This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:37] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Spark File, your one-stop Tupperware party for creative inspiration.

[0:41] Susan Blackwell: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:42] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:43] Laura Camien: If you're joining us for the first time, oh, you're so welcome.

[0:46] Laura Camien: You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

[0:49] Laura Camien: Where do I get one?

[0:51] Laura Camien: Where am I filing it?

[0:52] Laura Camien: These are such good questions, and we have got answers.

[0:54] Susan Blackwell: A spark file is the place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations.

[0:59] Susan Blackwell: And if you're like us and making stuff all the time, sometimes the wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry.

[1:06] Laura Camien: We're here to refill it.

[1:07] Susan Blackwell: Yes, we are.

[1:08] Laura Camien: We're on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark our creativity and pique our curiosity.

[1:14] Laura Camien: Things that inspire us to get up, rise up off of our asses, and make things like this podcast.

[1:21] Susan Blackwell: Or a beloved fast-talking, gum-chewing, ginger-haired Alabama gal.

[1:26] Susan Blackwell: Or a wildly entertaining Tupperware party presented by a beloved fast-talking, gum-chewing ginger-haired Alabama gal.

[1:35] Laura Camien: Or an entrepreneurial entertainment empire.

[1:38] Laura Camien: Or a souvenir beer cozy.

[1:40] Susan Blackwell: On today's Makersode, we're gonna talk with someone who truly sparks us.

[1:45] Susan Blackwell: And that special someone is Kris Andersson.

[1:48] Susan Blackwell: Kris, welcome to the Spark File.

[1:53] Kris Andersson: Thank you so much.

[1:54] Kris Andersson: Oh my god, I want your following me around every day to make me feel better about myself.

[1:59] Susan Blackwell: Well, you're hype, man.

[2:00] Kris Andersson: As you enter every room.

[2:03] Laura Camien: Oh, real quick.

[2:04] Laura Camien: Oh wow, we have a special price of admission for you.

[2:08] Laura Camien: You know, you have to tell us a creative risk that you've taken recently.

[2:14] Kris Andersson: Um, I have a couple of them.

[2:16] Kris Andersson: Um, the big creative risk that I'm taking right now is I'm actually shutting the show down.

[2:21] Kris Andersson: Yes.

[2:22] Laura Camien: Oh look how big your mouth's open.

[2:24] Kris Andersson: They opened real wide.

[2:26] Kris Andersson: Yes.

[2:26] Kris Andersson: Um, this is uh I I'm gonna do it make this the last season of the show.

[2:31] Kris Andersson: Um, I I've been on the road for 12 years with this.

[2:35] Kris Andersson: It's been amazing.

[2:36] Kris Andersson: I Dixie will be with me forever.

[2:38] Kris Andersson: She's breaking up.

[2:39] Kris Andersson: This is I am actually you're the first people I've actually said this publicly to.

[2:44] Kris Andersson: Um, we have had an amazing run.

[2:46] Kris Andersson: It's been incredible.

[2:47] Kris Andersson: Um, 12 years.

[2:48] Kris Andersson: We're one of the longest running off-Broadway shows in history.

[2:51] Kris Andersson: Touring in history.

[2:52] Kris Andersson: Um, I've been to five countries.

[2:54] Kris Andersson: I've had this with, you know, millions of dollars of ticket sales, hundreds of thousands of tickets sold.

[2:58] Kris Andersson: It's been translated into other languages now.

[3:00] Kris Andersson: I'm really grateful for all of this stuff.

[3:02] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[3:03] Kris Andersson: But it's one of those things that I still go, oh, I'm doing a show, and people are like, oh, it's the show is that Dixie's Tupperware party.

[3:09] Kris Andersson: And they're like, never heard of it.

[3:10] Kris Andersson: It's just one of those things that, you know, I've hit this place where I love what I do.

[3:15] Kris Andersson: I know I can do more.

[3:16] Kris Andersson: And I will give a ton of credit to you ladies because I have been listening to the podcast, and it makes me very, uh, I listen to all these other people and their creative sparks, and it makes me go, you know what?

[3:27] Kris Andersson: I want to create more.

[3:29] Kris Andersson: I know there's more out there, and I know that for me, there's been a bit of a crutch of having this thing that's been so successful last year so long.

[3:36] Kris Andersson: That it's like, oh, the only way I'm gonna shake that up is if I cut that off.

[3:41] Kris Andersson: You know, there's the famous saying, if you want to take the island, you have to burn the boats.

[3:44] Kris Andersson: So which I love, it's like you can't give yourself that thing to go back to.

[3:49] Kris Andersson: That's right.

[3:49] Kris Andersson: You have to charge forward, and so for me, I thought, okay, this is a this is I have to.

[3:55] Kris Andersson: This is exactly why I wanted you on the Spark File, Kris Andersson, because every time I talk to you, you rock my pants and blow my mind.

[4:08] Susan Blackwell: You're so inspiring.

[4:09] Susan Blackwell: This Camien, would you agree?

[4:10] Susan Blackwell: This is one of not that it's a contest, but this is one of the best prices of admissions.

[4:15] Laura Camien: This is a how do you pluralize that?

[4:16] Laura Camien: I do not know.

[4:17] Laura Camien: We have ever had ever.

[4:19] Laura Camien: You are ever.

[4:21] Laura Camien: You truly knocked our socks off.

[4:24] Laura Camien: Like why I'm stuttering.

[4:26] Laura Camien: What like that was the last thing that either one of us would have expected to hear?

[4:32] Kris Andersson: But yeah, that is that's why I sort of thought that would be a good thing to lead with because that's huge.

[4:38] Kris Andersson: You know, a creative risk is one thing, but this is like an all or nothing.

[4:43] Kris Andersson: This is like I have I depend on the money that I make from the tour.

[4:47] Kris Andersson: I have people that are dependent on me for the money they make for the tour.

[4:50] Kris Andersson: Yeah, um, you know, my other people that are my employees with this, and I'm very, uh, I feel very responsible for them.

[4:57] Kris Andersson: I don't want them to go without, so I have to figure out a way to charge forward and make it something that will help all those people who stuck with me in my creative life as well.

[5:06] Laura Camien: This is amazing, and I could double-click on 12 things that you've just said that I want to explore more fully.

[5:12] Laura Camien: But before we get ahead of ourselves, number one, you are admitted in that spark.

[5:17] Susan Blackwell: You can stay.

[5:18] Susan Blackwell: Thank you.

[5:18] Kris Andersson: You may hang out for a while.

[5:20] Laura Camien: But for people who don't know you, this is a two-parter.

[5:24] Laura Camien: The first is how do you identify creatively?

[5:28] Kris Andersson: Um, Chantus, Demi Monde.

[5:31] Kris Andersson: Um, Demi Moore?

[5:33] Kris Andersson: No, not Demi Moore.

[5:34] Kris Andersson: But I do it, but no.

[5:35] Kris Andersson: Demi Monde.

[5:36] Kris Andersson: Demi Monde is a like a 19th century French woman with low morals.

[5:40] Kris Andersson: And, uh, I know.

[5:41] Kris Andersson: I knew when I met you.

[5:43] Kris Andersson: The moment I met you, I knew.

[5:44] Kris Andersson: I fully thought you were gonna say Demi Moore, though.

[5:46] Kris Andersson: Demi Moore, I think is even better because she's now a 21st century woman.

[5:52] Kris Andersson: No, I love Demi Moore.

[5:53] Kris Andersson: Um, no, it's um I had always been an actor, and that's what I went to school for, and then I started writing, and then I became a writer and an actor, and then I, you know, and I produced this show.

[6:05] Kris Andersson: I'm in the lead producer on the show, so I'm a producer and a writer and an actor.

[6:08] Kris Andersson: And, uh, you know, and I keep like I never wanted to be a hyphenate.

[6:13] Kris Andersson: Like I'm the only person I think in this business that will say I do not want to be a director.

[6:17] Kris Andersson: Like I don't want to direct.

[6:19] Kris Andersson: Like I'm the only person who'll say that.

[6:20] Kris Andersson: I really don't want to direct.

[6:22] Kris Andersson: But um, I enjoyed the I enjoy producing a lot.

[6:25] Kris Andersson: Um, but I enjoy the writing and the creativity of being an actor and being a good thing.

[6:30] Laura Camien: So you're a multi-passionate creative.

[6:33] Kris Andersson: My words, not yours.

[6:35] Kris Andersson: This is the second part of the two-parter.

[6:37] Laura Camien: What are you most well known for?

[6:40] Kris Andersson: I think I'm most well known for acting because of Dixie, because people don't necessarily equate that I've written the words that I'm saying.

[6:49] Kris Andersson: So they that they just see me up there and they go, oh you.

[6:52] Kris Andersson: But it interestingly, because and, uh, you know, I'm sure we'll probably get into like who the hell is Dixie?

[6:58] Kris Andersson: So that your listeners aren't.

[6:59] Laura Camien: What the hell is Dixie?

[7:00] Laura Camien: Let's get it let's go there now.

[7:01] Laura Camien: Yeah, tell us, Kris, tell us.

[7:03] Kris Andersson: Well, since I mean, but since a lot of people, um, uh, because drag has become a specific thing in our culture now, a lot of, you know, uh, the way I say it is because everyone's a drag queen, nobody's a drag queen.

[7:15] Kris Andersson: So basically it's kind of like all, uh, everything has become washed out and become the same.

[7:21] Kris Andersson: And so you have these people that have done incredible things, um, with drag.

[7:25] Kris Andersson: I mean, you look at people like Charles Bush, and you look at people like, uh, you know, Dame Edna and, um, you know, these people that have and Medea, you know, Tyler Perry's Medea, who've created these these incredibly monolithic careers with these, um, characters, and now you they are kind of dumped in the same category as the girl or the, you know, the, uh, I'm 13 and I put all makeup on YouTube and now I'm the shit.

[7:47] Kris Andersson: And you're like, oh okay, well, but you know, a little bit more than that.

[7:50] Kris Andersson: Yeah, it is becoming but it's sort of like I'm an actor.

[7:50] Kris Andersson: I'm an actor.

[7:54] Kris Andersson: It's a little bit like I'm an actor.

[7:55] Kris Andersson: Yeah, John Gielgud could say I'm an actor.

[7:58] Kris Andersson: And then somebody who starred in the local community theater production of Charlotte's Web can say I'm an actor.

[8:05] Kris Andersson: So it's a little it's it only the only difference with it is that, um, the things that I've done have been sort of going, oh well you should be on Drag Race.

[8:14] Kris Andersson: That's what I get all the time.

[8:15] Kris Andersson: Well, I'm I I but I'm I don't do that.

[8:18] Kris Andersson: And I have the favorite for the gals that do it.

[8:21] Kris Andersson: But for me, it's like okay, well, what I do is I stand on stage and I deliver a 95-minute monologue every night.

[8:27] Kris Andersson: Yeah, that's way different.

[8:28] Kris Andersson: A story about women's empowerment, and it's all told through the allegory of a Tupperware party.

[8:33] Kris Andersson: That's not something that I don't lip sync, I don't play clubs.

[8:36] Kris Andersson: This is why I want to do on this podcast.

[8:38] Kris Andersson: So for me, it's a it's a different kind of thing.

[8:40] Kris Andersson: Again, no disrespect.

[8:41] Kris Andersson: I think what they do is unbelievable.

[8:44] Kris Andersson: And I support it, I love it, and I share it on, and I know a lot of those people from Drag Race now because of my accidental, um, you know, uh they're it we're all in the same orbit.

[8:54] Kris Andersson: The intersection, you know.

[8:56] Kris Andersson: So it's uh we've just a lot of us have overlapped.

[8:58] Kris Andersson: Yeah, um, but because of that also I know people in the that are like the higher ups in the drag world that I've been fortunate enough to see their work and watch them and get to know them and been like you blow me away.

[9:10] Kris Andersson: And so, but I do I look at myself and I go, I'm an actor.

[9:13] Kris Andersson: I happen to have caught fire with a character that is a woman that I play.

[9:17] Kris Andersson: And I, you know, I was doing that long before Drag Race.

[9:17] Kris Andersson: I was doing that long before the internet, you know.

[9:22] Kris Andersson: I've been doing Dixie for 18 years now.

[9:24] Kris Andersson: So she's like, so Dixie Longate is the She's a fast-talking redheaded should come to that.

[9:31] Kris Andersson: I I uh I started selling Tupperware.

[9:33] Kris Andersson: I was an actor, uh, living in LA and I, uh, like everybody's career, ebbs and flows.

[9:37] Kris Andersson: You work a lot, you don't work a lot, you work a lot, you don't work a lot.

[9:40] Kris Andersson: I ended up, um, I was I had finished working on something and I didn't have anything lined up.

[9:45] Kris Andersson: And a friend of mine had, uh, a friend of mine had gotten me involved in, uh, this big drag, uh, fundraiser, it's big A's fundraiser in LA, they do every year.

[9:53] Kris Andersson: And I done it's the first time I had ever done drag, and it was hysterical because this like you go in at you're at the top of the game with this thing because like hey, you go on stage.

[10:01] Kris Andersson: They didn't want drag queens, they wanted actors because you it's 2400 people in the audience and you're on stage alone and you've got to do swimsuit, even on interview and talent.

[10:08] Kris Andersson: That's the game, and so it's done like a mock beauty pageant.

[10:11] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[10:11] Kris Andersson: And so they wanted creative people who are gonna come and just really rock it out of the park.

[10:15] Kris Andersson: So and you also had costuming skills.

[10:17] Kris Andersson: Well, and that's where this came in really handy because I used to be, I used to cause and I, you know, I'm I was a professional tailor for years as a sort of side thing.

[10:25] Kris Andersson: I ended up, you know, doing a lot of film and TV as a tailor and working in in film and TV costumes.

[10:29] Kris Andersson: Um, but I was working at NBC in the wardrobe department at the time.

[10:34] Kris Andersson: And so all of this kind of came to at to a perfect point where they said, Hey, we'd love you to do this thing.

[10:40] Kris Andersson: And the costume department at NBC said, We'll totally help you with that, which was great.

[10:44] Laura Camien: Because they loved you.

[10:45] Kris Andersson: Yeah.

[10:46] Kris Andersson: And then it's so like so.

[10:47] Kris Andersson: I got this incredible support from all these different things.

[10:49] Kris Andersson: So I came up with this character, Miss Antarctica.

[10:52] Kris Andersson: You know, and I was like the first physically challenged.

[10:54] Kris Andersson: I was snowblind.

[10:55] Kris Andersson: And so I had seeing eye animals on stage with me the whole time.

[10:58] Kris Andersson: And it was just this.

[11:00] Kris Andersson: I think it would because it's so preposterous.

[11:02] Kris Andersson: Like it's not offensive.

[11:03] Kris Andersson: It's just hilariously stupid.

[11:05] Kris Andersson: Like, and that's what, you know, and her name was Iva Chesscold.

[11:09] Kris Andersson: And it was just it was dumb, but it was big and fun.

[11:12] Kris Andersson: And we I did this whole thing, and it took months to put it together.

[11:14] Kris Andersson: But it and it was exhausting, but it was the first time I ever did drag.

[11:23] Laura Camien: Please continue.

[11:24] Kris Andersson: Well, so it was one of these things like I didn't have to go through the ranks to get up to the top.

[11:28] Kris Andersson: I mean, I'm standing on stage in front of 2400 people alone in drag, going, This will work, you know, and there's that adulation if you ever get the chance to be in front of that big of an audience who is losing their mind over what you're doing.

[11:41] Kris Andersson: Um, had you written up to that point?

[11:44] Kris Andersson: So I had done like I wrote a play in college that I like wrote it in a weekend and we put it up and we didn't have a playwrighting.

[11:51] Kris Andersson: Did I see this place?

[11:52] Kris Andersson: No, this was when I went to, uh, sorry transferred after after, uh, after we went to school.

[11:52] Kris Andersson: We went to school together and then I went to USC.

[11:58] Kris Andersson: I transferred to USC in Southern California, finished my degree there, and I decided one weekend, um, I'm gonna write a play.

[12:05] Kris Andersson: We didn't have like a play right.

[12:06] Kris Andersson: There was no mandate to write a play, there was no playwrighting area for us.

[12:09] Kris Andersson: And I was like, I'm writing a play.

[12:10] Kris Andersson: And I got a couple of friends of mine involved.

[12:12] Kris Andersson: I'm like, we're gonna do a play.

[12:13] Kris Andersson: And I'm that's creatively.

[12:15] Kris Andersson: I want somewhere in my file cabinet, it exists, and I want to find it to read it.

[12:19] Kris Andersson: It was called Pursuits.

[12:22] Kris Andersson: I'm sure it's crap.

[12:23] Kris Andersson: I literally wrote it in a weekend, and how it went on the page is how it went up on stage.

[12:29] Kris Andersson: Like there was not an edit.

[12:30] Kris Andersson: There was nothing.

[12:31] Kris Andersson: I'm not here for it.

[12:32] Kris Andersson: I was just like, let's do it.

[12:33] Kris Andersson: Why not?

[12:33] Kris Andersson: Here it is.

[12:34] Laura Camien: And so we did it and we had fun.

[12:35] Laura Camien: I remember us having a lot of fun.

[12:36] Kris Andersson: And I remember people coming and laughing their butts off.

[12:38] Kris Andersson: And I'm like, that'll work.

[12:39] Laura Camien: Um, but it was not.

[12:41] Laura Camien: That's a cool thing though.

[12:42] Laura Camien: Like you are a person who you the things that you pick up, I feel like maybe not everything.

[12:48] Laura Camien: I haven't been with you for every step of your life, but you picked up that.

[12:53] Laura Camien: And you were sort of like, and it I, you know, I just it's something I did on a weekend and they were laughing their butts off.

[12:58] Laura Camien: So writing, check.

[13:00] Laura Camien: The like you your story about how you started doing tailoring and things like that, and the way you picked it up and learned it so quickly.

[13:07] Laura Camien: Check the way that all of those things have coalesced into your work now.

[13:13] Laura Camien: Ugh, I I think I feel like people, I will speak just for myself.

[13:18] Laura Camien: I have dreamt of that sort of coalescence that you have lived so beautifully.

[13:26] Kris Andersson: Oh, that's so kind.

[13:28] Kris Andersson: Oh, it's so cool that you figured it out.

[13:30] Kris Andersson: Well, but it's it, you know, it and that's kind of that's a perception from your side, you know, me meaning that I live in my own body and I have plenty of failures and I have a plenty of things that that didn't go the way I thought, and I just did that on a whim.

[13:42] Kris Andersson: So much of my life has accidentally happened.

[13:44] Kris Andersson: I look back and I go, I couldn't do that again.

[13:46] Kris Andersson: If I went back and tried to look backwards and say, oh, reverse enterprise. Yeah, now that I've had the success, could I do that? And I'm like, I don't know how I did that. I don't remember. There are literally whole things that I will write, and I'll go back and go, that's hilarious. When did I write that? Yeah. When did I write that? Yeah. Like, and I don't even remember the spark I had. I just sat down and wrote this thing and it came out. And I'm like, okay, that's that. I maybe it'll go on stage someday. Maybe it won't. But that's that made me happy that that came up.

[14:14] Susan Blackwell: Can we just to step back for one second? Like, I know you guys have known each other for a long, long time. Do you all feel like you're attending the college reunion that you of the school you didn't go to?

[14:25] Kris Andersson: That's right. I'm new. Susan brought me along for their reunion. Um, so I'm new to this party. So I wanted to just ask, like, what is your creative origin story?

[14:36] Kris Andersson: Well, so um, what happened that with the this whole the drag thing? So I can get into Dixie, and then I'll go back to the beginnings um to make the make the listener not go, what is the hell? This guy is crazy. What is the thing going on? Um, so I um so a friend of mine who had done this this drag uh fundraiser for me with me. He um we went to a tupper party after that, and then the woman was a great tupper lady, she was very funny, she was very pushy, and she said, you should do it, you should do it, you should do it. And the guy that I did that happened to be a friends with from this fundraiser said, you should do it in drag. That would be hilarious. And I'm like, you should do it in drag.

That was the spark. Yeah, we literally dared each other to do it in drag. And I was like, okay, and I tried it, and then it started going well. And then um uh I I had done a couple top row parties, and this lady that hosted a tuple party said, hey, do you mind um if somebody from the paper comes and and does a little story on this? This is adorable. And I know somebody that writes for the paper. And this was the Orange County Register in Southern California, and I said, okay. Um and so I came in and we did the thing, and unbeknownst to me, and this is like just complete luck, the Orange County Register did not have an entertainment section until the day my uh issue came out. So I made there were four pictures.

What? Two full color on the front, a full full article out made. All this stuff, and then and you had started doing it fairly recently. I this so I had just started doing it, so Dixie was in no way as developed as she has become.

[16:00] Kris Andersson: Hey, hookers, how you do it. Yeah, like that the wig was bad. Was your friend who didn't do it in drag? Was he like, hey, this you guys no, he actually does it in drag. He's heard to be his young too. Yeah. But I had I had really just taken the reins and just done it. And he's like, eh, I might do it someday. And so I had taken the reins and just gone. And he's become very successful in his own right with it, which is amazing. But um so I love that the spark was a dare. It was double dare together. Double dare. And you both ran with it. And we just ran with it. We're like, what's the good happen? So I did it. And then this then the the Orange County Register article came out. They called me and they said we'd like to do some like a little interview.

So I'm like, okay. Did a little interview. And then um, and they said, how would you like people to be able to get a hold of you? I'm like, uh my phone number, I guess. So I just gave them my phone number. I woke up the morning this article came out. My voicemail was full. Oh, and it was like, I want to do a party, I want to do a party, I want to do it. And one person's like, what do you think you're teaching to kids these days? I'm like, bitch, they're not my kids. I'm not teaching. Delete. And that's how it all exploded. I started doing all these Tupperware parties. And then a friend of mine, so Dixie got shot out of a cannon. Yeah, it was just this weird thing. And I'm like, oh, Tupperware's fun, let's go.

It's money. And all my friends are like, you're funny. You should be a stand-up comic. I'm like, I kind of am, but I just do it in people's living rooms and I get paid better for it because you know, you're making commission from the sale of the Tupperware. So I sell sold and sold and sold. I became one of the top tupperware ladies in the US and Canada, which is ridiculous. And that was all just a byproduct of like just keep going forward, lean into it.

[17:03] Kris Andersson: And then a friend of mine, a director here named Tom Crusoe. Um, I was talking to him one day on the phone and he's like, what are you doing? I said, uh, you know, we were just catching up. And he said, I said, oh, I'd I'm doing this Tupperware thing. And he's like, tell me. And so I told him about it. He goes, this is a show. You gotta write this in your show. And so he said, I got a couple of things in the fringe festival. Um, do you want to try to get in the New York Fringe? And I was like, yeah, okay. And so they so we applied for the fringe, and the thing is, you know, that you fill out the application and it says submit all your submit your script, submit your backup material. I didn't have anything.

Did you just send in a Tupperware bowl? So I live no, you know what I did is I sent him the copy of the Orange County Register, and I wrote a I wrote a handwritten letter from Dixie. And Dixie calls everybody hooker, it's a term of the deer. She's like, dear hookers, I want to be in your program. I like the hater. I think this will be fun. It literally was that. I get I get a I get a couple weeks go by and I get the thick envelope, and I'm like, oh shit. And so I call Tom up and I'm like, um, I think we've been accepted, but I'm gonna open this. I think we're doing it. And open I'm like, oh, okay, here we go. Oh my gosh. And so I the fringe and we had gotten it, and we uh had it was seven performances, which were the most you could get in the fringe.

So over a week and a half. This is so great. And I was like, okay, well, so I've got to come to New York. I I had some money at the time just from selling Tupperware, and I'm like, I'll come to New York, I'll come there a week before for rehearsal. We'll do the basically the two weeks of the fringe that wrapped around, and then I'm gonna stay one week more for for meetings. I know there'll be meetings, so I'm just saying for meetings. Like I literally did that. And um, and come, we and we do the like and I would have been writing, and Tom and I had been talking on the phone and we're writing and everything. And then I came there and I'm like, we went in the rehearsal studio, did the first rehearsal, and we finished, and he just looked at me and goes, there's no show here.

There's and we it was literally like there was no, there were a lot of funny jokes, but there was no show. Oh boy, and we were like petrified. We opened in a week. Like it's that's it. And so But what about my imaginary meeting? What's annoying? I'm like, yes, I have a week here for meetings. And so we uh we fixed it, we finessed it, we tightened it up, and I went on and I did it, and we won um we won one of the awards from the fringe that year. And there were people in the audience who had seen the show and were like, I need to call you in for a meeting. There you go. Well, so then I became the top selling Tupperware lady in the entire United States. There you go. So that's what that's how that developed.

So it and she's just this, you know, this she's this great um, she's a she's a woman's empowerment girl. She's a she's a girl that she's she's a woman that's from the wrong side of the tracks, ended up in prison multiple times, three husbands, none of which uh none of which you the audience know what happened to them, but she's been past, you know, she's not with her husbands anymore. There is a monologue in uh Dixie's Tupperware party where she reveals that her third husband there was uh a lot of physical abuse, and it's a thing that you don't expect in the show because you think it's hard to drag cavity, and then but it she's like this is what I did with it, this is how I addressed it, this is how it goes, and she just moves right for through it, and she's got three kids, none of whom she really kind of cares about, and they're all through three different people, none of whom are her husbands, by the way.

And so she's got this really great story, and then her um her then Dixie uh her parole officer is the one who suggested Tupperware, and so that's the story, and so that that came out, and she's this big women's advocate.

[20:48] Susan Blackwell: You said you used the Tupperware as an analogy or a through line. Can you tell me about that? I'm so curious. How did that so um, you know I started selling Tupperware with no real reason to do it, just like it's money, and then as I started getting uh a little higher profile in the Tupperware Corporation, and I started researching actually the corporation. There was a woman named Brownie Wise, an amazing woman back in the 50s, brownie wise. I see a spark here. Yeah. She's if you uh go research her, she's an incredible woman. She um Tupperware was being sold on store shelves, and nobody was buying it because it was the first plastic bowl. Nobody knew what it was. There was no concept for a plastic bowl with a lid.

That was completely new. And so uh people used to cover their stuff in you know wax paper and cheesecloth and stuff like that. So this was a really new thing. It wasn't selling. Brownie wise, who used to be a door-to-door uh fuller brush salesperson. She looked at it and she's like, no, if you demonstrate this to people, that's people need to see this. You need to demonstrate this. She took it and she took it in people's homes, and she's like, let me show you this. This is so great. It saves your saves you money because it stores the food, it keeps it fresh. Oh my god, this is amazing. And she started selling so much. She wrote to the company and she said, I need more of this product. Why I'm selling it.

And then Earl Tupper, who uh created the company, looked at it and said, hmm, I like what you're doing. That model, I'm making you vice president of Tupperware and pulling all Tupperware off the store shelves nationally. And I'm gonna utilize you to create Tupperware home parties, which was this brand within the Tupperware Corporation. And so her goal, her directive was to take women, put them all over the country to be distributors and to recruit other women to do this. Now, this was after Rosie the River. This is after the war, so all these women were thrown back into the kitchen and said, go figure it out. We don't need you anymore. But they liked making their own money, they liked the empowerment of that.

And so they're like, oh wow, I can I can do this. And that's how this thing blew up so big, and um, so it got bigger and bigger and bigger. It's then unfortunately there was some battling within between she and Earl Tupper. They did not get along, and there's conflicting rumors about why and and sh unfortunately, she was kind of extricated from the company uh back in the day. And it was sad because she created she never lived long enough. She died in the 80s, but she never lived long enough to see what how much she has created.

[23:10] Kris Andersson: I thought you were gonna say she never lived long enough to see Dixie's Tupperware. Like that's that's right. I celebrate her in the show and I talked about but somebody didn't nobody she didn't live long enough to see the the real impact she made because um every other direct selling company in the in the world has patterned it off of the original Tupperware. I was gonna say like Mary Kay and those others. All those people started with the Tupperware brand. Wow. And um they somebody did a deep dive two years ago, and they went down and tracked it all back. And she is these the more people have made more money and had more jobs because of her than anyone. She's changing this business model in the world.

She's his single biggest job creator on the planet ever. More than Brownie Wise. And you can look her up and there's a ton of she was the first woman ever to be featured on the cover of Business Week magazine. They business week came down to do this story on this emerging plastics company in Florida. They went down and they were so struck by her and taken by her that they ended up talking to her most of the time. And they did this whole expose on her, and she was the first woman on cover.

[24:15] Susan Blackwell: Here's the thing that's so extraordinary, just to retrace our steps. You have this spark of the double dare between you and your friend, and then you have this additional spark of the inspiration of this woman, this really interesting pioneering businesswoman. And the way that you plus you have all of this, like this basket of skills, your ability to sew things and make things and write things and produce things. And the way again, the way that you have like braided all of this together and set it on timing-wise, it it it sounds to me, if I'm doing the math correctly, like your idea to keep it about female empowerment, and it seems like on the front end of a curve because uh we weren't where we are now when you started.

[25:08] Kris Andersson: And and you know, uh the I listen, half this country's women, these women are amazing. Women have uh are have been in the arts. I've been I've been trained by women, I've been, you know, men as well. But I I mean, I the reality of there's a lot of women who do not get the same opportunities that men do. And this I never went into it this way, but this has kind of been a byproduct of it that I've said, you know, look, I I get to appear every night as a voice to say, hey, you're you're better than you give yourself credit for. Go out there and stand up on your own two feet, do something, don't take no for an answer. Because if men can do that, you can do that. You just have to get yourself in that headspace to do it.

And I'm doing it, and I'm wearing a friggin' dress. So I'm, you know, putting the but the obstacles in front of me at all the way along as I'm doing it. And um, and so that's the the whole thing about what I do is it's a celebration. And now, as I've done more work with Dixie, and I created a second show and then a third show and all this other stuff, it's all now come from that voice of celebrate celebrating women and celebratory in general. And now, like when we started, the show had mostly females coming to the well, our audience was female, it was a the theatrical audience. Now it is like split, it's 50-50. It's men and women, it's husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends come and see the show because they're fucking funny.

[26:25] Susan Blackwell: Let's just like let's underscore this for a moment. Because if you haven't seen Dixie's work, you may not get just from this conversation how fucking funny this is. It's so delightful. Like it is so funny, but here's the gag. Because of who you are, Chris, there are these gems. There are these unexpected moments where you're like, fuck. I was expecting it to be to be funny, but I wasn't expecting to be fill in the blank moved or lifted up, or do you know what I mean? And so it's uh I always think of it as it's the best possible for me. It's like my favorite kind of entertainment because you get that spoonful of sugar, and then you're like, no, it's so funny because you get actual nourishment.

[27:09] Kris Andersson: You get actual nourishment though. She says, this is the show about the the thing about the show is you get a spoonful of sugar and then you get this. It's it's a very good thing. You don't realize you're actually going to get a meal.

[27:31] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, that is it. I just want to jump in and I want to piggyback on your origin story because I'd like to tell everyone listening who is still listening. I'd like to just share with the audience how Dixie came into my life. So travel back with me through time, gentle listeners. I am invited to go see a show called Dixie's Tupperware Party, and I'm like, I'm game. I'll bite. So we go, a little pack of us go to see Dixie's Tupperware Party, and you walk into the theater, and the theater isn't set up with typical theater seating. There are tables, and it's more like a party, it's like a cocktail party or something. And here is Dixie Longate working the room, not tucked back behind the curtain until showtime, working the room, greeting people, seating people, hosting, like hosting with the most thing, like just being great.

And this formidable figure, Dixie Longate comes over before the show starts, comes over to the table, gets real close, looks me right in the eye, and says, Well, you're from Dayton, Ohio, aren't you? And I shit. Like I could, I was like, who is in there? Who is that? I could not figure out who the thick was in there. And I'm watching the show and I am delighted with the show. Like I am captivated. I am laughing. Your improv skills are ridiculous. Like I was just like, I don't know who this magical unicorn is. Who is this? But slowly over the course of the show, it dawned on me who was inside Dixie. Aw. Inside of Dixie is a person that I knew from school. I attended Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

And there was a student who was one year younger than me, and who was quiet, thoughtful, sweet, Mom. And I as slowly, it was almost like it. There I was experiencing watching that show that night was like there were so many layers because I'm having this amazing time. I'm laughing my ass off. I'm feeling my feelings. I'm marveling at the performative skills and the improv and all of it. And simultaneously, parallel to all of that, I was just like, who is in there? And like a Polaroid developing, I was like, that is Kris Andersson. It was a moment of like, it was like cognitive dissonance, like a gong being banged, and then gong. And slowly and it just stilled. And I was like, motherfuck, it's Kris Andersson.

Kris, we're watching you because you were like in the third or fourth row. Yeah, I was right there. And then I remember like your face cracked when you were trying to figure out who it was when I said, You're from Dayton, aren't you? And then it was crazy. And then about 20 minutes in, you go, like there was this absolute like the glass cracked, and you're like, oh, now I see behind. But I'll tell you what I was seeing. It was like because I had as a younger person, you had been so just like kind. I remember you as being, I'm gonna say like soft spoken. Like I just remembered this like gentle person, and this character, it was almost like I don't know how to explain it, but this like formidable, hilarious body brash, gum chewing, like it was just crazy to see that you had birthed this character and Sasha Fears.

Yeah, it is, it is like Sasha Fears, it was transformative, and I just, I it not, I have to tell you, like, it is it was one of the most thrilling, it was a thrilling evening of theater, and then it was just like a thrilling realization to put that together. And like I have no claim to you, but I was so proud of you. And I was also just like, I thought it was a beautiful illustration of something I have felt in my own life, and I saw it in you, which was for so long, I was like, I have a secret. I have a secret, you don't know it. But you know, when I got here to the city, I was just like such a little fish and such a big pond, but I was like, watch out, motherfuckers, because I do have a secret.

And I was like, Kris's secret is out. Like that you just had all and again, all of the aforementioned gifts and skills and talents braided together into I'm gonna go ahead and say it, a tour de force.

[32:24] Kris Andersson: Thank you. Oh, totally kind, my God. Wow. It was really sponsorship is paid for by that's really um that's so kind, thank you. I you know, I just I I love that you see that me that way. I mean, that's very kind. I mean, If I may, you may that's one of the things that I found so profound about that. I mean that was a it really was a profound experience for I don't know what it was like for you, but for me to see you, it was profound. And I think one of the things that made it so is that when I knew you when you were when we were in college together, I don't think you had the easiest time of it. I don't think that you felt celebrated or felt like you were fully standing in your power. So to see you celebrated and fully stamping in your power in a vehicle completely of your own making, that I was like that, that is incredible, as the French would say that you were like I will forge my own path that was very it and continues to be to this day so inspiring to me.

[33:39] Susan Blackwell: Thank you so much. It's um I just I sort of just go I I don't know how else did it like I've had plenty of horrible setbacks that are been like oh this is total failure and then you go okay well did but go because I don't the alternative to me of just simmering in it is not valuable. So I've sort of always have been that like okay I'll got I'll get through this it's not the worst.

[34:02] Kris Andersson: Yeah. Can we I'm gonna jump for a second Susan just because you brought that up like as you know we're obsessed with this topic of failure or perceived failure in our own minds. Can you talk about specifically one of the things that you think was a biggest failure and it's and this I you don't know the story um Susan like so we went to Wright State together that's how we started out and so um at the end so the first two years are a a BFA program if you're in the acting school and it's a BFA program but it and it's it's a pretty good conservatory more or less and then you have a couple of general education classes and then you have to audition to get into the the the third and fourth year and it's called the professional doctor training program and it's a big deal and you go and they give you I can't remember I think it's like seven or nine minutes on stage and they're like you do anything and people freak out about this.

I mean it is it's months and months in the stress stress of figuring out what am I gonna do how could how do I best showcase my my talents I'm gonna I have to do a monologue and then I'm gonna do a dance summer and then I'm gonna sing, and then I'm gonna twirl a baton, and then I'm you know, it's everything. How much fire can I shoot out of my ass? Yeah, you know, and so um you and then it all culminates in this audition. And then all the upperclassmen sit in the balcony and watch. You're not allowed to make any noise, but you can see them like cheering and like fake screaming, and uh, and then the five adjudicators, the teachers are all sitting in the audience on the on the ground and looking at you, and you just go.

And I remember feeling okay, I felt good about that, I felt good about that. I felt like I really nailed it. I feel I see the response from my my you know my peers, they're all excited about it. And then like a day later, there's a call board by the theater and a big cork board, and they put everybody's envelopes. And if the envelope is thick, you got in. If the envelope is a single page, you know, this recurring thing in my life of the envelope. So um, everybody goes, and it's this really weird, somber moment because all the people that got in are excited, but they feel badly showing excitement because they they know the people. They're standing next to this the people that you've been with for two years and committed so much time to.

And I the it was so ugly for me because it wasn't there and it wasn't there. There was no envelope. My envelope was not on the call board, just no envelope at all. Nothing, just not there. Yeah, and I freaked out, I stressed, I didn't know what was happening. And I literally went back to my apartment. I walked back to my apartment. I'm like, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. You know, and then I was like, uh no. And then, but it was too late by that point. The offices were closed. So I went back the next day and I knocked on the door. There's still no envelope. I went in and I said to the woman who ran the office, I said, uh oversight. There was no envelope. And she's like, How did that happen?

I'm so sorry. Let me see. Hold on. And she gets it was the slowest, most awful thing in my life. She went through my file, she opened it up, she pulled a single sheet of paper out. She walked over to the photocopy machine, photographed, photocopied one single sheet of paper, folded it up, put it in the envelope, and then handed it to me. And I was like, Yeah, bitch, I have my answer. I was like, it was not only the answer, but it was the slopest, most painful revelation of everything. Please put that in the screen for how did you deal with that? And and how did it affect your creativity going forward?

[37:07] Kris Andersson: Well, they said, okay, you can you can stay here and just take classes for a year and then re-audition. I was like, what the fuck? No. And I went home and I said to my parents, I'm going to LA. And it was just a not thought out thing. Boom. That's the go though. I just said, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. And they're like, they're like, Well, are you going to go to school? I'm like, yeah, I'll go to school, I'll go to school. Uh UCLA's got a good program, USC has a good program, USC had a BFA, UCLA only had a BA. I'm like, I'm gonna go to LA and do one of those schools. Well, they had passed their deadlines long ago because you know, it was uh we got out of school in June at Wright State, and so I I sent some letters, and I said I want an audition and made up some excuses to why I was being so late getting the audition.

I was able to get an audition, went in, and I blew, I mean the audition was terrible. I did uh I did a monologue from the hairy ape only because I had seen the hairy ape before, and like I had no connection to it. I was like, it was I'm completely wrong for anything in that show. I'm like, you know, going through the whole thing. I saw a play one time. I then it was like us all this play, I must be good at it. And so I did it, it was terrible, and then um I switched a monologue. I was gonna do one um one monologue from Shakespeare, then I switched it to another one, and I was rehearsing it in the hotel room, did it right, didn't realize that the guy I was auditioning for was the Shakespeare teacher, so he knows everything about it.

So I went in and I did it terribly, but I did this one little like three sentence monologue from I think it's called from a show called Runaways, and he was like, After I had been blowing the whole audition, I did this, and he's like, hmm. And they had told me, you know, you're not you're not gonna get into this class anyway, because it was auditions already over, every letter's gone out, there's no way. And then um, and then I was said, and I was I traveled to LA with my mom, and then I said, Okay, thanks, bye. And we walked out, and as I was walking out, the woman from the administration office came running out and she's going, You're in, you're in. I was like, What? And so, like, then I was going down.

I guess. And it was something just that thing. So it's like I just keep going and saying, What's the worst I can say? No. And I mean, I've had I've had I've written shows that I've done performed and they've just bombed. I'm like, okay. It hurts for a minute. Yeah. And you're like, oh, this sucks. This is so much work, and I really thought I was connecting with people, and oh, they didn't care. Okay. And I mean, sometimes you know you're staying on stage and like, you all hate me right now. This is so hard. But we got 60 minutes to go.

[39:29] Susan Blackwell: I feel like you have so many superpowers, but one of them that's striking me right now is resilience. Because that what you're describing, any one of the stories that you're describing could knock somebody right off their pants.

[39:45] Kris Andersson: Yeah.

[39:46] Susan Blackwell: But you like you or you are one of those like things that you could take a punch and then you just like bounce back up.

[39:52] Kris Andersson: Yeah. Yeah, it's just I think it's there's I it's just me. I mean, there's no training involved in that. There's not, I mean, I I, you know, I do stuff mentally to prepare myself for things. Sure. And I love to create, and I think the but that's what wins out. I want to create. And so if I don't, if I don't get to, I feel suffocated. I I I have to do this. This is part of who I am. And I'll create as much as I can as long as I can. And then, you know, you look at sort of the state of entertainment, on the one side, so much crap is getting made, but on the other side, there's so many brilliant people making really incredible work.

[40:26] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[40:27] Kris Andersson: And those are the people that I look at and I go, God, you're that's awesome. I want to do that. I want to work with you. I want to be with you. I want to hear your creative.

[40:36] Susan Blackwell: On that topic, yeah. Is there a creative thing you know you need to do before you're done?

[40:42] Kris Andersson: Well, I've worked for so many years on my own. I want, I'm desperate to work with other people.

[40:47] Susan Blackwell: Interesting.

[40:47] Kris Andersson: I'm so I like I I'm used to it. I love it. I love creating my own stuff, but I I'm not good at a lot of things. Like, and I know there are people that are good at a lot of things, and I want to work with for other people who may be on their own path or realizing like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this myself. I need to do it myself.

[41:05] Susan Blackwell: Um, do you have any words of wisdom for them?

[41:10] Kris Andersson: You know, I think you have to you have you've got to break your day up into pieces where you're giving yourself some sort of energy every day and some sort of um some sort of something to propel.

[41:21] Kris Andersson: It's very easy, especially in sort of the current political climate where everybody's at odds with everybody, there's so much negativity just kind of out there in the world. You need to sit in a place of joy, and that can be meditation. I don't meditate, but I daydream. I call it daydreaming for me. It doesn't work to go into a space where I'm sitting like, but what it does work is for me to go, wow, like a daydream like a kid. Yeah, like you know, when you're a kid and you're gonna be able to do it. Bruce Camion is just blowing my mind because she was saying that that is the secret to great creativity. Because when I'm writing research proven, research proven. When you create something, like I'm writing two shows right now, and um so when I'm sitting down and writing, I don't just sit there and go, Oh, let me write now.

I will go. I mean, if something sparks me, I'll sit and write based on what just that's just connected with me. But a lot of times I'll sit down and I'll go, oh, like I'm writing this show right now that I have to do in two weeks called Happy Hours. So it's a Dixie show, it's a one-hour show, and uh the whole thing is about you're coming into my your it's a happy hour. I want to make you happy. So everything is about drinks. It's all taking place in a bar and I'm making drinks, and every section is about me making a drink. Oh, we're gonna get drunk and do it. But I have to I sit down and I sort of go, I sort of daydream about me sitting there watching the show and watching what would happen and how it would unfold and filling up all the pieces around so that I can see it as a fully fleshed out picture, so that when I sit down to write, I know where I'm going.

I have a guidepost. And also the more I sort of play in that world where I'm watching it like a movie, the more the easier it gets to do it because it's already there, it's already there. So I just I just write what I already am seeing. Cammy and Chris, the two of you buried. This is all good advice I've gotten from Camille. Uh, but I also I read this article about it and and I did a spark on it because I was like, I'm sparked by this, but I don't know. Do I believe this? Do I not? And by the time I had investigated and dug deeper into it, I'm like, I think I do. And you're validating it like a thousand percent. And also I remember decades ago, Cammy and you when I was like, I don't know how to write dialogue.

Like I can write monologue for days, but dialogue and Cammy said, here's what I do. I pretend like I'm on the other side of like uh like a two, not a two-way mirror, one-way mirror, where I'm watching the characters, like what you're describing. I'm watching them, and then I just listen to what they say and I write it down. And I was like, in your imagination? Yes, but that's that's what we have is our imagination. And that's what we's making. I took it to if you have. I just have to write things that have happened. I see, but it to me it's so fun. Like when you put yourself in this positive place and put your put happiness in, because it always has to be something that I'm that I'm sparking joy.

I love this. Putting happiness in it. Yeah, because I I want to clear the crap out of, you know, get rid of the cobweb. So I'll sit there and just go, what makes me happy about what I'm watching? So even just the opportunity to sit down and just daydream and go to wherever you are. Go to your quiet place, go to the place that inspires you, go to the place that's the prettiest color that you see. I mean, I you know, go to an aquarium. I mean, if you got it, if you live in Atlanta, go to the aquarium and just stare at the aquarium. There's the most beautiful aquarium in Atlanta, and I was there one time and and I walked in and I was like, if I worked here, if I saw fascination in this, that's where you just let those little fishy swim.

Yeah. And just go, oh, I'm so overwhelmed by the hugeness of what I am not a part of. I think you have intuitively tapped into something that is now being uh proven by research. Because while you're doing that, you the rest of your brain is working and searching for subs of ideas that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Yeah, I mean, it's the same way you when you dream when you're asleep, this way you're dreaming, you're just more a little bit more invested because it's not just happening to you, you're forcing it to happen. You can like I love it. So you write it and and you and put a spark of joy in it, put something that makes you happy in it. So that you're like, oh, so that you leave that time and whatever time that is, if it's 10 minutes, if it's 15 minutes, if it's an hour, you come out going, Oh, I have so much more than I had when I started.

Yes, yeah. And you're just it's just a way to fill that well every day. It also reminds me of what Lynn said, which is he he's not gonna write something that where he has to live. If it takes four years to write a musical or seven years to write a musical, he's like, I don't want to live in like blurg for that long. My words are not Lynn blurg, but he wants to write things that have joy baked into them so that that's the space that he that you can live in. And like all great artists, you and Lynn, you you and many others, there's all sorts of shades, and sometimes there's sadness and sometimes there's anger, and and sometimes there's epiphany, but but you your departure point is joy. Yeah. I love that.

That is such good advice. Okay to have all those emotions, just do not live there. It's dangerous to live there. You have to find those things that make you joyous. And if I mean I'm reading a book right now, I'm reading a book right now. The happiness advantage and this book, and one of the things about this book is it's like it's literally like stand in front of the mirror and smile at yourself for five minutes. And that act alone makes you smile. You're like revolutionary. It's yeah, and it's like so simple. And people think, Oh, that's a hokey. If you stand there and smile at yourself for five minutes, you're gonna start laughing and you're gonna start having good thoughts. It's just a way to fill that well.

It's as easy to have good thoughts as it is to have bad thoughts. You just have to focus on the thing. So now we know what's sparking you these days. Say the name of that book again. It's called the happiness advantage. Uh it's Sean Sean Acre, and he's got a fantastic talk. Is what that's all about. And I saw the TED talk of it. I'm like, getting that book, got it. Fantastic. And so fill my head with good things. Now tell us what's it all for. Um for to me, I think anybody who says it's not for self-gratification at the beginning is lying. I mean, it is. It all feels good. But then when you start to get other people responding to it, to me, it's about the community, it's about lifting uh a rising tide lifts all boats.

I have been so um so lucky to have so many people come up to me and say, You affected me this way. You made me feel this way. You uh I have a second show called Never Wear a Tube Top While Riding a Mechanical Bowl and 16 Other Things I Learned While I was drinking last Thursday. It's um it's a it's a second Dixie show is co-produced by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and the whole thing is about finding your adventure and what are you stopping yourself from doing. And I hadn't love you. It's cool. It's so I get people up on stage every night and I say, What's your adventure? And then like what's the craziest thing you've ever done? And what it does in that moment is it doesn't make people just on stage think about their adventure.

It makes everybody in the audience go, if she called me, what would I say? That's right. And so that's the thing. And I love at the end of the show, because I'll go out in the audience and then they'll come up. If you put picked up me, I would have said this. Like, yes, that's what I want you to think. Active, you spark that. And there was uh there was like a couple that came up to me and said, We literally were going to file for divorce. And this made us go, um, let's try this. Let's try adventures. What are we stopping ourselves from doing? Saving marriage. So it's like, and I had two things this weekend, two really kind emails that were sent to me this weekend. People found me on social, they'd seen the show in Rochester.

One of them was um a victim of spousal abuse, and one of them was just she was there with her daughters, and she said this the both of them were incredibly kind, and they're like, You gave us things to think about that we had no idea we were gonna think about. Spoon full of sugar and and no idea we were gonna have these conversations on the way up. And I love that kind of stuff. I love that it's so for me now. It's about what can I do? What mark can I leave? What kind of the my favorite thing when I come out of the theater is to just go and sit and talk about a show. If a show leaves me not wanting to talk about it, you know, it's and I saw Fun Home. Um I've seen it four times now, and I saw it on Broadway and I saw it in previews.

I love that show so much. And I saw it in previews, and it is the only time that this experience has ever happened to me. I saw it with a couple friends of mine. I knew I was gonna see it because my tour manager, Michelle's like, I've got to see the show. I know what the source source material is. He said tour manager, not tourmentor. Go ahead. Um she said, um, I gotta see the show. I know the source material. I really want to see it. I was in New York uh just on a whim a couple weeks before her, and a friend of mine said, Hey, do you want to see Fun Home? I'm like, no, I'm gonna wait for Michelle. And then I said, you know what? I'm here. Look, if it's bad, I'll tell Michelle we can skip it.

If it's good, I'll come back. You know, I'll love theater, I'll see it any chance I get. I sat there and I love that show so much. And at the end of the show, everybody's applauding it, you know, and it's there's still like the sound designer was behind me writing the whole time. So, like we were in previews, like they're like they were still working. And I stood up at the end of the show and I collapsed. And I and literally it's felt like somebody punched me, and I sobbed for a good two minutes. And my friends who are savvy enough to get it are like, oh, okay, all right, we're gonna sit down. And it just I couldn't, I didn't have the breath to to form a word. It just was such an emotional experience for me.

And and we went out and we talked about and talked about and talked about it and talked about. And I'm like, if I can do that, yes, if I can make people go, and then this was set on stage, and then this person did that. Like, if I can make people talk through my words or my performance to do that, to make some sort of a change to inspire people, that's the thing. You are your inspiring adventure. You're saving marriage. Sparks on sparks and sparks on sparks. That's what you are. That's the hope. Because you know, everybody is valuable. Everybody has something to say. Everybody has a story to tell and I want people to have give themselves permission to and that's one of the lines in Tube Top.

I have a book through the whole thing that I'm writing down things about when I was drinking. And then I say if you know and I go through this whole piece of the show where I'm I'm giving different people's name tags and I'm like you're now you're not that no you're not who you are. You were this person. You were this action. You are this is who you are now defined to be wow and so it's this steep. It's really cool. But it's all told in Dixie's sort of and then I go up and I say like you know life is a is a collection of stories. Some are good and sadly some of them are bad and you if you have a couple of them you know if you're if you're have a few of them your life's a little bitty pamphlet.

If you have a bunch of them your life is a big thick book and I say if this and I have the book and I'm like if this was the story of your life would anyone want to read it and then I say would you want to read it and there is this and most of the time there's silence. Sometimes you hear no and that just makes my heart sad. But every once in a while I go yes you'll hear somebody go hell yes I'm like yeah like and I point it out first I was like that's what I want to feel. That's what I want to hear. I want you to write your own story and go, God, this is a story that people should want to read so and this is why we wanted you on the side that's right we're a hundred percent with you on that I just I mean I love what you do because you're doing the same thing.

You're sparking people to create and not just in the theater and not just in an entertainment but in all these different ways in anything anything that you find creative, do it. Pick it up, do it. Do it. Do it. I mean, I admit I cross-stitched when we were talking in December last year. I started cross-stitching um this thing for a friend of mine. It says a uh a fart is a wish your butt makes. I did it as a sampler pillow because that's his sense of humor. Call your mother. Yeah, it's called your mother. It's just that is that stuff. I'm like, that's fun. I like it. We are all about take it and make it. It is a wish. That's our outrage. Chris, thank you so much. Chris Anderson. That's it. We hope that this put another bunch of sparks in your file.

Listen, if there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you've taken a spark, if you fanned it into a little creative flame and you'd like to share that, won't you email us at the sparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website. That's right, hookers. We've got a website, thesparkfile.com. We will even take your feedback. But you know the price of admission. First, you have to share creative risk that you have taken recently. And be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe. Great. Five-star review it. If you like this podcast, share it with people you love. If you didn't like it, Dixie, what do we want to say to those folks who didn't like it? I will push you off a bridge faster than you can lick up on my leg like a dog going for peanut butter.

Just stop it, go. If something tickles your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing, Susan, I Chris and Dixie are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It is your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame. You gotta declare it. You gotta share it. You gotta tease your wig and tube your top and full on Tupperware it. You gotta take it and make it when I bump into something that inspires me. I dump it in my spark files. Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be. I pump it in the spark files. I jump into my spark fives. Let's open up the spark fire.