I saw Adam Gwon’s All the World’s a Stage, and it sparked some deep realizations about my own life and the importance the arts played in my development and very survival. This is a special episode as a storyteller and as an artist. I hope you enjoy it.

All the World’s a Stage at Theatre Row

Written by Adam Gwon (book, music, lyrics)

Eliza Pagelle as Sam

Jon Michael Reese as Michael

Matt Rodin as Ricky

Elizabeth Stanley as Didi

Directed by Jonathan Silverstein

Michael Starobin (orchestrations)

Movement by Patrick McCollum

Andrew Grody Musical Direction

Commissioned by the Keen Company

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Episode Transcript

Izolda: To me, a theater kid is someone who started when they were 4 or 5 years old in summer camp where they had little acting games and theater games. And I remember when I was a camp counselor for summer camps, I would teach some of these theater games, but I never got to be the kid learning all of that stuff. Welcome to your Creative mind. This show is all about tapping into your creativity and using it to build a life you love. You’ll hear practical tools, inspiring stories and conversations with artists, writers, innovators and change makers who are doing the work so you can too. Let’s spark your imagination, focus your energy and create with purpose. Ready? Let’s go.

Hey there and welcome to the your Creative Mind podcast. I’m your host Izolda Trakhtenberg. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Today. I want to talk about something that is very close to my heart and it was sparked by seeing a show called all the World’a Stage, which is a brand new musical written by Adam Guan, who wrote the book, the music and the lyrics to this off Broadway show. I saw it last night and it brought up just a bunch of emotions to the point where he was there at the performance last night and I stopped him and went, I would love to have you on this podcast on my show, to talk about this, your inspirations, your process, all of that stuff. And I gave him my card and I don’t know if he’s going to contact me and, and be on the show. If he does, then there’ll be a special bonus episode of Adam being on the show in the next few days. And here’s why. the show is only going to run through May 10th and today is May 1st. So there aren’t that many days for you. If you’re going through New York or if you live here, I’m going to encourage you to go see the show because it is really remarkable in many ways. the short story of it is a loner student in high school. She’s, a loner. She, doesn’t really have any friends. She needs to get out of Dodge, if you will. and what she wants to do is to do a monologue at this competition that if she wins, is a four year free ride to a university. And that’s in her mind, the way to get out. And what’s interesting to me about that is that that was in my mind when I was in high school. I knew that I needed to get out of Dodge and I wanted to go away to college and the only way to do that for me, I felt at the time was to get great grades. I didn’t, I never even thought of trying to, ah, apply to the University of Michigan music school. And here’s why. they needed both singing and violin. And at that time, or you had to sing and play a musical instrument. And at that time I had not played the violin for a few years because I stopped when I was 14. I stopped playing classical music when I was 14 and started it back up about 10 years later. So I hadn’t played the violin for a while. I never wanted to play the violin. That’s a very long story. You could probably find that episode if you want to look because I’ve talked about the fact that my father wanted to hear piano violin duets. And so my older sister played piano and I played violin. And we weren’t asked if we wanted to. So regardless, the point was that I never applied to the music school. And this is before the musical theater department, the really famed musical theater department at the University of Michigan began. in fact I graduated in May of 88 and it began that September. I think that’s when they started the musical theater department or I would have probably postponed college for four years and gone to the musical theater department. But I did not. Why am I talking about this? Well, in the show, in all the world’s a stage, this character named Sam, she wants to go to college and she’s trying to do this, to learn this monologue. But of course there’s no theater program in her high school, which is called Valley High School. There’s no theater program, there’s no one to help her. And a new math teacher, takes a job there. And it’s about what happens when the two of them try to work together to help her perform, learn and perform. This monolog is she auditions to get this full 4 year free ride at college. Okay, so I’m probably going to, just obliterate these names. But I will tell you who the cast is because they were extraordinary. As I said, Adam Guan wrote the book, the music and the lyrics. Eliza Pael, I’m hoping that’s how you say your name. as Sam, as a high school student she was outstanding. John Michael Reese was Michael Matt Roden or Rodan, I’m not sure was Ricky. And Elizabeth Stanley is Dee Dee and Elizabeth Stanley. By the time you hear this episode, she has moved on because she has a movie project. I understand. So another, actor is going to be taking over Dee by The time you hear this, it was directed by Jonathan Silverstein, and the orchestrations were Michael Strobin, commissioned by the Keene Company, which I think is so interesting. The company, the theater company itself commissioned this piece. And, which gives me hope as a musical theater, writer. As a musical writer and as a playwright, I’m like, oh, yay. This is great. Love that there are companies out there commissioning new works. That’s incredible to me. and, Andrew Grody was the md Was the musical director. And I’m bringing all these people up because, again, they did a phenomenal job. The cast of four made it seem like there were a cast of 20. They fluidly moved into playing other characters. And my play Listen! does that. If you’ve seen or heard me talk about, Listen!, there are a minimum of eight actors required, but there are something like 97 different parts in that particular play, different characters. So people have to double, triple and 12-uple up in order to do that show anyway. So. But it was really cool to watch them just fluidly move into being, not just other characters, but together. The three of the actors, for example, were together, in being one character who’s never actually on stage. It’s them saying the words just brilliantly, brilliantly done and directed. So my hat is off to, Jonathan Silverstein for doing her. Silverstein. I apologize. I’ve never heard your name said, folks. I’m sorry, but just phenomenal directing job, phenomenal blocking job on a relatively small stage. The four or five musicians made it seem like there was a full orchestra playing. And, And I loved it. I wept throughout most of it. It was really, just a pleasure to watch, but also profound for me, and here’s why. Wow.

I’m finally getting to the point of this episode. So, you. If you listen to this show, you’ve probably heard me mention that I went to high school with both Andrew Lippa, who wrote the music and lyrics to the Addams Family, among other shows, and also to, Jeffrey Seller, who executive produced little shows like Hamilton and Rent and in the Heights and Avenue Q and the Sweeney Todd that came out, two years ago, I guess. So he’s been around. And why I’m bringing him up is because he just, very soon may, I want to say May 10, something like that. I actually don’t know the exact date. He’s got a book coming out called Theater Kid, and I was hoping I’d be able to get him, on this podcast to talk about this because I think it would be so cool for us 40 years later to discuss theater when we were children because we did theater together. We did musical theater, we did choir. my very first musical theater experience, for example, was, the Fantastics in 10th grade where I get to be the mother, and he got to be the father of the two different characters of Matt and Louisa. So I was Bellamy and Jeffrey was Hucklebee, and so was. It started my love affair with musicals. Lifelong, unabashed, totally never going to stop yet. His book is called Theater Kid and I think that’s amazing. Love, I love the title and the COVID of the book is a delight. But what’s interesting for me is that I don’t consider myself a theater kid. To me, a theater kid is someone who started when they were 4 or 5 years old in summer camp where they had little acting games. And I remember when I was a camp counselor for summer camps, I would teach some of these theater games. But I never got to be the kid learning all of that stuff. In fact, what happened was I was thinking about this and this is all just my roundabout way of saying arts education, theater education is critical for development of young minds and bodies. But, let me keep going. So I, I was able to sing. I was always able to sing and I was always able to play the violin because I started the violin at five, third grade we had a, a substitute teacher in music class who was a violinist, Mrs. Gardiner. And she heard me play and went hu, you actually know how to play? Cause I started a five and third grade, I was seven. And I went yes. And she said, I would like to give you lessons. And I went sure, if my parents will pay for it. My father of course was delighted to pay for it. I studied with her for a long time. Well, for what then seemed like a long time. And then after a couple years we moved on to Abe Levine, who had played with the destroyed symphony orchestra. And I studied with him for, I want to say, four or five years. I honestly don’t remember. But I also was a singer and was in music class. And Mrs. Munson, who was our music class teacher in third grade, went, ha ha, you can sing. And so I started singing in, in choir and loved it. singing in harmony is probably my favorite thing in the world, which is not surprising that I lead and manage. And when I can sing, with the Philosopher’s Tones, I do. But the premier holiday caroling group in the area that sings in 4, 5, 6 part harmony all the time. it’s my favorite. I love singing in harmony and it’s actually, This is meandering a little. I’m sorry, but it’s important. I’m writing this musical sort of based on stuff that went down in high school. And I, was just telling somebody the other day that it’s going to be very harmony heavy because I love singing in harmony and I love writing harmony. So I’m very excited about that. But anyway, why I’m talking about this is that when, it got to middle school, I joined the choir then Karen Green was my teacher and I enjoyed it. But I still never thought in my brain that theater was a possibility or musical theater. I didn’t even know musicals existed until I was, I want to say 13 in 1979. By then my sister was already in New York City and I was still living in Detroit. But I went to visit her and went completely bananas over Ted Wass and Diana Canova in their playing Our Song, which was the first musical I ever saw. I think it was 79. It could be 78 because I remember 79. The second musical I ever saw was the great Patti Lupone and the great Mandy Patinkin in Evita. So talk about starting it off right. Those two were terrific anyway. But I never even thought to myself, oh, this is a possibility for me too. I never went that route until 10th grade when out of choir in 9th grade I, Out of sort of women’s choir and mixed choir. Actually, I’m not even sure I was in mixed choir. I had to take a different class. But in 10th grade I decided to audition for, concert choir. And we could, we had multiple. At that point we had multiple choirs that you could join. And why I’m talking about this is because arts education, music education was important. We had an orchestra, we had a band, we had a jazz band. We had, multiple choirs. We had women’s, ensemble and men’s ensemble and madrigals, which was a mixed group, SATB. So women’s ensemble is SSAA soprano, soprano, 2 alto, 1 alto, 2 and then, 10 or 1, 10 or 2 baritones on bass or baritone, 1 baritone, 2, depending on how they look at it. Anyway, so there I was auditioning for Concert Choir and then I think it, it might have even been my friend Adrian. Shout out to you, Adrienne Adler Kerbel because I think it was you who said, “Are you auditioning?” one day and I went “Auditioning for What?” I thought I’d made the pinnacle. I was in madrigals. I was in women’s ensemble. I was in Concert Choir. I was like, I am or I have arrived. And she said, for the musical. And I went, whoa, no. And then she suggested that I go out for the Fantasticks. And, the fab Sue Wolin ended up getting Luisa. Susan Greene shout out to you. So many of us are still good, friends. It’s really funny anyway. But what’s interesting to me is that I went, okay, I’m going to audition, and I did not get the lead. But, Doc Silverman, who was the head of the drama club, liked my audition enough that he decided to switch Bellamy the father into Bellamy the mother. And so that was my first musical theater experience. And I lived and breathed and ate and slept that show. If they had asked me to cut my skin off and turn it inside out and put it back on, I would have considered it because it just opened up this world of possibilities. Now, you can say that the Fantasticks hasn’t aged well. There is an entire scene where they plan a rape. not a real rape, but a, ah, theatrical one. But it doesn’t matter. There are still people who are going to be probably triggered by that. And I haven’t seen people do it for a while. Ever since it closed at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. I have not seen it be something that is, being done.

What saved me from feeling isolated and completely, uh, isolated was musical theater.

And I’m not sure why. small cast, easy to play. Songs are not too difficult. In fact, I still somehow managed to sing much more from that song when I need to. It was my audition song for a long time, which is hilarious because I’m not an ingenue. And that’s sung by the. By the ingenue. But still, my point in all of this is that it was available to me and it opened my life. And why I’m talking about this is because in this show, all the world’s a stage. Sam is, as I said earlier, is a loner. People just. People call her weird, people call her creepy. They’re really crappy to her. And she feels isolated and alone. And I got to tell you, huge chunks of middle school, I felt isolated and alone. And ninth grade was not all that much better. Although I did join choir. But as my husband says, I’m an alien, right? He says to me regularly that I’m from another planet. I’ve just started accepting that I probably am. That’s okay. If my memory was scrubbed, that’s fine. But why I’m talking About this is because what saved me, what saved me from feeling completely alone and completely, isolated was musical theater. For the first time, walking into that theater space, our little black box theater. Was it a black box or was it more a proscenium? I think it might have been more a proscenium now that I’m remembering. This was 40 years ago, more than 40 years ago. I’m allowed to not remember quite what it was. Yeah, proscenium. Anyway, it was brilliant. It was being allowed to try new things creatively, even though we were being directed. But it was being allowed to sing and sing out and make mistakes and, and help each other and work together. And it was again, a small cast, and it was still one of the best experiences of my life. And in this play, in all the world’s a stage, we have this loner, this isolated young woman who has nowhere else to go. She has nowhere else to turn, and she has no Mary Alice Powell, who was my incredible choir director, or Doc Silverman, or I want to say Mr. Evans, or Señor Venetelli, who was, the head of the Foreign language Drama Club. And we did a festival for him and performing in lots of different languages from lots of different cultures. And I took part in that. So we had these teachers who were champions of the arts. And if we hadn’t, I’m not sure what my life would have been like, moving into this space. I, as I said, I never tried to be a musical theater major there. There might not have even been a musical theater major at the University of Michigan when I went there. and I was an English, what you would call an English drama major. I did not do theater. I did English. But if they had allowed me to do my bachelor’s of general studies, it would have been in English. A full sort of split between theater and English. Why I’m talking about this is again, the only reason I thought that I could take acting classes and directing classes and everything else that I took and to direct my own show. My first show in college was a full length Pam, Gems’, Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi. I thought that I could do it because I had the foundation from high school, right? Those four years, and not even four years really. I was involved in the theater department for two years, for sophomore, junior year, Senior year ended up not being as great for me for that because I had now taken some classes that I was required to take in order to graduate. So the classes that I wanted to take, concert choir and all of that, I wasn’t allowed to take, and therefore. ###h because there was a scheduling conflict. And therefore what that meant was, I couldn’t be in Concert Choir. I couldn’t be in women’s ensemble. I couldn’t be in madrigals, and I really couldn’t be in. In theater. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t do any of it my senior year. It was really, distressing. But I turned to radio and that became another again. Arts education was another tendril, another tributary of the river. So I became a DJ and ended up doing professional DJing for a while after graduation. So you see and voice acting. I ended up because of. Because of my, foundation that was laid in high school, sophomore, junior year and into college I was able. I’m a voice actor. I do narrations. I’ve done audiobooks. I do, promo, corporate videos, whatever. I’ve done NASA movies. I narrated NASA movies and directed them. The foundation for that happened because I had high school arts. And that’s, I guess, my roundabout way of talking this play. All the world’s a stage up. because. Because what teachers who are willing to take a chance on the arts do is they give their students a foundation of skills and the idea that it’s possible. And that is amazing. That is amazing. I can’t even tell you how much benefit I’ve gotten out of my high school choir and drama club experiences. I took those with me into college. I never thought twice about whether or not I could direct a play. I went, absolutely. That’s going to be the thing I do. And I did. And it was a hit. It was incredible. And, if I say so myself, but what was interesting about that play is that it wasn’t through the theater department. I was taking a women’s studies class and we were required to do some sort of social action as part of the class. And I went, what if I were to put on a production of a feminist play?

My show got into 29 Palms Theater Festival, which is super cool

And I talked to my professor about it, and she went, yeah, okay, if you can. The only thing is the actors that you use in the play have to have taken women’s studies as well. And I went, okay. So I found four, actors, Julianne, Cristina, Mary Scott and Merritt. And they were Dusa, Fish, Stas, and Vi. And they did an incredible job. And somewhere I have. Maybe I’ll put it in with the show notes. Somewhere I have the little program that I created, and I think Mac Paint or maybe Mac Draw that’s how long ago this was. And I took a picture of it. And, yeah, we had a program, and it was fantastic. And it. That show, I, again, I lived and ate and breathed and slept that show for an entire semester. And honestly, it was truly the only thing that was important to me then. Being able to do that show and putting it on and making my vision happen was the only thing I cared about. And so all these years later, here I’m in New York going, okay, how do I do that again? How do I get back to that place? And so I’m starting over and seeing shows and meeting some of the people who are these theater makers and getting my plays into festivals. I haven’t talked about this much. Wow. Yeah. my show expiration date got into the 29 Palms Theater Festival, which is super cool. And that’s happening. by the time you hear this, it will have just happened. May 3rd and 4th is when the show goes up. And I’m so thrilled. I’m supposed to be getting a video of it. I hope I do. The last time one of my shows got up, they got video, but not audio, which was really sad. But I’m very excited to see what they do with the show. As a playwright, you don’t get to do that much with it, if. Especially if they’re doing it far away. But, if they send me a video, at least I’ll be able to see what they did. Which is one of the reasons I want to be able to direct as well as write. Ideally, I’d love to write my own shows and direct them to. And I don’t know if that’s going to be possible, but here I am in New York City trying to find out. And again, roundabout, long story, long way of saying, if I hadn’t had that arts education early on, this dream that I’ve admittedly taken a long time to get to would never have happened. I would not be here now, probably trying to do this at my age, at any age, but at my age. But I’m trying. And this is the goal, this is the dream, and it’s what I’m going to do as much as possible. And so one of the reasons to go see all the world’s A stage is because I’m willing to bet that if you have a dream you let go of when you were younger, you might remember that dream by watching this show. Anyway, I hope you enjoy today’s episode. I am going to be looking to either take a break for a few weeks or I’m gonna double down with a brand new set of episodes. or something, I’m not even sure. But some how. This show fundamentally is not going to change. I’m in the middle of deciding whether or not I should do another podcast altogether and or make it an episode of this show. I don’t remember what the best way is for myself to do it, but I will remember because I knew it. I wrote about it in my journal, but I don’t know what happened to that memory. So, anyway, we’ll see. Right?

Okay. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. This is Izolda Trakhtenberg reminding you, as always, to be curious, be creative, and most of all, be kind. Thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you being here. Please subscribe to the podcast if you’re new and it would mean the world to me if you told a friend about it. Today’s episode was produced by Izolda Trakhtenberg and his. Copyright 2025. As always, please remember this is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Past performance does not guarantee future results, although we can always hope.