This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Patrick Oliver Jones: Before any of us step on stage or in front of a camera, a writer has painstakingly crafted a story with unique characters and interesting situations.

[0:11] Patrick Oliver Jones: With me today is Jason Odell Williams, a playwright and TV producer who started out as an actor, but soon realized he wanted more than just acting gigs.

[0:26] Jason Odell Williams: That's as good as it's gonna get for me. And that's all it's gonna be is just a bunch of those gigs. And if I'm lucky, I'll get like four or five of those a year. And I was like, that's not enough for me creatively, it just wasn't enough.

[0:41] Patrick Oliver Jones: Hello and welcome to Why I'll Never Make It, featuring stories and conversations with fellow creatives about the realities of life in the performing arts. I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones. Please go to Why I'll Never Make It.com and take this season's podcast survey to give feedback and input on this podcast.

[1:04] Patrick Oliver Jones: Back in 2013, I took a day off from the Evita National Tour to fly back to New York for a callback audition of a new off-Broadway play called Handle with Care, written by Jason Odell Williams. In comparison with the first audition, which went very well, and I felt really connected not only with the character in the play, but also with the creative team behind the table.

[1:41] Patrick Oliver Jones: But a few years later, I was cast in another play by Jason called Church and State, which centers around a U.S. senator running for re-election and his reckoning with gun violence, school shootings, and his own faith. It was in that production I really got to know Jason and his wife, Charlotte Cohn. Now, she's an actress and producer you'll remember from earlier this year during the Women's History Month episodes. And in that month, I also spoke with Tiffany Coyne, who is the wife of another former guest, Chris Coyne. So Jason and Charlotte are actually the second married couple that I featured here on the podcast, but in separate episodes.

[2:29] Jason Odell Williams: This is so fun, by the way. Thank you for having me. This is cool.

[2:32] Patrick Oliver Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, whenever I asked Charlotte, I was even thinking of you, but when it comes to like couples that are in the arts, I like to do one first and then hopefully get to the other. So it's good. And we've done a few where we're doing it together at the same time, and it's very fun, but also I feel like we never get anywhere because she and I just like talk over each other and inside jokes and talk in code, and we're like, did anybody understand that? You know what we're talking about. Better just do it one at a time.

[2:59] Patrick Oliver Jones: So Jason and I get the show all to ourselves today, and this is like a masterclass in writing, not just the creative aspect, but the business side as well. And when it comes to that, nothing has affected this business like the COVID pandemic. I mean, the lockdowns and quarantines and shuttering of theaters has been quite an adjustment and a reality check for us actors. But writers have it easier, don't they?

[3:29] Jason Odell Williams: I mean, unlike actors, they can still just do their work. They've got all this time now, and they can do what they do best. Just sit in the home and write all they want, no distractions. Right?

[3:42] Jason Odell Williams: Uh, um, yeah, it's funny. You know, we live in New York, and I have a lot of friends and family that don't live in New York, and I'm getting lots of texts and calls. How are you guys doing up there? It looks crazy on the news. And it's hard. Um, I also feel lucky though that I have Charlotte, my wife, and our daughter Imogen and the dog. Like, I know some friends who are alone. Um, and I think that must be really hard. So we have each other, and I think we all go in waves of like, this is fun. How cool is this? And being productive, and then being like really depressed, and like I just want to sit around and do nothing and watch Bojack Horseman all day, you know. So um that's it's a mixed bag.

[4:22] Jason Odell Williams: And it was really hard for me. Um, right at the right off the bat, they let us work from home for about a week and a half. No, it's like 10 days, and then they let us let me go. They let a few of us go from my sort of day job in TV producing. And I hadn't been without a job in eight years. I mean, I were working full-time for eight years in TV production and playwriting on the side, but I was like, it's the first time to be I've been like unemployed for more than two weeks, three weeks at a stretch. And I was like, oh, this could be a long time. Nobody knew how long it was gonna be at that point. Uh, but I was like, oh, this could be long. And so I was like depressed for a couple days, and I'd never really felt that feeling. Charlotte was like, I think you're just depressed. And I was like, No, that's not me. I don't know what that is.

[5:06] Jason Odell Williams: Um, and then as a writer too, it's weird. You know that saying where they say, if you want something done, ask a busy person. So it's like when I was busy all the time, I'm take I would go to work and I would write on the train. I had to take the metro north for a while, and I had it's like 45 minutes sort of of nothing else to do. And I would do 45 minutes in the morning and then the evening. And so you're talking like six hours of writing every week on a play, and I would get so much stuff done. And then I thought, oh, being at home, I'll get so much done. And you just you don't for some whatever reason. Like it's really hard to motivate, right? I feel lazy, I feel unmotivated. Somehow not having that thing to go do every day just took the wind out of me. So I would just say it's been up and down. It's been up and down.

[5:51] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, yeah. That finding that self-motivation. I even before coronavirus, I found it hard to stay focused at home. I could get stuff done, but it would be like I'd be five minutes on this, and then a message would come and I'd address that. And then that would remind me, oh, that's right, I wanted to go do this. And then like an hour later, I'm like, oh, right, I need to go back to what I was doing. And so it's so easy to just get distracted. And then I'm hungry. So then I go get a snack. So it's just there's constantly something. Whereas I feel like when I've been able to get out and sometimes I would just go to like a hotel that had like a computer room or lab, you know, and just a reading room, something to just kind of be alone and quiet.

[6:34] Jason Odell Williams: Oh, right. But it's right. You're still sort of around yeah, the world. So you're still in like out in the world, but at the same time, you're able to kind of focus, put in the headphones and be somewhere where you're not as distracted.

[6:44] Jason Odell Williams: Yeah, and I feel like too, I used uh there's something about too like about changing locations to change your kind of creative spark. So like I can write for an hour at home in the morning and then get on the train and write for an hour on the train, and then I'm at work and I do that and then I come home. And so sort of like each and then also all that walking time that you do, that's the thing I can forget in New York. Think about all the time. Don't you walk a ton to to and from trains and and uh it's and you're like, oh, you're not doing that as much anymore. And all that walking time was really creative for me. Sometimes you're not thinking about anything, but once in a while you'll be like, oh, that that project that I'm thinking about, what if this is the solution?

And thinking about scenes and dialogues and characters, a ton of that work happens just walking around. And then when then you have no reason, you have no reason to go out anymore. You're sort of like, oh yeah, how am I gonna stimulate that creative thing anymore? So it's been it's been weird, it's been a just an adjustment.

[7:34] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, it's hard. Does it feel like there's a coronavirus play within you?

[7:39] Jason Odell Williams: Well, it's so it's funny, and I think you mentioned this in your podcast yesterday too, or I listened to it yesterday, I don't know when it came out, but about sort of being lazy and and letting yourself be lazy, but then also doing things just to spark the juices. So a friend of mine who, a director, Ralph Moranto in Rochester, who has shepherded the play Church and State, and then this my newest play Division Street for me. Uh, he did the world premieres of both of those plays. Um, reached out to me and was like, Let's make something. Why don't you write a monologue about the coronavirus or social distancing? Was that what it was? And I was like, What's what about it? And he was like, I don't know, just a monologue.

I'll read it on Facebook and you write it. I was like, okay. And I was like, oh, but I had I this was like in the height of my like, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. It was probably three days after the stay-at-home order, and I had just gotten let go. And I was like, um, okay. And I just sort of forced myself to write something about it. And this like three or four-page monologue came out, and he liked it. And he was like, let's change this and change that, and blah-da-da. And then he did it. And I was like, Oh, that was cool. So I would have a little short monologue coronavirus play, and then I found this thing uh online. A few friends are members of it's called the 48, oh no, the No Pants Theater Company, and they did a 48-hour play festival.

The writers write something really fast and the actors do it. I co-wrote one and then wrote one by myself, and they all had to be, they didn't have to be coronavirus related, but a lot of them were just because it's what we're all going through right now. So I've done two of those short, very short things.

[9:14] Jason Odell Williams: And then there's a new play that I'm working on that was not going to be coronavirus related, but it was political. And I was I was very early stages of it, maybe 15, 20 pages in, and I just thought it this is gonna obviously happen if it ever gets produced after this crisis. There's no way you can write a play now, I don't think, and not mention it. If you're talking about politics, I was like, I gotta at least insert it. They gotta mention it. It's not what the whole thing is about, but it feels almost unavoidable. It's like you know, writing a play after 9-11, you gotta talk about it at some point.

[9:48] Jason Odell Williams: Right, right. There needs to be some mention that this is what's happened in the world. Yeah, if you're talking about how we exist in and it's supposed to be right before the 2020 election, voters are getting together talking about their sort of policy views is the sort of the conceit of the play, and it's like, well, that's the huge major thing that just happened. You can't ignore that.

[10:06] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[10:08] Jason Odell Williams: So yeah, so the answer is yes, I have. I think every writer out there is you gotta factor it into your writing, whether it's directly or indirectly. You know, I'm sure there's gonna be a lot more post-apocalyptic things coming out in the next three, four years too.

[10:24] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right, yeah. When we see these abnormal times, then I think that spurs writers to think, I guess, more deeply, maybe philosophical about what life is and how we deal with things. And there might be the opposite thing, too. There might be a lot of that, and then just like happy go-lucky musical comedies, just to make people forget about everything. So who knows?

[10:48] Jason Odell Williams: And there will certainly be a place for both of those kinds of shows when all this is over with. I mean, maybe you've been inspired to try your hand at writing these last several months like I have. Well, Jason does do script consultation, and you can find out more about that at resources.winmepodcast.com if you'd like to work with him.

[11:11] Patrick Oliver Jones: Now, whether it's a classic musical comedy or a new dramatic play, us actors will be itching to get back on the stage. And Jason definitely knows that feeling. He studied acting at the University of Virginia as well as the famed Actors Studio here in New York City.

[11:30] Jason Odell Williams: So Jason took his acting seriously and was focused on making that his career.

[11:38] Jason Odell Williams: Kind of. You know, there wasn't really a master plan. Uh I I I think I did my I guess my idea was I was gonna be an actor. I didn't know whether that was gonna be stage or TV or movies. I I was a huge film and TV fan, still am, but I'd always only done theater, right? That's that's what you have access to in high school and college. Um and so then I went actually before I graduated Virginia, I went to New York for a week and LA for a week and just kind of visited them.

[12:08] Jason Odell Williams: One was kind of a school trip, and one I just went with some friends who had kind of preceded me from Virginia. There were like three or four of them living out there. And I went and LA was gorgeous and beautiful, the sun was amazing, and I went to New York and it was like wintery and cold and bitter and all that stuff. But I was like, I love New York. I couldn't, I just didn't get LA. I didn't understand how it worked, I didn't understand what they do all day. New York just felt like correct. It felt home. And so I was like, all right, that's where I'm gonna go. So I graduated in 96. Actually, I graduated early. I taught at my old high school for a couple of months because I was like, I wanna, is that something I wanna do?

And it kind of wasn't. I spent the summer at home just kind of saving money and kind of gearing up, and then I moved in the fall of 96. And there was no plan. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I was just like, oh, I'm just good, hey, I'm here, I'm an actor. And quickly I sort of had all of this extra time on my hands. I didn't know what to do. So I just started writing then. And it was a bunch of really bad screenplays, really, really bad screenplays.

[13:10] Patrick Oliver Jones: What were the subjects of some of these screenplays?

[13:14] Jason Odell Williams: Oh, it's um dudes in their 20s trying to make out and have sex. You're like, that's all you write about because that's what you're living, you know. Like, you know, guys in college trying to have the cool final party weekend, and that was one of them. And one was like, you know, actors in New York trying to make it. It's like you're writing about what you know. And they're all sort of like riffs on things that we've seen, you know, swingers came out in '96, and I was like, oh my God, that's the best movie ever. And so you we're all trying to write like Favreau. But what I heard later on as I got into the writing more, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to write a bunch of bad things, get them out of the way, out of your system.

And so I was doing that while I was still acting. And then about a year and a half into it, a bunch of bad plays, you know, off off Broadway Shakespeare. And I did Shakespeare in a like a storefront. And just really bad showcases and stuff. I was like, maybe I need to go to grad school. So I applied to all the big grad schools and got into the actor studio, and I liked it because they had acting, writing, and directing, and I was gonna go as a writer and actor, but then they took away that double major like the week before we all started. So I went as an actor, but I was exposed to the writing, and so I was always just kind of writing at the same time.

[14:27] Patrick Oliver Jones: Was it more just out of boredom? I have extra time, or did you ever think, oh, well, maybe maybe I'll write this and it'll become something, but I'm gonna focus on acting.

[14:36] Jason Odell Williams: It was never, oh, this is gonna become something. It was literally just, I have this creative energy and I didn't know where to put it. You know, when you're an actor in school, you know, college and high school, which is all I knew at that point, like you're going to class, you've got all of this that's filling your day, and then you squeeze in these extra hours to do your rehearsal, and that's kind of all you can handle. When you have all of this time on your hands, even if you're in a play, I was like, I still have maybe 20 hours a week that I'm like, I need to do something. And you can't just like do monologues in your living room, that's not enough. So I was just writing stuff. There was really no goal.

I didn't, I don't know what I was doing. It was honestly for my own entertainment. Those first couple things I didn't show to anybody. There was never any I didn't want to show it to anybody. But then I do remember right after grad school, I got cast on guiding light. Do you remember when Soaps used to film in New York? And it was the first time I'd ever had, like, they gave me a dressing room. So you kind of rehearse in the morning, you do your blocking, and then you they just kind of say, go to your room and we'll call you. And it's like four or five hours, you're just sitting there. They gave me a whole script, right? All I have was like three or four pages that I needed. So I tore those out and I had like 70 pages.

These scripts are dense because they double spaced them in a weird way. And I just flipped it over and I started writing by hand in pencil, because that's all I had, an idea for a short film. And I think I must have written almost the whole thing right there that day. And I know I was there for three days. So I probably wrote the thing over three days. And it was the first thing that I made. It was a short film called The Danish Play, which it was about a bunch of actors trying to put on Hamlet. But it was like, it was very much like waiting for Guffman. It was half scripted, half improvised. We shot the whole thing. I think it was less than I think $5,000 for everything. We shot it in three days. Charlotte was in it, a bunch of friends from school. And so that was the first, and I directed it too. And I realized I'm not a director, but I really loved the writing of it. And that was in 2003.

[16:35] Jason Odell Williams: And then I remember doing a regional gig in DC. It was Fat Pig by Neil Abut, pretty new play at the studio theater, a great theater in DC. Paul Mullins was our director. If anybody listening has ever worked with Paul Mullins, they know he's maybe one of the best directors you can ever work with. We had a killer cast, awesome play, sold out, extended run. It was like everything you could dream of, right? It was the best experience I've ever had as in a regional theater, probably ever was. And I was like, this was awesome. And then it ended, and I thought to myself, that's as good as it's gonna get for me. And that's all it's gonna be. It's just a bunch of those gigs. And if I'm lucky, I'll get like four or five of those a year.

And I was like, that's not enough for me creatively. It just wasn't. I was like, I got a lot out of it, but I was like, it wasn't, I don't know, just something about it. I was like, oh, if that's the pinnacle, then I don't think this is what I want to do. And I was like, and then I could maybe like what if I got to do that on Broadway or off Broadway? I was like, is that really enough? And I think I just realized I was like, oh, I don't, I don't think I love the acting part of it. I loved the text analysis. I loved thinking about the words and figuring out how to make those words say maybe exactly what the author intended, or maybe something slightly different, but I'm still saying those words.

Try something different on a different night, even still saying those same words, always trying to be word perfect. That was a huge, I was a huge stickler for that all the time. Even when other actors were like, oh, I'm getting close to the words. I was like, no, man, just because this is contemporary, like you need to say everything he wrote, like real stickler for punctuation because that's how I learned it in Shakespeare. And I was like, I think I like the writing part. And so it was that was the moment. That was 2006 when I did that play. And I always say it was sort of like the acting went sort of on a downward curve, and the writing started going up.

[18:23] Jason Odell Williams: For many people in theater, this profession is as much a calling as it is making a living. And one of those who made quite a living from his writing was the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Arthur Miller, creator of such masterpieces as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. He gave an interview with Charlie Rose back in 1992 and explained why he became a writer.

[18:53] Arthur Miller: Well, it's an affliction that I often think you're born with. I never thought about becoming a playwright or not becoming one. It just seemed to be the natural It shows you. Yeah, I think a playwright is partly an actor, frankly. I didn't I didn't used to think that, but I think so now. And you are projecting your acting skills on other characters. The difference with a novelist is usually the novelist is not an actor. So he doesn't hear language. Where's a playwright hears language. The playwriting is an auditory skill rather than a literary one.

[19:28] Jason Odell Williams: For me, it was a similar drive and passion within me to write and create stories. Like in those, so those early days when I was just writing for no one, I was having a blast. And I was like, it doesn't matter if nobody sees it. Like this is fun. I'm enjoying my time. I feel like I'm being creative and I'm getting better at something that might come in handy later. And so it was also a little bit out of frustration, too. And so writing that first play was also a I turned to my wife Charlotte, and I just said, I don't like being at the mercy of casting directors and also what plays are they doing, you know. They you know, you could really know a theater or director really well, but they're gonna pick a season, there's like nothing in it for you.

It's not, you know, so then what are you gonna do? And I was like, I would rather control my own destiny. And so I said to Charlotte, I was like, we know enough people. If I just write something, we can gather them in our living room and we can just do it and we'll figure out a way to do it. And I said, what kind of play do you want? And that's when she said, oh, I want something where I can't be understood, and something with language and communication or whatever. And that's where Handle With Care came. It's about an Israeli woman who's kind of lost in Virginia and she doesn't speak much English. And it was kind of out of that frustration of I want to control my own destiny, I want to write something for you, and combining those two things, that's what came out. And then sort of slowly over time, it just the interest just took over.

[20:59] Patrick Oliver Jones: And have you found that the writing has given you more control?

[21:06] Jason Odell Williams: Yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Oh my gosh. Because, you know, even just now, like with the coronavirus, like I mean, it sucks. All of these actors are out of work and they can't do anything. Production is shut down, TV and film, whatever. I can continue to write. It's hard to motivate, like we talked about earlier, but I can continue to do that. And even if it's a false sense of control, it still feels like I'm in control. And so it just I don't know, it makes you feel better somehow. I don't know. I just I it was just a long circuitous route to find where I needed to be. I think all along this is what I liked most about theater was the writing of it, was the words. And so yeah, the control helps because I'm probably am, I know I am a bit of a control freak. I think in some way all of us actors are in our own way, right? I think you kind of have to be a little bit.

[22:07] Jason Odell Williams: And also I'll say this too. As an actor, you know what it's like if you go out and do a play and you get a laugh, it feels great, right? So, like, think about Church & State, which you were in, right? You're only getting at best 25% of the laughs, right? Because you're only one of four characters as the writer, I get 100% of the laughs. So if anybody laughs, it's I get to claim ownership other. That's mine. So it is it is like that proud papa feeling too. It's like, you know, I when we have a daughter, Imogen, and I remember when she was little, if she ever did anything funny or did anything that made you proud, it's like that feeling of pride is like where watching something on stage that you wrote, as opposed to when you're an actor.

I just felt as an actor, I feel like it's hard to really enjoy it as much too, because you're so in it, right? In the middle of it, it's hard to be like, oh, this was great. This was this is all going so well. Because if you're in it, you're not supposed to kind of think those things. So I don't know, there was something about it too that was just more rewarding and more fulfilling. And I don't know, I just felt like that that was where I belong. I mean, people ask, like, do you miss acting or whatever? And I'll step in and read a part here or there for a stage reading of something if they need someone. I don't mind doing that, but I don't think I would like to do the whole three weeks of rehearsal, put up a play, and do a long run.

I don't know why. I just feel like I lost that. I also never loved rehearsal. Charlotte, my wife loves rehearsal. I was always like, it felt like it was something to get through to get to the performances. So that's when I was like, oh, maybe I just don't really like the acting part.

[23:57] Patrick Oliver Jones: So how has the rehearsal process changed for you now as a writer? Is it something you enjoy more?

[24:04] Jason Odell Williams: You're you're obviously more involved with it, if especially if it's a new work that you're doing. If it's a new play, I'm I'm I'm there and I'm involved a lot. Sometimes though I'm with a regional play, uh, you know, they did Church of State and Division Street up in Rochester, and and I would be there like for an early rehearsal, and I'd leave because I just can't be there that long. And they would they would just take over and kind of do it. And they'd call me or email me with questions. I actually kind of prefer that rehearsal process. Um I think maybe I just not good in rehearsal rooms. Maybe that's the that's what we're learning here. Um I it's it is it's a very, I don't know, weirdly frustrating for me when it's not going perfectly.

Uh actors are still finding their lines and finding their this and their that. Um and I'm like, I I prefer, I'm like, you know what? You and the director figure all that stuff out. And once you've kind of feel like you've got an understanding on the scene, then I'll come watch it. And if something's not working because it's the writing, then I can help you fix it. I'm I'm totally open to that. But what's hard is to watch people try and figure it out. Uh and and I'm not allowed to speak, obviously, I shouldn't speak. I I that was the thing I had to learn also. I I would speak up too much in rehearsal. Um, and it's I it's also I I learned it's hard for an actor to have the play right there in the room.

Normally they're not. Normally you can be like, I don't know, why does he say this? I don't like this line or whatever. You can say all that stuff. Um and then it's also hard because it is if it, especially if it is a new play, people feel like they can just change it because oh, well, this isn't ready yet. Let's just fix it. And sometimes those are good changes, and sometimes they aren't. And so it's hard for me to learn how to say yes and say no. Um, to know that someone can give me five notes and I can just say yes to one of them. Um that's been a I think it's something I'm still struggling with. Um is to learn how to take feedback and um not get paralyzed by it, not feel like you have to please everyone and and stay true to yourself.

Those are the those are the three things that are that are hard to do, right? Someone can give you a note, and Bradley Whitford said this, and I I steal it. I don't know if we can swear on this podcast, but go for it. Um, he says there's three stages to any time you get a note, and it's true as an actor, as a writer. Anybody gives you a note, your first reaction is fuck you. Your next reaction is I suck, I'm the worst artist ever. And the third reaction is okay, I'm listening, how can we fix it? So whenever I would get a note, I would always be like, You're wrong, you're an idiot. You don't get it. And the second reaction, you'd go home and be like, Oh my god, they're right, I gotta tear up this play.

It's so uh it's the worst play ever, it's never gonna work. And then the third reaction is, oh no, wait, okay, I get it. If I just fix this one little thing, that'll fix this, and then it'll all come together. Yeah. So it's learning how to just um silence those first two reactions and not say anything out loud, even though you're going through them, and then get to the third one. Um, because I've been a part of a couple of your table reads, you know, those initial steps and getting a play read out loud. And you asked for our questions and comments after that table read. And so I was wondering, how do you know which of those questions, which of those comments to take, which to ignore? How does that process work for you?

[27:19] Jason Odell Williams: It's still an evolving process, but what I've learned is that um let everyone speak and listen to everything, and you might hear a common thread here or there. Um, you know, if everyone's saying, like, oh, I really love this character, I really love this, I really love that. You're like, all right, cool, that's working. People are like, I didn't understand why he picked up the bottle at this point. You'd be like, Oh, well, because you can explain it, and they'd be like, Yeah, that just wasn't clear. So if you're getting a consistent note over and over again, that's something to look at, but then I want to hear everyone's feedback, but also because I heard the play at the same time that you all did, and I know what I'm thinking, and I know what I think works and what doesn't work.

And so I kind of want to get either confirmation or or if people say, No, no, no, that is good. No, it's totally working. We just kind of we'll figure it out. Um, you just want to kind of hear what everyone's thinking and then kind of take it all in, and then you have to go away. And that's the hard part is is to listen and not react and go away. And I'm also very like, I want to fix it right away kind of person. And I had to learn to be like, just don't do it today. Give it at least 24 hours. And just that sort of one sleep cycle will really help you be like, oh, okay, and you see things clearly. There's also a great thing that I learned in TV production. Um, I I worked on a show called Brain Child and uh Brain Games with uh two friends of mine.

Uh I didn't know them now, they're friends of mine, Jerry Culver and Adam Davis. And Adam is a screenwriter as well. He wrote Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds. Do you remember that movie? Um, and and then we got into TV production, he'd be like, here's the thing when you get notes from the network or studio, their notes are always wrong. If they say, um, I this guy's speech is bad and and you it should be this instead, that note is wrong. But what they're talking about is a thing you need to look at. If they if they say there's something wrong at the top of act two, you need to change the top of act two to this, this, and this, you're like, no, your solution is wrong, but you're right that I need to look at the top of act two, because something isn't clear to them.

And so then, and so that's what he said. He was like, just here they gave you these notes about all this stuff, and just look at those sections again and see if you can make them either funnier, sharper, more clear, or whatever. It's like you don't want to just take their notes blindly and do them either. So taking in all that feedback from you guys, it's it's all it's all relevant. It all just sort of goes into the the hopper as you try and fix and make the play, and really ultimately the only way to make a play good is to is to see it in front of an audience multiple, multiple times. I mean, the producer, the director, us actors, we can all have our thoughts, but the audience is gonna be the the final say as to whether it works or not.

You know, the audience is always right. I mean, uh individual audience members aren't always right, but as a collective whole, you know, if you do 25 previews or whatever, as a collective whole, they are correct. What they laughed at and didn't laugh at and didn't get, like, that's right. Um, some audiences are better than others, we say or whatever, but I think as a collective whole, and that's the only way you learn. And honestly, for church and state, I keep talking about it, but you know, uh we saw I saw almost every performance. So I saw about a hundred performances, and you go, okay, I see, I get it. I get what works, I get what doesn't work. And so then when I went and like had to then publish the play after that, I made changes to it, you know, very small, minor things.

But um that's really the the only way to do it is to do it in front of an audience a bunch of times. And that's why it takes so long for a play to um to be ready is you've got to do that's why you do those out-of-town runs and second out-of-town runs and then bring it to New York and then have previews and then changes, you know.

[30:56] Jason Odell Williams: So did you ever see your time as an actor when you were pursuing it those years? Did that inform your style of writing or how you write for other actors? I think absolutely. Um, I think if I can say sort of one thing that I think I'm good at as a writer, it's dialogue. Um, I think the things I'm weakest at are probably structure. That's the thing that takes the longest for me to figure out. Um, but I've always had an ear sort of for how people talk and accents and dialects and imitating people. So once I kind of figure out who a character is, right? Like Sarah Whitmore, um, I'm just kind of hearing a bunch of my friends' moms talking, and I can just imitate her in my head and talk like her and know that how she says something is different than Alex or Charlie or Tom, right?

So it's like as an actor, I also think I know what is going to be fun to say. And so I always try and write it. So if I was playing that part, I would like to say this line. Because I do. And I'll just like lightly sort of mouth the words to myself as I go. I'm playing all the parts, and I'm like, does that sound good? If I was the actor, wouldn't I hate if I had to say those three words in a row? How do I make that better? So I I definitely think my acting informed that because I'm trying to write dialogue for people that they will love to say. I want them to be like, I love saying that line. I love this monologue. I love that exchange all of the time. I don't want anything to be wasted. Uh literally, I don't want an extra word in there.

Um Rob Nagel, who you know, who played Senator Whitmore, uh, he is a great collaborator. And he would come to me and be like, Do we need the van in there? Can we get rid of it? Can we, can we can we do it without the van? And be like, all right, let's try it with both ways. We'd literally talk about a line with or without a single word. And he would be like, no, no, you're right. We need it, we need it. Or in the vice versa, I'd be like, no, no, it's better without it. Um, and so like little things like that, that's what I want from actors too. Like, oh, I'm just I'm I'm stumbling over this one word. Is there a better way, you know, uh to say it? So I think my acting, being an actor definitely helped my writing in terms of I know what it's like to have to say something out loud.

I don't know if you've had this experience, you've ever read a new play, and it just it reads well, but then if you start to say the words out loud, it's like ugh this is so hard to say. Because there's a difference between like book writing and you know where where you're where you're just all uh imagining. You're just imagining everything, whereas opposed to actually saying it and conversing, then it's like, oh, that doesn't sound right or feel right. So you gotta say it out loud, you gotta hear other people say it out loud. Um, so yeah, that definitely my acting informed it too. And also, like, you know, as an actor, the best ah God, the best feeling for me is getting a laugh. And so I always, whenever I can try and punctuate something with a joke.

Um, even when they're talking about something really serious, I just always hear that that opposing conversation in my head. So if you're saying something really, really sharp and biting, I'm I'm always like, what's the comeback? What's the thing to respond to that? So I think that's fun for actors to it's a way to just kind of cut that tension, you know, something, yeah. So I'm I know that that's something I always look for. So it's it's good that you know, writers like you are trying to infuse that. Because I think if you're all one sort of emotion or one sort of tone for too long, people get bored. So that's also me just getting bored.

[34:32] Jason Odell Williams: Yeah, and you were bringing up the fact of of writing for actors and how they speak and a lines that they want to say, and it made me think of all the commercial auditions I've gone to and how those writers seem to have no idea how humans talk. In fact, I I just did, you know, even in this day, we're doing self-tapes, and I did one for WebMD, and it was just I and I was supposed to play this plumber of a father who's talking about their their their diabetic child, and just the lines. I'm like, okay, if I was like uh maybe a PhD, I would speak like this, but a plumber isn't gonna say these things. It just it made no sense. And so it's interesting, and I noticed that probably more in commercial writing than any other type of performing I've done.

Probably those writers are not, they're not like performer writers, right? They're like they're they're they're marketers. They so they know how to market something and they can write a good brief and something like that, but they're not writing dialogue. And they're like, Oh, you can write you a writer, you just write it. And so they write it like a what it would sound like as you're describing something on the back of a pill bottle, and you're like, no, uh, I'm a human being. Yeah, but also they have to write those things. It's so dumb.

[35:52] Jason Odell Williams: And as Jason mentioned earlier, his job for the last eight years or so, apart from the playwriting, has been working in television as a writer and producer. Now, going from stage work to TV and film doesn't seem like much of a stretch, right?

[36:08] Jason Odell Williams: And while that's true to a certain extent, we'll get into how challenging that can be.

[36:13] Jason Odell Williams: But my work on television came most notably for the TV shows Brain Games and Brain Child. Both involve kind of documentary educational material where the viewing audience can interact and take part in the tests they see on screen.

[36:33] Patrick Oliver Jones: So how did a writer of stage plays transition into neuroscience and hidden camera experiments?

[36:42] Jason Odell Williams: That was a funny transition too. And that was part of my leaving acting for writing full-time. I'd actually gotten cast in a New Jersey Shakespeare play, and I was gonna do that. I was still acting. This was in 2012, 2011 into 12, and then this friend of mine, Jerry Colbert, I just sort of needed a more steady gig. And Charlotte was like, Jerry worked in TV. She's like, Can you help Jason find a job or whatever? He's like, you know what? I might have something in a couple months, you know, help reach out to me then. And then he introduced me to another friend of his who was working on a true crime show. Why would I know anything about true crime? And he was just like, I met the guy, Eric, he was really cool.

He was like, Yeah, man, we need producers. It's a brand new show. Do you want to come do it? And I was like, Okay, sure. And then like the next day, I said to my friend, I was like, Jerry, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. There's no way I can do this. He was like, Listen, if you can write plays, you can write for TV. And I was like, Why do you think that? He was like, It's just story, it's just structure, and you know how to have a beginning, middle, and end. And also it required a lot of VO voiceover writing, which is just explaining things as clearly and concisely as possible. And that was what I really excelled at because it's also in a person's voice, it has to sound natural, conversational.

[37:55] Jason Odell Williams: And so for that show Homicide Hunter and then Brain Games, which is right after that, it's a lot of VO and it's a lot of person talking to an audience, like a monologue essentially, and you gotta make it relatable and conversational and not sound like those commercial copy you were reading. So it was super helpful to have somebody who's good with dialogue because voiceover is essentially a little bit more formalized dialogue. I mean, I learned a lot, there was a huge learning curve, but when it got to the nitty-gritty of the writing that stuff, I was fine. I was better than some other people that had been doing it for years. The terms of the taking neuroscience and things that I know nothing about, that was hard, but I would just have to take longer on my own.

I would take two hours to read several articles about a subject and try and kind of understand it. And then I would write a page about it, explaining it in one whole page. And then I would cut it down and cut it down and cut it down and cut it down until it was three sentences or less. And then I was like, that's what we go with. And so it's just that was just how I had to do it. And I was like, and I'm it's great because I don't know anything about it. I'm an idiot when it comes to brain science. So I was like, if I can explain it to myself, if I'm understanding it, then like a regular person or a kid can understand it. So it's actually kind of good that I wasn't super smart because otherwise, you know, those people that explain things with bigger words than you asked for.

I remember I used to always ask my dad, like, what does this word mean? And he would use a bigger word to define the word I asked for. And I was like, Well, that doesn't help. Break it down in small bite-sized words. So that was how that was helpful actually, you know, making the voiceover conversational and understandable.

[39:01] Patrick Oliver Jones: No, it's interesting that you say that because it brought me back to my school days when I would have to do a book report. And this was, I remember there was one specific night. My mom, she was in the church choir, so she went off to go do that. And so I was home alone working on this book report. I'm like trying to summarize, but also give insights or whatever I was trying to do. And I remember by the time my mom came home, I had seven pages of the book report, and I'm only 50 pages into the book, you know, because I was just like saying everything that didn't need to be said, you know. And so it's interesting to hear you talk about condensing two hours of reading into a page, into a paragraph, into three sentences.

I still do that. Charlotte and I and Ralph, this other director who I collaborate with sometimes, we'll talk about a scene, he'll be like, Well, this isn't working, this and that, and all the shorthand is now is go overwrite it, and then we'll read it all, and then we'll figure out what we can get rid of. So it's like, you know, write the monologue fat and then listen to it a couple of times and later, then it's like just paper cuts like take out this line, take out this word, take out this line. And then slowly over time, you're like, all right, now this is just the condensed diamond of it, you know, you don't have all the coal around it. You're like, you got the just the heart of it. I think that's a good way to write.

I think, you know, write all of it and then cut out what you don't need. That way, it also helps you as a writer too. You're like, you're explaining things to yourself as you get the characters talking or whatever, and then you can take out what's repetitive or unnecessary. Writing is rewriting. I mean, that's like the thing you learn eventually. Writing a first draft is hard, but rewriting it is ten times harder. And so it's the as good as a play or whatever piece of writing is, it's only as good as or as much time as you spent rewriting it.

[39:01] Jason Odell Williams: And so when it comes to your own writing, are there one or two plays that you've been rewriting and rewriting and it just hasn't worked out yet? Do you have some of those in your trunk?

[41:35] Jason Odell Williams: Oh, there's tons of plays that I've started that I just go nowhere, but I save them and I always think maybe I'll come back to them. And I've done that. You revisit things. There's plays that I keep, you know, Division Street, we kept playing with the ending. I think we finally cracked the ending. The whole shebang is one that we were supposed to do this year. Supposed to do a reading of it in May, and then another reading in June, and then a production in the fall, it might be pushed to the spring. But that's a play that man, where it started in 2018, like it looks almost nothing like the play that we have now. That was a play that I kind of wrote, it was very different than other plays. I kind of wrote it like I know kind of what I want to say, so I'm just gonna say a lot of stuff.

And then it's like, okay, only one of those things worked out of those 90 pages. So you're like, all right, let's stick with that. That one was a lot of rewriting, a lot of rewriting, but I think it finally got somewhere. I like to write lots of things at the same time because you can set it aside and then go to the next one. So that's helpful because I feel like you do bang your head against a wall after a certain point, and you creatively it's helpful to kind of well, let me try this one. Let me go to this one. It's a whole new set of problems, and then in the back of your brain, maybe you're solving the other problems.

[42:54] Jason Odell Williams: Twice we've been hired to adapt a work into a screenplay. One was a book that I wrote, a novel into a screenplay, and one was a play, Church and State, into a screenplay. And that was hard for me. I actually did it with Charlotte. It was helpful to have somebody to kind of bounce off of because it had to happen really fast. And it took three or four drafts, and we finally felt like we cracked it. And then the producers were sort of like, cool, we'll take it from here, and then they rewrote it from page one. And it's like you hear those stories happening, and it was like, Wow, why did you want this play in the first place? We're just gonna rewrite it. Like, I don't know, it still baffles my mind, boggles my mind. That was a really hard lesson. That was probably the hardest writing thing that I've gone through, and I'm sure lots of writers more experienced than I have done it many more times.

[43:45] Patrick Oliver Jones: But um, so when a piece of yours is optioned like that, say Church and State for a screenplay, do you hand over the rights for them to kind of reword it or rework it in the way that they need to? Or how did you are you involved in that process?

[44:00] Jason Odell Williams: So normally, normally someone just options it and they just they'll just take it, they pay you a small amount of money, and then you're like, Great, see ya. And you're not involved at all. But with this one, they thought, well, we want you to write it because you're such a good writer, we want you to do it. And they didn't have to do that, but they gave us the first crack at it. And then eventually they just did what they wanted to do with it. And that was the frustrating part. I've had other people option plays and they don't want us to be a part of it. They optioned it and then nothing happened. And I was like, that's cool. I just got a bunch of money for nothing anyway. Nothing, you know, it was maybe a little bit of my time wasted in conversations with them.

But yeah, when you option a script, you're basically giving up all your rights. I mean, you can have a more strict or stringent contract that kind of gives you like more sort of oversight over the final product, but most producers aren't gonna give that to you. But yeah, some people really want to be involved and some don't. And the more playwrights I've heard about it, I heard Tracy Letts talking about it, right? Who is I mean, maybe one of the best playwrights in the last 10, 20 years. And he talks about August: Osage County, and he was like, Yeah, that that movie just didn't turn out good. He was just like straight up with it. He was like, It's a great play. I'm really proud of that play. He's like, the movie wasn't good. Bad script. And he's like, it's mostly my fault. He helped adapt it.

[45:23] Patrick Oliver Jones: In a 2014 interview with Tribute, Tracy Letts talks about the difficulty of bringing August: Osage County to the big screen. It's not natural necessarily to take something that's written for the stage and make it work on film. It's in fact historically been kind of difficult to do that. I would be hard pressed to think of a play that became a movie that was better as the movie. I just really I don't think I can think of an example. Maybe a movie musical, like maybe Chicago was kind of great, but I still think the stage version was amazing. Cabaret was a great movie musical, but I prefer the stage version, so I can't think of a straight play though that was better as a movie.

[46:07] Jason Odell Williams: In Rolling Stone magazine, Tracy Letts says that giving up control of the piece is one of the hardest parts. As he puts it, quote, ultimately the director on the film is the final arbiter. In theater, the playwright is the final arbiter, and he or she will be the one making the final decision. But on a movie set, it's a director. And the screenwriter is not number two or even number five. For most playwrights, that's an uncomfortable position to take, to suddenly say, Oh, I guess I'm not in charge anymore.

[46:44] Patrick Oliver Jones: For the Dramatists Guild Foundation, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage interviewed another Pulitzer playwright, Charles Fuller. And the two of them talk about the challenges of transitioning from stage to screen. Playwright is like a man riding a motorcycle. Movie writers like a guy riding in a bus. And in a bus, there are other passengers. And so you have to say, excuse me, I want to go to the door. Or excuse me, I like to get out on the front of the bus. Well, there are all kinds of people talking and telling you things while you're working on a film. It can be debilitating. I know my experience, which is not as vast and deep as yours in Hollywood, but I always feel when I'm out there and I'm writing a script for these producers that like I'm a hooker walking the strip.

And the pimp is like, bitch, where's my money? You know, I always feel that in some ways that I'm asked to compromise a little bit of myself that I've never felt that it's been a pure experience where I'm permitted to be who I am as a writer. And I'm wondering whether you had any of that experience.

[47:54] Jason Odell Williams: No, but at the same time, I learned that keep the play out of the movie. It's thinking filmically, which is different from writing a play. Language isn't as important in a motion picture as the frame, the picture is.

[48:14] Jason Odell Williams: So you have to think visually rather than thinking about words and how the words sound and all those things. And you must begin to see the movie outside of the play to remember that if it's about motion, which it it's it's called a motion picture. So things have to move. And if you're not aware that they have to move, then you will make a mistake. When you're on stage, also like um we're looking at everything, the whole stage all the time. You can't you can kind of control where you where I look, but you can't totally control where I look. So it's it's just a different thing. It's all coming at you at once. Um it's very uh theatrical in the best sense. Um and if you try and put that in a movie, it just feels more artificial in a way.

So that's why maybe musicals are an easier leap because it's already one step removed from reality, right? It's a little less art, it's already artificial. Um, but I I don't know if you remember Doubt is just such a great example. I saw the play on Broadway, Cherry Jones and Brian F. Burnt, Brian F. Burn, and it was like hysterically funny too. Really dark and tragic, and I cried, but also hysterically funny. And the movie is not funny at all. And same with also August Osage County, which was like three hours long. I think I mean, I remember wanting them to stop being so funny because I had to pee. I was laughing so hard. Thank you're thankful for those two intermissions, but you couldn't wait to come back and see how this goes.

And I could have gone for a fourth act or a fifth act, right? And the movie was just not funny, and I don't I don't know. Like that that's sort of the the magic, right? Was it the acting, the writing, the directing? I I don't know. It feels like it's more the acting and the directing because the writing was almost the same. But then you just wonder, is it just because of the medium it was written for? It was if it's intended for the stage, it's kind of supposed to stay on the stage. And so that was also a hard lesson. And and that's what happened with the screenplay. And they were like, listen, this is a great play. It's not a movie, so we gotta make it a movie. And then I was like, but why are you changing all the words? They're like, uh, okay, maybe they're right. So eventually you just have to kind of let it go.

[50:32] Jason Odell Williams: Have you wanted to or looked at certain musicals or maybe paired with uh composers to get a musical under your belt? I've I would always wanted to write a musical. Uh I cannot write music. I don't even think I'm good at lyrics. Um, but there is one idea that Charlotte and I have had for a long time. And just over the last sort of six months to a year, we've written an outline. We have like a whole out like a pretty detailed outline and characters and like a whole, it's like the step before you start writing. And I've written the first two scenes. Um, we talked to a composer. Uh that person got a little busy. Um, we need to maybe figure out how to really nail somebody down. But it's also like it's really easy for me because essentially all of the plays I write are on spec, right?

No one's paying me ahead of time to write a play. I'm just writing it, hoping that somebody will take it later. And I've been lucky eventually somebody, you know, does. But with writing a musical, it takes so much more time. Um that I don't know anybody that would like commit to writing it with us without getting paid first. So we're trying to figure out the sort of the just sort of the logistics of that of how do we do we need to raise money ahead of time and pay this person, pay ourselves, just sit down and do it. Um and then also it's really it's a lot easier, as you know, like you've been part of this. I'll have a play and I'll just bring, you know, five or six actors into our living room.

We just do a reading. Right. And it sometimes you guys just do it because you're awesome. Sometimes we give you like 20 bucks and give you like donuts and stuff at the table and costs us very little to nothing. Uh, and I learn about the play, and then I can take that and take three weeks to a month and rewrite it and then do that again with a musical. That's an that's an impossible thing to do, sort of for free. You know, you gotta pay musicians and you gotta get people that can sing and your cast is bigger. So it's just a it's it something I've never I wouldn't I wish I had known people and know how they create a musical from beginning to end um to see kind of how they navigate all of that. Um but so the short answer is yes, I want to write a musical, and we're trying to figure out uh logistically how to get all of us in the room together.

[52:47] Jason Odell Williams: We'd love to take a chance on somebody young who's like never done anything because I think they would they would help it would also be like, yeah, we'll just jump in. But um, so it's yeah, we're we're trying to figure out how to do it. Um, I think it would be a really great and exciting musical. We love the story and the topic, it's based on something real that happened. But I would I I've always wanted to write something that's kind of based on historical fact, an actual event, yeah. This was a question, whenever I had composer Georgia sit on about her own writing process. Like, so how do you know when a piece is ready to produce? Like, like you've you've written it, you've rewritten it. How do you know? Okay, now it's ready.

[53:24] Jason Odell Williams: Um that's a good question. I I don't uh I don't know that you ever know that it's ready until you do it. Um, you know, I I think you write a first draft and you're like, I have no idea if this is close or not. And so you read it out loud, and you're like, oh, this is really far off. I got a lot of work to do, or you're like, oh wait, this is pretty close. And so you rewrite it and rewrite it, and then and then I don't know, you just sort of feel like this is ready for somebody's eyeballs. Like this is ready for somebody else to read at least. And then they're the ones that tell you. Like, like I said, I wrote that play and I sent it to a couple people, and they were like, no, no. And then one person was like, Yeah, I want to do it.

And I said to her too, I was like, you know, this is pretty new. I've only had one reading of it, and then this is really like the second or third draft. And she was like, No, I know it's it's in great shape. We'll definitely make some changes, but she was ready to just put it into production.

[54:15] Jason Odell Williams: Um, and when we did Division Street, we knew like, all right, I think we're ready, but it's gonna change. Church and state, the first one we did in LA. Like that that draft I gave them before rehearsal. We made a ton of changes during that rehearsal process. They did it, and then we made I made a a lot more changes before we went to Rochester, and then even more before New York, and then a bunch during the rehearsal process, and then more after the show is over. So it's like you gotta you never it's never ready until you do it. Uh and and then you see it and you go, Oh yeah, that wasn't quite ready. Um, and then you fix it. I I but I'm also a big believer in um don't let the best be the enemy of the good, right?

If you sit at home and try and make it perfect, make a perfect baby perfect, you're just gonna be paralyzed with fear and never get it out there. So at some point you gotta just be like, all right, take it. I know it's not perfect, but let's hear it out loud. Take your lumps, you know, see what works and what doesn't, and and and know that you can fix it later, and knowing like not every performance is gonna be great and not every audience is gonna be great, and just sort of you gotta take it in the aggregate and and sort of see afterwards.

[55:22] Jason Odell Williams: Um, I think as I've done it more, the more writing I've done, you get a sense of like, well, this is at least ready for someone to read. It's a beginning, middle, and end and all the characters that are. I would never give anybody something super half ass. Um, but uh what I usually do when I write something is I write it from beginning to end, and then I go back, no one's seen it yet, and I read it from you know, beginning to end and and and fix it. But I I try not to fix as I go too much, because that'll just stop you. You just won't get very far. So I really plow through a first draft, and then I go back and clean it up, and then that's what I consider a first draft is basically when I've gone through it twice. And then I'll give it to somebody like Charlotte to read.

[56:02] Jason Odell Williams: But also, but also she doesn't like to read, like you know, on the computer or on on paper. She'd rather hear it out loud. So then that's when we bring people in and we'll be like, let's let's hear it out loud. And that's a really fast and easy way. If you can get the actors together to hear what's working, that's the best way to do it. And then you've got these bodies in the room who you know sometimes will help give you feedback. That's really helpful is to get people talking and you hear it out loud, and then you just I then I just you know rinse and repeat, just keep doing that until it's ready. Until you've until it's ready when you can't look at it anymore.

[56:35] Jason Odell Williams: But that's also true. Yeah, yeah, when it's like I've done all that I can do with this. Every time I read it, I'm not changing anything anymore, other than you're just like nitpicking. So you're like, I gotta just someone's gotta take it now.

[56:45] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah. So it sounds like that while you were pursuing acting at first that you found your home in writing, and it sounds like this is this is where you're gonna stay.

[56:55] Jason Odell Williams: It it it was a long, sort of strange trip, as they say, but um, I sort of I have no doubt that this is what I should be doing, it's what I like doing. And and also honestly, too, um you know, the title of your podcast is why I'll never make it. And it's so funny. I've been thinking about that lately. I guess as we all have all this time to reflect. And I heard uh somebody talking on a podcast, Darcy Carden, who's on the good place, and she said it wasn't until she gave up on making it that she actually made it. Um, and I was like, Oh, that's all I have to do, and then I'll make it. But I was like, No, I think you truly have to give up on making it. And and I and I kind of was thinking about that a lot lately, and I I do believe if I never like you know, make it become famous, become a household name, uh, I still love writing.

Like I will still do it until I'm you know 95 years old and can't do it anymore. Um, so I'm like, well, then that means that's what I should be doing. It's like if if you would do it for free and and no one's gonna see it and ever read it or see what you're doing or making, you know, people that just paint at home because they love it. Nobody ever sees it. Like, that's what you should be doing. Um, so I that I that's how I know that this is what I want to be doing. Acting for me just came with a lot of angst and um uh extra things that I didn't like about it. Not that there's no angst or you know, difficulties in writing, there's a ton, but I think the good for me far outweighs the bad. So uh yeah, this is definitely the path I like being on.

[58:26] Jason Odell Williams: I'm supposed to be on for sure. And in the end, that's what every artist wants to find: their home, the place where they not only feel the most fulfilled, but the place where they are doing the most good. And Jason and his wife Charlotte have found a lot of good in the play Church and State that they produced off Broadway. And as I mentioned, you could get a signed copy of that play from Jason himself by joining the WINMI Newsletter. One lucky listener will be chosen next month. So go to why I'll never make it.com and enter your email for a chance to get that signed copy.

[59:12] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, a big thanks to Jason for coming on the podcast today, and especially to you for joining us. If you know someone else who could benefit from our conversation, please share this episode with them. And another way to support this podcast is by going to donate.winmepodcast.com and helping in the continued production of episodes like this one. I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, reminding you that the reasons for not making it may seem countless and frustrating, but the reasons to keep going are even more numerous and rewarding.

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