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[0:14] Robert Bannon: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the round table. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on the Broadway Podcast Network, watching us on Broadway World or over here on our social media like YouTube, where I hope you can like, comment, subscribe, follow, and then we're gonna read books and we're gonna listen to music together. It's a homework assignment this week, everybody.

[0:31] Robert Bannon: Well, whenever I hear about new songs, I've already listened to the song. It's out on Spotify, and you could listen to it, and we could read the book, and we can talk about the environment and all these important political things that we talk about that shouldn't be political, because it should just be human care and concern and love for animals and the environment. And as a fifth grade science teacher, we talk oh too much about the importance of insects and the importance of life and the importance of the world. And that's what I took away from our next guest song, and then want to know about the connection between his sister and her writing.

[1:08] Robert Bannon: I have one brother. And Laura Pritchett, welcome to the show.

[1:19] Laura Pritchett: Hey, nice to meet you, man.

[1:21] Robert Bannon: So nice to meet you. Congratulations on the song. Congratulations on all of this amazing work. I would ask you how you both met, but I'm sure you've known each other for quite a while.

[1:32] Rex Dean: I met her when she was a little baby. She's my baby sister.

[1:39] Rex Dean: Um, Colorado. We spent many years in Colorado growing up mostly on a farm. So we had and we were one of nine kids, so yeah, you have to collaborate with some of them.

[1:51] Rex Dean: Two of nine, yeah, two of nine. So there's nine of you growing up in Colorado, and where are you now, Rex?

[1:58] Rex Dean: Um, I moved to LA about eight years ago because my kids all moved out here, but I was actually in Boston for 30 years before that.

[2:05] Robert Bannon: And Laura, where are you?

[2:07] Laura Pritchett: I live in the same valley that I grew up in Colorado.

[2:13] Robert Bannon: Laura, if I go to Colorado, am I gonna be able to breathe? Will I need oxygen?

[2:17] Laura Pritchett: Yes, you will. It's so gross and terrible right now.

[2:22] Laura Pritchett: No, it's beautiful.

[2:24] Robert Bannon: The pictures are beautiful. I want to see the mountain. I'm in New Jersey, so come on, let me see some nature.

[2:31] Laura Pritchett: Um, you heard about the forest fires, right?

[2:33] Robert Bannon: Yes, that absolutely terrible.

[2:37] Robert Bannon: And that is why your song and what you are talking about is so incredibly important. And while we're talking about it, the new song "Butterfly Girl" is available um wherever music is heard. So you can look for Rex Dean, you can listen to "Butterfly Girl" with this amazing vocals, and he's got this growl and this sound that is so unique and is beautifully constructed song.

[2:57] Robert Bannon: You put some vocabulary words in there that are not easy to get into a song, Rex. And then Laura, your novel "Three Keys," um, which is in conjunction with the song. So let's talk about there. It is come on, there's a mountain.

[3:12] Rex Dean: I think it's in Colorado.

[3:15] Rex Dean: That's where it looks good. It's really the other way around. The song is definitely a tiny little apostrophe in the book, just so you know. But um, I so uh Laura had heard my song a couple years ago and I think used it in her class, and said, "Hey, by the way, if you can get this song on Spotify, you know, we can put it in the song, the set list for this book."

[3:39] Rex Dean: And I've been sitting on my songs for decades and never put a single one on Spotify, and it was so beautiful to just be kicked in the butt to say, do it if you want to, but otherwise you can't be on my book. And so I did it really fast. I'm probably gonna record it again because it's a little, I was trying to sing it like a lullaby, and it's probably a little more like um, you know, needs to have some meat to it.

[4:03] Rex Dean: But um, but I like the sentiment and uh, you know, and I was thinking it's it turned out we both are singing in a way or writing in a way to a daughter or a child of ours, and we're both thinking about the future of the world.

[4:17] Rex Dean: And uh yeah, it's just it's a very I don't know, it's interesting that we both came from the same environment and and have these. Well, it's not interesting, it's obvious people should have the same concerns.

[4:28] Robert Bannon: Um but well, we all should have the same concerns, and Laura. So you this is not this is Rex's first song. I mean, he's a writer, he's a director, a filmmaker, and and and he's and his you know, "Space Baby and the Holy Grail" is out in the festivals and seeking you know to be out everywhere, watch by the end of the year or next year.

[4:48] Laura Pritchett: Yeah.

[4:49] Robert Bannon: No shade to your brother, the younger, you know, it's his first song.

[4:56] Robert Bannon: But Laura has this is her seventh novel out here in these streets.

[5:00] Laura Pritchett: Yeah, exactly.

[5:02] Laura Pritchett: He has hundreds of wonderful songs. This is just the first one he has got out there, but I have loved this song above all others. Actually, I love a lot of his, I love all of your music Rex, but uh this song, it was perfect for uh class I teach, which is in an MFA for nature writing, and so I wanted my students to listen to it.

[5:23] Laura Pritchett: And then when I did the book club kit for my novel, "Three Keys," uh, they asked me to put together a playlist on Spotify. And I thought, yeah, we gotta get Rex's song in there along with some Lyle Lovett and Joni Mitchell and Nancy Griffith and Tracy Chapman and Rex Dean.

[5:42] Rex Dean: Yes, good.

[5:43] Robert Bannon: It's such a good song. Laura, we could get the book. The book came out on July 16th. So the book is out. Where should we buy the book? Where's the best place to buy the book for you?

[5:53] Laura Pritchett: As ever, your local independent bookstore, for sure. But if you must, Amazon. But it's also on Audible, and I really love the audio version. It's awesome.

[6:04] Robert Bannon: Wonderful reader. And Rex, we can stream your music. It's out wherever music is heard. And if we get the book and we stream it with the playlist, we can have a whole immersive, it's like a whole family. It's like we're celebrating a holiday with you all.

[6:18] Rex Dean: Yeah. And the set list that she chose, I think she's got an older soul than she actually is, because those are songs from my childhood, all the 70s, John Denver, um, and Neil Young and just super amazing songs, really about nature and the environment.

[6:37] Robert Bannon: Um anyway, so it was such a uh honor to be in that list of people.

[6:42] Robert Bannon: Well, so where did this creative bug come from, Rex? Like your sister is an author and you're a uh filmmaker and a singer and a write and a songwriter. So where are you all creative? Are you all nine of you just are you like the Partridge Family?

[6:59] Rex Dean: Uh probably half of them are. You know, it's uh you I in my case, I think about this a lot, but um it goes back to our parents, really. My mom and my dad were um both big photographers, filmmakers, writers.

[7:15] Rex Dean: Um my mom was a uh or Laura's mom and my mom were um teachers and uh and really environmental scientists in a way because um our dad was a beef geneticist.

[7:28] Rex Dean: But when when our um when I was I don't know, seven, eight years old, um our mom was getting uh working on a PhD in radiation physics at Colorado State. And we would, you know, I'd read little you know, pamphlets about how strontium 90 radioactive stuff would would be found in the deer in Colorado within a few days after each Chinese nuclear test.

[7:54] Rex Dean: You know, the world is so connected that a Chinese nuclear test floated around the world and was poisoning the deer already in Colorado. And so it was obvious in 1970 and 80, you know, that this was a real problem.

[8:08] Rex Dean: Um so yeah, we've I you know, I mean we do we do what we can. Laura's spent a lot of time as an environmental activist, and and a lot of her books are all her books are really but a lot, you know, nature and and Colorado are characters in the books.

[8:23] Robert Bannon: Okay, so what we've learned so far is that you both are way smarter than this show, and a beef geneticist and then a doctorate in whatever your mom got her doctorate in.

[8:37] Robert Bannon: And then Laura, I wanted to bother you and tease you about an MFA in environmental writing. What is it? Tell us again.

[8:48] Laura Pritchett: Yeah, there's only three or four in the country. It's a Master of Fine Arts in nature writing, and nature writing is defined in my case as uh any writing that's very place-based and and has a fundamental concern about the planet.

[9:03] Robert Bannon: Well, you both are come on now. I mean so cool.

[9:06] Robert Bannon: So when you listen to the song everybody, Rex is really telling the song about from my I I shouldn't speak for your art, but what I got out of the song was it's environment, it's it is very literal about a butterfly and the butterfly effect.

[9:21] Robert Bannon: I mean it's lyrics to the song, and it's inspired by your daughter, but it is the bigger issue than just I mean, butterflies, it insects are a big issue, but you're really talking about the whole entire microcosm of our world and what we're doing to it.

[9:36] Rex Dean: Yeah, and I actually changed a couple of lyrics right before I recorded it, and I need to change them back so it's clear, but I do think that there's one group of people that are almost entirely responsible for what's going on in the world, and that is the people we trusted to lead our country.

[9:52] Rex Dean: Um, I if I recycle a plastic bag, first of all, there shouldn't be a billion trillion plastic bags and things at all. Those should have been stopped in the first place because people have known since the 50s and 60s that they would never degrade.

[10:06] Rex Dean: Um, but all of our leaders that we've trusted to protect us from um, you know, poisons and plastics and the devastating effects of burning too much oil. We could have we knew all this in the 70s. We could have headed it off, and they but instead they're all bribed and they make decisions based on um, you know, will they continue getting bribes?

[10:29] Rex Dean: And so I do think that you know, I mean, there's a line in the song, and when I want to one of my friends said, "Hey, you know, you should this song is so sweet, it's about your daughter and a little bunny rabbit, and you know, maybe you shouldn't make it so harsh."

[10:40] Rex Dean: And it's like it's not harsh, it's just that I do believe that most of our politicians should be doing time in jail because they're accepting bribes and they're making decisions that are absolutely against all of our interests as a as a planet, as as people.

[10:54] Rex Dean: So um, yeah, that's just my opinion.

[10:58] Robert Bannon: No, I'm as a political science major and someone who teaches history, our country is bought and sold 10 times over already.

[11:06] Robert Bannon: And it doesn't matter. Um, I mean, while some people I, in my opinion, are better than others. We all have every politician has a stake in not taking care of the environment and keeping the health and well-being of the citizens of this country and the world uh to be healthy.

[11:20] Robert Bannon: We have the waste and we know what we're doing, and we choose every day to take money and uh corporate greed and and um and lobbyist money to to stop the safety of our people. Laura, that's my personal opinion.

[11:34] Laura Pritchett: Of course, Laura Well said.

[11:39] Robert Bannon: Laura, you um have written seven books. Can you explain? Are they are they what a nature writing book? Is it a story? Is it a description? Is it is it there are there characters?

[11:52] Laura Pritchett: I don't mean to be naive and and I but I'm really want to ask the question like are the when I I don't know the genre. I'm I want to know, tell me what is what do we expect in the books?

[12:02] Laura Pritchett: I would love to tell you. They are what I would call contemporary literary fiction, they're just good tales, good novels of characters.

[12:10] Laura Pritchett: Um, not non-fiction. I'm not telling the truth here, is like my main characters have problems I do not have. I have plenty of problems, but my main characters, and in this particular book, um, one is about wildfires, actually, uh one that was released a few months ago, and sadly rings too true.

[12:28] Laura Pritchett: But this book is more upmarket and beachy read and fun, and it's about a woman who's traveling across the west, breaking into people's homes for a very good reason. She's a very polite criminal, but you've got to read it to find out why.

[12:42] Laura Pritchett: But underneath what she's coming to realize is that she has a very strong environmental ethic. And so there is, you know, like all novels, there is a theme that's being explored, and that is our relationship to Mother Earth.

[12:56] Robert Bannon: You both are some fun. You I'm ready to let's go out and let's protest something together. I love this energy that you both have.

[13:06] Robert Bannon: Um it's so important and more vital than ever. Rex, I'm not trying to be like doom and gloom here, but if we don't all talk about this and we don't make this a stake, uh, we we have literally life to lose.

[13:18] Robert Bannon: Um, we see it, it's the hottest summer in the entire history of this planet. You know, when I was watching the news this morning, they're talking about the the entire climate of this planet is shifting and changing to a whole new era.

[13:31] Robert Bannon: This is not like a fun, like we should worry about this and hold hands and sing a song. You're literally an activist, you are out here trying to make a change.

[13:42] Rex Dean: Well, I I'm working on a uh not that not that this is any more real, but I'm working on a series about uh a group of vampires um who one of them has Alzheimer's and they're sort of like rage against the machine. I was in a band in college, and Tom Morell joined the band right after I left.

[14:00] Rex Dean: Um, unfortunately, but I love, you know, I love social activists, you know, who make music, but this, um, someone points out to these vampires like, hey, look, everyone loves your music and all that, but you're not really changing the world, and you could, you could, you know, someone, one of my friends made me promise that I wouldn't just kill people in this, this, uh, story, but you could go and terrorize the Koch brothers or teach them the golden rule, which is, oh, if you want, you know, these million children downriver from your, you know, coal plant to have, uh, leukemia, that's cool. Just this is the water we're gonna hook up to your families and your grandkids' water. Just drink it, it's not bad for you.

You know, just things like that. Anyway, but the vampires could do a lot of, um, of fun things, you know, whether it's protecting, you know, gay and trans kids from bullies or stopping wars or whatever. Um, but I, you know, the, I'll just say one thing. I mean, I definitely, I a thousand times wish I could be doing more and want to try to figure out how to do more. Um, one thing a German student I met once said, you know, when I was bemoaning the way the American Congress works and the way they're all bribed, and she said, you've got to remember one thing, it works for them. This system works for them. And so the only thing we can do is to make it not work for them. And ideally there would be courts protecting, you know, all, you know, this whole thing, but they've fell down.

The media has fallen down in a lot of ways. But you know, there's still shame, there's still, you know, learning about the way they're bribed. I mean, there just should be, there's five-year-olds could tell you you're not gonna make fair decisions if someone has bribed you to make an unfair decision, you know. And so getting money out of politics, getting judges and legislators to recuse themselves, you know, we need to make it not work for them because right now this destruction of the world works for them. They don't give us, they don't give a damn. You can say whatever you want on here. Um, you could curse.

[15:54] Robert Bannon: Um, I hear you. Um, absolutely. So Laura, what do you, as someone who studies the environment, who's living out there in Colorado, who has seven books, who teaches classes in college, etc., is there something that we can do that you think is a good idea for the average person here in this country?

[15:58] Laura Pritchett: Good question. And like Rex said, you know, a thousand times over, we'd all like to be doing more. It's just hard to know what to do. But my underlying premise of my life is what doesn't get talked about doesn't get fixed. And so the gift I have, meager though it may be, is through the written word. And so through op-eds and novels and opinion pieces and all sorts of writing, I try to speak up for Mama Earth. That is my main mission, even if I'm telling a delightful, I hope delightful story about a woman in a midlife crisis breaking into homes. So my, I think we all have to find the one thing that moves us and speaks to us and energizes us and give what we can give, and of course do things like vote.

[17:07] Robert Bannon: Yes, please vote. And Rex, we need more of your music and we need more of your films and we want more of your activism and your word out here. And Laura, we want more of your books. I hope I am so jealous of both of you. I've never written anything. So the idea that you do this awesome podcast.

[17:28] Rex Dean: That well, that I can do, but I don't, I don't read it, I don't write anything, but Laura, the blinking cursor on the computer screen for Rex to come up with a melody and make it sound pretty and put weird words to it. This stresses me. Dar Williams, Dar Williams, the folk singer, said to me and wrote a book and on this show and came to my school. It taught my students that anyone who can write can write a song, and anyone who has words can write a story.

[17:57] Rex Dean: Well, I think I proved her wrong. Um, but when you are inspired, Rex, the inspiration came, the song comes from your daughter or from the world. Where do you hear inspiration? What do you, are you someone who's singing into your phone? Are you writing notes down? Like, how do you hear the words and the melodies of these songs?

[18:20] Rex Dean: Well, um, you know, it's funny. Growing up in Colorado, uh, and being someone who likes Broadway tunes and show tunes and Sinatra and all that, it's almost like being gay, you know, even though I wasn't all my, I, and it that wasn't really allowed when I was a kid, uh, unfortunately. But, um, by the time I got to college, you know, I just found so many of my friends were these people who love Broadway and loved old tunes. And so I fell into kind of a jazz standards kind of world. And I love singing that stuff. And it's, um, I’ve actually recorded like two or three albums of stuff that I've been super critical of, but I'm just getting to the point where when I re-sing them, I'm like, you know what?

This guy's pretty good. Um, I've got, uh, there's some, you know, fly me to the moon and these things on my website, RexDean.com. Um, you can hear some of that. But so I'm, I'm now finally just launching, um, two tiers of my life. One is basically as a character, almost like David Bowie was Starman. I've got a character that's this old-time singer who's been, um, really on ice for 75 years and just wakes up, you know, someone casts a spell on him and like, what is, what am I doing here? And singing these old songs, and then the other is, um, is singing the sort of pop songs I sing. The answer is, um, you know, sometimes like one of my favorite songs is called, um, groovy friends. So a friend of mine said, hey, are you still hanging out with all your groovy friends?

And I thought, well, that's a ridiculous thing. You know, it's again from the 70s. And so I wrote a whole song about, you know, that, like someone who's still stuck hanging out with their groovy friends from their teens. And, um, so yeah, I re, my, um, my piano player is, uh, is a great producer. He's worked with Stevie Wonder and Sade and Seal and all these people. And he's like, how do you remember these things? It's like my little recorder on my phone. If I have a single idea, you know, I gotta get it because I can't remember anything. Um, so yeah, I saw a butterfly and I was like, wow, we see so few butterflies. I'm like, sometimes I feel like following a butterfly down the street. And that's how that song started. See, it comes from anywhere.

[20:22] Robert Bannon: And Laura, firstly, I'm still getting over the vampire with Alzheimer's because that's funny. Um, ever. I mean, Alzheimer's is not funny, but a vampire that lives forever but can't remember is funny to me. It's sad. Laura, um, you, uh, writing, so where do you get, unless you're robbing houses in the middle of the night, which I'm not judging? I mean, that's, you come up with these ideas, they're fiction, they're coming up from somewhere. So where do you get inspiration?

[20:50] Laura Pritchett: I spent a great portion of my life in a daydream. I just love daydreaming. It's probably because I had all these brothers and I was trying to escape the house and go daydream. No, he was a great big brother. Um, yeah, I just love daydreaming stories that are not my own, and, uh, and putting them down, inventing characters, having conversations with them. All novelists are a little nutty that way. I mean, we, we imagine people and we converse with them for a year or two as we write the book.

[21:20] Robert Bannon: Uh, so super fun. You both are super fun, and I love the artistic lives that you had, but with a purpose. And I think for me, all art, you know, is a form of activism in some way. So we're out here, uh, and your words mean something and they're gonna move somebody and they're gonna think about things in a different way. I'm definitely not gonna look at a butterfly, uh, this summer and not think of the song and what you're trying to say. And I know when we read, uh, Laura's book, we will all go, you know, steal something from a terrible environmental disaster home. Um, kidding. I mean, Robert, the, um, uh, you so you're teaching what, what grade do you teach?

[21:56] Robert Bannon: Fifth grade.

[21:57] Laura Pritchett: I mean, the, you know, that is the activism that that is so important. I mean, like when I think about, um, I had a great teacher in high school named Machowski who taught modern social problems, and he radicalized many of us just to, you know, not, and rad by radical, I mean, you know, just opened your eyes to the truth. There's nothing radical about it. Um, the way, yeah, Reagan was gonna destroy the country and then did, and, and so on. And, um, and so I in turn radicalized my children. Um, and I found out genetically, actually, my grandmother here in Los Angeles in 1940 posted, we and our 20 friends are proud socialists, you know, that back then that that's what they thought. But so my, you know, my son has been, um, my oldest is a journalist, and he, he was writing for the LA Times as a business tech reporter, but he would always write about union issues and the, you know, the poor people and the way Starbucks, you know, he was, and he started a union there. He helped start the union there.

[22:57] Robert Bannon: Um, and so it comes from teachers, basically is my point.

[23:03] Laura Pritchett: Well, so what I find so fascinating about teaching fifth grade the past, I've been there for 15 years, but especially the past eight years in the climate of this country, is that, um, kids at 10 have not been really affected by the world. So they see things as right and wrong, and they see people as nice or mean, and they see things as, um, you know, that's, that's bullying or that's picking on people, and they see the world in such a good versus bad kind of way. And then as we get older, it seems like we get jaded and things get complicated. But a lot of the times I look to them and I, they remind me that I think it's a lot less complicated than we think it is. There's, you know, people that are helping and people that are hurting, and we need to support people who are helping and, and, and they're not perfect, and we can want more, but, um, there is a there, and they remind me, they teach me as much as I can. And then that's my roundabout way of, you know, radicalizing myself.

[23:59] Robert Bannon: So, um, in a good way, yeah. If the playlists, um, everybody, you know, Laura's books are at Penguin Random House. So she is not, you know, you know, somebody selling books out of the trunk of her car, people. She was a very f that's a fancy publisher, Laura. That's come on now. Go to LauraPritchard.com and, um, you can go right to the website. If you're, if you're listening to us on the podcast, you'll be able to see it.

[24:24] Rex Dean: And, um, if you are, uh, if you're watching us, you can, you can definitely, uh, check it out and get all of that information over here at the website, and that's how she spells your name. Rex, your website is is rexdean.com.

[24:38] Rex Dean: Yeah, and we can go to rexdean.com and the playlist and all that information is over on your, well, Laura's website and or on the Penguin Random House website. And Rex, your songs and all of that information is over at Rexdean.com.

[24:53] Rex Dean: Yeah, and my, and my first song, Butterfly Girl, is on Spotify. And hopefully there'll be 20 more by this time next year.

[25:00] Robert Bannon: And then you have to come back and talk more.

[25:03] Rex Dean: Oh, I'd love to. I, I, are you moving to Detroit, did I hear?

[25:06] Robert Bannon: Oh my goodness, it always scares me when people do research and find out, and, and no, my friend Tracy told me, but that's, uh, that'll be interesting, Motor City. I am moving to Motor City and, uh, from New Jersey and, um, and it is going to be an adventure for sure. Uh, my, my partner is, uh, is from Detroit and you know, um, we're gonna teach there, so we're gonna, we're gonna do a whole new, it's a whole new job, it's a whole new, uh, era and, um, I'll be back and forth from New York to do my Broadway stuff, but, um, but the art world and, and the round table and all that stuff continues there.

[25:41] Rex Dean: So I was gonna ask you all because I'm moving in a week and you guys being far apart and, uh, having moved and not being as close, it's very bittersweet to leave your family, but, um, but yeah, we continue for sure. Um, I'm, yeah, no, I get to go back to Colorado every, every year or so roughly and Laura comes out to LA now and reads. She read at, there's a great bookstore, uh, right like two blocks from me called Skylight Books. It's one of the best in LA and she read from, uh, her wildfire book, which was dev, her, her, her books are, um, the wildfire book was so interesting because it was, um, taking like 20 different perspectives. I don't know, 20 or Laura?

[26:25] Laura Pritchett: Yeah, like the, the moose or the, you know, the different animals that are in it or the firefighter or the ranch woman or the child or the dog or cat. I mean, just like crazy and it just makes you think like, oh man, I didn't, didn't think how it affected them. Oh, I didn't think of how it affected them.

[26:39] Robert Bannon: And, um, it's really, um, yeah, I think all her books make you appreciate things that you hadn't thought about before, you know, like what it's like to be, um, the woman in this, the current book, but you know, or what it's like to live through a wildfire, which, which happened. She lives in a place that looks like paradise. Like when you think about the land of milk and honey, and yet it, all the areas around there, luckily not her house, but you know, just millions of acres. I don't know, just something insane, um, are burning these days.

[27:10] Laura Pritchett: And it's not getting better, yeah.

[27:13] Robert Bannon: It's so important. Um, I really appreciate you both so much for being here. I appreciate the books. Go to LauraPritchard.com, get your copy of the book, go to RexDean.com, listen to the book, uh, the song, and, and more stuff coming for we're gonna follow you both on Instagram and we're gonna invite you back anytime you have something to talk about. My show is your show.

[27:30] Rex Dean: Thank you.

[27:32] Laura Pritchett: Thank you so much.