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[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome back to The Theatre Podcast, intimate personal conversations with the industry's biggest names. I'm your host, Alan Seales, and our guest today is Alyssa May Gold, who is making her Broadway debut in How I Learned to Drive alongside Mary Louise Parker and David Morse. Oh my god, I saw this show the other night, and just incredible. Alyssa and the rest of the cast are so amazingly good. The subject matter is heavy, which we do get into in the episode, so a little trigger warning about sexual abuse. So, keep that in mind when you're listening, but this conversation with Alyssa is absolutely incredible. Her father, when she was young, taught her how to play poker, and we were talking about how poker made her become a better actor because she has to learn to bluff and things that actors do.

She actually made it to the World Series of Poker as a young kid, not a young kid. She was at least legal to gamble, at least old enough to gamble there. And something she said, actually, I wrote this down because it resonated with me, is that if you feel like you're alone, you're actually feeling like everyone else. She said that, I was like, yes, exactly. Incredible. She's just a great person, and I'm really excited to share this episode with you. Before we get in, as always, find me online, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. I'm on TikTok now at The Theatre Podcast. I've got a couple videos up there, and leave a rating and a review wherever you're listening in now, everybody. We're going to take a short break, and then we'll get into the interview with Alyssa May Gold.

[1:47] Alan Seales: Today's guest is making her Broadway debut in the long-anticipated How I Learned to Drive alongside two of my favorite actors, Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse. She has an extensive list of credits on stage and on TV and film and the web, and she starred, written, and directed in her own series called You Made It Worse, which is related to her own theater and production company called Pocket Universe, which is dedicated to reconsidering and reimagining classic stories and conventions. Alyssa May Gold, welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[2:20] Alyssa May Gold: Thank you so much. Will you come around and introduce me like that everywhere I go? That's fantastic. I feel very good about myself.

[2:28] Alan Seales: I'm on this audition. Today's auditionee is making her Broadway debut.

[2:33] Alyssa May Gold: Yes.

[2:34] Alan Seales: And the reader goes, get the hell out.

[2:36] Alyssa May Gold: Get out. Oh my god, this is too much.

[2:38] Alan Seales: Alyssa, we don't need you again. Get out of here. Okay. There's something that I want to dive into real quick that I think is so unusual and unique for somebody in the theater space is that you got to play in the World Series of Poker in Vegas.

[2:56] Alyssa May Gold: Yes, I did. And I made it to the A3. This is a very, it was a long, winding road. And basically, my dad taught me how to play poker when I was a kid. I was, if you want to know what I was like in middle school, I was like the kid coming into third grade with poker chips, my own personal set of poker chips and cards. And I taught everyone how to play five card draw and at lunch, we would play cards. I had a lot of friends. I was very popular. No, I wasn't. It was terrible. And then I kind of, so it was something I always knew about and I really enjoyed. And we always kind of had a plan that we would go to the World Series one day together. And we didn't do it until later than we had planned when I was kind of at a time in my life where theater and acting and kind of creating, I didn't have, I was getting very small because you deal with just so much rejection.

You're just being told no all the time. And because I started as a kid, that really kind of erodes your sense of self over time. And it's hard to, if you don't know that there's another option, it's very easy to default to rejection that your self-worth is based on your career. It's just very easy to let that be true. And so this was in a time in my life where that was very true and it was really kind of sinking into me. And my parents said, I think this is, it's time. And so my dad...

[4:21] Alyssa May Gold: It's time to learn poker.

[4:21] Alan Seales: It's time to learn poker. And then this is, poker is the perfect microcosm of the real world because it's all about decision-making with incomplete information. Because you have a lot of information and you're gathering a lot of information. You have your cards, you have the behavior of the people around you. You have 52 cards in a deck. You have a structure of how the game will play out. You have a certain amount of chips. Everyone else has a certain amount of chips. You have no idea what's going to come out of the deck. And that's life. You know what you have. You can see what other people have. You can see their behavior. You know how you're going to behave. But you have no idea that, I don't know, a global pandemic is going to roll in and ruin your Broadway debut for two years.

And so compared to chess, for example, which is a game of complete information, there is a right move in chess. It's not as good a test case for life, but poker is the perfect practice arena for decision-making in real life and also holding your own.

[5:25] Alyssa May Gold: So my dad and I would meet once a week and he would set up 10 seats. And I would take one of them. He would set up stacks of chips. And he taught me no limit hold'em and mostly how to bet. Because that's really... The game is pretty straightforward. You want to make the best hand you can with your cards and the cards in the middle. But the strategy of betting and how you take what you have, which is also very much like life. What do I have? But what can I convince everyone else that I have? What's the most realistic hand I could represent? Because you don't know what I have. And that's something that especially for me as a girl in the world, I was very susceptible to the idea that I don't really know what's going on.

You guys, the men at the table know. And poker was a really great way for me to confront why. Why would you know more than I do? Why would you know what I have better than I know what I have? And why couldn't I convince you I have something else? And as we practiced, I started to come into that more. And then we started going to tournaments. And I played a couple of tournaments at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun to warm up because you didn't just roll into the World Series. And I did really well. And again, so much of it was about the performance of it. Because my first tournament, I was very chatty. I had a really good time. I talked to everybody. And I lost very quickly. And the next night, I was like, how do I not give myself away?

How do I take away the parts of me that love sharing and allow myself to not be polite and to not be friendly and that it's a game and I want to win it? And how do I let myself do that? And so I dressed like a teenage girl at a sleepover. I wore leggings and this oversized t-shirt that says no one cares. And I put on sunglasses. And I didn't talk to anybody. And these guys had no idea what to do with me. They're like...

[7:27] Alan Seales: I was going to think that you probably come in and get way underestimated.

[7:27] Alyssa May Gold: Yep. Because the assumption is like, this is a man's game with big dudes with sunglasses and hats. And so what scares them? Their teenage daughter who doesn't talk to them anymore. And so that's what I embodied. And they were like, oh, actually, that feels dangerous. That feels dangerous to us. And so they left me alone for the most part. And what it let me do was sit in like, not trying to prove myself, but to sit in being underestimated and sit in like, yeah, you don't know what I have. And you think I don't know what I'm doing. But I do know that I haven't beat right now. And it really like, it worked. And it helped me kind of hold my own when I came back to the city after all of this and went back to my regular life. I was like, oh, this all applies. That if people underestimate me, that's my greatest power.

[8:22] Alyssa May Gold: And I don't... because I can believe that I know what I'm doing.

[8:25] Alan Seales: You're going to come in and under promise and over deliver every single time.

[8:30] Alyssa May Gold: Every single time.

[8:31] Alan Seales: That's incredible. I love how much that can apply to pretty much every scenario in life, right? So you go in and especially in your auditions, right? People don't know what to expect. They come in. I mean, people make snap judgments every time based on what you're wearing.

[8:52] Alyssa May Gold: I guess, yes, what you're wearing and where you came from and where they met you if it's on the subway or if it's behind the counter, if you're serving them coffee or whatever the case is.

[9:02] Alan Seales: Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay. I love this. And this actually, I was just listening to a true crime broadcast yesterday about the whole case, like the police couldn't crack it for forever. And this private investigation firm was hired. And this attractive woman who people didn't suspect at all came in and got this guy who wouldn't talk to anybody else admit to doing these horrible, horrible crimes because she was completely underestimated. I love it.

[9:30] Alyssa May Gold: Yeah.

[9:31] Alan Seales: I feel like you've got another career as a PI.

[9:34] Alyssa May Gold: Yes. Well, that's actually what I would do if I wasn't an actor. I would definitely do something with either... I mean, I love a mystery. I love the mysteries of stories. I love creating them and then fulfilling them. And yeah, I think I would have a great time. But I think that that's something that you can... What was revolutionary to me was the idea that I didn't have to try to engage with and meet men at their level by trying to behave like a man. I could do it by weaponizing being a woman. And that's a very different kind of thought process for me. And I think for a lot of women, I think there's a lot of... We societally view all of the things about women that make us different from men, as bad, as weak, as somehow less than.

And the idea of what if I sat in that and just... And if I valued those things and then used them because they're not... They're different from men, but they're not different from being human. They're just as human. So why wouldn't they be just as effective in a game of skill and chance?

[10:43] Alan Seales: I also want to call out too that when you did... You went to the World Series of Poker. How old are you? You're 17? Oh, no, no, no, no. You have to be at least 21. I can't tell you because my age is a national secret.

[10:52] Alyssa May Gold: Oh, right. I can tell you I was over the age of 21.

[10:57] Alan Seales: And it was legal for me to be there.

[10:57] Alyssa May Gold: Oh, right, right. Gambling, of course.

[11:03] Alan Seales: Of course. Yeah, of course. That's funny. But your dad wasn't a poker shark anyway. He was a... He's a lawyer? Was a lawyer?

[11:08] Alyssa May Gold: Yeah, he was a lawyer. He retired a couple of years ago. But he's really good at poker. He went to the World Series for the first time in 2006 and he cashed. And it was one of his first big tournaments. And yeah, he didn't...

[11:19] Alan Seales: What does that mean?

[11:19] Alyssa May Gold: That means you make money. That means you get so far in the tournament. It's like the top 10% of players make money. And he did. And he has continued to do that. And he's really good. Also, just like theater, you can spend all your time doing it and not make any money.

[11:40] Alan Seales: Yes, exactly. And it's very much like theater in that way. It's a... You're investing and gambling and you can play really well and lose and play really badly and win a Tony. It's, you know, anything can happen.

[11:58] Alyssa May Gold: Play really badly and win a Tony.

[11:58] Alan Seales: Yeah, yeah. I believe that's happened once or twice.

[12:04] Alyssa May Gold: Once or twice, yeah. So tell me about then when you're growing up, you're playing poker, you're learning... You're getting this non-traditional social education, which is just brilliant. Hats off to your dad. Like, my god, this is such a great thing.

[12:14] Alyssa May Gold: Yeah. And to my mom, too, because she doesn't play, but she was very much like, you need to do this. This is going to be good for you. It was a joint effort. And then my dad was going back to the time. So when did you get into theater then? What was the artistic draw for you? It's so funny that that has been through everything. That has always been the through.

[12:32] Alyssa May Gold: I saw the movie Annie when I was four, and it has not stopped since. I don't know what it was, but I know that I saw something in that, and I was like, oh, I need to do that. And I think I have since, I can go back and kind of track through how it was always about, it was less about I need to be Annie, and it was less about I need to be on stage. It was more stories really impacted me. I remember also A Little Princess was another movie I saw, and I was just like, oh, I'm understanding something about myself, and my six-year-old brain can't make sense of it, but I know something is happening to me. And I always wanted to then do that in return. And I couldn't have articulated it, but it's been that as I've grown up.

And it started as acting because that's the most immediately available thing when you're a kid, especially if you grow up in New York. It's like being on a soccer team or doing Little League. You can go to auditions for Broadway shows. It's right there. It's a two-train ride away. But at the same time, I was always writing. And I was always putting on plays and putting myself in charge of my friends and my very patient sister and her friends. And so I was always kind of dancing around, being aware that I felt a lot and that stories helped me make sense of those feelings and wanting to then do that in return. And then it kind of shifted and ebbed and flowed from there. And I started auditioning when I was nine and also did a combination of working, but also doing the musicals at school and summer camp plays.

And then I was on Broadway and it was great. As you know, it took decades. We don't know how many decades, though. It could be a decade. It could be half a decade, but it could be actually several. Who knows? Who knows? And so that's just always been kind of a constant. I don't remember a time where it wasn't about storytelling in some format or other.

[15:05] Alyssa May Gold: And then it's translated to you creating your own company, which has had several productions off Broadway as well, right? Yes.

[15:08] Alyssa May Gold: So that's Pocket Universe, which I love. I love that name, too, by the way. Thank you. My sister came up with it. And it's a piece of string theory. And it's the idea that there may be literally pocket universes within our universe that mirror the rules of the universe that we live in. But every pocket universe is slightly different. And I thought, oh, that's exactly what the company is doing, because I'm taking the classic stories or classic storytelling conventions, and they should be recognizable to people. But we're always going to do them with slightly different rules of the worlds that they exist in. So that's what we're like making pocket universes. So I got a computer science degree in college, and you're using words that I never thought I would hear in the theater context, such as string theory.

I have a very holistic approach to all of this. I love it. I love it. If you can, you should create a show that's all about physicists discovering a way to access the multiverse and then bring it all back together. Oh, my God, I should. I mean, I think the overlap of science and art is so ever-present. I think we can ignore it, but I think that they are, when we use them in tandem, they're the most effective because science explains so much of the tangible pieces of being a human, and art builds from there into the non-tangible parts of it. Because there's so much that we can't explain, but there's scientifically true things about that our bodies are going to die. I think so much of it comes from the fact that we know that we're going to die.

We're one of the only species that is aware of our mortality, and we have no idea what to do with it. And so art is the thing that comments on that, and in all of its different ways, kind of helps us make sense of why you would get out of bed if you know how it ends, or that you know that it ends. How do you navigate that time in between?

[17:15] Alyssa May Gold: Oh, my gosh. All right, so we're going to go down some fun metaphysical discussions. I talk about the science. I love science, and I love all of this multiverse, and I'm afraid of my own mortality, and I'm always running to be the best that I can be because I'm afraid that death is going to catch me. This is why I go to therapy. And part of, well, not why, but there's many reasons why, but that's one of many. I think that there is a way for science to measure why we like art, but in the same way that I think, and let me know if you agree with me, that as we have become more evolved as a species and become more self-aware, and we have developed this ability in our minds to be able to rationalize our own consciousness, right?

We've lost the ability to trust our gut and to go with instinct like animals can do. So, we've lost the ability to, like when you walk into a room and you click with someone, what is that? There's pheromones behind it. There's brain chemicals being released, but we can say, oh, I don't understand. We lived a past life together. Some people believe in past lives. Some people rationalize it in any number of different ways, but I think there's actual science behind what is happening. And this goes back to, if we were to get the basic, basic, basic, we have animals who can smell fear. Animals, dogs know when seizures are coming on. You can train them to smell, like they perceive things in a way that we don't because I think we've evolved past the ability to be so instinctual that we have to over-process everything. Am I still making sense?

[19:02] Alan Seales: Absolutely. I totally agree. Yeah.

[19:04] Alyssa May Gold: Okay. So, then when it comes to art, why do people love theater? Why do people love feeling emotion? Why do people love this stuff? And there is a reason that I think if you had the smartest scientists focused on figuring this out, would actually sort of ruin the experience because then you wouldn't be experiencing this emotion in its raw form. Because when we start overthinking things, we sort of lose the fun in it. And that's where art and theater brings us back to. It's that raw form of just being able to cry and laugh and go on emotional journeys with strangers.

[19:52] Alyssa May Gold: I would say I agree with everything that you said up until it would ruin it because we would overthink it. Because I think the scientific explanation is actually, I'm not a scientist, but I do think it's actually very simple. And I think it is that there was a study that was done about, I think it was in London, and it was about the synchronized breathing of an audience. And that when they were watching the play, their heart rates all started to match each other because they were breathing together. And I think that that's the pacing of the story. It's a figure eight of what's happening on stage affects the breathing of the audience, affects the breathing of the actors, and then you're all breathing together.

And that feels very simple and very human that we are social creatures, and we live and die together, and we need each other for survival reasons. No one can actually survive alone. We generally don't. And the idea that you come into a space and your breath synchronizes with a group of people, and you go through an emotional experience together, that that is satisfying and that that is cathartic and healing and inspiring, that we love that, that we also love that, I think is very simple. I think there's the scientific explanation is that it connects us to each other on a physical, physiological level, and that makes us feel safe because we feel engaged in a community, and then we go on and live our lives.

So I think that for me, when I read that article, I was like, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense and makes me love it even more. And it's why the last two years, I think, were really hard because you don't... I can't even say this. Because at the beginning of the pandemic, I felt very strongly that we don't need theater to survive. It is wonderful, and it is powerful, and it is also not safe. And we should, if we need to be apart from each other right now, that's safer, and that's how we survive. Two years later, though, I think it's very clear that we're on the precipice of an unprecedented mental health crisis. And the people are dying because they didn't have community. Isolation did kill people and is killing people.

And theater is one of the facets. It's an empathy accelerator. It connects you. I mean, there are shows that are 80 minutes long. You go into this room, you breathe with other people, you connect to everybody, and then you leave. What is a therapy session is 50 minutes. This is another 30 to 40 minutes. I mean, there are also plays that are an hour. Whatever it is, you're getting this quick shot of connection and empathy and community. And that reminds the primal parts of you that you can survive because you have people. And I said, theater is essential. Theater, we didn't survive without it. And so that piece of the science of it feels very straightforward to me and wonderful. And it makes me love it and respect it and value it and honor it even more. As an audience member, too. I really missed it as an audience member. I felt like the second I could go to the theater, I was in a theater.

[23:16] Alan Seales: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's something very cathartic about walking into that theater and knowing you can feel the essence of what's been there and the emotion that's been contained within that space. I absolutely agree with you. And I've said this.

[23:42] Alyssa May Gold: I was going to say that's also science. That's physics. That's energy can't be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed. And so these spaces contain the energy that they always had. And we are coming in and transforming and engaging with it. But it's always been there. And so when you feel connected to history when you're in those spaces, it's because you are on a physiological level. The energy has always been there. And you're participating in it. And you're changing it. And then you're taking it out with you.

[24:11] Alyssa May Gold: I've got that meme in my head from Step Brothers. Did Wheaties become best friends? Yep. Yep. Yep. I got one of the things I've said over and over again as I was doing these interviews throughout the pandemic was I cannot wait to get back into the theater space in order to go on a journey with a room full of strangers. That's what I missed so much about theater as an audience member is just being able to gasp at the same time and to cry at the same time and to go on this journey like it feels so good to be you feel belong. It's belonging because as you were saying, going back to instinct taking it full circle, right? We've evolved from herd animals. It's safety in numbers. Yeah. And we feel great when we are with other people.

[25:05] Alyssa May Gold: Period. Period. Because it's safe. Yeah. Our lizard brain, the instinct of our lizard brain says, be with other people because that makes you live longer. Exactly. And so theater is soothing that part of your brain because you're with other people.

[25:21] Alan Seales: We're going to take a short break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[25:37] Alan Seales: On to less, well, less comical topics. How I learned to drive.

[25:42] Alyssa May Gold: There's a lot of humor in it. You'll have a good time.

[25:47] Alan Seales: There is some humor. Yeah, so you're making, we're calling this your Broadway debut, but technically, right, you had, what, about a decade ago, you had one performance on Broadway in Arcadia as an understudy.

[25:57] Alyssa May Gold: Yes, with 20 minutes notice. It was great. It was my official.

[26:00] Alan Seales: This is official. And then even this, gawrsh.

[26:05] Alyssa May Gold: Yeah, you were gawrsh. I got a little goofy going on there. Gawrsh. So yeah, gosh, we, you were supposed to have your, to go on with this show two years ago. And then pandemic was just like, no, no, we're going to take another break again.

[26:19] Alan Seales: Yep. So tell me which way. Go ahead.

[26:24] Alyssa May Gold: Oh no, I was just going to say that. I think I, it's, I think this play is on its own journey and I don't think it, I, you know, I don't think that it caused the pandemic, but I do think that it is, it's, we need it right now. We need it now in a way that we needed it two years ago. But the second this happened, I was like, oh, this play is the play that we should come back with. And it's going to mean something even more to people now, two years later.

[26:42] Alan Seales: But deals with some pretty heavy topics.

[26:46] Alyssa May Gold: Yeah. And I think just like there, there are other topics that when, when something bad happens to you, or there's confirmation bias, right. In just in life, right. You buy a Honda Accord and then you see every other Honda Accord on the road. And so like, let's just talk about it. Right. So this play talks about sexual abuse and emotional abuse and inappropriate relationships with family members and whatnot. And it's, it's a somewhat heavy show and there is some comedy to it. But I think there are things that, that when you start going back to, again, what we were saying, when you're able to see something like this on stage that touches on things that may have happened to you or happened to friends of yours that you don't know how to process, that you don't know how to talk about, it allows you to have a little bit of therapy in watching how the character has dealt with it or watching how the story plays out and gives you a little bit of, yeah, comfort, I guess, in being able to see the stuff.

[27:56] Alan Seales: So I think it's very important to not have like, to your point, it's sort of, we need, we need the heavier stuff to have perception of the lighter stuff, but it's also very cathartic to some people who may not know they need it or may not realize that something like this has happened to them and they need to deal with the trauma or deal with whatever comes out of that for them. And, you know, there, there's a place for Disney and there's a place for the show, the showy glitzy shows, and there's a place for these as well. And I guess speak to that for, for you because you're one of the Greek chorus as, as it's called in the cast, which, so you and, and a couple other people play multiple characters as Mary Louise Parker and David Morse's character are going through and telling the, the principal story.

[28:46] Alyssa May Gold: I think that this is a play that is for everybody. I don't think that your trauma has to be specific to sexual abuse or, or family dynamics, because I think what, it's one of those pieces that is so specific. It is universal in that I think we all have experiences of, of being manipulated and having to figure out what we believe is true. And ideology is either familial or governmental or religious that are, that are overwhelming to us when we're in them. We don't know that something is off until we get any distance and then we can look back and be like, Oh, I was, I was doing things that I didn't understand. And now I have some space and I understand them. And I think, I really think there's a, there's a piece of the pandemic that is, that gives us all a relationship to this story because we've all just been through a multi-year trauma where we were at the mercy of people in charge who were sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but we hadn't, we lost our agency.

We lost our, our autonomy. We had to make decisions with incomplete information that wasn't always in our best interest. There were a lot of factors at play, the economics versus saving lives and what do we save the economy? Do we save people? Like that's all, how do we make decisions within that? How do we take care? How do we, I mean, theater is a great example. We were told it was inessential. And so we all bought into it because we were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And now we're watching people die left and right from the isolation and lack of community. And so did we do the right thing? Should we have all gotten up and just said, no, we're making theater. People need it. And we are going to gather and whoever, and I don't know, I don't know, but my point is that we all bought into it and we all followed the rules.

And I think that when now I watch this play and I think, well, we actually all can relate to trying to figure out who you are and how to survive when you are not in complete control of your survival because you're being empowered and protected by someone who is also hurting you. And I think that that's why I feel like this play is from the moment that we got delayed, I was like, we're going to need this in two years. And well, I thought it was going to be, I thought it was going to be four days. Two months. I thought it was going to be two months. And then, but as the time went on and on, I thought, oh, this is going to really mean something to everybody.

[31:30] Alyssa May Gold: And then yes, specifically, I think what is masterful about what Paula has written is that it is, it is not Paula Vogel. I mean, you just, you read it once and you're like, well, that's, that's a Pulitzer prize winning play. Yeah, for sure. It should be the Bible. I don't even, I mean, it's, there is so much human truth and poetry in every single line of the play and what she has done that I think is really unique is that it is a play that is about a character healing, but it is not in service of the actor playing it or the playwright healing. It's in service of they've already done it. And the play is putting a handout to the people who need to be pulled up through hell back to earth. And there, I think the whole, the play is written as, I mean, it's written as a lesson.

She's the very first line is sometimes to tell a secret. You first have to teach a lesson. And so throughout the whole play, and that's part of how the Greek chorus functions, which I also think is such a brilliant way to do this. We, we function as a traditional Greek chorus. We are a collective. We're all part of a little bit who Mary Louise Parker plays. And so we're, we're pushing the story around as she is embodying each moment that she's conveying to the audience. And then we step out and play characters as well. And so Paula Vogel has really engaged with this very classical structure, which is automatically epic. I mean, it's, it's, so we know as, as humans, just instinctively how to process this kind of story. And we know that we're going somewhere huge.

[33:15] Alyssa May Gold: And then we have these, yeah. And then we play other characters throughout it. And I think what's beautiful about my track is that I play the oldest woman in the story and then the youngest woman in the story. And because part of what she's also explored is kind of the generational trauma that's passed through women. I think we talk a lot about the cycle of violence with fathers and sons. We have very few mother-daughter plays, very few mother-daughter musicals. It's part of why Mama Mia is one of my favorite musicals of all time. And, and, and then we have this play, which shows you these, these three generations of women and it's, whatever your life has been like, I think this play speaks to how strong family ideology is and how hard it is to break out of it and figure out who you are, but also to recognize the nuance and complexity of how everyone is trying to survive and how that impacts everyone else in a story, which to bring it full circle is kind of like poker, where everyone is trying to win and you're all playing the same game and you all have the same objective.

And it's what Little Bit does. And what I learned from poker is there's nothing wrong with you taking care of yourself and going, yep, I see what you're all trying to do. I know you all want to win. I don't have to sacrifice myself at that altar and I can decide I want to play to win too. And, and I hope that, I hope that that's what this play ultimately gives people is the freedom and permission to take whatever happened, whatever is in your car, whatever is in your trunk, all that baggage, just drive forward, just keep going.

[34:55] Alyssa May Gold: And with David and Mary Louise, you know, these performances are, I mean, I don't even need to see it to know that it's going to be phenomenal. It's unbelievable. And Johanna Day. I mean, the three, I mean, Chris Myers, who was the other new young person is also incredible. The three of them, I watch, I watch in awe every night. I can't stop. I don't, I don't need to stand in the wings between moments and I can't move because it's different every night. It's true. It's the same story. It's the same journey. And they are just every scene. It's like a tennis match where the ball goes up in the air and I don't know who's going to get which shot in every night. And I don't even actually know who's going to win.

I know what the words of the end of the scene are going to be, but it's, they are just so present and they know what they're doing. They know these characters and they know this story. And it's really special to show up in a space where everybody has the same investment in telling the story. It's nobody, there's very little ego in that theater. It's very much, everyone feels I think really protective of the story and of the play and of what it, the importance of conveying that story to 600 people every night. And that's very powerful to be around and to be a part of.

[36:07] Alan Seales: I don't know what about what you just said started to make me tear up, but I am starting to tear up. And I, and part of it is that I think when you said, it's when you said you don't know who's going to win every night, but even though the lines are the same, you don't know who's going to win. And I think it's the respect and the commitment and the emotional availability that the entire cast has to have to keep at such a high level. And I said this so many times that Broadway performers are the Olympians of theater. You have to be the best to be on Broadway and to be able to get to this place where you implicitly trust your entire cast to a point where you're recreating a brand new show this, at this raw of a level eight times a week is, I don't know why it made me tear up, respectable, envious. I wish I could have experienced that one time in my life. I don't know what it, I don't know what the hell that is, but, but damn, I can't wait to see the show again.

[37:18] Alyssa May Gold: Have you, have you seen this production yet? Have you come yet?

[37:20] Alan Seales: I'm going to see it next week.

[37:21] Alyssa May Gold: Oh, great. Okay. Good. Oh, I'm curious to see what you think of it. I think, I mean, what I find that I relate to that feeling of when, when actors

[37:37] Alyssa May Gold: And when a creative team brings themselves so fully to a story that has been created so intentionally and carefully, I think there's something very spiritual about the experience of what we do in terms of when you're doing it at the highest level, which I would also say, I think that happens not on Broadway too. I think there are like, I've seen performances because I run Pocket Universe, which is this tiny company, and we're like on the top floor of a warehouse in the middle of Soho. And I think there is, I see that I've worked with actors in those spaces where, and I've seen performances where it's like that same level of, there's also almost something harder about it when you don't have the stamp of Broadway on it, and you have to believe that it is just as important for the three people who showed up that night.

And they came, they climbed those stairs, and you need to do Julius Caesar for them, and just believe that it is important. I think that to me feels Olympian also. But all that to say, whenever that happens, I think there's something about it that is really generous, going from both directions. There's a, it's a group effort of an audience being open and wanting to have this part of their hearts poked at, and us absorbing that and taking it seriously and channeling. And that's why there are doctors who do heart surgery, and then there are actors who work on your heart. And we have to take it as seriously. And I've been working really hard to find, where is that corner of my heart that lets me do that last scene that I don't want to give away, but I have to do something very quickly in my imagination.

And it's, it is, I feel a great responsibility, because I'm taking a piece of Little Bit, and I'm playing her, and I have to do it maintaining what has been built. But also, it's like we split focus in this really interesting way. And that responsibility feels massive. But I feel like that's, that to me feels like doing an emergency heart surgery. So you just have to be ready. And you have to, some people's hearts are in your hands in that moment. And it is emotional. It's emotional to think about. It's emotional to allow yourself to recognize our vulnerability. I think that's what it is. There is something that in feeling the power of theater and what it means and how important it is, you just have to be open to your own vulnerability.

And that's what theater does to us. It gives you space to be like, yeah, we got you. We have, you don't have to tell anyone that you cried in this space. But we're here, and we're holding it for you. Because that's what we're trained to do. That's, that was our med school. And we got you. That's very similar to, to something Patti LuPone. I just had an interview recently with Patti LuPone. And she, you know, she's been known very much to be like, yelling at the audience for doing things that she doesn't like. And I got into that with her. And I said, you know, like, what is it about it? She's because she got into theater because of the audience. And so she gets upset because the audience doesn't respect each other for, you know, when they're talking, when they're on their phones, whatever the case is.

And so I, I thought of that because what you just said about when in this final scene, you're, you've got the audience's heart in your hands. You've got the awareness of the, on stage that you are still doing this for a group of people who are there to feel, to love, to cry, to laugh. You're doing this for them. You're not doing this for you. And that is, that is very, very, I respect that so much. And it's, it's such a different thing that I think is going to set you apart on your career over time, because you realize why you're performing. You realize why you're doing this. It's not, it's not going up there for you. It's going up there because the art form is for the masses. It's for the part of our lizard brain that needs to be in a group of herd animals to survive.

[42:02] Alyssa May Gold: Yeah. That was something that I really learned during Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, because I hadn't even, I mean, this scene is harrowing in its own way. And in Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, I had, I was given a coat hanger abortion on stage in full view of the audience and, and against my will. So I was like attacked by this group of girls and, and, and this happens. And it was, it was really difficult at the beginning because I could feel the, I could feel the, I mean, I was in charge of, of creating the moment when I realized what's about to happen, which is when the audience realizes it's about to happen. And that energy was really overwhelming during the first couple of previews, because I was wholly unprepared for what it was going to feel like to feel like I'm about to do something to this group of people.

And so you, you can't disappear into yourself. You have to hold them with you. You have, you can't just like go through something like that on stage at a hundred. You have to be holding, you have to make them feel safe and know that you're safe and that it's, and like hold those two things at once. And I, I learned a lot about navigating that middle ground and how to, because it's, it's actually not fulfilling to just attack an audience. And that wasn't the intention of the moment. The intention of the moment was to wake them up to something else that was about to happen. And, and so I, it was a great, it really helped me do this because I can, it's the same thing happens in this scene. And like, I feel the gasp.

I know what's, I can feel the audience feeling what's about to happen. And this, that was like the hardest version of how do you hold them and, and usher them through this experience as it happens to you. And this one happens much faster. So I'm glad I had that experience of like doing it in this really massive visual way. And now I'm doing it a little bit more like in my imagination. But yeah, but yes, it's, it's, it's a, it's a responsibility. Like you can, you just feel that energy coming at you. And part of why I love this is that I feel like I know how to absorb that and take it in and then give it back to you in a way that's safe. Cause that's what I, and that's what I want to do. I want to, in whatever capacity, I'm in a production or just in the world, I want to take what I know and use it to usher people through their own experiences.

[44:28] Alan Seales: That's beautiful. I, I have so much respect for you. And so much respect for that. That's it's a level of self-awareness that I think a lot of people just don't have period full stop, you know, and it probably goes back and bring it full circle again to the poker aspect, right? Like just knowing, knowing the, the micro, uh, what, not what's, what's the word that, you know, when people like Twitch or whatever, the micro fake micro expressions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just something in there. Yeah. Micro expressions or, or just, you know, their intent by, by a breath or by a look or, or God, I, I, the ability to read people is, is a lost art form because everyone just looks at their phones. But anyway, that's a separate conversation conversation, but it is true.

I mean, that's, I, I live for that. I love, I mean, I think I, I think I, I, whatever the human need for connection is, I think I'm full of it. I really like reading people in that, but, and also it's why I would be a good detective because I like figuring people out.

[45:29] Alyssa May Gold: Do they just become best friends again? Yup. Yup. Well, let's wrap up here with three questions. I ask everybody to end the episodes. The first one just very simply is what motivates you.

[45:35] Alyssa May Gold: What motivates me is that I have been the recipient of incredible empathy and incredible love and support in the darkest moments of my life. And I feel a desire and responsibility and ability as a result of that to put my hand out to the next people and to pull them through with what I know. And Maggie Rogers, one of my favorite musicians said this beautiful thing that her job is to go see the world and report back. And I think I see the world and experience the world in a way that feels things for people who don't have time really have to go do the actual work of running the world. I think I can feel things and I'm motivated to help people live more empathetic lives because I love living full of my feelings and I want people to feel safe doing that too.

[46:35] Alan Seales: That's a beautiful answer. Okay. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[46:39] Alyssa May Gold: I would say to my younger self and to I think all the younger people, listen to the things that light your heart on fire. Don't push them away. Listen to them. And even if you can't harness them in the moment, those are the things that will free you and push you to the work that matters to you. The things that I spent a lot of time, it's very easy to get overwhelmed by being told what to do in this business and being told what to do in the world. And it can dampen that fire and it can make you question that fire and can make you think like, the things that are important to me are just for me. They're not important to everybody else. That's what it is. That's what it is. I want to reframe my answer. The thing that you feel that you think is the most unique to you and no one else feels it. Everyone else feels it. So share it. That is my advice to my younger self. You're not alone. You're everyone.

[47:50] Alan Seales: I love that. Okay. Last show. Our last question. This is the hardest 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 want? What would you see?

[47:54] Alyssa May Gold: How I learned to drive. I mean, right now that's what I'm doing. I watch it every night in the wings and I just love it. And I would say that or also Mama Mia. It's one of our only mother daughter stories. I saw it with my mom when I was 11. It makes me cry every time I see it. I think, I think there, I think it has become cartoonified in the telephone game of past lives. But I, I went back and I rewatched, it's on YouTube, but the Phyllida Lloyd original production is actually genius. She, she handled it with such nuance and energy and, and truth. It's beautiful. And I think, I wish we could go back to the original intention of it. And like, I mean, we don't, and it's not a mystery. It's a mother daughter story.

So we don't care about it and we treat it like a joke. It's not, it's a beautiful story about this generational desire to separate from your parents, but then realizing that they're the parts of you that you love the most. And I think it's beautiful and I could watch it every day for the rest of my life.

[49:12] Alan Seales: Okay. Where can we find you on social media?

[49:12] Alyssa May Gold: You can find me at HeyLissaMay. It's a lot of Taylor Swift guitar covers because I can do whatever I want. It's my Instagram, but I'm trying to like post lots of backstage stuff and how I learned to drive too.

[49:29] Alan Seales: I love that. Uh, you can get more of me at the theater podcast.com. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast. I just started posting on Tik TOK at the theater podcast. I don't, I don't know what I'm doing there, but whatever. I'm Tiki talking now. So I'm great. Leave a rating and a review. This has been edited by well-rounded hoodlum productions. Jukebox the ghost gave us our music and Alyssa May Gold gave us this amazing conversation. Thank you so, so much.

[49:55] Alyssa May Gold: Thank you. How great to do a podcast and have a new best friend.

[49:59] Alan Seales: Yup. Yup.