This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Aneesa Folds: Hi, my name's Aneesa Folds.

[0:02] Anthony Veneziale: And I'm Anthony Veneziale. And you're listening to The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales.

[0:05] Alan Seales: Hey, everyone, welcome to The Theatre Podcast. I am your host, Alan Seales. And our guests for this episode are just two of my favorite people. And I get into this in the episode, but the Freestyle Love Supreme crew, anybody that is part of that core, is just some of the nicest, most human humans that you ever get to human with. Anyway, it's with Anthony Veneziale, a.k.a. 2Touch, a Tony Award winning co-creator of Freestyle Love Supreme, and a pioneer in using freestyle and improv for brain science and community building. This dude's phenomenal. He first joined me back in episode 113, and also with Aneesa Folds, a.k.a. Young Niece. It's the breakout star of Freestyle Love Supreme on Broadway.

And she was last with me in episode 62. Now the two of them are collaborating on a bold new musical called Co-Founders, premiering at ACT in San Francisco. And the tech behind this, aside from the fact that it's going to be a great story with amazing music, of course, the tech behind this is it's using like avatar level real time rendering powered by Unreal Engine. The nerds out there know what I'm talking about. To do real time motion capture and bring this to life all on stage, it just sounds amazing. It's unlike anything else that I've heard of at this point. But just a little editing warning, Anthony was having some construction work done on his house during the interview, so you can hear a little bit of extra banging and some extra noises behind him as he speaks sometimes.

So make sure to find me on social media. I'm on all the platforms, I think. Go to Patreon or Spotify to watch the video version of this episode. Please leave me a five star review if you're on a platform that allows ratings. And now, everybody, please enjoy this episode with Anthony Veneziale and Aneesa Folds.

[2:09] Alan Seales: Today, we're joined by two wildly creative forces who each bring their own flavor of genius to the stage, and they are returning guests to the podcast. Anthony Veneziale, aka 2Touch, is a Tony winning co-creator of Freestyle Love Supreme, and a pioneer in using improv and freestyle to unlock creativity, community, and even brain science. He first joined me back at episode 113, and I'm thrilled to welcome him back. Aneesa Folds, aka Young Niece, is a breakout star, probably the most breaky out of star-ist, from Freestyle Love Supreme, on Broadway, who we should remember back from episode 62. By the way, this episode is going to be in the 390s, so we've come a long way. Now, they're teaming up again in a new musical called Co-Founders.

It's brand new, hip-hop, premiering at ACT in San Francisco. It's part tech satire, part heart-filled anthem for community, and it uses immersive visuals and Bay Area hip-hop to tell a story about two unlikely entrepreneurs navigating privilege, purpose, and possibility. Holy shit, guys. Anthony and Aneesa, welcome back to the theatre podcast.

[3:18] Anthony Veneziale: Thank you.

[3:19] Aneesa Folds: Thank you for having us.

[3:21] Alan Seales: Dude, so I got to know, how have your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has been since we last spoke?

[3:29] Anthony Veneziale: Oh, wow. The judging brain, it never runs out of judgment, does it? But yeah, I would say it's a healthy dose of, trying to say, effortful planning, because we have this new show. I'm incredibly blessed to have Anissa be a part of this show, and she makes the show infinitely better. Anyone who's ever seen Anissa knows this very, very deep in their soul, that this person is incredibly talented and just can carry a show, and she does. I'm grateful to be here.

[4:02] Aneesa Folds: Oh my goodness. Well, for those who don't know, check back to episode 113, and I got into the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. You went on an MRI machine. You had your brain scanned while you were improvising. It's incredible. Go back, listen to that episode. And then, Anissa, when I say you were the breaky-outiest, starry-est of FLS, I first saw Freestyle Love Supreme on Broadway with you as part of the cast, and literally was going home for weeks saying, this one woman in this show blew me away with everything that popped out of her mouth. You've got to go see the show. You've got to go see the show. And I didn't realize that it was a rotating cast, so some of my friends I sent probably didn't see you. So, sorry if you're listening.

[4:46] Alan Seales: So, I know, Anthony, you founded FLS Academy, which, Anissa, you were part of the academy, which was the feeder for so many other things. So, how did that lead you into Co-Founders working together? Because, Anthony, you're an exec producer on this.

[5:04] Aneesa Folds: Yeah, we've been a part of it for how many years, Anthony? Like, a while.

[5:08] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah, I've been working on this show, creative producing, and producing it for eight years.

[5:12] Aneesa Folds: Eight years. Well, I guess that's pretty standard for a Broadway show these days.

[5:16] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah, it's a labor of love and a long journey. It's really awesome, because I came on two years ago, I think, in the first workshop and was introduced to Asada, and Anthony was just like, we have this project, I've been working on it for a long time, and I think you'd be great for it. And as soon as I was connected with the writers, I was like, oh, this is really special. And to get to be a part of the process and the journey, just from those two years, to see how much it's grown, and how much it is continuing to grow, and how much of a love letter it is to the Bay, and just learning so much and really being able to immerse myself in the culture and the music. It's been really fun.

[5:57] Alan Seales: Was it interesting in a positive way, or interesting in a negative way, to focus on something for eight years, to try to do the same thing for eight years?

[6:09] Aneesa Folds: Yeah.

[6:09] Anthony Veneziale: Instead of improvising every night.

[6:11] Aneesa Folds: Oh, gosh. Oh, yeah. Like, the difference, right, between a fully improvised show and a show that is written. You know, when I was in the early, early days...

[6:21] Anthony Veneziale: Thanks for phrasing my question a lot better than I asked it, by the way.

[6:24] Aneesa Folds: Stop it.

[6:24] Anthony Veneziale: I got your back. I got your back.

[6:27] Aneesa Folds: Oh, I've got yours. I will lift you up, not that you'd fall. I would say that it really reminds me a lot of when I was working on In the Heights. So, very early days of In the Heights, I was sort of one of the first, let's call it, helpful producer-like type of people during the experimental version of it, before the commercial rights ever got sold to Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, and Jill Furman. And that really is about finding the right team. And that can take a long time, right? So, the part of musical theater that is the hardest, or I think the one that's the most obfuscated, is this concept of how do you possibly have all of those skill sets, right? Think about Lynn, and then think about Alex Lacamoire, and Bill Sherman, and Tommy Kail, and Chiara Hudes.

They all came together to form something bigger than themselves individually. And that's not something that's hard. There's a lot of science involved in getting the right people. And you find them. It takes time. It doesn't just happen right away. So, that's a big part of this process, too, is finding the right collaborators to push the form and each other towards a perfect union of what this possible show can be. And I love it. I love that part of musicals. It's very, very time consuming.

[7:47] Aneesa Folds: Is there like elephants moving bookshelves behind you somewhere?

[7:51] Anthony Veneziale: I love elephants. We've been, my house is under construction. We found out that we had no foundation in the back of our house, and we're in San Francisco. So, we had to re-pour like six meters on both sides of the back of our house. Anyway, I will not bore you with all of the wonderful minutiae of construction that's happening in the house.

[8:13] Alan Seales: That's a solid metaphor for life. If you don't have a good foundation, you got to re-pour six meters on both sides and then bring Anissa in.

[8:23] Anthony Veneziale: Exactly.

[8:25] Alan Seales: So, Anissa comes in two years ago. Why was two years ago the right time to bring her in? What did she add to this?

[8:35] Anthony Veneziale: Oh, my gosh. Okay. So, we knew at some point that it would go from just being sort of like a Silicon Valley satire, which is how it kind of started. And it started from these incredible startup entrepreneurs who would get together and do freestyle sessions. So, I think that's how I kind of got dragged into it. Bo Lewis, who helped to start a company with his incredible partner and wife, Debbie, they created something called GoldieBlox. For those of you who are fans or might know about it, it's an incredible company that brings STEM toys to girls because there aren't many science and or math-based games slash toys that were inclusive of young girls. They were still the pink aisle, right, at most giant stores and toy stores.

[9:20] Aneesa Folds: Right.

[9:20] Anthony Veneziale: And they were very much about how a girl is supposed to appear. So, Bo helped with Debbie to launch that company and during it, you know, like any startup, you go through trials and tribulations. And as a man in this world, we have very few places to talk about those vulnerabilities and coming up short. But in these freestyle sessions, he got a really good chance to find out what his voice was around musicality and hip-hop. And then he took all of those lessons to create this first version of the show, which was called Zip Sloth very early on. It was about an app delivery service, expedited sloth delivery to your house. So, it was a send-up, right? And at some point, we found a way to collaborate with Adisha Adesela, who is an incredible vocalist and theater and performer and vocalist in the Bay Area and Oakland.

And she and her pedigree and Bo, it was like that moment, right, when you feel like, oh, right, the chemistry is starting to come together, mad science, yay. And they started pushing each other and then Ryan and Nicole got involved and it turned into be a show about a young black woman in Oakland who hacks her way into an accelerator program. For those of you listening who don't know what an accelerator program are, it's basically big giant companies trying to make new versions of smaller companies that can become million, billion-dollar companies. You're trying to create unicorns for, you know, lack of a better term. And we knew that that was, we had the perfect human being to be that young coder from Oakland, and it was Anissa.

[10:58] Aneesa Folds: I mean, Anissa's won all the coding awards. Top coder.

[11:03] Aneesa Folds: I love math.

[11:06] Aneesa Folds: I love math, full stop. I did a lot of research to understand what the heck I'm talking about, because she says so much jargon and gibberish to me, and all of these tech words, and I'm rapping at lightning speed, just all of these tech words. At first, I was just like, I don't know. But my sister came to see the show, and she's like, you're like one of the doctors on Grey's Anatomy. Because I'm like, oh, my God, I would never want to be one of those actors. You just have this constant science, and math, and medical terms that you're just saying. It doesn't land, but it does help to know what you're talking about. I'm learning a lot.

[11:48] Anthony Veneziale: Well, and Alan, if I may just very quickly, too, what Anissa went through with Freestyle Supreme, and then, like you're saying, being the breakout-iest of stars, that's an enormous amount of pressure for a young woman, or any human being. But for this particular person, Anissa, who did not see herself in musical theater reflected in any way. And I've heard her tell that story a few times in Freestyle Supreme, so forgive me for using stories that I've heard from Anissa to help craft this story. But ultimately, that pressure of like, you're the next big thing, that's what this person's going through inside of this show. And that, to me, was more of the universal truth of why Anissa was the perfect person. Not that we need a scalpel incision under the cupula for a 3.5 millimeter surgery, right? Like, it didn't have to be gobbledygook. It had to do with that human emotion that is deeply inside that I think really Anissa was exactly facing in her life as well.

[12:49] Alan Seales: Did you bring that? I mean, did you feel that? Actually, when you were in the FLS world, and it was on Broadway, and everyone I know was talking about you, Anissa, legitimately, like, did you feel a lot of that? Or did you just not find out about it until after it was all done? And you're like, whoa, I just survived.

[13:06] Aneesa Folds: I don't know. I think it's so hard to feel anything when you're in a show that requires you to be so present. I think that the biggest lesson

[13:17] Aneesa Folds: Thank you, a lot. And I've learned from Freestyle Love Supreme is that, you know, no matter what you're going through, no matter what's happening, when you get on that stage, you're so in the moment. And it really taught me to be the most present. And I think that it really was, as someone who went to school for theatre and studied it and like did all this stuff, I don't know that anything really clicked until I started doing that show because it taught me so much about myself. It taught me so much about how to show up on stage, how to work with other people, how to listen in ways that I didn't know, like I just didn't have access to before. And like, from there, I think that's what I've really started to build.

And yeah, I mean, I knew it was a big deal. But I don't know, it takes me a while to process things. So I do believe it is what you said. I think it was after the fact, like even the New York Times article that I did a profile, they did a profile on me. And I spent a lot of time in that interview just being like, I don't know, this is crazy, right? Like, you're sitting, you're sitting across from me, we're in a diner, you're from the New York Times. And the whole article is just being, it's like, Anissa Folds, can't believe she's here. Now, you know, me and my, as I've grown and I'm wiser, I'm like, no, you are supposed to be here. And it's like, that is, again, the plot for Asada. It's like, am I supposed to be here?

Wait, I am supposed to be here. I deserve a seat at the table. I need to invite other people to the table. Let's change what tech looks like. Let's diversify it and change how we approach it in these communities and in these places and in these spaces. And I think that it's such a testament to what's happening in real time, in real life, what's going on with AI, what's going on in the Bay Area and who is allowed and who is invited. And why shouldn't it be everyone? Why shouldn't it be the community? And then it's also about the theater and how the access to arts is different from New York than it is in San Francisco. And working with these writers, it's been so amazing to me how they really ride for the community.

They are such ride or dies for this community. There's so many artists that I've been introduced to that are here in the Bay right now that are not getting the same attention, not getting the same platform and the way that they have, you know, done their community outreach and they're out the garages and bringing those people into the spaces and being like, yeah, this show is happening. But here are these other people that let's highlight these artists and these artists. I just think it's so special. And yeah, my heart is in it because of the people that are putting their hearts and their souls into it.

[16:04] Alan Seales: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break.

[16:09] Alan Seales: Welcome back to the episode. Since I interviewed the two of you, I've interviewed so many other people who have passed through the halls of Freestyle Love Supreme or FLS Academy, like Tommy Kail and JMI. And I haven't had the privilege of having Chris Jackson on the podcast yet, but I've met him in person and legitimately just like every single person. And I think I said this to you when we were on it. It's just like everybody is so damn nice to each other and actually supportive, not like I'm going to be nice because I need something from you. But legitimately, you all care about each other. And to put that into a room, a creative space to do to make a safe space to feel. And it matters. Not always like that.

That is not always like that. And as I'm learning and coming up and speaking with different younger artists and, you know, giving back, it's not always like that. So when you have it, you hold on to it and you take that into every space you go into. Super important.

[17:11] Alan Seales: Yeah. Are you leading, Anthony, like as one of the lead producers on this executive producers, are you trying to talk to the other people who may not have the direct FLS overlap or the direct improv skills to make sure that they kind of follow this mindset?

[17:27] Anthony Veneziale: Well, and that's a good question. I mean, you know, I think I know the creators and I've been a part of their journey for a while, and it's very much baked into that DNA. And I think, you know, the hope is that, you know, I can't be as quite hands on with the cast. That's just not my job. But Jamil, the director, goes, I think, even beyond maybe like what, you know, some humble concepts and core values that we have. I mean, being in that room with Jamil and the way he very carefully brings that cast together, gets people's full buy in. There's a lot of circle work, right, where everybody's in a circle and everyone's occupying the same space. No one is a bigger deal than anyone else in that room.

And that's like another super important part of like these core values. So, yeah, I mean, you do your best to try to identify that and then continue to put those people together. But Anissa is actually probably a better person to ask that question. Anissa, what do you think, you know, like the cast, like, how's that going?

[18:26] Aneesa Folds: I agree with what you said. I think Jamil is such a great, wonderful leader. And, you know, this show has so many moving pieces to make a show. There's so much happening, especially when you add the layers of tech and just all of the incredible, you know, work that the crew is doing. It's a lot. There's a lot going on. And you have to be someone who's jumping double dutch while also, I mean, Jamil is also the artistic director of a whole other theater. And, you know, it's crazy to watch how he works because he's so calm. And, you know, everyone just kind of comes into him and you trust him. And yeah, I think that they really put together a team of humans that are kind and good and talented. And everyone is super respectful.

And we're all in it together. You know, we're in preview. So things happen. You know, this is the part where we're doing the show, but we're still learning. We're figuring it out. We're making changes. And sometimes things can go wrong. And we had a note session the other day. We were talking about, you know, there were some issues that happened and I just raised my hand. I was like, I just want to say I would not want to be on stage with any other company right now. Just what was happening in the moment. I felt so supported by everyone on every single team, everyone that was around me. And it made me feel like, okay, let's do it. Let's keep going. And, you know, to the audience, it was a great show to us. We know we know what went wrong, but we couldn't have done it without the support of each other. And I think that the team that we have is really special.

[20:04] Alan Seales: Do you still secretly ache for those moments when you can make up a line?

[20:10] Aneesa Folds: And he's like, I want it to go wrong so I can just cover for it. Listen, I love I think all shows should be improvised.

[20:17] Anthony Veneziale: So.

[20:21] Aneesa Folds: Well, it's crazy to go from doing Freestyle Love Supreme to like go back to doing a script. It is different. It's two different parts of your brain.

[20:32] Anthony Veneziale: Like scientifically, I mean, Anthony's nodding his head on mute very, very politely. I mean, he's proven it. This is different parts of your brain that get activated when you're singing, speaking and improvising. Right.

[20:44] Aneesa Folds: Yeah. And the goal, I still think, for acting is to try to find the version of your flow state. Right? Like so like the best for me, any time I see a show and I'm like, oh, it feels effortless. Right. There's something about it that feels as though it's the first time, as we all know. So the illusion the first time and getting to a place in your brain that feels like I'm not muscling that there's no effort being put in here. It's just at my at the ready.

[21:14] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah, Alan, I will say this show like Anissa's being, you know, the cast, the way that they're able to incorporate all of the many different components of the show. It's a bit mind boggling. So let me just quickly walk through like here's some of the tech layered into the show.

[21:34] Alan Seales: This was my next question.

[21:35] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah. Thank you. Perfect. So we have an A.I. character who appears in many places on the stage. So we've got scrims happening with projectors. Sure. That happens in theater. Cool. But what doesn't typically happen in theater is you don't have cameras backstage on the actor who is then being in real time conveyed in those different spots on the scrims. We have an unreal, the unreal engine is what it's called, which is a gaming engine.

[22:03] Alan Seales: It's set up for unreal.

[22:05] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah. Twenty years ago, I used it in college.

[22:08] Alan Seales: Exactly. So and it's only longer than that. I'm older than 20. Okay, stop it.

[22:11] Anthony Veneziale: Stop it. Sixteen years ago, it has only gotten better and better since it originally came out. But, you know, imagine any first person shooter type game. It has assets that live inside of an environment. Right. And so I'm in this environment now. Think of the Mandalorian or, you know, anything Jon Favreau has done in the last 15 years. He's like, let's just go to this giant. It's called a volume, these giant screens that surround us.

[22:30] Alan Seales: And I built it out. It's all rendered. We can be anywhere in the galaxy, right? We can like be on Tatooine and that visual image can be around you.

[22:45] Anthony Veneziale: So the unreal engine inside of the show has Oakland and the Bay Area and San Francisco mapped inside of it. And it can allow our characters to be dropped almost anywhere inside of those assets.

[22:57] Alan Seales: My God, that's incredible.

[22:58] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah. So you're basically offstage doing motion capture.

[23:03] Alan Seales: Correct. Projecting.

[23:04] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah, you're doing mocap offstage, projecting it on stage in with real time, ultra high def graphics. Because Unreal has changed how mocap's done.

[23:14] Alan Seales: Yes. Rendering it in real time.

[23:16] Anthony Veneziale: Oh, my God. Yes.

[23:17] Alan Seales: So the characters. I wish I lived in San Francisco.

[23:19] Anthony Veneziale: I know. You got to.

[23:20] Alan Seales: All right. We'll share something with you soon.

[23:23] Anthony Veneziale: It's we're starting. We're still honing all that kind of stuff. And then you've got video calls that are happening in real time as well. Like, you know, there's people backstage who are having these moments because phone stuff is always just falling so flat, you know, and like that joke.

[23:38] Alan Seales: Right. Romeo and Juliet on phones.

[23:39] Anthony Veneziale: It's like one text and everything is fine.

[23:43] Alan Seales: Right. So texts pop up.

[23:45] Anthony Veneziale: Trains go across the stage in the foreground and in the background. You know, there's a lot of visual interaction stuff here for the audience to grasp onto that doesn't feel like any traditional theater I've ever been a part of.

[23:57] Alan Seales: Wow. Is it true motion capture backstage?

[24:00] Anthony Veneziale: So like literally doesn't matter what the where the camera's pointed. You can't see behind it. It's literally rendering the background behind it in real time based on what the computer says.

[24:10] Alan Seales: Yeah, that's the best. So literally you could just walk around in an untreated space. You don't need a perfect pretty background at all.

[24:17] Anthony Veneziale: It's just like we know where your reference points are. Somebody's wearing a suit with some balls on it. It's a male suit, obviously.

[24:22] Alan Seales: Yeah. And well, the great news is it's not even you don't even need to have the suit anymore.

[24:28] Anthony Veneziale: It's literally it's yeah, because the body stuff is controlled by literally a video game controller. So the actor is backstage.

[24:39] Alan Seales: It's just his face on a camera phone.

[24:41] Anthony Veneziale: That's got and the algorithms are so good that it knows exactly the folds of your face and what are being altered. And it maps the face onto it while he controls the video game controller for the body.

[24:54] Alan Seales: That's some James Cameron avatar tech right there.

[24:57] Anthony Veneziale: Exactly. So imagine creating a fluid motion capture movie with a new musical being staged. And that's what we're doing for our show, which meant tech less than 10 times longer than any tech I've ever been a part of.

[25:12] Alan Seales: How do you rehearse that?

[25:14] Anthony Veneziale: Exactly.

[25:17] Aneesa Folds: You rehearse it and you reverse it and they call hold and you stand on stage for an hour.

[25:26] Anthony Veneziale: Just they're just standing there.

[25:28] Aneesa Folds: I'll figure it out. The team is working.

[25:30] Anthony Veneziale: But I mean, as we said, there's so many moving parts. There's I mean, there's got to be plans.

[25:37] Alan Seales: There's got to be plans to bring this to New York, hopefully.

[25:40] Anthony Veneziale: Fingers crossed. Yes.

[25:41] Aneesa Folds: Yeah.

[25:42] Anthony Veneziale: So we were inviting, you know, good people to come see it and doing our best to send the materials out. Because as you said, it's right around Tony time. I don't know when this is going to air. But yeah, the hope is that we get a commercial production after this one in some way, shape or form. And it looks very possible. So we'll see.

[26:01] Alan Seales: It's phenomenal. And what's the feedback been so far? You just opened previews as we're recording this. You're in previews, obviously, like the tech is heavy, so we don't know what's messing up. But like what's the audience feedback like? Because I always love the first week of previews because the audience is always the final character. So you've got to change things you didn't realize you had to change.

[26:19] Aneesa Folds: I love when the audience comes in because you're correct. They are the final character. You're finding out what are the beats, where are the things that work? What is in discovering new things with them? The feedback has been really awesome. People are really.

[27:05] Aneesa Folds: I love it. It's really cool. It's like, okay, the tech is really working and it speaks to different communities. And I love that because what we're trying to do is bring those communities together. And so it's really fascinating to see what we're discovering in real time. We always laugh about it backstage. Yeah, that's funny. Things that you didn't know, like you're saying things you didn't know you were saying, like the doctor on Grey's Anatomy, that all of a sudden you're getting a laugh. You're like, oh, I didn't realize that W, you get from my terminal to the U.R. Yeah, like all that stuff. Just like what? Yeah, totally. I will say the feedback also, Alan, it's just so encouraging because, you know, look, the Bay Area has been through a lot.

And the pandemic and whatever the right wing media has decided to label our country as dead, as a zombie apocalypse, as, you know, this is the epitome of what terrible governance looks like. You know, you name it, people have said it about San Francisco in the last four or five years. And that is an outward perception, right? And Oakland, in particular, has always been a phoenix that has risen from any ashes it's ever gone through. And not only that, but the forefront of activism. So to have this show use activism to address as well what is the elephant in the room here for all of us that are dealing with the Dogecuts and the Elon Musks becoming the villains of the world, tech has unwieldedly put wealth again into the 0.001% hands.

And that cannot be the way that humanity gets forward. It just can't. We can't have 99.99999% of the population only have less than 1% of the wealth. There's got to be another way. And San Francisco, a lot of this tech started to do that, right? They were trying to take down Wall Street because it was so Brahmin and, you know, dynastic wealth, and it was trying to spread the wealth. Cool. New technology helped to at least start that, but then it got absolutely abused in capitalistic endeavors again. Let's get that message out in the world that says, hey, there are other alternatives to late-stage capitalism. There's a way to actually have people experience wealth in communities when something comes from that community, not just an individual out of that community. And people are really responding to that.

[29:03] Alan Seales: That's really well put. And to see this on stage with people who may not look like them succeeding in a way that they're not used to seeing, yeah, it's got to mean so much to people, especially on the West Coast, where I don't think, I'm in the Bay Area, not a lot of theater originates there. Not a lot of big musical theater. So you're bringing a new message in a style that you don't see. You're combining so many different things that you don't see to put together this perfect package.

[29:20] Aneesa Folds: Yeah. Knock on wood, that's the hope, yeah.

[29:21] Alan Seales: Yeah. Well, Anthony, how do you balance still being entertaining with this message of activism? Because usually they don't go hand in hand.

[29:32] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah. I mean, music will and always be the spear, the tip of the spear for social change. And hip hop is music of the disenfranchised, right? It is a black and brown art form that started in the Bronx in the 70s, hey, 50 years going strong of hip hop. And Bay Area hip hop is absolutely activism. It is the, you will see me, I will be seen and be heard. I will occupy space and I deserve wealth, right? Like hip hop is an incredible tool and way to sort of convey that message. And so we did the most obvious thing, which is to use the language of hip hop and Bay Area hip hop too, right? Like it's not just any hip hop, like Bay Area is such a wealth and beautiful community around hip hop that has made it so unique.

And also has contributed to so much of our hip hop culture as well. And I don't think that we recognize that enough. And so I think that that is really awesome too, just how much it is featured and how it is so rooted in the town and what that music sounds like.

[31:44] Aneesa Folds: Well, I've been East Coast my entire life and not typically, I only listen to hip hop that makes it into an, I mean, I don't know any other way to say this, but into white culture, right? Like that kind of breaks through into what you call what's controlling the media, which is normally old white men, right? So what's the difference? Explain it to me. Like, what's the difference in Bay Area hip hop versus the hip hop that I may know about? I mean, like I just got turned on to a tribe called Quest recently. I can't stop listening to that. Right. And I'm just like, I'm like, this has been around for years. Why has no one ever played it for me?

[32:27] Anthony Veneziale: You gotta just start listening to stuff on your own. That's what it is.

[32:31] Aneesa Folds: That's what it is. Yeah.

[32:32] Anthony Veneziale: Well, how do I say it? I don't know. I think that there's a, it's a sound. I don't know that I could explain it to you. I think it's like when you hear a certain style of like Spanish music, Hispanic music, it's a, there's the bachata versus the reggaeton. It's like the, it's like the boom bat, the boom bat versus the, just the, the way that the drum sound, it's the way that you might hear Jersey club versus Baltimore club. Like it's a very unique sound that is authentic to the Bay Area. And if you hear it and you know what it is, you know what it is. If you know, you know.

[33:11] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah. And Alan, I'll try to do my 25 cent version of it all. Right. Which is yes, East Coast, the Bronx, Boogie Down, and then even Brooklyn and that battle started. Right. And it was like East Coast, New York, this is where hip hop is born. This can only be where hip hop is from. And then you slowly start to get other sounds popping up as well. Right. Now we're starting to talk about West Coast sounds. You're talking about, sure, Death Row, but even before that, I mean, like we name check some of these people inside of the show. Right. And he's like, Chuck G, like Too Short. You've got a whole movement out here of people whose sound is affected by the region. Right. Digital underground, Tupac, like, so regionalism starts to become a pretty big thing inside of hip hop.

Then thereafter, talking late 70s, early 80s, those regionalisms start to affect the sound. Right. So Parliament P-Funk, that sound is what informs West Coast rap a bit more, especially out of L.A. Out of the Bay, you've got a little bit more like soul funk and like, just the Bay has a lot of jazz history, too. So you start getting off like it's not like what Anissa is saying there, like the way the rap lands, it's a scam.

[34:26] Aneesa Folds: Yeah, it's not straight. Right. It's not East Coast. I'm setting up a bar and ends at the two and now I'm delivering on the four. Right. Like that's very East Coast traditional. This like slant rhymes really, I think, huge in the Bay Area. Also, like just there's this whole hyphy culture that then starts as well in the 90s and like it and turfing then starts to which is we're still here. We still matter. This is our turf. This is our area. Like you need to respect that. And then Atlanta becomes like a pretty big sound and the Dungeon Family and you got, you know, Outkast and you got CeeLo and you've got Goody Mob like that whole sound becomes a bit more like gospel and Bible type almost inspired hip hop.

Same with Houston now. It's kind of slightly different like baptism version of it. And like it's fascinating all these small differences and nuances that add to where did that sound come from and why did it then become musicalized? And our show tries to pay honor to that journey throughout the two acts as well. And it's not just, you know, hip hop. It's it is very hip hop leaning forward. But there's all these different styles. There's your gospel there. It does take you back to like your old school West Coast hip hop. And then it gets into your new school West Coast hip hop. And then there's like a little bit of pop. There's a little bit of, you know, it's something for everybody. So I think that everyone that comes can take something. Everybody's gonna take something from it.

[35:58] Aneesa Folds: Everyone's gonna. Yeah, everyone's gonna take something away from it. So Alan, for example, the name Wozniak, right, like pretty well known in the tech world. And the name Wozniak, gosh, that's a mouthful, pretty straightforward. On the East Coast, you would probably wrap it like Wozniak, right? It would be what it is on the West Coast. It's it's 76 Wozniak and Jobs. There's a way to elongate, stretch out on, you know, get it off of your typical, typical sort of straight cadence. And that's the kind of stuff that's just like, oh, that's so unique. And so Bay Area unique. And that's the thing that we're really exploring, which is why did technology develop the way it did and why did music develop the way it did? And how do they maybe push each other?

[36:48] Anthony Veneziale: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break.

[36:53] Alan Seales: Welcome back to the episode. This is just like a whole path, a whole genre that I've never been exposed to before. Like, did you did you figure this out? Did you look for it and educate yourself? Or did you take classes on this? Like, when you're literally looking, like even even for the music that I listen to every day, I couldn't tell you the difference between the East Coast alternative and West Coast pop and Michigan doo-wop. I don't know, like all this stuff doesn't have eyes for tech and math and whatever else you're into.

[37:19] Aneesa Folds: And we have eyes for music. And it just it just is something that is, I think, is ingrained for you ingrained in you. And I think Anthony's doing a good job at explaining it and dissecting it in a way that makes sense to to someone like yourself who might want a deeper understanding of what that is. But yeah, I think it's just a feeling. It's like, yeah, I don't know. For me, I just I just feel it. I can hear the differences. I can feel it with the with the rhythms and how the music moves. So it just it just makes sense as is. But yeah, I think once you listen to it and and start to compare, you can hear the influences of each from each other, which is what it is, right? It's the people want to do the East Coast, West Coast, whatever. It really was just people influencing each other across the way. Like, no, there's one doesn't exist without the other. And that really is what it comes down to.

[38:15] Anthony Veneziale: Actually, I watch a lot of home improvement shows and I can see depending on where they're filming, it's like, oh, here's your West Coast shiplap or where we're at. And Anthony Anthony's gone. We bored him too much. No, I totally get that because like with construction, the designs are influenced locally with food, with food.

[38:41] Aneesa Folds: Oh, he's back. No, I mean, there's so many great books, right, to kind of dig into some of these things, right?

[38:46] Anthony Veneziale: Oh, to hip hop, 50 albums to find 50 years of trailblazing music is a Bible for me. I love love that particular book. If you're just getting the tribe called Quest, you are in luck. Hanif Abdu-Rakib, maybe one of the best authors in that's right now, wrote a book called Carry On in the Rain, Letters to a Tribe Called Quest. And Hanif writes about music in a way I've never ever seen anybody or read anybody else that that writes about music this way. It unlocks an entire cultural experience for him every time he listens to a song and he puts it into words in poetry. So please do yourself a favor, read Carry On in the Rain, Letters to a Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdu-Rakib because A, it will move you to tears and B, it will also just give you a glimpse into the Black art form of hip hop and how it sort of transcends and transmutes what the experience is to be a Black person in America. Because that, like, and I'm not trying to put so much on this art form, which is hip hop, it's supposed to be all these different things. And most importantly,

[39:53] Aneesa Folds: I don't know why that's making me cry. Excuse me what it is. And imagine if our administration was run by FLS Academy members. The amount of good we could do, the amount of help, the amount of growth. Oh my god. Yeah, I love it. And I'm in my head so much. And this is why, I remember Anthony, our interview still stands out to me. I still quote it to people. And the do a lot of old prefrontal cortex and all the moving inhibitions. But the way that FLS does, it seems hard, hardcore. It seems rough. It seems like, I don't know what I'm trying to say. But on the inside, on the outside, it's very well put together. It's rough, it's hard. And on the inside, it is so soft and sensitive and accepting and loving.

But watching the two of you, any of you that are in this world, talk about what you love. You're talking about your love for hip hop. I'm literally tearing up because you just freaking love the message it brings to everybody so much. And I love watching somebody who's passionate about anything. That just makes, it hits me in my, in all my feels. But I'm so in my head most of the time. That's why I love improvising. Because like Anissa, you said, you got to be present. You got to forget everything, leave it all at the door. And trust people, trust friends in a way that sometimes you can't have the courage to do in any other setting. Makes you better, makes them better. And because I'm in my head so much, sometimes Tribe Called Quest, what really got me into loving them is that I will take an edible, I'll take 10 milligram edible, and I will let it kick in and turn the lights down about halfway and just lay on my couch. And just, I feel it. I feel the lyrics, if that makes sense.

[42:31] Anthony Veneziale: 100%. And I don't know if that's me in my mid-40s now, I'm 44 now, I wasn't before. But I feel this music in a way that I never used to allow myself to anymore. Before, not anymore, before. Yeah. And Q-Tip and Fife Tog and Ali Shaheed Mohammed, the way that they combined to create, I think, a pretty incredible expression of hip-hop as well. A lot of people will label it and call it conscientious hip-hop or all these other kinds of things. But really, Alan, what it's doing is it's centralizing Afro. It's Afro-centristic. It's coming from a Black experience, first and foremost. And it's not letting the European theory or theology around what racism and race is supposed to be. And it's embracing, in some ways, this concept that they pushed early on, the Zulu nation of it all, which is like, how do we say that we are perfect as we are, as a race here in this country?

And is race even a thing? It's something that's been totally invented. Why was it invented? It's a construct. It was a construct so that Belgian people who were colonizing could literally not feel bad about enslaving others. That is the only reason why race exists. So the music that you're listening to is a world in which we, I think me, I want to exist in, which is it's not one divided by race. It's one that says we all succeed when we just see each other's humanity. And this is why the interviews with the two of you and others from FLS still stick out, because we dive into the stuff that is so different and special. You two are great people. Your peers are great people.

[44:28] Alan Seales: All right. So everyone go see Co-Founders at the ACT in San Francisco. It's a limited run, so go get it. If you're a producer listening to this, reach out. Let's get a commercial production going in New York, because bring it here, folks. All right. So normally I end with a typical plot in 60 seconds now, where you give me a number that corresponds to a show. You give me the plot to that musical in 60 seconds. But I figured with the two of you, we can make up the whole musical, and then you give me the plot.

[45:00] Anthony Veneziale: Oh, my God.

[45:01] Alan Seales: All right. So title creation. Let's make up a brand new musical together. First, give me a random word that sounds like it could be in a Broadway show title.

[45:11] Aneesa Folds: Zebra.

[45:13] Alan Seales: Zebra. All right. Anthony, give me an unrelated word or phrase.

[45:18] Anthony Veneziale: Desperate.

[45:20] Alan Seales: Desperate. And then... Okay. So give me an adjective.

[45:29] Aneesa Folds: Mystical. Magical.

[45:31] Alan Seales: Okay. We're going mystical. Okay. So the title of our musical is Mystical Desperate Zebras.

[45:37] Anthony Veneziale: Wow.

[45:39] Alan Seales: So setting the scene. So where is this musical set? This can be real or fiction, past or future. So choose a setting. Give me a location.

[45:45] Aneesa Folds: Missouri.

[45:46] Alan Seales: Where?

[45:46] Aneesa Folds: Missouri.

[45:47] Alan Seales: Missouri, what year?

[45:50] Aneesa Folds: 2027.

[45:55] Alan Seales: Okay. We got two main characters, one who drives the action and one who definitely doesn't want to be involved, but somehow gets pulled in. What are their names? Any random names?

[46:08] Aneesa Folds: Jodi.

[46:10] Alan Seales: Jodi. All right. J-O-D-I. I like that.

[46:13] Aneesa Folds: Felix.

[46:14] Alan Seales: And Felix.

[46:15] Aneesa Folds: Felix. All right. Jodi and Felix. Now I'm putting 60 seconds up on the screen. And so you are going to have 60 seconds to give me the plot to Mystical Desperate Zebras, set in Missouri, 2027, following the characters Jodi and Felix. Ready to go?

[46:35] Anthony Veneziale: All right. Kick us off here. Ready to go.

[46:37] Alan Seales: 60 seconds remaining.

[46:38] Anthony Veneziale: We open on a beautiful, wide, dusty street in Missouri. There's a young woman named Jodi walking down the street with a zebra tied behind her.

[46:48] Aneesa Folds: Edisa.

[46:50] Anthony Veneziale: They are in Missouri and she is going to head to a place where there are a bunch of horses. When she walks in, everyone stops and goes, what's that?

[47:01] Aneesa Folds: Anthony.

[47:04] Anthony Veneziale: It turns out that all zebras have been eradicated from the earth in 2026 due to an environmental catastrophe caused by the administration. And this is the only zebra left on the whole planet.

[47:17] Aneesa Folds: They say, where did you find that thing? Where did you get it? And she looks them in the eyes and the first musical number starts. And she sings a beautiful ballad about how she met Felix.

[47:31] Anthony Veneziale: And that ballad starts with...

[47:34] Aneesa Folds: These eyes have seen me in a basement.

[47:36] Alan Seales: Three, two, one.

[47:42] Anthony Veneziale: All right. Got it under the wire.

[47:44] Alan Seales: That's it. That's it. These mystical, desperate zebras with the hit song.

[47:49] Anthony Veneziale: These eyes have seen me in a basement.

[47:52] Alan Seales: I like it. All right. So now we'll just go back to our random standard closing questions that you both answered so many years ago, but now we'll ask it again because times, they are a changing. Edisa, for you simply, what motivates you?

[48:05] Aneesa Folds: What motivates me? Little me. She didn't know what the, I don't know, she would believe that this is happening right now. So I'm just carrying on for her. There's a lot going on in the world and I'm really trying to stay optimistic. And I do believe that the arts will save us. And when things are going wrong, we just got to keep making art and keep sharing in community and gathering people. And I really do owe all of my growth and my centeredness. The centeredness that I'm finding right now doing the show to her.

[48:45] Alan Seales: Anthony, what about you?

[48:46] Anthony Veneziale: What motivates you? What motivates me is...

[48:48] Aneesa Folds: Besides that foundation work.

[48:54] Anthony Veneziale: Yeah, finishing. Finishing the band over motivates me. No, in all seriousness, what motivates me is the concept of using improvisation. This is not an usable sound at all. I think they're going to be done in like 10 seconds. I'm so sorry. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

[49:16] Alan Seales: Okay, bringing improv to as many people as possible on this planet, because I do believe that humans need each other and they need to connect through play.

[49:29] Aneesa Folds: Timing.

[49:30] Alan Seales: All right. So since we've got Bansaw over there with Anthony again. Anissa, back to you. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[49:41] Aneesa Folds: Oh, look at that. What's for you is for you is for you. Try not to get caught up in the plans that you make for yourself. Life happens. Things happen. Try to go with the flow. Anxiety is the fear of the unknown. Life is unknown. We will be anxious all the time. I am. But that's okay. You're going to figure it out because life is going to happen whether you plan for it or not. So just try to let go and go along for the ride. The best days of your lives are coming. And thank God you're here to see what happens next.

[50:18] Alan Seales: Yeah, so genuine. All right, Anthony, do we dare take you off mute again?

[50:23] Anthony Veneziale: No, we're good.

[50:24] Alan Seales: We're good. Advice to others starting out.

[50:29] Anthony Veneziale: To your younger self.

[50:30] Alan Seales: To my younger self. Oh, my gosh. The advice to my younger self is the mistakes are probably the most perfect moments in your life. Find the people that understand your imaginative play space and continue to make things with them for the rest of your life.

[50:50] Alan Seales: Well, I love that. All right. So, Anthony, we'll start with you for this final one. If you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[50:58] Anthony Veneziale: Full moon.

[51:00] Alan Seales: Bill Irwin's totally wordless improv show slash clown show with the Rayclad Ramblers playing songs as he and David Shriner do improv audience interjections that are clown scenes. It's the best thing I still haven't ever seen.

[51:18] Aneesa Folds: Yeah, F-O-O-L-M-O-O-N.

[51:21] Anthony Veneziale: Full moon. It's the reason why I do improv.

[51:24] Alan Seales: Wow. Anisa.

[51:26] Aneesa Folds: Yeah. Well, if we saw Supreme or...

[51:29] Anthony Veneziale: But I would have to do it.

[51:30] Aneesa Folds: Like, you can't do it.

[51:32] Anthony Veneziale: I'm gonna get on stage.

[51:33] Aneesa Folds: I'm going to Kanye West.

[51:35] Anthony Veneziale: You're telling the truth.

[51:38] Aneesa Folds: Which we can't even say his name anymore. So, beep that out. And I also do a show called Synth Probe sometimes where they kind of do what you did where they get a title of a new musical from the audience. Just whatever. And then you just do it. And that's pretty fun to watch because that's how it always works. And they have like a full keys players, guitar, woodwind section, and a drummer. And they improvise the whole thing.

[52:08] Alan Seales: Are you on the team with Josh Lamon?

[52:12] Aneesa Folds: Wow.

[52:12] Alan Seales: All in my life.

[52:13] Aneesa Folds: Oh, I love that man.

[52:15] Alan Seales: All right. Yeah. When you're back in New York, I'm going to come see you both. I gotta see that.

[52:20] Aneesa Folds: Oh, I love him.

[52:21] Alan Seales: Thank you both for doing this. Everybody, please check out Co-Founders in the Bay Area and hopefully here in New York one day soon. Fingers crossed. Where can we find you both on social media? Anthony?

[52:33] Anthony Veneziale: TwoTouch. FLS on the old Instagramables.

[52:38] Aneesa Folds: I'm Aneesa Fold. A-N-E-E-S-A-F-O-L-D-S. On the IGGS.

[52:43] Anthony Veneziale: I'm on IGGS, Threads, TikiTalks, and FachiBooks.

[52:49] Alan Seales: Leave a rating review wherever you're listening now. It helps the podcast grow. Thanks to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro, outro music. Aneesa and Anthony, oh my god. Thank you both so, so much again. Hopefully we'll do like three, four, five episodes.

[53:04] Anthony Veneziale: You call us, Alan. We'll be there.