Grace Aki (7:10)

Do indeed be this game and I am so sorry but also for background, just quickly like I think it's very funny that this timing is happening for this interview because I do Broadway radio but also I work in some level of Broadway like advertising and whatnot and I was quite literally with Helen last week doing the Huaboon.

Andrew Barth Feldman (7:31)

Oh, my God. We have the same one on in the room watching Love island right now. So I. I'm in.

Grace Aki (7:38)

I was like, I feel like this might or might not be in that home also. So what. What a time to be alive.

Andrew Barth Feldman (7:43)

It is a new addition to our. To our home.

Grace Aki (7:46)

Only once a month, watering. You can't get.

Andrew Barth Feldman (7:48)

I mean, why not? You have to take that. You have to take it. It's. There's no responsibility.

Grace Aki (7:53)

I kill everything. But sure, this is fine. So I. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us on Broadway radio today. I am very excited about this show. I love, like, a really deeply depressing retrospective of a family's life. And I feel like that's what this vibe is. But obviously we've fallen in love with you and all these different theatrical aspects and now with, like, film. But when I saw this cast list, I was like, you're going to get to be opposite Janet Gleason. Like, this is very exciting. Tell us a little bit about this journey.

Andrew Barth Feldman (8:23)

Yeah. I mean, everything you just said is absurd and true. This is my first time getting to do a play professionally. I've really only ever done one play. Even growing up, I've only done musical theater. It's also my first time originating something in theater. I've been replacing a bunch, which has been great. I've gotten to play so many dream roles, but to get to build something, and to build it with Joshua, who I'm playing a version of, and to build it with Joshua Trip Coleman, who is brilliant, and with Joanna and Janine Sarales. And it's really just us and our amazing stage management team in the room. We're all building this thing together. It's just the three of us on that stage. It is very sad, but it is also very happy. And that's really the question of the play. And the thing that Joshua is trying to examine in the writing of it, and thus the ritual of it, is how can things be so wonderful and then so awful in a family in the world? The title has a lot of meanings. There's connections to climate change as well, sort of. He's very passionate about conservation. And so naturally the character is. It's about losing things and wanting to appreciate them while you have them and looking back on something and realizing that you didn't really appreciate it while it was right there in front of you. And to get to explore that every night with these to brilliant women is, I can't wait. And then, you know, there's really a jury in this play. And that's the audience. So once that comes in and it's. We're in thrust. So it's on three sides, about 300 seats. It's very intimate. I'm gonna be making direct eye contact with people throughout the entire play.

Grace Aki (10:08)

Cause it's at New York City Center Stage two as part of mtc. So you're, like, so much more intimate than you would be at, like, the Samuel J. Friedman or something else.

Andrew Barth Feldman (10:17)

Oh, no, it's ridiculous. I mean, just rehearsing it in the room. They've set up chairs in the rooms that we get a sense for where people will be. And you're in it with us. You're implicated in things that are happening on the stage. A lot of the play is direct address. It's me telling a story to the audience, which is sort of my favorite thing to do. And not something I've gotten to do in the context of anything, but my own sort of solo work. The stuff I've done at, like, 54 below. So to get to really look people in the eyes and ask them what they make of all of this, that's the. The amazing foundation Joshua has built. So I just can't wait to get it in front of an audience and see how much it changes, because it's already changing so much in the room.

Grace Aki (11:01)

Because you're. I mean, you're working with an astounding playwright. Like, the way that people have fallen in love with Prayer for the French Republic and like, all these other works. Like, I think that you, as far as a play debut, you are in, like, the greatest hands with Trip Coleman. Like, every time I have seen an actor be like, well, I haven't done blank yet. And then they're working with Trip, I'm like, okay, that's right.

Andrew Barth Feldman (11:24)

That's right. Well, he just has such a vision for what this is supposed to be. And he and Josh really speak the same language. They worked together on significant other years ago, which is another. So many people.

Grace Aki (11:35)

I was going to say, did you read that? Did you ever see it?

Andrew Barth Feldman (11:38)

I read it. I've read every one of plays, and that one is gorgeous. And what's fun about reading all his old plays? And what if you've read them or seen them? What you'll see in this one is that these characters, his mother, his grandmother, and himself, they're in every single one of his plays now. He just gets to ask the questions directly that he's been asking indirectly in all of these other pieces. But Trip is just brilliant and so collaborative. We've really gotten to trust our impulses and make mistakes and screw up. It's been feeling like I'm in, like, an advanced learning class with the. Because it's so small, it's just me and Joanna and Janina. We all really care about this, and so we're building this thing together. And Trip could not be a better leader. He's really, really amazing. And what he's doing with this play is bizarre, kind of. It could go so many ways on the page because Joshua has written this very ephemeral, abstract, jumping all over the place sort of thing. And we're setting it sort of in a rehearsal room as though we're using theater to figure this out together. To bring back the ghost of my grandmother, played by Joanna Gleason, and sort of ask her questions and bring her in front of an audience, say, what do you make of these relationships? The only way we could do that is theater. So the plays acknowledging that and investigating that.

Grace Aki (12:56)

Well, I think it's funny because thank you for touching on what the kind of seemingly plot is of this grandmother communicating with her grandson about, like, what she wants people to remember and things like that. But it's wild that, like, on my specific algorithm, maybe it's just, like, age or something. But I am getting so many ads from these, like, companies that are like, give this book to your grandparent, and they'll write down all of their stories. And, like, all of these really, like, Jesus, they're like, don't wait till it's too late or something like that. And so, like, I was looking at, you know, the description of this show, and I was like, maybe this is a better medium for this conversation.

Andrew Barth Feldman (13:31)

I think it definitely is. It's. I mean, you know, if you want to bring capitalism into your relationship with your grandparent and have them write something down in a corporate book, that's. That's fine. That's better than them not writing anything down at all. But this is really making a case for the fact that the only way, really to have that conversation, specifically, I would say, with Joshua and his grandmother, is through the writing of this play. He's brought her back to life, and he's roped his mother into it somewhat unwillingly to. As though this is therapy for her. You know, there are moments in the play where I'm like, almost want to shake Jeanine, who's playing my mother, and be like, go to therapy, please. Journal, like, seek treatment.

Grace Aki (14:20)

Please.

Andrew Barth Feldman (14:21)

Do something, please. I'm trying to help myself. You need to try to help yourself. And I feel like we have that with so many people in our lives, especially our family. And this play is that the play is him investigating that for himself and hoping that that brings some catharsis to his mother as well.

Grace Aki (14:39)

Do you feel like it feels kind of like a trap between dramedy and comedy and catharsis and that type of thing. How do you feel in terms of tone? What do you think that people can expect?

Andrew Barth Feldman (14:51)

Yeah, I think dramedy is as concise a description as there can be. But much like these relationships, it's all over the place. There are things that are depressing. There have been tears in the rehearsal room every day. It's a very, very moving piece. But it's also Joshua Harmon. So it's really funny because the most dramatic things that happen in your family on one day are devastating and on another day are hilarious.

Grace Aki (15:20)

The funniest thing you've ever heard and you're like, wow, we were upset about that.

Andrew Barth Feldman (15:24)

Now we can sit and it's hilarious that that happened to us. And there's another. The easiest thing for me to do is quote the play, which is understanding that two people or even three people can look at the exact same thing and see something entirely different. That's. That's what this play seeks to explore and display. That even objects carries so such different meaning for different people in a family, in a collection of individuals. It's sometimes funny and sometimes sad and sometimes it doesn't have to.

Grace Aki (15:58)

Yeah, it doesn't have to be binary. It doesn't have to be one thing. But I think that when there's always like a new property, I always like to like tell people, here's what vibe wise, it would be like to this. So I appreciate that a lot.

Andrew Barth Feldman (16:08)

You will definitely laugh a lot. You will probably also cry.

Grace Aki (16:14)

That's my favorite kind of play, though. I don't think that you get to earn crying if you've not made me laugh. Oh my God. I have to feel something for you. It can't all be this, like, SAP moment. It has to go somewhere. So.

Andrew Barth Feldman (16:27)

No, it's not a misery play. It's not at all. But you might be sad sometimes.

Grace Aki (16:34)

Listen, I laughed a lot during prayer for the French public. I don't even know if that was right, but I did.

Andrew Barth Feldman (16:38)

It's funny. He's so funny. The circumstances he's written are so funny. And then looked at one other way or staged differently or something. They're devastating. And that's again, why theater is the perfect place to be having this conversation.

Grace Aki (16:52)

No I'm very excited about it. Performances start February 25th, so you guys are in the middle of rehearsal right now for We Had a World, but I can't wait to see it. It's gonna be great. I was excited when the announcement of this even happened. So this is a real gift to get to talk to you and get all of our listeners to get excited about it. So thank you so much for joining us. Andrew.

Andrew Barth Feldman (17:12)

Thank you, Grace. Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.

Matt Tammanini (17:19)

All right, everybody, that's all we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram BroadwayRadio. You can follow me on Instagram at bwwmatt. Have a wonderful day. We will be here late in the Patreon feed tomorrow after reviews for Redwood are released. So we will talk to you then.