Transcript
Speaker: James O'Neill, and these are conversations at the edge of psychology and soul. Today,
Speaker: yeah I'm joined by Lance Luman, an actor, voice artist, director, songwriter, playwright, and lifelong creator. Lance grew up immersed in the world of performance.
Speaker: following in the footsteps of his father, legendary artist, Larry Luman, while ultimately having to discover what it meant to develop a voice and a creative identity of his own. His career has taken him across theater, music, voiceover, writing, directing, so many things. And his latest work includes brilliance among other things, his musical exploring the remarkable and complicated life of actress, Frances Farmer.
Speaker: Lance, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Jim. means the world. I really appreciate Yeah. I mean, you, Lance, you have an incredible story. You grew up in an unusually creative household, which has continued.
Speaker: um What was that like as a kid growing up?
Speaker: um it It was pretty normal really for the most part. they you know Dad went away to work. um mom They had had a television show called What's New with the Lumens on WBL. That's what brought them from Indiana to Maryland. My dad sent some, say he was a disc jockey and a friend of his from college saw an ad that said you ought to be on television.
Speaker: And he made a little demo thing while he was in the radio station and he sent them the demo and they called him and asked him to come in for an audition. So he went in and saw Baltimore for the first time and said, don't like this town, not gonna take this job. I'll just do this audition and I'll see you when I come home.
Speaker: What he said to my mom, they had just gotten married. And um e that's a perfect situation to audition. you know He doesn't have any stress at all. So he was completely and utterly relaxed, didn't care, no nerves, didn't want the job.
Speaker: but and So they offered it to him on the spot. or And he passed any passed on it and he said, I'm gonna go back to Indiana and teach horsemanship.
Speaker: They got bread guns. He said, a lot of people could have just gone, okay, see ya. But he was that bothered him. He was like, you're gonna go back and teach horsemanship? We're gonna put you on television.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, well, i you know I'm not really that interested. So he left and went home. And then they contacted him about a week later and said, what about you and your wife? Can your wife come audition? And he said, no, she's in her senior year in college. She has to, she can't come there.
Speaker: And they said, okay, we'll come to you. So they came with a crew and they had mom walk down that sidewalk and describe things in the windows. And then they hired them both for a show called what's new with the Lumens with this whole idea that they were coming from Indiana, find out about Baltimore.
Speaker: And they ended up sort of playing a, um, Burns and Allen kind of, he's sort of on top of it and knows what's going on and she's a little ditzy.
Speaker: And so there was a little comedy there that they had a dynamic just automatically that they started doing and they became very popular. And she was forcibly retired when she got pregnant with me. And um because that was not okay to have a pregnant woman on television, even though Florence Henderson was pregnant at the same time.
Speaker: um gay And she was on on television in some kind of talk show at that time, I think. But, um, though she was told to go home and take care of her kid. And that's what she did. She came home. She became a full-time stay-at-home mom and my dad. The ratings plummeted once she left.
Speaker: And they said to my dad, can you come up with a kid show idea? And he was like, and I can send you a couple thinking he was doing them a favor when they in fact were doing him a favor because they were going to have to cancel what's the the lemons.
Speaker: So he said the same guy who told him to to do the audition had suggested a long time ago, you know, they never have a kid show with a nefarious character like pirate.
Speaker: So my dad called him up when they asked him ah about kid show ideas and said, are you going do that pirate again? And he said, no, man, you if you can do it, you do it.
Speaker: And so he put Pete the Pirate as one of them. And so they picked Pete the Pirate. And for the next five years, he was Pete the Pirate. And that, when he passed in 2013, that's all they talked about was the fact that he was Pete the Pirate and everybody went, oh my God, Pete the Pirate.
Speaker: You know, he was... I have older friends. i was too young. real I was like a little kid. There are pictures of me on diapers looking at the rings on his hand as Pete the Pirate, thinking he was Pete the Pirate. I remember him coming out of the basement and thinking, oh my God, Pete the Pirate lives in our basement.
Speaker: what What does your dad do? He's a pirate. Really? No, I didn't know it was him. mean, he had a big beard, long hair, you know, the whole thing. He'd go downstairs the makeup room, get in, become Pete the Pirate, go to leave, and I'd see him and go, oh, my God, Pete the Pirate's in our face.
Speaker: So that was about it. Otherwise, he went off to work, he was gone, and we just lived like everybody else. We were in a nice neighborhood as as a result, but we lived like everybody else. And I remember when I was in high school, I went to the Experiment in an and International Living to live in Mexico.
Speaker: um with a family and we were at a sort of a mixer for all the people who were going on that trip. And we were in line and my father was ahead of me and the woman was making little name tags and she said name and he said, Larry Luman, Larry with one R, L-E-W-M-A-N.
Speaker: And he went, not to be confused with the Larry Luman on television. Yeah. And that was the first time that I got the end ginkling. Oh my God, people know who my dad is.
Speaker: so It wasn't really, yeah. And he slid into voiceover pretty early on and um really finally yeah just an it decided not to do any more on camera. So...
Speaker: So I'm super interested in in, the journey behind or your journey behind all of that work, right? Like you're the creativity and the overcoming adversity, you know, persistence, identity, and what happens when, you know, you ultimately learn to listen to and trust your own voice.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Cause you had to do that, right? Growing up, like, when did you realize like that was, you were going to kind of go this route of being a performer and a creator? Well, I had every intention of not doing that because they did that.
Speaker: So I was like, that would be a lack, a monumental lack of imagination if I did what they do. <unk>t I'm going to do something else. I don't know what, but I'm going to do something else. And all through high school,
Speaker: It was a really hard road for me. i didn't have anything that I really connected to. And that was back in industrial arts. I kind of liked that the most. even And then my mother, my sophomore year in high school, kind of insisted that I audition for Anything Goes, which was the musical that was happening that year.
Speaker: And so I auditioned for it and I was terrible. And Joe Collins, I think was his name. I'm not sure exactly, but I think it was Joe Collins. um He was, to repeat, he was way better than me.
Speaker: And I went home and said to mom, I'm not going to get it because Joe's way better than me. And that's just that. And mom was like, okay. And the drama teacher knew my mother and she called her up that night. This is back when you had teachers instead of, you know, i mean, they were she was just a teacher more than she was a director, you know. So she calls up and she says to my mom, Lance didn't do very well in auditions today.
Speaker: And she said, yeah, he said so. Joe was way better. Yes, he said that. ha But I've thought about it, she said, and I don't think that if I give this part to Joe Collins, it'll change his life.
Speaker: But I think if I give it to Lance, it will. but I'm going to give it to Lance. And that's what she did. It was Moonface Martin em it and and in Anything Goes, which is the comic role.
Speaker: And i went all through rehearsals and they were like, just, you know, you've got to come more live, you know, and they're all over me. My mom was helping direct and everybody was just, it just was, it was, by opening night, I was putting on my makeup saying, well, I'm just going to fail in this show and then I'll never do this again.
Speaker: Oh, man. You were killing yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. And they were pretty much, my mom came about behind me and she was standing looking ah in the mirror at me over my shoulder. And she said, well, good luck. Bye.
Speaker: And I said, thank you. And she left, you know, like disappointed that I, but it's like, she'll get over it. I'm not doing what she did, what they did. It's okay. Yeah. So I went out there and could, what absolutely shocked me was how immediately could feel the personality of the audience.
Speaker: So as I started to do the scene and they started to laugh, I started like the ah the conversation that I think now always happens between people on stage. That's the reasons theater has survived.
Speaker: Radio, television, film, no matter what's come along, it's always survived because there's nothing like two living, all those living people in the same room. And the audience takes on a whole... personality in of themselves and that it becomes a conversation between the actors on stage and the audience said and that there's nothing else like that.
Speaker: Yeah. And I felt that right away and I felt that they seemed to like me and the directors didn't. um And by the time I did the musical number, but Be Like the Bluebird, the audience stood up and they wouldn't stop planning.
Speaker: And I'm looking at the guy who plays Billy Crocker like, what are we supposed to do? What's next? Because, you know, they've stopped the show. And he's like, we're just going to stand here and look at each other until they sit down.
Speaker: And they did. And we went on. And then they stood up again when I went out for the curtain call. And I thought, wow, mom was so wrong. She's going to come back here and go, wow. I don't know why they liked you, but they just kind of did. Wow.
Speaker: So I'm waiting backstage for that to happen. Then they both walked out and went, what happened? you were like not anything we've ever seen before. So apparently that whole dialogue thing just shot me full of whatever energy or and the nerves, I guess.
Speaker: You know, the energy is the the word that comes to mind. Like yeah they kind of spark something in you and you realize that there was this cool thing happening. Yeah, and it was just like, I'd never had any kind of experience like that. And then suddenly everything about my whole life changed in school. Everybody treated me completely differently.
Speaker: Everything was like, oh. And then when my father told me at the end of high school, you're going to college, I said, he did everything about public school. What am I going to in college? Unless, well, the plays were good.
Speaker: He said, we can you put me in something where there's plays, you know, where they teach that? So he found a couple of drama schools and ah one of them was North Carolina School the Arts, which was only 13 years old at the time.
Speaker: Well, but so my first year was 13. And I had to audition. And my father said, you're going have to audition for this, but it it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. They're just going to place you.
Speaker: If you can pay the tuition, go to school. And he believed that. So I went to the audition and everybody in the room looked like they were going be gassed. They all looked so nervous and so strung out.
Speaker: And I thought, what's your problem, man? did there They're just putting this in, you know? So I did my audition and then they asked me to come back because there were two groups. They'd split the faculty into two groups and they were looking at each group was looking and then they'd bring them back together and bring those choices back. So I did it for the whole thing. And then we left and we went on a tour.
Speaker: And the guy kept saying, if he gets in the drama department and my dad finally said, you keep saying if he gets in the drama department, I mean, what's the likelihood of him getting in the drama department? And the guy said, I don't know. I think last year there were about 600 people auditions.
Speaker: They picked 30, I think. And he went, 30? birdie And I said, ah I need to go home now. And at dinner at the hotel, we'd all come to North Carolina to up for the audition. you At the hotel, my dad said, well, you can write off 200 people.
Speaker: for, you know, just people that never, nobody ever bothered to tell them they weren't in again. And said, that leaves 400, Dad. 400. You know, I was just sure it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker: But I got in. And um that... Suddenly I'm just on the road to what my parents did. I was not intending to do that, but it was clearly something that I should have been doing.
Speaker: So by the time. So probably through that moment though, Lance, like you are you think you're not like, how, how did that impact your performance? Was it just like, I don't, the odds are, they're stacked against me and just going to be me. Like, what was that like for you to, to go through that audition?
Speaker: The audition at the school? Yeah. Yeah, no, I didn't think, yeah i didn't think, I mean, I was just just being placed in my mind. This was a school that was gonna take me because um my dad said they would.
Speaker: And um I was just being placed. So it was not a big deal. But once I heard all those people, I'm like, I'm in podunk Maryland, you know, and all these people who are the best in the entire country are coming out here to try to go.
Speaker: the odds are not good for getting in. I don't know what that percentage is. I never was very good at math. And um also also it didn't hurt get going to school there that I wasn't going to have to do any science or math.
Speaker: to get a degree. So, yeah but clearly, you because that was the worst under those circumstances and do well, like, how did you do that? No, well, the audition, I didn't think that that I, that I was, it was, it wasn't until,
Speaker: um they gave they sent me the fat envelope that said, you know, you you got in the school. Then I thought, maybe I'm pretty good at this, you know? Maybe is- So you didn't realize that your talent was- Yeah, I thought I was just the best at Glenelg High School in Maryland, you know?
Speaker: Who, by the way, um Also, I won't say also because I never was on Broadway, but um Caroline Bowman, who has been on Broadway and done, she was also in the national tour Frozen and she was just in Smash on Broadway, um also came from Glenelg High School.
Speaker: um so I'm sure she had the same, i'm I'm good here, but that doesn't really mean anything. And then you suddenly learn. And that's what they said when we got into school. The first thing they said to us as a class, they said,
Speaker: You guys are all stars from your high schools, okay? All of you are. but Nobody's a star here. Everybody's equal. You guys are a company. And I didn't know that at the time, but what happened was they cut us every year.
Speaker: And by the time we're graduating, there were 14 of us. so And that was the senior company that did the, that toured up East Coast with three shows in repertoire.
Speaker: So I'm obviously big into mindset, right? And the mindset being like the story you tell yourself and, but I've also heard stories from people that I heard, I love who have said, especially actors, their coaches or their teachers were very hard on them. Is that, is that a theme?
Speaker: Yeah, I think acting teachers, that it's the the process. of learning high-end acting. And my dad and mom had done it, but they just, you know, they took it in high school. They were, my dad was an English major and a drama minor in college.
Speaker: And my mother was you a drama major and an English minor in college. um And they talked about, you know, this doctor, she had a PhD in drama, their doctor who taught them.
Speaker: Um, they talked about that being a difficult process and, you know, but they didn't really have this kind of North Carolina. It was just Indiana university. It was not a college that just concentrated on this. So they wanted to know, they kept asking me, what are you doing? What's the, what are the things?
Speaker: And some of the classes it's like you're in tears and you know because they triggered something and you didn't even know you had. What they're trying to do is figure out where those triggers are.
Speaker: You know what I mean? So that you know how to access them if you need yeah So they're pushing you in all kinds of directions like that to find out, this is what makes me feel sad. This is what makes me feel happy. This is what makes me treat feel scared.
Speaker: This, you know, and those kinds of things. To try and drive. Yeah, to try and figure out that you have a toolbox for how to create the arc of the character that you're going play.
Speaker: Okay. All right. That's in that sense, it was really hard, but I got the sense all along in Schoolyards that I was pretty high up in the echelon as far as what yeah people were doing.
Speaker: And I got a scholarship, by the way. My mother said late in high school, I'll share this. She said, down I hope you marry rich when she'd book at my report card, cause you know, you're not, I don't know what you're going to do for a living.
Speaker: Um, and when I got in the school, the arts at North Carolina school, the arts, they said, and I got a, I got to the um envelope that said that I was in. And then several weeks later, maybe a month later, I got a really thin envelope.
Speaker: And everybody worriedly gave it to me and said, open this, it's from, for you. And from the school, North Carolina school, there in standing over my shoulder and I'm thinking, we're all thinking they're going to say due to an administrative error, you are in fact not accepted in North Carolina. just kid's gonna happen And I'm opening it. And I said, jokingly, probably a scholarship.
Speaker: It was. So that also was another, maybe this is what I'm supposed to be doing um in life.
Speaker: though When I got in school. Okay. When I got in school, that kept happening. And then my junior year, they give out a bunch of scholarships to the returning seniors.
Speaker: And that they go up in amounts of money as they give them. And like three people get this scholarship, two people get this scholarship. They almost try to give it to something. they But there are some people who get nothing.
Speaker: and I thought, well, I'm gonna get this next to the last one for sure. And then I didn't get it. And I was just nothing but distraught that they had ignored me. And I thought that I was doing really well. And I thought that I was really liked.
Speaker: And then they come out with a big golden Nancy S Reynolds scholarship, which is the highest of all of them. And I'm not even listening any says my name. And they're all grabbing my hand. And I look around like, oh my God, I got, this is like what the the best people in this in in their class get.
Speaker: And that's when I thought maybe I might be able to do this because I know it was very difficult to make a living as a performer to actually didn''t make enough money to survive.
Speaker: So I thought, well, and then they we at that time we were in the league of professional active training programs. ah which there were 10 schools in, and North Carolina Scholiard is just one of them. And all of those schools came to New York at Juilliard and they all showed off their senior class in scenes that we prepare. prepare And the class, the the the school that got the most callbacks from agents, managers, casting directors, people in the industry.
Speaker: They listed them from first to the 10th based on how many responses they got. We were number one, not because of me, but because Matt Ashford, who happened to be soap actor, who you know had a career as a soap actor, was extremely handsome guy.
Speaker: And he got a ton of call, ah just people called him in. And we would say, what did they say? and he'd say, They just wanted to tell me that I was the handsomest man they'd ever seen. That's really all they had to say.
Speaker: theyll um But he put us at number one. and um And that was a big year. So I went to New York because those were my connections. If I was going to do something, I needed to go out to New York because everybody who talked to me. The epicenter of things. when Yeah, when you get to the city, give us a call.
Speaker: It's like, well, I guess I'm going to the city. I'm not going back to Maryland. So I went. In New York, I spent the 80s in New York. So in this competitive world where you had been kind of down on yourself or just stopped not thinking things might work out, but they kept doing it. So you had this...
Speaker: momentum, this feedback that you were doing well and being rewarded for it. Um, take me to a moment. you So you're going to the big city. It's gotta to happen at some time. Take me to a moment where there was adversity or rejection or failure that you, when you, when that first happened, cause that the actors that I know, like, i mean, it's, it's part of the, and it's so many things, right? Like it's just part of performance. We don't win everything.
Speaker: Yeah, so I went into ah ah went into the city and had met all the people who said, call me when you get in the city. And they said, okay, well, we'll you know keep you in mind. And I moved on and went back home. And then I sent out 150 resumes. I got my resume pictures came in a box of 200 or 250 or whatever it was. And I got the resumes and stapled them on there. And I sent them out to everybody there was and no one did anything.
Speaker: And I was sitting there, you know, trying to figure out what am I going to do? Cause this isn't going to work. And I called my father who still to this day, I believe he is the wisest man that I've ever known.
Speaker: And I was really lucky that he was my father. I called him up and I said, I've sent out 150 resumes. I've seen all the people who are interested in talking to me. Nobody's calling me. Nobody cares.
Speaker: I don't, i I'm not as good as I thought I was, I guess. My dad said, they don't even know you're there.
Speaker: And that was inconceivable to me when he said it. But he said, put yourself in this in the position for casting directors, all the people that you want to see.
Speaker: Every actor who's come to New York wants to see them. That's thousands of actors. They couldn't get anything done in a day if they didn't have walls in front of people keeping them from all the people coming with sending resumes.
Speaker: You have to make a more dramatic
Speaker: move, you know, is you to make all that happen. To be seen. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I remembered that at one point we were lucky enough to have Malcolm Morrison, who was our Dean at North Carolina School Arts got Hume Cronin and Jessica Tandy to come in and talk to us as a class, if you can believe it, which was incredible for us. and We were like, these guys are huge.
Speaker: And I remember Hume Cronin saying very clearly, don't wait for the phone to ring because it will not. You have to put something together. You have to make something happen. You have to do something.
Speaker: e So I went to casting directors and asked them if I could read with it, be the reader at their auditions. So that I would read opposite the people they were auditioning. And um instead of them having to do it, they can have an actor and I would do it for nothing.
Speaker: And um they agreed to let me do that. And in the meantime, Manhattan Cable was happening. And um it was just starting.
Speaker: And there were people on on the phone just talking to people on camera. That was their show. People would call up and they'd just talk. And you could hear yourself and, you know. And I thought, this is insane. Why is anybody watching this?
Speaker: And I thought, what would be cool is if we would put together like a variety show with all of these actors that I know from North Carolina School Arts. I know dancers, I know musicians, I know actors.
Speaker: Because there are four schools that's at North Carolina School of the Arts. They were like did the drama department, the music department, the dance department, and the design production department. And that's what School Arts was.
Speaker: So I knew all these people that had talent and had come to New York and also had nothing to do. Yeah. So I thought we could do something like the Carol Burnett Show or Sonny and Cher, some kind of a variety show.
Speaker: that had, you know, that was just fun and quick and little short things and we could show ourselves off. And then people could see it on, if anybody who's watching cape Manhattan Cable could go, hey, that, those people are pretty, maybe we'll catch on and we'd, you know.
Speaker: So I started talking to my friends about that and thought that was a great idea. and in the meantime, this casting director that I was doing the readings for starts calling me in for auditions for regional theaters, shows, okay?
Speaker: And as soon as we were all set, we were going to do Still Starvin', we were going to call it, right? Because a bunch of artists who are all still starving because they don't have any money. And so we were going to make it happen. And I was, I guess, the point man for it. And they called me up to, for a three-month gig at a regional theater.
Speaker: And I went to that three-month gig and everybody dropped the ball. I guess they were waiting for me to come back. And what that did was started to spark, because once you're doing something, it started to spark the next thing, you know? Because once you, I'm not a great auditioner, but if you see me in a show, you might want to cast me in and in your show, you know what mean? And that's what started to happen. That's what started to happen.
Speaker: But you started to take action and things started to happen. Yeah, but before, almost before we real I really took the the the big step, I thought was this variety show. That was going to really make a difference.
Speaker: But before that happened, I started getting called out to regional theaters and I just started knowing because it was a way to make money. And, um, it was good pay. It was better than actually shows that were happening in New York because New York, you know, you do a, that's, that doesn't include off-road. We're talking off, off-Broadway, little smaller theaters that you, you know, if I were to get something in that, they'd pay me 250 a week, maybe, you know, $200 or something.
Speaker: Whereas I get a lot more at the regional theater and the further away the regional theater was, the more they tended to take Alaska rep charge a wheelie really, really well. Because, you know, you had to go to Alaska. I never got a show at Alaska Rep, but I knew it paid really, really well.
Speaker: Because you had to go to Alaska. Hello, you're gone. You're, you can't even, without getting on a long plane flight, you can't do anything. so So when would you say that you started to really come into your voice?
Speaker: Like, when did you start trusting it and like really believing it in that time period? during during the Repertory Theater years when that was all happening in New York. I became a guy that, you know, i stopped I stopped going to auditions where they said, next, name, tell me who you are, whatever.
Speaker: You know, those kind of auditions. it's If you've seen Tootsie, that opening that opening sex segment where he's doing all those auditions, that's in exactly the exactly the way it is.
Speaker: okay By the way, that show came out in 1982, which is when I came to New York. I was was that 84 or 82? It's 82. It was 82. It was 82. And it was when I arrived in New York and I loved I saw that movie 14 times and in the theater because I felt like that was about my life.
Speaker: um And I went from those moments where they go, no, the ring's fine, you know, we just look for somebody else, somebodys taller somebody somebody shorter.
Speaker: um And then he he says, I can be shorter, see, I'm wearing lips. And he says, we're looking for somebody else, okay? So that was kind of the story in the beginning. yeah But during those repertory theater years, I started to go to auditions where I got appointments, not just open calls.
Speaker: And when I walked in, they got up out of the chair and walked around the table and thanked me for coming. And I thought, I'm a player in this town. I'm now a player in this town. I'm in the mix. That was a turning. That was a real turning point for me when I realized You know, they're, they're, they're seeking me out now, not as a star, but just as somebody they know is solid and will deliver.
Speaker: So walk me through this then, as you started to distinguish yourself, how, how do you keep everything, like your, your creative in instincts, right? Like your authentic creative instincts and in your voice, how do you protect that from fear and ego and expectations and simply wanting something to succeed?
Speaker: think you just, I think you just eventually, as things continue to get to to grow as far as your reputation and and and how people respond to you, you start to just think, just need to let go and trust this.
Speaker: Because I seem to have the instincts that to do this and I need to just let go and trust it. After I quit regional theater and I moved away from New York, my wife was pregnant with twins in New York.
Speaker: which we had in 91, so I guess it was somewhere in late 90. I got a call from the artistic director the Pittsburgh player theaterat i Players Theater in Pittsburgh, which I had done four shows, I think, at big shows and big parts in them.
Speaker: And i was done with original theater. I was going to try to get television and film. I'd moved to Maryland. I couldn't make a living in theater in Maryland because there were they were paying very little money and I couldn't.
Speaker: About a fourth of what I was making in New York. weekly. So i couldn't really support these kids and all that. So I'm sort of slid over to television and film and started doing industrials. We're like third largest industrial market in the country, Washington and Baltimore, the Washington and Atlanta.
Speaker: So, um, I was doing a lot of that. And what happened was
Speaker: they
Speaker: Well, but I'm sorry. forgot one of that. I told the backstory and I forgot what the question was. The the adaptation, like maintaining your creative instincts and then, kind you know, right kind of working through and navigating everything. And it sounds like you're at a point where you're pivoting.
Speaker: So he gave me a call at at at ah about three sisters, the artistic director. And he said, I'm putting together with three sisters based on my 20 years as artistic director, I'm handpicking my favorite actors.
Speaker: And I'd like you to play Baron Toussaint Bach. Well, that was four months before the twins were going to be born. And I thought, I'm about to have twins. When's this going to happen? And he told me, and I thought, okay, well, I think I can do that. And they'll be okay by then. They'll be about five months old by the time we do that.
Speaker: Really a bad call. But anyway, because you know, they get up really early and theater people stay up really late. um But what happened in that first production of Three Sisters is I'd been doing it for so long and I had took some time away from it before. And then I got back to it and I'm standing backstage and I realized that we're about two pages from my entrance. And I think, okay, where are the nerves?
Speaker: I need the nerves. You know, I'm not feeling any nerve, you know, and I realized that I was being driven by those nerves. Those nerves were the energy, were the engine that made it you know, do what I did. And I was standing there waiting for him going, oh shit, they're not coming. Oh my God. And about a half a page before I had to go on, I felt him flutter up in my stomach and went, there they are.
Speaker: And then I went on and um it was great. So Yeah, I really think that How would you describe that for you? Because some people describe that differently. Is it befriending your nerves or what would you characterize it as?
Speaker: yeah I sort of saw them as... I felt like they were the engine that drove that drove the performance. You know, that those nerves were what moved me. Like the power source guy. With an energy that I... If I was just sitting there not nervous, and I was going to go out there and be flat.
Speaker: And uninteresting, you know what I mean? So I guess, yes, I had, I had embraced it as not only a good thing, but a necessary thing. And, uh, okay. So I wasn't afraid nerves didn't that ever really, I never worried about nerves or ruining anything after that, because I thought of nerves as the driving force that made me good, made it work.
Speaker: Okay. So you asked, kind of talked about a couple of things where you it was like you had this, this talent. This is always something I'm struck with is when people see these wonderful things about us that we don't see.
Speaker: Um, what about maybe tell a time where there's an actor, director, collaborator, uh, showed you something in your own work that you didn't realize that was there.
Speaker: auditioned for, um, Dylan. Bob Dylan in that in um the musical. I don't know how brief it was, but it didn't last very long on Broadway at all. But I auditioned for it and i walked in to the audition and I thought, oh my God, Dylan has come to watch us.
Speaker: Oh no, that's not Dylan. That's Dylan. Oh, that. And then I realized I was in a room full of Dylans and I don't look like Bob Dylan at all. And I thought, this is, don't know why I'm here. and This isn't going to work.
Speaker: So I walked in and um the director so was sitting behind the desk and he asked me to go to a page and then he saw that I had a guitar in my hand and he went, oh yeah, you yeah, sing the song, go ahead and sing the So I Don't Think Twice, I'm All Right.
Speaker: which was the song that I did for him. And he said, okay, that's great. Can you read from this? You know, these, so he had me read some things and he was really nice about it. And I went back, I was at doing it a a regional show at the time, but my an agent had called me in there audition for that.
Speaker: I went back to the show. It was ah for the foreigner at a more in New Hampshire, I think. And, um, um My agent called me and said, how'd go? I said, it went pretty well. I thought he liked me, but I don't think I'm, you know, it's really for me. He said, well, he did like you and he wants to see you yet.
Speaker: So he was, he's calling you back. So he called me back. And as we were leaving, she walked me out at the end of the audition. And he said, um you don't really know Dylan very well, do you? And I said, no, not particularly.
Speaker: And he said, yeah, some of these people, man, they're just so insane about him. You know, they they just, really, really rabbi chance. And, um but he thanked me again for coming and he sent um me on my way and I got a postcard from him.
Speaker: And I still have, but was the best thing that any director ever sent me. And he said, you know, that I was one of the best actors that he had ever seen, know, I ever worked, watched.
Speaker: And he said, Dylan, I'm not going to give you Dylan because it's an extremely complex and complicated character. And, you know, there's so much to know about it. And I just don't, you know, you said that you don't, don't know one really as well as a lot of people do.
Speaker: And, um, but I, I, the last line said, but, um, I think that there are big things in store for you. And if you you don't make it in the really big, if there's any, if there's any um fairness in this world, you're gonna be very big.
Speaker: That's wonderful, you think. Yeah, and that was a turning point for me. I thought that had never occurred to me. I just thought I was gonna be able to make a living. But the idea of being really big, and I never did become really big. I mean, I had great career and I made my living doing what I did and it was really good. I ended up sliding into voiceover.
Speaker: like my dad did, because as my dad used to say, it's inside a yield low effort end in the business. You you know read a couple of lines and they pay you a lot of money depending on where it goes and um and how many people see it.
Speaker: Yeah. And so I did that for a really long time. A lot people to it probably heard your voice and not realized and Yeah. If they listened National Geographic, I guarantee you did. I've done over 500 shows from National Geographic. They were my number one client for a long time.
Speaker: For a long time. And i I used to, I had in my, in my voiceover life, I would come in and chat with people before the, you know, we went into the studio and everybody just chat, chat, chat, you know, okay well let's, here's the script, you know, and I'd go in and sit down and it and in front of the mic and I'd start to read for level, the engineer.
Speaker: And then he'd come over to adjust the microphone and he's just the microphone. And he's gone. And that was like,
Speaker: It's like starting in the voiceover, you know, yeah that's as big as it gets. And I ended up with Paradigm, which is a basically only has stars and they're on the roster.
Speaker: And that's when when my voiceover agent introduced me to go on camera agent, He said, like, you've done as well as you can do from where you are. I mean, you've got looked to look to real. You've done a lot of really great stuff. But I would assign you the people in Los Angeles would say to me, why don't I know who this guy is?
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, there already needs to be a name. I said, well, I'm in the voiceover department. What does that mean? He said, in the voiceover world, you are a name. You're in the top 1%. Well, you did well.
Speaker: You did very well. Yeah. Yeah. i yeah And it's not over yet. No, now I'm trying to get music. I've always see, I had a lot of friends coming into the industry and they were Broadway stars.
Speaker: Judy Coon was my girlfriend when I came to New York. She's, it was the original cassette and the Les Mis on Broadway. Steve Blanchard was has been a really good friend of mine for a long time. He was eight years the beast on on Broadway.
Speaker: um So I knew a lot of Broadway actors and I knew I couldn't sing like they did, but I loved musicals. Always loved music. So I wanted, you know, when you watch a straight play, you go, I want that part or I want that part. daughter When I watched a musical, I would think I want one of those.
Speaker: I want a musical that I made happen, that I created. And so, as I came to the end of my career and it looked like i was going to take my pension and, you know, move on, I thought,
Speaker: Well, what happened was in 1983, my wife and I wrote a song called When Will It Be Morning. Well, cause we came in a group that we did for years and we were building our repertoire of songs at that time.
Speaker: Oh, we listened to the demo back. It sounded like a musical. And I said, that's odd. We don't usually write songs that sound like a musical. Oh, well, I didn't think we'd ever see it again. And then she was walking home three weeks later And she saw book.
Speaker: It was in front of a bookstore and there were books that were used on the table. And she saw, will there really be a morning, which was literally a line from the song, when will it be morning?
Speaker: So she walked over and picked it up and it was the autobiography of Francis Farmer. So she bought it 50 cents and came home and said, a musical based on the life of Francis Farmer. This was in 1983, Jim.
Speaker: Oh, so, so I said, I read up two years old. that's tough I said, great idea. That's great. And, um, I, uh, thanks for that, by the way, Jeff.
Speaker: And, um, so we started to do what songwriters do. We started to research Francis Farmer and write songs that might be in a musical about Francis Farmer. And we just put them in an envelope called the musical.
Speaker: And that's, you know, and we'd put them on a cassette so we'd remember how how they went and all that. And then 35, 37 years later, we were making our last album, King Lumen album, um in the studio. And Kristen said, I'd like to end this album with no windows.
Speaker: which was in the envelope with a musical. And I said, I saw from the musical, can't do that. And she leaned over to me and went, there isn't going to be a musical. think Because it had been 37 years and nobody had ever written one.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, I get that. All right, that's fine. Go ahead, do it. So she did it. And then people started coming up to me about a year later saying, you know, I just got your album, dude, that last song is like an 11 flat number from some super dramatic musical.
Speaker: And I'm like, yeah, and that's what it was supposed to be. And then my wife and kids were gone. My kids went to college. My wife was helping her mother in North Carolina. And I decided to try to write the book.
Speaker: And that was in 2016 and 25 drafts later now. Next year, we're supposed to have a, there's three productions in New York of that show. We're supposed to have a investor interview.
Speaker: showcase that Martin Platt is going to direct is a pretty big name in New York. And out hopefully it's going to get us, you know, so. Yeah. Now.
Speaker: How do you
Speaker: I mean, the, the, the Francis Farmer has her own unique story too. Like how did that, what struck you, you know, for you personally about her story as you were kind of maintaining this, this idea for decades?
Speaker: Well, also in 1982, Francis came out that she starred, Jessica Lyons starred him, who was of course a really good friend of mine from seeing Tootsie 14 times. Oh gosh. Cause she was the girlfriend in Tootsie, right?
Speaker: So, um, when I saw that, um, it was um It was like, did that really happen to her? Well, it didn't. lot of the things in that movie are not true. There was never a lobotomy.
Speaker: I may know that for a fact now. the as The actual... ah for the for For a long time, people would find out that I was working on a musical about Francis Farmer, and they'd say, so you believe in a lobotomy or no lobotomy? What do you think?
Speaker: It was a mystery. Yeah, it was... People didn't know. But then... Um, the guy who wrote Shadowlands, which was a biography I was using a lot and written all about all the things that were wrong in it.
Speaker: And at the end, he put his email address and I sent his email, and the email address to him and Then, you know, I told him what I was doing and I didn't think it was really going be his email address and it was.
Speaker: And he started, you know, talking back and forth to me. And at one point I sent him something from, i was present in the SAG-AFTRA in the Washington Mid-Atlantic. And I sent him a thing with that signature at the bottom. And he said, are you president of Washington Mid-Atlantic SAG-AFTRA local?
Speaker: I said, yeah, why? He said, do you know the president of the Hawaii local? David Farmer? Yeah, I've known him for four years. He said, Farmer is Francis Farmer's nephew. And my brain exploded.
Speaker: And I called him and and in Hawaii and said, why didn't you tell me you were Francis Farmer's nephew? And he said, I didn't know he cared. And I said, I'm writing a musical about her.
Speaker: And he was like, ah send it to me. So then every time we met in Los Angeles after that, we would have lunch and talk about his family. And he changed my show so much. Mostly when he leaned back at one point and said, everybody who tells this story makes my grandmother a monster.
Speaker: My grandmother was not a monster. Jerry Sager, who now always plays Lillian in every production we do. And she says she's taken it all the way to Broadway. He, um, Every time I give her a new draft, she'll find a line and go, this is a monster line. We got to get rid of this.
Speaker: Because i' I'm not a monster. Lance, for people that are unfamiliar with Francis Farmer's story, can you just kind of yeah highlight who she was? She was a movie star in the 1930s and 40s who was involuntarily committed to an insane so insane asylum, her mother.
Speaker: And it destroyed her life and her career. And my elevator pitches. So it's a happy little musical. But um it is kind of happy because until she does get her, she herself gets her her um mental competency awarded by the court just before her mother passes away.
Speaker: um so And then she went on to leave and continued to do things and got out. She was at one point considered incurable and put in the incurable ward and she thought she was going to die there.
Speaker: And then they wrote a letter saying, mom's sick, dad's not doing well. We need somebody to help her at home. Can you let her out so she can come help at home? In her autobiography, she talks about when they let me out, I thought, wait a minute.
Speaker: Aren't i incurably insane? Why would you let me take care of my parents if that were true? And that's when she started to start. So it's a really complex story between the du the relationship between the mother and the daughter and the fact that they were both really strong-willed but thought in different ways. You know, they were trying to pull power and she eventually...
Speaker: Well, the power to put her in jail, but not to, not, not jail, put her in an insane asylum. But, but David's point is her nephew was that she was, the the grandmother was, that's just what you did at the time when you thought you're, you, you, somebody had a mental illness.
Speaker: You call the state sannessa insane asylum and they came in the white suits. See, when I was little, much longer before you were born, when I was a little kid, we used to say things like, men in the white suits are gonna come get you.
Speaker: Because that was happening before 1970. That was happening. Brightening. Yeah, the men in the white suits come and take you. And once you somebody in your family says you're crazy, you have no rights.
Speaker: That's not the truth anymore. That is not the case. Those laws have been changed. Prior to 1970, if somebody said, you know, you were crazy, you had no rights and somebody could just come and take you same song.
Speaker: Is there? an error You could be committed. I actually, there's a playwright. Let me just really quickly say, there's a playwright who I really admire that I gave the the musical to after I wrote it. And he divulged, I'd known him for years, he divulged that he was committed to an insane asylum when he was younger.
Speaker: And he was eventually He got married and then his wife said, you're not right mentally. You know, maybe we've gone to an insane asylum for a few years and I'll come let you out, which he never did.
Speaker: So he just left. He said, I'm still to this day, hey, well, from the, you know, mental facility or whatever. happened They didn't come get him. They didn't come get him. But I didn't even know that. That shocked me to no end.
Speaker: So it happened to people that you know probably or you knew I mean, it's, you' older people it's just a different time, right? Like it all changed. yeah I think in the sixties and things like that. But it' sir is there a modern day equivalent of anything like that?
Speaker: I really don't think there is. really don't think, you know, I think there's a certain amount of or like a Britney Spears. Well, yeah, Britney Spears is actually, a when I was working on Francis Farmer, it came on my feed and Facebook at one point, Britney Spears is the modern day Francis Farmer. that was the Did I write this?
Speaker: ah Did I write this? Because a lot of people don't even know who Francis Farmer is, but that was written. And and it like and when I went in 2022 to do the first showcase production at the Players Theater in New York,
Speaker: The people at that time were talking about Britney, you know, Britney was like under her father's. Okay. He, she had been, he had been assigned as her, i don't remember what the terms are now, but he was in charge I think it's conservatorship. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, they're in control of that. and I think you're right. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's the conservatorship now. And that's, yeah. And they say, what happens to me? What you don't want you doing? and All that stuff. And they can release you from that or not, ah which I think he eventually did. But I went to a theater summit in 2021 and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was the keynote speaker who had a beautiful English accent. and I'd never heard him speak before.
Speaker: He said, he was telling us all about creating musicals, cause what we were all doing at the theater group. And he said, there is an element about your musical that you have no control over.
Speaker: That is sheer luck. And that luck is.
Speaker: That luck is.
Speaker: what's going on in the world when your musical comes to life. And you can't, if you if you just if you decide to write a musicals, he said, I'll give you an example. you You go to write a musical on domestic violence, to Congo.
Speaker: It actually gets goes on Broadway. People don't really relate to it because they don't relate to domestic violence per se as a culture. um So it lasted less than a year on Broadway, the time. And then O.J. happens. The whole world is exposed to to to domestic violence.
Speaker: And when they do the re the
Speaker: most recent version of Chicago on Broadway, it lasts forever because everybody gets it. because And he said, you don't have any control over that because it takes about 10 years to get a show in Broadway.
Speaker: And when you write it, what matters now, in 10 years, it doesn't matter. So it really kind of came to light right as we were releasing ah Brilliance, because they were all talking about Britney. It was like mental health the time of issue.
Speaker: yeah The timing was perfect. It's interesting because you, you talked a lot about, you know, before like making things happen, right? Like obviously taking the time over decades to compile the song, like that was all work that was being done, part of your creative process.
Speaker: And then you have these outside factors that you have no control of, but you're also giving it ah an opportunity, if you will, to be put out there into the world, um, in its own timing, right? Like having patience with that and just.
Speaker: I mean, there, there is that letting go, right? Like that release and then seeing what happens and and it may or may not just pick up in ways that, I mean, i've heard it from so many creative people like, well, it didn't pop off then, but it popped off a year later when this happened, where it was like, I mean, who knew? No, no one knew, right? Like I was hoping for this, but it, it finally did happen.
Speaker: Theater Makers was run by Ken Davenport. He was a two-time Tony Award winning producer. And the first insight for me when I, you know, started joining that, when I'd come to, when I'd hit a wall with brilliance, I couldn't get anything else to happen.
Speaker: i mean I went to that thing and he held up a script and he said, nobody's going to read this. Okay. You send this to producers and that's what you're all doing. Nobody's ever going to read it because that's not the way you consume musicals.
Speaker: That's not the way you do it on the page. You've got to come up with a way to show it. So one of the things that he was doing with theater makers was asking people who he thought were ready.
Speaker: Are you interested in a Zoom production? Because it was 2021. We were still. Well, locked down. pandemic Yeah. Most people were afraid. No, but theaters were still shut.
Speaker: And he said, you want to do it a Zoom reading of your play, of your musical. So um that's, you know, I ended up calling my friend Connie Bowman, who was the mother of Caroline Bowman, who I was talking about earlier.
Speaker: Caroline Bowman ended up playing Francis in the very first production of my show, at a Zoom reading with Jerry Sager, who's been the who's then the mother of her set.
Speaker: And that sort of started the ball rolling once people could see it. They went, oh, okay, it's that. And my, I co-wrote proteins. I didn't do it by myself. My wife and my son helped me with it.
Speaker: And they were, so it would not be anywhere near what it is without them. And yeah they did the best songs. There's a tremendous song called, Oh My Goddess.
Speaker: on between Clifford Ogads and Furrier and it's super really intense. But I had written this this story, their their storyline in his but in her life, their a little section. And I said, this is a long section with no song, but I couldn't find a way to break them into song because it was so intense. They're both a little off, you know?
Speaker: And they're, you know, yeah she had said in the book, we we both, We weren't like in love with him with each other. We were kind of obsessed with each other because we were both a little off in the same way, you know, and um which sometimes that lends itself to brilliance, b which is again, where the title came from.
Speaker: It's well, if i'd already said yeah, but the title the fact that a nurse I read in one of the the biographies of nurse, the nurse's account of going to visit her. She she was a nurse and and she was a big fan of her as ah as ah as a movie star and found out that Frances Farwell was in the Lincurable Award.
Speaker: So she went to see if she could find her and she did. and she would sit down and talk to him. And she said she had an aura of brilliance about her that the camera didn't get.
Speaker: It was just personal in in the room with her. So she has that. Brilliance is a great title for Does anybody have that? It's sad. I'm looking around it. So actually when we first came out, we talked to the Players Theater show, there was a another show about autism called Brilliant.
Speaker: Okay. now But they're done, they're gone. Lance, what do you hope somebody feels or perhaps thinks differently about um after experiencing brilliance?
Speaker: the Mental illness and the industry of mental illness. I had several several nurses who were friends of casting people who were in the mental health industry. He said, I'm not thrilled about the way the mental health health industry is is portrayed. And when the actor would tell me that, I'd say, then tell her to change it.
Speaker: Because that's what we need to do. That's what we need to do. Because I have a nephew who was diagnosed with schizophrenia basically 15. And he's 15 and he's fifty And um he's had a horrible life because he just hasn't, there's no support.
Speaker: um in In the eighties, all of the insane asylums were shut down, the state insane asylums, not all of them. There are some that are still open. Like the one she was in is still functioning. Stellikum is still in in in Seattle, Washington.
Speaker: But most of them were shut down. And the deal was when they were shut down that they were going to be replaced in smaller communities with like urgent care facilities that for, for mental health kind of things, little smaller things that would be much more beneficial to the mentally ill.
Speaker: Those never happen. They just shut down the insane asylums and put the insane people the the world. Big luck. And you go to New York and see them everywhere.
Speaker: I mean, when I was there to do the show, I was like, this is something got to be done with the show because this is this ist um this is a serious right now issue. And so lot he be designed we need to address it. I know it's a lot because it's a big, it's a big, big shift.
Speaker: But any kind of help, i' you know, it's like
Speaker: any kind of help that we can make, any way we can make it better matters. so Certainly to the people in Tapper.
Speaker: but i think well Well, I think you're right, man. i Being in mental health, I you know i yeah agree. if There's a lot to be done that, yeah you know, different ways and or models that that don't exist yet that could be helpful to people instead of, you know, traditional, you know, routes that they have now, just, you know, where it's, you know, you come in, and you get out, you you don't have... luck with you. Good luck.
Speaker: what um what my What my nephew always did was he would think, I got this. Once his meds were balanced, he's like, I've got this. And then he would stop taking them.
Speaker: And then he would go off the deep end again. And it just was, it was a roller coaster. It just didn't quit. Yeah, understanding and and and treatment is is in not always accessible. And sometimes it is accessible when it's, you know, they you don't want to get it.
Speaker: So, it yeah, yeah, it's ah there's a lot there in there. You know, there's a big, big void in a place, I think, for for Brilliance come in here. And what would you like for people hearing about Brilliance for the first time today? Like, what would you want them to know about it?
Speaker: Well, that it addresses mental illness then and and and hopefully hold shines a light on what what it is now so that we can start thinking about, oh my God, it's still not really as good as it could be. I talked to, I had a Zoom hand of nami Oh, okay. night Yeah. And now we've talked about a collaborator. She said, we've never collaborated in that kind way. And I'm like, me, there have let's make it up, you know? But what I want you to do is eventually promote it.
Speaker: When we start to do, you know, do the off Broadway and Broadway shows, start to help promote it to make it big. And then we'll take a a month, a year or um a a week, a month.
Speaker: And, know, funnel some of the money from brilliance that but the Broadway musical is making into mental health industry to put our money where our mouth is and make it, help to make it, to improve it.
Speaker: You know, all about improving it and have meetings about it and and and get doctors on board that ah aren't on board that might be able to help more profoundly.
Speaker: Well, I would definitely be willing to to help connect you and and make that happen. um yeah But Lance, you've spent much of your life using your voice literally as a voice artist and creative and actor and director and as a writer.
Speaker: What have you learned about the responsibility that comes with having a voice like
Speaker: that if you don't use it for the betterment of mankind in some way, um it's wasted. It's been wasted to some extent. I really feel like, and and I'm really feeling, you know, kept thinking, well, I'm early in my career, I'm young, you know, but now I'm not so young.
Speaker: So I feel like it's time to to to to make really big strides and in helping, to leave the world a better place than it was when you've counted when you came, you know? Yeah. but No, it's, uh, that's, it was really really looking forward to speaking with you about that because you a lot of people don't use their voice and you are someone that has learned to do that you know um i i know when i started speaking out more like listening to my voice was like you know chalk we're just scratching chalk portions i don't want to listen to it you're like no i people don't it's an instrument like it's your power like
Speaker: And you're like, no, I've got do that. When I first heard my voice recording, I thought, that's not me. This is not what I sound like at all. Now I'm not surprised I am, but for the longest time I was, and most people are when they first hear it. It's braced me really briefly. I wrote another musical after that because somebody who saw Brilliance a bunch of times brought me Florence Mills.
Speaker: And she said, you know, Florence Mills was a huge star in the 1920s. So big that when Rudolph Valentino died at 31 years old on an operating table, 75,000 people came to view his body.
Speaker: When Florence Mills died the next year in 1927, at 31 years old on an operating table, 150,000 people came to be over body. And yet we don't have any idea who she is now.
Speaker: But she was a black woman who never was recorded, never was filmed. She only dealt with that one-on-one with people, with a room full of people. And she didn't know how to do anything else. They actually tried to get her into a recording studio. That's how this connects 1923.
Speaker: And she heard her voice back and said, that's not me, just throw that. And they went, I assure you that is you. And then she was like, no, no, no, no. That's not, I don't if i don't want to be remembered for that.
Speaker: That's not what I want to be remembered. That's the connection with the audience was what she did. So brilliant. And I mean, when he suggested that I write another musical about her, so she was, they called her the Queen of Happiness, which is the A. Leneau musical.
Speaker: And, cause I did write the musical, cause I went and started to research her. And when I read the reviews, it was unbelievable what people said about her. And Hainan Swaffer was a massive racist.
Speaker: And i was talking to her, but I connected to her biographer who wrote, Lawrence Mill of the Harlem Jazz Corner. His name's Bill Egan, and he lives in Australia. And we just started talking back and forth in email. I started sending him the drafts in my musical.
Speaker: At one point he said, I take a little issue with the Hayden Swapper scene because he was such a racist that they wouldn't let him talk to ethnic performers because he was so mean to them and awful. And I said, I get that, but as as a musical, we need to see how awful it was. We need to see that.
Speaker: So I've got him in a scene, being off two scenes being awful later. And then later he gives a review, a review that is unbelievable. He said he's a reviewer in England. And he says, there's never been a performer like, like Florence Mills was the, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but most of it's, you know, last of these is exactly right.
Speaker: When she sings, she does something when she dances, she communes. And when she smiles, when she smiles, the whole theater leans forward, just to sketch the light. And that's what kept happening. I mean, C.B. Cochran, who was a reviewer, said um Florence Mills, in the last production that she did in Europe, um got a standing ovation when she walked on stage but before she did anything.
Speaker: And I had never known an audience to afford that honor to any artist, which leads me to believe that Florence Mills, in my humble opinion, is the greatest artist of art.
Speaker: When they those kinds things are written, you go, this we don't remember this woman. I have to write this musical. I know I'm not a black man, but I have to write this musical because somebody has to reintroduce the world, which we're also trying to, that was in the early stages, but we're trying to move that forward now.
Speaker: At least to hear that someone could have that much presence, it's it's hard to conceive of, and yet you, you know, you want to... to To be like, what was that like? That had to be incredible, right? Like to influence in a time where we don't have the internet, there isn't this mass communication and to have that type of, you know, news spread like that is is pretty amazing. All right, my friends, any final thoughts, anything you would like to share for young, inspiring creatives who are are in it now?
Speaker: What would you say to them to encourage them?
Speaker: Believe in yourself. It's gonna if it's it's all going to work out and and and every move you make matters.
Speaker: Lance Luman, everyone. l thank you so much for being on the show. and Thanks so much for having me, Jim. Really appreciate it. All right. Take care, my friend.
Speaker: We don't run from the dark night. We walk through it together all the way to the morning. That's Dark Knight Alchemy every week on Substack. And when you're ready to make your own world for real, I'm right here at jamesonealguide.com.
Speaker: Thank you.
