This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back for part two of my conversation with Robert O'Hara.

[0:04] Tonya Pinkins: You're listening to You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:09] Tonya Pinkins: If you're enjoying the conversation, visit me at BPN forward slash you can't say that.

[0:14] Tonya Pinkins: What do you think about some of the new plays, the new young playwrights coming up now?

[0:20] Robert O Hara: You said you've been doing this for 25 years.

[0:22] Tonya Pinkins: I didn't think you were much older than 25, but okay.

[0:24] Robert O Hara: No. Um, I'm gonna be 50 next year.

[0:26] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[0:27] Robert O Hara: That's crazy talent.

[0:28] Tonya Pinkins: 57.

[0:29] Robert O Hara: Okay.

[0:29] Tonya Pinkins: Yes.

[0:30] Robert O Hara: Uh, I think it's so fantastic. I mean, I sometimes I go to these plays, I'm like, I could have never gotten away with some of the stuff that they're getting away with.

[0:42] Robert O Hara: And I love it. I think it's wonderful. And my only concern is that the rigor, uh, and that I want there to be a rigor, because I don't think it's helpful to have just a new exciting voice that is allowed to sort of just flounder, you know, and just be there and that we laugh at them because they're new and different.

[0:59] Robert O Hara: I had George C Wolfe clobbering me every day, going, you may be interesting, but there's five other people just as interesting, and there is a rigor involved. And I don't feel that sometimes that the artistic, uh, uh, uh community or the artistic heads of these theaters are actually holding their feet to the fire, that they're sort of allowing them just to be exciting and new and different, you know.

[1:22] Robert O Hara: And sometimes that can not help.

[1:24] Tonya Pinkins: I cannot agree with you more.

[1:26] Robert O Hara: I feel like sometimes they're like, well, we got some money for something black. Well, the black people made it, so it must be good. And you're like, was not ready. Why did you put that up there? That is not ready. There is nobody holding anybody to a standard.

[1:37] Robert O Hara: And why did you put those two people together? Yeah. That person has nothing to do with this, and they're incompatible, and you can tell it right now because they're arguing with each other, and you're too afraid to step in and say, this is behavior that cannot happen.

[1:48] Robert O Hara: Right. Or this has to change here, you know. You know, uh, and I feel like that does a disservice not only to the work, but to the artist as well, because it's not allowing them to be in the real world. Because in another place, you're gonna get fired, and your work is not going to be done, and your reputation is going to be soiled.

[2:04] Robert O Hara: You know what I mean? And unless you sit someone in a room and go, look, this is unacceptable behavior. This is not, you need to rewrite this moment or do this, or we don't do this here. Then they can go to their next experience and be like, okay, I learned something, other than just being, you know, unique and exciting and having, uh, a different voice, you know.

[2:23] Robert O Hara: Uh, so I find that to be happening more and more, unfortunately.

[2:27] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I mean too. And it's made me just not want to go. I'm like, uh, they're not gonna be up to the standards that you know.

[2:33] Robert O Hara: There has to be a standard.

[2:34] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, you know. And I remember seeing Jelly's Last Jam, and I was like, what my head was like exploding because it was there was so much rigor there, you know what I mean?

[2:48] Robert O Hara: And it could have been a complete mess. That had a thousand and one. How the hell are you supposed to, he ain't, you know, uh, uh, he's tap dancing, but he's a composer, like and he's singing? It's like how do you make that even coherent, you know?

[3:05] Robert O Hara: Uh, but there is so much I, I completely thought, oh yeah, he can tap dance, compose and sing, you know. Uh, and that was sort of amazing to see how the rigor can actually drag the story into a reality that is actually very, very comforting, uh, because you feel like you're being taken care of whenever I go see work by George.

[3:25] Robert O Hara: No matter how I think about the play after us, I know that there's a rigor involved. And I think just for people, let's talk about what rigor means. So we're not like speaking above people's heads. What do you mean when you say rigor?

[3:37] Robert O Hara: I think that there needs to be a healthy sense of challenging in the room, a healthy sense of experimentation, uh, and a healthy sense of sort of, uh, critique, you know, that in the room, in the making of it.

[3:50] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, you know, and that you should not be afraid to be challenged by anyone in this room, and that you know, that that will make the work better, and that you don't have to feel like in fear of someone disagreeing with you or changing that thing up at the last minute to make it work, or figuring out this hasn't worked for the last two weeks. Now let's see if it can work in this way.

[4:10] Robert O Hara: So I think it's about critiquing, it's about challenging, uh, and it is about continuing to keep an eye out for what you don't know, you know, and allowing people in the space that know things that you don't know.

[4:25] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[4:26] Robert O Hara: Yeah, I would agree with that. I would think that that would be what makes me difficult. Is that, um, I come in the room, I've read it, I've done research about the history, the people, the every subject that's in there.

[4:36] Robert O Hara: So I come in the room with questions. What is on your mind? Because I always feel like there are an infinite number of choices for every moment in a play. And I'm capable of giving you any of them. Now I'm gonna ask you questions so I get a sense of what is the thing you want.

[4:52] Robert O Hara: And if my asking you a question of your work is going to get you all for fovel, I don't need to be in the room. Because my mind is gonna is thinking of an infinite number of things, and I don't want to do an infinite number of things. I want to do the one that's gonna get you where you want to go.

[5:07] Tonya Pinkins: Right because I want to conserve my resources as well.

[5:12] Robert O Hara: Right. But you know, but white men and women are allowed to be difficult. They're allowed to be fully and totally difficult.

[5:18] Tonya Pinkins: Oh my god, and cry about it and discuss people out, yes, and just act a fool, and you're supposed to just be like, yeah, that's them.

[5:25] Robert O Hara: But she, you know, she comes on that stage and she serves, you know, she's definitely she brings it, but that, you know, so I I've always liked people that other people said, you know what, it's a little difficult.

[5:36] Robert O Hara: Because I'm certainly, I people would say I'm certainly George is difficult, you know. But I don't think that that necessarily means that, oh, therefore, I'm not supposed to investigate with them this piece of work. Well, this piece of work is difficult, you know.

[5:50] Robert O Hara: Uh, I, I don't believe that there needs to be this sort of process of everyone, uh, being polite and everyone, uh, being concerned about everyone's feelings, and you know what I mean?

[6:02] Tonya Pinkins: And I think about my mother, and I think about seeing her go to work every day, and I can't imagine that her boss would come up and go, are you happy? Is this paperwork making you feel fulfilled?

[6:14] Tonya Pinkins: You know, uh, would you like to contribute more to the room? You know, that didn't happen. Like she came and she did work, she had two kids to support, and she came home and she did it, you know.

[6:24] Robert O Hara: Uh, and I think that there's a lot of coddling, uh, in the room and wanting to keep, you know, other people at bay because if Tonya says something, it may upset somebody else, and then we have to deal with that and da-da-da-da-da.

[6:38] Tonya Pinkins: And I'm just like, you know, you have to make space for everyone, I think.

[6:41] Robert O Hara: Yeah, it's, it's, it's so tedious for me. It's like I, I get tired, I go to see plays and I ask the actress, so what was the conversation in the room? What's the play about it? I'm like, ain't nobody even asking me.

[6:53] Tonya Pinkins: You know, I just did what they told me to do, and I'm like, oh, if that's what the work is now, I don't, I don't need to do that because it's not interesting to me.

[6:59] Robert O Hara: No, no, and I feel that way too. I've been asked to do certain things. So I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to have those conversations with in that community with those people because you're not interested in having this conversation.

[7:08] Robert O Hara: The real conversation. Yeah, you just want to do this play because it won some award or whatever that is being done by everybody else on earth. And I'm just like, I don't need to come and do that. Find somebody else.

[7:18] Robert O Hara: And it's always, it's just so, it just allows me to actually breathe easier to not have to think that you know what? Uh, if I don't do this, someone else is going to do it, and therefore I'm gonna lose an opportunity.

[7:33] Tonya Pinkins: And my partner is always going, you know, it's a great opportunity. I'm like, there'll be others, there'll be other opportunities.

[7:39] Robert O Hara: You know, I have to conserve the energy that I have and also protect my heart, you know, because I don't want to put myself in a place that I'm gonna be unhappy for the sake of a play.

[7:51] Tonya Pinkins: You know what I mean? That's not, I, I don't have that need anymore.

[7:55] Robert O Hara: Uh, to sort of like, I when I was younger was like, you know, I can't wait to go around the world and the country and direct here and to direct there. And I'm like, you know, I'm not going there. It's cold. I'm not going there in December or in July.

[8:08] Tonya Pinkins: No, I don't care who wrote it.

[8:10] Robert O Hara: No. Yeah. And that's just, it has nothing to do with the work. It's everything to do with like, I'm not putting myself in that position to be have to negotiate that right now. There are other things that I can do, you know.

[8:24] Robert O Hara: Uh, and I'm lucky because I get to write and direct, and I know that some of my playwriting colleagues or some of my directing colleagues, you have to sort of like, you know, do seven or eight jobs directing to make a living.

[8:35] Tonya Pinkins: And I'm like, I couldn't do it. I've seen, I, I, I look at the trace and I'm just like, how are you directing another play? Like, what are you actually going to be able to contribute after doing four other plays all over the place?

[8:47] Robert O Hara: I mean, because I try and bring as much as I can to the process, and I know at times that I just simply don't have and people think I work a lot, you know, but I'm seeing these other people like doing all this stuff, and it's difficult.

[8:59] Robert O Hara: Is a dip, and also as a playwright, the idea of writing a play in New York and then hoping that other people will do it so that you can make money is a very difficult prospect, you know. And it's very challenging.

[9:11] Robert O Hara: So I, I feel blessed and that I'm able to work in both areas of my skill set. Um, because there's, and I tell students all the time, you better find something else.

[9:22] Tonya Pinkins: You know, you have to supplement. You may think that I'm, you know, this lead actor. You better learn how to tell a joke, you know.

[9:29] Robert O Hara: Learn how to, uh, to tap something, you know, because there's gonna be other people walking up your back. This, oh, she can't do it, I can do it, and I can spin while I'm doing it too.

[9:39] Tonya Pinkins: Right. You know, uh, so you have to be a real rounded artist, you know, yeah, uh, and create your own opportunities.

[9:46] Robert O Hara: I, yeah, I tell all my students you gotta be makers now.

[9:48] Tonya Pinkins: Yes. And because now the world is opening up, we got like six million more people coming online. Those people are gonna be like, oh, I can be a movie star, I can just put myself on tape and they're gonna put themselves on tape and they're gonna have it memorized and they're gonna have imitated the people who did it before, and you are competing against people who are hungry for it.

[10:06] Robert O Hara: Yes, and then they're millions and millions of likes, Bill Burger gonna call them up because they got a million millions of likes, and you don't spend all this time in acting school thinking you're perfecting some technique, and this woman over here got five million likes.

[10:19] Tonya Pinkins: And that's why she's up in this movie, right?

[10:22] Robert O Hara: That is the reality of today.

[10:23] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, which means there's more opportunity for everybody, yes, and, and, and, and it gets narrowed, and so you really have to pick and choose what you're gonna spend your time and energy in and what you're gonna build with that time and energy.

[10:35] Robert O Hara: No, it's so true, you know. And I think about Slave Play and I think about sort of like, you know, how it has landed in different communities and whatever, and how I sort of, you know, you had Jeremy and Joquino on before, and I had to tell Jakina and I said, you know, they're going to come for you. And they're going to, and some of them, most of them are gonna look like you. Right. And they're gonna come hard, and therefore you have to protect yourself because you can't actually get on the stage and also battle everything that's happening. You know, you have to have a firewall in a certain way. And that, you know, just because someone has an opinion does not mean I have to hear it, you know, or participate in it.

And I think that what the internet has done is that it has said, oh, I have something to say, listen. And then it shows up on your feed when you wake up. And I'm like, I actually did not need to hear that. You know what I mean? You could have kept that to yourself, and I don't need to wake up and see it. Uh, so there are places that you sort of had to curate your experience so that you don't, so you can do your job really. Uh, and I got off of like I've never tweeted anything in my life, but I removed myself from Twitter and from Instagram, and you know, and Jeremy is the king of that stuff all over the place. I'm like, Jeremy, don't send me nothing else. I don't want to hear it and I don't want to see it.

But I think he has mastered this thing of the moment, which is one, which Catherine Hepburn said, I think. No, I don't know who said it, but there's no such thing as bad publicity. Right. If you're talking about me, I'm on your mind, so I'm succeeding. Right. And uh, he just works it all. I remember when I was doing Black Perspectives Matter when I left MOTHER COURAGE and Dr. Kimberly Crunch, I was like, oh yes, collect all of that negative stuff because then when you want to go and gather funding for it, so you have all the data to show that this is what happens to people when they speak the truth and blah blah blah blah blah. Right. And I was like, oh, oh, okay, okay. Okay. Like there's a metric and an algorithm to even collecting what we think of as the negative stuff that you can quantify and turn into money for business and funding and stuff like that.

And it's exhausting to me. Yes, yeah. But Jeremy understands it and completely was born knowing how to do that or something like that. Absolutely. And I love being anonymous. Like I love at certain points of being able to whatever, uh, uh, level of attention that I've gained that I can sort of, you know, pick up the phone and speak to someone and not make it a big deal. I don't have to go online and be like so-and-so did-da-da-da-da-da-da. But that I can actually go and work behind the scenes. And I remember one thing that has to do with you and this whole sort of MOTHER COURAGE thing. And I think that Playbill had released Brian's entire thing or whatever, and then sort of like picked and chose what you had written or whatever.

And I remember calling, I don't know who it was, but I told my agent to get me the number of so-and-so. And I said, we have to have her entire letter. You have to, they have to publish all of it. You know, you can't just go, oh, here's the whole thing, and this is what she said, you know. And I think that that to me is how I operate, and that if there is something that I want to get inside of, I want to stick my finger in, and that, uh, I can do it quietly and do it outside of everybody knowing and everybody, uh, putting it on the internet. And then some people like Jeremy operate in that sphere in a very brilliant and amazing way that I just feel like I'm not facile in that way, you know what I mean?

Because I'd be like, what, what way? You know, I'll be like, you know, and I would just become evil. You know what I mean? But, uh, I don't think that everything has to be evil. I know that I wrote, uh, uh, an artistic director and I was like, you know, you just announced your season, and I would just love to speak to you because I have looked through the history of your theater, and you have never hired a person of color at all to direct. And this person wrote me back and was dumbfounded, was like, well, that's not, I can't, I, I don't understand. And then wanted to have a meeting with me with five other people in the world. I'm just, I'm just writing, I just wanted you to respond to that. And I didn't go online and be like, call you out.

Right. And you know, and tell everybody blah blah blah. Uh, I just said, uh, I would just love to know, uh, why that's the case and if that you have a problem with black people or women or, uh, people of color directing. And so, you know, we formed a sort of a relationship in a way, but that's how I like to operate. Uh, and I think other people sort of like operate in that let me put you on blast on the internet right now, and this is what happened to me. Uh, and that's just a different type of sphere. Absolutely that I'm just not fast on. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So what is next?

[14:58] Robert O Hara: Um, there's a few things that's next that one I can speak about. Um, I'm doing a musical, which we offered to you by the way.

[15:09] Tonya Pinkins: Oh and got affirm now.

[15:14] Robert O Hara: By the way. At Willie Mammoth.

[15:15] Tonya Pinkins: No, it's in DC, but it's not Willie. It's a signature.

[15:19] Robert O Hara: But it's at DC. Uh, but uh, uh, but you know, because you always want to sort of like, um, if you don't have to audition, you don't.

[15:29] Tonya Pinkins: Yes.

[15:30] Robert O Hara: Because I really do not like it at times. I like to go, oh, you know what? Let's see what this person will bring to the space. Um, and so I'm doing a musical, uh, at N DC, uh, at the Signature Theater called Gun and Powder.

[15:44] Tonya Pinkins: Mm-hmm.

[15:44] Robert O Hara: And it is about these two women who, uh, and it's in the, uh, early part of the nineteenth century, uh, and they're sharecroppers and they're very, very light-skinned, and they're having a difficult time, uh, negotiating, uh, making enough money for to sustain their family or what have you, and they're two sisters. And they decide, you know what? We're light enough that we may be able to pass.

[16:07] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[16:11] Robert O Hara: And so they decide to pass, but as outlaws. So they start to rob these white people, uh, on trains and in bars and at banks and what, so they become these sort of outlaw sisters, uh, and then, uh, uh, life intrudes and, uh, and they have to deal with, uh, if they're gonna continue this facade. Now, of course, every black person they encounter knows they black.

[16:38] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[16:38] Robert O Hara: You look at them black black, like yeah. But you know, white people, uh, are buying into it and getting robbed all over the place. So it's this, so it's about the gun that they use and the powder that they put on their face, you know, as opposed to the gunpowder.

[16:54] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[16:54] Robert O Hara: So it's a sort of, uh, uh, a play on the word. And it's a beautiful, beautiful, uh, uh, musical and funny and touching, uh, uh, by these two people from NYU. I think they wrote it at NYU and they're new writers, uh, and it won the Richard Rogers Award.

[17:10] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[17:12] Robert O Hara: And so, you know, there's a lot of interest in it. So I'm very excited to, um, to work with them on it. So that's actually what's next. And then doing some workshops and some other stuff that's going to become public, uh, later on, but yeah, that's what's immediately next.

[17:23] Tonya Pinkins: And what is your soul story, is your soul calling you to speak on or write about that you haven't had the moment to do it. You've been busy, you've been a real busy. But what is it like? This is, this is, this is calling me. I can't and we won't get to it, but it's calling me.

[17:36] Robert O Hara: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's two. One of them is that I had a friend a few years ago kill himself.

[17:45] Robert O Hara: Um, and it was a very good friend of mine and a very dear friend of mine, an old friend of mine, uh, who had decided that HIV did not exist, and then ended up suffering from it without, uh, acknowledging that it exists. And you know, people are living with HIV for decades and for years, and there's no reason why anyone today should die from HIV, and yet he didn't believe it exists, so he refused treatment.

[18:11] Robert O Hara: Uh, and he was a very complicated, uh, person. And so I have this, and I have his diaries, uh, which he, uh, left for me and another person to clean out his, uh, home, and he got rid of a bunch of stuff except these diaries.

[18:29] Robert O Hara: And I just have learned so much about him and so much about, you know, what his struggle was, and that we actually don't have, you know, uh, the story of, uh, sort of the black gay male and what their relationship to HIV has been. There's a lot of white stories and a lot of white male stories, and we also don't have the women's stories either, but there seems to be no, uh, uh, uh, uh, small shortage of white gay men on stage talking about how difficult it is to be white and gay and a man.

[19:07] Robert O Hara: Uh, and so I feel like there's a space in there that needs to be investigated. Uh, and I've done work, uh, around those issues, uh, and that identity, but I think that they're, uh, but particularly around, uh, uh, HIV, uh, is something that I'm interested in with, uh, especially because my friend taking his life because of this.

[19:29] Robert O Hara: Uh, and then there's also this idea that I've been working on that I found fascinating and that at a certain point in our history you could literally bring your slave to college with you and that if you did not have a slave you could rent a slave from the college.

[19:46] Tonya Pinkins: What?

[19:46] Robert O Hara: Yes. I don't know anything about this.

[19:49] Robert O Hara: And the Southern colleges are now beginning to acknowledge it and that they actually would rent slaves from the, uh, neighboring plantations and lease them out to the college students, um, as they came because, you know, you didn't want to come to college and not have someone that could make your food and fix your bed and get you everything you need like they did at home on the plantation.

[20:13] Robert O Hara: So you would take your slave or you would rent a slave. And I was just thinking how fascinating that is to me. And it's connected to another idea which I won't share, but, uh, but I always have like 900 ideas, but that to me has been fascinating. Um, and the amount of money that was being made off, uh, these slaves, uh, being brought to college and what that must have meant to people who were not allowed to read, to people who were not allowed to be educated to be in a place of education, and I'm talking about, you know, uh, major universities founded by, you know, presidents, uh, they all allowed this sort of thing to happen so that has been something that I've been investing and, you know, plenty of them were reading, learning and getting the college education while you win the laundry and cooking and everything.

[21:01] Robert O Hara: Exactly.

[21:02] Robert O Hara: Which is what's so fast. So that's of course the story, like you know, because you know, the world wants us to believe a certain thing, but in fact, we were everywhere.

[21:10] Robert O Hara: Everywhere doing everything. You know the story about one of uh John B John Box Brown's the woman who financed him was Henry Box Brown. Henry Box Brown was a slave woman who worked for financiers, and she was listening to them, and she had a white man who would invest for her.

[21:28] Robert O Hara: And so she was very, very wealthy, and she was funding him. And when he died, of course, his wife, you know, kept all the money and didn't give her anything. So she died in poverty. But for a time she was one of the richest women in New York.

[21:41] Robert O Hara: Wow. Because she was just that slave listening to all the fine stuff. And like and putting her namas together. Right, and had a f a white man who would invest for her and give her a slave. Yeah, and I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of stories like that. You know, uh, the people who were promised their freedom, and then, you know, after it was over, they were like, oh no, you have to stay, or we're gonna sell you off to this other person.

[22:02] Robert O Hara: The brutality of hope, you know, uh, and what that would do to a person to hope and to dream that somehow uh in this relationship we actually have a relationship, and then once you were gone, then no one accepts that that was even in existence, you know.

[22:18] Robert O Hara: And my personal it seems petty, but it's just one of my personal pet peeves that every time I have seen a movie about slavery or a play about slavery, we are dressed in beautiful cotton dresses, and cotton was king. They was not putting no cotton on no slave.

[22:37] Robert O Hara: Right. I mean, in the stories the the the of the history is like they were wearing potato sacks and burlap, and they were half naked, and that's why it was so easy to rape them because they were half naked and they were barefoot, and they walked us across the country in wintertime, barefoot with no clothes on. I'm just tired of seeing slaves dressed like the missus of the house.

[22:56] Robert O Hara: Cotton was the wealth of the land, it was not going to no slaves. Right. Right. And that, you know, and also to just everybody was the same type of slave, too. You know what I mean? And that there's no distinction of how they had all these different people, you know, that were in all these different locations on a plantation, and they all had all these different sort of needs and and power uh among them.

[23:18] Robert O Hara: Uh it's always a them and us, actually. And I and I'm actually whenever I do anything that has to do with slavery, I I'm always fascinated by the fact that we believe that slavery only happened to black people. And that there were a bunch of people sitting up in a house sipping tea with 400 people outside that could kill them at any moment, and how the fear must have been inside them to know that they're also trapped inside this system as well.

[23:46] Robert O Hara: It's not just happening to those people outside and what that has done to our country because we won't even acknowledge it. The fear that one has and knowing that what you were doing is fucked up, and I could kill you at any moment, you know. But there's fear in me also because of what I've been taught, you know. Uh so I'm interested in how it has affected everyone.

[24:08] Robert O Hara: Um this is lovely, and I think this apartment is crazy. It I we're sitting in an apartment, actually. It's a beautiful apartment. We've got orchids in front of us, we're looking at the beautiful city, the skyline of New York City, and a microwave and a stove. This would be like four thousand dollars. Like this would be like a very nice place would be like way more than that.

[24:30] Robert O Hara: Unless it's a really is it a one bedroom? How many bedrooms? Oh, this is so. Yeah, I think maybe four. Like, we could just move in here, you know, like wow, get kicked out. I'm gonna just sleep on the podcast floor over there. Yeah, this is lovely. Did there anything that I didn't ask you about that you wanted to speak about?

[24:49] Tonya Pinkins: Since it's you know, you can't say that. Is there anything you haven't been able to speak? Why is it called you can't say that? Because I was a little bit wary. I was like, wait a second. But Tanya Pinkins. And you can't say that, and I'm known for not saying what I'm supposed to say. Well, actually, when Dory approached me about doing the podcast, I said, Well, why don't we call it the politically incorrect podcast?

[25:11] Tonya Pinkins: And I have to talk to George that way. And he said, No, no, you should call it. You can't say that. Show me you can't. I was like, okay, George. Right. So that's how it got its name. Now I wanted to ask you, how did you meet George?

[25:23] Robert O Hara: Oh my god, the George story? That is such a long story. I met George when he was at NYU. And I was on the graduate student. When he was at a graduate student, and Kija Bostic, who now is nothing, Catherine's something else, she's a a scorer, scores things. Um, I was on a soap opera and I was doing my first nightclub act at Sweetwater's.

[25:44] Robert O Hara: Is that even exist anymore? No, that was where Whitney Houston did her first six concerts, and I forgot to see them. Really? Oh, yes. Whitney's first six concerts. You gotta see all six of them. All six of them, because once you've seen her once, you would like you needed to go there again. She couldn't walk, she couldn't talk, she couldn't dress. But when she started to sing, you were like, Yes, I need to come again.

[26:06] Robert O Hara: But she was just as she really was a street urchin. Like, that was a pygmalion story. Really in Houston. Oh my god, yes. Oh my gosh. And so I was doing my first nightclub act there, and Kids was like, You gotta meet George, he's brilliant, he's brilliant. And so I got to read what would become the colored museum. And I was like, This man is a genius. You're right, might not come back, my nightclub.

[26:27] Robert O Hara: And I was not so articulate with how I explain things to people. I'm getting better. So he wrote me a beautiful night club, beautiful night club act, but it wasn't the colored museum, and I had just assumed that my nightclub act would have the elements of the colored museum in it because it was so extraordinary. And I tried to articulate that to him, and I didn't come off right.

[26:52] Robert O Hara: I don't know. He heard me say something so terrible that he didn't come to the show and he didn't speak to me for the next seven years during which he became the George C. Wolves. Are you serious? Yes. Oh my god. Does he acknowledge this? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're talking about all of this. Oh yes, yes. We have talked about all of this. Amazing.

[27:13] Robert O Hara: Yes. That's amazing. Interesting. I don't know people who I have not spoken to for seven years. Oh, George has exiled me so many times. I don't even care anymore. I'm like, I'm gonna just say what I'm gonna say, and then my get exiled for a while, it's okay. Right. We're coming from the cold. I mean, and that's my kind of favorite kind of person.

[27:30] Robert O Hara: It's like, you know, he'll get mad at me, he might not talk to me for a while, but I know that he respects me, and so I can come to him and I can challenge him, and he'd be like, nobody asked your opinion, right? But you know, it went in there and he heard it, and and he's an artist, he knows I'm an artist too, and I'm saying something from the point of view of an artist. That's my favorite kind of person to work with.

[27:49] Robert O Hara: I want to work with somebody that I can just bring my truth to, and they'll take it or they'll leave it. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you know, people would ask me about how him as a mentor. I was like, it was not soft and cuddly. No, it was not. Oh, you need to know it was bump bop bop bop b knocks on the head. That you ain't supposed to do this. How don't do that, blah blah blah da. This is not gonna happen. Can you do that?

[28:08] Robert O Hara: And I'm just like, it was like it was hard knocks, and that's the best thing. Cause you wouldn't know you survived the hard knocks, then you know you can do anything. Exactly. Exactly. And I feel like there's uh once again, there's all these people who are sort of like, oh, you're special because you have a unique and interesting voice. And I was like looking at a person who had an amazing voice who was just like, Oh, this is what has to happen.

[28:32] Robert O Hara: Like, uh, if you can't do it, uh step out the way because somebody else will have to do it for me. Right. And there was no and I remember uh uh um uh I asked him when I became uh assistant director in a show of his or whatever, assistant to director, and I said, Mr. Wolf, uh so uh no, I said George, I was calling him George at the time. So what would you um like for me to do? How would you like for me to work uh with you as an assistant?

[28:56] Robert O Hara: He's like, I just need you to do whatever the fuck I need you to do, whenever the fuck I need you to do. Can you do that? And I was like, uh, okay. That's so funny because I asked him to let me assist the director. He was like, Tanya, you cannot go and pick up Starbucks. Of course I can, George. I can totally pick up Starbucks. Whatever you want me to do, I can do no. No. No.

[29:18] Robert O Hara: So he wouldn't let me. Some people are not meant to be assistant directors, and you're not one. I would be a great assistant director. No, I would be telling on the sidebound George, you know that anymore. No. Exactly. Which is exactly what assistant director should not be doing.

[29:35] Robert O Hara: Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Robert. Thank you. This is much easier than I thought it was gonna be. I thought we were gonna get into trouble. Why would we get a drug? Do we is there a way we could get into drunk? No, I don't want to get into trouble. No, no, no. Trouble follows. I think that, you know, we talk about things that aren't the average things that you talk about on the podcast. We're having just a conversation of about whatever's interesting to me on that day.

[29:56] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, no, and I think that you were so amazing. So I'm so happy to uh spend this time with you. So thank you. I really am happy to do it because I have a story that I thought you were with me through Jelly Sham. And I've been telling myself that story about you for everybody. Oh, I know him. He was he was George's intern. Now he can't even talk to him. Turns out you didn't know me at all.

[30:15] Robert O Hara: Not at all. I saw you on a stage. I was like, Robert, give me your number. And you like put in your website. I was like, I knew him when he was a child. Is he giving me a website? Exactly. Oh, do you have my number now? I do. Great. Thank you so much. This is You Can't Say That Podcast. My special guest is Robert O'Hara, and we are on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[30:42] Tonya Pinkins: Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, the show Where You Can. I'm Tonya Pinkins. This is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales. Edited by Derek Gunther, music by Anthony Norman. Available wherever you get your podcast. And visit me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about. For more information, visit BPN.fm forward slash YCST.