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Making a Poe Party Musical with Sean Persaud from Shipwrecked Comedy!
44 Plays18 days ago
Talking out loud about the stuff that won’t leave us alone.
This week writer, actor, and Shipwrecked Comedy co-founder Sean Persaud joins us to talk about adapting Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, the beloved 2016 web series, into a full stage musical premiering this summer at the Garry Marshall Theatre in Los Angeles.
What starts as a conversation about adaptation turns into something much bigger. We get into the strange experience of revisiting work that no longer belongs entirely to you, the pressure of adapting something people already have an emotional relationship with, and the challenge of translating a deeply visual piece of storytelling into the more suggestive language of theatre.
Sean talks about what changes when you move from screen to stage, how creative limitations can actually sharpen storytelling, and why adaptation is less about recreating something exactly and more about preserving the feeling people had when they first experienced it.
We also talk about:
• Adapting beloved cult material
• Why theatre and film tell stories differently
• Suggestion vs realism in storytelling
• How constraints shape creativity
• Making weird art with your friends
Watch now on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
So… what are you into right now?
Email us:
sowhatareyouintopod@gmail.com
Follow along:
Instagram + TikTok: @sowhatareyouintopod
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
and welcome back to so what are you into we're international baby national it's episode 10 episode 10. today's guest is an actor writer producer and a fellow grov I was gonna say a fellow nerd.
00:00:20
Speaker
Fellow nerd. Yes. Lover of baseball. What are the things you, what kind of, well you read a lot of things. You're into a lot of things. Thanks for saying that. um I also struggle with this when people ask, people ask like, what do you do for fun? And I'm like, I don't. I mean fun. Here's what I do for fun. Uh,
00:00:39
Speaker
Yes. yeah Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Is that that? Wait, is that Sauron's tower in the corner? Yeah, that is. sad That was Mary Kate's.
00:00:50
Speaker
If you're listening, he's he's showing us his beautiful display of Lego constructions. I'm sorry. I'm not sure. I know podcasts are so visual now, which I'm not used to. um I feel like most of our ah most people watching this are on YouTube or in clip form. So okay yeah if you're on the if you're on the clip, first of all, engage in more long form media.
00:01:12
Speaker
Don't just watch this video. Go from here. Go to the actual thing. Engage with long form content. But second, thanks for watching. yeah yeah But it's so weird to think that podcast was, remember when it was a very new thing and we're all trying to figure out like, how are people putting radio on our iPods? And now it's it's ah it's an industry. It's insane that we've held the name podcast when the iPod is not a thing. So it was a thing you had to sync to your iPod and it was like a whole convoluted thing. And and now we just use it as a catch-all term. You're right that the iPod was so revolutionary and now the most lasting part of its legacy is the word pod in podcast.
00:01:55
Speaker
yeah Yes. And did, is it, am I wrong in thinking that Apple at one point tried to trademark the lowercase I in front of their, uh, I don't think they own that in terms of their marketing, but I believe they tried to at one point. Sounds like something they would do.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, Sean, first all, thank you for joining us today the 10th Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Thanks for staying up late.
00:02:24
Speaker
over James, you're in London. am in London. And let me tell you, friends, first of all, I'm grateful to be here. it's It's so exciting. And London is very quickly one of becoming one of my favorite places I've ever been. I have never been more tired in my life. I think I've slept a total of...
00:02:44
Speaker
seven hours in the past three days. and And I've been helping ah rehearsals for a guy who didn't like musicals in the London that's opening next week. And because we're getting up, a few of us are getting up early, including Lauren and Matt. um So we the jet lag never really went away. And so I'm trying to say five, six, seven, eight. Why? Really can't even count.
00:03:07
Speaker
So, you know, I'm we're doing the best we can. But let me tell you, the cast is looking great. We met our understudies who are from London and they're fantastic. And um and there are are I will say there are a few surprises that are going to happen in this London specific show.
00:03:21
Speaker
that I think people are really going to enjoy. So um if you're if you're here... And if send us money on PayPal, we will tell you what those are before it happens. It's Patrick Stewart. Yes. And you know, and Sir Ian McKellen is playing Hidgens. So yeah, that's ah that's what we're doing this year. Perfect casting.
00:03:38
Speaker
That would be incredible. That would be incredible. would eat that up, yeah. Aren't you guys like having like a whole summer camp situation too with like your housing? you like Everyone can see each other. yeah kind of feels that way. Where we're staying, um it just so happens that all of our back balconies face each other. And so when we got here, first we were amazed at the swanky apartments that we're staying in. But then we went outside and we realized like, you know, I'm a couple floors up from Joey and Lauren and there's Mariah over there. And there's Jamie Lynn who has a whole garden in front of her place. It's so crazy. going to make it challenging for you since you were famous for your naked morning cup of coffee.
00:04:18
Speaker
why Why is it a challenge? I'm stowing some greatness upon the world every morning. like but's What's the issue here? yeah Yeah, but it's ah it's a lot of fun. um Yeah, Kurt, what have what have you been up to?
00:04:31
Speaker
Oh, man. ah What have I been doing? Oh, i am a good friend of mine premiered a film in Dallas. I was in Dallas this last week at a film festival. and That was really fun. ah You know, we launched ah a Kickstarter for this new show we're doing this summer. That's a thing that's happening. Mostly, I've just been in a deep, dark ah vortex of editing and trying to finish several projects that... If you've ever edited anything...
00:04:59
Speaker
you know that like you never feel good about where it's at. You just run out of time, you know, you just kind of, you just go, i guess it has to be done now. You're forced to give up.
00:05:11
Speaker
You're getting forced to give up. Your eyeballs are like stinging I think in hindsight, i what I've noticed is i almost, generally speaking, removed from that window, like months down the road or a year or two later, I'll go back and watch something and go, oh, this is great. But at the time, you're just like, ah, it's whatever. It's not what I want it to be. So um that's where I'm at right now. But I know...
00:05:35
Speaker
I have to hand off two two or three things the next two days and and then and then and then it'll be out of my hands. So nothing especially exciting. but those are Actually, it is exciting because that is a significant amount of work from the last like six to nine months that I will be done with. was just going to say, when you're working on something for that long and it it becomes precious, like said, you put your time and your energy into it. And then the the other side they never talk about is that once you release it into the world, it's no longer yours. So whatever intention you put behind it or whatever, you know, mood you were in when you made it is completely interpreted, it interpreted a different way by whomever decides to consume it. And so that's why when people report back to you and say, oh, well, you know, what an interesting way that you decided to turn left because it really talks about your views on capitalism. and you're like, I just wanted to make a short about ramen noodles. I don't know where you got that from, but sure. Yeah, let's, let's, let's go with it. Sometimes you're like,
00:06:30
Speaker
sometimes we've released things and people have found, you know, they, they find those things in it and it makes us look so smart. And we're sitting there like, Oh yeah, no, we never thought about that. It's a great quote by Fincher. and I don't, I, I don't remember where I heard this or what the context was, but he was talking about,
00:06:52
Speaker
the idea that sometimes, you know, ah put out a film into the universe and then reviewer will be like the way that the horizon was slightly off kilter at the end represents that and he's like the the tripod was off. yeah But that but the magic of making things and putting things out there is that the audience brings yeah often intentionality to it. And that's and like you to your point, James, it it's like it does it's not yours anymore. i don't know if you guys think this is weird too, but I think it's so strange, especially with fandom stuff, when you see like the stuff you've spent so much time agonizing over as like a GIF on Tumblr or whatever. and and i'll you know just You'll just see people reusing the thing, and which is lovely, but I'll just think to myself, like,
00:07:38
Speaker
I spent hours staring at this, like doing all this stuff to this image. And then, and it's just, now it's just out there and it's like somebody else's. And that's, that actually makes me happy. And it and it reminds me whenever I'm feeling the weight of it, I go, you know what, this is going to come out and then people are just going to, it's going to, no one's going to think about this stuff. Right. um Yeah. Sean, what about you? What's what's going on? Well, first of all, little Who are you?
00:08:06
Speaker
Who are you? trump and How'd you get on this podcast? Wow. what What are you doing here? We're getting deep really fast. um Sean, we we know you, ah ah obviously, because we have worked on so many projects and stuff together. But yeah, like what our our point of connection is, there's so many different points of connection between the three of us. But yeah, um I guess tell us little bit about yourself and like also what you've been up to recently.
00:08:30
Speaker
I was recently at the La Morada Theater um and i I was looking around in the lobby and I realized, I looked behind myself and I was like, I'm standing exactly where I met Kurt Mega for the first time.
00:08:47
Speaker
Wow. I met you, you were in Les Mis with Chris Higgins. Chris Higgins, 2014. 2014.
00:08:55
Speaker
um I wanted to like recreate that picture, but um so yeah, i I am Sean Prasad. I'm one of the co-founders of Shipwrecked Comedy.
00:09:06
Speaker
we do um We do narrative comedy for the internet, often with a literary or historical or supernatural or mysterious vibe. We've done a series called Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party, which is... um about Edgar Allan Poe inviting a bunch of famous authors over to have a ah a little murder mystery dinner party, and then the murders start happening for real.
00:09:37
Speaker
And they all start getting off one by one and they got to figure out who done it. It's a fun life. That was the, even the the web series from 2016 was before that you had already kind of created these characters of of Edgar and Lenore. And so there was a whole sort of world that was built out prior to Poe Party being. yeah We started doing just doing a, um,
00:10:02
Speaker
an Edgar Allan Poe vlog series because uh you know literary vlogs were really popular in the early 2010s Lucy Bennett Diaries was was one of those um touchstones and we were like let's do a lot of people were like let's do that and we were like let's do it but um make it Edgar Allan Poe and um it was fun it was a lot of fun um I write with my sister Sinead And um it was fun to sort of incorporate that sort of sibling dynamic into Edgar and Lenore. And then, yeah, we brought in Mary Kate um for a show called Kissing in the Rain, which is about um two sets of actors who, one hates each other, one really likes each other, and just like charting their journey as they keep acting in various movies where they have to kiss.
00:10:57
Speaker
So each episode is, they're very short episodes. The first part of the episode is the scene from the movie. And then the director says cut. And then the second part of the episode is the two actors right after cut, um, how they're interacting, whether they hate each other, whether they're starting to like each other.
00:11:18
Speaker
um it's fun and sean uh is correct me if i'm wrong but this was a long con for you to be able to uh to to marry mary to kiss mary kate repeatedly and then marry her yeah yeah i was that's why you did this that's why it's exactly don't help me don't out me out here um so i met mary kate on that set uh um sinead was she like a i don't even know this was she like a
00:11:45
Speaker
referral? like how would How was it like, get this get this person on earth? How did that come to be? I don't really know. I had nothing to do with it. I was just shown her picture one day and Sinead was like, oh, this is who you're acting against.
00:11:57
Speaker
This is who you're going to be making out with. and I was like, okay. um Actually, you can cut this if you want. She showed me the wrong picture. she showed me somebody else and I was like, all right.
00:12:08
Speaker
um and then And then it turned out to be very great. And I was like, oh
00:12:17
Speaker
oh, yeah, no, we met the first time we met was that we did a a little table read. Our first kiss is on the Internet. It's on our channel. um And yeah, we just ah we really I. We just really bonded really quickly. We had a lot in common. I was gluten free at the time and Mary Kate has celiac and we liked a lot of the same music.
00:12:40
Speaker
um It was really fun. i really i always enjoyed being on set, but I i really enjoyed it. i i I first met... Where did I first meet Marine Corps?
00:12:53
Speaker
I guess it was at one of those conventions. li Leaky, geeky, I don't even remember. It's so funny. There's like this origin overlap. And it's it's weird because in my head, everybody was there. But...
00:13:06
Speaker
Actually not, but there were certain key people there. Like I always think that Kim was there, but Kim never came to any of these events with me, but that's where i met. It's where I met like half the Sarkin people. yeah i don't James, I don't think you were.
00:13:20
Speaker
No, I've done any of the cons. So you and I only met on black Friday. Right. So there's so is it's like i I got intel on a lot of people, but I think I remember Lizzie Bennet Diaries was there and we got randomly invited because of our connection to Darren from Glee.
00:13:38
Speaker
And we were like, it doesn't really make any sense. It's a Harry Potter thing. Why are we here? We'll come out and we'll sing like a Harry Potter song. But then Lizzie Bennet was there. We're like, well, they're not Harry Potter. So that, okay, maybe this is fine. and then I think we all met like in an elevator going down to the...
00:13:54
Speaker
to get lunch or something. And then Mary Kate and I kind of hit it off. And so we, don't think we'd ever worked on anything together. We just kind of got to know each other through that world. um And then, yeah. and then, and then I, I did a production and and then I, I, then we, then we met. And so it's, it's weird because there's so much overlap now that yeah and untangling the origin of it all is kind of crazy. I frequently go to Kim. I'm like, remember in Portland? And she's like, I wasn't there. I'm like,
00:14:22
Speaker
ah Right. You're right. Once again. So sorry. Do you remember in Chicago? Wasn't there. You're right. That's like, I was talking to Mariah today and she has so many memories distinctly thinking that all of us were doing the same shows together. And then we have to be like, no, that no stage didn't, didn't do that show with you. It does feel like we all have been around each other forever at this point.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I, my mom's in town and we were reminiscing, we were talking about concerts the other night. Um, and like, cause I took her to a concert, her first concert at the Hollywood Bowl to see Lewis Capaldi, her favorite singer. Oh, wow and she had an amazing time, but we were talking about concerts and like, I was like, I think this is the first concert I've been with.
00:15:06
Speaker
Like i've I've been to a concert with my mom, like with her. plenty where she was waiting in the car outside. And so we started talking about um all the times she had done that. And she was like, you know, I remember um taking Sinead to, I think it was, i don't remember where it was, but she took her to see the Glee concert in Boston.
00:15:27
Speaker
and No way. Really? Yeah. Mary-Kate was like, that's so funny. Like Sinead saw Kurt on stage doing Glee and now they're in a show together. That's so funny. I remember that show vividly, the Boston show specifically, because I was ah i was a big Celtics fan and I was such a mean, I was, blew my mind that we were, what was that?
00:15:51
Speaker
Were you at the Fleet Center? Like the garden? No, it was at the garden. Yeah, yeah. And so that was blowing my mind that we were like there do with that. she Teenage Sinead was out there the audience.
00:16:06
Speaker
That's crazy to me. And you were singing you were singing Teenage Dream to Teenage Sinead. To Sinead. That's so funny. Teenage Sinead was a big Glee fan. I feel like I'm, I don't know. I might be blowing her up on that. You're like blowing her cover. I remember walking around Boston with several several of the dancers from the the tour, one of our friends, James, and he thought it would be a great idea to wear his Lakers jersey.
00:16:31
Speaker
where And we were like, i genuinely was like, no, but like, maybe I'm not going to... hang out with you while we're here like i was genuinely i'd never been to boston but i i just i'd heard rumors and i was like yeah i don't think this is safe for us um so he kept walking around being like let's go lakers celtics and we were like we're we're not gonna leave this place alive you have to understand like it's it's embedded in the dna of of Bostonians really like they ride for their team. So if you're wearing a Lakers jerky jersey in Boston, you're, you're, you're kind of like opening yourself up to an ass kicking. So I would not recommend to anyone.
00:17:13
Speaker
yeah ah Yeah. That's crazy. I cannot wait to talk to her about this. I want to know everything that she thought about that concert. That's so funny. i it was funny It's like yeah, things A lot of times when I do things where I give people advice about this career after, after the first piece of advice, which is don't do it. The second piece of advice, is it's a marathon, not a sprint. And like,
00:17:40
Speaker
you can't be out here for like a month or six months because like saying yes to something 10 like in 2016 is going to something in 2026 and it's so fun now to go back through all of these this like complex quilt of of of yarns of the see how we got here and like all the decisions that we made along the way that that made this possible It's kind of fun i ah Obviously, you know, it's like I hope everybody, because, you know, no ethical consumption or capitalism makes a ton of money and we all profit wildly in the coming future ah beyond what we have so far. However, I will say like,
00:18:24
Speaker
Money issues aside, I feel like in many ways, this is the dream that i didn't know i didn't know was the possibility. And you know actually, it's pretty cool. we're We're in a position now where we do get to do a lot of things that we're able to crowdfund and and and make it happen and and try to pay ourselves and our friends. um I want those things to keep growing, obviously. But i when I first set out to do all this, I didn't even know that was... i thought the game was...
00:18:52
Speaker
impress somebody at the top, you know, in the office at Warner Brothers or something. and And, you know, and obviously that can happen. But I feel so lucky that when I, i kind of it kind of actually moves me tremendously when I think about it a lot and think about that.
00:19:08
Speaker
the crazy amalgamation of everyone, how we all know each other, and the fact that we've just all kept doing it and still, I think, love doing it despite all the bullshit around it. ah it gets to me emotional and I go, I think this is why i I didn't even know this was the thing I wanted to do until it kind of built itself. And yeah, it like genuinely... it Whenever I'm feeling upset or frustrated or like, I would like to give up, I think about that and I go, know you know what? this is This is too, this is, I don't know if it was meant to be, but it but it came to be. And so that's and that's an incredible. Before we get into all like the the really cool stuff that you're that you're doing, Sean, we have to honor the name of this podcast and ask you a question. So Sean, what are you into? Okay. Okay.
00:20:01
Speaker
So there's a couple things I want to talk about briefly because I am into them. But one of them you have done a deep dive on recently, so I don't want to um get back into it. I do have like one thing that I really want to talk about. I'm curious if either of you have seen it. But before that, I will just say I'm really, really into um Survivor and Top Chef.
00:20:24
Speaker
he are Those are our shows right now. We we also, we've been catching, we just watched the first season of Traders. Padma Lakshmi's got a new show, a new cooking show that we've been watching, but Survivor and Top Chef are just sort of carrying me at the moment.
00:20:41
Speaker
Um, Can I ask a really dumb question? I've never seen Top Chef. Okay. i'm I'm aware of the concept, but is is the is the premise, it's sort of a competition show of sorts?
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's a cooking competition show. They start out with, I don't know, maybe 15 chefs. And every episode, basically every episode, they do two challenges. One is for like money and for fun.
00:21:12
Speaker
And, you know, a celebrity will come on and they'll do something fun. And then the second one is like, this is somebody's going home if they lose this And for a long time, I was like, why would you watch a cooking show?
00:21:24
Speaker
You can't eat it
00:21:28
Speaker
How did not thought about that? Yeah, like, what are you going to do? um And then over the ah pandemic, over lockdown, we started catching up on old seasons because um our favorite restaurant nearby is is a Top Chef restaurant.
00:21:44
Speaker
And we were like, let's watch her um let's watch her her season. Anyways, this show, ah in the early seasons, it was more reality television. It was like cutthroat. Everybody was kind of an asshole and like you there were villains and you rooted against people. So now it's just like it just is like a feel good. It's just a very nice way to to spend your your evening. And um everyone on the show is supportive of each other.
00:22:11
Speaker
Everyone there's no rivalries or anything. Everybody's just kind of nice. And on the surface, you're like, ah that doesn't sound like compelling television, but it is because life is so hard.
00:22:23
Speaker
Right now, the world is just a nightmare. And it's like, I don't really want to watch, um I don't know, Breaking Bad. Like, it's hard. It's like, I don't have it in me at night to get to to do that, to get into the...
00:22:36
Speaker
you know, um, to get into the the pit with like some anti-hero. So it's just nice to watch all of these chefs doing something that i find fascinating and that I have no concept of how to do. And I have no ambition to do it. It is completely separate from my life.
00:22:55
Speaker
Like in a way that I can't even like listen to podcasts about movies anymore. Cause it just makes me you know it just triggers me in some way because it's like related to my career you know what i mean uh top chef is like i don't care i'm not a chef i never will be a chef this is so fascinating and i've learned a lot i've learned a lot about food and i've become like able to appreciate it more um and i just love going on this journey every year and like getting invested in people and um
00:23:28
Speaker
it's It's also just such a low stakes way to chill out. um I also really, I don't do this when I'm watching something real, but like, it's nice to just be on my phone and like, you know, have a second screen experience.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah. And Survivor's kind of like, kind of like that too. It's, um we got back into it a few years ago because one of Mary Kate's college friends was on it. So we were like, let's watch. And I got hooked.
00:23:56
Speaker
I was in, um, I, I just get, it's just so fun. It's just so silly and so fun. And that is a show where you do get invested in like, oh, this guy's a villain, this person I'm rooting for. Um, and it's all, you know, it's all, fit it's like edited very well.
00:24:14
Speaker
You can tell what like the narratives are that they're, it's that, that's another fun to like watch it from like a, 30,000 foot perspective and try to understand how they're telling the story they're telling.
00:24:25
Speaker
um but those shows have just been so chill and relaxing for me. I can kind of turn my brain off and just go along for the ride. And I do think that there's a, there's a real element of like, I have no attachment to this. I don't want this in my life. I don't want to be a contestant on these shows.
00:24:42
Speaker
And, so and, We went to ah an FYC event last week for Top Chef. um So basically for the Emmys, all of these shows have events in LA where they they basically are currying your votes. Like they're trying to impress you. They're trying to get you to vote for them. And so they throw like screenings and Q&As and receptions. And for Top Chef every year, they do a Q&A with the judges and then they invite four, five or six of the contestants in to cook for you.
00:25:12
Speaker
And they have a reception where you're just eating signature dishes that they made. And, um, we went and i am not kidding when I say I've never been this starstruck.
00:25:27
Speaker
I was losing my, I was like, I was tongue tied. Like I didn't know what to say to these people. And In my career, I've worked with some like kind of big people and it's always just been like, all right, that was cool.
00:25:41
Speaker
But these people, I was just like, you're incredible. I love you. I want you to win. Like I was so blown away by the fact that like I was seeing people that like are on my TV. It was so fun.
00:25:55
Speaker
Mary Kate was the same way. We were just like losing our minds and we we were trying to figure it out afterwards. And we were like, we're not like this. Well, I think i I think I know why. ah So because kind of similar, I'm not a big cook myself. But in the last few years, I really got into the show called Next Level Chef.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah. um yeah a Gordon Ramsay show. And boy, and oh chef blaze yeah you're chef blaze man that guy he cracked me up um but one but one thing i i figured out why i like the show so much there's something so satisfying about watching people that are really good at a thing you don't know how to do yeah and then seeing them absolutely crush it and like you said like you're not involved like i have no desire to be a cook i'm i don't fancy myself one but to watch people do something so well and then there's a little bit of your brain that says i'm curious i might want to try
00:26:45
Speaker
to emulate that in some way. Listen, I just got really proud of myself for using garlic salt this year. Something I never did, but I saw it on Next Level Chefs now I'm going to start doing it more. So that's, but there's something so much so fun about watching people that are really good at the thing that they do.
00:26:59
Speaker
It's also, like you said, ah it's a real balm to not have it be a thing where I have any notion of trying to succeed at it, really. and yeah i think only as only in the last few years have I begun to understand how important it is to maybe have some hobbies that are just things you do that you don't have to be proficient at to monetize. and I feel that that so often of, well, I can't really justify making time for it if I don't figure out how works.
00:27:27
Speaker
adds to the income stream. And I've gotten really, this has been me with just going down the rabbit hole of listening to music producers. Like I got so obsessed listening to Dan Nigro talk about mixing and recording Olivia Rodrigo and Chapel Rhone. I'm never going to produce music. I'm never going to be in the studio, but it was just a thing where I was like, wow, I have no idea what these tools do. don't know. And I, I was, I got obsessed. I mean, I watched dozens of hours and it just became like this fascination and Kim was like, are you interested in making music? And I was like, no, I don't, I don't think so. But, but it gives me an appreciation. know, I appreciate the, the, the, what I get to engage a taste from what they make. But I also think too, with cooking, this is something I think is really beautiful. He's actually trying to reframe how I think about making stuff. I love the metaphor of, you know, as a chef, you know,
00:28:24
Speaker
You're not trying to, my my guess is, often make a dish that millions and millions of people will eat. It's like you're not trying to make the next Whopper. You're like trying to make a dish that a few people will sit down and just have this experience. yeah and i Sometimes, recently, when I've been trying to endeavor to create things, I've actually thought to myself, you know what? I want to think like a chef and not like a brand. Yeah.
00:28:50
Speaker
five people sit at the table and taste the dish and i if they can have a great meal that was a good use of my time and hopefully their time yeah and a million people don't have to taste it for for me to know like that was a good meal i think we're uncovering what's going on on the bear basically if you've been watching it's essentially what carmy's going through because you went from something that going from a a just a sandwich that everybody loved And then he's like, well, no, I'm going to use all my training and make this Michelin star rated restaurant. And there's, there's some, there's some incongruence there with the clientele and what he's trying to offer. So there's, there's something in that.
00:29:28
Speaker
This is an interesting metaphor for, for creating anything where and I think, I think maybe I can come back to it later with what I'm going through right now because I've always been a been of the mind where, sorry, I've always been of the mind where you make the thing for yourself and you As long as you like it, as long as you're invested in it, it will find and its people and and and those people will like it, but it's meaningful if it's for you.
00:29:56
Speaker
And hopefully you have good taste and and everything, but mostly it should be for you because if you start thinking about what other people want, you're going to lose it. It's not, you're not going to, you're not going to get what they want and you're not going to get what you want.
00:30:09
Speaker
But we need to come back to this because I think the idea, what we're doing right now is adapting something that we've already done before that we've released into the world that does belong to a lot of other people.
00:30:23
Speaker
It's not ours anymore. And so navigating this line of like, okay, well, we have to make a version of this for us. Like, what do we want to see? But also keeping in mind, like, There is an audience for this already and we and we do need to keep them in mind for this. It would be like somebody coming to dinner and going, I really don't like seafood and being like, okay, I was going to make salmon, but that's okay.
00:30:46
Speaker
yeah it's like There is an aspect of that of like, yeah well, I love this, but I also want to make a dish that you love. So could I cook something that I like that you like? like That this is an interesting concept versus like you said, poll Party is a concept initially. was like, this is just...
00:31:03
Speaker
you don't even know what this is yet. And now, yeah, you have this kind of a little bit of a preconceived idea of what it might be. I mean, James, I feel like you're going through that right now with, with, with guy, you know, and people have a relationship to that show and what it means and, and what it should be or shouldn't be. And so it's, I, I'm so interested in that overlap of, know,
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, you're you're cooking a meal everybody already likes. Yeah. but You want to make it a little different. yeah Well, let's ah let's let's get into it. and And Sean, don't forget, there's a recommendation you wanted. So let's get back to that later. um But um but let' let's get into it. So Poe Party, which we talked about, already existed um on YouTube. People have seen it. They know what it is. they It's very beloved property from Shipwrecked. And so now, what what was the catalyst for wanting to turn this into a stage musical?
00:31:50
Speaker
Well, we were looking last year, we were looking for like something small to do. And um we were like, maybe we'll raise a little bit of money. ah We were talking with Dylan Glathorn, our composer. He he's does does all the music for for our projects. We've written songs with him before. He's incredibly talented.
00:32:10
Speaker
And we started talking to him about like some small things we could do. And then um we had we had talked for years about like doing um songs that are Poe Party related. So we we did one, we started working on one and then it ended up turning into something else. And so we were like, let's revisit that. Maybe we'll do like a like a five four or five song Poe Party song cycle. like Maybe we'll do um a reading with these songs thrown in. Just like...
00:32:45
Speaker
something low key in a black box theater. And then one day we were meeting and Dylan was like, why are we avoiding? Why are we avoiding? like We all know the elephant in the room. of passd Yeah.
00:32:59
Speaker
And we were like, yeah, that's true. Let's do it. Um, I, because I think it takes us a while to, um, launching a Kickstarter is a serious, serious, serious job.
00:33:10
Speaker
And so kind of, especially the more we do it, it's like, yeah, yeah, you know, we're battle weary. So we got to like kind of psych ourselves up maybe subconsciously to do to get to that point. So yeah, around like last September, or October, we were like, all right, let's dive in. And we just started writing and we were just start we we were just like, let's see where this goes. Let's talk about ideas for songs. And, um, you know, maybe we'll run into a wall immediately and we're we're just like not feeling it, but we cranked out like three songs in,
00:33:43
Speaker
like a month, I think, maybe maybe a month and a half. And we were like, this is really fun. This seems like a really natural um evolution for this story. and um In some ways, it seems like this is the version that we should have made.
00:33:57
Speaker
This is how this story should exist. And then on top of that, we were like, well, it's 2026. It's the 10-year anniversary of Poe Party. So like let's celebrate it by like doing it again, doing a different version of it.
00:34:10
Speaker
And I think there was, all you know, we knew there was going to be some changes because some cast couldn't return. So we were, we were also like, let's, let's make some changes because in the intervening years, Sinead and I have gone back and we've,
00:34:27
Speaker
there's parts of it that are like, you know, we, we cringe a little bit at, we're like, Ooh, that, that doesn't hold up very well. You know, the, this scene was, you know, we were trying to get everybody to, to split up and like have a reason to leave. But like these two reasons don't make any sense.
00:34:44
Speaker
Just little things like that little lines here and there where we were like, it seems like a first draft. So let's change it. Like, let's change it up. Let's sort of do a little rewrite. And I'm also one of those people that um I'm not really precious about the things that I love ah in in in a way that like when somebody does a remake of a movie, um i know some people are like, I can't believe they're doing this. Um, I'm, I'm of the mind where it's like, well, the original still exists. You can all still watch it. They're not collecting all the copies of, um, Charlie and the chocolate factory, like still there for you. Um, and I'm so interested in seeing like what other versions of things can exist and at how like people will bring their, their voice to something that I already know and understand. So from, for us, it was like, it's like a very exciting opportunity to sort of, um,
00:35:40
Speaker
change some things, get some, I don't want to say get some things right, but like, um, I think there are some things that we, we didn't love about the original and we're like, let's, let's change it up. Let's, um, let's figure something else out.
00:35:53
Speaker
I think there's a real maturity and I actually think it's a really cool phase that it seems like a lot of, lot of us are entering, which is we spent, I don't know, 20s and bulk of our 30s, just like new ideas, new ideas, new ideas, new stuff, new stuff, which is great. And I love that.
00:36:09
Speaker
But i i get a sense from a lot of people that we spend a lot of time just generating a lot of ideas that there's this desire to go, what if I go back to them and now and unpack it a little bit more and now go, you know, I never, we we at the time, especially when these products projects come to fruition, I think they live on the internet forever.
00:36:33
Speaker
ah But they're such a result of like such a chaotic moment in time. And, and I think a lot of people are like, well, you already did it and it's like, well, that was like two weeks, you know, yeah that was just like this crazy thing. And,
00:36:47
Speaker
I don't know. I, it's like, I've been editing this documentary video about doing guy again. And, you know, I've talked to Mary Kate about this with like, if we ever did spies or, and there's a few projects of my own that were like ideas that we came up with years ago that we never, and a lot of, I just, there's, there's a real value in going back to a thing and being like,
00:37:06
Speaker
there is something here, but I'm in a very different headspace now. And in some ways can almost be healthier. like in a healthier headspace to go, I want to keep playing with this, but with these ideas. Do you find now that you were feeling because you know these characters so well and because you've lived in them for so long and now you have the benefit of seeing how – do you find that writing in their voice is – coming easier? Is it weird to go back? Is it, does it feel strange kind of trying to step back into it or does it, does that come naturally again And you're like, Oh, I know exactly who Edgar is. Like, yeah. Has your relationship with the characters changed at all?
00:37:45
Speaker
Um, so first off I want to ah dovetail on what you just said. I think we're all, we're all way better at what we do now than we were yeah five years ago, 10 years ago. And I think that helps. Like we're in a different head space about a lot of things. We're able to approach things and in a different way, but like,
00:38:02
Speaker
I know from a writing perspective, I think Sinead and I agree that we're better at this now. And so that's been helpful. um It has not been weird at all getting back into it.
00:38:14
Speaker
the The characters are... um No, they they just immediately pop back up in our brains. And it's so fun to... um to write as, to write in these voices again, to write for, for these actors too. It just feels natural. It feels, um, I was, ah there was part of me that was a little worried that I'd be like, oh God, what if I ruin it?
00:38:38
Speaker
Um, really and maybe I am, I don't know, but it doesn't feel like that. It just feels like we're back in 2016 and we're just like having fun writing this again. yeah.
00:38:50
Speaker
I think that it also speaks to the to the actors too, because like everybody had such an iconic performance, and that really helps you inform you write. And um so it's almost easier in a way, i think.
00:39:04
Speaker
but That's what we're finding. you know We're in the rehearsals right now for a Guy, and we've you know we've had this show in our blood for eight years now, and yeah this is the third time we're putting it up. and But to your point, we know these characters so well, we know these beats, we you know everyone knows the story, but we're finding new moments just because, yeah, we are comfortable as performers, as directors, as choreographers, and we can see like, oh, you know what? we could use We could sprinkle this onto this moment and it'll still work. It doesn't detract. It's not putting a hat on a hat. but it's having a deeper understanding of what makes this story tick and flow and why people enjoy it. And I think there's something so fun. We've talked on this podcast before about if you're going to do something that you've done before, just find a way to make it slightly different.
00:39:48
Speaker
yeah And that is a matter of opinion. But I do think when people do that and they do that the right way, that intentionality and that new perspective is great because I can't tell you the amount of times I've questioned my own choreography only a year apart from it. Like we were in rehearsal the other day and I told people, okay, you have to start on the left foot. Why? i don't know, but that's what I did a year ago. and We're just going to keep doing it. And yeah it's happened. And I imagine you run into certain things when you're writing for these characters.
00:40:16
Speaker
You know, you you were in a very specific headspace when you wrote a specific bit 10 years ago. And sometimes do you think you find like oh yeah, i know exactly what this was. And then other times, have you come across your own writing and thought, who was this man who made this moment? Yeah, it's mostly that.
00:40:34
Speaker
What were we thinking? Why, i wish that we had had three more weeks, just do another polish. But it was so chaotic because we were, We'd raised not enough money. We had a location. We had to, we were doing rewrites to fit the location. um You know, that when we were scouting this place, we found a weird elevator that went into the kitchen, from the kitchen to the to the basement. And we were like, oh, we got to use that. And then as we were writing, we were we wrote that scene into this into the stage play or the the musical script.
00:41:09
Speaker
and um And then I was like, Why? Why is it here? Like Joe, our director was like talking about some fun ways he could stage it just using lights. But I was just like, well, what why? what is What purpose does the elevator serve anymore? it doesn't, we don't have it. The elevator was a reaction to yeah a real physical thing in a real space. And now you go, wait, i now it's a blank canvas. I can make it whatever i want That's so interesting. And that's kind of daunting sometimes. We're finding that we have to
00:41:43
Speaker
Um, we're doing a lot more work on this than we thought. And part of it is because we did our first table read, which Kurt, you were a part of. Um, and it was, I think nearly three hours long.
00:41:56
Speaker
And a lot of that, like, we knew it was going to be long. We knew like, it wasn't shock. It wasn't like, oh my God, I thought this was going to be 90 minutes. We, we put everything, almost everything from the show in there and we added songs.
00:42:10
Speaker
And so now we're in this process of like trying to streamline something that worked in a web series form because of the format.
00:42:23
Speaker
um A lot of that stuff doesn't work on stage. And so we're trying to compress and streamline and we're gonna have to get rid of a lot of things. But I think because of the format, because the format change,
00:42:35
Speaker
when you're watching things on stage, when you're watching a musical, it's already a heightened reality. So I think there's a lot of things that will be a lot more forgiving in that version. Whereas we wanted to spell a lot of things out in the web series. We wanted to make those connections. We wanted to dot every I and cross every T. And so anybody could sit there and rewatch it over and over and over and pick it apart.
00:43:00
Speaker
And it would still make sense. And that's just not the experience you have with a musical. it doesn't have to make sense. like in in that So now I, this brings me to a point and this is not specific to your show, but this is a gripe that I have with adaptations that Broadway is doing with either books or movies that they then adapt into a stage show.
00:43:20
Speaker
And it's for that reason. So if we think about it, a musical itself is supposed to be underwritten because you have So you're supposed to have songs that will carry the plot forward, right? And do some of that heavy lifting for you.
00:43:32
Speaker
What happened, though, and I'm not going to say a specific show or time that this happened. But along the way, Broadway became this, oh, well, just kind of keep the movie or keep the keep the story of what it was in the movie or the book, and then just throw a song in here, because we just we want a really catchy song that everyone's going to love. And And now, especially today, stream and put on TikTok and things like that. So then you end up with these kind of overblown musicals that don't really have a lot of substance because you do have a book. Sometimes it's strong, sometimes it's not. But then you're just catapulted into this huge screaming, belting ballad because we just need a marquee song for everyone to latch on to. And that's my problem with the way we adapt music.
00:44:17
Speaker
shows, TV shows, movies into musicals, because we're not doing it in a way that streamlines the spoken word into the musical out word. And so i'm I'm hoping, I don't know who's going to change that, but I've had a big problem with the way that we're writing current Broadway musicals for that reason.
00:44:38
Speaker
It's you have to take into account the the the medium that you're using, because every you experience all of these mediums differently, you engage with them differently, even if you don't realize it.
00:44:49
Speaker
um And that's not something I'm not an expert at that. Like when we we did this audio narrative called The Case of the Greater Gatsby. um And Sinead and I had never done this before.
00:45:01
Speaker
And it was a there was a learning curve. Like we we our editor, Lizzie Goldsmith, who is incredible, kind of like had to you know, tell us like, okay, well, you don't need to, um you don't need to have these lines here. Like this is a little over explanatory because the sound design will, will tell people what they need to know here. And then we would run into things where it was like, okay, well, this person enters the office, but we're not seeing it.
00:45:28
Speaker
ah So the audience doesn't know who it is. So we have to find an organic way to tell the audience, like, this is what's happening. And, and that was like, yeah, that was a steep learning curve for us. In this case with the musical Dylan is an absolute genius. And this is what he does. Like he writes musicals.
00:45:46
Speaker
He's won the Alan Menken scholarship twice. Once when he was an undergrad at NYU and once when he was a grad student. And a lot of times i I will, I'll be like, okay, okay, here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I want to do. But does that make sense for like a musical?
00:46:03
Speaker
And the things that, you know, he's he's just sort of like, okay, so around every four to five pages is when you want to have a song. Like, that's when the audience is ready for a song. And like, you kind of want this song here. And if we put this song here, then we have to earn it by doing this. So he's got like the structure down.
00:46:19
Speaker
And now we're just trying to make sure that the the rest the pace stays up and... to your point that the songs are there for a reason that they're doing, that they're load bearing, you know, like we, there's so many new musicals I've seen, especially in LA, you go to like readings of things or in New York and it, the function of the song is characters are like, I feel really strong about this. And then they go, me too. and then they stop and they sing about it for five minutes and then they end the song and they go, okay, so anyways, back to the conversation. And you just go,
00:46:53
Speaker
I just heard you reiterate over and over and over what I already understood to be true. yeah ah Versus like you said, the song functions as a revelation, as a unmasking of something. And like, um there's a, gra not to spoil anything, but there was a great, there's a song that I got to hear that even just,
00:47:15
Speaker
Mike, a character I play and in the thing, like Guy, he he sings that I went, oh, I love the way he wrote this music because it it revealed something about this relationship that I hadn't even considered before. yeah And it was like a perfect segue into, oh, i I actually understand these two a little bit better by the end of it. So I love It's cool that you guys are are thinking in terms of moving it forward and not just here's characters you love singing some funny, goofy things, which is so often what, especially in LA and in the comedy world, i feel like a lot of people go, it's a musical. It's just, you know, they're just going to sing some goofy lyrics about a thing you are.
00:47:53
Speaker
And I'm like, you can still tell a story with that. yeah. It's, it goes with any writing really like everything has to be intentional. There has to be a reason everything's there. And if you can pull out a song or a scene and nothing changes, then it shouldn't be there.
00:48:08
Speaker
And we're, you know, we're, so we're, we're dealing with that now. Like there's a couple songs that after that reading, we were like, well, we want to make this more of a, um,
00:48:20
Speaker
you know, a load bearing song. Like we want it there. You know, we have a song and a scene. They should do the same thing. The song should be the scene. So we're trying to, we're trying to like work on that a little bit. But um to your point, the the song you're talking about and and the guy, the guy Lenore stuff, that's one of those things that looking back on the show, we're like where we are now as people. And and I think as writers, we're like, that's something that we would want to drill down on and explore. Like, I want to know why Lenore is the way she is. I don't need a prequel series about it, but like, give me that song, give me that scene, give me that moment where you actually see the emotional underpinning of what she went through. And that's going to make everything else so much richer.
00:49:08
Speaker
um so we're seeing a lot of moments like that where it's like, oh, like, what was the focus of this? Like, what's the emotional focus here? And what do we want to be saying? And when we do that, a lot of times feel like we're running into some hard truths where it's like, well, this line or this bit is very popular.
00:49:26
Speaker
Fans love it, but it's not really um doing us any favors being in here right now. And so, yeah, we're we're kind of just being like, I think we're going through it right now where it's like we're going to have to have some really hard conversations with ourselves about some of this stuff. But again, we keep reminding ourselves the web series is online. It'll always be there.
00:49:52
Speaker
Maybe. I don't know. I am so interested. what You said earlier, I, you know, I know this to be true, but hearing you say it really, felt this, which is, think you go, oh, stage, we can do anything. It can be anything we want it to be. It's a blank canvas.
00:50:06
Speaker
So much of filmmaking on an independent level is ah dictated by your limitations. You go, what do we have? What do we not have? Like if I'm writing a script or I'm shooting a project, my first question is like, what do we not have?
00:50:21
Speaker
We don't have this. We don't have this. Great. If I know what I don't have, I can make it really specific for what I do have. And that's actually really helpful sometimes in going, I'm just going to follow this logical series of limitations and then make it as specific as possible.
00:50:36
Speaker
With stage, theoretically, like to some extent in the theater of the mind, everything is a possibility. And so it becomes this different calculation of what It can be anything we want it to be kind of.
00:50:50
Speaker
So then it has to be much more, I think, rooted in story and vibe and mood and emotion ah because, you know, like you said, the elevator is a great example. It's like, well, we have an elevator. Let's use it versus going, there's no function necessarily for it if we don't even have to do it.
00:51:09
Speaker
has Has that been ah weird thing trying to imagine something on a more of a blank canvas, what stays or, or putting new things into it. Like I'm just, it's a really interesting concept I'd never thought about in terms of it. Cause I'm always thinking in terms of what do we have access to? I'll write to that.
00:51:27
Speaker
Now you have theoretically anything and nothing. What, what does that do to the writing process? Yeah. You have a blank canvas, which I shouldn't have. Yeah.
00:51:42
Speaker
Um, so at a certain point, so Sinead and Dylan and I were writing songs and then, um, at a certain point, uh, Sinead and I were like, all right, we're gonna start doing the book. We're just gonna be working on the book. And I think that was a really hard process to start because exactly of what you just said. And I don't think we realized it at the moment, but we started working through and we started getting to even the very beginning of the show.
00:52:11
Speaker
we were like, which is everybody arriving to the party. We were like, how do we write this if we don't know how it's gonna be staged? Like in our, when we're writing the show, like we understand film and like how it's gonna work and we have a location. And so we what we started doing is having, um we have weekly bi-weekly production meetings with um Brian Rosenthal, our producer, who by the way,
00:52:39
Speaker
is a absolute godsend. Like, holy crap, he is absolutely killing it. I don't know what we would would be doing without him, but we're, we're having meetings with him and Joe, our director and our um production designer, Alex Wittenberg.
00:52:55
Speaker
um And that, and and Mary Kate, and like, that's more like the technical side of things. um Like we talk about, you know, our ticket release program, but like on the,
00:53:06
Speaker
On the off weeks, also biweekly, we started having creative meetings, which is me, Dylan, Sinead, and Joe. And so we bring things to to Joe like, hey, what are you thinking about? How are we staging this? like where do you what are What ideas do you have?
00:53:22
Speaker
um because you've been thinking about this show in this way, and we need to kind of borrow that in order to write it. um Because there's a lot of rooms in this house and a lot of back and forth. And and a lot of in the web series, there's a lot of intercutting, quick cutting between rooms that we we were like, can we do that?
00:53:43
Speaker
Like, you you think about um stuff on stage and it's like long scenes in one location. and then another longer scene in another location. But the way, you know, Joe was thinking like, well, we're going to use different parts of the stage. So we were like, okay, well, does it make sense to have this scene be this long?
00:54:03
Speaker
And then it cuts to another part of the stage and there's another shorter scene. Or does it make sense to compress these things and like um combine and and and just have like longer scenes and just sit with them more. So you are absolutely right. It was something we ran into and it made it really hard. But since we've,
00:54:21
Speaker
We've involved Joe and Alex Wittenberg more in that process. It's helped us a lot because whenever we run into a problem, we have we have a meeting where we just talk it through.
00:54:33
Speaker
And then also just knowing that we have time and the next draft of the script won't be the final draft. Things will change. Things will change in June. Things will change in July.
00:54:45
Speaker
um i think just having that that maturity of like understanding how this all works is really helpful. Yeah. um I actually have a question for both of you.
00:54:56
Speaker
We should all think about this. Cause I was just starting to think about some of my favorite adaptations or even just ones that I'm looking forward to because you might've seen, I'm sure you've seen the trailer for the Odyssey came out.
00:55:09
Speaker
And I remember as a kid being really interested in the Odyssey, oddly enough, from an episode of Wishbone. And then I ended up wanting to figure out what Homer's Odyssey was all about. And so that story I've just I've just known about. And the fact that we are now seeing a a physical film version of this story, I'm very intrigued to see what that is like. Do you have some adaptations? This is for everybody. ah What are just some adaptations that stand out, whether for better or for worse, that have stuck with you or or just an interesting thing to see?
00:55:42
Speaker
That's a good question that I will think of the answer to tomorrow, probably. Okay. You know, I'm blanking right now. I will say I'm reading right now. I'm reading The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas is one of the new authors in in the Poe Party musical. and um I was like reading a Wikipedia, we do a lot of research and and I was reading about Monte Cristo and I was like, oh my God, this sounds amazing.
00:56:09
Speaker
I stopped reading the summary and I like got the book. And this book is over a thousand pages long and I'm about a third of the way in I've been reading it for a month.
00:56:20
Speaker
But it is, I've been, I'm so excited to watch a version of it after I read it because every chapter I'm like thinking about it from an adaptation standpoint, I'm like, this makes sense for this book in in this format, in this medium, all of this makes sense. But if you were to make it into a movie,
00:56:46
Speaker
this has got to this has got to this has got to um It's weird to, I kind of wish I could just enjoy it for what it is, just like enjoy this book without thinking about that kind of stuff.
00:57:01
Speaker
But I feel like I'm so primed now to analyze things in that way. um Probably another reason where i that I really love Survivor and and Top Chef, I'm like, I don't care.
00:57:13
Speaker
yeah So yeah, I have a really decided to watch a version of Monte Cristo.
00:57:22
Speaker
I have a really weirdly obscure one, which I hope doesn't make me sound like I'm trying to be pretentious, but it is the one that comes to mind that has completely rocked my world. And I've rewatched it two or three times, which is going to be so weird when you hear what it is, because I just want to say I have a very healthy relationship with Kim However, the show is scenes from a marriage. Oh, okay. ah The Jessica Chastain Oscar Isaac adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's series from the seventies, which I had seen in chunks and pieces.
00:57:52
Speaker
And I remember, think when I remember like heard that they were going to do it, I love, I just love the two of them as actors. um The reason this, the reason it stands out to me is because have you guys seen this show at all?
00:58:04
Speaker
Either of you? Do you remember how the show every episode starts with them as the actors preparing to film? um The original series had a little sort of docu sort of style. It felt very documentarian. felt like we were flying the wall.
00:58:21
Speaker
But this the HBO series with the two of them um Like there's, there's like one of the episodes starts where you're in like a van with Jessica Chastain driving up to set and then a PA comes and opens the door and then ushers her in and they're like here and she like gets her tea and she like does a quick check and then they bring her to set and they're like, okay, camera's up. And then literally we see the moment that she steps into onto her mark and then we, we dip into the world. And I was so fascinated by the fact that they do this over and over throughout the mini series, they play with this idea of we're watching Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac become these characters.
00:59:00
Speaker
And the actual show itself is so heartbreaking and devastating and moving. And this, or I just, it rocked my world, but I could not get out of my head. And i I haven't come to a clear thesis as to why they chose to do that, except that part of it is sort of,
00:59:19
Speaker
allowing you to see the facade almost, I think, makes the sort of magic trick of it all even more. like you're aware that it's kind of Brechtian, like, you know you're watching theater, but it allows you to, to I think, transport yourself even more.
00:59:33
Speaker
It's one of my favorite choices in any adaptation ever because it... On paper, you go, why do that? Like, it's a strange thing to go, we're going to show the audience that this is not real from the jump. I like a lot of adaptations are like, no, no, we're going to make it even more immersive and more connected and more real.
00:59:50
Speaker
And they took that in the opposite direction. And then the result was even more impactful for me. um So weird, obscure, kind of not particularly popular reference, but that is what I think about all the time where I go,
01:00:03
Speaker
What a crazy, weird, bizarre, interesting choice that worked on every level for me. And I'm not even sure why it worked so well. Yeah, no, I hear that. um You know, I gotta say one that sticks out for me is West Side Story because it is itself an adaptation of the Romeo and Juliet story.
01:00:21
Speaker
And I think what's such a bold thing about that for the time and probably why it was so popular is Leonard Bernstein comes up with this, this brassy, you know, contentious score. And Jerome Robbins comes up with this choreography that's both balletic, but at the same time athletic and, and, and moving. And, and ah you, you're basically, you create this, you take this story that is legend at this point, everyone knows the story of Romeo and Juliet, you know how it's going to end. And yet, if you can just tell it in this very specific way, it has now become its own splintered version of the story that is separate from Romeo and Juliet, but the core story is the same, you know, two houses. And i just love when we can take stories that are ultimately universal, but just find a different way to articulate their point. And there's something about, now listen, you can see a bad production of West Side Story. They are out there. They exist. And I'm sorry if you've had to suffer through that.
01:01:19
Speaker
But when you see a good one, um there is nothing more impactful than than watching such a beautifully articulate show in its choreography and its staging and its in its music. It's yeah, it's that's got to be one of my favorite adaptations ever.
01:01:35
Speaker
I'm curious what you guys think about this as a concept, but I feel, I feel actually a freedom in coming to the conclusion that I don't need to, as a writer, as a creator stress so much about making something totally brand new and original.
01:01:50
Speaker
Like actually the the magic is not necessarily the the novelty, the idea there's only a few stories, you know, it's like, if you, if you know, If you watch a bunch of movies, often I can, not because I'm an expert, but I'll watch a movie and be like, oh, I bet this is going to happen. And frequently it does, but it doesn't take away from the experience of it. And I feel like the fact that people are so excited about seeing Pope Hardy remounted, the fact that people were so excited about seeing a remount of Guy, it's a testament to, it's not
01:02:23
Speaker
it's not the novelty that's the actual value. It's the going through it again and going through it, this experience in a new way with a new creative vision or whatever. And I actually find a lot of freedom in that and letting go of the stress of, I've got to come up with the most novel, original, new, no one's ever seen. and No one's ever heard of it. yeah that's that's That's almost to a waste of energy trying to chase something that is um A, am kind of impossible, and B, actually, i don't think that's what people are getting from stories that matter to them.
01:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think as long as it's important to you and you're invested in it and it's what you want, that's the most important part. That's something that nobody else will ever do is your version of it.
01:03:06
Speaker
um we've We work on stuff all the time and then we hear, we read a deadline article that's like, a show is like being shopped around or some movie. And it's like basically the same log line is what we're working on. And it used to make me sad. And now I'm like, well, 90% of the time this won't actually get made.
01:03:31
Speaker
And even if it does and it works, like we're going to come at it at a different, in a different way. And so we just keep working on on, our stuff. We just put our heads down and like do what we want to do. And I just have to assume like, no, that's going to work. That's worked for us so far. so And if anything, I saw a trailer for a movie last night. I went and saw, um, Hocum.
01:03:53
Speaker
It's great by the way. Ooh. Okay. Um, with your twin. Uh, Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. You do. You and Adam Scott do, uh, share some resemblance. Dude, the whole movie. I was like, this is shit.
01:04:04
Speaker
where's Sean? Why is this not Sean? um But there was a trailer for a film that aired before that was like a horror film. very similar to this concept. I've been trying to get off the ground. And in previous times of my life, I would have been like,
01:04:19
Speaker
But I went, oh, sweet. So people do want to see this. Cool. yeah like Like, okay, that this aesthetic, the vibe, the mood. was like, yeah, that's exactly the – it's different, but it's similar. And I was like, cool.
01:04:32
Speaker
There's a market for it. And I know i would watch both. if if If the movie I want to make was made by somebody else, I would watch both of those movies. So I was like, okay, I can i can serve that audience. Yeah.
01:04:44
Speaker
We all watched um Armageddon and Deep Impact. We all watched Anson, A Bug's Life. Yeah, that's true. Yes, we were there in the trenches. Yeah.
01:04:56
Speaker
OK, hey, before we wrap things up, ah you had a recommendation that you wanted to offer us. sea So what is ah what's this other thing that you were into? okay this is a show that was not really on my radar. And I'm kind of mad that it's not on my radar because it seems like it was made for me.
01:05:11
Speaker
But we went to the um FYC event for it. It's a show on Amazon Prime called Bait. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Have you watched it? It's great. I haven't watched it. I've seen it. I've watched the first episodes. Okay, I haven't seen it Ahmed is on my current Mount Rushmore of... I just think he is an astonishingly phenomenal and funny actor. I think a lot people think he's So funny.
01:05:36
Speaker
He's so funny. He's funny in Rogue One. Yeah. Like, he's done some really funny work. I think, you know, Sound of Metal and some of the other films he's done subsequently. What was the one, the HBO series he did? Oh, The Night the night Of. The Night Of. i mean, he's great, but he's so freaking... He's also um a rapper, and he's, like, pretty funny.
01:06:00
Speaker
Um, and they are, there is actually like a, um, a reunion with his, um, with the sweatshop boys, this, this duo he had with, um, heems from desk races. Um, so it's very autobiographical. He, he plays a version of himself, Riz Ahmed, he created and stars in the show.
01:06:19
Speaker
And he plays a struggling actor who used to be a rapper. And he's from a Pakistani Muslim family in London. And he's auditioning for to be the new James Bond.
01:06:32
Speaker
that's how the show opens. And it from there, it just... It's a show, it's so it's dark, it's funny, it's, um there's ah like a thriller element sometimes. It's also like a really heartfelt family dramedy.
01:06:51
Speaker
It's got, it's like, it's like, the bear it's got elements of the bear it's got like curb your enthusiasm because he cannot get out of his own way and he just keeps he just keeps stepping on the rake and things get worse and worse and you can barely stand to watch it but it's so interesting because it explores like themes of representation and race and identity and family and like He talked about how when he was getting famous, like his personal life and his public life were completely at odds.
01:07:23
Speaker
Like he was in Rogue One, it was playing in theaters. And then he was like down the street from the theater at a laundromat, like trying to figure out how many quarters he needed.
01:07:34
Speaker
um And um it just is like, it's so interesting. And also as an actor, I read this interview with him where he was like, talking about how it takes the idea of auditioning and just sort of makes it a universal, like, here's here's what it feels like to be auditioning constantly.
01:07:55
Speaker
in every aspect of your life. It also plays with genre in a fun way that's not over the top, like in a way that the after party did, where like one episode is like got spy thriller vibes. Another episode is like very Bollywood. And at the Q&A, they talked about this and it wasn't until they mentioned it that I really picked up on it because it's not over at all. But I think it's such an interesting thing. And as it goes, ah it gets a little weirder and weirder.
01:08:22
Speaker
And um i've I've seen some people like not love that, but I just, he's losing his mind and and it makes sense that the show is getting weirder.
01:08:33
Speaker
And there's also a great cameo by Sir Patrick Stewart. Oh, who's also in Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals. Yeah. yeah Exactly. So that, just to bring it full circle. but No, I really want to say I remember seeing the trailer for Bait months ago. And and I'm also a big Riz Ahmed fan. I think he's probably one of the most char charismatic actors of our time right now. So I'm really excited to check that one out. um Yeah. ah Well, hey, Sean, thank you so much for dropping in to talk to us. Thanks for having me.
01:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, um before we go, do you have anything to, I know obviously wanna plug Poe Party Musical. So yeah, anything you'd like to plug right now? the ones on Yeah, well, I'll do that. um We're doing Poe Party the Musical in late August, August 21st through August 20, I should know that. Last two weeks of August.
01:09:22
Speaker
ah First week is sold out. So if you want to come, please do that. That second week, we've still got tickets available. If you go popartymusical.com, you can get tickets there. We're also doing digital tickets. So if you can't make it out to LA, you can still um experience everything.
01:09:39
Speaker
And I know we're doing like a, I know there's a, there's an overlap that first weekend with the star kid show. So if you're in town for the star kid show, um and you're able to make it to Poe Party, um I think we'll we'll have some tickets available for that week. As Ali Gordon said, Burbank is the place you want to be for new theater in August 2026. You can go see Poe Party at the Gary Marshall.
01:10:07
Speaker
Go across the street, down the street. You can see Tomb Quest if you want. That's what they say about Burbank. Also, too awesome genuinely, I'm so excited to be in Burbank this summer. like No offense to North Hollywood, but I kind of hate it there.
01:10:25
Speaker
i love the idea. Burbank, you guys are playing a across from Bob's Big Boy. it' a nice gar street from Warner Brothers. I love that area. I love the area that the Gary Marshall theater is in. It's very walkable. There's a lot of, um, lot of nice little dinner options before you come to the show.
01:10:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Also too, people can check out you and Shanae's writing on TV. You guys are writers of episodes of the librarians. yeah where Where can we find that?
01:10:57
Speaker
Um, that's on TNT season one aired last summer. And season two apparently is coming out soon. i wish I had a date for you, um but we've seen a trailer. That'll be on TNT soon. So so stay tuned.
01:11:11
Speaker
um there's ah We wrote a couple episodes in season two and they're fun. They're fun. There's one that's like, I won't say anything, but- but they're fun. They're for fun.
01:11:23
Speaker
That's great. It plays so much. Obviously it's, it is not like your, the brainchild of other people and you guys are writers on it, but I do feel like at least from the first season and knowing what you guys did on the the next season, it is so in your wheelhouse of the kinds of, the kinds of things that you write and it like so plays to your sensibility. So I have a feeling if people follow your work and like the stuff you guys have made, you're gonna, you're gonna really like the episodes that they've written for the librarians.
01:11:51
Speaker
Yeah. Um, Kurt, anything you want to plug? Um, yeah. but Well, we're talking about theater. So yeah. Tomb quest. Um, it's a, it's a new, new comedy musical about a group of friends finishing up a campaign of a dungeons and dragons. Well, ne za nope.
01:12:09
Speaker
Finishing up a campaign of tomb quest. Legal reasons. Legal reasons. um and uh through this game they might learn a little bit about each other and uh uh yeah find some closure kickstart now yeah so um you know it's a brand new this brand new oh this will go up tomorrow oh yeah this will go up on wednesday yeah um it's a brand new show you know so it's much smaller it's a much more kind of intimate kind of thing but um Yeah, i'm i'm I'm really looking forward to getting to play that character. And genuinely, I know it's been crazy with the schedule, but I am so freaking grateful that I get to do like both of those shows. And like the fact that I get to spend this summer doing yeah that and doing Poe Party, I...
01:12:56
Speaker
I cannot stress enough. I was, somebody recently was like, Oh my God, it seems crazy. And I was like, this is all I want that. Like I literally live to do all the stuff that I do outside of it. I do so that we can get to these moments in, in life when we get to do stuff like this. So I am, ah I am so excited. So I think I, I know the, the overlap is um you and Joey and, and Lauren. And it's like,
01:13:22
Speaker
you guys are such pros. Like there might be people we'd be worried about like, Oh boy, are they, they're going really tired. But like you guys are so good at this that it's just sort of like, yeah, it'll be great.
01:13:33
Speaker
I know, um, you know, it's easy sometimes to think like on the, there's obviously it's great to work in TV shows and commercials and that's awesome. But the most fun and the most joy I've ever had making stuff and doing stuff is doing these projects. And I think sometimes people will go like, yeah, but like one day I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll do it on a larger scale. And I'm like, it doesn't get any better. Like it pays more sometimes, but it doesn't get better. Joy of getting to make this thing is doing it, doing it with, with your friends. Like genuinely like that's, that's the best. It's the best when it's working. It's like summer camp.
01:14:11
Speaker
um yeah at its best and like yeah we've all worked on bigger things bigger sets more professional sets and they have the same problems that we have ours it's that stuff doesn't go away and in a lot of times a lot of ways it's worse James what about you what do you got going on This. and um And then, yeah, i'll I'll be in London for the better part of the next two weeks, just getting to show up. And then I'll be back in l L.A. And I don't know what I'm doing after that. So stay tuned.
01:14:45
Speaker
Hey, yes wow good things are coming. there's yes i I believe it. I believe it. I don't believe in manifesting per se, but I'm manifesting. Well, you know, it's funny because there was a ah ah this big, like, I'm not big into the horoscopes and Zodiac, all that stuff. I do know I'm a Leo and I was told that um Uranus left Taurus or something like that. And so because of that, anyone that was, well, there were a few signs, but Leo is part of it. Apparently we've been going through seven years of hardships. And that ended as of April 25th. So now it's it's only up from here.
01:15:18
Speaker
Okay. I'm also a Leo. Let's go. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You're a Leo as well. So yeah, so we're we're in our we're in our golden era right now. Something great is about to happen for us. Let's go. Seven years of your worst hardship. What? yeah I don't know what that means. And so I hope it... Yeah, but but it's good now. Whatever that meant It's good now. We're fine now. Good. good don't Don't overthink it. Yes. um Well, James, can you tell us where can people ah find find us this and other things? Yes. All right. So you can always email at us at sowhatareyouintopodatgmail.com. We're on the socials, TikTok. YouTube and Instagram at so what are you into pod message us, tag us like things, comment things, only nice things. We only like nice things. Only nice things place. Yes. um All right. And then as we always end every episode, stay curious. serious