Latest / The BSB Podcast / Exclusive Interview: Michael Alan Herman & Josie Herman of Theatre Nova's 'The Last Wide Open'

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Exclusive Interview: Michael Alan Herman & Josie Herman of Theatre Nova's 'The Last Wide Open' · The BSB Podcast

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The Last Wide Open is making its Michigan premiere at Theater Nova.
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And today we're talking to two of the cast members, Josie Herman and Michael Alan Herman from this production.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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Wow, thank you so much for having us.
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It's a joy to be here.
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So you're kind of entering into your final week, the beginning of your final week before the show opens.
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Michael, how are you kind of feeling right now?
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Honestly, we feel really great.
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Yeah, Diane and the whole staff at Theater Nova has been unbelievable and we feel really prepared for Tech Week.
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We just had last night our first dress rehearsal.
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So that was the first time getting used to the costumes, but we'd even been using like rehearsal costumes.
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So even our costume changes were like ready to go.
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It's usually the last week, right Josie, that everything kind of gets figured out and you're kind of putting the pieces all together, but it sounds like it's going rather
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smoothly.
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Yeah, yeah, all the way along, we've been adding more and more little details here and there.
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So it feels like in this first tech dress that we've had, a lot of the stuff is familiar already that we're doing.
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And you know how like in every show, there's like a phase where you're like, ooh, nobody should come see the show.
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It's not going to possibly be ready.
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I think we're already past that phase.
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Now we're at that stage where we're like, hey, everyone come see the show.
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should come see the show.
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I mean, that's a good place to be though.
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I feel like it's always the stress of this last week and you're just like, I don't know if this is gonna come together, but if you've already passed that phase, you're in a good
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place.
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Yeah.
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So what's kind of the story of The Last White Open for maybe those who aren't familiar with it?
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Yeah, one of the best ways to describe it is we're saying it's a multiverse rom-com because it shows three different versions of the same character's lives based on their
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choices.
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And it's the story between Mikolaj and Lina, who are two employees at a small Polish restaurant.
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And based on how they live their life, they have a different relationship with each other and there are different faces of their lives.
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And it's really fun to see these characters navigate these difficult choices.
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What was it about this project, Josie, that really kind of, you were like, I have to be a part of this.
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Oh, goodness.
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Well, I love love stories.
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It's a very cute, quaint story, but it also hits really hard too.
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And I'm not a super big fan of just like, you know, really trite, like, Hallmarky things.
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I'm not just a fan of those, but like really deep things about love that really hit home.
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really into.
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And this one does that.
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It's...
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but it's also funny, it's also cute, it's adorable.
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So yeah, I love it.
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And then the opportunity to work with Michael uh is so fun.
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So I'm so, so excited that we got the chance to be cast together.
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That's pretty rare that we would get to do a show together like this.
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So I'm just so excited.
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What is it kind of like to bounce off the two, like being a real couple, being, you know, married to each other, what is it like to also get to bounce that off on stage for each
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other?
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mean, obviously it authenticity to the show.
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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Do you want to do it?
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Yeah.
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Well, I think that like we can understand each other's humor a lot.
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This show is very funny.
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It's a rom-com.
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um and I think like there's just like moments where we can make each other laugh.
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And then like literally the laughter is authentic.
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It's like.
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I really thought that that was funny.
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I really think that you're cute.
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I'm really in love with you, you know?
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So it's fun to get to experience that.
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Anything else you Yeah, I totally agree with that.
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I think that you said it too, um Brian, there's like a genuineness to our relationship on stage and we love working together.
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I think that we've been doing it for oh, close to like 10 years now.
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Yeah, definitely 10 years.
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About almost 10 years working together.
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Before we even were a couple, we studied theater together.
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we...
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found out that we liked working together.
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think we were in shows together before we were dating or anything like that.
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And we just thought, hey, I like working with you.
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So we've kept that up.
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I it's a good basis.
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It's a good basis to have, you know, as a psychologist, specifically, specifically as couples therapists, like it's good to have that basis of something that you have in
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common.
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also then it your people are going to buy into that.
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You know what mean?
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They're going see the show and they're going to see, like, oh, they actually like working with each other.
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They like being around each other.
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They care about each other.
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So it adds, like I said, authenticity to what the show, The Last Wide Open really is kind of going on with.
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Absolutely.
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And even like behind the scenes too, it's like there's days where we struggle with certain things and we're just like not feeling, it's like, I messed up that part.
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And I feel like just being there for each other, it like builds not only our relationship, but also these characters' relationships on stage too.
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It's like we truly are there for each other in times where we're feeling like everything's going really smoothly.
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And also when it's like, gosh, okay, we're helping each other get through this moment because we're.
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messing up our lines or whatever.
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So it's really, really good.
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It also makes rehearsals super easy because running lines, we do it all the time, trying to get the memorization into our heads and we live with each other.
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So we can run lines all the time, just doing dishes and running lines.
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I mean, that's awesome to have that built in part with that then too.
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Just being like that, hey, we can run lines whenever we want to.
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Like this is, that's awesome.
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So Josie, you're playing Lina So who would you say Lina is to you?
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Oh, great question.
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Well, Lina in some ways is similar to me, in some ways very different, but she is a woman who, a young woman who is really, really scared to jump into love.
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She is the one I think that is, she's the one that has the big arc of the show of like, know, should, is love worth it?
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Is love...
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you know, should you even bother to fall in love or is it gonna be too much pain?
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And she kind of has to go through that in all these different timelines that we have.
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There's like three different movements of the play.
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um She's kind of the one that is like, I gotta break this because it's so, it's not worth it.
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I'm not gonna do this, it's terrible.
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So I think she is very much like um the one that the audience can sometimes relate to and be like, yeah, love is really hard.
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I don't know.
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I don't know if I'm ready for it.
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I don't know if I wanna even bother.
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And I think it's Migglewise character that, um you know, that kind of pulls her into it more and more throughout the show.
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I I think you're right, though.
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think that there's, as you get older, you're like, You're kind of jaded about love, you know I mean?
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Or you kind of become jaded about it.
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Yes, yes, that's so true.
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And that's so true for Lina's character.
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It's like, there's, there's different, like we said, there's different timelines.
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And so she's kind of going through different things in each one.
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Like in one, she's like just single and she's like, so jaded of love.
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The second one, she is engaged to someone that she doesn't really like and stuff.
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And so I guess I won't go through the whole story, but you know, it's in, in all of these timelines, she's experienced love in a different way.
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And
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And in all three of the timelines, love has kind of hurt her in some way.
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So I think that uh there's something that anyone and everyone can relate to in that because I think everyone to some degree has been hurt by love in some way or another,
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whether that's really, really intense or just a small crush that didn't return that feeling in high school or whatever.
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And so Michael, for you, you're playing me, Mikolaj Who is he to you?
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yeah, mean, Mikolaj is like this golden retriever man.
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He is so fun and so in love with the idea of love.
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And he is this sort of like bolts of sunlight that exists inside of this story.
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And I immediately fell in love with his psychology, like who this character is and how much joy he brings into the room.
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Not to say that he doesn't go through challenges too, he certainly does.
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But I love that he is this way.
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And then on top of that, he is this Polish immigrant.
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who's come to America and found sort of a little bit of a home at this Polish restaurant that of course reminds him of home.
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And he is trying to navigate language barriers and cultural barriers and all of these challenges of coming to America with English not being your first language.
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And in one of the movements, like just barely understanding English at all.
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And so we see him sort of navigating those first steps, not only into love, but into like America and what it means to be.
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uh
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a citizen here.
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he's a great character.
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I enjoy the body and the energy of him every time we run this show.
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I'm not going to get tired of this character.
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just think he's a joy.
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I would say when you said a golden retriever energy, that has to be kind of exciting to step into that because it's such a positive, like, I mean, you can't help but be happy
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when you're kind of in that energy as you're playing that role.
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I totally agree.
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He's so much fun in that way.
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yeah, it's everything.
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It's like in the physicality, it's in the language.
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I also did a lot of research into uh the Polish culture and uh Josie is very Polish.
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So I had like, I've seen it like Polish families, you know, uh and how, uh how like that culture exists too.
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And that was awesome to dig into that, because previously to this, I knew very, very little Polish and then I have to speak Polish for some of the lines in this production
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too.
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So
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That was a deep, deep research.
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And have the accent.
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And have the accent, the Polish accent, which is tricky too.
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And it's funny because the language looks like a wifi password.
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So many syllables, you know?
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And it's really uh different than English.
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And their culture is just very different than American.
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So it's been really fun to step into that.
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has also been like probably the biggest challenge of the show would you say then?
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Kind of trying to learn like to like soak in as much of the Polish culture and language and stuff as possible.
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Yeah, I think that's stacked on top of we are playing some music and singing in this production as well.
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So keeping the character, keeping this Polish character inside that identity is also really challenging because sometimes when you sing, it's like, okay, it's music time.
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Let's just sing a song, but that's not musical theater.
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We need to be that character and be that spirit inside the song as well.
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So I think that's been...
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For me, the biggest challenge.
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I'm just like not great at musicals.
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Well, and the show is not a musical.
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No, it's described as it's a play with music.
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So like every once in a while, the character, I think there's only three, four songs in the whole show.
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So we just kind of like burst into song every once in a while.
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But it is not, I would not at all describe this as a musical.
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which is, it's been a challenge for us, because we typically don't do musicals.
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We typically don't sing, we're actors.
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Yeah, we love straight plays.
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We're very like, play people.
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a challenge for us, but it's also been a really rewarding challenge.
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I feel like we've grown a lot in that.
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Diane is really, really, our director, Diane has really, really helped us out, kind of bringing out the character of the songs.
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And so, yeah, it's been good.
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That is super awesome.
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I love a show that has a little bit of, you know, I feel like music is so important, even to everyday life.
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Like, it makes sense that there would sometimes be a straight show that would have just a little bit of music.
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Yeah, right.
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It's really fun.
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I mean, I'm a huge music fan.
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I just don't typically do music.
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So it's, it's, I totally agree with you.
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I feel like music really brings a lot to a performance and just the world.
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love music so much.
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So you had mentioned Josie, that this story is also kind of like three alternate timelines or like three different realities.
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Do you approach developing your character differently than you would a straight show where it's like a from start to finish?
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Because there are three different timelines.
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How do you go about doing that?
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Really, really interesting question.
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Yeah, I think so.
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There's a different sort of energy to each one.
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And that's just based on the text really.
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But in the second one, for instance, ah she's going through a whole different phase and she's much more manic because it's like, like things are moving faster for her.
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the...
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first one it was just like stillness and kind of like this cloud of like, I hate love, I hate everything, I hate my life.
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And the second one, things almost are moving too fast.
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So she's kind of like, I feel like the language and everything and just the way you embody that as an actor changes too, just based on the scenario that you're in.
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Would you say anything?
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yeah.
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your character is very different too, because in each one of these movements, um
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his character has been in America for a different amount of time.
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So that's maybe even, I think, more interesting.
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Sure, yeah.
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So the first one, um he's been there for about a year or so.
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Two years.
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Two years, yeah, two years.
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And so a little more familiar, he understands the language.
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The second movement, it's two days that he's been in America.
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So, oh, culture shock is pretty much that movement.
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How do we navigate everything?
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And almost everything's different and a little bit strange.
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And so...
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Fortunately, the text also supports that too, where it's a lot of just speaking Polish.
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It's a lot of not understanding English words and trying to figure out, navigate that.
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And then the last movement, it's 15 years that he's been in America.
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So much more Americanized.
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Way more Americanized, way more comfortable.
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he says words like dude and other American things that are uh very much to speak to that 15 years that he's been in the country.
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It's a great written script.
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It's very, very layered.
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And we found all these little gems as we've gone along to uh help build these characters.
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But we do think of them differently.
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Each movement is a different psychology, yet in the same time, the same.
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We didn't want to have them be completely different people.
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They still are the same character.
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Just their life has drastically changed them, which is really cool.
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I was going to say that I think that that's probably super interesting from even like an audience perspective to see, like, because the core person is still the same, but like,
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like you said, specifically for your character, Michael, like having the different time, like that plays a huge difference at who a person is.
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You know, if you've been there for 15 years at a place, it's much different than, you know, two years to even two days.
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So that's, that has to be incredible as an actor to also kind of play with.
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Totally, totally.
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And I tried my very best to have that affect the dialect even as well.
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It's like a much thicker dialect in the second one where he's really trying to understand what's going on.
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It comes across as like this is like too linguistic probably, but some of the subtle endings like the Gs becoming Ks and these different things that are really, really
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linguistic for Eastern Europe um would be present in the second movement but not in the other movements.
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So finding some of those with the textual analysis was a joy.
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So at Theater Nova, how do you feel like they're bringing the world of The Last Wide Open to life on stage?
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Like with the staging, the movement, you know, how is that kind of coming together?
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Well, the set is really adorable.
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So the whole play takes place in this Polish restaurant.
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um And it's just a beautifully made set.
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The details are really lovely.
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uh Myself being Polish, I feel like I recognize all these little things, these little kind of tchotchkes on the wall.
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And one of my favorite things is there's like this picture on the wall of uh Pope John Paul II.
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who's a Polish Pope and Polish people just like love that.
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So they're like, oh, a Jambal too, you know?
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So I think it just a fun little detail that like Polish people I'm sure would walk in and go like, I get it, Polish restaurant, I see you there.
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And so yeah, I think it's really adorable and just, I think they did a fantastic job, even the world, the coloring, the lighting as well is a beautiful design um in the show.
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Yeah, anything.
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Yeah, I think that that lighting especially is really helpful to help step out into those like magical realism moments when we do burst into song and like reality stretches and
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bends a little bit the lighting really helps with that and can transform like a normal looking diner into something really extraordinary.
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Oh man, mean, Theater Nova is like black box theater at its finest.
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Yeah, what we love about working with Theater Nova is that the audience is so close.
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They're right there with us and you get to this play also breaks the fourth wall, which is, know, when we sometimes talk directly to the audience.
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And that's so much fun because they're right there.
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You just walk right up to them and look them right in the face and be like, what do you think about this?
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And it's one of the best parts about working.
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in a space like Theater Nova and I love the audiences at Theater Nova, they're very friendly and everything too.
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that's true.
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And because Theater Nova is a thrust stage, there's audiences on three sides, that also of course changes the staging and how we play diagonals or how we can punctuate a certain
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moment so that everyone can see it.
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That's a really fun challenge to think about as an actor that's a little different than like a standard proscenium or something like that.
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It's also like...
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a thought you can just like almost like just receive energy.
17:06
Yeah, the audience sees it.
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It's kind of a little similar to film acting in that way that you know, it doesn't have to be this huge like choice.
17:14
Wow, like big spongebob acting.
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It can just be this very subtle like you like Michael said, you can just think a thought and the audience can perceive that because they're so close to you.
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So it's it's I love that type of very subtle acting.
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We love that stuff.
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I'd say it's my favorite.
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Would you say it's your favorite like style of theater?
17:30
Yeah.
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Yeah.
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uh
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I do love the intimacy of a black box theater just because it is just, you and the people around you.
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And it's not like when you go to like, you know, the Fox theater and there's 5,000 seats and you can't interact with people, you know, you are, they're seeing your face.
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And I feel like that changes a lot of like seeing a show too, you know, when you can see the emotions on somebody's face and what they're going through in such an intimate way.
17:53
Yeah, so true.
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think Sir Ian McKellen said this recently, which was that like, they call it a house because the theater is a home and for like that night you become a family.
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And I feel like that's so true in that little space of Theater Nova.
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It's, you know, if you feel it so apparently that it is this little family for that night, can, like you said, you can see each other and it's a very intimate experience for that
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space.
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So, ah, it's a treat.
18:19
You know, Josie, you had mentioned about uh you breaking the fourth wall and, you know, as an actor for both of you, do you feel like that is like, is that exciting?
18:29
Is that scary?
18:30
Like, what is that like?
18:30
Because it kind of breaks that traditional theater, like what you expect, you know, having kind of the wall there and you acting on stage and us audience just watching.
18:39
You know, that's a really great question because um sometimes it can be a little bit like, yeah, I can be kind of a shy person when I'm not acting.
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So that is a challenge a little bit to go right up to an audience member and look them in the face.
18:54
it's a little different, you're right.
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It's a little different than standard acting.
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So I'm very much looking forward to it.
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Also.
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scared of it a little bit, you know, there's like moments I would love to go up to.
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I'm sure there's going be lots of people in the audience that we know.
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So I'd love to go up to an audience member and tease them a little bit or, you know, find someone that looks a little shy and then maybe, you know, tease them a little bit.
19:16
I'm excited to to uh experience that challenge, but a little nervous.
19:23
What about you?
19:24
yeah, I'm nervous too.
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Fortunately in rehearsals they've had people, know, they've been having designers and people come in to sort of give us people to riff with.
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So we aren't completely going in cold, but we'll see how the crowd work goes.
19:36
You know, you never know what someone's going to say.
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They could say anything.
19:39
Yeah.
19:39
Yeah.
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If you ask them a question and then they have to answer it, you know, that it could be like, oh, okay.
19:44
Well, didn't expect that.
19:46
Yeah.
19:47
Yeah, it changes.
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It changes for that moment, the show.
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know, you're like, OK, well.
19:53
So Michael, what themes from the show really seem to resonate the most with you right now?
19:57
Oh man, think, um, oh wow.
20:02
I think connection, I think, I think love, but you know, and I feel like people say love a lot, but this like play says something about love.
20:10
It says how so many things are required for love, you know.
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It requires vulnerability, it requires heartbreak, it requires trust, it requires like that leap of faith.
20:21
And I think that the play says all of those things are required for love.
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So it's not just like, yeah, love.
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It's like the weight of love.
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The power of love is really beautiful.
20:30
uh I think there's an optimism to this play.
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It's a breath of air to say like uh love matters and that love exists and it's important to pursue.
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And then of course, probably the most apparent theme is choice and how choices affect our.
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our lives.
20:48
think any sort of multiverse story is about choices in some kind of capacity.
20:52
And I think this one talks about how if you went that way, or if you moved to this country then, or if you went to this restaurant, like how would that affect your life?
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Even if it's just a simple little choice, how it can drastically affect you.
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And it's sort of one of those brain puzzles that if you think about it in your own life, you start to, you know, spiral a little bit like, whoa, all the decisions we make every
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day.
21:12
My life could have been so different if I did that.
21:14
Right.
21:15
Then in the same breath, it's very optimistic to say that those choices really do lead to something beautiful.
21:20
think that's great.
21:21
I think just to add onto that, what is beautiful about this play is that with all these different changes because of choices, what's kind of beautiful is like at the time that
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each scene takes place, you see that there is still a choice to be made in that moment.
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Like no matter what happened before, no matter what choices brought you to this exact place, there's still a choice in that moment that could
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change your life and you have to make that choice and uh decide like, I going to do it or am I not going to do it?
21:53
Absolutely.
21:54
And I think that what I love about stories like this too is just that, you know, again, as a psychologist putting on my psychologist hat here is that while there's all these
22:01
decisions, you know, we always make the ones that are best for us in that moment.
22:05
But also we learn to hopefully not regret those decisions because what we have, like you said, Michael, is still beautiful in that way.
22:13
So.
22:14
That's super interesting.
22:15
Do you feel like that's a conversation that you have a lot as a psychiatrist, like about choices and like how those choices affect lives?
22:22
More than you would imagine, yeah.
22:24
Oh, very interesting.
22:26
Because a lot of times people do get hung up on like one choice.
22:29
Usually it's like a big choice.
22:30
I've been like, maybe if I went to this place, it'd be different, you know?
22:32
Or maybe if I would have stayed in this relationship, it'd be different.
22:35
And it's always about like, you made a choice, you know?
22:38
And how do you live with that?
22:40
And it's cool when you can kind of see a show like this where it plays out multiple ways, you know?
22:44
And it shows you how things maybe look different, but also in the end, hopefully it's still, like I said, it's still beautiful and wonderful, whatever life you're living at
22:52
that point.
22:52
Yeah, totally.
22:54
That's exactly it.
22:55
how like those different choices just result, they result in different things.
22:59
And like it is different.
23:00
There is beauty in all of it, but it is different.
23:02
Yeah.
23:02
And that's really cool to explore.
23:04
And none of those choices that you make in all these different timelines are like dooming to you.
23:10
It's like you still have life to live.
23:13
Yeah.
23:14
That's a beautiful sentiment.
23:15
I hope that's what audiences really will kind of walk away with is just that like there's there's still plenty of life.
23:22
There's still plenty of love.
23:23
And I just want to thank you both for being here.
23:26
Michael and Josie, it's been so incredible to talk to the two of you.
23:29
And again, we're so excited for the show.
23:31
So thanks for being here.
23:35
So the last wide open arrives on May 22nd and runs through June 14th.
23:38
So get your tickets now and we'll see you at the show.