Daniel Welch Welcome to this artistic life. On this podcast we sit down with professional artists of all disciplines to talk about their journeys, what inspires them and their unique perspectives from life off the beaten path Brought to you in part by artist relief tree, a relief fund for artists affected by cancellations due to covid 19. I'm your host, Unknown Speaker Daniel Welch. Daniel Welch Today's guest is Mara Lieberman, the executive artistic director, director and lead writer for bated breath Theatre Company in New York City. This episode was recorded on set for her present production voyer, the windows have to lose lytec while adhering to strict COVID-19 protocols, including masks. So please pardon the muffled effect. All right, well, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down and chat. For this particular episode of this artistic life. Happy to do it. So let's let's, rather than starting with your history, let's start with the show that I just experienced. Talk to us a little bit about production that is on right now. And you guys just extended the run. It's been very, very popular, which is fantastic. And as I mentioned, I saw it, I thought it was tremendous. So talk to us a little bit about Voyeur: The Windows of Toulouse-Lautrec. Mara Lieberman So void here is we call it like a sibling to the show we had running at Madame x called the unmaking of the it's called unmaking to lose track, it has had variations in its title and making to lose a track. And that is the story of to lose the track his work his life. It's a biography that's interactive and short and sexy. There is a moment near the end of his life, where to lose a track died from syphilis and alcoholism. And he spent some time in the hospital before he died at a very young age of 37. And there's a moment in the play where he says I want to go out someone tries to get him to calm down and go home and sleep it off. He says I want to go out, and all of a sudden the room transforms and we become to lose the track in 2020 at a nightclub. And we do this hip hop can can number nice. And during this number, he's hooting and hollering, he's having the time of his life. And then all of a sudden, something breaks like his eardrum breaks or something. And he has like this rupture. To me, the story of this play, and we could talk about the form of this play and what it's trying to do and all of that, but the story takes place at the moment where he ruptures. And the rest of it is like, if someone said to you, if you could only pack six memories and take them with you when you die, which six would you take? Yeah, the rest of the play is like him in my mind. The audience never knows this, but in my mind sitting in the hospital. And these are the last memories, fantasies, repressed thoughts that he had that would stick. And we get to walk in and out of these fantasies, as the fantasies also collide with New York as like the most alive unpredictable scene partner ever. So to the so voyer plays on this idea of looking. When we were all in lockdown and stuck in our apartments, we spend time looking out the window imagining life outside, so much looking in so much looking out. And so I thought this idea of a theatrical tour through the village where scenes pop up behind windows and outside could be a safe way for us to have live performance again, and also kind of play on this notion of looking, watching, having vicarious pleasure through other people having pleasure. And also to lose the trek made the Moulin Rouge and the Bella pop legendary. And to me, little did we know that the time before COVID when we could be in a room together and sing and dance talk laugh without worrying that we were going to kill each other. That could have been our Bella POC Yeah, so to lose the track is longing for a different time for a golden era. And so are we as we wait as we wait to to do our work again recreate art again and to be together again. But the actual piece itself is just like a very gorgeous vocative tour through the village. That is supposed To make you fall in love with New York exactly the way it is right now. Daniel Welch Yeah. And I like the fact that some of the interviews that I read, gave some glimpses into it, but don't actually give you the play by play, because it's so experiential, I like that, that kind of be immersed in it and take part in the, you know, the, it's labeled as a walking tour slash performance. And I think that's completely spot on. And so for this project, you were all the large crate of hats, the executive, artistic director, writer, if this is the seducer producer, Mara Lieberman I mean, I was the lead writer, as always, we go through a devising process where we source things as a company, and then later, I go away, and I use that as inspiration. And I do the final writing and constructing button is always company members that are creatively participating with me, which is why being in lockdown was so hard, because people would say, Well, why don't you write your next play? And I say, but that's not how I write, I write with bodies in space, I make stuff in the moment, you're in a space that needs to be activated by whatever it is we're doing. You can't do that sitting at your desk or writing a Zune play, or I write in the moment bodies in space, how am I supposed to do that? And I spent so many months being like, will I ever do this again? Daniel Welch Yeah, that's a, it's when I'm similar to yourself in that when I'm doing another project, or I'm collaborating with somebody is when I have my future ideas. So I could be in the middle of a project pretty buried, and have zero time to work on anything new. And I'll get hit with a concept and say, Okay, I need to write that down. revisit that in two months. But when I sit down and say, Okay, let's just do a project. I, I can't just birth that from nothing. Mara Lieberman No, you have to dig in the soil, your hands have to get dirty, you have to feel the soil and your fingers. And then the body knows something about this experience. And then then a new experience can come to you. But I really believe in the kinetic like the body going through things learning through neurological connections. That's why life performance can't be substituted. With zoom. Yep, you have to live it the way the air smells, who's standing next to you at that moment, the way you know what you had for dinner, and that it's a Tuesday and you know, all of those things collide to create a singular experience that then hopefully, will become unforgettable in your memory. Daniel Welch Yeah, I think a lot of people tend to look at the stage as just a piece of evolution towards cinema or TV. And I don't agree with that at all. I think it's it's its own entity that has its own power and purpose. And there's something about watching somebody, create a world live right in front of you. I never had a problem with that whole suspension of disbelief. On a two dimensional space, I should say, sort of semi two dimensional space of a stage where you know, an aside that's six inches from somebody can't be heard by the other characters or anything like that. I actually find it easier to dive into the world when they're right in front of you. Which is why I'm really intrigued by the concept of your immersive performances with bated breath in general, which makes it seem like this was kind of a tailored thing for you and for your company to do a performance like this. How was the How was the process with with the actors working in the space, the outdoor spaces and organizing the tour map? Was that a new challenge for them? Was it just kind of an expansion of the stage space to the outdoors? Mara Lieberman No, I think this has been totally different. And I'll tell you why. The largest show I've ever done has had six actors. Okay, one stage manager in two hsms. We have three stage managers to hsms 24 actors and at one point we were employing, like not employing but contracting with 32 theater artists well, considering the designers and very different trying to direct outside a building, looking up at an actor in a window having to get on the phone with them and say move five inches to the right. I can't see you when you're leaning out like that. Can you open the window half an inch more and I can't hear you because of all the loud music in the park across the way. Every so I used to joke and say bated breaths work because our work is very stylized, very heightened more like dance in some ways. So I used to say that it took 20 hours of rehearsal for one minute of stage time. Yeah, that was like my ratio. This blew that out of the water. I mean, and, and, and the difficulty at basic communication, just trying to talk to actors in a space outside where there's a lot of city noise and the masks between us and trying to experiment with things. It was challenging. Yeah, brand new way. And by the way, I don't enjoy outdoor theater, I don't create outdoor theater because I like to very like, like I said, kind of very stylized, very heightened, shine a light on something that's been well crafted. But this is doing something different. I've never done this before. I like the feeling of danger that the city brings, because my precious seed that I just made, could just get a skateboarder going right through it. And you know what? Now I'm not precious with my shows. I will if I move from venue to venue, I will take a play and rip it down and start over and rebuild it for a new space because I believe the marriage of space and content can be magical. Yeah. But But to say horns honk. stereos blare, baby cry, and man come jogging through to court that kind of danger in the middle of creating something heightened and stylized and theatrical to me as an artist was challenging in a totally new way. Yeah. And because I'm so in love with New York. And because New York is anything but dead. I really thought that inviting New York and all of its chaos, especially right now was the perfect way to send a love song to both the city and to the people that are ailing in the city. And to give them something something nourishing that they that they are not getting. And so for me, this has been a completely different experience. And I will say also this not one night goes by that I can be away from the show. Because unpredictable things happen every single night that I have to triage. Yep. And I usually go to all my shows anyway, because I'm just like that I'm weird. I think that, you know, I take notes forever and ever and ever, because I think you can keep getting better. But not a single night goes by that in some way. I don't have to problem solve defuse something. But that's what happens when you say yes to New York as your scene partner. Yeah, that unpredictability. Just, you know, it drives right through your play. Yeah. And so like tonight, we have a show from six to seven. And today is a day of remembrance for transgender folks. And there's a, like a memorial going on across the street, we found out Daniel Welch Oh, right. It makes sense with the location. Yeah, Mara Lieberman yeah. And so we are moving our audiences are six and 630 audiences, we called them and tried to book them in a new show, because we want to respect the memorial. But this stuff happens all the time. We're ready to go. We've got audience, let's do it. And then boom. So the the the artistry and the problem solving and all of this, this is all a covid invention. Yeah. Daniel Welch I thought about your job yesterday while I was doing a photoshoot between glass. So I had a subject on one side of a window and I was on the sidewalk shooting through the window. And I couldn't really talk to her. And because she was in a commercial space on the other side, I couldn't just leave a cell phone with speakerphone on and talk to her on the other side or have a radio. And so a lot of it was done with gestures. Mara Lieberman You probably were like a lot like me in that moment. Daniel Welch It was it was really funny to see the wall, the passers by looking at me trying to figure out what I was doing while trying to direct a photo shoot through glass, but then become a performance in some way. Exactly, exactly. But I thought about the fact that you had people up multiple stories that you had to deal with and look at different sight lines and and all that. So it technology became your friend in this particular instance, I assume that that's how you did you did like texts and phone calls and that kind of stuff to deal with some of the distance that you had to deal with with the direction Mara Lieberman Yep, and often having a stage manager inside so I could be in contact with that stage manager and they could operationalize what happens inside the building. Nice, but yes, and You wouldn't believe like how hard it is to choreograph a dance where all the legs are doing the same thing. But the dancers can't see each other at all right? So I mean, little things that we take for granted. Daniel Welch And how much could they actually hear that music from Unknown Speaker the street Mara Lieberman depends on how much ambient noise is happening outside. Daniel Welch And there was one point in time where a bus came? Uh huh. And it stopped right there because it was at a light and obviously, when the light and so everything just kind of hit pause on its own. Yeah. And the bus moved, and then it just continued. Mara Lieberman That's what we do. Mara Lieberman That's pause for bus we read for buses was for bus. Daniel Welch There's a theater direction you'd ever thought we would have to Unknown Speaker give us? Absolutely, absolutely. Daniel Welch How did you coordinate all the locations? For everything? Because there were so many stops along the way? Mara Lieberman You know, it's, um, I cooked up this idea probably last June, okay. Or May, and spent a long time trying to get the venue signed on. And it was hard. Like in the past, it's been easier to get venues to be like, Sure, yes, we want to work with you. We've heard about your work. But this time, I think everyone was like dormant. So to get people like what do you mean live performance? nobody's doing like no, but it's so it took a few months to get interested venue partners. So that determined kind of the route. I also find some of the space in the village so evocative, like the Ruth Wittenberg triangle, Jefferson Market Garden, like, all of that is so evocative. So once I found a couple of anchor places like duplex really wanted to work with us, they've been amazing. Judson church. Okay, so I've got my point A, I've got my point z, what needs to happen? And how do I get the audience there and build a dramatic arc through the streets, such that it feels like a play or performance in some sort. So you know, and and, truthfully, you know, that scene with the woman with the big lit up skirt on the inside? Now you go to her, and then you go down the street, and then you have to kind of cross her again, right? I've made maps I made so many maps and schemes and all of this cooking this all up right during lockdown, what's this going to be? And now, it would be better if we could move her elsewhere. Because narratively she's, she makes us we have to go back past her. And that I mean, it's fine. we justify it now. But you have to let the space tell you what it wants to be. You just have to and I wrestle with myself. But this is going to cost us five minutes of performance time. And what is that going to be? Well, no, she has to be right there in the middle of 6000. She's the most beautiful thing on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Avenue, she's got to be there. And so each space kind of just told me once I found our partners, then I kind of looked for like ancillary space. So that triangle there and we were running that parent scene used to go down Waverly, and then there was someone that lived on Waverly that didn't like us every night. So we moved to eighth Street. We were just like wandering, you know, we were like, what street can can handle this. And, and really, like, you know, would walk down the street and be like, Ah, this storefront has a mirror. Well, the father is really narcissistic, let's put them in front of the mirror having this scene. And the more that I just let these individual places along the route between point A and z, tell me what they wanted to be. I always find that listening to what, like there's some kind of subterranean song playing. And if you just stop and listen, it tells you, you know, rather than you imposing on it, yeah. And yeah. Does that answer the question? It does, I Daniel Welch thought the I thought the juxtaposition of, of her in that in that illuminated dress in that space. It's such an intimate scene, juxtaposed with the cacophony of traffic literally on three sides. Yeah. And it didn't detract from it at all. In fact, it forced you to be drawn into it. And I also loved the reaction of passers by trying to figure out what the hell was happening, which was great. And they didn't want to talk to anybody that was clearly ticketed for the event that was clearly an audience member watching. So you could hear people's what's happening, what's going on here. And they would take pictures. And then rather than asking, they would walk away. And I thought that just actually added to that whole kind of that voyeuristic peeking in catching a glimpse moving on. Yes. But I love your concept of of the space telling you the space now being this the neighborhood. Yes, I'm telling you what to do. I also, I knew based on the reviews that there was going to be puppetry. Hmm. But how did you decide to incorporate the puppetry. Mara Lieberman So Mara Lieberman when you're making something about someone so iconic like Toulouse-Lautrec. If you're going to embody him, you have to be very careful. I did not believe that that was the right choice for this particular show, although he is embodied in on on making. And I thought, because I love puppetry, I use object theater in everything I do. I'm always transforming everyday objects, napkins become birds. And, you know, I'm always transforming objects. And I thought, let's make to lose a track a puppet. Because that way, what I like doing is making abstract or open ended images in which the audience can lean forward and help co create meaning. If you a lot of theater, you know, it's just like spoon feeding, you figure out what they are doing. And then they end up like you figure it out 20 minutes before they actually show you, but you've already figured it out. And you're just like, Oh, yeah, you know. So, to me, when you create a puppet, there's all these kinds of questions about how you're going to be successful animating it, there's lots of room for the audience to see it from different angles, both just literally seeing for different angles, but also like, thematically and you create this thing that's representative, but not the thing itself. And therefore, you leave room for the audience to make in their mind what to lose the trick is, and so I originally thought it would just be like a hat on a cane. You know, just a puppeteer would have a cane with the with the bowler on the top. I mean, I was fine with it, you know. But I had wanted to work with James or cheese for many, many years, I've been following his work. And I guess there are a few but some upsides to a pandemic, in that James was not as busy. He has been in the past. A lot of designers who I've worked with who are incredible I probably would never have worked with in the past, because their dance cards are very full. Well, they were available, willing, excited. And we went on this journey together, and James created these gorgeous puppets. Now, I've never worked with puppets in that. They're so they are puppets. They are gorgeous representations of Omri. They're not just like a hat on a cane. So that was like a whole other thing for me to deal with as well like, ooh, they're not as abstract as I thought. They're so detailed. They're so evocative. How do we lean into that? How do we work with that we didn't cast particular puppeteers, we cast actors, and some of them have more or less facility with object theater. And so that whole thing was a real journey for me and a kind of surrender to the beauty of what James made. But the fact that it was so much more literal than my original imagination of it, but then, you know, they're stunning. Like, I can't imagine the play without them. They are Daniel Welch give him specs, or did he just dive into it and say, This is what I see in my head. Mara Lieberman Um, we did, I think really give him specs per se, other than, like, he saw unmaking to lose the track on video and read the script. We talked a lot about the story. We talked a lot about what this tour was supposed to do, and the journey that he would take, and kind of like the moments that he really needs to be present and pop up. So So James, really, like took in all those kind of like narrative and directorial pieces. But then he he went he made and then, you know, I when that topic comes to life, I just want to like, you know, it blows you a kiss. And I blow it a kiss back. Yes, it's, Daniel Welch there's so alive even without the actors animating them. Just just sitting there. His work is tremendous. I mean, it really is. Did he did he trained the actors? Mara Lieberman He did. Yeah, he did. It's a he's he's brilliant genius. I'm feel so lucky. Daniel Welch I mean, there, there was a real success with them, because they felt that the actors that were utilizing the puppets really, really animated them in a way that was so easy to connect to the puppet. And that's not an easy feat. in itself is just it's it's a it's a very distinct skill set. And why some people make their entire careers Yes, as puppeteers but the cast did a really really good job with it. And at first I was I was afraid that the diminutive size would lack impact Mm hmm. But much like the illuminated dress scene, it forced you to be brought into his space even more so both at the very beginning when he approaches and at the very, very end, when he also approaches you see using puppets and further shows now that you Mara Lieberman have I mean, I don't really want to do like a, you know, as an artist, you know, my next steps really. I don't want to do like, bottle this as a formula. Although I do think the idea of doing like these window plays is something that I'm going to lean into I'm, I'm working on another kind of tour elsewhere in New York. Yeah. And a story of an artist, but I mean, and so that does sound kind of formulaic. But I'm one it's like, how, how I spent my pandemic, you know, yeah. And to, yes, I mean, I am open to working with puppets, I think in a new way. I've done a lot of shadow puppet work, we have it in almost everything this, this scene, the shadow puppet show that's under the big white skirt. I actually took that from another play that I made that has a big shadow puppet show underneath one of those 18 hundred's skirts. Daniel Welch Did you adapt the concept of the the frame with the parents as well moving into that using the actual physical frame? Mara Lieberman Yes, I Mara Lieberman my husband asked me like someday someone's gonna be in an interview and ask you why you use the frames all the time. Daniel Welch Have you seen your other shows? I didn't know. The frames Mara Lieberman are really big with me, I do a lot of pieces about the art world and art history. But frames in general I find are very nimble props, scene partners, because they do a lot very quickly. They're not that expensive. And they're really mobile, because they do a lot of traveling. So and I think they're just really very, as a metaphorical object. They're quite late in Yeah. And I love them. So I did pull some frame stuff from past shows that I've done. Yeah. Because I know, I know the capacity. Well, it forces of Daniel Welch focus, unlike anything else, you know, as a portrait photographer, we find ways to naturally frame within the frame all the time. And you know, whether it's leading lines, force perspective, any that kind of stuff. But if you can physically take the frame, especially when you when you first run across her on the street, you know, right off the bat that she's involved in the scenario in which we're about to take place, because she's holding frame and we can see her through it, everything else disappears. And you focus right on that, and also allows that that concept of being able to break the fourth wall and making it more dynamic. Mara Lieberman Yes. And we actually, anytime that we come through a fresh through it, we have this a lot of the work we do is grounded in the Suzuki method and viewpoints. But there's always we call it like a crystallization a kind of like tunes. So you feel that that the wall has been broken through that it's not just air, the air doesn't have the same quality on one side of the frame as on the other is actually something that has to get pierced. And it's almost like going to a different planet where the gravity, you know, content is different. And there should be a sense of coming through something. And we stylize all those moments of breaking the frame as well. Daniel Welch I think it's a really good tool, it completely works. So so many of my audience, or so many of the listeners for the show are emerging artists themselves across multiple disciplines. So I always love to hear kind of your journey to what got you here. And of course, it's a long journey. you've worn many, many hats in the past, but can you walk us through a little bit of how you got to where you are today. Mara Lieberman So I'm an actor. My training is as an actor and as a physical theater actor, but I will say this, there wasn't a whole lot of physical theater when I was growing up in the United States. It's very much a European tradition, and aesthetic. And when I was 21, I went and saw theater did complicity in London. I saw street of crocodiles, I'll never forget it. They use their bodies to tell the story. rhythms inside their bodies, their their bodies were trees, then desks then they were you know, lovers on a train. And I mean, just like and it was not naturalistic It was not a table with the with the chairs and the tea pod and the real sink on stage. It was not that. And I, I couldn't leave when the show was over. And I said to myself, I don't know what I just sat through. But I'm going to do it for the rest of my life. And I have been doing it for the rest of my life. Awesome searching and searching coming back here and studying with Anne Bogart, Tina Landau and Eric Hill and studying Suzuki and viewpoints. And at that point, you know, I wasn't really like I'm a director. I'm a writer, although I had done little things and people would say you're a director. I'd be like, No, I'm not. I'm an actor. And I am an actor. But I took a class with Tina Landau called composition, which is a way of devising work. It's a very clear methodology for devising work. And it inspired me. It broke through inside me something of the writer piece of me that's not a writer that sits at a computer, not a writer that sits with a pad. I am a writer with objects in time in space with bodies and music now, like, you know, we don't put the lights on or the music on at the end in tech. Right now. It's woven as part of the whole experience. And I discovered something working with Tina, and a way of working that stays with me that I was 23 years old or something. To this day, I work in this compositional format. To this day, I use viewpoints and everything that I do, I use the Suzuki training, I use the rigor I use the sensibility of the body. And it's a big question for me, because we don't have a ton of it in terms of examples. And because to be honest with you, I get so bored of traditional tech space theater. And so for me, I have this insatiable appetite to find something else. Give me something alive on that stage, make me feel alive with theater, not just like flipping another page, another great page of dialogue, another great piece of literature, I can appreciate it. I was an English teacher, like I appreciate good literature. It's not that I want to know what is an alive experience of the American Theatre. And I keep looking for it and keep trying to make it because frankly, I I get bored so easily. And so that's what every you know, when I'm watching a scene or making a scene, I will tear it down. If it does not feel like I keep saying what's the most alive choice right here. What feels scariest? What feels you know, what feels like? You know, I you have to respect the rules. But what how do we break the rules and respect the rules? How do we wake people up, so that when they leave the chair on stage is no longer a chair they came in, it was a chair? Yeah. And because they were part of this journey, it is no longer a chair, and they will never see a chair the same way again. And that that kind of doing to somebody's memory and somebody's body experience. That is alchemy, that's magic to me, and I'm I will forever hold probably the day I die continue to search for it. Because because it's so hard to be successful. at it, I find it you know, and I'm certainly not successful at it all the time. I have moments. But does that is that answer your question does? Daniel Welch Do you missed the stage at all playing a character? Mara Lieberman Yes. Daniel Welch Great answer. Yes. I mean, I Mara Lieberman do. But like, sometimes I'll be like, look. And this could be part of a longer conversation. I had various detours. But professionally, I feel like I kind of am 15 years behind where I want to be or where I thought I was what I was making. And so there are times when Yes, I miss it so much. And I still when I'm directing, I have to be moving with my body. I don't understand it unless I actually get in there and move and but i think you know, what are you going to do you have a finite amount of time left on the planet. And and there's work to be done. There are lots of really good actors, lots of really talented people. Like, what do you do that other people don't or can't, and I and I have to put my energy there. Because Because I'm not, you know, I'm not a youngster. Daniel Welch But that that really, right, there is a really interesting concept. I feel like I feel like artists that are trying to find their own voice will hit certain signposts along the way they know they're supposed to do and then you get to a certain point where either your art or the way you create starts to take a life of take on a life of its own. And it builds up its own momentum that you're almost third party to. Unknown Speaker And Daniel Welch I know that there are times where you can try to escape it and say, okay, that that worked. Well over here. I did that one time, we're gonna go back to this over here, and you keep getting drawn back to this concept. And I think I see that in your narrative, there of having been onstage in character for so long, but when you see the art that you want to exist, you cannot make it and therefore you end up taking on all these responsibilities that you have one time didn't see yourself doing Unknown Speaker Yeah, Daniel Welch I mean, now you know, you wear all the hats. Mara Lieberman I wear all hats. And like I tell people when I'm interviewing them, I'm the first one to pick up a broom or a piece of toilet paper stuck to the floor and bathroom. There's no job that has beneath me every single detail of people, what they encounter when they walk into our space. If that is at a level of excellence, then the whole experience will be excellent. I mean, every single detail has to rise to the level of the final production. And yeah, I mean, it's like, it's about this feeling inside of like, I'm doing what I'm meant to do. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do on the planet, you know? And I'm on my purpose and whether or not that's torturing because it is at times, yeah. Oh, my God, what I think sometimes I think, why are you you know, the difficulties involved? Why are you doing this for a little fish Duncan, a puppet for a little, you know, a little fairy lights running across the city? Why are you doing all this? And then the answer comes clear, every time I follow the show, or see the show, or watch the actors learn the show again, or new actors or, or watch the audience's face, you know, it, you can't think of it like that, you have to do what you have to do. You can't I mean, if you're gonna make sacrifices for the thing that that makes you feel most alive on the planet. You can't think about all those sacrifices, you can't tally them up. You just have to keep blindly pursuing that passion. Because anything else will be half staff in terms of, of how alive you can be. While you are here, and so sometimes I think we'll stop. If this is hard, and it is stop. And then I think okay, so Okay. Now what so now here I am at this age, what if I live to this age, what happens in between? There's nothing else I want to do. So I might as well pick up the shuffle. There you go. Unknown Speaker Keep digging. There you go. Daniel Welch We always like to see, you know, Pete kind of behind the curtain and see stuff, what have been some of your career highlights that the audience didn't experience. Mara Lieberman So early on in 2012. When I inherited bated breath, I was in Connecticut. We had no money. We had no resources, no infrastructure at all. We had a closet full of thousands of programs from past shows where we underestimated or overestimated the audience. We just had tons of programs laying around. That's all we had. And I thought to myself, how are we going to just catapults ourselves with the short amount of time that we have. And I thought, you know, we don't have resources, but museums do. Mara Lieberman And I like making boring things sexy. So I'm going to see if I can go to these places. Mara Lieberman And try you know, people think museums are dead and dying. And people say some people say the same thing of theater. I'm gonna see if there's some kind of symbiotic relationship here that we can use their resources, their education department, their mailing lists, their grants, you know, and we will activate their material. So that moment for me of discovering that idea was really important because because it's the moment when you just cannot accept no for an answer. And that has happened in various forms throughout my entire career, and continues to this day, the secret victories the secret victories are the ones where like, I got us from Connecticut to Off Broadway and I'm driving home from the meeting with the artistic director at 5959. And I and I waited all my life for that moment and I'm crying in my car. Now the plays not going to go up there for like you know, eight months, but I'm crying in my car. Or I'd like to go get frozen yogurt on eighth Street. When and my the scene with the parents with the twinkly frame goes down eighth Street. So a couple weeks ago, I get my yogurt and I stand across the street and I watch it and I watched the audience pursuing it down the street and all those eyes just so lit up like kids at Christmas. And I'm eating my yogurt. Just looking at that thing I made and that thing I made is bringing people so much joy. And people are like, Oh my god, what is that? Everyone's like, What? What is that? What is that? I love those moments of falling the plate. People don't know. And I'll tell you something. I was on your tour. Oh, yeah, yes, I was and I wanted to wait to meet you today. But you're and I, I didn't know that was you until the very end. Yeah, I just hopped on your tour because I like to just see how they're doing. Yeah. But those are the moments, nobody knows that I'm like on a tour or across the street stopping my own play. But to watch that and sit there and eat my yogurt, and V like, I made that. Yeah. Daniel Welch So much of what we do as an artist is two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back. And I always try and tell, especially young artists, emerging artists in general, no matter what the discipline is, that not only is failure inevitable, but failure is a good thing. Because I feel like we learn more from our failures and our successes so much of the time. And when when you say when you get nose in 10 directions, it steers you to the one. Yes. And I, I always ask everybody that I interview that's in the arts, what have been some of the points where you tried something, and it just flat out didn't work, but it made you turn to something that did, Mara Lieberman I am so clear that the singular difference between people that succeed and fail is resilience. Yes. So I don't really have that kind of narrative, because I will not stop. So I am a dog with a bone. And you're not going to take it from me. I've had a lot of nose, I have nose all the time. Every artist does. And not only that is when I make work. I throw out at least 98% of everything I make without blinking. That's failure constantly. You have to make and fail constantly or you will not find the gold. The gold does not spin itself. The gold comes out of creating falling getting up again creating falling getting up again, throwing stuff out that doesn't work. Admitting when something you love, doesn't work at jettison it. For the good of the whole play. Yeah. So even getting venues for this show. I tried so many venues, I reached out to so many bars and restaurants and galleries and and I had this success of unmaking to lose the track underneath my heels. And and and people were like, you'll have no problem getting venue partners now. Well, it was COVID time and nobody's making anything. Yeah. And it was hard. And in fact, it took me longer to secure these venues than most times when I'm partnering with venues. And I I had moments of like, This isn't the time the universe is telling you don't make theater right now. It's really not the time but no, no, I've got a got this thing I need to see if it works. This is an experiment about how we could make theater during COVID. And I need to see if it works. And it's just you do not accept no, there is no failure. There is just today. Today, it didn't work. I tried this, it didn't work. I tried this didn't work. You are the only arbiter of your future. If you say look at people that like have a million nose and then they end up so famous or whatever. What if they stopped on the Thursday, November 18? That the thing that they love the most the person in charge said no, I think you're nothing go away. What if they stopped there? Yeah, you decide when the end of your story comes? Yeah. And a failure or a no is not the end of your story? Unless you say it's the end of your story? Yes. I'm not going to accept that. And an every single day, there are lots of things I face as an artist that I have to say. Is this, is this really worth it? Do you want to just pack it in now? Every day? It's a choice. No. Daniel Welch That's exactly it. I adore that mindset. And I completely adhere to that mindset myself. I think that's exceedingly important for not just artists to hear but people in general, no matter what you're working on the know isn't the end of the journey. And it doesn't stop there. It's a tremendous bit of wisdom. Thank you have any other little things, tidbits. Mara Lieberman Other a little bit of wisdom is this. You also determine what what your own limits and what you deserve, are so you could say because you You don't know my life. But if I you know I have a lot of other responsibilities. You know, I have a kid I have you know, I've got other things and People say to themselves, well, I don't deserve to be Why should I go to you know? Why should I go to Juilliard? Why should I go to Yale? What do I who am I that I deserve to be? You know, who am I? You know that Who am I that I, you know, I'm working in Connecticut for for theatre company, and I got, you know, partners with this museum, small museum. Yay, that's great. And that's the best. It'll be like, Who am I to think I could actually move the company to New York and create successful Theatre on a larger scale. Why would that ever come into my mind, but the incredible limitations that we put on ourselves mentally that we don't even question, astound me? And if you really, you have to know that nothing's impossible. That every limitation in your brain besides like, there is gravity. Right? You know, Unknown Speaker fight science. Mara Lieberman Yeah. I mean, there are like physical laws of the universe, you know, and there are real challenges with economics. And I mean, don't get me wrong, there are things they're not i'm not saying this is easy. Yeah, I'm saying that the limitations that you accept are yours alone, because you accept them. But if you want more than you need to challenge those, every single voice in your head that tells you, you're not good enough. You're not worthy of this. Who are you to think you could do this blah, blah, blah. You must, you must keep going. And you must understand that nothing's impossible. Yeah. Daniel Welch I love your perspective on creating art creating productions. I'm really excited to see what's next post COVID, mid COVID. Wherever the sense of going. Do you have anything else in the pipeline that you're slowly working on in the background? I do anything you could talk about? Um, Mara Lieberman I am working on a very sexy play about softcore porn writers of the 60s and the obscenity laws that they were writing to get around. Hmm. But it's participatory. Mm hmm. Daniel Welch This is very intriguing project. Yeah. Mara Lieberman And totally not appropriate for COVID worlds. Yeah. In terms of a COVID world, I'm working on another idea for a for another tour somewhere in New York, a walking tour about another artist. But in a totally different way. And not, you know, not trying to replicate this, but going and finding the venue partners and seeing what do those spaces want to be? What story do they tell? How do you activate? You know, how great to take a building or a doorframe that people have walked by every single night, you know, for years, and turn it into like an incredible theater set, or a piece of a famous character story that you'll you know, that you'll never forget. That's so exciting to me. So. Daniel Welch So where can people find you and bated breath and the voyer production etc? Where is best for the for them to hunt you down? Mara Lieberman Um, so bated breath. theater.org is a good place. And theater spelled like the Brits are? e? Unknown Speaker Yes. Mara Lieberman The voi your website is unmaking love trek play.com. on making the trek play.com. I'm Mara Lieberman. You can find me on the bated breath theater website. If you contact bated breath, happy to hear from you. And always excited to meet people in the pursuit of artistic excellence. Daniel Welch Thank you very much for taking the time. As you said, I know that your your present for every show. So you've you're constantly busy during this run, which was now extended through January What? Mara Lieberman January 10. And perhaps beyond was wink wink. Yeah, Unknown Speaker yes. Thank you very much. Daniel Welch If you're interested in contributing to artists relief tree to help artists struggling with COVID-19 shutdowns, please visit artists relief tree.com This has been an episode of this artistic life. Find us on your favorite podcast apps and subscribe. Follow this artistic life on Instagram at this artistic life and on Twitter at artistic vitta. For more information on today's guests, visit our website this artistic podcast.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai