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NYC Fringe Festival with Jude Treder-Wolff, Lauren O’Brien and Suzanne Bachner
1.4k Plays8 months ago
Special Spring 2024 NYC Fringe Festival episode with three dynamic creators!
Lauren O'Brien presents Lolo’s Boyfriend Show - a new comedic solo show, the writer is also the performer;
Suzanne Bachner presents Conversations with My Divorce Attorney - the playwright also directs the two hander play which she started writing many years ago when she was getting a divorce. Her current husband stars as her divorce attorney;
Jude Treder-Wolff presents FASTER - real life therapist and playwright wrote a new show about how technology is speeding up our lives. She also performs the play.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
Discussion with Andrea Alton and Creators at the Fringe Festival
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey, everybody. This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And I'm just so excited. I talked to a friend, Andrea Alton, and just she connects me with such the greatest plays and in particular, the Fringe Festival going on now in New York City. And I have three wonderful creators with plays in that. Susan Backner.
00:00:47
Speaker
Lauren O'Brien and Jude Trader-Wolf. Lauren, I got your show as Lolo's Boyfriend's show. And it's not just because of the title that I picked one, although I think it was just because of the title. Tell us about Fringe. Like, what the heck's Fringe? And tell us about your play in Fringe.
00:01:11
Speaker
Well, the New York City Fringe Festival is such a magnificent opportunity for artists to bring new work to a really sophisticated, supportive audience and sort of spread our wings and test things out. I love it. I have so much appreciation for the people who are organizing it.
Lauren O'Brien on Lolo's Boyfriend Show
00:01:33
Speaker
Lobo's Boyfriend Show, I'm describing it as Reese Witherspoon meets Euphoria.
00:01:40
Speaker
And the little one line pitch is, Lola's boyfriend show, a quirky young woman's disturbing and hilarious, if I do say so myself, crusade to find true love unwittingly leads her to find her true self. I love it.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah, you know what? I love it too. I actually did the Fringe Festival in 2020, and I won with my show at the time, Jackson Lolo, which was actually about my friend, Suicide.
00:02:17
Speaker
So, but we won with that show and the run was extended. And then of course we know what happened in 2020. So I started writing a book, which I always wanted to write about dating in New York because I've had so many amazing experiences and so have my friends and I've digitalized it, but it's based on some truth. I sort of took the mud of my experience and created this new castle out of it.
00:02:45
Speaker
And I'll read you the little short blurb. Lolo lands a dream come true European tour with her punk cabaret show. But when it gets canceled after just a few weeks, she's forced to pack up her red platform boots and move back to her mom's house in suburbia.
00:03:04
Speaker
Lolo's psychic told her she'd be famous and happily married by now. Instead, she's stuck in her childhood bedroom, taking a wild and traumatic trip through boyfriend's past. From the yogi to the phantom texter to the S&M enthusiast, Lolo's penchant for attracting the bizarre really cuts her up.
00:03:23
Speaker
As she grapples with her ghosts and considers abandoning everything for a British bow, Lolo has a radical realization. Maybe, just maybe, she has a different path to happiness in this world.
Ken's Anecdote on Divorce Attorney
00:03:38
Speaker
So that's Lolo's hero's journey. Thank you so much, Ken.
00:03:46
Speaker
I appreciate, I love, and I've even seen the visuals and stuff, a lot of energy, a little bit of glitz there, and we'll talk some more about it. Suzanne Bachner, conversation with my divorce attorney, I got to tell you that, you know, with the title,
00:04:06
Speaker
I love the title, but I even have a weird anecdote related to this. I was on just uncomfortable moments in life because I'm vulnerable, like really uncomfortable ones. I was in Madison, Wisconsin at the time and I was going through a divorce and I was out dating at the time and my date had ended up striking up a conversation with
00:04:34
Speaker
The woman I thought I recognized and it was my divorce attorney that she was talking to my date. And she said, well, it's the big deal. It's the big deal. I said, well, that's my divorce attorney. She's like, Oh, I should have kept talking to her. So, you know, uncomfortable conversations, conversation with my divorce attorney. And I understand Suzanne even too, even within a casting and the mix here.
00:05:02
Speaker
There's some wild combinations in your play. Can you tell us about it?
Suzanne Bachner's Play on Divorce
00:05:11
Speaker
Yes, I can. And thank you so much for having me, Ken. I love being with these two amazing women as well. And there's like a little too much syncrotasticness happening because there are red platform boots in our show as well. And also when I was going through a divorce, because this is a place inspired by my real life divorce,
00:05:36
Speaker
I was in Madison, Wisconsin at one point with my tech director who is an offstage character in the play. So there you go. And actually my play circle was running there and we went to see it because that was all happening when I was going through this crazy divorce.
00:05:52
Speaker
But and it actually is like we're right now New York New York based artist, I believe all of us and You are in Oregon. So my play is actually East Coast West Coast. It takes place in my divorce attorney's office and Mostly but then there's also in Los Angeles, but then there's also scenes that are that are in New York and the main character is
00:06:18
Speaker
is very much a native New Yorker who was divorcing in LA. So the story is really about love lost and never letting go and clinging on and not wanting to let go, which is very near and dear to my heart of experience.
00:06:37
Speaker
because it's really about a heartbroken kind of divorce and divorcing person, you know, where there's alcoholism involved with her husband and where there is a lot of love and not a lot of acrimony per se, you know, which makes it a very murky territory. And it's a story that I really wanted to tell with
00:07:02
Speaker
with my divorce attorney as that other character with the sort of me character. So I always was telling this as a dialogue between the two. And my divorce attorney in the play is played by my real life partner and love of my life, Bob Brader, who is my partner in life and in art.
00:07:26
Speaker
So he's playing my divorce attorney, which adds a little off-stage layer of intrigue for us. My mother-in-law, when we first posted about this play, or I think it was when I finished a draft and we posted about this, went absolutely ballistic and got not the right message that this was something artistic and not something that was happening. So we set her straight.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'd imagine. So I talk a lot about that on the show. Something I realize is kind of like creating art and the artist space and persona that you can get into to present something. But it's something I had to realize for myself in inhabiting the role of an artist is that
00:08:16
Speaker
What you present is like, you know, it's from you, but it's like from you in a creation, you know, and it's always this kind of in the real world. It's tough to figure out for folks.
Jude's Play on Technological Change and Mental Health
00:08:29
Speaker
Jude, I'm so interested in your play faster. I was just at my recent episode I had with
00:08:37
Speaker
A friend of mine, Paige Stevenson, he's in tech and we're talking about the George Carlin routine. That's an AI routine, a one hour routine from the dead generated. I realized in the past a few days that on my podcast, because of the amount of content, audio content that I create, I can easily be duplicated.
00:09:04
Speaker
And I could create a podcast with guests myself in six languages and for that meeting never to have happened. The tech exists right there. And so I was talking about faster, like faster and exponential growth in tech. And I was just reading about your work and just this vibe with it. Jude really interested in your work. Tell us about faster.
00:09:31
Speaker
Well, faster is, you're on the right track there, although talking about AI is even faster than what faster is about.
00:09:41
Speaker
because AI is just moving at such an incredible pace and changing everything. The show is really about how technology is changing society and how it's changing our heads the way we think. Technology is evolving so much faster than people actually evolve.
00:10:02
Speaker
People evolve very slowly, really. I mean, I'm a therapist by background. I'm a music therapist and a creative arts therapist. I'm an improviser. And so I work in the arts and I always have. I've always worked using some kind of creative approach to helping people have a vision for their life and try to move towards it and tap into their own creative capacity because I think that's how we change. And the reality is, I mean, it's not easy. I mean, change takes an effort.
00:10:32
Speaker
But the way technology is evolving so quickly, actually, I don't think mental health is really keeping up with it. It's creating a lot of demand, a sense of pressure, a lot of stress. And it changes society in very dramatic ways that affect everyone all at the same time.
00:10:51
Speaker
And we don't necessarily know that that trauma is kind of impacting us on a daily basis and the way we feel in our lives. So that's the big broad sweep. But it's a comedy. All right. All right. We can exhale. All right. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the truth is like I've been telling stories about this theme for years on stage and different shows.
00:11:17
Speaker
And I use the lens of my husband. Oh, by the way, Suzanne directed my show. Suzanne, who's on this podcast with us right now and helped me develop it. She's the person that's kept me accountable and kept me moving towards the goal of interweaving these two themes. And I'm about to say that I'm married to somebody whose approach to change is exactly opposite of me.
00:11:40
Speaker
So he likes, you know, I'm a, you know, take the leap and figure it out on your way down. He's a lots of looking no leaping kind of person. I'm a, you know, let's try the road not taken. He says there's a reason no one's going down that road. We are the opposite. And and yet we make it work, you know, for many, many years. And so for 37 years, we've made it work.
00:12:05
Speaker
Because there's a lot of love, even though there are those tensions. And the way we approach change opposite, I have found to be kind of an interesting way to look at how we can look at the pace of changes moving quickly, and how can we look at, we can learn to think faster, we can learn through, and I'm an improviser, so there's a bit about how the science of this, sort of the way our brains can change,
00:12:31
Speaker
By the way, my husband and I sort of navigate being so different from each other, which is really us against human beings, against the pace of change. That's the summation, like there's comedy, but there's this science basis to it. Yeah, I want to drop in a little bit more there, Judith, not for free therapy, but I do this show.
00:12:54
Speaker
And I mean, you know, it gets a little bit ambiguous, I'm sure, but, um, no, I do this, you know, so I started this show five years ago and, um, you know, my background is I'm a labor guy. My day trade is I'm a labor organizer. I've done that for quarter century. Um, uh, you know, I have a deep interest in art and philosophy. And when I moved towards creating this thing, like I had an idea, there was certain ideas I had at the beginning. Number one, that this was legit.
00:13:23
Speaker
Legit as fuck like like I was going in I'm like, this is not You know the joke about the guy with the podcast even on a 51 year old white guy with the microphone whatever but like I'm going in and I'm making something but also I had also Two topics art and philosophy have affected me. I'm a sensitive person affected me profoundly Ability to understand the world the the music the songs they hold on to performance
00:13:53
Speaker
Movies and quickly the show evolved where you know, I'm talking art philosophy, but I added liberation Like if you ask me what the show is I say art philosophy and liberation and the liberation part for me just kept evolving whereas like having conversations with folks about being yourself and living and speaking, you know some truth and
00:14:20
Speaker
through art, greater comfort with being who you are and need to be. And it is such a psychological component in the way that people come at art and say, look, Ken, I can't, I can't even live without art. So your question about, you know, art being around and that's not even, I can't even, can't even do it.
00:14:42
Speaker
In your word Judah, I think there's such deep truth in art creation related to therapy. Could you just tell me like right now is that something that's more widely felt about art and creation being a key to being healthier?
00:15:08
Speaker
Well, I would love to say that it's more widely felt. I would say that by me, it is very deeply felt. And I started out, like I said, in music and using the arts, songwriting, and then theater arts, role-playing, and then improv is its own thing, which is, it is exactly about what you're saying. It's about the liberation of the self to make things up
00:15:34
Speaker
to make rules and break rules, to be weird, and find your weird. And as a therapist, I always encourage people, if you let yourself find your weird, you're going to find yourself out in the world being more yourself. And so my approach is always like, find your weird, because then you push the boundaries of whatever is controlling you,
00:16:00
Speaker
And then you're going to find yourself being more and sometimes finding your weird means that you find something really artistic and creative that you want to share with people. But sometimes it's just for people to grow as a person. But the arts are at the heart of that. So sometimes I do a lot of storytelling coaching, for example. And so if somebody hears someone else's story about something they went through and they feel mirrored by that, they feel seen,
00:16:26
Speaker
and they feel represented, that might inspire them to tell their own story. It might inspire them to just journal and discover their own creative capacity. But it's really about finding the energy within, because I think creativity is the energy of change. So when we tap our own creativity, we have the capacity to be more who we are. And that's really what you're talking about.
00:16:49
Speaker
And that's probably what, and I know Suzanne's work, and I'm getting to know, I'm gonna see Lauren's work, I'm sure, I'm gonna get to the festival and see it, that when you create a piece of art and you heighten and elevate a true thing about yourself, you might make comedy out of it, which is truly heightening it and making it weird, but that will translate to other people feeling connected.
00:17:14
Speaker
And the more people do that for each other, the more our world has the possibility of us being more free thinkers, right? Well, let's hope.
Art's Therapeutic Role and Creative Process
00:17:23
Speaker
But that core creative capacity, that's what a creative arts therapist is tapping. And I think I'm always trying to get social workers to think about that side of things more than the diagnostic side of things, if you know what I mean, like the clinical. Yeah.
00:17:45
Speaker
Thank you, Jude, that really spoke to me. I might have gotten freaked. I said I wasn't trying for freaked there. But hey, you know, the weird, the weird, thank you for saying that. Thank you for just clearly stating that. Sometimes it's better to have it in words and succinct than to go with that. That's definitely a piece. All right, I'm looking over you, Lauren, with Lola's boyfriend show. I mean, is that what you, I mean, you dropping into the weird on that. What's that doing for you in the performance?
00:18:15
Speaker
Uh, absolutely. You know, it's so interesting, um, listening to, speaking to so articulately about that. And like, I just feel this need, I felt this need to create Lola's Boyfriend Show almost like it was an affliction.
00:18:34
Speaker
And I feel sometimes being an artist, because it's a really difficult path. And I feel like there's this tension in our society that on one hand, artists are revered and looked up to. And on the other hand, they are kind of disparaged and it's looked at perhaps as a selfish profession.
00:18:57
Speaker
And I struggle with those two things. But this little boyfriend show sort of like came over me like I said, like an affliction. And it was during the lockdown that I just started writing out these stories and then heightening them and playing with them and magnifying them.
00:19:25
Speaker
and finding the hero's journey in these dating stories. And Lolo, you know, they're definitely aspects of me, but she's not me. She's become her own character and her own persona. And it's definitely a weird, bizarre, magical journey that takes lots of twists and turns. And I play about 18 characters.
00:19:48
Speaker
Which is so much fun, and it's interesting, I think maybe from a therapy point of view, when I switch characters, and I'll have full conversations between like two or sometimes three characters switching really fast, and as I switch the characters
00:20:06
Speaker
my inner experience, my whole emotional experience changes. Like, I feel the feelings of the characters and physicality, that whole psycho-emotional connection. Like, when I change body positions, my emotional state changes completely. And sometimes just going into this different body position brings me right into the original character, right to their body state. I feel like I'm
00:20:34
Speaker
you know, being a little non-linear here. But what you're talking about from the therapy. Have you listened to the show? Don't worry about the non-linear. Don't worry about the non-linear. If you listen to the eight days of content, which I do love and am proud of, don't worry about the linear aspect.
00:20:51
Speaker
But I feel like my compassion has grown for other people as I move into these different characters and physicalities and states. Because sometimes I think, oh, how could someone behave that way? But as I'm actually playing a character who I might have judged before, I really understand where they're coming from.
00:21:11
Speaker
You know what I mean? And the show, hashtag spoiler alert, that it starts out from this really fun, I think funny, lighthearted place. There's a lot of comedic elements and physical comedy and talking to the audience. And then my wish was also to shine a light on some darker aspects.
00:21:33
Speaker
of something that I've struggled with and that other young women have struggled with, which is self-harm and self-hate. And really looking outside myself for validation and how that would trigger the self-hate and self-harm
00:21:53
Speaker
So yeah, through comedy and through this fictionalized journey, my wish is to shed light, shine a big light on something that a lot of people struggle with. And my prayer for the people who experience Lobo is that it's a deeply healing experience for every single person.
00:22:14
Speaker
and that they're able to release things that they've been holding onto that they no longer need and call back parts of themselves that they might have lost along their journey, whether it's that creative part or innocent part or open-hearted part. So my wish is for those boyfriends shows and help be really good medicine for the people who experience it. And that's also how I've dealt with my
00:22:42
Speaker
struggle of calling myself selfish for wanting to even do this you know what I mean like struggle with um you know a lot of artists struggle with like oh who am I the one to bring this out into the world and I'm playing all these characters so it feels
00:22:59
Speaker
You know, and then when I see the pictures, you know, the promotion is me playing these different characters in a million different outfits or molo changes, according to see if she's dating. So I'm like, Oh, is that like, am I some kind of egomaniac? Then, but you know, my wish is for, for this to be good medicine and to free other people. Yeah. Did I say anything? Did that make sense? No, absolutely. And, you know, and, and honestly, in talking about,
00:23:29
Speaker
You know, I think it's so let, let me talk about like the volume and not speaking for you, but like the vulnerability piece. And you're talking about important topics like self-harm and the angst, whatever, whatever form it takes, like this deep angst within us. And, um,
00:23:43
Speaker
I think that I could feel when you were talking about that, those type of things. I'm interested in intellectually is when people become different persons and they're inhabiting different spaces. But it goes back for me is why I... Okay, let me talk about plays just really quickly.
00:24:07
Speaker
I come at the arts with a completely unique thread, nothing formal. I haven't performed in the arts, per se, around the play. So I end up with impressions and ideas that are powerful.
00:24:25
Speaker
plays and performance and vulnerability it's like for me like stand-up comedians being on this stage this live piece it's right there and it's like nothing else for me I can't explain it you're with within it um and I think
00:24:43
Speaker
about the Fringe Festival, when I talked to Andrea Alton, love to Andrea, about the Fringe Festival and being like, what is this? And what are people, what's the new edgy pieces? Suzanne, I wanted to ask you something, since I heard you were directing there as well, can you talk a little bit about
00:25:10
Speaker
I'm calling you here. I'm over in Oregon. You're in New York City Fringe Festival. What's it like at the festival? What's it like working on these different projects? What's the vibe for you?
00:25:23
Speaker
Well, first of all, if it's not plainly obvious, Dude Trader Wilf is just absolutely brilliant. So getting to work with Jude on her piece and having that kind of front row seat to these amazing ideas and synthesizing all of this that is her show that an audience gets to enjoy and take in and
00:25:45
Speaker
learn from and be affected by is just like has been such a wonderful thing and it was a total coincidence that we you know that that my piece and Jude's piece were both in the same festival in fact we we opened the festival in our venue the 14th Street Y back to back so it was just this you know wonderful thing and it's a magical space it's just this beautiful theater there was a monsoon on Wednesday night that Lauren I'm glad you didn't happen
00:26:15
Speaker
to deal with but it's just I mean it was really a monsoon it was crazy you could hear the you know the rain beating on the on the roof and it was very dramatic but it was just sort of like the blast off the kickoff of this whole festival in a sort of rebranding form of an April festival of these three amazing venues and the
00:26:39
Speaker
Frigid, New York, who runs these festivals, I mean, who runs this festival and sort of has relaunched in April. It was frigid because originally it was in February and March for 17, 18 years. And this was such a kind of rebirth moment for the whole thing and post pandemic.
00:27:00
Speaker
um my companies actually did pieces a piece by me and a piece by by bob raider in the first and and second ever frigid festival before it was new york city fringe um and Swinging back to this beautiful thing that lauren said not so beautiful but a little heartbreaking as artists that there's this sort of can be this disparity between um, you know having work that you are wanting to share with your community and having this sort of
00:27:30
Speaker
push back sometimes of, oh, you're just being a selfish artist, you know, kind of a phenomena. The Fringe did this amazing thing for these artists in this festival, which was they did ads on Times Square billboards
00:27:50
Speaker
um one for each festival a minute long so our faces and our shows were on this massive Times Square billboard um and they did a bagel and billboards event on um on the opening day wednesday it was raining but there we were you know name and faces in some cases in light and it was just extraordinary because it just you know centered independent artists and
00:28:19
Speaker
celebrated us and celebrated us in community and it was just so powerful and magnificent. It's just like such a, I don't know, inspiring and loving embrace and statement. That didn't answer your question, Ken, in any way.
00:28:45
Speaker
No, I like I've been lucky enough to get out to New York City twice within like the last three and a half months like kind of out of nowhere through opportunity and otherwise and Seeing no seeing being seen seeing the the billboard the the faces That's incredible. That's incredible. I mean, it's always incredible and because it's um, I
00:29:08
Speaker
It's a celebration and it's so big and cool looking. I was probably staring at the X-Men cartoon up there and there a couple weeks ago for about 10 minutes and that got my attention. But it's big and celebrate independence.
00:29:27
Speaker
Thematically in and things, you know last year. Oh gosh, maybe it was two years ago had Brooke McCarthy how to be an ethical slut or her performance and um, you know, like I'm kind of odd because like and again, it goes back towards the performance I'm gonna be like How can you you know? Create to create this piece of art, you know tied to personal and talk about
00:29:56
Speaker
Being lied to, having lied, sex, you know, like I'm looking in awe of like vulnerability. And I see that on the stage of where it's that tightrope. It's to me on the outside of like, how do you do that? And for me, that remains the marvel.
00:30:18
Speaker
And it may be the wonder, as far as the person watching. Even I've watched some of the fringe pandemic times online, get tickets online. And I'm like, me and my partner, Jenny, we're sitting there like, hey, we're kind of at the theater. Like we're watching a play. We're watching somebody out there and it's them.
00:30:44
Speaker
So lots of energy within that. But Suzanne, just about the fringe bit, just recognizing you're working on what multiple plays then, or how much you got a lot to do over there.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's two, but I'm directing my own play as well. It's just been a joy because we have such a wonderful, wonderful team who really worked on this during the pandemic. Our projecting designer, Chris Kadev, and our two stars, Kat Nardizzi and Bob Rader, we all
00:31:23
Speaker
worked on this as a group. And there's such a thread in the play about isolation and loneliness and opposing that, you know, intimacy and connection. So that it was this thing where we were, you know, all in our separate little spaces, because even though Bob and I were sharing a household, we were always in our separate cells for working on this.
00:31:47
Speaker
So to be able to then go and put it on stage for the first time, you know, and have this team, the same team, you know, morph into, oh my God, we're on stage again, has been so amazing. And just what different offers in terms of the opportunity and support and being part of, you know, an independent theater community
00:32:14
Speaker
um in the city is is just unparalleled so um You know, I don't know that we would have been able to put it on in in another way and also to feel just supported artistically and you know that we could you know, really create from the heart and not
00:32:33
Speaker
try to, you know, not trying to create commercially or create to serve this or that or, or, you know, listen to this, you know, massive set of cooks busting into the kitchen, but to really be able to produce work that is, you know, whatever anyone thinks of it is genuine, authentic, and from the heart, and coming out of
00:32:58
Speaker
You know what I what I feel like is a is a real connected collaborative process Yeah, yeah now do I have the timeline? Correct that a monsoon and earthquake kicked off the fringe. Is it do I have that time? All right You're really trying to get noticed out there. I mean this is
00:33:25
Speaker
It's good. It's good to talk. We got to talk about it right now on the podcast. All right, Suzanne. Come on, have a go at the what is our question. What the heck start? Why do you why do you spend so much time creating this stuff?
Art as a Human Need and Improv's Essence
00:33:41
Speaker
Oh my God, like that is an intimidating question to me because it just is. I mean, I think that there's sort of a genuine human need to express and to communicate and share. And so, I mean, I have like a less lofty view of like what is art or fine art because I think it's really as simple as
00:34:10
Speaker
making and sharing things. So like sometimes when I have writer's block and I get intimidated or whatever, I actually don't say write it, go and write it. I actually say make it. I say to myself, go and make it.
00:34:27
Speaker
And I have an artist, I have a visual art mom who did not start until she was in her 40s. And actually her piece, I know that this doesn't help your audience because it's a visual reference, but I'm sitting in front of her painting, one of her paintings.
00:34:48
Speaker
It was something for me that was encouraged when I was really little. I was an only adopted child, and so my parents would just write down my stories. I would illustrate them. So I actually was telling stories before I was literate.
00:35:07
Speaker
And I just think it's like every human is an artist. Every human is not going to call themselves an artist, but on some level, every human is an artist. I love that. I love that. Lauren, what are you thinking?
00:35:25
Speaker
I actually, I practice, this made me think, I practice Buddhism and the Buddhism I practice really focuses on the lotus sutra. And the metaphor of the lotus sutra is that the lotus flower only grows out of a muddy swamp.
00:35:42
Speaker
it blossoms serenely above the mud and the muck and the yakiness. And the whole idea of the Lotus Sutra is that we all have this potential to bring forth our Buddha nature, beauty, eternity, happiness, true self, and we can bring it forth amid the realities of society. And I have a Buddhist teacher, Daisaku Ikeda, and is it okay if I read a quote from him?
00:36:11
Speaker
Absolutely, yes. He says, life is painful. It has thorns like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.
00:36:33
Speaker
Never forget for an instant the effort to renew your life, to build yourself anew. Creativity means to push open the heavy groaning doorway of life itself. This is not an easy task. Indeed, it may be the most severely challenging struggle there is. For opening the door to your own life is in the end more difficult than opening the door to all the mysteries of the universe. That's Daisaku Ikeda.
00:37:03
Speaker
I, uh, wow. I, um, I've, uh, I really appreciate you bringing, I, I practice Buddha Buddhism myself. Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, uh, in the, in the context too of, um, I studied it and it was theoretically in, in philosophy, but I was of a deep interest, uh, art and psychology. And then for me, Buddhist,
00:37:31
Speaker
The philosophy of Buddhism, for me, just in my opinion, is actually just extremely deep psychology, like the philosophy is because the intent of thinking for me within the Buddhist tradition has this idea that your improvement is towards salvation, that you're becoming healthier, that you're suffering unnecessarily less than you used to do with something along those lines.
00:37:58
Speaker
I've been very interested over time in the connection between Taoism as well and Buddhism and creativity. And just to tie this just from my own head back to some of Jude's work is I've had a guest on a couple of times that for me kind of ties these pieces together. Her name is Susie Deville. She's been extremely influential on me and I'll tell you why.
00:38:24
Speaker
She did a book called buoyant. Okay. And it's about, um, it's about living that way and not a lot on a foofy type of way. It's about living that way. And she describes her transformation. I think she was in her forties, her Holocaust, like nuclear kind of Holocaust-type scenario, money, divorce issues, the down economy and everything. And her coming through that.
00:38:55
Speaker
And when I first contacted her, for me, some of the language she just seemed very like kind of like, like corporate, maybe, like business type of stuff. And I'm a labor guy. I'm like, how does this meld with my mindset?
00:39:10
Speaker
But it's about productivity and what she does to all the folks, me, I'll be in the class. She does a class. A lot of folks feeling burnout. What am I doing? What's this? How the hell does this art help me finish my gosh darn accounting work or whatever?
00:39:28
Speaker
But she goes into deep creativity, slower, working slower and saying, if we're not doing it for some of the things that we find through creativity and letting ourselves out, we're dying and we're dying rapidly. I mean, it's that stark for her.
00:39:48
Speaker
Um, so she's had a profound influence on me and it's like the thinking of art and creativity, business uses entrepreneurship. I don't know that stuff, but like all these pieces about being productive in a modern way, but not the, not the faster, not the all hustle, not the extra side gig that we're all kind of like.
00:40:11
Speaker
How do we manage all that? So a really deep effect, and I appreciate Lauren, you mentioned the Buddhas had a very powerful effect for me over time on living, trying to live. And Jude,
00:40:35
Speaker
What about art? What is, what is, what is art? I mean, talking about it and it's got a crucial role for you, but what are we talking about? Well, um, I will say it's an affliction. No, I'm just an homage to Lauren. It's to an art. Okay. It, but it isn't really, it's a, it's a gift, but it's an affliction that turns into a gift that turns into transcendence.
00:41:00
Speaker
And it's our capacity for transcendence. This is how I see it. It's our capacity to transcend this material struggle, all the stuff that we go through. And I love this quote. It's Kierkegaard. I'm not going to say it exactly correctly, but he says that life can only be lived forwards. Life has to be lived forwards, but can be understood backwards. And I think that art is about understanding backwards, even if backwards is yesterday. And then you write it in your journal.
00:41:27
Speaker
It's that through art, we understand what has happened so that we can live forward. And we've done it, human beings have done this since forever, since drawing on caves.
00:41:40
Speaker
telling stories around a campfire, making music, going on and on. And now we do these ever more sophisticated expressions of this part of ourselves that is capable of designing a spaceship that goes to Saturn that discovered oat milk. Those are all creative, making a paperclip, taking a piece of metal, forming it into a paperclip. That's a creative act. It's taking something and making it into something else. And art is
00:42:06
Speaker
about our humanity and about taking what we go through and turning it into something transcendent. And I believe it's so that we can live, so that we can. And speaking to what you were just sharing about this writer, so that we can move forward and we have to, we're constantly challenged
00:42:29
Speaker
to let go of what is over, you know, and move into what we want to become. And that is all the creative process. But we need each other. We need help with that. You know, it's but artists are leading the way. I mean, we don't often get credit for it. But, you know, artists lead because of the that's what I mean about the affliction. So, Lauren, I get it. I get what you were saying about the affliction. I don't know if Suzanne shares the affliction piece, but
00:42:56
Speaker
I will often suffer so much. And I feel so narcissistic about it that I'm even saying that. I'm like, oh, poor me. I feel compelled to write something. But you are compelled. And your life is terrible if you don't do it. And doing it is also hard. But if you don't do it, then you can't live. So artists are out there living that
00:43:23
Speaker
disconnect between or the gap between what is and what is becoming. So that's my take. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that the disconnect between what is and what is becoming. Yeah, there's a gap there, right? That we fill you fill with something interesting, you fill with comedy, you fill with
00:43:47
Speaker
um ideas and play with them and i will say final thought as an improviser because i'm an improviser um in fact that's where i'm going right after here is i'm going to be in an improv show improv informs the way i live and informs the way i think about everything and i teach about improv to lots of different kinds of professionals in in mental health and health care in education everywhere and what i what i think it's important and it just kind of speaks to this
00:44:14
Speaker
question about what is art because improv is an art form that happens in the moment. There's no piece of music or piece of writing or painting or anything. No, nothing's left. The art is achieved in the moment and then it's over and you sweep the scene and you do a new scene. So the art has an impact, but it isn't something that you take. It's something that happens inside the person doing it. And it's something that happens inside the person watching it.
00:44:45
Speaker
So it's very much about changing who we are by doing it. But the actual piece of art is over. It's happening in real time and then it's done. And that is the essence to me of like, if we tap that, that piece that we can be transformed and we can be changed by having experience, that's what art is. Hot damn.
00:45:09
Speaker
I've been over 260 episodes. I recently discovered that I have sound effects on my thing. I don't mess around. I let my producer do it. And I've been waiting and I'm 260 episodes in and I'm still afraid to use the chimy bells and drums and stuff like you hit it there though. Just so you know, I didn't hit the button, but you got it there.
00:45:33
Speaker
One thing about, I want to tell you one thing, because I just have to share it with you from the Susie Deville thing, because I had such a, all right, so imagine, so put your mind in this kind of frame, all right? So,
00:45:46
Speaker
Think about the ocean and think about in Australia, you know, there's big waves down there, right, that come up on the shore, a lot of surfing.
Personal Growth Through Creativity
00:45:57
Speaker
And the reason why there's these waves of this magnitude, Suzy explained, is called the bathymetry of the ocean floor.
00:46:09
Speaker
And then what she talked about was look at our bathymetries as humans, right? We got jagged pieces inside. We got the breakups and the angst and where did dad go and negative experience and all these things within us that create these
00:46:28
Speaker
ridges and elevation but the idea is that yes those are significant and they're so tough at times but the idea that our particular bathymetry as as a surfer that creates the highest rise of the wave that the wave hits the bathymetry of this of our what we feel our jaggedness and we are higher
00:46:55
Speaker
on that wave going into the shore because of our particular bathymetry. So what it taught me was like,
00:47:05
Speaker
less on the what we are, the constituents parts that made us like we want to be whole and feel things like that. But what about the magic because of those jagged pieces that creates that wave that we're on at top as creators, as somebody who's doing. And for me, I was like, Oh shit, Susie, I think I got that one. That really sank in for me is less angst over the jags inside and more like,
00:47:32
Speaker
How high am I going to get on that surfboard? You know, I don't know. I love that one so much. I just had to say it out loud. Um, uh, each one of you, I got to ask you, um, in, in, in particular about the finding we're going to be releasing this show as the fringe festival, uh, is, is, is going on. I'm going to ask each one of you just kind of tell some of the details of your show at the fringe and maybe, uh, uh,
00:48:02
Speaker
things upcoming or you know and where to find you that you know talking about finding the show and find the news Suzanne about about about your play and conversation with my divorce attorney what's shaking right now
00:48:22
Speaker
Well, we have four more shows in the fringe, and you can find all the information on conversations with my divorceattorney.com. And that's what I'm really focused on, but we actually do have some shows coming up in May of my play, The Good Adoptee, and that's at thegoodadoptee.com. We're going to Connecticut for Mother's Day weekend with the show, with our kids.
00:48:48
Speaker
And we are also going to Chicago with Fog Lift on the 17th, 18th, which is an event for adopted people and the community. Wonderful. Great, great, great, great fortune in that. Jude, where do people find the stuff right now? Fringe what's going on right now and what's coming up for you?
00:49:17
Speaker
Okay, well, I have two shows coming up in the fringe. They're Friday, April 12th and Saturday, April 13th.
00:49:27
Speaker
those are two remaining shows. And I don't and people can find out full information about me and other shows I'm doing, I'm doing some shows in New York City, they may be live streamed, or just I do I host a storytelling show on Long Island. It's called Mostly True Things, but you can find all of that at lifestage.me. That's my website of my company. And
00:49:51
Speaker
And, uh, other, I mean, I don't have faster coming up after the fringe because I wanted to do this version of it and see how it plays and how it goes. And, uh, and then, but I'm always, I've always adding things to life stage.me online classes and, and shows and workshops. Thank you. Sounds like an absolutely, uh, fantastic resource. Appreciate that.
00:50:17
Speaker
Lauren, all right. What's shaking? When's Showtime? What's going on near future for you? So Lil Lo's Boyfriend Show has two more shows at the New York City Fringe Festival.
00:50:31
Speaker
Thursday, April 4th at... Oh, no, I'm sorry, that passed already. Friday, April 12th at 7.10 PM and Sunday, April 21st at 4.50 PM at the 14th Street Y.
Upcoming Performances and Connections
00:50:45
Speaker
And then we're going to have a performance in June.
00:50:48
Speaker
um in garrison at the depot theater and the wonderful director christine bacour and i are determined to have a longer run of little's boyfriend's show in new york city and share it and around the world and share it with as many people
00:51:06
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, and on my social media, we're building the website for Lolo's Boyfriend Show, but you could find information. My Instagram is Lauren O'Brien Music, and my Facebook is Lauren O'Brien Music Poet, and my TikTok is the Lolo Show. So please connect with me there. We talk to music and poetry as well.
00:51:27
Speaker
Yeah, I actually I fronted a rock band for a while. It was kind of like Patti Smith meets The Smashing Pumpkins.
00:51:42
Speaker
Because I wrote poetry and turned them into songs and screamed and jumped around and got to like express my rebellious rock and roll soul. So I have a couple albums, Inconsequential Dream and The Devil's Girlfriend. Well, thank you for mentioning this. One of the things when it comes to the creative human, I think a lot of times it might be like a very
00:52:11
Speaker
different perspective is trying to like get into things because What I find with artists particularly musical artists when they get on the show and stuff They're on this like docket of like, you know I'm doing seven of these things and which tracks the most important which one was your most heartfelt or you know, like legitimate questions, but you know routin eyes and then um
00:52:33
Speaker
Sometimes when it drops in my show something rather than nothing's a variety show we can talk about anything and I'll be like on there big Hey, what about that? You know if it's it's a good book something that they don't want hidden or whatever I mean, so you wrote this book that was fantastic 14 years ago. You want to talk about that, you know So it's it's great to hear all your creativity. I want to I want to let you know, um
00:52:56
Speaker
I'm going to try my very best to come in contact with all your work the best way that I can. And this special episode is something rather than nothing. Drop in here. As Fringe Festival is going on, I couldn't be more pleased to have the opportunity to talk to Jade Traitor-Wolf, Suzanne Backner, and Lauren O'Brien, and just kind of sit down together, throw this
00:53:23
Speaker
you know talking art talking about your creations, but um I really am excited by the work that you do in this uh in this conversation And um really appreciate really appreciate your time and for the audience Fringe like if you if you're looking around and the world feels a little bit boring or you're tired of that bk commercial or you know, like
00:53:49
Speaker
get a ticket if you can get access or you know the fringe the art you can shangle your brain a different way for the day and that's what i do so could i share one more thing of course a lot of the shows have the app do have
00:54:09
Speaker
dream. So wherever you are in the country, you could stream a lot of the shows. I don't know. Lola's Boyfriend Show has a streaming option for people who can't attend. So you know, she and Suzanne. Yes, yes. Our shows are decent. I think they're all being streamed. People can watch from anywhere. Wonderful. So folks,
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah, make sure you check out the website. Best of luck. I'm so excited to be in the midst of fringe on the Something Rather than Nothing podcast. Great talking with you. And gosh, give me a lot to think about. Thanks for what you create, your courage. Shit, talking about important stuff too. I gotta really thank you for that. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you for having us.
00:55:01
Speaker
Thank you, Ken. This is Something Rather Than Nothing. And listeners, to stay connected with us in our guests, visit somethingratherthannothing.com. Join our mailing list for exclusive updates and access to guest created art.
00:55:26
Speaker
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00:55:56
Speaker
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