Playboy

I Survived Theatre School

Intro: Image management, Glenn Davis, King James, Odd Mom Out, Hamilton, Abbott Elementary, The Method
Let Me Run This By You: Dads and pornography, Secrets of Playboy, The Girls Next Door, Stranger Things.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (UNEDITED):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina .

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

3 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (32s):
Yeah, it's it's it's up for debate. So you got to both interview and then see Glenn Davis in a play. So tell us about,

1 (43s):
So I will say that I haven't seen a play. I saw Hamilton in LA, which isn't a play to me. It's a musical and it's also a spectacle and like, I don't know.

2 (54s):
And a cultural and that like, did you ever see, wait, I'm sorry to give a little time out, but there used to be this show on Bravo called odd mom out. And I loved it because it was about a upper east side woman who like, just didn't relate and like clock in that well with mommy culture, which I can really relate

1 (1m 15s):
Over there.

2 (1m 16s):
And there's this scene where she's talking to some other moms or I don't know, just other women. And they were like, have you seen Hamilton? And she says, no. And it precipitates is like very, you know, heightened dramatic thing where like people's jobs are under hinges. Let's say like,

1 (1m 39s):
That's hilarious.

2 (1m 41s):
Yeah. So it's an event you have to, you have to have seen how.

1 (1m 44s):
And so I thought in life, right in pop culture and in, you know, whatever. So, yeah, exactly. So I saw that, but this was the first play I've seen now to be fair. It's also a spectacle in that the mark taper, like the center theater group situation downtown LA has like six theaters or seven theaters. I had not been to the mark taper theater since literally 2000 and I don't know, two and it's gorgeous and quite a deal. And wow, just the facilities. I mean, I'm so used to shithole storefront theater that I was like, oh, this is like, oh, this is fancy. Okay.

1 (2m 24s):
So I saw king James, which is a play. It was a two hander. I didn't know that it's two people on stage the whole time. And it's Glenn Davis and this other character. Who's one of the stars on a show that I love called Abbott elementary, which is hilarious about

2 (2m 39s):
Brunson. I have seen that show, but I heard it.

1 (2m 41s):
Yes. Oh, you would love it. It's high Lariat. And just so, so, so well-written okay. So this guy, Chris Paul, something I'm going to butcher his name. So I won't try is the other character plays the other character in the play and I didn't know what to expect. I love basketball if by basketball, you mean the bulls in the nineties basketball. That's where I stop. So

2 (3m 8s):
I'll do basketball.

1 (3m 10s):
Yeah. I'm into nostalgia. Exactly. That specifically relates to a very niche time in history. Okay. In Chicago. So, okay. So this is a play about LeBron James and it's set in Cleveland and it is set like in the, I want to say the arts and then it spans the time I believe of like 10 years, maybe a little more. And it's just these two characters. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know shit about the play, which is how I like to go in. But Glen gave me was kind enough to give me comps. And I went with two friends and I loved it. I loved it. I at first. Okay. It was so interesting.

1 (3m 50s):
Like I've been spending so much time doing writing and reading television that like, I was like, oh, this is a play. Oh, oh, this is a different thing. It's like super presentational on purpose.

2 (4m 5s):
Right.

1 (4m 6s):
So it's not a, it's not television. And these are like

2 (4m 10s):
Mumble core.

1 (4m 11s):
It's not mumble core. It's not, it's not, they they're they're they can hear us. If we say noises and things make noises and things. So I was like, oh, right, right. The seats were great. And you know, it was a lot of white people in the audience, but like that's who sees theater, right? Like that's who sees this kind of theater. I think, you know, tickets were probably very expensive anyways. So I loved, okay. So you could tell that they, they had to get warm. First of all, I was closing day. We didn't see the closing show. There's there like to show a day kind of people. And so we saw the first show at one and of the last day. And the first scene you could tell, like they had, they were like, just getting warmed up because that's how live theater is by the second scene.

1 (4m 56s):
I was like, oh, these are pros. Oh, these are pros. Meaning the language moves. Now, look, they've done two runs of the show, one in Chicago at Steppenwolf and one here. So they've been the same cast. So they've been working with this material. Right. So they, they know what's going on here, but they're just both like seamlessly like a basketball game or like any sporting event. Like the physicality was brilliant. I just was like, oh, these are pros. Oh, okay. There's no, this is not a stiff cause I'm also used to teaching students. Right. So these are not students of a young students. These are oppressed. And I was like, oh shit, okay.

1 (5m 38s):
This is some real top level acting here. You know,

2 (5m 42s):
I really appreciated when in his interview with you, he said that doing the play expanded his ideas about theater goer, since you mentioned, yes. Typically all theater goers are white and older because they have the time and the money. And because it's, for all of history it's been made for them, it's been made for that demographic. But he was saying, doing this play brought a bunch of people who were not theater people, but who were basketball, people who enjoyed it. And, and that gave me a thrill like, yes, that's what we need because the re the whole perpetuation of the cycle of like, why people don't appreciate or go into theater is because if they don't get exposed to it, you know, at, at a young age.

2 (6m 27s):
And so that just keeps perpetuating itself. And in order for that to change, you have to, you have to sell people on wanting to have more of it. You know what I'm saying?

1 (6m 38s):
Yes. And so I totally know what you're saying. And I, that leads me to this thing of I, so there is this position that opened up for 15 hours a week, being an artist in residence at San Diego state, in the theater department to create art with the theater department there, but also with the community at large. And I have to say to you, if I get it, I applied. And my idea is to do, because I love monologues. Like, that's my jam. So like, what if I want to create some kind of show? That's like a community-based show where people get to write and perform their own monologues in the community in San Diego, not just students, but like the store ...