Paul Oakley Stovall

I Survived Theatre School

Intro: We are in the Great Unraveling - let's knit a new sweater

Let Me Run This By You: Thin is In, ETHS Drama teacher Bruce Siewerth's abuse of students, iCarly's creator Dan Schneider's abuse of actors

Interview: We talk to Hamilton's own George Washington - Paul Oakley Stovall about family, touring with Hamilton, being fearless, the magic of solving problems behind the scenes, early-age professionalism, quick changes, University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, almost being a Chemical Engineer, Gary Mills, Don Ilko's quiet championship, Ric Murphy's vocal championship, when Jim Ostholthoff called Paul a supernova, Dr. Bella Itkin's career advice, playing John Proctor in The Crucible and Starbuck in 110 in the Shade, Working by Studs Terkel, Betsy Hamilton, being in Caryl Churchill's Serious Money with Gillian Anderson, Yolanda Androzzo, Minneapolis, playing Jason in Steven Carter's adaptation of Medea called Pecong, the X Files, getting shot in both legs, Matt Scharf, Amy Pietz, Monica Trombetta, performing in Frank Galati's Goodman Theatre's production of Good Person of Setzuan with Cherry Jones, Mary Zimmerman's The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Journey to the West, working for the Obama Administration, when Phylicia Rashad directed Paul's play Immediate Family at the Goodman and then Mark Taper Forum, KernoForto Productions, Wolf in Waiting with Danilo Carrera, Frederick Douglass, and finding a second home in Ireland.

Full transcript (unedited):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth Ramirez.

2 (10s):
And

3 (10s):
I'm Gina Pulice.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand

3 (15s):
It. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

1 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

0 (32s):
Podcast situation.

1 (34s):
Cause I was talking to someone else that had the same thing where they were trying to use video and it's like not working. So it's like tech, it's like nothing ever works. Like that's the other name of my solo show. It's like just nothing ever really works. Like we're always like, well, all this to say too that I have come to the conclusion that we are in the time period of in history that I am now calling the great unraveling. Okay, so we've got the great unraveling going on. Now listen, I, I think it's sad, but also the good news is at the end of the unraveling, if humankind has still made it, we can build a new sweater.

1 (1m 15s):
Do you know what I mean? Like, we're gonna have to create a

2 (1m 17s):
Gonna say, yeah, you get, you go, you keep going on that sweater and you know that there's problems, but you're like, maybe it won't look that bad.

1 (1m 27s):
And no, you have to unravel the thing at,

2 (1m 29s):
At some point you say, and there's that term, the myth of invested co.

1 (1m 37s):
Yeah, I know what you mean

2 (1m 38s):
Is, but it's like when you build, when you buy into this idea, Well I've come this far, I might as well keep going and

1 (1m 45s):
Don't keep going. So

2 (1m 46s):
Time investment. Yeah, no, sometimes

1 (1m 48s):
There's like no, there's no telling like how good it can be to just call it, just call something and be like, I'm calling it, you know, like I'm calling it and, and, and there is a tipping point of like, and I think I've told this story about my drywall holes in my apartment. The first apartment I ever had. Did I tell this story? I don't think so. Okay. This is where we are in history. We are at this point where I was, after my dad died, I lived by myself for the first time ever and I got this little apartment and I decided I was gonna put up a quote floating shelf, right? So you need to put holes in the wall and then you put Molly bolts in, they expand.

1 (2m 32s):
Okay. So, but you, but thing number one, it was like a thousand degrees. No, call it. Okay. Could have called it there. Didn't, in my apartment, no air conditioning thousand degrees. Summer, call it, I did not call it. I proceeded two investigate what your motherfucking walls are made of before you do this. Because plaster does not, it does not work out. So I started to drill holes with my molly with my drill. And I'm like, Oh, oh, that's interesting. The holes just kind of gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And I'm like, Yeah, but I just have to keep going. So I kept going and by the end, and then I had holes about the size of a tennis ball in each, and I was like, Okay, but maybe it'll still work.

1 (3m 16s):
Okay, dude, I looked around and then I moved to the shelf around. So I had multiple holes thinking it was the spot in the wall that was the pr. Oh my God, I'm alone. I don't know what's happening. I have a drill. My dad, dad left me like, I don't know what's happening. So I look around and there are chi, I'm sweating. I'm on the verge of tears and there are literally tennis ball holes all over the walls of my studio apartment. And I just think, and I, I then I stopped and I was like, okay, this is, I don't know what made me stop, but I was like, okay, this is insanity. This is the definition of insanity. Because now, yeah, the whole thing is screwed and I have to patch it all.

1 (4m 0s):
It was the biggest lesson of my life of like, wait a second, investigate before you start a project. And it reminds me of your family's project about the trains. Like how one of your kids is really good about planning and out and stuff. I am not that way and I'm learning to be more that way. So anyway,

2 (4m 20s):
Yeah, that's a part that that is I think a big part of maturing. Like I, I have the same thing. I do a lot of little crafty things, sewing and stuff like that. And the, they always tell you, measure twice and cut once. And I've ne...