Andrew Fox on “Slam Frank”: Make Something Dangerous

Summary

The Gist – Episode Summary

Podcast: The Gist
Host: Mike Pesca, Peach Fish Productions
Guest: Andrew Fox (creator of the musical "Slam Frank")
Date: September 22, 2025
Episode Title: Andrew Fox on “Slam Frank”: Make Something Dangerous
Running Time: ~55 min

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

This episode of "The Gist" features a provocative conversation between host Mike Pesca and composer/playwright Andrew Fox, creator of the controversial satirical musical "Slam Frank." The discussion centers on Fox's inspiration for "Slam Frank," the boundaries and absurdities of identity discourse in the arts, the real-life debates fueling the show, and how Fox's work challenges the lines between empathy, offense, and artistic freedom in contemporary theater. With irreverent humor and sharp insight, the two explore modern theater's climate and its tensions around representation, "privilege" narratives, and the dangers (and necessities) of making genuinely risky art.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS AND INSIGHTS

1. Etymology of “Jawboning” and Setting the Tone

• [01:02]–[08:18]
• Mike Pesca opens with a segment dissecting the term "jawboning," defining it as government officials using verbal persuasion (often implied threats) to pressure private industry (recent Supreme Court case: NRA v. Volo).
  • Quote: “Jawboning is the practice by which a government official pressures private industry into or out of something through verbal persuasion laced with a plausible threat.” — Mike Pesca [01:31]
• Pesca draws a parallel between rhetorical jawboning and the real menace that can underlie language—framing for later discussions about the power of narratives and persuasion in art and culture.

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2. The Birth and Premise of "Slam Frank"

• [08:18]–[09:39]
• Andrew Fox, described by Pesca as "an artiste who looked at the culture and said... I will sculpt it into something," discusses the origins of "Slam Frank"—a satirical musical inspired by serious online debates about whether Anne Frank possessed "white privilege."
• The show uses hyperbolic casting and intersectional designations to lampoon both the contemporary theater world's politics and the discourse on identity.

  • Premise details: Anne Frank reimagined as a Latina, Edith Frank as a "white theater writer’s idea of a strong black woman," Peter Van Dam grappling with gender identity, Otto Frank as neurodivergent, and more.

  • Notable quote:
    “We workshopped it at the BMI workshop before they said, you should not come back here with that musical and if you do, we’ll kick you out.”
    — Andrew Fox [10:39]

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3. Satirizing Sincerity and Social Justice Discourse

• [11:03]–[12:31]
• The genesis of "Slam Frank" is traced to real Twitter debates—many of which, Fox observes, were not obviously ironic. Fox relishes the ambiguity between irony and sincerity in these spaces.
  • Quote: “A lot of those tweets were definitely sincere.” — Andrew Fox [12:08]

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4. Processing the Absurd Through Musical Theater

• [12:42]–[13:39]

• Fox discusses processing cultural insanity through the lens of musical theater.

  • Quote: “You just look in there and it’s just cartoon, you know, flowers singing and things like that—but with. But with a little bit more genocide.” — Andrew Fox on his own mind [12:42]

• Fox mentions theater scandals, such as the controversial recasting of Anne Frank as Latino immigrants, and the shifting "rules" of identity-based casting.

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5. Identity, Casting, and the Shifting Rules in Theater

• [13:40]–[20:21]

• The hosts dig into the history of ethnic casting—the "Mediterranean" or "ethnic" catch-all, and the shift toward rigid identity policing in recent years (e.g., “only a Latino can play a Latino—okay, can a Spaniard play a Latino?”).

• The absurdity of enforcing such boundaries is discussed with references to actors like Giancarlo Esposito and Lou Diamond Phillips, whose backgrounds defy neat categorization.

  • Memorable exchange:
    “You have to present your papers like you’re a dog. Like, this is what breed I am.”
    — Andrew Fox, referencing Lou Diamond Phillips and ethnic casting [18:17]

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6. The “Latinx” Debate and Prescribed Language

• [20:21]–[24:46]
• Fox reflects on his own family, Latinx as a “white people word,” and the way prescribed progressive terminology frequently diverges from the real lives—and language—of the people it claims to serve.
• Describes the performative language in theater circles: “you start getting this prescribed language and pretty soon everybody’s kind of talking like a cult member. And meanwhile the room has not gotten any more diverse.”
  — Andrew Fox [23:13]

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7. Loss of Perspective Empathy and the Didactic Trap

• [24:58]–[26:44]
• Fox observes a cultural trend toward “tremendous emotional empathy, but zero perspective empathy,” especially when judging the past by current standards. The musical is written from the POV of a character with absolute moral certainty and no understanding of history or context.
• "I kept seeing observations about the past that had no empathy, no perspective empathy for the past…"
  — Andrew Fox [25:13]

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8. Inside the Theatre Industry: BMI Workshop, Activism, and Parody

• [26:44]–[32:08]

• Fox candidly describes the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop as a microcosm of contradictions—offering real opportunity and training but also a “parody of a progressive space,” with ironically un-diverse rooms full of people echoing empty activist language.

• “It’s just a fucking room full of white NPR dudes going, I like lifting up marginalized people.”
  — Andrew Fox [28:58]

• The musical’s structure: originally a “making-of” then “full show”; now it plunges the audience directly into an unrelenting satire.

  • “I have felt a lot of pain working in musical theater and I am subjecting the audience to that same pain. Hurt people. Hurt people.”
    — Andrew Fox [32:08]

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9. Hamilton, Satire, and Reductio ad Absurdum

• [33:50]–[37:21]

• Discussing the first big “Hamilton-esque” song in "Slam Frank": The musical’s humorous musical numbers directly parody both Lin-Manuel Miranda’s style and the arbitrary adaptation of historical narratives to current activism.

  • Fox: “It’s not interesting to say, oh, Lin-Manuel Miranda shouldn’t have done this. It’s more to say, okay, well this is okay...Why don’t I follow those rules and see how far I can take them?” [34:36]

• The value of art raising questions instead of delivering predetermined answers—calling out the didactic tendency in modern progressive theater:

  • “The worst fucking theatrical experience you can have...is one where everybody walks away as if they've read an essay and they know what you think...” — Andrew Fox [37:21]

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10. The Pain and Joy Behind Satirical Work

• [38:03]–[41:41]

• The writing process: fueled by both “fun” and “a lot of pain and rage.” Fox describes how the conversations and environments that inspired "Slam Frank" were deeply dehumanizing for both white and minority artists—each experiencing reduction to immutable traits.

  • "Ultimately, it’s dehumanizing...that was also happening in both cases."
    — Andrew Fox [41:41]

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11. DEI Meetings and the Shared Pain of Reduction

• [41:41]–[45:40]

• Fox recounts his experiences with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) meetings in theater academia—describing a scene where both Black and white colleagues feel patronized, diminished, and frustrated.

• “When you’re in the room of that DEI meeting, everyone in that room hates that meeting.”
  — Andrew Fox [42:09]

• The musical mocks these spaces but with an empathy for everyone caught in their dysfunction.

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12. Reception, Gatekeeping, and Risk in the Theatre World

• [46:32]–[54:49]

• Fox talks about his intentional alienation from the establishment—knowing "Slam Frank" would be rejected by traditional gatekeepers but betting on its resonance outside those channels.

• “Honestly, I didn’t care. In 2023, I quit the industry for good. ... I have to make this. This is like a big dump and I have to get it out of me.”
  — Andrew Fox [47:15]

• The show has been protested and has rapid ticket sales, showing its ability to provoke and attract despite (or because of) its "dangerous" nature.

• Fox derides “dangerous” art that’s actually bland, formulaic, and safely progressive:

  • “People will submit these plays, and they’re like, I wrote the most dangerous play. It’s about how lesbians are okay... Make something scary. Make something challenging. Make something that surprises people, because everyone’s bored. ... Give me a car crash.” [54:07]

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 01:31 | “Jawboning is the practice by which a government official pressures private industry into or out of something through verbal persuasion laced with a plausible threat.” | Mike Pesca | | 10:39 | “We workshopped it at the BMI workshop before they said, you should not come back here with that musical and if you do, we’ll kick you out.” | Andrew Fox | | 12:08 | “A lot of those tweets were definitely sincere.” | Andrew Fox | | 12:42 | “It’s just cartoon flowers singing and things like that—but with. But with a little bit more genocide.” | Andrew Fox | | 18:17 | “You have to present your papers like you’re a dog. Like, this is what breed I am.” | Andrew Fox | | 23:13 | “You start getting this prescribed language and pretty soon everybody’s kind of talking like a cult member. And meanwhile the room has not gotten any more diverse.” | Andrew Fox | | 25:13 | “I kept seeing observations about the past that had no empathy, no perspective empathy for the past…” | Andrew Fox | | 28:58 | “It’s just a fucking room full of white NPR dudes going, I like lifting up marginalized people.” | Andrew Fox | | 32:08 | “Hurt people. Hurt people. And I have been hurt by musicals and I want everybody else to feel my pain.” | Andrew Fox | | 37:21 | “The worst fucking theatrical experience you can have and the worst art you can create is one where everybody walks away as if they've read an essay and they know what you think and they know what they're supposed to feel.” | Andrew Fox | | 41:41 | “Ultimately, it’s dehumanizing...that was also happening in both cases.” | Andrew Fox | | 42:09 | “When you’re in the room of that DEI meeting, everyone in that room hates that meeting.” | Andrew Fox | | 47:15 | “Honestly, I didn’t care. In 2023, I quit the industry for good...I have to make this. This is like a big dump and I have to get it out of me.” | Andrew Fox | | 54:07 | “Make something scary. Make something challenging. Make something that surprises people, because everyone’s bored. ... Give me a car crash.” | Andrew Fox |

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TIMESTAMPS FOR IMPORTANT SEGMENTS

• [01:02] – [08:18]: Jawboning segment—sets up themes of rhetorical pressure and authority.
• [08:18] – [11:03]: Introduction of Andrew Fox and "Slam Frank"; premise and inspiration.
• [13:40] – [20:21]: Discussion of casting, identity, and social justice policing in theater.
• [23:13] – [24:46]: The cult-like language of progressive theater circles.
• [25:13] – [26:44]: The danger of empathy without perspective and judging history.
• [28:58]: Parody of progressive theater culture.
• [30:19] – [32:08]: Structural shifts in the musical; art as shared pain.
• [33:50] – [34:36]: “Hamilton” parody and the logic of taking activist rules to their extreme.
• [37:21]: Value of ambiguity in art versus clear didacticism.
• [41:41] – [45:40]: DEI meetings and the universal pain of reduction.
• [47:15] – [54:07]: Rejecting the establishment, seeking real provocation, and "dangerous" art’s true meaning.

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CONCLUSION

This episode is a wry, revealing look at the collision of art, activism, and identity. Andrew Fox’s "Slam Frank" emerges as both a product of and a commentary on an industry obsessed (and often stifled) by self-conscious progressivism and identity rules. Pesca and Fox’s conversation will intrigue anyone interested in the limits of satire, the perils of artistic conformity, and the enduring need for art that dares to offend, surprise, and ignite real debate.

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Slam Frank runs at NYC's Asylum theater Sept 17–Oct 11, 2025. (It’s selling out—and being protested.)

Transcript

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Monday, September 2020 2, 2025. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Now for the gist. Etymology of the day. Today's investigation and exploration is of the word jawboning. Jawboning. This is called jawboning. That's the technical term for it. It certainly crossed the line in terms.

[Andrew Fox]

Of what they call jawboning, and the term is jawboning. If they continue to jawbone the local stations.

[Mike Pesca]

Jawboning is the practice by which a government official pressures private industry into or out of something through verbal persuasion laced with a plausible threat. The Supreme Court has ruled this impermissible very recently. A recent case, National Rifle Association v. Volo, makes it clear. Volo, then head of New York's Department of Financial Services, told banks and insurers, you might not want to do business with the NRA because the NRA is a bad actor potentially, and they later found literally violating laws and at risk of losing its nonprofit status. The court looked at this jawboning and ruled unanimously for the nra, the state cannot coerce regulated entities into terminating business relationships. Jawboning, of course, cropped up recently in the controversy. The coverage of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension, which I think has just recently been announced to have not been indefinite but will be ending tomorrow. But he was suspended by the FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr, and Carr was accused of jawboning. Carr said Broadcasters could do things the easy way, which was exactly what they chose to do individually, refusing to air Jimmy Kimmel or the hard way, which by implication was the FCC fining or sanctioning those stations or abc. And critics said, well, this is just jawboning. But there's no such thing as just jawboning. As I said, just jawboning isn't allowed. Well, if you were to follow what the Supreme Court has said, all nine of them. @ first glance, the word itself seems ancient, and in one sense it is. Animals have bones in their jaw, mandible. But it's not just mandibling. Jawbones come up in the Bible. It tells of Samson slaying enemies with the jawbone of an ass. The metaphor is tempted many since, and indeed Carr's warning might be described as wielding that same jawbone of or by an ass. But in modern political parlance, government persuasion backed by implied threats. Jawboning dates only to the 1960s. John Kenneth Galbraith popularized it in writing about the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration, which often preferred verbal pressure to formal regulation. Threats, after all, are cheaper than enforcement. The word had another meaning, too, even earlier than that one. I didn't know until embarking on my just investigation, my gist etymological excursion. It meant living on credit. A man who was broke was said to be living on jawbone instead of he's out of money now. He had to just talk people into their largess. There's a reason the term stuck in government contexts. I do think jawboning is not just chatter. It is not the same. And there's a reason that we call it jawboning. And that's a pie holing or flap doodling. Jawboning carries with it heft and menace and a real threat behind the talk. Samson's weapon, not a flap of the gums. And as the court has emphasized, jawboning is not just innocent. Hey, we're just talking here. Again and again, unanimously, the justices have said it is an impermissible extension of government power. In this. This sense, as with so much of the law, the jawbone is true to the proverb, an ass. On the show today, it is a full show interview. Because I give you an artiste, a man who looked at the culture and said, I will take this. I will take this raw clay, and I will sculpt it into something. A musical about Anne Frank that answers a question that was bandied about online in 2022. Did Anne Frank ever acknowledge her white privilege? Yes. It became a huge Twitter thread and I'm telling you, a lot of the people in the thread really, really meant it. And this inspired as with all great heart, this was the inspiration to one Andrew Fox who came up with the concept, wrote the music and wrote the lyrics to the new musical Slam Frank Andrew Fox up next, cooler temperatures are rolling in and as always, Quint's is where I'm turning for fall staples that actually last. From cashmere to denims to boots. The quality holds up and the price still blows me away. In fact, the price is so low it's shocking. But it's also super soft. In the case of their cashmere sweaters, 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at brace yourself $60 and the denim fits right. And the question that maybe you ask is what makes it different? Well, they partner directly with good ethical factories. Skip the middleman. You know this really, it's a little bit of a cliche, but it does kind of work. Somewhere those middlemen are making money and laughing and laughing and mocking you for paying too much for a cashmere sweater. Quince has really become a go to across the board. Bedding, bath, cookware, travel accessories. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from quince go to quince.com the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com the gist free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com the gist let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

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[Mike Pesca]

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[Mike Pesca]

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[Mike Pesca]

How does a newish Jewish theater production cause a disruption Cultural eruption. Well, here's the introduction. A tweet got out, said Anne Frank was privileged. So Andrew Fox said, man, if you thought Hamilton was super cringe, gotta make a musical, take the critics all to school and Reddit's gonna lose its brain, man. But what's its name, man? Slam Frank is the name of the new musical. Andrew Fox, the genius behind it and inspiration for my Hamilton esque riff. Hey, Andrew, welcome to the gist.

[Andrew Fox]

Hey, that was, you know, I'm, I'm stuck in rewrites, so can you just write the sections that I'm, that I, that I'm having trouble with? Pretty solid.

[Mike Pesca]

Thanks, man. Yeah, so, but, but it's all true. So Slam Frank is, the premise is what if Anne Frank were a Latina? What are some other of her intersectional designations?

[Andrew Fox]

There are, there are many things I can't spoil, I can't do too many spoilers. But the one, the ones that we are freely sharing are, and that you can kind of derive just from the casting. We have Edith Frank, her mom is, is a, I would best describe her as a white theater writer's idea of a strong black woman.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Andrew Fox]

We have Peter Van Dam is struggling with their gender identity while being raised by a toxic, toxic, straight white man and his immigrant wife who cowers, who cowers from how terrifying he is. It's, you know, Otto Frank is dealing with various neurodivergences. Yeah, it's, it's. And I can't, I can't give away much more than that. But, but a lot of what is on the social media, you will find I just stole from the play that we wrote. People think that we created the social media and then we just kept building it. We wrote, we wrote a whole play, whole musical. We wrote a whole musical. We did a table read of it. We workshopped it at the BMI workshop before they said, you should not come back here with that musical and if you do, we'll kick you out. We submitted it to producers and all sorts of development and grant opportunities and they all said no. And now we're looking at what, what's probably going to be a sold out developmental run. So eat, eat, eat that, eat that.

[Mike Pesca]

The patriarchy. But it all started, it really did start from a real tweet and a real debate based on this tweet where the premise or question was, has Anne Frank, or did Anne Frank ever acknowledge her privilege? Is that right? Is that the tweet?

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah. Well, it started kind of from a few places. There were, there were several Items that all kind of kept happening around, like, I would say, 2019 to 2022. The. That wasn't even the first Anne Frank privilege thread. There were others in 2020. There were. And there were people saying things like, I can't believe they had me crying for a Becky. Anne Frank had no idea what. How good she had it. She doesn't know what it's like for me as a black woman in America.

[Mike Pesca]

Like, there were, unlike you, they were sincere and saying this, as far as we could tell.

[Andrew Fox]

Well, you know, you don't necessarily know how sincere I am or am not.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay? I want to maintain the mystery of.

[Andrew Fox]

You, but you don't know me. You don't know my life.

[Mike Pesca]

That's true. I've made a lot of assumptions.

[Andrew Fox]

I mean, the. The tweet has been taken down, and I think now that we're in this very ironic moment that there's a lot of people who are saying, oh, it was just ironic. I can tell you from having a lot of conversations with people in. In at least the corners of the world that I occupy, a lot of those tweets were definitely sincere.

[Mike Pesca]

Did you want to get involved in Twitter threads, or is your musical theater mind such that you process everything. Everything through that lens, as they say?

[Andrew Fox]

That brings up an image of my own mind as. As. Like, you just look in there and it's just cartoon, you know, flowers singing and things like that, but with. But with a little bit more genocide.

[Mike Pesca]

Maybe Steamboat Mickey with steamboat mixing.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, Steamboat Mickey. Pile of bodies on the steamboat.

[Mike Pesca]

I mean, Busby Berkeley, somehow, with Anne Frank, as around the pool, something like this.

[Andrew Fox]

Usually. Usually these things. I'm gonna sound like a prick saying this, but often these things, they either show up in dreams or in the shower. You know, you don't look at Twitter and go, there's my musical. You know, you see the thing on Twitter and you go, what the fuck is this? And then I saw there were multiple productions of plays about antisemitism that were canceled or protested or forced revision, one of which was canceled by the Black Student alliance at the college. You know, there'd be things like that. There was a production of the Diary of Anne Frank where they made them all Latinos cowering in an attic, right from ice. And I remember I had the reaction to that because a lot of Jews were very upset about that. And I had the reaction of, if this were 20 years ago and that we're playing, I'd go see it, and I'll bet it would be interesting. Why are we reacting differently now. And I was like, oh, it's because back. Back when, back when I was coming up, you had this. You had this category of casting called Look. There were a lot of things going wrong in casting. You know, you had yellowface going, like right up until the end. But, you know, people. People pretend that like, that, like non ironic blackface was happening within our lifetimes, which it just wasn't, but, you know, it was.

[Mike Pesca]

And Andy was in the 50s, and I'm sure that there was some version of it a little bit afterwards, but no non ironic blackface in the 70s. No, not on TV, not anywhere. But a Clapton.

[Andrew Fox]

And to be clear, like. Like, I think. I think that the traditions of. That, the traditions involved with blackface, like literal blackface, I think disappeared. Things that kind of did the same job still continued, right? I don't want to. I don't want to be like, oh, this, you know, this disappeared. In a lot of ways, it is. I find a lot of the most progressive theater spaces and film spaces are often the ones most likely to kind of ask people to play things up. I mean, you've seen the movie American Fiction, right? Yeah, yeah, that's very much a real thing that happens. But I got very distracted here. This is gonna get me in trouble. But basically we had this category called. And I'm not placing a value judgment on it, right? I'm not saying what's right or wrong. I'm not saying what we should or shouldn't do. We had this category called, like, ethnic, right? Ethnic or Mediterranean. And it was basically, you know, depending on what accent comes out of your mouth. Can I believe that you're the person, right? So like Tio. Tio. One of the last ones that got away with it was Tio on Breaking bad, who you 100% believe as an old Mexican dude, he's a Jewish guy. And you would have, like, you know, you'd have Italians playing Jews and Jews playing Italians and Arabs, like worthiness quotient.

[Mike Pesca]

That if you hit, you are allowed to play many any country that bordered the Mediterranean.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, yeah, it's. Do you have. Do you have a distinctive nose? How. How thick does the beard come in? You know, are you using your hands a lot? You know, all. All the different things where it's like, only our group does it. No, everybody except for Anglo Saxons does it. Right? You had all these categories and there was a kind of. I'm not gonna say it was all equal, but at least in theory it was. Anybody can play anybody. Now, obviously that wasn't the case. But what happened was we moved to a model where people could really closely gatekeep. I mean, I. And not just like, oh, if you're so. Like. And it became very complicated because somebody would say, only a Latino can play a Latino. Okay, so can a Spaniard play a Latino?

[Mike Pesca]

That was a big thing.

[Andrew Fox]

Can a. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And then. And then when it came to even. Oh, I forgot who it was. Zoe Saldano was cast as a civil rights icon. But Zoe.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And it becomes skinnier.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people started kind of retroactively doing things, and I think that. I think, look, a lot of these do make sense. A lot of these are interesting conversations when you're going after, like, Giancarlo Esposito, who is half Italian, half African. Right. So he has Southern Mediterranean genes and African genes, which, if you combine those, you get half of the Latinos on the planet. And people were like, how dare he play a Latino? And I'm like, who else is he? Who else is this guy gonna play? The other one was, oh, gosh, Lou Diamond Phillips, who is. Who is part Filipino and part indigenous American.

[Mike Pesca]

And I saw, like, wait, so he's not Hispanic? When he played Ricky, he's not.

[Andrew Fox]

He's not Hispanic, but, like, interesting. You kind of look. And he actually spoke up about this because he was like, it feels like you have to, like, present your papers like you're a dog. Like, this is what breed I am. Because when it. When is a. When is a part Filipino, part indigenous American guy gonna get a role that's like, hey, this is the role for you. He's gonna have one job in his entire career.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, he'll play the 50s star who is half Filipino. I don't know. Maybe it turns out that one of them was like, I don't know if the big bomber was Episcopalian, maybe that's a role for him.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, but you're right. Yeah. So this got me into a bit of a distraction, but. And hopefully. Hopefully, the parts that I want to get edited out will get edited out, but I doubt they will. So what happened was everybody.

[Mike Pesca]

You. If nothing, you are carefully guard the things you say so you don't possibly give offense. I know that about you.

[Andrew Fox]

I mean, you'd. You'd be surprised at how many edits these Instagrams go through. Joel Sinensky, when I was filming him for the one video he did was like, this is like a David Fincher set. I'm never doing this again. I think we had, like, 100 takes and then like an hour of editing for a 40 second video. Right. The. I'm not going to say that these weren't worthwhile conversations to have. I'm not going to say that these weren't addressing real issues or attempting to address real issues. But it was also a lot of people trying to get clout. It was also a lot of people who weren't getting jobs, trying to find a reason why they weren't getting jobs. It got really weird when, like, Ben Kingsley, who's actually Gujarati, was getting in trouble for playing, for having played Gandhi, who's Gujarati, and they were just mad that he was a different shade of Gujarati. Right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. And speaks with a plummy English accent in real life. Yes.

[Andrew Fox]

Yes. So. So what happened was there was this Latinx. I hate saying Latinx. So another thing is I. So I am not unlike what my character says. I am not Latino, but I do come from a mixed Jewish Latino family. And so the whole time.

[Mike Pesca]

Wait, wait, wait. I gotta, I gotta stop you. Andrew Faux X. If that's how you pronounce your name, you have a bit on Instagram where you claim your Latino heritage, but is it a bit. Tell me, tell me if this is real.

[Andrew Fox]

So what I say is, my father's third wife is from Ecuador and my father's third. Well, my stepmom, you know, I don't talk to my dad. I do. My stepmom is. Is one of my mothers. Right. She's from Ecuador.

[Mike Pesca]

Wait, is that true? Is it your father's third wife from Ecuad? It's true.

[Andrew Fox]

A ton of what I say is actually true.

[Mike Pesca]

Right?

[Andrew Fox]

I'm not going to say what, but a lot of it is true, so. So you'll have to figure out for yourself a lot of times, like when. When he's having a men. When the guy on Instagram is having a mental breakdown. In the stories, it's just me saying true things, but I'm just kind of doing. Writing them Tumblr style, like a much more unhealthy version of me. So where was I? So, like, I knew enough from living in that house to know that there was a lot of bullshit going on. And I knew that there wasn't a single Latino in my life who even knew the term Latinx, let alone said it.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Andrew Fox]

And yet every time I was around white people, I had to say Latinx. And every time I went back to my fucking Ecuadorian stepmom and stepsister, I had to be like, well, you don't even use those words because you're not even saying Latino, you're just saying the name of the human you're with. Right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And also even people who are maybe open to that in the Latin community will say, we have a perfectly good word for a non gendered Latin and it's Latina.

[Andrew Fox]

Latina, yeah. And there are some people who stick to Latinx. You know, it doesn't. I know it drives most of the Latinos I know crazy. A few of them are still sticking to it. And I don't think people using a term is the issue. I do think that people dictating a term.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Andrew Fox]

Being compelled to use the term causes.

[Mike Pesca]

Backlash for not using the term. That's the one. So how does that. That's an interesting. That's all very interesting observations and thoughts and reactions to discussion that's going on. How does that become a lyric in a musical or a part of this idea of this musical you've created? Maybe just the Latinx part?

[Andrew Fox]

Well, sort of the idea is that there became this enforced language in, in theater. And I like, I would go to the, to the. Am I going to get in trouble with the BMI workshop for saying things? Whatever, I don't care. Like, I would go to the work.

[Mike Pesca]

They don't like you anyway, right?

[Andrew Fox]

Fantastic. Somebody would, would write a show about like domestic abuse and they would say a phrase like, am I just perpetuating his harm? And I'd be like, who the talks like that. And, and you'd be in this circle where everybody's calling each other folks with an X because folks with a K is not gender neutral enough. And guys like, might bother somebody. And dudes, I'm from California, so like I call my grandmother dude, right? It's very gender neutral where I come from. And you, you start getting this prescribed language and pretty soon everybody's kind of talking like a cult member. And meanwhile the room has not gotten any more diverse. They added like two. I'm not talking specifically about this room. I'm talking kind of about all theatrical rooms, although it does apply to this room too. But I say that with love. They add like two black people and then like one Asian person. And then they, and then they. But then they change a million terms and they go, guys, we did it. And now they're all writing plays and people are writing musicals and people are making movies where nobody talks like a real person. I'm sure you've noticed this. Like, you'll watch like a Netflix show and you'll be like, wait, you're fucking astronauts going into Space. Why are you talking like a theater major who just took a sociology class?

[Mike Pesca]

Right, right.

[Andrew Fox]

Why don't you talk. Why don't you talk like a human?

[Mike Pesca]

Or it'll be set in the 60s and maybe they won't use the most cutting edge terms, but they will certainly reflect the mores of 2024 if they want to be established as the heroic character.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And. And they don't even. So I just kept thinking, I'm sorry, I'm very much more scattered than I was hoping to be. The. Let me try to pull it back to the answer to this. I kept seeing observations about the past that had no empathy, no perspective, empathy for the past. I saw TikTok recently. I don't remember who I'm stealing this from, but they said the new generation coming up, they have tremendous emotional empathy, but they have zero perspective empathy. And so there would be these people who would say, how dare this historical figure under these circumstances think this way, or use this word or. Or feel a certain way about one issue. And I'm not even talking about, like, slave owners here. I'm talking about like somebody who's like, you know, an Irish immigrant who wants to move to Oklahoma to. To get away from a famine. And they're like, they just did that because they want to kill Native Americans. Like, I'm pretty sure they wanted to grow potatoes somewhere where they could grow potatoes. And they just happen to be a part of history. And I thought, well, what if I just write this whole play from the perspective of somebody who has just zero insight into human beings, zero insight into how people think and feel, zero insight into history, and a total sense of their own moral superiority, which I've got to tell you, most musical theater people do. I was at a collab. I'm totally going to get kicked out of the workshop after saying this. I was at a collaborator connect.

[Mike Pesca]

Wait, are you in the BMI workshop? Which is.

[Andrew Fox]

I'm in. Yeah, I'm in the workshop. And I gotta say, I. Like, I'm gonna say this.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it. The BI Workshop. Tell my audience. This is the premier. The premier workshop. The premier breeding ground for young, talented musical theater folks. And Andrew to have a spot. That's a rare thing and a valuable thing, but go ahead.

[Andrew Fox]

So. So look, look here. First I'm going to pitch it, okay? Because, like, it is a program that has given a lot to me and it is. It is tremendously beneficial in a lot of ways. And there's some really lovely people in it and some great people come out of it. The two year program is free, which is. Which you can't get. You can't get that a lot of places. And it's a really, really good curriculum. And then the advanced program is where it gets interesting. That's, you know, they invite you back and you're there as like a lifetime member until you go on the gist podcast and somebody hears it and they just invite you. But what, you know, you're able to get the feedback of your peers, but also like the peers who, the peers who are going to win Tony Awards, they get the fuck out of there really quick because they're getting gigs. And then the people who. There are a lot of people there who are just working, but there are also people there who are just kind of doing it for themselves. And then they're like giving critiques to other people to fill a hole in their, in their soul. And these people inevitably become these like parodies of a progressive space. You know, it kind of turns into the feminist bookstore on Portlandia. So I was in this collaborator connection where. I'm not shitting you. Half of the people in this circle of maybe 40 or 50 people, almost all of them white with Ira glass glasses said almost word for word when they were asked what types of projects they want to do. I like doing projects that lift up marginalized people. So it's just a fucking room full of white NPR dudes going, I like lifting up marginalized people. And which is sort of.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, I've been listening to NPR lately.

[Andrew Fox]

It's no, I haven't. And I'm much better off for it. And that's what inspired one of our slam Frank catchphrases, which is art should. I just wanted to lift up the people who are beneath me.

[Mike Pesca]

So good. And throughout the marketing of this, you say in maybe one out of every three posts or interviews, this is a real musical because people think it's a bit. Now that's a compliment, I think in that if it were a bit, it would play as a bit. If it were only. And you made reference to this. If it were only snippets of a fake show, you could just write those snippets and make them pop as a 1 1/2 minute Instagram post. And they do and they get thousands of engagements. But you always have to maintain and we have to make clear that this is a real musical. And that comes with other challenges like actually making it work as a coherent play and production and story. And so one of the things you do is it's Clear that this is a musical as if it were put on by the most socially justice oriented regional theater company or a small avant garde wannabe theater company.

[Andrew Fox]

Who is the theater company in the text? It is a regional theater company. We will, we, you know, we have options to revise it depending on where we take it. But yeah, it is the entire play. We originally wrote it as the first half of the play was about the making of the play. The second half was about actually doing the play. And then Joel, my co writer, screamed at me for about 15 minutes and then we got high. And then I realized he was right. That is the canonical story of how it happened. And so we just have the director gives a speech because there's nothing better than when a director tells you what the show's gonna be. Everybody loves that in art.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. And also when they say, unwrap your cough drops now. And it gets a big round of applause.

[Andrew Fox]

That's important. That is fucking important. Well, now shows are too loud, so you can't hear the cough drops anyway, so. Oh, sorry, sorry. I quoted, I quoted the white, the, the, the white supremacist Patti LuPone by saying shows are too loud now. But then we just go right into the show and we never leave the show. This isn't like a, you know, this isn't like a safe experience where you go in and out of it. You get to be in this funhouse mirror of all the garbage that I've been watching in theaters and in workshops and having to read scripts as a, you know, to do coverage. The audience. I have felt a lot of pain working in musical theater and I am subjecting the audience to that same pain. Hurt people. Hurt people. And I have been hurt by musicals and I want everybody else to feel my pain.

[Mike Pesca]

And we'll be back with more of Andrew Fox to talk about Slam Frank in a moment. Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

[Andrew Fox]

Honestly, Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new family friend freedom offer.

[Mike Pesca]

That's not the itinerary we're following.

[Andrew Fox]

Well, I'm departing from AT&T and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

[Mike Pesca]

Bon voyage.

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[Andrew Fox]

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[Mike Pesca]

We're back with Andrew Fox, the creative mind behind Slam Frank. So the first big song in your musical, Andrew, is a Hamilton esque banger with lyrics like the Day My Daddy Puts Us into Hiding, I'm going to put it into writing. And this is Anne Frank talking to her diary. So my question is how much of that was to make the point, which is kind of what you were saying before, that what Hamilton is doing is a little bit insane when you think about it. It might be genius, but Hamilton itself is really nuts, is it not?

[Andrew Fox]

I mean, I'll actually pull back here first off, and I'm sure a lot of my fans will be disappointed to hear this. I really liked Hamilton. I had a, I had a.

[Mike Pesca]

Well executed.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, I had a great time at that show. And I don't, you know, people will show up and they'll, they'll have these arguments of like, actually what this show is saying is this, actually what the show is saying is that, you know, if you've got a, if you've got a message, send it by Western Union. What was that Samuel Goldwyn said that I. To me, it's not interesting to say, oh, Lin Manuel Miranda shouldn't have done this. What a dummy. It's more to say, okay, well this is okay. A bunch of people who dictate taste have decided that this is okay. And then they decided this is okay. And then they set up a bunch of rules. Well, why don't I follow those rules and see how far I can take them? Right?

[Mike Pesca]

It's to their logical restraint. Extreme.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Reduction ad absurdum is the Latin phrase.

[Andrew Fox]

Yes, yeah, yeah. And of course reductio ad absurdum is a logical Fallacy, Right. The existence of Slam Frank does not invalidate Hamilton. It doesn't invalidate Bridgerton. But it. But it should raise the question of what are these rules? What are the, you know, if. If we want to pull it back to Judaism, right. The Talmud is. Is. Is a bunch of people looking at. Looking at the laws and going, yeah, but what about this? What if this, you know, you're poking around the laws. And I think something that we want to do with Slam Frank is we want to poke around these things and just. And just see what the results of the poke are. And then the audience is going to have their own experience of it. One of the things that is honestly, like, kind of amazing about the show, it's frustrating because, you know, deep down I have my own beliefs, and I would love everybody else in the world to share them. But there are people who see the show who come away with very, very different interpretations of what we're doing. You know, there will be people who go, I loved that you drew a parallel between what happened to the Frank family and what's happening to Salvadoran immigrants right now in America. And then there will be other people who said, I loved how you showed how absurd a comparison it is to compare the Frank family to Salvadoran immigrants in America. Right. Those two people saw the exact same show. And I think that the worst fucking theatrical experience you can have and the worst art you can create is one where everybody walks away as if they've read an essay and they know what you think and they know what they're supposed to feel. That's what Diane Paulus is doing. To shit on. To shit on the director who saved my life. And I have zero interest in doing that.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it's didactic. It's not fun. You would think that theater shouldn't be that, but you're saying that in the middle of. In the Belly of the Beast, it very much is that. So I do want to ask a couple questions about how you think it would be received. But first, just the writing of it. I would imagine that there was. You actually took great joy, not just in. It's a great idea, but then executing the idea, for instance, in that first song and coming up with the rhymes. Hamilton esque rhymes, but a lot of internal rhymes and a lot of wordplay. It must. There must have been great joy to that, right? There must have been. You must have taken great pleasure in creating a lot of these songs.

[Andrew Fox]

I mean, I'm a, you know, I'm a shit stirrer. And so being able to go like, well, how would Anne Frank. How would Anne Frank do. Do an early Kanye rap? You know, that's a. That's a lot of fun for me. I'll say this. I. I don't think there was a single line in this script that. That wasn't written while high. You know, I did have a lot of fun. I will say, though, that, like, it is. And I don't think this is the audience's experience. I think the audience does have a wonderful cathartic time. For me, the show actually came out of a lot of pain and a lot of rage and a sense that there was dehumanization happening all around me because I think that, like, pain, rage.

[Mike Pesca]

At being a theater person, observing these crazy conversations on Twitter or as a Jew.

[Andrew Fox]

I mean, I mean, where to start? It's. And it goes beyond that because I think. I think it's very easy to make it personal, right? It's very easy to say, like, you know, oh, white man's mad, that, blah, blah, blah. Right? And that's really not it because for several years I was getting the whole, like, you know, step aside, you know, make room for other people. And I was like, that makes sense. That's.

[Mike Pesca]

That's.

[Andrew Fox]

That's fine. You know, it was. There was an air. It took a turn for dehumanization, and I think everybody kind of felt it. You have this conversation that happens to reduce it to theater, but I do think it was happening on a societal scale. In. I'll use the comparison of the. The minority actor and the white actor having a conversation about their careers. And this is one that I've witnessed over and over. You'll have, like, a Filipino actress who's been working non stop for five years, right? Working nonstop for five years. Very rarely happens, but it happens to a lot of actors of color if they're really good. If they're really, really good, right? And they'll say to their white colleague, you have no idea how hard it is to be a person of color in this industry. Right? And the. And the white person hasn't worked in five years.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Andrew Fox]

And they're. And they'll be like, what the fuck are you talking about? And what they're missing in that interaction because they're both seeing each other as the enemy. What they're missing in that interaction is they're actually going through very similar experiences, albeit with very different paychecks, because they're both being reduced to. This is. This is how the world perceives you, and this is how you're going to be treated. One of them is being told, one of them is being told, you aren't even in the running for this role because of, because of your skin, because of your background. And the other one's being told, oh, you're going to work, but you're going to be exactly who we tell you you are. You're going to be in the Imelda Marcos musical and you're going to be in Miss Saigon and you're going to be in this and you're going to be in that and that's all you're going to be. And now of course, and of course the industry shifts on a dime. So, you know, one day it's that and then the next day it's all the roles go to white men and Asians don't work for 10 years. Right. But ultimately it's, it's dehumanizing. And I think that was also happening in both cases.

[Mike Pesca]

It's an obsession with immutable characteristics. And yeah, there's no way for a person to navigate that with fairness, with thinking the world is fair.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah. And I think that like the, one of the big things that we do because it's a very diverse show, it is somewhat ironically but also somewhat deliberately a show about forced diversity. But it's also a very diverse show and we get to get people from totally different backgrounds and styles in a room playing together, which is a lot of fun and you gotta get them on board. And the comparison that I always use is, so I was teaching at this musical theater conservatory and we would have these DEI meetings and when you're on social media, when you're talking about it as an issue, everybody's like pro or anti dei. Right. When you're in the room of that DEI meeting, everyone in that room hates that meeting. So on this side of the room, yeah, on this side of the room you have this like 55 year old black man who grew up in, you know, northern Florida who's looking at this fucking 33 year old with a master's degree going like, going like why the fuck am I having to take time out of my workday and why the fuck are you taking students tuition to pay for this child to tell me what it's like to be black in this world and to do it in front of all my colleagues where I have to, we're now, we're now, now it's fucking up everything and now I'm gonna have to have a conversation with them where they tell me this, that this doesn't happen to me, right? Or where they tell me or where they start saying like they start speaking aave to me, right? That's that guy over there. The black guy is having a terrible experience. Over on the other side there's a white guy who's going, well, I didn't do any of this. I'm not racist. Why did I, you know he's Cookie Monster. Yes, he's Cookie Monster. And they both, they both fucking hate that meeting.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Andrew Fox]

And what you, you know, you have. There were so many meetings where I would watch people go in open minded and walk out more bigoted, right? And every single time I was like.

[Mike Pesca]

Buttigieg even talked about this.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

He went viral for making this point. Yeah.

[Andrew Fox]

Ye. Nobody likes, nobody actually likes these meetings. And if you could just look across the room and stop thinking about why you hate, the specific reasons for why you hate these meetings. Because the specific reasons are very different depending on your race, your gender, your ethnicity, your life experiences, your beliefs. If you look across the room and you go, oh, we're both having our time wasted. We're both having to deal with these insufferable people who are so fucking certain of how the world works and how we should think about it. We're both watching people's money get wasted and, and we both feel degraded in some way. We both feel simplified and reduced. And so our show is kind of playing with that. I think that like, you know, we've got the, the, we, we have a black actress playing Edith Frank, right. In every production of this. And you know, on the one hand, a white Jewish person who comes to see the show might see this as a commentary on how Jews kind of disappear from media and get at least in the forward facing sphere and get replaced by people of color. Right? So any movie from the 80s, the Best Friend in a romantic comedy was always a Jewish girl. Right? And then at some point in the 90s, it became a mixed race black girl. Right, right.

[Mike Pesca]

Or that was.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but, but, but the Jewish woman kind of disappeared, right? She, it was no longer Sarah Jessica.

[Mike Pesca]

Mary's best friend was Rhoda.

[Andrew Fox]

And then, yeah, yeah, Sarah Jessica Parker in Footloose, things like that. And on the one hand they're experiencing it that way. But you know, if you're a black person watching this show, you can enjoy it on that level, but you can also enjoy it on the level of Jesus fucking Christ. Every time that I watch a black person on screen or on stage, I'm not. I don't feel like I'm watching me. I feel like I'm watching the image of a black person that this guy has and that his donors want to pay to see so that they can all pat themselves on the back.

[Mike Pesca]

So this is the last thing I want to ask you about, although we could talk about this forever. How did you think this would be received by your respective communities? Was there a part of you that said, once I point these things out and I do it through the top of the musical form at the best of my abilities, will fringe fests actually say, yeah, this is the kind of cutting edge, actually literally challenging the audience programing that we were founded for? Would. Did you think that maybe BMI would say, you know, it's so good, it really does make us think. Did you, did a part of you think that would happen?

[Andrew Fox]

Honestly, I didn't care. In 2023, I quit the industry. It was in February of 2023, I quit the industry for good. I took a three month gig in China to teach some musical theater and get a big pile of cash. And then I came back and finished Slam Frank. And I said, I have to make this. This is like a big dump and I have to get it out of me. And I said, and I said, I just have to make this. And I don't, I don't care what anybody thinks of it. I don't care what they have to say because that's, that's how you make garbage. You know, I, I care, I care that they are entertained. I care that they, that the play moves, that the play grips them, that it has an effect, that it catches their attention and that it's really tough to pin down.

[Mike Pesca]

Right?

[Andrew Fox]

I do not, I do not. You know, people go like, is it good? You know, I'll get, I'll get calls. You know, is this good for the Jews? Is it bad for the Jews? And I'm like, if you're, if you're at a point in society where you're worried that an off Broadway musical is gonna cause a pogrom, you're too far gone.

[Mike Pesca]

There's other words. You're too far gone happening right now that maybe have greater implication for the Jews than the off Broadway show.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, the chance, the chance that a 138 seat theater, you know, is going to cause, is going to cause people to like go storm a synagogue, I don't think. Look, let's, let's be honest. The musical theater fan base is not exactly the most anti Jewish crowd in the world.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. Okay, let me Ask that question a different way. Not that you would have stopped, not that it would have affected what you had to do, but did you have any expectations of how it might be received by the guardians of the industry, by the establishment of the industry? And what were those? Were they actually met? Were you disappointed a little bit by the rejection you received from bmi, or were you heartened because it just adds to fuel to the fire?

[Andrew Fox]

I had made it, so I had jokingly made it my goal to get kicked out of BMI because I had this project. And then also in 2020, I had brought in a project called the Last Magic Negro, which, which I wrote with. I wrote with a playwright named Jamil Ellis. And I joke, I'm Jamil. I'm so glad that your name's not Walter so that I don't have to be my black coat, you know. And it was a sequel to a show he had written about his experience as a black man. You know, auditioning for shows and consuming media and then raising a daughter in this kind of world. Right. And we, we said it during the George Floyd protests, and it was about a white guy who wakes up on June 7th and is like on 2020 and is like, guys, racism. Did you know? Did you know there's this thing called racism? We have to fix it now. Nah. Right? And then it's basically like anti racist Pippin, where it's like, all you gotta do to fix racism is doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. And then he tries to do it, and a lot of it, and I'll.

[Mike Pesca]

Be honest, a lot of anti racist magic to do.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And a lot of the lines in it were copy pasted from the social media profiles of my fellow workshop members. I literally just copy pasted the things they were supposed to, you know, did they see them?

[Mike Pesca]

Did they know they were them?

[Andrew Fox]

Nobody ever knows. Because. Because the things people say are so insane that when you put it in the mouth of another character, oftentimes the note I'll get is, that was way over the top. Nobody talks like that from the person who said it, but I brought it in and I. You'll, you'll, you'll, you'll like this. So I brought it in and I didn't make it clear that it was satire. And the, and the room was, I think, kind of such a safe room. And also they didn't know me because I hadn't been there in a few years. And so they thought that I was like, well meaning anti racist, trying to make like Schoolhouse Rock anti Racism, but with, like, an Uncle Remus gospel voice. And so I got. Oh. And then, because it was over zoom, nobody saw Jameel's face, so they just thought it was some white kid writing a George Floyd musical called the Last Magic Negro.

[Mike Pesca]

And did they give you more leeway for that than if they know. If they knew you were trying to make some barbed points.

[Andrew Fox]

They ate me alive. They ate me alive. And when I came back, I had to. It was really telling for me about, I think what this kind of theater space is, that it never occurred to anybody that this was a satire. I thought it was very obvious just from the premise. So the next time I came in, I had to say, this is a satire. And then I had to say what the target was. And then they were like, oh, this is so good. We know what it is. Thank you for making us feel safe enough to engage with your art. So I knew the room I was going into. And again, like, they do nurture projects very, very well. I know I'm the black sheep, right? I don't want somebody coming away from this podcast going like, boy, that place is garbage. If you're me, you know, you're the. You're the weird uncle at the family reunion. You know, you only belong there once a year. But. But it is very valuable. It's just that I. I knew that it was going to get a bad reaction there. I knew it was going to get rejected by almost every place we took it to. And I also knew, intrinsically, that if I could get it in front of social media and if I could make it as good as I could make.

[Mike Pesca]

It, now we're talking about Slam Frank.

[Andrew Fox]

Slam Frank. Slam Frank.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Andrew Fox]

Yeah. It would be a fucking hit.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Andrew Fox]

And it didn't even have to be. Didn't. Honestly, didn't even have to be good. It just needed to be the only musical that was taking risks because everybody. Everybody else still thinks that, like, I made a musical, and it's about. It's about somebody coming out to their dad on a farmhouse, and I'm like, what year do you think it is?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And about how we should accept people for who they are and, you know, support following their dreams.

[Andrew Fox]

I made. I made a musical about how we should end segregation. It's dangerous. People. People will submit these plays, and they're. And they're like, I wrote the most dangerous play. It's about how lesbians are okay, you know, what the fuck are you. What the fuck are you doing? Make something. Make something scary. Make something challenging. Make something that surprises people because everyone's bored. Nobody likes seeing these things. Like, that's the big joke about these things is, you know, nobody's going, oh look, it's me on stage. They go, oh look, they hired someone who looks like me. And I'm just as bored. Give me a car crash.

[Mike Pesca]

Slam Frank plays at Asylum NYC September 17th through October 11th. That might be extended because tickets sell out almost as soon as they go online. We also should note that if you wish to sign the change, Dawg, stop. The opening of Slam Frank, a disrespect to Jewish history. There are 560 verified signatures now, so you could get on that if you want to. Andrew Fox, the creator of Slam Frank. Thank you so much.

[Andrew Fox]

Thank you so much.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the gist. Ashley Kahn's our production coordinator Kathleen Sykes writes the gist list with me. Text Mike at 33777 for a great discount on that. Jeff Craig runs our socials. Michelle Pesca is COO of Peach Fish Productions in Peru. G Peru de Peru. And thanks for listening.

[Andrew Fox]

Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads. Com. That's L I B S Y N Ads. Com. Today.