Lili talks with Stephanie Everett about the recent production of her show It’s Fine, I’m Fine at Northern Stage (now streaming!), her feelings on being a multi-hyphenate, her work with The Sappho Project, and her hopes for the future of musical theatre.
Stream Northern Stage's recent production of It's Fine, I'm Fine by Stephanie Everett until Nov. 29 HERE!
Stephanie's website
Stephanie's instagram: @stepheve24
Sign up HERE for MT Shorts' High School Zoomsical, Nov. 15 at 7pm.
The Sappho Project's website
The Sappho Project's instagram: @thesapphoproject
The Sappho Project's W*rk Lab
Northern Stage
Northern Stage's New Works Now Development Program
New York Times article "In a Pandemic First, 3 American Theaters Will Do Indoor Shows", which features It's Fine, I'm Fine
Carly Valancy's Reach Out Party
TDQ’s Website
Instagram: @thedreadedquestion
Lili’s instagram: @lili_torre
Email: thedreadedquestionpodcast@gmail.com
TDQ Stephanie Everett
[00:00:00] Lili Torre: Hello! Welcome back to The Dreaded Question podcast. I'm your host, Lili Torre, and this week I'm super excited to share this episode with Stephanie Everett. Stephanie and I met in Carly Valancy's Reach Out Party, and I told her at the time that she was going to be one of my reach outs so I could get her on TDQ.
She is a brilliant actor, playwright, poet, and one of the co-founders and the Advancement and Events Coordinator of the Sappho Project. She recently celebrated a pretty huge milestone by performing her show, It's Fine, I'm Fine at Northern Stage in October as the first live indoor show allowed by Actors Equity.
I spoke to Stephanie before her run of the show all about the process of writing It's Fine, I'm Fine, her feelings on being a multi-hyphenate, the Sappho Project, and her hopes for the future of musical theater.
What Stephanie DIDN’T mention in today’s episode is that It’s Fine, I’m Fine is available for streaming on Northern Stage’s website for only $15 from now through Nov. 29! After you hear today’s episode you’ll definitely want to check it out- there’s a link in the show notes!
But before we hear from Stephanie Everett, here’s a quick update on one of the MANY amazing things Sarah Ellis has been up to since last we spoke!
Sarah Ellis: Hi fellow Zoom survivors. Around this time [00:01:00] last year, I was chatting with Lili on TDQ about the creation of my production company, MT Shorts, which elevates emerging creatives through original musical short films. The world is a little different. Since last time you heard for me, and MT Shorts decided to make a mini movie musical about it.
MT Shorts's High School Zoomsical stars over 50 actors from Broadway and beyond. It's a hilarious and heartfelt, contemporary love letter to the theater industry that brings a little levity, a little romance, and a whole lot of jazz hands.
When Patti Peters, played by Ryann Redmond, a reformed choir nerd with mild social anxiety is unwillingly, thrust into a blast from her past when the Reighdell High, pun absolutely intended, 10 year class reunion goes sung virtual.
The world premier of High School Zoomsical will be held on Sunday, November 15th in a virtual theater that almost feels like we're all together again. Your journey will be your own as you roam the various [00:02:00] classroom experiences of Reighdell High: make a cocktail alongside our mixologist in chemistry; test your knowledge and musical theater trivia in history; get the homecoming photo you actually want with Neeko Booths, and more! All before a special live broadcast and the world premier of High School Zoomsical. The halls of Reighdell High open at 7:00 PM with a live variety show at 7:30 and High School Zoomsical premieres at 8:00.
The best part of the whole evening? Admission is absolutely free with a suggested donation to The Fund for College Auditions, a nonprofit advocating for equity and equality in our theater and television industries. Register with us at MTshorts.com/signup. That's MT S H O R T S .com/signup.
Join us for a party unlike any other celebrating innovative, original musical creation and advocating for necessary change in our industry.
Lili Torre: You can find the sign up link for High School Zoomsical in the show notes. It’s this Sunday, Nov. 15 at 7pm!
So without further ado, let’s find out what Stephanie Everett is up to.
So Stephanie Everett, what are you up to?
Stephanie Everett: Well, I am very currently up to some DIY home reno, actually I'm back in my parents' house outside of DC, isolating before my next opportunity. And I'm very bored. So I've gotten, quite the HGTV kick in me. I'm redoing the shutters, repainting refinishing doors. Like all the things. Yeah. We're learning to sew or just we're getting handsy.
Okay.
Lili Torre: I'm obsessed with that. I mean, hopefully your parents are cool with this, but you know, I'm sure it's all for a good cause.
Stephanie Everett: Yes, absolutely. It's just everyone in my family has just worked so hard for so long that, you know, things, things fall to the background. And now I'm here. And my favorite [00:04:00] job in college actually was working in the set shop, for the theater department. So I kind of know what I'm doing, I'm not just like launching into it. I think they're grateful for that.
Lili Torre: Yes. It's a Renaissance of these skills and sponsored by HGTV. Amazing! We love it!
Well, that's an amazing thing to be up to. Hopefully your family is very appreciative of your hard work and you're enjoying this labor of love. And you mentioned that you're self isolating and quarantining right now before your next opportunity. And we've got to talk about that. Please tell me more.
Stephanie Everett: We've got to, yeah, so I am based in Harlem normally, and I was there for all of lockdown, pandemic, that major...
Lili Torre: That little thing.
Stephanie Everett: Yeah. That little thing...and I got word from a theater, Northern Stage where I've had the privilege [00:05:00] to work and perform a couple of times before, they let me know that they wanted to program my one-woman show for their sort of revamped re-imagined fall season.
And so the show is called, It's Fine, I'm Fine. Which is relevant, always. It's fine. We're fine.
Lili Torre: Definitely right now.
Stephanie Everett: Yeah, so originally it was all going to be virtual. They were going to do, I think three or five shows virtually with very small casts that they could broadcast. And then I heard two weeks ago that they got approval from Actors Equity to have live indoor shows. So this will be the first live, indoor show since all of this struck.
Lili Torre: That's amazing.
Stephanie Everett: Yeah!
Lili Torre: Can you even process that? Like, that's amazing!
Stephanie Everett: Yeah, hasn't it, it really hasn't sunk in. And, and the [00:06:00] thing is it, I started this show... I started writing it and I first developed it in Northern Stage's. New Work's Now development program three years ago.
And so I've been with these people and with this show for a while, and it's still feels like this is the first time and that this is a huge deal and I'm just so happy and grateful that they've included me in this massive, massive endeavor, because to meet Equity standards, you know, the theater is undergoing so many changes. The theater building itself is undergoing a lot of changes. There was going to be so many rules and things put in place for everyone's safety.
But it's a one-woman show, but now there are 20 plus jobs created out of it, which is just so special. And to be returning, I was actually at Northern stage in a new show called Citrus by Celeste [00:07:00] Jennings when the pandemic hit in March and we had to close early. So for this to be my first job back is just triply special.
Yeah. To kind of return home.
Lili Torre: Yes, such a cool like full circle moment and how incredibly meaningful. And I guess I hadn't really thought about, I mean I had, but obviously it's going to be a huge undertaking to try to put on a show right now, but to really sit and think about how much investment of time, effort, energy, money that the theater is putting into, being compliant with these very important regulations from Actors Equity.
The fact that they're willing to do all of this and that they see so much potential in the story that you're telling is truly an honor, but you know, also it just speaks to the caliber of your work and who you are and what you mean to them. And I think that's, that must be such an amazing feeling for you.
Stephanie Everett: I just, I don't even [00:08:00] have the words. Everyone at Northern Stage that I have gotten to know has just treated me like family from the jump for these past three years. And everyone they hire is like that. You know, it's, it's truly going to be a team effort.
Lili Torre: Absolutely. I mean, it, like you said, you're quarantining yourself right now so that you are, you know, safe and able to, to be a part of this and yeah,
Stephanie Everett: My goodness, yes.
Lili Torre: And everyone is going to have to really commit to that.
Stephanie Everett: I was just, I was like, I've been in New York, like the epicenter of this whole thing for too long. I've been pushing my luck for too long. So to have a couple of weeks in the suburbs, you know, blessed that I can do that and get away and just kind of let my guard down a little bit before we go back into hypervigilance, you know?
Lili Torre: Yeah, exactly. I mean, [00:09:00] it's, a huge responsibility and I'm sure that, everyone is anxious for this to go well. And I just think it's really exciting, you know, at, at some point we have to try something and all you can do when you're trying something new is to try to be intentional and to try to go about it the best way possible. And I just think that this sounds like a really exciting first step, really, for all of us as, you know, trying to figure out how we're going to get back to what we do.
So again, I just couldn't be more excited for you. And, and the way that I even found out this was happening for you was someone shared on Facebook an article, I think it was from like The New York Times that was like, "There are three productions about to happen in the entire United States," and then you were one of them and that was insane and amazing.
So I'm just so excited and I'd love to hear more about the show itself. What is It's Fine, I'm Fine about?
Stephanie Everett: Yeah, so I started [00:10:00] writing this show during an internship that I was doing at Northern Stage while I was in college. And I was at Northern Stage at that time, having just quit the college soccer team, I'd been a goalie on the varsity team for two years. And every single year I had missed a chance to actually play because of concussions.
And the thing is with my actual injuries, none of them were all that bad. They were all hits that I saw my teammates taking every single day. There was just, you know, something special about my brain that was not having it. So.
Lili Torre: A lot of things that are special about your brain clearly, but this is just one of them.
Stephanie Everett: Thank you. This was one that is not my fave, but... I quit the team, took a theater class, a musical theater class with a professor who was also the producing [00:11:00] artistic director of Northern Stage, and she sensed that I was having struggles with my concussion, that it was affecting my classwork, even in a class where I was really just having fun the whole time. And so she asked me to start writing about it and it turned into this show.
I had never really sat down to think about what it meant for me to no longer be an athlete after 15 years. I had... I had kind of thrown myself into whatever I could do around campus to forget about that and to, you know, just try to move on. but it was a huge, huge part of my identity that I had lost and then never dealt with. So this show was... I mean, I always joke is not just me complaining about a headache. It's... it's showing through my specific story, how interconnected [00:12:00] all of our choices and all of our, pain, all of our triumphs really are.
I mean, what, what it really gets at the heart of is that you never really know what someone is going through. And so, especially for me with a concussion being an invisible injury. I, four years later, I'm still dealing with headaches every day when I wake up, pressure in my head, dizziness, all these things, nausea, all that, you know, I can't really talk about all the time and tell someone that I don't have time for them because I'm in bed in the darkness.
Lili Torre: Yeah.
Stephanie Everett: And so it's a, it's a show about really. Considering how much of our lives change when one thing goes wrong,
Lili Torre: Ooh. Yeah. I mean, especially right now...
Stephanie Everett: Especially right now. [00:13:00] Yeah. It's I mean, Dealing with the concussion is, I mean, now the symptoms sort of feel normal to me, which I don't know is a blessing or just sad, but, I don't notice it as much unless I'm in a particular amount of pain any given day, but it, what it has given me is so much more perspective and so much more empathy and compassion.
And just knowing, especially in this time, I mean... the person who cut me off in the parking lot might be getting something that is saving someone's life right now. So you just, you literally never know. And that's, that's what it's all about.
Lili Torre: Oh, I love that. And again, for this time, like we were just saying, I, I can absolutely see why Northern Stage would want to put the show on and share this story right now. I think that it just sounds incredible and I, I love the story behind [00:14:00] it.
And it's so interesting to me to hear that for you being an athlete was such an identity, which of course makes complete sense to me now that you say it that way. And it reminds me of how so many people feel that being an actor or an artist is an identity for them. To the extent where when that's taken away, I think a lot of people are left feeling like they don't know who they are or you know, why they exist, as dramatic as that may sound.
Yeah, a lot of people are feeling that way. A lot of artists are feeling that way right now. So I, I kind of love this sort of. Meta sense in which you coping with having to accept yourself without this identity of "athlete" can help heal some people who are going through the same struggle, but as artists and the way that you're helping people deal with that is through art. [00:15:00] Like what a cool thing!
Stephanie Everett: It's so... yeah, it's, it's really just, it has taken on a new life, especially in this time. And I think this is the particular iteration that I'm most excited for because I got to do it at my college and I got to do it in New York last year at United Solo Festival. But every, every time leading up to this, it felt... honestly a little bit like a vanity project. A little bit like why should anyone spend their night out at the theater like listening to me, complain about my life for an hour?
But the more I've done it, the more I've gotten to distance myself from that, that, time in my life and know that I'm no longer like sitting in those struggles as much. And the more I've gotten to speak with people who say, you know, I've never had a concussion, but like my husband's a vet and has dealt with a lot of the things that you talk about, or [00:16:00] my son is going through something, that I didn't really understand until you put it into words.
Lili Torre: Yeah.
Stephanie Everett: And it's, it's just so special to hear that, I mean, these are universal feelings that we have of isolation and loss, and it doesn't matter what the story is we all know, unfortunately, the emotions and you know, how can we show up for each other then?
Lili Torre: Exactly. I couldn't agree with that more. And I'm also really curious, you know, since we are talking so much kind of about these identifiers, I'm curious if before you decided to write this piece, if you identified as a writer at all, or if you felt more like an actor and this was sort of a stretch for you.
Stephanie Everett: When I started writing this in fall of 2018, I was not even an actor yet. I was, I was not even a theater major yet. I was in my junior year of college, my junior [00:17:00] fall. And that's, that was the life-changing three months of my life.
I did this internship at Northern Stage where I got to do a couple of weeks in each of the admin departments and learn about the inner workings of the regional theater. And I got to be in my first professional show in The Little Mermaid LOL.
And then writing this show was what I was encouraged to do in my free time. I'd written some poems before, I guess, but nothing to this extent at all. And it was during that time that I discovered that I liked not only acting and putting on a costume and being someone else in service to an audience and changing someone's life in that way, but also being able to...
I guess I struggle a lot with, and I'm currently in this interview struggling to put things into [00:18:00] words because my cognitive abilities were really affected by my final concussion. And so I found that in theater and by acting and playwriting, I could finally put things into the perfect words, writing them down.
I could put them into the exact order, that I wanted. And then as an actor, the words were given to me. So I, that whole pressure of learning how to speak again, was taken away.
And so the theater just became this... this outlet, where I could apply the same ideas of being athletic and agile and creative and team-centered, team-oriented. And just apply that to the stage.
Lili Torre: Oh, I love that connection. That's so true. That's so amazing what you said about the ways that theater gave you the outlet to speak, what you have to say in the way that [00:19:00] you mean to say it. I think that's such a beautiful idea. And I'm just so curious what even inspired you to start taking theater classes to begin with when you weren't a theater major.
Stephanie Everett: So I done shows before. I'd always been in like my high school musical, but I'd never taken an acting class. And then I took a term off in my sophomore year because my symptoms just weren't getting any better. And I was just transitioning out of pre-med classes and all these things that I was no longer able to do, because of the strain on my brain and... so I that's just a whole other can of worms. Like so many ways Steph could have gone in her path and here we are, it's meant to be.
But, I took the term off and then I decided when going back, you know, if I'm going to have to go through classes and [00:20:00] be kind of miserable for the foreseeable future. As I figure out how to navigate this, I want to take at least one class that is just going to be fun. Is just going to be going back to what I loved in high school.
Lili Torre: Right. And I'm so glad that you did that.
Stephanie Everett: Me, too! Just so many ways our paths could be different.
Lili Torre: Yes. It is truly one of the craziest things about life is thinking about how every little decision takes you exactly to where you are and hopefully meant to be.
So I'm interested if you ever have felt tension because you know, the fact that you didn't start out as a theater major, I am curious if maybe your experience has been a little bit different than maybe my personal experience or a lot of my guests', around the tension that we tend to feel of being a [00:21:00] multihyphenate as people like to say of being a writer slash actor.
Was that ever tense for you or did that feel more natural?
Stephanie Everett: I think, honestly it felt, it felt very natural to me actually. Being an actor, you get an understanding of what kind of writing you like to perform, and being a writer, you get perspective on, how an actor receives information and delivers certain information and what human phrases we gravitate towards, and trends we gravitate towards.
And I mean, also on top of that, I assist a set designer in New York and worked in the scene shop in college. So I think it all, each, leg helps the others because I can, I'm a more thoughtful actor, I think when I'm on a set [00:22:00] and I know how much work has gone into it.
And I'm a more thoughtful set designer when I'm thinking about how people need to move. and it all just, it, it's also connected. And I think the way our theater education goes is that you have to specialize in one. But sort of the benefit of me getting to it so late was that I just wanted to do it all at once. And I was given the opportunity to try everything at once.
So I never really, really specialized. I'm definitely better at some than others, but I I've never really felt the tension I've only ever felt that that helped me having those different perspectives have only ever helped.
Lili Torre: I definitely agree with that. I think what you said that each leg helps the others is, is so spot on. And, you know, I know many theater programs, my Alma Mater included have things like [00:23:00] practicum where you're meant to help out in different areas of the production process and gain some of that insight.
But, you know, I don't know what other schools are like, but at my school it was very much like the thing that we all begrudgingly did...
Stephanie Everett: Yeah you sound so enthusiastic about it...
Lili Torre: Exactly. Exactly. And like, it makes me sad to look back on that because I wish that I had allowed myself to enjoy it more. And I think so much of it boils down to the expression that listeners have heard me say 10 bazillion times, but that idea of, "If you can do anything else, do that instead." is so limiting that there's almost this pressure of like, "Well, I can't enjoy this because it's not acting and I'm a serious actor, so I won't enjoy it."
And it's, that's part of why I was wanting to ask you that and why I was curious about your experience, because I figured maybe you had been less conditioned with that idea than [00:24:00] maybe people who had known they were going to be actors for a longer period of time or who had started out majoring in theater, you know, maybe you had a different experience and it sounds like maybe you did.
But I, I do believe that if everyone had more of the type of mindset that you have and had then, that they would find the same thing to be true. That by being more immersed in the process from different perspectives that each one enhances the other.
And I've definitely found that being a director has made me a much better actor. And I very much believe that being an actor is what makes me a good director and I love allowing those things to feed into each other. And I'm grateful now as a director to have the opportunity to look at the other elements of what goes into creating a show and enjoy that more than I did when I was in college.
Stephanie Everett: Yeah, absolutely. I love that that's [00:25:00] your experience as well. I mean, I think it's, it's helpful to build your particular skill sets, but it's also. I mean, theater is all about building community. And I think when you have an idea of exactly, what kind of work is going into everyone's job in the room, it's just so much easier to have that mutual respect and start from this elevated place of, "Okay. We're really in this together."
But I also think, I mean, I understand why people specialize and it makes sense. I think my mentality comes from not only, I didn't go to a conservatory school, I went to a liberal arts school that was all about, you know, diversify, diversify your education. But I also, I mean, I've always just been a kid who had to be doing 10,000 things.
So that's also, it's sort of just in my nature to want to work with tools [00:26:00] and write and just like have a hand in everything, which is, I dunno, maybe I'm a control freak, but it all just ties together in a way that has only ever helped me.
Lili Torre: Yeah. I mean, it definitely sounds like it. And, now I feel okay to switch gears and talk about the Sappho Project. Such a beautiful, beautiful project. Let's hear about it. Tell us all about it.
Stephanie Everett: Well, so earlier this year I was brought onto this team with four other amazing, amazing women. One of whom was my roommate, so I wasn't a complete stranger.
But right before quarantine hit, we sort of launched this entity that we call The Sappho Project, and it's a nonprofit that is based heavily in production and in advocacy for [00:27:00] women and trans and gender nonconforming, composers, lyricists and book writers.
And the inspiration behind it is the ancient Greek poet Sappho who was a woman and who we believe was queer. And with these identities, she wrote so much, and she wrote things that were specifically meant to be sung to the lyre. So in a sense, she's sort of our first recorded woman composer, musical theater, playwright. maybe a little bit of a stretch, but we were, inspired by her because she was a woman and queer in a time where neither of those identities were particularly desirable for a writer. Or really just in general for a human, but especially as a writer.
And yet her work has survived and it's probably due to those [00:28:00] identities that it's only survived in fragments. Because we know the people in control of the archives have not always been so inclusive, but we saw that story and knew that there were so many modern day Sapphos whose work needed to be seen.
And so the five of us women came together. We are all actors , and we all do something else in the theater industry as well. We are five cis women, some of us queer, and we were finding that all five of us were showing up for the same auditions day in and day out. And we were questioning why it was that we are all such different artists from each other and still finding ourselves, going out for the exact same roles and seeing the same faces in the room every single time.
And [00:29:00] we realized... just the world of musical theater is so difficult to break into. It is so expensive and we hold so many of our canonical pieces close to our hearts as a society. And so we see so many revivals instead of new works. And there's a place for revivals, but those shows so often, or more often than not have these portrayals of women, especially that are not complete, that are very stereotypical, that don't give them any lines.
You know, they're, they're there to move the plot forward for the men in the piece and they completely forget anyone outside of the gender binary. And so our purpose is to get to the start of that problem, is to look at the [00:30:00] writing of musical theater specifically and know that if we can get more women, more trans, more gender non-conforming writers, finding success and being able to develop their new works, our musical theater industry is going to reflect our actual world so much more and give so many more opportunities to those who don't find them currently.
Lili Torre: Yes.
Stephanie Everett: Our work, we sort of hit the ground running and then the world stopped, came to a halt. And so it gave us the It's been a little bit of a blessing from an organizational standpoint because it's given us some time to really sit and think about. Well, we are five women starting a company in the musical theater industry, which is sort of unheard of, but that's not [00:31:00] enough, you know, we don't operate on a gender binary.
And so we need to be actively finding ways to be allies, to advocate for all of our siblings. And we realized that what was so valuable to us as actors who were then surviving on unemployment, the power of the redistribution of wealth.
I mean, it's not a new concept, but we take that to be sort of our guiding principle that we are in a position to redistribute wealth be that financial or wealth of information, wealth of opportunities. So our entire mission is to uplift work that is out there, to amplify organizations that are already doing this work to provide financial, and intellectual help [00:32:00] to anyone who needs it.
And so we're creating databases of fellowships and grants and new works festivals and things that can be applied to. And applications close for our development lab called The W*rk Lab for work by women and TGNC composers, lyricists and book writers. And we are going to develop three new musicals between now and April.
Lili Torre: Wow. That's amazing!
Stephanie Everett: It's a little bit insane. I mean, none of us really knew what to expect. Yeah, we didn't know what to expect in starting this, and it has been a period of tremendous learning. Be that starting an organization and being allies and serving and de-centering and [00:33:00] dismantling and all, all the things. It's just been a hugely, hugely significant part of my year.
But I think all five of us are... we're so I like can't even put it into words, cause we're just so passionate about this and the artists that we connect with and the people that we get a chance to just chat with. We call people up all the time just to hear what's going on and how we can help them.
And it's just so affirming in a time where the theater is really poised to either pivot in the right direction towards including the scope of humanity or, you know, falling back on, "Oh, this has always worked. Why not keep going?" You know?
Lili Torre: Absolutely. Yeah. I, I kind of see it as either pivoting, like you said, or digging its heels in are kind of the two options. [00:34:00] Like what are you going to choose? And something that, especially towards the end of season two of this podcast that we unpacked a lot was ways that we can actively be a part of the change that is hopefully, and kind of inevitably going to happen in our industry.
And ways that we, especially as actors, but I think in general can not wait for the new world rules to be established and can instead be a part of that change. And part of establishing that. And I think that the Sappho Project sounds like such a great example of that.
Of taking the opportunity to nurture and amplify voices that have been so seriously ignored and left out of this industry and give them the opportunity to develop their work and have their voices heard. And I think [00:35:00] that's just really incredible and very exciting.
And I think such a good example of making a change, even if it feels small, niche, too specific, whatever you want to say. But the idea that whatever change it is that you want to see, make that change happen, and inevitably it will support and uplift others as well. But focus on a, some might say like your corner of the world or the thing that, you know, or the thing that you're passionate about and that change will have a ripple effect.
And I think that the way that the Sappho Project seems to be starting out is such a good example of that. I think that's so cool.
Stephanie Everett: Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's not really a radical concept when you think about it... I mean, I think a lot about my own identities being [00:36:00] Black and gay, and navigating the musical theater as such, which is already a time.
I mean, like we have always existed and it's not that all of a sudden the stories are changing. It's all of a sudden, maybe there are a couple people who are willing to put their name, their support, their money behind it. You know, we talk about it all the time when we're thinking about the W*rk Lab, like this is not... it is not a new concept that we have women and trans and gender nonconforming creators creating.
We have since the beginning of time and we have existed in our identity since the beginning of time. It's just now we, the five of us specifically are in a position where we can be part of that change. Like you said, just to bring what already exists to the surface.
Lili Torre: Yes. [00:37:00] And that's making me think of something that I, I think I saw on your website when you were talking about yourself as a playwright, was this idea of normalizing marginalized experiences. And what you just said, I think speaks so clearly to that, that this it's not radical.
It's not this like new, cool thing. It's not this like wild thing that no one's thought of. It's, it's normalizing, what's existed for so long. And what has been swept under the rug or held back or suppressed. And I just think that that's such a, a cool way of articulating it.
And it seems to be kind of a theme, you know, I think specifically where I read it, you were talking about your work as a playwright, but it seems to be pretty consistent in all of the work that you do.
Stephanie Everett: Yeah, I'm glad it comes across that way. I think it does because all I can do is bring my authentic experience to whatever room I'm in. And so, I mean, I [00:38:00] very carefully choose which rooms I choose to be in, and base that upon who is already there and who was really going to listen to me and to take my experience into account.
But. I, I mean, like we said, we started as five actors who were sick of showing up to the same... Like I should not be showing up to the same auditions that they are, you know?
It's one thing to sort of try to reinvent the wheel by just like placing a quote, unquote more diverse token on top of everything. But it's a completely different thing to write my experience into existence and to write the experiences of other people that we're seeing every single day into existence so that we are no longer just trying to stuff ourselves into the box of whatever character has existed since the 1920s.
Lili Torre: Yes. I completely agree with that. And [00:39:00] you know, again, this just kind of brings us full circle on all of the work that you're doing and, you know, your show at Northern Stage being such a clear example of that. And I, again, as I said earlier, I'm just so excited that you have this opportunity to sort of usher in this new era of what theater is.
Both in the sense of in life, with COVID and life after COVID, but also hopefully as a representation of more of what we're going to see in the future of our industry, even just from the perspective of whose voices are heard and what stories are told. And I think that this is just such a tremendous opportunity and I'm really
Stephanie Everett: Yeah. It's it's time to see if we're ready to, you know, put action behind all of the words that we've put out there. You know?
Lili Torre: I want to say that we are.
Stephanie Everett: I think [00:40:00] so. I think so too. I think we're ready. I think more importantly, we need it.
Lili Torre: Yeah. Ready or not. Here you come.
Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for taking some time to share your story and talk to me today. This has been such a treat, and honestly, if you're up for it, I would love to have you back after you finish your run of It's Fine, I'm Fine at Northern Stage and hear a little bit about the experience, especially, I mean, from every perspective, but I think a lot of people would be curious to hear about, you know how a production works in these crazy pandemic times. And I'd love to hear more about how it all goes.
Stephanie Everett: Absolutely. I'm already planning on heavily documenting every part of it. Cause I know every part of it is going to be new, for lack of a better word. So I would love to, I mean, this is really just for the entire theater community to see [00:41:00] how it can be done. If it can be done.
Lili Torre: Yes. Well, if anyone can do it, you can,
Stephanie Everett: Aw. Thank you. So lovely to talk to you.
Lili Torre: Okay, but truly I can't wait to have Stephanie back on to chat about what it was like rehearsing and performing It's Fine, I'm Fine at Northern Stage last month, because I'm sure we could all learn a lot.
Don’t forget that It’s Fine, I’m Fine is streaming on Northern Stage’s website, so make sure you scroll down to the show notes to check it out!
It makes sense to me that Stephanie would be trailblazing theater in a COVID world for us all as her work with the Sappho project is also blazing a trail for the future of our industry. I'd love to be part of a theatrical community with people like Stephanie at the helm.
If you're interested in learning more about, or becoming involved in the Sappho project, scroll on down to the show notes where I've linked their website.
As always, I'm so grateful to you for listening, and I hope that you're staying well. I'm Lili Torre and this has been The Dreaded Question.