Welcome to the Crown and Acre Grahams. This is Richmond Till We Die,
a conversation about the Apple TV Plus show ted Lasso, where we explore the
characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make us
laugh until we can hardly breathe one moment and then feel with the deepest parts
of our hearts the next. I'm Marissa and I can't get a man with
a gun. I'm Brett and I'm a Joe with just one aim, and
that aim is to introduce our guest. But before I do, I just
want to share a quick update about what the next couple of months are going
to look like for our pod. Longtime fans of the show will likely already
know that we don't publish our episode conversations until the entire season has aired.
That means we won't begin dissecting season three episodes until the beginning of June at
the early. We have several reasons for doing this, but perhaps the biggest
is that we feel we can bring more focus and clarity to our episode discussions
after we've grasped the scope of the entire season. But not to worry,
you'll still be getting new episodes from us over the next twelve weeks or so
to tide you over. In fact, we have some incredible interviews lined up
with other super fans of the show, including podcasters, former and current pro
soccer players, journalists, reporters, activists, and more. We're also going
to be chatting with several ted Lasso cast and crew members, so be sure
to keep us in your podcast feed so that you don't miss out on any
of that ted Lasso goodness. Okay, back to my introduction. Our guest
today is the wonderful and charming Mary Lee Fairbanks. Mary Lee is a producer
and performer who has known for her work in the first touring production of the
musical Ragtime and the show I Love You Your Perfect Now Change? Brett,
did you know that I actually saw Mary Lee and I Love You Your Perfect
Now Change over twenty years ago, not until just now, there you go.
In addition to her work on the stage, Mary Lee is the co
producer and co host of The Stages podcast alongside her longtime friend and Broadway star
Stephanie J. Block, who has starred in shows like Wicked, The Share
Show, and Into the Woods, which Brett, did you know? I
also saw Stephanie j block in into the Woods. I did know that you
saw Stephanie. That was just the Woods. That was just like a couple
months ago. But whatever, just name dropping. On the Stages podcast,
Mary Lee and Stephanie invite fellow Broadway stars onto the show to share their stories
and chat about the ways that creativity and art can be pathways to empathy,
connection, healing, and community. Past guests of the show include Jason Alexander,
Jesse Tyler, Ferguson, Shoshanna bean Leashants, Mandy Gonzalez, Andrew Reynolds,
Kiala Settle, and my all time favorite and voice crush, Gavin Creel.
Given her subject matter expertise, we invited Mary Lee on the show to
chat about ted Lasso and musical theater. We also talked a lot about how
the show fosters connect community and empathy in ways that mirror many classics of the
musical theater genre. So Greyhounds please join us in giving a warm welcome to
mary Lee Fairbanks. Mary Lee Fairbanks to stage, Mary Lee to stage.
Please thank you guys for having me. Yeah, we're so excited that you
are here to chat about ted Lasso and musical theater and some other fun stuff
too. We already know that you are a fan of the show. So
first things first, what about the show hooked you? What did you love
about it, Why did you decide to start watching it, and what made
you stick with it? Well, you know, it's funny. I didn't
start watching it for the musical theater at all. I have a teenage son,
and when you have a teenage son, you're always searching for some way
to hang out and connect, and so one of the things we do is
find shows and binge them. So I had heard about the show and everybody
was talking about how wonderful it was, and so I said to my son,
well, let's just give it a shot. You know, I figured
sport he might like. I This is probably not popular to say, but
I don't like sports. I don't watch sports ever. Um. I grew
up with two older brothers who played hockey, and I spent my childhood in
hockey rinks. And in the seventies, right, we didn't have phones,
we didn't have any video, we had nothing to entertain ourselves, and not
one but two brothers played So I spent my weekends in hockey rinks as a
little kids, following them around to tournaments and oh my god. And then
after the games we'd spend the rest of the day in the emergency room,
you know, for the broken arm or the stitches. I mean, so
growing up, I was like, no, no, there will be no
sports. I never watched them on TV. Never. I remember when I
started dating my husband, like, you're not into sports, are you?
Because I just And when I had a son, I was like, look,
here's the thing. He can't play hockey. I don't care if he
begs me, he can't. I can't. I can't spend my time in
hockey rinks. Thank goodness, he's not into hockey. He is a boxer.
But so I didn't. I didn't watch it for any of the sports
at all. I just had heard, well, I loved Jason Szadakis,
and so I thought, okay, let's give it a shot. And then
we loved it. We binged it so fast that we were kind of bummed
because we ran out. We watched both seasons. I was like, oh
no, so so yeah, I really really love it. I love the
spirit of the show. I sort of feel like the world needs shows like
this, you know, the things that remind us, how we're all the
same and not so different. And I think that's that's why I loved it.
Was there a particular moment in the show for you that you were like,
Oh, I'm definitely gonna stick with this. No, it was right,
it was right off the top. I just loved it. I loved
the characters, and what I loved about them was nobody ended up being as
they seemed when you first met them. So you meet these characters and you
make assumptions about them, and I think that's on purpose. It's based on
how they dressed or how they present themselves, and so you think they're going
to be one thing, and they all turn out to be completely different than
the assumptions that you made. And I think that's really special about the show.
I feel like it's a commentary on the state of the world too,
and so I love that they kind of played with that a little bit.
And I think too, for you know, theater artists, people who desire,
you know, character development. You know, that's sort of what drew
me in as well, because you want those characters that aren't just you know,
one note or one dynamic. You want to sort of take them on
a journey and get to know them. So one of the characters that,
of course I'm obsessed with, but mainly the person and not the character.
Hannah watting him. So, did you know much about her career in musical
theater before this? No, because she really didn't do a lot of way.
She only did spam a lot. I think most of her most of
her career was in the West End. Right, So she's like amazing,
she's she can say, I mean, she's so. She's just so appealing
and perfect and strong, and she can sing like an angel. So now
I have followed everything she's done. I you know, went on the deep
dive and watched everything about her right on YouTube. Yeah, she's so,
She's just awesome, just awesome. Yeah. I think I watched the Shaky
Kim video of her singing Send in the Clowns about once a week, just
from my own personal fortitude because it's not good Ford therapy. So he watches
that. You what I wanted to say about the characters too. I remember
UM seeing an interview with UM all the guys who wrote for Sid Caesar,
which were like the greatest of the greats, right, those TV writers.
It was Neil Simon and his brother and mel Brooks. I mean, these
were the guys that sort of Carl Reiner, they formed television and I remember
hearing them in an interview talking about when they were first getting into those writers
rooms and what it was like. And they never wrote to the joke.
They always wrote to the character. And I think the difference between really good
TV now is some of the sitcomie shows that you watch, pretty much anyone
in the cast could say the joke, you know, the quote joke,
and it would be it would just fall as the joke. But character driven
shows, you understand the characters so well and you come to love them so
much that you anticipate their reaction in the scene. And it's not about the
joke. It's about putting these characters that we now know and can predict what
they're going to say or think, putting them in the scene, and that's
what makes the joke, instead of writing out a joke. And I was
always so struck by that, And then you look for shows that can fit
into that. I mean, like All in the Family that you know,
you knew what Archie Barker was going to do before he did it, before
he said the joke, and so I think these shows that and there aren't
that many of them, but the ones that are like this, like ted
Lasso, where the characters are so drawn out and you learn something about them
every week, that's what makes the show so special, I think. And
to your point, like they can they can write a joke in the context
for a character like Roy Kent. Just a simple grunt in a different context
is going to draw a certain type of lap for a certain type of reaction
out of the characters and the viewers because of the detail that they've put into
writing a character like that. Yeah, that's an actor's dream show, I
think, to be on a show. And it really sounds like it too,
Like anytime we've talked to the cast, like everyone seems to have so
much fun making the thing, and I think that that shines through in the
in the final product, like you can see like these people are joyfully creating
something together and it's just on top of that, like it makes you feel
happy. It makes you like there are definitely some ups and downs, but
it makes you it leaves you with the overall feeling of like, ah,
I have been my cup has been filed or something. Yeah. Yeah,
I think that's right. So kind of staying with our ted Lasso feel good
musicals theme, there are many musical theater references. I would say many in
a show that is primarily ostensibly based on a professional men's soccer team. So
what were some of the like favorites of yours or like one that you found
particularly deep cut? Like of the several references that we've had, did you
have a favorite. I love the Roy Scheider one where you know, you
think he's talking about Jaws, but he's talking about all that jazz. Love
that that was early too, that was like first or second episode. But
I mean, I love any show that's gonna do little musical theater reference.
Like the other show that does it a lot too, is The Newsroom.
Yes, we love always always dropping in musical theater, his musical theater.
Yes, totally, totally. So I love all the shows that hide those
little musical theater easter eggs, you know. But I like that he did
obscure things to like you know, Gergeman funny face, you know, like
most people won't know, yeah who that is, But I don't know,
but I think, you know, I think the essence of the show is
musical theater. Yes, I really do. I don't think it's about sports
as much as it is about the unity of musical theater. You know.
Maybe that's just because that's how I that's the lens through which I see my
whole world, right, so do we well? And I think for for
those of us who are attuned to those types of story beats and that that
style of storytelling, like it's so easy for us to identify those plot points
or those story beats, right, Like it feels like these seasons that we've
had that one has kind of focused majorly on the development of Rebecca and then
one is really focused majorly on negative development of Nate. Like you sort of
had these two contrasting arcs. But you know, it was easy for me
to kind of, you know, put that into like to imagine, like
this could be a musical like this, like the arcs that are here,
the the I wants, like these big numbers, they always have like a
heavy hitting episode right before the end, like they're structured even in a similar
way. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, just like it's really
true, and it's funny because you know, I mean, when you think
of sports, it's like it's very tribalistic, you know, it's people want
want to have an affiliation with something. It's usually um, you know,
I mean, there's always a winner and a loser that you're and it's it's
aggressive and it's so so to bring the sweetness of musical theater and the you
know, almost sappy sugariness of musical theater into that atmosphere, I think is
just really brilliant, you know, because you have all of these aggressive sports
guys knowing these references like you know, his the silent the coach who hardly
ever speaking beard. Yeah right, So that like the fact that he just
comes out with them cracks me up because just like it's not the guy you
expect is going to know, you know, Gershwin, Right. So I
just love that. I think it's such a great little twist in the show.
Yeah. Well, we we've talked a lot on our show, both
in our episode discussions and with some of our guests about the ways in which
Ted Lasso the show sort of subverts or flips masculinity on its head, like
you're taking this hyper masculine expression of professional exactly and through the writing, not
only just like what is said, but the way it's delivered, and the
characters that deliver it, like you said, like they're doing something really interesting
too. What does it look like for a bunch of what we must assume
are sort of like cis Head presenting men to kind of embody like this whole
version of them elves where they are professional athletes, where they are professional coaches,
but yet like they're going to talk about Gershwin, they're going to talk
about and they're talking about the Jets and the Sharks, right, you know,
they're talking about well and exactly exactly and even Roy taking yoga class with
yes, yes, all of these things that are not typically male. Right.
So that like my son, like I said, he's a boxer and
I'm constantly trying to get him into yoga, and the only way I can
do it is to sort of say, well, how good it is,
how much better it'll make him as a boxer, right, because you have
to kind of do it as like from the male perspective um. And I
love that. I love that they take what could be you know, quote
typically male behaviors and they flip it on the head where you never expect these
things to come out of them, And that I think I think it's a
really brilliant piece of writing and and a brilliant little trick that they use in
the show that really works, and the lines are delivered convincingly enough that someone
or someone's in that writer's room are particularly well versed in musical theater totally,
like someone who I don't know who it is. I know Jason has a
commented on it, but I don't know if it's just bred Goldstein or all
of them, Like there's just someone in there really knows their stuff. Well,
it's funny. I wonder if it's a Saturday Night Live thing because now
the other two from Saturday Night Live are doing the schmigadoon I love we Love
can't wait for schoo we just yeah, I can't wait. Yeah. So
maybe it's um maybe at the in the because they're always doing little musical bits
on Saturday Night Lives. So it could be that just the culture in those
writing rooms is very much that, you know, part of just the proximity
to Broadway, like I mean, if you're living and working in New York
with all those other creative folks, like right right, yeah, totally.
So is there a musical theater reference that you would love to see happen in
season three. Yeah, Kimberly a Kimbo, Yeah obviously. Yeah, it's
hilarious, and you know, it's kind of the same to feel good show
like Ted Lasso is. It's that you got to have a dream, you
gotta believe that eternal optimism that no matter what happens, you keep coming back
to it. It's it's got a lot of parallels and it's hysterically funny.
But well, I feel like I'm surprised that um Ted and Company have not
made um This is a little bit of a deep cut, but stay with
me. They have not made a reference to the Goo Goo Dolls song Iris
yet that I can remember on the show. And that is like on the
website for Kimberly A Kimbo, Like that's in her like senior picture, like
or her yearbook quote is like from Google Dolls. And I was like,
that could almost be a sideways reference if only they had done it, because
I'm like, I just feel like Ted and Beard like they all know,
like they know the Google Dolls, Like I'm just surprised that the reference hasn't
popped. I haven't done any Sondheim yet either, which that's a little shocking.
I mean, well, I mean I guess west Side, but yeah,
there's just a lot of um, there's a lot of Ted seems like
someone he's so wholesome, he's most of his references are just going to be
golden Golden Age musicals. Yeah you can't, really, yeah, you can't
voting Sweeney, Todd, Rogers, BLUs, Learner, and Low. So
yes, well, I want to go to some of your some of your
creative endeavors that we mentioned in the intro. But you mentioned Kimberly A Kimbo
because you and the Broadway Icon Leshauns have co founded a production company that is
staging that. Correct. Oh no, no, no, um we Leshauns
and I started Team of Productions right as COVID hit, So we founded it
and then COVID hit and everything just died. And during COVID she started doing
some work with M. David Stone and it was David that brought her into
Kimberly A Kimbo. I'm just an investor in Kimberly Kimbo and that's through Leshots.
So she's a lead producer. Well, she's a co producer, okay
on that. So we're looking into a few a few new shows that we're
going to start bringing in in the next couple of years. She and I
under Teama. Yeah, okay, So thank you for clearing up my confusion
about your involvement with Kimberly A Kimbo. But one thing that you do produce
is your podcast called Stages Podcast. You are co producer, executive producer,
and co host with your longtime pal Stephane J. Block. So, stephan
and I we did Will Rogers Follies together, I would say thirty years ago.
We were in the middle of Branson, Missouri with Pat Boone in the
lead Wow, and I was Betty Blake and she was Zi's fave and we
shared a dressing room and we literally we were We were the odd couple,
you know. Her half of the dressing room was completely in order, everything
tidy, not a thing out of place, you know, and folded just
right. And my side of the dressing rooms like crap everywhere, bras hanging
from door handles, like pictures just stuck on the walls like and I don't
know how she survived me. We were so different and when the show ended
we loved each other though. We got along so well and when the show
ended. For a long long time, we used to write letters, you
know, because it was before their work computers, it was before there was
any of that stuff. And we have these handwritten letters that we used to
write. And she would always sign her handwritten letters with like hearts and flowers
and you know, butterflies and kisses, and I would sign mine, You're
such a freak, I love you. And that's how I would sign all
my letters to her. And we just stayed friends for years. They said,
while were we lost touch because again there was no internet. We kind
of lost each other somewhere along the way and then hooked up again. And
I was a little older than her, so I would sort of I got
married first, I had my kid first, and so when she was stepping
into those parts of her life, she would kind of call me and be
like, so let's talk about this, you know. And so then when
COVID hit, they had a little one, and they moved out to California
because she had family out there and they wanted their daughter views to be able
to go to school outside. And she would she would send me Marco polos,
you know, Marco Polos were kind of coming and I was like,
what is this Marco polo thing? And so we would go back and forth,
and she was struggling, and I was struggling in my own way.
At one point, I have four dogs because I have issues and I can't
stop rescuing dogs. All of them got mange. And so she would call
me and she was complaining about something and I would just Marco polo her back
and look in the camera, go mange and hang out. And so one
day I just said, you know, Steph, we should do a podcast.
We should talk to all of our friends because I'm sure they're all struggling
because everything creative has just been pulled out from underneath them, and we should
talk about it, like how do you get through that? What do you
discover when when creativity is gone? Right? You know, there's a concept
in yoga where I wish I could remember the name of it off the top
of my head, and I can't, but it's the essence of it is
to be without. So you push all the air out of your lungs and
you create a vacuum, and you see if you can sit inside the vacuum.
Because we're so unaccustomed to ever being without, but there's a lot of
peace to be found in those places. And I said, why don't we
discover that? Like what happens when we're without our creative feed? How do
we discover it inside that vacuum for ourselves? And how does it make you
grow? And you know, let's talk. We have so many friends,
like, let's talk to them, like for real, not what are you
working on? Not oh what show are you in? But where are you
in your life? And how did you get there? And what was your
biggest failure? And what did you learn and how did it make you better?
And so she was like, let's let's do it. And so she
called me a couple of days later and said let's call it stages. And
I was like, oh, okay, I love it. And then I
said to her, look, if you're serious, give me three weeks and
I will get it all set up. And I tend to get hyper focused
on things, and so hung up the phone. And three weeks later,
I had contracts drawn up and our first three guests scheduled, and I had
a theme song written by a couple of composers and I had figured out how
to edit, and I was like, well, let's do it, and
we just jumped in. And that summer we went to Africa together because my
husband works in Rwanda, so I go to Rwanda a lot. And I
brought her and her child and her husband to Africa and we did interviews there.
We talked to a guerrilla doctor and artists and Africa, and it was
just it just sort of snowballed into this wonderful thing that was so surprising how
much we both ended up loving it. Where it was just something to sort
of fill the space and learn something about ourselfs and it turned out to be
this It's like a gift for me and for both of us, I think,
And yeah, and we just got picked up by iHeartRadio, so we're
with them now, and so it's just it's just turned out to be such
a great, great thing that I adore. Well. I was going to
say props on the name, because I love the sort of like double meaning
of it, like stages, because most of you, both of you,
and a lot of the folks that you talk to are professional stage performers in
some way or other. And it's also about like the stages of life.
Like what's the line of the theme song is like love the stage. You're
in or something. What is love where you are now? Love where you
are now? Right? Like, yeah, and I'd love that you get
to talk to people from kind of across the gamut. You have folks some
of the you have some very well established what I would call Broadway A listers
who have appeared on the show. One of whom it would be Britt's absolute
voice crush, Gavin Creel. Oh, okay, I we talk about Gavin
Crerel. First episode was incredible. She is dreamy, Oh yeah, dreamy
retweeting and he's so kind and sweet and I just fell in love with him
out But you know, I have to say, there are so many guests
I hang up and I'm just like, I just love them. Jason Alexander
was one of them. I said to my husband, I'm telling you,
he was so surprising, what a joy he was and how kind and deep
and I just I can't even go go on and like Showshana Bean was another
one who I was totally surprised. It's just how cool and awesome she is.
Yeah, there's Gavin Creel though, come on, well, I think
that's one of the things like that really makes doing this project for us really
fulfilling. Is that there are there. I mean, I'm always like excited
about every guest we talked to, and then almost always I come away from
a conversation with a guest thinking, you know, I'll think back to those
episodes about something someone said and I'll be like, man, like, that
was just such a good conversation. And that's one of the reasons I love
this medium, and I love that you sort of you'all sort of have a
theme where you're talking with creative folks, and so I think that really jives
with the ted Lasso fandom, at least a large portion of it, because
the show is generative, Like I think it's one of those shows that makes
people want to create. You know, there's so many little like fan things
that people have made, whether it's media like we do or actual physical things
like shirts or key chains or crochet, like there's just all sorts of really
neat stuff that the show produces. And that's true with a lot of fandoms.
But I feel like there's a really special community that has grown organically from
ted Lasso in that way, and it's it's just allowed us to really connect
with a lot of folks that have really can connect it to their disciplines in
such interesting and creative ways. You know what I think it is. I
think the thing about ted Lasso is it, like I think we might have
touched on this a little earlier, is it. It focuses on all the
ways that we're alike. Yes, you know it, and it does so
in a really honest way that shows vulnerability in the characters and forgiveness in the
characters. And I think next season is going to be a lot about forgiveness
when we dive into Nate. Yeah, I hope so really a little irritated
with Nate, yes, but yeah, I think that's what it is.
I think I think the country has been so divisive for so long, and
I think people are exhausted by division, and I think, um, shows
like ted Lasso that reminds us that we're all the same, We're all one,
you know. Um. There's this really interesting concept where I've talked about
it on my podcast before, but I think it's relevant. When you look
at a field of aspen trees, it's not separate trees. If you can
look at a grove, it's one tree. It's one root system, and
it's such a powerful root system that if there's a forest fire, it can
wipe out the whole growth, but if there's one shoot remaining, it can
go in and regenerate the entire grove from one little shoot through that root system.
But the other side of that is if one of those shoots gets like
a sooty fungus, it'll go into the root system and wipe everything out.
And in yoga terms, the highest chakra is the one that is supposed to
remind us of that connection all the time. And shows like ted Lasso made
a conscious decision of what they're going to feed into that root system yep.
And then there are shows that make a conscious decision for profit or a more
profit right when they put something negative out into the world. And so I
love shows that dare to be vulnerable and honest and show how we're alike and
feed something really positive into that root system because we all really need that.
Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that. I'm you know, Yes,
lots of things have been so divisive, and especially with COVID, was a
really big struggle for creative people. And you can maybe imagine for people like
us who live in the middle of the country, especially when you don't necessarily
fit with the majority philosophical minority. Yes, you know that that can be
really isolating and difficult, and so I think this project for us, and
really sort of the niche that is ted Lasso fandom on the Internet, was
really therapeutic for us because there is something you know, drawing attention to kindness
and empathy and understanding and trying to meet people where they are and understanding that
you know, people are acting out of a place of hurt or other things.
And I think, like as as a creative myself, you know,
always trying to understand motivations behind things rather than just acts themselves. Right,
And so I know you all talk with your guests on your show about art
and creativity and sort of how they can be pathways into healing a community.
Right. So I know you've touched on a little bit, But do you
see some more of those threads leading back to ted Lasso or what do you
really want to see with forgiveness? I guess in season three, like I
said, I'm really kind of mad at Nate, but I think that the
show talks a lot about those connections. I mean, I think the show's
the shows that every character has given an example of fearlessness right where and forgiveness
where Ted He's fearless enough to let his wife go, let his family go,
because it was better for her than it was for him. And you
know, Roy Kent is so fearless to show his soft side with Keily and
his little niece and to step into what's next after leaving such a legendary career,
you know, right, And it takes a certain amount of fearlessness to
believe, you know, in the big sign that he has up on his
wall, especially when all the signs tell you not to right. It takes
it takes that kind of courage to say, no, I know what the
truth is in my heart, you know. Yeah, I mean look at
Keily too. She's facing fears all the time. She's the most fearless one
of them all. I think, Yes, I think Keily might be my
favorite. She your favorite? Yes, definitely my legage. I definitely saw
someone in post say that they were setting her up for her own spin off
called even Keilely because she has her life together so much, and I was
like, I would watch it. But see that's what I mean too.
When you first see that character, you have no idea, like you just
think, especially in the first episode she played as like such a wag.
She played she looks so like sort of vapid and one dimensional, and then
all of a sudden your mind is blown and you're like, oh, yeah,
kills the coolest as Christian has put it on our show, like Kiely
sees the matrix like she just she's got she she understands things like on a
on an instinctual level that a lot of the characters don't. I think I
don't know anyway. I forget where I was going with all of the fearless
talk and stuff. But but I I think, um, I think it's
such a great show, and I do think it's what like the world needs
now more things like that. Yeah, I want to switch gears a little
bit, or at least transition to something that we've touched on but haven't fully
explored. So you are like a registered yoga instructor. Correct. Yeah.
When my when I had my son, I didn't have the kind of career
where like Leashants or Stephanie, I could stay in New York and sort of
get shows on broadways as readily as they could. I was always on the
road, and I had seen too many examples of you know, kids in
hotel rooms with one eight hundred babysitters and you know, and I just knew,
being an Italian that I wouldn't trust anybody. But you're Italian too,
Yeah, I wouldn't trust anybody to I mean, to watch my kid.
I just wouldn't. My mom and my husband, that's who watched my kid.
And so I decided, Okay, I'm going to be home for a
few years with this boy, and what else do I really love? And
I love yoga nice. So while I was pregnant with him, I got
my raiki certification so he'd get all that mojo. And then once he was
born, I got my yoga certifications and started teaching. And it was a
great way to get out of the house and be in control of my own
schedule and yet get to be home with him and not be on the road
and not be traveling. And I did a few little you know, commercials
or little show here, a little show there. But but we didn't live
in New York because all of his cousins were here in Massachusetts, and I
wanted him to be raised with cousins, especially being in only so uh yeah,
so I stepped away for a while and stepped into um learning a lot
about yoga. And I've been studying the Chakras for probably ten years before that
anyway. So yeah, so it just seemed like the perfect thing to do
where I could have some control over my world and my schedule and be at
home with my son. And like you mentioned, we know that Roy Kent
is very into doing yoga with a group of moms who have no idea who
he is. So one day Roy Kent could stroll into your yoga studio.
And you know the sad thing is some local uh you know, Bruins or
Celtic Star could walk into my yoga vass and I would have no idea.
Well, so what you're saying is that storyline is completely plausible that Roy Kent
could go to I just I don't I just don't know. I have a
funny story about when I was in college, I got this internship with the
guys who would bring all the cameras and all the equipment into the Boston Garden.
And this is when the Boston Garden was like the Old Garden, and
it was when the Celtics were like Larry Bird, and you know that dream
team, and I used to go and sit at the table right on the
floor, and I'd have the headsets and I'd grew up the commercials and the
interviews and this and that, and I didn't know who any of these guys
were, could not have cared less about any of it. My friends wanted
to kill me. It could be like, I can't believe you're sitting on
the sidelines. I'm like, I don't even watch the game. So my
brother said that one day he was watching like a best of Larry Bird video
and he said, Larry Bird's running down the court. Everybody's on their feet,
they're screaming, they're all going insane, and the camera pans and you're
at the table up and through a magazine. I wanted to climb through the
television and strangle you. And I was like, I just couldn't be bothered.
That drop didn't last long. Yeah, that's amazing, very well.
So, Yeah, any Celtics player come sit in my yoga room and I
wouldn't know who the hell they were. That is good to know, to
be confirmed the plausibility of that, brilliant. I feel so much more connected
to you to as well, knowing you're an Italian. My maiden name is
Georgettie. So nice, mine's graffio. Yeah, nice, I don't know
what it is about, Like when Italians find out someone else's Italian. It's
just like, I don't know. It's a sisterhood based yeah, the pride.
It's like when Texans find out there, Oh, Bret goal um Well,
And one more thing I wanted to mention about your your expertise in yoga
is that you often relate things in your episodes with guests like you. There
are lots like you have done today, There are there are practices in yoga
that you can pull out and kind of relate to those stories that they tell.
Yeah. One of the favorites I think was maybe in the episode with
Leashants you talked about and you may do this in multiple episodes, but you
mentioned the idea of sun culpa and you sort of like, we're suggesting I'm
not sure if I'm using this term right, but like a sun kulpa for
her or for someone. And I was wondering, is there a character on
ted last I maybe explain what a sun coulpa is? And then is there
a character on ted Lasso that you would like to adopt a son copa.
A sun Kalpa is sort of like a New Year's resolution in a way,
except um New Year's resolutions sort of hint that we're not good enough, right,
so you have to give up chocolate or give up alcohol, or lose
weight or be better or you know, so that in itself implies that you're
not enough, You're not good enough, and you have to do something to
be better. A son Kalpa is based on the knowledge that you are enough,
You are already whole, and that everything you desire already exists in the
world and all you need to do is call it to your life. So
I wrote an article called a Revolution and Resolutions, and I lay it out
like in seven steps, like how you set us on colpa. And one
of the first steps is is that it's a packed between you and your spirit.
So you actually don't discuss your son coppa with anybody. And one of
the reasons you don't is because when you so, if I were going to
say to you, my son Kalpa is to get into great shape this year,
and your reaction is, oh my god, you already look amazing,
Right, I've already gotten what I needed. So now I don't do the
work to get to the goal right because I'm getting the feedback that I want.
So you don't. You don't discuss your son kalpas a. It's a
private pact between you and your spirit. And so one of the things that
it sort of asks of you is every action that you do, does it
further your sun kopa or does it take away from your sunkopa? And if
in the moment it takes away, it's okay. As long as that's a
conscious choice. You're aware of your choice. You're not mindlessly doing things that
to undermine whatever yr sounkopa is. And the other thing about it is it
has to be written in the positive present tense because simply by saying I want
to or I will or you know this will happen, what that's signaling is
that you want it because you don't have it, or it will happen because
it hasn't happened for you yet. So the law of the universe is like
attracts like. So if you put negative out, negative is all that you
can receive. So all sun kalpas are written in the positive present tense.
So you know, I am spending my time with like minded friends who are
creative and supportive and love me unconditionally. Not I'm going to find new friends
that are creatively right. So it's positive, present tense, and then you
have to make space in your body and your mind and your spirit and in
your home even to welcome those things in. So it's about letting go of
clutter, letting go of things that don't work for you anymore. So somen
colpers are deeply personal. So I don't know if I could set Yeah,
no, it doesn't seem like I could. We could only speculate about someone's
son. Well, when you were talking about that, it made me think
of sort of the work that Rebecca did and last the second season, especially
where she became a much healthier version of herself. And she did that by
embracing a support system, Like she went from being very alone, completely isolated,
right, angry and angry and sadness, yes, all of the things,
to just that little bit of that little that fence that Ted Lasso said
he hopped over was just enough for her to open herself back up and to
allow these people who care about her to support her, like whether it's Ted
and Beard, the players, Sam Higgins, like you have all these folks
around her now, keyely, Yeah, how could I forget? You know,
like so and now just being open to that, like you see the
joy back in her life and sort of the full right. And she's not
doing this team in the negative to bring revenge upon her ex husband who's a
dick, but she's doing it because she loves these people around her and wants
them to succeed. Yeah, oh man, Yeah, And see that's the
beauty of the show too, rite is that they of course they built in
the drama of her sort of sabotaging everything, but then how she sees the
good and then chooses the good, you know. And the other thing too
is them just by Ted having his beliefs sign up there shows me that he,
you know, he might not already know what a sun calpe is.
M. That's I was also thinking about that when you were talking about it
too. Yeah, he already he already knows how to manifest those things.
It's clear right because he manifested, He manifested a team out of nothing,
right out of a lot of division, manifested this unit. And it ties
back to something that y'all talk about on your show often, is like how
one of the one of the things that always strikes people when they start Ted
Lasso season one is the way that Ted is not afraid of intimacy, of
of you know, of relationships and that how that inherently can build community and
he does that, and y'all talk about proximity as a way to sort of
generate understanding and empathy and to build relationships, and so that was just something
that really struck me listening to several of your conversations, is you know,
they're in a they're in a soccer space, so it's not necessarily a creative
space maybe as much as like artistic creative endeavor, but in the same way,
like there's this community around this thing that as those relationships are built,
Like, vulnerability is so so important, and that's really like the thing that
Ted Lasso the character does is he sort of makes vulnerability okay, and then
like all the ways that people react to that are very interesting. It's really
interesting though, is that he's not that vulnerable when he's first coming on and
coming in and meeting people, right Like, he yeah, first in the
room. He wants to bring other people together, he wants other people to
be vulnerable, but he doesn't reveal anything about himself, which is why he
has his panic attack. And then eventually when he gets into see the therapist,
which I also love that they are making it so discussable, you know
that, yeah, therapy is great, and yes people have panic attack,
you know. But anyway, he doesn't start out ever showing his own vulnerability.
He comes to that much later. He sort of forces it out of
other people, almost deflecting so that he doesn't have to show his Yeah,
it's like he sort of he sort of like um takes a shortcut by using
that proximity and kind of like he will get up in someone's business, making
them uncomfortable enough to then be vulnerable, whether they meant to or not.
And then he's at least emotionally intelligent enough to know how to use that as
a way to ultimately have like a positive outcome. But yes, there are
certainly things about the way that he does that, now that we know more
about him from season two and sort of his what he's wrestling with on the
inside, that made that It certainly complicated it and made it more you know,
some of the aspects of it more troubling, But you see the net
gain of it as the people around him have opened up to one another.
Right right, Yeah, we loved Ted. We do. One of the
things I love about your podcast is that you end every discussion with like five
quick questions, and one of the ones you almost always ask, if not
always, is if you were a nail polish, like what or would it
be? And what would you call it? Like? What quirky name would
you give the nail polish? So I'm wondering is there a character as you
ponder that question that you post to your guests, is there a character that
strikes you as would have a cutesy, funky, quirky nail polish named after
them? And what would it be like? Um? Well, I mean
I want to do Keilely because I love Keily, but I could do any
one of them. If you are great, Keyley, I would say Keily
would be It would definitely be like Pink and Sparkly, because that's what Kiely
does write the Pink and Sparkley. But I think we would call it badass
Barbie. Oh she seems like a Barbie when you meet her, but she's
not. She's a badass. Yes, I'm buying that nail polish tomorrow.
I love that. Yeah, Mary Lee, thank you so much for coming
on and chatting about one of our favorite shows with us. Thank you for
asking how nice I love talking musical theater anytime, anytime. Yes, thank
you so much. It was a pleasure to meet you and just to you
know, talk about being vulnerable and creativity and how we can make the world
a better place, even you know, in this strange medium that's microphones and
computers. No, I know, I love it. I love it.
I think it's a great way to connect with people. Well, thanks Mary
Lee, take care, Thanks guys, bye, and that is our show.
We had a blast chatting ted Lasso, musical theater, yoga, and
Gavin Creel with Mary Lee. You can find links to her podcast, her
website, social media, her writing, and more in the show notes.
We'll be back soon with more ted Lasso goodness, but you can keep the
conversation going with us on Twitter and Instagram in the meantime. Our handle on
both is at ted lassopod. This episode of Richmond Till We Die has brought
to you by Jenn and Kerosene Productions. It was produced by me and Marissa.
If you're joining the podcast, please take thirty seconds to subscribe to our
feed and give the show a five star review on Apple Podcasts or a five
star rating on Spotify. Heck, if you're feeling generous, you could even
do both. And as always, we appreciate all the ways y'all share your
love and support for the pot. Okay, I'm Brett signing off for Marissa
and mary Lee. Thanks for listening. Until next time, Cheers y'all.
Ninety ninety nine Chords