Hi, I'm Stephanie J. Block and I'm Mary Lee Fairbank. Welcome to Stage is podcast where we're bringing creation and connection to center stage. Stage's podcast is sponsored by Better Help. I love summer. Everybody knows that when you walk on the beach, you feel better. But did you know why? Every time a wave splashes on the sand, it produces something called negative ions that elevate our mood. But sometimes we need a little more guidance than the sun, sand and surf can provide. That's where Better Help can come in. A good therapist can guide us to better understanding life's ebbs and flows. Better Help offers customize online therapy, either on video or live phone chat sessions. You can speak to someone in under forty eight hours, and Better Help is more affordable than in person therapy. Right now, Stage's podcast members receive ten percent off their first month with Better Help. So how about it, Get out in the sunshine, get some sand between your toes, and give Better Help a call. So many of our listeners have called Better Help, and we thank you because when you support our sponsors, you support Stages podcast, all while supporting your own well being. So log on to Better Health. That's h e LP, slash stages and start loving life. We've been trying to do this for eons and I've been so deeply busy. And my mother came home from having dinner with you. The first she opens the door, she goes, text Mary leave. Now. I'm so funny because at dinner we're talking, she said, I come to tell us not on the show. I'm like, I've been asking her. She's so busy. She answer, I'll take care of that, and she did. Wednesday, you're seeing Mary le clear. She texts me right back, and I go, you're afraid of your mama, aren't you. You bet your ass I am. I'll be their own Wednesday. Let's be very clear. I love my mother very much. I will be sixty years old and terrified of my mother. She's not a woman to be messed with, no matter, no matter who you are to her. No, no, you want her on your team, That's all I'll say. Exactly where you. I have known today's guests since she was about two weeks old. She's now twenty two years old, and I would say she is one of the most formidable, courageous and talented twenty two year roles that I have ever met. In twenty nineteen, she and her diva mother made history as the first mother daughters in starring roles on Broadway. At the same time, her mother, Leschance, was in a Christmas Carol and our Guest was starring in Jagged Little Pill as Frankie Heally. She won the Antonio Award and the Grammy Award, and was nominated for a Tony Award for that performance. She's now starring in the Paramount Plus original series Star Trek Strange New World as Cadet Niyoto Uhura. Please welcome to Stage's podcast, The Incredible Sell you Rose Gooding. Tell your Rose Gooding to stage. Please, Miss Gooding, please come to stage. Yeah, thank you for that introduction. That makes me sound much cooler than I feel like I really am. No, you really are super cool. Thank you. You know, I remember spending Christmas at your house when you're about twelve years old, and even then, even then, at such a young age, you just command a room. You'd walk in and there's like an aura and an energy and a vibrancy that was undeniable. It's undeniable. All eyes sort of turned to you. And of course that's how both you and your mother are on stage as well. Do you remember having that power or that essence at such a young age. Um. I remember having it, yes, but I didn't think of it as a power. I thought of it as something not necessarily wrong, but I thought it was. I knew that I had something that the people around me didn't have, and that was at first when I didn't understand what it was and I didn't understand how I could utilize it. It was a really serious point of isolation for me because I was like, I'm I'm I'm a real loud, dramatic, bubbly person, and a lot of people around me don't know how to respond to that. A lot of my teachers when I was little did not know how to respond to that. A lot of my peers didn't know how to respond to that. And so once I got older and realized, like, oh, if I can actually hone this in and craft it, I had a vibrance and and a not brilliance academically, but brilliance in like how like metal and and things that shine can be brilliant to look at. I had that, felt it in my blood, and it's something. It was just something that I didn't know how to deal with. So I went through my years of squandering it and trying to make it small, and then that wasn't sustainable, so I had to sort of face it and live with it. And then I started working professionally. So it all happened pretty fast. I started working professionally at like seventeen, and I was in high school, and I realized, like, oh, the thing that I thought was isolating me from my peers is actually the thing that I was meant to tap into and my life with. So yeah, how much of that sort of IT factor? I mean, that's what we would call it, right, an IT factor? I think it's something that both you and your mother have. I mean, when you're on a stage, that's what the audience looks at. No matter what else is happening on stage, the eyes are drawn to you or to your mom because you have that sort of tangible electric thing that happens to certain people on stage. But how much of that would you say you attribute to growing up literally in dressing rooms and running around backstage, being surrounded by the vibrant, fun, sort of you know, kind of crazy theater people that you grew up with. I mean, you grew up with that world. I would say it's a good fifty fifty split. I would say fifty percent of it was just something that I had that I couldn't shake even when I tried to. And then the other fifty percent of it was growing up and like living in dressing rooms and being surrounded by such incredibly iconic but also just like so many strong people who were so confident within themselves or had this air of confidence within themselves, and there were things that I would see within myself and these other people, and watching other people love it so much, and then seeing thousands and thousands of strangers pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go sit and watch people live in that thing that I was trying to stifle, that really cracked my mind open of like, oh no, I'm kind of sickening. Wait a minute, right, right time. And so yeah, I would say growing up and being surrounded by theater people and coming from a community of theater people. I was raised by my community, and my community is filled with a lot of theater people. So and having my community uplift that and pretty loudly and almost embarrassingly cheer it on it pulled it out of me in a way that I didn't understand at the time, but now that I'm older, I realized that, like, if it weren't for my theater community, I'd probably be a very very upset, confused person doing something that I was not meant to do. Right, Because when you're in a space that says I see you, You're allowed to be who you are, and then that child can explore and embrace and find themselves in that beautiful, noisy incompa sing in loving environment. I think you're right. I think that fifty fifty Smith, maybe it didn't learn from them per se you witnessed, and that seed that already was within you grew because it was allowed to. You know what I mean, the garden was fertile. Where backstage and in that community for sure? Exactly what's your earliest memory of seeing your mom up there? Oh, my earliest memory of seeing my mom on stage? I would probably say, well, the earliest memory that I have of seeing my mother on a stage was honestly sitting I was like six years old, sitting in a hotel room watching my mom received her Tony Award. That's like my first memory of seeing my mother on a stage and understanding like, Oh, that's my mom. She's on stage and she's having a great time. I didn't get to my mother didn't want me and my sister watching a lot of her in the color purple for obvious reasons, simply because it's a heavy show. It's a heavy character. And but my first memory of seeing my mom on stage and being like, oh my god, she's having so much fun was watching her receive the tony. Yeah, it was a a moment that I look back to often when I think of, like what really sparked my love for theater? Things progress for you pretty early. I mean, you know, you're talking to some old ladies here. So when we hear working professionally at seventeen, what did that look like for you? So you're in high school, you're actively auditioning, or did little by little like peeling an onion? Did it just start to all happen. It all started to happen right after my seventeenth birthday. I turned seventeen in February twenty se it and March came around and my mother was talking to me about this twenty nine hour reading. I had no idea what that was of this show called Jack a little pill that a dear friend of hers, Tom Kitt was musically directing. She was like, they're looking for unheard of young black talent. Like maybe put your name in. It's Atlantis Morris set, Like just think about it. That they would only need you for a reading. It wouldn't be a big thing. But they're getting down to the wire and they need somebody and they haven't found somebody yet. And I was like, okay, so I stopped. I was in the middle of a guitar lesson. I was like, Hey, can we use these last thirty minutes of our lesson for you to play You Ought to Know? And me sing along in my ridiculously echoe basement with horrible acoustics. I didn't think anything would come of it. And that's when things really like springboarded was. I did a twenty nine hour reading. I met the directing team, the creative team, and they were like, we need you for these days. I went to school. I was a junior in high school and I was like, hey, um, so I have a proposition for you. Did the reading. I m missed one day of the reading because my mother forced me to go to my junior prom because I was so work mine. At that point, I was like, I'm working, I've got time for prom. But I felt the same way. So yeah, I felt the same way. I never went to PROMT time. I'm trying to work. Um and and it was my first, like really like paying gig, my first professional gig. It was just I was so hungry for it. I was like, I want to work, and my mother was, so, you're going to have this, this normal human experience. Are you happy for that that she forced you to do that? Yes? Yeah, because I know why she did it. In the moment, I still think like I could have used that extra day, but I understand why she wanted me to go. I'm I'm glad she did. I needed that just because of a myriad of reasons. Your mom knew what was in store for you. She knew, she knew there'd be plenty of work, and there's one junior prom, and she probably knew you weren't getting to you senior prom, and I didn't. I knew your mother had the foresight to say, you know what, there's there's going to be work all the time. Let's just have this little last bit of high school squeezed in there before you get sucked into the vortex of all the exciting things that are coming your way. She knew your mom is a smart lady. Oh my god, one of one of the smartest ladies I know. But she she definitely I'm sure that was her thought process. And she made me go and I was excited to go, and I looked great, um, and then I left my prom early. My prom date was trying to get me to go to some after prom party. I was like, I have work in twelve hours. Good night to you, sir, and I went home, went to bed and had the patient the very next day. Listen, that prom date is dining out on the fact that he got to take you. Tom tell you right now, it's gonna be dining out on that for a long time. Hilarious. So yeah, was that your first submission though, or had you been auditioning before that. I think that was my first submission. Wow, oh my gosh. Because my mother she didn't. I think she didn't want me to get into theater that early. I wanted to start auditioning. I was with her to start auditioning, but she was like, you have to get you have to go to college. Not college first, you have to at least finished high school first. You have to get your high school degree first. She really wanted me to start working professionally after I got a college degree. She didn't get, but she wanted there. But she had the energy of like, listen, theater will always be there, Broadway will always be there, and they will be very lucky to have you, but you have to get an education first. And I had my opinions on it, but she was right, as she always is. Yeah, I think that was one of the first things I like professionally submitted for and they liked me, and I worked with that show for oh god, three four years, yeah, almost four years. I worked with that show and it was my first professional credit and it was just the workshops and then the out of town tryout at art in Cambridge was that took place during my senior year and senior year of high school. I went to them again and I was like, hey, remember that last year for a week, and how much of a fight it was to get me to to to just go for a week. I want to leave for three months, and they let me, which was incredible. I think they had an understanding of like, if the show does well, it would be great to have an alumni in a well credited Broadway show, because just at the school that I went to, the arts program was the last thing thought about. It was a public, public school. No, I went to a school in Terrytown. I went to Hackley School. Shout out to the hack Okay go Hornets. I went to them and I was like, listen, please, please, please please. The show was going to do super great. I really want to do it, and my teachers knew that I was going to be an artist. I think my like the administration at my school knew that I was going to be an artist, and so I think they knew that it was in their best interest to get me out of the door early so that they could a have an alumni in a show that's done really well and also have someone who's in the arts who doesn't feel as though their school helped them back. They were like, Okay, we're gonna put you on a passcale system. Please pass your classes, go to Boston, have fun. Your senior project will be this. You'll do an you'll write something about it, and you'll have a meeting with your teachers about it, and you'll get your diploma. So your senior project was actually writing about the experience I had to do like a presentation in for some of my teachers. But yeah, I think, um, they did what any good teaching community would do, and they let me go do the thing that I was born to do. I wish more schools operated that way, that they saw what what what is the kids? You know, superpower if you want to call it that. And because not all kids are academically gifted where they can memorize and regurgitate, and if and if schools, if there was some way for kids to be put into different little categories what they're really how they shine? Do they learn with working with their hands? So they learn through music? How do they learn? I just think we would this the whole country would benefit because I think kids get really discouraged when you take this sort of this sort of an essence and you try to shove it into a different kind of box. Yes, this doesn't work, and then they get discouraged and hate school. There are pedagogies where that practical learning and that service sort of learning. We're going, Oh, I recognize the innate talent in this person. Let's skew the lessons so that they understand it, they feel like they're really embracing that sort of learning. We recently took a vacation to Norway and there were a lot of people from the UK and France, and we met this couple and they had taken their son out of school for a week just to take this vacation, and each parent had to pay the school one hundred the equivalent of one hundred and fifty dollars a piece for every day this child was missing school. So unless it's like a scheduled holiday within the school schedule, or it's a day of bereavement or a sick day, each parent has got to pay one hundred and fifty dollars. The school is being supplemented by the government in some way, and they get that money because of attendance, because of test scores, because of all of those numbers that add up in bureaucracy, and if you're going to miss then you have to applement them out of your own pocket because that child is not attending. And I thought, oh my god, that's very That was one time where I looked at Europe and went, oh, you're stricter in that regard than here in the States. That seemed like a costly venture. We'd all the School of Fortune because we would pull sebout all the time, because to me, it was a way better education to spend a week in you know, a foreign country and eat the food and try to clear out the language as a little kid, like, to me, that's way more important than reading from a book. But agreed, agreed, So sell you. You just wrote a piece in the Hollywood Reporter. So Nichelle Nichols passed away and they asked you to come write a piece. Tell me about that. Yeah, so originally it wasn't even supposed to be me who wrote it. The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Alex Kurtzman, the like executive executive executive producer of Start Exchange New Worlds, and it was right after Nichelle's death, and they said, they asked me, like, we're looking to hear from someone who is on the star Chek team, just some words to honor Nichelle. And he was like, do you want to write an op ed for the Hollywood Reporter? They need it tomorrow. And I'm wow, sure, I haven't written anything since I was a high schooler. I didn't do a lot of writing in college. I tried to avoid that as much as I could. So I called my high school creative writing teacher, who was one of the teachers who really really advocated for me to go and to work, and she helped me out. She helped me write the entire thing. I spoke to her that night, I wrote something out, I sent it to her. She read it and edited it and sent it back to me, and I wrote some more and then I sent it to the Hollywood Reporter people. But it very much like the stress of writing it down and being like, that's when I think, all of these years I filmed two seasons of the show already writing that paper was when it really like clicked to me who I was and who I was playing, and what legacy I was stepping into. When I had to read about it and then write about it in my own words, that's when I was like, Oh, I'm Uhura. Her legacy, the legacy that was built upon the establishing of this character is the same character I'm playing, so ridiculously overwhelming. Was that your angle, like stepping into the shoes or understanding the character, or how Nichelle was such a trailblazer? What was the angle? Maybe all of those things. It was all those things, and also it was the angle of being a black woman in a predominantly white space and making a way for yourself and also holding the door open for the people behind you. That was my angle of Like I used to grow up as a young girl looking up to a lot of incredible people and dreaming that I could be one of those people. But going to school and being surrounded by people who did not share my lived experience, and people who were represented, and people who could see themselves in the world around them, and people who weren't trying to stifle anything or trying to There were people who saw themselves in the world and therefore felt as though they could live in the world freely. I did not have that advantage, because that's what it is. It is an advantage, And so putting myself up really reckoning with that and wrestling with that, And then talking about Michelle's experience, who was someone who didn't even want to continue being in Star Trek as long as she was. She saw what they were doing with her character and she was like, this isn't what I want to do. But it was doctor King who inspired her and spoke life into her experience and was like listen. We need you. We need you to keep going. We need you to represent us in a way that is not in servitude and enslave it. We need positive representation because until we see ourselves in the world, we will not find reason to exist in the world. And that was my angle of like, it's all about representation and permission. Mischelle is not only the reason why I'm playing this character, but she's the reason why I have a career. She was breaking down barriers by simply existing and also fighting her inner demons that were brought up by not seeing herself in the world. And I think you said in the article, you know, to have a woman represent someone who wasn't a sidekick or being abused in some way, or being the maid, or being the second class citizen. This was a woman who stood on her own two feet. And to see that as a as a black woman playing that role at that time, was a completely unique experience. Yeah, and I'll take it even one further. Hura to me, wasn't just capable, like she was exceptional, right sentful? And they do you feel as an actor that they, the producers, the writers are giving you that same opportunity. I remember somebody a fellow actors saying, you speak twelve languages and you respond thirty seven. So I'm hoping that that language and those opportunities are there to say no, no, I'm not just here to you know, make it all run smoothly. I am exceptional. It happens because of my presence in this space, right, Yeah, Yeah, it's it's it's a weird I as an actor understand that that's where we're going, but as a character, we're seeing her at her like very beginning Colonel states of her not even understanding the power that she has, and I find that so yummy. But this is so interesting because it's the same thing you were just talking about yourself. You have this aura, you have this power. You didn't know what it was, but you understood it had some effect on people as you encountered them in your world. And she it's like a mirror of what you actually went through as your own young man. I'm a bit of a person. I'm a bit of a star trek purist. My dad watched all the time. Yeah, and the marriage between who you are now I'm not even going to pretend that I know you personally, but what I get from you on the screen and interviews written word. The marriage is amazing, the marriage of the energy is amazing. Thank you. I have been blessed with opportunities to play characters who have shared an experience that I've lived, but to also mirror and study my own experience in a way that I wasn't able to do in high school. I had such a like a survival I'd set in high school that I really didn't have an opportunity to step back and say, how am I doing, how am I feeling, What's going on in the world around me? How do I respond and see them and really tap back into those incredibly emotional spaces that I didn't feel safe existing in when they were my realist experience. But now I'm older, going back to that sort of mindset and being like, oh, this is incredibly recognizable. I know exactly what this is. I know exactly where they are, I know exactly who this person is and what they're dealing with. And not only can I have this experience for them, I can also have it for young me. It's wild to play a young girl not understanding the power that she has, second guessing herself every day, trying to figure out what's worth it and what isn't and still being charged to keep going, and having people around her who are like, Hey, you may not believe in you, but we do, and having those almost exact same conversations that I had when I was little but didn't have the mental capacity to stick with. But I got a pop quiz for you. Do you know what? Do you know what in Swahili it does? It means freedom? Yes, her full name. Her full name means star freedom. And I really do feel I'm gonna cry. I really do feel that this moment, this character, it is freeing of a star within me that I didn't even understand. This role has allowed me to free myself in a way that I really don't think I would I would have been able to if I didn't have Jagon, and if I didn't have this experience, and if I didn't go through my high school and adolescent life trying to stifle the star. All right, Well, speaking of stars, I know you're really into a strology and stuff. I am, all right, So we got to talk a little about this because a couple of weeks ago, Stephanie and I were playing with the Destiny card book. Do you know that book. We were playing with that, but I don't destiny. I'll send it to your your birthdate matches up with a card like from the card deck. Oh cool, yeah, like I'm nine of diamonds and anyway, yeah, so, and then it's broken down into like sections for the year and you can see what your section is. But let's talk about astrology. How'd you get into the um. I got into it because I got into astrology the same reason I got into theater. I am very desperate to find myself and feel explained and understandable because so much of my life I went through the world feeling deeply misunderstood because a lot of them merrily. You know, a lot of things in my life have happened just for the sake of happening. My my father passing, my stepfather being the worst personal life, my school experience going the way it did. There was just so much of my life happening around me and me not understanding why. And I there's a lot of turmoil for a young person, a lot of turmoil, and I desperately needed something to feel concrete and undeniably truthful, and that was astrology to me. I would read my signs and I would read my entire birth chart and I'd be like, Oh, this is why I am the way that I am because of the stars in the sky. And I found that in reading my birth chart and then reading my loved one's birth charts, it gave me an understanding of like, oh, maybe life isn't all completely random by chance. Maybe there are some things that are destined. Maybe there are some things that are explainable. Maybe there is a reason and a cause for things. And that gave me such an overwhelming amount of peace. And now it is just another tool of communication. It's something that I used to help better understand myself, and it's something that I used to help better understand the people around me. I think it helps life feel less random and out of control. Yeah, right, when you feel like, well, there's some things that really are without like not in my control, and then other things are just going to happen inside this space and this will pass. And so do you do like rituals with the full moon and all of that kind of thing. I used to I used to I used to really do the whole um, not like like put out on my crystals under a full moon and water bottles. So I could have new Moon water and full Moon water. Then just because my life sped up and I didn't. I found it right before I started working professionally. And then I started working professionally, and because of the security that a job provides, I felt as though I had a bit more control over my life. So I didn't need to try and will the universe into into Following my death, Tony, I I put a little bit more faith in the universe and trust in the universe and let it sort of guide me. The amazing thing now is you're up at this. I'm going to be such a nerd, but now you're in the stars. Yeah, the whole life is in the stars in the sky and you're traveling the universe like so for me, I know that sounds silly, but I feel like it's all part of the fabric to where you needed to be right. I look at Sebastian, my husband, and he went to school for political science. Everything was going to be that government laws. He didn't think he wanted to be president. Well, he definitely knew he didn't want that. He didn't want law. But every time he auditioned for something that was politically minded, whether it was House of Cards or Madam Secretary. Immediately it felt like home to him. He would get cast. And it's because of everything that led up to that moment informed that moment. The people that made the decision saw that and went, oh, well, this of course makes sense. They saw the stars in you. They saw it all your your beliefs in the astronomy. It's always there. I completely agree with you. The universe sends you signs and clues about your future, and you probably won't even realize it was a sign and a clue until you're in the moment they were trying to sign to clue you about. So my college dorm with my best friend to this day was eleven oh seven. That was our room number. The number of the enterprise ship that I work on is seventeen oh one. Which are these same digits that make up eleven h seven? Come on now? Like the walls of the room. My childhood bedroom ended up being the same color they used for a lot of the advertising for Jacked Little Pill. I have like a tapestry of a left hand, and it had all the lines for the planets and the playbill for Jack A Little Pill ended up being a left hand. It was a left hand, my hand, and so just I think it was the image or having that tapestry right by my bed that I slept and faced every single night, faced the poster. The background of the playbill ended up being the walls of my room super imposed behind the hand, like my childhood bedroom had been for years. This is like one of those simulation moments where you just got are we really living or are we in a simulation? And I just looked so many moments like that. Are we noticing the stars that I wore? I mean, all right, I love I love a good thing. Tell yeah, yeah, it looks great, it looks fantastic. So my next question is, young powerful black woman in this industry, what do you wish? I mean, whether you like it or not, you are now a voice for what the change needs to look like movies? What would you like to see? I think for the protection and uplifting of not just black women and fems, but people everywhere, because at the end of the day, once one community finds positive representation, it influences and allows other communities to find that same representation as well, not just on stage, not just on screen. It is important that the diversity that we're looking for on stage is also the diversity we're looking for offstage, offscreen, behind the scenes, because I think it would have been very beneficial for me to have another black person in a position to power to go to and say, Hey, these are some things that I'm dealing with and would like to see changed. What I needed was someone who could say, oh, as someone who has lived your same experience, I know exactly what this feeling is. Here's how you can put words to it in a professional environment. As more shows get closer and closer to having diverse casts, what I'm afraid of is that the cast will be the only thing focused on If they're telling stories written by people who are writing for their experience but do not share their experience, or do not even have consultants that share their experience. Stories become pigeonholed. If the world we are trying to represent also is reflected by the world of the people building it. That is a dream. That's the dream. Are you going to work on anything on stage while you're around? Maybe a little something I would love too. I think right now, what I'm really focusing on is my mental and emotional health. We're living in wild times. Team, my instinct is to awestrich my head in the sand with work and creativity. And while that's great, then while that's my safe haven, it's all so very exhausting, and then the shock of having to eventually take my head out of that sand and be like, who am I when I'm not playing another person? How do I return to me? That's what I'm focusing on right now, because it would be yes, it is my dream to get right back into another job. But if my want to get right back into another job is because I'm trying to avoid stuff, that is that I'm like, hold on, what are we trying to avoid? Because the thing that I'm trying to avoid will not go away if I start. I'll that's a really mature and worldlier attitude for someone so young to be able to recognize that about themselves in their own patterns. How do I want to soothe myself in a way that is helpful and healthy for my long, long term life, not just the short term of like, this feeling is too big, Let's go do a job. I'm trying to tow that line right now. I have a great thing that you can meditate on for the next six or seven months. Or wherever long it is. There's this great yoga saying that says you're destiny is written on the inside of your third eye, and once you've quieted your mind, you'll read your destiny. I need to write that down, and a good one. Your destiny is written on the inside of your third eye. When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll be able to read it. Yeah, not a cool one. That's what I'm trying to quiet my mind right now, with all of all the noise in the hubbub, everything that's happening. What I'm trying to do right now is I'm in trying to listen to myself and honor my feelings. The work that we do on ourselves is just as important as the work you get paid to do. Right, It's just as difficult, and it's just more difficult. Yeah, And it's more important because as you connect with yourself as a human, as a young powerful woman, your work will only become more fruitful and more important, and you'll be able to always deeper, deeper, and you'll be able to offer back to the world that thing that you're so clearly craving. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, So taking time to say no I'm not going to do anything for the next six months that I'm going to get paid for, But I am going to work on me and exactly so that I can return to what I love doing with not only a love for what it does for me, but a love for what I can do for it. That's right, That's why it's always they're paired together, the arts and humanities, they're always together, yes, And if we can connect those two, then we're doing what we were born to do for sure. And now it's time for the five questions. If you could have any question answered, what would it be? Oh? God, if I could have any questions, I'd like so many, so many. Will I know for sure when I am at peace? Will there ever be a moment in my life where I don't question the peace around me? That's I mean. I often wonder that too. Am I really at peace? Or am I ignoring something? I'll do that to myself all the time. Am I really at peace? Or am I just ignoring what I don't want to know? Yeah? I asked myself that often. Can I bring that back around? Though? When you are at peace, that's the universe handing you a gift. We need to look back at the universe and say thank you. If you're otherwise, you are And it may just be a moment. It's not going to last for long, but at least in that moment, accept the gift and really see it as true. Then in the next five minutes something can change. But sit in that gift. Yeah, yeah, sell yah. If we were to go into your closet, is there a garment, a piece of jewelry, something that you will never get rid of because of the memories that it holds. Yeah, my dad's rain um, it's it's in my it's my dad's wedding band. Um. And my mother gave it to me for a graduation gift, and she gave it to me on a necklace. Yeah. That I think that's something I've never heard of. If your life or a book, what's this chapter called that you're in right now? My intergalactic era? WHOA? I love it. So I've curated a question that is specific just to you. Okay, today, are you cozy energy or Virgo's groove? Just one? You can only choose one? Just one? Just one? Can I can I have a write in answer today? I? Um? Yeah, you don't have to be one of those three. Today I am today. I'm an alien superstar, alien superstar empower men. Yeah, yes, yeah, but I would say, yeah, I'm in I'm in my aliens, I'm in my alien superstar totally. That's all right. Last question, if you were a nail polished color, what color would you be? And what would the cheeky little name be. I would be a deep brown like my skin. Um, but it would have an iridescence to it, a blue, a green, a purple, but it would be brown at its core like the scales of a fish, like and have a color, but it reflects, and I would call it. I would call it afro Neptunian Mrwich. That's very that's very much how I see myself. I see myself very much as an afro Neptunian Mrwich. That creature other than you, does that creature exist? Well? First was a sea witch. I guess you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you are the best, totor. I'm so happy that you came and spent an hour with us. I really appreciate it. I love you. I love you both very very very very very very very very much. See y'all later. Thank you by so much. Hi. Coming up, next What struck a chord with us? Right after this break? Y'all. Stages is now sponsored by Better Help And I couldn't be more excited because I off therapy, so I encourage you. If you've had a tough year and a half, why don't you give them a shot. You can find a therapist that you can connect with. Their resource is thousands of therapists well trained and experienced. You can keep looking until you find someone that you click with. They have customized online therapy. They do offer videos, but they also offer phone and lie chat sessions so you don't even have to be seen, you can only be heard. What are you waiting for? Go to better Help that's h LP dot com slash stages and for our cast members, you get ten percent off your first month at betterhelp dot com slash stages. Go Go, Go, Go find your healing, Go Find your Happy. Stages podcast is sponsored by Better Help. That's h e LP. She's the cutest. What does that feel like to know a human being other than being the mother of a little person, but for two weeks and then watching that human turn into what who we just had on the shelf? Yeah, it's it's so it's like watching your I mean, I wouldn't say it's like watching my own kid, because I wouldn't ever, you know, taking that acclaim right. But when she on the night that the jagged Little Pill opened at the airt, Lashns and I went together and when she came out, oh my gosh, I'm getting all welled up to telling it. When she came out, we just grabbed hands because I know what Leshaunce went through to raise that little one, you know, in the with the loss of her husband. We just grabbed hands and we both just started bawling because for all of it, for the joy, for the sadness that cal wasn't there her dad, for the brilliance that we knew that was about to just shine for like a huge light. It was just it's she's a wonderful kid. You know, we're not betraying anything if we let our listeners know that m Leshan's lust her husband and Celia lust her dad. As September eleventh in the Twin Towers, Yes, and she was pregnant with her sister Ziah at the time, So Leshauz was pregnant and Celia was just a baby, and they've been through a lot. You know that those three they're like the three Musketeers, and they're they're an incredible little unit. Her sister Ziah is formidable herself. The girl is brilliant, taught herself Japanese. Hi. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah, No, the sister is brilliant, brilliant. I'm also musical though too. I think she like plays instruments. And they're just an incredible family. But there was one line she said that I wanted to ask you when I'm we were talking about what sparked love for theater. When she talked about that, Yes, what was the first moment where you you know what that's that set off that little spark? Oh for me? Yeah, I didn't see a lot of live theater before I started to do it. Um, my family certainly was musical, but I think it was on Sundays there would be the Family Film Festival and we would gather as a family and it could be an old MGM musical or it could be a black and white, you know, um, serious movie. I was always so moved by the musicals. Wizard of Oz, as cliche as it sounds, is one of those. They would play it twice a year. I feel like around EA time and around Christmas time, and that to me and I was like, who is that girl, Judy Garland? Why does she make it seem like I could be her and she is me? So it kind of looked like you, even with the dark hair, and yeah, yeah, so I think that was it. It wasn't a live presentation. It was every Sunday with the Family Film Festival. What about you well? I mean I was way into the old MGM musicals too, Like I think I've told you this before. I was a little kid. When Danny Kay came on the screen, I just huse, I love and I would just stand there and start to tea because I loved him so much. But when I was probably about nine or ten, my mom took me to see My Fair Lady on tour and one of the big beautiful houses in Boston and I sat in that chair listening to the orchestra, you know, tune up and looking at the gold leaf on the ceiling, and they came out and I just looked at her and said, wait, this is someone's job, Like this is a job I have to do, this job, this is the job I want to do. And that for me was the moment where I was just like, no, no, okay, if this is a possible job, I'm in. I'm so in. It was such a clear moment. I remember thinking that well, I got chills because when we asked Celia about her poignant memory, and it was Lashawn's accepting the Tony Award. VV was five. But you know, there were always these times I thought somebody wrote me a note and said it had to be now, because your child had to be there to see you win. That's why I think it's waited until this exact moment. And if VV can hold on to that memory of seeing me joyful, seeing me purposeful, seeing me, I don't know, just being embraced by a community, if that can reflect in her somehow, She's got to be picking up these moments like our stage and you know, and we'll see how that does manifest itself in her life. But I want her to have that safe space where because she does think out of this box and she is beautifully cuckoo in so many ways, atypical in so many ways, musical. I asked her, She's like, Mama, how many songs do you think I've sung in my whole life? And I was like one, because you never stopped singing. It's been one song, my love, very long song. She barely breathes. So that a community and an environment that can embrace her energy like that. When I saw Celia, it really just warned my soul because I thought, that is, you know, twenty not well not even twenty years ago whatever, seventeen sixteen years ago. That was Celia with Lea Shawns. Yeah, but you know what, She's going to have so many more of those those moments. I mean, my son last night, so he's seventeen, and I've been doing He's never really seen me performed, not very much, right, So let me do a little thing here, a little thing there. He's seen little videos of things, but for most of his youth I was not performing. I've been doing this thing called the Moth Radio Hour. Do you know that's right? Yes, the stories. So I've been going to their slams, their live slams because I'm writing something. So I'm using this as like a practice to help hone the writing skills of what I'm trying to do. And so sometimes you get called up, and so I've gone to a couple and last night I went to a third one, and I had an extra ticket and I just sort of said to my son, do you want to come? I got a ticket and he's like, yeah'll come. I was like you will, He's like yeah. So he jumped in the car. I couldn't believe that he was even interested in coming, and we went. There's like three, three, four hundred people in the room and he's kind of looking around the room and he's like, huh, you know, sort of it's like a very NPR crowd, right, And so he's looking around the room, going, huh, this is not what I picture. This is not what I pictures. But I ended up getting called up, and I got called up and I told a funny story and so for him to see, and he said, why do you want to do this? And I said, I want to do it because it scares the bijeebas out of me. Yeah. Good, And I've decided to start doing things that scare me instead of not And so even at seventeen and it's not a Broadway show, but it's a life experience that they see you jump into, which gives them the courage to jump into the experiences. And there in a very vulnerable experience. Now having said in the audience, did that make you more nervous or did you feel supported? Well? This is this is what's so interesting to me about it, And I think why I needed to to have these experiences with it. For years when I was performing, if you told me to go out into a curtain speech, I'd break out in hives, absolutely panics. So for me to go out and be me and tell a story about me is a big turning, shifting point. And I think I've built it up in my head so long that once I decided, I just decided, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to express who I am, period. And then I just went out and did it and it wasn't scary at all. I couldn't wait to get up. I was really excited to share my story. And it didn't usually when I would get so nervous because someone in the audience that I knew, it didn't bother me at all. Good at all. And I bring my friend Laurie, who is the funniest with the best laugh in the world, and she's one of those sort of tried and true friends that she she would never be critical, she would only be supportive. You know. And so she was the first one I brought with me of all my very first time because I was like, dude, I need you to be here. She's like, I'm there, I'm with you. And so now she comes to all of them. I said, you don't have to come to this one. She's like, what are you kidde me? I'm totally addicted. When's the next one? So it's really quite a fun experience, you know. And so the whole point of that story was to say, you know, Vivy's going to see you in so many other moments in your life that will make her see you in a different light and therefore give her courage to present herself in different lights throughout her life. Yea, last night, we were on a plane and I was editing another one of these episodes. Right, you had sent me your edited version. I'm sitting there. Vv's lying on my lap because it's a red eye. She's just about to go to sleep, and literally I am spewing times at you, going okay, So cut from minute twenty nine thirty six to thirty one so that it should flow like this. And I did that for about four or five minutes in that pace and She looked up at me and she's like, you sounded really smart, mom, And I thought, oh, that would not have been what I considered a moment where she got to see me in wearing a different hat. But I was. You know, she knows and loves who you are. She knows and loves Stages Podcast, although she's never heard an episode, but she knows. Mama goes to work in the office and does this, but to watch her little brain try to make sense of all these crazy numbers and sentences and cut two's and she just no expression, just wow, you so really smart mom. All Right, girl, I love you. I love you too. This was a wonderful interview. I'm so glad you told Lashawn so she could lovingly strong arms Celia and we could get her on here because it's great. It's great to hear from someone younger. It's great to hear from someone who is in the process of doing it and also in the process of wanting to find herself. I just I love this interview on so many levels. So if this episode resonated with you, please follow, subscribe, and share. You can always find us at Stages podcast dot net. A big thank you goes out to our assistant and do her all. Thanks Technical Saran Chow. Thank you to Noah Kaiserman and Garrett Healey for our beautiful original music, Melanie von Trapp for our Stages podcast logo, Brock Grenfeld our sound engineer, and Ellison Arn's our PR and social media expert. And thank you our cast members for joining us today. We hope you come back next week.