Latest / Evolutionary Men / Say the Damn Thing: Intuitive Expression for Men (with Benjamin Roth & Jeff Raab)

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Say the Damn Thing: Intuitive Expression for Men (with Benjamin Roth & Jeff Raab) · Evolutionary Men

• 0:00
  Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everybody. Been a minute here on the Evolutionary Men podcast since I've done an episode, but I'm very excited to dive back in today with two friends and men I've worked with for varying lengths of time, but that are going to be leading an event for Evolutionary Men in just a week and a half so on March 29, which we'll talk a little bit more here. But first up, I have Benjamin Roth, who's an artist, improviser, creative coach, and he's been in men's work for over a decade. He is about as OG as it gets in the Evolutionary Men community. I was working with him honestly, before I was even a coach in a lot of ways. And then we also have Jeff Robb, an actor, director, theater educator, communications coach, and voice and breath specialist who I've known, I think, a little bit over a year now. And man, have some amazing memories of the work Jeff does and some really fun times on retreat. And I've got these two guys on today to talk about the kind of overlap between men's work and improv and kind of theater and body and voice work, because I had done a little kind of theater stuff in my film days, in college in particular. And as I got into men's work, I remember one of the first things I thought was like, oh my God, a lot of these practices are just kind of theater practices, sometimes kind of coming from that world of what does it mean to get out of your head and into your body? And Benjamin's done my course, Pillars of Presence. And one of the most consistent prescriptions we'll make for men is go take an improv class.
• 1:42
  Benjamin Roth: Right?
• 1:43
  Jason Lange: Guys are so up in their head, they're anxious. They feel like they gotta say the right thing. And often a lot of men were just tight, tight, don't want to do it wrong, don't want to do it wrong. And improv is an amazing, fun and supportive and community based activity that can kind of help break through all that. So I really wanted to have these guys on to talk a little bit about their own journeys, what they're up to. And then this event we're going to be hosting very soon and hopefully on a recurring basis moving forward here.
• 2:15
  Jeff Raab: So.
• 2:15
  Jason Lange: So first off, I want to kick things off and kind of pass it to you, Benjamin, a little bit. If you just want to share a little bit about your background even more and kind of what brought you here.
• 2:22
  Jeff Raab: Yeah. So I initially came out to Los Angeles to study filmmaking and work in film, and that led Me to working in advertising. And one of the things that I did for fun before was like, I would play a lot of video games and then in advertising, I started working in video games. And the last thing I wanted to do after starting in that field was go home and play more video games for fun. So my. I, like, I needed a new creative outlet and I was dating someone at the time that was an improviser. And I remember doing it in high school and like, oh, like it. That was so much fun when I did that. And so I signed up for a class at a local studio here in LA called Improv for the People. And I've pretty much been there since then. Start off as a student and then kind of worked my way up to being a faculty member. And yeah, it's just. It's just really benefited my life and like, opening me up to, you know, getting in touch with, you know, different parts of myself, different, like, characters and voices that, you know, exist inside of me and just helping me feel more confident in my body and just not taking life nearly as seriously as I did before.
• 3:48
  Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. That's so great. What about you, Jeff?
• 3:53
  Benjamin Roth: Well, my background, I was a theater kid and pursued it in college. My undergrad was in musical theater. And then as I was going out into the world, I was getting cast in a lot of comic roles and I was like, I should actually, maybe I should go learn how to be funnier, something like that. And I went to the dell' Arte School of Physical Theater, which in Blue Lake, California, which included Glenn Clown and Colmedia dell' Arte and things like that. And it took everything I thought I knew about being a theater artist and flipped it up on its head because it's no longer about, here's this piece of text, here's how to execute it. Well, then it was if this work was much more about embodying. Well, it's always about embodying, but dropping it and you as the. You as the true creatives generator and source of the. Of the material on a very deep, visceral level. And so that had a huge impact. At the same time, I was, as I was looking for things to go alongside my pursuit as an actor. I started working with a couple of voice and speech folks, particularly a guy named Scott Miller and one of the folks who helped develop his pedagogy, a fellow named John Patrick. So they now have what's called the Miller Voice Method. I started working with them in 2010 and 2020. I got certified to teach voice and diction through that method and. And then, let's see, 2022, I started teaching voice and diction in theater program at Southern Connecticut State University. And it's been even more so than, you know, passing on the technique of the theater work. It's been really amazing just to use it as a vehicle to unlock people and to allow people to drop into their authenticity and to what it is to take up space. And then I guess the final little piece of the puzzle is I went back and got the MFA in Shakespeare work, which is a whole other kettle of fish in terms of being. Cause so much of the work in Shakespeare is those characters were written to be like civs. Like if the character thinks it, they say it. That's how that material is written. So you're very dropped into the present and very on the text and on your voice and all of that. So all of those things. And now I've been able to bring that into some of the corporate world as well, which has been really cool.
• 6:38
  Jason Lange: Cool, yeah. And this was part of what got me so excited when this kind of idea came to me of, oh, hey, here's two guys I've worked with. They're both awesome and they're kind of in similar space. Not. Not quite exactly, but how fun to link them up and help them kind of bring their gifts forward here and serve, you know, a grander community of men. And, you know, there's something you. You named there that I kind of just want to set as a frame as we go in here.
• 7:06
  Benjamin Roth: That.
• 7:07
  Jason Lange: I mean, the more I think about it, the more important it feels, which is kind of immediacy and presence, right? We're in this really interesting moment. We're recording this in early 2026, and we are entering an increasingly mediated world, right? Through digital technology, through AI generated content, through video, all of this kind of stuff, right? I mean, it's just a matter of days now before someone creates the first fully AI generated film that people don't give a about and they watch and they pay money for it and yada, yada, yada. Now where I want to tie that in is my sense is what it's about to make even more valuable is actual immediacy and presence. Right? We can all click a button now and generate content that makes us look amazing and whatnot. And I've been thinking of Jeff. You'll probably know this. What's the story about the guy who whispers in the ear to make the girl fall in love with him? Is that. Is that serio. Sereno de bergeriak? Is that right?
• 8:22
  Benjamin Roth: Yeah, yeah. I love Cerro.
• 8:24
  Jason Lange: It's this kind of classic story that's been made up and, you know, we're basically entering the AI version of that, right? Where, you know, you could just have an AI whispering in your ear. What to chat to the woman eventually in an earpiece, like, this shit's gonna happen. But what it can't do is what happens when you're offline and in person. And this is what really interests me about this capacity that you guys are helping men and women too develop, which is the capacity to be present and to be immediate and to be unmediated, in a sense. That was such an interesting tidbit you said about the Shakespeare stuff of their sieve. They're just supposed to bring it forward without too much thought. I had. I didn't know that. So, needless to say, this is a really interesting and fascinating topic and moment for me right now because, you know, one of the things I'm, I'm focusing more and more in this brand are what are the capacities we need to develop as men to be effective moving forward in the modern day in terms of relationship, work, health, et cetera. And what we're talking about here, I think is going to be one of the really valuable ones, right. In terms of how can you show up and relate to people when there's nothing telling you how to do it, right? What the best thing to say is, when to communicate, etc, which is already happening. Right. I work with men and every week, oh, I was talking to ChatGPT. It told me to say this. The temptation to, you know, offload all that decision making is high. I feel it myself sometimes. And I feel like improv in the live experience is a disrupt to that in. In some important ways. And I would love to hear kind of, I think, what did you say, Jeff? Unfold or open up. I can't exactly remember what the word you said is that you sometimes see the work do to people, and I would love to see you speak to that more, not only in your own journey, but like, what have you seen shift for. For, you know, and then I'll open it up to you, Benjamin, for people you've worked with when they step into this kind of space.
• 10:44
  Benjamin Roth: Well, you, like, as you're talking about what should I say and how to do it right. And the real answer is that we are all our own unique beings and there's, you know, you can do a prescribed thing. And I like, I know this. Like, you know, you read Neil Strauss, the Game and the Pickup artist community and people talking about their own psychotic, like, you know, social dynamics and all that. But at the end of the day, you are your own fascinating individual. And the thing that's really going to connect you to different people that I find is your own authenticity. One of the exercises I teach, and this is actually, we'll probably do some version of this in the workshop is it's a poetic writing exercise that I learned when I was at dell' Arte, where everybody in the room is looking at the same object. And you, you free write like Julia Cameron morning pages style freewriting. And you do, and you set a timer and you just go and you write what you see and you stick to physical description and you just go with what you see. What you see. And the outcome of it, spoiler alert, is that every single person around the room looking at the same object is going to come up with a very. Their own unique, I'll say, take on it, but it's not. They're not putting any kind of creative stank on it. They're not trying to be original. They're not trying to. They're not putting anything on top of it in order to prove themselves or look at how original I'm being or creative I'm being. It's just this human, their point of view to this particular external object and how. What that unique connection or perception is. And no AI, no book, no other person is going to be able to tell you what that needs to be. You got to discover. You have to discover that for yourself. And you discover it through trial and error and by treating life as a laboratory. That's how you find your own authenticity. And you think about great artists, whether we're talking about, you know, the people come out of the improv world or all the great SNL folks or. And those folks who have created incredible careers out of that world, both known and. And relatively unknown, where they each. You always know it's them. There's something them, and it's not always something you can articulate. So what I find is in the work, everybody, everybody finds their own light in a way.
• 13:42
  Jason Lange: Oh, I love that. Yeah. And that authenticity, you know, one of the first things I teach guys is vulnerability is authenticity plus risk. Now, I also put softness in there as well, which is important for some men. But yeah, that. How do I, how do I express? How do I become more authentic? What actually is that I think is an increasingly valuable asset in its own right. When we talk about capacity, the ability to be authentic in that sense, I love that and this is a pathway toward that.
• 14:17
  Benjamin Roth: Yeah. And I'll jump on the vulnerability. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about that. Because as actors, we're all. There's this thing about be vulnerable. Be vulnerable. You know, tear open your heart and bleed in front of all the people you're doing. I don't know you're doing. Well, Hamlet's in his head the whole time. But, you know, you're doing the Scottish play, or you're doing Medea or whatever the. Or whatever the pieces. And you're just expected to, like, cut open your wrists and bleed in front of the people.
• 14:46
  Jason Lange: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Benjamin Roth: But the best advice on vulnerability, I think it was guy I worked with, former Martha Graham dancer named Donlin Foreman. And he said vulnerability is specificity. And it takes it out of this role that vulnerable and that. Which ties back to this poetic, this exercise of physical description. How willing are you, how brave are you to voice what you see and be as specific as possible about it? The great. That's what great. A lot of great actor work. It's not about necess. It's not about the ability to drop into emotional land. It's creating specific images. Oh, I'm on a stage and I have this. I have. I'm doing a show right now, and I'll use this example where there's. I have a whole monologue about. It's all about the. The history of the Irish Americans. And. And there's this. And this was a real letter where in Ireland, during the Potato famine, they went to the town to see what was going on with the famine. And he walks in this house and sees these six starving people. And it's not about the. The vulnerability isn't necessarily about me being able to connect to grief, but it's about, can I create such a specific image of what these people look like in there that it affects me that I'm available to receive it. So specificity. Specificity, specificity.
• 16:37
  Jason Lange: Be taking that one forward. Such a simple, pure distillation and transmission. Much more concrete way to think about it. So. So I really love that. And yeah. Benjamin, what about you? One thing I love that's always impressed me about where you've kind of spent a lot of your time with improv for the people. My wife Violet went there for a while, was. It's in the middle of la, which can be a heavy. Just kind of the improv schools. A lot of people trying to work at a professional level. And this is a place that really champions. Hey, everybody. Right. Like anyone can Try this. And I'm curious what you've seen in the teaching and your own experience of what can happen for someone as they step into this work.
• 17:24
  Jeff Raab: Yeah, I think I kind of mentioned it earlier. I think that when people continue to kind of put themselves in an improv class in these moments when there's nothing to prepare, the only thing that you really have prepared is like your own personal experiences, the things that you're dealing with in life, the things that you're seeing out in your world and having that space. Just let that be expressed. Whether it's very specific content that, say, if you had a bad day at your job and you go in and you do a scene that is about telling off your boss, other times it could be completely unrelated to that and it's just the energy of being pissed off of your boss comes through in this over exaggerated character that you know, is really wanting a pizza. And what I find so both beautiful and challenging about improv is, you know, there are like the like rules of improv. Yes. And labeling your, your, your scene partner, figuring out if like, you know, what's your history, conflict, things like that. And the thing is, is that because similar to what Jeff was saying, like we each have our own unique perspectives and experiences in life. And so I always find it challenging to like give feedback to people or like, oh, you should say this because I'm going to approach a scene differently from the way that you would approach the scene, from the way Jeff would approach a scene. And so there is a very individual experience about it. And I think the more that someone gets comfortable with voicing their individual perspective, making big choices and committing to them, that it just makes it easier to apply that in other areas of your life too. If it's like, you know, having the confidence to like go up and approach a woman or like being in a group of friends and just sharing something that like really excites you and not worrying about like, oh, what are these other people going to say about it? But just be being tapped into this, this voice or this feeling that just feels so true for you. And like, just like, you know what, I'm just going to share it with everyone. And I think that there's something that is very freeing about that and very self affirming, like, oh, this is how I feel, this is how I express myself.
• 20:06
  Jason Lange: I love that. And I just want to bookmark what you said there because again, there's many ways this can tie into men's work. So make big choices and commit to them. Right. That's a big part of what, you know, I see in the work I do with men, which is, hey, no one's going to come live your life for you. Right? And that kind of boldness that moves us forward, that's incredibly masculine when we really step into that. And, you know, my sense, certainly through the journey of my life, is that requires one really special thing, which I would love for one or both of you to speak to, which is, you know, from my limited experience with himharv compared to you guys, for it to work, there has to be a willingness to not do it. Right. Right. To fail in a lot of ways. Like, fuck, I'm just going to try it. I'm going to try it. I'm going to try it. And that teaching alone, I think, is so transformational potentially for so many men that I think as guys, we often have this just terror of doing it wrong or failing. And I know how that showed up in my life is. Then I lived my life in this teeny box where it'd be like, step research, research, research, research, step research, research, research, research. And, you know, over a decade, my life maybe moved that much, like, barely anything. And what's so great about this as a practice, what we're talking about is you kind of have to interrupt that, right?
• 21:41
  Benjamin Roth: Yeah,
• 21:43
  Jeff Raab: yeah. I mean, it's, you know, people. When people come to an improv class, they're so often like, oh, I just. I just want to be fast. I just, like, I want to be quick. I want to be witty. And I always try and tell them, like, you know, similar. Like, you don't just pick up a guitar and just start, you know, shredding and going as fast as possible. It is. There is a process to, like, learning to, like, learning the, like, technique and like, learning the, like, quote unquote rules to then be able to do that. But I think it is that being okay with failing. And we always say, like, there are no mistakes in improv. You use everything. If you're seeing if your scene partner starts. Starts stuttering or if I start stuttering or, like, say a word wrong, and if my. If my scene partner is really paying attention, they're going to use that. They're going to use that as a means of, like, fleshing out my character, and then maybe my character, in a moment of what felt like feeling embarrassed because I stuttered, now that kind of becomes my character's attribute. And now we get to kind of play with that. And it's that being responded to and using everything. And I feel In a way, it's like, yeah, you are very quickly making a choice and then assessing, like, how is this fitting in together without going into analysis? Paralysis. Because the scene is just going to keep going and you kind of just need to just make it. Make a choice, see how it lands, and then make another choice. And it's just doing that over and over again.
• 23:25
  Benjamin Roth: Yeah, you have to play the reality. And it's one of the things that AI Is never going to be able to replace is the. The thing of being in a space together and being present and playing the reality of the scene. Some of my favorite moments doing live theater or seeing live theater have been when something happens and suddenly we're dropped out of the Not. You know, obviously you want the. The trajectory of the material of the piece, that the piece has an integrity and a structure to it that's usually very satisfying. But then there are those moments where it's like something happens and it's a reminder of like, oh, right, we are in the space together. One of my favorite from my own was I was doing Rocky Horror and there's a scene at the end of the. At the end of it, I was playing Riff Raff, and I remember doing the Time Warp, all that shit. And there's a scene at the end of it where when they come back and they usurp Frank N. Furter and kill him and all that. Spoiler alert. And I. I had the gun. I had this, like, ray gun in my. In the back of my pants, and I had. I added suspenders to the costume. So there's this. I'm out there, I'm saying the line, you are to remain here in spirit or something. And as opposed to in spirit, the gun gets caught in the suspenders. And so I'm like, crap. I'm like, trying to get the darn thing out. And it turns into this, and I have to play the reality of it. I pull. You know, the trigger was a little toy gun. So it starts making beeping noises. So I'm like, I have to play that. I'm like lasering myself in the testicles. I'm like, finally about two. Everybody catches on, and finally I get the gun out, finish the line. And it wasn't. And it was like the. The whole audience went. The audience was. Went crazy. And we all talked about it afterwards and we all had the best time. Not because anything I was doing was so grand or great or anything, but just we were dropped into a moment of reality and we were all together in that moment and which Is my very long winded way of. Of agreeing with Ben that, yeah, nothing can make up for those live we are in reality together thing. And whatever happens in the moment is beautiful. And that's. Yeah. And workable. And that's a shift from how we've been brought up in educational system and all these other different things. The man box, all the different things get us into. Oh, it has to look and be a certain way.
• 26:21
  Jeff Raab: I will also add like on that aspect of failure that for me, in my personal experience, but like being a recovering nice guy that, you know, a sense of like, failing in ways
• 26:36
  Benjamin Roth: felt
• 26:37
  Jeff Raab: like dying or like, like fearing like I would die if I would make a mistake or like, get this wrong.
• 26:44
  Benjamin Roth: And.
• 26:46
  Jeff Raab: And yeah, every time I go out and do an improv show, like, I am still nervous like right before, but with having done it so many times, like, I am like, literally what feels like facing death like each night in terms of, like, I don't know what's gonna happen in this show. And there are times where, you know, scenes don't land and characters don't work, the audience doesn't laugh. And it's just help build resilience for me of like, I'm gonna be okay. In a lot of the instances where I feel like I'm going to die, if I, like, make a mistake, I end up not actually dying. And so I think putting myself in that situation to be open to failure has just made me
• 27:32
  Jason Lange: more.
• 27:33
  Jeff Raab: More confident and just knowing that, like, you know what I'm saying, I can survive this. It may suck, but I will survive this.
• 27:42
  Jason Lange: I love that in that resiliency and capacity to kind of bounce back and not collapse. Right. I think that's one of the things we're really talking about here to make any moment workable, as I sometimes say, you know, it's right there in the language you guys spoke. But to become a yes to the moment, right? So much as men were afraid of failure or we're resisting the moment.
• 28:03
  Jeff Raab: And.
• 28:03
  Jason Lange: And for this kind of work to work, you just have to go with what's there, right? And actually connect to reality. Like, like Jeff was saying. And that's such a powerful capacity for men, particularly when it comes to relationships. Right. Because the whole jam with relationship, whether you're approaching a woman for the first time or whether you've been married for a decade, is we can't control the other person. And we like to think we know people, but we never know what's going to come back. And so having that willingness to just Work with, get surprised and not collapse if things don't go our way. Right. In, in, in kind of the more polarity world and relational world. That's about as sexy as it gets. When I hear from the feminine, right. It's oh my God, that moment happened where he, right. He, he slipped in the mud and ate shit and got totally muddy. And some guys would shut down from that or get angry from that and. Right. One of my clients once was telling me he just made it into a thing like oh my God, that didn't go the way I wanted. And you know, started playing with it and she laughed her ass off because what it taught her was this is a man who can work with the challenge of life and not get, get too gripped by it. And that willingness to, you know, fail or make mistakes or keep iterating. This is such a key capacity, guys. And why, you know, out of all the many things you could focus on in men's work, I'm wanting to help bring this forward more in the world. And it's a body based thing too, right. In terms of. We often talk about in our relationship course, right. You got to lead, then listen. That's exactly what you guys are saying. Like make a choice and then be responsive. Get sensitive to what comes back. Right. How does it land in the other person? What do they bring back to you? And I don't, I honestly don't know if I've. If there's a faster, better container for practicing that than, than the type of work you guys lead in terms of getting guys and really anyone out of their heads and, and into their bodies to develop these capacities to be more present in life.
• 30:27
  Jeff Raab: Yeah, it is. You know, especially when I see people coming into a class for like the first time, it is, it's been very interesting just to observe like certain relational patterns coming up in terms of like, you know, noticing people that may be more soft spoken, maybe like maybe just parroting what someone else says. And then there are also on the other side, some people that are like coming in and like almost directing or like demanding people do this like go, go and get me that, that thing. And, and so it is, it is in some ways kind of kind of like heartbreaking or like you just kind of like see like these relational patterns that, that people have in their lives and that like really kind of come to the surface when you're in this space where two people like don't know what the fuck is happening and you're trying to make sense of it and one person thinks this is going to be a scene about, you know, getting a tax refund and someone else is. Thinks this is a romance scene. And so it's like, how do you come to terms with people that have two different perspectives and you ultimately kind of have to agree or it's not, it's not going to work.
• 31:42
  Benjamin Roth: Or I would imagine with that, that becomes the, a kind of the game. One person is imagining they're getting a tax refund and the other person is imagining that this is romantic. And somehow if that, if, if I would imagine if those start to in inform and infuse each other, then you get some really delightful, unique concoction of a scene. And also, like when we're talking about how people want to show up in the world, that sometimes we feel we need to show up in the world in a certain kind of way. But it may not. Your authentic nature may not, may have been something that was hidden or put upon or something like, like Ben, you mentioned earlier about, you know, everybody wants to come in and be quick witted and fast, but that may not be your gift. That may not be your natural rhythm. How many wildly funny people have there been who are funny because they're stoic or funny, you know, like a, I don't know, kind of like Leslie Nielsen jumps to mind. The comedy in that is the stoicism. Somebody who's funny because they're slow and that's their, that's their gift. So everybody, you know, like, that's part of it is what eschewing what we think we're supposed to be and discovering something much, much richer and allowing other people, like you're saying those, like Jason, you're talking about, you know, if you fall in the mud or your partner does something that you're not expecting them to do and that allows you to discover and expand yourself and broaden and be like, oh, I have that color on my artist's palette too to play with. Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know I could make that purple there. Cool. I can paint with that too now. So it's all about expansion.
• 33:43
  Jason Lange: That's a great way to put it in terms of, I think certainly what I've seen with men who have taken this on that I've worked with is it can be pretty disruptive to identity in the sense, oh, I'm not the kind of person who X, Y or Z. And then suddenly you're doing these kinds of things. And that can be so useful in terms of men expanding the possibilities of how they can Be and how they can show up in the world. And, you know, there's two words I kind of want to throw out there that, you know, you guys can each maybe take a crack at. There's another thing that. It really excites me about this work, which is creativity and play. Two things that I think are also increasingly important, both for men and in this day and age where, like, we were talking about, consumption is easier than ever, this is like, literally an endless dopamine stream for anyone in the moment. In this, as an activity, in this body of work you're both involved in, I think it shifts people from the consumer to the creator. And I would love for you, one or both of you to take a. Yeah, just crack it. How have you seen this impact? Creativity. And then what's the role of play in all this work?
• 35:05
  Benjamin Roth: Creativity. I always think of the old Reese's commercials where, you got peanut butter on my chocolate. You got chocolate on my peanut butter. And it's like, oh, no, it's that those two things put together create something new. And so. So many people, so many creatives, or I mean, anybody thinks to be creative means that I have to generate or manufacture something out of thin air that some kind of div. Like. Like, oh, I am the source of the thing. But what if you're not? What if the only thing that we do, we just receive information and then we naturally put things together? If I were to say, kind of similar to the writing exercise earlier, but if I were to say, okay, there's a man and a dog in a park and it starts to rain.
• 36:08
  Jason Lange: Go.
• 36:09
  Benjamin Roth: And each of. I guarantee both of you and every person listening to this has started to create the story of what that man with that dog now does. Having that. That. It started to rain. You didn't. There was no. Oh, I had. You weren't just, you know. And it's not because, oh, I'm creating the idea of what a man is. I'm creating the idea of what a dog is. I'm creating all these things. We just are not. We naturally take an information and we. And we synthesize it and we make these connections. Everything in our body neurons, it's all about making connections. That's really what I would say creativity is, is making connections in response to things that are already in the world. And each of us are going to be able to tell a different story about that man in the park and the dog in the rain. It's going to be a different story because we're each different people with as Ben points out, different life experiences, our own unique thing to bring to the table. So I. Yeah, let me. Let me. I'll put a pin in it there and then I'll come back and think. Let me think on play.
• 37:23
  Jeff Raab: Yeah, I just wanted to kind of build off of that, Jeff, because I think with.
• 37:30
  Benjamin Roth: Yeah.
• 37:30
  Jeff Raab: So often people are like, you know, I want to be original. Like, I'm like. Or like in, like talking about a scene. Like, I want to be original in a scene. And I also don't think that that is. It can be such a. Such a chore trying to be original because I think so much of what the originality is goes back to what you said of Jeff about the specificity, because you're responding to things that are happening in the moment and then through getting specific about something, that's where I think the originality comes from. Because I had a certain association with the scene that started to kind of feel maybe more dramatic, maybe there's some sadness or grief there. But then I get really specific about what it is. And if I'm same grieving over the. I dropped my. My sandwich. Oh, now that feels original. But like, similarly, if you look at any other, you know, big piece of, you know, like classical piece of art, whether it's like, like a play or a book or a movie, you know, we're telling the same stories. There's so many stories and themes and character traits that, you know, have been passed down from time. You know, the, like, the like, hero's journey. It's like, you know, it's in so many, so many stories and movies and it's just how it's. How it's packaged and like how it's. What is happening currently that that story is then kind of like being reflected out through. So, yeah, it's less about like. And we're going to probably continue to kind of share these same stories, but the lens through which we're telling these stories is going to change because, you know, life is going to be ever changing and new people are going to become presidents and, you know, culture is going to change. And so, yeah, I think, you know, creativity is, yeah, really just responding to like, what is true in the moment and yeah, making those choices, finding that first thing that you, you know, like, what if I apply this idea through this very specific lens and then seeing what would happen to. And it, you know, maybe something that. That existed already or maybe it's something entirely new.
• 39:49
  Benjamin Roth: As we, as we make more and more connections, then we have more and more things to Put into the. Into. So, you know, Romeo and Juliet becomes. As we learn more about the world and we add iPhones into the world, that adds a whole new dimension to that story. Shakespeare only. Only a couple of Shakespeare's plays were quote unquote original. And of the 40, roughly 40 plays he wrote, only Merry Wives and Loves Laborers and you know, most of the big plays were taken from other sources. So even he wasn't even. He didn't create those things. He was, he was, he was a smart, smart businessman. Probably closer to like the Marvel's Avengers franchises running that kind of business and anything else. But yeah, as, yeah, as we. Or even, you know, go west side Story where we've got Romeo and Juliet from the one side and that whole thing was Bernstein bringing in the opera world, Jerry Robbins bringing in the ballet world. Like, you know, all. All these things are. It's just. Everything's just the bastard children of things we love. Creativity is making, is birthing the bastard children of things we love.
• 41:07
  Jason Lange: That's fantastic. So as we begin to wind things down here. So yeah, you guys are going to be leading this event on Sunday, March 29, I do believe, at 1pm Pacific, and I think that's 4pm Eastern time, if I remember correctly. And we'll have all the information for how to join here in the show notes. But, um, what can a guy expect in terms of, you know, what might he get out of coming to an experience like this in terms of his growth, his development and being able to be, you know, more alive, more present?
• 41:43
  Benjamin Roth: Well, I think one of what comes up in some of this work is like, let's say you're embodying a scenario for another man. You know, you're stepping into. Play the role of the mother or, or of the father, you know, any kind of like a role play or something like that, or even if you're just in the men's circle and speaking intuitively, nobody ever, and I know this might contradict some of the other stuff, but nobody really teaches you how to do that or nobody really builds the muscle of what it is to actually drop in and practice speaking intuitively. And so this work is designed to give some practical, some practical, tangible ways to start building that muscle. And that's through. Through some of the. Through improv exercises. And I'm. I'll be bringing in a lot of voice and speech work, especially breath work, because that. Literally loosening up some of the body in order to kind of like what I was saying earlier with the Shakespeare, those characters are meant to be sibs. How do we become, how does our body become the channel to respond to experience in a tangible, physical way? So voice and breath, you know, loosening up physical tension, things like that.
• 43:21
  Jeff Raab: And I, and I also think, you know, similar to what you just asked us a few moments ago, is there going to be a big aspect of play to this? You know, so there probably will be, you know, some like, role playing experiences, you know, some improv games that are just like, it's not. The intention is not to take it seriously. To, to just, you know, kind of get out of your comfort zone, get out of your head and just,
• 43:47
  Jason Lange: just
• 43:48
  Jeff Raab: like, like be, don't, don't let shame or anything get in the way of just like letting your voice like be, be, be heard. And I think that there's something, something really nourishing about like getting to be messy with other men. Like, it's like the intention here is for this to be a very low stakes environment. You know, I think so often we want to be like, speaking very clearly and saying the right things, especially when it comes to women and not sounding, sounding foolish. But there can be something very nourishing about like getting to be messy, sounding foolish and like, and like joking around with, with other men. And I think there's something very healing about that. And so I think that's going to be a big aspect of this as well.
• 44:37
  Benjamin Roth: Dropping from, I'll take this from one of the clown teachers, a guy named Chris Bayes. Dropping from, operating from the head and operating from enthusiasm. That's a big piece of it.
• 44:52
  Jason Lange: That's worth it right there, guys. So, yeah, take a look in the show notes here. There'll be the link to register. Um, I'll actually be on an airplane at the time, so I won't be there. But you'll be in very good hands with these two men. And it's a fun opportunity to kind of get to do this kind of work from the safety of your home with two really deep and experienced guys who not only have this background in this work, but like I said, are often, are also deep in the world of men's work. So this is a rare and unique opportunity to kind of get this part of you lit up. And you know, we hope to do more moving forward, but I think you'll get a lot out of it. So thank you gentlemen so much. Any of you want to plug anything before we close off?
• 45:45
  Benjamin Roth: If you happen to be in Southern Connecticut next weekend, I'm closing out a run of the Irish and how they got that way at Music Theater of Connecticut. We're having a blast already. So grab tickets if you want to hear some trad Irish music following St. Paddy's Day. And you can find me on LinkedIn. You can also visit me jeffreymichaelrob.com and
• 46:10
  Jeff Raab: for me, yeah, I'm on Instagram. And if you're in LA and you want to check out an improv class, Improv for the people. Com.
• 46:23
  Jason Lange: Fantastic. Thank you so much, gentlemen. And until next time, everyone.