0:00

Hey, this is John heads up that today's episode has

0:02

just a little bit of swearing in it Hello

0:07

and welcome my name is John August and this is episode

0:10

640 of script notes a podcast about

0:12

screenwriting and things that are interesting to

0:14

screenwriters Today on the show the

0:16

advice to write what you know has

0:18

become an empty cliche yet on this

0:20

very podcast We're often advising writers

0:22

to think about what's personal and specific to

0:25

their experience when crafting their stories Along

0:27

that access we recently had Celine song

0:29

on to talk about the many autobiographical elements of

0:31

her film past lives Which recounts and

0:33

reframes her experience as a child and as

0:35

an adult But it's one thing

0:37

to reflect on the past and another to deliberately

0:40

place yourself in a perilous spot in

0:42

hopes of getting a story out Of it today. We'll talk to

0:44

a writer who did just that and what came of it We'll

0:47

also answer listener questions about talking with

0:49

managers and talking to yourself and

0:51

in our bonus segment for premium members How

0:53

do you set boundaries on material when you're

0:55

dating another comedian? Tell us do

0:57

all that. Let's welcome our guest Alex

0:59

Edelman is a stand-up comedian writer and producer who

1:02

has written for shows such as Teenage Bounty Hunters

1:04

and The Raid and Doors His award-winning

1:06

special just for us which has been touring all over the world

1:08

since 2018 is out now on HBO Thanks

1:12

so much for having me. That's so cool So

1:14

unlike many other guests who come on the

1:16

show you actually know what this podcast is

1:19

Yes, when you join the WGA they

1:21

make you someone Yeah,

1:24

that's that's what happens Howard Robin puts a puts

1:26

a statement after your back He's like who do

1:28

you listen to script notes and I'm like, yes.

1:30

Yes, mr. Robin. Hey, I do. I do I

1:32

like it Yeah People are so intimidated by Howard

1:34

Robert because he has that presence and so like

1:36

you had to pull out your phone and actually

1:38

subscribe In your podcast down. Yeah, it's the last

1:41

step to getting health care is you have to

1:43

actually subscribe to the podcast Discriminates,

1:45

but yeah, look I've always been interested

1:47

in the craft of this such as

1:49

silly dumb thing to say It's like saying

1:51

I like color but I've always been interested in a

1:53

craft of writing and the more granular The

1:56

better even the notion of what you were

1:58

talking about, which is right what you know,

2:00

I have like a whole thing about the

2:02

advice of right where you now he was.

2:04

I feel so strongly about the yeah I

2:07

love hearing riders talk about writing. I love

2:09

conversation about craft sell like this is me

2:11

speaking directly to the demographic of as I

2:13

was interested was also may sound very of

2:15

I decided to abuses and we both know

2:17

my for billie of a that's actually not

2:19

how we match So the true story is

2:21

you are playing as to taper a your

2:23

Los Angeles and friend had said like always

2:25

go see it and we said at the

2:27

very last minute like two o'clock in the

2:29

afternoon. I said like oh he'll go see the

2:31

south are still together. You can be difficult. As

2:34

a has or I went down and i

2:36

taped to my seat was a girl envelope

2:38

from your your manager and say i have

2:40

heard some back says I was so impressed

2:42

that summer was like reading through like the

2:45

last night ticket sales and recognize finance well

2:47

done The I know what happened is whenever

2:49

I do near their ally I read the

2:51

eye on other measures are as it is

2:53

me and also my i know but. I.

2:56

Have ah an unfortunate tendency

2:58

to miss. Friends and

3:00

family who come in i get

3:03

offended that it and say hi.

3:05

And sour I now I get a seat back

3:07

about, you know, like half an hour before the

3:10

show? And. As I don't always

3:12

read it but a very family members cummings

3:14

or there's someone I know is coming but

3:16

I can't remember who it is. I'll say

3:18

to my said mans or M C or

3:21

Brian or Kathleen the three sons and worthless

3:23

are primarily for Rachel. For. Us. But.

3:25

I think what happened was I talked about

3:27

the pie cancer. Listen the Packers mom I

3:29

stayed manners and they went hey Alex your

3:31

favorite person said like don't there and I

3:34

go down I get enough to tie as

3:36

soon as I know. whatever. The same guy.

3:38

And. So that that was the impetus

3:40

behind your notes. But. Well. So

3:42

we let some people live their lives. Eight. They'll.

3:44

Be like you want to put a note on.

3:47

So incensed. See them like that. I can just

3:49

enjoy a client side even the amphitheater. Since I

3:51

that. he advantages burrow back my

3:53

same session and i did too far

3:55

as i taught a legend oh my

3:57

god i love timbers syrian side I'll

4:00

tell him Jim because no, I mean like I don't

4:02

know him well. Because now you have a close personal

4:04

connection after meeting him. Close friend. When

4:07

I was writing on The Great Endures, he was

4:09

shooting on the lot Superior Donuts. And

4:11

I was at a garage sale. This will only be interesting

4:13

to your listenership and if it's not, you can get it

4:15

out. But I was running through like

4:18

a garage sale somewhere and I

4:20

found in this garage sale a Humanitas

4:22

prize certificate for an episode of Taxi

4:24

called Blind Date. Which is

4:26

about Judd's character in Taxi goes

4:29

on a blind date and

4:31

she is overweight. And

4:33

he treats her like a human being. And that

4:35

was so revolutionary at the time that it won

4:38

a Humanitas prize. So I bought

4:40

it for like five bucks. It was literally like five

4:42

bucks at this garage sale and I brought it into

4:44

work. And then I went

4:46

down and I asked Bob Daly who was

4:48

running Superior Donuts and Isabelle Yemina and I

4:50

said, can I show this to Judd and

4:52

Jim Burrows? And they

4:54

both signed the Humanitas prize certificate for me.

4:56

I'm like that much of a nerd. But

5:00

yeah, Jim Burrows is a legend. He is

5:02

truly like, he shaped the face of sitcom

5:04

comedy in the 90s, 80s, 2000s. So

5:07

it's like 70. So it's like, and by the way,

5:09

when I showed him the certificate, he's like, we actually shot that

5:11

one with three cameras instead of four and then we decided that

5:13

three was better and walked me through the

5:16

episode as if it happened last week instead of several,

5:19

several years, decades ago. I love

5:21

when you meet these Titans who've been in the

5:23

industry for forever and they're still incredibly sharp. It's

5:25

not that that's sort of like, oh,

5:28

you know, sort of big stories about things. They

5:30

can't put stuff together. Like, you know, clearly sharp

5:32

as a pin and thinking about tomorrow's work. I

5:35

in particular am reve... Maybe this is a

5:37

knock on me actually, but I'm very reverent

5:39

of all of the older guys and gals

5:41

and everyone in between. It really feels like,

5:44

like I hosted Norman Lear's 100th birthday

5:46

special for ABC. And

5:48

so like getting to be in a room with

5:51

Norman Lear, it's really

5:53

something like, you know, when

5:55

Christopher Nolan accepted his Oscar,

5:58

he said, we're a hundred years in a film maker.

6:00

thinking, think about how special it would be to be

6:02

100 years into music or painting. And

6:04

like comedy is an even younger

6:07

art form essentially. Like comedy is a very young

6:09

art form and a lot of the people that

6:11

built the face of it are still around or

6:13

they've died in my lifetime and so like had

6:16

the good fortune to like be

6:19

around a lot of people in their minds or like

6:21

Mel Brooks is pretty sharp. I never

6:23

was lucky enough to really have some time with Carl

6:25

Reiner but I was told he was very sharp and

6:28

Norman was sharp as a pin

6:30

all the way to the end as

6:32

far as I know. And yeah, you're

6:34

just lucky to be able to share oxygen with

6:37

these people. Well, we'll look forward to another 90

6:39

years of your career but let's start back at

6:41

the beginning because before you did the show, you

6:43

actually had a long ramp up and so I'm

6:45

curious sort of where you start your story in

6:47

terms of comedy. Like what were the first things

6:50

you were doing in performing because you've done stand-up,

6:52

you've done, you've written on traditional shows, you've done

6:54

your solo shows. What's the journey

6:56

there? Where do I consider my career starting?

6:58

I guess in baseball

7:01

which is a really weird place but I started

7:03

at the Red Sox. I got a job when

7:05

I was like 13 years old. I wrote the

7:07

Red Sox Kids newsletter and

7:10

just to sort of did general writing bits

7:12

around the ballpark and sort

7:15

of fell in love with it sort

7:17

of like got it into the world that way and then

7:19

fell in love with sports and then fell in love with

7:22

comedy. So that's the baseball. So writing

7:24

up what happened, were you actually on the PA?

7:26

What were you doing? I wrote articles. I was

7:28

ostensibly like I would stand on like the press

7:30

line and stuff like that or be in the

7:32

press conferences in the back scribbling stuff down but

7:34

I also worked in the office doing sort of

7:37

odd jobs and being a sort of little

7:40

and then you insisted this guy Larry Lucchino

7:42

and this guy Charles Steinberg and Larry who

7:45

was a titan of the game himself passed

7:47

away actually last week. He

7:49

was a really great guy, really

7:52

huge figure in the sport

7:55

and they were sort of amused by this

7:57

kid who loved sports and loved history and

7:59

loved writing and was

8:01

always around. So they always found writing for me

8:03

to do. And I wrote a

8:05

bunch of press releases. I write public

8:08

address speeches, like you said. I wasn't

8:10

on the PA, but I was part

8:12

of pregame ceremonies sometimes. This

8:15

guy, Charles Steinberg, who worked for Larry

8:17

had a flair for the creative and

8:19

he put together these elaborate pregame ceremonies

8:21

to celebrate retirements or various other milestones.

8:23

And so I was always

8:25

part of dreaming up those

8:27

ceremonies and executing them. And it

8:29

was a real, it was

8:32

very creative and it was a blast. And to be

8:34

an employee at the Red Sox between like

8:36

2003 and 2007, when I left

8:39

and won, they won two World Series,

8:41

they ended this 86 year drought without

8:44

a championship. It was like really, really beautiful.

8:46

So you're doing this and at what point

8:48

are you moving from, okay, I'm writing stuff,

8:51

being printed places or being spoken loud on

8:53

the PA to working on stuff for

8:56

yourself? Like what was the transition? Were you going to

8:58

school for it? Like what was what happened next? Well,

9:00

I was the Orthodox Jew. So I was going to

9:02

Yeshiva. I was in like a low key rabbinical school

9:04

and then I spent a year in Israel in a

9:07

seminary there thinking that maybe that was my

9:10

thing. But it was standup comedy. I had gone

9:12

to see this show called comics come home that

9:14

Dennis Leary organizes every year and still

9:16

organizes it. And they do it in a huge arena

9:18

in Boston. I fell in love with

9:21

comedy and I started going to open mics at

9:23

like a pizzeria at a music place. So how

9:25

old are you? So you're going to open mics.

9:27

I'm like 17 or

9:29

so. And I was like

9:31

dilettante ish. I was like, you

9:34

know, I was writing around like I want

9:36

a sports writing award here and there I

9:38

started, you know, fishing around. I

9:40

got a summer job on the set of

9:42

the departed running drinks for the teamsters like

9:44

I sort of was like finding myself

9:46

a little bit but like things really kicked

9:49

in on high gear my last year of college

9:51

I spent my last semester of NYU

9:53

which was chock full of like writing stuff I

9:55

had the best professors you could have. I

9:58

have like Nate adz small. Had

10:00

Nathan Englander. I had Jonathan Lisa my

10:02

Daren Stauf. So he's an English major

10:06

Megan O'Rourke Susan Orlean like I

10:09

had all-star line-up of professors I'm

10:11

like extremely privileged in the education

10:13

department. Like no one has I

10:16

am such a disappointment to so many of those people I

10:21

want to talk about this. So I want to go from sort

10:23

of open mics to NYU So when

10:26

you're at the open mics at a pizza

10:28

places What is your material because you're 17

10:30

years old you have a very interesting background

10:32

as to the Orthodox kids coming into these

10:34

places But we talked about yourself.

10:37

We were just imitating other comedy you were hearing.

10:39

Oh, it was terrible, wasn't it? It was like

10:41

it was the worst most horrible

10:44

Like impressions of these sort of

10:46

like Boston comedians that I was

10:48

I'm sure you've heard this from other people on your

10:50

podcast But like every time

10:53

you get a great note, like I love notes.

10:55

I think they're responsible for my work getting

10:58

to a certain place Whenever you

11:00

get a great note There's a

11:02

part in you that's always known that it was

11:04

true Right. There's like a lot there's

11:06

like a little bit of you that as soon as

11:08

they start giving you the note You're like, yeah, of

11:10

course. I knew that but was denying it or yeah,

11:12

of course, I knew that So in

11:14

the back of my mind, I was always like

11:16

this isn't really me But I was just like

11:19

trying anything I could to make people laugh. So

11:21

I was like my

11:23

comedy There wasn't a much

11:25

of me in it But

11:27

I was trying to get last I had one good

11:29

joke. I had one good joke that

11:32

I lived along with do you remember? Yeah, a bone

11:34

shy and this was I describe

11:37

the scene from the

11:39

Godfather Where Sonny Corleone pulls

11:41

up to the toll booth and

11:44

I would describe in graphic long

11:46

detail And they're spraying full of

11:48

bullets and he gets out of the car and

11:51

there's more bullets more bullets I think and he

11:53

and he dies right there on the pavement and

11:55

after this long description I go and if that's

11:57

not the best commercial for easy path I've ever

11:59

seen Oh

12:01

wow, Drew likes it. Drew

12:04

likes everybody. But

12:06

I was really terrible

12:08

but it was that one joke. At one point

12:10

I was on at an open

12:12

mic, bombing, in a comic from the

12:14

back of the room, Alex, tell your

12:16

jokes. Wow. This is so

12:18

devastating and so true. I was just awful

12:21

but I was doing my best. And

12:23

also I think you need that time in the dark,

12:25

right? That sort of incompetence, where

12:27

you're too incompetent to know that

12:29

you're incompetent, right? Like,

12:32

it really was that. It was the perfect thing

12:35

to start stand-up comedy as a teenager. Yeah,

12:38

Ira Glass has this speech where he talks about sort of

12:40

you have taste but you don't have talent and you're sort

12:42

of like you're climbing both things at the same time. And

12:44

so you probably had some taste, you knew what you liked

12:47

but you couldn't do those things that you liked. And

12:49

so you're imitating, you're trying to get there and so

12:51

you're telling your one joke. But you also don't know

12:53

what's out there. Everything was

12:56

within my very limited purview. It's just

12:58

like I think I've

13:00

always tried to see as

13:02

much as I possibly can

13:04

because you never

13:06

know what's for you, right? You never know what's going

13:09

to sort of like – people say right where you

13:11

know. I guess we're doing this. People say right where

13:13

you know. Oh, we're doing this. I think we're into

13:15

the beat of this now. Yeah. When

13:17

people say right where you know, a good synthesis of

13:19

that is what Norman always said which is

13:21

I'm just another version of you. He

13:24

was always saying that to people which is a handy

13:26

thing to say if you're doing a Latinx one day

13:28

at a time or – This is Norman Meyler, Mark

13:30

Norman – Norman Lear, sorry, Norman Lear. Norman Lear, sorry,

13:32

there's too many Normans. Sorry, yeah, Norman Lear would always

13:34

say I'm just another version of you. He

13:37

was really, really big on that

13:39

humanist idea. And the idea of right

13:41

where you know to me always meant if

13:43

you know humiliation, right, humiliation. If

13:45

you know fear or aspiration or a

13:47

desire to fit in like everyone

13:50

thinks that my solo show is about

13:52

anti-Semitism but I've always been insistent that

13:54

it's about the desire to assimilate and

13:56

the cost of assimilation with you, right? No

13:58

one will understand that. us more than you

14:01

but what the story is

14:03

versus what the show is about, right,

14:05

can be completely different things.

14:07

But so I didn't really have exposure

14:09

to good comedy for a while. I had

14:11

exposure to some good comedy like I had

14:14

Stephen Wright would drop in sometimes or I'd

14:16

go see Brian Regan or I once went

14:18

to see George Carlin at the Cape Cod

14:20

Melody Tent. Although that memory is very fuzzy

14:22

and I saw lots of comedy

14:24

but the dominant culture in Boston

14:27

was extremely regressive and extremely looking

14:30

back kind of boring and there were only a

14:32

few sort of bright lights that stood out. But

14:34

yeah, I was sort of off into it because

14:36

of those comics. What strikes me about stand-up comedy

14:38

unlike sort of traditional writing is that you have

14:40

the immediate feedback of like are people laughing or

14:43

not but you can also just become probably seduced

14:45

by that laughter and you're just sort of going

14:47

back to your one joke or you can sort

14:49

of get into these grooves and these sort of

14:51

ruts that you're just doing this one thing that

14:53

is going to be successful for this thing for

14:55

this crowd but it's not actually pushing you forward,

14:57

it's not pushing your storytelling forward, it's not giving

15:00

you any place new. And so you have to

15:02

sort of obviously go into NYU, go to

15:05

out some of that, you're being challenged by the professors.

15:07

But when did you have a vision for what

15:09

you actually wanted to do with your writing and with

15:13

your comedy? Oh, such a perfect question

15:15

because that preamble is the thing that I always

15:17

struggle to explain to people. Like sometimes I come

15:19

off stage at a comedy seller which is where

15:21

I work in a material and

15:24

people say good set and I want to say no,

15:26

it's not a good set. I went up there wanting

15:28

to try four or five new things and I got

15:30

a little scared after the second new thing didn't work

15:32

so I shut it down and went back to the

15:35

chestnuts that I know worked. Like if I never

15:37

wanted to fail on stage again, I could do

15:39

that. Like I have enough material, I have probably

15:41

five hours of material that I know work and

15:45

so I could if I chose to never push

15:47

myself, never go on stage and sometimes you go

15:49

on stage and you come off and people

15:51

are like tough one. And I'm like well I want to try

15:54

two new things. I tried eight new

15:56

things, four of them worked,

15:59

one of them did really well and that's

16:01

like money in my pocket. Like that's a real, so

16:03

it's hard to explain that to people but like I

16:06

really found it when I was in

16:08

London and I

16:11

went on stage with material, I don't remember

16:13

it but it couldn't have been very good.

16:16

This is like 2012, I was studying abroad,

16:18

it's my last year and I was

16:21

invited to do this show by this

16:23

woman Josie Long who's a great, great,

16:25

great British comedian but who

16:28

now lives in Glasgow but also directs

16:30

movies and writes short story collections, truly

16:32

like probably one of my biggest role

16:34

models and Josie had

16:37

me on her show which was

16:39

called Lost Treasures of the Black Heart and

16:41

it was at the Black Heart in Camden

16:44

and he talked about forgotten heroes or it

16:46

was a themed night and

16:49

no one had told me it was a themed night

16:51

or I had forgotten, I should have, I just did

16:53

my normal material and it got less but it just

16:55

like Josie pulled me aside

16:57

afterwards in like a very gentle way was like

16:59

hey, just so you know like I

17:01

think you're maybe like capable of more than that like

17:03

than the sort of like flubby New York act that

17:06

you delivered, maybe you want to go and write something

17:08

and just come back and try it in front of

17:10

the friendliest audience you'll ever be in front of and

17:13

so I went away and I wrote something and I

17:16

came back and did it and

17:18

I don't know that it was great

17:21

but it certainly was

17:23

the first time I felt

17:25

a little more like me on stage. My

17:28

career really started in the UK and it was

17:30

because of I saw comedians who

17:32

were a little bit more of

17:35

an aspect that's for me. I think that you can sort

17:37

of divide most, not writing but

17:39

most written products, write film, TV, stand

17:41

up, even music to

17:44

aesthetic and content and

17:46

so like it was

17:48

the first time I had ever seen an aesthetic

17:50

that worked for me which was sort of a

17:52

long form thoughtful thing that

17:55

the sort of British type solo shows that

17:57

you see at the Edinburgh Festival and

17:59

at the theater in London which is a sort of these

18:04

hour-long or 90-minute solo shows.

18:07

And of course with the best things, the aesthetic and the

18:09

content are married to each other or they inform each other.

18:12

And so like as soon

18:14

as I started seeing those aesthetic offerings, those

18:16

shows, it completely changed who I was as

18:18

a comedian. It really opened me up. So

18:20

I'm picturing our audience here and we have

18:22

a lot of people who are aspiring writers

18:24

who are looking to do stuff down the

18:26

road. And you are at this

18:29

point, you're in London, you're a senior at

18:31

NYU, you're studying abroad. Did you identify primarily

18:33

as a student studying abroad or a comedian

18:35

who's at the start of your career? They're

18:37

kind of two different people. I

18:40

don't think I cared as

18:42

much about writing as I should or I

18:44

don't think I cared as much about collegiate

18:46

writing as I should have. I think I

18:48

was more concerned with, you know,

18:51

John Baldessari is a consensual artist

18:53

says that every

18:55

young artist needs to know

18:58

that talent is cheap, you have to be

19:00

possessed, you can't will and you have to

19:02

be in the right place at the right

19:04

time. And I'd always grappled

19:06

with the first

19:08

two, but I had the

19:10

sense in London that I was in the right place at

19:12

the right time. Like there was a sort of, I hate

19:14

the word scene, but there

19:16

was like a scene going on like these

19:19

solo shows, it was 2012. And these

19:21

solo shows were like having a moment and

19:23

like, I think a month into

19:25

being there, I was at a bar and

19:28

somebody, not to be crude

19:30

on your podcast, but somebody at the bar grabs

19:32

my ass really hard. And I

19:34

turned to the woman saying next to me, they're like,

19:36

hey, would you mind helping me out? This

19:39

guy's got a pretty firm grip

19:41

on my ass. And that

19:43

was, I was gonna be like, and that was, but

19:45

that was Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She was like, and

19:47

Phoebe and I became really close friends and she

19:50

was just working out Fleabag. I went to like

19:53

12 different previews of Fleabag. And

19:55

like, just being amongst all of

19:57

these great genius,

20:00

people who were making the most

20:03

fulsome versions of stand-up

20:05

comedy to me was really intoxicating. So

20:07

I was a student of that when

20:09

I got there. I sat and I

20:12

watched them do it for years before I tried it

20:14

myself. That was 2012. I didn't put

20:16

my first solo show up until 2014, summer of 2014 and I really took my

20:19

time because

20:22

I really could see that this

20:24

was sort of the best version of what

20:26

you could do and what I was doing by comparison

20:28

was like a printer running out of ink. So I

20:31

guess if you had to force an

20:34

answer to the question, I guess

20:36

I was sort of subconsciously leaning towards

20:39

it being a career the comedy thing instead of being

20:41

a college student but if you had asked me then

20:43

I don't think I would have given you that answer.

20:45

It always felt like a pipe dream to me. It

20:47

still feels like a pipe dream to me. It really

20:49

does. Like being a staff to

20:51

TV writer, being a professional stand-up like I

20:53

don't feel like you know impossible dreams still.

20:56

I do want to get to TV staffing in

20:58

a second but first I want to talk about

21:01

this format that you're seeing. So a fleabag and

21:03

these other sort of solo shows. The difference between

21:05

a solo show and a stand-up special or sort

21:07

of like one comedian sort of as a headliner.

21:10

What is the distinction there? Is

21:12

it because that it's all revolving around one

21:14

central narrative? Like how do you distinguish between

21:16

the two? Because you see the two things

21:18

and there's a lot of

21:20

overlap but they do feel distinct now. I mean

21:22

I always offer this. I try

21:25

not to say it's too much in public. I

21:28

feel like I'm really like gatekeeping this but like

21:30

if you're listening to this podcast then you're probably

21:32

my people. But

21:34

I always give this formula whenever I'm asked

21:36

to like teach anything solo show related that

21:38

every solo show has four things.

21:41

Which is who you are, who they are,

21:43

what happened, what's changed

21:46

and I think that's like bazillion

21:49

dollar advice. And by

21:51

the way, I think I saw

21:53

a tweet from someone. Who's the

21:55

guy who writes The Walking Dead? I remember reading a

21:57

tweet of his years ago. And

22:00

he was like something should happen in your script. He's

22:02

like I'm reading lots of scripts where not enough happens

22:04

He's like there should be a story like guy walks

22:06

into a bar That's a store like there like someone

22:09

should do something and something should happen And I

22:11

remember thinking like oh, that's really interesting and

22:13

I don't think my four things are informed

22:15

by that But I think in a really

22:18

great solo show something happens and something changes

22:20

and like one of those things can

22:22

be way bigger than the others but like For

22:24

a good and by the way that those four

22:26

things can be deeply submerged in your narrative, right?

22:29

They can be they don't need to be the

22:31

s s skeleton but if you think

22:33

of like your show is an essay

22:35

a college essay with your with your

22:37

setup and then three things and then the

22:39

thesis like The setup should be

22:41

where you start three things should be something that

22:43

happens in your thesis should be like summing it

22:45

all up Yeah seeing what's changed by the end

22:47

And so like the really great solo shows

22:49

that I've admired have had that and we're bigly

22:51

is shows all have that right? Like he doesn't

22:53

want a baby in the new one and then

22:56

his wife's like maybe we should get a baby

22:58

And then they have baby and then

23:00

that's what's changed and then he's a

23:02

dad. Yes. Yeah So I wanted to pass your four

23:04

points though So I get the first one I to

23:06

you are you're introducing yourself to the audience and sort

23:08

of who the character is that you are Presenting there.

23:10

That's very classic. What do you mean by who they

23:12

are? Is it framing the audience? they can be different

23:14

they can be the world at large they can be

23:17

the Group of people you

23:19

want to be a part of they can be your

23:21

marriage They can be the desire that

23:23

you feel sometimes I explain the four

23:26

things with walking in Memphis, you know

23:28

the song by Mark Cohen So

23:31

like it starts with like put on my blue suede

23:33

shoes border plane Touch down down the

23:35

land that does a blues the middle of pouring rain

23:37

right like this guy's off in this journey Like something's

23:39

happening. He's like walking into a bar and then he

23:42

has all of these experiences and they are that You

23:45

know They are the people of Memphis and

23:47

what's happening is he's immersing himself and trying

23:49

very hard to become in and amongst this

23:51

and he Goes to Graceland and he walks

23:53

down the street and he goes to Algreens

23:55

Children something he really did mark Cohen

23:58

really did that and like He's

24:00

painting the picture and then the last thing he does,

24:02

which wouldn't work if it was the first thing, he

24:05

sings at that cafe with the lady. It ends with

24:07

a pretty good joke. She's like, tell me you're a

24:09

Christian child and he says, ma'am, I am tonight. Which

24:11

is really a pretty solid joke for you. And then

24:13

the last line is, put on my blue suede shoes,

24:15

boarded the plane, touched down and landed

24:18

Delta Blues in the middle of the pouring

24:20

raid. And that thing is completely transformed by

24:22

its contact with the they. The

24:25

they is the genius of the song is like who

24:27

he is is Mark Cohen. The they is the

24:29

people of Memphis. What's

24:32

happened is he's changed by that and possibly

24:34

because the last version, they're changed by that

24:36

a little bit. Like this guy

24:38

walks into this bar and the woman is like, do

24:40

you want to sing a song? And he sings a

24:42

song, which in real life was Amazing Grace. The

24:44

only song he knew that she also knew. And

24:46

like everyone's changed a little by it. Like what

24:48

a beautiful thing that's happened that makes it unique.

24:51

So the you is the person narrating

24:53

or your main character. And

24:55

the they is whatever world they've gone into.

24:57

And bonus points of the world that they've

25:00

gone into is one that they've used a

25:02

lot of agency to head towards. And

25:04

then the what because that will give you a

25:06

much better what happened. And then the what's changed

25:08

as you know, all right, to nerd

25:10

out on it. It absolutely makes sense. So what I'm hearing

25:13

is it obviously we have to class it and the setting

25:15

up who you are. The character goes on a journey. They

25:17

are transformed throughout the course of the journey. It's a very

25:19

mature journey thing. One thing I

25:21

think is different about watching your shows and what

25:46

we would do in a normal

25:48

stage show or in a screenplay. Obviously

25:50

you're trying to get the audience involved

25:53

and invested. But they're also right there.

25:55

And so you're having to engage

25:57

with them in ways that are very specific and different.

26:00

I've done a Broadway show and yes, the

26:02

audience is important. You want them to laugh, you want

26:04

them to cry and feel things, but they're

26:06

not part of the show the way that I

26:09

think these solo shows need to pull

26:12

people kind of on stage with you.

26:14

What do you mean in terms of defining the

26:16

audience? Just having to speak directly to the audience

26:19

in the form of direct address and direct where

26:21

they are? I'm thinking of your

26:23

show specifically that we're in the taper and

26:25

you are putting up your expectations of who

26:27

the people are who have bought this ticket

26:29

and you're talking with, I think you are

26:31

calling out sort of like what

26:33

this crowd is in Los Angeles, who these

26:35

people are and what you're expecting they're expecting

26:37

out of you is a

26:40

thing that I noticed in these shows. Well, I

26:42

mean, I'm just telling a story, right? Like

26:44

it is the rawest, in some ways

26:46

it's the rawest form, the most minimalist

26:50

form of telling a story and

26:52

that collective experience, the delicacy

26:54

of that collective experience, the fact that at any point

26:57

someone can stand up and ruin it makes

26:59

it really special and that recursiveness is

27:01

really fun for me. But

27:04

also I wrote something, I can't remember one

27:06

of the umpteen things that I've been

27:09

writing or talking about in order to

27:11

promote the special. I

27:14

said that that sort of

27:16

direct and immediate feedback was very rare. It's

27:18

like a DiCaprio, got to look into the camera

27:20

and be like, hey, this is the part where

27:22

we hit the iceberg and people get like really

27:25

sad here. You know, like

27:27

there's a really interesting thing where you get

27:29

to comment immediately on what's happening but also,

27:33

you know, my favorite thing about the show

27:35

or the form itself may

27:37

be people not being sure entirely

27:39

of the context, right? Like should I be allowed

27:42

the leeway that people aren't yelling? Like my favorite

27:44

moments are the moments that are like very silent,

27:46

very confusing or where I tell the audience that

27:48

like I'm only telling you stuff that I think

27:50

you'll enjoy and so the audience gets to wonder

27:52

what they're not getting. I

27:55

think solo shows can offer audiences a kind

27:57

of mystique that a lot of other art

27:59

forms and can't. And so I think

28:01

the questions around the context and around whether or not

28:03

you're bringing the audience with you and how much is

28:05

you and how much is them, I think

28:08

are probably one of the most special things about it. But I

28:10

don't know that stand-up comedy doesn't have that too. You

28:13

know, I totally understand when people draw

28:15

a distinction between my show

28:17

and stand-up comedy. But the truth is, you

28:20

know, my last preview of the show before

28:22

I brought it to New York City was

28:24

that comedy on state in Madison, Wisconsin. I

28:26

did a comedy club where people bought chicken

28:28

fingers and had a two drink minimum and

28:30

got a check. I've always been really

28:33

fascinated by people that

28:35

can blur the line a little bit between genres

28:39

and I've always thought my show was

28:41

both heavily rooted in stand-up comedy and

28:43

also absolutely theater. There's

28:45

a comic who I think is criminally

28:47

underappreciated named Christopher Titus who used to

28:49

do this. And Colin

28:53

Quinn does it and Mike Proviglia

28:55

does it. But like, yeah,

28:57

I've always like stand-up and theater and

28:59

I've always thought a more expansive definition

29:02

of both services. The art form

29:04

is better. I want to talk a little

29:06

bit more specifically about your show, your special. What

29:08

is the short version? How

29:10

do you describe it to somebody who's going

29:13

in that doesn't spoil crucial things? Okay,

29:15

the short version is about a guy,

29:17

a Jew, me who goes to a

29:20

meeting of white nationalists and queens and he sits there for a

29:22

little while and eventually one of them is like, sorry but this

29:24

guy's a Jew and I'm like, yeah, I'm a Jew. And so

29:26

that's roughly what the show is

29:29

about and this experience was

29:31

the, this real life experience is the basis

29:33

for the show. And of course, along the way, there

29:36

are tangents into autobiographical stuff that

29:39

I think is related to the

29:41

narrative or conversant with

29:43

the major narrative that has an underlying

29:45

theme and is full of laughs because

29:47

I'm an entertainer first

29:49

so that show is like,

29:51

but yeah, is this

29:53

one narrative with bunch of tangents

29:56

but never tangents on a tangent. Tangents on a tangent. So we

29:58

talked about it. Start it out. writing what you know,

30:00

but this is the case where you are deliberately putting

30:03

yourself in a place, a position

30:05

that is somewhat perilous with

30:07

the intention of there's going to be material here,

30:09

there's going to be a story telling. Correct or

30:11

not? Is that not fair? If I'm being honest,

30:13

I thought it was slightly too specific

30:16

to ever become content. I just thought

30:18

it was a fun story

30:20

that I would tell my friends. And

30:22

then I told enough friends that I respect who were like,

30:25

you're doing this as standup, right? And

30:27

then I told my friend Danny Jollis, who's a great writer and

30:29

comedian, I told Morgan Evans and

30:31

another great writer and

30:33

filmmaker and my

30:35

friend Chloe, like I told a bunch of people

30:37

and then eventually Adam Brace, who is my director

30:39

in the playwright himself and

30:42

Adam was like, this is

30:44

your show. And so and so Adam

30:46

was the one who sort of stewarded along. What were

30:49

they seeing in the stories that you weren't seeing? What

30:52

were they pointing out? Like, oh, that's actually there's a

30:54

journey here. There's this material here. I don't know. Danny

30:56

and another comment named Nick, Nick said something

30:58

that made me think maybe it was a

31:01

show because I told him a

31:03

thing and then he responded with a punchline.

31:06

I told him a detail from

31:08

the actual moment and he responded with a punchline

31:10

to it and I was like, that's really good. I was

31:12

like, that's a really good joke. And then

31:14

I thought, oh, I want that like idea

31:17

to like, oh, I want

31:19

that punchline. I think every joke I ever

31:21

tell has one reason for it existing and

31:23

it's one moment in the thing. It's

31:26

like either a funny face that you pull or a funny

31:28

word that you say or like, or a particularly

31:31

interesting thought that you can somehow

31:33

boil down to one line. Like

31:35

that's there's always a reason. And I think

31:37

Nick pointing that out, Nick

31:40

Callis really talented comic. He

31:42

gave it really good heft. But I think

31:44

Adam saw a thing

31:46

that could unfold and by

31:49

the way, I saw it more like we did the show. I

31:51

was the producer of the show in New York

31:53

and when I told Berbiglia the story or I

31:56

told Berbiglia about the solo show, it was already a

31:58

solo show. But really I went

32:01

and saw it and was like, you can

32:03

pull out more, this can accordion out to

32:05

something that's more interesting, more profound. And

32:07

so I think the smarter people saw folds

32:10

in that story, so that might be

32:12

good, but it was Mike and Adam who

32:15

saw different aspects to it. Adam saw

32:17

something that maybe was tangentially geopolitical, Mike

32:20

saw something that could speak a little

32:22

to me as a person, and

32:24

then little notes from folks along the way. Billy

32:26

Crystal is the one who suggested we move from

32:28

a handheld mic to a headset mic. And

32:31

he said there's theatrical potential in the story. I

32:35

had lots and lots and lots of help from

32:37

people who saw things in the

32:39

story and provoked me to offer

32:42

provocations. But I wanna talk, because there is a

32:44

very processed podcast, I wanna talk about the process

32:46

of going from like, okay, this is something you're

32:48

telling us, an incident that

32:51

you're talking about with your friends too, this is

32:53

a thing that I'm putting up the first temporary

32:55

version of the show. What is the writing process

32:57

of going from that and what point did you

32:59

figure out structure and things and

33:01

how early did you start showing that to

33:03

people? So I had done maybe

33:05

a joke or two about it in the

33:08

standup step, but it was like literally two,

33:10

three minutes and then, I mean, got

33:12

some laughs, maybe I told them the storytelling

33:14

of that or something, but very special experience

33:16

with Adam Brace. Adam and I met my

33:18

last semester at NYU. He was

33:20

a British person, he worked on Fleabag, which

33:23

his partner at the time, Vicki Jones,

33:25

co-wrote with Phoebe, he was one of the

33:27

voices and also was there at all these early

33:30

previews and I'm sure gave notes, I don't know

33:32

how bigger little his contribution was, but

33:34

he worked on countless great things and

33:36

we worked on three solo shows together. He

33:39

was one of my closest friends, if not the closest friend

33:41

for 11 years and he passed away

33:43

right before we started on Broadway. So

33:45

it's a shame for him not to

33:47

sort of see this show finish

33:50

its run and its, say

33:53

it's a bummer, it's a bit of an understatement, but Adam and I

33:55

would drink. I

33:57

don't drink much, but I deal with... Adam

34:01

at this one table in Soho at this

34:03

place called the Soho Hotel. And

34:05

Adam had this notebook and when I was trying to get

34:08

work together for new material gigs I would

34:11

sit down with Adam and

34:13

I'd sort of throw everything at him because I lived in

34:15

the United States, I lived in England so sometimes it would

34:17

be months before we saw each other. I'd

34:19

just come out of a room and was like trying to get staffed

34:21

and I wasn't getting staffed and I

34:23

had some meetings and it was like it was

34:25

very multi-cami and I

34:28

sit down with Adam and I just threw all this stuff at

34:30

him, like so much stuff. And when

34:32

I started telling him this story, his provocations

34:34

were great. He was like, what

34:36

happened there? And I was like, well

34:38

this and that and he was

34:40

like, well what could happen here and like maybe this speaks

34:42

to an element of your personality, maybe that could tie in

34:44

with this joke, what if you massage this for this joke?

34:46

And it was like that

34:48

story came together as a narrative

34:52

pretty quickly and then it

34:54

went on stage probably two nights later but it

34:56

was amongst like 20 other

34:58

things. So but what is the actual,

35:01

when you say like you came together and you put it

35:03

on stage but what are you writing down and how are

35:05

you writing down? Is this like just a Word document? I'm

35:07

not even writing. I think I

35:09

had bullet points. I think I like, I

35:11

think what I'm doing is maybe there's like

35:14

a sheet of paper somewhere with bullet points. Some

35:17

people write with Word documents and I do write with

35:19

Word documents sometimes and sometimes I write on my phones

35:21

and I write in notebooks, sometimes I write in like

35:23

various notes but like with

35:26

this process for me is

35:28

always sort of like if it's good enough you

35:31

remember and if you've got an accountability partner which

35:33

I had in Adam, he'll remember and Adam had

35:35

a notebook and once, this is horrifying

35:37

to say, once we started to run somewhere

35:39

and we figured out

35:41

that the show was running three minutes light and

35:45

I was like why is it running three minutes light? Is my tempo different?

35:47

And I looked at him and I was like, oh

35:49

my God, I forgot that joke. He's like

35:51

what? Oh my God, the vaccine joke is not in

35:53

there. Like yeah, I forgot to tell the vaccine joke.

35:55

He's like the last eight nights you just missed. You

35:58

just missed and by the way, this is like deep. The show had

36:00

already been running in New York for like a

36:02

year and a half at that point. And I

36:04

was like, don't tell anybody. He's like, no, no, no,

36:07

I'm not gonna. But he's like, you

36:09

forgot like a chunk of your show. Like your show

36:11

or it wasn't even the vaccine joke. It was a

36:13

joke about I think maybe it was a joke about

36:15

Prince Harry that's in the special. But like, I had

36:17

completely forgotten the thing. And

36:20

when the show started off Broadway, the PR people

36:22

were like, can we have a transcript for press?

36:24

And I was like, well, there's no transcript. And they're like, what do

36:26

you mean there's no transcript? And I was like, well, I just tell

36:28

the story with the option. And

36:30

they were like, what do you mean you tell the story?

36:32

And then at some point, a

36:35

review appeared and Adam sent me a

36:37

picture of it with something circled and

36:39

I called someone who

36:41

worked with me and I was like, do

36:43

you guys generate a transcript? And they're like,

36:45

yes. And I was like, is it not an audio

36:47

recording from this date? And they were like, how did

36:49

you know? And I was like, because I said

36:51

something one time in that one show and it

36:54

showed up in this review, it's a thing that

36:56

has been completely excised from the show, the word

36:58

choice I didn't care for. So

37:00

until the show became like as wild.

37:03

Yeah. So I never wrote anything

37:05

down, but which isn't to say there weren't

37:07

reams and reams of paper that were important

37:09

for this writing down like little bits of

37:11

things or trying to cut extra words out.

37:13

Sometimes I'll write down a sentence and try

37:15

to examine if I can cut one or

37:17

two words to trim the facts. So you

37:19

do that cumulatively, you can wind up with

37:21

like saving double digit minutes over the course of 90.

37:25

But yeah, that's super granular. But like, I'm

37:27

very anti writing stuff down because as soon

37:29

as you do, it starts to calcify in

37:31

the brain. And I think it

37:33

removes your potential for growth unless you sit down

37:35

consciously and write again. And you need

37:37

the synthesis of preparing off stage and writing

37:40

on stage like that time that your

37:42

brain is alive in the show is a really

37:45

important and valuable. Look, John, you know, and

37:47

everyone who writes who's listening knows that like

37:49

there are moments where you're like in the

37:51

zone and you're in the flow. When

37:54

you're on stage, you are

37:56

by necessity in the flow like

37:58

you are you're stress tested. into

38:00

that like tight

38:02

rope energy. Maybe I could write

38:04

it down and I'm just some like operating from a very

38:06

old data set, but yeah. As

38:08

we're recording this, is there a written script

38:11

version of Just for Us? Yes,

38:14

but I probably take a look

38:16

at it because I don't know that it's accurate.

38:20

Shows should be conversant with the moment that they're

38:22

in and also an

38:24

escape from it, right? So like we recorded

38:26

the special in August and

38:29

there are lines in the, and

38:31

then October 7th happens, not to

38:33

get into anything too prickly, but

38:35

October 7th happened and then my

38:37

show is about assimilation

38:39

and whiteness and Judaism.

38:42

And now, and then I wrote a

38:44

line to open every show that we

38:46

did after October 7th. And

38:48

then Israel as a weighty subject got called back

38:50

towards the end of the show. And

38:55

it's not right that it goes in the recorded version

38:58

of the show because hopefully

39:00

there will be at some point a resolution

39:03

of this horrific conflict and

39:05

those like the one that is

39:07

occurring right now in Gaza, but also the larger

39:09

one and you'd like your special

39:12

to be an evergreen one. So you don't wanna have

39:14

to constantly, you don't wanna date it

39:16

by putting in something temporal, but at the same

39:18

time, a live experience is a very different one,

39:20

right? Like you have to get people a live

39:22

experience. And when we were editing the special, Alex

39:24

Timbers, the director and I, we would cut out

39:26

things that, we cut out some of the things

39:29

that happened in the room that night that were

39:31

just there for the Broadway audience because doing something

39:33

for the audience at home is a completely different

39:35

product. So there is a written version somewhere.

39:38

And in fact, I know there is, because it's gonna be

39:40

released as a play at some point. And

39:42

I just heard that someone's gonna license it

39:44

to do it, which I'm very interested in

39:46

seeing. Yeah, I'm really fascinated

39:49

by seeing it. But any

39:51

written version would be obsolete

39:54

to me the next time I perform it.

39:56

So it's a really weird sort

39:58

of sedulous double bind. Let's

40:01

wrap up by talking about the actual writing you've

40:03

had to do for other folks, where there is

40:05

actually a script that things have to be shot.

40:08

In the midst of doing the solo shows along

40:10

the way, you've staffed as a TV writer. Why

40:12

did you want to do that? What was cool

40:14

about it? What was challenging about it? Talk to

40:16

us about you as a TV writer. I

40:20

have learned so much from my showrunners.

40:22

I have had the best, best,

40:25

best education. Not just

40:27

at NYU, but I worked on The Great

40:29

Indoors, which did one season on CBS. It's

40:31

not like it lit the world on fire,

40:34

but my showrunner, Chris Harris, and

40:36

my creator, Mike Gibbons, I worked with

40:38

these great writers like Liz Feldman,

40:40

who did Dead to Me, and Tad Quill, and

40:43

Craig Doyle. Everyone on

40:45

that writing staff has had a very fruitful career

40:47

as a television writer. I

40:50

learned so much about story and so much about

40:52

structure in a way that helped me with my

40:54

work. There was no way I

40:56

could have written my solo show without the sort

40:58

of guidance that structuring

41:00

television could have provided me. I

41:03

felt this really keenly during the strike. If

41:07

you nourish a TV writer, you're nourishing a

41:09

novelist, and you're nourishing a playwright, and you're

41:12

nourishing a songwriter, and

41:14

you're nourishing a performer,

41:16

all of these talents cross

41:18

over, and all of these crafts cross over.

41:22

I got a pretty good sense of that. As

41:25

soon as I started writing for television, even when

41:27

it was sort of like non-union award show stuff,

41:29

I was like, oh my God, I'm picking up

41:31

stuff. I'm learning a lot. I

41:34

think that learning really helped. Then all

41:36

the more so, getting to work with

41:38

Jenji Kohan on Teenage Bounty Hunters. We

41:40

adapted something for Netflix that didn't go, but

41:43

we loved and are still trying to do.

41:46

I've worked with the greatest people.

41:48

I work with truly the most incredible

41:50

folks. There's even a bit in the show, which

41:53

is something that I do in life now that

41:55

I took from Chris Harris, the showrunner,

41:57

who I think is running Frasier at the moment, actually.

42:00

Chris would do this thing when another writer

42:02

said something to him that I know

42:05

Chris didn't want to engage with or couldn't engage with. He

42:07

would just go, can you believe it? And

42:09

so in my show, I'm in

42:11

this meeting which happened after I'd gotten out of

42:14

the writer's room and someone said

42:16

something to me and I don't know

42:18

how to answer it. I just went, can you believe it? Which

42:20

is something I learned from Chris Harris. And so of

42:22

course the sanctum, the special thanks is Chris Harris for

42:25

a very useful forward phrase in the show. But

42:27

I mean like, look man,

42:30

you get paid a pretty good amount

42:33

of money to not enough money but a

42:35

pretty good amount of money to sit in a

42:37

room with folks who've been professionally curated for how

42:39

smart and funny they are. Like you're gonna pick

42:41

something up. And so like I

42:43

loved being in a room and I can't wait

42:45

for the chance to sort of do it again.

42:48

And I've gotten to organize my own occasionally

42:50

for little things that I've written for the

42:53

BBC or I was telling you about before this. I

42:55

did this thing called Saturday Night Seder which was this

42:58

thing I put together with Ben Jpasik who's a songwriter.

43:01

Yeah, composer. Yeah, he did Dear Evan Hansen

43:03

and La La Land and Greatest Showman and

43:05

at the beginning of the pandemic. They did

43:07

the song in my movie Aladdin. That's

43:10

right. That's right. I remember

43:12

they did. Those guys are like

43:14

such geniuses and Ben J and I were

43:16

complaining to each other over the

43:19

phone that we know that we weren't gonna be able to

43:21

do anything for Passover because everyone was locked inside of their

43:23

homes as the beginning of quarantine 2020. And

43:26

Ben was like, we should do an online

43:28

version. And I was like, well, let's

43:31

put a writers room together. And we put

43:33

together this writers room with like, Sas Goldberg

43:35

and Michael Mitnick and Josh

43:37

Harmon and a whole bunch of

43:40

TV folks. And

43:43

everyone was just sitting at home. Just

43:46

even over Zoom being in that room was so

43:48

nourishing and fun and we would scream and argue

43:50

and joke and we wrote all these sketches for

43:52

like that Midler and Adina Menzel and Josh Groban

43:54

and we raised like three and a half million

43:56

dollars for COVID relief. It was like the coolest

43:58

thing I've ever gotten. to be a part of

44:00

and it was it didn't

44:02

enrich anyone except for those well

44:04

he got them nurses right you got all that PPE

44:06

right but didn't written a rich anyone

44:08

those nurses have added too good for too long but

44:11

yeah it was like to be in

44:13

there's nothing like the collective of a writers

44:15

room really like under any auspices like it's

44:17

just the best thing in the world yeah

44:20

I don't miss almost anything about the pandemic

44:22

but I do miss the permission it gave you

44:24

to sort of do things that were that were

44:26

wild and not that's so like we had their

44:28

live shows like on zoom we had

44:31

we have to be while our bridge and Ryan

44:33

Reynolds on for an episode and those were reaches that

44:35

we sort of felt possible because I was on a

44:37

zoom with Phoebe and Tina Fey earlier

44:39

in the pandemic into everything was sort of possible

44:41

in a way and that was exciting I loved

44:43

it before we wrap up the wonder of writers

44:46

rooms what were your samples that got you the

44:48

great indoors like what were they reading that said

44:50

like oh that's who oh my gosh that is

44:53

no one's ever asked me but I

44:55

I love this okay I

44:57

wrote a sample so I still love

44:59

so much and it's a little frustrating because sometimes people

45:01

I will meet people in the wild and they're like

45:03

oh my god I've read celestials which is the name

45:05

of the sample and like what a great sample but

45:07

I was like no I wrote it as a TV show

45:09

it's supposed to get made it's set

45:12

in heaven but not like dead

45:14

people heaven like earth doesn't exist yet

45:17

heaven and everyone who and

45:20

it's sort of like cubicle for me

45:22

and a workspace and because there's

45:25

no rules that's a little bit because like there's no

45:27

established rules to what it is it's a little bit

45:29

surreal like and this

45:32

guy who's essentially an intern comes

45:34

up with a pitch for planet Earth and

45:37

he shows it to a bunch of people

45:39

in the sort of like architecture department and

45:41

these there's all these Scandinavian sort

45:44

of figures and they're like this is pretty stupid except

45:46

for one guy who's like it's pretty interesting and

45:48

he's discouraged and he throws it away but one of

45:50

the other interns who's really ambitious and doesn't like him

45:52

puts it in God's suggestion box and God is like

45:54

a 12 year old girl with an iPhone because that

45:56

was the scariest thing I could think of and

45:59

God is like I I love like get to fixate

46:01

on one detail which turns out to be kittens.

46:04

And she's like, I love this. Like just go do

46:06

it. Just like it won't cost too much. Like just

46:08

go do it. And she demotes their boss to work

46:10

with them and gives them the Scandinavian architect who thought

46:12

it was a good idea. And

46:14

so it's basically Genesis but if

46:16

it, you know. And

46:18

also it was about millennial workplace

46:20

dynamics because everybody that I knew

46:22

was in this sort of place

46:25

in their life where they were just getting out of

46:27

college or they were three, four years out of college

46:29

and they wanted all this responsibility but they

46:31

didn't really know what to do once they got

46:33

it and they had no hope of getting it.

46:36

And so I wrote this thing and thankfully

46:38

Chris Harris was like, the great

46:41

endorces about millennial workplace dynamics. And he read it

46:43

and he and I came in for the meeting

46:45

and he went, well you really know this world.

46:47

Like he said, he said it's, again

46:50

it's that thing that right where you know like

46:52

it's very heightened but it's grounded in that like

46:54

I know what it's like to want more responsibility

46:56

in a workplace and clearly not be it ready

46:59

for it. And so like that

47:01

was my sample and again no one's asked me about

47:03

that in five, six years but I love it. I'm

47:06

sure if I read it I would cringe a little bit but every

47:08

so often someone's like, I love celesials. And

47:10

I was like, oh my God, I can't believe.

47:12

Yeah, but that was my sample that got me

47:14

that got me staffed on the great endorhes and

47:16

like God they were so patient with me and

47:19

it's where I heard like who Jackie for the

47:21

first time and it's where like can the floor

47:23

be wet and all these other writer inside jokes

47:25

and like I love it and miss it so

47:27

much that probably was one of the best times

47:29

in my life. Fantastic. Nice. We

47:32

have two listening questions here that are related to this

47:34

so Drew can help us out. Gordon

47:37

in LA writes, my writing partner and I

47:39

submitted our comedy pilot to our new manager.

47:42

Pilots been through many drafts and has received

47:44

very positive reviews from peers and fellow writers.

47:47

We were anticipating more positive feedback from our

47:49

new manager who we both recently paired with.

47:52

The feedback call with the manager went

47:54

about as bad as possible. He totally

47:56

misunderstood the comedic tone going so

47:58

far as to ask whether the pilot was meant to be a

48:00

drama. Bottom line, he didn't find it

48:02

funny. The manager wants us to

48:05

rewrite the pilot into a more digestible broad comedy,

48:07

which are more sellable in the current TV market.

48:10

He has no interest in sending this draft around

48:12

town. We'd be happy to write a different script as a

48:14

broad comedy. But the chief question is, if

48:16

your manager doesn't find your writing funny, is it time

48:18

to find a new manager? Boy,

48:21

it's a really tough question, isn't it? Yeah,

48:23

my first agent, I should go with I

48:25

should the script for go with and he

48:27

didn't get it. And I moved

48:29

to a different agency that got it. So

48:32

that's certainly possible. Alice, I

48:34

wonder whether Gordon's script is good or is

48:36

not good. And we can't read ourselves. I'm

48:39

trying to find the gentlest way to say this.

48:41

This room stand of comedians brain. Comedy

48:46

should ideally communicate very clearly to as

48:48

many people as possible. And the challenge

48:50

of threading the needle of making something

48:52

that reflects who you are in your

48:55

comedic voice authentically while also resonating with

48:57

the audience that you're intending it for.

49:00

Like it's the biggest craft challenge, right?

49:02

And so it feels like for

49:04

whatever reason, your manager has

49:07

not been able to get

49:09

there. And you can put it

49:11

on your script or you can put it on

49:14

the manager, but there's like, your

49:16

Wi Fi is not working. Like some things like

49:18

something is broken. And so you should either try

49:20

to figure out what that is. But

49:22

like if you sent in the pages and

49:24

they're not getting it from the page, and that's like a

49:27

pretty good sample of what that

49:29

is. And if it's just bad, if it's just bad luck of the

49:32

draw and your manager is one of the like the

49:34

one out of 99 people

49:36

or like out of a hundred people, your manager is the

49:38

one person that that's not for you need to figure out

49:40

why that reason is. And it's, and

49:42

usually and Gordon, I'm not saying that

49:45

it's your case, but usually the case

49:47

is a craft failing. I

49:49

wouldn't take it as a as a super for

49:51

alarm fire that your manager like quote doesn't get

49:54

you but I would like I

49:56

take a look at the pages and I take a look at the

49:58

manager and see if if it's

50:00

all like, you know, empathetic. Yeah.

50:02

I don't think you should rewrite this thing to

50:04

make it familiar because that's not going to be

50:07

satisfying to anybody. If he doesn't want to send

50:09

it out, it's because he doesn't think it's going to help. And I mean, you

50:11

have to trust him that he has some sense

50:13

of whether he could send it to people that would actually

50:15

respond to it. If you're going to write

50:17

something new that's more broadly, if there's something you

50:19

can do that is more clearly

50:21

broadly funny that it actually does work in

50:24

your voice, I would go for

50:26

that. But you may also need to look

50:29

for a different place. Now, so the

50:31

one question I'd also ask is if you

50:33

want to be broadly funny. Not everybody wants

50:35

that. Not everyone's comedy tone is different. True.

50:39

Next question. Tom in

50:42

Warwickshire writes, I lost my voice this

50:44

weekend. And whilst trying to remain silent

50:46

to help myself recover, I

50:48

became very aware of how often I talk to

50:50

myself, as in literally talking aloud, not just an

50:52

inner monologue, albeit in the hush tone. While

50:55

I know a lot of people talk to themselves, it

50:57

made me wonder if I'm in part influenced to do

50:59

this because I've seen characters in movies do it. We'll

51:02

often see characters vocalize with the audience's thinking.

51:04

For example, someone following another person whilst trying

51:06

to remain unseen and saying, where are you

51:09

going? I'm interested in what

51:11

you think about this technique and when it's used to

51:13

best effect. So Tom, we

51:15

know is British because he says whilst. Whilst

51:18

is just such a specific, simple word.

51:20

Alice, do you talk to yourself aloud? In

51:23

the shower. Water is everywhere

51:25

in the landscape. I

51:27

think I talk to myself a lot. I more often

51:30

sing to myself out loud because I badly want to

51:32

sing but don't want anyone else to hear it. So

51:34

when I'm alone, it's the perfect time to do Baby

51:36

Shark. I don't know that

51:38

if a character talks to themselves, if a character

51:40

monologues themselves, I'm like, what are you doing? But

51:42

also, maybe like a conceited film that I'm just

51:45

like comfortable with. But maybe

51:47

subconsciously, I'm like, oh, it's a little bit

51:49

cheesy. Because when you hang a lantern on

51:51

it, I'm like, oh, yeah. That's

51:53

kind of annoying when someone's like, where

51:55

is he going, you know? Yeah.

52:00

When it's convenient, it doesn't feel earned. People

52:03

do talk themselves in real life, you know, if

52:05

you do experience it. And I think it's, I'm

52:07

sure there's some psychological study where

52:10

they've actually sort of documented what percentage of

52:12

people do speak out loud to themselves and

52:14

their inner monologue is expressed

52:16

outward. And sometimes it

52:18

can be like a compulsion. There's some producer

52:20

of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who

52:22

was notorious for just like, he had, as he was

52:25

writing down a road, he had his sort of like,

52:27

read aloud all the signs he saw, that's the thing

52:29

that happens to. I wouldn't worry about

52:31

it for Tom. I think it's just, it's nice that you're recognizing

52:33

him. That's the thing you do. But

52:35

I'll say like recognize when you do it, when you don't

52:37

do it, if you're gonna have characters do it, make

52:39

sure it feels, you know, authentic and

52:42

real. You know, a thing that I, a

52:45

thing that I do that I'm embarrassed to admit, but

52:47

I will, I will have

52:49

a side of an argument that I will

52:52

never actually have in real life. Oh,

52:54

100%. You got to rehearse it. I'll be like,

52:56

it's the, it's the first cousin of the spirit,

52:59

the scallier, right? Like the spirit of the staircase, the

53:01

thing that you figure out what you should

53:03

have said when you're at the top of the stairs from

53:05

the party instead of the bottom of the stairs getting into

53:07

the Uber, right? So like, you

53:10

know what, I've worked hard for this and you

53:12

don't know, like, like you're talking to someone

53:14

who may or may not even be aware of the fact

53:16

that you exist, but you're having the big argument. And

53:20

the thing that I would question in shows

53:22

is whether or not that advances character or

53:24

story. I don't know. Sometimes.

53:27

Yeah. I mean, to some degree

53:29

it's doing the, you know, the function of a

53:32

song or musical that is exposing the person's inner

53:34

life and sort of what's actually happening behind their

53:36

eyes. Yeah. I

53:38

don't see people rehearsing that one half of an argument on

53:40

film that much, but Lord knows I do it

53:43

constantly. I've had so many arguments with folks that

53:45

they have no idea that I was ever actually

53:47

angry. It's a thing I'll talk about

53:49

in therapy. It's

53:52

one cool thing. My One Cool Thing is a

53:54

book by Jordan Mechner, a friend of mine. He

53:57

and I did Prince of Persia together and other shows. He

54:00

created the video game Prince of Persia, but he's

54:02

now actually mostly a writer and an

54:04

artist. And so he created this graphic novel that he

54:07

drew himself as well. And the

54:09

story tells three inter-sifting timelines of

54:11

different generations of his family. So

54:13

it's 1914 with his grandfather, Ambassador

54:16

Hungarian Umpower during World War I. 1938

54:19

with his father who was fleeing the Nazis

54:22

into France and trying to get his family all back

54:24

together. And then 2015 when Jordan moves to France at

54:27

the same time that I was there living

54:29

in Paris. As his

54:31

marriage was falling apart and his family

54:33

sort of moved to this new place, really

54:35

brilliantly done. So I'm reading it now in English. It

54:37

was out in French last year. I tried reading it

54:39

in French and it was just over my head. But

54:42

it's really great. So Jordan Meckner really wonderful

54:44

storyteller. And actually a really good artist now

54:46

too. So we can be very jealous of

54:48

everything Jordan Meckner does. It's

54:50

called Replay. What? By

54:53

Jordan Meckner. It's in bookstores everywhere now. Seriously?

54:55

What? Are you serious? Replay.

54:58

I swear to God this is not

55:00

planned. The thing that I want to

55:02

suggest is called Replay. It's a book

55:05

that I reread recently. It's so cool.

55:07

It's by a guy named Ken Grimwood.

55:09

It's a science fiction novel or

55:12

a speculative fiction novel. It's about a guy who

55:15

dies on the fourth page of

55:17

the book and then wakes up in his dorm room at 18. I

55:20

love it. And then it's this sort of time loop

55:22

thing. But I don't think

55:24

I'm giving too much away to say

55:26

that he gets the same age in

55:28

his second incarnation. And then he

55:30

dies again. And he wakes up again. And

55:33

so now he's stuck in this loop. And so

55:35

it asks these sort of more interesting questions about

55:39

what it means to live your life when you have a chance

55:41

to do it again and again and again. And the book is

55:44

very entertaining and is very cool and

55:46

is very fun. And I feel

55:48

a little weird suggesting. I know that people when

55:50

they come on and they suggest a cool thing,

55:52

they usually suggest a thing that is contemporary. But

55:56

I really like the book. I

55:58

think it's Breming with Ideas. occasionally

56:02

You know brought it up with someone else

56:04

and they also like it but it's one

56:06

of those books that has like a secret fan

56:08

club and I think it's really

56:10

cool. And when I reread it, I was kind of

56:12

riveted. So yeah, but I can't believe that Both

56:15

books called replay. I'm just doing it. They

56:17

get to replay mechanic in different ways So

56:19

one is literally a time loopy kind of

56:21

thing one is the generational Cycles that you

56:23

go through in terms of moving and trying

56:25

to reestablish your family coupled with like video

56:28

games are meant to be replayed That's

56:30

good. I just say for the listenership

56:33

that is listening that John's case showed

56:35

zero surprise like zero like when I

56:37

said Just like it was

56:39

so cool. I was almost really disconcerted by it

56:41

as if I had I was

56:44

like Did I reach out to tell them that this is

56:46

my because I definitely did it But you were one cool

56:48

customer when I was like, so that was me and I'm

56:50

like, huh but what

56:54

but yeah replay what that's a boy by

56:56

Ken Grimwood is is my Wow,

56:58

I am gobsmacked by that coincidence. I

57:02

Wow, I'm like really really blown away

57:04

by that. Yeah, I have to

57:06

read Jordan book now I mean, this is where

57:08

it's right. We'll remind us that we're in a simulation

57:10

and sometimes they're just blips in the simulation This is

57:12

just one of those little different version video game is

57:14

very good. Like it's so good. It's so

57:17

good it was a classic and It's

57:19

great. The Prince of Persia movie is not

57:21

so good But the script Jordan wrote for

57:23

it originally before it we thought change

57:25

was actually terrific So it should read his book

57:27

and to see a way the writer he really

57:29

has one of my favorite things is to read

57:32

scripts For movies that that seem

57:34

a little high concept and don't quite work because

57:36

sometimes you read the script You're like, oh my

57:38

god This is like Liz Mary Wethers script for

57:40

a romantic comedy that was like

57:42

an Ashton Kutcher I think it was with Ashton

57:44

Kutcher and and Natalie Portman,

57:47

but it was called like friends of benefits but the

57:49

script originally is called fuck buddies and Still

57:52

the movie still has great moments, but the

57:54

script is like Hysterical

57:57

the script is like laugh out loud at every moment

57:59

on the pages is so good. So like, I

58:01

sometimes love to read, you know, reading scripts for

58:03

movies that don't always like come together. It's like

58:05

such a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing. Noted

58:08

to show this week. Scrivens is produced by Drew

58:10

Markbart. It's edited by Matthew Cholelli. Our author this

58:12

week is by Ali Clifton. If you have an

58:14

outro, you can send us a link to ask

58:16

at johnaugust.com. That's also the place where you can

58:18

send questions. You'll find the show notes for this

58:21

episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That's where you'll

58:23

find the transcripts and sign up for a weekly

58:25

newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links

58:27

to things about writing. We have t shirts and hoodies. They're

58:29

great. We find them at Common Bureau. You

58:31

can send them to our premium member at script guys.net where

58:34

you get all the back episodes and bonus segments

58:36

like the one we're about to record on dating

58:38

funny people. Alice Edelman, it is

58:40

absolute pleasure to talk with you about your show

58:42

and all things. This is so much fun. This

58:44

is like such a blast for me. And I

58:47

love this podcast. So to be on it is

58:49

like and sometimes I've had chats with other people who

58:51

listen to this podcast. So I really like forward to

58:53

hearing from the folks that I know who do so

58:56

like this is so cool. The people

58:58

who text you to let you know that you're

59:00

on the script. I genuinely will get text messages

59:02

from like a bunch of like writer friends or

59:04

people who are aspiring writers like and I love

59:06

them all like these craft conversations and my absolute

59:09

favorite thing and I hope I didn't get too

59:11

granular for the folks listening and if I did

59:13

I apologize. Not able.