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[0:00] Leah Walsh: Hi, and welcome to The Compass, the podcast documenting the struggles of life as an artist.

[0:05] Leah Walsh: I'm Leah Walsh.

[0:07] Leah Walsh: Hi everyone. Just to know before we get started, I'm gonna have the new website up for the Compass Podcast in the next couple weeks, keep an eye out for it. You're gonna be able to search all the episodes by different terms, such as dancer, composer, activist, parent, things you might be interested in that could introduce you to an episode that maybe you wouldn't have listened to initially. I'm really excited about it. It's taken a long time, but I'm gonna be glad to have it up and have a bit more of a web presence for the podcast. So thank you for your support and for checking it out.

[0:39] Leah Walsh: My guest today is Dillon Heape. Dillon is a wonderful actor and singer who I got to know when we did a reading together a couple years ago here in the city, but is actually a fellow University of Evansville grad after my time. Dillon is such a funny, thoughtful, and kind artist. They also happen to be sober like me, so I was eager to talk about some of that journey with them as well. Thank you, Dillon, for this candid conversation. It really made my week. And I hope you all enjoy the 140th episode of The Compass.

[1:21] Leah Walsh: What do you do to try to keep from going to the dark side as an artist?

[1:27] Dillon Heape: Oh, the dark side. Um, what is that most often for you?

[1:33] Dillon Heape: I think the dark side can take different forms for me in my life. Um, I think in general, what I do to try to avoid going there is I just try to stay really busy. I try to be busy always. Um, you know, if I'm not working or if I'm not rehearsing for a project, I try to keep my calendar as full as possible. Um, you know, I'll have coffee dates with friends, I love to go see French shows, I meet with my book club, I see plays and movies, I try to be out and about, you know, out on the town and staying and feeling connected to people. I think I function best when I'm really busy, and I will always feign, you know, exhaustion or exasperation, but I think really I'm happiest when I'm busy and sort of moving from one commitment to the next.

[2:36] Dillon Heape: Um, I think the dark place tries to sneak up on me in times when I'm not busy, when I don't have a lot to do, you know, my anxious mind will start to take over the narrative in my mind, you know, voices will come up saying, "What are you doing? Why aren't you out doing something? Why aren't you busy? Why aren't you working on something? Why aren't you making something? Why aren't you on a date? Why aren't you out being social?" And it's, I think it can be easy for me to let those voices take over. Um, you know, it's kind of amazing how easy it can be sometimes to let that narrative take control. And so I just in general try to not make space for that. You know, if my life is full, if I'm feeling full, if I'm feeling busy, if I'm feeling grateful for the people around me and the things that I'm, you know, the spaces I'm invited into, um, I can avoid I think a lot of that. Um, and you know, I think it's important to acknowledge that I don't always successfully stay out of the dark place.

[3:57] Dillon Heape: Yeah, of course, you know, it's like a sort of a constant effort. Um, I'll find myself in a period where bad habits are kicking in or maybe even self-destructive habits either just, you know, circumstantially or maybe indicating a sort of pattern. And I think that that's usually a sign that there's something going on, like maybe a self-worth issue or something that's kind of been triggered or activated or like a body image thing or something.

[4:30] Dillon Heape: Yeah, and that's usually a sign to me that I need to take a step back, maybe engage in some self-care, you know, do what I need to do to make sure that I'm focusing on taking care of myself and not succumbing to the narrative. Yeah, um, but you know, it'll be a practice for the rest of my life. Have you been aware of going to the dark side, whatever that means to you, for a long time in your adult life, or do you feel like it's been something that, um, like kind of since graduating from school has kind of been more of a reality once you joined the profession of being an actor?

[5:17] Dillon Heape: That's an interesting question. I've been an actor for a long time. I have. I've been an actor.

[5:21] Leah Walsh: But once you entered into like the—I'm just curious, like once you entered into the commerce part of it.

[5:27] Dillon Heape: Sure. I mean, I think in terms of my awareness of the dark side, it has come just in terms of the timeline of my life. It has come since my entry into the profession, the business. But I don't necessarily think it was my entrance into the business or, you know, the struggle to be a working actor in New York City that made me aware of what the dark side was or what that meant to me. I think I've been on a journey lately that has, you know, it's been a journey of self-discovery that's kind of come about, um, just in terms of my life as a whole.

[6:16] Dillon Heape: It's had a lot to do with my mental health journey. It's had a lot to do with my journey discovering and stepping into my queerness. Um, and those are all just things that, you know, started simmering up to the surface and making themselves known as I rounded the corner to 30, you know. Um, people talk about this a lot, how you—how difficult it is to make it as an artist, to make it as an actor, as a performer of any kind, especially in a city like New York. And I agree that it is difficult, but I can't say that I blame the business or the commerce of it all for my own struggle.

[7:03] Dillon Heape: I mean, I think it's been good for me that it's been so difficult up to this point. Yeah, because you know, you sort of feel like you've been put through the ringer in many ways, you know.

[7:16] Dillon Heape: And you survived.

[7:17] Dillon Heape: And, and you survived. Yeah, I survived. And it's amazing to sort of—I mean, it's not like I'm not famous or anything. I'm not rich. It's not like, you know, it's not like things happen overnight and I'm magically on some other side of some wall, you know. But I do feel like I've been on a journey specifically in the last couple of years that's opened my eyes to a lot of the things in life that are really important, um, what's important to me. And those learning those things about myself informs my trajectory as an artist.

[7:54] Dillon Heape: Yeah. And that's just sort of a necessary journey, you know.

[7:57] Leah Walsh: Yeah, especially when there's such big fundamental parts of yourself.

[8:02] Dillon Heape: Yeah, yeah.

[8:02] Leah Walsh: That's amazing. Where did you grow up?

[8:05] Dillon Heape: I grew up in a little town called Ducoyne, Illinois, uh, which is a little farm town in rural southern Illinois. Um, and I always say Southern Illinois because if I just say Illinois, people assume Chicago, and I'm not—I'm from 300 miles south of Chicago. So it's like it's not anywhere near Chicago. It's kind of its own little armpit of the Midwest.

[8:32] Leah Walsh: And so when you went to college at Evansville, you weren't going too far away.

[8:36] Dillon Heape: I wasn't. I wasn't far at all. I was only about two hours away from home.

[8:39] Leah Walsh: Oh, that's not bad at all. And did you—how was your time there? Did you enjoy it?

[8:43] Dillon Heape: In Southern Illinois?

[8:45] Leah Walsh: In, uh, Evansville.

[8:46] Dillon Heape: I did enjoy my time in Evansville. Um, I mean, I can't say I enjoyed the town of Evansville or the state of Indiana. But my time on the University of Evansville campus was time very well spent. I made the people who are my dearest friends in this life, in this world, or people I met. Yeah, um, there are people I met in my first day at Evansville remain, you know what I mean? Or some of them really is a unique place.

[9:21] Dillon Heape: It is in that way. It is. I had a really special time there. I learned a lot. I, you know, just in terms of what we were just talking about, sort of waking up to your own self-actualization. I was just a know-nothing kid. You know, I suppose we all are when we're eighteen and we're going away to college, but like I didn't—I look back on that time like, God, I really didn't know anything. I didn't know anything.

[9:51] Dillon Heape: Um, there's a part of me—I talk about this all the time with friends. There's a part of me that really wishes I could experience my undergraduate and my graduate educations again because I think I would approach the work in a much more curious, hungry way. No, we can't the same way in some ways, but of course, like you can only experience it from where you are at the time. And thankfully, you know, I had amazing teachers there who I learned—I mean, it's not even acting projects that I think of most frequently when I'm thinking about what I did at Evansville. It's building costumes and, you know, stage managing and of course acting and doing the shows that we did. Um, but yeah, I just—I'm so grateful for the well-rounded theater education I got there and also the broader liberal arts education. I'm—I remain convinced that that's one of the smartest decisions I ever made.

[10:56] Leah Walsh: And what does your family think about you choosing the path of an artist?

[11:03] Dillon Heape: I think they—I think my family masks a lot of their fear, a lot of their anxiety about it for my sake, which I'm grateful for.

[11:14] Leah Walsh: Do you have a large family, a small family?

[11:15] Dillon Heape: I do have a big family. I have a pretty big family. I mean, I'm one of only two kids, but I, um, gosh, when I was born, all four of my grandparents were alive, and six of my eight great-grandparents were alive.

[11:28] Dillon Heape: Oh wow.

[11:29] Dillon Heape: And all lived within a ten-mile radius of my home. I mean, I have a photo of myself on my third birthday, surrounded by my ten living grandparents, which I mean to be able to say that now just feels extraordinary. At the time it was just, you know, it's my life, it's my childhood.

[11:46] Leah Walsh: That's amazing.

[11:47] Dillon Heape: But you know, my family are all farm people, so a lot of, you know, families were having kids at young ages, and that's just sort of who my grandparents are, my aunts and uncles, my parents. Um, and so yeah, my mom has a sister and my dad has two sisters, and so I had aunts and cousins around, you know, my age as well, and we all grew up in the same town. So I do have a big family. Um, they have always supported my being an actor. I mean, I was in plays, you know, there wasn't theater or art to speak of really in my town when I was growing up, but there was a community theater, um, half an hour, about 45 minutes away, just a little community college in the middle of a cornfield, literally.

[12:43] Dillon Heape: And a little company called the Pyramid Players did musicals and sometimes plays there every summer and always for kids. And so I grew up, you know, I was a solid decade of doing a musical every summer, which, you know, feels like an opportunity that I was certainly very, very lucky to have given demographically where I was.

[13:06] Dillon Heape: Um and it wasn't, you know, it's it's not like it was really, really high quality work, but it was it was theater that was taken seriously by people who sort of came from all over Southern Illinois. You know, people were traveling sometimes upwards of an hour to get to rehearsals every day, depending on where they were coming from. Um, and in that way it was just sort of this really special community of people, you know, putting on The Music Man and Bye-Bye Birdie and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and you're learning what it is to work as a team as a community.

[13:44] Dillon Heape: Yeah, and the people directing the shows and doing all of that legwork, they were all teachers, you know, they were all high school or middle school um drama teachers, music teachers, and it was just also a venue for, you know, teachers teaching in those mediums in public schools to come together and give kids a summer opportunity, and that also that aspect of it feels really special.

[14:14] Leah Walsh: Were you in 4-H?

[14:14] Dillon Heape: No, I wasn't in 4-H. I don't I don't know that we had 4-H.

[14:19] Leah Walsh: It's a big thing in Michigan where I grew up.

[14:21] Dillon Heape: Really? I mean I've heard of it, but I in high school, by the time I got to high school, then you know, we were doing plays and stuff at high school. A lot of times my friends and I taking you know, taking charge and putting them on ourselves, um, because we didn't really have a drama department to speak of. I mean, it's just a small public high school.

[14:43] Dillon Heape: Um but we did have organizations. I mean, I was a member of the Future Business Leaders of America.

[14:49] Leah Walsh: Look at you.

[14:50] Dillon Heape: FBLA. Uh and you are indeed running your own business now.

[14:54] Leah Walsh: Of your uh I am yourself as a I am.

[14:57] Dillon Heape: I suppose I am answering a business leader of the future as fate would have it.

[15:07] Leah Walsh: And then you went to grad school in San Francisco at ACT.

[15:10] Dillon Heape: I did, yeah.

[15:11] Leah Walsh: Right after Evansville?

[15:12] Dillon Heape: Right after Evansville.

[15:14] Leah Walsh: That must have been exciting.

[15:15] Dillon Heape: I love San Francisco. San Francisco is an incredible place. Living there changed my life for the better. Going to ACT changed my life for the better. But again, to bring it back to what we were talking about, like I uh I didn't I rolled up to grad school at age twenty-two and didn't I had never had sex. I didn't know I had never really dated. I was like a doe-eyed virginal, know nothing kid, basically just off, you know, I had been to college and also studied abroad, but you know, aside from that one semester spent traveling Europe, which also just feels like a totally magical, like surreal dream chapter of my life. Um aside from that, I you know, I went to college just relatively a few miles away from where I grew up.

[16:10] Dillon Heape: In a in a small city, like Evan part of what makes Evansville so or the University of Evansville is so special is that it is such a small school. Yes, it's like one square block.

[16:19] Leah Walsh: Right.

[16:19] Dillon Heape: It's very intimate in that way. It's like an incubator. You don't feel there was there's nothing about moving to Evansville, even for someone who came from a small town like me. I mean, there was nothing about moving to Evansville that felt like moving to a city. And it's not like a giant campus, like a big state school or something.

[16:36] Leah Walsh: No.

[16:36] Dillon Heape: Yeah. So yeah, the move to San Francisco was a big, a big move. And it was a move to arguably the queerest place in the country. I think certainly that meant more to me at the time than I even really registered. But the my training at ACT just profoundly opened up my life in so many ways. I mean, you know, graduate acting school is in some ways the same no matter where you go. It's it's the work is about opening yourself up and exploring and examining and excavating your deepest emotional self. You know, what's what's in there that that you've never perhaps really um poked at before.

[17:32] Dillon Heape: And there was a lot of poking for me. And um, and I had teachers who held me with such care and such thoughtfulness and such love. And I look back now and I know, I just know that they were looking at me those three years like he he doesn't know shit. But he will one day, and we want to we want to just love on him as much as we can. I mean, that's that is what my graduate experience feels like at this point in my life. Because in a lot of ways I was still not on my journey to self-actualization yet in any sort of real active way.

[18:21] Dillon Heape: In fact, it was during grad school, it was toward the end of my first year at ACT that I started drinking really heavily and just sort of regularly, and without realizing it, I'd sort of fallen into a bad habit of drinking a lot of beer a lot of the time. Um that ultimately became a habit, and it was just sort of like a I didn't I didn't think much of it at the time, but it was sort of like a self-medicating habit I'd fallen into, and I look back and it was sort of it seems very clear to me now that my drinking that started in grad school was a response to a lot of the emotional poking, you know, a lot of the the opening up of parts of myself that I had not encountered before, and I think I was experiencing a sort of um bewilderment and probably like quite a lot of pain that I didn't otherwise know how to handle and had never really had to have any sort of um mechanism to deal with before and yeah, I started I started drinking and and it just sort of became the way that I got through my day and the way that I got through my week and the way that I got through my semester, yeah, the way I got through the year.

[19:49] Dillon Heape: Um which can seem pretty normal when you're at that age, at least I know for me at the time. I I never really drank that much at Evansville, and then because we we have this in common that we're both sober now. But I think maybe because I didn't really drink in college when I did start, I was kind of like, well, this is what adults do. This is what it's like. This is what people might do. Not only people our age, but also people in our profession. I mean it's it's quite common for artists.

[20:27] Leah Walsh: Oh yeah.

[20:27] Dillon Heape: Oh yeah. It's and it's not just our profession, it's uh uh the culture of alcohol specifically is such a raging, rampant culture in our society. It's something that's so easily enabled, it's easily commercialized, it's it's it's everywhere, you know. I still to this day I walk down streets and see sandwich boards outside restaurants and bars that say like soup of the day is bourbon, and I'm like, how is it actually possible that that that you're allowed to say that you know it's it's come into even clearer focus for me now that I have a baby because there's this whole other wing of it that's like mommy juice, mommy needs her wine, mommy to like deal with your kid. Rosé all day. Weirdly that's just weirdly predatory too.

[21:21] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[21:21] Dillon Heape: I know. It's crazy. Well, and don't get me started on rainbow capitalism and all of the brands of vodka that were in rainbow bottles. It's just excessive and crazy.

[21:33] Leah Walsh: Um, so that started when you were in grad school. And then um you've been sober for several years now, right?

[21:42] Dillon Heape: Uh just celebrated two and a half years.

[21:44] Leah Walsh: That's awesome.

[21:45] Dillon Heape: Thank you. Um how has your how did you find when you did become sober, how did you find it affected your acting or the way that you were approaching the anxieties that can come with your career?

[22:01] Dillon Heape: You've That is a great question. That like transition from using one coping mechanism to another.

[22:08] Dillon Heape: Well, I think for starters, I wasn't working on much artistically at the time that I got sober. Um I was very much in a period you know, this is just a couple years ago now, um, where I was just sort of surviving in New York City, working jobs that I hated, working jobs that just you know, sucked my soul and my sense of self-worth right out of me daily, and that's just sort of the space that I was existing in. And that is that's when my drinking got the worst, first of all. Um, and so the impetus to get sober kind of came out of this period of like I'm not doing anything that that is rewarding to me. I'm not living a joyful life. I'm living this sort of miserable life. I was I was working in a restaurant, I was bartending, and I and that's just its own, like completely enabling environment that's just awful.

[23:13] Dillon Heape: Um and so I yeah, I had gone, I mean, I had done plays, I had done plays here in the city, and I had worked on things when the drinking was still bad, and um, and sort of the last project I worked on when I was still drinking was this play that I was so lucky to be a part of. It was a world premiere. It was I had been part of every phase of this process since the first draft of the play was ever read. It was just randomly cast in this project, and then they the playwright and the director kept asking me back for workshops, and then there was this production, and it was a world premiere. And I was um I was playing this role that was essentially, you know, had been created my performance of this role wound up in the world premiere production of this play.

And I should have been on top of the world. One of my best friends was playing my sister in this production. It was this amazing ensemble of people. It was it was so good, and I was showing up drunk to work, you know, and just thought nothing of it because I had done that for years.

[24:34] Dillon Heape: But there was I would I would go and sit at a bar on the lower east side and like drink a pitcher of IPA before I would show up for my half hour call. And that was just like my reality. And that show happened and it everything was fine because I was pretty high functioning. But it was after that project that I really had this sort of reckoning with myself and had this aha moment. Like, you know, realized I was an alcoholic and was it was almost like I had this sort of epiphany, like the sort of near the closest thing I've ever had to like a genuine religious experience, honestly, where I sort of saw um the circumstances of my life and the things that have happened to me and the the things that I've felt and the things that I've had to endure and the the sort of pain that I'd squelched as a as a queer person and sort of all of those things just sort of like lined up in my mind, if you can imagine like a like a like you see the planets coming into alignment or something, and I I realized, oh I'm an alcoholic.

[25:45] Dillon Heape: And I just flipped the switch. Right then and there. And I haven't had alcohol since then. But it's not like things just changed overnight, you know what I mean? After that, I was in therapy at that time. Um I was also working this job that just made me want to murder everybody I encountered.

[26:13] Leah Walsh: Still at the restaurant?

[26:14] Dillon Heape: No, I quit the restaurant. I quit the restaurant because they were um it was not a queer friendly workspace. So I got out of there, but I had also at that time been working this administrative assistant job. Um and it was just an equally kind of hostile work environment. And but I kept that job because it was paying well, and um I wound up like leaving New York City for a while after a bit, and I went and stayed with a friend in Connecticut and just like got out of the city. Um all that to say, like it took time. It's not like I got sober and then, you know, after a month of no drinking, I felt like, oh I'm better now.

[26:51] Leah Walsh: Right.

[26:56] Dillon Heape: Uh it was like a year into my sobriety probably before a lot of this happened and I left town for a bit. Um I about a year or so into not drinking, I was feeling worse than I'd ever felt before. And like I was having headaches and I was uh my vision was blurry and I was crying all day every day, and I was like I felt physically sick and I just was having difficulty like showing up and meeting my life and it made no sense to me because I was like, I quit drinking, I shouldn't.

[27:33] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[27:34] Dillon Heape: What the hell is going on? What do you want me to do?

[27:37] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[27:37] Dillon Heape: And I went to the doctor and my doctor was like, Okay, well, your depression's really bad. What are you doing about that right now? And I was like, sorry, my what? My di did you say depression? He was like, Yeah, your depression. I was like, I'm not doing anything about that. I didn't know I had it. And he was like, Okay, well maybe we'll get you on a prescription to take care of that. And then what about your just from talking with you? Just yeah. About how you were feeling physically.

[28:02] Leah Walsh: Um about my physical symptoms, yeah.

[28:05] Dillon Heape: Wow. And then he was like, and then what are you doing about your anxiety? And I was like, sorry about that little dog, guys. We're just gonna keep on going. I'm just gonna keep trekking.

[28:15] Leah Walsh: Sounds like a happy dog.

[28:16] Dillon Heape: Yeah, I also he a doctor, and then I wound up seeing a psychiatrist also, and they were like, Yeah, you have depression and anxiety, you're dealing with both of these things, and I had not been on any sort of regimen at all to take care of those things. And that was when I started to realize, oh, that's why I was drinking. I was self-medicating. That was I I was self-medicating with alcohol all this time, you know, when these heavier sort of feelings started coming up when I was in grad school, which is natural because that's what that training was about. But those feelings started coming up, and I without knowing it had started self-medicating these these two, you know, very distinct mental illnesses with alcohol, and a year into sobriety was dealing with the physical realities of not having anything in my system to tamper that experience.

[29:07] Leah Walsh: And so then it was a process of you know, getting on some medications, experimenting with with what medication at what dosage would help. Um just as a long process, that was a long process.

[29:21] Dillon Heape: Yeah. It really was probably uh at least a year of of trying a couple of different things. And I ultimately, you know, and I talked about this with my doctors too, but I didn't I don't want to be on medication, you know.

[29:32] Leah Walsh: Right.

[29:33] Dillon Heape: And I made that very clear. It can be daunting to be like, I'm gonna be on this for how many years.

[29:38] Leah Walsh: Yeah, I feel like you rely on it.

[29:39] Dillon Heape: Yeah. Um so we experimented with a couple different things, and of course that involves like, you know, you you have to try something for a couple of months to see if it really works. And I was on something for a while that alleviated the depression but did nothing for the anxiety, and so then we've added something, but then it felt like, oh, I'm on these two drugs now, and that's no good, and I don't feel the depression so much anymore. So what do we Yeah, it was about a year or so of that.

[30:03] Dillon Heape: Um and I wound up after about a year of that kind of experimentation, just on a very low dosage of one medication that that I'm still on, and that um I think ultimately, like in the next six months or so I'll probably wean myself off of. But um yeah, that was that was a i i I mean it it saved my life, truly.

[30:28] Leah Walsh: Yes.

[30:29] Dillon Heape: Jeez. Yes. I mean some, you know, just very smart, compassionate people who I've just wound up in the room with.

[30:37] Leah Walsh: Well, and you never know how, and I'm sure each doctor is different, but how holistic their view is or if they're just so focused on the physical stuff that they don't even think to I mean, I'm sure it's a part of their training to look for that stuff, but easy to put blinders on.

[30:37] Dillon Heape: Easy to put blinders on and easy just as yourself as a person to convince yourself that you're fine, that you don't need I would never in a million years have thought I have depression, you know. But but it was amazing to me how empowered I felt once I understood that. Once I understood that oh, this sort of slogging through life experience I've felt I've been having recently is not I mean, it's actually what's happening. I am sort of slogging through this um this illness that is not my fault and that many, many, many people experience and have dealt with and have ways of dealing with.

[31:35] Leah Walsh: Um, it was empowering to understand that and to and relieving to feel like, oh, I'm not dying. I just I need to seek a little bit of help and care, you know. I did other things too. I got into this incredible um group, cognitive behavioral therapy class. It was they called it a psychosocial um learning community through the actors fund.

[32:01] Dillon Heape: And it was just this um group of ten people in the entertainment industry who all of whom suffered from either anxiety or depression or both. Um we had to each be interviewed and evaluated and deemed clinically uh eligible. Um, and I got in and I just met and sat in a room for the first time with people like myself who were functioning, most of whom were functioning members of the entertainment industry who were also dealing with these sort of specters of mental illness, and that also was just so empowering. Just the simple, the simple reality of sitting at a table with people in such a way that we could say, like, we're all experiencing this, let's talk about it.

[32:50] Leah Walsh: And then it's not an illusion.

[32:52] Dillon Heape: Not an illusion. It's it's very real, and like I can see you sitting there, and I can see you sitting in your in your difficult day like mine, you know. That was amazing.

[33:04] Leah Walsh: How long was that program?

[33:05] Dillon Heape: That was an eight-week um program, and we met for like several hours every Tuesday morning or something. But uh a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed medical social worker who work at the Actors Fund led this group every week, and we learned like actual cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for dealing with anxiety and depression, and some of the tools I took away from that class were like it was it was amazing.

[33:33] Leah Walsh: That's awesome.

[33:34] Dillon Heape: Yeah. So yeah, lots of things. Good for you too for just finding resources.

[33:38] Leah Walsh: Yeah Actors Fund listeners, please look it up if you want to look it up. Go to the actors.

[33:45] Dillon Heape: They can help you with health insurance. I mean it's the Actors Fund is is an incredible is just a wealth of resources.

[33:52] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[33:53] Dillon Heape: I started your question was a long time ago. You asked me what was it like to perform after I was no longer self-medicating with alcohol and it's interesting you asked that because you know like I said this has just been a several years long process of of figuring out how I function um healthily or try to function healthily and about a year ago I got up on stage for the first time after sobriety and after up on stage in a real way.

[34:26] Dillon Heape: Like in something that wasn't a reading or you know an audition. I I was in a like a 10 minute musical as part of Shots Shots, the shots program the Amios Theater Company does where they generate new short plays every month. Um and I was asked to do a musical shots and it was a new short 10 minute musical about a kid from Iowa who rolls up into New York City for the first time and meets artists like him for the first time and lovely.

[35:01] Leah Walsh: Um, it was just this sort of like special little piece that fit me like a glove, and I did it, and without realizing that this was what was happening, I got up on stage and and was playing this character and allowing myself to be seen on stage by an audience completely sober, and it was the first time uh that I'd experienced that in memory, you know, everything I'd worked on in in grad school, everything I'd done in New York since moving here.

[35:40] Dillon Heape: I mean, it had I've been living my life under the influence of alcohol. And so being on stage and working on that project, I mean, I wasn't expecting it, but I had like an anxiety episode on stage. And I worked through it because friends in the audience said that they were none the wiser, and uh that was kind of astounding to me.

[36:00] Leah Walsh: But I'm crazy.

[36:01] Dillon Heape: Oh yeah, it's wild. What can be going on inside ourselves. Your nervous system, your central nervous system is like on red alert, and and you can manage to yeah, well, that's training. I feel like that's I I just I was like, I have to stay present. I just am here. I'm just here, I'm telling the story, I'm singing this song, I'm doing a scene with this person, you know. I just I stayed there.

[36:26] Dillon Heape: Um but all that to say that that happened, and shortly after that I booked um I booked a project that took me to Japan to tour Japan singing with a symphony orchestra for four months. That was right after that, and those experiences back to back were such profound things for me because I experienced um just being on stage and doing my work on stage and allowing myself to be witnessed without having medicated myself you know and that was a gift especially the Japan tour I mean just that experience in and of itself was so incredible from top to bottom and I still look back on it like I can't believe I got that job I can't believe that I did it I can't believe I returned.

[37:22] Leah Walsh: Well and just to be taken so completely out of your normal life.

[37:26] Dillon Heape: Yes. It was a gift. I mean it was a gift. But that short musical specifically crazy came back in a full-length version that I just did.

[37:37] Leah Walsh: What?

[37:38] Dillon Heape: And um it's called Metropolitan and it's the one that you've just been doing at that festival.

[37:47] Leah Walsh: How special.

[37:48] Dillon Heape: Yeah they wrote like a full length Tom Picasso and Mikey Rosenbaum the the writers wrote a full-length musical from that 10 minute piece we did together and they did a reading of it while I was in Japan that I couldn't be a part of. And then when I got back they were like hey we're thinking about getting this produced at the Fresh Fruit Festival this summer do you want to come do it? And it was this wild like full circle moment that I'm still sort of living in like right now because I just closed this festival show on Sunday um and I was thinking about it the other day. I was like when I was doing this short piece a year ago like that was the first time that I was on stage sober. And like that was a really special thing for me. And to get to you know come back and do this full-length production of what that piece had become at this point in my life playing these queer characters.

[38:43] Dillon Heape: Um, who I both of whom I was playing two characters and I just was in love with both of them. It was like such a special and like full circle, really sort of magical experience all around.

[38:54] Leah Walsh: Um, I'm so glad.

[38:56] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[38:56] Leah Walsh: That's incredible.

[38:57] Dillon Heape: What a bookend. Do you have any other artistic outlets that you're able to tap into when maybe you're not working as an actor or things are scarce?

[39:10] Leah Walsh: Obviously, you're a singer.

[39:12] Dillon Heape: I'm a singer. I that's a frustrating question. Or like hobbies or like things that keep you creative in some way.

[39:21] Dillon Heape: No, yeah, I'm frustrated by that question because it's I I do feel capable of a lot of different artistic things, and I don't always hold myself to doing them all the time. In the in the musical that I just did, my character wore this this there's a sequence where my character's wearing this ghostly sort of caftan, and I came at is it thundering?

[39:44] Leah Walsh: It's thundering.

[39:45] Dillon Heape: Where did that come from? It got very dark and rainy.

[39:48] Leah Walsh: Oh my gosh, it's crazy.

[39:49] Dillon Heape: Well, the dog has stopped barking, so um it's a very uh moody podcast.

[39:55] Leah Walsh: It is moody. I wish I hope they can hear the thunder.

[39:59] Dillon Heape: What was I talking about? My caftan. I made a caftan. I sewed this beautiful caftan for as a costume, and everybody was like, Where did you get that dress? And I was like, I made it.

[40:09] Leah Walsh: Do you have a sewing machine?

[40:10] Dillon Heape: I do. And my like friends, people I'm very close to didn't even know that that was a skill that I had, and I'm like, that's disappointing. It's disappointing that you don't know that that's because I don't do it enough.

[40:21] Leah Walsh: Right.

[40:21] Dillon Heape: Um, I love taking photos. I I think I have a uh a strong visual eye, but I don't own a nice camera and so I don't ever do anything beyond, you know, taking a snapshot on my iPhone and posting it on Instagram.

[40:38] Dillon Heape: Um, I do and I think where I'm at right now in my life is um I'm in a phase of of figuring out that I have to prioritize as many of my creative abilities as I possibly can on a day-to-day basis because I don't do that right now.

[41:09] Dillon Heape: I mean I support myself right now in a nanny job. I'm nannying for a family in Manhattan and it's great and I'm lucky to have the gig and in just in terms of of pay and benefits and things like it's really solid for me right now but I actually sort of made a deal with myself the other day.

[41:27] Dillon Heape: I was like I want this to be the last job like this that I have. I want to I want to spend the next year figuring out how to make money as a photographer how to make money uh stitching garments, making drag, how to make money editing video and and making online content.

[41:51] Dillon Heape: I mean there's so many things I want to do.

[41:53] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[41:53] Dillon Heape: And I've dipped my toes into all of those things but I haven't stuck with one or any combination of them for long enough to figure out how to make them you know you have to prioritize what how you spend your day-to-day time just to to live in this city and make money you know um and I've I've kind of reached I think I've sort of maxed out uh the energy I have to give to um money making endeavors that are not feeding me creatively um so yeah I wanna I'm I'm prioritizing that this is me this is me dear listeners telling you that I'm this is my goal for the next 12 months you want me to email you this episode once a month for the next

[41:53] Leah Walsh: I do if you could just if you could actually just just print me a transcript actually I'm gonna frame it in like a gold frame on my wall and look at it every day highlight just every once in a while I'll text you a voice memo of your own voice of your own voice saying your goal to see if it helps.

[42:55] Dillon Heape: Yes please be like deleting my number well we'll see where I am come July 2020 was we'll we'll see um well when we were first emailing about setting up this interview it was right in the middle of Pride and you were very busy you had a lot of events going on and the one I was hoping to like just touch on for a moment in particular was this one at the New York public library that our friend V Chet and his brother were involved with too I know.

[43:26] Leah Walsh: Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[43:27] Dillon Heape: That seems so amazing. It was amazing it was so special um I really wish I could have gone but baby things catch me kept me away.

[43:35] Dillon Heape: It was the first time I had ever gone to this event um has it gone on before well so the library after hours event is something that happens with some regularity.

[43:46] Dillon Heape: I think every like one Friday, every other month or so, the library has the New York Public Library at their main branch there. By Bryant Park there on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

[43:56] Dillon Heape: They do this big sort of event where they'll the library closes down for the night at six o'clock, and at seven they'll reopen the doors and they'll have all kinds of programming centered around a theme, something topical at that time of year.

[44:15] Dillon Heape: Um, and it's basically a party. There's there's any number of, you know, literary um events that might be happening, but then they've got a DJ and a dance floor and all of this stuff going on.

[44:26] Dillon Heape: So that event happens every now and then. I believe that this was the first time that they had done one, at least of this scope, um, in conjunction with Pride.

[44:38] Dillon Heape: And it was because the library had done this incredible exhibition called Love and Resistance, Stonewall 50, um, which was um just a big, beautiful exhibition of uh uh all kinds of queer history, but specifically centering around the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riot.

[44:59] Dillon Heape: So the library had done all of this work to set up this exhibition, and they had released a book. Jason Bauman had had edited this, they called it the Stonewall Reader, and Penguin published it, um, this anthology of all kinds of literature.

[45:19] Dillon Heape: Um, a lot of which was from pre-Stonwall era and then during and then after, and they'd prioritized, you know, they'd prioritized highlighting voices of queers of color and trans people, and um, you know, really doing a lot.

[45:39] Dillon Heape: The library was doing a lot of work with this exhibition and this book to sort of illuminate the narrative around the stonewall why the stonewall riots and and what we sort of um have experienced as the mainstream narrative of what happened um as part of that historical event.

[46:02] Dillon Heape: Anyway, they had this after hours event that was so amazing. They had a drag queen story hour, they they like I said, there was a DJ, there was a party, you could go tour the exhibition, and then we the part that Vichette's brother Surreya programmed was in the periodicals room, which is like the most gorgeous room I've ever been in.

[46:28] Dillon Heape: This big beautiful if you've never been there, go there. The periodicals room at the New York Public Library, this big like wooden sculpted gorgeous room.

[46:39] Leah Walsh: Oh, it's incredible.

[46:40] Dillon Heape: It's like Hogwarts.

[46:41] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[46:41] Dillon Heape: But like I would never have mysterious.

[46:43] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[46:44] Dillon Heape: And like I would never have thought to walk into the periodicals room. Like, what is what's a periodical I'm gonna look at? I don't know.

[46:50] Dillon Heape: So we were in there, and there were there's a group of about eight or so performers, and we were asked to read these bits of uh queer literature and ephemera, they called it, like some really obscure stuff, um unpublished works.

[47:12] Dillon Heape: Uh uh Lorraine Hansbury's notes to self. Uh I read Truman Capote's letters to his friend Andrew Linden.

[47:20] Dillon Heape: Um, there was uh there was this beautiful conversation between James Baldwin and um Lorraine Hansbury that Danye Love and Donna Lavinia Grace read that was just like had the room just explode.

[47:37] Dillon Heape: I mean it was so exciting because people were sitting, people came, you know, and people were it was like an hour and a half long and came in and out.

[47:42] Dillon Heape: Yeah, the whole idea is you come and you sit for a while and you hear a few pieces and then you go out to the bar and then you go up to the exhibition.

[47:47] Dillon Heape: I mean, it was very like casual, sort of moving moving parts. But our program was about an hour and a half long and it was so cool.

[47:55] Dillon Heape: The feedback was people were like, we can't believe we got to sit in a room and hear some of this stuff, you know, things that that were maybe never before read, you know, that the library had sort of dug up out of their archives of unpublished work.

[48:10] Dillon Heape: It was just really, really cool. And a friend of mine who came to see it was said, you know, I I was sort of struck as I was sitting here listening that I had never experienced such an evening of deliberate historical queer storytelling.

[48:28] Leah Walsh: And it occurred to me that I had not experienced something like that either.

[48:35] Dillon Heape: No, no. I did they make an audio recording of your performance?

[48:39] Leah Walsh: No.

[48:41] Dillon Heape: I know that there was a photographer there, but I'm not sure if they filmed it.

[48:44] Dillon Heape: I don't know. I would if if that exists, I would love to have my hands on it.

[48:48] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[48:48] Dillon Heape: If the library's listening. That sounds amazing.

[48:52] Leah Walsh: I really wish I could have been there.

[48:53] Dillon Heape: It was very cool. It was very special, and I frankly can't I was it was amazing to be asked to be in that room.

[48:59] Dillon Heape: I'm so grateful to Vichat and his brother Surreya for that experience. My dear one of my dearest friends in the world, one of my friends who I mentioned was my friend on the first day of Evansville, Lee Leverton, was also one of the readers, and we were just like completely just we were just so delighted to have that experience together.

[49:21] Dillon Heape: It was really fun. Are are there any lessons that you've learned in the last couple years that you're really proud of that you want to tell me about large or small oh what a big question I think something that I'm focusing on recently is it I'm learning more and more every like literally with every passing day the importance of pursuing my personal truth and that means different things to me on different days at different times of day.

[50:05] Dillon Heape: But um like I said earlier it has as much to do with my mental health journey as it has to do with my journey as a performer as it has to do with my journey as a queer person just tuning in to the little signs that I that if that if I'm listening I see and hear every day that are pointing me in the direction I need to be moving in.

[50:36] Dillon Heape: Moving through my mental health journey in the last couple of years has been, I mean it's that's been a daily practice of committing to following my truth and acknowledging realities about myself, about my day-to-day existence, about my family, about my past, you know things that you that I just have to grapple with that I have to um confront.

[51:09] Dillon Heape: And it's hard, it's always hard, but it's always worth it. When you get to the other side of whatever little confrontation you might be having with yourself, you know, you move through it and realize, oh thank goodness I thank goodness I did that, you know, following my truth as a queer person, staying committed to, and this is this is hard.

[51:30] Dillon Heape: You want to talk about the industry and how difficult the industry can make it to just exist.

[51:35] Dillon Heape: I mean, staying committed to like my constantly evolving sense of my gender expression.

[51:45] Dillon Heape: When I have to walk into a professional room, what does it mean when my agents want a headshot where my hair is not curly because they need to be able to submit me for more straight-laced commercial projects?

[52:02] Dillon Heape: You know, what does it mean when an employer, what does it mean for my life when an employer withholds a shift from me at work for wearing nail polish?

[52:17] Dillon Heape: Listening to myself in those instances, quitting that job, quitting that job immediately when they withheld a shift from me for wearing nail polish was like a really difficult thing to do, and also the easiest thing I've ever done.

[52:30] Dillon Heape: And I'm so grateful that I made that decision.

[52:33] Dillon Heape: But I had to really tune in and listen. Like, is it worth it?

[52:35] Dillon Heape: No, when you're looking at your bank account, no.

[52:38] Dillon Heape: Yeah. It would be very easy to just be like, I'm just gonna be quiet and like barrel through.

[52:43] Dillon Heape: Yeah, barrel through the thunder and all.

[52:46] Dillon Heape: I'm hoping this lets up.

[52:48] Dillon Heape: I know. I've got to like walk, I've gotta get home.

[52:51] Dillon Heape: That'd be a good excuse to get an Uber.

[52:55] Dillon Heape: I think that that's my overarching answer to your question.

[52:58] Dillon Heape: No, and it's an ongoing thing.

[53:00] Leah Walsh: That's yeah, it takes a lot of courage.

[53:03] Leah Walsh: Is there anything personal or artistic that I haven't asked you about that you were really looking forward to talking about?

[53:10] Dillon Heape: Since I obviously don't know all the ins and outs of creative life.

[53:14] Dillon Heape: No, I, you know, I'm working on right now, I hinted at this earlier, in terms of just like, you know, trying to explore and utilize all of my creative abilities and desires in my day-to-day life.

[53:32] Dillon Heape: I've up to this point identified pretty much always as an actor and a singer.

[53:41] Dillon Heape: And that's what my training is in.

[53:43] Dillon Heape: So I think that that is just a natural sort of path for me to fall into.

[53:48] Dillon Heape: But I'm starting to realize that I have to be making my own work.

[53:51] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[53:52] Dillon Heape: And I have impulses as a writer specifically that I'm, you know, it's just I'm trying to scratch, and I'm not a practiced, I think I'm a strong writer when I have to write something, but I have not built a ritual of writing into my life.

[54:06] Dillon Heape: And so I'm looking for, I'm trying to attract people into my life who can help me structure learn some structure around writing.

[54:18] Dillon Heape: I also love directing.

[54:20] Dillon Heape: I'm working on directing a project right now on camera for the first time ever, and that has been this extraordinary learning process that I'm so grateful for.

[54:29] Dillon Heape: We were actually, we've wrapped and we're in post right now, and I actually got to sit with the producer and the editor today going through footage of one of the episodes of this web series I directed.

[54:41] Dillon Heape: It's called Characteristically.

[54:43] Dillon Heape: Um and it's gonna be so funny and so good, and I'm so proud of it already.

[54:47] Leah Walsh: It's not even done yet.

[54:48] Dillon Heape: Just let me know when it debuts.

[54:50] Leah Walsh: I absolutely will.

[54:52] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[54:52] Dillon Heape: But I just, you know, I'm putting out into the universe.

[54:55] Dillon Heape: Universe, if you're listening to this podcast, and I know you are.

[55:00] Leah Walsh: I think the universe is listening.

[55:03] Dillon Heape: Yeah, I just, um if you've heard the things that I have to say and you think, oh, I want to make a film with Dillon, I want to make a musical with Dillon.

[55:15] Dillon Heape: Come find me because I'm looking for you.

[55:17] Dillon Heape: I'm, I have lots and lots of hats I'm trying to wear right now.

[55:23] Dillon Heape: It is, it is.

[55:24] Dillon Heape: I am I have a lot to be grateful for.

[55:29] Dillon Heape: If you are kind of in that dark place and feeling uninspired, are there any tangible things that you go back to again and again?

[55:38] Dillon Heape: Like tangible things I can touch.

[55:41] Dillon Heape: Books you reread or music we go to a place.

[55:46] Dillon Heape: Uh songs that I listen to that are like that are like church for me.

[55:52] Dillon Heape: Yes.

[55:52] Dillon Heape: I put I'll put I'm not gonna name the songs because that feels kind of pointless, but I have songs that are essentially meditations for me that I'll put on that um sonically or otherwise will just take me to a place of calm or inspiration or um meditation.

[56:14] Dillon Heape: I do that pretty often.

[56:16] Dillon Heape: Um and there is a book.

[56:18] Dillon Heape: I should have mentioned this book earlier in this conversation, because this book was really a big part of my uh the journey I've been talking about over the last couple of years.

[56:27] Dillon Heape: It's a book called Radical Acceptance by Dr. Tara Brach.

[56:30] Dillon Heape: She's a yogi and uh I know her name.

[56:35] Dillon Heape: Yeah, she's she's pretty um well known just in the like spiritual self-help book section.

[56:43] Leah Walsh: Yeah, I feel like they talk about her a lot in like the women's recovery podcast and too and stuff.

[56:48] Dillon Heape: Yeah, absolutely.

[56:50] Dillon Heape: I think her mom ran Alcoholics Anonymous for many years.

[56:54] Dillon Heape: I mean, she comes from this family of uh self-help people.

[57:00] Dillon Heape: Uh but she wrote this.

[57:01] Dillon Heape: She also has a TV pilot waiting to be written right there.

[57:05] Dillon Heape: Self-help people.

[57:06] Leah Walsh: It's mine.

[57:07] Leah Walsh: Universe, come make this show with me.

[57:10] Dillon Heape: It's just me and Leah.

[57:11] Dillon Heape: Self-help people.

[57:15] Leah Walsh: Uh that's a great idea.

[57:16] Leah Walsh: You're right.

[57:17] Leah Walsh: You're so right.

[57:18] Dillon Heape: No, but she's she also she spent most of her adult life, Dr. Tara Brach, in um ashrams and spiritual communities, and she's just got a lot to say about um how we treat ourselves.

[57:30] Dillon Heape: And this book, Radical Acceptance is about it's basically this two-fold um way of experiencing life that she describes, where on the one hand it's a radical acceptance is a matter of um experiencing the truth or the reality of your circumstances as it really is.

[57:54] Dillon Heape: Experiencing um not getting caught up in a narrative about what something should be or ought to be or might be, but like what is actually happening right now?

[58:05] Dillon Heape: What is it?

[58:07] Dillon Heape: So seeing that, seeing what the reality, what the truth of the moment of the circumstance is, and then the other wing of radical acceptance is holding that truth with compassion and with love.

[58:23] Dillon Heape: And so really radical acceptance is this process of experiencing your life and experiencing what's really happening and just being fully present for it and being fully compassionate toward whatever it is that you're experiencing.

[58:39] Dillon Heape: If you're experiencing joy, experience that joy with your fullest sense of compassion.

[58:45] Dillon Heape: If you're experiencing pain, if you're experiencing heartbreak, if you're experiencing rage, acknowledge that that is your experience.

[58:54] Dillon Heape: We make ourselves crazy trying to deny our anger, trying to deny our jealousy, trying to deny our frustration.

[59:02] Dillon Heape: If you can just acknowledge I'm frustrated right now, I'm angry right now, I'm in physical pain right now, and just hold that experience with compassion, you can start to live your life free of the effort you're making to deny reality.

[59:27] Dillon Heape: And she just makes this really, really strong case for um just tuning in, tuning in to what's really happening and being compassionate with yourself.

[59:38] Dillon Heape: That book, reading that book at the time that I read it a couple years ago, um it was a game changer for me, and I recommend it to everybody that I have conversations about well-being with because it's just it's so so good.

[59:53] Leah Walsh: Going to request it.

[59:54] Dillon Heape: Yes.

[59:55] Dillon Heape: Oh, absolutely.

[59:56] Dillon Heape: Back to our theme of the library.

[59:58] Leah Walsh: Um then the final question is, is there any piece of art that you want to recommend that you've seen recently of any art form?

[1:00:09] Dillon Heape: Oh gosh, things that I've seen recently.

[1:00:12] Dillon Heape: Friends' shows or is anything that I've seen recently still running?

[1:00:16] Dillon Heape: I've seen a lot of things recently that I've really loved, but I don't know that anything actually is still running.

[1:00:22] Dillon Heape: I saw this amazing show at BAM a couple weeks ago called Triptic, Eyes of One on Another.

[1:00:28] Dillon Heape: It was this multimedia symphonic and choral piece by like a multitude of authors and featured all of this photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and it was just this astounding multimedia piece of art.

[1:00:45] Dillon Heape: It was so breathtaking.

[1:00:47] Leah Walsh: I know.

[1:00:47] Dillon Heape: I wish it's it was like three performances only.

[1:00:49] Dillon Heape: I don't know if it will come back.

[1:00:51] Leah Walsh: Did you see Octet at Sea Match?

[1:00:53] Dillon Heape: No, I missed Octet, and I'm so mad about it.

[1:00:56] Leah Walsh: Did they just close too?

[1:00:57] Dillon Heape: I feel like they might it did.

[1:00:58] Dillon Heape: It did just close.

[1:00:59] Leah Walsh: I'm seeing incredible.

[1:01:01] Dillon Heape: Was it?

[1:01:01] Dillon Heape: I mean, that across the board.

[1:01:02] Dillon Heape: And people are just Dave Malloy, yeah.

[1:01:06] Dillon Heape: Eight part harmony for an hour and a half.

[1:01:08] Dillon Heape: I went to the EPA for I went to the EPA for Octet and I was it was not cast.

[1:01:13] Dillon Heape: So um I don't know if some deep part of me was like, I'm not going to see that.

[1:01:18] Leah Walsh: No, that's that would never be.

[1:01:19] Dillon Heape: I saw that they were trying to like crowdfund for an album, so maybe they'll make an album.

[1:01:24] Leah Walsh: Oh, for real?

[1:01:24] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[1:01:25] Dillon Heape: Oh, I would love that.

[1:01:26] Dillon Heape: I would love to.

[1:01:27] Dillon Heape: I'm going on Saturday to see A Strange Loop.

[1:01:30] Dillon Heape: I heard it's really good.

[1:01:31] Dillon Heape: And people are really, and that's a musical.

[1:01:33] Leah Walsh: That is a musical.

[1:01:34] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[1:01:35] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[1:01:35] Dillon Heape: People are raving about it.

[1:01:36] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[1:01:37] Dillon Heape: It's evidently one of those game changer pieces of musical theater.

[1:01:42] Dillon Heape: And I'm like, I gotta be there for those.

[1:01:44] Leah Walsh: Those up your alley.

[1:01:46] Dillon Heape: Yeah.

[1:01:46] Dillon Heape: I like the musicals that kind of defy everything you think you're gonna get when you walk in.

[1:01:51] Dillon Heape: Um I wish I had a better, I wish there was a show that was like currently running that I have seen recently.

[1:01:59] Dillon Heape: I saw Underground Railroad Game at Arsnova was incredible, but that's over now too.

[1:02:05] Dillon Heape: Um a movie.

[1:02:06] Dillon Heape: Go see oh, go see The Last Black Man in San Francisco.

[1:02:09] Leah Walsh: I've heard that's amazing.

[1:02:11] Dillon Heape: Oh and I have an acquaintance who worked on it as a producer, and I'm just very excited that they're getting such a response, but I need to where did you see it in the city?

[1:02:19] Dillon Heape: Is it playing?

[1:02:20] Dillon Heape: I went or something.

[1:02:22] Dillon Heape: I went by myself and saw it at the Alamo Draft House.

[1:02:26] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[1:02:26] Dillon Heape: And I had some brisket tacos and sat by myself in the movie theater and watched it.

[1:02:31] Dillon Heape: And it was it was the best like self-date I've been on in a long time.

[1:02:34] Leah Walsh: It's a really really good idea.

[1:02:36] Dillon Heape: I love going to the movies and I rarely get to.

[1:02:38] Leah Walsh: I know.

[1:02:39] Dillon Heape: Well, it's expensive.

[1:02:40] Leah Walsh: It is expensive.

[1:02:41] Dillon Heape: I haven't done like I know friends do the movie pass thing where that you can, you know, go see X number of movies from those.

[1:02:46] Leah Walsh: I used to, but it kind of was going downhill and they were blocking which movies they were offering, but so I stopped mine.

[1:02:53] Dillon Heape: Frankie still has his, which we kind of end up both getting to use since only one of us can go at a time to baby.

[1:03:01] Leah Walsh: That's not a bad story.

[1:03:02] Dillon Heape: So we kind of share it sometimes, but I need to try to go more often.

[1:03:05] Leah Walsh: Dillon, thank you for doing this.

[1:03:07] Dillon Heape: Thank you for having me.

[1:03:08] Dillon Heape: Such a joy.

[1:03:09] Dillon Heape: This was really, this feels very so special.

[1:03:11] Dillon Heape: I'm so happy to be here.

[1:03:12] Leah Walsh: Thank you.

[1:03:13] Leah Walsh: Yay.

[1:03:23] Leah Walsh: Thank you for listening to The Compass Podcast.

[1:03:26] Leah Walsh: If you find these conversations valuable to your life as an artist and would like to support the ongoing production of The Compass, please consider becoming a patron at Patreon.com slash The Compass Podcast.

[1:03:37] Leah Walsh: Pledges start at as little as one dollar a month.

[1:03:40] Leah Walsh: You'll get access to bonus content and anything you can give would be greatly appreciated.

[1:03:45] Leah Walsh: Also, if you have a moment, please rate or review in iTunes.

[1:03:48] Leah Walsh: Every little bit helps other listeners to find the podcast.

[1:04:00] Leah Walsh: Audio assistance from Nick Choxy, and a special thanks to Frankie J. Alvarez.

[1:04:05] Leah Walsh: See you next time.