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[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome to the Theatre Podcast. Intimate, personal conversations with the industry's biggest names. I am your host, Alan Seales, and our guest today is Lorin Latarro, who is a performer, choreographer, director, neuroscience junkie. I had such a good conversation with her. She equates the feeling of dancing to flying, actually, and chasing a natural high that has led her away from performing from the stage to now being a choreographer, and then, of course, taking that final step here. Well, I guess not final. You can do anything you want, but going from choreographer into directing, which is new for her. Her current project, of course, is Mrs. Doubtfire, which just went on hiatus. These are strange times.

Everybody, please stay safe, get vaccinated, but support your local theatre, and wear your masks at all times so we can get back to some sense of normalcy. Okay, rant over. Before we get into the episode, please join me on Instagram and Twitter at Theatre Underscore Podcast on Facebook slash Official Theatre Podcast. I'm getting back into creating transcriptions for the episodes to make them more accessible, so show your support and help us cover the cost of that at ttp.fm slash Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Every little bit helps. And now, everybody, please enjoy this episode with Lorin Latarro. Here you go. One, two, three.

[1:32] Alan Seales: Our guest today is a director choreographer who has an amazing array of 14 Broadway credits as a performer, including Fosse, Kiss Me Kate, Man of La Mancha, Movin' Out, Spamalot, A Chorus Line, I could go on. In the last decade, she's added a whole slew of Broadway choreography credits to her name, including Hands on a Hard Body, Waitress, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, one of my personal favorites. And now, of course, Mrs. Doubtfire. She directed the recent production of Is There Still Sex in the City? and is also a self-proclaimed speed reader and neuroscience junkie, two things I am very excited to talk about. Lorin Latarro, welcome to the Theatre Podcast.

[2:11] Lorin Latarro: Hello, thank you. So happy to be here.

[2:15] Alan Seales: So of course, this is a theater-related podcast. So let's talk about neuroscience. I love the science behind, specifically, the neuroscience behind theater, right? Because I ask people all the time, what attracts them to theater? And what is it about the stage and movement? There's music, and there's the vibration, and there's energy, and you can get as spiritual, and as Jen Colella told me, you know, hoo-hoo, as you want to be about this. But there is science behind, actually, all this stuff. You didn't think we were going to actually talk about neuroscience, did you? So you're a neuroscience junkie. What does that mean, and how does that relate to theater for you, actually? I want to start with this weird topic.

[3:00] Lorin Latarro: Well, I mean, I'm obsessed with neuroscience as it relates to the body. My big thing was just vascular and synaptic neurogenesis as it relates to dance was sort of how it was my way in. And dance has like the most neurogenesis possibilities of all the worlds of exercise, because you're both thinking about what you're doing, and you're using cardiovascular, you're getting your heart rate up. So it's like running only does one of the two, yoga only does one of the two, dance is one of the few things that does both. So that's how I got into it. But I am obsessed with the idea of how a collective experience changes your brainwaves, and how bodies in the theater actually start to breathe together, and laugh together, and there's synapses that fire together, wire together, and then you walk out of that theater more connected to the people you're sitting with.

This is fascinating to me. I now have a whole new realm of neuroscience to dive into, because something that I've missed about being in quarantine and being in COVID and Broadway being shut down is the collective journey that a room, a giant room full of strangers will travel on together. You're being taken on an emotional roller coaster with the person next to you, and you're crying because they're crying, but are they crying because you're crying, or laughing, or vice versa, whatever the case is. So the fact that there is neuroscience behind all this is truly, truly fascinating. I love that you've brought it into the dance world as well. Have you done any actual studies on this, or is this just kind of a hobby?

[4:49] Lorin Latarro: No, I actually almost left the business to create a business about...

[4:52] Alan Seales: No kidding?

[4:55] Lorin Latarro: Yeah, yeah. I was obsessed. I met with Eric Kandel, who's one of the fathers of neuroscience, and I married a brain surgeon, partly because I was so interested in this kind of experience. And I did some Parkinson's, lots of programs with Parkinson's at Rutgers, and I'm still involved.

[5:20] Alan Seales: Wow, you're such a smarty pants. I think you need to get involved with some research that Anthony Veneziale is doing from Freestyle Love Supreme. He's been working with somebody in a research department to scan his brain. I don't know if he's still doing this, but he was doing this last year when I talked to him, to scan his brain when he's freestyling and when he's not freestyling. And they've proven that all the stuff about the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, basically, that is the region of your brain that turns on and off that maintains the devil on your shoulder, as I call it, that little voice that says, I'm not good enough. And so when you are freestyling, that part of the brain is inhibited. And therefore, you feel more comfortable, you're more apt to connect with strangers, to be more open, receptive. And to pair that with movement and dance with what you're doing, I think the two of you could really do something very cool.

[6:18] Lorin Latarro: Oh, that's very exciting. I'd love to connect to him.

[6:21] Alan Seales: Yeah, man, it's just, you know, well, you can call it being in the flow, but I think everybody on earth has experienced, even for a few blessed moments, when you're just not, when that part of your frontal executor is shut down, and you're just going. I love that. I really think that you and Anthony could do something very cool when it comes to movement study, like freestyling, freestyling dance. I wonder, oh man, Anthony, if you're listening, let's expand the study because I wonder if this part of the brain has to do specifically with speech, or if it's just inhibition in general, right?

[7:03] Lorin Latarro: Right, probably in general. I mean, speech probably lives in a different part of the brain than this in an image, but it would probably work.

[7:09] Alan Seales: I'm fascinated. Okay, so let's get back to you. Oh, you look like you're about to say something else.

[7:14] Lorin Latarro: No, no, I love it. I love it.

[7:17] Alan Seales: Oh, okay. So you specifically, of course, you love the neuroscience side of it, but why start out in theater? You obviously, you have a bunch of Broadway credits to your name. Where did you grow up? How did you get into theater? And why not take the neuroscience path?

[7:26] Lorin Latarro: Oh gosh, I don't know. I grew up with two older brothers and a dad who were all doctors, so there was no way I was doing it, even though it was sort of the family ethos. And in first grade, I won a dance contest, and that was it. I decided I was going to be a dancer. And by fourth grade, I decided, yeah, I know it's crazy. In fourth grade, we went to the Nutcracker, and someone said, that school over there is like the famed college. It's the best school. And I said, in fourth grade, I'm going to go there. Well, I did. So I just decided I was a dancer. I never grew out of that fantasy, and here we are.

[8:08] Alan Seales: Well, so then looking back, as your adult life now, knowing what you know about the brain and chemistry, looking back at that point in your life, do you recognize what it was emotionally, or even, I mean, emotion is just a chemical, or chemical responses, but do you have any idea, and there's no right or wrong answer, but do you have any sort of purpose, scientific understanding of the purpose behind the path you chose?

[8:34] Lorin Latarro: I think I always felt the most free when I was dancing. To me, it feels like being a bird. It feels like how a human can fly, and it was never about fame or money for me ever. It was always about chasing that feeling.

[8:56] Alan Seales: Was it like chasing a high, sort of?

[8:59] Lorin Latarro: It's a little bit like a high, but it's very personal, and I love the feeling, and it sustained me for many, many years.

[9:12] Alan Seales: So then your husband being a brain surgeon, right, is, the two of you seem like a yin and a yang that work well together. Does he talk to you about the patients and operating on people's heads, and you come home, and you're like, well, so these are the dance moves I did that helped my brain today.

[9:31] Lorin Latarro: Yeah, I mean, we were definitely opposites attract, and he loves theater. I mean, I knew he was the one for me when he had Jesus Christ Superstar blasting in his car, and he could sing every lyric. Who are you? And it sucks when I have a hard day, and he's like, well, yeah, well, did you do brain surgery? I mean, that's really the worst. But other than that, I mean, he really loves theater, and I enjoy learning about movement disorders, which is what his specialty is.

[10:04] Alan Seales: Oh, interesting. Yeah, my dad has Parkinson's, so this is sort of a personal thing for me to understand all of this, because that seems, I talked to my dad about this, right, to be, literally, if your brain is still functioning cognitively, then you're sort of trapped in this vessel that you can't do anything about. So how do you fix that? How do you change that?

[10:24] Lorin Latarro: Yeah, well, my husband does DBS surgery on Parkinson's patients, that's what he does.

[10:29] Alan Seales: Interesting. Have you done anything with movement therapy for Parkinson's patients?

[10:35] Lorin Latarro: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's what I was saying. We did a little bit of Parkinson's movement, and Mark Morris, years ago, before I met him, I used to, I volunteered to do the dancing for Parkinson's patients. They still do it at the Mark Morris. I mean, I don't know with COVID, but they have a giant Parkinson's dance movement program there that's free.

[10:58] Alan Seales: Oh, interesting. So if anybody who is listening has Parkinson's, or for like me, who has family, or friends, or relatives with Parkinson's, is there anything that you can say now to have people sort of do at home as an exercise? Exercises to help this?

[11:10] Lorin Latarro: Yes, exactly what I said in the beginning. Exercises that you have to have your brain involved and your heart rate up, like walking on the treadmill and then having someone throw you a ball and having to catch it, or going to a dance class and having to learn a pattern of eight moves so that your brain is activated, as opposed to just walking. Do you see the difference?

[11:36] Alan Seales: Yes, yes, because one is passive, I guess, is a good way for it, right? Like it's routine.

[11:43] Lorin Latarro: Exactly.

[11:45] Lorin Latarro: The synapses that have formed to teach you how to walk have calcified.

[11:50] Alan Seales: Exactly.

[11:51] Lorin Latarro: Right. So you want to change it up so that your brain is surprised, and that creates synaptic neurogenesis, which is what you want to do.

[12:02] Alan Seales: Oh, I love that. Thank you for that. I'm going to make sure that my dad listens to this episode because this is really helpful. So getting back to theater then. Grew up, wanted to do theater, so you decided when you were in fourth grade, this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to this college. And then you have this successful career, you know, 14 Broadway credits is nothing to sneeze at. And then why are you, was it a switch where you're like, I don't want to perform anymore, I want to be on the creative side, or did it sort of transition naturally?

[12:37] Lorin Latarro: I always, even when I was performing, even when I was at Juilliard, even when I was in high school, I was always choreographing. I choreographed the show choirs and the cheerleaders. And then at Juilliard, I was always choreographing my own dances and choreographing operas for Frank Cassero and choreographing the actors, you know, Twelfth Night on roller skates, whatever it was, I did it. And then while I was on Broadway, I was always choreographing opening numbers of Gypsy of the Year, which we now call the Red Buckets or the Easter Bonnets or, you know, assisting choreographers. I assisted Kathleen Marshall and Stephen Hoggett and, you know, Rob Ashford. I mean, you name it, I was in the room with them, Sergio Trujillo. And that's where I spent my days. So I would spend my days assisting Casey Nichola. And then at night, I'd go do my show. So I was always.

[13:28] Lorin Latarro: In the room choreographing. And then little by little, I just enjoyed the process more than performing. You know, at a certain point, I just sort of started to feel... I just didn't love performing as much as I used to. For me, Moving Out, which is one of those up there, is one of the highlights. And then after that, I did about four or five other Broadway shows, but I never quite recaptured that experience flying like I did Moving Out. And so in that time after Moving Out, I was leaning more and more towards choreographing and creating. Well, going back to what you said earlier about, you know, keeping your brain reactive and elastic versus static, that if you're doing the same choreography, eight shows a week for, you know, hopefully a show runs for a year or more, right, for a long time, then yeah, I could see how you lose the high, you lose the freshness of it.

And so you want to move on to the next thing. So as a creative, as a choreographer, and now as a director, right, you get shorter snippets of focus so you can move on to the next thing more quickly. Yes, it suits me. Right. Is that a type A sort of control thing or is that just like, yeah, a different part? Because we change, you know, throughout the course of our lives, we change into multiple different people. Yeah, I mean, I think I just like learning. So whenever I'm in a new, with new actors, with new creative partners, learning about a new show, you get to delve into the whole world of it. I mean, Almost Famous, it was like delving into 70s rock and what it was like to be a roadie and, you know, living on the road as a, you know, as a young girl in the 70s. It's very different than living inside Mrs. Doubtfire.

So I just dig that. I dig, like, sort of jumping into one idea and learning as much about it as you can, choreographing it, physicalizing it, and then putting that in a box and then starting a new thing.

[15:43] Alan Seales: You brought up Mrs. Doubtfire, so I want to touch on that for a second because, well, I want to get to like what your preferred style is. We'll get to that, but, or where the inspiration comes from. But I want to say, and I've said this a couple times now on the podcast and other interviews, that the flamenco number near the end of Mrs. Doubtfire is, I have taken that with me. And that's going to be one of my favorite numbers ever that I've seen in any show throughout my entire life. Because it's not only dancing, and Calvin Cooper is a good friend of mine. Love that dude. Calvin, of course, and the rest of the cast are great. But the choreography of the staging that has to happen with Rob McClure to get the prosthetics on and off on stage and behind the scenes and land this piece there on that beat and all that, it's phenomenal.

So A, major snaps. I'm clapping, clapping. That's an amazing number that I think gets underappreciated because of the amount of moving pieces that need to go together. But then the other part of it is like that sort of thing. There's so many different styles in Mrs. Doubtfire, but is flamenco sort of like that exotic sort of dance? Do you prefer that more? Do you prefer traditional or contemporary? Or how do you approach all of this stuff, put it together? And then specifically for the flamenco number, when there's staging involved, how does that play in?

[17:10] Lorin Latarro: Oh my gosh. I'm so glad you figured out that. It took a very long time to make that happen. And I had to rearrange what was actually in the script to make it happen. And we sat there with a stopwatch, figuring out the exact amount of seconds it would take Rob to do these changes. And that's the amount of time we choreographed. And we would have to do it so tightly. And I took flamenco at Juilliard, so it's got a special place in my heart. And I brought in Arielle Rosales to come in and also really make sure what we were doing was authentic. And this arm is better this way. You could add three more sounds there, Lauren, if you really... So she was really a super, super help. But the song felt like flamenco, but I insisted I really wanted to do it.

That is authentic flamenco dance, what you're seeing. It is hard. Those guys are working real hard. So there's comedy. And it's a little hyperbolized in the way their outfits are. And in the singing, there's comedy. But the dancing is hyperbolized and funny at times, but it is the real deal. Like, that is flamenco dance.

[18:31] Alan Seales: Right. And then, so pulling in the staging, you said you had a stopwatch to time out Rob's changes. How many times, I guess, how many iterations of that number did you work through to get it to the final version that we see?

[18:45] Lorin Latarro: A lot. And the first version was really the dancers just standing there and figuring out what they had to sing. So that really would be big picture stuff. And then once that was all figured out, then I went back in and choreographed the dance steps. But it was figuring out how the whole stage moved and what verses we had to put where. Because some verses are shorter than others. So we move things around, depending on if he was changing or not changing, or when he had to stick his head out of the bathroom.

[19:21] Alan Seales: Oh, that's, yeah, that's incredible. And so then going through them, the rest of the show, is there, I mean, obviously, this isn't like a dance performance of like The Nutcracker, where it's all just one style the whole way through, right? So Broadway shows traditionally are a mix of styles. And how do you then approach, we'll use Doubtfire, for example, right? Because there are several different styles used in Doubtfire throughout the whole thing. Actually, is it Mrs. Doubtfire or Doubtfire?

[19:46] Lorin Latarro: Mrs. Doubtfire.

[19:49] Alan Seales: Okay, Mrs. Doubtfire. The branding's changed a couple of times. So Mrs. Doubtfire now. How do you decide what style goes where? Is that an exclusively you thing? Or are you working with other creative members and the cast even? Or how does that roadmap get made?

[20:05] Lorin Latarro: The music. I mean, for me, the music sort of dictated style. And the charity's big number, the 11 o'clock number felt like I wanted it to be a little mix of hip hop and sort of prop heavy hip hop. So it looked like a combination of something that feels like Broadway and then something that feels a little more present day. So that would be the most, I'd say, pop culture kind of choreography in the night, even though they're all dressed like doppelgangers of Mrs. Doubtfire. But when he's trying to bake the chicken, the writers, I had to convince them to let me do a tap dance. They were like, I don't get it. It's going to interfere with the lyrics. And I said, please, just let me try. Let me try.

So we built that giant dance break with Zane Marks, who's the dance director for the break with Zane Marks, who's the dance orchestrator. And he came up with the rhythm and he added all those sounds to it slowly. So that was really built in the room, just us and the dancers. And then I finally convinced them that the tap would stay.

[21:18] Alan Seales: Oh, it's brilliant. I'm so glad that you pushed so hard for that, because that's another one of my favorite things. I mean, just pairing two things together to juxtapose, literally cooking a turkey, something mundane for most of us, with this incredible tap number, I think, you know, that's part of the magic of Broadway, right? And it speaks to the talent of you and the rest of the team who can see this sort of vision. We're going to take a short break. Stay tuned for more of the episode. I want to talk about, real quick, COVID.

[22:06] Lorin Latarro: Yeah. Sad face. Womp womp. Because your current projects, both current projects, took a hit from COVID. So Is There Still Sex in the City, which Candace Bushnell, who is the original...

[22:19] Alan Seales: Carrie Bradshaw.

[22:19] Lorin Latarro: Carrie Bradshaw, right. Yes, the original Carrie Bradshaw. So she had this one-woman show that now will start touring, but it closed early because she contracted COVID. So how did you switch then again to start directing this?

[22:31] Lorin Latarro: I'd like to begin directing more and more. I've done a few shows in New York directing, and this came to me. My agent said, she's looking for a director. I think you'd be perfect. You guys should meet up. So we met up and she ordered a Cosmo and I almost fainted. So I ordered a Cosmo. And you know, this is a woman who influenced me greatly, greatly, right? I mean, she was what it was to be single, working in New York City. That's what my life was like in the 90s when I was at Juilliard and beyond. So her books, her way of being a feminist was sort of my roadmap. So to work with her was a dream come true. But we spoke the same language. And we worked really hard. We took her life story and we decided which parts of it we wanted to tell. And it was a lot of fun. And the show's great. And the show will have a future life all around the world, really.

[23:32] Alan Seales: So do you have a preference yet between performing, choreographing, and now directing?

[23:40] Lorin Latarro: Well, I can tell you, I have no desire to perform anymore. That is it. Bye-bye. I am so done. I'm so happy to have everybody else be performing. And it's given me such freedom because I can choreograph on tall people, on short people, on men, on women. It doesn't matter. I mean, it's really, I feel like it's made me invisible and made the music and the dancing really take center stage. So I'm so relieved. And now I can eat dessert. And as far as choreographing, I love it. I'll always love it. And I would like to add directing to the mix when it feels appropriate. But by all means, I still very happily like to collaborate with directors.

[24:27] Alan Seales: Well, continuing down the COVID path, obviously, Doubtfire just went on hiatus. And they will come back. And right now, scheduled to come back on March 10, 2022. God, I'm used to saying 2020 so much, which I think is, well, I guess it's not ironic. I was going to say, when was the shutdown? March 12, 2020? Yeah, so March 10, 2022 is when it's scheduled to come back. So fingers crossed, that's going to be fine and unimpeded. But the show was in the midst of previews back on March 12, 2020. And now in 2022, it's going on hiatus. And the ups and downs of this massive big budget show, so much writing on it, so much writing on the work that you put into it. What's going through your head now? And is it any different from before?

Because before, it was just like, okay, it's going to be one week. Nope, no two weeks. Nope, no months. No five months. It's crazy. I mean, I think, look, I really think that what Kevin McCollum and Alkamation decided to do was really brilliant. And I'm really grateful that Roundabout, Todd Haynes and everyone at Roundabout said yes. It is unprecedented what is happening. They are giving a reprise on the rent to let us stay there and wait this out so that we don't close. And that is because everybody believes in the show. So as sad as it is to hear, it would be a lot more sad to close this giant show that should have a life, that should be making families all around the world feel closer. I mean, that is a perfect example of a show.

You walk in as a family, and you walk out as a closer family, no matter what your situation is. And this is really a gift and the only way forward for this show, because we need families. And right now, it's really hard to get... If you're a family of three kids, you're going to get them three COVID tests to come in. It's very, very difficult right now. And it deserves to be seen by families. It really, really does. It's a gift for them. It's a big gift for kids of divorced families, especially. So I'm pretty grateful as much as it's like, oh God, here we go again. But there are two things I want to change choreographically. So it's going to give me...

[26:57] Alan Seales: Oh, really? So, so they allow you to unlock the script?

[27:01] Lorin Latarro: Um, I mean, I think they'll let me do these two small changes.

[27:04] Alan Seales: Oh, that's interesting. I guess we're not allowed to know yet. I won't ask.

[27:09] Alan Seales: So, the projects you have coming up now for 2022, hopefully, and beyond are Almost Famous with Tom Kitt and The Outsiders. And they were, we've been hearing things about these for a little bit of time now. So, is, are they still on track? Are they still planning to happen soon? What's going on with that?

[27:30] Lorin Latarro: I mean, I have no definite dates yet, but both are on track. I mean, both will be hopefully seen by the world sooner rather than later.

[27:34] Alan Seales: And are you getting any, I mean, from a choreographical, choreographical, I guess I mean, is that a word? Choreography, a choreographical magic nation, a choreography standpoint, right?

[27:47] Lorin Latarro: It is, are these different, like working with different musicians, different composers, different directors, different bands, whatever the case is, right? Are, are, are you then coming to these episodes, episodes? Are you coming to these shows, uh, different from Doubtfire or?

[28:12] Lorin Latarro: Absolutely. Every show, you know, the music for me and the story dictates everything. That's why choreographically I'm all over the place. I, I, I have, I loathe having a particular style. I find it so limiting. Once you codify something, I think it's weird that the same 10 dance steps can mean all these different things. So I really fight against that. And it's like, no, what is this character move? Like, what is this dance scene need? You know? And because I've really done nothing else with my life but dance, I can pull from all these different styles because it is literally the only thing in the world that I'm an expert in. I can't do anything else, but I can pull out Flamenco when I need to, or Barton Antione when I need to, or, you know, you know, like Bourneville Ballet when I need to, or Martha Graham when I need to.

So it's like, that's, that's my, that's what I do. That's the only thing I know how to do. So, yeah, so Tom Kitt and I worked so closely together on so many shows, The Visitor, American Idiot, um, Superhero. I really feel like I can speak his language and try and bring his lyrics to life. So, um, Almost Famous, we did it at the Old Globe. It's really cool. It is just a cool show. And Cameron Crowe is just the coolest. And, um, I'm very excited for the world to see it. So is it, it's been, there's a template already done. And of course, we'll continue to change and make it better. But, um, I'm, I'm excited about it.

[29:44] Alan Seales: That's, that's very, very fun. I love, um, that, that you're not, I guess, married to one style. You've, you've, I meant to bring up Juilliard because I don't want to skip over that. Obviously that is a very good accomplishment. Um, when you were training there, do tell, I guess, yeah. So I guess when you were training there, do they teach you a specific style or do they want you to be well-versed in all different styles, like as a, as a dance major? Because when you're doing singing, it feels like you can either do like opera or you can do a classical or whatever, you know, like singing is a little bit different, but I don't know much about the dancing world. How do they educate that?

[30:22] Lorin Latarro: We did a lot of different styles. My freshman year, we did flamenco, Indian dance, um, African dance. We had, um, Bushwomen come in. They were amazing. And, um, and then of course, there's like the Paul Taylor and then there's, um, Horton technique. And then there's Lamone technique and Martha Graham technique. And then, you know, Pina Bausch came in and blew all of our minds, Uri Killian. And then of course there's ballet every day, ballet, ballet, ballet. So there was a lot there. And then when I wasn't dancing there, I would run over to Broadway Dance Center to take, you know, AC's class or, yeah. So, so Julia teaches, uh, all kinds of styles of, of dance. But, you know, when it comes to singing, we had to go elsewhere for that.

They were not interested in teaching dancers how to sing, which is still what I'm trying to change over there. I, I adjunct professor there now, and I want these dancers to be able to sing and act that they can do theater if they want to.

[31:24] Alan Seales: So among everything that you were doing, all of your shows, everything you're involved with, you're also an adjunct professor at Juilliard, but you also hold a degree from NYU Tisch Film and Television in directing fundamentals. Where do you find time to do all this?

[31:35] Lorin Latarro: Well, I did that. I took a two-year, I started before the pandemic and then I was, through the pandemic, I got my degree in film, directing for film and television. It was awesome.

[31:46] Alan Seales: Is that what you want to do? Is that what you want to, like you're directing, obviously, Broadway, but do you want to go into TV film next? Maybe. Are you putting, you're putting that in the world? You're Oprah-ing that thought?

[31:56] Lorin Latarro: I mean, I think it'd be really cool. Look, I mean, it's like, look at Debbie Allen. Debbie Allen's directing TV, right? And she's sort of a huge idol of mine. So, I mean, I think it'd be fun. I think it's the same as choreographing. It's essentially, it's like making sure the picture inside the camera is, looks interesting and, and symmetrical if you want it to be, or, you know, warped if you want it to be. So I think it's, it's actually quite similar.

[32:34] Alan Seales: Oh, that's such an interesting comparison, I guess.

[32:36] Lorin Latarro: Yeah. So you're, you're coordinating shots, you're working with your DP, of course, because, and then the editing, yeah, you're coordinating the whole thing. You're, you're choreographing the whole thing. I love that. That's a great, that's a wonderful analogy.

[32:48] Alan Seales: And you also founded, what is this? I'm looking for here in my notes. You founded artammo.org.

[32:58] Lorin Latarro: Yeah. The artist against gun violence. Tell us about that.

[33:00] Lorin Latarro: Well, it happened after Sandy Hook, my sister and I just, I wanted to do something. And the first call I made was to Tom Viola at Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS. And I was like, let's do a Monday night benefit and raise some money for, you know, one of these gun organizations. And I was doing, I was the associate choreographer of Rigoletto at the Met Opera with Michael Mayer directing and Stephen Hoggett choreographing at the time. So I was telling them and Stephen Hoggett, who is a big, he's been a wonderful teacher for me, said what, you know, in his Scottish accent I can't do. Why are you doing it for people who agree with you? Take it to the streets, make other people see it. So, and then it was like, yeah, let's do, let's do like something more visceral.

So that's how we came up with this idea. My sister and I just came up with this idea to sort of chalk outline bodies in Times Square. And it, it, and then we, I just put posters up at every Broadway show and I had in the, like called a friend at every Broadway show and was like, you're the leader of this. You have to get your team over here. And everybody showed up and we had hundreds of Broadway actors do this thing on a Sunday morning before a matinee and it got huge publicity. Like the Times picked it up. The BBC picked it up. Everybody picked it up, all the news stations, Rachel Maddow, you know, you name it. And then Bloomberg found out about it and he was a big gun control advocate. So he sort of helped fund to do them in other cities.

And I met Joe Biden. I went to DC and sat on a gun control round table with him at the time. He was the vice president, but I still do it. And I am disheartened by how little has happened in the movement. You know, I feel like politically speaking, people use it as a token to get elected and then they don't, they don't do anything. And it's hard. It's just hard to do it on a state level. But the grassroots is working slowly, but that's what I do.

[35:08] Lorin Latarro: So there's flash mobs involved.

[35:12] Lorin Latarro: Yeah. You can go to artammo.org and check it out and you can do one yourself. We send you, we help you get the permit and we send you the chalk. It'll cost you nothing.

[35:21] Alan Seales: But you need a permit to do a flash mob?

[35:23] Lorin Latarro: Well, sometimes you need a permit to do it on a park or in a parking lot, but they're easy to get. I'm an expert in permit getting now.

[35:31] Alan Seales: And flash mobbing.

[35:32] Lorin Latarro: And flash mobbing.

[35:34] Alan Seales: Well, I want to be part of your next one. I'm definitely going to, I'm going to check that out. You worked on Waiting for Godot, which is not a musical, but stars two of my favorite people in the world, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. A, okay, two questions. A, well, one and two, A and B. A, what was it like working with these two guys? Because holy crap. And then B, it's not a musical. What are you doing choreographing? Not a musical.

[36:02] Lorin Latarro: Well, first of all, Patrick and Ian are two of the nicest people I've ever met. They are kind. Ian was so kind to the kids. We had kids in the show. He would take them out to lunch and he would get them gifts. I mean, they're really generous artists and like no egos. And the show, I've choreographed a couple of plays. I did Dangerous Liaisons, Curious Incident. I was the associate choreographer on, and Godot I choreographed. And the whole conceit was that they were vaudevillian actors stuck in time. So there was a vaudevillian sort of movement quality sprinkled in throughout the whole show. We had top hats, we had the little tattered tucks and tails. And Ian happens to be a phenomenal dancer. He's a tap dancer. So we had a lot of soft shoes. Yeah, he studied dance for years. So he really was great. So Patrick was always like, I need private lessons because I have to dance as well as Ian.

[37:06] Alan Seales: Oh, that's so much fun. So yeah, I mentioned Curious Incident at the beginning. I forgot about that. Yeah, that was, again, another one of my shows that it was just so outside the box, no pun intended, because it looks like it's staged in the box, that it was so outside the box and so interesting and different that that still stands out as one of my most memorable plays I've ever seen.

[37:26] Lorin Latarro: Yeah, I mean, they choreographed to words. And that's what they did. It's brilliant. It was just brilliant. I learned so much working on that show. It behaves like a musical.

[37:37] Alan Seales: Yeah, I love that. So let's wrap up here with three standard closing questions that I ask everybody on the podcast. The first one, just very simply, is what motivates you?

[37:49] Lorin Latarro: Telling stories, changing people's minds.

[37:53] Alan Seales: Love it. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[37:57] Lorin Latarro: Just keep going. There's going to be ups and downs. You're not always going to get the job. Be kind to your collaborators and be kind to people also fighting for that job. Just stay on the ladder.

[38:15] Alan Seales: And then last question, if you could 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?

[38:20] Lorin Latarro: Company.

[38:29] Alan Seales: Oh, current gender swapped version?

[38:30] Lorin Latarro: Either one, it doesn't matter for me. I love this version. Marian Elliott is a genius. I love it, but it wouldn't even matter to me.

[38:35] Alan Seales: Have you ever worked with Sondheim?

[38:37] Lorin Latarro: Yes, I did Merrily with Sondheim.

[38:39] Alan Seales: Oh, yeah.

[38:39] Lorin Latarro: And he was very good to me. He was very kind.

[38:42] Alan Seales: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's what I hear. I never had the pleasure of meeting him directly. And I've always been one degree of separation. And I am just happy that I got to share this earth with that man at the same time.

[38:55] Lorin Latarro: Me too. I did Assassins too. I told him, and he thinks this is the funniest thing. I did IVF with my child. I injected myself in the bathroom of City Center and he was sitting 10 feet away. And then the first show I came back two and a half weeks after I gave birth, I did Merrily. And there I was pumping breast milk 10 feet away from him. And he was like, that's the closest to a baby I've ever gotten in my life.

[39:20] Alan Seales: That's the closest to having a baby. Oh, God, I miss that guy.

[39:27] Alan Seales: All right, Lorin, where can we find you online?

[39:31] Lorin Latarro: I'm on Instagram at Latero. I'm on Twitter, Lauren Latero. I have a website, laurenlatero.com. I'm on Facebook. So come find me, ask questions, come hang.

[39:44] Alan Seales: Yeah, we'll have all of your social media links in the show notes. Of course, check the show notes and connect with Lorin. And you can find me online at theater underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter at the theater podcast.com. I'm on Facebook slash official theater podcast. Please leave a rating and a review wherever you're listening. Now this has been edited by well-rounded hoodlum productions. Jukebox the ghost provided us the intro and outro music and Lorin Latarro provided us the wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[40:11] Lorin Latarro: Thank you for your time. Thank you.