Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Crystal Skillman
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Crystal Skillman is an internationally award-winning playwright, fictional podcast writer, and comic book author who has written for Stories Podcast (Wondery Kids), Girl Tales, Adventure Time comics, as well as Marvel comics. In addition to Open and The Rocket Men, Crystal is the dramatist of RAIN AND ZOE SAVE THE WORLD (premiered in the UK in 2022) and the NYTimes Critics’ Pick plays GEEK, CUT, and KING KIRBY which you can listen to on Broadway Podcast Network.
We talk about the big issues of history, war, justice and art. We focus on her new play 'The Rocket Men.' The Rocket Men is a unique theatrical experience that carries us through time in a blink of an eye to present the story of the German "Rocket Men" who used their scientific skills to flee Nazi Germany and settle in the most unlikely of places...North Alabama. These men form the backbone of NASA’s rocketry program.
In this modern play, women (employees at Space Camp), step into roles playing the men focusing on Heinz- Hermann Koelle, a lesser-known young German rocketeer, who joined this "Operation Paperclip" team years later; Rocket Men explores the dynamic relationship of Wernher von Braun and Koelle as these two have set their sights on getting us to the Moon and beyond.
But as the play counts down to the launch of Apollo 11, Koelle is befriended by a Jewish engineer hell-bent on exposing the truth: the Germans' technology is based on the V-2 rockets built by slave labor.
Played by six female-identifying women who force us to theatrically re-examine this explosive story - still widely not known in America - “The Rocket Men” asks who gets to be remembered in the history books, and why?
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Valente. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
00:00:18
Speaker
This is Ken Belante with the something rather than nothing. I'm with Crystal Skillman.
Origins of 'Rocketman'
00:00:24
Speaker
I really enjoy the art that you create. And we're going to chat a bit about something that I haven't seen, but is going to be debuting multiple areas.
00:00:39
Speaker
A play of yours called Rocketman. And I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about this fascinating story um and about the play and uh where it might be showing up yeah um i uh was the the story goes of the conception of the play that i was in alabama my friend hugh long was directing a play of mine about cosplayers which is part of kind of my geek theater era um it's a really beautiful play written for quee gwen's theater company vampire cowboys and queen and i remain pretty close um
00:01:17
Speaker
And ah so he was doing geek out there. He said, I want to come. I want you talk to the students. And, and he said, ah you know, I want you to think about a commission. I want you to think about a way that we can maybe work on a new play that you develop
Playwriting Process and Inspirations
00:01:28
Speaker
here. So you don't do a full production. You're with the students, but you have, and he knew that i worked that way. So a way that I work as a playwright is that um when I want try to teach my students. None of them, when they're young, they never believe, but, but they will come to learn what I've learned, which is that, you know, the play is really incomplete without a production. So,
00:01:45
Speaker
for To put all that pressure, you're just trying to make the play on the paper as good for each stage to get to each stage. And so I developed this method partly because I had worked so much in musicals.
00:01:55
Speaker
And it's very rare that you write a first draft of musical. First of all, you don't have enough money even for the right demos, right? So you're like, there's so much work in terms of how you show and how you share. What songs sound great in your head?
00:02:07
Speaker
but Absolutely. And so I thought I really was like, wait, wait, why do playwrights put this pressure on themselves? yeah Is it because it's just cheaper because it's just on the page? And now we're in an era where people don't, ah to be quite honest, um don't have the time to read and um or read beyond. I mean, it's always been like in Hollywood, you know only read the first 10 pages, but.
00:02:27
Speaker
Typically in theater, you know people would sit with the script and and you know and and it's a tough time. And then development within theaters went away and that's how they internally heard scripts. And so that still happens, but on a much smaller level.
00:02:40
Speaker
So I thought, well, i've got to do that for myself. And and because I am more of like, they said this about Cui too, we're a bit more of like showmakers. like we we are you know We think about the play or production and also with musicals, you typically think about it because there's so many moving parts.
00:02:57
Speaker
And um beyond just being like, hey, I just wrote this one this line.
Historical Context of 'Rocketman'
00:03:00
Speaker
And so with Rocket Men, I was out there in Alabama and I went to the US Space and Rocket Center because that is what you do. I was Decatur, in Ponceville.
00:03:09
Speaker
All rockets, right? All rockets. Oh, yeah. And it's Rocket City. And so I ah picked up a book called The Rocket Team um written by one of the American members of Von Braun's team later on. He did several things within NASA. but Um, and I just start reading the story of, um, the von Braun's team, uh, Magnus, his brother sent out on a rickety bicycle to talk to Americans, doesn't speak English.
00:03:36
Speaker
They're holed up, um, so that the Germans don't kill them. It's the end of the war because of the secrets they have, which is the V2 secrets. And he says, don't shoot. Hey, I've got, let's let, hey, hire us, take us to America.
00:03:49
Speaker
And so, um so I'm just like, what, it what? I was like, what's going on? Like, I was like, I don't, I've never heard this story. There's a dramatic scene, like right at the beginning.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah. And I do, I do. um I grew up, I was born in the seventies. So, um you know, all those, ah and you'll notice a lot of my work that I play with different aspects of the hero journey and kind of break it and analyze it. And I i kind of smash myths or ideas of myths in America and what it means to be an American.
00:04:18
Speaker
And sometimes they're very fun and, and, and big like geek, which deals with bullying um And Rockament does this too in its own way. So, ah but I hadn't written it yet, right? I didn't know, but I was like, oh, what is the story? So i just, I bought the book and I kept reading and reading the reading.
00:04:32
Speaker
In the middle of that book, there are about three chapters that deal with one of the labor camps in World War II that was making those V2 rockets called Dora. No, it was written from a very technical point of view.
00:04:42
Speaker
yeah it was more like, hey, these people that we hired to work here, do the war, you know. But like the truth is those people were brought in to for extermination to to work to death to make these V2 rockets. And there there were so many of them.
00:04:56
Speaker
And in particular with Dora, there were several labor camps and all of them are bad, obviously. um And they really end up becoming concentration camps, particularly near the end of the war. If you really think about it, sometimes people...
00:05:07
Speaker
And they were able in their minds, I think, to mentally compartmentalize, which is how they got through it, ah which is a dark thing to say. um But ah Dora dora was the war was adora had so many aspects to it that made it so egregious um because you're making the V2 rockets underground.
Operation Paperclip and Moral Dilemmas
00:05:23
Speaker
You're not seeing the light of day. gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah. And then there are these. really And so then I was like, wait, this is the this is the same technology that that is brought here. And eventually and von Braun is very instrumental to ah pushing for NASA.
00:05:39
Speaker
And you know there are many factors in this. There are many players in the story. So how do I not know about it? Well, ah some people do know the word Operation Paperclip that is more widely known. But even still, as I've traveled the country with this play, some people like, I've heard of that, but I don't really know what it is.
00:05:54
Speaker
So because the Americans were brought here in secret, and that was really part of the PR angle and and strictly – and that's not – That's not von Braun and the Germans being like, hey, man, keep it secret. You know, my Nazi past.
00:06:06
Speaker
That was America. That was their decision and that was their PR angle. And this was the way to go. So 50 Germans. Look at these people we found. Yeah. And so and they that's what they want. And so so to be an American. So so so that team has an assimilation story of ah Germans in the South during the Jim Crow era.
00:06:27
Speaker
becoming Americans and, and changing the world with their science fiction ideas. The, when you go to Disneyland, when you go to Tomorrowland, all of those rides, that vibe and that feel was based on Von Braun's ideas, based on the illustrations that he had in magazines to illustrate his ideas.
00:06:45
Speaker
And he and Disney were friends and they made um three series together. So, um so ah yeah, ah they're amazing. and They're really interesting to watch. They're really interesting. Man in the moon, um man in space is the first one. And man on Mars. So, ah so, so this, this real, like,
00:07:04
Speaker
you know real science, futurism. Yep. Like, this is all about futurism. Yep. And then, and so to the point where, you know, if you watch 2001, that look, I mean, that's coming from several illustrators and and sci-fi writers, but also, uh,
00:07:23
Speaker
ah Wernher von Braun influenced the sci-fi writers and in a way he was enacting and making their concepts a reality. so So the sci-fi community was very enamored with him. He also um um is very charming. My mom would say, oh, i remember him. He was that really attractive German with the silver hair. You know, he he he had a way about him. He had charisma.
00:07:45
Speaker
um And he was also incredibly brilliant. And that is true. So it's so we have aspects here of all sorts of... um a PT Barnum-ish kind of story, but we also have, but we also have um I mean, real wit, real real intellectual ah capacity, and a real dedication and love of science and education.
00:08:06
Speaker
And that really did affect Americans. And he he he gives back a lot to the community. Huntsville becomes Rocket City and all of these things. um But the story, that is the story.
00:08:18
Speaker
and and the way Operation Paperclip was told was we accepted these Germans. They had a hard time. What would you do if Hitler was like, i'm going to kill you if you don't make these rockets? Right. But the truth is, when you start to dig into the story, all of these ah guys that came from that era,
00:08:34
Speaker
and or ah came over to work on the project, they had a they all worked um um in, they all were kids making rockets in Berlin and a very spin it was in this rocket society. And um All they cared about was the rocket technology. And the truth was they wanted to um form, um ah you know, space stations in space much earlier than it happened.
00:09:01
Speaker
But they also, and now we're finally getting there, but much earlier, because remember, this is, I'm talking about the 40s into the 50s here. um They want, and when they had this dream, it was like in the 30s.
00:09:11
Speaker
They want to go to Mars. Like this is like really, and so, um and Varner Ron Brown even writes a book called Project Mars. So and so all this is really great. And when I get something, I'm like, there's something here. But
Innovative Casting Choices
00:09:22
Speaker
what's the play? Right. Like, because what makes it there' um monitor training or a book? Yeah. And um and Michael Newfield um is a wrote a lot of books about him.
00:09:31
Speaker
ah He was very instrumental to to my research. And there are several great books and there's Chasing. ah The Moon, which is a great book and series that was on PBS and on Amazon um that told from their perspective, the Germans perspective, which I thought was really interesting.
00:09:46
Speaker
um So there's a lot of good stuff out there. So I was like, ah so he I call up you. I say, I think there's something here. um it's I get the commission, right? But like, I'm like, what is it really? And in my research, so the the the way the play was written and has almost this flavor of it because there are a lot of reveals in the play breaks, but open a lot theatrically, but I think the I was inspired by how I was also processing the story. So the next level of the story that I was like, Heinz Hermann Krüller. So I start to find these photos of vi Von Braun and, you know, he's with a lot of people all the time, but this younger kid who's like 13 years younger, He's also a rocketeer. He comes over later. He's one of the very, very few people brought over that's not one of the, um they call them the Panmunders, like not from ah that era. So Panmund was on the Baltic Sea and that's where they really pioneered um a lot of the V2 rockets. And that's really kind of the beginning where they're like, oh, we need laborers.
00:10:39
Speaker
this is getting dark, yeah but we don't talk about it. And so it's a very controversial site in some ways, because it is literally in some ways, the birthplace of NASA and rocketry, but it also has this darker side. But like I said, all the labor camps were bad, but they got progressively more worse, of course, as the year went on and as men were dying and like, you know, and they need more, and they're making dark decisions about those things.
00:11:01
Speaker
So I was like, okay, well, we meet them. What if we meet them in this story that they are starting to assimilate in America? It's poor. post Fort Bliss, which is a time they didn't like to remember because they weren't allowed to really work.
00:11:12
Speaker
It's 1955. Now they're in Huntsville. Now they have an office. Now they're starting to work together. um And this younger person comes in, which is true in 1955, with all these ideas. um He helped Berner with Project Mars. And so he they really, um they had this like dreamer quality together. So yeah so I thought, this is cool because...
00:11:33
Speaker
you've got this chemistry of the Germans, which do like, there's, you know, Helmut Hülser is the founder of the analog computer. Like they all have these like little exciting geek moment and things.
00:11:46
Speaker
But I was like, but he is younger and attractive in the younger generation and also a threat to them in some ways, because it's like, they've always worked together in a certain way. So I thought, Oh, this is cool. What happens when he goes to that office? What does that mean? and um I think I really knew I had something when I was like, I know that he leaves the project in 1964. And I said, why? is What is that? like And he's doing well. So so what is the story?
00:12:10
Speaker
And, um, As I was penning these pages, i was influenced by an interview that I had read about in um Monique Levey's book, ah German Rocketeers in the Dixie South, I think is the title.
00:12:23
Speaker
and um And she did some amazing work. she was german She's German, and she's written several books. This was actually her thesis, I think, um at some point, um or you know how to publish as she was graduating somewhere.
00:12:37
Speaker
um but ah She had done all these interviews in Huntsville and, um and a lot of people want to talk. of people didn't want to talk. So there's this nostalgia. So when we first started to talk about operation paperclip before
Themes and Audience Engagement
00:12:52
Speaker
any Jacobs book and before these other things so came to light, we talked about it in a very specific way.
00:12:59
Speaker
Hitler tells you to make rocket. He's got a gun in your head. What would you do? I don't know what I would do. Right. So now we're starting to get to aspects of the story. That's like, well, If there's paperwork where you have to decide who's making these rockets and like what happens to them, they try to sabotage it, right? Oh, now we're hanging them from rockets to make a point, which is what Arthur Rudolph does, who's still a member of this team, still a member.
00:13:22
Speaker
There's several members that were pretty high up, right? And the Nazi, yeah working with the Nazis. So you're like, okay, can you take that and put it in a box What does that mean?
00:13:33
Speaker
But is that right? And so Kudler has a shinier version of the story being younger. And also he was a prisoner of war for a significant part of the war.
00:13:44
Speaker
And so he doesn't really and he's a pacifist. And he um one of the things he does immediately is that he believes that his country should um a pop should um ah make things right.
00:13:57
Speaker
And also, um and so one of the first things he does at a speech that gets the ear of a German engineer is as he's recruiting engineers, is he says, that my my country is sorry. We are sorry for what we did to the Jewish people.
00:14:09
Speaker
Now, this is something that is never said by the original Penn Wunders. It's never said by von Braun's team. There is no apology. In fact, there is no acknowledgement. Now we can start to then go to like, and that's what the play does is like, they they really hold on to that PR thing. Like we can't do that. That's not really. So in their minds, like they kind of,
00:14:26
Speaker
As I as I researched them each and you can get interviews with them because they were all interviewed when they came to this country. You can hear how they talk. They you can hear their stories. and It's it's so I really kind of was living with these guys voices, so to speak. um And um for Heinz Hume Kruhler, when he and Saul, this Jewish engineer, become friends, he now is friends with someone who says,
00:14:47
Speaker
hey, I wanna do my job and I wanna get us to space and I want all the science and education, all the things that you guys want, but I also wanna tell the truth. And I actually don't think those two things are separate. I actually think they're one thing.
00:15:00
Speaker
And Kruller can't understand, but you work here, this is my boss and mentor. um And so they start to kind of um ah uncover the story and in and and Saul wants to let the community Huntsville know the truth.
00:15:15
Speaker
um And this causes all sorts of rifts in the play as as we kind of examine. And Heinz, Hermann, Kuehler's or HHK, as he's is called often fondly by VB, that's how they write to each other. They use their their initials on documents and things.
00:15:31
Speaker
i I think, um you know, it's the exact... push-pull that we're going through right now. How do I live a life? How do I provide for my family?
00:15:43
Speaker
How do I do what I was on this put on this earth to do, which is make rockets? And the other thing is that for the Germans, if they are sent back, and Heinz von McCuller certainly knows this, um He can't make rockets. It's it's outlawed. It's it's because of the sanctions. you've literally can't make You literally can't do. And there will be a lifetime or projected amount of time before there's any capacity. Right.
00:16:06
Speaker
And then. Or allowed. Exactly. And it spans time. ah The whole first act deals with um the fact that they are shut down about making their satellite, which is an error. um Eisenhower was a little late
Challenges in Theater Production
00:16:18
Speaker
to the game. And if you really follow even with Sputnik, it wasn't until several days later that he even said like, hey, it might have been not great. You know, like he really didn't get.
00:16:27
Speaker
And so that's the thing where the showman stuff does help because because Ron Brown is like, we are here. We are not the enemy. Let us loose. We're ready to go. confident for the future.
00:16:38
Speaker
We want to fight the Russians. Like, come on. Like, you know, and so finally. So he really so you're following the almost the thrilling um politics of his office trying. So they have to work in secret at some points to like get their explorer done.
00:16:53
Speaker
Like it's a really riveting story. And then at the same time, you're watching this moral conundrum with this younger rocketeer. um In act two, we start to get towards they've achieved their goal. Now we're going to go into space. But where? And this is very true that they didn't actually, they would talk a lot about the moon as an example. And obviously Jules Verne, um you know, makes it popular. And like, you know, well we've got. It's not that far. It's pretty close. It's that far it's pretty close right so like um but really it becomes because of the they finally have JFK and they finally have someone to to champion them and uh JFK and VB also have ah a strong relationship as well as you sense there's a theme here he actually met um
00:17:35
Speaker
JFK at a committee meeting for um ah to pick Man of the Year for Time magazine. And he was really impressed by him. um and he He gave some interviews about that. So there's this interesting thing about him is that he has this, you trust him and he has this air of, uh, uh, uh,
00:17:54
Speaker
he I mean, he's Prussian. you know He's got this like air about him, this aristocratic thing, but he's down to earth, right? So he's that- Yeah, like a presence. He's kind of perfect American quality of the time, which is like, youre you you get in there with the engineers, you're very blue collar, you care just as much about where the valve goes, but you also can like like talk about this huge future and ideas that you have, and actually you can make the drawings that can make it happen. So- it's and In fact, ah so and I'll get to that in a second, but so in that and and Act 2, we're following um where do we go?
The Role of Art in Society
00:18:28
Speaker
And Heinz from McCuller is frustrated because Mars is the original goal and we're getting further away from that because even though the moon will do things, it um it is not a stunt, but it is not practical. It really is a demonstration and a flex of power.
00:18:42
Speaker
And as we know from that era in the space, we are now getting back to, to where we were, but because of Vietnam, the space program that they pioneer in NASA, ah finally taking flight, so to speak, um ah really in the seventies gets shut down. So all of their, so in a way, um however you feel about Von Braun and his team, and ah most people are mixed. Some people who knew him and with Hans will feel much more sentimental.
00:19:10
Speaker
Um, ah ah They did not accomplish their goal. He dies without accomplishing his goal. We're nowhere close to Mars and those sorts of things. And in fact, near the end, people stop listening to him as what when you get older, you know, you learn what these things mean.
00:19:24
Speaker
ah so That's the guy still talking about Mars. Yeah, that's the guy. Absolutely. And he could not get a meeting at some point. as points He ended up going to to Washington.
00:19:35
Speaker
So this whole story plays out um and um and we see the decision that Carrer makes. We also see what happens with Saul when he tries to tell the truth. And so the it's all set in that small office of Huntsville. But how does the play work?
00:19:50
Speaker
So there's the story, right? But the play works by six women um addressing the i ah like the truth that there are some things in the U.S. s space and rocketry on the walls um that, you know, call people that worked at Dora factory workers.
00:20:09
Speaker
What does that mean? Interesting. um And they acknowledge the fact that they're a part of the story in a way that is important to them to tell the story and and that that as they tell the story, they choose, they choose who's going to play the roles.
00:20:25
Speaker
They, they are women, um, that then step into the roles of men. They dress in those suits. They get into the mad men looking era, so to speak. And then we go into that office. We stay in that office, but at the end of the play in the last 20 minutes, which I think is what people are so startled by. So it's a little challenging to talk about because it's still that where like you want people to be able to experience it. Um,
00:20:47
Speaker
But the whole office breaks open in many ways. And Dora perhaps was underneath this whole office in ways that we didn't quite expect. And um ah women were involved in the story because in the last three months of the war, the or, you know, a few months, ah women from Buchenwald and concentration camps were brought into Dora to make those rockets.
00:21:12
Speaker
And so we've lived in a world where these women have played these men. They speak about their their wives and their daughters, and they speak about it, but never see them. We never see them. but and they But they love them, and that's why they're doing this, and that's why they keep these secrets, and that's why it's hard, and that's why they deal with that trauma, and they put it in a box, and that's why they do things a certain way, and that's why, you know, and at the and then...
00:21:32
Speaker
you know, there's a confrontation between someone who has been, we believe a member of that office and there it's revealed who they really are. And this, the play ends in this real confrontation between this woman and Von Braun. And it, it is a really, really startling.
00:21:50
Speaker
i mean, like I've sat, I've written it and I've sat in it and, uh, in, in, um, the production Indianapolis and in many workshops. And it, it, it, It just does what theater does. it it's It's something, a huge question is now playing out before you live.
00:22:08
Speaker
And you as an audience member realize, wow, that's why I was here. And that's why I'm ah i love that's why i'm watching this. um Yeah, it took a long time to to get that construction. and And it was through the process, as I mentioned before, and and some support with that. Yeah.
00:22:24
Speaker
The play has had an EST Sloan grant um for these productions ah for Indianapolis. And then a Ventress grant through NMPN has helped support some of it um as well for the for the role. So I feel really grateful.
00:22:39
Speaker
um and And each team is really, really passionate to tell the story. um And I think the the extra thing that happens with women playing the men, you're very curious the whole time, but once they start to play men, they actually, it's so ah like androgynous, sexy, real.
00:22:59
Speaker
it it you You kind of forget, like you feel like thats that's them, but you always are aware. It's called the Rocket Men, but it's played by women. And so you're examining everything in a different way, like that bro hug, that bro handshake, the the world and the society of men that can make things in a certain way, or during that time, certainly only was thought about, which is really the founding of, you know, um,
00:23:22
Speaker
you know, ah capitalism in the sense of like those gentlemen bankers saying the women stay home, they, they you know, cook the meals and they they iron my pants. But I need to be, and I can be with people of different faiths even, but I need to be with men. That's what we do. That's how this works. This is how JP Morgan worked.
00:23:39
Speaker
This is how, you know, it was a very specific. And then you feel for his guys because they are fighting generals who don't really get what they're doing and all sorts of things. And there's this like, mean, it's just, it just lives in all these complexities because as well, what Von Braun and his team did and those that supported ah that work and the generals that were on their
The Journey of 'Rocketman'
00:23:59
Speaker
sides. And, you know, we have all branches of the military involved here.
00:24:03
Speaker
And Eisner does this too, finally, doesn't quite get, he's really obsessed with Korea as we know, and a lot of other things, but like, um He gets it finally too. Let's separate the military from space.
00:24:18
Speaker
And that's like, that is like radical and like huge because what that does up until then, it was all war. It was like, so if you were like someone who wanted to explore space, you're like making a balloon in Japan to like drop bombs on somebody, right? right So like these complexities have existed for a long time in every war because if someone could event, you know,
00:24:38
Speaker
Yes, there are dark people that, you know, the venture of the of guns and things like that, and you know, they mate they're doing it for their their own purposes. Maybe they think it's protection or they can make money or these things. But there are so many people that like to have that level of a mind that can problem solve like that.
00:24:53
Speaker
It's very rare that you're like, well, that's I just want to kill people like it's I don't like so you have really because you have to have a level of intellectual thought and capacity that is beyond brute animalistic natures and desires.
00:25:07
Speaker
um Power exists with both of them. But I think this play deals with that as well, um especially at a time when um the current era we're in, um you know, as you could tell, this is an anti-fascist play um in many ways because it's examining how those how desire power confessed her and how... um how um vouchsafing information or um history is problematic.
00:25:32
Speaker
um The play itself as it's performed over, um over, I'm traveling with it in a way. So I'm listening to people in different areas of the country. I didn't hear the story. I wasn't taught this and and I wasn't done the, you know, this didn't happen. This didn't happen.
00:25:47
Speaker
um And, and you're seeing them change or reflect and maybe they can go out and tell the story because, One of the reasons this is so important is that when I started teaching, I realized this was a problem because I was brought in as a guest artist. you know I'm a New Yorker. I live in my New York bubble, right? But like I and was born on the West Coast, but you know it mostly grew up in New York. And um I'm like, holy crap, the fact that we have such different ways of of educational, of how we're teaching in each state Now we're in trouble because these textbooks don't match. None of these textbooks match. None of the history matches. none People are not learning the same things. like
00:26:23
Speaker
you know and um you know And that includes the Holocaust. That includes the Civil War. That includes major ma Vietnam. And these are things that shaped our country, and it's extremely important To understand the the the ground on which you are are standing on and live in, yeah you know, and this is why we talk about, okay, well, we're we're trying, or it's not necessarily considered the best method, because it's, it's.
00:26:50
Speaker
it's something stronger is probably needed than saying, Hey, I'm on the land of the Lenape people. But we're, we're starting to talk about those things. It's trying talk about how to deal with this and how to hold both things in our hand and not erase history, but also acknowledge all the levels of history. Uh, John Legazam was a big, passionate ah person with this, with the shows on PBS and he has a show with the public right now.
00:27:10
Speaker
So I mean, it's brilliant. He's brilliant. And so I, you know, there's so much That we're we're attempting to do with that. and And women's rights and women's history now are now really tied in this as well. So the play in itself, through the action of doing the play, has that function um as a theater piece. um In general, people are drawn to my work because it's not preachy.
00:27:32
Speaker
um And yet it it it embraces every audience member. And one of the hardest things of writing this play was to write this play for so many different kinds of audience members.
00:27:42
Speaker
Someone who knows all of the history, someone who knows none of the history, somebody who knows a part of the history, someone who really loves space and doesn't want you to bust their bubble. Somebody who was, you know because I'm actually trying not to alienate yet be true. And so I think when things are open and vibrant,
00:27:57
Speaker
and they invite you, that's when I win. You know, that's when we win because then you are, your mind is going to other places of your own life or choices you could have made or maybe choices you will make. And that's the power of this debate and the power of um that theater can put forth in society by asking these big questions.
00:28:15
Speaker
But I don't believe it succeeds by saying a play is only meant for people who agreed with the question before they entered the theater. There's no reason to have the play, you know. so So I love that I'm going into, um ah typically there are blue bubbles in red states, but this play is being done in red states. This play is, um and I'm, and it, and there's a whole other conversation with that. There is, ah in terms of the response to,
00:28:40
Speaker
women playing men at the beginning, as opposed to how they feel at the end. And i I, I'm learning a lot of our state of mind as Americans, I would say. Yeah.
00:28:52
Speaker
I, um, I would see that as, i don't just listen about it, like necessarily for at the beginning like for the displacement and what happens to you.
00:29:08
Speaker
um Visually, it was really cool. I've seen a photo of the female actors and dress and garb.
00:29:21
Speaker
ah Wow. ah So, like, you know, plays on and history. There's so much you brought up about, like, ah made me thinking about, like, kind of big ideas and ethos of, like, different eras. It was kind of funny.
00:29:38
Speaker
You mentioned born in 70s. I was born in 70s. And, like, when you're covering this whole thing, for me, I've always been fascinated by how fucked up 70s were. Like, you don't have any of the...
00:29:51
Speaker
naive or otherwise hope, you don't have the heavy reaction, I think in the terms of the 60s, at least in the United States of, you know,
00:30:04
Speaker
ah reconstructing what it is to live in the night. And then sound it's like it's like polluted, smelly, foggy, tough to get gas. but my Oh, yeah. I mean, it I think what we attach to, and it depends like on your your little bubble, right? that Your little, how you grew up.
00:30:24
Speaker
um I think there for me, it was the lens of, of, of, it was the birth of the rebel. It was the birth of the, it was the birth of the story of the rebel, um in a different way.
00:30:37
Speaker
And of course, when I say that, I'm thinking of Alan Sherman's song, the rebel, which is hilarious. Um, but, uh, you know, um, and my dad was a race car driver. And so i grew up in a, in a, And kind of a dropout from society. And um yeah and my mom ran away with him from with from her first husband. So, you know, I kind of grew up in this little little bubble where I think that was definitely affecting ah some of the pop culture I was seeing and and the things that affected me.
00:31:07
Speaker
Because if you actually follow, because obviously he loved racing movies and and motorcycle stuff. So obviously we have Easy Rider. Easy Rider is like the iconic, I think, character. you know, film of the seventies in a lot of ways. And then we have, uh, you know, Steve McQueen, although that's like, obviously from the world war II era, but that motorcycle sequence and, um, in the great escape. And we have as well, the bullet. And, and so there's in a way, the machine, like the way cars racing motorcycles are always contrary to society.
00:31:37
Speaker
But I think that you're, you find a lot of that in the storytelling of rebels and um rebellion. And in fact, actually, one battle after another, which I just saw, which is amazing, brings up almost all the feels of what I'm saying. And in fact, there's an ah there's so much to talk about in that film, ah but there's also...
00:31:57
Speaker
an extraordinary car chase at the end, like no car chase I've ever seen. And it is cool. And yeah, because it's there's something about the pursuit. There's something about the fleeing. There's something about. So I feel like ah car chases often like are a sense of the spirit of escape. And for some, you know, obviously, I think Steve McQueen's sequence in The Great Escape is probably the most beautiful because it's it's He's not the smartest character. He's the American of them.
00:32:22
Speaker
um But he, you see in his fleeing from the Nazis and kind of hiss his, his, this trying to get to Sweden. Yeah. In a way it really captures um the American spirit of God. and And I think of that, I think of their story often when in our time today, because the whole point of those prisoners of war in that story and why they tried so hard to,
00:32:45
Speaker
um rebel and and every prisoner of war did most cases in those camps but um gum up the works and that's that was whole point gum up the works and that's kind of what we're doing now like that's kind of the the point like we don't have direct power um but what we need to we are not, don't do what they tell you to do. Don't, don't, don't, they tell you stand over there. Don't stand over there. Like, just think can me so like, be together, keep people together as safe as you can. And, and I think that's, and and gumming up the works does that because I think, um, the,
00:33:23
Speaker
the the only way they only understand a certain way of thinking and they really can't think outside of the box like we do well the the play like even like in real life the play and creating uh disruption creating confusion that's created on the citizen's uh language you speak um
00:33:46
Speaker
speak in Spanish as a deflection, like all the way that people are thinking about, like gumming up, gumming up the works or being in the way or, you know, um like that so in Vietnam, right? That amazing and then amazing image of putting the flower in the garden.
00:34:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker
Uh, quickly, where do you get this like simultaneous, like flowing world premieres of the Rocky Mountain?
00:34:23
Speaker
Like, where is that exactly? those Oh, yeah, yeah. So we, um, we just did Indianapolis. It was a really extraordinary experience and it was exciting to see ah the crowds grow. Um, they were always great, but they, they grew and they grew and they grew. Um, uh, and, uh,
00:34:38
Speaker
the Kurt Vonnegut Museum is out there and all the Kurt Vonnegut. If you love Kurt Vonnegut, you will love this play. Oh, I didn't, I didn't know that. I heard about Midland city, the Indianapolis that immediately yeah jumped to my head. um So, ah so, um and now it's in, it opens in Atlanta, October 12th. I fly out on Sunday. yeah Hotlanta. Yeah. And it's um at Synchronicity Theater, which is a great theater.
00:35:05
Speaker
Awesome. And then it will, um and that the last part of the role, the the the specific and NPN theater role is um in Nebraska in March at Angels Theater.
00:35:19
Speaker
But then a really cool theater, like I talked about in Oregon, hopped on board, which you can do within the role itself. So it speaks to the journey. um It's just that the it has to do with with funding in a certain way. But They were so passionate about the play.
00:35:32
Speaker
They wanted to do it on their own. And it's Oregon Contemporary Theater. And so that will open mid-January. there So really like, ah it's really, really in four major cities across the, you know, three more sit in major cities across the country. And a lot of people are asking to read the play, which is great. And so there's a lot of talk about ah what's next either um in in a part of the country we haven't reached yet um ah and New York. ah New York is always, you know, always a conversation. It takes a little bit of time and you want to take your time. But um I think that that's definitely going to happen at some point.
00:36:05
Speaker
Love it. ah So exciting to hear about it. I'm going to jump around. You know, there was about 123 discrete points you're making there in my head that I would like to talk about. Rock him, man.
00:36:25
Speaker
i Looks like I'll be able to get to see it, hopefully, for too long. Oh, yeah. Right. That's awesome. ah All right, Crystal.
00:36:35
Speaker
We're talking with Crystal Skillman. You're born... You an artist? You an artist? Like, you little kid? You writing? Did you become an artist?
00:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah Born in 1974 in San Diego. um So the first six, seven years I'm umm out in on the West Coast. And um Uh, and then we did a big cross country trip, which really, um, influenced my life.
00:37:03
Speaker
ah and that is in rain and Zoe, um, uh, towing my dad's race car. Um, and we ended up in new upstate New York and in upstate New York, that's where I really, ah start, you know, and being involved with community theater. And, um, and I was always,
00:37:20
Speaker
ah really visual artists like photography in particular yeah is um where I kind of shown. um And, but I was always doing theater and I love theater. um And so it's so funny that like I was doing theater like age seven, you know, on, but I did not know until I was like 23 and took a playwriting elective at the Hartford art school in Connecticut before I went to Parsons by Edward Allen Baker You were, you were over there and the Hartford.
00:37:48
Speaker
You were over there in Hartford. I'm West Hartford. Um, so, uh, it was, it's a great art school. Oh, it's so cool. Cause you had all this land. So you had like studio dark room. Like and you had your own dark room. It was pretty freaking cool.
00:38:02
Speaker
But, um, Yeah, but I didn't ever meet anyone who wrote theater. And a lot of the plays, ah you know, I was pretty... like when I was little, I liked being in Pete's Dragon. I was like, I like Pete's Dragon. I like those songs. It's fun.
00:38:16
Speaker
um But I... And I was always, like, in the back without taps at 42nd Street. i had one line of Pete's Dragon when I got sick one day. were like, oh we'll just give you a line to another town's member. i was like, you know what? This feels weird. You know, I knew I wasn't an actor. I knew... But I liked this form. And...
00:38:31
Speaker
um The plays sometimes are quite dated. like I didn't really love this play called Boy's Life that like at some point I had to be in. and you know i i that you know It was like maybe maybe I liked 10% of the plays that were being picked by people. really Come out Let's go. I want to drop into this thing. Yeah, they weren't great. But I didn't even know that people wrote them because I never met the authors. Right.
00:38:52
Speaker
I technically knew Stephen Sondheim was alive, but I didn't meet him at the time. So um my favorite thing that I ever was in was Anyone Could Whistle. That's a great play. And Arthur quote ah Cope is an amazing Cope is different. Arthur Lawrence.
00:39:06
Speaker
ah Amazing, amazing writer. He also did the book for West Side Story and a lot of other things. But, um, so, uh, so it wasn't until I took that class, I was like, oh my God, people write these things. And then I kind of realized, because at that point I was making kind of worlds, like with my photographs and my art, yeah um, there were scripts.
00:39:25
Speaker
Sometimes I was in it, you know, and then I, and, and I was doing something downtown that I wrote called Carpe Diem is not a Japanese fish. And these like critics were there and it was a critic of the New Yorker at the time. She's like, who are you? Like, these are plays. I was like, what's,
00:39:40
Speaker
Oh, cool. Like, she's like, you're a playwright. I was like, what's a playwright? Like, I just didn't know. Like, even though i'd been doing theater forever, like was so funny to me. And so, um, And my drama department was really amazing at my at my yeah high school.
00:39:53
Speaker
So um so i mean I started to, I think the first part of the story is that actually I went back to the dark room and I like i looked a little forlorn and I don't know if I was literally crying.
00:40:04
Speaker
And somebody was like, what's wrong? Like one of my photography buds was like, dude, what's wrong? Like you're doing great, you know, in a senior year and you're gonna have your final crit and all this stuff. And, or maybe was like junior, I had two more years left.
00:40:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm. was like, oh shit, I think I'm fucking a playwright. I'm like fucked. I was like, well, yeah. Because at that point. I just got a diagnosis. Right. It's terminal.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's terminal because I'm at the Parsons School Design. i This changes everything. And and and and and the I think the other thing that I usually don't tell in the story that I think was the the final part of deciding um You know, because to me, it was like, is your work on the walls of a gallery that people can choose to walk through? You can dictate a bit, maybe do some certain times, but ultimately is going to have their own interaction.
00:40:52
Speaker
Maybe they read something. Maybe they put on the headphones. Maybe not. You know, like maybe they make they can also just walk by it. But or do you I want their captured attention with the arc of a story for a certain amount of time? And I knew that that was basically the decision.
00:41:05
Speaker
The second thing was that I did, um i assisted this really incredible photographer. I mean, doing 24 by 24 Polaroids and this really cool machine. It was about this whole series of people who had been tattooed. and she really liked me and she was like do you want to be my assistant and I spent about three days with her and I knew I could do it but I also was terrified I was terrified I would ruin her photograph I was terrified that somehow I'd fuck up and I I i just was like I don't and and and I was like oh this is quite unfortunate because this is kind of like why my dad was a lone race car driver and then ah ah a trucker in a way like like I was scared to work for I was like I don't know if my
00:41:44
Speaker
I know eventually that I'd be a photographer of my own, but I don't, but most of that work, especially ah for years would be being an assistant. And I was like, I don't, I just don't know if that's going to happen. Like I, and I'm so responsible. Like I can't like entertain. Oh, well, you know, sometimes you make mistakes. I was like, this is someone else's life, you know?
00:42:05
Speaker
And so, um ah but so playwriting also put me in, and I was in control of what that was, or at least that's what I thought at the time. um And, and so my friend, my bud at the, in the darkroom was like,
00:42:19
Speaker
dude, why don't you're like at the news, you know, you're at the new school, right? Like, I know you have all these art classes and you know, you're doing experimental, you know, photography and, and painting and stuff like that. it's like, but like, literally, have you looked at the writing?
00:42:33
Speaker
Have you looked at the writing courses? Like you could take any of these classes. And I was like, what? I was like, what? what And I, and I did. So I took live poetry where we wrote poems in our heads. we never wrote them down. I took, uh, they didn't have the greatest playwriting classes, um, at the time. Um,
00:42:48
Speaker
but I took some, um, and I took, uh, novel writing and I took, so I just, I did just as much writing classes. And then I started to intern at New York theaters. And that's when I got put into a group ah of playwrights called young blood.
00:43:01
Speaker
And, um, and those playwrights became kind of my best friends and, um, Yeah, and playwrights are competitive, but playwrights are also really, really beautiful people, and and I love them. So, um yeah.
00:43:15
Speaker
So then I was launched, and that was kind of the ah thing. i love I love that. I've... um I've done the show for a while and, you know, and then there's 300 episodes and, and a lot of times like my learning can come through like the conversations, like, like listen to you in particular about like the play and the kind of feel of a playwright and their artistic aim.
00:43:46
Speaker
And, um, but so I really love to hear,
00:43:54
Speaker
like how you bumped it to and everything and and in like the the journey of moving from piece to piece. Because I was reading about you, and it's like it's cool. I love reading about people. It's like, there's a playwright in comic books. Are you talking about and the...
00:44:10
Speaker
ah photography. You do a lot of podcasts. like like You just do ah a lot of things and see like what's the artistic thread that pulls you through. um about About writing plays and the piece that I heard from you, it sounds like important for that the for you to be able to control that and for you able to be able see your vision that way.
00:44:44
Speaker
I personally get intimidated at times when i'm but we're talking about some bizarre and there's like all these other factors involved, the ensemble and things like that.
00:44:58
Speaker
For you as a creator, as ah as as a playwright, What's that process like as far as how it goes how it comes together in these different places? Do you find yourself attached to how you see it and like this is the way it's supposed to be? Or you, like as a creator, you're just like, wow, that's how they're going to do that there. And I didn't see that in my own play. yeah Yes. I see too um ah with the different productions. like Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker
yeah um Well, you know, it's like you have to love what you do. And and and and the truth of that, the I think, comes with age and time is You have to love what the medium is meant to do.
00:45:48
Speaker
So if you if you want to write a film, but you're really more interested in language, you really don't care about the shots, and you don't want to describe them, you don't see it visually in your head, no one can make that film.
00:46:00
Speaker
Other than maybe you, if it's all in your head, like Amadeus, and you couldn't write it down because then you could just maybe make it. But you're you're probably not going to tell that story as a screenplay because that's that's what that medium is meant to do. the The film is meant to tell...
00:46:14
Speaker
that story through images, right? Photography is so exciting because it has, there are stories, like I loved Allen Ginsberg's work where he would write a little bit with, the I love, and Barbara Kruger, I love the idea of text and image together, which is station stationary, but it can be a whole thing. And in fact, sometimes she takes over a whole room.
00:46:32
Speaker
And um which is exciting and and so. all um But that's like ah that's like a mix. But again, you do have to accept that people may may walk through it in a certain way or engage with it in a certain way. And then um and then we've got comics, which is storytelling um in increments of time um ah told visually.
00:46:51
Speaker
Language is important, but the visuals are ultimately um ah more important because you're not but reading a panel ah full of balloons, right? Someone's got to draw and something's going to happen. But there's a controlled art to the graphic novel of like, when does a page flip come? When does the splash page come? When is it like, what's the unit?
00:47:08
Speaker
And so you get to create something visual that asks people. uh, brings in a reader in a different way in their relationship to it, uh, as opposed to a novel, which is and entirely descriptive. If you really want to get into people's heads, you probably want to write a novel or you want to do audio drama, right? Which is, has a lot of, um, similar things to novels like Night Vale has a great dialogue, but like a lot of those pieces are, are, ah are almost like little novels being read, you know?
00:47:37
Speaker
Um, so So for theater, one of the things you have to, to come back to that, one of the things you have to accept is you are ultimately, which also I think why people draw people to it, then you're going to have to accept the yin and the yang of that, which is that you've created a blueprint.
00:47:54
Speaker
And you've created a blueprint that, um so when you've written the graphic novel and then it is perfect. ah drawn and then edited and then published, or when you have made the screenplay and it is a shot, or you have written the TV series and the TV series is made, or um the audio drama thing has come out as a podcast, right?
00:48:15
Speaker
When you remake that, you're remaking what was made. yeah A play, because it is like, um ah you know, just the a text to be interpreted is a blueprint to be interpreted over and over again by many people. That is the function of it. And so you have to love that aspect of it or else of it ah or else I would say don't do it because that's that. But it gives you a gift because because you yourself learn um in so many ways. because i So I think two things. It allows you to um create something where ultimately what you learn as a craftsperson and like honing your craft over years is how you can make that play through workshop and production so strong before you publish it and give it to others that you don't know, basically, that yeah the architecture of it's so strong. It is so clear.
00:49:08
Speaker
And I learned this. I first learned this. I had this was able to phrase it this way when I loved this play pillow man. Like I loved it. I just loved it so much. And it's so detailed and rich and seems easy, but it's not easy.
00:49:23
Speaker
and I was actually wanting to teach from it. So I was looking for a snippet from the Broadway production. Cause sometimes you can find little scenes online. And, um and it's Martin McDonough is the writer of that. And ah I couldn't find it, but I did find this like YouTube video of two guys who were not act like they could not act.
00:49:40
Speaker
They could not act like they this was this is they couldn't act. They've loved the clearly love this scene. They were dressed in suits like it that didn't really fit them like they just kind of put they were in they shot it in an actual office.
00:49:53
Speaker
So they gave themselves and they had like ah some files props and. um ah because it basically deals with the bureaucracy of torture and and storytelling and in and very, it goes to all sorts of places.
00:50:04
Speaker
um And I was like, wow, even though these guys are not trained, they don't know where the beats are They actually don't know how to act at all. um i was riveted.
00:50:17
Speaker
i was, and I could follow the the scene and I could follow the story. And I was like, that's because it's built that well. And so I started to go, well what makes it built this well?
00:50:27
Speaker
And yet, and so, and I'm always looking for the balance of between the subconscious and the conscious. So I realized that, that, and then I also paired that with something I learned from Pam McKinnon, who really respect and love. And, and um we've talked about working together a few times and, uh,
00:50:42
Speaker
She said to me, ah because I'm a little impatient, so I'm always trying to wrestle that with myself, too. I'm impatient. I love a Polaroid, but I also want something to be ah last in the culture. Like, what is it? What is that? You know? yeah And she and she said, Crystal, you have to understand the American clock is slow.
00:51:02
Speaker
And when she said that, it just released something in me because I think I'd been blaming myself for a long time with how long it is to have a career as an artist or build a career and how long it is, especially in theater.
00:51:14
Speaker
Because theater, for all of the beautiful things you can do, if you're not going to to produce everything yourself, and you really shouldn't because you need to see how other people um do your work. Like, it's great to keep a DIY spirit, but you most likely don't want that to happen every time because you want the experience of other people um interpreting your including producers.
00:51:31
Speaker
And you want to work with other people that have different different points of view from yourself. And so um i if you look at it, theaters only have three to six slots. Most of them had mostly six slots, but some many of them had to go to three. Many of them are producing in different ways because of we're still coming off of the we're still ah coming off the theater crisis, the pandemic, and then also now television.
00:51:55
Speaker
we are rebels, right? So if you're choosing to do a piece in certain way, yeah, you might get funding stripped from you. So like all sorts of things are going on. So you could write the greatest play of all fucking time and nobody, first of all, visibility is challenging already, but like,
00:52:12
Speaker
How do you even get it to someone who is at the head um owning this space and time that um that each year only does maybe at tops 12, probably more like six?
00:52:27
Speaker
and And they have formed, in most cases, um a hierarchy of gatekeepers because they don't have time to read. So, like, what how what? Like, how does that work? yeah Like, how does that work? And there very little...
00:52:42
Speaker
little ah if We all love to talk about American theater because we all are like, i can fix it or I know what I can do. I've talked to many organizations that someone's like, Crystal, are you do? If you don't like the way this works, then what are you doing? you going to make another organization that's like us that's about your own thing? it was like, okay, well, I understand.
00:53:00
Speaker
you know Everyone likes to talk about the problems and offer solutions. And then when you try to get in there, it's it's really tough. It's an expensive medium. Um, it's, it does, you're giving your time to it.
00:53:11
Speaker
It's live people, people have to perform it live. They have to, they have to, they have to agree for this salary and or beautiful story that they're not going to see their children, put their children to bed at night. Cause they've got to do a night show, right? Like it requires a amount of debt, almost like ah like a vocation, right? It requires so much. And for the artistic director, why can't they read everything all the time? Because they have so many, they have to raise money. They have to do so many things. There's just so many wheels and so many things that people have to do and ah to create this beautiful, almost like, cause what we're saying is like, we're building little doll houses where you're invited in and you could come inside our doll house, right? Like, I mean, this is just, it's just a lot.
00:53:50
Speaker
And so, um, ah what But what I do wish that I felt like there was a little bit more of when I was a baby playwright is I wish that there was more effort ah to create direct communication with younger writers.
00:54:08
Speaker
ah What happens is we have a lot of young writer groups, but those are also kind of like created to be like the best will rise to the top or like this, the one who talks the most will get the most attention or the one that is deemed the great, you know, so like, and look, we can't, that's America, like you can't get away from that. This is like built into to everything.
00:54:26
Speaker
But I wish that artistic directors would say, hey, I don't have the time. I get it. i'm i'm I'm at least going to make sure my literary department that I have a literary department, number one, which a lot of it's gone away.
00:54:37
Speaker
Number two, that their folk is not just to email people, but to have coffee with them. And it's not everybody, but like we really do need to.
00:54:48
Speaker
and And something else that could be done that does feel like it's not as heavy as a lift as it should be. um um You don't have to do it tomorrow. Make a list of the plays you wish you could have done, you can't do.
00:55:00
Speaker
And at some point during the year, get on the phone and call somebody who you think will do it. Because you have information. Now that does happen. That does happen, Ken. It does. But it should happen a lot more.
00:55:14
Speaker
And I know we're tired. And like, again, if we can't do it, like, is it someone who's learning, who's going to do that kind of thing? yeah And then there's the flip side of that, too, which is like people understand that if you promise something and you don't deliver, you've disappointed them and you've ruined relationship.
00:55:28
Speaker
So artists often don't think like this, or especially if you're a baby playwright, but they actually, it's not that they don't like you or want to do you or even help you, but they want to offer specific help. And if they don't, you might resent them and they don't want that either because they want a good relationship with you.
00:55:44
Speaker
So there's a lot of factors to this. I just think that like, could we, we talk so much about getting enough money to do the productions. And I think we need more money to, to to to facilitate these kinds of conversations, to get to know what different people are doing. And a lot of people are even questioning how plays work and what play what what can be a play. And that's what should happen because every generation should be exploding and exploring, you know, rather than asking what's the next Hamilton, you know, why don't you ask like, who's the next person who's really using this form in a way to tell stories that that excite me
00:56:23
Speaker
um today. And, and, and it's not just one person, right? So like, why don't you make a goal to like talk to 20 of those people that you don't know in one year? Yeah. I, um, if you mean just made that a commitment, maybe 10, just do 10.
00:56:38
Speaker
I was listening to, um, ah the podcast Freakonomics, they did ah an extended, I was like three or four episodes in a row, dropping down heavy into the questions you're talking about, um you know, the role of theater and plays and the super idiosyncratic piece of like live performance over time. What it asks of the audience, what asks of performers like in this day and age, labor intensive, expensive people get to be on time.
00:57:21
Speaker
But, um, It was all ultimately fascinating because it seemed to like fast lay around the fundamental questions that you bring it up about, like what is purpose? What is a play? And then be an experimental play where you're plopped out somewhere.
00:57:37
Speaker
This particular thing had just kind of mess. And um I like the areas in art where you're being messed with, like in boundaries. You know, are you a participant, not participant?
00:57:51
Speaker
being forced to move into areas is like the performers over there, how close am I supposed? Like all these things that kind of bring in the fundamental like questions of what we're up to.
00:58:05
Speaker
ah Somehow that was a lead in to the big question that I had to to ask you is, what is art? What is art?
00:58:18
Speaker
Art provokes...
00:58:21
Speaker
change
00:58:25
Speaker
a change does not need to be just like drama isn't huge all the time um change can be a discovery ah question a new question something that sticks with you that makes you um think twice before you do something or realize um Perhaps it can be done a different way or inspire you to tell your own story in a certain way, to have a conversation, to reach out to someone you haven't spoken to a long time.
00:58:58
Speaker
ah It can foster understanding. um It allows you to step into someone else's shoes and have empathy in a way ah without thinking about it, without being afraid. You know, it's it's it.
00:59:14
Speaker
you are in the pool and having all the experiences of swimming without having to get in the pool. because you just showed up. You just showed up and you're in the pool. You don't have to be like, oh, is it cold? Is it hot? Do I stick my toe in? Do I do this?
00:59:27
Speaker
And we take care of all of that for you. And you could leave that experience say, I didn't like that pool. I don't i don't want to go back to that pool again. And that's great. But you were in the pool and it did something. And even if then it's a contrary reaction that you have to it, that's exciting, you know, because in most...
00:59:45
Speaker
ah I've always, I've been disturbed about this at all, at every age of my life. And it might just be because I was an only child and I just had to really like, my i was my best friend and I had to talk to myself. I don't know what it was, why I have such a, such an intense reflection of things.
01:00:03
Speaker
But I would say for the moment, I was very young, like even six years old. I really understood people I'm often surrounded by people who do not think that anything can change, that do not think that change is possible, that think that the status quo is the way it is.
01:00:20
Speaker
And that's where we get the phrase, of course, um that that's the way it is. you You know, don't don't ruffle feather. It is what you know, like and and it's and then I realized I want to be in the rooms where And nothing's impossible because nothing really is It just can't happen necessarily tomorrow, you know.
01:00:40
Speaker
And so it's about time and perseverance and craft and ah growth um and humility ah and and and all those things that are really, really, really challenging to do.
01:00:55
Speaker
But that's why I think I'm in the middle of Slaughterhouse-Five. And I'm like, and so it goes, right? andla all fall And so it goes. so like, know, I think it's like, so so I think that the more that we can expose children um ah to to these, because once you see it, once you know something's possible,
01:01:16
Speaker
yeah Don't forget it. and and And I think that's what theater does. It allows you to see. And it could be as simple as I'm talking about some heady stuff a bit, but like it could be as simple as, you know seeing Mary Poppins and you saw somebody fly.
01:01:29
Speaker
That's awesome. It makes your brain do things, you know, makes your heart do things, you know, I think it was like it's about the possible. There's something really, really vibe you with. And it was about like, this, the way things have already been and I was realizing when you're talking about it's like, it's like the most psychologically exhausting for me.
01:01:50
Speaker
to be around because like it it's not just hope but it's being like something about as mundane as this principle if you look around or i look around 2025 walking around oregon
01:02:08
Speaker
If you think this shit show and this level of human behavior, human to human through whatever thing is somehow like where we can get to. And I, the thought doesn't even have legs in my head. It's, it's, it's,
01:02:34
Speaker
So for me, I find that my reactive energy against that, it's not all these things are possible tomorrow or anything. like It's a fundamental belief that things are improper, not well-situated, getting worse, moving more towards crisis that lead me to be...
01:02:59
Speaker
like something different let's go let's look at something different because this is a death march the inertia of this being fine for me is not my path so no i and to seek oppression of others and to to and of women and of rights and and um minorities and uh it, it, everything that's going on in this country right now, um, with power and these dynamics, um, and the class wars and all of this, it, it really,
01:03:39
Speaker
the ego, it comes back to the same reason that it's hard to write sometimes, which is that, you know, when I tell my students is that,
01:03:48
Speaker
I just say, hey do you ever have this voice that tells you you're no good or this is going to suck? or and They're all like, yeah. um so i So I'm like, that's not you and it's your ego. And the reason why it's happening is your ego wants you to stay where you are.
01:04:02
Speaker
The ego is not a terrible thing. it it it actually is a survival kind of thing. its But it's... awesome a buffer and it goes overboard and what it wants it says I don't want you to fail because failure is bad and you're going to feel bad and it's not going to work and you get depressed you're going to lose your job you're going to do this and then you're going to be in the street and then you're like so it it says just stay the same just be quiet stay the same do the same thing don't do something different because if you do something different because it's true so one of the things that is challenging for people that aren't um are scared yeah is that um
01:04:39
Speaker
of the something different is and the new is that they uh they think they don't understand that that does invite other conversation and not everyone's gonna like it and that it's gonna be a thing yeah but that is the point of life because because that's the point of life because life has always evolved and like you know it's it's going on you know so i think that um I think that is something innate in human nature ah of these people that are kind of want to live like invasion of the body snatchers of the twilights. In fact, at Twilight Zone, I keep thinking Twilight Zone because this is what Rod Serling was attempting to do intelligent for the first time is talk about these social justice issues through these parables.
01:05:19
Speaker
But now we're starting to see people react like monsters of Maple Street. We're starting to see these images look the same. as like the Twilight Zone. And that was a crafted show, right? and lincoln And again, they were... So I think that... But they're not able to see it.
01:05:35
Speaker
You know, I ask this consistently, like, how are able... how are How are they able to watch Star Wars and be like, you know, ah I'm the good guy, you know? So, you know... um ah in who storytelling doesn't can't always do it in a sense because they like wolf of wall street you know who loves wolf of wall street wall street people they love it but they think they're the hero that's not the point of the film pornography yes
01:06:06
Speaker
So I think that, um so there's these these aspects of human nature. I think what you and I don't have, are grappling with it. I feel like we've you've seen a lot, you know, I've seen certain things, but I feel...
01:06:18
Speaker
the level of darkness with it, the level, the level, the level of what they, um, cause now we're getting to the point of like, well, I know someone else will suffer. Like, I know, like, it's not a question anymore. It's not like, it's not like, oh, the newspaper didn't report it. And, you know, I don't have social media. It's not the fifties where you could kind of be like, oh, well, I only know what my husband tells me when he comes home from work. And, You know, like, so like we're talking about, and that's what I think the rocket men really is. When I come back to the one word, right.
01:06:48
Speaker
That the rocket men is best about indifference. And so, you know, how we're seeing a level of quantification of living with indifference that I just think I haven't seen, I haven't seen that to this extent or encountered it to this extent.
01:07:05
Speaker
Um, And which, and and I think there's, this is a whole other podcast, but there's a reason why some people feel really happy and excited about AI. Again, invasion of the body snatchers, right? Maybe it's easier. Maybe it's just easier, right? Like, I guess the point, the thing is like,
01:07:24
Speaker
whatever your belief is, and if it is God, you know, he also made the decision to um or you believe in the Greeks and fate, right? You got a thread, you got a life, you don't know when it's going to end.
01:07:37
Speaker
Maybe you go somewhere else, maybe you don't. That depends on what you believe. But why are you here? Why are you living life? I don't think God was like, it's so you can like make so a certain amount of money a year and pump out seven kids and, you know, oppress other people. Like, I don't, it just isn't something that chives with anything.
01:07:58
Speaker
ah You know, it doesn't make any sense. I, um, No, I appreciate that. I can really, can really feel that. And then of course, I think the, with politics moving, it's moving, it's moving every day. And I think humans notice where folks are placed within it, but, um,
01:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, I have the big question I have to ask you. I mean, you wrapped it back around to the Rocket Men, but the name of the show, the title of the show is Something Rather Nothing. Why?
01:08:35
Speaker
Why is there something rather than nothing? Like, why?
01:08:42
Speaker
The title is so provocative because you you you get excited about this thrilling moment in history you think you're showing up to see, It gives you that thrill, but then it also shows you why you have that thrill and why you had the thrill from the story being told that way. And it happens immediately from the women's bodies on stage.
01:09:01
Speaker
Your mind literally does like a brain flip. um ah To come back to how startling that is. And again, this is new. This is only a month old. I wasn't quite expecting it. You know, in the development of the play.
01:09:12
Speaker
And again, it's different because it was developed. Yeah, we you know, in Alabama was developed a bit. And like, you know, in... ah You know, it's Marines in New York and stuff. and New York is like a whole other ballgame, you know, like. um So ah we just did a reading. So full cast about to go up at Phoenix Theater in Indianapolis, oh which is a very cool town, by the way.
01:09:33
Speaker
um and And so the. I'm fascinated. It's interesting. um um And Bloomington ah is a big college town and they have a great theater called Constellations.
01:09:44
Speaker
And and it's it's a really cool place. And so they we did a special reading with that cast, but with no costumes and no set, just a reading. But they but but they were pretty much performing it. Right. Because they they know it. They're going to go up in like in ah in a week.
01:09:58
Speaker
um a And um the donors and lot of people that were were invited and they they they love theater. like these are These are people, they did tendt tend to be of the older generation in that particular crowd. um They were mostly white in that moment, not all. but um And ah before we read, react read a woman stood up and she said,
01:10:19
Speaker
Oh, no, before that, even a man in front of me said, why are they women? And then and then before I could talk and say, you're going to see the play, which pretty much was was going to say. He just said, D.I.
01:10:31
Speaker
D.E.I. He just kept saying D.E.I. as if I had done this to ah get a grant or something or if I had done this in a certain. And I was. pure key Yeah. And I'm just listening, but he's not, but, but number one, he's there.
01:10:45
Speaker
He comes back after intermission. So there has been a public conversation around gender and equality and like, all you know, and diversity that, that I do not believe people are are prepared for. And it has been twisted and turned. as I think it's confusion.
01:11:02
Speaker
Right. yeah And then across the aisle, a woman stood up and she said, Why they women? Like she was, she just like the, the act of these six women on stage called, and and I love Constance Macy is a good friend. She was the lead in that show. She's the AD of Phoenix. And she just stood up. She's playing Bon Bron.
01:11:23
Speaker
She stood up and she just said, all will be revealed. ah And it was so ah dynamic. And it was like, bible and then by the end, people were crying and people like they have to be women. Now I understand.
01:11:35
Speaker
But the, the, You know, and in in theater making, we discussed this, like Mack Wellman, one of my favorite playwrights of all time and a really, really amazing teacher. And he he taught at Brooklyn College for a long time.
01:11:48
Speaker
He said there are two to two theaters and two groups of audiences. The theater of the the the audience that wants the theater of the known And the theater of the known would have been their men.
01:12:00
Speaker
In fact, you wouldn't even have the idea that they're women. Theater of the known would be like, this story is fascinating. We are going to get George Clooney in here and we're going to the show, right? So that's the theater of the known. The theater of the unknown is that you don't know what's going to happen next.
01:12:16
Speaker
You don't know what choices the characters are going to make next. you Even if you read a review or something was spoiled, it's happening in such a startling way you didn't expect that your mind is doing like flips and your have your your body is having reactions to it.
01:12:29
Speaker
you The theater of the unknown, you leave with questions. In Rockman, you leave with questions. In the theater of the known, you you leave and you turn to your audience member. You say, well, that was great. George Clooney can play a really good Nazi.
01:12:41
Speaker
Like, do you know what I mean? And you say, hey, that's what I saw. It confirmed what I thought. confirmed my $225. two hundred and twenty five dollars it can Which is really what they're saying, actually, in the exchange at some point when we get into Broadway and things like that.
01:12:55
Speaker
So I... um So I have always written plays that have ah present like, you know, you think it's about one thing and then you're in it and it's about another. Now it prepares you for that, but ultimately to make that experience work, you know, I'm not, you're not going know everything before. This is why people love doing posters for my work as well. It's very challenging because you want it to be clear, um but also evocative.
01:13:19
Speaker
And um so I think that, that I didn't realize ah in my little liberal maybe Newark bubble, um I didn't realize how challenging... I know rights... I'm scared as a woman in the sense that our are with our rights and we're going to this Handmaid's Tale world and all these... sort Of course, of course, I have all these things in mind. That's why i and I'm telling the story of these women in many ways.
01:13:45
Speaker
But I... wasn't prepared for the level of, um, uh, fear about, um, body switching or gender transform man in, in, um,
01:14:00
Speaker
in storytelling or life or the culture. um and I just did a play about the love of two women in new York called, um open. Um, so I, ah it really, it really struck me that.
01:14:13
Speaker
And I think what also struck me was it wasn't antagonistical in a cruel way. It was a genuine confusion and questioning.
Theatrical Uniqueness and Character Portrayal
01:14:22
Speaker
And it was coming mostly from, uh, maybe mid sixties, um, and up and, uh,
01:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't, I'm not sure, because those aren't the people, they're in a theater, right? They're spending their time. These aren't the people are saying, hey, we only want to fold laundry and and do that like though that. It's not that group. Yeah, like theater does hold. you Yeah. Theater does hold a lot. mean, outside, I want to see...
01:14:51
Speaker
more ritualistically, you know, men, men, women, you know, that type of thing. But also, gosh, it's the theater as well. like Like, you don't, you don't know.
01:15:04
Speaker
I mean, Unless you're dealing with the absolute known, like you said, like this is is what this is here. I know there'll be variances or whatever, but decent amount of time when he's just thinking about lives is unknown because it's going to be unique.
01:15:21
Speaker
Each one's going to be unique. It can't be the same. ah Unique and also like because the play is not a biopic. um ah I thought a lot about this because i love I love King Kirby and I love that it's about the life of Jack Kirby and it's written like a comic book and it's really beautiful.
01:15:38
Speaker
It sometimes bugs me when people talk about it like a biopic because I'm like... To me, a biopic is is about, well, we just have to tell, like Oppenheimer to me is not a biopic.
01:15:49
Speaker
um Oppenheimer has very serious question. ah Copenhagen is not a biopic of of Heisenberg and Bohr. um So I, you know, when there's enough of a provocative question of why, not just why these things happen, but why this individual made these choices and the impact and the larger impact,
01:16:07
Speaker
um on American culture. I just don't consider it a biopic. So I really thought a lot of like, I want to get out of that. Some people will do that. You know, they're going to say that about the show, but it's, how is it not a documentary? How is it not these other things? Like, how do I really on stage own that from the very beginning?
01:16:24
Speaker
So when um we have the women playing the men, the other thing that I acknowledge is that they're head the headshots of the men they are playing are projected behind them when they first step into the men. Because I want you to understand that is the way the men looked.
01:16:37
Speaker
And I want you to see how how they look. um And I wanted to just nail it and address it on the head. Yeah, the visual stands for itself to whatever happens to somebody, the visual stands for themselves. And if they were cast as men, right, then what happens is we get into a dangerous territory without that stepping in of um oh, I've got to play it just like this guy, right? And I didn't want that. And I didn't want people to come and expect that.
01:17:03
Speaker
And I've been in audiences before, um So it's interesting. It's kind of like doing where that, that, you know, Hamilton is cast that way because it is the story of immigrants told by Lin-Manuel, you know, having that particular viewpoint on that story. And that's why these bodies are on stage because they weren't a part of the actual history.
01:17:24
Speaker
And it's not unsimilar with why these women bodies are on stage, but in particular, it's revealing the fact of all these names and all these people that perished in this place that you never knew, including these women.
01:17:35
Speaker
Um, yeah Wow. Making rockets. But it's important. It ends with the fact that they wanted the future just as much i love as Bon Brawn, you know? so I
Influences of Comics and Sci-Fi
01:17:48
Speaker
love rockets. and You know, at the time, there's one other point, like talking about, you know, history and time. I've written some stuff and...
01:17:59
Speaker
There's pieces, I think when I grew up, you know, teens in the mid-80s and stuff like that, the impending like nuclear war, that shit really fucked with my head. But like I laugh about it and smile because it's like it kind of suited me.
01:18:17
Speaker
Like... nuclear war and rockets. And I, as you're growing up and it's the ear that you breathe, I didn't know anything else, you know, and it's comic books and it's big cosmic battles and it's right versus strong and it's like nuclear clouds and it's going to Mars. It's like all that was just like all out there. Everything seemed cataclysmic as a kid. like
01:18:48
Speaker
And I reflected on it. I just never realized it at the at the time. um ah Thank you. for I love talking about plays. And again, I thought felt like you might have alluded to this a little bit outside. I go love to see plays, but I do get to talk to folks from ah New York and some off Broadway and hearing about these plays and productions all around the country. There's a...
01:19:21
Speaker
fervency and like a vibrant energy feel. I love talking to you about it and and being able to see this. um
01:19:32
Speaker
Asking all those massive questions too and seeing all those comic books around you and knowing that you've dropped into the comic universe and done those things like who your couple, whether it's graphic novel characters superheroes who Who are your go-to characters?
01:19:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You need that. Yeah, I... Recently, I'm a little filled with some of the treatment of them with um TV shows and stuff. Like the James Gunn stuff I just think is so amazing and perspectives. And so Peacemaker took a ah bit to get there in and season two, but I really like where it's going. um So I'm thinking a lot about Peacemaker um right now um just because of that. um
01:20:27
Speaker
But I would say that like Frank Miller's, um ah you know, um Batman. Yeah. And those like questions of, of crime and righteousness, but like what the choice is what you're doing that like, like ah Watchmen, obviously ah mouse. ah I think anytime like, like serious, you know, questions have come up with this, with these beautiful um stories. So I think it's more of the stories that I, they get into them necessarily the superheroes, but I would say that the X-Men as a group, I feel like I get such pleasure
01:21:04
Speaker
And knowing you know Jack's involvement with that, I get such pleasure with um how many teens and throughout history and generations are really drawn to that team um and those characters.
01:21:17
Speaker
um And I've always particularly loved, but I think it's more the design probably from the original. um It never really translated great to the comics. but i ah Sorry, TV.
01:21:28
Speaker
But I love the Wasp. Like, oh yeah i love her. and I also, um I thought Wanda vision was probably one of the best, most interesting.
01:21:40
Speaker
and I think she's such a great character and um yeah. I think of those things and I think of like what the the stories are doing um and, and those and who we love. um I also, but i also love the iconicness Superman. Like I love that
Comics and Musical Theater
01:21:58
Speaker
he represents Superman.
01:22:00
Speaker
something so ideal and I love it that all that he always annoys all the other characters because he's so kind of above it um I also really love and I also look goofy but my husband loves them too I love those like old got really into because he we sometimes we watch them so the like old you know super villain group and the you know and the superhero friends and just that yeah animation like yeah don't know like it just kind of it's comforting it is comforting is So we've been doing some of that. um
01:22:31
Speaker
I do, I'm trying to think, I know I'm reading new stuff and I feel terrible that I'm not, um ah and I'm not um remembering like, cause it's been, been a hot second. um There was this one with this unicorn. i will have to send you, I'll send you a little list of um the graphic novels. I have to, I drop it into the comics world on the show. The, I think the longest,
01:22:58
Speaker
episode i've done is the what if episode which is an fun absolute absurdity i think you've done an issue of uh what if haven't you ah red yes yeah yes i did uh so my thing with marvel my marvel fantastic four Um, the, um, uh, I, anytime, because I worked in musical theater, so anytime Fred was writing something and they wanted an evil villain number and song, which happens more often than you think, um, I, I wrote the lyrics.
01:23:35
Speaker
So, um, I wrote, uh, in a what if episode that was a musical universe, um, that the Fantastic Four get trapped in. I wrote the the evil song that Dr. Doom sings and, um, and that, gosh, um,
01:23:47
Speaker
I know. It's like, I love it that that that villains and song. Like, that's, that's ah you know, comics and I've loved, I also just, it's a super geek thing, but I really love the connection between comics and musical theater. It's just like my favorite thing. like I have to say that the culmination of that artistically is Fun Home. Oh, gosh. It's so good. I'll see it back there.
01:24:09
Speaker
But I just saw, we just saw Cavalier and Clay. I made us go, i don't I'm not an author. saw an ad for that. How was that? went. Yeah? Yeah. It was a little... ah First of all, go. Because some of the visuals... Michael Chabon.
01:24:25
Speaker
Chabon, yeah. um It... ah i I loved sitting at... like I had a lot of... great thoughts and feelings or certain moments. It was just, it just so, it was, I don't, I can't say whether it was great or not because in the sense that like, I'm not, I don't see opera all the time. And so like this form to me is, is, is, is different, but I was really moved by many of the scenes and some of the visuals, particularly the ending of act one really knocked my socks off.
01:24:56
Speaker
um I think that, really getting to the relationship of these two guys got a little lost in this treatment. Although I think they stream had to streamline a lot from the book itself. And I think it's really challenging.
01:25:07
Speaker
So I would absolutely recommend going because I don't think you're going to see, like it's so unique. And I think that, that it's, it's, um and I would also say particularly in act one and act two, it got a little,
01:25:18
Speaker
ah I just like the visuals of Act 1 better. The Act 1 with the escapist and the visuals of that between um the animation drawn on on stage to um to the costumes really blew my mind. I really, i really... really ah there's There's just so much design-wise and the sound is really interesting because the sound sounded almost more like soundtracks.
01:25:42
Speaker
So if you like... Yeah, it has a thriller aspect to it. Yeah. So, um yeah, i I'm definitely would highly recommend. I don't think you're going to see anything else like it. So ah go. and yeah It's a comic books, right? And here we've got the fancy chandeliers and it's oh it's a fancy scene and you can read the little libretto. while and you got and you're But the fancy people with a fancy opera. I mean, I love it when comics get the highbrow treatment because it's so cool. like I love it. We've all wanted ah comic book museum for a long time, like a real one, like the MoMA, like but with only comic books yeah um because because we believe it deserves that kind of elevation. So um so it's it's it's it's cool to see that. um
Accessing Crystal's Work
01:26:27
Speaker
And a lot of... um
01:26:29
Speaker
a lot of Cavalier and Clay, uh, but the storytelling of the artist is based on Jack Kirby. Um, so for us, we were getting a, uh, King Jack Kirby. We can, uh, I'll have to have you on again.
01:26:43
Speaker
going to talk Jack Kirby for, uh, for a while. um i I really appreciate you taking time, Crystal, everybody, Crystal Skillman.
01:26:58
Speaker
The making art, hearing the stories back behind it, the live theater. Thanks for all the things you create. And just so, you know, like for the audience here, like,
01:27:12
Speaker
get a lot of different things. You talked about the play, where will be, but like any places for people to go, like get your art, find out more about you. Yeah.
01:27:23
Speaker
Um, most of my work is published, which is pretty, I'm pretty grateful for. So open is published by, um, So DPS, which is now Concord, and Concord is actually where most of my work is, and there probably will probably be a new publication of it coming out soon. But if you um read about the, it it had a beautiful, um ah critically acclaimed run off Broadway, that was my first off-Broadway credit this August at WP theater. So if you're interested in reading open, there's a great publication of it. You can definitely get your hands on that, which is great. You can, know you just order it, um, anywhere you buy stuff like Amazon or whatever, or you can go to your, your, uh, if you're in New York, you can go to the drama bookshop and you can get a signed copy.
01:28:02
Speaker
Um, cut and geek are published there too. Um, you can visit my website for, um, for all that stuff. Uh, and I'm just crystal skinling.com. Um, dot com And as well, I am on Moose Media as I'm often on the gram ah at Crystal Skillman. You know, i'm I'm not shy. I don't have like a fake name.
01:28:22
Speaker
And say hi, you know. um And I would say that we've got those going around the city. There is something else happening in Oregon. There's a student production of kind of like workshop production directed by a great director, Tracy Francis. Tracy Francis.
01:28:39
Speaker
um in uh portland um uh kicking off halloween weekend and the weekend after it's uh rain and zoe save the world which is my cross-country adventure about two teenagers who are going cross-country to shut down a pipeline um and it's a told and very comic book kind of style And ah so that'll be that's that's happening then, too. ah That's it. You know, like that's about, I guess, six productions that you could possibly get or see. But um I would also say that um King Kirby um is often produced. We just had a production in Texas.
01:29:13
Speaker
um I think there's another upcoming production. So um if you follow me on Instagram, I definitely have links in my bio to all those things. um So you can like keep up to date on those things. You can also follow um the shows themselves. King Kirby does have an Instagram. I do need to put some new this stuff on there.
01:29:29
Speaker
but ah
Conclusion and Farewell
01:29:30
Speaker
But the Rockmen is pretty active as well. The Rockmen Play is that. And Open also has their own Instagram. I was poking around that. Great. Thanks for...
01:29:41
Speaker
Thanks for laying that out there. um ah Really a great pleasure to chat with you and creative space and and thinking about all all these things. I look forward to ah ah seeing some works out here.
01:29:57
Speaker
These East Coast stars call it Oregon. Oregon. Oregon. how did they say oregon and If there's something that I love, and sorry, Oregonians, is the the the cringe the cringe face when when my brethren comes out here and mispronounces.
01:30:24
Speaker
the The East Coast is convinced that it is... Oregon. they They're just convinced. There's nothing oh nothing you can nothing you can do. so i love it, though.
01:30:40
Speaker
There's this face on folks here where it's like, ugh, gosh.
01:30:48
Speaker
i'm Looking forward to to seeing you work in Oregon. um Thanks again for popping on the show. Crystal Skillman, keep writing, keep creating, because I want to keep reading and listening and watching.
01:31:04
Speaker
Thank you, Ted. Thanks, Crystal.
01:31:14
Speaker
This is Something Rather Than Nothing.