S2E7: Love and Theatre: "It's Complicated!"

Love and theatre have been in a complicated long-term relationship since... well, forever. RAC members Aaron White and Amy Rene Byrne chat about how their love lives and work as theatre professionals intersect. Perfect for Valentine's Day, this episode covers showmances, marriage, maintaining a work-life balance, and the delicate nature of performing intimate scenes onstage. 

Recorded and Edited by: Amy Rene Byrne
Original Music by: Aaron White

Transcripts of all Season 2 and 3 episodes are available on our Buzzsprout website.

Check out our current season: http://www.bte.org
Ensemble Driven. Professional Theatre. Arts Education. Rural Pennsylvania. For Everyone. With Everyone.

Transcript

Aaron: Welcome to Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble Down Center, a podcast where we love our company, our people, our art, and our town. Front and down center. 

Amy: Oh, wow. That early 20s angst just really comes through. 

Aaron: Oh, that's mid to late 20s angst. 

Amy: Oh, okay. Well, well, yeah, I should have picked up on the notes of sophistication.

The canvas and gobs of paint is very reminiscent of C'est Pas Une Pipe. 

Aaron: This is not a pipe.

Amy: This is not a painting. It's just canvas and gobs of paint. 

Aaron: That would have been after Magritte. Yeah. It's interesting. That's the melody for our podcast theme, but it was originally a breakup song that I wrote when I was living in New York and was really, oh, disenchanted, I guess, with that work life balance.

It wasn't even work because I was out of work, but 

Amy: no work life balance is also an issue. 

Aaron: And so no, no work and no love. And now, as I was recording, I was like, this is such a different person than who I am now, you know? 

Amy: It's so interesting that it was a breakup song because what we've been using as our intros and the different variations that you have made for the different episodes, it's Also, Boppy.

You know?

Aaron: Yeah. I was also listening to a lot of They Might Be Giants at the time, where they write like really dark lyrics to really poppy songs. 

Amy: Yes. I'm obsessed with songs that people think are really upbeat, positive songs, but then when you listen to the lyrics, it is nothing like that. My favorite one of those is the Pina Colada song.

Aaron: But that, there's, there's a 

Amy: It's so messed up. It's messed up. It's about a married couple that both want to cheat on each other and do it in secret and then show up and find their spouse there.

Aaron: It's the rediscovery of love that's busted. 

Amy: The rediscovery is amazing, but the secrecy of everything leading up to that is shady.

Aaron: Yeah, well, pina colada is a drink doused in shame. I mean, I can't. Can't say I've ever had a pina colada and then felt good about it. Oh! I've never had one in a tropical setting. 

Amy: Okay, that's a necessity. 

Aaron: Yeah, it has to be on a beach. 

Amy: Yeah, or you have to be 18. Which I guess is also doused in shame. 

Aaron: Yeah, there's secrecy there too.

Anyway, welcome to our Valentine's Day episode. 

Amy: If you didn't pick up the love theme. 

Aaron: That's right, that's right. And I guess what I was trying to get to is now I have too much work and a lot of places to love in my life. And that was a nice piece of context for today's episode. Amy and I were brainstorming about what to talk about today because we have Sanctuary City running right now and we will be producing Ms. Holmes, Ms. Watson, Apartment 2B, um, in a month or so. But we were brainstorming about what we fit into this slot where there's not a show to plug and it's February and the greeting card companies are gearing up for Valentine's Day. And so we thought we'd talk a little bit about love, what it is to, to have. The love in our lives and to balance that with making Theatre. It's a challenge that is very apparent in the two of our lives. 

Amy: Oh, absolutely. Aaron and I are both married, not to each other, which confuses a lot of our young actors I found. They just automatically assume that we are married to each other.

Aaron: But we've played married a lot. 

Amy: Yes, we have. They've seen us play married and they don't necessarily understand the difference. We both have a child and we balance this crazy profession. Aaron, your spouse has been in the Theatre world. 

Aaron: That's right. She was an actor for years and years and years. In fact, we met doing a play at BTE.

So that, that's a story that we're going to tell later. Um, but she, she, she banged the pound of the pavement. And she pounded the pavement. 

Amy: She banged the pavement? 

Aaron: She banged the pavement. She pounded the pavement for a long time. She got her BFA from Ithaca College and then lived in New York and worked regionally for a long time.

She was an intern here at BTE in the 90s and we met here in 2010. And so it felt like it was a good match because I would never feel like I needed to explain what I was doing or why I was doing it. Of course, I don't know if you, have you ever dated an actor? 

Amy: One time. 

Aaron: One time? 

Amy: And never again. 

Aaron: Okay.

Dating any sort of artistic person, I think that there can be tensions because if someone gets work and the other person is sitting at home trying to get work. 

Amy: Ooh. I was in grad school and they were in undergrad when we were dating, so I didn't have to navigate that. The Professional Tensions. 

Aaron: Yeah. And I didn't do a whole lot of that because, I mean, that song that we listened to was me being desperately single in New York and not dateable at all.

Amy: Desperately single. 

Aaron: Yeah. You know, like depressed and poor and shaggy. 

Amy: Aww. 

Aaron: I mean, I bathed. 

Amy: At least you were hygienic. 

Aaron: That's right. And anytime you're in that situation where, you know, when it's the pyramid of needs. Like if you can't feed--

Amy: Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Aaron: Yeah. That, that if you can't feed and clothe yourself or if that's a struggle that'll a lot of the higher functions and, and other qualities of life are hard to attain.

Right. 

Amy: Yeah. 

Aaron: So that's where I was in New York and we'd often talk about this, my wife and I, Nina. 'cause we overlap in New York, I think for like. Maybe a year before she moved to central Pennsylvania that had we met in New York, I wouldn't have been like, not a glance, right? There was nothing attractive because she was looking for, you know, the life that we have now.

She was looking for a home and for a child, um, and was making a big life choices to see that happen anyway. So I wrote the song. That we were listening to in that state. And so I wasn't dating actors except for a showmance or two. 

Amy: Oh, see, I've never had a showmance. 

Aaron: No? 

Amy: If I have had a showmance, I have blocked it from my memory.

Aaron: For those, for those of you out there in the world who are not in the Theatre industry, a showmance, the definition, is a romance carried out. during the course of rehearsing and performing a show. And normally that is the length of the romance. 

Amy: Usually. Yeah. 

Aaron: And varies from person to person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. I've, I've never had a showmance. I have found that I really need the balance of somebody who is not in the Theatre, but it's essential that that person understands Theatre because what we do is so different, I think, from so many other professions. 

Aaron: Yeah. The outcome, the product seldom matches whatever work goes into it.

There's a great story about Teller from Penn Teller. He has a really big love for tricks that look incredibly simple. And actually are, but it's just the simple illusion of making a ball behave in a way that a ball wouldn't with gravity. And it's done through a whole bunch of different tricks. There's a wonderful podcast about it.

But the amount of practice and effort it takes to make that illusion happen. You don't see it in the trappings of what the performance winds up being. 

Amy: If something looks simple and it's smooth and clean and crisp, I can almost guarantee you that it is anything but simple. Or that the process to get there was anything but.

Aaron: Yeah, yeah. 

Amy: There was something, I think my mother in law sent me once when my spouse and I first started dating that was about what it's like to date a creative. And it's like some days you're going to come home to an absolutely immaculate house and dinner ready and like food prepped for the whole next month.

And some days you're going to come home to utter chaos. You're not going to know where your spouse is. You're going to find them in their pajamas, like the whole world's going to be turned upside down. And I don't know about you, but that's very true for me. 

Aaron: And. I think you get very similar tropes within plays of people who are married or people who are falling in love.

I played Romeo four times and the reason why that works is because everybody can point to it and say, Oh, I remember when this and this happened, right? I think the tensions come out of the disconnect between the erratic nature of, of what we make and In trying to match that erratic nature and be open to that erratic nature and be ready to meet it when it happens and still sustain a concrete relationship or a relationship that can remain flexible and stable for a child.

And 

Amy: Yeah, I think that flexibility in every facet of the relationship is so key because I know. For the most part, like, my husband gets to leave work at work. For him, that gets a little bit more complicated because he works from home, so work is in our home. And he sort of is on call all the time, so there are moments that he has to deal with things.

But, for me, I have 15 BTE themed internet browsers open, tabs open in my brain at all times and they're all going and there's no time that that gets to shut off. 

Aaron: But that's also your brain, too. 

Amy: That's true. That's true. 

Aaron: I think if you were a marketing professional or what, if you were doing whatever you're doing, your brain would still do that.

I think. 

Amy: I mean, I've worked in the business world. 

Aaron: Yeah. Let me pose that question differently. If you worked in a different profession, would your brain operate in the same way that it does in Theatre? 

Amy: No, and I think that that has to do with whether I am getting to use my logic brain, my creative brain or both.

And when I have both of my brains going, which is essential for working at BTE, I have a really hard time. disconnecting. If I get to live in just my logic brain, which is what I got to do when I worked in the business world, I can shut that off really easily. I close that program out, it'll open back up, show me exactly where it was saved.

Aaron: And nothing has changed. 

Amy: And nothing has changed. Yes, exactly. But with creative work, so much of the creative work actually takes place in your brain. And. 

Aaron: And body. 

Amy: And body. Yeah. It's a, it's a very different thing. I don't get to Spockian that the same way. I have some of my biggest revelations about things when I'm not working on the work.

Aaron: Mm hmm. Yeah. 

Amy: The number of times I've been making dinner or doing dishes and been like, Oh my God, that's the thing. 

Aaron: Mm hmm. So here's something. Here's the segue. You ready for the segue? 

Amy: I'm so ready. 

Aaron: All right. So that's exactly what happened when I met my wife.

Amy: Ooh. 

Aaron: Nina and I were on very different tracks.

And I wasn't planning on staying in central Pennsylvania, so I had just left New York, where I wrote that really sad song. And I was planning on going to Pittsburgh. I had some gigs there and I really enjoyed the city. And so it was like, I changed the scene as necessary, but I needed to buy a car because Pittsburgh is not really a public transportation city.

There are some, but I'd sold it to go to New York. So I moved back into my parents basement in Lower Northumberland County, so I could save up to buy a car. And one of the, the gap gaps--

Amy: Were you still shaggy at this point? 

Aaron: Uh, yeah, relatively. I mean, those of you who know what I look like know that I have a signature curly headed hair.

Head of hair? A signature head of curly hair. 

Amy: Yes. 

Aaron: Yes. There you go. So there's always some form of shaggy, but I wound up working at Williamsburg high school and that's how I got connected into BTE. And so I was planning on moving as soon as the gig was over after In the Next Room. That was my next step.

And Nina was working at the new children's wing at the James V. Brown library, where she is still Ms. Nina to many children in the Williamsport area. But she had been, she had a relationship here and Sandy Pisieczko was directing In the Next Room and had an affinity for Nina and brought her down to be in it.

And I, uh, had auditioned the year prior and hadn't heard anything back. But there are two people that take credit for my marriage to Nina and neither of them are I or Nina. Um, Um, Um, Um, One is Stacy Peterson. And the other is Syreeta Combs-Cannaday sarita's because she didn't want Richie to be in In the Next Room.

And so there was a space for me to enter into that. And Stacey because Stacey actually played my wife in In the Next Room. And if you don't know, the subtitle for In the Next Room is, or The Vibrator Play. 

Amy: Really good play. 

Aaron: It's such a delightful play. And it, it, it deals with the brains of people who are in love but have different ways of seeing the world.

So Stacey's character is very poetic, Mrs. Givings, and she's just had a baby and she's dealing with postpartum depression and is in the throes of it. And her husband, Dr. Givings, who I played is very scientific and precise and deals with emotion in an entirely different way. And the whole play is watching them disconnect and seeing both of them having needs and neither of them being able to address the other person's needs.

And so the whole play and the tension from that play is seeing them navigate that. 

Amy: It's also a decently sexually charged play. 

Aaron: It's sexually charged, but it's through the skewed lens of 19th century medicine. 

So. 

Amy: The women and their hysteria. Hysterical uterus. 

Aaron: Yes. The, the idea that somehow or other the uterus becomes congested.

That's where the idea came from.

Amy: I mean, mine sure feels phlegmy today. 

Aaron: That's right. So what do you do when your nose is congested? All manner of things to get that snot out. . So the idea was that if you stimulated a paroxysm that the woman would feel better. And that was the backward thinking of the time.

I hope we know better now. And uh. 

Amy: I mean, we're no longer putting women in asylums for being hysterical. 

Aaron: That's right. And just so happened that Nina was playing the primary patient in the play. So that's a real interesting way to meet a person, first of all. I should preface all of this by saying that our relationship was not a showmance.

Nina put up the kibosh on it. She said, no, not until this is over. So 

Amy: I respect that. 

Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. No, she, she, she was very clear. But anytime you're simulating intimacy on stage, there's a real weird line. Because you do want to be open to whatever that intimacy provokes, uh, in order to live truthfully in the moment, but you also need to remain professional because it's not a person that you're actually, you don't want to invade the other person's personal space.

Amy: You're balancing the line between simulation and living in the moment, which is a really delicate thing. 

Aaron: Yeah. And also in the last 10 years with intimacy coordinators and it like, it's a new position because there was recognition. Through the Me Too movement and Time's Up movement that there was a practice in our industry where folks would push that line.

In Sanctuary City, we have an intimacy coordinator named Beth Golson. So that's a job you can have in the Theatre, but we did not have one. Although Sandy was very specific, recognizing the sensitivity of what it would be to simulate an orgasm on stage. That's what paroxysms were, if you hadn't gathered.

Amy: Yeah, yeah. We didn't define that, but we hoped that you lifted up on your own. 

Aaron: You don't want that event to have folks leave the narrative and be thinking about other things, maybe either more personal or to shut off, right? So anytime you're dealing with intimacy and kissing or nudity, you run that risk in the way that the story or the narrative is obscured by.

Anyway, so that's how I met my wife. So Stacey takes credit for my marriage because at the time Nina was casually dating someone who is now still very much in our lives. He is sort of an adopted uncle to our son, but was friends and then partner and then friends again and then a partner again with Nina for years.

Stacey was asking, because she very clearly, our hugs goodbye grew in length and it had to be obvious to everybody, but we thought we were being very discreet. And 

Amy: I just imagine Stace standing there with a stopwatch,

Aaron: but Stacey asked, so you and Nina, we were both staying at Laurie McCants's house. Cause we were both guest artists and I said, Oh, she's dating somebody. It's not, it's not a possibility. And she looked at me like, I don't think that's going to be a problem. Dressing room talk, dressing room talk. So she likes to think, at least I think she does, that that little nudge may have pushed us into marriage, not marriage, but dating anyway.

Amy: Which you wouldn't have gotten married if you hadn't started dating. If you had, that'd be a very interesting story. 

Aaron: Uh, true. But that's not what happened. So that's the story of how Nina and I met. And now we just celebrated on January 12th, our 10th wedding anniversary. And we have a nine year old son.

And my life is so utterly different from that song that you heard at the beginning of the podcast. And mostly because neither of us were looking for it. She actually thought when we, even when we started dating, that I would be gone. That I'd be going to Pittsburgh. She expected me to be migratory

Amy: mm-Hmm.

Aaron: in the way that I was being migratory and leave. Yeah. So I was maybe a summer fling and then I didn't go away . 

Amy: You know, there are some interesting parallels there between mine and Kris's story. I don't always love talking about how Kris and I met, because when we met we were both in different relationships, but Kris and I were friends long before we ever started dating and neither one of us were looking for something. I was in a relationship, granted, it was an absolutely doomed relationship from the start. We were never going to last. It was a reactionary relationship. He was a very nice guy. We were all sorts of wrong for each other. This was the actor that I, that I dated. And so Kris was that person's boss and. We went out on a double date once, me and my ex and Kris and his ex, we went and got sushi.

And, uh, shortly after that, Kris's ex broke up with him. So that is not the recipe for romance. 

Aaron: Yeah. Right. When you're not looking for it. 

Amy: Yeah. Yeah. But sure enough. 

And he became a hermit, wouldn't leave his house. And so my ex and I were like, let's get Kris out of the house. We started inviting him over for cookouts.

Kris had a dog named Mona. I started dog watching his dog when he would travel for work. And it kind of just became really evident that Kris and I had way more in common. Then my ex and I ever did, and then one night, this is the first night that Kris ever saw me on stage, my ex had messed up real big and Kris and my ex were coming to see the show and Kris was like, dude, you gotta, you gotta get her flowers.

You need to apologize. Like you messed up and, and he did. Flowers weren't going to save the situation. I'm not going to say what he did because that's not fair, but our relationship was not ever going to come back from it. And so Kris sat in the audience next to my ex holding a bouquet of, I'm sorry, I messed up flowers and watched me on stage for the very first time, which is. bizarre to me. 

Aaron: That's an odd experience too. And something that they do all the time. Like we need to get them a support group. Like to be a spouse of an actor, to see them outside of the context of your relationship. You know, watching. 

Amy: Yeah. In that show, I kissed two different characters, was like rolling around in bed with one of them. I can't imagine for Kris what that entire experience was like. 

Aaron: Yeah, that's another podcast. 

Amy: Yeah, that is another podcast. I'm not sure I told that story very well. 

Aaron: Go from the sitting there with the flowers, how did it resolve? 

Amy: You know, that's a really good question. It's all a little bit of a blur from there.

Um, okay, so, so Kris is sitting there next to my ex boyfriend who's holding, sorry I messed up, flowers, and Afterward, I meet up with him when the show is over. And Kris is just starstruck when we start talking afterwards, which was so bizarre to me. He's like, this is my friend. This is the guy I like dog sit for.

And he's just like, I can't, wow. That was wow. Like, I mean, I know, I knew it was you, but like, I didn't feel like I was watching you on stage. Like, I, I just, it just blew his mind. And I just remember thinking it was so cute. Like, this is what I do, you know? 

Aaron: Yeah, that's something that's inherent in what we do too. Like, there's a magic trick. We talked about illusions earlier. I mean, there's a magic trick about asking someone to believe that you are not who you are. For, you know, an hour to two hours. Yeah. And for them to say, okay, and that we all go kind of into some sort of interesting fugue state communally. Yeah.

You know. 

Amy: It's like a collective hallucination. 

Aaron: Yeah. Those, those things, it happens in Theatre. I think it probably happens when you fall in love too, where you just start paying attention differently. Yeah. You know, and time expands or contracts and you, uh, experience life outside of what is habitual. Yeah.

Amy: When you're falling in love, midnight to 3 a. m. is like the longest time period on earth.

Aaron: It is. Sure. That's right. Love that statement. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Midnight to 3 a. m. Longest time period on earth. 

Amy: Yeah. For real. Do you think Nina still goes along on those journeys or does she watch her 

husband on stage? 

Aaron: It varies. We have certainly navigated How critiques are given. 

Amy: Oh, that's interesting.

Aaron: You know, like when we're driving home, Elizabeth and I talk about that a lot because both of our spouses are actors and performers as well. So they have directed things. They have ways they think the story could be told. And by the time they see us, I mean, it's not cemented, but it is crafted. And there's been a lot of thought that's gone into it.

And so they come in with either. That was great. You should think about Or, or they want to talk about it a whole bunch and you're really done with the run. Or, you know, you want them to compliment you and it's just not their bag. Right. You know? 

Amy: Oh, that's, that's so hard. 

Aaron: Looking for affirmation. And particularly, cause it's funny, my candidate season was like my season of villains. It was my season of playing really reprehensible people.

And it happens with my mom and dad too, like the folks that love you coming to watch you behave that way. 

Amy: They don't want to see you be a villain again and again and again. They're like, Oh, what are you painting my baby as? 

Aaron: That's right. That's right. That's something we have certainly figured out how to navigate, whether it be driving in separate cars home from the Theatre.

Amy: Wow. 

Aaron: Or if we're driving in the car home together. 

Amy: You've got rules we got. 

Aaron: Yeah. 

Amy: I think I get off easy in that regard, since Kris is not a Theatre person. 

Aaron: Mm-Hmm. 

Amy: All of his reactions are so pure in a way. Hmm. I am incapable of watching a show as a Theatre maker and not in some capacity thinking about what I would've done differently or what if they had done this or, oh, they missed an opportunity here.

Kris doesn't have any of that. 

Aaron: Hmm. 

Amy: So he's able to come in and just take it. At face value and I can tell when he doesn't love something that I, that I've done, but he doesn't have a suggestion for what it could have been, you know, so oftentimes those conversations end up being about the story or the script or the direction or something like that.

And so I get to escape some of that personal ridicule or critique, personal critique. 

Aaron: Yeah. It's not even, I mean, I don't even know that it's. Because I think their feelings get bruised, too. Because, you know, I think Nina misses it from time to time. Oh, I'm sure. You know, creative people are creative people, like we were discussing earlier.

And she doesn't get to do it regularly like I get to do it. 

Amy: Right. She is a librarian now. 

Aaron: Yeah. And a very good one, state recognized. But She chose because she wanted to have a child and have a home that was really important to her. She decided to pivot, but that doesn't mean that the desire to do it goes away. 

Amy: And, uh her connection to it now comes in the form of supporting you. 

Aaron: Yeah, and she directs the show at Community Theatre League in Williamsport. The Sprout program for young kids, which brings her great joy and I think is really fulfilling to her. But it's something when your partner goes away and is doing it, the thing that you love all the time, you know, which we were talking about earlier, too, I don't think it's the same as, you know, resenting one another, but I do think it is hard.

And so when you have something, a valid opinion that is informed and the person you love and have chosen to make a life with can't hear it in the way that you intend it like that can be really hard. So 10 years in, we found a way to navigate it. And that's also the difference between dating that person for the first time and falling in love and the hours of midnight to three extending to trying to make the hour after you both get home from work and your kid goes to bed worth it.

Amy: Yeah. 

Aaron: Right? Yeah. When that hour feels like it might as well be ten minutes. 

Amy: Right. Yeah. By the time you arrive to figure out where you both are, make a plan for how you're addressing the end of the night, it's gone. 

Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. 

Amy: You know, as much as I would love to walk in the door and just, like, fall into Kris's arms and snuggle my baby, like, it just doesn't work that way.

Aaron: Yeah, it's never that clean. Yeah. It's never as clean as what you see on stage, for sure. So this episode will be entitled Love and Time. 

Amy: Lum. Lum?

Aaron: Lum. 

Amy: Lime.

Aaron: Love and time in the time of 

Amy: love. Love and time. 

We're killing it. 

Aaron: We are. We are killing it. 

Amy: All right. I feel like this is a topic that could go a million different places and go on forever. 

Aaron: I honestly, I would love to hear other people's. But I want to know what Jon White-Spunner, our Managing Director, has to say about this topic.

Amy: What jon has to say about love in Theatre or just love in general? 

Aaron: Love in theatre. His wife's an actor. 

Amy: Uh huh. And a director. 

Aaron: And a director. And a playwright. I would love to know what he has to say. So Jon, this is a call out to you and a cliffhanger for all of you out there. 

Amy: And knowing Jon, probably never get resolved.

The day that I can get that man behind a microphone for this podcast will be a triumph. 

Aaron: That's right. 

Amy: We love you, Jon. 

Aaron: We do. We do, we do. This has been Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble Down Center. Ensemble Driven. Professional Theatre. Arts Education. Rural Pennsylvania. For Everyone. With Everyone. We would like to thank the Foundation of the Columbia Montour Chamber of Commerce for the use of equipment that makes recording this podcast possible.

Join us for our next episode on March 1st about our next show, Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apartment 2B. Check out our website www. bte. org for show information and to purchase tickets. Do you know our subscribers can see everything we do as many times as they want for only twelve bucks a month? I mean, that's a really good deal.

Amy: A really good deal. 

Aaron: Finally, follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get the most up to date information about what's happening at BTE. 

Amy: Oh my goodness, could you hear my tummy growling at the end of that? 

Aaron: It's time for breakfast. 

Amy: It was like, about what's happening (growl) at (growl) BTE. 

Aaron: Amy Renee Byne is hungry. Hungry for live Theatre.

Amy: And love. What? No!