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Celebrating 20 Seasons of Premiere Stages with Original Play 'The Mallard' · Jersey Arts Podcast

• 0:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is Gina Marie Rodriguez and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast.
• 0:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Today we're highlighting Premiere Stage's 20th season as they introduce their latest production, the Mallard, written by Vincent Delaney and directed by John Wooten.
• 0:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Freya and Gillian are teachers who have offended their school board and lost their jobs.
• 0:24
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Freya and Gillian are teachers who have offended their school board and lost their jobs.
• 0:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Davis and Reagan are yard sale fanatics in search of a priceless antique duck decoy the Horace Crandall Mallard.
• 0:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: What follows is a fierce, funny and escalating battle over a symbol that has wildly different meanings, intersecting the couples in a journey that far surpasses the quest for treasure.
• 0:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Now, with a synopsis like that, humor and intrigue are sure to follow.
• 0:48
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I had the chance to speak with both author Vincent Delaney and cast members Susan Ferrara and Woodrow Proctor about what this show means to them and what audiences can look forward to.
• 0:59
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Let's focus on the author's perspective first, before we meet the actors.
• 1:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Hello, how are you today?
• 1:08
  Vincent Delaney: Hey, it's great, really good, thank you.
• 1:10
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Great, I'm glad to hear it.
• 1:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm very excited to meet you and to talk to you about the Mallard.
• 1:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm intrigued by the name itself.
• 1:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Where did this come from?
• 1:20
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You know?
• 1:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Where was the inspiration?
• 1:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: How did a duck decoy become the focal point, or rather the goalpost for a play?
• 1:30
  Vincent Delaney: How did that happen?
• 1:31
  Vincent Delaney: I'm still asking myself, because it happened really quickly.
• 1:36
  Vincent Delaney: I feel like I was just really intrigued with telling a story that would center on something that was kind of meaningless, like it didn't really mean anything to anybody, and yet it could be imbued with meaning, really radically different meaning for different people.
• 1:50
  Vincent Delaney: So I'll give you an example this duck decoy, it's something that my uncle, my small-town uncle, would have used, would have kept it in his pickup truck, would have gone hunting, would have gone fishing, because that's kind of where I come from culturally.
• 2:02
  Vincent Delaney: But these things are also prized by big time collectors, the kind of people my uncle would have called, you know, the coastal elite.
• 2:13
  Vincent Delaney: So I thought how interesting to take an object that could cross over, cross over for the characters and maybe cross over, you know, for the audience as well.
• 2:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, I think that's.
• 2:24
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean that's fantastic.
• 2:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I don't know anything about that.
• 2:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And you said this is where you come from culturally.
• 2:29
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But what does that mean when?
• 2:30
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Where do you come from?
• 2:32
  Vincent Delaney: Well, I come from a small town, a group in a small town.
• 2:34
  Vincent Delaney: My family kind of hail from a town of 200 people and I get teased a lot for that.
• 2:39
  Vincent Delaney: But I think of that as a secret strength, because that's that's the audience that I personally have to answer to, and so I have to write things that can cross over if I want my family to go and see them.
• 2:53
  Vincent Delaney: That's literally how I see it.
• 2:54
  Vincent Delaney: So there you go.
• 2:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That makes perfect sense to me.
• 2:58
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: At least you know who your audience is right, you know who you're writing for Well.
• 3:02
  Vincent Delaney: so that's my personal audience.
• 3:03
  Vincent Delaney: My professional audience, that's everybody else.
• 3:05
  Vincent Delaney: But when I ask myself, what am I going to write and who's it going to reach?
• 3:09
  Vincent Delaney: I mean, if I can't reach those people, then I just not doing my job.
• 3:14
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, yeah, no, I understand that.
• 3:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I I kind of want to talk to you about premiere stages, because you've worked with them in the past and you've had what multiple plays come through their new play festival.
• 3:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I think it was.
• 3:28
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Las Cruces, right had its world premiere in 2016, and then the Mallard was selected in 2024, but now this is their 20th season that you are opening, so how does it feel to be?
• 3:41
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, I'll say the chosen one, right?
• 3:44
  Vincent Delaney: Yeah.
• 3:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Their 20th season.
• 3:47
  Vincent Delaney: I'll tell you what it feels like.
• 3:47
  Vincent Delaney: It feels like coming home.
• 3:49
  Vincent Delaney: You know, I feel like playwrights are itinerant.
• 3:53
  Vincent Delaney: We get what we get.
• 3:54
  Vincent Delaney: You might end up in Fargo, you might end up in Florida, you just don't know.
• 3:57
  Vincent Delaney: You get what you get, particularly for me I live in Seattle, I got to go everywhere Coming back here.
• 4:07
  Vincent Delaney: I mean, my first time working with this company, with John Wooten, was like 11 years ago.
• 4:10
  Vincent Delaney: It's just such a collaborative environment.
• 4:12
  Vincent Delaney: It's a place where you feel safe.
• 4:14
  Vincent Delaney: It's a place where people try things.
• 4:15
  Vincent Delaney: I feel like, you know, he and I we share excuse me, an aesthetic, like we both have sort of a similar sense of taste and I think it's.
• 4:24
  Vincent Delaney: It's just led to some.
• 4:25
  Vincent Delaney: It's led to some really good collaborations over the years.
• 4:28
  Vincent Delaney: And again, I feel like that shared aesthetic, like the mix of funny but also pathos, the heartache and the humor.
• 4:37
  Vincent Delaney: I think that that really is kind of what they are about here and, of course, things that are topical, things that are topical.
• 4:42
  Vincent Delaney: End of the moment.
• 4:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely.
• 4:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm curious to know how you would summarize, or you know, what's your elevator pitch for somebody who is on the fence about seeing this show.
• 4:55
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: How do you describe it to someone who's wondering if they should see it or not?
• 4:58
  Vincent Delaney: Okay, so it is a political play, but it's funny, it's absolutely funny and I promise you you will laugh.
• 5:04
  Vincent Delaney: You will laugh, you will come, you will laugh, you will enjoy it.
• 5:07
  Vincent Delaney: It's surprising, it's all, and we haven't talked about this yet at all.
• 5:11
  Vincent Delaney: It's actually about my other profession I teach.
• 5:14
  Vincent Delaney: I've worked with elementary kids for 15 years and, without giving too much away, you know, I wanted to write a play that would counter this vilification of my profession, just the way teachers are treated.
• 5:29
  Vincent Delaney: I mean, there are districts all around this country where you can find yourself suspended or losing your job if you've read the wrong book and I'm not exaggerating, look it up, it absolutely is happening.
• 5:40
  Vincent Delaney: So I wanted to push back against that.
• 5:41
  Vincent Delaney: I wanted to show you know teachers how they really are.
• 5:45
  Vincent Delaney: I mean, they're heroes in my opinion.
• 5:46
  Vincent Delaney: Of course, I'm one of them, thank you.
• 5:48
  Vincent Delaney: But I mean and I think this is a question you had for me as well you know why keep it funny?
• 5:55
  Vincent Delaney: Because you'll lose half your audience if you don't.
• 5:58
  Vincent Delaney: And I think the way to avoid being polemical, the way to like really make a point, is to do it through humor.
• 6:04
  Vincent Delaney: It's my opinion.
• 6:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely, I do agree with that.
• 6:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But you know, obviously artists have their different ways of approaching things, that a lot of people do like to focus on the heavy right, they like to focus on the drama of it all.
• 6:17
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I happen to be a comedy fan, so I love that that's the vehicle you've chosen.
• 6:22
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But yeah, I do understand, unfortunately, that teachers and education right now in this country are under attack, have been under attack for a while.
• 6:36
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So art is political, right, all art is political in one direction or another.
• 6:42
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's just how it works.
• 6:43
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is how we talk to one another.
• 6:46
  Vincent Delaney: So I'll just tell you, I mean, the setup of this play.
• 6:48
  Vincent Delaney: It sounds really grim.
• 6:50
  Vincent Delaney: It's two teachers.
• 6:51
  Vincent Delaney: They've been fired, They've lost their jobs for being too open about themselves and they are moving, they're leaving.
• 6:57
  Vincent Delaney: That does not sound like a comedy, but it is a comedy, I mean, in my opinion.
• 7:04
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, well, I think that's kind of where humor steps in, when you're at your lowest Because other people.
• 7:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm going to butcher it, but there is a quote, I think it's maybe Mel Brooks.
• 7:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's like comedy is when I cut my finger and no, no, tragedy is when I cut my finger and comedy is when you fall in a sewer grate and die or something.
• 7:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, yeah, tragedy is when I cut my finger, and comedy is when you fall in a sewer grate and die.
• 7:28
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm not sharing the quote, but I feel exactly where you're coming from.
• 7:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It sounds like it might be grim, but it's a great time to poke fun at what's actually happening around us.
• 7:37
  Vincent Delaney: I think there is a little.
• 7:39
  Vincent Delaney: I mean to really dig deep.
• 7:40
  Vincent Delaney: I think there is something that happens to you when you laugh, when you laugh at a situation on stage and you invariably, first of all, you cannot help but see yourself in that situation.
• 7:49
  Vincent Delaney: That's probably why you're laughing, but it leaves you with a little bit of extra identification with the character, and I think more so than I mean.
• 7:57
  Vincent Delaney: It's obvious, right, if a character is on stage telling you how you should think about something, yeah, that's great if you already agree with it.
• 8:02
  Vincent Delaney: But if you're in that 51% of America or 49% of America that don't agree with that, that's not going to work and it's not going to bring the other audience into the theater.
• 8:13
  Vincent Delaney: So yeah, humor.
• 8:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely.
• 8:17
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, who wants to be preached to, right?
• 8:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: If you want a sermon, there are places where you can find that, but it's the theater.
• 8:24
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You should be able to put yourself in someone else's shoes and I like that.
• 8:30
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Did you tell me what you taught?
• 8:34
  Vincent Delaney: No, but I'll give it up.
• 8:35
  Vincent Delaney: I teach elementary physical education, so I'm your PE teacher.
• 8:39
  Vincent Delaney: If you ever need to work out, I'm the guy.
• 8:41
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's fantastic.
• 8:42
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, I always need somebody to teach me how to work out.
• 8:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I can barely do a crunch correctly, so Okay, I'm your guy for that.
• 8:48
  Vincent Delaney: I'll take care of that.
• 8:49
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Great Thank you.
• 8:50
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Virtually, we can have a have a session, but thank you for all that you do as a teacher.
• 8:56
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you to all of your colleagues and everyone in the profession, because I do think it's important to shout out the fact that teachers are heroes and the work that is done in our school systems is incredibly important, as is the work that you're doing outside of that, in the theater.
• 9:14
  Vincent Delaney: Thank you.
• 9:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: My last question for you is and some people hate this question, but I'm going to ask anyway what is it that you hope audiences will take away from the show, if you have that hope.
• 9:27
  Vincent Delaney: Well, so for this play, I guess I would say it just really goes back to the whole thing about being a teacher and what teachers are doing and how they, how they are not integrated into their communities in a way that I think is healthy.
• 9:41
  Vincent Delaney: That's the thing for me, and that's not true everywhere, but that is what this story is about and how we need to do a better job and how we need to do a better job, and maybe not just really for a particular profession.
• 9:53
  Vincent Delaney: But I mean, don't you feel like our society has been frayed down, has been kind of torn apart, like we're being pitted against each other?
• 10:00
  Vincent Delaney: I mean, this play goes right at that right Left, right, republican, democratic.
• 10:05
  Vincent Delaney: That's the problem.
• 10:07
  Vincent Delaney: Right, that is the problem.
• 10:08
  Vincent Delaney: It's that friction right now.
• 10:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I mean I don't know, I guess I hope that people will come out of this thinking in a really tiny way about that, I hope.
• 10:20
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And now we'll take a moment to switch gears and see what cast members Susan Ferrara and Woodrow Proctor have to say about the Mallard.
• 10:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'd love to hear a little bit about your characters, who you're playing and who they are.
• 10:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Tell me about them.
• 10:36
  Susan Ferrara: So I play Freya and I am a teacher in a small town and I have been teaching for a lot of years and I love my students and I'm incredibly stubborn, incredibly stubborn and also gosh.
• 10:58
  Susan Ferrara: It's such a great question because she's a myriad of things to me.
• 11:01
  Susan Ferrara: I am protective of the people I love and very much interested in living my life as fully myself, and I think I'll stop there because I was about to say a thing and I was like don't say the thing, that the thing, and it's gonna be a thing, so I'm gonna stop.
• 11:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Okay, so we're saving our audience from spoilers.
• 11:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I like it.
• 11:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Widjo, we'll keep that in mind as you go.
• 11:26
  Woodrow Proctor: Yes, yes, don't wanna spoil too much.
• 11:35
  Woodrow Proctor: I'm playing a character named davis.
• 11:36
  Woodrow Proctor: I think, I guess one thing that I would say, you know, in the interest of not spoiling too much, but sort of like lending, lending a potential audience member.
• 11:44
  Woodrow Proctor: Something interesting to hold on to about these characters is the thing that brings these characters together is that they all have a different but arguably equally strong reason to be chasing this item the mallard.
• 12:02
  Susan Ferrara: Yes, the mallard.
• 12:06
  Woodrow Proctor: And Davis comes at it from, I guess, the perspective of being like what he wants is the thrill of the hunt.
• 12:16
  Woodrow Proctor: Right, he's an antique collector and he's there with his wife, reagan, and Davis and Reagan differ somewhat in the way that they approach antique collecting and their sort of goals there.
• 12:29
  Woodrow Proctor: But I actually really relate to my character, davis, because he just loves the activity of it and finding the joy in the sort of chase of these random kind of, you know, arguably meaningless little things, right, and really I think what makes kind of seeing these different characters collide in the show interesting is that they're all chasing the same thing but they all have completely different reasons for it and over the course of the show they end up kind of learning about each other's reasons for chasing.
• 13:04
  Woodrow Proctor: And that's kind of where the character growth comes in.
• 13:09
  Susan Ferrara: Perfectly said, With no spoilers.
• 13:11
  Susan Ferrara: Well done you.
• 13:12
  Woodrow Proctor: Boom no spoilers Success.
• 13:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You touched on my next question a little bit.
• 13:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I wanted to ask you, as actors, how do you connect to your characters and is there a certain aspect of them that you most enjoy playing?
• 13:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I know that, woodrow, you said that you relate to your character, but if you can expand on that a little bit, yeah, yeah, um, yeah.
• 13:36
  Woodrow Proctor: So what I was saying about Davis and that he, he's, he's just there for the thrill of the hunt, right, it's not.
• 13:40
  Woodrow Proctor: I guess Davis is living the.
• 13:43
  Woodrow Proctor: It's not about the destination, it's about the journey we have along the way, right, but um journey we have along the way, right, but um, I think in in like a real uh sense of of kind of why he's there, like what brings him to this kind of weird lifestyle with with his wife, is that he just, uh, he loves being on the road with his, with his wife, and just um the excitement of potentially finding one of these things.
• 14:11
  Woodrow Proctor: I'm not an antique collector, but I really relate to that feeling of finding joy and excitement in things that aren't sort of, objectively, you know, the coolest, hottest thing on the block right, the coolest hottest thing on the block right, um, uh, you know, I love, uh like road trips and like the sort of silly stuff you see in in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road.
• 14:39
  Woodrow Proctor: And also one of my favorite things is, you know, going to a new place I've never been before and then just choosing a direction and then just walking for as long as I can walk, because I find you just end up seeing stuff and you just end up getting the sort of personality of the area and I think that I see an element of myself and the way that I try and find things to get excited about, in the way that Davis, you know, has this enthusiasm for antique hunting.
• 15:13
  Woodrow Proctor: Susie, do you want to talk about your character?
• 15:17
  Susan Ferrara: Yeah, although I could listen to you all day, I think and I do, I love it.
• 15:24
  Susan Ferrara: I think that the thing that I love most about Freya is her sense of purpose.
• 15:29
  Susan Ferrara: I love most about Freya is her sense of purpose.
• 15:30
  Susan Ferrara: You know, you know the fact that that she is so.
• 15:34
  Susan Ferrara: She so identifies herself as somebody who can be of service to her students and their, their babies, their you know, their little peanuts, and the way in which she cares for them and nurtures them.
• 15:48
  Susan Ferrara: And it is her focus, it is her purpose, it's why she's there.
• 15:54
  Susan Ferrara: She is there to help these young students in this small town become the adults that she'll continue to know and continue to see and continue to watch grow.
• 16:05
  Susan Ferrara: And I think that what I love most about her is the surprise in her, because I don't think you would, upon meeting her for the first time, imagine that she is a teacher who makes a difference, that she is someone who is so in tune with why she is where she is, and how important it is to her to be there, to be in front of a classroom and nurture these young minds and encourage these young minds and watch them grow and develop.
• 16:38
  Susan Ferrara: And I think that you know, coming from you know a long line of teachers, so many of my family are teachers, teachers and coal miners.
• 16:47
  Susan Ferrara: It's a nice mix, I think I really you know, through Freya I've come to appreciate my family even more, because if you think about, if I think about, you know who was your favorite teacher growing up.
• 17:01
  Susan Ferrara: I think everybody who gets asked that question has an answer.
• 17:05
  Susan Ferrara: For me it's Mrs Robertson, right, she was our history teacher.
• 17:09
  Susan Ferrara: So it makes me think about that, that lineage, that the way in which you know I as a third I, I was a third grader once and what that was like to be in that room with somebody who used colored chalk on the chalkboard and how fancy that was and how fun it was and and I don't know just how delightful.
• 17:31
  Susan Ferrara: So for me purpose, I think, is what I enjoy most about Freya and what connects me to her.
• 17:39
  Susan Ferrara: Her world, ultimately, is really small and becomes a little larger, and I think that's a beautiful thing.
• 17:47
  Susan Ferrara: It's kind of jumping off Woodrow what you're saying about the growth, the growth that we all go through, you know, as the as the story progresses, which is a fun thing to play.
• 17:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love that so much and I'm I'm glad that you brought it up.
• 17:59
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: If I have to, I will shout out my favorite teachers as well, because three came to mind as you were talking Mrs Giordano, mrs Placco and Mrs Brown.
• 18:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I had talked about this with Vincent a little bit too about.
• 18:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You know just how important teachers are to our society, but it also ties into the political nature of the piece and I'm wondering as actors, do you have to consider the political nature of a piece when you're preparing for a role, or does that knowledge influence you in any way?
• 18:31
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Or do you actively try to set that aside when you're prepping Boy?
• 18:36
  Susan Ferrara: that's such a great question.
• 18:37
  Susan Ferrara: I'm going to say that I think it's in the ether, but I think, as we sit down and we understand what story we're trying to tell, I think it's natural to think about who I am, what I want and what my challenges are, and how my story, as this particular character, fits into the larger story.
• 19:00
  Susan Ferrara: So, while politics are always important and are ever-present, really it's the relationships, it's the way in which we move in the world, it's what we want and what's we're afraid of.
• 19:14
  Susan Ferrara: I mean, it's basic human, it's basic humanity why we are in the rooms we are and why we're interacting with the people we're interacting with.
• 19:25
  Woodrow Proctor: Yeah, yeah, I think there's this interesting I guess you could say like an interesting balance that sometimes comes up, where, as an actor, there are really only certain things that you can play.
• 19:38
  Woodrow Proctor: And by what you can play, I mean, you're on stage, you're in the scene and that's what you are, what your character is expressing and what the audience is seeing of you, right, but you have to have this understanding that what you can play is only part of the story, right, but you have to have this understanding that what you can play is only part of the story, right.
• 19:57
  Woodrow Proctor: So, although I wouldn't say that, you know, normally, or in this show in particular, you go on stage and you play like advocacy or politics in some way, you have to have this understanding that, just in terms of the subject matter, you are addressing it just by it being present, right, affecting these people's lives.
• 20:21
  Woodrow Proctor: So I guess my specific answer to the question is that it's not really that it has a direct impact on your performance.
• 20:31
  Woodrow Proctor: It's not that we are, you know, acting politics, but it's not really that it has a direct impact on your performance.
• 20:34
  Woodrow Proctor: It's not that it it we are, you know, acting politics, but it's that amidst these characters, you know, and their emotions and their actions and their desires, which is what we play.
• 20:43
  Woodrow Proctor: We just have to have an understanding that there is a world that they live in and they are connected to those political themes.
• 20:51
  Woodrow Proctor: Yeah, so it's kind of like it's a nuanced relationship.
• 20:58
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think both of you explained that extremely well, so thank you.
• 21:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I don't really know what I was expecting from that question, but I'm so glad that I asked it because you gave me really brilliant answers.
• 21:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you for that.
• 21:10
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But it also, of course, it touches on the direction of the show too, because obviously you are not acting in a vacuum.
• 21:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You have a director who is working with you on this show, and that director happens to be John Wooten, who is also the producing artistic director of Premiere Stages.
• 21:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I'm curious what has it been like working with John as your director, and what has it been like working with John as your director, and what has it been like working at Premiere?
• 21:35
  Woodrow Proctor: Well, it's been great easy one word, answer great wonderful yeah, yeah, I would say one.
• 21:42
  Woodrow Proctor: One thing that's been really interesting for me, uh, is that I'm I'm sort of new to the new play experience um, done a lot of work on, you know, shakespeare not a new play, that stuff's been around for a long time, so I've been able to observe some really interesting stuff with the way that John, as a director, interfaces with you know, working on a new play, because he's an expert at it.
• 22:08
  Woodrow Proctor: That's what Premier Stages specializes in, and so we had vince, the, the author there and, um, I thought that the two of them, uh, as director and author, uh understood their, their sort of boundaries of control within the experience in a really interesting way.
• 22:27
  Woodrow Proctor: Because, as an author, yes, you wrote the play, but you are, you're not the director, so you don't.
• 22:31
  Woodrow Proctor: You know an author, yes, you wrote the play, but you are, you're not the director, so you don't, you know, necessarily guide the actors on the pacing of this scene or the way that it's going to be laid out, or where you should stand or whatever.
• 22:40
  Woodrow Proctor: And, as the director, although you're, you're controlling, you know that kind of stuff and building this arc for the actors to sort of slot into, um, you're not the author, right, you, you can't then go change lines willy-nilly and stuff, and it was interesting to watch them as they would come up with.
• 22:58
  Woodrow Proctor: Vince would come up with an idea of, maybe, how the scene could be staged.
• 23:02
  Woodrow Proctor: He would run it by John, like hey, I know that this isn't my place, but I saw it this way.
• 23:08
  Woodrow Proctor: And then, in the same way, in the in the other direction, john would consider a line and be like you know, if we just had like one little change here, that might tell the story in a more clear way.
• 23:22
  Woodrow Proctor: And then they would run it by Vince and Vince would think it over, you know, so it's.
• 23:26
  Woodrow Proctor: It's interesting having this like new character in in the room that I have not had in my previous rehearsal experiences.
• 23:34
  Woodrow Proctor: Where the author is there, we can like ask him what he intended.
• 23:38
  Woodrow Proctor: Susie, do you want to touch on this?
• 23:41
  Susan Ferrara: I think everything that you just said Woodrow times a hundred and then you know also too it's that there's something so joyful about being in a room where everybody's new to the story Nobody knows really what it's going to look like on stage, nobody has seen a previous performance and I think the beauty and the fun and the joy of working on something that is brand new and I think what I love most about working with John, with Vince Vincent and with this amazing group of people, including Woodrow, this amazing group of people, including Woodrow, who God help me if I please, please, please, please, don't let me laugh.
• 24:22
  Susan Ferrara: While he's on stage it's very hard to keep a straight face.
• 24:24
  Susan Ferrara: He's amazing.
• 24:24
  Susan Ferrara: But I think what I love really is that it's collaborative, and I know a lot of people say that, but I actually do come from the development of new work, both as a playwright and as an actor, and I come from Chicago where a lot of new stuff is like new plays come from everywhere, but my most of my training post-college was here's a new play, how do we make it work, et cetera, et cetera.
• 24:47
  Susan Ferrara: And what John does so beautifully is he really listens, you know.
• 24:52
  Susan Ferrara: What John does so beautifully is he really listens.
• 24:56
  Susan Ferrara: You know, there's such a huge amount of respect for everybody in the room and it's a very kind room and a very open room and there's time for conversation and there's also time for ideas and imagination.
• 25:08
  Susan Ferrara: So it feels like we all have a hand, we're all in service to both the vision of the director and the ideas and the story of the playwright, and that is a real unique, that's a unique situation to be in.
• 25:22
  Susan Ferrara: So, you know, if anybody's listening, uh, everybody, please, you know, shout out to premier stages, because it's a beautiful place to create new work.
• 25:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm so glad to hear that.
• 25:34
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And what is it that you hope audiences will take away from this show?
• 25:39
  Susan Ferrara: Oh gosh, I'm just going to jump in and say remember your teachers, remember the teachers that made a difference in your life.
• 25:46
  Susan Ferrara: Maybe, if they're still with us, write them a note and thank them.
• 25:50
  Susan Ferrara: And also bring a plate of cookies to your neighbors, if your neighbors look like any one of the five people you meet on stage.
• 26:00
  Woodrow Proctor: It's an interesting question, because you don't want to send someone into a play with an assignment.
• 26:10
  Woodrow Proctor: You got to learn like this, this is, this is a piece that you got to take in and you you're going to be different afterwards.
• 26:17
  Woodrow Proctor: You know that that's, that's a sort of hope that we, that we have, like that's ultimately kind of like you know the dream, if you're making a piece of theater, that someone comes in and they do take something from it and then they'll, they'll remember it.
• 26:31
  Woodrow Proctor: I I totally agree with with the, the things that suzy was saying about like there are like really nice ideas in this show that I I do think if we were all able to internalize you and might it might help us.
• 26:46
  Woodrow Proctor: At the beginning of the show there are some kind of assumptions that the characters make about each other, and over the course of the show those assumptions break down.
• 26:56
  Woodrow Proctor: And so one thing that I guess I would love for people to just think about, maybe, or I don't know have some sort of realization on, is that it's easy, right, it's easy when people don't live where you live, or they behave differently or or some some aspect of some new place you're in is scary to you.
• 27:19
  Woodrow Proctor: It's easy to kind of dismiss it as like oh this, this is, this is just something weird that I don't understand and it's a danger to me, right.
• 27:29
  Woodrow Proctor: But when you get to know people generally like, you'll find the good in them, right.
• 27:36
  Woodrow Proctor: So I think that's one idea that I'm trying to kind of hold on to.
• 27:41
  Woodrow Proctor: Is that, like, by the end of it, I think they do understand each other more and I think that with time, with connection with exposure, we can all kind of understand each other more.
• 27:52
  Susan Ferrara: The only other thing I want to add, too, is that we hope people enjoy it.
• 27:56
  Susan Ferrara: We hope people have a laugh and maybe have a moment where they're like, oh, that was sweet, whatever.
• 28:04
  Susan Ferrara: But you know, at the risk of sounding corny, really our job is to entertain people.
• 28:09
  Susan Ferrara: We hope they walk out with a better I don't know, with a little bit of lightness as opposed to whatever they walked into.
• 28:19
  Susan Ferrara: We hope they walk out with a little bit of lightness.
• 28:22
  Susan Ferrara: It's a fun show.
• 28:23
  Susan Ferrara: It's fun.
• 28:24
  Susan Ferrara: It's a fun show.
• 28:26
  Susan Ferrara: So fun is what we want them to walk out with.
• 28:28
  Susan Ferrara: Yeah, a sense of fun.
• 28:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: If you're looking for a show that will make you laugh and maybe learn a thing or two.
• 28:36
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The Mallard runs July 17th through August 3rd at Premiere Stages at Kean University in Union, and, in honor of Premiere Stages' 20th season opening night on July 18th, will feature a pre-show cocktail party with live music and a 7.30 performance of the Mallard, to be followed by a 9 pm champagne and dessert reception.
• 28:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: For tickets and more information, be sure to visit premierstagesatcainecom.
• 29:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: If you liked this episode, be sure to review, subscribe and tell your friends.
• 29:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: A transcript of this podcast, links relevant to the story and more about the arts in New Jersey can be found at JerseyArts.
• 29:14
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: com.
• 29:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986.
• 29:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The show was co-founded by and is currently supported by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
• 29:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This episode was hosted, edited, and produced by me, Gina Marie Rodriguez.
• 29:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Serna-Diez, and my thanks, of course, to Vincent Delaney, Susan Ferrara and Woodrow Proctor for speaking with me today.
• 29:43
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm Gina Marie Rodriguez for the Jersey Arts Podcast.
• 29:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thanks for listening.