This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:15] Eva Price: Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of My First Show.

[0:22] Eva Price: We have someone very special today.

[0:25] Eva Price: Why is she special? Well, she has had a really exciting, uh, I would say pandemic show biz existence with television shows that are streaming, television other shows that are being announced, as well as her glorious beauty, Phantasmus that is Miss Ashley Park.

[0:48] Ashley Park: Hello.

[0:51] Eva Price: I'm so happy to be here with you because first of all, I mean, you are a Broadway favorite. You are an Eva Price favorite. Um, and I know you're an Ashley favorite. And whenever I see you at like an opening and stuff like that, it's always like, oh my gosh, safe space. I love it.

[1:10] Ashley Park: Oh, thank you.

[1:11] Eva Price: Thank you. And like you have had a meteoric rise since I met you in such an amazing way.

[1:20] Eva Price: And we met what? We met during K-pop, right?

[1:23] Ashley Park: We met during K-pop.

[1:24] Eva Price: So we're talking like 2017, which is like going on three years, and you know, that's when Trump was taken office. So a lot can happen, as we know in three years.

[1:51] Eva Price: I wanted to do this show, frankly, because I want to know about all your early beginnings, and I want to get into it. I was gonna ask you not to like turn the tables for a second, like at the beginning of the interview. But I was just wondering, like, you know, when you asked me to do this, I thought, what a cool concept that you're asking about people's first shows and stuff. But in, you know, as people are doing podcasts and stuff now, I'm wondering like why you decided to use this angle or why you were curious about this with people.

[2:17] Eva Price: Yeah.

[2:18] Eva Price: So at eight o'clock Tuesday through Saturday, I would usually be somewhere other than my living room under normal circumstances.

[2:27] Eva Price: Right. I am a Tony voter, I am a Broadway producer. If I'm not in tech or at a preview of my show, I'm at someone else's show.

[2:35] Eva Price: And right. And so like I started to have, and thank you for asking this. It's very sweet. I started to have a little bit of like a visceral effect of being home every night, watching television or reading or being on the phone or cooking.

[2:53] Eva Price: Um, you know, I gotta give credit where credit's due. My girlfriend, who you know, and love her.

[3:01] Ashley Park: God, I love her.

[3:02] Eva Price: Will you tell her hi? She's not in the podcast studio, but I will give her your best.

[3:09] Ashley Park: Okay.

[3:10] Eva Price: Um, you know, she and I were talking and we love podcasts, and I had always said I wanted to host one. And she was like, What, why don't you? Why don't you just do it? And why don't you do it about the thing you love, which is theater?

[3:25] Eva Price: And because I am someone who grew up in theater. I grew up going to shows as a kid, I was in shows as a kid. My history with shows really has informed my.

[3:36] Ashley Park: Oh, yeah, that photo of you when you were young in that one school of that play.

[3:39] Eva Price: Oh my god, I died.

[3:42] Eva Price: Yeah, and it's like I'm that same wide-eyed girl. I mean, that's really a thing. I've remained the fan and part of the crowd, even though it's my day job.

[3:54] Ashley Park: Well, I think that's what makes you a good producer. And you, you know, you feel that when it's like very genuine, and then you feel like you're being taken care of as an actor, you know.

[4:01] Eva Price: Thank you. Thank you for saying that.

[4:03] Eva Price: Thank you. And so that was really the impetus is I was depressed and I was sad, and I missed being with actors and writers and creatives and talking about theater, and I was feeling very nostalgic for my past. And so thus the show was born.

[4:22] Ashley Park: Cool.

[4:23] Ashley Park: Well, I think you're a perfect person for one of these things just because I think you know so much about the industry and you're in it, but also again, like you're somebody who's very easy to be comfortable around in the industry. So I think it that makes for a good podcast host.

[4:36] Eva Price: And I didn't even pay you to say that.

[4:38] Ashley Park: So I know.

[4:42] Eva Price: Thank you.

[4:43] Eva Price: Well, so you know, it is strange times. It is perhaps a bit of a positive time with perhaps vaccines coming our way and new presidents.

[4:57] Eva Price: So I think I'm I know my shoulders are relaxed um a tad bit today, but it has been the strangest 10 months of our lives.

[5:07] Eva Price: So I need to start every podcast with the same question, and that's how are you?

[5:14] Ashley Park: Yeah.

[5:14] Ashley Park: Well, I think I mean, on what you just said, it's like definitely the most hopeful chapter in this entire time. And like again, like I think the word unprecedented is just so like it really is that for everybody right now. I'm good, you know.

[5:30] Ashley Park: I think every day is kind of like a reflection on where I where you are right now. Um and I've been like I'm so grateful for this, but I really have been going so nonstop for a long time.

[5:43] Ashley Park: And I have just been trying to make the most of this time. And I, you know, you've seen me around. I think I'm an extremely social person and extremely um what people would consider extroverted.

[5:58] Ashley Park: And I've realized in this time that I'm a very extroverted introvert.

[6:02] Ashley Park: Um, it's been good for me to have time alone, and you know, not to delve too deep, but I've been through this before when I, you know, I had cancer in high school.

[6:11] Ashley Park: And so it's interesting when people a lot of people ask at the beginning of quarantine, you know, how are you feeling through this and everything like that? And it's interesting because I learned, I think I gained a tool set in being quarantined alone in high school.

[6:24] Ashley Park: I was um inpatient for about eight months. And what was interesting was that at that time I was uh my world stopped and everyone else got to keep going with their lives.

[6:36] Ashley Park: Um, so in a way, this is almost easier because everyone has been put on pause, everyone's world. Um, and not that I would prefer that to just my world being put on pause, but I do think that I've been grateful and lucky to have been able to be there for a lot of people in my life, especially people in our industry, um, and try to give some kind of hope in that way, just because I've been in the position where I've and at the young age where I was like, I really can't see past this.

[7:07] Ashley Park: Like, I don't, I don't ever imagine a world where I'm not in this hospital bed alone. And like I'm here past it, you know.

[7:14] Ashley Park: So I do think that you know, when you kind of meet people and you understand right away, oh, they get it. Like they just get the world, they get life, they get it.

[7:22] Ashley Park: And it's usually because, and you know, everyone's been through shit, part of my language, but you know, everyone's been through hard times, and like some people come out on the other side knowing how to move forward.

[7:32] Ashley Park: And I think that I'm actually really hopeful now, especially with you know, Biden and Harris taking office and such that I think that um we can all be at that point on the other side together, and we're all just gonna be seeing each other very differently.

[7:47] Ashley Park: And there is a world where we come out much stronger, but I think it's just still the little of anxiety of like, what if it goes the other way, you know?

[7:55] Ashley Park: So that was a big way of saying, I think I'm good.

[8:00] Eva Price: Well, it's funny because uh the world was the word resilience has been coming up constantly throughout this, right? Like those who are able to function best are the resilient ones.

[8:08] Eva Price: Those who are able to get through this are are frankly the introverted extroverts, actually, because they don't mind being alone and they know how to create presence and energy when they have the opportunity to do so.

[8:24] Ashley Park: So I I'm actually so I actually understand that having been through a type of trauma that you've been through and survived and excelled after it, that like this trauma is sort of okay.

[8:39] Ashley Park: Not all past. It's kind of like when your friend, like when your best friend goes through like heartbreak and you're like, I see what you're feeling, and when you get on the other side, like I have faith that you're gonna get on the other side of it, but it's sometimes they can't see that, and I feel that way kind of, and I think resilient is exactly the word.

[8:54] Ashley Park: And I think that again, not even as the cancer survivor, but as an artist and someone in this industry, I think the art artist community is actually must thrive on resilience because how much of how like a big percentage of our world is disappointment and rejection.

[9:12] Ashley Park: And it's the perspective of not seeing it that way that can allows us to continue, you know, and be excited to continue.

[9:19] Ashley Park: So I do think that I do I am hopeful for all of us.

[9:22] Eva Price: Yeah, yeah.

[9:23] Eva Price: I think it's really funny that you cause a lot of a lot of people did this, whether they, you know, had to because of financial means or or wanted to because of emotional means, they went home and they lived with family and they re-sort of lived this like, you know, high school or growing up world with, you know, parents, but as adults, I love that you did that.

[9:45] Ashley Park: What like it was, yeah.

[9:47] Ashley Park: I mean, it was completely by accident.

[9:50] Ashley Park: Like I am such a believer now, and I I don't think I'm fatalistic, meaning I don't think things are predetermined for us.

[9:56] Ashley Park: I think that's very um not giving to like any possible growth or change really, but I do believe in fate.

[10:02] Ashley Park: Um, and it was just so it's so crazy how the beginning of pandemic kind of like folded out for me in terms of I had just closed Grand Horizons, our play on Broadway.

[10:13] Ashley Park: I think it was one of the last plays or shows, if not the last show to get its official closing before Broadway shutdown.

[10:20] Ashley Park: So we got to close that. And I was I had a couple weeks before Millie was going to start.

[10:24] Ashley Park: And so I, you know, my sister had been teaching in China for three years, and I've been on a Broadway schedule and filming in different places.

[10:33] Ashley Park: So my parents and my sister and I had us four had not been in the same room together for about three years.

[10:38] Ashley Park: Cause you know, Broadway schedule, we'd also don't get holidays and such.

[10:41] Ashley Park: So I was heading to LA for some work and stuff before Millie started.

[10:46] Ashley Park: And on my way there, I was gonna stop in to see my parents, and my sister was gonna be able to be there.

[10:51] Ashley Park: So we're like, great, we get two days together.

[10:53] Ashley Park: And the day that I landed, that was the day that Broadway shut down.

[10:57] Ashley Park: And so we were like, oh great. So I guess the two days it turned into two months where we all went from not seeing each other for three years to living together.

[11:04] Ashley Park: And you know, like for me, you know, it was it was crazy because my parents and I I was so grateful because you know, I hadn't realized that, you know, every time I see my parents have been so supportive of me, but whenever they come to visit, it's it's just the high pressure times.

[11:18] Ashley Park: It's when I have no energy or time, it's usually an opening or something like that, or I'm doing double duty or something.

[11:24] Ashley Park: And so to be able to like actually spend time with them and was something I didn't really even get to do in high school or in college.

[11:31] Ashley Park: So like it I don't think I think accumulatively, us that two months was more time than all of us have spent in our lives.

[11:38] Ashley Park: So that was really I'm so grateful for that.

[11:40] Eva Price: And were you totally reliving like high school dynamics of like everyone fighting and and and like you leaving socks out and oh my gosh, well, not you know, not at first, I think because we were so aware that we are all of a sudden in a two-bedroom apartment, you know, and like we did it, and again, like my high school experience was like me being sick for a year, you know, and being away.

[12:01] Ashley Park: So, like we of course, you know, every like everything that we needed to uncover and discover as a family came out, and I do think like even in the tough moments, we were all like acknowledging that this was only gonna make us better in the long run.

[12:14] Ashley Park: But it was I mean, it was very it was very crazy.

[12:19] Ashley Park: And also, I'm such a different person than I was in high school.

[12:22] Ashley Park: So it was that too.

[12:24] Eva Price: Well, I love I love that this show actually is diving back into your past into your history into the first.

[12:32] Eva Price: And the fact that you had I didn't know this that you had had this time with your family where you got to literally relive some of your first.

[12:40] Eva Price: So let's jump in. What was the first show you ever saw?

[12:45] Ashley Park: Yeah, I think the first what's funny is like I never saw a Broadway show or like had been to New York City until like my last year of high school.

[12:55] Ashley Park: And so for me, Broadway, like what was equivalent to Broadway, my mind was like the um public high school's productions in Ann Arbor, pioneer theater guilds shows.

[13:05] Ashley Park: And I remember because I was really like fairly late to the game in terms of musical theater, like I guess not really late, but like um middle school is when I really like followed my friends to musical like community musical theater, um, it was like young people's theater in Ann Arbor, and really loved it so much.

[13:24] Ashley Park: But I remember as a middle schooler seeing those shows and then going to see shows at um in Detroit, like tours that came through.

[13:33] Ashley Park: And I think I might have seen a production of like the producers, but Wicked was a big one for me.

[13:38] Ashley Park: I when I saw Wicked their tour in Detroit, um, that or maybe it was Chicago.

[13:44] Ashley Park: Yes, we went to Chicago sometime in middle school.

[13:47] Ashley Park: And I and I saw Wicked and another show, but I really think the shows that I saw at the high school um had a big impact on me.

[13:56] Ashley Park: And it just seemed so large, like it was such a big auditorium and um all I wanted to do was be in those productions.

[14:03] Eva Price: Yeah, yeah.

[14:04] Eva Price: I mean, I I feel the same way. My I saw Summerstock all like growing up, and to me that was Broadway. Like, how could Broadway be any better?

[14:12] Eva Price: Was there a particular high school production that you just really remember?

[14:17] Ashley Park: I think um seeing, I believe I saw Le Miz there, and I believe and the ones I remember are Lay Miz, Beauty and the Beast, and then I saw at the other high school, I went to go see a production of Into the Woods.

[14:31] Ashley Park: And I mean, that is I think Into the Woods and Le Miz had a huge impact on me.

[14:37] Ashley Park: Um I loved Songtime after that.

[14:40] Ashley Park: I think it's the reason Into the Woods and Wicked especially had a um and actually Le Miz had an impact on me is they're all stories about a character that is perceived as evil, you know, and it's like their um it's their story, and it really like fascinated me.

[14:59] Ashley Park: And Into the Woods being like I got to intermission, thought it was over, and then there's the whole second act. And these are all characters like Cinderella and stuff that I'd known, and to see a different version of it was so mind-blowing to me. And it's probably why I love revivals or like reinvestigating stories that we know and characters that we know, because like you just never know what is the reason that somebody is who they are. And I think that's why those shows really had an impact on my brain, I think as much as my heart. And so I think that that's what excited me about it.

[15:28] Ashley Park: Yeah, yeah. It's so funny in retrospect that like freshmen play Fontaine.

[15:36] Eva Price: Right.

[15:37] Ashley Park: Yeah. Well, that's funny. She was pretty young. You know, you see, like you usually like Fontaine is a part that I would you would give to someone in their late 20s or early 30s, and you're like, wait, no, Fontaine was like a teen mom. Yeah, you know, and but you need that, but she also was a teen that had so much life experience at that age, and that's why you need someone who's had that kind of life experience to be able to play that part well.

[16:00] Ashley Park: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just in retrospect, as I grew up and got to know these shows, I'm just always like, I can't believe high school kids play like Captain Von Trapp. That's the main thing I tell like students now, like in college and high school, I'm like, don't try to play parts like just because you're playing these parts in high school and college does not mean like no middle schooler should be playing Captain Von Trapp. And you know, like and like these parts and like Anything Goes and stuff like that. You're like, these are these are adult roles, but it's very, it's very sweet.

[16:34] Ashley Park: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, some of my some of my favorite memories actually is of the Jimmy Awards performances where you see these high school kids, you see like six Jean Valjeans doing their song or their Javert Suicide, and you're just like Or even like isn't your picture from like Annie? I like my favorite is like when people do like productions of Annie and the Daddy Warbucks is the same age as the Annie, and they're like singing the adoption song like together at last, and you're like you are the same age. Perhaps shorter, because boys don't grow as fast as girls at that age.

[17:15] Eva Price: I know, yeah.

[17:16] Ashley Park: No, you're so right. Oh, that's hilarious.

[17:19] Eva Price: What was the first show you were in?

[17:23] Ashley Park: I think it was. I mean, if we consider I was in like dance recitals since I was three and such. Um, and so I definitely consider those shows, but in terms of musicals, my first show was our Thanksgiving play at Bryant Elementary School. Um, and were you the turkey?

[17:46] Ashley Park: I was in second grade. No, I was Betsy.

[17:49] Eva Price: Betsy.

[17:51] Ashley Park: No, she's just a girl named Betsy. And I believe the plot was, and I think I wore like this Winnie the Pooh brown little jumper. And I believe what I if I remember correctly, I had gone, I had left school for about a week because my grandfather had passed right before Thanksgiving. And so I went to California for that funeral, and then I came back, and my second grade teacher, Mr. Dore, was like, we're doing this play, and him and the music teacher I put together, and he was like, You're gonna be the lead, Betsy. And I was like, wow, I didn't even audition like what? No, and but um I think it's because he knew I I mean I couldn't, I I was the kid who like could not raise her hand in class. I was just so loud and everything, but um definitely like a little showman.

But I I think the plot was that Betsy had a night, like she it's Thanksgiving weekend, and she's like, I don't I can't wait to eat turkey, um, and then she falls asleep, and then everybody like the turkeys come and try to kill her because they're upset that she's gonna eat the turkey, and so all the other second graders were in like paper bags just as turkeys, and they all were running after me. And then I sang my big solo was Help by the Beatles, and that was my first musical, I'm pretty sure.

[19:04] Eva Price: No, I'm pretty sure that's like an LSD trip about tryptophan, actually.

[19:09] Ashley Park: That's exactly it. Oh my god, that's hilarious. That's probably where they came up with it. Someone got very high one night after eating turkey.

[19:19] Eva Price: Right, but I was like, oh my gosh, wow, this song that I know, Help by the Beatles, is furthering the story. Like this, it's so easy to sing because it's part of the plot. Like, so I I would consider that my first musical, even though it has never been done since, and probably I don't even know what it's about.

[19:33] Ashley Park: But until you revive it.

[19:35] Eva Price: Right. And then what happened? So you went to public high school as well and then went to college for theater?

[19:42] Ashley Park: Yeah. Well, I so I think what happened was I I did know that I loved singing and dancing, but that that was the extent of my musical theater. And then in middle school, sixth grade, I followed some of my friends, because I was also a huge choir geek, like loved choir a cappella groups, um, to the young people's theater. They were having auditions for Alice in Concert. And true, and still I'd never seen a musical really, you know. Um, and I remember getting my first callback and going through that process. And I believe the role I played was the unicorn. Honestly, Alice in Concert is a lit show. I don't know why I'm I've never heard of anyone doing it, but I was like, these songs are fun, and also like I don't know.

So that was my first musical, and then I think the later that year we did The Wiz and I played Dorothy again, not something that you know, um, but I think I remember just like getting a kick out of having to come in with the 16 bar, and I thought I I'm realizing right now, my my gosh. I my thing my go-to audition song was Comedy Tonight, which I didn't know if it's a male song, and I would just have different movements and different expressions for like something familiar, something peculiar, like all this. I had a top hat and a glittery vest. Like it was really, it's really cliche now that I think about it. But um but yeah, before that, like in elementary school, it was just like the talent show.

I think I did like um that one song a song from Annie with a friend. I always, but you know what's funny is I always made a friend do with me. I made my Max who did play Captain Von Trapp in our later production of middle school, he I made him sing Let Me Entertain You with me for our talent show with the glitter the glitter vest and a cape and choreography and like poor guy. I don't know, like um where it's not is he is he sane and healthy? Yes, yes, yeah. He's he's the best, no.

[21:34] Ashley Park: Um, and he uh and so but middle school is when you know I did all sorts of like Joseph Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Sound of Music. It's when I started really listening to cast recordings. We did Suessical and I got obsessed. Like that's where uh the cast recordings is really where I found my love of um musicals. And I think it's because I grew up with Suzuki piano, which is the technique where you have to listen for just as much as you practice every day. And then it like then you can kind of envision it and it really helps you learn the music because you already know what the melody's supposed to sound like and everything. Um but I think that's why I was so obsessed with constantly listening to cast recordings and like taking that in and memorizing it in that way before I'd audition um and be in the show and just like envision it in that way.

And then high school I went to Pioneer. Um and that's where I kind of if lucky for me, since it is in the same town as the University of Michigan, which is where I eventually went to school. It's funny, the whole there's a whole generation of um U of M students who are about eight years older than me, and they were all of my directors in high school. So they were a lot of my mentors, like Etai Ben Shlomo, like directed me in two different shows, and Benton Whitley and um like a bunch of people, and um a lot of them had friends who'd come, you know. So it was that was kind of the when they um them and Susan Hurwitz who was in charge of that theater program and she's not a performer at all, but she was just so loves the kids there, and it truly was a public school and just an after school program.

But just we did a lot of the we were high school that did a lot of the workshops of like the first Willy Wonka, the first Miss Saigon, the first like You're in Town that's for high schoolers. Um, and we and so that's how I kind of really really got into it. And I think that after I was sick, when I got out, I did Millie was the show that I did when I came out, and I believe I was not supposed to return to school. And it was about three months. I mean, it's insane. I I really no wonder my parents were so worried. But like, you know, I'm like this bald girl who like isn't supposed to be walking and I'm doing Millie, but I really I mean that's where I I don't think there was like an aha moment where I was like now I will be doing musical theater, but it just since then, even to this day, I'm kind of just constantly like in the present moment being like, wait, what? Cool, you know, let's just keep going.

[23:58] Eva Price: Yeah.

[23:59] Ashley Park: Um, I love that Millie has such a meaningful place in your life from playing. I mean, yes, you didn't get to play at this time because of this pandemic, but you will. And Millie meant so much to you then. Like that's remarkable. I mean, it was incredible. It was pretty crazy. I'm I'm sure you know Lear, who's just the bad and like um, and we are, you know, I'm actually meeting with um meeting zooming with Janine and Dick. We've been working on the script a lot um throughout this time, which is really, really exciting. But um, when she had approached me about playing the role, she had no idea I had any sort of wow history with it, and I hadn't even thought about it too. Because again, it was one of those roles where I was like, Oh my god, I'm so happy.

It was the CD I listened to the most besides Wicked. Um, and I just I really grew up on that. And doing that show and like dancing and singing in that way, like really it was my first really lead to, you know, and really changed me. And I when I when I told her it, I mean, it it's just like a show like the Millie is such a survivor too, you know.

[25:02] Eva Price: Totally.

[25:02] Ashley Park: She was so she couldn't believe I mean we both couldn't believe that out of all the people she knew, she was like, I just feel like you're Millie, you're the Millie that I want to work with, and so that was very impactful. And honestly, like the wigs I wore in that show, um, both the short one and like the long one were all made of my own hair. They were the ones that I I you know, I I cut I shaved off on my hair at the beginning of my um cancer treatments, and I I was actually when I was going home at the beginning of pandemic, I was picking up one of those wigs to bring back to wear, you know. But like, and I didn't want to make this show, we didn't really talk about it because I was like, I don't want to make this about that.

But when we we recently did a Zoom reading just to kind of hear this new what the rhythm was and what this new version was, and like I was like, Wow, I haven't spoken these words for over a decade now, and it it was just so crazy to like be the woman that I am now and doing you know, it's it's it's very full circle in a way that is bigger than me.

[25:57] Eva Price: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That is beautiful. Well, I had wanted to see your Millie before all this, for you. There was no way I would be missing it after all this.

[26:08] Eva Price: Uh, first professional show, Ashley. What was it?

[26:11] Ashley Park: Professional. Um, I believe, well, I got my equity card at Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, PCLO, um, because in college, you know, something we all did at U of M was like everybody would go down and audition at these different summer stocks. Um and but I believe I the summer before my freshman year of college, I I had done Miss Saigon at my high school, my senior year. Um they were doing Miss Saigon at the Music Theater of Wichita um that summer. And so one of our professors who also works there was like, oh, we she has to be Kim and the Miss Saigon there. But I think that they were like, how could we trust a high schooler to be the lead in our summer stock show? So I ended up just being in the production and being the understudy, which I think is hilarious now because I'm like an understudy for a two-week summer stock run is hilarious. Like, thanks for that. But so that was my I guess my first like professional gig, but I got my equity card through PCLO.

[27:09] Eva Price: Okay. I loved PCLO, but oh my gosh, me too. And like honestly, like I think the first summer that I worked there where I got my equity card, we were also doing Miss Saigon. They did a small tour of Miss Saigon through like Toronto and Connecticut and Pittsburgh and stuff. So that was that year, but the next year was when I did the full season. And honestly, that you know, that's when I met Elizabeth Stanley, who's in Jagged Little Pill. Like she was, we did Jekyll and Hyde together, and I was, I mean, my favorite thing is that Corey Cott and I, I mean, Corey was actually supposed to be my Jimmy in um Millie, which is another full circle because we got our equity cards together. He had been in that Miss Saigon, and then we did the next season together, and we were dance partners.

We are the featured dancers in every show, which is so funny now. But like we were like, why aren't we the dancers? But we, I mean, I got super close to that. You know, it's where I understood how to be like an on like really like I loved being an ensemble member. I loved learning shows so fast. And then like people like Elizabeth and Rockuccioli and like Brynn O'Malley, you know, like all of them would come and do this summer style, you know, and it and now being somebody who would I don't know, like it was very like those were like, oh my gosh, and I and I still think so highly of them, but it was such a far and attained thing to be like a Broadway actor who comes and does these shows, you know.

So I I learned so much, and I and I I um and like Liz Callaway came. We did this like Andrew Lloyd Webber show called Love Changes Everything, and just to like get to meet these people and also kind of um see how lovely and humble so many of them could be. I it really uh it I think it really really had a good impact on me.

[28:51] Eva Price: Well, um that's a good place to get your start. Pittsburgh's a lovely town.

[28:55] Ashley Park: Yeah, it was fun. I'm a big fan of it. It was really fun.

[29:00] Eva Price: So it's dream time. Uh this is where I ask if you could be in any show anywhere at any time, what would it be?

[29:13] Ashley Park: Well, that's hard.

[29:14] Eva Price: I know.

[29:15] Ashley Park: It is hard. You know why? I think okay, well, this is kind of a cliche non-specific answer, and then I'll tell you why the question's hard.

[29:25] Ashley Park: Okay. Um firstly, I think I would, you know, I've never I've only been to London like twice. And there's something about, and maybe just because it's something I I've not I I love things that scare me and are challenging, and I've really haven't delved into the world of Shakespeare yet.

[29:40] Ashley Park: Like I recently did my first play, and I loved it.

[29:43] Eva Price: Grand Horizons was your first play.

[29:45] Ashley Park: It was my first professional play.

[29:47] Eva Price: Wow.

[29:48] Ashley Park: When I got it, Jesse Tha Ferguson was like, should I call them and let them know this is your first play? Like I honestly, that's why like Lee Silverman and Bess Wool, I was like, wait, really? Like, why you why are you so confident that I'm like they were very much like Ashley's the person for this part like bring her in like we what you know and it it really did fit so well on I like I loved it but I I I really didn't you know so it really was my first professional I'd never I'd never done a play but you know I I consider K-pop a play with music too you know and I don't like I I think I learned so much from that show and that process but I think if I could be in anything can I also be a different person yes my dream okay my dream is to be Julie Andrews in the Sound and Music movie.

[30:35] Eva Price: Like the Sound and music movie I think is untouchable.

[30:38] Ashley Park: It's like my I think that was actually I I would consider my first show that I saw because I do think that that's what made me really love Rogers and Hammerstein and music and I I wore that VCR down thin and it was just so like to have an epic sweeping story like that and that was like grounded in like a real real thing like I that like since I was little was my number one so if I could be Julie Andrews in that I think that would be a dream but I also think that huh yeah I just want to picture you with that haircut for a minute okay I don't think I could pull up anything as well as Julie Andrews.

[31:17] She's an icon for to me but um I think one of the best experiences theatrically of my life was getting to be seen partner to Mir and Mazzy um when she just made her triumphant returning king and I and just not only getting to watch her and listen to her every day, but like feel like being held by her and like being her support and her being my support through that show and the king and I.

[31:43] Um, I I just loved her as a scene partner and you know, she she came into the show, so we didn't get to rehearse together really or build something together. So if I could, my dream would have been to create a show with her and really because she was just like so smart, so generous, so fun but disciplined, and like you just knew you were in good hands, so generous, but also knows when to take her space um and just understands every part of it.

[32:10] So I learned so much from that.

[32:12] And like my favorite part of any show is like the the the building of it and the process of finding the characters together and finding the relationships because that's the only way you can live in it eight times a week is like you can deepen these characters and their relationships, but you can't really widen it and within the scope of the story.

[32:29] So the rehearsal time is the most fun.

[32:31] And I think it's the time where we see the most like failure and growth in like building the story too.

[32:37] And I just think it would have, I mean, to be in like an original Sondheim show with like her um would have would be a dream.

[32:47] Eva Price: Well, that's kind of beautiful.

[32:49] I I mean it's it's interesting to talk with you about theater and your theater experiences because you are having a big television and television experience right now.

[32:59] Ashley Park: Yes, we're we got to see you on Emily in Paris.

[33:02] Eva Price: I've watched every episode.

[33:04] Ashley Park: I loved it.

[33:05] Eva Price: I lived.

[33:07] Ashley Park: Just announced season two today.

[33:09] Eva Price: Yes, I know.

[33:11] Ashley Park: Yeah, it's exciting.

[33:12] Eva Price: It's very exciting.

[33:13] Ashley Park: I knew it was coming.

[33:14] Eva Price: I talked to Patricia Field not long ago, so I knew it's a little bit more.

[33:17] Ashley Park: Oh, really?

[33:17] Eva Price: Oh, yeah.

[33:19] Ashley Park: I mean, talk about again the icons who like she she doesn't have to be as kind as she is because she's just I I would do anything and wear anything she says, but just the most collaborative, like that's oh my god.

[33:31] It's it's amazing.

[33:32] And and Darren Starr.

[33:34] I mean, so I'm sure you've got I've I'm sure you've been asked this question numerous times, but because this is a theater lover show, what is the real difference between performing in a theatrical show and and and performing in a television show?

[33:53] Because you talked a lot about how some performances were uh the alchemy of the relationship had to happen while on stage because you didn't have a rehearsal time, others you grew up doing every sort of workshop and reading of it. Now with television, like that process is pretty different.

[34:11] Though there is rehearsal, it's really about the camera in you too. So yeah, fill us in a bit.

[34:17] Ashley Park: I mean, it's so funny, and people have asked me, what do you which do you prefer? And um the ungrateful answers, the one that I'm not doing at the moment. Um, and I also love the one I'm doing at the moment more, you know. Um I I think it's so hard to compare because they really it's like asking which which of your kids you like better or like something like that. It's just they're so different. And I think the main thing is exactly what you're saying, is I mean, the reason I I think theater is so sacred, and the reason I love it so much is because and the reason I also um the most heartbreaking part about it for me is the fleeting nature of it, which is that every show every night is is with a different is a different alchemy of the audience and cast, right?

[35:05] And the people working backstage. And it it would it can just never be reproduced. And even if you have the same exact you did a show with the same exact cast and the same exact audience two days in a row, every human has woken up the next day a different person, right? So it just can never be the same. And so there's something so beautiful about that, and that's why it's so special. That's why we're missing it so much. It just can't be recreated. But that's also like the saddest thing for me. Like I'm that I I really it's devastating for me when I have to leave a show or when a show closes. Like I'm that person who's crying the most because I get so nostalgic, and I just can't believe, oh my gosh, like it's never gonna be this again.

Versus um with film and TV, it's it you you say goodbye in a different way, meaning that you know, I get to live with the characters but within the same story on stage for a long period of time if the show is successful, you know. And do that deepening thing but not widening thing. But with film and TV, I remember there are some scenes in like Emily and Paris, and you know, like Lily comes from the film world, I come from the theater world, and we met on this TV world, and we would be in these costumes and be doing these scenes and like our banter and everything, we'd find it, we'd click and we'd find all these different rhythms, all these different ways in and out and discover all these things, and then they say cut for the last time we're wrapped for the day.

And we I remember one day we were like, I can't believe we never are doing this again. Like we're never doing this again. This is so crazy, you know. Like again, theater, it's you have a unless it's you're in a show that only two people came to, you know, but like you have a whole set of perspectives and audience that you're playing to at once. And um on film, I really found that you you really have to trust your scene partners and directors in a different kind of way because you are their only audience member is the lens.

[36:54] Eva Price: Right. Let's talk about Girls5Eva before before we end today. Um, I I actually call it Girls Five Eva because that's hilarious.

[37:04] Ashley Park: That's actually what it says. But I I remember as a kid when people used to write, I love you for EVA. I was like, you know, you just wrote I love you for Eva. And people were like, ha ha ha, no, that's for Eva. Anyway.

[37:18] Eva Price: I love that. So Girls5Eva sounds amazing.

[37:22] Ashley Park: Yeah. That's the headline. I mean, it again, it's like this is why I can't even like um articulate or manifest dreams anymore because it's like these dream situations come out of, you know, like if I could have never even dreamt this scenario for myself. And again, it's because I think recently I've been like, I have so, you know, Grand Horizons being the first time I worked with both a female director and female writer. Um, and just have not having to nav like not navigating that process and not saying that I've worked with the most incredible male directors and mentors and writers and producers too. But it's different. But it is it was different, you know. And um, I've been so excited by the female writers and directors in my life.

And so, like, again, to do this, um the fact that I mean, for me, the greatest compliment is not that oh, this person was so good in this project, but is truly when people are lead with, oh, she's a incredible to work with, I'd work with her again. And so the the best compliment to the best part of getting this job for me was that Tina Faye and Jeff Richman were like, and their company was like, oh, we trust Ashley, we would love to work with her again, you know. So that is already the best part for me. I already know I'm coming into great hands. They've been such great mentors for me. Um, but also the fact like working with like Sara Bareilles and Busy Phillips and Paula Pell and Renée Elise Goldsberry, these are all women.

I was like, oh my god, I can't believe I get to add them to like my like uh like this community of big sisters that I've game, you know. Like you know, King and I was like Kelly and Marin and Ruthie and you know Tales of the City, I had Ellen Page and Laura Linney. Oh my god, that that would be my dream too. If me and Laura and Marin could be in a play together, that would be my I would be set for life. True. All of us. But I I I don't take it lightly that again, like I have these like females who are just such amazing role models to me as like people, as mothers, as like artists. Like I I think the luckiest part for me is getting to be in their vicinity. Um also like be a support for them. Like I'm somebody who they were excited to work with and trust too.

But like being in a 90s girls band is my ultimate. We've only filmed the pilot so far, but even like some of the music videos, and like I'm playing a character named Ashley, and it's just like the best. It is the best time.

[39:50] Eva Price: Ashley, we have a surprise section that we don't tell our guests about. And it is a lightning round in which I say the name of a musical, you say the name of the emotional theme that you think of right away.

[40:04] Ashley Park: Wait, what? I don't even remember any emotions.

[40:09] Eva Price: I know, none of us do. But it's gonna come. It's gonna be instinctual. I promise you.

[40:15] Ashley Park: Got it. Okay.

[40:16] Eva Price: Okay, here we go.

[40:17] Ashley Park: Uh-huh.

[40:18] Eva Price: Rent.

[40:19] Ashley Park: Oh, um, what's that? Oh my god, what's the word? Like angsty.

[40:23] Eva Price: Oliver.

[40:24] Ashley Park: Oh, I I'm the first thing I'm doing is like, well, once some more. I'm like quoting it in my head. Um what's an emotion? Uh I mean, youth is not an emotion.

[40:35] Eva Price: No, that is. That's good.

[40:37] Ashley Park: Okay, okay.

[40:38] Eva Price: Sweeney Todd.

[40:39] Ashley Park: Oh, scary.

[40:41] Eva Price: Pippin.

[40:42] Ashley Park: Curious.

[40:43] Eva Price: Funny Girl.

[40:45] Ashley Park: Mmm. Gumption.

[40:47] Eva Price: Fiddler on the Roof.

[40:48] Ashley Park: Loyalty? I don't know.

[40:50] Eva Price: Yeah. Company.

[40:52] Ashley Park: Company. What's what's the word for like self-worth or self-discovery?

[40:57] Eva Price: Perfect.

[40:57] Ashley Park: Figuring out who you are.

[40:59] Eva Price: Yeah. Into the Woods.

[41:02] Ashley Park: Um. Wait, why am I so bad at this game? Into the wood. I just don't understand what emotions are. Into the woods is like what emotion is. What's the emotional theme? Oh my god. No one is alone. How about that? No one is alone.

[41:22] Eva Price: No, I know. I keep on thinking of song titles. Like I can't.

[41:25] Ashley Park: A song title game. We actually we have a song title Lightning Round, but I think do you have time to do that one? We can do that one if you'd rather.

[41:36] Eva Price: Yes, go on.

[41:37] Ashley Park: Am I so bad at this? I mean it's probably entertaining for people. Wait, I really want to think of the emotion that I associate with Into the Woods. It's very like it makes my heart swell, but I don't know what that emotion is. There's more than what you see. There's more there than what you see.

[41:54] Eva Price: I mean, truly, the idea is like so many of these shows from our upbringing actually mean different things to us at different points in our life.

[42:02] Ashley Park: No, totally.

[42:03] Eva Price: And that's what I love about like the lightning round, because it can change over time, too.

[42:08] Ashley Park: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[42:10] Eva Price: Um, well, listen, we're out of time, and I adored every minute of this hour. So thank you for being here and for being you.

[42:20] Ashley Park: Thank you for having me.

[42:22] Eva Price: This has been very fun.

[43:37] ♪ Musical number: "Not for the Life of Me" — performed by Ashley Park ♪