'The Writing on the Stall' is a Musical Inspired by Bathroom Graffiti

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)

Episode: ‘The Writing on the Stall’ is a Musical Inspired by Bathroom Graffiti
Date: April 9, 2024
Host: Kusha Navadar
Guest: Caitlin Cook (Comedian, Musician, Creator of "The Writing on the Stall")

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Episode Overview

This episode features comedian and musician Caitlin Cook, creator and performer of the off-Broadway one-woman musical "The Writing on the Stall", a show inspired entirely by bathroom graffiti. Host Kusha Navadar and Cook discuss the origins of the project, its creative process, themes of anonymity and connection, and the sociology behind bathroom graffiti—from the silly to the profound. The episode includes live music from the show and invites listener stories about memorable bathroom wall art.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin Story: From Toilet Seat to Theater Seat

• Cook’s fascination with finding art in unexpected places began during her studies in art history, which she found “pretentious” ([04:23]).
• The project was born when she read bathroom graffiti that mused:

  “Since writing on bathroom walls is neither for critical acclaim nor financial reward, it is the purest form of art. Discuss.”
  (Caitlin Cook, 04:23)

• She began photographing graffiti everywhere and ultimately wrote songs using only found lyrics from public restrooms ([04:23]-[05:48]).

2. The Creative Process: Curating & Composing from Found Art

• Cook has amassed “hundreds of thousands” of bathroom graffiti photos, many sent by followers ([05:48]-[05:55]).
• Graffiti is grouped by themes (e.g., women’s, men’s, poetic, mean-spirited), which inspired various songs—like “Conversations with Strangers” and “The Difference” ([06:04]).
• While most lyrics are directly from graffiti, sometimes she inserts connecting words or punchlines or paraphrases due to poor photo quality. Still, her goal is to preserve the authenticity of the “found art” ([07:22]-[08:14]).

3. Musical Excerpts: Shared Humanity and Anonymous Connection

• Songs highlight the anonymity and universality of messages.

• Example lyric from “Conversations with Strangers”:

  "On a scale of one to America, how free are you tonight?"
  "That's a great line, but underneath it, someone wrote 'Germany.'"
  (Caitlin Cook, 03:11)

• The song “Good Luck Out There, Human” offers poetic, vulnerable moments from anonymous voices:

  “This is what the poems are for. Telling other people the things I can no longer.”
  (Caitlin Cook, 10:55)

4. Why Do People Write Bathroom Graffiti?

• The sense of anonymity, the thrill of “doing something a little bit wrong,” and the bathroom as a safe, liminal space—especially women’s restrooms—invite honesty and vulnerability ([12:28]).
• Cook suggests,

  “There’s something vulnerable about being in that position that sometimes makes you want to share your deepest, darkest secret.”
  (Caitlin Cook, 12:28)

5. Crowd Work & Interactivity

• Cook’s show is highly interactive, beginning with her needing something from the audience (toilet paper) before the show can proceed ([15:41]).
• This element was intentional to help her confront stage fright and to directly involve the audience in the communal experience of graffiti and connection ([15:41]-[16:58]).

6. Gender, Trends, and Geographic Observations

• Stark contrasts exist between men’s and women’s graffiti:
  • Women's: supportive and empowering
  • Men's: “tends to feature a lot of phalluses” ([17:25])
• Certain jokes become viral trends (e.g., “Toy Story 2 was okay,” inspired by Demetri Martin), spreading graffiti memes across cities and countries ([18:07]).
• Differences exist internationally: in the UK, for instance, graffiti gets painted over more frequently than in NYC ([19:12]).

7. High Art vs. Found Art

• Cook draws parallels between ancient cave paintings and bathroom graffiti, questioning why some art is venerated while other forms are overlooked:

  “Why is one work of art better…just because it’s hung in a gallery rather than carved into a toilet seat or on a bathroom wall?”
  (Caitlin Cook, 22:46)

8. Audience Stories & Listener Engagement

• Listeners contributed favorite graffiti anecdotes:
  • “Hell is hot, but is it humid?” (from a Hoboken dive bar, 13:37)
  • “To be is to do – Socrates. To do is to be – Sartre. Do be do be do – Sinatra.” (Columbia men’s dorm, 19:54)
  • Berlin bathroom promoting active consent (19:54)
• Listener Jules from Brooklyn described how her son's bedroom door became a living artwork of stickers and graffiti, connecting personal memory to the urban visual culture (23:32).

9. The Show's Evolution and Future

• The current Off Broadway run at Soho Playhouse ends April 13, but Cook plans to tour the show in New Orleans, Chicago, St. Louis, Edinburgh Fringe, and beyond ([25:11]).
• Cook hints at expanding from a solo format to a small ensemble production, broadening the narrative to include others' stories she’s collected ([25:50]-[26:43]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On why bathroom graffiti is art:

  “It is the purest form of art. Discuss.”
  (Bathroom graffiti, paraphrased by Caitlin Cook, 04:23)

• Describing men's vs. women's graffiti:

  “Women’s bathroom graffiti tends to be very supportive and empowering. And men’s bathroom graffiti tends to feature a lot of phalluses.”
  (Caitlin Cook, 17:25)

• On the show’s vulnerability:

  “It is the most vulnerable piece I’ve ever written about my own trauma and coming of age story. And also it is hopefully universal and bringing in all these little bits of stories, things people have written on walls.”
  (Caitlin Cook, 09:39)

• On interactivity:

  “[The show] cannot continue until someone brings me something [like toilet paper]... I don’t see how the show could start any other way.”
  (Caitlin Cook, 15:41)

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Important Timestamps

• [04:23] – The moment of inspiration, Cook reading “the purest form of art” graffiti
• [05:48] – Collecting hundreds of thousands of bathroom graffiti photos
• [06:04] – How songs are assembled from various categories of stall writings
• [08:36] – Incorporating personal storytelling with graffiti narratives
• [10:55] – “Good Luck Out There, Human” performance
• [12:28] – The psychology of why people write graffiti in stalls
• [15:41] – Audience participation and show interactivity
• [17:25] – Differences between men’s and women’s bathroom graffiti
• [18:07] – Trends and viral bathroom graffiti (Toy Story 2)
• [19:12] – International differences in bathroom graffiti
• [22:46] – Reflection on high art vs. found art
• [25:11] – Future touring and plans for an ensemble show
• [27:06] – Song "Confessions" excerpt: “On my 21st birthday, I got so drunk I threw up on a... cop car...”

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Tone and Style

The conversation maintains a witty, self-deprecating, yet heartfelt tone, mixing humor and philosophy. Cook and Navadar keep the discussion accessible and engaging, balancing thoughtful artistic analysis with audience participation and the quirks of everyday life.

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Final Takeaway

"The Writing on the Stall" celebrates the hidden poetry of public bathrooms, transforming anonymous scribbles into a musical exploration of connection, vulnerability, and everyday humanity. Cook’s work honors the overlooked creativity of strangers, revealing that art—and human truth—can be found in the most unexpected of places.

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Transcript

[Kusha Navadar]

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[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

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[Caitlin Cook]

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[Kusha Navadar]

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[Caitlin Cook]

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[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

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[Caitlin Cook]

Listener.

[Kusha Navadar]

Support at WNYC Studios. This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Kusha Navadar. Now who among us hasn't gone into a public bathroom at a bar or restaurant and taken an extra second to look at all the writing on the walls? Of course there are immature words, very mature images. But you know, sometimes there are honest admissions from anonymous writers, there are words of encour, encouragement, and if you're lucky, really funny stuff. Now there's an off Broadway one woman show that is an ode to bathroom graffiti. It's from comedian and musician Caitlin Cook. It's called the writing on the stall, and it features songs Cook wrote entirely using the writing she's found in bathrooms as the lyrics. Let's listen to an example. This is a song called Conversations with strangers.

[Caitlin Cook]

I like writing on walls. You Society. Dan.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Dan.

[Caitlin Cook]

This is actually a door, not a wall. Regard society. Follow your dreams. I literally only have nightmares. Question everything. Why your girl? On a scale of one to America, how free are you tonight? That's a great line, but underneath it, someone wrote Germany.

[Kusha Navadar]

The writing on the Stall is running at Soho Playhouse through April 13th. And with me now is its creator and performer, Caitlin Cook. Caitlin. Caitlin Cook. Sorry, Caitlin. Welcome to wnyc.

[Caitlin Cook]

Thank you for having me.

[Kusha Navadar]

And listeners, we gotta get you on this conversation, too. Are you someone who writes on bathroom walls, or have you written on the walls of bathrooms in the past? We wanna know what compelled you. Call or text us now at 212-433-9692. That's 21243. Or, hey, maybe there is a bathroom in the city. Maybe a bar or a restaurant that you go to a lot that you think, hey, this has this. These are the walls that you got to check out. What? Or is there a word or phrase that you see everywhere? Call us, text us. 212-433-WNYC. Or you can hit us up on social. We're at all of it. Wnyc. All right, Caitlin, so regarding the show, can you walk us through the origin story of how the show came to you? And please tell me it happened when you were on the toilet.

[Caitlin Cook]

It. It did. I've always been someone that was really interested in finding art in unexpected places. I studied art history in undergrad and grad school, and I started to get a little frustrated with how pretentious that world can be. And once I was sitting on a toilet and I saw a piece of bathroom graffiti that said, since writing on bathroom walls is neither for critical acclaim nor financial reward, it is the purest form of art. Discuss. And I just loved that idea that if you push away all the pretension of the art world, here is this old form of art that isn't really trying to impress anyone that we don't even know the creators of. And yet it stretches back as far as like 60,000 years ago, you know, cave paintings. And I was just really fascinated by this idea. I started photographing bathroom graffiti everywhere. And I'm a musician as well. And so about five or six years ago, I wrote my first bathroom graffiti song of some of my Favorite graffiti that I had found and photographed and that went over so well, like, I was getting standing ovations. People were showing me pictures of bathroom graffiti they had found and taken pictures of afterwards. People really connected with it because it's such a universal thing. Right. And so I realized I have hundreds of thousands of pictures. I could write a whole musical out of some of these.

[Kusha Navadar]

Hundreds of thousands.

[Caitlin Cook]

Oh, at this point, yeah, because I get about 100 dms a day from people sending me bathroom graffiti.

[Kusha Navadar]

And what's the process look like for taking the raw material and actually making it into a song? I mean, I guess what's the research process? Like, what bathrooms are you going into? How are you doing it?

[Caitlin Cook]

I mean, when I first realized, hey, I have so many pictures, I started going through all the files and grouping them into concepts. So I had one that was women's dolls, one that was men's dolls, one that was unisex dolls. I said, hey, maybe I can do a song comparing all of these. That's a song called the Difference on my album. The one that you just heard is called Conversations with Strangers. And it's all kinds of graffiti of people replying to each other. And that one I found super interesting because it's all about connecting with people that you'll never meet, that you probably weren't even in the bathroom on the same night. I wrote a song of all the poetic things, the sad, beautiful things. I wrote a song of all the hateful, awful, sort of, like, bullying things, and it started to just take shape. It was mostly. At this point, the show is mostly things that I found and photographed myself, though there is some stuff that followers and listeners have sent in, But I am thinking of eventually after this solo show run is over. I think there's so many more stories to tell, and I don't want to be the only person just up on stage telling them. I want a whole small ensemble show that I'm. That I'm working on through found art that people have sent to me now because I have so many more beautiful photos of bathroom graffiti that I haven't really gotten to take advantage of yet.

[Kusha Navadar]

So is every lyric in the show originating from a lyric or something that you saw on the wall? Or did you have to add in lyrics to, you know, connect verse to chorus?

[Caitlin Cook]

For the most part, I tried to stick to as much found art as possible. But there, you know, I'm a writer and a comedian, and sometimes someone wrote a really good premise, and I had a really good punchline sometimes in the show. Itself. Sometimes I've had to rewrite stuff because the picture I took was really bad quality because of the lighting in bathrooms. So I had to rewrite it. And sometimes I've realized, oh, I actually added an and in here when I was singing it. And so I'll scribble that in to make it all make sense. But I really did want to stick as much as I could to the origin of it being found art. Songs created by strangers, the people.

[Kusha Navadar]

And there are a bunch of songs. And I saw the performance last week. One thing I found interesting, without giving up too much away, it's songs within a structure of a story. When did that structure come out? And obviously don't want to ruin anything in the show, but I'm imagining the songs came first or was there an idea of what the songs would lead to?

[Caitlin Cook]

So I wrote my first show for the Edinburgh Fringe, my first hour long show in 2019. And that show had one bathroom graffiti song and was really like my story. I feel like everyone's first show is usually their own story. And then I was returning to the Edinburgh Fringe and I decided I needed to write a whole new hour. Cause that's what people do there. So I wrote all of the bathroom graffiti songs. And I came into that fringe having a good structure of bathroom graffiti songs, but not a through line of a story. And I realized I was doing this thing on stage where people would walk away thinking, oh, that was so fun. I saw a bunch of bathroom graffiti, but I don't know anything about this girl that was just telling me about these pieces of graffiti and singing these songs, like, what is her story? And finally I saw this beautiful show by Michael Cruz Cain at the Minetta Lane Theatre that I just was really touched by it. It was so authentically his story and also funny and heartwarming and cathartic and sad. And I was supposed to hang out with a bunch of friends after we saw the show and instead I was like, I gotta go home immediately. And I opened up both scripts of both my shows and I started to stitch them together. So in many ways they sort of happened concurrently and at various times over like a three or four year period. And then I realized I needed to tell my most vulnerable story as I'm taking all of these vulnerable things that people have written on walls and telling their stories at the same time. So I rewrote the show for the last Off Broadway run I did in September at Soho Playhouse. That was my Off Broadway debut. And something just clicked, like afterwards people were not only Showing me bathroom graffiti. They were telling me stories and really connecting with me, which I thought was so cool. And I'm so proud of this show. It is the most vulnerable piece I've ever written about my own trauma and coming of age story. And also it is hopefully universal and bringing in all these little bits of stories, things people have written on walls.

[Kusha Navadar]

I would love to hear a piece of that because, you know, you're talking about human connection.

[Caitlin Cook]

Exactly.

[Kusha Navadar]

Fantastic segue into a clip that we picked, you know, listeners listen to. Here is a song from your show. It's called Good luck out there, human.

[Caitlin Cook]

There are times when the walls are silent and the moon is howling. This is what the poems are for. Telling other people the things I can no longer. You.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

You, you.

[Caitlin Cook]

Why should I be weary of the world In a devious struggle for a better reality I dream I happy Everything was working out Best case scenario. Oh, my life I think I'm in love. I think that it's over it's over with you, Caitlin.

[Kusha Navadar]

It's easy to forget when you're listening to this that all of those lyrics are things that you found anonymous folks writing on the stalls of bathrooms. And in my mind at least, the question that I have is why? In the sense of why that desire for human connection coming out in these bathroom stalls? You said yourself just before we listened to the clip, once you stitch the stories together, you felt like so many people were coming and sharing their stories to you. What is it about bathroom graffiti that brings that out?

[Caitlin Cook]

I think there's a bunch of reasons, but I think there's this sense of anonymity. No one's ever going to know who you are. There's also a sense of like a little bit of doing something a little bit wrong because it's vandalism. So it feels like you're doing something risky. And I think in particular, women's bathrooms are a safe space a lot of the time. It's a place where I feel like I've met a lot of my best friends that night, you know, I comforted someone while they were crying. I borrowed a tampon. I shared someone's lipstick. It's a place that is a moment of brief connection from the outside world. And I think that's very visible in the graffiti in women's bathrooms a lot of the time. But I think there's just something about this vulnerable place where we're doing something that all humans do and have done throughout all of time. And it's a little gross and uncomfortable and we don't talk about it. And there's just something vulnerable about being in that position that sometimes makes you want to share your deepest, darkest secret. I don't know.

[Kusha Navadar]

Well, it's speaking of maybe not deepest, darkest secret right now. Maybe we'll get to that. But we did just get a text that I want to share. It says one of the greatest pieces of graffiti that I've come across years ago, back on a hot, humid Hoboken night in the men's room of a great dive bar called Fabian's, there below the jealousy window and above the urinal, somebody had scratched into the wall. Hell is hot, but is it humid? And this is from Miller in Brielle, New Jersey. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Listeners, we want to bring you in on this conversation. We're talking to Caitlin Cook, the comedian and musician. Her Off Broadway show the Writing on the Stall is running at Soho Playhouse through April 13. It's about the graffiti that you see on bathroom and public stalls. She makes a lot of songs out of them and stitches a story together. And we want to know, are you someone who writes on bathroom walls or has written or has written on bathroom walls in the past? What led you to doing so? Give us a call. Send us a text, 212-433-9692. That's 212433, WNYC. Of course, this is public radio. Gotta keep it clean, hopefully like the bathrooms that you are frequenting. But if you have any stories you want to share to us, call us, text us 212-433-9692. We'll be right back with Kaitlyn after this. This is ALL of it. This is all of IT on wnyc. I'm Kusha Navadar, and we're talking to Caitlin Cook, the comedian and musician, about her Off Broadway show, the Writing on the Stall. It's running at Soho Playhouse through April 13. It is about the songs that you can stitch together if you use the writing that you find on bathroom stalls. And listeners, if you want to join us in on this conversation, you can give us a call, shoot us a text. The number is 212-433-9692. Caitlin I was lucky to see a show last week, and one thing that immediately stood out to me is how much crowd work you do in the show, how interactive it is. Did you know from the start you wanted to involve the audience?

[Caitlin Cook]

Yes. I was writing the show to better myself as a performer. I have always been a very strong writer and songwriter and I really pride myself on that. But I get. I used to have debilitating stage fright, and I still sometimes get really nerv before I get on stage. And I wanted to write a show that would force me to put myself outside of my comfort zone. Especially because one of the pieces of graffiti that I refer back to in the show many times is do what scares you, even if it's everything. And I've built my life around that piece of graffiti and that motto. And so I wrote into the show, the very beginning of the show, there's a toilet on stage. It's set in a dive bar bathroom. I come out. Well, there's a sound effect of me peeing, realizing the audience is there, and then realizing that there's no toilet paper. And I have to ask the audience for toilet paper or for something. And the show literally cannot continue until someone brings me something, which is so scary to start a show like that, to start a show relying on the audience to help create this world with me. And yet I don't see how the show could start any other way than asking the audience to take part in this world building and this crowd work and participate and getting their consent to basically create this show with them for an hour.

[Kusha Navadar]

Because fundamentally, I mean, one thesis of the show is that it's about human connection.

[Caitlin Cook]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Kusha Navadar]

So speaking of human connection, we've got Steve from Westchester. Hi, Steve. Welcome to the show.

[Caitlin Cook]

Hey, guys, how are you?

[Kusha Navadar]

Good. What's your question? So I was just really curious if she had any friends bringing her material.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

From the men's room, because I imagine there could be some quite stark differences in material.

[Caitlin Cook]

Yes, absolutely. I have. I have a whole song called the Difference, and it's the difference between men's and women's bathroom graffiti. I have had a lot of male friends go into men's bathrooms. Sometimes there's a long line at the women's, and I will peek into the men's bathroom if there's no one in there and take some pictures myself. But yeah, there is a stark difference, I would say. Overall, women's bathroom graffiti tends to be very supportive and empowering. And men's bathroom graffiti tends to feature a lot of phalluses.

[Kusha Navadar]

Steve, let me just say. Thank you so much. Great question. Appreciate the call. Caitlin, are there common phrases you notice the most in either gender, bathroom or non gendered bathrooms?

[Caitlin Cook]

I don't know. Sometimes there's trends of things. Like for instance, I was finding this piece of graffiti I was seeing a lot that said Toy Story 2 was okay. And I was so curious about why this was written everywhere. And I included it in one of the. One of the songs. That part of it isn't in the show. But I started doing it around town. And as I posted it online, I realized someone commented, that's from an old Demetri Martin album. And I said, what? Like, Demetri Martin was one of my earliest influences, but I didn't remember that. This one specific joke he was asking. He was tired of extreme bathroom graffiti, and he was wishing that people would write something ambivalent, like Toy Story 2 was okay. And then people wrote it everywhere. And so he started this trend. Sometimes you just see people hearing something and deciding, I'm gonna write that. And then you start seeing it all over different countries, all over different cities, and it just becomes this. This trend.

[Kusha Navadar]

I love that you bring up countries, too. Cause I'm sure that you've gone around the world at this point looking at different bathroom stalls. Any differences between cities, between countries?

[Caitlin Cook]

At this point? I have a lot of people sending in stuff from all over the world, which is so cool. But in my personal travels, I lived in the UK for a while, and what I find is that they have sometimes more like, specific bathroom graffiti, but their walls get painted over more often. So whereas bathroom graffiti tends, especially in New York, tends to just, like, linger here for a while or get written over with more graffiti, there's a lot more sort of like, painting over of places in the UK that I'll return to and looking for a specific piece that I found. And it'll be gone. Maybe new things will be there, but. But yeah, there's more turnover, I guess.

[Kusha Navadar]

And the timing is perfect because we got a text from a listener about a bathroom in Berlin.

[Caitlin Cook]

Amazing.

[Kusha Navadar]

My favorite graffiti was a bathroom in Berlin where someone wrote something really positive about active consent and looking out for each other. It really set the tone for the bar. That's super interesting. Thanks so much for sending that. Also, a text seen in a Columbia men's dorm bathroom. This is Columbia, the university, just to be clear. So we're talking about countries seen in a Columbia men's bathroom Dorm stock in 1975. To be is to do Socrates. To do is to be Sartre and to be so be do Sinatra, which is great. If you're just joining us, this is all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar. We're talking to Caitlin Cook, her Off Broadway show, the Writing on the Stall is running at Soho Playhouse right now through April 13th. We're writing or we're talking about bathroom graffiti and the songs you can make out of it. So, listeners, if you have a story of bathroom graffiti that you find especially interesting and it's clean, give us a call. 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Caitlin, you mentioned that you've spent a while studying bathroom graffiti. What kind of observations about the writing have you made that you think you can only notice if somebody is paying close attention to what's on the wall?

[Caitlin Cook]

Hmm, that's a good question. It's hard to draw any real conclusions because at the end of the day, like, I'm interpreting the artist's intent and I don't know the artists themselves. I never will. And that's so sad. But I think for the most part, because it's anonymous and because it's not this kind of art that people are doing for acclaim, they're not doing it for someone. Someone to buy that piece. It's not thought of in the. In this particularly, like, high art kind of way. It's a very free kind of art form. In fact, I don't think a lot of the people writing on Stahls would consider themselves artists. They're just writing their thoughts. And yet that makes it so. Yeah. So unbelievably free. Sometimes it's beautiful confessions. Sometimes it's something really silly. Sometimes it's something really hateful. Sometimes it's something really sad. But I just think of that person who happened to wander into that bathroom with a pen, and I just. I want to know their stories and I want to tell them more.

[Kusha Navadar]

You know, can you compare in any way, or is it even fair to compare this art, which you kind of, to paraphrase, you're saying it's art by the masses anonymously to high art, which is often art done by the individual very gloriously. And it's impossible to compare art. But do you feel in your mind that we undervalue what graffiti or anonymous art has to.

[Caitlin Cook]

Yeah, I do. I think that's one of my main moments of the show, in which I sort of talk about my art history background a little bit. It's very silly the way I do it, but I just talk about. I show some examples of cave paintings and really, really old forms of bathroom graffiti. And I generally make this point of like, why is one work of art better than. It's just because it's hung in a gallery rather than carved into a toilet seat or on a bathroom wall. And it's not to say that some of that art, art isn't better or worse. It's more to just say, what is art actually? And can we find it everywhere? Even in the most unexpected places.

[Kusha Navadar]

We've got Jules from Brooklyn. Hi, Jules. Welcome to the show.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Hey, thank you. I love that you just mentioned kids too, because my little anecdote is that my 9 year old and me obviously are obsessed with these kinds of doors, walls, the ones covered in stickers and graffiti and posters and things that we all see all over the city. And he wanted to create his bedroom door to look like one. And so for years now we've been adding and drawing. His friends come over and tag it up and we just add any sort of souvenir, sticker fragment, brochure, menu that he really likes. And it's become this memory collection and nod to the city that I grew up in and now he's growing up in. And I'm also a painter here in New York and I do cityscapes all the time. My tag is small home. And I always include the graffiti or the beat up door or the writing on the wall, literally, like in my paintings. Cause it really just adds to the character of the building that I'm encapsulating.

[Kusha Navadar]

Jules, thank you so much for that call. Caitlin.

[Caitlin Cook]

I love that.

[Kusha Navadar]

Yeah. What do you love about it?

[Caitlin Cook]

I just love that she's incorporating her kid's love of art in his own door. And also that she includes. And I think a lot of people, when they paint or take photographs of cityscapes, want to sort of crop out the dirtiness or. Yeah. The sort of rundown doors or graffitied areas. And yet isn't that the heart and soul of the city sometimes?

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Right?

[Caitlin Cook]

Yeah.

[Kusha Navadar]

So, you know, your last show at the Soho Playhouse is April 13. Any plans for the show once it wraps?

[Caitlin Cook]

Yes, I am taking it to New Orleans on May 1, and then I have some Chicago and St. Louis and more Midwest states coming up. And then I'm gonna bring it back to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the final two weeks at the Pleasants. And then I'm gonna bring it to London and hopefully some other cities in Europe.

[Kusha Navadar]

Wow. And as you're thinking about this odyssey, I guess that you're going on to borrow another high art example. I guess it's. Is the sense of bathroom graffiti evolving for you in any way or is it just like you found what the nut is to this story and you're taking it to the next level? How do you think about it for yourself?

[Caitlin Cook]

Yeah, it's Interesting now because I think about it as I feel possessive isn't the right word, but I feel like it's an exciting adventure every time I go into a bathroom and maybe there's a little gift for me there and I'll feel a little disappointed if there isn't and I'll feel a sense of ownership of I found that. Which is so funny cause I didn't make it. But because I have this platform now and people are coming to see my shows, I feel like if I found it, I get to share it with more people than have stepped into that bathroom. So there's an excitement there. And then there's also, as I was saying, I'm so excited about this solo show. I'm so proud of it. I think it's the best, most vulnerable, funniest work I've ever made. And I'm also excited to stop being the only person on stage. And so any new piece of graffiti I find that I really love, I think, oh, that's gonna be a lyric in the ensemble show that I'll eventually start really digging into.

[Kusha Navadar]

That's wonderful. And it'll be exciting for folks to be able to connect with you in these new ways. Across the world as well, we've been talking to Caitlin Cook, the comedian and musician. Her Off Broadway show the Writing on the Stall is running at Soho Playhouse through April 13th. Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us.

[Caitlin Cook]

Thank you for having me.

[Kusha Navadar]

And let's go out on another quick song. Just a few seconds of it. Here is confessions.

[Caitlin Cook]

On my 21st birthday, I got so drunk I threw up on a car. Cop car. My ex boyfriend has been staying with me on my cat.

[Kusha Navadar]

I'mma put you on, nephew.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

All right. Un.

[Caitlin Cook]

Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?

[Kusha Navadar]

I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.

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