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[0:07] Harrow: Welcome back. This is season four, episode four, an interview with Daniel K. Isaac.

[0:14] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Thesis on Joan is a podcast dedicated to amplifying voices from the LGBTQ community in the New York performing arts scene and examining the industry from a queer perspective. Join us as we sit down with groundbreaking theater folks, both on stage and behind the curtain. For many queers, theater has been an escape, and this podcast looks to have open conversations on where we've come from and where we're headed as a community while queering the canon along the way.

[0:54] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Daniel is an alumnus of Space on Rider Farm, MTC's Groundworks Lab, page 73's Interstate 73, Ensemble Studio Theater's Young Blood, and a Lambda Literary Playwright Fellow. As a playwright, he made his debut with Once Upon a Korean Time with May Theater. As an actor, Isaac's credits include You Will Get Sick at Roundabout Theater Company, The Chinese Lady at The Public, Barrington Stage, and included a Drama Desk nomination, You Never Touch the Dirt at Club Thumb, The Gentleman Caller at Abington, Sagittarius Ponderosa at NACCO, Underland at 59 East 59th, and A Nicole The Opera at BAM. Regional credits include The Ballad of Little Joe at Two River, Miss Electricity at La Jolla Playhouse. Film and TV includes seven seasons as Ben Kim on Billions on Showtime, The Drummer opposite Danny Glover, The Expecting on Quibi, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Deuce, Crashing, Too Big to Fail on HBO, Money Monster, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Person of Interest, and Jeremy on The Other Two. Upcoming includes Plan B, Dirty Rhetoric, training at UCSD, and Vada. You can check out more about Daniel at DanielKIsaac.com. Without further ado, here's our interview.

[2:13] Harrow: We always start our podcast by asking our guests to share their name, pronouns, and anything else you'd like to share about how you identify.

[2:21] Daniel K. Isaac: Okay. My name is Daniel K. Isaac. I use he, him, his pronouns. I am a queer Korean American Sagittarius, born in the year of the dragon, lactose intolerant, and an Eagle Scout.

[2:38] Harrow: How's that?

[2:40] Daniel K. Isaac: That's great.

[2:41] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Okay, good. Thanks for sharing. So based on our social media stalking, it seems like the You Will Get Sick cast and creative team that you did last fall really became like a family. Can you tell us more about what it was like to collaborate with that team?

[3:01] Daniel K. Isaac: I love them so much. I hadn't had the honor of working with any of them before. Is that true? Now it feels like we've gone to the trenches together. Maybe Kimier from Dots, the scenic design team. But otherwise, I hadn't worked with anyone. Is that true? I think that's true. And now I think of them as family. It's so special. This magical and absurd and crazy thing we do in theater of being complete strangers and then saying, "Here are my deepest and darkest secrets and my most vulnerable of vulnerabilities. I place them in your hands of trust, and here we go. Want to be a family?" And when it ends, it's so devastating. But in the act of creation and on the journey, there's nothing like it.

[3:54] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah. I feel like watching or looking at your post from like the closing weekend was like I also felt like a lot of things. Oh, he's about to have a major dark chapter following this closing.

[4:10] Daniel K. Isaac: What whatever gave that away?

[4:13] Meghan Dixon Thesis: And the holidays.

[4:14] Daniel K. Isaac: Ooh, just great timing.

[4:17] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah. We love to see it. We were just talking about how like after seeing the show, we both had experiences in our own lives where like, you know, I got really sick over Christmas, Harrow's dealing with...

[4:21] Harrow: You can tell Tana Warp.

[4:37] Meghan Dixon Thesis: I just sprained my ankle, like twiggled. Yeah, and I needed someone to like I need to pay as the one to walk my dog, and I was like, oh, this is yeah, it's very resonant of it.

[4:46] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah, like was comforting for me to think about the show. I it was like, you know, as I was watching the show, it's like, oh, this is heavy, this is intense, but it's also hilarious. And I feel like having that like when I was actually sick was so comforting.

[5:00] Daniel K. Isaac: Oh, good, good. That's what we would hope and dream of, and Noah Diaz, the playwright and Sam Pinkleton and I just and the whole team, we really talked about what different disabilities look like, and Linda Lavin would always talk about the disabilities that come with age and how we don't think about that. And you know, I just saw this amazing play called Dark Disabled Stories by Ryan J. Haddad. And just to see how he explores that and those various characters, especially in relation to the MTA and accessibility or lack thereof there, and how Noah's play really could be this large container for that. That's that hopefully and and it sounds like maybe with y'all that that people came with their experiences and could see themselves in it, even if it's literally a person turning into a scarecrow before your eyes, that it's so much more than that, or can contain more than that, have the possibility for more.

[6:05] Meghan Dixon Thesis: And so thank you for sharing what y'all experienced and went through.

[6:11] Harrow: Yeah, and now we have to talk about Dark Disabled Stories.

[6:14] Daniel K. Isaac: Oh so good. One of my favorite things I've seen. Ryan is so funny and wicked smart, and Dickie is so beautiful and and doing the ASL next to him, and with his sexy and and haunting monologue. And the third just the way the design is integrated to be accessible. I wish all theater, I mean that's the example, right? Of if all theater, if all storytelling could be like that. And maintain sense of humor and be innovative and exciting, and yeah, I think it just got a bunch of Lortel nominations. So I'm super happy for them.

[6:49] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, and I loved how seamless all the accessibility was, and it was like, oh, this could be every show, and you know, why isn't it every show? Of course there's money and ignorance, but still let this lead the way, shine a light towards let's do more of that, please and thank you.

[7:05] Daniel K. Isaac: Exactly, yeah. Um, so we or me have been stalking your show Once Upon a Korean Time since it was streaming during the pandemic. We watched the online version and then we had to see it off Broadway too. Um can you tell us like what first inspired you to weave together Korean fairy tales and realistic stories of Koreans and Korean Americans?

[7:30] Daniel K. Isaac: Mm-hmm. I felt like I, as a Korean American born and raised in California, had very little knowledge or training or access to my heritage outside of what could be sort of orally shared with me, or that I maybe had in my subconscious from say early Korean school classes where you'd learn rudimentary Korean alongside Korean fairy tales or folk tales or stories. And so I had a sense of awareness that upset me that I was so good at say Greek and Roman mythology, I could be so well-versed in Shakespeare and Chekhov and Tennessee Williams, or different translations of Greek tragedies. Why would I have preferences in that and yet not know, you know, a simple folk tale, a bedtime story, a fairy tale, an origin myth that came from what should be or what would be my motherland.

And of course, there is Western or American education and the myopia we have in and what we consider to be the necessary or dominant or main characters of storytelling and also an ignorance I carried in myself and internalized racism or self-hatred or resentment I might have had for chapters of my life that I wanted to undo in researching again and finding curiosity again and interrogating what these stories might be to me today and maybe get to share that journey of that interrogation and exploration with an audience so that maybe someone else who also doesn't know can know or experience for the first time or for the hundredth time and either way that maybe there would be some magic to share in that all.

[9:44] Meghan Dixon Thesis: That's beautiful. I actually I went to do you know KQDX, the Korean queer trans network?

[9:51] Daniel K. Isaac: No.

[9:52] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Um that does like community organizing and they host a lot of events. KQDCon for that.

[10:01] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah, okay.

[10:06] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, yeah. They had an uh a find your folks event last night that was online and I went to that and we were talking about like activities we'd like to do, and I'm like, Oh, I'd love to see more like Korean queer theater. And someone asked, like, oh, what's an example of that? And all I could think of was Once Upon a Korean Time. And I was trying to think of any others, and I really couldn't. I was like, Well, there was K-pop, but that wasn't queer.

[10:32] Daniel K. Isaac: Mm-hmm.

[10:32] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Um you ever get to experience anything Diana Oh wrote?

[10:36] Daniel K. Isaac: Oh yes, yes, I love them so much. Yes. They are representing for us.

[10:40] Daniel K. Isaac: For sure. And Hansol Jung's play, Wolf Play, explores some queerness in there, but more about in the lens of adoption and what happens to this lesbian couple, I guess. But still, you know, queer Korean playwright with my theater company Soho Rep and MCC currently running. I don't know if that'll or if they've closed I think they might have just closed. But maybe theaters around the country can produce them. And who else? Jason Kim, a writer behind K-pop, and on Barry and who knows what other stories he has to tell. There has to be more.

[11:21] Daniel K. Isaac: There will be more. I'll keep writing.

[11:23] Meghan Dixon Thesis: For sure. We need it. And speaking of your writing, when you first sat down to write Once Upon a Korean Time, did you always imagine it as this like sweeping epic? And how did you pick the moments to drop in on?

[11:40] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah. I had this one idea of what if two soldiers in an unnamed war were telling this story about two brothers in the Korean folk tale of Hungbu Norbu, this older brother and younger brother, and one is good and one is bad, essentially. One is kind and one is unkind, one has compassion, one doesn't. And this idea of these guys in the trenches trying to pass the time or trying to survive in what is a very high stakes scenario. What is life and death? What is dark and terrible as times of war are? And I thought, well, maybe this would be the Korean War. You know, there are various times that Korea has been occupied. Maybe there's something here. And I wrote that scene, and I told my mom about it, and she said, Oh, what if you wrote about comfort women telling the story of Shim Chung, which is this a story of a young girl who sacrifices herself as a virgin so that her father who is blind may regain his sight.

And is there something there because she is sacrificing herself for her family or for quote unquote greater good, and there were women who were taken against their will to become comfort women, and women who actively thought this would be their only opportunity to support their families. And that complicated gray area was something I was very interested in. But it was my mom's idea. And for those who don't know, comfort women were women in the Korean War and that time period, especially from Japanese occupation onwards, in the 1940s, that Korean, Japanese, Filipino women were taken against their will, or voluntarily, and then of course many things happened involuntarily, for Japanese soldiers to comfort them, comfort stations were what they were called, and it is a terrible, terrible chapter of history that Japan for a very long time denied the existence and the use of.

[14:10] Daniel K. Isaac: And actually the US is also complicit in this, but um Japan would later apologize after these women would come forward in their 70s, 80s, 90s, and they would die without most would die without seeing any justice for this, and of course, there's still so much sex shame and sex negativity around the world and in religious countries like South Korea and proud countries like South Korea, of course.

[14:43] Daniel K. Isaac: So my mom offering that example really surprised me, and also told me she was in on the game of it, on the structure of it, and that helped illuminate how to write subsequent, I would call them chapters to live in the sort of fairy tale, folktale book of it all. So I credit my mom for that.

[15:04] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Wow, yeah. That section of the piece was so impactful, yeah.

[15:10] Daniel K. Isaac: Thank you. So the production used so many design techniques to bring to life, uh, including puppetry, drag, projections, and you had said in an interview that you wrote the play, so it seems uh quote impossible to stage. Uh can you tell us more about collaborating with the design team and to bring the stories to life?

[15:29] Daniel K. Isaac: Of course. Our director, our fearless leader, Ralph B. Peña, who's the artistic director of Ma-Yi Theater Company, brought together a team, both in the midst of the pandemic to do a digital production of it and for this live production that happened in 2022. And this team truly were magicians. It could not have been possible without them.

[15:55] Daniel K. Isaac: I think I had this stubborn thing where I thought, why do I see so many plays without people of culture with certain bodies on stage and certain theater companies getting to produce just giant epic pieces of theater with expensive everything? I want to write that. And whether or not it'll ever get produced, I will have tried to write the impossible because I believe in the most magical theater happening when there seems to be the giantest of hurdles to climb. And I wanted to believe that a team could do that.

[16:39] Daniel K. Isaac: And Ralph and this team of designers truly set about solving the impossible, the Herculean, the ridiculous. And they would get mad at me, but they still did it. And I will forever, forever be indebted to them. And Ralph likes to say, you know, we had to teach future audiences, future theater companies how this can be done, a version of it. And you know, I still don't have a future production of this on the books anywhere, and I hope that it has continued life.

[17:17] Daniel K. Isaac: But even if not, Yi Nam, who did the projections just got nominated for a Lortel Award today, and I will, I don't think you're supposed to campaign for awards, but I would campaign so hard for her for what she did on that stage. And these designers, Sao did the sets, and there was even more magic in the set that we couldn't even get to, and his reveals that he makes, you know when like the walls turned around and the Korean restaurant appears there it just ugh I love him and Seo and Yi were both born in Korea and so that they also felt like my Korean dramaturg in how they helped keep me accountable and you know we Ralph keeps a collaborative environment and I think that's where the most magic can be summoned in the theater and Oliver Wasson on the lights and Fuang Wen on costumes and Fabian Obispo and sound just it was a dream team and I would like to believe I I'll let them speak for themselves someday.

[18:27] Daniel K. Isaac: I'd like to believe that they had fun doing it. I know that I know that a handful of them did tell me so that they never get to do this or we never get to do this in our community especially and so to get to do it. The fact that Ma-Yi greenlit this I think it was their most expensive production to date wow and you know theater doesn't recoup so it's it really is I feel forever indebted there that they would take that on and say yeah we're gonna we'll do it all we'll have puppets we'll have drag we'll have giant production value because our community deserves that too our audiences deserve that and we get to tell these stories and we should and hopefully we'll get to continue to.

[18:39] Meghan Dixon Thesis: I'd say just from the audience perspective, it felt massive. Like I've seen other shows in that space, and I like had to check myself. I'm like, this is the same theater, right?

[19:25] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah, well, mama looked real good. It looked real epic.

[19:29] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, I wish we could have run for a long, long time.

[19:32] Daniel K. Isaac: Knock on wood, maybe maybe another iteration.

[19:36] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, we hope so too. And we noticed there were some shifts between the digital version and the on-stage version. So especially like the short vignette to camera moments. So can you tell us more about the shift there?

[19:52] Daniel K. Isaac: Of course. In the digital production, and when I'd first written the script, there was this idea of interjections that the actors themselves would interrupt the fairy tales or folk tales to sort of immediately come back to the present and discuss what might have been their perspective as Asian Americans, Korean Americans, as queer folk, and those a lot of those were because when I was writing the play, and because I wanted to live in the oral tradition of these stories, and I also recognize that I only knew so much, and my access to research, I actually still have this pile of books here that are mostly children's books of Korean folk tales because that's what was translated to English or had side-by-side Korean and English and and these illustrations that really inspired Yee's art, especially.

[20:46] Daniel K. Isaac: And I would then ask my Korean and Korean American friends what they remember. Do you remember a favorite folk tale or fairy tale from growing up or in general that you can recall? And I would record these conversations and transcribe them, and they turned into these monologues. And I, Daniel, the playwright, love them, and Ralph, the brilliant director and dramaturg, had to say, I know you love these. We have to cut them because we want this show to be under two hours. And we can't put an intermission because the entire reveal of the family tree depends on this momentum.

[21:29] Daniel K. Isaac: And a young playwright thing is of course in inserting one's own voice. And you know, I thought I was inserting other people's voices, but it did interrupt the momentum, or maybe in the digital version it was easier to receive, but on stage I could see the need for a streamline, and I don't regret cutting them. I just think they live in the DNA differently, you know, and one of those monologues was the Korean Cinderella story that ended up in the final scene. So I got to keep a piece of it, and the other ones maybe I'll write a book of Korean fairy tale monologues. I don't know. They'll come out somewhere else. But it was hard to let go, and I think that's just part of the process of writing and rewriting and new play development.

[22:27] Daniel K. Isaac: There was a whole scene in a Korean airlines airplane, and there were costumes built and set pieces purchased for this scene that's supposed to take place on an airplane, and I had to cutting that was one of you know, they say you have to kill your babies, you kill your darlings, and I really, ooh, I massacred an entire scene that I don't know they got a refund for. I believe it is for the best.

[22:59] Daniel K. Isaac: Wow. New play development is first world hard. And I love it. And I'm looking really friendly. And just looking back on it.

[23:07] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, you did that. That we did it.

[23:12] Daniel K. Isaac: I hope all those scenes show up somewhere else because I know we really appreciated them.

[23:17] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Thanks. Um, what was it like? You spoke to this a little bit, but what was it like working with so many other queer Asian folks and bringing the show to life? And then this felt very pointed to me, but how did the queer Korean adoptees support group come about? And how do I join this group?

[23:38] Daniel K. Isaac: I think it is truly a piece of my imagination, or maybe I'm manifesting something that should exist, and maybe it does, but I I don't know of it. I don't think I know that I, as a queer person, try to create queer family inadvertently or vertently, and I wanted to explore the theme of chosen family, and so this was a way for me to try to manifest that on stage, you know, see the world that you want, I guess.

[24:15] Daniel K. Isaac: And because there was so much darkness that this family has in their tree, I wanted to give them hope and light at the end of it. That yes, we may inherit generational trauma, but also generational resilience and survival and not just surviving but thriving, that has to also be get passed down, right? That also has to be something we can claim for ourselves and our future generations. I'd like to believe so. So that's what I wanted to write.

[24:51] Daniel K. Isaac: In the digital production, we had Diana Oh and Shannon Tyo and Cha Si also did lights for that. So to have queer Asian bodies in the room and also bodies that have experienced Korean adoption. Deborah S. Craig, I want to say, did one of the readings before, and I had great dramaturgical support, and you know, there's an Asian American theater community, there's a Korean American theater community, there's also a Korean American adopted theater community, or just community in general, and I hope I got to write something for them that they get to feel seen and heard, and while my adoption story is not a transnet or it's not the same as being adopted from Korea. I wanted to shed light on that experience and where I had great empathy and where I also relied on the experiences of my friends and colleagues and they helped shape that for sure, and I'm indebted to them and forever thank them for it.

[26:15] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, thank you for sharing that.

[26:17] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah, thank you. I feel like we've been thinking of these questions for like two years since we saw the digital production. So it's so wonderful to finally get to ask all of these.

[26:27] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Um, and then jumping over to TV world. So you're currently filming Billions.

[26:30] Daniel K. Isaac: Season seven.

[26:33] Meghan Dixon Thesis: What is it like? Season seven. What is it like to jump between theater and then back to this show that you've been filming for seven seasons?

[26:43] Daniel K. Isaac: I'm so grateful to Billions because they allowed me to do You Will Get Sick and start shooting season seven at the same time. And so I couldn't believe that they would grant me that time and schedule days so I would finish on set in time to go to the theater and do a show or do two shows sometimes.

[27:09] Daniel K. Isaac: And while they are maybe the most challenging days I've encountered in a long time in my career, I found it so satisfying, so fulfilling to get to do both at the same time. That's such a gift, I find, and one I didn't take for granted. I moved to New York because I love theater and I want to do theater until the day I die. I just read, um, what was it? Station 11 recently, and an actor dies on stage in the early pages, so that's not a spoiler. But I thought, yeah, I'd be happy to be doing King Lear on stage and just drift off that way. Anyway, I don't want to traumatize other people in that experience, but you know, the hyper-police stands for how much I love theater and why I moved to the city, and I've been fortunate enough to work in TV and film, which of course allows me to have a lifestyle that can afford to do theater because we're still working on getting a livable wage.

And shout out to my theater company for truly believing in a livable wage and paying their artists as such. I hope that continues to happen with other theaters around the country. But I know that without Billions, I wouldn't have been able to do as much theater as I have in the last many, many years in the hiatuses between, and the fact that I got to overlap both to get to do something small and intimate as a camera in your face with micro-expressions that can be captured there, and then to go and perform in front of hundreds and hundreds of people and still have control and restraint and expression and exploration on just two very different stages. So I feel like in a way I am on a stage as well, just with, you know, one to three to four cameras in your face or on a crane or all over and an audience of your colleagues and our amazing background actors and crew who, you know, get their chuckles out early and then have to be quiet.

Whereas in an audience, you get the immediate feedback and the relationship there. So yeah, I'll love both forever, and I hope to have the privilege of getting to do both forever, or as long as this life will have me.

[29:49] Meghan Dixon Thesis: So you kind of predicted where we were going. We're gonna ask you like what path you would pick, but it sounds like you'd like to continue.

[29:55] Daniel K. Isaac: The selfish one, the selfish path of all of the above.

[29:59] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yep.

[30:00] Daniel K. Isaac: I just want to work and pay my bills and, you know, support my mom and all that.

[30:07] Meghan Dixon Thesis: So you also have a semi-autobiographical series called According to My Mother, and that received a ton of acclaim at film festivals. So is there a chance that we folks will be able to see it more publicly?

[30:19] Daniel K. Isaac: Um, more publicly? We've tried. We can't find it. How does it be? I know it is under lock and key. It's been in development at various places, and you know, in hindsight, it's really wild, or even in the experience of it. I was developing the pilot with Kathy Yan, this amazing director who did the last Harlequin movie, Birds of Prey. And she also directed this incredible, her first feature was called Dead Pigs, and she did an episode of Succession last season, and she's amazing. And we've been working on this pilot, we had been for one iteration of it for over a year, I think. And it received a rejection from the network the same day as I was getting greenlit to do the play Once Upon a Korean Time.

Or like I think press was coming out. Uh oh, pr, uh, whatever press statement, whatever press release, that's the word I wanted, went out the same day, and so then I got all these articles and phone calls and emails and texts the same day I was told we're not moving forward with your pilot, or not this iteration of it. So in that balance of life, or I don't know, uh forever, um relationship I have with humility and balance, I guess. Rewriting, I am trying to rewrite and rewriting this thing, and I hope it sees the light of day someday. But it has been in development for a long time, as you say, and sometimes I'm able to really tap into the comedy beyond the drama and trauma of it, and sometimes it is an ongoing relationship that is just, it still hurts and the art is there to heal and also escape from, but that doesn't mean it is um completely innocuous or doesn't sting or leave behind bruises.

So I think it is an ongoing journey, not one I have given up from, but it is I think only a trailer lives online because, you know, I think there are various contracts we signed and aspirations we have for it to continue to move forward somewhere someday. So I'm not giving up, and I thank you for asking about it, and it'll only encourage me to keep trying again.

[32:55] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, I can't wait to see it eventually, I'm sure.

[32:58] Daniel K. Isaac: Thank you.

[32:58] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Thanks.

[32:59] Daniel K. Isaac: Me too. And we love the tagline for it, the hilariously sad, painfully funny, and we wanted to ask you how does that show up like across your work, maybe not just this piece.

[33:13] Daniel K. Isaac: I think in our saddest of sad times, we might have the greatest belly-aching laughs, and in our most joyous comedic hilarity, sometimes you also burst into tears and feel a pit of despair. I wanna believe from my experience, both are true and they're not meant, neither is meant to debilitate you, but both seem to go hand in hand in my life quite often. I had a commitment ceremony last year with my now ex, so you know, there's that journey, but to have a commitment ceremony that was one of the most joyous days of my life, but my mom refused to attend. Both I had to have space for that I could experience the joy and also confess to and sort of speak to the pain of what that was, and so that when some folks, and I have nothing against the phrase "it gets better," may believe that to be true, also the opposite can be true, or multiple things can be true.

And so with my mom and I, it may never get better, and also, you know, she likes to say she has, what is she, she's 76 now, so she thinks she has four good years left before God takes her to heaven. So time is running out, and all right, that you no pressure to hang out more, but let us keep taking each day as a gift and seeing if we can relate to one another or be in the same space as one another, let alone travel together. I offered to fly her out to New York recently because, you know, we have a bunch of new shows right now, and I thought she'd enjoy seeing them. And she goes, "You're not in anything right now, so why would I come to New York?" I thought, well, you know, it's really great stuff on and off Broadway right now, and I think you'd really enjoy it. And she says, "No, if you're not in it, I have no reason to be in that city."

[35:25] Daniel K. Isaac: I think that's so supportive. And I am trying here to, you know, I can't necessarily travel while we're shooting Billions, um, sort of landlocked here, and especially with COVID precautions and such. And she just, um, she won't do it. But I might have the opportunity to do a play in Los Angeles, and I was talking to her about that, and it's in she lives in Orange County, and this would be in LA proper, and she said, "Well, that's, you know how long that drive is with traffic. I'm still not gonna see you." You think for fuck's sake, mom, I'm trying here to take a contract on the other side of the country to leave the city that I call home to try to spend more time with you, but no, no. It'll always, there will always be the container for both. So that's my journey with humility, I guess, because she taught me that first.

[36:15] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Her visit to see your show and your recording of it on Instagram is like so good.

[36:22] Daniel K. Isaac: I went back to that post before the C View. So yeah.

[36:26] Meghan Dixon Thesis: She's a trip.

[36:28] Daniel K. Isaac: But she came, you know. I did three, if not four, I did four theater offerings last year, and three of the four had vaccine requirements, and she's still unvaccinated and still believes all the conspiracy theories, and still sends me weird and obviously fake and manipulated news that says so-and-so died because of getting the vaccine, or so-and-so has this illness now because they were vaccinated, and there's such extremes that she believes to be truth. And yet you will get sick. She could come see, and she had a very moving experience at it, and also she came on closing weekend because I didn't want her jeopardizing any of my castmates or crew with her unvaccinated status, let alone myself, and I also, it was easier to have her at closing than it would have been at opening, and when it was around opening night that I got COVID during another production, and so then I was trying not to repeat history there, especially with her vulnerable body, and because Linda is eighty-five years old, and I wanted to protect her at all costs. And even Linda met my mother and said, "She's a character, she's a trip."

[37:45] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yes, yes, she certainly is.

[37:48] Daniel K. Isaac: She saw the show, and in the show, um, there are different interpretations of what happens at the ending, but some believe that my character dies after this journey with the sickness. And my mom said, "It's good the show is ending because you can't do this for too long. That this isn't good for your psyche." And I thought, we are actors, mom. We are acting up there, but she felt it so deeply that I was dying on stage every single night, and she cried every single night and went on that journey, and you know, I'm glad I got to share it with her, and I really, you know, not to jinx it, but to manifest a future. I'd love for that show to have more life as well, and to get to be seen on more stages or on, you know, a bigger stage.

And so I would have no problem doing it again and that I tried to articulate that to her and what that meant, but you know, she can take some things and she can't compute others, but she came, she showed up, you know. She didn't come to the commitment ceremony, but she came to that play, so there's that balance again.

[39:05] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, it's really beautiful that you can hold all those things at once.

[39:05] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah, oh, therapy, lots of therapy, weekly therapy so you don't hold on to resentment or feel crippling despair or, uh, or anger. And even if you do, to get to feel it and then move past it because, you know, if she, if whether or not she has a four-year time limit, there isn't much time, right? If we have learned something from the pandemic or just with aging in general and with parents and loss.

[39:38] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Hopefully she's on the Linda Lavin trajectory.

[39:40] Daniel K. Isaac: Oh yeah, except Linda Lavin can do a downward dog on stage eight shows a week and I don't think my mom can.

[39:48] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Well, my mom yells at me for not being flexible, so who's the loser here? It's still me. Speaking of possibly an LA show, what when can we expect to see you either on stage again or your name under the playwright credits? What's coming up?

[40:09] Daniel K. Isaac: I have zero idea. I am entering a chapter of unknown and uncertainty. And Noah Diaz, the playwright said, I think this is your year of upheaval because I'm gonna move. I'm gonna wrap on Billions in May. And I, you know, it's wild that we choose this job or this job chooses us, or this passion that we have for this industry that says, "Great, now you start from scratch again."

[40:42] Daniel K. Isaac: And I want to believe there has been some momentum or incremental growth over the years I've had, but I also feel like I am entering the unknown again, and so I would love Once Upon a (Korean) Time to get more life, and especially a West Coast premiere so that more people can see it there.

[41:03] Daniel K. Isaac: And I have several other plays that do not have homes, and I am cautiously optimistic or speaking this into existence as well, that they'll find a home.

[41:16] Daniel K. Isaac: And I haven't signed any contracts on this potential project in LA, so I'll report back if that happens.

[41:25] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Great.

[41:26] Harrow: Yeah, keep us updated.

[41:27] Daniel K. Isaac: And I'll keep writing according to my mother, and I'll keep writing these other screenplays I've got, and you know, I'll keep manifesting something.

[41:37] Daniel K. Isaac: But I really do feel like I am a terrible podcast guest for not being able to say, here's what's next, other than, you know, Billions doesn't have an air date, but Billions season seven will air at some point this year, I imagine, and that'll be 12 episodes, 12 hours coming your way, where you can see Ben Kim again, and then we'll see what happens.

[42:00] Daniel K. Isaac: So that'll help join me in my uncertainty.

[42:05] Daniel K. Isaac: And um, and if you want to have bourbon sometime, that's um, that's where I'll be.

[42:18] Harrow: So this is similar, but like thinking in our dream world here. We have a section called Queering the Canon.

[42:25] Harrow: So is there an existing show or role that you would like to queer either as an actor or maybe something you would like to adapt as a playwright?

[42:35] Daniel K. Isaac: Whoa.

[42:36] Daniel K. Isaac: Okay.

[42:38] Daniel K. Isaac: It's hard on the spot, I know.

[42:40] Harrow: No pressure.

[42:42] Daniel K. Isaac: Something I would like to queer. Only because I saw it recently or not too long ago. I think Hamlet should be queered and done with Asian Americans. So that would be something.

[42:55] Daniel K. Isaac: Oh, and I thought that about Glass Menagerie too. You know that survival mom as an immigrant mom would make so much sense to me. And that's, you know, queer-coded, but could be extra queer, I think.

[43:06] Daniel K. Isaac: And should be.

[43:12] Harrow: Yeah, I'm always here about, yeah, here for the bumping the queer, right?

[43:17] Daniel K. Isaac: Imagine a White Lotus season where they're just all queer instead of...

[43:21] Meghan Dixon Thesis: I uh, someone needs—can you write it?

[43:23] Daniel K. Isaac: Can someone do—if the critique is on whiteness, I don't—I don't wanna just give more jobs to white people in my writing.

[43:33] Daniel K. Isaac: So, well the next season's in Thailand, so I'm like curious and a little trepidatious about what that's gonna be.

[43:40] Harrow: Let us see what happens.

[43:41] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah. There is much to critique there when white bodies go to Asia and I'll be curious to see how they execute that.

[43:51] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah.

[43:52] Daniel K. Isaac: Mm, what else? Succession but queer. Like Uber rich people, but they're queer like Crazy Rich Asians, but the queer version.

[44:03] Harrow: Oh yeah. Crazy queer Asians.

[44:06] Daniel K. Isaac: What is that? Bling Empire?

[44:08] Meghan Dixon Thesis: No, they're not queer. But you know, uh, yeah.

[44:11] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah. I would enjoy that. You know the first thing I thought of, because it's one of my favorite TV shows of all time is Pushing Daisies. Did you all ever see that?

[44:19] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah.

[44:20] Daniel K. Isaac: I think it's one of my favorites. And I would love a remake of that, but the two leads to be romantically gay, queer instead. Please and thank you. I mean, that was all queer coding too. I've heard him speak before, and that'd be great.

[44:35] Daniel K. Isaac: Six Feet Under is another favorite TV show of mine. That had one gay son, but Michael C. Hall. So good. A queer funeral home? Is that something I want to write?

[44:45] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Fun Home.

[44:47] Daniel K. Isaac: I don't know. Fun Home.

[44:48] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Oh yeah.

[44:49] Daniel K. Isaac: Um, so it's already been done.

[44:50] Harrow: Okay.

[44:52] Daniel K. Isaac: Alright, see? Everything is derivative. Nothing is original.

[44:55] Harrow: The Asian version.

[44:55] Daniel K. Isaac: Uh-huh.

[44:56] Daniel K. Isaac: Uh-huh. Yeah, I know. I have this play that I've been working on, set in a liquor store. And when I first started writing it, Kim's Convenience came out, and I thought, fuck. They've done it. In Troy did it so good, and it's so funny, and it's a play, and it's a TV series.

[45:10] Daniel K. Isaac: But you know what? There can be room for more. And Mind Center's a lesbian, so we'll see.

[45:16] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Who knows?

[45:18] Daniel K. Isaac: Let them—let us hope so. Do we need anything? I don't know. Do we want it? I hope people want it. Do we need it? Absolutely.

[45:26] Harrow: Okay, great. Two people here. I'm gonna write on those fumes. Thank you.

[45:31] Daniel K. Isaac: Wow, I don't know why this question was so hard for me.

[45:33] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Oh my god, you had so many answers.

[45:34] Harrow: Give us so many answers.

[45:35] Daniel K. Isaac: Okay. Cool.

[45:36] Harrow: Alright, great. Okay. Our next session hopefully our question is hopefully a little easier.

[45:42] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Okay, bring it.

[45:43] Harrow: What is outside of theater? What's your queer culture indulgence? Uh like books, TV shows, you've already mentioned a bunch, events.

[45:51] Daniel K. Isaac: Yes.

[45:52] Daniel K. Isaac: Books for sure. I try to never read two heterosexual authors in a row.

[45:59] Daniel K. Isaac: Is that true? I try not to. Sometimes book clubs fuck with that. But yeah, I wouldn't if I had my druthers, I would read LGBTQ+ authors only.

[46:09] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah.

[46:11] Harrow: Do you have a couple of favorite books or recommendations?

[46:15] Daniel K. Isaac: Right now, what did I just think of?

[46:18] Harrow: Go where your brain leads you.

[46:19] Daniel K. Isaac: Okay. R. Eric Thomas, Here for It. And he has another book coming out this year. Matt Ortile, The Groom Will Keep His Name. Uh um.

[46:30] Daniel K. Isaac: Oh, um, Memorial by Bryan Washington, so good. And his first book of short stories, Lot. And Bri—um, Brandon Taylor, Real Life. He has another book coming out this year.

[46:42] Daniel K. Isaac: And okay. Well.

[46:55] Daniel K. Isaac: I think so.

[46:56] Daniel K. Isaac: Uh, you think I'd be good at people with three names. I'm in a room with my two right be read piles, not my room with books I've already read.

[47:06] Daniel K. Isaac: I'm excited for this adaptation of Red, White and Royal Blue. That'll be fun.

[47:09] Daniel K. Isaac: And Alexander Che is my compass. So Edinburgh and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, both of which are available as audiobooks with yours truly. And anything he writes.

[47:31] Daniel K. Isaac: And yeah. Michael Cunningham, that was one of my favorite authors. I've read every single thing he's written. Dysfunctional families, you know, that hits home for me.

[47:44] Daniel K. Isaac: Anyway, I do run away into fiction a lot. And that's an only child, poor only child thing, you know, with books from the library.

[47:53] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Mm-hmm.

[47:54] Daniel K. Isaac: And a loner thing and a recharging thing and a imagination thing. And maybe I want to write a book someday, but also getting to read or delve into another art form that I don't have a stake in. Whereas when I watch TV, theater, or film, I'm also thinking about the mechanics of it or the business of it or a different perspective of it instead of getting lost in it. And I love getting lost in books.

[48:25] Daniel K. Isaac: But Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is one of my favorites. I'm reading it right now. It's—and I really hope they adapt it and I will do all the Botox if they would let me play one of the characters.

[48:37] Meghan Dixon Thesis: And who would you want to play?

[48:39] Daniel K. Isaac: I'd want to play Marks, who's Japanese Korean.

[48:44] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yes.

[48:44] Daniel K. Isaac: Ugh, I want that. So I'm just—yeah, I came on this podcast just to ask Gabrielle Zevin to let me play Marks in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

[48:52] Harrow: We're gonna build that up as much as we can. We're using all our power.

[49:01] Daniel K. Isaac: Wow. I have so many books to add to my list now, just after your—yeah, thank you.

[49:07] Daniel K. Isaac: We have a section of the show we call Queer Gives, where we like to shout out either a mutual aid fund, an organization, um, something in the queer community that you'd like more folks to pay attention to or um give their time or other resources in some way.

[49:24] Daniel K. Isaac: I feel like I'm cheating. Am I outing him? No, I'm not outing him. He's out and proud. Okay, so this is cheating and tangential, but brings us full circle. Ma-Yi Theater Company is one of the few Asian American theater companies we have in this country, is one of the only that produces new works only and has a gay, queer artistic director. So there's my in.

[49:50] Daniel K. Isaac: You know, I love theater, and that theater company produced me and continues to support me and uplifts a lot of queer voices. Like Hansol Jung just had a play called Wolf Play, and she had a play at Ma-Yi called Among the Dead that Ralph directed as well. And so I look at that and think, alright, here's a lineage of queer work having been developed here. You know, because you also have a gay, queer artistic director, so yeah.

[50:17] Meghan Dixon Thesis: You don't really have an LGBT-only theater company in New York City.

[50:23] Daniel K. Isaac: Is that true? There's the National Queer Theater, and there's a queer theater. So we're getting there.

[50:31] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah. You know, I when I studied in San Diego and we had Diversionary Theater there, or you know, Chicago had About Face. And when I moved to New York, I thought, where's that theater company? Where, you know, Rattlestick and Michael Urie did these series of play readings called the Pride Plays before and after the pandemic. And I thought, why don't we have this on our regular basis? There's so many of us cigarette emojis and LGBTQ+ writers. I just want—I'd be happy seeing only their plays.

[51:03] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, for sure.

[51:04] Daniel K. Isaac: That's so—no, I'm so happy for my straight and cis brethren. But um, I—but could I only read LGBTQ+ authors for the rest of my life? Yes. And could I also only see their artwork and plays and musicals? Why the fuck not? Hell yeah. So I'll just keep championing that.

[51:23] Harrow: I love that too.

[51:24] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah. And finally, how do folks follow you online?

[51:30] Daniel K. Isaac: At Daniel K Isaac, I S A A C, the Biblical Spelling. And I'm on Instagram and you know I stopped tweeting after what's-his-fuck took over and now I wonder what to do with it and if he'll leave and would I go back? I'm not sure. But you know for access for immediate news it does do something there and so I feel complicated on it about it. But you know, I'm there. I'm on Instagram and Twitter and I have a TikTok but I haven't posted anything but I appreciate TikTok.

[52:15] Daniel K. Isaac: Oh no, I'm old.

[52:17] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yep.

[52:18] Daniel K. Isaac: And I have a website, DanielKIsaac.com, that I sort of made an attempt at updating and you can just DM me, it's fine. Or my ma—my managers, uh, for serious inquiries, TMT Entertainment, Ian, Ian at TMT Entertainment dot net. I'm reachable. I'm soon to be unemployed, let's open up our arms to the universe and see what there is to offer and what I can offer.

[52:38] Meghan Dixon Thesis: So amazing, thank you so much for being here with us today.

[52:40] Daniel K. Isaac: Thank you for having me.

[52:38] Daniel K. Isaac: Yeah, thanks for seeing so much of my theater last year. It really means a lot to have seen you all and to know your support and championing and advocacy for our community. It means more when it comes from the community, right? So thank you.

[53:10] Harrow: Yeah, and we'll always be on the lookout for more and you definitely have an audience here, so thank you.

[53:10] Daniel K. Isaac: I really—it means a lot, it's very special.

[53:10] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Thanks for listening. If you like, please rate, interview us, and share us with your friends. So excited to hear your queer culture recommendations or any of your ideas on how we could queer the canon. You can call us—yes, actually call us and leave us a voicemail at 845-445-9251 or send us an email at thesisonjoan at gmail dot com.

[53:43] Harrow: Until next time, keep it queer.

[53:44] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Not that it'd be that hard for y'all to do so. To combat that capitalist bullshit, um, we have a section that we're—

[53:43] Harrow: I love that segue. Where are we going now?