gosh the the changing of the choice changing of the choice but you should know that you should I mean I feel like one should engage with this thoughtfully but changing your choice is an option something Charlie it's something that we do regularly Laura and I do this as creatives and as humans we did it before we started the Spark File and we we lead our our clients through this as well is to have regular sort of conscious assessments and thought exercises where you surface what's hell's yes for you now not you at 16 not you two years ago but right now what is sparking you and what are the things that you're sort of like that feels like a piece of gum that I've chewed for a long time and it's kind of lost its flavor and discovering what are those things that we haven't just to take the time to check in and say what's hell's yes for me currently and how might we bring those things together for this chapter of our lives I think that that listeners to your podcast whether it's um people who are thinking about what their educational chapter is going to look like or the parents people who love the people who are looking at what their next educational chapter is going to look like that's an exercise that hopefully you all are doing as you think about like where might I go and what might my major be, but I think it's a great exercise for us to do regularly in order to make sure that we're lit, we're so privileged.

[1:03:10] Susan Blackwell: We are so privileged to have choices like this.

[1:03:13] Laura Camien: And so to exercise those uh your thoughts and look into yourself and see what are the finer distinctions that are lighting me up now and see how much of those things you can get into your life.

[1:03:25] Susan Blackwell: Well and when you bring up parents, I do think this is one of those change your choice things for maybe our 25, 26 year old actors who is thinking maybe I want to do something different that often they're holding on to but dad paid 2500 to send me to whatever here's the thing Charlie Murphy here's the thing so many of the things I would say almost all of the things that Laura learned in acting school that I learned in acting school.

[1:03:53] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:03:53] Susan Blackwell: Yes are transferable skills.

[1:03:56] Laura Camien: Sing it with me everybody transferable skills oh you weren't you guys didn't sing it I was transfixed by your singing voice it was beautiful and I didn't chime in.

[1:04:07] Susan Blackwell: It is um it is um in addition to Laura and I have had in addition to all of our creative work we have had robust parallel careers.

[1:04:18] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:04:18] Susan Blackwell: Mine was in corporate Laura as you said at the outset Charlie built the blue man brand around the world and so much of the success that we experienced in those careers came directly directly from our experience in the arts.

[1:04:37] Laura Camien: Yep.

[1:04:37] Susan Blackwell: One I do think sometimes you said you had parents who were neutral to supportive or whatever. I think sometimes it when actors had parents, maybe who were like not such a fan of their children.

[1:04:47] Laura Camien: Not on my watch.

[1:04:48] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:04:49] Laura Camien: Then it can be even a little harder.

[1:04:50] Susan Blackwell: It's not just about them, maybe the money, but it's also about going, uh I'm gonna prove them, right? Or I'm gonna prove them. I didn't, I guess I they were right. I should have gone to a different undergrad, or I guess I should have whatever, you know.

[1:05:01] Laura Camien: And that's a hard thing to wrestle with.

[1:05:03] Susan Blackwell: But we we gotta play our game.

[1:05:04] Laura Camien: We could talk about this for hours more.

[1:05:06] Susan Blackwell: It's a partnering game.

[1:05:07] Laura Camien: It is the newlywed game.

[1:05:09] Susan Blackwell: You have uh your pencils and papers ready to go.

[1:05:12] Laura Camien: You're the first non-Charlie centric newlywed game that we've had yet.

[1:05:16] Susan Blackwell: We're gonna try it.

[1:05:18] Laura Camien: I love this.

[1:05:19] Susan Blackwell: It's gonna be fun.

[1:05:21] Charlie Murphy: You know how the game basically works, right?

[1:05:22] Laura Camien: Yeah, in terms of so I'm gonna ask one person a question, the other person is gonna write down the answer to the other.

[1:05:29] Susan Blackwell: They have some of them will get a little bit sexy.

[1:05:31] Laura Camien: We'll see how sexy.

[1:05:33] Susan Blackwell: Um we'll do some magic.

[1:05:35] Charlie Murphy: I just want to say it's a family podcast, Charlie, but go ahead.

[1:05:38] Susan Blackwell: Keep it clean, then keep it clean.

[1:05:40] Laura Camien: We will try.

[1:05:40] Susan Blackwell: We'll use the magic of podcast editing to do a little during the time of the writing.

[1:05:44] Charlie Murphy: We'll come back.

[1:05:44] Laura Camien: Okay, okay.

[1:05:45] Susan Blackwell: So take your time if you want to write them down.

[1:05:47] Laura Camien: Well, I can also I can also like sing interstitial music.

[1:05:51] Susan Blackwell: Okay, great.

[1:05:51] Charlie Murphy: Lovely.

[1:05:52] Susan Blackwell: Uh your genre of interstitial music.

[1:05:54] Laura Camien: I would love to hear a little 16 bars from that.

[1:05:57] Susan Blackwell: You're getting the first question, Laura.

[1:05:59] Charlie Murphy: This is an easy one. I set you up with an easy one, then it's gonna get a lot harder.

[1:06:02] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[1:06:03] Charlie Murphy: What is Susan's favorite spark of the Spark file of all time?

[1:06:10] Laura Camien: I think one of Susan's favorite sparks is Hilma off Clint.

[1:06:17] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that's such a spark.

[1:06:20] Charlie Murphy: What did you write down?

[1:06:21] Laura Camien: It went way back to the origins.

[1:06:24] Susan Blackwell: What what when did you say that?

[1:06:26] Laura Camien: It's a great idea.

[1:06:27] Susan Blackwell: Did you say that is a great guess?

[1:06:29] Laura Camien: I actually I we recorded a live episode at the performing arts project. And that episode is probably like one of my favorites, but Helma Offklint, one of the early and awesome.

[1:06:35] Susan Blackwell: Early and awesome.

[1:06:45] Charlie Murphy: Okay.

[1:06:47] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[1:06:48] Charlie Murphy: We're gonna try the same questions much easier in reverse.

[1:06:50] Laura Camien: We know the same question.

[1:06:52] Susan Blackwell: This is so fun.

[1:06:53] Charlie Murphy: So Laura, you're gonna write down what your favorite spark is.

[1:06:57] Susan Blackwell: And Susan is gonna try to remember your favorite spark from the Spark file.

[1:07:02] Laura Camien: Available Stitcher iHeart Radio.

[1:07:05] Susan Blackwell: Wherever you get your podcast, quality, quality podcast.

[1:07:11] Charlie Murphy: Susan is gonna guess Laura's favorite spark.

[1:07:14] Susan Blackwell: And it is I'm totally guessing Laura did a killer spark on resistance, creative resistance.

[1:07:27] Laura Camien: Oh gold medal.

[1:07:30] Susan Blackwell: Oh no, what did you put down, Laura?

[1:07:32] Laura Camien: I put down a spark I did about uh a book called Flu and World War Z.

[1:07:40] Susan Blackwell: It was predicting the pandemic before the pandemic.

[1:07:44] Laura Camien: She predicted the pandemic.

[1:07:46] Susan Blackwell: And she said, and I quote during that podcast, pre-pandemic, it's not a question of if it happens, it's a question of when.

[1:07:55] Laura Camien: And I said, Don't this is scaring me.

[1:07:58] Susan Blackwell: We you have to stop.

[1:08:00] Laura Camien: You're scaring me.

[1:08:00] Susan Blackwell: And Laura Cambian Laura Cambian brought about the pandemic. I'll just say it. I'll say it.

[1:08:04] Laura Camien: I was trying to say that someone ought to make a seer a TV series out of um World War Z.

[1:08:12] Susan Blackwell: And someone will now make a TV.

[1:08:14] Laura Camien: We'll say it again.

[1:08:15] Susan Blackwell: I'm gonna keep saying it until someone does it.

[1:08:16] Charlie Murphy: So now, Laura, someone comes up to Susan on the street and says, Aren't you that lady from Blank?

[1:08:25] Charlie Murphy: What is gonna fill in that blank? What is Susan accosted with most on the street?

[1:08:29] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god, you're that person from.

[1:08:31] Charlie Murphy: Okay, Susan's writing it down, and Laura's gonna guess.

[1:08:34] Laura Camien: I'm gonna say side by side by Susan Blackwell.

[1:08:38] Charlie Murphy: Okay, what is the right answer?

[1:08:40] Susan Blackwell: I feel like I get more title of show.

[1:08:40] Laura Camien: Title of show.

[1:08:44] Susan Blackwell: I almost said title of show.

[1:08:46] Charlie Murphy: And then I'm I get one right so we can celebrate on the We don't know each other at all.

[1:08:51] Susan Blackwell: Clearly, this is the first time you're meeting.

[1:08:52] Laura Camien: I'm glad to make the introduction.

[1:08:54] Susan Blackwell: We're meeting each other for the right.

[1:08:55] Laura Camien: It's so funny because there's few people on the planet that know me better than Laura Camien, but it occurs to me we don't discuss the things that you're asking about, which is tough.

[1:09:04] Susan Blackwell: We actually very difficult questions, Sue.

[1:09:06] Laura Camien: These are not.

[1:09:07] Susan Blackwell: I think this is fun.

[1:09:07] Charlie Murphy: This is how none of the answers right for what it's worth.

[1:09:11] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah.

[1:09:12] Charlie Murphy: Okay, Susan, you're having a rough day. You call Laura to push back your podcast recording. What excuse do you give to Laura about why you need extra time?

[1:09:24] Susan Blackwell: We have more time sensitive things to do.

[1:09:27] Laura Camien: Oh, that's a very airy day. Excuse.

[1:09:30] Charlie Murphy: Well, what did you put down, Laura?

[1:09:31] Laura Camien: That's not the right answer. I can tell from your.

[1:09:32] Susan Blackwell: I would put, based on what you said, Charlie, I'm ha she's having a bad day.

[1:09:37] Laura Camien: Susan would be honest with me and say, I'm having a bad day, I'm not feeling it.

[1:09:37] Susan Blackwell: I'm not feeling it. She would just say it.

[1:09:43] Laura Camien: She's not so different than saying more important things to do.

[1:09:46] Susan Blackwell: Susan wouldn't have like wouldn't make up any kind of excuse except me the truth.

[1:09:50] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:09:51] Susan Blackwell: It's not a, oh, I'm going my daycare, I'm sick, blah, blah, blah.

[1:09:54] Laura Camien: I didn't listen.

[1:09:54] Susan Blackwell: I you're Laura's completely right. I didn't listen carefully to Charlie's question.

[1:09:58] Laura Camien: And I was just drawing from the most recent moment where we were supposed to record and we were like, we don't have time to record.

[1:10:05] Susan Blackwell: We have to mostly like this other thing.

[1:10:10] Laura Camien: So this is a good idea.

[1:10:11] Susan Blackwell: I see a Friday tuned out.

[1:10:13] Laura Camien: That's right on par.

[1:10:14] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:10:15] Charlie Murphy: Let's do another positive one. So for Laura, what is Susan's favorite thing about you as a collaborator?

[1:10:23] Laura Camien: My empathy.

[1:10:25] Susan Blackwell: My empathy.

[1:10:26] Laura Camien: No, that's not right. What do we write down?

[1:10:28] Susan Blackwell: What do you like about the whole package?

[1:10:28] Laura Camien: The whole package.

[1:10:32] Susan Blackwell: Get out of town.

[1:10:33] Laura Camien: That's a better answer than I think.

[1:10:36] Susan Blackwell: The whole package.

[1:10:37] Charlie Murphy: Okay.

[1:10:38] Laura Camien: In reverse, same question, Susan.

[1:10:40] Susan Blackwell: Probably the whole package.

[1:10:42] Laura Camien: Every we got one lying.

[1:10:45] Susan Blackwell: The most important one.

[1:10:46] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[1:10:47] Susan Blackwell: I just love to hear a little bit of like what is your relationship with social media?

[1:10:50] Laura Camien: And we talked about consumption.

[1:10:52] Susan Blackwell: Art in general.

[1:10:53] Laura Camien: Obviously, you need to use it to sit back.

[1:10:56] Susan Blackwell: Real talk.

[1:10:57] Laura Camien: Real talk.

[1:10:59] Susan Blackwell: Real talk.

[1:10:59] Laura Camien: We were just in a meeting having a conversation about this.

[1:11:03] Susan Blackwell: I my relationship with social media is kind of fraught and a little bit non-existent because I feel like it I can fall into it and just be like, more TikTok, more hours in front of TikTok.

[1:11:22] Laura Camien: And I don't want to give my creative capacity and my attention to TikTok.

[1:11:26] Susan Blackwell: So I sort of kind of steer clear of it, except I'll engage with it when I need to reach out to the people.

[1:11:40] Charlie Murphy: And Laura, what about you?

[1:11:42] Laura Camien: Same.

[1:11:43] Laura Camien: I'm not I'm not a bit like I don't feel good usually when I do it.

[1:11:47] Susan Blackwell: And so um I like TikTok, I'll watch anything that Susan sends me that says like I you should watch this.

[1:11:56] Laura Camien: Or my partner, Wes. If he's like, This is amazing. Great.

[1:11:59] Susan Blackwell: I'll watch that.

[1:12:00] Laura Camien: And I feel like through the filter of other people, I maybe get the best of it.

[1:12:04] Susan Blackwell: Um they like the it's been pre-screened.

[1:12:08] Laura Camien: But like our parent listeners who listen to these podcasts and then tell their children which ones to listen to.

[1:12:13] Susan Blackwell: Listen to this one.

[1:12:15] Laura Camien: Let's listen to this one.

[1:12:16] Susan Blackwell: This is the best one.

[1:12:19] Laura Camien: But I do have moments where I appreciate like I wouldn't, I understand I wouldn't know what's going on in certain people's lives were it not for that.

[1:12:27] Susan Blackwell: So big and baby announcements and college graduations and things like that.

[1:12:31] Laura Camien: That I'm very I'm like, oh, I'm so glad that I popped on here today, or I would have missed this.

[1:12:37] Susan Blackwell: And this feels important.

[1:12:39] Laura Camien: Um, but really for mental well-being and that creative capacity that we've been talking about all night.

[1:12:46] Susan Blackwell: Um, I want to reserve it for other things.

[1:12:51] Laura Camien: Do not follow at Laura.camien on Instagram or at Susan Blackwell on Instagram if you don't want to save your mental well-being.

[1:12:59] Susan Blackwell: We're trying to help you.

[1:12:59] Laura Camien: Or do follow because we promise, you can follow the spark file, and we'll we'll serve you up some goodies.

[1:13:07] Susan Blackwell: It actually is quite beneficial to follow the spark file because we do really fun and best spark file.

[1:13:15] Laura Camien: Leafy greens in your social media diet, is the spark file.

[1:13:18] Susan Blackwell: I would say so.

[1:13:19] Laura Camien: Yeah, and also the tasty sweets, too.

[1:13:22] Susan Blackwell: Don't you know, not as healthy, but it is still fun to devour.

[1:13:28] Charlie Murphy: Um, well, thank you both so much for your time today. Um it was such a pleasure getting to chat with you.

[1:13:31] Susan Blackwell: What a joy, Charlie.

[1:13:34] Laura Camien: Thank you so much.

[1:13:36] Susan Blackwell: You're just the sweetest peach.

[1:13:37] Laura Camien: And I know that we had a lot of fun and on this podcast, but you it really is a pleasure to get to spend this time with you.

[1:13:44] Susan Blackwell: You're doing good work here, and you're having incredible conversations with people that I truly believe are very useful.

[1:13:51] Laura Camien: They're very much of service to people.

[1:13:54] Susan Blackwell: You're doing good.

[1:13:55] Charlie Murphy: Oh shut.

[1:13:56] Susan Blackwell: We end on a compliment, which is a great way to end it.

[1:13:59] Laura Camien: Yay!

[1:13:59] Charlie Murphy: You gotta take it.

[1:14:00] Laura Camien: You gotta take our compliment.

[1:14:02] Susan Blackwell: You gotta sit there and take it.

[1:14:08] Charlie Murphy: Oh wowser, sit there and take it.

[1:14:11] Susan Blackwell: I shall and be truly honored.

[1:14:13] Charlie Murphy: Um, I do really hope you enjoyed listening to Susan and Laura. I think they're just such breaths of warmth and intelligence, and they're just both really, really funny.

[1:14:23] Susan Blackwell: Um, I'm still personally navigating some of the difficulty of what it is to have two guests at once.

[1:14:27] Charlie Murphy: Um, but I do really feel like I could have thrown them almost anything and they would have gobbled it up and it would have been entertaining.

[1:14:33] Susan Blackwell: Um, as far as a takeaway, you would think I might be do something silly or funny, but I'm gonna go a little bit deep today or attempt to go a little bit deep.

[1:14:40] Charlie Murphy: Um, I just want to zoom a little bit in um and contort something that Susan said, um, which is about her strategy of how to approach a rehearsal process.

[1:14:49] Susan Blackwell: She said she likes to pretend like she's the generative artist, i.e., the writer, when the job is to be the interpretive artist, so the actor, right?

[1:14:56] Charlie Murphy: So I I think this is a really interesting way of saying this concept, and it's of course not surprising that she's a writer herself.

[1:15:04] Susan Blackwell: Um, but it's something I would often coach my monologue students to do, as it was such a light bulb moment for me personally as an actor.

[1:15:11] Charlie Murphy: It seems so obvious in retrospect, but I I probably didn't fully wrap my head around this concept until after college.

[1:15:17] Susan Blackwell: And this is what the concept is.

[1:15:19] Charlie Murphy: Namely, that it is our job as an actor to come up with the words as if they were our thoughts.

[1:15:26] Susan Blackwell: That our job is to come up with the words the playwright has given us as if they were our thoughts.

[1:15:32] Charlie Murphy: The writer has given you the end product, which is the words that come out of your mouth, but you can't pick it up from there at the end product and move forward.

[1:15:40] Susan Blackwell: You do have to go backward and come up with the thoughts that both lead to, and I think very often interestingly, the all the thoughts that don't lead to these words that end up coming out of your mouth.

[1:15:51] Charlie Murphy: That's not to say these always have to be fully verbalized thoughts.

[1:15:54] Susan Blackwell: Sometimes we have thoughts or feelings or impulses or needs that are completely unconscious to us.

[1:15:58] Charlie Murphy: So we don't necessarily have to like fully write out and eloquently, you know, dictate all of our subtext, though that can be an interesting acting exercise to do, but we do need to be fully in the heads of our characters.

[1:16:10] Susan Blackwell: Um, as the kids would say, we gotta be like vibing along with the way they're thinking.

[1:16:14] Charlie Murphy: This is often what an actor means when they say, Oh, I was in character in this moment, right?

[1:16:19] Susan Blackwell: That the translation between Hamlet and Charlie was so instantaneous, I didn't even catch it.

[1:16:24] Charlie Murphy: It felt like I was Hamlet thinking to be or not to be, right?

[1:16:28] Susan Blackwell: As opposed to what was actually happening was Charlie thinking about how Char Hamlet would think and then putting those two things together, right?

[1:16:33] Charlie Murphy: We always say when you're in character, you're never actually in character or you're insane, right?

[1:16:36] Susan Blackwell: You'd be like, if the fire alarm goes off, you're gonna leave the theater.

[1:16:39] Charlie Murphy: You're not gonna be like, what is this fire?

[1:16:41] Susan Blackwell: It doesn't make any sense, etc.

[1:16:43] Charlie Murphy: Again, this may seem like the most obvious concept, and it's maybe some of the non-actors out there too are being like, oh my god, yeah.

[1:16:49] Susan Blackwell: So you feel like think the thoughts of your character, how is that that hard?

[1:16:52] Charlie Murphy: But it is much harder than you might think, especially if a writer writes with a different cadence than you, or maybe with words that don't exactly sound of this time period.

[1:17:01] Susan Blackwell: I don't even mean like Shakespearean.

[1:17:03] Charlie Murphy: Sometimes it's like if you have a monologue where you have to say mother and when you would normally say mom, sometimes it's really difficult to make mother sound like how you would actually refer to the person who gave birth to you.

[1:17:13] Susan Blackwell: Um it's why I often stress to our students so much to try to pick material, especially contemporary material, that really does sound like them, so that this specific step doesn't have to be so effortful in both their contemporary and their classical piece, even though it's something you'll certainly have to do in your classical piece.

[1:17:29] Charlie Murphy: I had a great acting teacher in school who used to say, your inspiration begets your inspiration.

[1:17:35] Susan Blackwell: And I'm I'm actually not sure he said begets.

[1:17:36] Charlie Murphy: I feel like I've added that in later.

[1:17:38] Susan Blackwell: Like I made it all biblical.

[1:17:39] Charlie Murphy: I'm not sure that's what he's saying.

[1:17:40] Susan Blackwell: But basically, your inspiration leads to your inspiration, right?

[1:17:43] Charlie Murphy: Inspiration being the in-breath, you know, to inspire to breathe, and leads to like my intention or you know, what what the thing I'm trying to say is.

[1:17:50] Susan Blackwell: The idea is that when we speak naturally, we just think thoughts and then unconsciously we just put them into words.

[1:17:57] Charlie Murphy: The need to speak causes us to inhale, and that impulse behind what the character said to you or how they reacted to what you said makes you breathe in your next thought next thought and then let it out.

[1:18:08] Susan Blackwell: It's why an actor, you know, if you ever watch an actor take like a big deep breath in and then quote unquote start the work and then try to get in character, it always feels phony, right?

[1:18:16] Charlie Murphy: Because they're breathing in as themselves.

[1:18:18] Susan Blackwell: I'm breathing in as Charlie, and then all of a sudden the character is going to speak with Charlie's breath.

[1:18:23] Charlie Murphy: You know, that's especially when you're like beginning an audition or beginning a scene.

[1:18:26] Susan Blackwell: It feels too weird, right?

[1:18:27] Charlie Murphy: We need to have that impulse breathed in and then filled in with whatever the character is feeling.

[1:18:32] Susan Blackwell: Even though the character, again, we've talked about this before, the character doesn't need to be so separated from you.

[1:18:36] Charlie Murphy: Ideally, those two things are really laid over each other well.

[1:18:39] Susan Blackwell: Um, the other thing I really love about what how Susan put it is that in in pretending you are the writer, and pretending you're the person who actually did this, you are forcing yourself to have accountability with the choices of your character.

[1:18:54] Charlie Murphy: In writing something, in in saying you are the writer, you are taking full ownership of it.

[1:18:59] Susan Blackwell: And now, this should of course be true in your monologues, because you're picking your monologues.

[1:19:03] Charlie Murphy: We're talking about college auditions, but especially for my alumni actors out there, in your sides as a professional actor, this is just as important.

[1:19:10] Susan Blackwell: It's so easy to kind of judge writing.

[1:19:12] Charlie Murphy: Let's say it's a TV show, maybe that's it's a soap opera, even more, right?

[1:19:16] Susan Blackwell: It's something where you just go, I don't love the quality of this writing.

[1:19:19] Charlie Murphy: And so you will, your instinct then becomes to try to be good in spite of the material, in spite of the text.

[1:19:25] Susan Blackwell: Well, I still want this casting director to think I'm a good actor.

[1:19:28] Charlie Murphy: So even though this writing is crappy, I'm gonna like act good on top of it.

[1:19:33] Susan Blackwell: If you are given that soap opera or often a cheesy musical, you know, to sit there and go, but look how organic and truthful I am through it.

[1:19:43] Charlie Murphy: But in pointing at that difference between the acting and the writing, you are necessarily doing bad acting.

[1:19:48] Susan Blackwell: The harder challenge, and what I would posit that all of you should try to do in that case, is to really try to justify the text that you have in front of you.

[1:19:57] Charlie Murphy: I did say this, I do say this, this is what my character says.

[1:20:00] Susan Blackwell: So how do I get there?

[1:20:01] Charlie Murphy: Right?

[1:20:02] Susan Blackwell: What thoughts led me, me and this body, in this voice, in this human self right now, in this scene.

[1:20:09] Charlie Murphy: What thoughts led me to these words?

[1:20:11] Susan Blackwell: And then how did I feel right after I said them?

[1:20:13] Charlie Murphy: And how do they land on the scene partner afterward?

[1:20:15] Susan Blackwell: And how does that lead me to the next line, right?

[1:20:18] Charlie Murphy: In a monologue, we can do a lot of prescribing there, so we can do a little bit of shaping of going, and then the scene partner will do X.

[1:20:24] Susan Blackwell: Where in a scene, of course, you'd want to keep it more open to your scene partner's choices that you two are going to create it a little bit together organically in the moment.

[1:20:30] Charlie Murphy: But you still have to stay with the text, no matter what, if you're really doing your job.

[1:20:35] Susan Blackwell: And I think Susan's way of saying that pretending you were the writer is a beautiful hack to do that, right?

[1:20:40] Charlie Murphy: You are always writing the scene live on your feet.

[1:20:43] Susan Blackwell: These this is Charlie, the creator of these thoughts, who is saying these words, as opposed to somebody else wrote them.

[1:20:49] Charlie Murphy: And I'm just here to deliver the news.

[1:20:51] Susan Blackwell: I'm just the messenger.

[1:20:52] Charlie Murphy: Don't shoot the messenger.

[1:20:53] Susan Blackwell: If you want to be the writer of your own College Destiny, you better hit that subscribe button so you can check out the future episodes that are coming.

[1:21:02] Charlie Murphy: We'd also would love a rating and review.

[1:21:06] Susan Blackwell: I suggest at least one star for every time Susan mentioned the Spark file, though I'm not sure Apple will go up that high to like 19 stars or whatever it was.

[1:21:14] Charlie Murphy: And now, of course, I continue my shilling, where I tell you that if you're interested in working with MTCA for help with your individual prep for college edition journey, please check us out at mtca.nyc.

[1:21:25] Susan Blackwell: You can also follow us on all of the socials media.

[1:21:28] Charlie Murphy: To my young artists out there mapping their journeys, the working title for the Blue Man Group Project is Everything I Own Turns Blue or Blues Clues.

[1:21:38] Susan Blackwell: You decide.