Latest / STOPTIME: Live in the Moment. / Kristoffer Diaz: Aligning Passion with Purpose Recorded November 2024

Transcript

Kristoffer Diaz: Aligning Passion with Purpose Recorded November 2024 · STOPTIME: Live in the Moment.

0:24
Lisa Hopkins: This is the Stop Time Podcast.
0:26
Lisa Hopkins: I'm your host, lisa Hopkins, and I'm here to engage you in thought-provoking, motivational conversations around practicing the art of living in the moment.
0:35
Lisa Hopkins: I'm a certified life coach and I'm excited to dig deep and offer insights into embracing who we are and where we are at.
0:43
Lisa Hopkins: So my next guest is a true powerhouse in the world of storytelling and theater.
0:52
Lisa Hopkins: A Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony-nominated musical librettist, he has left an indelible mark on Broadway and beyond.
0:58
Lisa Hopkins: His musical Hell's Kitchen, co-written with Alicia Keys, has taken Broadway by storm, earning 13 Tony Award nominations and continuing its acclaimed run at the Historic Schubert Theatre.
1:08
Lisa Hopkins: His play, the Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and has been produced over 30 times across the nation.
1:17
Lisa Hopkins: Not only a celebrated playwright, he is also a gifted screenwriter, having adapted the iconic musical Rent for Fox, contributed to Netflix hit series Glow and developed pilots for HBO and FX.
1:30
Lisa Hopkins: As an educator, he shares his expertise at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and serves on the boards of New Dramatists and the Dramatists Guild.
1:38
Lisa Hopkins: Please, please, join me in welcoming Christopher Diaz.
1:41
Lisa Hopkins: Welcome, chris.
1:43
Kristoffer Diaz: Hi, thanks for having me.
1:44
Lisa Hopkins: Let me just get a little context.
1:46
Lisa Hopkins: Where are you right now and what's the rhythm of your life these days?
1:51
Kristoffer Diaz: Oh, I'm in my office at New York University and I'm going to teach right after we finish this.
1:59
Kristoffer Diaz: The rhythm of my life.
2:01
Kristoffer Diaz: This is actually this year, this semester, there actually is a little bit of a rhythm.
2:04
Kristoffer Diaz: I teach twice a week.
2:05
Kristoffer Diaz: I'm home with my wife and my kids and our dog for three days a week, and then the weekends tend to be busier than everything else.
2:16
Kristoffer Diaz: But I'm teaching, I'm writing a little bit and taking a bunch of meetings, keeping an eye on what's going on in Hell's Kitchen.
2:22
Kristoffer Diaz: So there's a bunch of things going on.
2:24
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, no kidding.
2:25
Lisa Hopkins: And are you someone that likes to have some kind of like a rhythm like you, like it sounds like?
2:29
Lisa Hopkins: The teaching at least gives you some parameters that are kind of defined yeah, you kind of have to have some kind of rhythm.
2:36
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean, it was uh before I was married and definitely uh before I had kids.
2:42
Kristoffer Diaz: I was a little bit more of a like fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy.
2:48
Kristoffer Diaz: So the writing career, especially the career of a playwright, was really catch-as-catch-can kind of thing.
2:56
Kristoffer Diaz: You don't really control your own time.
2:58
Kristoffer Diaz: You would write when the writing sort of came to you.
3:01
Kristoffer Diaz: You'd go work on a show when they paid you to go work on a show.
3:04
Kristoffer Diaz: And now there's a little bit more rhythm, having a steady day job and having a production that's running.
3:09
Kristoffer Diaz: So, and kids, kids is the most important thing.
3:11
Kristoffer Diaz: Kids, you know you get shape when they're around.
3:16
Lisa Hopkins: Yep, you got to have it right, you got to model it and you've got to sort of figure it out Absolutely.
3:20
Lisa Hopkins: How old are your kids?
3:22
Kristoffer Diaz: I have a 12 year old and it just turned nine year old.
3:25
Lisa Hopkins: Oh wow, Congrats, Boys girls.
3:27
Kristoffer Diaz: Thank you, both boys, both boys.
3:30
Lisa Hopkins: Nice.
3:30
Lisa Hopkins: You know when, in that form that I sent you, I asked you what, if anything, do you think stands between you and who you want to be?
3:37
Lisa Hopkins: And you shared with me.
3:39
Lisa Hopkins: I think 18 year old me would be pretty excited about what we've become.
4:03
Kristoffer Diaz: So, first of all, hell, yes, so.
4:04
Kristoffer Diaz: So let's just take a minute to celebrate you, because we go so fast sometimes.
4:06
Kristoffer Diaz: So I just talking to my students about this the other day and you know that you know kind of a realization that, like, I've been able to work in the theater my whole life, my entire adult life, has been working doing, if not exactly the thing that I wanted to do, things that are directly related to the things that I wanted to do, and I still enjoy it and I still get to go see a lot of theater and I get to be around, you know, creative people.
4:31
Kristoffer Diaz: So it's hard to, it's hard to pass that up.
4:33
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, absolutely, and you know you're speaking my language because I talk all the time with my clients about I get to, you're talking about I call I get to, with choice, with gratitude.
4:42
Lisa Hopkins: You chose to do it right, but you're, you're, you're aware of it and you're grateful for it, and that is just a massive energetic shift compared to I have to do this, you know, or even I want to do this, but I get to do this Right.
4:57
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, and there's still a lot of it that's still I have to do this, and there's a lot of it.
5:01
Kristoffer Diaz: That's still sort of like a pain and you know things that I don't want to do.
5:04
Kristoffer Diaz: And I'm dealing with spreadsheets right now, before I was meeting with you and moving, populating a spreadsheet manually that really I should be able to figure out how to do in an automated kind of way, and it doesn't feel like the most efficient use of my time.
5:18
Kristoffer Diaz: But, yeah, the fundamental guts of what I'm working on is stuff that I want to be working on and that's like that's so rare.
5:29
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, absolutely no, it's a, it's a great acknowledgement.
5:32
Lisa Hopkins: I absolutely love that.
5:33
Lisa Hopkins: What's one thing that you know now that maybe you would have liked that 18 year old?
5:38
Lisa Hopkins: You know, Chris, that you're celebrating with now, or acknowledging what's one thing that he might have wanted to know, maybe that you know now.
5:45
Kristoffer Diaz: I think you know this, this all takes a very long time.
5:47
Kristoffer Diaz: Like every part of the process of my career takes takes a long time.
5:53
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, I figuring out not so much figuring out that I wanted to write that was an early on thing but understanding what it looks like to have a career doing this and to understand that you know playwriting especially there's no, there's not really a path towards supporting oneself just as a playwright, so there's no specific path to settling in the way that you can get a job and have a 401k and health insurance and all that kind of stuff.
6:22
Kristoffer Diaz: It takes a while to find other parts of your life that can provide that kind of security and stability.
6:27
Kristoffer Diaz: And at the same time, in playwriting it's not easy to just write a play.
6:32
Kristoffer Diaz: That takes forever.
6:33
Kristoffer Diaz: And then, once you've written the play, uh, to get it produced takes forever.
6:36
Kristoffer Diaz: And to find the right actors and the right director and, you know, build a career at all at all.
6:42
Kristoffer Diaz: It's a long, slow process and I kind of thought when I was young, when I got out of graduate school, I had a little bit of success right away with the thesis play that I wrote, but even having some success in that field, in that area, with that play.
7:00
Kristoffer Diaz: I couldn't get that play produced for another almost 10 years.
7:04
Kristoffer Diaz: And it's weird, saying, you know, I was, I was developing the play, I was making my way around theater companies and people sort of knew my work but, um, but I had a really hard time sort of establishing an actual professional career.
7:17
Kristoffer Diaz: So, um, I think I would have warned myself a little bit better.
7:23
Kristoffer Diaz: Um, at 18, especially in my twenties, when I got out of graduate school, 2021, 22, that like this is going to take forever and it's almost, you know, it took me into my 40s to really feel like this had landed as a career, not just as a thing that I kind of like to do.
7:43
Lisa Hopkins: Or both right.
7:44
Kristoffer Diaz: Or both.
7:45
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, it is, you know it is both.
7:47
Kristoffer Diaz: But in terms of like the, the thing that I have to show up and turn something in and there's deliverables and you know, and the thing that's going to provide some, like you know, economic peace of mind, like that stuff takes a while.
7:58
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, no, absolutely.
8:00
Lisa Hopkins: I mean, it makes perfect sense.
8:01
Lisa Hopkins: It's cool, though, that you're you're at that realization now, as we live in the moment together of no, I am doing it, yeah, you're at that realization now, as we live in the moment together, of no, I am doing it.
8:10
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, absolutely yeah, and I've been doing it.
8:11
Lisa Hopkins: You know, I'm not hearing you say, oh my God, I had to struggle and and, and I mean I'm not saying it wasn't a struggle, but you weren't.
8:16
Lisa Hopkins: Were you ever a waiter, for instance?
8:19
Kristoffer Diaz: I was a like a cater waiter for I think two days.
8:23
Kristoffer Diaz: I think I did it two days when I was 17 or 18.
8:26
Kristoffer Diaz: And that was not for me.
8:28
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, I've been.
8:29
Kristoffer Diaz: I've been a teacher as a day job for for all my adult career, but yeah, it's always.
8:36
Kristoffer Diaz: I think every job that I've had since I was maybe 18 or 19 has been either theater related or teaching related, and you know, and I like teaching a lot.
8:48
Kristoffer Diaz: So, yeah, I mean and don't get me wrong like some of those years when I was teaching as a day job, um, you know, I made twelve thousand dollars for the whole year.
8:57
Kristoffer Diaz: So it was there were.
8:58
Kristoffer Diaz: There were years when it was.
8:59
Kristoffer Diaz: It was rough, but you know, I've always been the the.
9:03
Kristoffer Diaz: I've always been lucky that going to work is going to do something that I really really, really, really love.
9:10
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, no, that's beautiful and we need teachers, so thank you.
9:14
Kristoffer Diaz: A lot of people don't like to teach and we need teachers.
9:16
Kristoffer Diaz: We need teachers teaching other things than what I teach too.
9:18
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, I teach playwriting and sort of theater appreciation kind of stuff to a bunch of different folks and I have so much admiration for you know, quote unquote real teachers.
9:30
Lisa Hopkins: So, speaking of this law, you know things taking a long time.
9:34
Lisa Hopkins: So you began your collaboration with Alicia Keys on Hell's Kitchen.
9:37
Lisa Hopkins: Like what, 12 years ago?
9:38
Lisa Hopkins: Is that right?
9:40
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, it was 13 years, almost exactly 13 years from when we opened off Broadway, I think.
9:49
Lisa Hopkins: Wow, talk me through it.
9:50
Lisa Hopkins: How did you get involved in that?
9:51
Lisa Hopkins: How did that come up for you?
9:53
Kristoffer Diaz: It's one of those really lucky I'm very lucky and a lot of the big things that happened in my career.
10:02
Kristoffer Diaz: People ask how it happened and it's like, well, I'm sort of, you know, I got lucky.
10:06
Kristoffer Diaz: Um, she had a really clear idea about what she wanted to do in terms of bringing some of her music, um, to the stage to create a musical uh, inspired loosely by um, not her whole life, but by things that happened to her when she was a kid.
10:26
Kristoffer Diaz: She was 14, 15, 16, 17 years old and she knew roughly the story that she wanted to tell, or really more specifically, the time in her life that she wanted to look at and pull a story from.
10:40
Kristoffer Diaz: And she, as far as I know, went to the folks at William Morris I think it was William Morris at that time Now, william Morris Endeavor my agency, I think her agency and just started asking around.
10:53
Kristoffer Diaz: Were there people that she could meet who were playwrights or musical theater writers who might be able to help shape a piece?
10:59
Kristoffer Diaz: And I think she met with three or four writers I don't know who those writers are and I met with her.
11:06
Kristoffer Diaz: She brought me in.
11:07
Kristoffer Diaz: I had just come off not too long, uh, it was not too long after, um, we had done Chad deity, uh, sort of at the tail end of that play, shortly after we were in LA, um, I was doing what one does when you're a playwright who's had like a play that's been well-received and that's take meetings with folks in other fields.
11:29
Kristoffer Diaz: Um, you know it's, you take some playwriting meetings but, like, film and TV start coming calling and musicals start coming calling and I had grown up wanting to do musicals.
11:37
Kristoffer Diaz: I got into theater primarily through musicals, but I had never written one.
11:42
Kristoffer Diaz: And they set up a meeting for us and, um, usually at that point they give you a call or they send you an email and they're like would you like to meet with this person?
11:51
Kristoffer Diaz: Would you like to meet with this person?
11:52
Kristoffer Diaz: And my agent's email actually was we are setting a meeting for you with Alicia Keys.
11:57
Kristoffer Diaz: And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you are, you should.
12:03
Kristoffer Diaz: And you know it was this really intimidating room to walk into because it was her and her A&R person and a producer and like sitting around this big table and, for whatever reason, it didn't feel it didn't feel as intimidating as it maybe should have and and I didn't try to sell her on the musical that I was going to write.
12:32
Kristoffer Diaz: I just connected with her on things that felt familiar and common from her work and from what I knew about her.
12:35
Kristoffer Diaz: We bonded over the same kind of music that we listened to.
12:38
Kristoffer Diaz: We talked a little bit about growing up in the 90s and growing up in the New York City area and we hit it off.
12:48
Kristoffer Diaz: And then we had another couple of meetings and I went to go see one of her concerts and then shortly after that concert that I saw of hers at the Beacon.
12:57
Kristoffer Diaz: Then a few weeks later we got the call and we just started working.
13:02
Lisa Hopkins: Very cool.
13:03
Lisa Hopkins: It stands out to me that you said you felt intimidated, and intimidation is a really interesting thing I'm just curious to dive in there with in terms of that's something sometimes that we project on ourselves, right, usually when there's something very important at stake, right.
13:19
Lisa Hopkins: So it sounds like probably and I don't want to infer, but probably or this was something that you were really, really excited about and by being in that room, the intimidation factor wasn't necessarily coming from the other people, but rather by the stakes.
13:34
Lisa Hopkins: Is that what I'm hearing?
13:35
Lisa Hopkins: Or talk to me a little bit about that.
13:38
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, it's both.
13:38
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean, like, you know somebody.
13:39
Kristoffer Diaz: It was an artist who I had grown up with not grown up with, I always say grown up with but I'm older than her and I was already, you know, out of.
13:46
Kristoffer Diaz: I think I was in graduate school when, when her first album Fallen, her first song Fallen, hit.
13:55
Kristoffer Diaz: But she'd been in my life, you know, feels like in my life forever.
13:58
Kristoffer Diaz: That music is just so iconic and, you know, I just just sort of started to have success artistically and just sort of growing into what I was as an artist at that point.
14:13
Kristoffer Diaz: And you're going in, you know, anytime you're going into to sell yourself in a meeting like that, there's the stakes of like, oh, if this works out, it could mean a lot of money, it could mean a trip to Broadway, it could mean all those kinds of things which are all goals that I sort of you know.
14:29
Kristoffer Diaz: But more importantly, it's like you have to go in and you feel like you're trying to justify yourself or like defend your, your, your, your, your qualifications for something and, um, that part of it is really hard.
14:42
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, art always feels like a reflection of yourself, even when you know people criticize what you're doing.
14:47
Kristoffer Diaz: They criticize the work.
14:49
Kristoffer Diaz: It feels like they're criticizing yourself, even when you know people criticize what you're doing.
14:53
Kristoffer Diaz: They criticize the work.
14:54
Kristoffer Diaz: It feels like they're criticizing who you are as a human, and so I think that intimidation was built a little bit around that.
14:58
Kristoffer Diaz: But then the other side of it was you walking into a room with just what felt like a lot of fancy people and you know I don't come from, I don't come from money, I don't come from fancy you know fancy people.
15:11
Kristoffer Diaz: You know my parents are Puerto Rican, they're New Yorkians from New York city, but they're come.
15:17
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, our, our families all come from Puerto Rico.
15:19
Kristoffer Diaz: And my dad was a was a phone man Originally.
15:23
Kristoffer Diaz: He used to work for for my bell back in the day.
15:25
Kristoffer Diaz: He used to work for Ma Bell back in the day and he climbed the poles and did all the wiring of the landline phone connections.
15:34
Kristoffer Diaz: My mom was a purchasing manager.
15:36
Kristoffer Diaz: She became a purchasing manager, but she worked in a hospital.
15:55
Kristoffer Diaz: And I come from a family that has a lot of folks in the armed forces and some folks in in in, you know, law enforcement and working class jobs and those kinds of things.
16:00
Kristoffer Diaz: And here I was, you know, out of graduate school.
16:01
Kristoffer Diaz: First of all, first, one of my family go to graduate school in a, in a, in a weird like wine cellar in Soho, trying to justify why I should be the person to take on this crazy project.
16:09
Kristoffer Diaz: You know that's, that's, it's.
16:11
Kristoffer Diaz: It's a lot, it's a lot.
16:13
Lisa Hopkins: Absolutely, Absolutely.
16:15
Lisa Hopkins: It is Looking back now did, did you know like, did you?
16:19
Lisa Hopkins: Did you know, intuitively, that you were the right one, but that the, the, the, the sort of of barrier was the?
16:27
Lisa Hopkins: How am I going to show that?
16:30
Kristoffer Diaz: you know, kind of um, there's not a lot of people in the theater, as far as I know, who do the same things that I do.
16:40
Kristoffer Diaz: I'm just a different, you know I'm I'm of a different generation, like all the things that I just said.
16:47
Kristoffer Diaz: There's not a lot of us.
16:47
Kristoffer Diaz: There's a few of us who were sort of like you know, new Eureka and grew up around in or around New York city in the hip hop era and you know, I grew up playing sports and and just you know, just different sort of vibe and sort of who we are.
17:04
Kristoffer Diaz: I didn't know a lot of writers who were interested in musical theater, who also knew Alicia's music the way that I did.
17:12
Kristoffer Diaz: So I think there was a part of me that felt like I would be a good match for it.
17:17
Kristoffer Diaz: I had never written a musical at that point.
17:18
Kristoffer Diaz: So that part of it was a challenge and that part of it you're trying to trying to justify or trying to make yourself feel comfortable with, trying to justify or trying to make yourself feel comfortable with.
17:28
Kristoffer Diaz: But once we met, I will say I felt pretty confident.
17:38
Kristoffer Diaz: I didn't know who else was up for it and they could have wanted to go in the direction of getting somebody with a lot of musical theater experience and not worry about the other kind of stuff.
17:43
Kristoffer Diaz: But she is in this.
17:44
Kristoffer Diaz: This stayed true all the way through the process.
17:46
Kristoffer Diaz: Whenever we hired new folks, it was really about people who understood what we were doing, who understood the vibe, who understood our references, the music that we were interested in and what it meant to be from new york, what it meant to be this young person growing up at this time period.
18:02
Kristoffer Diaz: So I think pretty early on, it felt to me like you know, like like we, a match.
18:07
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't know if I was the only one, but, um, you know it, it, it.
18:11
Kristoffer Diaz: It felt right.
18:13
Kristoffer Diaz: It felt right Pretty quick.
18:14
Lisa Hopkins: It sounds like there was a quick community developed there, right Among amongst.
18:18
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, we hit it off.
18:23
Kristoffer Diaz: We, just the two of us hit it off real fast and I't remember any of the other people who were sitting around the table at that point, which is, you know, that's unusual, but I think we got to a place pretty quick where the primary conversation was just me and her, and you know, that's it that that bond has stayed, you know, for for for 13 years now.
18:41
Lisa Hopkins: Well, it's cool too, because you had something else in common, which was neither of you had done a musical.
18:44
Lisa Hopkins: So that's neat.
18:48
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, and we were both fans, and we were both fans of the same kind of stuff.
18:51
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, she, she grew up in the city and she did the same thing that I did, which is she went with her mom to the TKTS line and they just waited and didn't know what they were going to see and they saw whatever they got cheap tickets.
19:03
Kristoffer Diaz: To that day we did the exact same thing, me and my mom, and you know, and what we ended up seeing, we're all out of the same shows, and both of us saw Rent at an early age and both of us were like, oh okay, that's like that's where we potentially can fit into this space.
19:18
Kristoffer Diaz: And then, you know, cut to however many years after that, we ended up hiring Michael Greif to come on and be our director and it all kind of came full circle.
19:27
Lisa Hopkins: So what was the process like at the beginning?
19:29
Lisa Hopkins: Did you jump in right away?
19:31
Lisa Hopkins: Was it just the two of you?
19:32
Lisa Hopkins: Talk to me a little bit about that?
19:34
Lisa Hopkins: It's super interesting.
19:35
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, the first few years of it were Alicia, me and a woman named Susan Lewis who at that point was working with Alicia's company, ak Worldwide, and we were just talking.
19:49
Kristoffer Diaz: We just talked a lot about what we wanted to look like, what we wanted the story to be about.
19:55
Kristoffer Diaz: She came in with some really clear ideas about.
19:57
Kristoffer Diaz: She wanted it to be about where she grew up in buildings called Manhattan Plaza over in Hell's Kitchen.
20:03
Kristoffer Diaz: A lot of the folks from Manhattan Plaza have come over and seen the show because we're two blocks away from it, we're right around.
20:08
Kristoffer Diaz: The folks from manhattan plus have come over and seen the show because we're two blocks away from it, we're right around the corner from it.
20:10
Kristoffer Diaz: But she wanted to write about growing up in that space and how it became a, a haven for her to just have art in her, in her body.
20:20
Kristoffer Diaz: You know there's artists, there are visual artists, musicians and dancers, actors and all this stuff, and she wanted to make a story about that.
20:28
Kristoffer Diaz: So we jumped in talking about what that felt like, who the characters might be, what the musical influences of those characters might be.
20:40
Kristoffer Diaz: That was one of the biggest things we did early on.
20:41
Kristoffer Diaz: We identified who each character sort of would feel like musically and we held to some of that.
20:49
Kristoffer Diaz: But it was big guiding principles.
20:50
Kristoffer Diaz: But we discovered it was like Nina Simone was a huge part of what we were gonna do and Sammy Davis Jr, in a roundabout way, became a big part of what we wanted to do.
20:58
Kristoffer Diaz: So we identified those things early on.
21:01
Kristoffer Diaz: We worked for three or four years.
21:02
Kristoffer Diaz: We wrote a treatment, wrote our first act of something, and then we hit a point where we were like we just we actually don't know how to keep going anymore.
21:09
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, we, we, we think we have a feeling of this, but it doesn't quite feel like a musical.
21:14
Kristoffer Diaz: How do we go?
21:16
Kristoffer Diaz: So we went back to William Morris and we asked them to help us identify some directors.
21:22
Kristoffer Diaz: And when Michael Greif came in he knew everything that we were missing and knew how to, knew the kinds of questions we were trying to ask and helped us actually ask the questions and gave us some answers.
21:33
Kristoffer Diaz: And from that point on it became the three of us sort of shaping everything.
21:37
Lisa Hopkins: Was it an organized kind of work session in the process, like, are you hanging cafes and talking?
21:41
Lisa Hopkins: Did you have notes on the wall?
21:42
Lisa Hopkins: I'm always curious about how people work.
21:44
Lisa Hopkins: Always curious about how people work.
21:45
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, no, it was hanging wherever she was.
21:50
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean, one of the crazy things with working with her is that she is I don't know how many world tours she's done since we started working on this, but I'd get bits and pieces.
22:00
Kristoffer Diaz: If she was in town, we'd arrange a few hours and I would go hang out in the studio, which is fun.
22:05
Kristoffer Diaz: You know you're talking to her and then you look over to the trophy case and you're like, oh there's.
22:09
Kristoffer Diaz: I think when we started it was 12 Grammys and now it's, I think, 16 Grammys up on the wall.
22:14
Kristoffer Diaz: Uh, 15 or 16.
22:16
Kristoffer Diaz: Um, so anyway.
22:17
Kristoffer Diaz: But so you start hanging out and we would talk and then we would go.
22:19
Kristoffer Diaz: We went to her house and we went like it was just like all these, like different places.
22:23
Kristoffer Diaz: We went to her house one time and watched Gypsy together and just sort of thinking about like what elements of musicals, elements of that musical we liked, and what elements we didn't, and what could be useful to us, and then that that, funnily enough, made its way back into the show.
22:43
Kristoffer Diaz: The last song that she wrote for the show is a song called 17, sung by Shoshana Bean and written largely for Shoshana.
22:52
Kristoffer Diaz: It was written after Shoshana had come into the mix and it references Gypsy quite a bit.
22:57
Kristoffer Diaz: So, you know, we just sort of pieced it together and we would sit together and I would just ask her questions.
23:03
Kristoffer Diaz: Whatever I was thinking at this point, what about this character?
23:05
Kristoffer Diaz: What was it like to be playing piano?
23:09
Kristoffer Diaz: Was teaching you piano, what were the things that you know sort of jumped out.
23:12
Kristoffer Diaz: And then I would, um, I would try to shape some things together, try to figure out where we were going to put existing songs and what kind of new songs we might need, and we, we inched together very, very slowly.
23:24
Kristoffer Diaz: Um, and then again, when michael came in, michael was like great, now it's time to stop inching together and to pull something together that actually, like, has a beginning, middle end, and once we have that, then we can figure out what the rest of it needs to be.
23:37
Lisa Hopkins: I love that.
23:37
Lisa Hopkins: I was going to ask you it's funny you said the inching.
23:39
Lisa Hopkins: I was just about to ask you.
23:40
Lisa Hopkins: You know how did?
23:42
Lisa Hopkins: How was the momentum for you Right, cause you're a very motivated person.
23:46
Lisa Hopkins: Well, again, I don't want to project, but you strike me as somebody who you know, if you got something in front of you, you're going to do it and you're going to do it wholeheartedly.
23:55
Lisa Hopkins: But you're dealing with someone, as you said, that is going to be pulled out all the time for various things.
24:01
Lisa Hopkins: Was there ever a moment where you felt frustrated by the momentum or the inching?
24:08
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean, you'd always like to be able to just sit down and make it, but the economics of that don't really allow for that.
24:15
Kristoffer Diaz: I had to do other things.
24:17
Kristoffer Diaz: There's not a lot of money upfront, even in the case of something like this.
24:21
Kristoffer Diaz: When we first got started, when I got hired, there were zero children.
24:25
Kristoffer Diaz: And then, when we're finished now, alicia has two kids and I have two kids, so we were having kids.
24:38
Kristoffer Diaz: You know like it was we got started and like it was prime years where our families were beginning.
24:44
Kristoffer Diaz: So so you have to do other things, but it would be you'd be finding time to make the work.
24:51
Kristoffer Diaz: You know around all of that you know.
24:54
Kristoffer Diaz: Another story I tell quite a bit is the song no one is one of the songs that alicia wrote that we knew was going to be in the show.
25:01
Kristoffer Diaz: It's one of the five or six songs that she's written that are just like iconic in the canon of popular music history.
25:07
Kristoffer Diaz: And we knew it was going to be in the show.
25:08
Kristoffer Diaz: We didn't know what we were going to do with it.
25:09
Kristoffer Diaz: It's a great love history and we knew it was going to be in the show.
25:11
Kristoffer Diaz: We didn't know what we were going to do with it.
25:12
Kristoffer Diaz: It's a great love song, so we assume it's going to be love song.
25:15
Kristoffer Diaz: But the challenge with writing a alicia keys musical is that you've got 80 love songs that you can put into a musical and it's not we.
25:23
Kristoffer Diaz: We knew early on it wasn't going to be just like a love musical.
25:27
Kristoffer Diaz: It's going to be about a lot of other stuff and so trying to think about the ways that we were going to sneak some of these songs into the show, how we're going to repurpose them, and I'm listening to them all the time and I'm walking around listening to them, carrying my kid and you know you do everything you can to try to get them to go to sleep and so I would sing some of those songs to them.
25:47
Kristoffer Diaz: And one of the songs that I sang was no one and the lyrics to no one.
25:52
Kristoffer Diaz: The opening lyrics are I just want you close, where you can stay forever.
25:55
Kristoffer Diaz: You can be sure that it'll only get better, you and me together, through the days and nights.
25:58
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't worry, because everything's going to be all right.
26:00
Kristoffer Diaz: It's like it's a lullaby when you sing it to a kid and you're just like oh, the love that I have right now for you is similar or greater than the love that you have in those early stages of a relationship.
26:12
Kristoffer Diaz: So those were the kinds of decisions that we were able to land on early on in the process and those kinds of discoveries worked within that like not being able to just drive through and execute.
26:26
Kristoffer Diaz: It was a little stop and start, but we got to grow.
26:28
Kristoffer Diaz: I guess the play got to grow with us and our families.
26:32
Kristoffer Diaz: So you know you always want to move more quickly and you always want to be able to get you know on stage, but for us it actually I think it really helped.
26:41
Kristoffer Diaz: And the other thing that happens is that you know, our cast is very young and they were not.
26:48
Kristoffer Diaz: They were babies, literal, literal babies while we were writing.
26:53
Kristoffer Diaz: So it's been a beautiful thing for a lot of those folks.
26:55
Kristoffer Diaz: To you know have have sort of it took us a while, but we were, we were waiting for them.
27:00
Lisa Hopkins: That's amazing.
27:01
Lisa Hopkins: So it's so multi-layered right, and things happen when they're supposed to, right.
27:05
Lisa Hopkins: I think that's incredible.
27:06
Lisa Hopkins: It's a beautiful story.
27:07
Lisa Hopkins: Thank you for sharing that.
27:08
Lisa Hopkins: I was going to say right, you know, I found something you were talking about, something you said about your process.
27:14
Lisa Hopkins: You said it's reframing what writing is.
27:16
Lisa Hopkins: I'm always working on it.
27:17
Lisa Hopkins: Somehow, the actual sitting down and doing the writing is only one small part.
27:23
Lisa Hopkins: Well, that's exactly what you're talking about, right?
27:26
Kristoffer Diaz: Absolutely, absolutely.
27:27
Kristoffer Diaz: The gestation of it takes a lot of time.
27:31
Kristoffer Diaz: You need to just be able to sit in it.
27:32
Kristoffer Diaz: It's not just like sitting and typing up something.
27:35
Kristoffer Diaz: It's like, oh, how do you get to that place where the words actually come flying out of you?
27:40
Kristoffer Diaz: You need to let it marinate.
27:46
Lisa Hopkins: Or just to live right, absolutely.
27:55
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, it's so interesting.
27:56
Lisa Hopkins: We're always so busy thinking we know there's only one way to do something and this is how, and sure you're going to get the result that you expect if you do it the same way.
27:59
Lisa Hopkins: But when you're open to that right, to that sort of no, this is you're always writing right If you're open.
28:03
Kristoffer Diaz: Absolutely, absolutely.
28:04
Kristoffer Diaz: You have to be.
28:05
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean like you have to.
28:06
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, when I first started writing, I was always, always frustrated.
28:10
Kristoffer Diaz: I'd go see something and I'd be like but what is it about?
28:12
Kristoffer Diaz: Like it's not about, like, it's just like it's it.
28:15
Kristoffer Diaz: It it sits together nicely and it feels like technically whatever, but I'm like, I just don't care about, I'm not passionate about it.
28:22
Kristoffer Diaz: There's a little bit of like being, a little bit.
28:24
Kristoffer Diaz: You know a young jaded, already jaded I don't know if jaded is the right word, but you know um, a young person who just it's like everything should be the way I want it to be.
28:33
Kristoffer Diaz: Um, but part of what I was responding to was that feeling of like, looking for something lived in, looking for something that feels actually from someone's, someone's guts in some way.
28:43
Kristoffer Diaz: And I think the only way you get to that is by by living, like you said yeah, 100.
28:48
Lisa Hopkins: There's a beautiful song in the show, right, that Nuck sings, called Gramercy Park.
28:52
Lisa Hopkins: All about how people look at us and see something different than who they try to be.
28:58
Lisa Hopkins: Someone else, right, then, what they actually are in order to please.
29:01
Lisa Hopkins: That's how I interpreted it, and I read somewhere that you remember feeling that way when you were 17.
29:07
Lisa Hopkins: And I'm so curious to know I mean, I get it right At 17,.
29:10
Lisa Hopkins: We're trying to navigate the world, we're trying to figure out how we fit in, let alone in this industry, let alone all the multi layers of things that we're all dealing with as humans.
29:19
Lisa Hopkins: But I'm curious do you ever feel that way, still, like, do you ever feel that you're sort of manipulating yourself a little bit or shaping yourself a little bit to fit in or to be received in a way?
29:30
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, I mean I have like three or four thoughts.
29:32
Kristoffer Diaz: The first thing is that you know, in terms of that particular, the version of the song that lives in the show, it's even more complicated, I think.
29:39
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean it is it's that feeling that we, a lot of us, have when we're young and we're trying to identify who we are.
29:43
Kristoffer Diaz: One of the really fascinating things to me is when we put that show, in that song, into the context of this show and into that body of the.
29:52
Kristoffer Diaz: You know the young black man who's singing.
29:53
Kristoffer Diaz: This is partially about finding himself and creating something, uh, an identity, to impress other people, but it's also about protection.
30:00
Kristoffer Diaz: It's also about, like literal, like people see me and they think that I'm this like thug or gangster or whatever, and I have to navigate that.
30:10
Kristoffer Diaz: And I have to navigate the places where actually that toughness and that self-assuredness work in my favor and the places where it actually puts me at great risk.
30:18
Kristoffer Diaz: And that was something that was really important for me to tap into.
30:22
Kristoffer Diaz: And I think the thing that we all tap into that is similar is how do we create the persona of who we are and what we, what we want others to think about?
30:34
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean, like just today, thinking about like I'm going to sit on a on a zoom with somebody and you know they're going to see what I'm wearing, you know, and I always my theater.
30:44
Kristoffer Diaz: It's a very big conversation for me in a theater, you know milieu.
30:49
Kristoffer Diaz: Am I going to wear like the sports coat and look like a college professor, or am I going to wear my Brooklyn Nets hoodie?
30:56
Kristoffer Diaz: There's a little something, there's a choice to it.
30:58
Kristoffer Diaz: I want to be in a different kind of space.
31:00
Kristoffer Diaz: So that sense of creating who you are feels really important.
31:03
Kristoffer Diaz: And then that sense of trying to figure out what people are going to see, what they're going to bring to the table one way or the other in terms of judging you, assessing you, that kind of thing, and I think we all still do it.
31:13
Kristoffer Diaz: I think we still do it moment to moment.
31:16
Kristoffer Diaz: I feel like at this point in my life I'm almost 50, which is a crazy thing to say I feel so much more comfortable in who I actually am and less afraid that somebody's going to look at it, look at me, look at the image I'm presenting and say like, oh, that's not valid, or that person is not enough, or whatever I'm like, this is who I am, and I sort of know who I am, and it's a lot easier to live that way than the other way 100% Easier, meaning it brings more ease to your life.
31:55
Lisa Hopkins: It's not so easy to do because we're so hardwired to protect ourselves.
31:59
Lisa Hopkins: I mean, think about it right.
32:01
Lisa Hopkins: I mean throughout the ages.
32:02
Lisa Hopkins: If we didn't fit in, we'd be thrown out of the tribe and we'd die.
32:08
Kristoffer Diaz: So, we're naturally going to be sort of navigating, you know, just even on the basic primal level, up in a suburb, not exactly a suburb- suburb, like it wasn't big houses, I lived in an apartment building, um, but it wasn't, um, you know, it wasn't a rough and tumble urban experience kind of thing.
32:42
Kristoffer Diaz: And then I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, um, and I would spend time with my cousins in the Bronx and then I would spend time with my, my, all my Jewish friends in Yonkers and there was a constant sense of like code switching and a constant sense of like your perception based on who was looking at you and just it was.
32:59
Kristoffer Diaz: It was driven home so clearly for me, um, that I think about that a lot, where I thought about it constantly growing up.
33:07
Kristoffer Diaz: I think about it a lot less now because it's just I'm, I'm of all those things, um, but yeah, you have to, you know, I think.
33:14
Kristoffer Diaz: I think we're all we're all doing that, that code shifty kind of stuff constantly absolutely.
33:21
Kristoffer Diaz: What do you think it was that allowed you to arrive where you are now, where it it holds less weight for you I mean today, I'm just, I'm just old and I'm just um, I'm, I'm accomplished, and I don't know if accomplished is right, but I feel settled in my work and that makes a big difference, like a lot of it is.
33:41
Kristoffer Diaz: I can talk about, um, I can talk about what I do, and what I do is so interconnected to who I am as a human Like I feel really comfortable with that kind of stuff Um, to who I am as a human, like I feel really comfortable with that kind of stuff.
33:54
Kristoffer Diaz: Also, again, like I think, when you have a family and you have a community that accepts you I've always had community and always had family.
34:00
Kristoffer Diaz: But my own family and my own sort of like friends that I've now had, you know, from college, we've been friends for 25 years and you know we're people who accept all the weird quirks about you and all that kind of stuff.
34:13
Kristoffer Diaz: I just know that it it's kind of like road tested, like it, just like it works, it works and and, um, you know there's still senses.
34:22
Kristoffer Diaz: When you go to a new space or I'm teaching, when I'm teaching all the time, every every six months I get a new group of young people that I have to try to not impress is not necessarily the right word.
34:31
Kristoffer Diaz: That I have to try to not impress Is that necessarily the right word?
34:33
Kristoffer Diaz: But I have to sell them that I'm like who I am and that I know what I'm doing.
34:37
Kristoffer Diaz: And the fact that I just feel more comfortable in that stuff, I think, makes it a lot easier to accept.
34:43
Kristoffer Diaz: Just just accept who you are and have a sense that other people are going to accept it too.
34:49
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, no, for sure what?
34:50
Lisa Hopkins: What would you say, is your definition of living in the moment?
34:54
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't know, I don't know it's, it's um, I've never I don't think about it that much and maybe that's living in the moment.
35:06
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't like.
35:07
Kristoffer Diaz: I know some people like sometimes you get those questions.
35:09
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't know if you asked one of those, these questions, but like that question of like, well, how do you, how do you get yourself into into that place where you're just concerned about what's in front of you, or you're able to embrace what's in front of you, or you're able to sort of celebrate it, and I'm like, I don't know, it's always been, that's never been really foreign to me.
35:27
Kristoffer Diaz: It's just like sort of live there.
35:29
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean, I will say, um a few years ago, seven or eight years ago, um, I started going to a gym out in uh in New Jersey, where I live, and the um, the guy who runs the gym is he ends every session.
35:46
Kristoffer Diaz: We'll work out for an hour and at the end of that session we all sit down and we lay down and restore our breath and then we sit up in a circle and we go around the room and we say something that we're grateful for.
36:00
Kristoffer Diaz: And it's such a game changer, Not only doing it for yourself, but being in a space with other people that I don't actually know Now I know very well and hearing things that they're grateful for.
36:12
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't know.
36:13
Kristoffer Diaz: Know Now I know very well and hearing things that they're grateful for, because I don't know if that's living in the moment, but it feels like it.
36:16
Kristoffer Diaz: It feels like being present with these other folks and it feels like somehow being mindful or intentional or I don't know.
36:23
Kristoffer Diaz: All those words kind of feel related to me somehow.
36:27
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, no 100%.
36:28
Lisa Hopkins: And I feel the same way about gratitude.
36:31
Lisa Hopkins: Is that true gratitude can only happen in the moment?
36:34
Lisa Hopkins: I think there's a lot of guilt-associated gratitude where we go oh I should be woof.
36:40
Lisa Hopkins: I dodged that bullet yeah.
36:42
Kristoffer Diaz: That kind of thing yeah but what's the thing that actually comes to your mind when you're asked that question, or what they, you know, what do you actually in that moment?
36:52
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, feel, feel, feel strongly, for um is great.
36:56
Kristoffer Diaz: The other thing, you know.
36:57
Kristoffer Diaz: The other thing I will say about living in the moment again, is is kids are, especially when they're little, they just force you to be in the moment.
37:06
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, and and and I guess when I say it's always been natural to me, it's that they always talk to people.
37:14
Kristoffer Diaz: I said this to my kids when they turned like four or five years old and I was like, what do you do if you're playing?
37:19
Kristoffer Diaz: Maybe they're a little older, maybe they're seven or eight.
37:21
Kristoffer Diaz: And I said, well, what do you do if you're on a playground with a, with a smaller kid, and they pick up a stick and they hold it up to their ear and they pretend it's a phone and they hand it to you, and what do you do?
37:32
Kristoffer Diaz: And my kids were both like, oh, I answer the phone, like I pick up the phone and I start talking on the phone.
37:38
Kristoffer Diaz: And I was like that's, yes, I feel like I parented you well, because you engage with this child.
37:46
Kristoffer Diaz: The child is just you know, it's just so matter of fact.
37:48
Kristoffer Diaz: When the child does it and like your job in that situation as being sort of the older person, is just like dive in and engage and play with them you know, they know, they've always known since they were a little bit older.
37:59
Kristoffer Diaz: If a kid wants to play with you, you get down on their level and you, you, you, you give it back to them.
38:05
Kristoffer Diaz: So that kind of stuff you know.
38:06
Kristoffer Diaz: Again, like I don't, I wouldn't think of it outwardly as like a I don't know intentionality or the moment kind of thing, but it feels it feels important.
38:16
Kristoffer Diaz: It feels it feels it feels like a way to be present.
38:20
Lisa Hopkins: Absolutely.
38:20
Lisa Hopkins: I mean, I'm hearing you know, meet them where they're at.
38:23
Lisa Hopkins: Absolutely, meet yourself where you're at, you know, and and judgment falls away in that place.
38:29
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah.
38:30
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, that's why kids are the best.
38:32
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, yeah.
38:33
Lisa Hopkins: Another response could be that's not a phone, you idiot.
38:37
Lisa Hopkins: You're so dumb.
38:39
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, I know you totally are.
38:40
Kristoffer Diaz: You play it off or just like oh, oh, hi, that's cute.
38:43
Kristoffer Diaz: And then like you go back to doing your own thing on your own.
38:45
Kristoffer Diaz: It's like no great, like a kid is giving you something earnestly and honestly like engage I think I'm sure there are other people will do it different ways, but for me it's like engage, yeah, be there.
38:56
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, I think that's a really fantastic example.
38:58
Lisa Hopkins: Thank you for that.
38:59
Lisa Hopkins: I love that.
38:59
Lisa Hopkins: What's the um?
39:01
Lisa Hopkins: What's the hardest thing you've ever done?
39:03
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't know.
39:04
Kristoffer Diaz: There's so many yeah, there's so many ways to to answer that question.
39:08
Kristoffer Diaz: The work stuff.
39:10
Kristoffer Diaz: There's lots of hard work stuff.
39:12
Kristoffer Diaz: Writing is hard every single time.
39:13
Kristoffer Diaz: Writing a new thing is hard always because every new show is completely different than everything you've ever done before.
39:23
Kristoffer Diaz: And I don't know any writer who sits down to write something new and doesn't have a moment of like.
39:29
Kristoffer Diaz: I literally don't know how to do this.
39:32
Kristoffer Diaz: I literally have forgotten how to write.
39:33
Kristoffer Diaz: So writing is hard every single time.
39:35
Kristoffer Diaz: It's not really hard, like in the grand scheme of things, like it ain't that deep, it doesn't matter.
39:40
Kristoffer Diaz: I tell my students like no one cares, like no one cares, like you try to get free of the fear that like you're going to write something and people are going to judge you because no one actually, especially in the early stages of writing something, cares if you make something or you don't make something, cares if it's good or if it's bad.
39:55
Kristoffer Diaz: Like you just have to get past that.
39:57
Kristoffer Diaz: So reality, it's not really that hard it's interesting.
40:00
Lisa Hopkins: You know, in my work we do I talk a lot about the words we use, right, and you'll understand this as a wordsmith and the words that we put out into the world, right.
40:08
Lisa Hopkins: So so when you say something is hard, your brain's going to bring all the you know, whatever Christie has found as hard.
40:17
Lisa Hopkins: Or when you say writing is hard or whatever and it's, I'm curious to know what if it wasn't Like, what if the perception wasn't that writing is hard?
40:26
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, you know.
40:28
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, what would be different for you?
40:29
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, no, and I think that what we've tried to do, what I try to do when I'm teaching, is to clear up that space.
40:35
Kristoffer Diaz: Once we actually get, once you get going, it actually is very easy, like once you, once you enter into, um, you know, kind of a flow state, like it comes out and the words come out, and all the best stuff that I've ever written has come just sort of pouring out of me at some point.
40:52
Kristoffer Diaz: The build-up to it is difficult and the thing that's that's difficult one of the things that is difficult that's probably less difficult now is related to what we were talking about earlier is like that feeling of trying to prove yourself and trying to be like trying to get it correct.
41:07
Kristoffer Diaz: And, um, I think the biggest is one of the biggest barriers to folks, especially early on, is trying to say like this has to be perfect, that this draft has to get right there, it's like it's not, it's, it's, it's, it ain't deep.
41:22
Kristoffer Diaz: I, I, I say a lot.
41:24
Kristoffer Diaz: You have to be a writer, you have to care about writing 100% and 0%, like not 50% or not 80%, but you have to care about what you write a hundred percent, otherwise it doesn't come out Like it has to be the most important thing to you.
41:38
Kristoffer Diaz: You have to be like I'm trying to work out a problem, I'm trying to tell a story, I'm trying to investigate questions and I'm obsessed with it.
41:44
Kristoffer Diaz: And when I go to sleep, I'm thinking about it to some degree.
41:46
Kristoffer Diaz: When I'm taking a shower, I'm thinking about it to some degree.
41:48
Kristoffer Diaz: When I'm taking a shower, I'm thinking about it to some degree.
41:50
Kristoffer Diaz: I want to solve the problem.
41:51
Kristoffer Diaz: I want to solve the problem.
41:52
Kristoffer Diaz: I want to solve the problem.
41:53
Kristoffer Diaz: That's how I write.
41:54
Kristoffer Diaz: And at the same time, I have to be like if it's not coming right now, it doesn't matter.
41:59
Kristoffer Diaz: If I write something and it's not that good, that's fine.
42:04
Kristoffer Diaz: Like, let it go.
42:05
Kristoffer Diaz: Like I'll send it off to the, to the, you know, to the.
42:15
Kristoffer Diaz: Doesn't like inherently have value one way or the other, but matters is the work that you put into it and the passion that you have for it.
42:24
Kristoffer Diaz: But I think if you only operate in that sense of like this is important, this is important, this is important, then you have too much pressure on yourself and this stuff doesn't come.
42:31
Kristoffer Diaz: And if it doesn't go right, then you're just devastated, which I've had moments like that.
42:37
Kristoffer Diaz: But if you, if you're just like, it's fine, it doesn't matter, it's you know, then I don't, I don't think you have.
42:45
Kristoffer Diaz: I think it's harder to have sort of the rigor and the practice and the idea of like sometimes you just have to sit down and make the thing.
42:49
Kristoffer Diaz: Sometimes you just have to like generate.
42:51
Kristoffer Diaz: It's also different when it's your job.
42:53
Kristoffer Diaz: You know I'm showing up, I have a hard deadline, I got to turn something in, we're going into production and we have to rewrite a new song.
43:01
Kristoffer Diaz: There are times when it takes like terror, like you have to be horrified of what's going to happen if you don't make the thing.
43:09
Kristoffer Diaz: Otherwise it's not going to happen, but you know.
43:12
Kristoffer Diaz: But it can't be found so foundational to your, you know, to your, to your life or to your sense of self.
43:17
Kristoffer Diaz: Otherwise, you know that's not a way to be a functional human being.
43:21
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, and you know, love me, a paradox right About.
43:23
Lisa Hopkins: You know, the a hundred percent and the zero percent is great, and you know the idea that you know that we have.
43:32
Lisa Hopkins: We have thoughts, and then we associate an emotion with that thought and from there, if we take any action, it's based on the feeling that you have.
43:41
Lisa Hopkins: So that's where the whole changing the thought and thinking about how you want to feel can elicit a different end.
43:44
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, you know.
43:47
Lisa Hopkins: So I asked you what was the hardest thing?
43:49
Lisa Hopkins: What was the easiest thing?
43:50
Lisa Hopkins: What was the easiest thing?
43:52
Kristoffer Diaz: you ever did, the easiest thing I ever did?
43:57
Kristoffer Diaz: I have no idea, like I would never think about that.
44:01
Kristoffer Diaz: The easiest thing that.
44:02
Kristoffer Diaz: That that I've ever done becoming becoming a father for me was actually very um.
44:09
Kristoffer Diaz: It slipped right onto my shoulders Like it was something I think I had been ready for.
44:15
Kristoffer Diaz: We had kids a little bit older but it just like falling into that idea of like, oh, this is who I want to, this is actually who I want to be and this is like I enjoy most of it and and I, I really like my kids.
44:32
Kristoffer Diaz: I always say someday they'll hear all these interviews where I talk about how I really like them and that'd be fun, but you know.
44:38
Kristoffer Diaz: But in addition to like you know, just like, like you know loving my children, like I enjoy them and I always have, and that same kind of thing of like you know the best, like getting on the floor and playing with the kids has always been really great.
44:50
Kristoffer Diaz: So, again, like I don't want to say that it's easy to be a father or a parent in any kind of way, but for me, like sliding into that role just felt so natural and right.
45:00
Kristoffer Diaz: And I think back to something we were talking earlier.
45:02
Kristoffer Diaz: Part of why I feel comfortable in in my skin in a different way than I did when I was younger was that this was like something that I had a real affinity for.
45:13
Lisa Hopkins: I love that I bet no one said that before.
45:15
Lisa Hopkins: What would you say is your Achilles heel?
45:22
Kristoffer Diaz: So hard.
45:22
Kristoffer Diaz: These are so difficult.
45:24
Kristoffer Diaz: My Achilles heel.
45:27
Lisa Hopkins: Wait, and let me stop you for one second too.
45:29
Kristoffer Diaz: You know.
45:30
Lisa Hopkins: What I'm even more interested about than the answers Is where you go to find the answers.
45:34
Lisa Hopkins: Where are you looking?
45:35
Kristoffer Diaz: now.
45:36
Lisa Hopkins: Where are you searching for that answer?
45:38
Kristoffer Diaz: Oh, like, okay, so there's two things Like.
45:41
Kristoffer Diaz: First thing is that I physically like I physically have to look away because this is related to my writing process.
45:49
Kristoffer Diaz: This is so I'm already pissed off at myself for the pretentiousness of what I'm about to say.
45:56
Kristoffer Diaz: But, like, a lot of times when I think about these things, I either look off to the side or I have to close my eyes because I can actually see, like words.
46:04
Kristoffer Diaz: So if I'm writing, I have to close my eyes and I actually see the words kind of like come across.
46:08
Kristoffer Diaz: They come right here and I've talked to other writers about this and it's hilarious to name drop.
46:12
Kristoffer Diaz: But Lin-Manuel Miranda talked to me about when he freestyle raps and he does the same thing.
46:18
Kristoffer Diaz: He closes and he's like there's a list of words over here and then there's the actual words I'm saying here and I'm trying to match these words.
46:24
Kristoffer Diaz: So, anyway, so that's a super fun thing.
46:26
Kristoffer Diaz: I'm actually looking, I'm actually thinking well, where am I going to answer the question that I don't even remember?
46:34
Lisa Hopkins: what the question is what's your Achilles heel?
46:38
Kristoffer Diaz: Oh, my Achilles heel, my Achilles heel, I don't know.
46:41
Kristoffer Diaz: I think I can get, I can get in my head.
46:43
Kristoffer Diaz: That's probably a good answer, right, based on the fact that I'm in my head very much about this I can.
46:47
Kristoffer Diaz: I've sometimes been really overthinking, um, and put sort of sort of pressure on.
46:53
Kristoffer Diaz: When I was younger, like third, fourth grade I was very, um, uh, hard on myself in terms of like there's a right way to do things and you have to Excel and you have to all that kind of stuff and um, somewhere in that time period, through a bunch of sources, I became more of the like it's not that deep, you'll figure it out, let it bounce off your shoulders and, and you know, try to try to try to lower the, the, the I don't know the, the stakes to some extent and um and I.
47:30
Kristoffer Diaz: That served me very well.
47:31
Kristoffer Diaz: But I think to some extent I still have a little bit of that like, oh, it's going to be all right, I'll figure it out, and I may not have like, I'm not going to solve this problem right now, I'll let it work its way out.
47:45
Kristoffer Diaz: It's going to work its way out because it often works its way out over time, but that doesn't always.
47:49
Kristoffer Diaz: As a as a grown-up, you can't always do that there's.
47:52
Kristoffer Diaz: Sometimes you have to actually take the bull by the horns and make a decision, so so I think if there is an Achilles heel, it's a little bit or a fatal flaw.
47:59
Kristoffer Diaz: For me, sometimes it's a belief that if you just trust it trust time it'll work itself out.
48:08
Lisa Hopkins: So what would you do if you weren't in the performing arts?
48:12
Kristoffer Diaz: Teach little ones.
48:14
Kristoffer Diaz: There's not a lot of men in those areas, but I would.
48:19
Kristoffer Diaz: I I could kindergarten's hard but I would teach.
48:21
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, I would teach kindergarten.
48:22
Kristoffer Diaz: I would also take care of babies.
48:23
Kristoffer Diaz: Kids are good for the soul why do you write like?
48:28
Lisa Hopkins: did you always know you were gonna write?
48:29
Lisa Hopkins: How did it come into your life?
48:30
Lisa Hopkins: Why do you do it?
48:31
Kristoffer Diaz: in college, when I started coming to this, I was seeing a lot of really good theater because in new york and I was seeing like 150 shows a year, maybe more than that and just coming slowly to that understanding that, like you can use this as a tool to think about yourself and to figure out yourself and to figure out other people and to figure out, just like, just to get smarter about how this all works, meaning life, yeah, so I think it's, it's that I mean, like honestly, now I write because it's my job and it's, you know, it's it's how I take care of myself.
49:14
Kristoffer Diaz: But I'm lucky that for the most part, the projects that I've been doing for most of my career also get to be projects that I care about, that I'm interested in.
49:24
Kristoffer Diaz: I wouldn't quite call it therapy, but it probably does a similar kind of thing that therapy does for some folks.
49:29
Kristoffer Diaz: It is like, oh, I'm going to live in this space and grapple with stuff in a way that's fruitful and hopefully also, if that can be my job, that's, uh, fruitful, and then hopefully also, like you know, if that can be my job, that's, that's pretty cool.
49:44
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, no, absolutely.
49:44
Lisa Hopkins: And there's the learning aspect, right, the learning learning through the craft, learning through the delivery, but also learning about yourself.
49:51
Lisa Hopkins: It's kind of a reciprocal thing that just continues to grow right.
49:56
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, absolutely.
49:57
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, that's pretty cool, pretty cool.
49:58
Lisa Hopkins: So, is there?
49:59
Lisa Hopkins: Is there a project?
49:59
Lisa Hopkins: Or?
50:00
Lisa Hopkins: Or maybe it's not a creative project, maybe it's something completely off the wall, but something that you know, that sort of looms up here that you think, oh, maybe one day I'd really like to do that.
50:09
Lisa Hopkins: Is there, do you have anything like that?
50:11
Kristoffer Diaz: the biggest thing that I that I want to do and I have no idea if, when, how it happens is I've been working in the New York city theater for, like you know, almost 30 years now, and I've been working with, um, some of the same actors for 20 years, 15 years, 20 years, and a lot of actors who I've never hired to be in a play because they're, for whatever reason they they aren't the right type for that play or they aren't, um, they weren't available when we were working on it, uh, but they've helped me develop new plays.
50:53
Kristoffer Diaz: They've helped me.
50:53
Kristoffer Diaz: They read new things that I that I write and, um, what I would love to do is gather a big group of them and make something like specifically for them, and I just want to, like, get them in a room and say, like, what is it that you want to do?
51:07
Kristoffer Diaz: Like, what haven't you done before?
51:08
Kristoffer Diaz: How do we make a big, epic story?
51:11
Kristoffer Diaz: But there's a that takes a lot of time and and those kinds of plays are very expensive to produce.
51:17
Kristoffer Diaz: I feel like you can produce them in the UK, but they're very hard to do here in the States.
51:21
Kristoffer Diaz: So someday down the road I think we'll want to take that on, but we've got a lot of other boxes we need to check off first.
51:28
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, that's pretty exciting, I'm laughing.
51:32
Lisa Hopkins: If we were working together, I'd be saying boy, you're really fighting for your limitations, man, You're always telling me all the reasons why you can't do something Well you know, I'm teasing you a little bit.
51:43
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, no, I think you know, I think you're right on, it's something that's right on and it's something that is just a matter.
51:48
Kristoffer Diaz: Again, it's a little bit of that Like when is it when?
51:57
Kristoffer Diaz: Is it going to, and totally, there's probably 15 projects that are just like.
52:00
Kristoffer Diaz: I could have done this if I didn't just tell myself that I all the reasons why I could.
52:06
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, and I would put forth that the one you just described to me is already happening.
52:12
Kristoffer Diaz: It's a hundred percent, a hundred percent right.
52:14
Kristoffer Diaz: So that's, that's that thing too.
52:16
Kristoffer Diaz: Is that any of these projects?
52:17
Kristoffer Diaz: I don't think I have any projects that I've wanted to do that have actually been like no, these are finished, You're not doing them.
52:24
Kristoffer Diaz: The limitations are in the way.
52:26
Kristoffer Diaz: They're always like just sort of percolating, and you know.
52:29
Lisa Hopkins: I love that.
52:30
Kristoffer Diaz: Some of them are just.
52:30
Kristoffer Diaz: Some of them are definitely going to happen.
52:32
Lisa Hopkins: I love that, hey.
52:33
Lisa Hopkins: So what do you know will stay true about you, no matter what happens.
52:45
Kristoffer Diaz: Just true about you, no matter what happens.
52:46
Kristoffer Diaz: Just a light little question nothing like I don't, I think, nothing, I can't like guarantee that.
52:48
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, I think there were a lot of things that I thought, um, I could guarantee when I was younger, um, so you know, I just just as like a way of hedging my bets, like I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm not presumptuous enough to say I know what, you know how things are going to actually unfold.
53:06
Kristoffer Diaz: That said, I think the stuff that I care about, the stuff that I write about, is community.
53:15
Kristoffer Diaz: It's people being together, finding community, finding a space for themselves.
53:20
Kristoffer Diaz: I think that that is something that's still going to stay true for me forever.
53:27
Kristoffer Diaz: I think that the stuff that I was saying about family and kids and they're all related to the same set of stuff that stuff feels really front of mind for me.
53:36
Kristoffer Diaz: That stuff feels really front of mind for me and I think I'm always going to default back to trying to write about stuff.
53:47
Kristoffer Diaz: I think I'm always going to default, even if I stop, even if I retire or I'm not writing or I move in to do something else.
53:58
Kristoffer Diaz: I think there's always going to be a uh, a pull to just sit back down.
54:00
Kristoffer Diaz: So at some point, just sit back down and like there's a question that I can't quite wrap my head around.
54:05
Kristoffer Diaz: I gotta create a character, or a few characters, to help me figure out what's gonna, to figure out what I don't know about this thing.
54:16
Kristoffer Diaz: I think that that's always going to stick around as, like my, I don't know if coping mechanism is the right thing, but that's, you know, that's, that's, that's my practice and I think that that's going to stay the same so I'm hearing you're always going to remain curious.
54:31
Lisa Hopkins: I hope so I really hope so but it's interesting that you went to um not identifying which, which I love.
54:40
Lisa Hopkins: You just kept yourself in that open space saying I don't know, I don't know.
54:45
Lisa Hopkins: But then you actually did get a little more specific.
54:47
Lisa Hopkins: But where you went was and I just want to point this out is I don't know how things are going to unfold.
54:53
Lisa Hopkins: And that's interesting because for me, from my perspective, the question was coming from what's not going to change about you, regardless of what unfolds?
55:04
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, and I think that's what I mean.
55:14
Kristoffer Diaz: So much has changed in in the world, which you know, but but also just in terms of like what I I don't know, like the small trappings, I guess, of what I thought were it was important to me and what I thought was going to be, you know, has been less so, yeah, um, as I've gotten older, um, and like I said, I, I do think that those, those things, I still I I write about and I think about and I organize my brain in the same ways that I did when I was younger, which is just like who are the people that you care about and how you care about them?
55:44
Kristoffer Diaz: So, that part, I guess, is what's going to stick around, but you just don't know.
55:46
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean the world right, the world right now.
55:56
Kristoffer Diaz: So who knows?
55:56
Kristoffer Diaz: But yeah, that's what I think is really what feels important.
55:58
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, for sure, I mean the world right now.
55:59
Kristoffer Diaz: So who knows?
55:59
Kristoffer Diaz: But yeah, I that's, that's what I think is really the what feels important.
56:00
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, for sure.
56:01
Lisa Hopkins: I mean the world can't change you.
56:02
Lisa Hopkins: I mean it can change your circumstances, but but you know, is the world going to suddenly make you not not think connection is important I don't think so.
56:10
Lisa Hopkins: No, I don't think so I would call bullshit on that one, but anyways, okay, how do you want to be remembered?
56:21
Kristoffer Diaz: I mean, all these come back to the same thing.
56:22
Kristoffer Diaz: I think the really important thing is is is I want to be a good, good father, good husband, good friend, good kid, good, good, good child to my parents.
56:33
Kristoffer Diaz: And then you know, and then I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that, like I think you know, I want to be remembered for for the writing.
56:39
Kristoffer Diaz: Um, and you know, and then I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that, like I think you know, I want to be remembered for for the writing.
56:42
Kristoffer Diaz: And you know, in a curiosity, within the writing, I think that you know, I'm very, very lucky that I think of the things that I've written.
56:50
Kristoffer Diaz: I think chat, deity and hell's kitchen, especially, are like I've gotten very, very, very close to what I set out to do with each of those shows.
57:04
Kristoffer Diaz: I think it's impossible to get to a hundred percent, like, just because, like, you have it in your mind and then you have, you, there's a director in the mix and there's writers in the I mean there's, there's actors in the mix and you know, other people have different kinds of ideas and the process of creating is just, it's something, I mean the theater.
57:23
Kristoffer Diaz: We do it over and over and over again.
57:25
Kristoffer Diaz: So, you know, every night we try it again.
57:27
Kristoffer Diaz: So like that idea that like we may have gotten in one night, we may have gotten like a perfect distillation of what everything was.
57:33
Kristoffer Diaz: But it doesn't.
57:34
Kristoffer Diaz: It doesn't land that way every night, but on both of those shows we're so close to to the overall picture that I wanted to create for myself and I think you know 97, 98, 99 of the emotional heart of what we wanted to do on both of those shows.
57:49
Kristoffer Diaz: So I want to be, you know, I think, to be to be remembered for, for the um, for that kind of success on those, those pieces feels really significant and important to me, tertiary to the other stuff.
58:03
Kristoffer Diaz: And I will say that that's a big difference between being 23 years old and being 47 years old now.
58:11
Kristoffer Diaz: Is that at 23, all I wanted was that?
58:13
Kristoffer Diaz: yep and now that's, you know, because, and maybe because it, maybe because I've had some of that success already, it doesn't feel quite so desperate, but it's definitely part of that 100% Legacy.
58:28
Lisa Hopkins: Yep, I get what you're saying, that you've given your best expression for yourself and now you let it go like you will with your children, right, when your children go.
58:36
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, exactly.
58:37
Lisa Hopkins: You've given them everything they can.
58:38
Lisa Hopkins: So I mean, there's no difference, and so you just do the very best that you can.
58:43
Lisa Hopkins: But I love that you're able to acknowledge that and feel good about it.
58:45
Lisa Hopkins: I think that's fantastic.
58:46
Lisa Hopkins: All right, I'm going to ask you what makes you, and I'm going to say a word, and you say the first thing that comes to your mind.
58:53
Kristoffer Diaz: Oh, so this is like a lightning round.
58:55
Kristoffer Diaz: Yeah, let's do it, let's try it.
58:56
Kristoffer Diaz: You want to try it?
58:57
Lisa Hopkins: like a lightning round and see what happens.
58:58
Lisa Hopkins: Sure.
59:01
Kristoffer Diaz: What makes you hungry Lunchtime?
59:03
Kristoffer Diaz: I'm hungry at 10.30.
59:04
Kristoffer Diaz: 10.30 am makes me hungry.
59:06
Lisa Hopkins: What makes you sad?
59:08
Kristoffer Diaz: Oh so much.
59:11
Kristoffer Diaz: I can't articulate what makes me sad.
59:14
Kristoffer Diaz: I can't articulate what the thing is.
59:17
Kristoffer Diaz: Maybe I'll come back to that one.
59:19
Kristoffer Diaz: This is not a lightning round at all.
59:20
Lisa Hopkins: It's okay, what inspires you?
59:22
Lisa Hopkins: What inspires you?
59:23
Kristoffer Diaz: what inspires me?
59:25
Kristoffer Diaz: People working together to accomplish something, to make something together.
59:30
Kristoffer Diaz: What frustrates you um technology?
59:34
Lisa Hopkins: what makes you laugh?
59:36
Kristoffer Diaz: um, the first thing that came to mind is when little kids fall down and don't cry.
59:42
Kristoffer Diaz: They fall down and they're not hurt.
59:45
Kristoffer Diaz: That's one of the funniest things oh my god, that's great.
59:47
Lisa Hopkins: What makes you angry?
59:49
Kristoffer Diaz: communication problems, especially me not being able to express articulate what I'm actually trying to say.
59:58
Lisa Hopkins: And finally, what makes you grateful.
1:00:07
Kristoffer Diaz: I'm so conscious of the fact that I don't deserve more than other people and I'm so humbled by how many great things that I have access to, and I'm grateful that I have been lucky, blessed, whatever, to have the kind of life that I have.
1:00:24
Kristoffer Diaz: Not through actions of my own, I play a role in these things, I work, but it's not because of me that I have a hit show on Broadway or that I have a hit show on Broadway or that I have, you know, a home, a loving home, and a wife and kids and fam.
1:00:45
Kristoffer Diaz: Like I didn't, I didn't earn the incredible parents that gave birth to me, that brought me into this world.
1:00:51
Kristoffer Diaz: I'm locked into that.
1:00:52
Kristoffer Diaz: So I'm just, I'm constantly grateful for all of the things that I've been able to find myself amongst um, in my, in my life and, uh, the gratitude takes the form of, of, of, I don't know, not trying to, to to earn it, but honor it and give respect to it and show up for it.
1:01:15
Lisa Hopkins: What are the top three things that happened so far today?
1:01:18
Kristoffer Diaz: I had a meeting that got canceled.
1:01:20
Kristoffer Diaz: That was great.
1:01:22
Kristoffer Diaz: I reread a really good play.
1:01:25
Kristoffer Diaz: That was good, and I took my kid to school.
1:01:34
Kristoffer Diaz: I walked my kid to school.
1:01:35
Kristoffer Diaz: We had a nice conversation.
1:01:36
Kristoffer Diaz: He was on time.
1:01:37
Kristoffer Diaz: He was really on time this morning, which doesn't always happen.
1:01:39
Kristoffer Diaz: I'll take that.
1:01:41
Kristoffer Diaz: That's a win.
1:01:42
Lisa Hopkins: That is a win and what's something that you're looking forward to both today and in the future.
1:01:48
Kristoffer Diaz: Teaching tonight in the future.
1:01:51
Kristoffer Diaz: There's so much, but the most immediate thing that comes to mind is that on December 1st, shoshana Bean is leaving our show and I'm not looking forward to that.
1:02:04
Kristoffer Diaz: It's sad, but we're going to see the show that day.
1:02:07
Kristoffer Diaz: I'm going, my wife and kids and I are all going, and we're going to spend that time with Shoshana and it's going to be pretty magical.
1:02:16
Kristoffer Diaz: She's pretty magical.
1:02:16
Kristoffer Diaz: She's amazing in the role and again the community is going to going to be.
1:02:18
Kristoffer Diaz: It's going to be pretty magical.
1:02:19
Kristoffer Diaz: She's pretty magical.
1:02:19
Kristoffer Diaz: She's amazing in the role, and again it's.
1:02:21
Kristoffer Diaz: The community is going to get to be there.
1:02:23
Kristoffer Diaz: It's going to be.
1:02:23
Kristoffer Diaz: You know, I will cry a thousand percent and it's going to be.
1:02:28
Kristoffer Diaz: It's going to be a beautiful thing.
1:02:30
Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, it sure is, chris.
1:02:32
Lisa Hopkins: I so appreciate you taking the time to be in the moment with me today.
1:02:35
Lisa Hopkins: Really, it's been such a pleasure.
1:02:37
Kristoffer Diaz: It's a lot of fun.
1:02:37
Kristoffer Diaz: Oh, thank you so much.
1:02:39
Lisa Hopkins: Such a joy I've been speaking today with Christopher Diaz.
1:02:41
Lisa Hopkins: I'm Lisa Hopkins.
1:02:43
Lisa Hopkins: Thanks so much for listening.
1:02:44
Lisa Hopkins: Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and remember to live in the moment.
1:02:48
Lisa Hopkins: In music, stop time is that beautiful moment where the band is suspended in rhythmic unison, supporting the soloist to express their individuality In the moment.
1:03:01
Lisa Hopkins: I encourage you to take that time and create your own rhythm.
1:03:06
Lisa Hopkins: Until next time.
1:03:08
Lisa Hopkins: I'm Lisa Hopkins.
1:03:09
Lisa Hopkins: Thanks for listening.