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Exclusive Interview: Fletcher Michael of 'Did You Charge Your Phone For The End Of The World?' · The BSB Podcast

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  Did You Charge Your Phone for the End of the World recently premiered as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival, and today we're talking with the writer-director of the
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  show, Fletcher Michael.
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  How are you doing today?
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  Doing great.
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  Thank you so much for having me, Brian.
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  I just want to start off by saying congratulations on the world premiere of this show.
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  How does it feel to present it to the world?
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  It was great.
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  mean, this has been a project that I've been working on since October of last year and it was very inspired by a bunch of shows that we saw while we were at Edinburgh Fringe 2025
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  with a sketch show called Chimp Cocktail that I brought there.
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  And so this is a new venture for me.
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  There's all kinds of new things about this show that are out of the ordinary for the things that I usually write.
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  And that is it's super abstract.
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  It's very space limited.
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  It's very genreless in that we have like songs and we have sort of bits and sort of the surreal
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  moments that diverge from the main plot, but it all connects in the end.
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  So it's been really exciting to show it to people, to be a part of this festival.
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  We're at The Wild Project, which is a really exciting theater to be at.
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  It's just a great little venue.
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  And the reception's been great so far, so it's all been really exciting.
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  So what's the story of Did You Charge Your Phone For The End Of The World?
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  So, Did You Charge Your Phone for the End of the World takes place in 2034.
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  It's set in the near future and it's the slightly dystopian near future and the premise is that there's a boutique advertising agency based in Brooklyn who has been hired to rebrand
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  an asteroid that is heading to wipe out the city of Brooklyn and they have to come up with a jingle that puts a positive spin on this calamitous space rock that is going to wipe out
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  the population.
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  That is like you said, there's so much going on there.
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  Where did this idea kind of begin?
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  You mentioned that you went to a festival beforehand, you were getting some ideas from other things, but like how did this kind of start to percolate in your mind?
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  So I love...
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  any kind of production or any movie or anything like that that kind of pulls back the curtain on the creative process.
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  And I've written so much about like what it's like to be a writer or an actor in New York City, blah, blah, blah, that it felt like a good opportunity to turn the lens to like an
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  advertising agency where there's other creative folks.
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  And oftentimes these are people with creative ambitions outside of their day job in advertising uh that are devoting their creative energy towards something that they may not
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  care about.
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  And so this was an opportunity to show the creative process at work.
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  And so we really do pull back the curtain on how those ideas are generated.
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  And that is a big part of the play.
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  It's also very motivated by just my own experience with the theater company, Infinite Monkey Theater Company that I've started.
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  I mean, it's the most collaborative project I've ever done.
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  We put on...
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  over, I mean, close to 20 shows at this point in the past two years since its founding.
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  And I think the play really distills that collaborative ethos that goes into putting on a live show.
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  And so there's like some meta levels that are really exciting for me.
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  But yes, it's very inspired by the Edinburgh Fringe shows that I saw.
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  It's very much written and produced for a Fringe audience in that it's high energy.
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  It's really difficult to place into any one genre and uh it takes place within a tight hour and I like to think that the pace heightens as you go along so it sort of all tumbles
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  into each other as we get towards the end.
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  You know, you mentioned with it having so many different aspects.
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  Does the writing process for something such as this project differ from other projects in your past?
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  It does, yes.
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  um So I started out as somebody that wanted to try to be a very serious novelist.
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  And so that's what I originally set out to do.
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  And I had some success with that.
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  I was able to get a few books published.
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  um But writing novels is very lonely.
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  It's just you at your desk, and it's just typing away for pages on end.
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  um Whereas I got into...
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  writing for the stage just because I really enjoyed writing sketch comedy and then I found that I really enjoyed um working with other people to execute a vision.
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  And so this is very much born out of that.
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  Did You Charge Your Phone for the End of the World is a collaborative project that is about a collaborative project, if that makes sense.
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  um
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  And there's six songs in the show, all original songs.
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  um That's new for me.
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  I have never written songs before.
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  And these are uh then the jingles that they're coming up with and discarding or accepting as they move along.
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  um
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  So that's new and it's been really fun because that's just opened the door to even more collaboration.
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  I was able to get back in touch with some roommates that I lived with in Bushwick a couple of years ago and they are music producers and it great to reconnect with them and they
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  provided the backing tracks for this, uh for all the songs in the show.
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  And so yeah, that's been new and different and I've really enjoyed it.
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  You know, you had mentioned that, uh you know, all you didn't mention, but you are the founder of the Infinite Monkey Theater Company.
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  And you mentioned that this has kind of been a 20 shows, you said, since it's its inception.
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  That's incredible.
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  It's insane.
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  I've lost my mind doing it almost, but it's all been worth it.
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  um
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  did the theater company come from, like you said, you'd written novels and it was kind of like wanting that community that you really kind of produced this company?
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  Yes, and also uh there's sort of two routes you can take if you're trying to make it in the art scene in New York in whatever capacity, writing, singing, etc.
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  or whatever, painter.
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  You can try and get the institutional validation where you go through the theaters and you go through the MFA system and you go through the submissions and everything.
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  I do all that too, but...
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  You can also be your own engine.
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  And I was really looking for some kind of nucleus that I could then produce out of, uh just to continue getting my ideas up on stage.
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  And this became just a great umbrella opportunity to as a catch all for the things that we produce.
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  And so it started out as the main production company behind Chimp Cocktail, which is a sketch comedy show that we've been running since 2024.
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  uh And that started out as a uh 10 show run at the pit.
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  just a black box space in Chelsea here in New York and we sold out 10 shows there.
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  We got an off-Broadway residency at the Players Theater on McDougall Street.
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  Then we got an opportunity to perform on the Second City Mainstage at their new flagship location in Brooklyn.
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  And then we took the show to Edinburgh Fringe Festival and now we continue to produce it in whatever spaces will have us.
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  uh
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  That's incredible.
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  uh like a training ground, a boot camp for myself and everybody in the theater company, just about what it takes to produce and get your work on stage in New York.
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  And I, for every one of these shows, wrote a new one act.
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  And then I was like, huh, I'm really enjoying seeing my one acts on stage.
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  Why don't I expand these a little bit and start putting up some full length shows.
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  uh And so we've done that.
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  We've now, Did You Charge Your Phone for the End of the World is our third full length.
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  uh And that follows Till Death Do Us Party, which went up at the New York Theater Festival at the Hudson Guild Theater.
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  And then we had First Liar on the Moon, another full length.
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  in the Dream Up Festival at Theatre for the New City.
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  Did You Charge Your Phone for the End of the World?
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  Now New York City Fringe Festival will take you to Edinburgh for a two week run in August, along with another show, Oops We Lost a Nuke, which will run in tandem for both weeks.
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  And in the middle there, I have another full length play going up in the new Manifestival in New York.
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  So yes, it has been sort of the organizing uh structure around all of the work that I'm producing right now.
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  um And...
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  It's just led to, again, more collaboration and everybody investing in this one entity that uh can see our ideas get on stage without having to rely on other institutions.
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  You have done a lot of work in the past couple of years.
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  Those are a lot of shows to bring in a lot of places you're going, but that's so incredible to be able to take your art to so many different places and share it with
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  people.
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  Yeah, thanks so much.
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  It is slowly driving me insane and I don't think that I can sustain it at this level.
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  uh I would love some of that sweet, sweet institutional validation at any time.
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  ah But for now, it's working for me and it's really exciting and fun to do.
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  You know, with this show specifically, you're also directing it, you know, so you're actually playing triple roles here because you're also acting in it as well.
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  ah But were there aspects of the story that you felt like changed when you went to go direct it and adapt it for the stage?
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  Honestly, every time that I write something for the stage, um if you're writing something with characters in mind, and at this point I often have the actors in mind that I will
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  cast, not always, but for this show, yes.
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  And you'll go into it thinking that it'll have this certain tone and it'll have uh the lines delivered in this way, but...
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  Actors are so amazing and if you cast actors that you really respect like I have for this show, we have Lucy Boisvert playing Nico de Luca Graham and uh Colin Dennis playing Laura
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  McClancy.
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  And they make surprising choices that ah sometimes I'm like, why don't we pull that back?
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  But more often than not, I'm usually delighted by the choices that they're making and it honestly just gives more life to the play because these are real characters that are
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  bringing their own experiences.
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  to whatever the narrative drama is.
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  ah So yes, every time it changes a little bit.
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  And especially because these are two people that I've worked with closely across a bunch of projects.
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  And so I really trust their opinions.
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  And so it does become really a creative collaboration in a way that often is to the benefit of the final product.
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  Is that how you tend to, because you mentioned about collaborative writing with this and you know, bringing some people to help with the jingles and stuff like that.
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  It sounds like your approach is very collaborative in all aspects when it comes to one of your shows.
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  I'm glad it's coming off that way because I'm also a massive control freak.
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  And that is also why you'll see me wearing three hats for one production.
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  uh However, yes, I really, I mean, it would be...
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  ignorant in New York not to make use of just the deep well of talent that's here.
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  There's so many people who have such insight into the most niche things and have had experience doing things at a grand and small scale.
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  So yes, I really do try to approach everything collaboratively.
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  You you say control freak, you're just passionate about your work and your product and nobody can fault you for that.
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  oh But with the pulling of double duty, you're also standing in for, yeah, as an actor, you're an actor in the show.
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  So with you pulling double duty as an actor, as well as writing and directing, how do you kind of balance all of those hats when you're in the middle of a production?
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  um sometimes poorly but uh honestly
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  I find that I like to get myself freed up for directing, acting, etc.
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  by doing all the preparation I can early on.
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  And producing is like a nebulous term that has come to mean everything and nothing.
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  But to me, the best definition that I've come up with for it is just doing all the things that nobody wants to do earlier than you want to do them.
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  And so that means, you know, booking out the rehearsal spaces and securing the venue.
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  getting the tech time nailed down, getting all the tech cues assembled.
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  These are all things that the earlier that they're done, which I wish that it was always the case, but the earlier that they're done, the more time you have to really sink into
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  the project as a director, as an actor.
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  And oftentimes I do feel like...
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  Acting is what comes last for me.
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  And that's to my own detriment because I'll finally have the project all ready to go and we'll be opening in a week or so.
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  be like, okay, I should probably figure out this character at this point.
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  But again, that's just like, yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah.
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  But again, that's why, you you work with people you trust because they then trust you and they can bolster you as you're, you know, trying to keep these plates spinning.
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  Sure, absolutely.
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  So from, know, did you charge your phone for the end of the world?
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  What themes really resonate with you the most as you're kind of, currently in this project, you know, you're in the middle of performing it.
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  What's really sticking out to you or resonating with you?
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  honestly, the resonances between the narrative and the plot and then just one's own life trying to be a creative person in New York are even deeper than I expected.
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  And so there's a lot of just banging your head against the wall for an idea in the show and in my life.
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  And so there's like a...
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  a duality happening in that in the show they're coming up with an idea and I am appreciative of anything that is an original idea that is not relying on former IP which
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  is what we often see in movies now and more often than not on Broadway these days.
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  And so it's rare that we see an original piece and an original comedy which for some reason we're not seeing as many comedies anymore.
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  you are absolutely right.
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  There's a lot of, as somebody who frequents Broadway, it's a lot of stories that we've seen before, revivals, or even based off of movies that we've seen before.
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  There's not a lot of originality necessarily anymore.
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  Yeah, yeah, and it's too bad because there's all kinds of really interesting things happening in the off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway scene ah that I think deserve a bigger
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  audience.
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  ah But, you know, that's the market right now and, you know, if you get the right eyes on it, then it can go there.
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  Absolutely.
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  So then one final question for you before I let you go is just what are you hoping audiences take away from this production?
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  Sure, well that, definitely that they're seeing an original production and that they're seeing something new that they have not seen before that doesn't really look like anything
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  that they've seen before.
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  I'm not interested in seeing anything that looks like something that I have seen before.
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  Of course there's influences, but an original concept, I would love people to walk away feeling as though they've seen something new and interesting.
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  More so than that, ah this is very much a show about...
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  producing creative work within a capitalist structure.
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  And that is because these are three tortured creatives who are looking to uh still feel fulfilled by their art while satisfying a shadowy client figure.
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  uh And that, you know, is the world of the play, but it's oftentimes the world of being a creative person in New York.
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  You have to have a day job.
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  You have to make ends meet.
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  You gotta have rent uh every month.
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  And so I think that...
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  uh
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  If people can walk away seeing the vitality that that takes, ah that is definitely something that I would like them to be thinking about beyond this.
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  And if there's capitalists that want to come and amend their ways after seeing the show and make it a little bit easier to be a creative person in New York, that would be amazing
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  too.
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  I'm not holding my breath for that necessarily.
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  ah But also, I just hope people have fun.
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  I mean, I think that it's a funny show ah and it's a show about friendship and it's definitely one to come see with your friends because...
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  is something that you know as people get older we think about less and so often you'll see a love story but this is really a story about three friends and you know even when the
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  stakes are at the highest that they can possibly be who we become and who we are to each other.
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  That's perfect.
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  And I do hope that people show up because this is such an incredible show.
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  And like you said, an original piece of work.
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  We need to celebrate that.
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  So thank you so much for being here, Fletcher.
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  It has been such a pleasure talking with you.
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  Likewise, thank you so much, Brian.
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  Really a pleasure to be here.
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  So Did You Charge Your Phone for the End of the World closes on Sunday, April 19th, at least this chapter of it does.
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  So get your tickets now and we'll see you at the show.
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  And can I add, Brian, the our Instagram handle is at Infinite Monkey Theater Co.
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  And you can see our links there for tickets and our website.
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  You can see our past and upcoming projects.
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  Perfect, thank you.
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  Thank you so much for being here, Fletcher.
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  We've had such a blast chatting with you.
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  Yes, likewise.
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  Thank you so much, Brian.