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[0:00] Maddie Corman: My husband actually said to me a few years ago when I was doing a play. I don't know anyone who loves acting as much as you. And I don't know that that was a compliment. Honestly, I don't know that he meant it as a compliment. I wanna be a producer with a hit show on Broadway.

[0:18] Ken Davenport: You're listening to the Producer's Perspective Podcast with your host, Tony Award winner, Ken Davenport. It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood. A beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine? It's a new. Hey everybody, it's Ken Davenport with the Producer's Perspective Podcast. This week's guest, Maddie Corman, playwright, star of Accidentally Brave, and one of the most brave entrepreneurs I know. Stay tuned for an incredible story.

[0:47] Ken Davenport: I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Producer's Perspective podcast. I'm super excited for my guest today, partly because when I was a teenager and watching her as a teenager in movies like Some Kind of Wonderful, I would have done anything to be in the same room with her, and now I am. I'm talking about actress, author, entrepreneur, Miss Maddie Corman. Welcome, Maddie.

[1:12] Maddie Corman: Hi. I really do. Like Some Kind of Wonderful. I will never forget like seeing you and just having this biggest crush on you.

[1:21] Ken Davenport: What? Ever. And also I think a talent, you were just you were an incredible performer. This is exciting and alarming. I never know these things until it's too late. But thank you so much. I had no idea.

[1:33] Ken Davenport: So tell me a little bit about your entry into the business as a child star, how that how that happened.

[1:40] Maddie Corman: Well, I was a kid who loved acting. I mean, really loved it. Like, I'm a terrible athlete. I'm a very competitive person who's bad at sports. So I didn't even realize I was competitive, but I compete with myself. I always just wanted to do something if I could do it really well. Um, and if I couldn't, I would leave, which is not a great quality. I try to not instill that quality in my children. But I loved doing the school shows and the choir concerts, and where I grew up in suburban New York, at the time in the 80s, there wasn't a lot of kids' theater. Community theater was really for adults, and even the TV shows and a lot of Broadway that was happening was really once in a while there was a part for a kid. There was no Disney Channel, there was no Nickelodeon. But my mother just saw something that her kid loved to do and helped to open a local theater in Irvington, New York, where I was growing up.

[2:38] Maddie Corman: So she opened up this theater called the Town Hall Theater that had been shuttered. It's this gorgeous space. It's a replica of the Ford's Theater in DC that had just been closed for years because no one was using it. And she hired an acting teacher and created a space for kids in the community to come together, and I was hooked. I mean, I was already hooked from the school shows, but really getting to do it a little bit more was incredible. And one of my early acting teachers fancied herself a manager. That meant she read backstage and sent people on auditions that we could have read ourselves, but that seemed exciting to me.

[3:20] Maddie Corman: Exactly. Uh, really, truly. But my mother and father are not their great appreciators of art, but my mother was a special ed teacher, and my dad wasn't still is a lawyer, and we didn't have a lot of family members at all. No family members involved in the business. So she kind of poo-pooed the whole thing, mostly because she didn't want to be a stage mom. She didn't want to schlep around. But we were close enough to New York City that when I turned 13, 14 and was still begging to do this, she relented, and I started to go on a couple of auditions. And I got my equity card from an open call from Backstage for James LePine's 12 Dreams. It's a play that he wrote and directed at the public theater.

[4:12] Maddie Corman: Well, that was his first James LePine has done this podcast, and he talks about that a lot. That was what put him on the map. It was a big thing. He wasn't a playwright before then. He was a from Yale or something. It was like a journalist. So I didn't know any of that. I just thought this guy, James, gave me the understudy role. That was kind of a I was used to being Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. So I was a little disappointed, but I was really also very excited. And I did get to go on. And from there, I think I got a more legit manager. And I did it. I mean, I balanced, I went to public school, but I also started working. I mean, I did an after school special, which I don't know how old you are, but we're probably around the same age, it was a very big deal.

[4:52] Ken Davenport: What was it? What was the subject matter?

[4:54] Maddie Corman: Well, I did a couple. I did one, I did one called My Mother the Witch, which was very literal. It was set in Salem. I mean, it wasn't like, oh, I'm a teenager who's mad at my mom. It was my mother was going to be tried in the Salem Witch Trials. That was a kind of heavy, a heavy one. That wasn't officially an afterschool special. It was um a scholastic special. So that was a little more weighty. And then I did an afterschool special called I Want to Go Home. Lindsay Krause played my mom, and Seth Green played my little brother, and we were our mother kidnapped us from our dad who had custody. It was very heavy. I started out heavy and got lighter. And now I'm heavy again.

[5:35] Ken Davenport: Yeah, I was gonna say full. Guess what? Um, so yeah, that was my early start, and I kept going to school. I would have tutors when I was out of school, and Some Kind of Wonderful was when I was 16. I turned 17 during shooting of the movie, and it was a crazy time because as I've talked a lot about my mother, if you're a kid actress, you necessarily are close with your mother, at least literally close because you need a parent on set. I was also incredibly close. She was my very best friend, and she was hilarious and dry and really, really smart. And she got really, really sick, and she actually passed away when I was 16. And I had had my first audition for Some Kind of Wonderful right before she got sick.

[6:20] Maddie Corman: And when she was in the hospital, really on her last legs, I had a call back, and I wasn't gonna go, but I ended up going. I was in the city anyway, and I didn't even know about it until I was already at the hospital. And we had answering machines, we didn't have cell phones, and we had this giant thing that you had to put up to the payphone to check your answering machine. Oh, right, to send a tone over something. And it would rewind and play you your messages. And I had a message from my agent saying, I know this is a tough time. No one knew how dire it was, but they knew my mom was in the hospital. But and you have this audition. If you can make it to the Gulf and Western building by two, you have a callback for Some Kind of Wonderful. And John Hughes at the time was a very, very big deal, but I wasn't gonna go. But I told my mom and she said, Go, go go.

[7:11] Maddie Corman: And I went and I got put on tape. It wasn't a very electric or exciting audition. There was just the New York casting director who I loved, and he put me on tape, and I came back to the hospital, and I told my mother, oh, they were all in the room, and I got it. I got the offer right there. Just because why not? You know, and she died a few days later. And I forgot because my mother died. And then I'd say about three or four weeks after that, I got a call saying, John Hughes wants to meet you. I didn't get the movie, but I got another call back. And I was like, Well, I've already gone twice. I was so cocky. And I mean, I wasn't cocky, I was this kid in mourning, but I was also kind of like, what more can I do? And truly, they wanted to see me to make sure I was okay. I mean, my mother had just died and they knew that. So I went in and then I think I even had one more callback, but I eventually did actually get the part. So it was a very incredible experience.

[8:09] Maddie Corman: My dad and I were just talking about it the other day. This is 30 years ago, but how that movie saved our lives, not just my life, but my brother and my dad and I went out to LA to shoot this movie, and it was the summer, and we would have just been sitting there looking at each other miserable. But they went to Disney, and I went my version of Disney was getting to go shoot a John Hughes movie. So I love when people love that movie because it was a very healing time for me. I would do what I loved during the day and then go to the hotel and cry every night. But I made some lifelong friends. I mean, Eric Stoltz is still one of my, he's still like my big brother. He still teases me, and we're still very close.

[8:52] Ken Davenport: So when you told your mom that, that you oh, I got it, they offered it to me. Did you think that you were gonna get it, or were you just throwing it out there just to...

[8:57] Maddie Corman: I just wanted to say anything that would make her okay to let go. I mean, it was a really um that might be another whole podcast, but it was a very, very sad time. And I didn't even know how much she was hearing at this point. You know, she had lost, she had a stroke, she had melanoma, and it had progressed without us knowing it. So by the time it was close to the end, she couldn't speak. So I just wanted to give her great news, you know, anything we could to make her happy. And she was a reluctant stage mom, but a stage mom. And I now get it more now that I have three kids, that seeing your kid happy is actually possibly a better feeling than being happy yourself. And I not to sound completely codependent and crazy, but there is something about knowing your kid's gonna be okay that you can exhale.

So she knew how much I wanted it and how much I loved that part, and I loved John Hughes, and I think I wanted to give her that gift of letting her know I would be okay, which of course I wasn't. I did get the movie, and I still wasn't, you know, you're not okay. Losing a parent is awful at any age, but it was pretty brutal.

[10:10] Ken Davenport: So you go on to do a whole bunch of movies, you do a couple Broadway shows as well, lots of television.

[10:17] Maddie Corman: Yeah. Now, I want to get into your the process, your process as an actress, but before we do that, we hear these stories about child performers all the time that start very young and have success very young as you did, that then fall by the wayside, they get lost along the way, give up the business.

[10:36] Maddie Corman: Yeah. You seem the opposite of that. So stable and along this way, continue to work, be real journeywoman, if you will, just keep plugging away and doing things. Why did your path seem so focused and so straight and narrow as opposed to so many others?

[10:57] Maddie Corman: Well, that's a really good question. I don't know that I've actually thought about it that much, except to say, A, as I mentioned earlier, I really love it, which is both my Achilles heel and perhaps what keeps me going. Um, my husband actually said to me a few years ago when I was doing a play, I don't know anyone who loves acting as much as you. And I don't know that that was a compliment, honestly. I don't know that he meant it as a compliment. I do um I love and I really love theater. I mean, I love acting, but I really love theater. I love theater people. Um, and I say that because I think a lot of kids do it because their parents love it, or they do it because they're good at it, but that doesn't mean they necessarily love it, or especially more now, they love the bells and whistles and the perks along the way.

Don't get me wrong, I like uh I like a good chair with my name on it, or a sh a t-shirt, but I really truly love, I've always loved the process. I love a rehearsal room almost as much as I love being on stage, actually. So I think that keeps me going, and I also think I wasn't literally supporting my family as a lot of child actors end up being the breadwinners for their families, and that's a lot of pressure.

[12:11] Maddie Corman: I had parents who were like, if you love this, great, and if you don't, better, honestly, because they weren't living their dreams through me. They weren't looking to me to pay for their rent. And I understand that a lot of parents actually have to give up their careers in order to support their kids. So I don't judge it, but that's just my experience. And I also had one really bad experience when I was 16, you know, a Me Too type experience, which I've talked about. A playwright stuck his tongue down my throat when I was 16 and he was 47. But other than that, which sounds like a big other than that, I really had great experiences working. And you say I was successful, but I was never one of those, I wasn't famous.

I just worked. I was almost like an early character actor, you know, and I would go stage to TV show to movie. I never hit it so big that I wish I had, but maybe that was a good thing. All I wanted when I was young was to be famous so that I could pick my parts, but that did not happen. So I really, like you said, have been a journeyman, woman, person who has tried to be selective, but who definitely has not been able to say, oh, I'm picking between these three projects. I mean, that's changed a little bit right now because I had kind of an amazing, surprising year. And I'm trying to honor that, but I had to let go of that ego, which my fellow actors and writers and producers and directors have said, we're all in it together.

We do what's in front of us. Some of it is great, some of it isn't. I can't do a play that I don't love. Sometimes it doesn't come out great, but I have to love it from the beginning. I don't know if that answered your question.

[14:03] Ken Davenport: No, totally. I love this quote about I love the rehearsal room almost as much as being on stage, because that is what it's all about, I think, for a real actor and the difference between someone who wants to be an actor and someone who just wants to be famous.

[14:16] Maddie Corman: Yeah, I mean, although I will say one of my best friends is Julie Halston. We were talking about her, and I think she's a phenomenal actress. She actually says, get just put me on stage. I don't need rehearsal. And she's kind of right. And she has depth and pathos and things that she doesn't give herself credit for, but I've been on stage with her. She can't stand the table work. I love it. I think it's fascinating. I love, I mean, nothing's more exciting to me than a new play and a living playwright who's willing and a great director and an amazing cast, and sitting around that table and figuring it out and then being completely lost and putting it back together. So I do love that part of the process.

[14:55] Ken Davenport: How has your process as an actor about the craft changed since you were 16 and in Some Kind of Wonderful to now?

[15:04] Maddie Corman: Well, in some ways, because it hasn't changed as much as you would hope. I try to look at myself when I was young because I had early success, I didn't train as much as some other people. And that made me feel like a sham in some ways as I got older, like, oh, I didn't go to Juilliard. But I also look back to that girl who knew what she was doing instinctually. I believe in hard work, I believe in process. I really, I teach acting, I believe in studying, but I also believe that artists, great artists have something inside, and to get in touch with that voice and that confidence, that gut is really important. And so, in some ways, as an adult middle-aged actor, I try to go back there when I wasn't nervous, when I wasn't thinking about what the reviews would say, when I wasn't thinking about what this would do for my career, when I just felt it.

It's hard to put into words because there is some magic that happens. And when I wasn't worried about, would I get the trailer or the, you know, three banger, like my ego wasn't as involved, at least in the business side of it. I always had an ego and shame and fear and hope around the job, but I didn't have it as much around the business. And I actually think that's helpful, if that makes sense. And my process as an actor has been in some ways to attack things intellectually as I've grown as hopefully my intellect has grown since I was young, but also then to let go of that. So kind of marry those two parts of myself, the part that has all this knowledge, but also the little kid who just wants to play.

[16:46] Ken Davenport: Are your kids in the business?

[16:48] Maddie Corman: They're all really talented, actually, but I don't know if it's because they see me, you know, the bad parts of it, the times I don't get something, the time the show closes after all the work, or you don't get the part after the 13th callback, or maybe because it was so accessible. I mean, I married into a very show business family, and I work, and so they've seen it. Whereas for me, it was just this pie in the sky kind of thing. My daughter has fallen in love with writing and performing as a sketch comedian, which is a very different way to go about it, but she's also a really good actress. She just naturally is. She's much more natural. I think her grandmother's genes went right into her and skipped me, because I'm much more of a handbone.

I love a laugh. But she's interesting because she's actually a comedian who doesn't look for laughs. I don't know how to explain it, which makes her better at it. So she is writing and performing at Emerson where she's at college. But in high school, that's new because in high school she was an athlete. All three of my kids are athletes, which is stunning. I mean, really surprising if you know me. I've tried. All my kids played soccer, and I still don't understand what offsides is, but I try. I don't think anyone does actually. I cheer and I try. And now my one of my boys is the goalie. So I understand he either stops the goal or doesn't stop the goal, and I know when to cheer. But my son, well, I have three kids.

My boys are twins, and one of my boys is a really good bass player, bass guitar, and my other boy plays regular guitar and sings, and they're good writers and photographers and things. So they have they're definitely artsy, but it's not their whole life, which is interesting because if they end up going into it, I think they'll have probably in some ways a healthier attitude. I mean, it's part of their life, not their sole focus.

[18:51] Ken Davenport: So last year you wrote and starred in a play, Accidentally Brave. Before this play, had you ever written anything before?

[19:00] Maddie Corman: No. Never. I mean, I keep a journal. I was an English major at Barnard College where I went to college a million years ago. And I did write a screenplay. That's not true. I wrote a screenplay with a writing partner, but many moons ago. And I love writing, but I never published anything. I never wrote anything that anybody actually did. Not even a short play.

[19:24] Ken Davenport: Was it something that you were thinking about doing? Like, oh, one day I'll write a play, or no?

[19:30] Maddie Corman: I have, I mean, I love writers. I have a lot of friends who are writers, and I put playwrights even above any kind of, I just think great playwrights are extraordinary. And I have friends who are some of our best playwrights, and I'm friends, but also fangirl of Warren Light, Richard Greenberg, Jeffrey Nofts, who maybe because Jeffrey, who was a fantastic actor and I knew as an actor, and then wrote Next Fall, which I was in, you know, maybe there was a little seed there. Something happened to me, and I just thought I have to tell this story, and not to get all woo-woo, but it just I had to do it. I felt like I had to tell it on stage. It just felt right. It felt like the correct way. I also never wanted to and never have done a solo show.

I mean, to me, it's kind of like, what's the worst thing your friend could invite you to? Their one woman show. I mean, it's like, guess what? And oh God, all right, I'll be there. I'm like, I can't believe I did this. But because of what happened and the way it happened and the way I felt, feeling so completely alone, even when I was surrounded by people, it just it was very clear to me. And I'm not a person who's necessarily clear on things. It was very, very clear that I had to do it. And I'm not saying it was easy to write, but it somewhat tumbled out of me.

[20:55] Ken Davenport: I mean, this was a very difficult personal experience for you. And I think 99.9999% of the world population would run the other direction and hide and never want to be seen again by all the friends and fans. They would just run. And you actually ran the other direction. You ran right into it and put yourself out there. What I mean, how scary was that first when you were gonna I'm gonna write this thing. I'm gonna tell everyone.

[21:26] Maddie Corman: I mean, I wasn't scared when I was writing it because I didn't know if anyone would ever hear it or see it. I really didn't. Just for those people who don't know, so we don't sound too cryptic. My husband of we had been together 20 years. I think we'd been married 17 years or something like that. About four and a half years ago, the police came to the door and they arrested my husband for charges of child pornography. And I was completely stunned, as were my children and PS. Within 48 hours, it was in every newspaper, television websites, Facebook, Us Magazine. My husband is not super famous, but he and neither was I or am I, but I'm an actress and he was a television director, very successful television director.

And so it was not only big news in our community, but it was the whole world knew, really moments after I knew. And it was devastating on twenty thousand levels. And not that long after, I mean, very quickly after that, someone found me because my story was in the New York Post. Not my story, the salacious horrible story about this horrible thing with details that weren't even true. Just the worst of the worst that the New York Post would print. And someone who I don't mention her name. She's in the show, I call her my angel, who I had never met, very famous woman. I don't even say she's a woman in the show, but she's a woman. I had never met her. We had very few friends in common. She found me.

She found a friend of a friend of a friend and got my number and reached out and shared her own story with me, which was not the same, but involved sex addiction and recovery and getting off the ground of a devastating betrayal revelation. And that saved my life. I mean, I'm not being hyperbolic. I tend to be hype, I'm an actress, I'm a writer, I like to exaggerate that this actually saved my life and allowed me to keep going. And I asked her along the way, we stepped, we stayed in touch, really constant contact early on, and then a little less. And at one point, when I was breathing, I mean, not even well, but just breathing, I said, how can I ever repay you? And she said, just do what I did for you for somebody else. I don't think she meant write a one-person show and perform it at the Darrell Roth Theater. But I knew even with her story, it was so different from mine.

[24:05] Maddie Corman: But hearing someone who had been so low and so shocked and so lost, and trying to mother her kids and have a career, it just was so helpful for me.

[24:18] Maddie Corman: And all my close friends and family who I am very lucky. I have a really wonderful group of friends and an incredibly supportive. You know, my father remarried after my mom died. I'm very close with my stepmother and my brother and his wife, and I have a great in-law family.

[24:36] Maddie Corman: But no one had ever been through anything like this. And no one could say it's going, they could say it's going to be all right, but they looked terrified. And a lot of people said, I can't even imagine what you're going through, which obviously makes sense, but it was not helpful for me to hear it all.

[24:52] Maddie Corman: And so I felt this mission. I genuinely felt a mission to share my story. And I didn't know exactly how I would. I didn't know if it would be a TED talk or just writing or the moth. But I knew that I wanted to tell other people, and I thought I'm a pretty good actress. And I have not seen someone, I've heard people talk about lying on the bathroom floor and screaming, but I haven't actually seen it. I genuinely haven't seen that time.

[25:23] Maddie Corman: And a lot of people talk about their lowest point and how they got better. And I was interested early on, I didn't know how I would write it or what I would include and not include, but I wanted to show that moment. I wanted to show that moment because if someone was willing to share theirs with me, it was really, really helpful.

[25:46] Maddie Corman: Um, so I knew I had that in mind, and I reached out to, as you know, you know, I am part of the New York theater world, and we do eight zillion readings, all of us. And that's how a lot of people, you know, a lot of people will say, Well, how do you know Ken Davenport? How do you know? Well, Daryl and I had worked together. How do you know this one or that one or this actor? And we've all done these readings, whether it's a 29-hour reading or a um, and Kristen Hangey, I actually had done um readings with, and she directed me in in two films.

[26:22] Maddie Corman: So I shouldn't say I had only done readings, but I just knew her, but I didn't know her super well, but I loved her. And I've known, I know a lot of people. I've been doing this since I was 14 years old. And this happened in my 40s. And I just knew to call Kristen. And I reached out to her and I said, I think I'm ready to write about this. And she said, I've um, she called me and said, I've been waiting for you to call. I mean, talk about woo-woo. Kristen's really woo-woo. And she said, I had a vision and I knew you were gonna call me, and I knew we were gonna work on this.

[26:59] Maddie Corman: Um, and so when you say, Were you scared? I went over to her womb-like apartment with nothing. We had a couple glasses of wine, and we talked and I started writing. And I would go over there once a week, and then I'd write in between. So it was very, very safe and very quiet.

[27:20] Maddie Corman: And then I'd say about six months in, she said to me, and I mean, it was still scary, even doing that, and there was a lot of tears. And this was in real time, also. I mean, my whole life didn't suddenly get better, and now I'm writing about this time. I mean, I'm experiencing it. So it was a lot. It was a lot, but it was sometimes cathartic, sometimes really painful. I would look back at text messages and journals and things, and um, and at some point Kristen said, Um, we're ready to leave my apartment. And I was like, Well, where are we going? And she said, You tell me.

[27:54] Maddie Corman: She said, Close your eyes and where are we going next? So I said, Are you sure? She goes, Well, we're gonna find out if it's a play. We're gonna find out. But the only way to find out is I think we need a rehearsal space. So I closed my eyes and I opened my eyes and I said, It's Joanna Feltzer, it's New York Stage and Film, which has become a place that I love, and I've done plays there and workshops there, and I love Joanna, and she's such a supporter of just artists. And she, like everyone, knew what had been happening.

[28:26] Maddie Corman: So I reached out to her and just said, I have this, I've been writing about what happened. And she didn't say, Can I read it? She just said, What do you need? You know, and that's really lovely and incredible. And I said, I think I need a space to rehearse. And she said, Well, we're doing our reading series or New York. I was thinking in the summer, and it was the winter. I was like, this will give me a few months to get out of this. And she said, I think it was the week after, she was doing their reading series at Barnard, and she said, I can give you space at Barnard, which weirdly is where I went to college.

[29:02] Maddie Corman: Um, but that's where we're rehearsing, and I can slip you in, and in between our our official readings, you can have space for five days to rehearse. And then on the sixth day, you can have the theater. And I was like, Well, I won't be needing that, but thank you very much. And on I say my second day, or even yeah, I think it was the second day, I said, I think we should do it for a really, really, really, really small invited audience. And Kristen just was like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[29:33] Maddie Corman: So uh that was when the fear really, really, really kicked in. Because first it was just Kristen and me, then it was Kristen and me and one young woman reading stage directions, and she was the first person who had heard it out loud, besides Kristen. And then it was, I'd say 16 people came to Barnard, and I was terrified. But I did it, and those 16 people, a few of whom were at opening night, they were people who loved me and loved me, but also I was smart about who I invited and who showed up. And they were some really fierce artists, including Daisy Prince, who is just a dear friend, but also an incredible director and human.

[30:16] Maddie Corman: And I knew, and my girlfriend Gabby Allen, who's a wonderful writer, and these people love me, and they would have said, We love you, don't ever do this again. You know, they would have. They would have said, This is beautiful now, put it away. And they and Kristen said, Yeah, you have to keep going. So I I kept being scared. Then I got really scared because then I went to New York Stage and Film up at Vassar for real and did it for I think about a hundred people, both that I knew and didn't know. It was actually, I think, scarier to do it for the people that I did know.

[30:53] Ken Davenport: So you were surrounded, sounds like by some very supportive friends and family and artists and people that loved you that encouraged you to keep going. But I have to imagine that there were plenty of people that were saying, don't do this, whether it's family, whether it's age, like just don't.

[31:11] Maddie Corman: Well, here's the thing. I didn't ask, which is so rare for me. I usually am a person who polls, I say this in the show actually, I poll 48 people to decide what I should eat for lunch. I mean, I am a very, I want to know what you think and get your permission and approval. I love being well liked. But this whole situation just blew up my life so much that it actually one of the gifts of this nightmare is that I had to stop worrying about what other people thought because there's no way staying with my husband, which I ended up doing, is such an unpopular decision.

[31:50] Maddie Corman: Leaving him, I there were people who would judge. I mean, there was no way I was gonna get away with being beloved anymore. Um that was off the and and that made me angry at him for the you know, one of the two thousand things I was angry at him about. Um so weirdly, I didn't ask many people. Um, and in fact, one of a friend who I probably shouldn't say who it is, who came to Vassar and saw it, was the only person who said to me, I think you shouldn't do this.

[32:22] Maddie Corman: I was so scared, I was so going, I don't know if I should do it, I don't know if I should do it. And he was the first person who said you shouldn't do it, and I said, I'm going to do it. Like it gave me permission to fight for something, and it didn't mean I wasn't scared. I mean, opening preview, I thought I was gonna throw up and opening night as well. And uh probably every performance along the way, it was uh I mean, going on the view, it was doing the press became way scarier than doing the performance because the performance meant I and you said most people would run away.

[32:55] Maddie Corman: I mean, in a sense, first of all, I'm not that brave because it was already out. I mean, the story was already out. I couldn't, it's not like I'm telling my secret. Like you already knew my secret, but I didn't have to tell the messy, horrible details about myself, but I wanted to, but I also didn't want to tell everybody over lunch. Like I hate having lunch with people anyway. So this was in some ways just a grand scheme to not have to sit and have lunch with anyone.

[33:21] Maddie Corman: Especially you'd have to pull 47 people to decide what to eat. And also everyone could just go, Oh, I see why you're not having lunch with me. So, and you know, a lot of people ask a lot of um horrible questions, which is are all understandable, but I got to, I didn't write it to control the narrative, but I did end up saying, here's the part of my story that I want to share. And of course, I didn't share everything. I mean, it feels like it, hopefully, when you see the play, but I tried to tell my part of the story, not my kids' part, and honestly, not my husband's part, which is very tricky.

[33:57] Maddie Corman: And that was and continues to be in some ways. Yes, I'm scared that people won't like me or judge me. But I'm way more scared, or maybe just the word is concerned about that I am respectful of my children and their story.

[34:14] Maddie Corman: You talked about the last year actually having some bright light around it. And one of my favorite quotes is out of chaos comes brilliance. You have managed to do the unthinkable, which is to take something that frankly we all catastrophize in our lives about bad things that could happen, right? A plane could crash, like, but this thing that happens to you is probably, as you said, the thing that no one ever could ever imagine.

[34:40] Maddie Corman: I worried about everything. I mean, I'm just a warrior, and I have three children, so I worried about everything, and this wasn't even on the list. Genuinely, I had no thought that I should should be worried about this, and it's really um dysregulating because for a person who's already scared, it's like, okay, what am I missing? I mean that's true in my life today, that I have to be really careful to not be so hyper-vigilant that it's um honestly deadly. Like shame is really killer, but so is hypervigilance and um and lack of trust. It's it's can be really terrible.

[35:19] Maddie Corman: And you take that and you you turn that into bright light. So tell us what is happening. So the play goes, it runs off broadband, it gets terrific reviews. Yeah.

[35:31] Maddie Corman: And now I can see the smile on your face that like there's just because I haven't really digested it fully yet. Like it's so bananas because I'm not it sounds corny to say that it was service, but it really was something I wanted to do as a gift to people who were and are suffering. And I knew because even in the years before I did the play, I've been in group therapy. I go to 12-step groups. I've had people just because my story was already in the paper, not as much as it has been since I did the show, reach out to me and say, I'm in pain also, I have secrets also.

[36:11] Maddie Corman: My husband has secrets also, my sister has, you know, whatever it is, I've been the receiver of secrets and of trauma of other people. And so I knew that not only have I gained from sharing my stories, I've gained from hearing other people's stories, and I wanted to give that. A lot of people wrote to me, and I just now have started to really look at the—I mean, when I would receive these emails and texts and Facebook messages, some from total strangers, I would read them, but I'd mostly just send them to my dad because I wanted him to see. I couldn't digest it. So even though it's been a few months since we closed, um, oh, then I recorded a few months after that, I recorded the play for Audible, which was a really different experience because I did it alone.

I mean, I did it with a wonderful producer and sound engineer, but there was no audience. So it was a different way of experiencing the story. So yeah, that has been, um, of course it's great to be lauded and appreciated by my community. That's awesome. And I have an ego and I love it. I mean, winning awards is cool and getting—I didn't read the reviews, but you always know if they're good or bad, and I know they were mostly good. Um, and just nice, nice things that people who I really care about have said. That's awesome. But really truly, truly madly deeply, it has been incredible to hear that maybe somebody feels less alone. Um, you know, there were people in my family that really didn't want me to do the show, like you said.

So that was, um, that was hard to say I'm gonna do it anyway, because I believe in it, and I believe that ultimately, you know, I'm in the Mr. Rogers movie, um, and he says, uh, Fred Rogers said, if it's mentionable, it's manageable. And pornography addiction and getting arrested, and um, illegal pornography and shame, and that's not mentionable. We are not supposed to talk about it. And I certainly did not want to be the one, but this is what I'm trained for and semi-good at. So maybe if I had been, I don't know, a painter, I'd be painting, or if I were a philanthropist, I would be starting a charity. Um, but this is my way of processing it for me, but hopefully helping. Um, I'm sure so many times in your life you've said, why me?

Why did this have to be me? Well, I can tell you there I'm sure there's so many people that are thankful that it was you because you're able to get it out there and help and so many people as a result of your gift that you've had since a young person.

[39:15] Ken Davenport: Well, thank you. I mean, I'm not great at hearing that, but I do know that when my mom died, it was so lonely. Um, not only was it painful and sad, but it was lonely, and I kind of put it away because I didn't want other people to feel uncomfortable. And it seemed like most 17-year-olds weren't going through that. Um, and so I didn't want to be the buzzkill. But I think I really did myself and others a disservice. So I mean, I'm smiling today. It's not fake, but I'll also tell you I'm mostly okay. I'm not fully okay. And that is how I want to live my life. And I do think that theater and putting things on stage and sometimes on film too, shows the mess, you know, we show the humanity behind all of it.

And when we just read about something, you really do just get a sliver of the story. So, but it is exciting that I also really care about the craft. And I think Kristen Hangi and Daryl Roth created along with me a really good production. Like I'm really proud of and proud of myself for telling the story, but I am also proud of the product. Like that is where the weird thing of service and confessional and art and commerce all kind of came together. And I'm not a spring chicken, you know, I have been around. So it was exciting. It was a weird mix to be like, okay, I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm telling the story, and I'm the actress and I'm gonna be on stage. And also that chair's the wrong color.

You know, like I got to really be outside myself once we got into the rehearsal process and into previews and looking at the projections and listening to the music and being a part of something that I created. I can take that in better than I take in the rest of it. It was exciting to go have notes about the design and things. It’s a crazy combination of—and be included. And Daryl was incre— you know, I'm a brand new playwright, and she had so much respect for me as a playwright, way more than I had for myself. And in fact, I remember one of the rehearsals she came to early in the rehearsal period. She really laid off, was very hands-off, and let us get to a place. And when we were ready to do a run, she had the script in front of her, and she was like, uh, you missed some words.

I was like, but I wrote it, so who cares? And she was like, No, you wrote a really good play, and you should say the words that you wrote. You know, it was an interesting um and important note because she believed in me as a writer, not just as an actress, not a lot of things. And that play is now published.

[42:02] Maddie Corman: I just saw your Instagram, right? So people can read it and perform it.

[42:10] Ken Davenport: Yes, isn't that bananas? It's incredible. Yeah, Daryl talked about that during um the run, saying, you know, what would you think about other people doing it? I was like, I can't even believe I'm doing it. So I can't even imagine that. But I had certain actresses come, like Geneva Carr and Katie Finneran, who were like, can I do this? And I was like, oh God, yes, you could. Um, but more than so it was them, um, those brilliant women, you know, saying it and Daryl saying it, but then also the story is so specific and so unique, uniquely horrible, that I honestly didn't know how people would respond. And so many people, men, women, young people, old people, um, all the in-between genders and religions and shapes and sizes and colors of people who have are very different from me and have very different stories from mine, said, I saw myself in this, and that was a big surprise and really exciting.

Not just like, oh, you were good, I feel bad for you. Like, I had this. I have uh this young man, gorgeous uh actor, dancer, young, 20-something, came and said, you know, he lost his sister in a terrible car accident. And he said, Oh, that moment where everybody tells you thinks that you can't laugh, but you are laughing, but then you shouldn't be just there is a certain grief that came along with my experience that um many, many people have experienced. So that people like my friend Justin who said that, and other people who said, I relate to this, not just I see you, I see your story. That it felt like it could be done by other people. And I'm very happy it's published because there are people who've reached out to me from Australia who just said I can't get to this off-Broadway run in New York City, but I want to read.

They had read um maybe the article in the New York Times. There were a bunch of articles um that came out, and people said this did happen to me, and I can't tell anyone, but I want to read it. So I am excited that it's in print for those people as well. Accidentally Brave. You can get it now in print. You can hear it on Audible, and maybe we'll see you again do this sometime in the future.

[44:44] Maddie Corman: Yes. I wanted to take a break. I did eight shows a week um for a few months, and I still was living my life. I mean, still I'm a mother, um, a wife of a person who has a dog and responsibilities. And uh, my dad was sick during the run, so I'd go Tuesdays were our dark day, and we'd go see my dad. He's knock on all of the wood doing amazing right now and healthy. But um, it was a lot, and I thought maybe I would be done, but I don't feel done. I don't feel done. And um, so we're not done. So we are going to do the play again in California and hopefully in other cities, but I can't say it officially.

[45:30] Ken Davenport: She was trying to see it in her eyes. She was trying to figure out if she could say if she can't believe it. I'll tell you after, and then I'll have to come back and do another um another show with you and talk about that. But look out. And yes, follow me on all of the things, and I'll be sure to announce it when I'm allowed to.

[45:49] Ken Davenport: Well, thank you for being here today.

[45:51] Maddie Corman: Oh my gosh. It's always great to see you.

[45:52] Ken Davenport: Yeah, good to see you as well. And thank you for your incredible courage in telling this story and helping so many people out there that I know who may have suffered anything even closely related to this. And also I will just say thank you for inspiring other theater makers out there because you know what? If you can get yourself in a room and write this story and get it up on a stage, then anyone can write any play, musical, novel, paint a painting. You have really overcome one of the greatest fears I've ever seen. You're an incredible story. Thank you again for it.

[46:25] Maddie Corman: Thank you, all of you for listening, and we will see you next time on the Producer's Perspective Podcast.

[46:30] Ken Davenport: I want to thank Maddie Corman for sitting down with me again. And if you're excited about this new season of the podcast, please do me a favor and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps other theater makers and theater fans like you enjoy these intimate conversations and frankly just amplifies the conversation about theater and these incredible artists. If you're looking for more theater podcasts, check out Broadway Podcast Network, the brand new community and platform for Broadway-themed podcasts and other online content. To find more about me and all the projects I'm doing, follow me on Instagram at Ken Davenport Bway, or check out my blog at theproducersperspective.com. That's where all this started at that blog.

And now one of my favorite things to do every week. This week's hashtag songwriter of the week is Misha Lambert. Check out her song, Dare You I Do. Check out more of Misha's songs at Misha Lambert on Instagram and WWMishaLambert.com. We'll see you next week with a brand new episode. Thanks for tuning in.

[47:15] ♪ Musical number: "Dare You I Do" — performed by Misha Lambert ♪