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[0:07] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's theater podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with the stars, creators, and industry leaders keeping theater alive and bringing performance to your screens during the pandemic.

[0:18] Gordon Cox: On Broadway, on Netflix, and around the world.

[0:21] Gordon Cox: I'm your host, Gordon Cox. On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to Ashley Park. She's been a Broadway favorite ever since she originated the role of Gretchen Wieners in the musical Mean Girls, and more recently, she starred in Best Wall's comedy Grand Horizons, which closed just a couple of weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Broadway.

[0:41] Gordon Cox: Because of the shutdown, we didn't get a chance to see Park play the title role in Thoroughly Modern Millie in a city center on chorus production scheduled for May, but now postponed. This fall, however, we can catch up with her in Emily in Paris, the new Netflix series from Darren Star, the creator of Sex in the City and Younger. The show centers around a young American expat, played by Lily Collins, and the people she meets in the City of Lights, including Park's character, Mindy, living as an au pair in Paris and trying to break free from her overbearing family back home to realize her dream of becoming a singer.

[1:14] Gordon Cox: Which means that yes, there will be singing. Park is in the virtual studio with me to tell us about what it was like living and working abroad in the before times, how she and her collaborators hope to make Millie a show for everyone, and why she thinks Darren Star is a lot like Steven Sondheim. Hi Ashley, thanks for joining me.

[1:31] Ashley Park: Hi, hi Gordon.

[1:33] Gordon Cox: You had finished up Grand Horizons just a couple of weeks before the pandemic. I believe we were maybe S and Laura Linney, love her. Um were the last two shows to have an official closing on Broadway before everybody shut down. And how was the experience of working on Grand Horizons? Did you enjoy it?

[1:50] Ashley Park: Oh my gosh, the best. It feels like a fevered dream now, you know. Um, also because we all got very sick during it. But um it no, it's just sick, just normal sick. I mean, I don't want to start any rumors or anything like that. I I've never had a flu that bad in my life, and neither did you know, but what's what's crazy is actually the two people who um didn't get whatever illness was going around backstage was James Cromwell and Jane Alexander, the two 80-year-olds. So uh yeah, they are strong as ever. But um, Grand Horizons was just the the greatest gift. And I, you know, I started with it at Williamstown um last summer, and um you know, it was my first play that I've ever done straight play, and um I throughout this that past year, I I felt feel like I really came into my womanhood personally as well. Um so it was a really fascinating role to play. And also the last thing I played on Broadway was it was a high schooler, you know.

[2:49] Gordon Cox: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Uh if you enjoyed being in a straight play, you know, without the musical elements.

[2:56] Ashley Park: Oh, I loved it. I loved it so much. And you know, it's it's funny. Um I well, you know, I I think a lot of people when I did this play were like, oh, do you like singing or dancing or acting better? Do you like one or the other? And I feel like for me, what I love about musicals is you know, for me, there's no singing or dancing without the acting, it's always the storytelling first. Um, and so I think I found uh I hesitate to use the word freedom, but I found a lot of freedom in doing a straight play, and especially one that is it was only seven people on the stage, and the most people that were in the scenes that I was in were five people, and you're with you know, some of them like the most magnificent actors, and I just learned so much.

And you know, to really that play was based on the relationships and like the growth of the people in it, and not really based on any like exterior forces really. So um I it made me really excited to do a musical again now with like this new tool set that you know, Bess Wool and that Lee Silverman, like she really helped me grow. I I I told her one day, I was like, I feel like I owe you and like everybody in this cast, I might have said this to everybody. I was like, I feel like I owe you guys tuition for like my master's degree in acting because I really just did learn so much while doing it, and I felt very honored to be able to be entrusted with this Invest Wools probably debut too. So it was just the best.

[4:20] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And then you were all ready to do another musical. Um, Thoroughly Modern Millie was supposed to happen in May, and that of course, you know, nothing happened in May. So um but that was the thing that all of us were, I think, really looking forward to, not only to see you in the role, but also just to see what you and your collaborators would do with this, including Lorne Yee, who was taking a look at the script. Like, what were you guys gonna do with the show that has some like problematic elements in its source material that needs to be dealt with, right?

[4:48] Ashley Park: Yeah, yeah. I was um I was actually just on the phone with Lear de Bessanay, oh yeah, who was gonna direct it, yeah. And it um she's gonna be the new um artistic director of Encourse. Right. Um, it was kind of her launch into it. And um, you know, we hadn't talked in a few months. And I'm first of all, thank you so much for saying that. I I found it was interesting at the beginning of all this. I was very much the person who was like, Oh, guys, this is very serious. We're gonna postpone this, right? We're postponing this. And I feel like a lot of people were like, Oh, Ashley, I'm so heartbroken for you. And what really moved me the most was how much so many people um were bummed that they weren't gonna be able to see it, or you know, so many people were excited about this production of it and so that's what made me um sad was not that I was not gonna I think you know I I have full confidence that we're gonna be able to do this production in some way because the changes that we were making were really really um really profound I think and and interesting because you know I we had a couple of meetings um just pre like table work and stuff just with um me and Lauren Yee and Janine and Dick and Lear um Dick Scanland and Janine Tessor and also how crazy that you know I I grew up listening to that CD like right in my car in high school I wore it thin I think and I just still geek out that they are so they were so they are so willing to make this a show that that so like everybody can do right now you know so anyway so I just remember sitting at that table and when I was talking to Lear last week I was like you know what especially with all that's happened and all the different chapters with this quarantine that was a very clear example for me way before anything came to the surface um of true allyship and true because things were being brought to my attention that I didn't even realize that I had become um uh numbed with or like a little complicit in definitely just in ways that they are handling certain like sexist and racist things in this show, you know.

[7:02] Ashley Park: And so I I like for example, one of the big things was the one of the first things they said was, you know, this is not a colorblind Millie. And I was like, wait, what? But it is. You can't are we are we looking at each other? What's what's up? I'm gonna like, no, this is we wanna do um it was the first time I had thought of color conscious casting. So, you know, me, my debut was Mama Mia, and then I did Cinderella, and you know, so many shows when I was coming into this industry when I graduated from college were colorblind casting was like the big thing, you know. And I was like, Oh my gosh, how amazing we've like knocked down this like huge wall where it's like you the colorblind means there is no color, there is no race, everyone's one thing, or you're blind to it.

And what they were saying is, Millie, I'm gonna be a Korean American woman in the 1920s, trying to move to Manhattan, and we're not gonna be blind to what that exper what how that shapes Millie's experience. You know, and so um I do believe that like we're actually going to be sharing a lot of the the the small things that we um but I mean I I'm such a geek when it comes to this stuff with like book work and um delving into a script and a character and you know, why would she say this or why would she they say that? Or you know, if she comes into this hotel and there's two other Asian people there, are they not gonna be like, hey, what's up? What kind of Asian are you? You know?

[8:25] Gordon Cox: You mentioned that you were familiar with Thoroughly Modern Millie even before all this, and had it struck you as racist or problematic before this?

[8:34] Ashley Park: Um you know, I did it in high school. Um it was the show that I What world did you play? Did you play Millie?

[8:41] Gordon Cox: I played Millie.

[8:42] Ashley Park: Yeah, right. Um, and you know, when Lear approached me about this new concept of Millie and about me playing the part, I asked her, I was like, Did you know that I played this in high school? It was three months after I was um released from the hospital after my cancer treatment. So it was kind of my um and where was high school for people who don't know?

[9:03] Ashley Park: Um Ann Arbor, Michigan at Pioneer Theater Guild was my public high school's theater program. Um, you know, I wore wigs made out of my own hair that my cancer treatment, you know. And so I in that that role for me, you know, after through that experience was kind of when I was like, oh, you know, and as I reflect on it now, that was when I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. Um I love leaving behind this sick person that I am right now and putting on a wig and putting on some tap shoes and like being another person. And there's you know, the reason we all love Millie so much, and when Sun Foster played her too, there's nobody with that much gumption and that much, you know, ambition, but like heart and everything.

And so I felt like it was just such a release, and I um so that that was really kind of my path into recognizing that it's something that I wanted to do because I didn't even know what Broadway was in high school. I really thought Broadway was like a building that like shows did stuff in like I had no concept of and you know, it was just something and I loved musical theater so much starting in middle school that I figured that it's definitely not work because it's so fun. So I had no idea, you know.

[10:14] Ashley Park: So anyway, so I had familiarity with the the part, and it's interesting what um you know, Dick and Janine explained. Um, not that they were making any excuses, but they were saying, you know, when they originally wrote it, it was for a New York audience, and they made the end, you know, Mrs. Mears is an antagonist. Like she's there's no redeeming quality better. She's a bad person, and she's come to that for some reason. But um, and so if she's doing Yellow Face, their reasoning was that that's bad, that's not good. And that's why they tried to put in two characters who were of Asian descent. One of them who ends up being a love interest at the end, you know.

[10:54] Gordon Cox: Right.

[10:54] Ashley Park: There's a dog again. Um but so that was but then when she released these rights to high schools who were doing in what state in the middle of the state, you know, then you're perpetuating something without meaning to stuff. I mean, that was a conversation that was so that we are having already in such an in-depth and a very um sensitive way. And then, you know, the LM start, you know, so I'm so I'm so grateful for um those conversations and that are continuing to happen too.

[11:28] Gordon Cox: Yeah, well, we look forward to Millie when it uh when it happens.

[11:32] Ashley Park: Yeah, they definitely had a different take on what Mrs. Mears, all of that. It was gonna be very different, and I think I mean, you know, I we they we didn't get to announce the rest of the casting. That's what also was sad for me because I knew who the rest of the cast was gonna be. So it just felt like Ashley Park's milling was canceled. I was like, no, it was all about you know, and I want everyone to be excited about the people they cast, but yeah, right.

[11:55] Gordon Cox: Yeah. Um, let's talk about Emily in Paris. So, first of all, how long were you in Paris? Where did you stay? Who did what did you fall in love with? What what was it like?

[12:05] Ashley Park: Yeah, oh my gosh, it was it's so it's so fun to be able to talk about it right now because it was the time of my life, you know. Um what was interesting in talking about Grand Horizons earlier, was I did Grand Horizons in Williamstown.

[12:20] Ashley Park: I had no job lined up after that. I had bought a one-way ticket to meet up with my friend Jonathan, who I'm staying with in Italy. She was going there with her sister, and I was like, I'm gonna pack a carry-on, I want to go to Italy. I don't have the job lined up. It's fine because I had left Mean Girls at this point to do other stuff. And so, and I knew that by that point, Williamstown, we knew that we were doing the show later that year. Um, so I was like, Okay, I'll have a few months off. And then it was actually opening night of Williamstown that I'm gonna that Darren Star called me personally to talk about a couple of things with the character wasn't you know, um, and I was like, what is this happening right now?

What I like boarded, I constantly my life, you can ask everybody, I'm constantly like, am I being punked? Am I being punked? Like, even when I'm in a show, uh until we've done the cast recording, at any second, I'm like, I won't be surprised if you're like you're actually being punked, you're not actually retromuted right now. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's how I keep myself, you know, present insane. But anyway, so during the four months, right between Williamstown's Grand Horizons and then Broadway's Grand Horizons was my parents' time, and it worked out perfectly in that way. Um, and you know, that's what was so another fascinating thing about playing Jess in Grand Horizons in Broadway after was that I was coming back to the same character, but with a different actor playing my husband, a different actor playing my brother-in-law and my uh parents-in-law, and um, and I was a different person because I had just experienced four months.

I'd never I something I'd always wanted to do in college or you know, ever was study abroad, and because of um being sick in high school and stuff, it just never kind of panned out in a safe way. Um so I in Paris, I didn't realize until I went there, it was my first time ever there. And I was like, this is this, this is my soul sister city. I had no idea. Like my like everything in my life, everything about the things that I enjoyed, everything made sense. And what was interesting about this show was that I'm so excited for people to watch it because I think it's super genuine because our joke was that Emily and Paris, like at it was Ashley in Paris because everything that Emily goes through I was experiencing in real time, kind of um, which was so fun.

And you know, what another fun thing was that for me, um coming from the theater world and coming from you know, like I I cherish my friends so much, and it was also the first time that I had um I'm so grateful for the the way that my um jobs have lined up. But I I it was my first break from really doing it eight shows a week. Um and it was uh my first time really away from that Broadway bubble, but I was like, everybody that I know, if you've ever wanted a free Airbnb in Paris, you can come stay with me. Like I may be filming and may not be able to hang out, but you've a you you know, and I think it was Jesse Tyler Ferguson who at one point was like, Ashley, do you just have like a revolving door?

What's happening? Because I, you know, like I once I got and fell in love with the city, I wanted everybody I you know I love and to who I know to experience it, and it kind of turned the whole Emily and Paris casting crew into this like wonderful family. Um that I I guess is not as common in TV shows and films sometimes, just because of the way that sets work at everyone's different places, but um, that's all I know coming from theater. It's like we're all in a rehearsal space from 10 to 6 every day. Even if you don't have a scene with someone, you're in that same building with them four hours, eight times a week, you know? So like anyways, Paris is the best.

[16:06] Gordon Cox: I'll have more with Ashley right after the break.

[16:17] Gordon Cox: And now here's more with Ashley Park. And is the crew were the crew international as international as sort of the cast? Like was what was the the sort of backstage team like?

[16:28] Ashley Park: So everybody was French, except for me and Lily Collins and then the writers. Right. Um we had an amazing um writing team, and then um the directors, and everybody else, all of the crew was French. Um, which I loved, you know. One of my first lines in the show is you know, French people are so mean, you know. But I was like, I feel bad because the French people were so nice to me, you know. And um almost to the point where I was like, I should be better at French now. Also because I took it for like six years in like Millsville High School, but I you know, but I like they wouldn't even let me try French because everybody was trying to speak English to me, you know. But um they were just so lovely.

I will say though, like our first camera test me and Lily what and you know, they were pointing the cameras at we were in our first costume, they were testing lighting and stuff on us, and then they said action, and then someone was like, Okay, say coupe, coupe. And I was like, Coupé asn' I hadn't heard that since ballet, and I mean I was like, Oh my gosh, are you guys gonna be saying like everything in French? Because I'm not gonna like stop acting. Like, can you are you guys gonna say cut and action? Like, I'm not gonna know. So that was like a fun little you know, but I'm that's what I'm saying. That's such a thing that like Emily would have experienced too. Right.

[17:50] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. Um you mentioned Darren Star, who is I mean, kind of a big deal, right? Like he the hugest deal. He created more than one sort of generation generationally important TV show. And I'd sort of forgotten this. Like, yeah, he's the Sex in the City guy, which we all sort of think of him as. But back when I was in high school, a little show called Beverly Hills 90210 was coming out, right? And then younger, more recently, like was did you know his work and is it did it feel personally meaningful to you at all to be working with him on one of his projects?

[18:22] Ashley Park: Oh my gosh, of course. I mean, sex in the city, you know, I Darren really shaped how an entire generation of women like I I didn't even know like what New York City was like, or like what different kinds of relationships were like, you know, like especially um like me and Lily, like our age of girls, like came up being like, Oh, those are the that's what a woman is, or like that's what a woman goes through, like what is and you know what I love about Darren's work too. Um, I mean i is you know, I I kind of call him and nobody else will get this reference, but you is like the song time of TV writing. What I find so prolific about the sondheimes work, especially when it comes to women writing for women, is um the just the nuance and the complexities and the flaws he gives women in order to like be able to shape these amazing characters and have them actually find themselves or find somewhere to go, you know, and I think that Darren does that for his female characters, he doesn't write what women should be and shows them what they should be doing.

Um, but allows for these characters to find growth and like discovering the kind of woman they want to be or like what they could be. Um, and I'm really excited for this. I mean, I think that's what was so meaningful to me too, is you know, um you know, growing up sex in the city, I saw four white women and how they navigated a city. Um, and that still was so impactful for me to watch how women navigate their lives, and it really was profound to me. So I am so excited and honored that an entire generation of girls may, you know, grow up and kind of find their way the same time as Mindy and Emily do. Right. Um, but with someone who looks like me as an example for them, you know, kind of going through the the hardships and like the fun of Paris too um for them.

[20:23] Gordon Cox: Yeah. Yeah. And and you get to sing delightfully.

[20:28] Ashley Park: I know. Yeah.

[20:28] Gordon Cox: When is this coming out? Will the show already come out?

[20:30] Ashley Park: It's actually gonna come out. It will have come out. So uh Okay, great.

[20:34] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. Biggest that's like one of the top three secrets they want to see.

[20:38] Ashley Park: Oh, is that you sing, really?

[20:39] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah.

[20:40] Ashley Park: Yeah.

[20:41] Gordon Cox: Well, they're singing, yeah.

[20:42] Ashley Park: Yes, no, because it comes later, and and you know, what was I think that's what was so amazing too is Darren's so great at um he is is so good at making these colorful characters, but really writing for, you know, he he's so he's a master at casting, I think. Like when you see the show, every person is just perfectly c cast, but it's also kind of like a it's cyclical because they're also perfect because at a certain point the writers and Darren are kind of shaping the characters after the people they cast, you know.

[21:12] Gordon Cox: Um that was one of my questions, actually was how much did you have an opportunity to you know give input on who Mindy is and how she sort of evolved as after you were cast.

[21:25] Ashley Park: Right. Um well I think when I when I got the audition and everything there was only the only the pilot was yeah given to me and I didn't even get the whole pilot I think I think I just got my scene you know um and what I think and I think what it was is helpful in this part of the process in that part of the process is the fact that m a lot of the shows that I've done on Broadway were revivals and even Mean Girls I kind of consider a revival because it's a beloved character and you're kind of putting your own stamp on it. So for me I'm I never I I love being an like an actor that um directors and writers would love to work with you know like I I'm I mean that's part of what what's so sad about right now with the quarantine like I love collaborating so much. So for me whenever I come into a project with creators who are as smart and as experienced as Darren, you know I don't question them ever and I really trust them.

[22:18] Ashley Park: And um so for me like the first episode or two was really about understanding what their vision of the character would be and but in getting to know me even our first conversation over the phone there are certain certain attributes of the character and stuff that we were playing with at the very beginning um that I felt strongly about either way. You know so it was it was very very collaborative and I um the singing wise I um i you know that part comes in the second half of the show.

[22:50] Ashley Park: Yeah. And when I love and while I got a call from Darren after our first table reading, I was on my way to the camera test, and I had one of our drivers, they're all friends. Um her name was and I got a call from Darren Star's cell, and I was like, Oh my god, you know, I'm always thinking I'm punked. I'm like, here I am in Paris. We just dropped out of Avatar, we're going to my first camera test, and I'm tired.

[23:13] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[23:14] Ashley Park: He's going to fire me. So I literally said that to this French lady, and we weren't even like that close to it. I was like, I'm fired. And she was like, say quoi. And I was like, and so I picked it up, and you know, Darren, sweet, sweet, sweet man was like, hey, Ashley, I want to ask you the you know, as we are starting to think about the you know, other episodes, because I think we'd only they'd only really written the first block of them. Um he was like, would you mind if we wrote in singing for you? Because he had seen me in Mean Girls, and um, you know, I'm so grateful for that too, you know.

[23:47] Ashley Park: And and right away, I I think my heart like skipped it because I was like, oh my god, I would love I you know, I I love singing, I love expressing myself that way. But the one thing I did say was I was like, if it's story driven, yes. Like I don't want a gratuitous, oh they let Broadway Ash the Park sing a song. Oh, they you know, they cast her because she can sing that character had to sing. I was like, I I really and not even story-wise for the character, but if it's going to propel one of like her relationship with Emily, or really um, you know, singing, I think is the most vulnerable thing the performer can do.

[24:23] Ashley Park: Yeah, really, you know, it's your opening of a part of yourself that you have very a different kind of control on, and it's part of your heart, you know, you sing with emotion. So I was like, you know, I think that's it's part of the reason I I loved my song What's Wrong With Me and Mean Girls.

[24:39] Ashley Park: It was a musicalized part of the show where people were like, Oh, we're seeing more emotional, it's moving me in a different way than maybe the character might have without the song, you know, because it's just it's music. So I was like, if it can do that for the character, and if it could help the story in some way, I'm all for it. Otherwise, like I don't want to just be, you know, and um, you know, and watching the season back and stuff. I'm and especially now that I you know, when I first saw like the episode eight with the chandelier and stuff, I because you know how many times have I performed. I was talking to my mom about this. Actually, I was like, you know, I've at this point I've so grateful that I've been able to perform for thousands upon thousands of live audience members, and like even like the King and I that I did at Lincoln Center, you know, I wasn't in the PBS broadcast epic because I didn't do it in London.

So those over maybe almost 500 shows that I did of that production, there's just no proof of it. And not that you need proof, and that's the beauty of theaters, everyone's there at that moment, and that's what you're doing. But I couldn't believe I'm about to get emotional right now thinking about it, but like you you can tell. I think when you see a movie or a TV show, you can tell when the people behind the camera and creating it love the person that they're kind of putting on the screen a little bit. Um, and the way that they filmed the singing stuff, and the way that they let me just be myself, um, and let Mindy be herself, and you you get to see I love it so much because the whole first part of the series is her kind of being Emily's pillar of support and having everything figured out.

She's a year ahead of her, you know, in terms of being in Paris and like laughs off everything with humor, is comforting, calls her out, all this stuff. But it's when she starts the singing storyline develops that you really see where she's hurting and like her journey that she has to do too. And Emily gets to help her with that as well. So I mean it's the most beautiful. I'm so touched the way that they filmed it and the way that they let me do that. And I'm so glad that my like grandma gets to see it, you know, like who wouldn't be able to if it was in a theater show, you know.

[26:49] Gordon Cox: And it seems like you uh have a regular role throughout the show in the first season, but it feels like by the end of the second season that uh Mindy is gonna be sort of even more of a regular presence.

[27:00] Ashley Park: Yeah, we were I'll never forget when we when we got this and we were reading the you know those that final scene or whatever when I move in and we were like it was actually Luca Bravo who plays uh Gabrielle, and he's like, I don't know what kind of mess we're gonna get into our neighbors, you know, because it's also funny because you know that like Mindy is off like sleeping with people, partying up with her other Paris friends, and this is just like a percentage of her, you know. But I love that it's kind of it's very synonymous to me and Lily, like we both had our own lives and our own friends and everything. And when we found each other, we're like, Oh, you fit you are exactly what I needed in my life and what I wanted, and like we we filled a part of each other's like heart and friendship in a way that like it's not that it was lacking ever, but we were like, Oh, I know exactly what you know where you belong in my life, and um I feel like that's the same with Emily and Mindy, like they have their own lives, but they they are so meant to be together and to be friends and sisters.

But yeah, I mean, what's hilarious too, like some behind the scenes is that like I I mean I don't even have scene, I don't have a single scene with Samuel Arnold. Um with like with any of the office people, I never meet them, and then with Gabrielle, I'm I and like Camille I have like maybe two scenes I was but I like Samuel and Luca literally like stayed in my apartment with me for the last month of shooting like we are all so close and we think it's so funny that we never had scenes together but that's such a that's the theater world you know.

[28:07] Gordon Cox: Right yeah yeah yeah um and so what are you able to work on anything now these days now as people start to think about kind of returning to work these days you know some movies are starting to go into production and TV and stuff what are are have you been able to work on anything or will you be able to coming up?

[28:46] Ashley Park: You know I've been kind of developing a couple series with some producer friends um and also just giving myself a break I don't think my you know it's interesting I I was towards the beginning of quarantine I was like you know what if I had done Millie at the time that I was going to be done I I would have absolutely done it given it my own like the adrenaline would have gotten me through the how room weeks of Encourse but I'm so I'm so excited to be able to do something with my body having been rested now. Like my my muscles I mean I I still have injuries from mean girls, you know and yeah so like I I think I've just been trying to be better about you know doing yoga and like reading and um really being mindful of like what the what is happening in the world um trying to get people to vote you know so like that's really where my focus has been and you know and of course there's always people, you know, we're all trying to, you know, it goes in waves of developing and stuff, and um, yeah.

[29:52] Gordon Cox: How do you what are your hopes for uh Broadway in the theater industry specifically after all this?

[29:58] Ashley Park: As you mentioned, there's so much going on right now, you know, with the the presidential election and the push for racial justice and all that stuff. What do you look forward to coming back?

[30:08] Ashley Park: I mean, I don't think there's gonna be a coming back in any way unless um we get Biden and Kamala in office, um like very seriously. But I um my hope is that, you know, to be very frank with you, I was feeling myself getting very, very drained from um the you know the plethora of like Zoom readings and it sounds ungrateful because I was so grateful to be asked to do you know various projects and you know, everyone's fine trying to find a way to continue art at this time. And I love that and I'm so inspired by that. But I found myself becoming personally drained and losing hope because I was like, are we because I believe that New Yorkers and artists and especially theater people are the most adaptable and the more they can find a way to do a huge show in a black box theater without any money, you know what I'm saying?

Like we we know how to get scraps and figure out a way to do it. And my I was starting to get sad because I was like, oh my gosh, are we gonna adapt and then it will never we're just gonna be okay with this? We're gonna be okay with doing musicals over Zoom and all of this stuff. You know, so and you know, for a couple things, you know, because I've I've been involved. I'm a make a wish ambassador now and I've been involved with a couple of treaties that I really care about throughout this time. Um, but some especially um some things that have asked for like performances, you know, or uh I found myself not being uh hesitant or wary to do them, but like I've maybe had like two meltdowns with Lee Silverman on the phone with me being like I j like her being like, I'm here, I'm gonna direct you.

Like I miss having a director I don't want to set up all I don't want to self-tape performances that are gonna go out there on the internet like for me I love interacting with people in person you know and that's even if that's not the case like I don't have to put myself in the position where performing would be hurtful for me you know right um so I think that like you know that I all of those people the directors the camera like I I hope that those jobs are not um kind of pushed aside and like um I'm I am hopeful for theater I think that there was a lot of archaic systemic parts in every facet of the theater especially commercial theater because you know everywhere I've been actually like you know the the family that I'm staying with they're part of this um community theater um in Thousand Oaks the Caneo players and like just the that feeling that we all had as like kids and then community theater and paying to go to college just to like learn more about theater like that magic um sometimes the only place where sometimes that is lost a little bit is in the commercial theater so and I'm hopeful that that won't be the case and that but also like all of the things that you know there has to be there has to be um changes made especially in terms of racial inequality and all of this one thousand percent but these changes like have to be implemented like in like in living time and in person with things.

You know, I I feel s I feel for all the you know a lot of theaters I think right now have um hired especially women of color to be in big positions and I you know I you know I'm and I'm I'm very hopeful for all of that but I'm also like damn you're gonna make these women do this when it is when it's nobody wants to be in charge of trying to get a theater to stay afloat right now and it's gonna be their job and then it's gonna be their fault. I hope I hope and I think I I'm and I I think it is the case that they will be supported in this but so I'm I'm constantly hopeful and constantly like fired up. Um and I'm very very grateful that um I'm I'm just like I I can't believe that I get to be maybe a part of this conversation at this time and not that I have like a say or like a vo you know or or that people should listen to me but that um just in doing my work as best as I can maybe it gives people the tools the for the conversation and the actual changes that need to happen. You know yeah.

[34:25] Gordon Cox: Also looking ahead you've played if in addition to Millie are there musical theater roles that are on your list of things to play.

[34:34] Ashley Park: Oh gosh I am I'm attached to a few things but I don't know if I should be allowed to say that right now. Um well you can say you're attached you just might not be able to tell us what what I am yeah yeah attached to a few theatrical things I think my you know I did I enjoyed the medium of doing Emily and Paris so much um uh film and TV and um I I loved the specificity and technicality and there's no hiding you have to be genuinely there in your eyes, you know, and in a every part of it. And I I really I really enjoyed that, and I feel like I I learned from that and doing the playing. So I'm very personally interested in um continuing and maybe uh exploring like film opportunities and that because I I only think it'll help in um going, you know, going back to the theater as well.

Um, in my craft there. Um, but I if there was a musical, okay. So this is my like dream musical. I want them, not that I would do a movie musical again. But um, if they could do Miss Congeniality, the musical, and I could play Sandra Bowling's bar, because that's the best, and like Taylor Swift can write the music, or like Helen Park or something like that. Um, I would like that. That'd be fun for me.

[35:55] Gordon Cox: All right. Broadway, let's make it happen.

[35:58] Ashley Park: Yeah.

[35:59] Gordon Cox: Well, we look forward to seeing you in Millie and Miss Congeniality and whatever else.

[36:02] Ashley Park: Uh as long as I can keep making I like making people laugh.

[36:06] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[36:07] Ashley Park: And cry.

[36:08] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[36:09] Ashley Park: Um, well, thanks so much for talking to me, Ashley. It was great to chat with you.

[36:13] Ashley Park: Um, we'll talk to you soon.

[36:15] Gordon Cox: Thank you.

[36:16] Ashley Park: Thanks so much, Gordon.

[36:25] Gordon Cox: That was Ashley Park, now starring in the new Netflix series, Emily in Paris. If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, you can rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and you could subscribe and find past episodes there and on all the other pod places, including Spotify and on the Broadway Podcast Network, which is a great place to find more theater for Your Ears. I'll be back in two weeks with another new episode. Thanks for listening and see you soon.