This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Eva Price: Hey everyone, in keeping with the theme that 2022 feels a lot like 2020, here's another favorite episode from the archive with Miss Ashley Park.

[0:10] Eva Price: Ashley is star of both the Broadway stage and the small screen, including "Girls5Eva" and everyone's favorite pleasure, "Emily in Paris."

[0:19] Eva Price: We hear in this episode about Ashley's humble beginnings, her toughest challenges, and how she stumbled into the Tina Fey universe.

[0:26] Eva Price: "Emily in Paris" has been recently picked up for two more seasons.

[0:29] Eva Price: And in this conversation, she had just learned about the second season getting the green light.

[0:35] Eva Price: And if you haven't binged "Emily in Paris" yet, please do for a chance to see and hear Ashley's incredible voice and musical performance.

[0:43] Eva Price: Enjoy! Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of "My First Show."

[1:09] Eva Price: We have someone very special today.

[1:12] Eva Price: Why is she special?

[1:13] Eva Price: Well, she has had a really exciting, uh, I would say pandemic showbiz 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.

[1:36] Ashley Park: Hello.

[1:37] Eva Price: Hi, Ashley. I'm so happy to be here with you because first of all, I mean, you are a Broadway favorite.

[1:46] Eva Price: You are an Eva Price favorite.

[1:48] Eva Price: Um, and I know you're an Ashley favorite. Whenever I see you at like an opening and stuff like that, it's always like, oh my gosh, the same space. I love it.

[1:57] Ashley Park: Oh, thank you.

[1:58] Ashley Park: Thank you.

[1:59] Ashley Park: And like you have had a meteoric rise since I met you in such an amazing way.

[2:07] Eva Price: And we met what we met during "K-pop," right?

[2:07] Ashley Park: We met during "K-pop."

[2:11] Ashley Park: 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.

[2:23] Ashley Park: And it has been kind of incredible to watch this growth. Yet every time I see you, you're so grounded and real and honest and authentic and lovely.

[2:36] Ashley Park: And you're why I wanted to do this show, frankly, because I want to know about all your early beginnings, and I want to get into it.

[2:44] Ashley Park: 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.

[2:54] Ashley Park: 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.

[3:04] Eva Price: Yeah, so at eight o'clock Tuesday through Saturday, I would usually be somewhere other than my living room under normal circumstances.

[3:15] 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.

[3:22] 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.

[3:40] Eva Price: Um, and you know, I gotta give credit where credit's due. My girlfriend, who you know and love her, I love her.

[3:49] Eva Price: She did everything when you tell her hi. She's not in the podcast studio, but I will give her your best.

[3:56] Ashley Park: Okay.

[3:57] 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?"

[4:12] 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...

[4:23] Ashley Park: Oh yeah, that photo of you when you were young in that one school of that play.

[4:26] Eva Price: Oh my god, I died.

[4:29] 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.

[4:41] 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.

[4:48] Eva Price: Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Thank you.

[4:50] Eva Price: 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.

[5:09] Ashley Park: Cool. 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 that makes for a good podcast host.

[5:23] Eva Price: And I didn't even pay you to say that!

[5:23] Ashley Park: Thank you!

[5:24] Eva Price: Well, you know, it is strange times. It is perhaps a bit of a positive time with perhaps vaccines coming our way and new presidents. So I think I'm, I know my shoulders are relaxed a tad bit today, but it has been the strangest 10 months of our lives. So I need to start every podcast with the same question and that's how are you?

[5:23] Ashley Park: Yeah, 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, I think every day is kind of like a reflection on where I where you are right now.

[6:22] Ashley Park: Um and I've been like I'm so grateful for this but I really have been going so nonstop for a long time 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 and I've realized in this time that I'm a very extroverted introvert.

[6:49] Ashley Park: 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 and so it's interesting when people a lot of people asked at the beginning of quarantine, you know, how are you feeling through this and everything like that.

[7:05] Ashley Park: And it's interesting because I learned, I think I gained a tool set in being quarantined alone in high school. 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.

[7:23] 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 and at a young age where I was like, I really can't see past this.

[7:55] Ashley Park: Like 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. 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 light, they get it.

[8:10] 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.

[8:19] 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.

[8:35] 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, so that was a big way of saying, I think I'm good.

[8:48] Eva Price: Well, it's funny because um 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, 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.

[9:11] 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.

[9:26] 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.

[9:41] 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, and it's the perspective of not seeing it that way that can allows us to continue, you know, and be excited to continue.

[10:06] Eva Price: So I do think that I do I am hopeful for all of us.

[10:09] Ashley Park: Yeah, yeah.

[10:10] Ashley Park: I think it's really funny that you because 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.

[10:33] Ashley Park: What like it was, yeah, I mean, it was completely by accident. Like, I'm such a believer now, and I I don't think I'm fatalistic, meaning I don't think things are predetermined for us. I think that's very um not giving to like any possible growth or change really, but I do believe in fate.

[10:50] 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. I think it was one of the last plays or shows, if not the last show, to get its official closing before Broadway shutdown.

[11:07] Ashley Park: So we got to close that. And I was I had a couple weeks before "Millie" was going to start. 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.

[11:20] Ashley Park: So my my parents and my sister and I had us four had not been in the same room together for about three years. Cause you know, Broadway schedule, we'd also don't get holidays and such. So I I was heading to LA for some work and stuff before Millie started. And on my way there, I was gonna stop in to see my parents, and my sister was gonna be able to be there. So we're like, great, we get two days together. And the day that I landed, that was the day that Broadway shut down. And so we were like, oh great. So I 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. And you know, like for me, you know, it it was it was crazy because my parents and I 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.

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. 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. 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. So that was really I'm so grateful for that.

[12:27] 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.

[12:35] Ashley Park: 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. 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 going to make us better in the long run. But it was I mean it was it was very it was very crazy. And also I'm such a different person than I was in high school it was that too.

[13:11] Eva Price: Well I love I love that this show actually is diving back into your past into your history into the first 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 so let's jump in. What was the first show you ever saw?

[13:32] 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 my last year of high school 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. 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. 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.

And I think I might have seen a production of like the producers, but Wicked was a big one for me. I when I saw Wicked their tour in Detroit, um, that or maybe it was Chicago, yes. We went to Chicago sometime in middle school, and I and I saw Wicked and another show, but I I really think the shows that I saw at the high school um had a big impact on me. 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.

[14:50] Eva Price: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I 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? Was was there a particular high school production that you just really remember?

[15:04] 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 the other high school I went to go see a production of Into the Woods. And I mean, that is I think Into the Woods and Le Miz had a huge impact on me. Um I I loved Songtime after that. I I think it's the reason Into the Woods and Wicked especially had a um, and actually Lay Miz had an impact on me is they're all stories about a character that is j perceived as evil, you know, and it's like their um, it's their story. And it really like fascinated me. And Into the Woods being like, I got to intermission, thought it was over, and then there's a 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 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.

[16:15] Eva Price: Yeah yeah it's so funny in retrospect that like freshmen play Fonteen right yeah she was pretty young you know you see like you usually like Fonteen 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 so that kind of life experience to be able to play that part well.

[16:47] Ashley Park: Yeah yeah yeah I I just in retrospect as I 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 trap. That's the main thing I tell like students now like in college and high school I'm like don't try to play part like just because you're playing these parts in high school and college does not mean like no no middle schoolers should be playing Captain Von trap 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.

[17:21] Eva Price: 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 doing their their song or their Jabert suicide, and you're just like or even like isn't your picture from like Annie? I'd like my favorite is like when people do like productions of Annie and the Daddy Warbox 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 uh grow as fast as girls at that age.

[18:02] Ashley Park: I know, yeah. No, you're so right. Oh, that's hilarious.

[18:06] Eva Price: What was the first show you were in?

[18:11] Ashley Park: I think it was. I think it was. I mean, if we consider I was in like dance recital since I was three and such. And so I definitely consider those shows. But in terms of musicals, my first show was our Thanksgiving play at Bright Elementary School.

[18:30] Eva Price: Um, and were you the turkey?

[18:33] Ashley Park: I was in second grade. No, I was Betsy, Betsy Rock. 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 it 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 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.

[19:51] Eva Price: No, I'm pretty sure that's like an LSD trip about Triptophan, actually.

[19:56] 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.

[20:06] Ashley Park: 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, but until you revive it, right?

[20:23] Eva Price: And then what happened? So you went to public high school as well, and then went to college for for theater.

[20:29] 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 acapella 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 call back 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'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 whiz 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 I'm realizing right now, my my gosh. I my think 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 the glitter the glitter vest and a cape and choreography, and like poor guy. I don't know, like um where is Max now? Is he is he sane and healthy?

[22:16] Ashley Park: Yes, yes, yeah. He's the best, no. Um, and he uh and so but middle school is when you know I did all sorts of like Joseph Amazing Titan Dream Code and Sound of Music. It's when I started really listening to cast recordings. We did Suzuki Go, and I got obsessed. Like that's where 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 is supposed to sound like and everything.

[22:56] Ashley Park: 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 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 we just we did a lot of the we would or high school that did a lot of the workshops of like the first Willy Wonka, the first Miss Saigon, the first like year 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.

[24:45] Eva Price: Yeah. 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.

[25:04] Ashley Park: I mean, it was incredible. It was pretty crazy. I'm I'm sure you know Lear, who's just the best 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 history with it, and I hadn't even thought about it too. Cause 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.

[25:49] Eva Price: Totally.

[25:50] 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're the ones that I I you know, I I cut I shade off of 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.

[26:44] 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 will be missing it after all this uh first professional show Ashley what was it professional um I believe well I got my equity card at Pittsburgh Civic led 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 uh 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 and 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 two week summer stock run is hilarious.

[27:49] Ashley Park: Like thanks for that but so that was my I guess my first like professional gig but I got my equity card through PCLO.

[27:56] Eva Price: Okay.

[27:57] Ashley Park: I loved it 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 Cyagon. They did a a small tour of Miss Igon through like Toronto's Connectity 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 Jaguar. Like she was, we did Jacqueline 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, which is another full circle because we got our equity cards together. He had been in that Miss Sigon, 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 um and Roccucioli and like Bryn 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 Angelo Weber show called Love Changes Everything, and just to like get to meet these people and also uh 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.

[29:38] Eva Price: Well, um that's a good place to get your start. Pittsburgh's a lovely town.

[29:42] Ashley Park: Yeah, it was fun.

[29:45] Eva Price: I'm a big fan of it. It was really fun. 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?

[30:00] Ashley Park: Oh, that's hard.

[30:02] Eva Price: I know.

[30:02] 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.

[30:12] Eva Price: Okay.

[30:13] Ashley Park: Um, for 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. Like I recently did my first play and I loved it. Grand Horizons was your first play.

[30:32] Eva Price: It was my first professional play.

[30:34] Ashley Park: Wow. 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 do 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 want, you know, and it it really did fit so well. Um 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?

[31:16] Eva Price: Yes.

[31:18] Ashley Park: Okay, my dream is to be Julie Andrews in a sound and music movie. Like sound and music movie I think is untouchable. 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. Um, so if I could be Julie Andrews in that, I think that would be a dream.

[31:53] Eva Price: But I also think that yeah.

[31:56] Ashley Park: I just want to picture you with that haircut for a minute.

[31:59] Eva Price: Okay.

[32:00] Ashley Park: Oh gosh. Okay. I don't think I could pull up anything as well as Julie Andrews. 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 Matt Mazzy. Um when she just made her triumph of 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.

[32:30] Ashley Park: 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.

[32:58] Ashley Park: So I learned so much from that, and like my favorite part of any show is like 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. So the rehearsal time is the most fun, and I think that's the time where we see the most like failure and growth in like building the story too. And I just think it would have, I mean, to be in like an original Sondheim show with like her would have would be a dream.

[33:34] Eva Price: Well, that's kind of beautiful. 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.

[33:46] Ashley Park: Yes, we're we got to see you on Emily in Paris.

[33:49] Eva Price: I've watched every episode.

[33:51] Ashley Park: I loved it.

[33:52] Eva Price: I lived.

[33:54] Ashley Park: Just announced season two today.

[33:57] Eva Price: Yes, I know.

[33:58] Ashley Park: Yeah, it's exciting. It's very exciting. I knew it was coming. I talked to Patricia Field not long ago, so I knew it was coming.

[34:04] Eva Price: Oh, really?

[34:04] Ashley Park: Oh yeah. I mean, talk about again the icons who like she doesn't have to be as kind as she is because she's just I would do anything and wear anything she says, but just the most collaborative. Like that's oh my god. It's amazing. And Darren Star, I mean, so 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 performing in a television show? Because you talked a lot about how some performances were 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. Though there is rehearsal, it's really about the camera and you too. So yeah, fill us in a bit.

[35:04] Ashley Park: I mean, it's so funny, and people have asked me, what do you which do you prefer? And the ungrateful answer is the one that I'm not doing at the moment. And I also love the one I'm doing at the moment more, you know. I think it's so hard to compare because they really it's like asking 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 think theater is so sacred, and the reason I love it so much is because, and the reason I also the most heartbreaking part about it for me is the fleeting nature of it, which is that every show every night is with a different is a different alchemy of the audience and cast, right?

And the people working backstage, and 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 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 like, oh my gosh, like it's never gonna be this again.

Versus with film and TV, 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 in 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 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 on film, I really found that 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.

[37:40] Eva Price: Right. Let's talk about Girls5Eva before we end today. I actually call it Girls5Eva because that's hilarious.

[37:51] Ashley Park: That's actually what it says. But 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 are like, ha ha ha. No, that's forever. Anyway, I love that. So Girls5Eva sounds amazing.

[38:09] Ashley Park: Yeah. I mean, it again, it's like this is why I can't even like articulate or manifest dreams anymore, because it's like these dream situations come out of, you know, like if I 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, 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 did it, it was different, you know. And I've been so excited by the female writers and directors in my life.

And so, like, again, to do this, 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 incredible to work with, I'd 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. But also the fact like working with like Sara Bareilles and Busy Phillips and Paula Pell and Renee 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 this community of big sisters that I've getting, you know. Like you know, King and I has like Kelly and Marin and Ruthie and you know, Tales of the City had Alan 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. All of us, all of us, but 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, and also like be a support for them. Like, I'm somebody who they were excited to work with and trust too. But like also 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.

[40:37] 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.

[40:51] Ashley Park: Wait, what?

[40:52] Eva Price: I don't even remember any emotions.

[40:56] Ashley Park: I know, none of us do.

[40:58] Eva Price: But it's gonna come. It's gonna be instinctual. I promise you.

[41:01] Ashley Park: Got it. Okay. Here we go.

[41:04] Eva Price: Uh-huh.

[41:05] Eva Price: Rent.

[41:06] Ashley Park: Oh, um, what's that? Oh my god, what's the word? Like angsty.

[41:09] Eva Price: Oliver.

[41:11] Ashley Park: Oh I'm uh the first thing I'm doing is like, well, once a more I'm like quoting it in my head. Um what's an emotion?

[41:19] Eva Price: Uh I mean youth is not an emotion.

[41:22] Ashley Park: No, that is. That's good.

[41:24] Eva Price: Okay, okay Sweeney Todd.

[41:26] Ashley Park: Oh, scary.

[41:28] Eva Price: Pippin.

[41:29] Ashley Park: Curious.

[41:31] Eva Price: Funny Girl.

[41:32] Ashley Park: Mm-hmm. Gumption.

[41:34] Eva Price: Fiddler on the Roof.

[41:35] Ashley Park: Loyalty?

[41:36] Eva Price: I don't know.

[41:38] Ashley Park: Yeah.

[41:39] Eva Price: Company.

[41:40] Ashley Park: Company. What's the word for like self-worth or self-discovery?

[41:44] Eva Price: Perfect.

[41:44] Ashley Park: Figuring out who you are.

[41:46] Eva Price: Yeah.

[41:48] Ashley Park: Into the Woods.

[41:49] Eva Price: Um wait, why am I so bad at this game?

[41:55] Ashley Park: Into the wood. I just don't understand what emotions are.

[41:59] Eva Price: Into the woods is like what emotion is what's the emotional theme?

[42:07] Ashley Park: No one is alone. How about that?

[42:08] Eva Price: No, I know that's I keep on thinking of song titles.

[42:11] Ashley Park: Like I said a song title game.

[42:14] Eva Price: We actually We have a song title Lightning Round, but I think do you have time to do that one?

[42:21] Ashley Park: We can do that one if you'd rather.

[42:23] Eva Price: Yes, go ahead.

[42:24] Ashley Park: Am I so bad at this?

[42:26] Eva Price: I mean it's probably entertaining for people.

[42:28] Ashley Park: 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.

[42:37] Ashley Park: There's more than what you see.

[42:39] 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.

[42:49] Ashley Park: No, totally.

[42:50] Eva Price: And that's what I love about like the lightning round, because it can change over time too.

[42:55] Ashley Park: Yeah.

[42:56] Eva Price: Yeah, yeah.

[42:57] Eva Price: 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.

[43:07] Ashley Park: Thank you for having me. This has been very fun.

[43:19] Eva Price: My First Show is produced by Josh Altman, MEP, Dory Berenstein, and Alan Seales, and is part of the Broadway Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Derek Gunther. Special thanks to Leslie Papa and Whitney Holden Gore at Vivacity Media Group. For more info about the podcast, visit bpn.fm backslash my first show. Follow me on Instagram at Eva R.

[44:24] ♪ Musical number: "Not for the Life of Me" — performed by Ashley Park ♪