Latest / STOPTIME: Live in the Moment. / Cassie Beck: The Catharsis of Connection

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Cassie Beck: The Catharsis of Connection · STOPTIME: Live in the Moment.

• 0:23
  Lisa Hopkins: This is the stop time podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Hopkins and I'm here to engage you in thought provoking motivational conversations around practicing the art of living in the moment. I'm a certified life coach and I'm excited to dig deep and offer insights into embracing who we are and where we are at.
• 0:46
  Lisa Hopkins: So my next guest plays series regular Cortney Packer on the newly released series reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer for Amazon Prime. Her Broadway credits include The recent revival of the Rose Tattoo, original cast member of the humans picnic and the Norman conquests she has developed created and performed premiere leading roles at among others playwrights, Playwrights Horizons Manhattan Theatre Club Atlantic Theater round about and his guest starred on TV and numerous things including pose for FX HBOs high maintenance, CBS Elementary in Chicago Med on NBC, during the pandemic, she Rickard on NBC peacocks original sitcom connecting, and now is appearing opposite Mark Wahlberg in this fall's feature film, Joe Bell, which looks incredible, by the way, she is currently on tour with Heidi Shrek award winning play what the Constitution means to me. And it is with great pleasure that I introduce you all to Miss Cassie Beck. Hi, Cassie.
• 1:48
  Cassie Beck: Hi. So happy to be here. Thank you.
• 1:50
  Lisa Hopkins: Oh, please, thanks so much for taking the time. So okay, so first of all, I have to say, how cool is it that that you know, you're actually touring with live theater?
• 2:01
  Cassie Beck: Yes, incredibly grateful. We are the only straight play that's on the road for the moment. And you know, we are going from city to city and I just am thrilled to be welcoming back audiences. It's a great privilege. It's a great honor. It's also super cathartic for me. I mean, it may, it just kind of makes me cry, even just thinking about when I was when the pandemic was happening. And I was preparing for the part and hoping that we would still get to do it. Eventually. We were supposed to head out on the road, obviously, before the shutdown and then got postponed and postponed and I kept dreaming of this moment where I got to walk out on stage and say hello, you know, it's so good to see you. And the first the very first show that we did, the audience was so so enthusiastic that they I had to stop them from applauding because it had gone it had gone so long. I think they were just so thrilled to be in a room together and to be back seeing live theater that it really didn't move me to tears and I had to stop that. I said you're gonna make me cry, and I haven't even started yet.
• 3:06
  Cassie Beck: Yeah, you know, let the healing begin in the theater.
• 3:13
  Lisa Hopkins: 100% is funny because there's there's evidence that says we tend to over what does it overestimate the emotional impact of positive life events, or anticipate like, what it's gonna feel like, talk to me about, you know, what you were expecting how that differed? Kind of I'm so curious about that. Well,
• 3:30
  Cassie Beck: I wasn't expecting that moment. I was hoping that it would be, you know, as thrilling as I anticipated, and I don't know, maybe this is one of the moments where I didn't over, I didn't over expect and I just it just feels so so good to be performing. Again. I think I knew it would but I under expected that I cannot tell you how cathartic and special and, and healing it is for me, as a performer to be back out there on stage. I'm truly fulfilled and gratified by the idea of taking an audience on a journey, you know, I want that challenge I want I want them to feel taken care of and acknowledged and seen and galvanized by this people are tired out there, you know, and fatigued. And if we can be a bolt of refreshing energy and some light and some, you know, reassurance that we see you we know we're tired too.
• 4:30
  Cassie Beck: And we're still out here and let's keep going. You know, then we've done our job.
• 4:38
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah. When you think about the timing of the pandemic, and then the timing of the show returning. Mm hmm, exactly. I mean, it couldn't be a better time really.
• 4:49
  Cassie Beck: That's how I feel it's you know, people I get asked a lot why display now or what's important about it and 2021 this play does what all good plays do it reaches to the past so we can have some clarity on our present so we can have perspective for the future. It is a play. That is that is asking questions and inviting us to have a relationship and a reexamination with the Constitution and our civic duty and citizenry. You know, what are we as American citizens?
• 5:18
  Lisa Hopkins: No, absolutely.
• 5:18
  Lisa Hopkins: It's important. How do you as an actress feel differently, does it feel like like a returning?
• 5:25
  Lisa Hopkins: Or does it feel like a renewing an evolved return? How does it like, where does that sit for you energetically,
• 5:31
  Cassie Beck: I think ever renewing, I mean, an evolved return for sure it's completely the same and completely different at the same time, you know, stepped into the rehearsal room, completely familiar and completely differ. And I don't really know how to describe it, it's just kind of a surreal, I'm completely comfortable, and I know what to do. And yet the protocols are different. And our thinking is different. In relation to one another, you know, we're more spaced out, or we're splitting into a tube for 15 minutes before we walk into the rehearsal room. So there's sort of kind of a physical manifestation of safety that's happening, that kind of is in your awareness and consciousness all the time. And when your only desire is to connect, you know, and be intimate. With people, it's an interesting thing. But then once you kind of start getting into the work, and the play starts to take over and your creative psyche starts to show up again, it's it's like riding a bike, you're coming back to the work. I do think, for me in this show, because this is the first time this has ever happened. So this is a change. With our work around, you know, breaking down binary thinking, addressing patriarchy, and white supremacy, this idea of perfectionism, that I think I kind of carried as an artist for a long time, post COVID, this idea of having a perfect show, or analyzing the audience, you know, walk offstage. And that was a good audience. That was a bad audience. I think all of that has left the building for me, I now see every performance as a spiritual practice, I go into a deep meditation for 90 minutes with this group, and there is not a good show or a bad show. It just is what it is.
• 7:25
  Cassie Beck: I've done my work. And I prepared and I step out. And I really think for actors and performers right now we're vulnerable, the whole country, the globe is vulnerable and scared and fatigued. And we're being very brave and stepping back out there. And I think my message for myself and for performers everywhere is the fact that you are willing to step out on that stage or in front of that camera, or anywhere on that dance floor, whatever it may be. Start at the beginning and commit all the way through the end is enough.
• 7:56
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 7:56
  Lisa Hopkins: I don't know, because I'm not there. But I can imagine it must feel on the one hand, like Yeah, I'm getting back in and being brave. And then what do you mean, I have to do these tests, they become the gatekeepers, but then they're also what's allowing you doing these tests is allowing you to do what you want to do. So there's probably like, a whole whole really interesting space there of like, how you deal with that, right?
• 8:23
  Lisa Hopkins: Because you could easily you know, be victimized by going, you know, I want to do my work.
• 8:28
  Lisa Hopkins: Why don't why, why, why, which just puts a negative spin on, you know, on you going forward in the way that you just suggested you you want to do. I love that. So that sort of literally living in the moment, right, that literally just trusting the process.
• 8:42
  Cassie Beck: And if we're talking about safety, living in the moment is the safest place to be. Indeed, I feel like, if, in the moment, if you're projecting into the future, or fretting about the past, you're unsafe, you know, you're in a place of turmoil or pain or suffering in the moment is actually the safest.
• 9:03
  Lisa Hopkins: Well, and good news is it's all we have. Yes.
• 9:07
  Lisa Hopkins: So yay.
• 9:09
  Cassie Beck: Yay, we're all good. Let's just stay there.
• 9:12
  Cassie Beck: Yeah,
• 9:12
  Lisa Hopkins: exactly, exactly.
• 9:12
  Lisa Hopkins: That's amazing. What
• 9:15
  Cassie Beck: I do love I do. I mean, it's been a radical kind of rehearsal process and, and kind of performance experience for me, this new kind of thinking of, there is no control. You know, there's only kind of training and preparation, and then you let go, and I think, I think my whole career, I thought I was doing that. But it isn't until this post pandemic world and with this show, in particular, that I am actually putting it into practice. And I just am loving this. There's so much freedom in this. There's so much ability to get into the moment, not judge yourself, not judge them. You know, if they don't react or respond in the way or you know, I'm so tired of the conversation of walking offstage and being like, well, they were quiet audience and it really was a bargain or this or that, or, you know, judgment or they were a great audience and you know, we had a great show because they were so great. Yes, well, there's always an energy exchange. always done it may not be quote unquote, what you want or what you don't want, but it is what it is. So if we take the judgment off of it, and just trust that we are Connecting on whatever level is meant to be connected in this moment in this day and this night at this time, then we are completely free as performers, I think. Yeah. It's amazing when you kind of have that moment where it actually realizes itself. And I've never performed in a way, where I've literally been standing in the wings and going. Let's go out there and see what happens. But I've been saying that for years, as if I've been doing it,
• 10:56
  Lisa Hopkins: Trust the process, let's go together. There's no proof, there's no burden of proof.
• 11:02
  Cassie Beck: Yeah, that's so hard. I feel like as a performer too, is, you know, I moved to New York when I was 30. So I had already kind of had a professional career in San Francisco and, and a lot of regional theater, and then I moved to New York when I was 30.
• 11:16
  Cassie Beck: And I ran really feeling like, wow, like, I stepped out on stage and there's a lot of crossed arms, like you're saying and sort of, like prove it, you know, like a lot of judgment proves that I that I spent my money well, and I shouldn't be here kind of thing or, or for even other artists, you know, coming in and judging, you know, but I remember my sort of my first encounter with judgment, where I really started understanding who I was and my relationship to judgment. I grew up in a incredibly judgmental family. So I came upon it, honestly. And actually, I was working on a different Heidi Shrek play when the character was obsessed with Pema children.
• 11:55
  Cassie Beck: And in my research, you know, I was like, alright, well, who's Pema? Chodron I got to listen to this and because I was raised Catholic and with a military family and all this, you know, like Buddhism or any kind of other more, you know, spiritual practices were not necessarily a part of my awareness so much.
• 12:12
  Cassie Beck: And I remember I, I like pulled up some YouTube video, Pema Trojan talking as my research before I went into rehearsal, and I was like, Huh. And I sat down and got told I was late to rehearsal, because I totally got engrossed. I was like, This is blowing my mind, I started the journey. And one of her challenges is that I do practice a lot, is try to walk down three blocks in New York City without passing judgment on anything or anyone. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, Oh, sure. Okay. And then I, I walk from my house in the subway, which is three blocks, and I couldn't do I couldn't believe it. I could not believe how ingrained and automatic it is.
• 13:02
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:02
  Lisa Hopkins: Judgment isn't isn't one thing.
• 13:06
  Lisa Hopkins: Like we've codified it as like, it's when you say something bad about something. It's also when you say good things. Because totally, because it usually comes from a inner place of comparison. So when you like something, it means usually that you're not threatened by it, or that you identify with it.
• 13:21
  Lisa Hopkins: Because it's like you, you know, there's so many like, layers of what judgment is, you know, and I think the judgment and bad feelings and negativity and all that are wonderful resources for information and growth, because then you're like, Oh, why? Why don't I like that?
• 13:39
  Cassie Beck: And then again, it well, it's scary to realize how kind of blind you are, you know, but it's like, I do think we are really kind of having a reckoning as an industry too, with bias and Oh, yeah. And, and it starts kind of here, right?
• 13:55
  Cassie Beck: It's, it's about listening to what you're saying to yourself, What are you thinking, awareness, just just awareness and listening? And taking a second to actually kind of listen to yourself, awareness and curiosity? These are actors tools, right? I mean, this is how we do the work. So if you're scared of something, try getting curious about it. And I used to be terrified of notes, getting notes from a director, you know, and feedback, not because I would make me angry, but I would get defensive. Sometimes I feel like I had to explain, you know, well, clearly, they don't see what I'm doing. You know, it almost becomes a kind of adversarial or fear of critique or something like that. And I just started very gently saying, I'm so curious to see what the feedback is gonna be.
• 14:41
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah. One hundred percent Yeah.
• 14:44
  Cassie Beck: Or I'm so grateful that there's an outside eye, because I can't do that and do and work at the same time.
• 14:51
  Cassie Beck: Right? Well, I can't really be in it if I'm watching myself, so thank God there's somebody out there watching me that can help me with help me with feedback.
• 14:56
  Cassie Beck: Now, listen, not all directors deserve this amount of you know, respect and compassion and love but uh, it's really it's an interesting kind of way to approach these actor tools that we you know, we're gonna encounter directors we're gonna encounter fear, we're gonna encounter judgment, we're gonna encounter blocks. Yep. And we're not always going to be able to be in the moment. So so how can we do this? An open up, be as open as possible and in the moment as possible that is acting and that's the goal, right?
• 15:28
  Lisa Hopkins: 100%. And it's I really, it's really interesting that you said not all directors are deserving of this, this kind of compassion. But it's so interesting that you put it on them. And actually what it is the compassion and the understanding and the growth and the openness is actually what you give yourself. True when you when you are open. Isn't that interesting, though? Like, can we tend to do that we tend to be givers like, you know, call and response, you know, this is what you want it right? am I delivering it for you? Because we because we care, care that we've been hired, we want to do our jobs, you know, it goes, you go down that rabbit hole notes or information for growth? It's the it's the you know, it's, it's, it's the growth mindset is the cool, what you got for me?
• 16:12
  Lisa Hopkins: Imagine if everyone was just going oh, yeah, you were great.
• 16:14
  Lisa Hopkins: That was great. Like, How helpful is that?
• 16:17
  Cassie Beck: Totally?
• 16:18
  Lisa Hopkins: What are the three adjectives that you would use to describe yourself?
• 16:22
  Cassie Beck: Um, I think striving or seeking, I feel like I'm in a real place of growth and discovery. So I'm seeking, I am loyal. And I do think I'm I do, I do think I'm compassionate. I am not an empath. But I am a highly sensitive person. HSP I tested and I tested off the charts. So I have a very sensitive neurological system, and I can kind of take on other people.
• 16:53
  Cassie Beck: I'm not completely an empath, but I can take on a lot of other people's stuff. And so I have had to learn compassion. And I really feel like that's for myself. And for others. I feel like that's a big part of how I would describe myself right now.
• 17:10
  Lisa Hopkins: What you described is is like a double edged sword.
• 17:13
  Lisa Hopkins: It's a beautiful thing, because you get a lot back from giving.
• 17:17
  Lisa Hopkins: And, but it's also something that if you if you don't, if you don't turn it inward, if you don't set boundaries, that you then get triggered down to the catabolic, resentful, victimized, tired, overwhelmed, you know, our burnout. Exactly.
• 17:33
  Lisa Hopkins: And so great that you recognize that and I'm curious to know, like, what are you able to, to implement in your life that helps you still emanate from an empathetic, compassionate place, but but also also keep enough for yourself?
• 17:51
  Cassie Beck: It's a lot of trial and error, you know, I'm not always successful, I think it's just about back to curiosity, the big revelation about when I discovered HSP, and that I might be one is that not everybody thinks the way you do or feels the way you do. So for a long time, in my life, I felt like I was confronted with non thoughtful, narcissistic, selfish people, it didn't understand that they're not thinking about me or thinking about others, or thinking about their kids or their co workers or whatever, because they're selfish. It's just, I'm kind of the opposite extreme. I'm so people pleasing and, and willing to get to the point of exhaustion, that I realized that there's only really kind of 20% of the population that does this, that that thinks that way, all the time. And, and once I realized that I'm like, oh, people aren't, you know, being rude or, or not thoughtful, they just truly aren't seeing the social dynamic, the way that I'm seeing it, we're not the same.
• 19:02
  Cassie Beck: And so once I kind of figured that out, I was like, oh, okay, well, then I can now get curious about what they are actually thinking, you know, and it's like, a classic example is like, you know, you're in a conversation with somebody, and they have some kind of facial expression or reaction that you read as something and they get up and walk away, and you automatically assume it's you.
• 19:25
  Cassie Beck: Because that's how I would think I'm constantly aware of the other people's feelings and, and their, their contextualizing of what the event we're having. And then I always want, you know, the exchange we're having, and I always want to be kind, and you know, all that. And then you realize, oh, their facial expression or their thought or their moment is totally disconnected from you in this in this exchange that you were having, there's something going on for them, that they got up and walked away for themselves, and it has nothing to do with you. It sounds so simple, but it took me so long to really kind of understand this. And that just gives you that's kind of to me the definition of compassion.
• 20:05
  Cassie Beck: It's whatever is going on with them is theirs. And whatever is going on Wii U is yours. And you can own it and respond with curiosity and kind of loving kindness about it. And that is also being kind You know, and not taking things personally not judging it not getting defensive. Compassion is really kind of sets you free from a lot of pain and suffering because I would suffer a lot around exchanges and like social dynamics and kind of social anxiety and feeling like I've, I messed up or stuck my foot in my mouth, I pissed this person off, or this person hurt my feelings, because they didn't respond the way I wanted them to respond when I put myself out there. And the truth is, if I can stay inside me, you know, and and really have compassion for myself when I don't when I don't respond or do something the way I would have liked or if I hurt someone's feelings, owning it, acknowledging it, and letting people be. I think it's also grace, right? I think this is I think this is what I try to do as an audience member, too. It's like, you know, we go in, and we're like, we didn't get that part, we watched somebody else in that part, or, you know, this person successful and this and that, and then we're going into a show, and we might have a little jealousy or a little this or a little whatever, around around that experience. And I just think, you know, like I said earlier, the fact that we're getting out there, and we're willing to be the vessel for which an audience can have a sense of catharsis because we're going to start at the beginning, we're going to move through the middle, and we're going to get to the end, that that is enough, then I have nothing but gratitude and grace, for that experience, and anybody who's willing to step out there and do it. And that that goes for my personal relationships too.
• 21:55
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Lovely, lovely. What do you know will be true about you, no matter what happens?
• 22:05
  Cassie Beck: It's funny that you say true, I think no matter what I believe in the truth. I think I think there is a true love filled Grace filled reality to every situation. And if you can cut through everything else, and get to it and remember it and find it and stay there. I always trust that. So if there's something different happening in my life, or I'm confused or disoriented, I always know that there's a true, I'm not going to say right and wrong, but a love filled reality inside of it.
• 22:50
  Lisa Hopkins: That's a superpower.
• 22:50
  Cassie Beck: I don't want to be a person who is toxically positive, you know, like, there is some truth about the darkness and and, and pain and suffering and all of those things.
• 23:04
  Lisa Hopkins: And again, that's why discernment is so great.
• 23:06
  Lisa Hopkins: Because judgment, it's binary.
• 23:06
  Lisa Hopkins: It's black or white or bad discernment, you can look at something that isn't good doesn't mean that you're gonna look at everything through rose colored glass and go everything's great.
• 23:16
  Cassie Beck: Right.
• 23:17
  Lisa Hopkins: There are lots of things that are not great.
• 23:18
  Cassie Beck: That's right.
• 23:19
  Lisa Hopkins: But when you you know, and I'm, I'm so on board with you about the toxic positivity thing, especially because I am just inherently a positive person. Some will call me that. But it doesn't mean that I don't see that I, you know, I gloss over or whatever, you know, so, yes, I mean, I think being able to discern what's really going on, this is horrible.
• 23:41
  Cassie Beck: Mm hmm.
• 23:42
  Lisa Hopkins: If feels bad, you have to experience the whole arc of the emotion. And, you know, so many of us are bottlers, we bottle it up. Because, because we think we need to, we should, we can't handle it, whatever.
• 23:54
  Lisa Hopkins: And, you know, on the other hand, it doesn't mean that you have to just go, I'm putting in my truth that everybody needs to know it. And I'm posting it on Instagram, like, like, you know, it's like, totally, it's gonna come out somewhere. It's brilliant that you're an actress, because you probably are able to let it come out in different places through other characters, which is kind of cool.
• 24:17
  Cassie Beck: I was gonna say, I feel like, I feel like toxic positivity. I have some people like this in my life, who are not okay, if everything isn't okay. Yeah. And so, when pain or suffering or a horrible thing hits their doorstep, the automatic responses to sweep it, sweep it away as fast as possible. There are people who are suffering more than me right now. So I'm not even going to feel this. I'm just going to let this go because I have to be okay. Everything has to be perfect. And okay, or I can't be okay. And I think one of the things I've learned kind of later and as an acting tool is you can't sweep that away. It's not about glossing over it, actually wrapping your arms around it and embracing it and feeling it and sitting in it and processing through it. That's the only way to get on the other side of that thing because it's just gonna it's just gonna sit out there on your doorstep until you finally frickin open Oh, are you get sick so I feel like that kind of being able to access pain is part of the actor's job.
• 25:26
  Cassie Beck: And we're called to do that, you know, and almost even kind of demonstrate it and go through it and be witnessed by audiences.
• 25:34
  Cassie Beck: There's a witnessing that happens here so that we can chain react, and they can release some things to, um, or maybe move through pain to Yeah.
• 25:41
  Cassie Beck: And, you know, we volunteer for this, we're crazy. We volunteer, we're like, all step up and do that. And I do think it's fulfilling in my own life, it's taught me how to kind of roll through and deal with and except hardship, as well as the good and the positive, because because we're talking about being in the moment, you know, that's a part of it. It's feeling what it needs to be felt.
• 26:12
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, I have to honor you and say it's a gift what you do as an actor, because there are so many so many people who can not feel things. And that feels safe when you feel them and they react to you feeling them, even though they're feeling them. You've given them a safety because Oh, she made me cry. Mm hmm. You know, that's a gift that you give, so never forget that. I mean, it's important work. It irks me when I hear that people say actors are selfish people.
• 26:39
  Cassie Beck: I know, I was gonna say that! I always feel like actors are talked about as if we're narcissists self absorbed.
• 26:47
  Cassie Beck: People who need to hear the applause because it gives us life kind of thing. And I just, in my experience, actors are so generous, and actually kind of the opposite. you know, and they don't want to focus on themselves. That's why we play characters.
• 27:03
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah,
• 27:05
  Cassie Beck: You know, I'm so I want to step into somebody else's shoes and experience something in an empathetic way.
• 27:11
  Cassie Beck: Not in a like, well, what would I do in this circumstance, although you bring that, you know, you bring your life to the roles, your, your, your true life experience to everything you play, but I just think it's such an interesting kind of generalized character trait that people put on actors. Yeah, that's what I mean about grace.
• 27:30
  Cassie Beck: Like, let's just let's just have some grace for the things, you know, actors are willing to do.
• 27:38
  Cassie Beck: And it's not just because we want to be loved by the public and the masses. And we want applause. I mean, for a lot of us, it's about, you know, we're called to some kind of empathetic experience.
• 27:49
  Lisa Hopkins: Yep. Oh, for sure.
• 27:49
  Lisa Hopkins: When we get put in silos like that, I feel the same way as you do. Because I have I've been I've met egotistical people in the world. They're not necessarily actors. Some of them may have been actors, but acting is what they do. It's not who they are. It's not like you're an actor, you must be an ego, egoist, or whatever. I mean, and, and I agree with you, my experience has been nothing but some of the most generous, beautiful human beings. Yeah, let me ask you this. So in, in, in the current in what the Constitution means to me, your character kind of resurrects her teenage self, right. I'm so curious to know, like, what you might tell what Cassie might tell her younger self, that maybe she would have really, you know, love to have known that, you know, now.
• 28:36
  Cassie Beck: Oh, I think the lesson I talked about earlier, if I had known that we don't all think the same way. And really kind of new really kind of understood that, you know, I, I mentioned before, sort of a kind of military upbringing, and there's a lot of hierarchy and kind of specific thinking. And it was raised in Catholic school, which is also, you know, a doctrine that is very hierarchical and kind of, I'm hesitating from the word conformists, but I do think there is a sort of, like, you get in line and you think a certain way, you know, good bad.
• 29:09
  Cassie Beck: And I think if I had if I think if I had grown up with a little more awareness of the gray area in life but you know, I sought it out through through my work, I gravitated towards being a performer and, and I think it's probably my more empathetic nature and curiosity that brought me here. I found it anyway. But I, but I just wonder how different my life would have been growing up
• 29:43
  Lisa Hopkins: Totally. What lesson let's kind of go let's jump forward. The What lesson do you think your future-self might have for you today?
• 29:51
  Cassie Beck: Hmm. To get totally woo woo I, I really am starting to be curious around this idea of a veil of the human experience that we I feel like my future self probably knows something a little bit about can pull the veil a little further than I can currently right now.
• 30:13
  Cassie Beck: Around what it means to be human. And to have this experience I've lost both my parents and the last two years, and I think through that grief and through this idea of where are they now, you know, and what do they know about me and my life. Now I really find comfort in this idea. And I don't know if this is true. But for me this idea that now they know all and they know how the universe works, and they know me, in a way and a different an intimate way, or my kind of soul in a way that I don't haven't completely discovered my soul yet. Moving forward, I hope that my future self does, you know, continue to kind of pull the veil away, because I do think a lot of this is, you know, human construct that we exist in these hierarchies, and these rules and these laws. And there's a, there's a lot of spiritual selves walking around in some human skin. And I just think I look forward to getting closer to that. If that makes any sense at all.
• 31:22
  Lisa Hopkins: Oh, 100%. And I mean, it is a bit of a woo woo question. You know, it's sort of an interesting thing, you can easily obviously, access where you've been, that's much easier, right? But it's also not real anymore.
• 31:35
  Cassie Beck: Right.
• 31:35
  Lisa Hopkins: Just as just as where you're going isn't either.
• 31:38
  Lisa Hopkins: So sometimes just imagining it is kind of an interesting thing.
• 31:42
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah. You know, um, how do you want to be remembered?
• 31:46
  Cassie Beck: Oh, I, I hope people remember me as someone who held space and saw them. I was, I really hope that people feel seen when I get to spend time with them.
• 32:04
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, I understand exactly what you meant. And then my mind went to when you're on the stage, and you can't see the audience.
• 32:14
  Cassie Beck: Mm hmm.
• 32:16
  Lisa Hopkins: How does that play into what you just told me about being seen?
• 32:18
  Cassie Beck: Mmmmm. Yeah, because they don't think See, see, seeing really means, you know, physically with my eyes.
• 32:27
  Lisa Hopkins: Well, yeah,
• 32:27
  Cassie Beck: seeing means felt.
• 32:29
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah.
• 32:30
  Cassie Beck: acknowledged and felt
• 32:32
  Lisa Hopkins: that makes sense.
• 32:32
  Lisa Hopkins: This sort of metaphor of the stage, the access, the sharing, and then what we were talking about earlier, which was like the, you know, you're allowing them the release through you that maybe they couldn't access.
• 32:48
  Lisa Hopkins: But isn't it interesting that with with that dark, light, binary, if you will, of the physical aspect of theater, it's also giving you the reciprocal permission to connect. Yeah, super interesting.
• 33:04
  Cassie Beck: Oh, my gosh, I mean, in this show, and what Constitution means to me, she talks about this space, the penumbra space, which is the quote the play, the character says, What is the number? Here I am standing in the light. There you are sitting in the darkness.
• 33:22
  Cassie Beck: In this space between us. This space of partial illumination, this shadowy space right here.
• 33:29
  Cassie Beck: This is a penumbra, we are stuck between what we can see and what we can't. We are trapped in a penumbra.
• 33:38
  Lisa Hopkins: Okay, I'm getting chills because that's exactly what I was sensing.
• 33:42
  Cassie Beck: Yeah. And that's the human experience. Right. And that's what I'm talking about.
• 33:47
  Cassie Beck: My older self, I feel is a little out more is a little farther outside of the penumbra than I am right now. And can see a little more of the gray area.
• 34:00
  Lisa Hopkins: That's so yeah.
• 34:00
  Lisa Hopkins: Wow. Um, is that an actual word?
• 34:04
  Lisa Hopkins: Or is it a made up word?
• 34:07
  Cassie Beck: Nope. Ponumbra. And it's actually what Justice William O. Douglas is used to argue the Ninth Amendment to get abortion rights.
• 34:16
  Lisa Hopkins: Wow. I'm glad I said it out loud. Because I was getting this sense of like, the light and the dark and the that space in between there. That's so interesting. space in between. I'm gonna say what makes you I'm gonna say word and then you just say what comes to your mind. Okay, are you ready?
• 34:31
  Cassie Beck: I'm ready. Okay,
• 34:33
  Lisa Hopkins: what makes you hungry?
• 34:37
  Cassie Beck: I watch the Food Network. And I want to eat everything that's on that screen that
• 34:44
  Lisa Hopkins: I got. What makes you what makes you sad?
• 34:49
  Cassie Beck: Grief. loss.
• 34:53
  Lisa Hopkins: What inspires you,
• 34:55
  Cassie Beck: Writers. Especially playwrights just feel like talk about you know, pulling away the veil. Seeing what's really going on just their ability to contextualize the experience that we all are all having on the planet. Incredible.
• 35:14
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah. What, What frustrates you?
• 35:20
  Cassie Beck: I'm super impatient. So I get frustrated with When I feel like something's taking too long, or I'm supposed to know something or understand something that I don't know and understand yet, which is odd, because I'm process oriented. I do believe in process. And I experienced it on a regular basis. And I have faith when we start a rehearsal that we're going to get to the end. And it's, yeah, but for some reason I'm kind of in my daily life. I feel like in my civilian life, I feel like I'm not great with patience.
• 35:54
  Lisa Hopkins: Cool. What makes you laugh?
• 35:56
  Cassie Beck: My dog!
• 35:59
  Lisa Hopkins: What kind of dog do you have?
• 36:02
  Cassie Beck: She's a rescue from Puerto Rico. So she's a Saito, they they're called and a mix?
• 36:06
  Cassie Beck: We don't know. But she's hilarious and wonderful. Okay, so quirky and funny.
• 36:14
  Lisa Hopkins: That's awesome.
• 36:14
  Lisa Hopkins: What makes you angry?
• 36:18
  Cassie Beck: injustice. Lack of equality. Doesn't have to be that way.
• 36:24
  Lisa Hopkins: And finally, what makes you feel grateful?
• 36:29
  Cassie Beck: Oh. I mean, as cheesy as it sounds, it really is every just every new day.
• 36:40
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah. What are the what are the top three things that happened so far today?
• 36:46
  Cassie Beck: Um, well, my husband was visiting. So I said goodbye to him this morning. But I but I did get to. I did get to see him off. So that was great.
• 36:53
  Cassie Beck: I got checked in on by a dear friend from the UK and spending this time with you today.
• 37:03
  Lisa Hopkins: Oh, no, absolutely. It's been so great.
• 37:05
  Lisa Hopkins: Really so great to to get to know you. What's something you're looking forward to?
• 37:12
  Cassie Beck: I'm looking forward to the show tonight. And and every night and practicing this new kind of found joy. I have an idea of a spiritual practice that I get to go into a 90 minute meditation every night. I just I'm so looking forward to what that does. For for my life, but also for the show and and other people that we're trying to connect with right now. All across the country.
• 37:45
  Lisa Hopkins: Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:45
  Lisa Hopkins: How long will you been touring for
• 37:49
  Cassie Beck: 'til April.
• 37:50
  Lisa Hopkins: Wow. Well, we amazing. Cassie has been such a joy speaking with you. I mean it
• 37:57
  Cassie Beck: Same. Thank you so much. Lov
• 37:59
  Lisa Hopkins: It'smy pleasure.
• 37:59
  Lisa Hopkins: 've been speaking today with Ca sie Beck. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Lisa Hopkins tay safe and healthy everyone and remember to live in the mom nt. In music stop time is hat beautiful moment where the and is suspended in rhythmic uni on, supporting the solois to express their individuality In the moment, I encourage yo to take that time and create our own rhythm. Until next time, I'm Lisa Hopkins. Thanks for liste