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[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome to The Theatre Podcast. Intimate personal conversations with theatre's biggest names and now part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Find out more at bpn.fm. This episode is with Krystina Alabado currently starring as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls on Broadway. And in this episode, we talked about her actually not finishing school. She went to Arizona State University for only a couple of months before she got the Spring Awakening tour and then decided to leave school and has not gone back. We got into that in this episode a little bit, talking about whether she would give advice for others to do this sort of thing or what is valuable for someone to go to school for performing and learning how to audition in the art of the business versus not.

Ironically, and we get into her bio a little bit obviously, but this is her first comedic role as Gretchen Wieners. And she's done some other things in American Psycho and American Idiot, but here as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls, she's actually playing a comedic role. But something that I really got into with her a lot in this episode was about her mental health, maintaining her mental health. And she actively practices meditation every day. And we got into a lot of why she feels that is important and other things along the lines of just maintaining your mind as much as, or probably more importantly than maintaining your body. So please enjoy this episode here with Krystina Alabado. But before we get into it, as always, visit me online at thetheaterpodcast.com. And there's a handy short link, ttp.fm, show your support to people who are at the $5 tier or higher, get advanced notice of the guests that I'm about to interview. So you get to submit your questions and that gets worked in. You can check out the Patreon tiers at ttp.fm slash Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. And now, everybody, please enjoy this episode.

[2:13] Alan Seales: My guest today made her Broadway debut in American Idiot in 2011 before originating the role of Vanden in American Psycho. Now starring as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls, Krystina Alabado, welcome to the theater podcast.

[2:23] Krystina Alabado: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[2:28] Alan Seales: What kind of name is Alabado?

[2:30] Krystina Alabado: Alabado is my father's name. My married name is Krystina Lenzi, actually, for all you theater nerds. I'm married to Robert Lenzi, actor, Miles Tuck from Tuck Everlasting, currently rehearsing for Tina Turner, the musical. First preview on Saturday. Shameless plug. Shameless plug for my hubby. But Alabado, my father is from Mexico and my mother's from Lebanon. So I'm Mexican-Lebanese, but I'm pretty sure the origins of Alabado are from the Philippines, though I have no association unless it was a long time ago to the Philippines.

[3:01] Alan Seales: Interesting. If anybody listening knows, email us. Feedback at thetheaterpodcast.com.

[3:07] Krystina Alabado: So obviously, no ties to the Philippines. So where did you grow up? What was your little kidness like?

[3:13] Krystina Alabado: Yeah, I grew up, born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Like I said, both my parents are immigrants. My mom came to this country when she was 30, so it was pretty late in her life. But my father was immigrated when he was pretty young, I think five or six. And so they met and created this awesome family that is me and my brother and sister in Phoenix. My dad is a musician there, and so that's kind of how I started singing. I would sing and sit in with his band and sing when I was like eight. That was like my first time performing. And yeah, born and raised there. When I was 18, I started going to school at Arizona State University, and I did six months, and then I got the Spring Awakening National Tour. So I left school and never looked back.

[4:00] Alan Seales: So you were 18 at that point or 19?

[4:03] Krystina Alabado: Yeah, I was 18.

[4:04] Alan Seales: Wow. Wow, yeah. There's a lot of people, very successful people that I've talked to that have never finished school. But I want to touch on that, I guess, for a second. School is very, very important. I guess, depending on where you go and the experiences you have in it, would you say that you need to go to school to learn specific type of audition techniques if you don't have a background of singing in a band since you were eight?

[4:17] Krystina Alabado: It's interesting. There's so many different thoughts to this. I mean, the biggest thing that I tell people is that I didn't just leave... I think that everyone's trajectory and plan before they do this is specific to each person. I think some people take a lot from college. I think some people take a lot from feet on the ground doing it, like I was doing. And some people just move here and take a chance. And I think there's a lot of different ways to do it. The one thing that I knew I needed was still training, and I wasn't afraid of that. So I feel like when people ask me where I went to college, I say I went to Spring Awakening school. I did the show for two years. I was a swing and a chair of rock.

So I had a lot of responsibility at that age. And when I got to the city, I gave myself a really specific timeline at 20. I was like, you have two years, Christina, to get another big job, not just a little job, like a good job in this industry or your ass is back in school.

[5:33] Krystina Alabado: Yes, you can say that.

[5:36] Alan Seales: So I hit the ground running. I got here and I did every class I could, every master class I could, and took lessons and stuff because I knew that I needed to still be competitive in my training as an actor. Though I will say, I think schools have gotten better than even when I went to school 11 years ago with audition technique and talking more about TV and film and the other avenues that happen with being a theater actor in New York. So I think there's a lot of ways to get well-rounded as far as learning.

[6:00] Alan Seales: Right. Were you going to school at Arizona State for theater?

[6:09] Krystina Alabado: I went for musical theater and I was really antsy. I think that's a good word. I was always antsy at that age. And I remember, not to throw anyone under the bus, but they wouldn't let me have credit for a regional show I was doing that was going to allow me to graduate a year early because I wanted to get here as fast as possible. I knew that ASU didn't have a showcase. I was like, I just want to get my degree, work on my voice, work on my acting and get my butt to New York. And so I decided, I was like, well, I'm not going to stay in the musical theater school. And I went and switched to the acting school. So I was studying very intensely acting and theater, but it can be difficult in programs that are so far away from New York and don't have teachers that are, or don't offer, again, it's so different.

I'm sure that ASU now has so many more resources. I actually know they do because they've reached out to me, but there are schools that don't have the resources. You really don't know what it's like to do this until you do it. And I don't think that, I think something I talk about a lot, and you've been here when I've talked about, is the mental game of all of this. And it's just something that you're not prepared for. And I've had a lot of friends come from Arizona from my school and leave so fast. And I wish in school it would be hammered into people more that it takes a lot. You have to come here and you have to stick it out. And that could mean 10 years of rejection until it hits. And I kind of wish that that was a little more talked about and the difficulties that that comes with versus acting.

A teacher, Bob Cracker, told me once in the class that I take here, he said, once you're here, everybody's good. So it's not about being better. It's about being you and being able to handle what all of this is because everyone around you is good and you're good. So it becomes about something else.

[8:03] Alan Seales: That actually hits home with me a lot. I personally kind of struggle with a constant need for approval. And I'm okay with rejection until I'm not. And I'm like, oh, God, everything I'm doing, is that okay? But is that okay? Is that okay?

[8:18] Krystina Alabado: Totally. And so you said you wish people talk about the mental game. So let's talk about the mental game. When did you realize that it was kind of different from the picture you see on TV or like, you're almost my age. So you grew up a lot with the internet. So you just look up YouTube and look up all these videos and you find these people doing these things. You're like, oh, I can do that. But people don't post videos of themselves doing horrible auditions or failing.

[8:50] Krystina Alabado: Totally. It's such a different thing. What's interesting, maybe you were ahead of the game than me. I didn't really do YouTube. I didn't look up people. I didn't have a lot of access to that. So I just remember as a young person, I was very focused on... I didn't have a great time in school. I got bullied and I didn't have a positive experience as a human person.

[9:14] Alan Seales: You mean in high school?

[9:15] Krystina Alabado: Yeah, in high school. But the one thing that stayed with me then that still stays with me now is just to be kind. And so I think I took that with me when I got here to be kind to myself, because it is really hard, even though I... Spring Awakening was my first audition for anything. And so I know how awesome it was to get that and for it to happen and then for me to come here with a big credit. And that was really helpful even at that age when I also didn't really know what I was doing. And I think that was part of what was great about Spring Awakening is the rawness of teenagers. We were all good, but it was a very specific thing. But I remember getting here from that show and everything changed because, again, I hadn't gone through the audition, auditioning and rejection, rejection.

And it's a big practice. I feel like I spent a year very down and depressed and so unhappy with how to find approval in a world where rejection is about 95% of anything. And still even me, and I'm not afraid to say I have had success. I have success. I'm having success. But last week I had four auditions. I didn't get any of them. And that's just how it always is. But I don't see it as much anymore about my worth. And I do think that took a little bit of seeing that I'm doing it. Like, yes, I'm doing it. That's the approval. But then a lot of it was just practicing loving myself. And I have always been a spiritual self-help person. So I know that it's easier for me to access. And when I sit down and read The Power of Now, it stays with me for the day and it stays with me for the month and I can apply it.

And so I always try to tell young people, it seems like it's not the thing that you want to do with your time. But I think loving yourself and taking the time will actually help in all of the other things we have to do, especially because we're all so busy. And Deepak said in a podcast interview with Oprah that I was listening to that the people...

[11:17] Alan Seales: Deepak Chopra?

[11:18] Krystina Alabado: Yeah. Sorry. He's my man. He said, and I keep saying this quote because it really stuck with me. He said, anyone that says they don't have time to meditate should meditate twice.

[11:30] Alan Seales: Then I'm going to go home and meditate four times.

[11:39] Krystina Alabado: Anyone who says they don't have time to meditate in the day should meditate twice a day.

[11:42] Alan Seales: Yeah. Oh, gosh. That is really good advice, actually, because I need to meditate. I don't. I just forget to. I don't say I don't have time. I just forget.

[11:50] Krystina Alabado: No, I know. We have to make the time to take care of ourselves.

[11:54] Alan Seales: When you said you were depressed, a lot of people use that metaphorically. Like, God, I was down the other day. I was so depressed. But was this real depression that you went through?

[12:02] Krystina Alabado: Yeah, of course. It's kind of a cycle because you get down. If you have clinical depression, then you can't get out and audition more to try to break the cycle. It's really complicated. I think there's so many different levels of anxiety, depression, and specific...

[14:47] Krystina Alabado: In this concrete jungle, as I say, as I look out the window. Because I went on vacation a couple weeks ago, and I was in the South Pacific, just far away from everything and forced to not have technology because the internet was so bad. And not having Instagram notifications just popping up all the damn time, I didn't realize how much I was distracted by that.

[15:14] Alan Seales: That you weren't?

[15:15] Krystina Alabado: I was.

[15:16] Alan Seales: That you were, yes.

[15:17] Krystina Alabado: That now, in my normal life, I get distracted by all the notifications. And chemically, there's all these psychotherapists and neurologists and everything talking about us. Chemically, we're falling in love with our cell phones because of the serotonin, the dopamine releases, and all these chemical things that happen to our brains when we get all these social media likes that are chemically identical to lying in bed with someone you love.

[15:40] Alan Seales: Right.

[15:42] Krystina Alabado: It's weird. It's like this weird new thing. It's not new, but it is new. Instagram and this new world that we live in, which we didn't live in 10 years ago even, it wasn't the same. So it is that finding a balance because I do, and I talk about this a lot too, I think that Instagram and social media, and it's an incredible platform for actors, for people creating businesses and trying to spread the word about themselves, but it's really hard to separate that. And again, it's just, it is a practice that I think everyone's trying to figure out how to balance it. I think I do better some days than I do others. And sometimes I can't believe I've been staring at my phone for five hours. And then some days I leave it at home and I'll go my entire day without it.

And it feels so good to do that. But I still think about the fact that I don't have my phone. What if somebody called me or what if I'm missing an audition? And then I'm like, you know what? It'll still be there when I get back to it. It's hard though. It's hard.

[16:44] Alan Seales: You said you always suffer from, I guess, suffer from. Let's change that phrasing. Suffer from is not the right way to put this, but experience anxiety. You've always experienced anxiety and whatnot. And I actually told the story a couple of times in this podcast, but Bill Hader, when I was talking with him, he has big anxiety and he would get stage fright like crazy before every single airing of SNL.

[17:09] Krystina Alabado: I didn't know that.

[17:12] Alan Seales: Yeah. And what he's had to learn to do in himself is not push it away, just acknowledge it. Say like, all right, anxiety, you're here. Now let me use this instead of getting frightened by it. I was actually listening to something the other day that was saying that a lot of insomnia is in part because you start getting anxiety about not being able to sleep, which then wakes your brain up and makes it worse about trying to get back to sleep. I'm not phrasing this correctly, but—

[17:40] Krystina Alabado: That's my experience 100% with my insomnia. So yes, I understand that completely. I'm sure listeners understand that. You work yourself into, I'm not going to sleep now. Uh-oh, four hours left, three hours left. Okay, two hours left. What's the point? One hour left. Come on, give me one hour. Oh God, half an hour. It's done.

[17:57] Alan Seales: Do you ever stay up all night?

[17:59] Krystina Alabado: I can get there, but most of the time I can talk myself into, but I usually, I've read a lot that you should get up and do something else. So I've been doing that, it actually helps me.

[18:12] Alan Seales: Yeah, there was a sleep expert that I heard on another podcast that was, it was like, if you're in bed awake for more than 15 minutes, get up, go read in a dim room until you start to feel tired again, and then go back to your bed because you're distracting yourself. You're not thinking about your anxiety, you're thinking about your problems. And if you turn on the lights fully, your brain's going to wake up, but you want to keep yourself in that dark state. So yeah, I've been doing that. So I'll wake it up and I'll do a little podcast work and I'll come back to bed or whatever the case is. And it feels a lot better because I'm not just laying in bed like—

[18:45] Krystina Alabado: I know, it's tough. But it's interesting you said that about Bill Hader, because I definitely, anxiety rears its head in many different ways in my life. And I have gotten so much better as I've gotten older, but I think I do tell young people and people that experience, I like that word better than suffer, because I don't feel like I suffer. I feel like I try to learn as much as I can from it, but that it is hard, hard work. It takes so much of my life and it's great that I found a partner. My husband's very interested in all this too, so we can do it together also. I read so many books, I listen to so many podcasts, I journal, I work very hard, almost as hard, actually not almost, as hard as I do in my acting work and in my voice lessons is how hard I work on my brain.

And it is brain training and I think that's why I live a happy life no matter if I do or don't get a job. And some of it is accepting and loving the fact that I'm anxious today. That's how I'm going to feel today. I can't make it go away at this point, but I know the tools that I can have to get it to turn its head. And I also feel like I have been able to practice actually saying this is not real, let it go, breathe it out. And I experienced that on stage at times. Sometimes I'll be literally about to start my number and I will go, I don't know what, how do I, how can I say the, I don't know the words, how am I going to get through the song? And then you just say, you're going to do it. And you remember in talking now as an actor, you go, you're not Christina, you're actually Gretchen right now.

So what do you mean you don't know the words? Gretchen is about to sing a song. And then you click back into all those basic things. And so it's just, it's training and it's hard work and it doesn't ever get easy, I don't think. It's just, you get used to it.

[20:38] Alan Seales: Brains are so weird. They're so weird.

[20:39] Krystina Alabado: Like you're having a conversation with yourself on stage while being in the moment, but you're, I feel like this is sort of one of these things where you're like watching yourself. So yeah, you're on stage and doing your job very, very well, but you're still like, there's part of you. And this is me too, that what I'm doing, even right now in this conversation, there's part of me that's watching it. And I'm like, oh, okay, am I saying the right things? Is she enjoying herself? Are the listeners going to enjoy this conversation while I'm still, I am present.

[21:13] Krystina Alabado: Engaged, absolutely.

[21:14] Alan Seales: I'm engaged.

[21:15] Krystina Alabado: Yes.

[21:16] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[21:17] Krystina Alabado: I know.

[21:18] Alan Seales: The mind is messed up.

[21:19] Krystina Alabado: It is. And I don't even feel like I have, when I go that, when I do that on stage every once in a while, when you click out and you click in, again, that's kind of, I've also seen sometimes and as I've gotten older, like I almost see my time as Gretchen as my meditation time. Because the whole time is getting yourself back. What am I going to eat for dinner? No, let's talk about the plastics. Like it really is. Because when you do something hundreds of times, I guess I've done Gretchen a couple hundred times now, it becomes, it doesn't become as specific as it was the first time I did it, where I was like, this is the first time I'm doing it. And you are so clicked in. Other things happen. Eight shows a week.

My ankle is killing me today. How? No, no, no. But Gretchen likes her heels. She doesn't want her ankle to hurt. So it is this like, it's almost like meditating, getting yourself back, getting yourself back, getting yourself back. And I do find that it can be comforting to be her too. And that's nice. And I don't, I don't get mad at myself if I, I think if we allow ourselves, are my listeners like this? Is he, does he think I'm interesting? Like that's being a human. And if you didn't feel that way, you'd be a robot. I don't want to be a robot.

[22:23] Alan Seales: That is true. Well, Gretchen, Gretchen too, you know, she, she's, it seems like you and Gretchen are a little bit similar because she, Gretchen Wieners is, she, she's kind of striving for acceptance. And, you know, it's kind of a lot of what we just talked about. Like, did, did you bring, how much of you did you bring into the role versus like how much did you take from Ashley Park and how much did you work with Casey to find your own thing? Like, yeah. Like how did you find, how did you find the perfect character that is now your Gretchen?

[22:56] Krystina Alabado: Yeah, it was interesting because I obviously was a huge fan of the movie. I loved, I loved it. I watched it 5 million times. I could recite every line from the movie, including Gretchen's lines as Lacey Chabert did them verbatim. And so I already had this idea. And then when I started auditioning for the show and saw it and my dear friend, Ashley, she's incredible and was such an incredible Gretchen Wieners, obviously it is about that balance of like, okay, I know what that is. I know what that was. Now I'm going to love all that. And then now just do my, me, because you just can't do, you can't do good work if you're trying to copy somebody. And so it's, and it's not even about saying I'm purposely going to make this different.

It is just about looking at the scene. I almost tried when I got the material, I looked at the scene and I looked at the song and I said, I'm going to do this from scratch. Like this is a new audition. Like it doesn't exist. And then naturally it becomes a combination of me and of things that were before me, which I love. And I think that that's how it should be. But as far as my audition, I really did go in there and just be authentically me. I sang it my way. I have a little bit of a poppier voice. I did my version of it. And, um, but I knew what the parameters of it works. It's already existed. Um, so I think I had a good, again, I think doing this for a long time, you come at it from that way other than, and on the other side, I think you can do a detriment to yourself by being like, I'm going to make this so different. They're going to be like, this is what it should have been because it's already exists. It's already a machine. And I.

[25:04] Krystina Alabado: I was like, I'm going to use this for the first time and it's going to work so well for me. And it did. I allowed myself to be nervous and anxious because Gretchen is nervous, anxious, and wants everyone to like her. And I wanted them to like me.

[25:16] Alan Seales: That's so cool! Did you tell them that later?

[25:19] Krystina Alabado: Yes. Yeah. I was like, they must know you can use your anxiety for Gretch. But it's so funny. I think when you put things into perspective because I'm sure like Casey Nicholaw, Tina Fey, the whole creative team, they probably, I mean, I've interviewed Casey too. I've known him for a while. I've never met Tina. But I feel like from what I know about them publicly and privately, that none of them feel like all these people need to be nervous for me. But yet people meeting you at the stage door are probably super nervous to meet you.

[25:54] Krystina Alabado: Right. I mean, it's such a valid point. And I try to think that before I go in for a casting director that's casting a big movie or a director that I'd never met before that, you know, won a Tony or doing a scene with an actor that I have admired for so long. And in the end, like we're all just human beings doing the best we can. And it does help to remember that is that Casey Nicholaw is Casey Nicholaw, a person, even though he's also Casey Nicholaw, a legend. But it's like, you know, we all are doing the best we can and doing what we love. And he wants everyone in. You know, I tell young people this when they're auditioning. They don't want you to do poorly. You know, I know it doesn't necessarily feel like you're being rooted on sometimes if it's a cold room or a quiet room, but no one wants you to sound bad or be so nervous that you shake.

They want you to do well because casting directors want to find the person that's perfect. Casey Nicholaw wants to find the perfect replacement. Tina Fey wants to find the person that makes her laugh the most. And when you do that, it's beautiful. And when you don't, it's just not the right fit. It doesn't mean you're like a horrible person. And I think if we try to see each other more as peers and people, I think it will just help make it a little easier. But it is hard when you go in for your idols because you're just like, no, you're incredible and I'm going to be nervous. It's fine.

[27:23] Krystina Alabado: I forget who it was I was talking to because everyone is a common theme of like, well, I don't think I'm Meryl, but blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I think I said, what do you think Meryl thinks she is?

[27:34] Alan Seales: Yeah, I wonder.

[27:36] Krystina Alabado: Meryl's like, well, I am Meryl. So therefore, like how much pressure does she put on her?

[27:43] Alan Seales: Yeah, yeah.

[27:45] Krystina Alabado: So you've been doing the role now of Gretchen Wieners since March 12th of this year. So seven months. So how has the role changed for you over time? Like, have you become a more anxious Gretchen or as you've kind of gotten more comfortable with the role, has it changed at all? Like to be more to be easier in terms of nerves and whatnot?

[28:03] Krystina Alabado: Yeah, I definitely think I've been able to sit back a little bit because it's a lot of pressure going into a new show, a new commercial, going into a new show that is commercially successful. That's what I mean because it's a, like I said, it's a machine that's going and it doesn't stop for you to get on. You just get on. And so it is interesting. You go through this rehearsal process, you have your put in, and then all of a sudden it's Tuesday after the person left and you're in and there's no preview process, there's no anything like rip the bandit off. You are Gretchen Wieners 24-7 all the time now.

[28:37] Alan Seales: And so you didn't get a put in?

[28:38] Krystina Alabado: No, I got my put in. What I mean is that you get the put in and then that's it. Like you're in. And so I definitely think the even the first couple of months, I almost felt like it was my preview process, like especially with comedy. You know, I've if you look at my resume, I've done all these dark dramas, like literally since I started. And so this is the first time I've done not only a commercial, like real commercial success, but a comedy. And not that I didn't want to. It's just the way that I look back and I'm like, oh, damn, this is my first comedy I've done. Not by not wanting to just how the how it all fell together. And so it was interesting, like having to see what timing hit. Like it wasn't only about being in the moment.

It was like, oh, if I wait one more beat there, I'm going to get the laugh. And then sometimes not getting a laugh for a week and Tina being like, hey, if you hug her for one second less, not two, not three, not 30 seconds, not 30 milliseconds, one second, they will erupt in laughter. And I went, okay, next day I did it. And for sure it was a for sure laugh. So it's just so fascinating.

[29:44] Krystina Alabado: That's so weird. It's a different, it's I do think comedy and especially musical comedies like Casey's are a different skill set. And so I've learned so much, which has been the coolest part of this because it's been fun to do something different for me. And it was a learning process. And I spent my two months being like, am I funny? Am I not funny? Ooh, tonight I was really funny. Oh, they didn't laugh as much as me there. And then you realize that's just how it is in the comedy too because some audiences are just quiet. And that has nothing to do with you. And then you settle into what you do every night. And sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't. And then it doesn't become about that.

It becomes about having fun with your fellow castmates and telling the story. And I do feel like I'm definitely a less Gretchen, less anxious Gretchen now than at the beginning because I feel comfortable in what I'm doing. And I just have fun. And I've also figured out I've ironed out the kinks because I gave myself the time and so did they like in doing that. So, yeah.

[30:52] Alan Seales: Do you have any interesting stage or feedback that surprised you as far as like what the fans say?

[30:54] Krystina Alabado: Yeah. Like people coming out and saying, oh, you know, because being a comedy, well, I guess I'm trying to get it as being a comedy. Comedies can be inspiring, but it's not like a drama where you come out and you're like, oh, this changed my life. Like maybe a comedy would just change people's lives. And I guess I'm not discounting that. But do people ever come out like seeing the anxiety in Gretchen or seeing the problem of being bullied in high school? And do they talk to you at the stage door and share secrets?

[31:26] Krystina Alabado: I think what's so profound about something like Mean Girls, I mean, what's so brilliant about it, obviously, is that within I do feel like most of the time when we have trouble, we cover it by making a joke or being funny. And so you look at the whole story and if you look at the crux of what Mean Girls is, and I think you're right in that. I think that sometimes you can even find a lesson more so in a comedy than in a drama that makes you cry the whole time, like it makes you emotional. But this one makes you think because it's all like everybody is having a problem in the show, but it's covered with humor or covered with lightness. But in the end, it's about a new girl at a school that wants to fit in and make some really bad decisions and hurts people on the way.

And then it's about people trying to fit in and again, choosing to be bad instead of being a good person. And they learn their lessons and shit goes down. And I think with Gretchen specifically, I get so much mail and I talk to so many young people and so many DMs about, I feel like Gretchen at school. I'm anxious all the time. I don't feel like I'm enough. Watching her and watching you and listening to the song makes me feel like I totally connect with what she's saying. And it makes me want to not feel that way. And I, you know, I don't want to be, I know the Regina at my school and she makes my life hell, but I don't want to hate her. I mean, this is every day I hear young people talk about this.

And it's pretty amazing because like you said, I guess I don't, I've never discredited how a comedy can make an audience feel. But it is amazing to see how much the young, especially girls that watch the show, connect to the themes. And it's because they're living it right now. And like I said, I didn't have a great time in high school. And a lot of it was because there were really mean people. And so it's like, again, you lighten it and it's funny and it's mean girls. But it's still the reason she wrote it was because it's real. Like every school has their Regina or someone that hurts them. And, you know, I always say, like, everybody feels grudging. I think that's why I did well in my audition. And what you were just saying, like, we all just want to be enough and want people to like us and, you know, make people feel comfortable. That's all I want.

[33:35] Alan Seales: Yeah. And everybody's got their ways of feeling validated and feeling good about themselves. And unfortunately, some people's ways are by making other people feel bad about themselves, which is, you know, part of the issue of bullying altogether because usually the bullies are the most unhappy.

[33:47] Krystina Alabado: Totally.

[33:47] Alan Seales: But you've got to get back to the theater. Is it already?

[33:50] Krystina Alabado: So I'm gonna do the standard closing questions that I ask everybody on the podcast. The first one is what motivates you?

[33:56] Krystina Alabado: Hmm. Oh, my God. Wait, now I'm nervous. How many questions are there?

[34:00] Alan Seales: Three questions.

[34:01] Krystina Alabado: What motivates me? What motivates me is life, like I'm motivated by I want so much in life and I wake up every morning and I want to go get it. I don't know if that's a motivation, but that is how I feel.

[34:18] Alan Seales: Yeah, I like that. I like that.

[34:19] Krystina Alabado: OK, next question is, what advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[34:26] Krystina Alabado: I would say. I think that you are enough, and I know a lot of people say that, but more specifically, that the way you are and who you are as a performer and as a person, you're the only version of you. And so even if you're auditioning with 25 other Gretchen Wiener girls auditioning for Gretchen Wieners, you are the only your version of Gretchen Wieners. And the way to be successful is by loving that and not trying to be the girl next to you version of Gretchen Wieners.

[34:58] Alan Seales: And last question, if you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[35:06] Krystina Alabado: One show? Oh, man, that's really hard. In the Heights.

[35:12] Alan Seales: Nice.

[35:14] Krystina Alabado: I love In the Heights. I want to be Nina.

[35:17] Alan Seales: All right, so we can find you online at Self Tape NYC. You actually have a self tape business that we didn't cover.

[35:22] Krystina Alabado: I do, but I actually have something even more exciting to talk about me and my best friend, Desi Oakley, waitress star, Chicago star, star of the universe, star of my life. We're teaching a pop rock Broadway focused masterclass. You can find us on Instagram at Pop Rock Broadway.

[35:38] Krystina Alabado: No one took that name. Pop Rock Broadway. That's crazy. Can you believe that? Dot com? Yeah. Wow. It's ours. That's crazy. But we want to focus on the pop rockness of what this business is so many musicals and we want young people, young people or college, any age to find their pop rock voice. And we feel like we can do that.

[36:00] Alan Seales: Sweet. All right. November 2nd and 3rd in NYC.

[36:03] Krystina Alabado: All right. Pop Rock Broadway dot com. And then Robert, Robert, Robert, Robert. And Christina Alabado dot com. K. R. Y. S. T. I. N. A. Of course, an Instagram and Twitter at Christina Alabado. That's it. And you get more of me at the theater podcast dot com. So your support at the theater podcast dot com slash Patreon online on Instagram and Twitter theater underscore podcast. Please leave a rating. Tell your friends just tell one friend. That's all I need to do. If you're listening right now, turn next to you. Tell a friend. This is produced by Jillian Hockman, edited by Matthew Hendershot. And thank you to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro and outro music. And biggest thanks of all to Christina for being on the podcast.

[36:41] Krystina Alabado: Thanks for having me.

[36:44] Alan Seales: All right. Thank you. The deep breath make the world a little colorful.