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- [00:00]
Christian McCaffrey
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- [00:55]
Alec Lev
Dairy free your mind.
- [00:56]
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- [00:58]
Alec Lev
Com welcome back to your how we Made your Mother podcast feed. Today we're presenting an appearance by our own Josh Radner on a podcast called Arts Educators Save the World where successful artists sit in conversation with their mentors to talk about the importance of art, arts education and mentorship. I produced this podcast with my lifelong friend Erica, and this is a fantastic episode with Josh and one of his teachers from NYU and Deborah Lapidus. And next week we've got another episode of Arts Educators Save the World for you in our bonus slot, this time with Craig Thomas in conversation with Rob Greenberg who worked with Craig and Carter on How I Met yout Mother. As to quote Craig, the adult in the room. If you enjoy these episodes, please check out Arts Educators Save the World wherever you get podcasts where guests have included Lin Manuel, Miranda, Annalee Ashford, Cecily Strong, Bradley Whitford, Jonathan Groff, Billy Eichner, and many, many others. Enjoy.
- [01:57]
Josh Radner
One of the great things about Deb is she's one of the funniest people I know and her humor was so disarming. I remember being in her class and it didn't feel like I needed to decode anything. It felt like, oh, I know how to do this. We sing and we try to communicate the depth and text and meaning of a song. There was just something clear and welcoming about her style and her class. I felt at home and I felt like I had a right to be there.
- [02:24]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
This is Arts Educators Save the World where successful artists and their mentors talk about how arts education transformed their lives hey, welcome back. I'm Erika Rosenfeld Halvorson. And here we are back with more conversation around artists and mentorship. And I'm here again with my producer, the fabulous superhero sidekick, Alec Lev. And hello, Alec.
- [02:53]
Alec Lev
Hello, Erica.
- [02:54]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
You've gotten to know Alec and I a little bit through our collective journey with Ms. Ames and Bobby and Lynn. But here in this episode, we'll add another fun fact. We were both theater majors in college. That's right. We both trained to be professional theater types. We both have continued to work on the stage over the years. I have played everything from a giant bumblebee teacher to a Yiddish stage performer.
- [03:20]
Alec Lev
In the 1940s, my training was more as a director. And also importantly, during and after college, I became fluent in American Sign Language. So I performed in children's theater with the National Theater of the Deaf. And then I also acted with Deaf West Theater here in Los Angeles. But my real passion is for directing. And along with various stage shows over the years, next year I'll be co directing an opera with a mixed cast of deaf and hearing performers. And earlier this year in 2022, I, I wrote and directed a film called what? Which is a black and white silent feature film, again starring deaf and hearing actors. I also, and this is germane to our upcoming talk. I can be seen for a good 20 to 30 seconds on the episode Best Prom Ever in season three of.
- [04:04]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
How I Met yout Mother, which conveniently brings us to one of our guests this week, Josh Radner. He's an actor, a writer, a director, and a musician. And when we invited him to be on the show, he wanted to talk about a teacher from his time at New York University's graduate program at Tisch School of the Arts. And the woman he chose, Deb Lapidus, actually teaches singing to actors. But as you'll see, her work is completely about storytelling and about life.
- [04:35]
Alec Lev
In this conversation, I will say that Josh and Deb go very deep on singing and acting. And I think it's important as we listen to this, that we remember the heart of your book is that it doesn't matter if you're a singer or an actor or a painter or a sculptor. That's not what the goal of this here. It's saying that listen to the way the relationship that Deb and Josh created together as mentor student, how they listened to each other, how they worked off each other, and just imagine the magic that happens there happening in any class using some of the techniques of the artist and the art teacher to open you up to Risk taking to realizing that doing poorly on the math test is not failing. It's the step towards the day that you will get the right answer on the math test.
- [05:27]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
And that good teaching of any kind puts scaffolds around that so that each student feels ready to take those risks. Even if the kinds of supports that one person needs may not be the kind of supports that another person needs. And Deb and Josh talk about that, too, and talk about the kinds of scaffolds and supports that he needed. But they also talk about what that looked like for some of the other people who Josh was interacting with when he was in Deb's classroom.
- [06:00]
Deb Lapidus
Let's listen.
- [06:10]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
First of all, thank you both so much for giving your time today. Josh, I'd love you to start by introducing us to our shared guest today.
- [06:20]
Josh Radner
Right now?
- [06:21]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Yes, please.
- [06:22]
Josh Radner
All right. All right. Well, I am thrilled to be sharing the airwaves with my dear friend Deb Lapidus, who I met back in the 90s at NYU at the Graduate Acting Program. I was there 1996 to 1999. My life has been very blessed with mentors both in and out of the art space. I'll just say that. So I had a lot of people I could have chosen from. I think the reason I chose Deb is because in addition to Deb being so influential in my, you know, New York pre professional training, I've just maintained a friendship with her and she's a friend. And I feel like any opportunity to just grab some time with her feels like a treat. Not that my other mentors were ogres or anything. I just really love Deb. I'm looking at her now. I haven't seen her for a while. I also should also say that Deb is the Paul Rudd of music teachers. She does not age. She looks exactly the same as she did 25 years ago. I'm not kidding. You know, there are certain things I was thinking about just that have lingered from what Deb taught me. And I will say this. She was one of the great acting teachers at nyu, even though she is a singing teacher. So please welcome, my dear, your friend and teacher, Deb Lapidus.
- [07:41]
Deb Lapidus
Hi.
- [07:43]
Josh Radner
Hi, Deb. It's great to see you.
- [07:45]
Deb Lapidus
I'm so happy to see you.
- [07:47]
Josh Radner
Thanks for being here.
- [07:48]
Deb Lapidus
It brings a smile to my face is all I can say. Yeah.
- [07:52]
Josh Radner
Yeah.
- [07:52]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
So a fun way to start the conversation has been for each of you to talk about or tell the story of the first time you remember working together. And it's totally okay if it's not the same story. Actually. It's probably better if it's not the same story. But that has been a really nice way for folks to be able to start being in conversation with one another.
- [08:17]
Josh Radner
You go, Josh, what do you think, Deb? You go, all right. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio. I went to school in Ohio at Kenyon College, a little small school on a hilltop in rural Ohio. So my getting accepted to NYU at my senior year of college and coming to New York when I had just turned 22 was a pretty profound, somewhat vertigo inducing experience at that point. I mean, I don't know where it stands now, but NYU was a very hot school to go to. And I was incredibly nervous. I mean, I had a kind of sophisticated idea of what it meant to be an actor, but a more provincial kind of sense of myself as a person. And I was learning the subways and learning how to be in New York City. I mean, it was really overwhelming. So I think I thought of New York and the theater and the arts as this kind of velvet rope that I was dying to get asked behind. But at the same time, it felt like this mystical land of. It was like a species different than me. And I remember meeting Deb, and there was something so familiar about her. I just recognized her as. I mean, she felt like she could have been a relative of mine. She probably is if we trace it.
- [09:25]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Back, you know, same shtetl we always say in my family.
- [09:29]
Josh Radner
So there was something in her ability to bridge naive Ohio Jewish boy conf in New York for the first time. Me with coming into this different sense of myself as an artist who actually had a right to be there. One of the great things about Deb is she's one of the funniest people I know. And her humor was so disarming. I remember being in her class, and it didn't feel like I needed to decode anything. It felt like, oh, I know how to do this. We sing and we try to communicate the depth and text and meaning of a song. There was just something clear and welcoming about her style and her class. I felt at home, and I felt like I had a right to be there. What do you think, Deb?
- [10:12]
Deb Lapidus
Well, you know, it's interesting to hear you speak about it, because you might have been nervous, but you always felt like you had savvy, which you're not describing yourself as. You're describing yourself as provincial, but I never actually found you that way. I mean, one of the things is that what I teach at NYU is I teach Actors to sing. And there's a kind of a big range of what the ability level in the room is and also the appetite to do it. It just depends with Josh. The way he felt about me is how I felt about Josh. Just felt like we knew each other already. Just something just felt very familiar and comfortable about Josh. And also the other thing is that he was witty. And I know he mentioned that I'm funny, which I am, but he's funny too. And I don't think that many people are funny. I think very few people are really funny. And it's sometimes hard. Josh, I'm sure you must feel this way to keep the ball in the air, to amuse everyone else, so that when you get someone who can actually amuse you, it's pretty darn good. But the other thing about Josh is that he was sparky. He had a kind of spark to him, an energy. And even though you might have been nervous, you didn't wallow in a kind of actor despair. I don't remember that. Maybe you remember that differently. But that kind of actor despair of, oh my God, I'm so bad and I used to be able to act and I can't act anymore and I used to be able to sing and I can't sing anymore. That kind of energy I did not remember from you. I just remember you having an appetite to kind of be there. And in terms of what you'd said about code switching, I always felt you were absolutely yourself.
- [11:53]
Josh Radner
You know, it's funny, I. Our memory of our internal state is often at odds with what we projected, especially first year. And this is a problem with first year actors at a drama program is that every time you get up to perform or sing a song, you continually think you're auditioning. And that every moment in drama school is a referendum on not just your ability to be an actor in the professional context, but a referendum on your soul and your worth as a human being. And it can be very stressful. I didn't feel that as much in your class. I felt like there was some reprieve from the. There was a very healthy permission to fail, I thought in your class, which I rather liked. I felt like you didn't care if someone was a Broadway level singer or a total novice. I felt like you really dealt with people on their own terms. I wanted so desperately to be an actor, but I also wanted to do it with as little stress to my nervous system as I could. I had my spell second year where I was really in a lot of turmoil. But mostly I treated drama school like going to law school or medical school, like I was trying to acquire the skills that would allow me to have a career. And it was hard because I think sometimes in drama schools, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Like, the people who are a little more dramatic seem to get a little more attention still, true to this day. Yeah. You're also dealing with these very kind of unformed, often very talented and dysfunctional lumps of clay. You probably see an astonishing transformation of people from their first year to their third year.
- [13:30]
Deb Lapidus
Yeah, definitely. And also seeing people sometimes right after they get out from graduating to then maybe being in a show on stage. And I actually remember having this experience, and I tell the students this sometimes because as a teacher, a lot of times it feels like you're kind of making a sculpture and you're right on top of it, and you're kind of sculpting the fingernail or sculpting the vein in the neck or whatever, but usually you're not stepping back. Sometimes I think we get so detail oriented where you start to see all the things you want to change, for want of a better word. And then sometimes when you step back and you look at the whole person, you're kind of bowled over and get a totally different kind of take on the person and a kind of different hit on who they are and what they're able to do. And I've literally been almost blinded sometimes by someone's sheer talent that I've seen on the stage that I worked with. I experienced them differently.
- [14:31]
Josh Radner
You mean like, if you see them 10 years out, even less.
- [14:34]
Deb Lapidus
Sometimes even less. It depends on the person.
- [14:36]
Josh Radner
Yeah.
- [14:36]
Deb Lapidus
Because I'm also watching them not so much as teacher, but as audience. And that's a different kind of way of taking somebody in and also seeing the whole In a different kind of way. Does that make any sense?
- [14:51]
Josh Radner
Yeah, totally.
- [14:52]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
So Josh used this great phrase, healthy permission to fail, which he described as a feature of your class, and one of the things that he really valued about you as an educator. So I was curious first if that resonated with you as something that you actively think about and how you make that happen in your classroom or in your learning space.
- [15:15]
Deb Lapidus
Well, I mean, I think the idea of success versus failure is something that I'm not amazingly interested in. So by that, I mean I think that students tend to think they have to be successful or they have to succeed. And I'm just talking about, like, in a class, on a song, on a scene, whatever. To me, that's not important. What's important to me is doing the task at hand, doing the work. And the work is a combination, as Ron Van Loo said of technical things and also things from the heart. There's nothing that interests me less than just purely technical singing. I like to feel there's a person at home. I want to know who the person is. I want to feel like I know the person more through their work, not because they're telling me who they are in a dinner conversation, but because through their work and through the text, whoever, whatever the writer is, I'm learning more about them. That was something Joshua always was good at, by the way. So by permission to fail, to me, that means to do the work at hand and not necessarily worry if you're getting it, quote, unquote, right. And I think that the idea of getting it right is the thing that can really limit people as they're trying to do their work. Because when you try to get it right, you're actually working towards the end and not actually in where you are. You're thinking about, is this correct? And you're second guessing yourself. And the fact of the matter is the word right or correct is different for everybody. I remember someone in your class, Josh, who had a lot of pitch problems, and for that person, a tremendous success would be just singing in tune, right? And for you, that would not be a big success. You know, if we want to use success and failure as two things, right? So for me, the only way to really fail is to not try in a kind of way. And there are people that are. They're adept, they can do things, but they don't necessarily put their heart into those things, or they've just been always good at something and they can give kind of a very small amount and still be quote, unquote, good. To me, that's a failure. Even though somebody else might perceive that person as good or talented, I just find them not actually putting all their self into whatever the task at hand is. And to me, that is how you fail. Trying to do something that you don't do very well is one of the most courageous things you can possibly do. And because I teach singing, which has a lot of baggage for a lot of people, and there's a lot of people who have been told, you don't sing, you're bad, you're not as good as your sister, you're not as good as this person. And then in the room itself, people also can feel, wow, well, Josh is really good, but so and so is not so good. And also, there's nowhere to hide when you sing. So if you're singing, that's coming from you in a way that feels so personal. And whatever is going on sometimes in the material, what the song is talking about, or sometimes in your life, it's very hard to finesse that away from something that's true. You do see people with a lot of raw truth. And to me, it's the people that just don't make the attempt to do something incredibly hard for them. And I think, in a way, and Josh, you could speak to this. Doing something really hard for you, be it singing or dancing or acting in the Shakespeare play or whatever, is something I think, as an actor, you have to do.
- [18:39]
Josh Radner
Yeah. I mean, NYU in some ways is just a daily exposure to your limits and your tolerance for shame. I remember just being humiliated quite regularly at nyu, and I think that's part of it. If you read the Mike Nichols biography that Mark Harris just wrote, Jack Nicholson, before big scenes, would do this crazy, ridiculous dance and make all these ridiculous noises. Cause he said, there's nothing I do will be as humiliating as what I just did. You know, let's get that out of the way. And so I feel like that was part of nyu. Nyu, in a lot of ways, was much more rigorous, embarrassing, and difficult than most of what I faced professionally. I mean, professionally, the getting a job or not getting a job and auditioning, all that can be quite treacherous. But the actual work, you get cast in roles you're quite appropriate for professionally. At nyu, you get cast often in roles you're very inappropriate for, that you would never get cast in professionally. And you have to stretch yourself. But I did want to speak to one thing you were talking about when I said that you were one of the best acting teachers at nyu. My memory of your class, you would, you know, relax your jaw and stretch out your tongue. But you're not an overly technical teacher.
- [19:56]
Deb Lapidus
Right.
- [19:57]
Josh Radner
And most of how you coach a student through a song is textual. That you say, well, what are you saying here? And what does it mean? And what are you trying to communicate? You would break it down like it was a Shakespeare monologue or any other kind of speech. What I found was, for both me and I would observe it over and over and over. If someone was hooked up to the meaning their breath was in the right place, they had enough breath, they would get to the end of the line that they were singing. So I found that you were much less interested in breath control and pitch than you were in what are you trying to communicate? Why are you singing this song? What are you doing up there? Something that you said, I think about more than almost anything I learned at nyu, and I think about it a lot as a writer, actually. You said, play to the smartest people in the room. Always play to the smartest people in the room. And that has been so meaningful to me, to not sand the edges off my stuff. The people who this is meant for, who are going to get it, are going to get it, and maybe someone else will get it on a different level. But that really echoes in my ear that you said that. So I just wanted to thank you publicly for that.
- [21:03]
Deb Lapidus
Oh, well, thank you. I still say that. And it's. I think it's really important to play the smartest people, because sometimes people on stage or whatever, they feel they have to explain things, and maybe you don't have to. Maybe you. Maybe someone will understand what you're saying.
- [21:19]
Josh Radner
Well, it's also. It's an invitation to the audience. You know, like Billy Wilder said this great thing that if you let the audience put two and two together, they'll love you forever.
- [21:27]
Deb Lapidus
Right, exactly. Right.
- [21:29]
Josh Radner
You know, let them do their work.
- [21:30]
Deb Lapidus
Right, right. That's right.
- [21:31]
Josh Radner
Yeah.
- [21:32]
Deb Lapidus
But thank you, Josh. I appreciate that, and I still believe it. And this is why I love actors working with people that have an ability to tell a story, to transform, to become a character. When you have that and a voice, to me, that's everything. There's nothing more boring to me than just watching someone basically make the music of the song. I mean, you know, I'll take Ella Fitzgerald, but, you know, very few others.
- [21:59]
Josh Radner
Yeah. I always felt like when you were moved by something, you were very moved by it. You let yourself be affected by what was happening in the room, whether it was insane, ridiculous, moving, heartbreaking, frustrating. You really felt in the sandbox with us.
- [22:18]
Deb Lapidus
When I started as a teacher, I think I used to feel that it was not appropriate to show too much emotion, that I should be a little bit more removed, or maybe I felt a little embarrassed if I would really start to cry in some way. And then there was a point at which I just realized that that was not useful, and I decided to just let myself go. And if it felt uncomfortable to me or if I felt I was being judged by others, so be it. But I do remember that as something that was not always true for me as a teacher, in terms of allowing my responses to be quite as apparent, because actors are asked to be so vulnerable and to allow things to happen to them. And to be seen. I feel that it's not really fair for a teacher to hold back on the things they're asking for actors to do. If there's going to be a really creative exchange in the room, you have to put yourself out there as a teacher in a way, as much as the students put themselves out there. And they have to know it's safe and that you're human. It's been interesting because sometimes lately when I've expressed myself with great conviction in a way that it doesn't feel very sitting back, but actually really participatory, I can feel that they like it because they know that there's a heart beating underneath all of that. And it's important to know that I can get angry, too, or I don't have to stay very removed to actually be a good teacher.
- [23:42]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Josh, when I was gonna interrupt you before, I'm glad I didn't, because Deb said almost literally, word for word, the thing that I was going to say, which is, you know, a huge message of the book that I wrote, is that scaffolding students to take risks is the single most important component to being a successful classroom teacher. So risk taking is the fundamental move in how you learn something new, regardless of the discipline. And, you know, for me, the arts, for obvious reasons that we've discussed, is the prototypical space where that happens. But the same thing is true in the math classroom and the science classroom, that to stretch yourself as a learner and as a child, to try and be wrong as a pathway to building more robust understanding, is the single most important thing in a classroom.
- [24:41]
Alec Lev
Once again, we're gonna take a moment to step away from our conversation so that Erica can relate some of what Josh and Deb are saying here to the kinds of things that she was thinking about that made her write her book, how the Arts Can Save Education. Around the office, we call this Erica saying smart stuff. It starts with a question from me. And here we go. Two things that jump out, I think, that are obviously related. They talk a lot about risk taking, which you definitely do. If you don't consider yourself a singer and you stand up to stand up in class and sing in front of the class. I can't even imagine the horrors. And also about what you in your book called reclaiming Failure. So the idea that failure isn't necessarily actually failure.
- [25:22]
Josh Radner
Talk to us.
- [25:23]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
So one of the big learnings I've had from spending a lot of time in schools is we frame the discussion about learning in terms of the acquisition of stuff. Did you get this, can you demonstrate on a test that you know the information? Can you do a thing now that you couldn't do before? And that frames failure as a lack of learning. And we apply that lack of learning. We apply it to students. Obviously, you failed a course, you failed a test. We apply it to the discourse of schools. Right? Many of our listeners may have heard the phrase failing schools, where there's some checklist of things that schools do or don't do. In my experience, failure is actually better characterized as a part of the learning process and we should expect failure as part of the process. But because we are so trained to think of failure as a thing to be avoided at all costs, as designers of learning experiences, which many of these mentors, including Deb, are, we have to set up the conditions for people to feel like failure is part of learning. That requires, as you said, alec, risk taking to be able to take risks so that we know that if something doesn't go the way we expected, there's as much juicy goodness in the thing that we don't expect as there is in being able to successfully, quote, unquote, do the thing that we think gives us the good grade, gives us the right answer, gives us the quality metric on the school evaluation system. And like many of these other topics that we have discussed and we will discuss, the arts brings the idea into sharp relief. But that applies to everything we do in schools.
- [27:28]
Alec Lev
Hey.
- [27:31]
Josh Radner
Talk about stepping up.
- [27:35]
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- [27:45]
Josh Radner
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- [27:48]
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- [28:01]
Josh Radner
Jack Daniels is proudly served in fine establishments, questionable joints and everywhere in between. So no matter where you go in every bar, you'll always know someone by name.
- [28:15]
Alec Lev
Jack.
- [28:15]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Jack and Coke.
- [28:16]
Alec Lev
Shot of Jack.
- [28:18]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Jack Daniels, please.
- [28:19]
Josh Radner
Right away. That's what makes Jack Jack. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org Jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks. Copyright 2025 Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey. 40% alcohol by volume 80 proof.
- [28:36]
Deb Lapidus
One of the most liberating and difficult things to say as a teacher is I don't know. I feel like a good teacher will say I don't know or I've never thought about that before. Rather than feeling like you as a teacher have all the answers and can't be unsure of Something. Or maybe you might just say, that note I just gave you, that was a terrible note. Forget it.
- [29:00]
Josh Radner
Right.
- [29:01]
Deb Lapidus
You know, I think that's good teaching for me.
- [29:03]
Josh Radner
Yeah.
- [29:03]
Deb Lapidus
A humility is important.
- [29:05]
Josh Radner
Yeah. When I was coming out of nyu, a lot of the casting people and agents would always say, the NYU people just seem very authentic. You know, they seem like they know who they are. I think, Deb, that you've been there a long time. How long have you taught at Juilliard also?
- [29:22]
Deb Lapidus
I've been at Juilliard since about 1988, I think.
- [29:26]
Josh Radner
Wow. At NYU since.
- [29:27]
Deb Lapidus
Well, full time since 81.
- [29:30]
Josh Radner
Wow. Okay.
- [29:31]
Deb Lapidus
I know. It's forever.
- [29:32]
Josh Radner
Well, just to. Deb won't do this, but I'm gonna toot her horn for a minute. If you look at all the graduates of Juilliard since 1988 and all the NYU grads since 1981, the NYU Graduate Acting Program, I mean, you've got a lot of Oscar winners, tons of Tony winners, tons of Emmy winners. Like, a lot of people who have really shaped culture as actors, writers, directors have passed through your classroom. I do feel that NYU had and has a reputation of turning out authentic actors who know who they are. And I think it's because you have such a influence on the department, Deb, that you yourself know who you are, and you're very authentic. There's a great quote I read about parenting, but I think it's true for teaching. That said, do not prepare the path for the child. Prepare the child for the path. You are not someone who was giving us easy answers. Like you were saying, like, look, this stuff is hard. It's vulnerable. It requires risk. I can't get you there. But you would sit with us and observe us and maybe rub our shoulders while we tried.
- [30:36]
Alec Lev
Can you talk a little of how this platform that Deb laid for you, the work that she did for you, how you take that to the rest of life outside of acting and music.
- [30:47]
Josh Radner
Well, I realized this Deb at Zelda fit Chandler's Memorial. Zelda Fitchandler was this towering figure in American theater in the 20th century. She started arena stage. She effectively started the regional theater movement in America. And she ran NYU from the 80s up until I don't know when she stopped being the chair, but she was really at her. The zenith when I was there, 96 to 99. And she had such strong ideas about the artist. I think she called it the actor citizen or the artist citizen, that people were really hurting emotionally. And our culture did not provide a space for people to Emotionally process, emotionally be vulnerable. She imbued us all with a feeling that we were doing something consequential for the collective. That was what NYU felt like at the time. Deb was squarely in that and felt very much a part of helping me do that. So it never felt like I was doing something silly or inconsequential. It felt like I was being lit up with some sense of mission. I hope I'm not overstating that, but that's what it felt like. And I don't know if the school still feels that way, Deb, but that was really what Zelda preached.
- [32:02]
Deb Lapidus
I mean, the way this woman would speak about the artist and the arts was so incredible and amazingly moving and amazingly just made you want to become an artist even more. And I was thinking about her as we were talking a little while ago, because I remember she used some metaphor, and it was like, about climbing a rope. Like, if you're trying to move to get higher, you have to let go. To go up, you have to let go.
- [32:30]
Alec Lev
Oh, yeah.
- [32:30]
Josh Radner
Beautiful.
- [32:31]
Deb Lapidus
And she would say that to get something, to learn something, you also had to let go of something. So there was some loss in learning. And I do think there is truth to that.
- [32:44]
Josh Radner
I just feel so well served by my education there because it was a place of risk taking when I was scared of failure, and it was a place of vulnerability when I was scared of that. There was so much letting go of the rope that I had to do to even stick around. Even though it felt like life and death up there on the fifth floor at Tisch, it was still safe, even though it didn't feel that way. It was. I'm endlessly grateful to you and that whole program.
- [33:09]
Deb Lapidus
Well, I just adore you so much. I mean, I don't mean to be all schmaltzy about things, but I just do. And I just love.
- [33:16]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
We like a little schmaltz on this show. We do.
- [33:19]
Deb Lapidus
I just love. I just love you. I love seeing you. I love listening to you. I do. What can I say? Say you're just very special to me. And, you know, I just. Just so happy to see the. The. The man that you have become. And now I sound like somebody at the bar mitzvah. But, you know, what can you do?
- [33:38]
Josh Radner
Yeah. Yeah. You know, all of NYU in some ways felt like the Karate Kid training sequence, where, you know, you're painting the fence and washing the car and sanding the floor, and you're like, why are we doing this? We came here to act, and then you get thrown on stage and you're like, oh, oh, I'm painting. Oh, okay. Oh, that's what this is, you know, and you kind of have to put it all together, but you are getting this education. But sometimes at nyu, I felt like the scarecrow, you know, in the wizard of Oz. Like, my leg was over there, my arm was over there. And by the end, you just hope that you put it all back together. And happily, in my case, I did feel like I had put it all back together. But it can be very harrowing to. To feel like you're pulled apart in that way.
- [34:21]
Deb Lapidus
Yeah, I mean, I do think there is some idea, I think it's a very misconceived idea that we have to break you down before you can get put back together. Who wants to break somebody down? I mean, that just seems cruel. I hate that. I hate when people. And I hate when people describe training that way because I'm hoping that they are wrong rather than right. Because I don't want to be the person to break someone down. I mean, that is just ridiculous.
- [34:48]
Josh Radner
And presumably they were admitted to the school for something that was interesting about them. You don't want to expunge that.
- [34:54]
Deb Lapidus
Yes, but you know, when you were talking earlier about feeling just so neurotic and trying to prove yourself in every class, you know, there are people that to this day think that certain people get taken into a school because they got the wrong person. And I think people think that about themselves too.
- [35:09]
Josh Radner
Right.
- [35:10]
Deb Lapidus
They just had my name mixed up with somebody else.
- [35:13]
Josh Radner
Well, it's also, if you solve a math equation that you can actually hand, that's not you. And you say, this is why I'm here, because of this thing. There's something about being an actor that is imposter syndrome is a very understandable consequence of being an actor, because it's like it's me.
- [35:32]
Deb Lapidus
Right.
- [35:33]
Josh Radner
I do know that your class was one that I always felt safest in. I felt like I could be the most relaxed version of me. Your class was a bit of an oasis or a respite from that relentless self criticism, endlessly grateful for that.
- [35:50]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Deb, what inspires you? You said you've been at NYU since 1981, right?
- [35:55]
Deb Lapidus
So, I mean, what really inspires me is just some person that you can give a whole sort of world to, of music and singing and art. I mean, there are just moments in the classroom that are very, very, very moving and very invigorating because you see someone do something they couldn't do before where you see somebody step into something fully in a way that they would tiptoe in before, and no two classes are the same, and no two students are the same. Sometimes it's chaotic or there's a lot of discontent, but even with that, there are just great moments of art, because I get to work at two places that really put out some amazing actors. You know, you get to see people really early on as they're kind of finding their way in their craft. And it's beautiful to see people as they kind of move through training and move through their careers.
- [36:49]
Alec Lev
Do you remember that moment or collection of moments where you said, I really want to turn in this direction also, obviously, you haven't left anything behind, the writing, directing, and acting. But where music became more important to you and why that might be. And can you tie it back to your music?
- [37:09]
Josh Radner
Well, music has always been important to me. Like. Like, incredibly important to me. I was a very serious listener of music, and I went down to the Bexley Public Library, and I rented original cast albums, and I read the liner notes. That's a doorway into another world, right? That you can find. So my first time on stage was. Was in musicals. You know, when I got to nyu, like I said, I knew all these musicals. It was a point of connection with me and Deb. And I think I just take as a songwriter, even if it's me and a guitar, I'm still performing them as a storyteller more than a singer. And that is something I got from Deb. What are you saying? What are you trying to get across? What is the urgency of the story? Why do you need to say, you know, why is this night different on all other nights? That all comes back to NYU and comes back to Deb. That technical prowess and perfection is not ever the goal. The goal is, does this move me? When you look up and you would see Deb Lapidus be moved, you knew something had happened. And also, you know, playing the smartest people in the room like she is the smartest people in the room, no, nothing gets by her. I just think having a formative mentor and guide at that vulnerable place when I knew I wanted to say something, but I didn't quite know what it was yet. But I started to get some sense that if I told the truth, that was enough. And I've never stopped going back to that. So. Thanks, Deb.
- [38:37]
Deb Lapidus
Thanks, Josh. This is great. I'm feeling really good today. I have to go teach in a little bit, and I'm actually really inspired from this conversation. I Think it's going to change how I teach today.
- [38:55]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Alec, how was it to hear your friend and artist collaborator in this context?
- [39:02]
Alec Lev
I mean, what's so cool is Josh is constantly reaching for mentors in artistic, personal, spiritual, and he's always bringing them to you. And he does it. In the interview, he quotes 1, 2, just. He has all these things in his head. Teachers that either he had personally or just people who he considers to be teachers. And he wants to share that constantly. I love it. I love it.
- [39:25]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
And something that I am loving about this adventure that we're on four episodes in is that we have found mentor artist relationships at all stages of people's lives. So when we talked to Lynne and Bobby, we talked to Barbara Ames, who taught us when we were 10, even younger. And when we talked to Sharif Bey and Bill Strickland, Shareef talked a lot about his time as a teenager and in his 20s, and Bill's mentorship of him in that formative part of his life. Deb and Josh talking about the graduate school mentor relationship, which is a wholly other kind of relationship. This is one of the great gifts, I think, of bringing mentors and artists together is to identify these different places in people's artistic lives where they've been able to develop and share these relationships.
- [40:21]
Alec Lev
Fantastic. But you cannot avoid three questions no matter how much you talk. So we're gonna wrap up today, as we always do, with three things. One question. Eric, I have a question for you. What are three things you would tell your daughter about how her father met her mother?
- [40:38]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
We sang karaoke together.
- [40:40]
Alec Lev
One thing.
- [40:41]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
We took a research trip to the south side of Chicago so he could introduce me to the elementary school principal. He was studying two. We went to my favorite diner, which is no longer there on the north side of Chicago, and ate cheese fries.
- [40:59]
Alec Lev
Wait, Erica, I don't know if I'm allowed to ask the question, but I'm going to. What was the name of the diner?
- [41:03]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
I don't remember.
- [41:04]
Alec Lev
Tell us about it. Maybe one of our listeners knows.
- [41:06]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Oh, boy. Okay. It was in Ravenswood. It was off of the corner of the Wilson and Ravenswood. It was one of these late night jobbies, but it wasn't a Greek diner style for any of my Playmaker's lab friends. It was near where our offices in the mid 2000s was.
- [41:30]
Alec Lev
Excellent. If you know what she's talking about and you are not allowed to look it up, you just have to know it. Send us the answer@contactrseducatorspodcast.com Three Things and.
- [41:40]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Alec, I have a three things for you.
- [41:43]
Alec Lev
Oh go for it.
- [41:44]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
Can you give us three ways that our listeners can get involved with our show?
- [41:50]
Alec Lev
I can. If you have any questions, comments or if you know someone who might be a great guest on our show, go ahead and write to us. Contactrtseducatorspodcast.com 1. You can use our very ultra handy Dandy interview guide to talk to your own mentor about the ways that they have changed your life.
- [42:07]
Erica Rosenfeld Halvorson
2.
- [42:08]
Alec Lev
And go ahead and send us your favorite two minutes. It's gotta be two minutes two minute clip of your interview and we will do our best to get it onto the show and to learn more about that how to do it, go to artseducators podcast.com contact 3 Things Arts Educators Save the World is hosted by Erica Rose Rosenfeld Halvorson and produced and co hosted by me, Alec Lev. Our executive producer is Doug Matica and our audio producer is Justin Asher. We are also executive produced by the Fantastic Group at Story Pirate Studios, Lee Overtree, Benjamin Salka and Amy Fiore. Original music is by Dan Lipton and our artwork is by Lyra Evans. Check out our website designed by Cole locasio@wwewww.artseducatorspodcast.com. you can follow us on Twitter tseducators. Yes, somehow that wasn't taken yet and on Instagrameducators podcast. Write to us with your questions and comments at contact and wherever you're listening. Please remember to subscribe, rate and review. It really helps the show. We are proud to be sponsored in part by the Wallace foundation, the University University of Wisconsin Madison and the Gibb Faculty Fellowship. Arts Educators Save the World was created by Erika Rosenfeld Halvorson and Alec Lev.
- [43:38]
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- [44:09]
Electronic Payments Coalition Spokesperson
Corporate megastores are spending millions lobbying D.C. politicians on one sided policies that sends small businesses tumbling. They want to enact harmful credit card mandates that take resources away from your local credit union and community bank, leaving Main street businesses with less access to credit, making it harder for your family to pay for everyday goods like gas and groceries. Tell Congress to guard your card and oppose the Durbin Marshall credit card mandates.
- [44:36]
Josh Radner
Paid for by Electronic Payments Coalition.