This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hello and welcome to the Drama Book Show.

[0:20] David Rigano: My name is David Rigano.

[0:22] Dylan Glick: And my name's Dylan Glick.

[0:24] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yay, all three of us are back again.

[0:26] David Rigano: Yeah, all three.

[0:28] Mark-Eugene Garcia: We're here to talk about Stan Zimmerman's girls.

[0:33] David Rigano: The girls from the Gilmore to Golden.

[0:36] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Let's try that one more time.

[0:37] David Rigano: We're here to talk about Stan Zimmerman's The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore.

[0:43] Mark-Eugene Garcia: What a fantastic night. That was also a night that we had a line all the way down the block to come inside.

[0:48] Dylan Glick: I feel like that's one of the most memorable things of the night.

[0:50] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And one of the most memorable crowds we've had was it was like a party.

[0:54] Dylan Glick: Oh my gosh.

[0:55] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And then that would not only that, we had Marissa Jaret Winokur as our moderator.

[1:01] Dylan Glick: As the interlocutor.

[1:03] Mark-Eugene Garcia: We also had our moderator, Marissa Jaret Winokur.

[1:06] Dylan Glick: Our interlocutor.

[1:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Because in the audience that night was Patrick Page.

[1:12] David Rigano: Yes.

[1:12] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Who had moderated before you can hear him in season one.

[1:16] Dylan Glick: And I introduced to I have a picture somewhere. We'll get it on the Instagram.

[1:19] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Because I said I need a picture of two past moderators together.

[1:24] Dylan Glick: I remember that.

[1:25] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And he said to her, Oh, you did a very good job. I was the interlocutor for one of these shows.

[1:32] Dylan Glick: And he was one of I think three people so far to call you that used that term.

[1:38] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes.

[1:38] Dylan Glick: Estelle Parsons.

[1:42] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And Lana Levine.

[1:44] Dylan Glick: Oh wow.

[1:45] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes, I remember.

[1:47] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[1:47] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And she was the most recent. And I told her that she was in good company with Patrick Page and Estelle Parsons.

[1:53] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[1:54] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Who has used that term for the moderator?

[1:56] Dylan Glick: Interlocked into a club.

[1:57] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes.

[1:59] Dylan Glick: Interlocked into place.

[2:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Dear God.

[2:02] Dylan Glick: Oh man. It was exciting to have them.

[2:05] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Now, Stan also has other plays here. He has Yes Virginia. He has Silver Foxes.

[2:11] Dylan Glick: What I am incredibly familiar with when it comes to Stan is Adiva's Christmas, his ladies of the 80s holiday movie.

[2:18] David Rigano: I remember you talking about it.

[2:19] Mark-Eugene Garcia: That's right. I watched it while texting him.

[2:26] Dylan Glick: I watched it and was saying things like, oh my God, this joke.

[2:29] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And he would reply with that. I wrote that for the theater community.

[2:31] Dylan Glick: I wrote that for the theater community.

[2:33] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And oh man, it was like one of them was talking about doing, I feel like it was doing Love Letters with Rodney Dangerfield. Like it was so niche and specific.

[2:43] David Rigano: Thank you for putting something new on all of our Christmas watch lists.

[2:47] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It is, it was, I think two years ago because it's on my regular watch list now. Like we have to watch it every year now.

[2:53] Dylan Glick: It was just, it was so good and so funny. And it truly was like a good reunion of actresses that I loved, but also to just be like, oh my god, I know the writer.

[3:03] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Who was all in it?

[3:04] Dylan Glick: Oh, yeah, Lonnie Anderson, Morgan Fairchild, Linda Gray, Nicolette Sheridan, who I love and Desperate Housewives.

[3:11] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And Noises Off.

[3:12] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[3:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes, that's where I first saw her. It was in Noises Off.

[3:16] Dylan Glick: That cast, that movie. I love that movie.

[3:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I love that movie.

[3:19] Dylan Glick: Uh-huh.

[3:20] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Noises Off.

[3:21] Dylan Glick: No, I know. I'm like, I haven't seen, well, here's the thing. I've never seen Noises Off, period.

[3:25] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh.

[3:26] Dylan Glick: The movie is a good introduction to it.

[3:29] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It's not the best representation of the play.

[3:32] Dylan Glick: No, but it's a good representation of the heart.

[3:35] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes.

[3:36] Dylan Glick: Yeah.

[3:36] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And it's very Americanized.

[3:38] Dylan Glick: The play itself stays very British.

[3:41] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, the play is about a low-rent UK tour that has been funded by and starring an old TV favorite who is and everyone else is like the typical people who you meet in any kind of group of actors, and the director is just trying to hold it together as over the course of this tour, things fall apart.

[4:12] Dylan Glick: And the movie's more like it's opening on Broadway.

[4:15] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It's a tour.

[4:17] Dylan Glick: We don't, I feel like we don't have the same kind of culture.

[4:21] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[4:22] Dylan Glick: These kind of tours of a farce play.

[4:27] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And the three of us specifically have a close relationship with farce as of recently.

[4:32] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[4:32] Mark-Eugene Garcia: We all just did one.

[4:33] Dylan Glick: That's right.

[4:36] Mark-Eugene Garcia: One written by Mark-Eugene Garcia.

[4:38] Dylan Glick: Ever heard of him?

[4:40] Mark-Eugene Garcia: With Faded Breath at Under St. Mark's.

[4:42] Dylan Glick: And so we were in that farce mood. But let's circle back to Stan Zimmerman and his work and really just let him and Marissa tell you all about it.

[4:52] David Rigano: Yeah.

[4:54] Dylan Glick: We're sitting here.

[4:57] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, I'm gonna sing a little number and a little dating.

[5:00] Dylan Glick: Oh my god, I'm too short to get up on this stool.

[5:03] Mark-Eugene Garcia: We've gotten on A.

[5:04] Dylan Glick: Okay.

[5:05] Mark-Eugene Garcia: What did that mean?

[5:06] Dylan Glick: I was gonna say, no, that's not true. I like Paul.

[5:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, really?

[5:09] Dylan Glick: Yeah, yeah.

[5:11] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I'm not gonna answer that question.

[5:13] Dylan Glick: Okay.

[5:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: A fall man is here.

[5:16] Stan Zimmerman: Hi you guys!

[5:18] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You guys they could hear you staring upstairs.

[5:21] Stan Zimmerman: I always like I love that.

[5:23] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I'm so excited to be here with Stan. This is so exciting.

[5:28] Stan Zimmerman: Thank you for joining us.

[5:30] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Thank you. It actually forced me to read the book because I was coming here tonight. I was like, oh my gosh, I have to read.

[5:36] Stan Zimmerman: It's just not a reader.

[5:37] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I'm not a reader.

[5:38] Stan Zimmerman: But that's not the I it thank you.

[5:40] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It's hard to say that in a bookshop.

[5:42] Stan Zimmerman: And I'm not a sucks.

[5:44] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, and thank you. Thank you.

[5:46] Stan Zimmerman: But right, someone yelled out stacked, and I mean thank you.

[5:50] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And there you go. That was in a bookshop. So I felt like I'm okay.

[5:54] Stan Zimmerman: But we're all here for Stan and this incredible book.

[6:00] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And yes, we know other works of his as well. I heard a lot of screamings.

[6:05] Stan Zimmerman: Oh, sweet.

[6:07] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I love that. I love all listen. When I was reading this book, I'm gonna say the first thing that I felt was that it was very triggering.

[6:14] Stan Zimmerman: I felt like the book was very triggering because as someone who's been in Hollywood for a little bit of time now, all of this felt so real and so true.

[6:23] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I was so impressed by how you really laid it out. You weren't trying to hide anything. Like you were like, this sucked, and this felt bad, and I really And how do you pick yourself up and keep going and reinvent yourself and yeah, I think that was very like so interesting and honest, and I really I found it as I said triggering, but also I found it but the triggering part was the development hell, and that's how we met initially.

[6:49] Stan Zimmerman: I went and pitched her ideas.

[6:52] Marissa Jaret Winokur: She didn't do any of them, thank you very much.

[6:54] Stan Zimmerman: So I'm a little bit early.

[6:58] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So it's not like I did something else. I did talk her into doing a play.

[7:01] Stan Zimmerman: Yes.

[7:01] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Was that your first play that would be so much?

[7:03] Stan Zimmerman: Yes.

[7:03] Marissa Jaret Winokur: He said, You want to come do a play? And I was like, I don't want to do a play, I don't want to do a musical.

[7:09] Stan Zimmerman: But then he talked me into it, and then it was the most fun I ever had and the best release I ever got.

[7:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, and he directed it and it was fantastic, and I think he should write a play for us to do.

[7:17] Stan Zimmerman: No more writing.

[7:18] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Ah yes.

[7:20] Stan Zimmerman: But I did because you were so honest about things. Like, yes, it is pick yourself up. And but how when you sat down to write this and all your journal entries and all that stuff, what made you first feel like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna share all of it, not just the good, because you could have just shared the good stuff, but you also shared the that's not the reality of it.

[7:39] Stan Zimmerman: Any career, whether it's show business or not, you have your ups and downs and how you pick yourself up and keep going.

[7:45] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And so I wanted to do that. If you haven't read the book, so it started with the title, The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore.

[7:51] Stan Zimmerman: And I had mentioned it at the Gilmore Girls Fan Festival.

[7:56] Marissa Jaret Winokur: There they are.

[7:57] Stan Zimmerman: And they were my accountability coaches, and then I was like, fuck, why did I say the title? And now I have to write the goddamn book.

[8:03] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh, is that true? That's how it happened?

[8:05] Stan Zimmerman: Yes, because I know people kept saying it at the beginning of the book is how I could write for all these women as a main island. It became like a thing.

[8:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then I mentioned at the festival, and then like every year, like, where is it, where is it, where is it? And then it's finally here and we're gonna be able to do it.

[8:18] Stan Zimmerman: Very demanding.

[8:20] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I love that. I love that. That's so I kept going, and then unfortunately it took COVID and allowed the espresso to get me to focus and really sit down.

[8:29] Stan Zimmerman: But I started with I kept journals from I went to NYU drama school, and for some reason, my modern dance teacher said, You should all do journaling and give us your journals.

[8:40] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Like why she would do that.

[8:42] Stan Zimmerman: She would say give them to her to read. Like, why? And then I'll tell you why.

[8:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then she freaking lost all of them.

[8:52] Stan Zimmerman: So somewhere in New York or journalism.

[8:55] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, stores he did. They're probably back there in some book.

[8:59] Stan Zimmerman: Exactly. So then the next year she did we did it again and she did give them back. But it got me in the habit of writing in a journal.

[9:06] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Which I don't know. Have you ever done journals?

[9:08] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[9:09] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You have?

[9:09] Stan Zimmerman: Oh yeah.

[9:10] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I know you wouldn't think it.

[9:11] Stan Zimmerman: No, I would think.

[9:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Do you write it?

[9:13] Stan Zimmerman: I do actually. I actually still, I'll still journal.

[9:17] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh my god, I can tell you every food I've eaten since 1921.

[9:21] Stan Zimmerman: No, I'm just kidding.

[9:25] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, I love journaling. I actually love if I do it fast and quick, I but then I never go back and read it.

[9:30] Stan Zimmerman: Like I'm I read it like the a year later. I wouldn't see like where was I for some reason a year thing.

[9:36] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[9:37] Stan Zimmerman: But luckily it got me in the habit, and I wrote a lot during my move out from LA to New York trolley. And then during all the shows, Golden Girls, I just kept writing because it was very frustrating at work.

[9:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I knew I was on a great show, but yet I was having you're having these issues and being nervous about being fired and people hating us, and are we funny? And I'm in an elevator with B. Arthur and oh my god, and things like that.

[10:00] Stan Zimmerman: So I wrote them all down. And so then I thought that would be a good basis for the book is to start with the journal entries of a very young person and then compare how you change and grow as an adult and hopefully wiser in some instances, and see where I was then as compared to now.

[10:16] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Well, I loved, I'm sure everybody else did as well, but I loved reading it just because it was you're living the dream, you're doing what you want to do, but sometimes that you're that doesn't mean you're the happiest.

[10:27] Stan Zimmerman: I think that there's the false in Hollywood is oh my gosh, she's starring in a Broadway show, she should be the happiest person.

[10:32] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But no, it's still work and hard and stress and nerve and then scared.

[10:36] Stan Zimmerman: And I loved reading that because it did validate other people, I'm sure, as myself. That is sometimes living the dream job isn't your dream.

[10:45] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Getting the job. I think it's always that like moment, getting the job, and then doing the job.

[10:49] Stan Zimmerman: You have to do it, yeah.

[10:50] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Keeping the job and keeping the job.

[10:52] Stan Zimmerman: That's a big part of that.

[10:53] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then the out of stress of back then, which people find hard to believe on Golden Girls, a progressive show. We had to stay in the closet while we were on the show.

[11:01] Stan Zimmerman: And a lot of people commented like, how do you go and write your best and be so open, but yet you're so shut down with who you are as a person.

[11:09] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, I thought I was very surprised that when I read that, I was like, Oh, I didn't it didn't even occur to me that you would have had to be in the closet with back when but it doesn't even feel like that long ago.

[11:19] Stan Zimmerman: It wasn't. So that's what's so wild is that within my lifetime it went from representatives saying you have to bring a woman to any event to now it's whatever, but I also still feel there's so much homophobia as far as content and then being afraid of content, which is why you saw Silver Fox and started as a TV pilot and then no network would want to make the show, and so we turned it into a play, and you all at TRW were so beautiful and supporting me in my work there back there.

[11:51] Marissa Jaret Winokur: We love them.

[11:52] Stan Zimmerman: Yes, and we got to do it in Dallas, and some wonderful beautiful cases came to the world of beer than Michael Urey directed and broke up.

[12:00] Marissa Jaret Winokur: In the dark in the dark, oh yeah, there was a tornado night. So we got free tequila before, so it's really uh the benefit of it.

[12:08] Stan Zimmerman: Uh yeah, it can still save us. And we're about to do the Midwest premiere September 6th in Ohio, so that's very exciting.

[12:16] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That is so exciting.

[12:18] Stan Zimmerman: And maybe someone will then say, okay, fine, just make it a TV show.

[12:22] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Which I bet I can I will say, you know me, I always am very good. I'm always predicting stuff, but I feel like it's gonna happen.

[12:29] Stan Zimmerman: I do.

[12:30] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I took a don't know the story of Lucille Ball. Nobody wanted her to do that show, and nobody wanted her to cast her husband, Desi.

[12:38] Stan Zimmerman: America wouldn't believe that she'd be in love with this man as a husband.

[12:42] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And so she made a play of it, took it around the country, and it became so popular that the networks had to go, oh okay, I guess people like that.

[12:50] Stan Zimmerman: I know, which is so insane.

[12:52] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So we're hoping, and people told us I've had even companies like El Say now, that's you on Telegraph, right? They will they want this in broadcast?

[13:02] Stan Zimmerman: Oh fuck.

[13:03] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Uh no, I don't care.

[13:06] Stan Zimmerman: The funny thing I always I don't even care if I worked again, like it was what it was, but and it's very freeing that you can say that.

[13:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But that's why I did Big Brother.

[13:14] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, very good.

[13:15] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I won't.

[13:16] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, but yeah, I hope it will become a series, but I had a network Netflix say it wasn't broad enough, meaning it wasn't, it was too niche for them.

[13:28] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That they see if you do a show about older people or gay people, that only older and gay people will watch it, and I keep freezing all the girls.

[13:36] Stan Zimmerman: Everybody watched it.

[13:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So crazy.

[13:39] Stan Zimmerman: So I think it just has to break through and I think it I think it will.

[13:42] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I think we are too. I think the things that I'm seeing that are coming out are skewing older.

[13:48] Stan Zimmerman: I'm hoping.

[13:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I think that that show could be really fun.

[13:51] Stan Zimmerman: We were just talking upstairs about hopefully multi-cams will come back, and yeah, that would be really nice.

[13:56] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So for Gilmore people, I just learned this upstairs. I have to say.

[13:59] Stan Zimmerman: Okay, go.

[14:01] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, it's a good one. So you auditioned for Silky.

[14:04] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[14:08] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Before it was before Hairspray. I'd only lived in Los Angeles for six months. Because I had done New York, I had done Broadway, then I moved to LA because I was like, there's never gonna be another part for me on Broadway. I'd done Grease. I was like, there's nothing else left for me. So I moved to I went to a friend's wedding and stayed in LA, and that was one of my first auditions. Isn't that crazy?

[14:24] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah. I never knew that.

[14:25] Marissa Jaret Winokur: How did I know that? I would have put that in the book. And then we also know another little connection. That uh before the musical Hairspray, I was obsessed with the TV show, and I was in an overall deal, Lorimar, and we asked to get the rights to it. We sold it as a half-hour pilot. Is that crazy? And Tracy's day job would be at the dress shop.

[14:45] Stan Zimmerman: That's such a good idea. Such a great idea. And in the wisdom of Hollywood, they didn't believe, they thought that Turnblack, Tracy Turnbutt was too broad of a name. So they had to change it to Tracy Turner. We had to go to the players and change the name. They were like, but it's the flavor of...

[15:02] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I know. That's less than that for you. And there you go. Okay. That was one of the beautiful things that happened. So that was frustrating. But I still believed in the piece, and I would quote it. And I still think it could be a function. That's a great I think a TV show based on Hairspray is a great idea.

[15:20] Stan Zimmerman: It's a great idea, yeah. But I remember working with Mark and Scott. And they were saying, Oh, we're going up there to do the show up in Washington. In the book also, I did work with them on a musical called Living Dolls.

[15:31] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, that was so Linda Hart.

[15:33] Stan Zimmerman: Barbie.

[15:35] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Was it Linda Hart in that?

[15:37] Stan Zimmerman: No, I think so.

[15:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, and Linda Hart was our original Delma Von Tussle, and she was in Living Dolls. I remember that.

[15:43] Stan Zimmerman: Crazy.

[15:45] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I know. We have. Yes, my gosh. And then and looking at this, I was like, I guess I knew what you've done, but I also forgot things as I tend to do. As I tend to do. But I was literally when it got to the Roseanne tension, I was like, What? I had no idea.

[15:59] Stan Zimmerman: I you're like, that was tough. So if you don't know for the book, so we passed on going on Roseanne the first season. But even prior to that, I had seen her just randomly on The Tonight Show. I just something said, wake up, turn on the TV, and there she was. And I said, Who's this woman? And I called my agent who's no longer my agent, and I said, get us a meeting. I think there's a TV show in her. And he literally said to us, the Miracle never watch a woman that looks like that.

[16:28] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Wow.

[16:29] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah. This is all the bullshit that we kept hearing, crap like that, and that's why development pal in that section. And I was like, oh fuck. I just I never heard what she was talking about on television since like Norman Lear days.

[16:42] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[16:42] Stan Zimmerman: And then it came up for us again in season one. It was before they even cast the pilot. And John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf weren't cast yet, and they wanted us to sign like a seven-year deal, and for some reason we enjoyed development, and we said no. On some level, I was glad that there was such hell that year, and they were firing writers left and all that. And then opportunity came back in season five, and we actually wrote a Roseanne spec script that got us on the show. But when we were in that meeting, they said to us, I hope it's okay with you, but we don't pat anybody on the back here. And at the time we were like, we don't need it, we don't need it.

[17:18] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh my gosh.

[17:19] Stan Zimmerman: But when any job, I think that's really important. You need people to acknowledge your work. And I so much so that I saw in there that you were numbers. First of all, that I couldn't believe you didn't know that story?

[17:31] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, and I also couldn't believe there were so many writers. There were like 21 writers in the room. Normally there's like eight, nine, ten. And they would wear, I don't know if you read this, but they would wear they just gave them numbers so they didn't have to remember their names.

[17:42] Stan Zimmerman: So he's but why?

[17:44] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I'll tell the why.

[17:45] Stan Zimmerman: Okay.

[17:46] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So the first day you work all summer and you work on stories, and then you come to film the first episodes. And then so she Roseanne was married to Tom Arnold at the time. And what? Is that a boo? Sorry, boo. Boo. So he actually kept the show going well during all of her so kudos to him, I think. Anyway, so they had a usually there's small staffs, but this for some reason they asked us all their comedy friends they want to give them jobs.

[18:14] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[18:14] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So being 21 writers, so we break off into little groups and we had that. But the very first day of filming, they said, line up, we got you t-shirts. And it's so good. Number t-shirts. So I didn't know why. My birthday's October 13th, so I was pushing everybody to 13. Yeah, there's a 13. And then once I grabbed the 13, I heard why all the writers were grumbling. So they wanted us all to have numbers so that they wouldn't have to learn our names and they could just point 12 or 5. Hey, you're gone.

[18:46] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[18:46] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then we were all like, fuck you. And so I never wore the t-shirt again until the writer's guild strike. And there was recently, yes, I pulled out the 13 and we were picketing out front end to Radford. Talking about being triggered. I'll come to your best friend Tom Arnold. I'm holding a coffee. He hugs me with spills all over my dirty t-shirt. And I go, perfect. That's the perfect way to end that. It's a full circle. I think about it. Coffee model. It's just everybody, you think about it now, everyone's so fragile. The idea of, could you imagine if they tried to pull that in a writer's room today?

[19:23] Stan Zimmerman: What I'm sorry, I'm just saying people are a little more fragile now. But yeah, could you imagine? Then I'm sure you all watched the onset. Have you been watching that about the Megalettian? And the horrible way they treated those two women writers.

[19:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So we found that when I started, there were very few women writers in the room.

[19:42] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[19:43] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And there were no gay writers, there were no women writers, there were very few people of color there. It was it was a white man's world. And I had read from Detroit as a kid. Oh, Gary, there we go. Gary Marshall had shows and they would play basketball in between writing sessions. And I'm like, I can't throw a basketball. I can't you'll write her. So I connected those two. And then I finally got to meet Gary, the wonderful Gary Marshall.

[20:07] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, I love it.

[20:08] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It's very sweet. And I guess they didn't really play basketball.

[20:12] Stan Zimmerman: No, they didn't.

[20:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: They probably didn't really play basketball. But someone wrote that.

[20:15] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[20:16] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That I think that when I was reading through this, I was just so amazed by how much you had done, but also the way that you're I guess like going back to the diary entries, they were so like raw and real, and it was just it was really beautiful to see. Just the honesty. So I I really applaud it. I was loving that when I read it. I really love it. I've known you for a long time to know how honest you are, obviously. But to see it written, it felt and then put that out into the world.

[20:47] Stan Zimmerman: Correct.

[20:47] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then how are people going to take that in with real names?

[20:50] Stan Zimmerman: With real names that don't feel stupid or...

[20:50] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, yeah. But I wanted to connect to people, whether it's show business or not. There are times you get knocked down, and how do you pick yourself up? And then how do you do it without people acknowledging your work consistently?

[21:07] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, because because you do you're as a writer, I think as an actress too. Or are married to a writer, I know. I'm looking at the wrong thing. As a writer, you guys want us to read all of yourself and tell you how great it is. All the time.

[21:19] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And why are you laughing?

[21:21] Stan Zimmerman: Always telling me that's a good question. Okay, what did you laugh at? What did you laugh at? But I think that's so interesting. But you've also like broadened your career, like you're so much more than a writer. And I think, do you think I know when you directly high?

[21:32] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Correct.

[21:33] Stan Zimmerman: Do you think though that stemmed from watching and writing and knowing like almost watching so many sitcoms happen and being like, how could have I done I would have done instead to do it this way?

[21:43] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I do direct as a writer, so to me, it's as your husband will tell. You hear it as music. So I hear it as music. Every time there's a comma, there's a reason for it. So when I talk to actors directing, as we had, it is a musicality to it. And there's a reason why we fought over a beat or a then or dot dot as opposed to a period. And so honoring that, and that's still making it your own, but fine finding that. So as you will attest, I can be very specific. But we do direct.

[22:13] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[22:14] Stan Zimmerman: But I've also learned from watching other directors like James Burroughs. I shadowed a lot for a year on a TV show.

[22:20] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And you were on Welys and Joni at that time.

[22:23] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, you were shadowing.

[22:25] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Or is Rob. It was like the craziest week that we can do. Joey Lawrence and Melissa Joan Hart wouldn't talk to me. But whatever.

[22:31] Stan Zimmerman: She was quite lovely.

[22:34] Marissa Jaret Winokur: She is a very lovely woman. She was probably just working really hard.

[22:39] Stan Zimmerman: No, she didn't. We have a connection and no, but she's a I've worked with her a bunch since then, and she's very...

[22:41] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You can't trash her tonight?

[22:48] Stan Zimmerman: No, we're not trashing Lisa. She's awesome. She was under a lot of pressure. The whole show. Come on.

[22:52] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[22:52] Stan Zimmerman: Come on. The show was called Melissa and Joey. Her mother was great. I really liked her. She's a fantastic. They all like it. But I was watching James Burroughs. We've worked with him, right?

[23:01] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No.

[23:01] Stan Zimmerman: Never?

[23:02] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I've never worked with him.

[23:03] Stan Zimmerman: And he was doing a scene with Margot Martindale, who's a great actress. And I'll never forget she had a drink with one of those umbrellas in it, and she lifted the drink up to her mouth. And he goes, I'll stop. And he whispered it to her. And he said, instead of lifting it to your mouth, go down and just and that got a laugh. So it was something so small.

[23:21] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[23:21] Stan Zimmerman: But it just reminded me so in actress. Why are you picking at that? It does make a difference to get the laugh and not laugh or what the meaning is. So I actually would rather just direct and not write.

[23:32] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But then you scream.

[23:33] Stan Zimmerman: But then we're like, writing. Because you're writing. I want to write for these beautiful three people. Hi, Jim. So Jim is responsible for connecting me with RW. They're also wonderful. And I write that about that in the book. I really felt when I got off. I don't want to cry about, but y'all changed my life.

[23:51] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh, we have that moment when you're during COVID and to get off that phone call and I'm going to have a play under the disease right there. They were there that first day. And Joanne, you were here, remember? And I think I fell on the floor, and you're all taking pictures of me to get the T's and on the Z and see my name down here.

[24:15] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[24:16] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, that's that's so cool.

[24:18] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[24:18] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And so deserving. And so deserving. And I feel like there's a lot of people here that are really you say Bill War Girl family. What about that show?

[24:30] Stan Zimmerman: What about that show?

[24:33] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No. Sixth most watched show from 2023 that the New York Times said. Isn't that crazy? But it's like so much more. Especially five.

[24:39] Stan Zimmerman: What? Especially season five.

[24:44] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes. The season five. And so I met Amy Sherman-Palladino on Roseanne. Right. All the book. And then she asked us to come on the show because she was burning through writers and not finding people that she really could connect with her. And she really liked me and Jim. And so we decided to leave development and work on the show for a year. And I'm so grateful that I did. I got to meet these beautiful people. And changing my life and got to work with Lauren and just a beautiful cast. And to be challenged without writing, because it was a lot of words.

[25:12] Stan Zimmerman: Our show is like six.

[25:15] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But you talk fast. You and a panel. I have no problem with words. So usually an hour show is 60 pages, but this was 90 pages because they talk so fast. Like those 40 movies, that's what she saw, heard in her head. And I just love the style of it and the way the stories were told, and when you get actors like Kelly Bishop and Ed Herman. Was Sally Struthers on it yet when you're chorus?

[25:39] Stan Zimmerman: She's a great friend.

[25:40] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes. And the whole cast is fantastic. I love Sally. I did Grease with Sally back in 1994. That was my first show. And I actually that's she's why I met my husband.

[25:51] Stan Zimmerman: Oh I know.

[25:53] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So we also to all Sally's others all goes back to Gilmore Girls. And she keeps doing theater, which I love. She's about to start in a new Netflix show with Ted Danson, and it's an older cast. That's why I was thinking, oh, Silver Hogs is it? It is an all-older cast. And uh and then she's the minute it's over, she's going off to do to plays. She's got a couple of one someone wrote for her. I'm blanking on the show.

[26:16] Stan Zimmerman: Wait, because she does plays.

[26:17] Marissa Jaret Winokur: She does plays. I like plays now. She wanted to do her a one woman show. I know I'm not sure. Because you talk to her about the one men show afterwards.

[26:26] Stan Zimmerman: I like working with other people.

[26:28] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I like, and it's too many, too many. He sent me a play once he wanted to do it. Too many play. I think she should have. Don't put it out there.

[26:35] Stan Zimmerman: Okay.

[26:36] Marissa Jaret Winokur: All right. That never happened.

[26:37] Stan Zimmerman: No, I and I was like, and there was like a 10-minute, there was a 10-minute moment where I was like, that sounds like a cool night. I must have been like cooking and cleaning and doing something during COVID, and I was like, yes, I want to do it. Send me the play. And then I was like, and then the play came and then the plays sat on my.

[26:52] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It literally said, I was like, there's so many words by myself.

[26:56] Stan Zimmerman: But it's just by myself.

[26:59] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Okay, we could do some ghosts.

[27:00] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, yeah.

[27:01] Marissa Jaret Winokur: We can make an ensemble different personalities from the same character.

[27:05] Stan Zimmerman: There you go.

[27:05] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Okay.

[27:06] Stan Zimmerman: Okay.

[27:10] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh no. It's not a bad idea. You heard it in here first. No, okay. So that at least I just want to make sure before we carry on that we I want to make sure that we got to questions. I did want to, I don't want to miss if there's questions.

[27:24] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, I feel like there's some, but you know what I mean. I don't want to keep yapping about plays that I'm not doing when there's people out of the show because they claim to see you. Does anyone have a good question?

[27:35] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It better be a good question.

[27:36] Stan Zimmerman: Did you miss us?

[27:37] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh.

[27:40] Stan Zimmerman: Did you miss us?

[27:42] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That was from the front of the idea.

[27:46] Stan Zimmerman: No, because you're always right here.

[27:50] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But they had badly a lot of very difficult topics.

[27:53] Stan Zimmerman: Oh.

[27:54] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, we're good.

[27:55] Stan Zimmerman: We're good people.

[27:56] Marissa Jaret Winokur: We love Stan.

[27:57] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, there you go. There's some a statement from the front that's like, we love Stan.

[28:04] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh, there you go. That's a gimmick reference for those.

[28:07] Stan Zimmerman: Oh, see, I see I didn't know. Sorry.

[28:09] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh, if you would like, we can act out season five.

[28:12] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[28:13] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Later too much. I would love that.

[28:18] Stan Zimmerman: I don't know.

[28:20] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, I said I think I would love to see them act out season five.

[28:24] Stan Zimmerman: Are there any other questions rather than distinctions?

[28:29] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Any questions?

[28:31] Stan Zimmerman: Okay.

[28:32] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Nothing much.

[28:34] Stan Zimmerman: So Diane and I went to summer theater camp in Hampton, New Hampshire.

[28:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Ooh.

[28:39] Stan Zimmerman: We go way, way back.

[28:40] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes.

[28:41] Stan Zimmerman: I love you for the very start.

[28:44] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You've teased me.

[28:45] Stan Zimmerman: I teased you.

[28:46] Marissa Jaret Winokur: He teased it.

[28:47] Stan Zimmerman: No, he's a mittens, okay.

[28:50] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Anyway.

[28:51] Stan Zimmerman: He's a teaser.

[28:52] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[28:52] Stan Zimmerman: Oh, seriously.

[28:54] Marissa Jaret Winokur: There wasn't a lot of joy.

[28:57] Stan Zimmerman: What?

[28:58] Marissa Jaret Winokur: There wasn't a lot of things.

[28:59] Stan Zimmerman: There wasn't a lot of showing.

[29:01] Marissa Jaret Winokur: There wasn't a lot of joy in those rooms.

[29:04] Stan Zimmerman: In the writer's rooms.

[29:06] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And it's so shocking to me.

[29:08] Stan Zimmerman: It was just shocking to me.

[29:10] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It was so I didn't expect.

[29:13] Stan Zimmerman: Why do you think that is?

[29:18] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That's a great question.

[29:19] Stan Zimmerman: It's your husband up here.

[29:20] Marissa Jaret Winokur: If you didn't hear in the back, the question was it didn't feel like there was a lot of joy in the writer's rooms, and why do you think that was?

[29:26] Stan Zimmerman: That's a great question.

[29:27] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, it's a great question.

[29:29] Stan Zimmerman: I kept hoping for a great show and a great staff, and sometimes it'd be like really fun people, but the show wasn't that good.

[29:35] Marissa Jaret Winokur: To make to have that together, it's very rare to put all those people together.

[29:39] Stan Zimmerman: And then when you have the pressure of shows are a lot of money in a network show, there's I see a lot of head bobbing up and down, what they think, and then in a new show, they're all coming in but giving their notes.

[29:53] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And there's no way you can second guess if a show is gonna be successful.

[29:58] Stan Zimmerman: I always think hire the best people and let them do their thing, and you're hiring their vision and let them cast who they want to cast, and then if it works, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

[30:07] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But unfortunately, that's not the way network television works.

[30:11] Stan Zimmerman: I think streaming does a little bit more than that with that.

[30:14] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But maybe just I had really bad luck.

[30:17] Stan Zimmerman: I don't know.

[30:17] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, I think I don't think it's you having bad luck.

[30:20] Stan Zimmerman: I think that it feels like such a hard place to create comedy when it's so dysfunctional.

[30:27] Marissa Jaret Winokur: When it's so stressful.

[30:28] Stan Zimmerman: If someone said, go quickly, hurry up, tell a joke. There's no joke coming out of me. That's it's too hard.

[30:33] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And especially molding hands.

[30:35] Stan Zimmerman: You are reading it on a Monday, you're filming it on a Friday.

[30:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Every night you're going down and watching the run-throughs.

[30:41] Stan Zimmerman: People I had to learn how to laugh because all the writers would sit there, and if you don't laugh, then you as an actor go, you're not laughing.

[30:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: How do we know it's funny?

[30:50] Stan Zimmerman: And then if I learn to go, and then you go, that's fake laughing. You want to say your joke. Either way, you're through.

[30:55] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[30:56] Stan Zimmerman: 100%.

[30:57] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[30:57] Stan Zimmerman: But you have to get the rhythm of it.

[30:59] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So there's all that stress, and then it's first the studio coming down and the network, and they're all giving you all these stupid notes, or they'll say, My babysitter read the script, and she has some thoughts.

[31:09] Stan Zimmerman: And you're like, Well, are you fucking kidding me?

[31:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[31:13] Stan Zimmerman: So we've gotten that. I'm just like, wow, okay.

[31:15] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[31:16] Stan Zimmerman: Tell me. And then you have to get into reading the note behind the notes.

[31:21] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So a lot of things going on.

[31:23] Stan Zimmerman: Because sometimes people don't know how to articulate in any job their feelings.

[31:27] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So they'll come in a lot of times, the executives, yeah.

[31:30] Stan Zimmerman: But the page is turned over. You're like, oh my god, all the pages are turned over, all these notes.

[31:35] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And you just say, what is your general feeling?

[31:38] Stan Zimmerman: And then, oh yeah, I can solve that with five lines.

[31:41] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And they don't know because they're usually not writers.

[31:43] Stan Zimmerman: I actually wanted to grow up one to be a network executive. When Bob Greenblatt took over NBC, I wrote an email and said, I want to be an executive. I want to head your comedy department. Wouldn't that be great to have a writer?

[31:55] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And he kept writing me back, oh Stan, we're so funny.

[31:59] Stan Zimmerman: I don't like your fucking L O L right now. I want a job, I want to wear a suit. I want to get the office. I want to go to the writer.

[32:09] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Wouldn't that have been cool to have someone that had lived in the trenches?

[32:12] Stan Zimmerman: Absolutely. That's why I think a lot of people make good directors because they know how to talk to direct to actors.

[32:18] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I think studying acting at NYU, it helped me how I can talk to actors and feel in a way that I understand the process and the fears and all that we do together.

[32:28] Stan Zimmerman: Absolutely. What do you think was the most out of all your rooms the most that you had the most joy in?

[32:33] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Take away the unburning stress.

[32:37] Stan Zimmerman: There was a joy in Rita Rocks because it was our creation. But we had so much shit. They did not believe we could as two gay men write a show about a family.

[32:48] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So they made us hire a couple to be the showrunners.

[32:52] Stan Zimmerman: And that really hurt us. And today I think I could probably sue. And they literally said that to us. I'm like, I grew up in a family. I was around that. I think I could write. I worked on Roseanne's.

[33:03] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It was I was surprised when I read that.

[33:05] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, I was surprised. I was like, that seems so of course you can write for a family.

[33:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, so that was crazy. And yeah, I had some writer friends say, Walk away, go fuck you, and just walk away.

[33:18] Stan Zimmerman: And I'm glad I stuck through it because I made some great friends and I learned a lot.

[33:21] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And it was your creation.

[33:23] Stan Zimmerman: Yes. So you shouldn't walk away.

[33:24] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, that's why, like with Amy Sherman-Palladino when she walked away from the last season of Gilmore Girls, I kept telling her, can't you figure out a way? It's your baby.

[33:32] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah. You really want to. It's very precious. So that's why we stuck with it. And that was what I did.

[33:37] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes.

[33:39] Stan Zimmerman: So that's I so I have the question like, what would Stan today do differently? Like younger starting out Stan?

[33:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Like that's a great question.

[33:51] Stan Zimmerman: Just for the back so they can hear and also for the podcast so they can. What would Stan today tell Stan back then?

[34:00] Stan Zimmerman: It's gonna be okay. You're cute. I walk throughout so many years as feeling horrible about myself.

[34:08] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So what would have made that different?

[34:11] Stan Zimmerman: If I believed it, yeah.

[34:13] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Could you have?

[34:14] Stan Zimmerman: I don't know. That's a good question.

[34:15] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Or even oh, you bring something up that's very emotional. I got out to like very young, and so I was all very new and exciting, and to go from nobody returning your phone call to suddenly the flavor of the month, and they're saying, Oh, we'll take you to Hef's place, and I'm like, Yeah, that doesn't do it for me.

[34:34] Stan Zimmerman: But like we had to polvo loud with you.

[34:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I got to Hef's place, though.

[34:39] Stan Zimmerman: But that's a good thing. Like you can feel the heartache.

[34:45] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, yeah.

[34:45] Stan Zimmerman: I felt that's an important part of the journey.

[34:48] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That's an important part of who you've become too.

[34:51] Stan Zimmerman: Yes, but not just the heartache, but uh hopefully the heart. People have said that's the commonality in all the different works that whether it's yeah about suicide or silver boxes, that hopefully my heart comes out in it, and that's where I'm going to be.

[35:03] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Definitely, I loved when reading it. Again, I didn't know all of this, but when it was like you got nominated for the was it the Writer's Guild Award for the show that you had just got fired from.

[35:15] Stan Zimmerman: It was like that. For Golden Girls, it was like for your script, it was like, oh that was, but it was such a good, I was so glad you did.

[35:22] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But then you're going, wait, but they liked us, but no, they don't like you.

[35:26] Stan Zimmerman: And then they seat us right in front. So we're like, oh, we won this. Oh my god, I'd like to plan it on a board, and all the ladies are coming up, and Estelle's coming here and oh, and nobody didn't win.

[35:35] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, but just getting nominated. Honestly, at that moment in time, that must have made that must have been very joyful.

[35:42] Stan Zimmerman: I remember, I think I wrote about it there. I was at the public theater and we were seeing the color museum.

[35:47] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And back then I was staying with a friend, and she said some of them there weren't phones, like there were cell phones. So she said, Oh, your agent called at my house and left a message.

[35:57] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[35:58] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So I went to the payphone, the buddy in the phone, and they said, Oh, you were nominated for a Writer's Guild Award.

[36:04] Stan Zimmerman: So for the whole play, I'm just I love the play, but I'm like, oh I think.

[36:07] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But it's also you remember where you are so exciting, especially when you absolutely shouldn't have been fired from that job to then be recognized by the peers that you want to be recognized by is a very egos and of course yes, straight white men at the top that were very threatened by obviously two gay boys in the room.

[36:30] Stan Zimmerman: Doing well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[36:32] Marissa Jaret Winokur: For both of you, actually, what's a piece of advice that stuck with you throughout your career that maybe you got early on, or at some point that you thought background as we kept going?

[36:47] Stan Zimmerman: The question is, what's a piece of advice that stuck with you throughout your career that you got early on that stayed with you?

[36:55] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You go first, so I can steal it.

[36:56] Stan Zimmerman: Oh no, mine is such a simple one. This is so silly. But I had a teacher once literally just say breathe.

[37:04] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And he was just like, breathe. If you're not breathing on stage, you're not living, you're not honest, you're not true.

[37:10] Stan Zimmerman: So if you feel like they're not connected to the character, breathe.

[37:13] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I always, and I'm someone who talks way too fast, someone who should be breathing way more than I do.

[37:20] Stan Zimmerman: And I genuinely, that has always stayed with me in life, too, not just in on stage, but I'm constantly like if you're not connected to your breath, you're not connected to your spirit, you're not connected to your soul, you're fake.

[37:31] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You're being fake.

[37:32] Stan Zimmerman: And it really stayed with me.

[37:34] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I've had a lot of ups and downs. I think that reading this really did accord with me because I would get jobs and beyond shows, and I'm like, this is something we should be the most happy about.

[37:44] Stan Zimmerman: Oh my god, I've hit the I'm I'm a series regular, and I'm like, I've never been sadder and more lonely and more depressed.

[37:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You know what I mean? We just still sometimes you get these jobs that are not really the right fit for you.

[37:54] Stan Zimmerman: But then I will say I look back now and I'm like, oh my god, why was I so like sad?

[37:58] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That was like that's been a tricky job now.

[38:00] Stan Zimmerman: But sorry, my answer is to breathe, which I didn't just do just that.

[38:04] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You know, to craft collective breath for everybody.

[38:09] Stan Zimmerman: I would say trust the rhythm of life. And I ride it like a roller coaster, and sometimes it's you're going, Oh my god, what's giving it up and then you're screaming all the way down, and then they get to the end of it, and they're like, I want to do it again.

[38:21] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And uh it's fun to scream while you're with their hands up, and that's been riding it, and here we are at the drama book.

[38:28] Stan Zimmerman: Well, yeah, my siblings always, no matter what job I'm doing, whenever I get, I'm like, I got a new cow. My brother will send me a gift of someone riding a roller coaster.

[38:36] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Here we go.

[38:36] Stan Zimmerman: So it's like play, and I'm like, oh yeah, and then I'm like, oh god, okay, hold on, like it is like here we go.

[38:43] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It's like constantly, it's the roller coaster.

[38:45] Stan Zimmerman: And to be able to enjoy that.

[38:47] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Absolutely. Get out of the car.

[38:49] Stan Zimmerman: So find the joy.

[38:51] Marissa Jaret Winokur: 100% for me, my career is such an insane career. Yours seems to make more sense.

[38:56] Stan Zimmerman: Mine is they're like offer me a job. I'm like, that sounds like fun, I'll do it.

[39:01] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then have people in my life are like, why are you doing that, Donna? I'm like, because it's fun.

[39:04] Stan Zimmerman: I'm just having fun.

[39:06] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So yours made more sense to me than my past, but yeah.

[39:10] Stan Zimmerman: And having fun, I think it's important too. And I talked about that a little bit in the book where I was just going to work, and I would go with like in my car and gonna have fun today, and I go through the gates of Paramount, and I would just be like, oh, why am I here?

[39:22] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then my writing partner, Jim Burke said, We're here. How are you gonna find the fun in it?

[39:26] Stan Zimmerman: And they opened a door in my mind.

[39:29] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then I started just finding fun in everything I did.

[39:32] Stan Zimmerman: Because I would I've only known you, like working through fun.

[39:35] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, uh for through fun. I've only I've never I've never seen a side of you that's not joyful and fun and and wish-fulfilling, and wanting to see the light at the at the what's the silver lining in every moment.

[39:48] Stan Zimmerman: And when we did that play, you would stand in the circle, and I'd always like, oh, here goes Stan. He's gonna say something inspirational.

[39:52] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And by the end, we're gonna cry.

[39:56] Stan Zimmerman: And then by the end, I was always like, Well, that was really sweet.

[39:58] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That was really sweet, and then the next one I'd be like, Oh, here we go again. Stan's gonna say something.

[40:02] Stan Zimmerman: But like it, but it was very you're very touching, you're very moving.

[40:05] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I do think that's probably what comes across in your writing as well, and why it would be silly for you to not continue with your writing.

[40:13] Stan Zimmerman: But as we did with that play, because I've been lately wanting to marry Art and Advocacy together, that's why I've been doing it.

[40:20] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Frank and right before I go. But what we talked about when we were doing that play is the world also needs just to come together and laugh.

[40:27] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[40:27] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And it was very important for us for the hour and a half of a play. They're coming into our space. Let's share a laugh together and that's why I love theater.

[40:36] Stan Zimmerman: I love what this place does and we're able to come together and have that moment and I really appreciate all of you being here and seeing so many different parts of my life.

[40:46] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah that's the stand I have the standing here seemed a little upset.

[40:53] Stan Zimmerman: No I laughed I laughed very hard.

[40:55] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I was sad though there were some moments when I was my it is heartbreaking.

[41:00] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah and it is I know right yeah.

[41:04] Marissa Jaret Winokur: You're in the book page you know that yeah so how I will page is through auditioning and Rita Rocks I and it's all in the book and I'm right I just had this dream that she was my Mary Tyler Moore and I said fly me to New York to meet Paige Davis.

[41:22] Stan Zimmerman: And then we became friends through that and it was an instant like ding and we threw up our hats and yeah.

[41:28] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Was it cathartic to like have you let go of a lot of some of the obviously not here and all the pain.

[41:40] Stan Zimmerman: Was it cathartic and did it help you release some of it by writing it publicly not just in a journal situation.

[41:47] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes when I hear the response because I just went and then when I hear people say how did you get through that or you had to close yourself off and you were so open as an artist and I was like oh wow that's it opened up where I can see more of from outside's point of view what they were seeing.

[42:06] Stan Zimmerman: So yes that and that over space it has.

[42:09] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then it's part of some other issues that I'm dealing with and that I wasn't expecting.

[42:15] Stan Zimmerman: And obviously the end with the grief and dealing with grief and how that's two steps forward, one step back and all of that.

[42:22] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[42:23] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[42:24] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And finding your cheerleaders and so many of them.

[42:31] Stan Zimmerman: I will say you must have, as the world progressed, also though, to see how far gay representation in a writer's room and in Hollywood and all and everywhere, but starting with Hollywood, I feel like you must feel like that's good.

[42:48] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So that was like to go from Roseanne to go from a place where you were like, you're well closet and goal when a hundred which is such a crazy place to be closeted.

[42:56] Stan Zimmerman: Yes. The closet is closets were so big there. And then to Roseanne when the lesbian kiss became the national news story. I would come home from work and it'd be like on the 11 o'clock news, they're talking about what we're writing. I was like, why? And then again, Tom Marvel and Roseanne fought to get that on the air. They said if you don't maybe see doesn't air, we're gonna buy it back, we're gonna buy time on HBO. So I have to always thank them. What's happened to her?

[43:22] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I don't know if we've seen her podcast and she's freaking talking to fucking Carrie Lake and those fucking losers. Sorry. Are we not allowed to say anything? Go ahead, Galaxy.

[43:30] Stan Zimmerman: It wasn't good company here. It's very frustrating for someone that stood up for what I thought was decency and actually just screaming, so that's upsetting. But then still the fears of gay content. It's still, oh no, we have our one lesbian show this year. So we can't make yours. It's just so weird. We can have 5,000 crime shows and but we have 5,000 one.

[43:58] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes, but we can't do two lesbian shows.

[44:01] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, that's a I actually I I didn't even think of that.

[44:03] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes. Because from a you have been an ally for a long time.

[44:08] Stan Zimmerman: Like I was, but I definitely have said that to a lot of youth. I'm like, oh my gosh, I was marching before you were born. I've been marching for years, so I feel like, oh my gosh, we've come so far, but not to sound cheesy and quote hairspray. We have so far to go. We really do have so much farther to go still. And as much as I thought when certain people became president, okay, we're okay now. And then we're not. So we have to keep fighting, still have to keep obviously voting and being represented and expanding all the voices that need to be heard.

[44:40] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But unfortunately, like we just have to gay men can write a story about a family. Right?

[44:49] Stan Zimmerman: No, but that but I do think that's important too. From just being an actress, I think I I do think it's important to also, it doesn't have to be the exact person writing the exact story about the exact person, but I understand representation in the writer's room is important, but I do believe that you guys created a great show that could represent a family. So I do think there's like that there's a flow balance.

[45:13] Stan Zimmerman: And I think it's for me, I think it's also important to let people that may not be what you are get in your shoes to feel that the only way we're gonna come together is if we can feel how other people are feeling, and that's what I've done with the diary of Anne Frank, is having uh does every does I don't know if everyone here knows what he's done with Sir McCream. So I can't believe the Latin ex actors when I heard about the child separation and that a Jewish woman was hiding a Latina mom and her two daughters when her husband was supported by ice, and I got in a lot of trouble with the right wing, but I've been doing it for since 2018, nine iterations all over. I would love to bring it to New York.

The reasons why I can't, which I'll talk about later. There's a certain producer that owns a rights and won't give them up and won't talk to me. I just want to have five minutes like why I think it's important the way I'm doing it. But it's about this cast putting their feet literally in the shoes of the characters. And how are we connected or how are we not connected? I think that's important.

[46:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, I think that's beautiful. I think that's great.

[46:15] Stan Zimmerman: Hi, Fark.

[46:17] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Hey, I have a question for you, Sam. You have in your book, you have a photo in Grandbrook. So I just want to know for a book, what has been your favorite theater memory?

[46:29] Stan Zimmerman: Experience?

[46:30] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, experience that you enjoy.

[46:31] Stan Zimmerman: Oh. Tonight's favorite. I mean, as an actor?

[46:36] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Whatever you want to do.

[46:38] Stan Zimmerman: Whatever. I have to say, doing right before I go. It's extremely hard to do it. You've all seen me do it, some of you a number of times. It's very difficult. My glasses do feel fill up with tears, but because I'm talking about the suicide of a very close friend, I wish I could be doing it every weekend somewhere because it is provoking conversation and literally saving lives. So that's become the most important thing. I did choreographed a mean by birdie in high school. I was not a dancer, but I fucking killed it. I did the dream ballet when every other high school covered. I did it. And then I was very fossy and weird, but not fossil and weird.

[47:25] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah, it's a weird why is that in the show.

[47:27] Stan Zimmerman: And then I'll done button. Anyone else?

[47:33] Marissa Jaret Winokur: No, can we go drink?

[47:35] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[47:36] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes, we are.

[47:37] Stan Zimmerman: That's new though.

[47:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh, you can't.

[47:40] Stan Zimmerman: Oh, yeah. Absolutely go drink if you want.

[47:42] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Okay. But first, Stan's gonna sign all your buttons.

[47:47] Stan Zimmerman: So I want to just come up here and say one more thank you so much, Stan, for bringing your books and your stories and your experience.

[47:57] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Welcome back from that party. So silly.

[48:00] Stan Zimmerman: I will say there's something about that. We learned that night, at least I learned from Marissa Jaret Winokur, podcast etiquette. Because she is the first person I ever saw repeat a question into a mic for podcast purposes.

[48:15] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I remember watching it happen, going, Oh, I am gonna do that from now on as a podcast host. I'm gonna be doing that from now on for anyone who doesn't have the mic, and making sure, and I've seen you tell people to do that.

[48:28] Stan Zimmerman: And we yeah, when we have because we also this is a little look behind the curtain, but we went from like the humblest of setup. I think we're still a kind of humble setup, the humblest of like podcast room mics to be able to actually like record through a sound system.

[48:48] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And so at one point, for the most part of people spoke up, we just had this kind of ambient room mic.

[48:55] Stan Zimmerman: Exactly. That which was really fun to edit. You can't see my face when I said that, but we could hear your face though.

[49:02] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Hear my face as I said that. And now that we have a more sophisticated setup, I can't wait until we have the Phil Donahue mic that we can carry around and explain the Phil Donahue mic for the people that don't understand for the people who weren't alive for Phil Donahue Dylan.

[49:16] Dylan Glick: Okay.

[49:17] Stan Zimmerman: Wasn't even alive?

[49:19] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[49:19] Stan Zimmerman: Okay. So you can find clips on YouTube, I'm sure, of the Phil Donahue show, the the Sally Jesse Raphael show. For those of you hairspray fans out there, the Ricky Lake show. And you can see they would do these interviews where the host doing the interview would be in the audience for a lot of the time, and the guests would be on stage so that they would be walking around and with a mic with a mic.

[49:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Basically a handheld mic that's not that's wireless.

[49:52] Stan Zimmerman: Basically that's yeah, it's not it's not a special kind of I think of I picture Phil Donahue in the audience. And when we can have that, I can't wait. But for now, while we don't have that, it's yeah, we learned that from her.

[50:06] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh yeah, repeat the quest so that we have it clean for the podcast. She changed our podcast's life. Like truly.

[50:12] Stan Zimmerman: We learned something magical that day.

[50:15] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But we learned a lot of magical things that day too. Because the book delved into shows that we love.

[50:20] Stan Zimmerman: We love Golden Girls.

[50:22] Marissa Jaret Winokur: It even delved into Roseanne.

[50:24] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[50:24] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Which was a touchy topic at the time.

[50:28] Stan Zimmerman: Still is, but especially around when we were doing the podcast.

[50:32] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And a bit closer to it at the time.

[50:34] Stan Zimmerman: And so it was neat to have a behind the scenes into that world.

[50:39] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I grew up on sitcoms.

[50:41] Stan Zimmerman: I grew up watching them and thinking that's what life was going to be like when I got older.

[50:45] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I guess in some ways it is, in like the here at least.

[50:45] Stan Zimmerman: Here at least.

[50:49] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I fall down a lot, so there's that.

[50:52] Stan Zimmerman: But it it was neat to see a behind the scenes.

[50:55] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Ever since you put that laugh track button in under the register table.

[50:58] Stan Zimmerman: Exactly.

[50:59] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I wish we did have a laugh track that just like followed us around at all times.

[51:04] Stan Zimmerman: That we could passive aggressively push when a customer doesn't laugh at our joke.

[51:07] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes.

[51:09] Stan Zimmerman: Exactly.

[51:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: See, I'd be the type that when someone says something very seriously, I would then push the button.

[51:17] Stan Zimmerman: Very Karen Walker and Willing Grace when like when Smitty would say, Oh, my wife died or something, and she's like, Oh, you're hilarious. You should do stand up.

[51:24] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes.

[51:24] Stan Zimmerman: I uh it was a nice journey into sitcoms, and so for that, we thank you, Stan.

[51:29] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah for bringing that to us.

[51:31] Stan Zimmerman: On the opposite end of the complete opposite, yeah.

[51:34] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Our next episode will be Accidentally Brave by Maddie Corbin.

[51:39] Stan Zimmerman: Kristen Hangey.

[51:43] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hosted by Kristen Hangi.

[51:44] Stan Zimmerman: And she had directed the production that Maddie did of Accidentally Brave.

[51:50] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And she rather infamously here at the bookshop infamously worked on it.

[51:56] Stan Zimmerman: It's infamously one of your faves.

[51:58] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, it's yeah, it still is one of my faves. Because and I totally fanboyed out.

[52:02] Stan Zimmerman: Oh, yes, you did.

[52:03] Mark-Eugene Garcia: She directed Bear.

[52:05] Stan Zimmerman: Um of my favorite musicals of all time in Los Angeles.

[52:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I saw the original production nine times.

[52:12] Stan Zimmerman: It was very similar to my Real Women with Real Women Have Curves experience because it was a show that hit me right when I needed it.

[52:17] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It was coming out. The story was about coming out.

[52:19] Stan Zimmerman: I grew up Catholic.

[52:20] Mark-Eugene Garcia: The story takes place in a Catholic school.

[52:22] Stan Zimmerman: And it's also very 90s, like very late 90s, 2000s.

[52:26] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I didn't understand that at the time because it was the 90s, 2000s.

[52:29] Stan Zimmerman: I just thought it was now.

[52:30] Mark-Eugene Garcia: But it hit so hard.

[52:33] Stan Zimmerman: And that show really just got me here.

[52:36] Marissa Jaret Winokur: How many people from that production have been in musicals that you wrote?

[52:41] Stan Zimmerman: Two?

[52:42] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I think two.

[52:43] Stan Zimmerman: Definitely two. I was like, I can't remember if there was a third.

[52:45] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Sierra and Jenna both were in stuff I wrote.

[52:49] Stan Zimmerman: Which again, that was all it's all about. I remember when the like free downloads of some they probably.

[52:56] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh, when it came to New York, the three the downloads of Barry.

[52:59] Stan Zimmerman: And then there was like there was I feel like there was like an audio montage of some songs.

[53:06] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes.

[53:06] Stan Zimmerman: And then there were like three downloads, and all grown up.

[53:30] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes, I remember that.

[53:31] Stan Zimmerman: Portrait of a Girl, which was a new song.

[53:33] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yes, yes.

[53:34] Stan Zimmerman: And the uh everyone was singing Portrait of a Girl.

[53:36] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Yeah.

[53:37] Stan Zimmerman: And the I think it was six, because one, which is the end of Act One, but I also feel like the oh the opening-ish number, not the opening number, but like the second number where they're all in the hallways.

[53:47] Marissa Jaret Winokur: I feel like it was in there.

[53:48] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, I listened to that demo non-stop.

[53:50] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I then I merged it into the sound board I had of the LA production that Damon gave me one day.

[53:57] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah, I because I saw it so many times, he like brought me that CD and had it waiting for me at the box office, and my tickets were comp that day.

[54:03] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And just this little package that said, Don't open till you get to the car.

[54:06] Stan Zimmerman: And I'm like to my friends, we're going to the car.

[54:08] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And we went back, and I was like, oh my god, there's the soundboard.

[54:11] Stan Zimmerman: I didn't even know that was a thing.

[54:12] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then when we met, we realized that we both knew Sierra.

[54:16] Stan Zimmerman: Yes.

[54:16] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And we brought her in to sing the very first demo ever of Facing East.

[54:20] Stan Zimmerman: And then she went on to sing the demo cast album for Holy Cows.

[54:23] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Of Holy Cows.

[54:24] Stan Zimmerman: Yeah.

[54:25] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And then she went on to do the concert of Shining in Misery.

[54:31] Stan Zimmerman: Yes.

[54:32] Marissa Jaret Winokur: That's before below.

[54:35] Stan Zimmerman: She was she was Kujo and those roles, yeah.

[54:38] Marissa Jaret Winokur: One of the twins.

[54:39] Stan Zimmerman: And then I remember that I think it was first, I think it was first rehearsal of the Planet Connections production of Holy Cows that you told me that you had gotten Jenny Lee Green.

[54:53] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Oh, for Sambi, and I was so excited about that.

[54:56] Stan Zimmerman: And I was too.

[54:58] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And I was a little overzealously excited because I remember posting my favorite TV meme girl is gonna be a Marky D.

[55:05] Stan Zimmerman: Market.

[55:06] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And you were like, you have to take that down.

[55:08] Stan Zimmerman: We haven't announced it yet.

[55:09] Marissa Jaret Winokur: We haven't announced it.

[55:10] Stan Zimmerman: Yes, I do remember that.

[55:11] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But if anyone from the original cast of Bear and Los Angeles wants to work together, I am totally happy and down to do that because I loved you all back then and still do now.

[55:20] Stan Zimmerman: But Holy Cows and Standby both have cast albums out there.

[55:24] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Out there in the world on SoundCloud and on I can't remember Bandcamp.

[55:29] Stan Zimmerman: Thank you.

[55:29] Marissa Jaret Winokur: Out there on SoundCloud and on Bandcamp. Definitely give them a listen.

[55:35] Stan Zimmerman: But let's get ready for next week.

[55:37] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[55:39] Marissa Jaret Winokur: So remember, follow us on Instagram at Drama Book Show Podcast.

[55:43] Stan Zimmerman: Remember that.

[55:45] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Please subscribe to the drama bookshop on Eventbrite so we can see all your smiling faces at our events in person.

[55:51] Stan Zimmerman: Hey, you know what? If you want to give us a subscribe, give us a review, give us a rating.

[55:56] Marissa Jaret Winokur: We love that. Hit us up on Instagram. We love talking to people.

[55:59] Stan Zimmerman: It'd be great to hear from you.

[56:01] Marissa Jaret Winokur: But remember that all of the books that we talk about can be found here at the drama bookshop.

[56:06] Stan Zimmerman: And so can we.

[56:08] Marissa Jaret Winokur: And we will at the bookshop.

[56:10] Stan Zimmerman: Bum ba bum bum bum.