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[0:00] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Hi, I'm Miranda Ferriss Jones, and you are listening to The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales.

[0:05] Alan Seales: Hey there, friends, and welcome to an all-new episode of The Theatre Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Seales, bringing you a special extra episode this week. The episode is with Miranda Ferriss Jones, a super multi-talented individual. Super multi-talented? Just super multi-talented, multi-talented, super individual with so many irons in the fire right now, one of which being her upcoming concert here in New York City called Spiral Bound, which is also a benefit concert to help raise funds for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign. Spiral Bound's coming up on September 30th. Make sure to check the show notes for more information and tickets on that. The conversation with Miranda covered so many areas, the first of which allowed us to bond over our apparent mutual need to always keep ourselves so busy that we have too much to do.

But otherwise, we can't get anything done, which is a symptom she attributes to high-functioning ADHD. If anyone else can relate, tag me in your comments and let me know. I'm so curious about this. So Miranda's background when she was growing up has brought her to where she is now, obviously, and has given her this different sort of perspective on society and on politics, and has led her to the activism she's kind of involved in, and is frankly a refreshing point of view that she brings to pretty much everything she does. Later on in the episode, we talk about her interpretation of societal binaries, a phrase I hadn't given much thought to before this, but wow, I was so glad we dove into it, and I hope you will be too. So now find me on the socials if you haven't already and do your thing. Now everyone, please enjoy this episode with Miranda Ferriss Jones.

[1:44] Alan Seales: Here you go. One, two, three. Our guest today is a creator, composer, lyricist, a Vermont-based songwriter, theatrical storyteller, performer, vocal coach. God, what doesn't she do? Whose work delves into feminine identity and challenges societal binaries. Ooh, I can't wait to get into that. She has four shows currently in development all over the place, and let's see, she's in a period of rewrites with some workshops, and she just did a concert the other day with Laura Benanti, one of two, to fundraise for Kamala Harris. She's got another one coming up on September 30th at Racket NYC, again with Laura Benanti. This is a fundraiser for Kamala Harris. She is a mom, an all-around great person, and just this extraordinary creator. I can't wait to get into her story. Miranda Ferriss Jones, welcome to The Theatre Podcast. Where do you want to start? Because you do everything. Oh, my God.

[2:52] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Well, thank you. That was a great intro. I was like, all right, all right, I'm doing okay. That sounds okay. Yeah, I don't know. It's just exciting to be in this period of having so much going on after having two kids and being in San Francisco and really just writing like a crazy person for many years and doing creative coaching, but it really wasn't until I moved here, met Laura, and she was like, girl, let's get your work out there, opened up the gates, and so now suddenly everything's happening at once, right at the time when my kids are the most fun, which is the one—

[3:30] Alan Seales: How old are they?

[3:30] Miranda Ferriss Jones: They're six and nine, so they want to be with us. We want to be with them. We're not wiping their butts. It's a wonderful time to be together, but also a time when all these shows are taking off.

[3:45] Alan Seales: Yeah, that's the balance. Back up then, because creator, composer, lyricist, vocal coach, and then exploring the femininity. How do you shift your time around to prioritize all of this?

[4:05] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Okay, we'll start there, but then I want to get into, parlay that, if you will, into the context of what you're writing, creating, et cetera, about the femininity, the societal binaries, because that's not a word we talk about a lot. Yeah. If you look up ADHD creative in the dictionary, there's a big picture of me, and so the idea of having this life where I have four projects in development, and then I'm a mom, and then I'm doing activist work and coaching, that actually works for me up to a point, but a challenge for me is the more that's going on, figuring out where to say no and what should rise to the center of my focus is something I'm in continuous negotiation with and learning. I don't know if I have an answer of how to do it, except when there is a deadline, where there is the next thing there that could take center stage.

When you have three shows in one week, it's almost been like, I think because it took a while for me to reach this world of Broadway that was always the dream growing up on a dirt road in Moncton, Vermont, it feels like I've just said yes to everything, and Laura and I have been talking about this, like, okay, you're now at the stage where you actually can't just say yes to every opportunity and every single person who reaches out and wants to partner, even though that's my favorite thing, so I feel like doing these three shows in a week has been a little bit like the kid who's like, I want cake, and then they're like, all right, eat a whole entire cake, and then you want cake. I'm like, I'll do three shows and then see if you still want to do another show, so I feel like the prioritization in this intense period has been kind of like, okay, whatever the next thing is, so that was a non-answer to your question.

[6:08] Alan Seales: I want to get into the ADHD creativity because I have never formally been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD or anything, and I wonder if you're the same way. I was like, oh, I can relate because I think that I do terribly when I have tons of time, tons of time to complete one project. I don't get it done. I need 10 different things all competing for my time so that I can prioritize them all and get them all done as fast as I can at the same time. Do we have the same thing? Am I undiagnosed?

[6:40] Miranda Ferriss Jones: I am your psychiatrist, and I can't recommend Ritalin or Adderall, but I'd say, you know, take a journey looking at some of those things. I tried Vyvanse once, and I did it for like one or two days. It was two days, and then I was like, oh, I can't get to sleep at night. Even if I take it at seven in the morning, I couldn't get to sleep at night because it kept me up, but I was so hyper-focused. It was great, but I was like, oh, am I not ADHD enough to take something like that? I don't know. I mean, I need to explore it, but as an unofficial therapist now, what is your advice?

[7:18] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Well, I would say that, and listen, I was diagnosed in college, so all through high school because there is so much structure in high school. I think being a type A high-achieving ADHD person is its own thing where I at least could thrive if I had exactly a very busy schedule with a lot of intense pressure where it was clear the thing to do. My nightmare is a weekend where I don't have things planned, and I'm okay until 11, and I'll be like, don't take your meds. You just want to be cozy with the kids and relax. By 11, I am in a 11 a.m. I'm like, what are we doing? Have I been productive enough? What is on my plate? Should I make this? Then I start doing projects, and the house is a mess because I start this project.

Now I'm going to go make muffins. I should play a board game with the kids. It's just chaos. I think that for people like maybe us, as your unofficial therapist, the structure can allow you to get through having those intense periods where you don't have to make choices about what to do and where to put your attention. We can create those scenarios for ourselves so that we can function, but especially working for myself for all these years, I've never worked for anybody else. When I became an adult, especially with the parental layer of those responsibilities, they both feed and exacerbate the ADHD because it's like, okay, I'm writing a song. Oh, the school's calling. Oh, my babysitter canceled.

Okay, I'm back to my son. Oh, this director for this show is – it gives us those yummy little stimulant pulses, but it also pulls our focus. For me, having in those moments, having the help of medication and then really for me also the structure of ritual and knowing what I need. I have this timer that is not on my phone that I live and die by. If I need to compose a song—

[9:27] Alan Seales: Like an old egg timer, old school?

[9:32] Miranda Ferriss Jones: I'll show it to you right here. It's called the timer timer. It's so freaking cute. It's visual, which is helpful for me.

[9:40] Alan Seales: Oh, that's so cute.

[9:42] Miranda Ferriss Jones: So I can be like, yes, you have to write Will's teacher. You have to sign them up for karate. You have to send the set list for this person. You have to transcribe this song, but you also need 30 minutes to just play at your piano and return to yourself as an artist so that you actually can do these things and feel fulfilled and just being able to see the 30 minutes. Then once you do that, especially if you take your meds right beforehand, then it centers me, at least, in the thing that really matters. Then it's easier to then structure the rest of my day around the real rituals that I know are my core values and what I need versus the little dopamine hits of, okay, I wrote that email. I did the thing.

[10:30] Alan Seales: Core values. Yeah, that's a very therapist thing. That's what I talk about with my therapist is, what are your core values? What do you want? Well, I'm your therapist, so that's why we're talking about it.

[10:40] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Right, right, right. Oh, it totally makes sense. Oh, man. Okay. I'd love that little timer. I'm going to take a screenshot of you showing that. I'll put it on my socials for those who are just listening to this. Yeah, that's great. I better get a kickback.

[10:53] Alan Seales: From Timer.com this episode, sponsored by timers.

[10:57] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Yeah. No, I'm the same way on the weekends. I turn to construction because I love to build and create with my hands. I've been trying to convince my wife to let me literally tear up the floor on the top floor of the house because I want to level it. I go to YouTube University to keep current with what's new in the tooling space because new tools are coming out all the time. But I have multiple years of construction, actual on-site construction experience, because when I was a working actor, I supplemented my income as a GM's assistant. I've knocked out walls, put on roofs, windows, doors, floors, decks. Tile work is my zen. Just cutting tile around electrical sockets. There's something so relaxing to me, for me, about that.

That just focuses me. Probably, I assume it's the same for you sitting down on the piano. I wish I could play piano. I've never learned. I can sight-read music poorly, but yeah, I feel like that's my safe. Right now, I've got a drainage project that's ruminating in the back of my mind. I want to install channel drains because the backyard is pitched toward the house. In heavy rains, the hurricanes are coming. I always worry about rain. I need to install dry wells. Anyway, I just lost half the audience.

[12:23] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Well, what I will say is that there's a hyper-focus that people with ADHD can have. When you have that thing, like for me, the piano, or for you, the construction, it gives you a place where even without the medication, you can naturally just lock in. That's one of the superpowers of having ADHD. Again, I'm not diagnosing you, but I'm a little bit. It occurred to me, too, that Legos. I love Legos for the same reason. I don't think about other things when I'm doing Legos. It just focuses me in, and I build those things. It's so unbelievably relaxing. Then, I see someone like my husband, who has no ADHD bone in his body, or my eldest son, and I'm like, oh my god, they think about one thing. Can you imagine?

[13:20] Miranda Ferriss Jones: All the time, they think about one thing and they don't know what to ask. And in fact, my nine-year-old son, who's like an old soul, whereas I am kind of a young soul, he was like, Mom, I think you have a problem with trying to do multiple things at one time. I was like, geez, I feel seen. Well, whatever. I feel seen and too seen. Also, you are lucky to have that. I mean, you and your wife are lucky that you have those construction skills because when you become a homeowner, they don't tell you how necessary it is to be handy. Yeah, I completely finished my basement, finished playroom straight from no studs, put up framing, all this shit. I digress. I love, love, love, love that stuff. Anyway, but yeah, my eight-year-old, my eight-year-old too, he's very much like me in the jumping from one subject to the next by association, by free association.

And my nine-and-a-half-year-old too, he'll be 10 in December, but they're 20 months apart, Irish twins. Oh, they're close. Yeah, both of them, my younger one especially will spit back lyrics to songs based on something someone has said completely unrelated because they'll say the first half of a line that reminds them of a lyric and they'll spit it out. Or if anyone says, we have a lot of Googles in our house, so we ask them for advice like the devices. And so when they don't know, when it doesn't know something, it always says, I don't know, but I found these results on search. So my older son especially, when he asked me something, I'm like, you know, I don't know. And he goes, but I found these results on search.

And then my wife is like, is that what your brain's like? How do you remember all these lyrics and all of these associations? I'm like, if I could block it, I would. I don't know how that is just how it is. And so for her to see in our kids what it's like inside my mind, she's like, it's scary in there. I don't know how you do that. So for you, when did creativity, when did the piano stuff come in? Why didn't you dive into sports? Why didn't you dive into construction? Why did you dive into music and writing? Well, I definitely dove into sports. Athletics have been a huge part of my life also. So I grew up in Vermont, rural, rural. Dirt road, yeah. Yeah, on a dirt road, big mountain behind my house, I think 60 acres.

And my parents moved there together like two crazy people who didn't realize it was the early 80s and they were like in an interracial marriage. And so they moved to the whitest state in the union and in the boondocks when my dad had grown up, born in Harlem, grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. My mom was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. So we've got the Wasp and we've got the intellectual black man who was the only artist in his very high achieving science family. And he was a pilot, they moved to Vermont. And then essentially I learned recently because of racism and the toll it took on my father, he stopped flying planes and he had all different kinds of jobs. At one point, he was the first black state cop in Vermont, which was just a joy for him.

Yeah, that was very intense. But he also during that time really became, he's a coach and that's partly why I will always be a teacher and a coach. It's in my blood and he was my coach, my sister's coach from day one. So when we were five, he had us out, don't throw like a girl, you shouldn't say that anymore, but throwing baseball, we were running a mile behind him at age five. We would go to Martha's Vineyard where the black side of my family has this raggedy old house we've shared for a long time and with all our cousins and we would run to the lighthouse and then we would do swimming in the water. And then he was a jazz flautist who quit playing flute when he felt like he couldn't afford financially to give himself to it completely and took those dreams and found a little avenue for them.

And so he had us at the piano singing Harmony, singing Sly and the Family Stone. I've taken like six piano lessons in my life, but because he was jazz based from a very young age, he would comp chords pretty poorly and he would just be like, improvise, improvise. That was always the thing. What do you hear? What do you hear? So I was always hearing the music and then when I finally learned jazz chords in these six piano lessons when I was 21, it was like, oh, now everything I hear can become a song. I always say I'm sane because of my mom and I'm talented because of my dad. And I think that's very true. And when people are like, oh, it's so brave that you're an artist. I'm like, it is not brave.

It would have been brave if I'd been a doctor. All my parents wanted was for me to be an artist. And my mom is a huge musical theater fan. She would sneak out of her little big house in Grosse Pointe and go to Detroit to hear Motown and demanded that she didn't want a debutante ball, but she's going to have one. It had to be an all black Motown band. So they're a funny mix and that's very much why I am the way I am. That's so cool. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break.

[19:06] Alan Seales: Welcome back to the episode. If I can go personal for a second, when did you realize that having a mixed race set of parents was something that was kind of unusual or frowned upon where you were like in Vermont in the 80s? I mean, even still in some of these places, obviously, look what we're going through and look what you're trying to fundraise for, right? Like racism is still just as bad as it always was, I think. So when and what age did you start to realize like, hey, something ain't right and want to do something about it?

[19:40] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Gosh, no one's ever asked me that. And that's such an interesting question because it just feels like always. Maybe it was being in Vermont, but some of my core key memories of being young are those memories of feeling the different way the world treated my parents. And I think there are some memories that really stick out. And my dad, he is a sensitive artist soul who was forced to grow a callus over his heart because he was often the only Black man in a white world because his family has this value of striving and breaking barriers, which means loneliness, which means being an only, which means he also was trying to fit into places all the time. And because of that, I have many memories of we were skiers, ski racers, because we lived in Vermont.

And I think because my dad was like, all right, here's a white space, let's get in there. And so I have like, there's a very distinct memory of being at a ski area in my town where we grew up, where everybody knew us in Middlebury. And people don't like to see a Black man in a ski lodge. They are uncomfortable with that. And of someone saying something rude, which we now have a word microaggressions, but microaggressions feel like macroaggressions, especially to a heart that is familiar with this kind of the same wound being open. And my dad losing his temper in a way that when I saw George Floyd in that video, he really looks like my dad in a lot of ways. And it was very triggering and losing his temper and my mom rushing us out of the lodge and it feeling like, here we go again.

This is this familiar thing. And feeling like so confused of being like, dad, don't make a scene. Mom, why aren't you standing and yelling with him? And whoever said that thing, I hate you. And that kind of holding of this is probably vulnerable. I'm like, am I going to get canceled for sharing this much? I don't know what we can say sometimes, but I think it's just true. That was my experience in being a little girl and trying to hold all those things and figuring out where I belonged within that. And also knowing that my dad is the founding, he's my audience of one. Any time I send it, oh, I'm going to get teary. Any song I write, it goes first to him. He's the proudest. He's my musical inspiration.

So also seeing this man who is my coach and putting a lot of pressure on me, but also a lot of dreams into me and so much faith into me, being continuously wounded as this man who is also my rock was a very confusing thing. And I think also seeing the strain that put on my parents' relationship and yet where my parents connected was always in the outdoors. They would play tennis. My dad watched tennis to learn how to coach us. My mom grew up playing in her tennis whites and he learned from watching. And then he would have my mom hit to us because she had that stroke, but he would be coaching us. And so we connected there and we connected in the waters of Michigan and in the waters of Martha's Vineyard and boating.

And then we connected around the piano because my mom loved Motown and musicals. And so my dad learned musicals and like The Wiz, which was directed by Shelly Williams, who is amazing. And Laura and I have been talking to you about some things, projects, like how incredible to be meeting her because The Wiz was the show that was like my dad and my mom, we grew up singing The Wiz. We knew we all had parts. And I had a song that I sang with my dad. My sister, she sang with my dad. So that was a long winded answer, but they were just staying with me. And by the way, I was kind of an asshole to them. So I'm like, I'm so stressed out. And my parents are here and parents are always parents and they just drive you crazy.

But then they leave and I'm like, oh, my parents. I was just having this conversation with someone the other day that no matter what kind of protections or coping mechanisms or whatever, especially through therapy that you learn to develop with general society, you show up to your parents and it's all gone. You just fall right back into the same dynamics you had in year five. It's horrible. It's when you watch yourself and you think, do better, do better. I know. I need to do I need to extend my my kindness that I'm working on in life to my parents. And why don't they do that to me? Oh, yeah, they can't because they don't have the work. Damn boomers. Well, that is also true. They did not. They did not.

My parents never went to marriage therapy. They should have, you know, but it was a different thing. And then we know with now that we have kids, I'm like, you know, every time you're rude to your parents at age 40, your kids are going to be doing the same thing. Yeah, yeah. We reap what we sow. I've had to learn to talk kindly about my parents to my partner around my kids so that they don't do that to me. Okay, anyway, let's talk about some activism.

[25:20] Miranda Ferriss Jones: So you and Laura Benanti are as we're recording it the last night you had your first of two concerts at City Winery and you were saying before we started recording that went really well. So you and Laura are now doing a second concert coming up this Monday, September 30th at 7 p.m. at NYC. And you're going to have like it's featuring Laura again and Lorna Courtney, Caleb Wilcox, Sammy Williams, and just this incredible performance to raise money for Kamala. So given I guess all the things you could be doing and you are doing, this is I guess I was I can answer my own question. The deadline is coming up. The election is about to happen. So is that why you're focused on this now? And why? I mean, obviously like you're talking about the feminist, was it feminist binaries?

What was the word? Societal binaries. Feminist, feminine identity and societal binaries. Things I think that are completely all up in the air because of the current political climate. Like dive into this a little bit. Like why spend your time and your effort on this when everything else is going on and pulling your attention away? Because my work has always, especially now that we've talked a little bit about my background, you know, I said last night in the concert, and it's the first time I've said this, but when the privilege of being.

[27:39] Alan Seales: For more information on Miranda Ferriss Jones, please visit www.broadwaypodcast.com.

[28:10] Miranda Ferriss Jones: We really were ready for this change when Kamala took over. We all felt it. We felt this infusion. It was like an ivy of hope, an ivy of possibility, an ivy of a different world. I think especially because my work has been always about women breaking boundaries, about the power of sisterhood, about exploring this space, as I said, where we are between binaries, biracial identity. Here is someone who literally embodies all of that. It felt like there's never been a candidate who feels more aligned with what I believe and what I've been fighting to be seen in the world, and the time was ticking. We were just supposed to be doing a presentation of The Precipice, Lara and me and our collective, which we did on Sunday.

That was going to be our September, and I was like, oh, it's going to be so stressful, but then when this woman, Justine Lelchek, who is in the business world, called me on her way to her son's soccer game and was like, listen, I got the business background. I got some funds. I believe in what you do. Let's do a thing. Lara and I felt like we couldn't say no because I knew that waking up on November 6th, if I have not done everything in my power this time to make a change, then I have to blame myself. We all have to make this. We cannot be complacent. There's so much at stake, and this is something that wasn't hard to get behind. It feels like my fight in a really personal way. I think a lot of women in our collective, before rehearsals, I've been asking them, you're here for me, for Lara, for this music.

When you said yes, Kayla Wilcoxson, she took the night off of six last night. Part of that is because Kamala is her fight too. We would begin rehearsals with the why of it, and we all feel like this, and we all want to be able to be using our gifts. We can phone bank, and we can canvas, and we will, and we should, but we also have another way to be fighting for her. Also, frankly, after the dismal years we have had, to have one clear, unifying, hopeful goal feels so good. We get to indulge in that. Yes, Kamala is not perfect, and yes, there is nuance in all of the policy, but we have a Voldemort, and we have a Harry Potter right now. Let's enjoy getting to all fight the death eaters together. We get to indulge in that. Yeah, and Voldemort is a convicted felon as well. Let's be very literal about that. Facts. Facts. Not alternative facts. True facts. True facts. Real facts. True facts.

[31:00] Alan Seales: What does actually, in your words, what does societal binary mean? You're not talking about gender binary, like male-female presenting.

[31:05] Miranda Ferriss Jones: I'm talking about all of the binaries that society has constructed. Yes, there's this idea of this is what masculine is, and this is what feminine is. There is the idea of this is what blackness is, and this is what whiteness is. There is an idea about this is what privilege is, and this is what privilege isn't. This is what educated is, what smart is, and what not educated and not smart is. I think even all of that, all of these things are that I have explored in my work. This is what motherhood and fatherhood is. These are your roles. Every time we enter a new space of identity, whether it's parent or race or gender, we are confronted with the two boxes that society is really trying to force us into. I think for all of us, there are ways where we're like, but that is only a piece of me, and you're cutting out the rest of this.

[32:18] Alan Seales: That's really cool. I mean, because everybody has infinite potential. That's kind of what I've learned. Two things I've really distinctly learned after 350 episodes of this podcast is, be the best you that you are. Don't imitate others. Everyone has infinite potential, because you can go out, and if you really want to, you can learn construction. I could learn piano. We could go out and sing that or act this, whatever it is. It's all about focus and desire and bringing what makes you unique to all of it. I love that you are bringing your personal background to this and bringing this message to the world and helping with challenging all of this. For example, Hamilton's been on Broadway since 2015.

Now, in 2024, as we record this, we're now seeing the influence that having rap, having R&B, having something different. There's new concept albums that I'm hearing and things that are very, very similar. It's taken less than 10 years to turn that over and have that influence. Now, the stuff you are writing today is going to be 5, 6, 7, 8 years from now, you're going to put it out. Then less than a decade, your kids are going to grow up because you said your kids are what, 8 and what?

[33:40] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Nine and six.

[33:41] Alan Seales: Nine and six, okay. When they're 19 and 16, a decade from now, they're going to be writing their own stuff in theory. They're going to be influencing, saying, hey, friends of mine, go check this out. Whatever the new version of TikTok is at a decade.

[33:53] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Talktik.

[33:54] Alan Seales: Talkytik.

[33:55] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Talkytikers. It's phenomenal to me that now change is happening so quickly. You're part of this. You're part of creating, be the change you want to see in the world. Who said that? Gandhi, I think, right? Somebody important.

[34:13] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Someone.

[34:13] Alan Seales: Someone super important.

[34:13] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Someone really wise.

[34:14] Alan Seales: Yeah, someone really important. Be the change you want to see in the world. You're creating this and putting it out there in a way that now your kids and my kids, they're the same age, are going to grow up with this and think it's normal. That's what it should be.

[34:27] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Yes.

[34:28] Alan Seales: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break.

[34:32] Alan Seales: Welcome back to the episode. My boys came to the show last night, which was incredibly beautiful. Although my six-year-old, when I came out, was just clinging to me and sobbing. I think it's hard to share your mom with the world. I think he was like, I want to go out with you. But anyway, especially my nine-year-old there, he knows all of these songs. He wore his Harris-Waltz shirt on the first day of school. This feminism, they are such allies. They're so conscious because we're a different generation where all of our books are about this in our house for many of us. It's a very conscious thing to integrate this into their life so it isn't something they have to learn. I honestly think, again, the privilege of being mixed race is that you don't have to learn to be woke.

You're woken up to the injustice in the world from a young age. You feel it viscerally inside of you. Making sure that my white-presenting children are also feeling this and aware of this through what they see and through the music that they ingest. I don't teach as much anymore because of all these shows. I miss it because it's part of my identity. I would always tell my high schoolers and the kids I worked with, be conscious of the media you take in. One, an artist should figure out what they love because that's a hint. If I have always loved fairy tales, if I seem to be continuously drawn to stories that take place on cobblestone streets, there's something there for me. I don't like books about swamps.

I don't know. Florida, I don't like that. Whatever. That's not for me. It's part of just knowing what lights you up as an artist and where your muse is pulled. It's also be conscious of the stories you take in and the stories that you want to tell because that is part of your activism. That's part of what you're putting into the world. Storytelling is how I think some of the most powerful changes are made. Look at wars. Look at every period of history. I so feel that with you. There's this great quote that Thelonious Monk has that says, the genius is the person most like himself or themselves. I think that's so true. The genius is the one most like themselves because as soon as you start comparing, you are cutting off your infinite potential.

You are siphoning off a slice of yourself and trying to conform into something. When you are just concerned with exploring the most that you are, which takes some learning. For me, I am not the best singer. Last night on that stage, I love singing. It brings me so much joy. I'm not the best singer on that stage. When I finally released that and realized that it is through my compositions and also through this community making, that is my gift as much as the music. I'm not the best musician there. All those musicians behind me are incredible. M.D., Diana Lawrence, Yair Evnin who I've worked with on our next show, Spiralbound, they make my music better. They're the ones who can speak all that theory that I didn't learn.

You have to figure out what your gifts are in order to have the most impact. For me, part of that is the community of pulling together people towards a goal. When I was resisting that, when I was trying to just be a singer, it was limiting what I could do.

[38:20] Alan Seales: Yeah. The term multi-hyphenate is, I think, overused a lot these days, but there's so much available at our fingertips. I joked around about YouTube University, but it's true. If you find someone who knows what they're doing, who presents it in a good way, you can learn a lot and you can prevent a lot of mistakes. Just go out there and research, learn, be conscious too. A couple of years ago, about two years ago, I interviewed Mogadot for a separate thing. He's one of the original founders of Google X, which is their moonshot division, the stuff where they go off and do really insane ideas. He wrote this book called Scary Smart. It was all about the AI revolution. Right now, it's in its infancy.

This was two years ago. Look how much AI has just grown just this year, 2024. It's just, it's insane. He was saying that 2040 is the singularity. We can't predict what AI will do beyond that. The whole point, the reason I'm bringing this up is to your point. Fact check, know what you're looking at, know where you're getting it from, because AI now, all the algorithms, everything is designed on meta, on Facebook, on TikTok, on Instagram, on everything to keep you there longer. It learns what you like to look at and gives you more of that. AI behind the scenes, in its infancy, there's little baby AI that the programmers who made it can't explain how it makes decisions today, are serving you this content. What Mo said to me in this interview was, go out and find the information that interests you by searching for it on your own and finding it. Don't keep clicking on the thing.

[42:30] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Anyway, Insight Timer slays and there's this one chakra meditation.

[42:33] Alan Seales: Slay.

[42:35] Miranda Ferriss Jones: You bring the riz. Miranda, you bring the riz.

[42:40] Alan Seales: I don't know. That's sus. That's so sus.

[42:45] Miranda Ferriss Jones: That's my eight year old sis.

[42:47] Alan Seales: I ship you.

[42:47] Miranda Ferriss Jones: That's my eight year old sis. If you say sus, you are sus.

[42:50] Alan Seales: Oh, brah, brah, that's what I can't stand. These kids. Hey, brah. It's like absolutely not.

[42:58] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Absolutely not.

[42:59] Alan Seales: Go on. I'm sweating over here. I'm having so much fun. Okay, go ahead.

[43:06] Miranda Ferriss Jones: When we can resist that, when I wake up and I do my meditation first, it centers me and myself. And then I wake up and react. And when I set my settings on my phone, which, of course, I break because, you know, it is hard. But to just not let me do anything past nine thirty and until eight thirty, my whole day is changed. It's hard to create those parameters for ourselves. But if we don't, we are just in reaction mode and we're just you know, this is coming off what you said about the responding to the algorithms, right? We are not seeking out our own thing because we don't have time to check in and figure out what our own thing is.

[43:50] Alan Seales: Yeah. Yeah. And and like not just immediately pulling out an electronic device because you're bored, like figure out what to do else elsewhere. Right. We yell at our kids about it. Right. We're like, hey, don't go to a device. And they're like, you don't go to a device.

[44:02] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Yeah. You know, they're always my son said to me this weekend, you've been so busy and it drives me crazy when you bring your phone and you're looking at your phone when you're supposed to be with us.

[44:17] Alan Seales: Yeah. Yeah. When the man. Yeah. When they and the kids are like, well, let's watch this together. And like I get a buzz and like, oh, I got to check that notification. And they're like, dad, you're supposed to be watching this with us. And I'm like, you're right. You're right. And I put my phone away and don't you know, I check it all later. Like nothing is so time intensive. Right. So they get it. They see it. They get it. But yeah, check. Watch your toes because I'm about to name drop. Ariana Huffington told me there was two things when two things advice that I heard from her. One was, you know, when asked, what's one thing you would tell your younger self? She said, get more sleep, because when you are sleep deprived, you can't function.

You're not making rational decisions at the best of your ability, right? Get more sleep. But the other thing she said applicable to what we were talking about was make sure that the first thing you do when you roll over in the morning is not pick up your phone, because that sets the tone. If you read a bad email, if you read some news, if you're just looking for that dopamine hit, then it gets you completely in the wrong mindset for the entire rest of the day.

[45:21] Miranda Ferriss Jones: So you and Ariana Huffington, you're on the same wavelength.

[45:26] Alan Seales: Well, I'm notoriously not a good sleeper, but I do appreciate that. But I'm going to learn from that. And I think that's so true. I mean, it's it's so true. Also, one of my shows, The Precipice, the show that we just did up at the LAN and sang a bunch of songs from last night at City Winery is based around the goddess of dreams, Lady Midnight. And she she looks down upon this world that has forgotten how to dream and says, what becomes of a world that's forgotten how to dream? And it's true. And I am someone who I am lucky that I usually remember my dreams really well. And listen, they can set me into a mood all day long, too. But it's different. And if I wake up and look at my phone, all of that magic of the dream, it's replaced by the magic of someone texting me.

And let's say they put a period instead of an exclamation point. And my little anxious brain will then be all morning like this. So it's not like me. Did I upset? Yeah, you know, so go go with the dreams with yourself, not with not with the swaying of the day from your from your phone.

[46:33] Alan Seales: Okay, well, let's let's play our little game now to wind up the game. So let's say oh, wait, and I want to make sure that we plug spiral bound spiral bound. It's my show. It's my show that I love that I wrote with Rich Edelman. It's happening 930 at the rocket with Lorna Courtney, Sammy Williams, Lara Benetti, my bestie, bestie partner, Morgan Dudley, all of our collective metal. Anyway, it's gonna be awesome. It's all for Canada. Oh, and we did it last year at jazz pub. But this time Eleanor Scott, who's the coolest. She's a choreographer director. She did funny girl. She did Lonely Few. I'm just did Empire Records with Lorna and Sammy Williams, which better come to Broadway because I saw it at the McCarter and I was like, new musicals that are good.

Oh my god, I love a good new musical. It was so good. Anyway, she's choreographing it. So there's going to be dance. It's all for Kamala. All the money goes to Kamala. Come and there's a dance party afterwards, which is literally my favorite thing in the world is dancing. And I am going to party because this period has been crazy. So please come and give your money to Kamala blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, there's my pitch.

[47:41] Alan Seales: Yeah, so check the show notes for more information on spiral bound. There will be a link for tickets. Of course, the tickets go to fundraise for Kamala. Let's do this peeps. All of it. All right. So all right, games plot in 60 seconds. I have a list of 16 popular musicals from recent years. And I'm going to put 60 seconds on the screen here for us. Alan, this is not my skill set. Everybody is going to Oh, I don't know things about musicals. Oh, God. All right, everyone's gonna you have to give me the real plot to the actual plot to this musical that in 60 seconds or less and so you give me a number it will correspond to a show on my list. So give me a number one through 16.

[48:30] Alan Seales: Oh my god. All right, people before I do this. I'm good at other things. Okay. One between one and 16. You said yes. Oh, then. All right, that today corresponds to frozen go 60 seconds remaining.

[48:45] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Oh, frozen. Oh my god. This is exactly the musical I want. Okay, because it's about two sisters. And one of them has power. And she's trying to keep her power down because her power is dangerous to the world. It could change the world and her other sister is like, Oh, things are all great. And I'm happy and I'm happy that I love you. And we're in this castle. But oh, we miss our parents and wants to be close to her sister. And our other sister is like, No, the world is too dangerous. Let it go. Let it go. She goes off into the woods and into this into the ice world. And she like feels her power. She lets it fly. She feels so free and so happy. But her other sister is like, I miss you. I miss you.

And I want you. I got to go find you. So she goes out to find her and she's with this guy who she thinks is a good guy, but he's not actually a good guy. And she has little friends and there's a funny little and magical frozen man who's a little is got the nose like the carrot because he's a snowman. That's his name. And that's his name. And and then they go on a journey and they find their sister and they're like, you can have power we can be together. Let's change the world together. Let's go home and make it so that our town has all the magic in the world that you have. So sister one, sister two and carrot nose. Those are the character names.

[49:53] Alan Seales: I love it. I think I got the heart of it.

[49:58] Miranda Ferriss Jones: You got the heart. Thank God. You're gonna give me something so much harder. I mean, listen, I didn't know the whole plot, but I got the gist of it.

[50:03] Alan Seales: You got it. You got it. And you with kids, you must have watched it at least once. So I figured.

[50:08] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Yeah, like once, but they were too scared. So I literally have watched it one time.

[50:13] Alan Seales: Good job. You did a good job. Okay, so the three inner closing questions that wrap up the episode, the first one simply is what motivates you.

[50:25] Miranda Ferriss Jones: What motivates me is making things with other people, usually women to put out in the world that I love.

[50:31] Alan Seales: What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[50:36] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Calm down, it will work out. And if you just keep following what lights you up, you will find a path and it'll be better than the things that you were planning for yourself and worried would not happen.

[50:50] Alan Seales: All right, last question. Hardest one, if you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you could see it as many times as you want, what would you say?

[50:59] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Oh, I love that. All right, gotta think about this. I mean, I mean, Rent is the show that changed my life. But I think I would be like, I know so much of it that I might I might get I might get sick of it. You know, honestly, there's a Emma Rice is a director from London has this company wise children. And everything I think of hers opens my eyes to what I want theater to be. And she has a show called The Wild Bride that people probably don't know about in America, but it changed my life. And at least I want to see it six more times. And I go, Oh, sleep no more sleep no more. I love sleep because then I just have my own experience. I was gonna sleep no more. And then I'll start singing and I'll write music to it because I could do that at that show. That's my answer. I feel good about that.

[51:57] Alan Seales: That's so it's unique. No one's ever said that before. That's great. Okay, so a spiral bound, of course, coming up on Monday, September 30 2024. Check the show notes for tickets for that. What else do you want to plug and where can we find you on social media?

[52:14] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Oh, well, I'm getting better at social media. It scares me because I'm an old but Miranda Ferris two Rs two S's is my social media. And yeah, come to spiral down and keep your eyes open for for my other four shows Edmonia showing up my two woman musical spiral bound and the precipice my baby of all babies. The precipice.

[52:41] Alan Seales: Awesome, awesome. It's wall again be in the show notes and you can find me on threads, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, wherever you're listening to this episode. I'll leave a rating and a review. Tell your friends. Thanks to jukebox the ghost for the intro and outro music and Miranda. It was so nice to meet you. I think that was such a blast.

[53:04] Miranda Ferriss Jones: ADHD spirits. I know let's hang out sometime with our little kids and not be on our.

[53:07] Alan Seales: That's right. That's right. I don't like doing that. That's not cool around. I'll give you some Adderall to try. JK No, I won't. But I will wait wait. No, you won't.

[53:14] Miranda Ferriss Jones: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Deep breath make the world a little colorful.