This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome back to the Theatre Podcast. Intimate, personal conversations with theatre's biggest names. I'm your host, Alan Seales, and this episode is with Keith Powell, who plays Toofer from one of my all-time favorite shows, 30 Rock. Just an incredible guy to talk to. He identifies himself as an artist, first and foremost. Just nothing specific like an actor, a writer, a director. He loves to do everything, so he just calls himself an artist. It's so wonderful to hear. Something else that I really love talking about was his stories about how he's been working with NBC to film at home with his wife, who is also an actor. He's in the NBC comedy, Connecting, which you can find now on demand on Peacock and on Hulu.

Before we get into this, as always, please find me online at theatre underscore podcast on facebook.com slash official theatre podcast. You can visit me on the web at the theatre podcast dot com. Show your support for the podcast and help the transcriptions keep going at ttp.fm slash patreon p-a-t-r-e-o-n. Please leave a rating and a review, and now everybody, please enjoy this episode with Keith Powell.

[1:29] Alan Seales: You may most recognize our guest today for his series regular role as James Toofer Spurlock at NBC's Emmy award-winning comedy, 30 Rock. Recently, he has mostly focused on writing and directing, and he's currently writing a feature for Film 44 and HBO Films, and is set to direct his first film, Buffalo. In addition, he directs for television, having helmed an episode of NBC's Superstore, and has a strong background in theatre as well, having previously run his own theatre company, and has performed at the Old Globe Playhouse and several other places out on the West Coast. He wrote and directed every episode of his web series, Keith Broke His Leg, in which he also starred along with his wife. It won the Indie Series Award for Best Comedy, and he won the Best Actor in a Comedy as well, which is also being currently developed for television. He is now playing Garrett on the new NBC comedy, Connecting. Keith Powell, welcome to the theatre podcast.

[2:25] Keith Powell: What? That was a lot. That was a mouthful.

[2:29] Keith Powell: Thank you. Thank you. It's good to be here.

[2:32] Alan Seales: I was watching Connecting, and I want to start with that because I feel it's so apropos to where we are right now. I'm recording from home in quarantine. You're in an Airbnb in LA somewhere, and none of us have the ability to go see friends. And you were telling me before we started recording that you're doing this, you're doing pitches, your comedy pitches for Netflix and other networks and whatnot over Zoom and losing connections. And Connecting on NBC is a comedy basically set in Zoom land, in a virtual world.

[3:04] Keith Powell: It's entirely set through Zoom. And it was one of those opportunities where they gave me a call and said, do you want to do a show with your wife and you never have to leave your house? And I was like, yes. It wasn't even like a hesitation. But I found it so clever how they were able to make eight episodes. Kind of like the Zoom melts away. You never really feel like you're just watching Zoom all day like you would at home, you know, in your regular life. It really feels like it's a bunch of friends connecting with each other. And I really loved that. I really loved that energy about the show. And that's why I wanted to do this show.

[4:12] Alan Seales: Well, I was going to ask because I knew that your co-star in the room that you're in is your wife. And it looks like there's high-end studio grade cameras and everything that are there with you.

[4:27] Keith Powell: That's what I tell people. It's the best looking Zoom you've ever seen in your life. No dropped connections, no audio issues, and everybody is gorgeous.

[4:40] Alan Seales: Right. Always full makeup. Perfect lighting.

[4:46] Keith Powell: We shot it all on iPhones.

[4:48] Alan Seales: No kidding. I was going to ask how you shot it.

[4:50] Keith Powell: Yeah. I mean, every episode has little glimpses of them in their lives outside of it. So it steps outside of the Zoom world and you see them just at home, living and existing. And we shoot those with DSLR cameras.

[5:25] Keith Powell: We all have to do it ourselves. And then we record it ourselves and then jump in front of the camera and act. And then they tell us where to set the camera up next.

[5:37] Alan Seales: Well, that's what I was going to ask about because it's one of the biggest things I hear from friends in the Broadway world and voiceover world. And they're literally turning their coat closets, their walk-in closets into sound booths because that's the smallest space they have with things that they can put on the walls that absorbs sound. And I've done stuff with people for radio plays where we built pillow forts around their microphone. But for NBC with this massive NBC universal budget, right?

[6:12] Keith Powell: I mean, yes. I don't know. I don't know if it's a massive budget. That's the problem.

[6:18] Alan Seales: Well, mostly if I'm going to see something on TV, I figured like, oh, there's a couple million that they throw at it and there's a crew and there's a grip and there's the best boy and then the this, that and the fly dude and whatever it is, right? So that's fascinating because the biggest complaint I hear from people is like, now when I'm doing auditions, I'm my own audio tech and camera person and everything else because someone was saying the audition, they said in like a five minute self tape, but it took them five hours to set it up and film it.

[6:50] Keith Powell: Yeah, it really does. I think that the good news is, is that technology is improving. And so you can record a beautiful audition on your phone, right? But because technology is improving, you now have an expectation to make it look good, which takes time. And that's the thing that that's what happened with us with the show is, is that we start, we would begin in the morning at like 7am and we would all set up our cameras and our light and then, you know, and then someone would hop on zoom and, and just tell us what to do. So, you know, the, the DP would hop on zoom and say, oh, turn, you know, your shutter speed down and take the ISO up and whatever it is. And then we do all those things. And then, you know, the grip people come on and they say, okay, you need to put your light over there and you need to have this over there.

And then, you know, the sound person comes on and says, okay, attach the sound clip to this. And the, and that is a process that takes, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to say that that's a process that takes like three or four hours because every single person, and then we all record simultaneously. So it's like a play and we just, they all just press record. We all, we all just press record and do the scene. And it'll be like an eight, nine to eight, 10 page scene that, that we're just, that, you know, we have had to have rehearsed ourselves, you know, the day before. And, and then, then we, then they call lunch, but 90% of the time is us setting up the cameras and the lights and the sound and the, and you know, the art, the art department comes and tells us what things we need to get out of our house and what to replace them with and what console tables we need to build, you know. So it's a long process.

[8:57] Keith Powell: So, but yeah, basically you, you have become the entire crew. You've gotten, you've gotten back in time to your early career days of doing everything yourself.

[9:06] Keith Powell: It really does. It feels like summer stock. It feels like, like all hands on deck, all the actor and, you know, and all of the, all the, the whole cast really got close because this is, it, it feels like, you know, back old theater days where you're just kind of like, all right, somebody has got to build the mantle piece. I mean, you know, and it's, it was actually a really fun, I thought I would be driven crazy by performing with my wife, but I actually really enjoyed it.

[9:41] Alan Seales: I think it's one of those things where you, at the end of it, you're either like, we're, we're done or I love you so much.

[9:51] Keith Powell: Yeah.

[9:51] Keith Powell: The, the, I think I would have just set up every shot and just left it. I wouldn't have touched it because people in theory aren't coming over anyway.

[10:00] Keith Powell: Well, well, the thing, well, first of all, our dining room was our like equipment room. So we just threw a bunch of stuff in there. It took two days to empty out that room. Wow. Yeah. There was just so much equipment in that room and it was, and it was just overrun. You could barely walk into that room. And then on top of that, we were the only, um, we were the only people in the cast who had a two story house. And, um, and so our house was, is kind of, is, is on the bigger side. And we were the only people in the show where every week and every scene was in a different location.

[10:45] Keith Powell: Oh, no. I mean, there are some people who like one of our, one of our castmates named Eli, his entire character is that he's hunkered down in a basement. And so it's, he's, he's just one shot. He leaves the camera up. He just, he walks in, he turns it on. He's like, I'm ready to go. And then I'm sitting there for three, four hours setting up the whole, because you know, it's a different location, but it was still fun. It was still good.

[11:17] Alan Seales: Oh, I, yeah, I think, I think that sound to me as someone who loves the techie side of stuff. I think that sounds incredibly fun. And you get to work with your wife and you get to roll out of bed and you're on set.

[11:28] Keith Powell: We have our, we, you know, we, we have a daughter who is, well, now she's 19 months. Um, but you know, she was like a year and a half shooting. And, and then we, so we got a nanny who had to quarantine with us. And, um, and so, you know, my wife and I would be shooting and then every now and then we're like, Oh, uh, pause, pause. Our child is screaming.

[11:55] Keith Powell: Hear her in the background, just like tearing back and forth. Um, but actually that was the thing where, where, where our, our daughter, I, I feel like our daughter was very lucky because both of her parents had to go to work, but both of her parents had to, were in the same house while they were working. And, and so we kind of felt like we were still there with her, you know?

[12:20] Alan Seales: That's like, yeah, that's really nice actually. When, when we went into lockdown here, you know, last, last spring, you know, I have a four and a half and a six year old and with my wife and I both having to work, we were, yeah, we were just like the horrible parents giving them TV. We're like, we don't know what we're doing. We just got to get to work right now. And, and just until we figure it out, go be couch potatoes for a little bit.

[12:43] Keith Powell: We're like that now actually. Right now I'm like, I don't, I don't know what to do with her. I'm just going to put, I'm going to turn on Sesame Street for hours and just let her go. I feel like now, well, tell me, tell me too. And this, this kind of gets into a little bit of a, of a personal side is that at the end of the year, the end of the year feels like sort of a relief anyway, like a little pressure valve is being let out and we can start again with, with the new year. But this year has been a really crappy year on many, many different levels. And so now like the elections over and as we're recording this a few days ago, Biden was officially confirmed by the electoral college. So like, and so we've got all of the political unrest happening all summer, along with the pandemic, along, along with just everything. And then in the industry too, I mean, you're one of the lucky few who was able to continue to find a place to work in the middle of a pandemic.

[13:53] Keith Powell: Yeah. But you know, at the very beginning, it was very touch and go. And, and for some reason, and I'm knocking on wood as I say this, because I recognize just how lucky I am because I now recurring on This Is Us. So I jumped straight from Connecting to doing This Is Us and, and I'm also in the middle of trying to sell a show. And for some, so, you know, when, when we began with the lockdown, I was writing this movie for HBO. And so I went, well, this will give me time to like,

[14:31] Keith Powell: You know, without distraction to kind of just focus on writing this movie. And then, you know, a couple months passed, and then I got Connecting. And so I kind of just jumped from job to job, thankfully, during this. And I never really had a chance to feel the terribly negative effects of quarantine. I'm also, believe it or not, I'm an extreme introvert. So I don't like leaving my house anyway. I very believe it. Most wonderful actors are wonderful introverts. And I also did the 30 Rock reunion in my house as well. And so I genuinely, there was, at the very beginning, it was scary, just in terms of like, how are we going to pay our bills? But thankfully, it all kind of worked out. And in the scary moments of this pandemic, my grandmother used to say something to me that was very appropriate, I think.

And I've held it with me. And it's kind of the thing that has gotten me through the pandemic. And she used to say things like, what's yours will know your face. What's yours will know your face. I'm processing this. And, you know, as a young struggling actor, I never really believed that because I would always be like, well, I'm supposed to get that job. And she would say to me, what's yours will know your face. And it didn't make sense really, until the things that I was supposed to get, I got without really having to fight for it. There's a difference between fighting for something and working hard for something. And I never really had to fight for the things that were mine. I always had to work hard for them. I never had to fight for them. And I think that that's what happened during this pandemic, that I got to just stop and do nothing. And all these things that knew my face found me.

[17:01] Alan Seales: Oh, I love that. And you do a lot. You do a lot as well, because I mean, I'm a fan of yours from 30 Rock. That's a show that I watched over and over again.

[17:04] Keith Powell: Thank you.

[17:05] Alan Seales: And obviously, in the intro, you're doing this. You're doing writing. You're obviously very heavy into writing. You've directed things. You have done theater. And so I feel like, well, I guess let me ask the question of you, then. If you could pick one thing, if you had to pick one thing, what is calling to you the most? What knows most of your face?

[17:30] Keith Powell: Um, I can't answer that. What I normally tell people is that I'm an artist and I'm a storyteller. And sometimes, you know, I think that acting, writing, and directing are all aspects of storytelling. And, you know, the actor is the vessel through which the story is told. The director is the teller of the story, and the writer is the creator of the story. And sometimes things, I want to tell stories. And sometimes it means that I get to be the vessel through which the story is told. Sometimes it means I'm the actual storyteller. Sometimes it means that I'm the person who creates the story. And I kind of go where I'm needed most. And I, and so I don't, I don't like to, to, to, I don't like to, um, limit my, myself to going, to saying, I'm an actor who writes, or I'm a director who acts, or, you know, I don't want to limit myself in that way. I'm a storyteller, and I'm an artist.

[18:41] Alan Seales: Well, so 30 Rock, then, you, you, ironically, I guess you were playing, you were in the writer's room of 30 Rock, playing a writer. And so you kind of got a little, I get to play with something in real life. But, um, you know, for me, that was the behind the scenes of that, even though it was fictitious, was still one of the greatest parts of that show. And, well, tell me, tell me how you got connected with that in the first place, because there are so many great actors that have come out of that show. And of course, Alec and Tina being the two leads, right? Like learning from them had to just be this master class that you can't, in education, you can't pay for otherwise.

[19:23] Keith Powell: It was one of the greatest educations of my life. I, I, um, I mean, I learned how to work in television, uh, on that show. Um, I was really young when I, when I got on the show, I was 25, 26 years old when I got it. And, um, and I, up until that point, I had only done theater. So, doing that show was a great education in that way. For me, I don't know. First of all, how I got on the show was I was about to direct a play that was going to go on a national tour, um, starring Keith David and Jasmine Guy. And I wanted to get rid of the set designer. And I did, and I, because I was young, I didn't know how to do that. And I, because I was young, I didn't know really how to. So, I wrote a, it's you, it's not you, it's me letter.

Um, but I couldn't find him. I, like his emails were bouncing back, his number was disconnected. And so, I gave it to his agent. And his agent said, well, what are you doing right now? And I, cause he knew that I had acted in the, like acted in regional theater, um, in addition to directing and in the theater. And, and I was like, I, you know, I don't know. I'm thinking about moving to LA and, you know, just kind of chilling out until I have to direct this play. And he said, well, in the meantime, do you want to just go on some auditions? And the first and only audition he sent me out on was 30 Rock.

[21:04] Keith Powell: Really? And, um, and then, uh, then he later died. Uh, his, his name is, uh, Brett Adams was the agent and he's a big theater. It's a big theater agency in New York now. And Brett Adams represented me during 30 Rock because Brett Adams himself was, was like, yeah, there's this part that might be right for you. And that's how I got on 30 Rock. And, um, and the way, what I always tell people, cause there's a lot of, there was for a time, some dude who, who got really close to getting the part of Two-Fur, um, and, and didn't get it. Uh, and I got it instead, obviously. And, um, and, you know, he talked about a lot about it in the press about how I, how, how they kind of stole his stuff. And I, and I don't see it that way.

I think that the reason why I got Two-Fur and why I was, um, what, what worked in the part for me was that Two-Fur didn't see himself as a joke. Two-Fur, you know, the, the idea of Two-Fur was that he's a, he's black and he's educated and he's from Harvard and that Two-Fur won in a writer's room, that you get a minority hire and a smart hire. And he was written kind of as the butt of a joke, that it was funny that he was black and smart and from Harvard. And I, and I always wanted to approach Two-Fur as if he was, um, as if he didn't understand what the, what was so funny. Everybody in his world went to Harvard. Everybody in his world is black. And that's not, it's not a joke. And I think that that take on the character was something different that Tina hadn't seen. And I think was, was what got me the part.

[23:13] Alan Seales: That's what I was going to actually bring up was, was that the character, you, you never made fun of yourself. To you, Two-Fur, like to Two-Fur, your reality was I'm here because I deserve to be here as much as everybody else. Why, why are you making fun of me?

[23:30] Keith Powell: Exactly. Exactly. And then, you know, listen, there are things to make fun of within that. I mean, you know, that self-assurance, there are things to make fun of, but, but it was important to me to make sure that Two-Fur never saw himself as a, as a joke, that he took himself seriously, maybe way too seriously, but he took himself seriously.

[23:53] Alan Seales: Did you have conversations with Tina or did she have conversations with you about, like, where the line was, if anything was too far to, to bring up in terms of the, the joke of, we never had, we never had those conversations. There were times where there were scripts that, that where things went too far, in my opinion. And I, I, when I could, I voiced those opinions. And sometimes, sometimes they were listened to, sometimes they weren't. But I, but I never felt like I, I needed to hold back on it. I, I know, you know, they, they have a big writer's room and NBC has, has some sort of a sensitivity executive who always had conversations with them about race and the scripts.

[25:03] Keith Powell: Oh, that's interesting. It was, what, this was 15 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't, they, they weren't called sensitivity executives. I, they were, I don't know what they were called, probably diversity inclusion. I don't know. 15 years ago, DNI was still sort of unheard of, especially at that kind of level. I mean, you know, there was, there were, there was moments where there, there was some issues racially, but I would talk to, to an executive at NBC and the NBC executive said, yeah, I flagged that. And that's a conversation that we're going to have. I never felt like, I never felt like I couldn't say something.

[25:43] Alan Seales: That's wonderful. I'm really happy to hear that, especially, you know, the last couple of years with all of the scandals and the Me Too's. Well, it was Nerdy Rock itself that, that, that had to take off its Blackface episodes.

[25:55] Keith Powell: Right, right, right. I remember that. Yeah. Wow. And I, I will say that Tina Fey is probably the best boss I've ever had. And, and I mean, I don't know if you've noticed, she's really talented.

[26:12] Alan Seales: Just a tad.

[26:13] Keith Powell: So it's, it was really exciting to cut, to go to work with just, just 800 pound gorillas of talent. You know.

[26:29] Alan Seales: Oh yeah. Oh gosh. Like working with her, definitely on my bucket list. I've, I've interviewed several people from Mean Girls too, who have said, oh yeah, who've said the same thing. Just collaborative, nice, talented, and just whip smart.

[26:51] Keith Powell: Whip smart. She's got three, four things going on in her brain all at once. And she's answering every one of those questions simultaneously. We're going to take a short break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[27:17] Alan Seales: Let's back up in your life though. You said, I didn't know 30 Rock was your first TV show, but let's back up. You did theater before that, but then I did, I did guest spots on, on Law and Orders. Well, if you're, if you're in New York, of course, that's what you do. You play cadaver number six, you know. But I still count that. No, young, young, young Keith, where did you grow up and what got you into theater?

[27:45] Keith Powell: I was born in Philadelphia, but I spent a lot of my childhood in California, in Monterey, California. And then we moved from Monterey back to the East coast when I was about 11 or 12. And I went to Middlelands High School in Delaware and Delaware kind of claims me now. So people tell me like, that I should just cut straight to the Delaware years with where I grew up. So I, and I did a lot of community theater in Delaware and I did a lot of community theater in Delaware with some people who are now very famous. John Gallagher Jr. who won a Tony for Spring Awakening was, was, you know, at, at the, at the community theater that I'd performed at. We, we were friends then I've known him since he was 11 or 12 years old and Aubrey Plaza. I've known since she was 11 or 12 years old and lots of really wonderful people all kind of stuck together and then grew up in the industry together. And I was one of those people in Delaware.

[29:01] Keith Powell: Then I went to NYU, and I just stayed in New York City. And in the middle of all that, I started a theater company. My grandmother, who was one of my parents, got diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I went back to Delaware to take care of her, help take care of her in the last couple years of her life. And when you're in Delaware, you know, you get bored. And so I started a theater company in Delaware. And I was the artistic director of it for a while. And Lynn Redgrave did my very first play. Wow. It was extraordinary. And that's what I say, that that was my graduate school. I was 23 years old, and I was producing a play with Lynn, starring Lynn Redgrave. And just learning from her, watching her every day in rehearsals was, I mean, you don't get a better education than that.

[30:13] Alan Seales: So early success, then, would you attribute that to perseverance or ignorance?

[30:21] Keith Powell: Both. Because... Both. I mean... Go ahead, sorry.

[30:25] Alan Seales: Oh, sorry. There's so many people that I've talked to who have had early success in life like that, like early mid-20s, who are just like, if I knew how hard it was, I would have never done it.

[30:32] Keith Powell: Well, at 23 years old, I set about raising $200,000 to do a play. And I mean, who the fuck does that? I don't know if you cuss on this, but like, who does that? And like, that takes some balls. And by sheer miracle, we did it and we got it. And I've always... It was good to begin that way. And everyone told me I couldn't do it. And it was good to begin that way and for it to have worked out because it's just now how I live my artistic life, where I just go, it's just better to do it. Let's just do it. And then, of course, it might all crash down around us. But the chances of it... It's too great of a reward for us to not just do it.

[31:43] Alan Seales: That's the same thing with so many things in life that if you don't try, you'll never know. No risk without reward. The worst you can hear is no, etc. There was somebody who told me the other day that they hear their friends go into auditions and say that they're like, oh man, I messed that up. I lost that audition. I lost that role. That role was mine. And no, it never was. It was never yours. It was never yours.

[32:06] Keith Powell: And you know what? It's interesting because I had this conversation with my wife who went to... Well, my wife is a visual artist, but she is also an actress. She went to Brown Trinity Rep grad school in acting. And in her early career as an actress, she would always be like, oh man, I really didn't get that part and it got me really sad. And I would say, how can you mourn for something that was never yours in the first place? She'd be like, shut up, Keith.

[32:43] Keith Powell: Oh, I mean, I get a lot of shut up, Keith. I still get a lot of shut up, Keith. But that's the way that I see when I don't get something. When I get really, really close to getting something and don't get it, I go, I can't mourn for it because it was never supposed to be mine in the first place. I think that that's resilience. That is learned resilience. Well, I guess, is it self-taught or is it learned?

[33:12] Alan Seales: I mean, I've had a lot of heartbreak in my career. So I think it's survival. It's a survival mechanism, maybe.

[33:21] Keith Powell: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I mean, my mother and my grandmother were very resilient people. And of course, I've gotten some of that from them. But I don't know. It's a lot of failure. Another thing that I always say, I mentor young NYU graduates who've just left NYU and have moved to Los Angeles. And I mentor a new crop every year. And I always tell them, the key to success is figuring out how to survive in an industry that needs you, but doesn't want you.

[34:09] Alan Seales: Yes. Yes. And if you have that mindset, like, I'm never, I'm never, you're not getting rid of me because you need me. Even though you say you don't want me, then I feel like that eventually success will happen.

[34:35] Keith Powell: I literally had this conversation a few hours ago with a friend of mine who was like, yeah, my success is half perseverance and half resilience.

[34:48] Alan Seales: Oh, a tremendous amount of luck.

[34:50] Keith Powell: Oh, that too. Being at the same place, same time. I mean, that's the trifecta of being a performer. The last third of it is you just have to be at the right place at the right time. But you go back over and over again after hearing no. So it all works together.

[35:06] Alan Seales: Yeah. And I honestly, to be an actor means that you're facing mass failure and rejection on a daily basis. And that's the rejection you hear about. You're not even counting the rejection that your agent or your manager has faced and has not told you. And there needs to be some sort of guiding light through it.

[35:50] Keith Powell: I need to tell stories. And if I'm not going to tell a story as an actor, I'm going to tell a story as a director. If I'm not going to tell a story as a director, I'm going to tell a story as a writer.

[36:02] Alan Seales: Okay. So what I was going to say was, so through all of that, how do you personally not take it personally?

[36:05] Keith Powell: You don't. I mean, you take it personally. I mean, that sucks. And I get depressed. You get depressed. I've now gotten my depression when I don't get something down to a matter of an hour.

[36:21] Alan Seales: That's not bad.

[36:23] Keith Powell: Big thing, like a couple hours. But I don't know. I mean, how do you not take it? I don't know how you not take it personally. You just do. But you can't reject yourself. So if you're relying on yourself to create the art that you want to create, then you'll have a 100% success rate. And so I see the work outside of the work that I do for me to be, oh, thank God I could pay my mortgage this month. Great. I get health insurance. Now let me go back to working on the thing that I wanted to work on. And I think that that's kind of, I don't know. I don't know, to be honest with you. Sometimes I take it personally.

[37:26] Alan Seales: Yeah. I don't see how most people don't. I know some who are just like, yeah, sure, get off and they're fine. And there's got to be some level of financial security behind that too. Because if you're counting on something to pay your mortgage, then obviously it's got to come from somewhere. If you don't get it, that's devastating.

[37:47] Keith Powell: Yes. Yes. And I've yet to figure out what that magic thing is, because eating is important.

[38:00] Alan Seales: Sometimes.

[38:00] Keith Powell: I just know that I can't rely on other people to pay me to be an artist. I have to be an artist independent of being paid.

[38:25] Alan Seales: Ah, yeah, yeah. The job of being an artist and the fulfillment from being an artist have to be separated. And I can, yes, yes, yes, yes. And when you don't know what you want, you create it.

[38:40] Keith Powell: I mean, again, I'm going to knock on every frigging piece of wood I can, because I have been placed in a situation, in an environment where I've, thankfully, at least for this year, don't have to consider money. And Lord, I'm now in it so deep. I don't know what to do if I don't consider the money. I don't know what to do now if the money dries up and I need to pay my mortgage next month. I don't know what to do anymore. I can't do it. I have no other skills.

[39:27] Keith Powell: There was one time where I took on a semester of teaching at a college, because I was afraid that I wasn't going to get health insurance. And then that's when I got every big frigging job possible in that year. And I had to squeeze in teaching.

[39:51] Alan Seales: And you can't enjoy any of it when your time is stretched like that.

[39:55] Keith Powell: No.

[39:56] Alan Seales: No. And that's the hard part about acting. One of many, not the, one of many hard parts is that you can't live to work, but you need to work to live.

[40:09] Keith Powell: And yeah, if you're taking survival jobs, I mean, a friend of mine calls them for now jobs, but sometimes you need them to survive.

[40:17] Alan Seales: So yeah, yeah. I mean, mental health, of course, is part of all this, your physical health, and then your whole income in general, like health insurance.

[40:24] Keith Powell: We're a country without nationalized health care. I mean, I mean, that's every, I, you know, when 30 Rock ended, I have been freaking out every year about getting health insurance since 30 Rock ended. And that was what, eight years ago, nine years ago? Every year, freaking out. And then, miraculously, at the last minute, I would get something that makes the health insurance kick in. Right? And so, you know, but it's a yearly stress.

[41:04] Alan Seales: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to, I don't know how to beat that, or how to not take it personally, obviously, if I don't get work.

[41:13] Keith Powell: You've got so many irons in the fire now, and that it's, I think it's just going to be one of those things now where, over the next couple years, it's just going to be one thing after another, after another, that are just going to hit.

[41:24] Alan Seales: That's what I've learned. I mean, those irons, yeah, that's what I've learned.

[41:29] Keith Powell: Yeah, that's what I've learned. I've learned that every day, I need to wake up being an artist. I have to do something creative every single day. And sometimes, that's making the perfect omelet, right? But hopefully, if you have 365 tries in a year to work at some artistic endeavor, and hopefully, you do that in different ways, in different days, you foster a stable of thing, a stable of projects, that you're trying to get off the ground. And hopefully, that's one of them will hit, that'll allow you to take the other 365, four days to try to find the next thing.

[42:21] Alan Seales: Well, yeah, you've got writing feature films for, obviously, Film 44 and HBO films, that HBO and Film 44, of course, no small potatoes, that's going to be good. And then Keith Broke His Leg, mentioned as being developed for television. So real quick, just tell me about Keith Broke His Leg, which is your web series.

[42:37] Keith Powell: Well, this is actually a great example, and that actually is a good bridge to it. When 30 Rock ended, I was struggling to find my own artistic voice or a comedic voice. And I'd been living in Tina Fey's head for so long. And so I was the vessel through which a lot of the Tina Fey jokes were made. And so I didn't feel, I needed to reconnect with who I am as an artist. And so I had a minor surgery that left me incapacitated for a week. I wasn't breaking my leg. But during that time, because I wake up every day,

[43:32] Keith Powell: During that time, I started to put together in my head, well, if I were going to have my show, this wouldn't what my show would be like and how I would do it. And kind of the seeds of Keith Broke His Leg happened. And it took place, it's not my home anymore, but it took place in my old home, starring my wife. Every character in the show are the actual people who are playing them. And it became a tremendously fulfilling, artistically fulfilling, reclaiming who I am as an artist process. I wrote, directed, and starred in all the episodes, and some of them are great and some of them need some work. But what I did, I had a goal in mind that this show needed to completely come from basically my id.

So I gave myself only one rewrite of each draft. So every time I wrote a script, I just vomited out on the page. And then I went back and made some grammatical changes. But basically what you see is what you get. So I was able to, as an artistic exercise, see what is going on in my brain.

[45:10] Alan Seales: That's like a form of journaling where you're just like, yeah, you just spew it out. And all of a sudden it's going to, it's an active TV.

[45:20] Keith Powell: Yeah, exactly. But the show, I'm so proud of the show because the show is nuanced and it is interesting and it's not just joke after joke after joke. I mean, it's not that at all. There are some episodes that don't try to be funny. I mean, there are just sometimes where it lives within the boredom of the character who's incapacitated, you know? But everything is so thought out. And of course not all the episodes work, but the majority of them do. And I really love just how it operates because it kind of reset my brain. It reset my brain to be, this is the way I tell stories and that's not a bad thing.

[46:10] Alan Seales: Oh, it makes total sense. It makes total sense. And everyone has to find who they are. Some find it through singing, some find it through acting, some find it through writing, some find it through running.

[46:24] Keith Powell: No, I just watched a movie called the 40-Year-Old Version, not Virgin. Rada Blank, I think her name is. It's about her as a theater artist and the 40-Year-Old Version also stands for finding your own voice. It's a movie about her living in the theater world as a playwright and not feeling heard. And then she becomes a rapper. And through that, she finds what her voice is. I think that's my favorite movie this year. It's on Netflix, if anybody, I don't know why I'm now promoting Netflix, but Netflix, you should watch it. Especially for theater people, it's a brilliant study on how one finds their own voice.

[47:23] Alan Seales: Well, I think that is super important this year of all years. And we're coming to so many cultural reckonings this year and band-aids have been ripped off of many things that have been hidden for generations. One of the things that I like that's happening right now is that as a society, as a country, we're starting now to talk publicly about mental health, like the younger generation. Our parents are of that generation where they're like, I'm not allowed to talk about therapy. Therapy's not cool. Recently, I was hanging out with a friend who I hadn't seen in person in a while. I don't remember how therapy came up, but I said, and I'm 40. I am the 40-year-old version of myself. I'm the 40-year-old version, so I understand.

He asked about therapy or something, and I said, I'm embarrassed to talk about this, but you know what? I'm just going to say it. I'm seeing a therapist now, and she's great, et cetera, et cetera. I was expecting to be made fun of, but his first response was, oh, do you like her? I'm looking for a new therapist myself.

[49:04] Keith Powell: That's great though. It was that moment where I said, oh, it's okay to talk about it. It just clicked. Especially unfortunately in the Black community, the idea of therapy has been looked down on. But I got to tell you, my life changed when I started therapy. I started to see how much I've repressed and how much my daily life is a reaction to my past. I think the stigma of going to therapy has lifted because we now see people in bigger spaces who are emotionally healthier and attribute it to therapy. My mother, my aunts now all go, oh, wait. So did you talk to your therapist this week? Which is not something they would have ever done in the past. I think it's because we have people in prominent positions who are showing the benefits of it.

[50:33] Alan Seales: Well, it's vulnerability too. It's showing vulnerability. It's allowing yourself to be seen as more human, and the people who are talking about it are getting validated because everyone else is quietly raising their hand and saying, oh, me, me, me too. I feel this way too. I'm having the same anxiety, the same issues with depression.

[51:01] Keith Powell: I also think that thankfully we are a society that is tearing down, especially the young people who are tearing down gender norms. The idea of what is masculine or what is feminine is being stripped away. Within that, you can be masculine or feminine and vulnerable. God bless the youngins for that. The majority don't identify with one sexual preference. Over half. That would have been unheard of when I was in high school in the 90s. I think it's inspiring that gender and sexuality are not A or B.

[52:16] Alan Seales: I enjoy now too that we're seeing more mainstream characters in our media. Will and Grace, of course, historic for putting gay characters at the center of a story. But I enjoy now that there are queer characters whose main point in the story has nothing to do with their sexuality.

[52:36] Keith Powell: Absolutely. And what's, because it's what I've been fighting for as a minority, as a Black person, where I never got called in for things unless the part specifically said that it was for a Black person. The industry is slowly chipping away at that. I could go a little faster in my mind, but I do believe that we've now reached a point where defining you does not define you, if that makes sense. Your demographic characteristics do not define you. I think we need to see more of that in television, film, and especially in theater.

[53:26] Alan Seales: Yeah, I agree. There was so much that Rent changed about the industry for that exact reason. Then you've got Hamilton changing for that exact reason again. I really enjoy that there are national tours and international productions of casts that traditionally were one color or all of the same ethnic background that now are, you know, it doesn't matter anymore.

[53:56] Keith Powell: Yes. I don't believe in colorblind casting. I believe in color-conscious casting. That's also a big change that I love that the youngins are embracing.

[54:16] Alan Seales: Oh, those youngins. All right. So there are three questions that I ask everybody to wrap up every podcast episode. The first one is what motivates you?

[54:27] Keith Powell: Oh God, my family. I mean, obviously for the deeper, you know, for the superficial reason of I want to provide for them, but also because I want to tell our story to the world. Go out and tell your story. Let it echo far and wide.

[54:56] Alan Seales: Oh, gosh. I love that song. Okay. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[55:05] Keith Powell: What's yours will know your face.

[55:07] Alan Seales: Oh, beautiful. I really like that. Okay. Hardest question now, last one. If you can only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see? I'm talking about plenty of shows. I'm talking about plays. Anything interpret as you want.

[55:31] Keith Powell: Every episode of 30 Rock with you in it.

[55:35] Alan Seales: I actually haven't watched 30 Rock since. I would be horrified to see myself now. I think, oh, good Lord. I don't know. There are some theater pieces that I have seen that have absolutely changed my life and have blown me away that I would love to just go back and watch again. I think Intimate Apparel when Viola Davis did it was phenomenal, incredible to watch. Believe it or not, I think The Goat, I saw The Goat and I think I saw it like four times. I found something new each time. I rewatch Mad Men.

[56:32] Alan Seales: I have never seen Mad Men.

[56:35] Keith Powell: It's Chekhov. I mean, the show is Chekhov. It's Chekhov in the best way. I rewatched The Sopranos.

[56:40] Alan Seales: Yes.

[56:41] Keith Powell: I want to, I wish I could say I rewatched something like super Blackity, but maybe one day I'll come back to a show that's like, no, no, this is the Blackest show I can think of.

[57:02] Alan Seales: Every day hit me on social media. Speaking of social, then where can we find you online?

[57:12] Keith Powell: On Instagram, I'm by Keith Powell, B-Y Keith Powell. And on Twitter, I'm Keith Powell, K-E-I-T-H P-O-W-E-L-L. And everybody make sure to watch Connecting on Hulu and on Peacock, NBC's streaming service.

[57:30] Alan Seales: All right. You can get more of me now at thetheaterpodcast.com. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast. Leave a rating, leave a review. This is edited by Matthew Hendershot. Music you're hearing right now by Jukebox the Ghost. Keith Powell, thank you so much. I enjoyed this.

[57:45] Keith Powell: I really enjoyed this.

[57:48] Alan Seales: Pleasure. My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.