Speaker 1: Coming to you from the dining room table at East
Speaker 1: Barbary Lane. Welcome to a special edition of Full Circle
Speaker 1: the podcast. Today we're visiting with Dan Rothenberg and Eva Steinmetz.
Speaker 1: They are the co artistic directors of Pig Iron Theater
Speaker 1: Company in Philadelphia. Dan is the co writer and co
Speaker 1: director of a new play, Franklin's Key, that will be
Speaker 1: at Plays and Players June eleventh to June twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: and Eva Steinmetz is also co director. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Martha Madrigal.
Speaker 2: And I'm your host Charles Tyson Junior.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Full Circle Table.
Speaker 3: Hi guys, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having us.
Speaker 2: It's exciting to get to talk to you. I just
Speaker 2: said to you both off camera that I've been aware
Speaker 2: of blissfully aware of Pig Iron for ever and your
Speaker 2: stellar reputation in theater and the Philly arts scene in general,
Speaker 2: but I haven't gotten to see anything live, and I
Speaker 2: always here about it after the fact and everyone's like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I've never seen anything like that before
Speaker 2: in my life, and I'm like, I want to go.
Speaker 4: To We're excited to have you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, this time we're going, Yeah, we are,
Speaker 2: and we love plays and players.
Speaker 1: So this is a little bit different.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Normally we see a show and then we talk about
Speaker 1: the show because that, you know, this just seems to
Speaker 1: be how it works out. But we get to talk
Speaker 1: about the show beforehand, and so this is fun, so
Speaker 1: you can introduce us to what's going on here. Was
Speaker 1: Franklin's Key based on another piece? Dan? Did I read that?
Speaker 1: Was there something smaller or.
Speaker 5: This is No, It's been in development for quite a
Speaker 5: long time. I mean, it's interesting what you said, Charles
Speaker 5: about I do feel like, you know, we make usually
Speaker 5: one new work a year, and we're almost always at
Speaker 5: the Philadelphia Fringe festivals. Your experience is not uncommon. It's like,
Speaker 5: oh the fringe, Oh what happened. We're not like a
Speaker 5: theater company that's usually doing well. You can just see
Speaker 5: us in another three months because we make all original
Speaker 5: work and this piece is a little bit of a
Speaker 5: pivot for us in terms of, you know, being associated
Speaker 5: with the fringe, being associated with experimental work.
Speaker 3: Franklin's Key is.
Speaker 5: Not based on any existing storyline or anything, but it
Speaker 5: is inspired by so many any movies of the nineteen
Speaker 5: eighties in a way, it's reminiscence of Stranger Things, but
Speaker 5: translated for the stage interest, Stranger Things is so pulling
Speaker 5: on those Spielberg strings from the eighties. Were definitely inspired
Speaker 5: by the Goonies, by Back to the Future, and then
Speaker 5: also inspired by certain kinds of sci fi fantasy, like
Speaker 5: the Golden Compass, where you have a city that's real,
Speaker 5: like Harry Potter's London or in Golden Compass Oxford, but
Speaker 5: there's a sort of fantasy city that's an alternate reality
Speaker 5: that's projected on top of the real city. And we
Speaker 5: wanted to do that with our hometown, Philly.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Philly is often an alternate reality, though, I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't always have to reach far.
Speaker 2: When you said it, it clicked. Yeah, You guys do
Speaker 2: typically just debut for the Fringe, which makes sense considering
Speaker 2: the type of things that you do.
Speaker 1: That's what I think I was Was there something in
Speaker 1: this to the Fringe or did I just make that up?
Speaker 5: So we as we were working on this piece about
Speaker 5: Ben Franklin, I call it like the family friendly sci
Speaker 5: fi Ben Franklin Show. Okay, and I can tell you
Speaker 5: the basic logline in a second, But we realized that
Speaker 5: the semi Quin Centennial was coming up, and we said, oh, well,
Speaker 5: maybe this can be kind of our entry into the
Speaker 5: city's festivities for the semi Quin Centennial. But the show
Speaker 5: we're imagining was so big and has special effects that
Speaker 5: we've never done before. We should premiere it in the
Speaker 5: summer before and see what we can do and how
Speaker 5: we can work out the kinks and the figure out
Speaker 5: the video design and the magic design, and so even
Speaker 5: and I are excited going into this that we have
Speaker 5: so much groundwork laid. We still think of it as
Speaker 5: a new play, but there's just a lot of technical
Speaker 5: elements that we really needed to take time to figure
Speaker 5: out quickly. The story of the play, it starts with
Speaker 5: this little anecdote about Ben Franklin, which is that from
Speaker 5: the biography, a little true detail that in the War
Speaker 5: of Independence, the British were afraid that Ben Franklin could
Speaker 5: control the weather and that he would use this kind
Speaker 5: of quasi magical power against them. That was like a
Speaker 5: rumor that was filtering around, And this is a show
Speaker 5: that imagines what if that were true? What if Ben
Speaker 5: Franklin really did have secret technologies that were centuries ahead
Speaker 5: of their time and They're actually being maintained in a
Speaker 5: kind of clockwork underneath the landmarks of Philadelphia that we
Speaker 5: know so well, so City Hall, the Wanamaker Organ, the PMA,
Speaker 5: the Liberty Bell. What if these are all if you
Speaker 5: go into the tunnels, into this hidden Philadelphia, there's a
Speaker 5: secret society trying to maintain this secret technology. And then
Speaker 5: these two teenage prodigies sort of stumble. That's how it's
Speaker 5: sort of like goonies. They stumble into the mystery, you know,
Speaker 5: they stumble into the mystery of the new Promethean society,
Speaker 5: this struggle for power and will the technology be used
Speaker 5: for good or for evil? As they wind their way
Speaker 5: through the mystery of the show.
Speaker 2: And you can fit that in plays and players.
Speaker 5: We use every square inch of plays and players. It
Speaker 5: is amazing, Like backstage, there's no room. We have used
Speaker 5: really every square inch, every pipe, every dressing room. There
Speaker 5: is no unused space in the theater.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: That literally immersive.
Speaker 1: So think clearly, you had to co sign here, talk
Speaker 1: to us about it.
Speaker 4: Had to co sign on the premise.
Speaker 1: This is it's wild. I'm excited, more excited now. I
Speaker 1: had no idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's so fun. And so I joined
Speaker 4: the pig In Theater Company in twenty twenty three as
Speaker 4: an artistic producer and just this year became co artistic director.
Speaker 4: So my role on the project last year when it
Speaker 4: when it first went up, was really as a producer,
Speaker 4: as a helper, facilitator, keeping the train on the tracks.
Speaker 4: And one of the lessons that we learned last year
Speaker 4: was that it being so big and there being so
Speaker 4: many technical components that actually Dan and I sharing some
Speaker 4: of the directing would probably set all of us up
Speaker 4: for more success because there's just so much to keep
Speaker 4: track of. So I'm coming into this not as somebody
Speaker 4: who's been shepherding it for many many years like Dan has,
Speaker 4: as both a writer and a director, but I'm coming
Speaker 4: in as somebody who got to watch audiences fall in
Speaker 4: love with it last year, and now I get to
Speaker 4: have fun with everyone. I get to be in the
Speaker 4: rehearsal and play with these characters that I really fell
Speaker 4: in love with, and I think, yeah, the ensemble there's
Speaker 4: ten actors, and it really shows off a lot of
Speaker 4: the Philly performing scene. There's a lot of different theater
Speaker 4: companies and different performers who are represented on the stage,
Speaker 4: and I have so much affection for all of them,
Speaker 4: and I have so much affection for this community, and
Speaker 4: I think the show does a really good job of
Speaker 4: kind of showcasing their skills.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. And hearing the synopsis, it also sounds like
Speaker 2: a movie I haven't seen, but National Treasure, right.
Speaker 5: I meant to say National Treasure. We're like, what do
Speaker 5: we say, like the Goonies.
Speaker 4: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which is not a movie,
Speaker 4: it's the Broadway show National Treasure. Yeah, our kind of
Speaker 4: reference points.
Speaker 1: Show that's crazy but better. I'm just gonna go but
Speaker 1: better but better?
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: You can't really mention Harry Potter to a trans person
Speaker 1: these days without the hair on the back of my neck.
Speaker 1: So I'm just better but.
Speaker 2: Better, better by virtue, not queer, more fun.
Speaker 1: Queer more exactly. I just had to do that better
Speaker 1: queer and.
Speaker 2: More fun, better, queer, more fun.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you don't have that on it.
Speaker 2: I know. So, when based on everything that I know
Speaker 2: of Pig Iron and the synopsis of this show included,
Speaker 2: when we sit down to discuss the new project, do
Speaker 2: we just take seven hits of acid and then talk
Speaker 2: like I don't because pig Iron is crazy in the
Speaker 2: best possible way, and because like I said, everything that
Speaker 2: I've ever heard is prefaced by I've never seen anything
Speaker 2: like it before.
Speaker 3: That's really amazing, That's great.
Speaker 5: I mean, I do think that our mantra, We've had
Speaker 5: a few different ones, but we say there really is
Speaker 5: no house style, and we want to reinvent ourselves with
Speaker 5: each production, and we work really closely with ensembles of
Speaker 5: actors kind of creating a style that is is unique
Speaker 5: to each production.
Speaker 3: And so we kind of start.
Speaker 5: Each each process saying well is this a downbeat, mumble
Speaker 5: style or is this a very articulated.
Speaker 3: Physical and visual style.
Speaker 5: Is this a body burlesque style?
Speaker 3: And trying to move everybody?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: I think a criticism that we where we apply to
Speaker 5: ourselves is like are they in the same play?
Speaker 3: You Know?
Speaker 5: Often I go to a play and I'm like, well,
Speaker 5: I really like.
Speaker 3: This person, but I'm not sure they're in the same
Speaker 3: play as everybody else, right, And.
Speaker 5: So that's something that we really care about, is making
Speaker 5: a complete world and reinventing what's possible in a way.
Speaker 5: Sometimes the work we do is surprising because it's like
Speaker 5: a risk for us to do something a little more mainstream.
Speaker 5: So doing something family friendly felt like a risk for us,
Speaker 5: and that some of our audience would be like, well, wait,
Speaker 5: what's going on? And once upon a time we had
Speaker 5: a really good time when even I first worked together
Speaker 5: on this Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, where we said, can
Speaker 5: we treat it like an ensemble devised piece but actually
Speaker 5: still play it straight like Shakespeare so that we can talk.
Speaker 3: To different people.
Speaker 5: I think part of the goal for us, having been
Speaker 5: part of the fringe for almost twenty I mean we've
Speaker 5: been in more than twenty fringe festivals, was like, well,
Speaker 5: it's just time to talk to other people too.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Was Twelfth Night, the one that took place in the morgue.
Speaker 5: No, wow, you remember way back I was when I
Speaker 5: was really had a chip on my shoulder about Shakespeare.
Speaker 5: That's two thousand and seven, and that one is yes,
Speaker 5: Shakespeare performed in a morgue by naked dead bodies stumbling
Speaker 5: around and mumbling yeah, which was do we curse on
Speaker 5: this podcast?
Speaker 1: Although fuck it?
Speaker 5: So that was more of the fuck you Shakespeare project
Speaker 5: of a of a younger Pig Iron, and then a
Speaker 5: few years later we were like, well, maybe actually it's
Speaker 5: a risk to not say fuck you and mess around,
Speaker 5: you know, and see if we can really be a
Speaker 5: reverent with it but not specifically put it in people's faces,
Speaker 5: like what am I seeing? Here? What am I seeing?
Speaker 5: And that show had this live Balkan jazz band on
Speaker 5: stage that felt really different from other Shakespeare's that.
Speaker 3: On that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the ones that I definitely
Speaker 2: remember hearing about and being that's up my alley, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's crazy. And yet sometimes it is a risk to
Speaker 2: go against your own grain and not say fuck you,
Speaker 2: even if you're just saying sit on it, bucko, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, Like you just take like approach
Speaker 2: it from the left a little bit as opposed to
Speaker 2: quite so on the nose.
Speaker 1: You always been a part of Pig Iron? Is that?
Speaker 5: Yes, I am in the weird position of having been
Speaker 5: with a group of twenty two year olds twenty one
Speaker 5: year olds and saying let's make a play and take
Speaker 5: it to the Edinburgh Fringe and then oh, look, Philly's
Speaker 5: starting a fringe, maybe we should do something there. Two
Speaker 5: years later and now it's thirty years later, and there's
Speaker 5: really been many a few different generations of Pig Iron
Speaker 5: creators loving that Eva is here. We can probably tell
Speaker 5: that Eva is younger than I am and bringing a
Speaker 5: new vision, a new life to the company. And for
Speaker 5: fifteen years we've run this graduate program in devised theater, theater, creation,
Speaker 5: physical theater, which has really sort of shifted our community.
Speaker 5: When we were younger, we were kind of trying to
Speaker 5: We were touring a lot overseas and bringing back artists
Speaker 5: from Japan and Sweden to make plays with us and
Speaker 5: showcase them in the fringe. And now that we've set
Speaker 5: up this school, people are coming from all over the
Speaker 5: country and somewhat from all over the world, and some
Speaker 5: are staying in Philadelphia and starting their own companies, companies
Speaker 5: that are way riskier and more experimental than some of
Speaker 5: what I do.
Speaker 3: Some that are.
Speaker 5: Yeah that like are in art galleries, rock bands, you know,
Speaker 5: a bunch of a bunch of different forms have sort
Speaker 5: of come out of the folks who come and train
Speaker 5: with us and stick around.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love it too, and it's such
Speaker 1: a sign of maturity. It's like, how do I get
Speaker 1: them to come to me, and you figured that out brilliantly.
Speaker 1: So that's just maturity. Yeah, because you keep talking about
Speaker 1: the eighties and I'm like, all right, I know exactly well,
Speaker 1: we are the demographic. But yeah, it's and how do
Speaker 1: you think I'm trying to phrase the question that's in
Speaker 1: my head because I think it's talk amongst you come
Speaker 1: back to me. I'm going towards, you know, like always
Speaker 1: having a multi generational approach to theater, always having young
Speaker 1: people and new ideas and new perspectives and including those
Speaker 1: rather than saying we have figured it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Do you want to talk about that a little either,
Speaker 5: or do you want to hear my take?
Speaker 4: Well, I would love to hear your take. But I
Speaker 4: think one of the things, one of the things that
Speaker 4: feels so specific to the pig Iron devising and co
Speaker 4: creating process is that it really is made by the
Speaker 4: people in the room. And in the same way that
Speaker 4: Dan was talking about wanting to create these visual and
Speaker 4: emotional and rhythmic worlds that feel cohesive, there also is
Speaker 4: a desire to really look at who's here and what
Speaker 4: are their skills, and how can we make a show
Speaker 4: that forms itself around that instead of getting a script
Speaker 4: and being like, oh, there's a character in the script
Speaker 4: that has to be a certain way, and our actor
Speaker 4: is not exactly that way, and we're just going to
Speaker 4: try to bend over backwards to turn this person into
Speaker 4: someone that they're not. And I think when you gather
Speaker 4: groups of people together, and when those groups of people
Speaker 4: represent different identities in different generations, than there is a
Speaker 4: kind of constant discovery and curiosity. So I think some
Speaker 4: of it is seeking out the audiences who are young
Speaker 4: and who are interested in pig iron, and some of
Speaker 4: it is also just looking around and seeing who's in
Speaker 4: the room of the makers.
Speaker 1: I love that though, because so often and you just
Speaker 1: you just gave it words, just trying to kind of
Speaker 1: beat the actor into the role rather than and I've
Speaker 1: seen that, and I think that's dan what you mentioned about,
Speaker 1: like are they in the same play?
Speaker 2: Mmm?
Speaker 1: Because it can be like what just happened there? We
Speaker 1: saw that not that long ago, with one one particular
Speaker 1: character and an ensemble and going hmmm, right, And I
Speaker 1: think that was why I don't think that this was
Speaker 1: their strength. So I love that idea of saying.
Speaker 4: Which isn't to mean that there can't be rigor and
Speaker 4: stretching casts own abilities. But yeah, I think what you're
Speaker 4: describing is exactly the thing that Dan and I both
Speaker 4: have a little bit of an allergy too.
Speaker 5: And Dan your take, well, I was just thinking about
Speaker 5: the word, about the word generations. I don't even know
Speaker 5: if I finished this. Like what I was thinking before
Speaker 5: was like, I'm in the weird position of starting a
Speaker 5: theater company with a group of college friends and blinking
Speaker 5: my eyes and it's thirty years later. So it's a
Speaker 5: little bit of you know, we really, I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: we wanted to be upstarts, gad flies, people who would
Speaker 5: like poke their finger in your eye, and maybe that's
Speaker 5: a little unseemly in your fifties in some way.
Speaker 1: No, it's not at all. I think that's when it
Speaker 1: starts at its best, right, honestly, Yeah, truly, that's just
Speaker 1: my you know, I recently sat on a panel that
Speaker 1: was an intergenerational queer panel, and we ranged from I
Speaker 1: want to say, seventeen or eighteen. Maybe maybe they were
Speaker 1: both eighteen, but we had high school aged kids, and
Speaker 1: we sat in age order goddamn them up until our
Speaker 1: oldest person there was seventy two, and there were themes
Speaker 1: of reconciliation and what is it look like and how
Speaker 1: do we and what we kind of came to very
Speaker 1: organically was we we looking up and down this row,
Speaker 1: are this generation. We are each iterations of the generation.
Speaker 1: And the more we respect one another and our perspectives,
Speaker 1: which I think, I think in queer worlds and in
Speaker 1: artistic worlds, we tend to be better at that than
Speaker 1: maybe out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 5: Is very moving and makes me think about chosen family.
Speaker 3: That's something that people in the.
Speaker 5: Theater world and people in the queer community in their
Speaker 5: own ways understand.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, And.
Speaker 5: So you know, I think that it big Irond attracts
Speaker 5: a lot of weirdos and I love that, and I
Speaker 5: really you know, I think sometimes, yeah, sometimes we're trying
Speaker 5: to have plays where it's like, yeah, this person is
Speaker 5: so great, this is this is what they're meant to do,
Speaker 5: this is this is the thing that this is.
Speaker 3: Where they can.
Speaker 5: Express something that they that they didn't normally don't get to.
Speaker 2: I love it. So would you say that Franklin's Key
Speaker 2: is the most normal production that you guys have done
Speaker 2: so far? I put normally in air quotes.
Speaker 5: Shakespeare one is actually more normal than this one, although
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean it's I also feel like.
Speaker 5: We've done some shows that I call hoaxes, and I
Speaker 5: definitely like to do a bait and switch.
Speaker 2: And I also so.
Speaker 5: Like the sort of more elegant word is to be
Speaker 5: disarming that a bunch of our shows are like, oh,
Speaker 5: you know exactly what this is.
Speaker 3: You can be comfortable. So I think you can come.
Speaker 5: Into this show and go, oh, this is a spectacle.
Speaker 5: And it's a spectacle and it's a linear story and
Speaker 5: it's like a Marvel movie theatricalized and made onto the stage,
Speaker 5: and that's so fun. But I think that that's the hook.
Speaker 5: But there are some there are still some deep ideas.
Speaker 5: There are still some things that are unexpected that happen
Speaker 5: in the show. I mean, you know, on the one hand,
Speaker 5: it's like National Treasure or if you ever saw that
Speaker 5: show Alias, there was all this like ancient technology that
Speaker 5: they were all fighting over in their secret CIA things.
Speaker 2: I miss that in some ways.
Speaker 5: It's just a you know, it's it's a goof on that.
Speaker 5: But actually this question about technology being hoarded by some
Speaker 5: people and some people wanting to dominate society or should
Speaker 5: we allow everyone to use it? And is it too dangerous?
Speaker 5: I mean, all of that stuff is really a reflection
Speaker 5: of everything that's going on with AI and the Internet
Speaker 5: and the way social media is being fine tuned to
Speaker 5: grab our attention. So I think those things.
Speaker 3: Are in there. I mean, I think there's I mean,
Speaker 3: for the.
Speaker 5: People on this podcast, there's a secret anti Elon Musk message.
Speaker 5: That's the part of the play that in terms of
Speaker 5: although you know, on the one hand, it's like a
Speaker 5: classic Captain America villain, but on the other hand, it's
Speaker 5: like a technologist who's like, I want to keep it
Speaker 5: all for myself and I don't like the stupid people,
Speaker 5: and I'm going to dominate them, and it's sort of
Speaker 5: a takedown of that person.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was going to go there, because like, how
Speaker 1: do we talk about technology and conspiracy and without the
Speaker 1: overlay of current events, Because yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Right, And I was just thinking, like, technology is only
Speaker 2: as dangerous as the hands that are wielding it. But
Speaker 2: as we know, as.
Speaker 1: We know, anything that hates the Latin must come down
Speaker 1: with Now I want to see it more. I think
Speaker 1: being able to be entertained and at the same time think,
Speaker 1: which Hey, I think theater at its best always does, right,
Speaker 1: we think about something right, but especially now because there
Speaker 1: is so much we're looking out on the landscape saying
Speaker 1: can they do that? Can they really do that? And
Speaker 1: then something more ridiculous happens. So by the time this
Speaker 1: opens it may not even feel like sci fi.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Things are changing by.
Speaker 2: The day, right, And I imagine that these days, in
Speaker 2: order to make work that feels fenantastical while being topical,
Speaker 2: you have to get more and more crazy to top
Speaker 2: the thing you're poking at, because it's like the news
Speaker 2: is written by like mad libs and shit, I don't, Yeah,
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 1: How do you keep that on the outside while you're
Speaker 1: trying to run rehearsals and to play or you can't
Speaker 1: and should you?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think fundamentally, I don't think in our
Speaker 5: room we make an effort to keep it out of rehearsal.
Speaker 3: I think we have the best theater.
Speaker 5: The best art is going to come from the personal
Speaker 5: connection to the material, and that personal connection has to
Speaker 5: do with like the onslaught of the world, those battles,
Speaker 5: some that are personal, some that are.
Speaker 3: Communal and political.
Speaker 5: So so yeah, I mean, I guess I go back
Speaker 5: again to that. I do think there is this aspect
Speaker 5: of chosen family that we rely on each other in.
Speaker 3: This, you know.
Speaker 5: I mean one of the things it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 5: like Pig Iron does a lot of different kinds of things.
Speaker 5: We've done shows like that are actually immersive. We've done
Speaker 5: shows with choirs and even one with a robotics lab
Speaker 5: and so like a lot of unusual stuff. Yeah, but
Speaker 5: one thing that we've always done is we always have
Speaker 5: a warm up for every rehearsal and for it. So
Speaker 5: this is sort of like something the audience doesn't need
Speaker 5: to know, but we have a warm up for every
Speaker 5: rehearsal for every performance we've done in these thirty years.
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe we missed a couple, but.
Speaker 5: That that's our way of sort of putting our money
Speaker 5: where our mouth is. That like, this is about the
Speaker 5: people who are working together. We're going to take some
Speaker 5: time every day and just breathe together and be together.
Speaker 5: And I think that just creates, i you know, without
Speaker 5: without getting to the unhealthy place of mixing the professional
Speaker 5: and the personal. I think that does create a kind
Speaker 5: of resilience that you know, hopefully seeps into like how
Speaker 5: you how you keep going in the world we're in
Speaker 5: right now, for sure.
Speaker 4: And I think it also helps to develop some of
Speaker 4: those things that make audiences say I've never seen anything
Speaker 4: like that that When we're breathing together and moving together,
Speaker 4: those are the moments when unusual or abstract images come
Speaker 4: out of our shared joy, shared grief, shared confusion. And
Speaker 4: so there can be, yeah, there can be physical gestures
Speaker 4: or images that we can develop as an ensemble, as
Speaker 4: a group of people who are moving together and making
Speaker 4: things together that really do emerge from the feelings and
Speaker 4: aren't kind of put on top by thoughts and ideas
Speaker 4: and prescriptive notions of how something should be interpreted. And yeah,
Speaker 4: and I think that is one of the secret ingredients
Speaker 4: for pig iron making stuff.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's huge. Yeah, that's huge. And there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with a good distraction. I mean, there's you know,
Speaker 1: intentionally finding joy and this like that's resistance onto itself.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, you know, insisting, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to take this time and we are going
Speaker 1: to laugh and we are going to smile, and we
Speaker 1: are going to see one another, because that, right there
Speaker 1: is resistance and it pisses them off even more, right, so.
Speaker 2: Exactly laugh in the face, but.
Speaker 1: That I love that that visual and that idea of
Speaker 1: coming from versus being put on top of right.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about the fact that Iron as a
Speaker 2: school because Martha and I owned a bar together in
Speaker 2: Northeast Philly into Coney for five years, and because we're us,
Speaker 2: we leaned heavily into the arts community of Philly. We
Speaker 2: hosted the first Friday we called it the first Friday
Speaker 2: Arts Takeover, and we've had several Pig Iron students and
Speaker 2: or graduates take part. We had one we have one group.
Speaker 2: They did like a mask work piece and it was
Speaker 2: one of those things like a lot of people in
Speaker 2: the room had no idea what was going on. But
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here, go this is happening in our space
Speaker 2: and I'm loving it. I'm loving it.
Speaker 3: I'm loving.
Speaker 2: So I am very grateful for the existence of the
Speaker 2: Pig Iron School.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like what yeah, like what are the ever know what
Speaker 2: your reach?
Speaker 1: You know, like how far?
Speaker 2: Like what are the the the core values that of
Speaker 2: the school that you would say.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think number one is this spirit of play.
Speaker 1: That the schools like.
Speaker 5: Methodologies inspired by this French guy, Jacques Lecoq, who used
Speaker 5: to talk about le jure the playfulness, and if it
Speaker 5: isn't there, you don't have theater. And it's wild to
Speaker 5: sort of how when that can get sucked out of
Speaker 5: the project that you're working on, or that even started
Speaker 5: from a very joyful or innocent impulse. So it's it's
Speaker 5: a kind of muscle that you have to keep working
Speaker 5: to keep finding that well.
Speaker 1: And we've got data right in the mix. So I'm
Speaker 1: just going and Martha Graham character is exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 5: And yeah, what else do you think in terms of
Speaker 5: like the school's fundamental.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's in a lot of ways. It's modeled after
Speaker 4: Jacques Lecox School in Paris, plus plus some other practices
Speaker 4: and pedagogies that pig Iron picked up around the world
Speaker 4: with the various collaborators and theater companies and schools that
Speaker 4: it encountered along the way. So I think, yeah, this
Speaker 4: spirit of play is really at the heart of it,
Speaker 4: and it being a place where you make ensemble work
Speaker 4: is also a huge part of it. That the classes
Speaker 4: you divide into groups, and every week a group gets
Speaker 4: given an assignment. You make a thing, you show it
Speaker 4: to your professors. The next week you get given assignment.
Speaker 4: You make a thing, you show it to your professor.
Speaker 4: So there's just a constant collaborative making that's happening, and
Speaker 4: there's really a focus on groups.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to the same thing with dance in college.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about two things.
Speaker 5: Like just another way of saying that EVA for me
Speaker 5: is like an ethos is you can do it yourself,
Speaker 5: you can make it up. That there's so many things
Speaker 5: in our lives and in our art making that like
Speaker 5: there's always the danger of falling into well, I'm doing
Speaker 5: it because this is how it's always been done, and
Speaker 5: I'm doing it because everyone says this is the right
Speaker 5: way to do it. And if I do this, then
Speaker 5: I'll get that. And especially in our world now, there's
Speaker 5: no truth in that anymore. There's no like, if I
Speaker 5: do this, I'll get that that you can count on.
Speaker 5: And Yeah, that that's like that's its own kind of muscle.
Speaker 5: And it also just makes me think about always trying
Speaker 5: to mess with piety, Like that's a kind of piety
Speaker 5: in a way to be like, well, you know, good
Speaker 5: theater is done with articulation, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 5: think that was that old that Shakespeare play you remember
Speaker 5: from almost twenty years ago now is.
Speaker 3: Is uh what's kind of that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Fuck you about like maybe maybe Shakespeare's good with good articulation,
Speaker 5: but maybe it's like you can hear something else with
Speaker 5: it weirdly mumbled by semi zombies, and you'll hear something
Speaker 5: new and so yeah, and uh, I actually studied with
Speaker 5: that guy back in the nineties, Jackalacock, and he would
Speaker 5: say the best student is the one who betrays the master.
Speaker 5: And I really thought that, And I feel like I'm
Speaker 5: just always blown away by the things the graduates do.
Speaker 5: Some graduates started this festival Cannonball, which is also part
Speaker 5: of the Fringe but also now has other iterations throughout
Speaker 5: the year.
Speaker 2: It's amazing cannon Ball came out of pig Iron Well.
Speaker 3: Some of the founders. Several of the founders met as
Speaker 3: student as a pig Iron.
Speaker 5: I love that, so yeah, but we can't take credit
Speaker 5: for it.
Speaker 3: We just admire it.
Speaker 2: Still And I love that. Yeah, And that makes because
Speaker 2: Cannonball does wacka doo shit, And where do you learn
Speaker 2: to be your most wacky dooyist?
Speaker 5: I get it hopefully with us, I get it hopefully.
Speaker 1: Society. I love the idea of challenging piety.
Speaker 4: I would say another thing that comes out of the
Speaker 4: school is in the spirit of play and experimentation.
Speaker 2: Is just a real deep.
Speaker 4: Familiarity with failure, that you try things and it doesn't work,
Speaker 4: and often the information about the failure is coming from
Speaker 4: the audience that you want to do something that's funny,
Speaker 4: or you want to do something that's moving, and it
Speaker 4: doesn't land. And I have so many experiences being in
Speaker 4: collaborations with people for whom those moments of failure are
Speaker 4: profoundly painful, and failure is always painful to some degree.
Speaker 4: But there is something about building a muscle of experimentation
Speaker 4: and trying things and then saying, oh, I think that
Speaker 4: didn't work. What should we do differently, Let's switch this,
Speaker 4: and not sitting in the pain of I tried a
Speaker 4: thing and it failed. But actually that's like part of
Speaker 4: the momentum of creation.
Speaker 2: Mmm. I'm enjoying and I'm going to take this away
Speaker 2: from today's conversation, that concept of going back to like
Speaker 2: the spirit of play being a muscle, experimentation being a muscle.
Speaker 2: I love that because it's true you gotta and you
Speaker 2: gotta exercise it.
Speaker 1: Well, there are certain things you have to do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You can't talk. I can tell you about something, but
Speaker 1: I believe I'm right in the right vein. Like I
Speaker 1: can tell you about timing and how it but until
Speaker 1: you have that immediate feedback from an audience, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's different. That's a different lesson.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I can I can talk all day, but until you're
Speaker 1: up there and you're feeling it and you're realizing, oh wait,
Speaker 1: this has to be bigger or this needs to be
Speaker 1: smaller or whatever it is, you are learning as you're doing,
Speaker 1: and that has application throughout life.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know a comedian who doesn't get
Speaker 1: in front of an audience to work out their yeah,
Speaker 1: their material, because what other way is there? Right, yeah, truly, and.
Speaker 2: Because you can think you're funny all day but.
Speaker 3: It's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But there's so many other applications. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I work with a whole lot of trans people and
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. It's like, honey, I can tell
Speaker 1: you you're going to be okay, but you've got to
Speaker 1: get out there under that, you know. I can say,
Speaker 1: it's your first walk through, target is going to be okay,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to be okay until you do
Speaker 1: it right. It's not going to be okay until you
Speaker 1: have have gotten to the other side of that experience.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I have always thought there are
Speaker 1: like big life lessons in theater and performing and art.
Speaker 2: I had a professor at Temple Dance, Eva Golsen, and
Speaker 2: she always used to say, and I always take it
Speaker 2: with me, and I've changed the subject of the sentence,
Speaker 2: but it's still always works. There's no such thing as
Speaker 2: a dancer in theory. You know, you are doing or
Speaker 2: you are not and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doing or not doing. Yeah, there is no try right.
Speaker 5: And then the seventies movie in that case, well.
Speaker 1: I'm a little older than all of you, all right,
Speaker 1: oh I'm.
Speaker 5: Pretty familiar with that one.
Speaker 2: Well I'm a nerd, so also, yeah, but yeah, I
Speaker 2: love that. I love that spirit of playfulness and experimentation.
Speaker 2: And definitely you got to get over the fear of failure.
Speaker 2: And you know, because failure also has that flip side
Speaker 2: of the happy accident. You know, it's like, Okay, that's
Speaker 2: not what I meant to do, but that worked because
Speaker 2: sometimes you have the thing like, well, I'm never doing
Speaker 2: that again, or maybe if I add a little twist
Speaker 2: to that that could work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how much of or how important is improv.
Speaker 3: This is an unusual show because.
Speaker 5: It actually is one of the only ones, it's one
Speaker 5: of maybe three of our thirty years that have started
Speaker 5: with a script, although there's been plenty of improvisation around
Speaker 5: the script and certainly around the style, and there's a
Speaker 5: movement ensemble which is only indicated in the script, and
Speaker 5: lots of things came out of that improvisation as well.
Speaker 5: But I yeah, I mean, I guess it's in a
Speaker 5: way it's hilarious that we didn't get to that. That's
Speaker 5: actually the main thing that we do at the school,
Speaker 5: and the main thing that we do when we're making
Speaker 5: and writing is improvised. And I guess one of the
Speaker 5: things that I've always said is kind of a.
Speaker 3: Theater lever who's not.
Speaker 5: So psyched about play writing sometimes is that, well, if
Speaker 5: you haven't done a lot of improvising, how do you
Speaker 5: know why someone would want to speak otherwise? You know,
Speaker 5: it can just there's so much that's overwritten in the
Speaker 5: theater where it's like, well, I'm putting this line here,
Speaker 5: and I'm putting this line here. But when you're improvising continually,
Speaker 5: you're also working that muscle of where does the impulse
Speaker 5: to speak come from?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And I'm sure, like you know, as a director, there's
Speaker 2: got to be a spirit of improvisation, because you know,
Speaker 2: you see something and then you go, well, what if
Speaker 2: we did it this way? Or what if we never
Speaker 2: do it that way?
Speaker 3: Ever?
Speaker 2: Again? Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here just thinking about cooking, like when I had.
Speaker 1: When one first learns, you know, how to cook, it's
Speaker 1: the recipe. And I have a dear one who lives
Speaker 1: in New York City and she's a fabulous cook. I
Speaker 1: learned in cooking with her. She's very much to the recipe.
Speaker 1: And I said, I want to make that shrimp dish
Speaker 1: that you make and she said, well, we can't, and
Speaker 1: I said why and she said, I don't have tarragon oil.
Speaker 1: I said, hold on, is that not a jar of
Speaker 1: tarragon up there? And she said it is And I said,
Speaker 1: is that not oil? And she said yeah, And I
Speaker 1: said We're good and.
Speaker 2: It blew her mind, like you can do at it?
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, because she had always cooked a recipe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think so many of us in
Speaker 1: the beginning, especially like theater students learn a certain way, right,
Speaker 1: and we learn a certain way to approach a script
Speaker 1: in a certain way to and and you're saying, eh,
Speaker 1: maybe right, maybe, I mean what about that.
Speaker 2: Was always my way as an artist. Frequently did my detriment.
Speaker 2: But like, I like to just try different things, and
Speaker 2: a lot of times the thing that I'm trying is
Speaker 2: not something that I studied. You know, I didn't study theater.
Speaker 2: But it's like I want to write a play and
Speaker 2: I want to produce it and I want to put
Speaker 2: it up. And it's like, so I don't know rules,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm just breaking rules left, right and sideways.
Speaker 2: But how to fuck would I know? And and part
Speaker 2: of me is like, you know, you got to know
Speaker 2: the rules to break the rules. And then part of
Speaker 2: me is like why are they rules? And there is
Speaker 2: that double edged sword because it's like, again, there's no
Speaker 2: such thing as an artists in theory, but I don't know,
Speaker 2: like how do we feel about that convention of like,
Speaker 2: you know, taking the tradition and the rules of tradition
Speaker 2: and turning it on its ear, thumbing your nose at it,
Speaker 2: but still being steeped in it. You know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you walk that line?
Speaker 1: Yeah, where do you come? Where do you come at
Speaker 1: that idea? You have to know the rules to break
Speaker 1: the rules. I think that's an easier way to ask
Speaker 1: the question.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Stream well, I guess I think building off what Eva
Speaker 5: said about failure and what you said Martha.
Speaker 3: About things that must be done, like.
Speaker 5: When you perform, you learn rules you and there's no
Speaker 5: and and and a lot of people are told those
Speaker 5: rules before they've actually done the performing and discovered them
Speaker 5: for themselves. And by rules, I mean you learn the
Speaker 5: limits of what you can how much you can hold
Speaker 5: people's attention and with what and so I guess I
Speaker 5: don't feel you know another this is a little bit
Speaker 5: my mantra, but similar to your tarragon oil, which I
Speaker 5: feel like I could really use in some of the
Speaker 5: classes here at PIGIRN, is that all training is made
Speaker 5: up and that it's so easy to be like, oh,
Speaker 5: this training. What's important is that I do it the
Speaker 5: way that it was done by the founders, and it's like, well,
Speaker 5: they just got together in a room and they were like,
Speaker 5: you know, it'd be great in dance, would be if
Speaker 5: we did this, if we made volumes in space with
Speaker 5: our arms, And that was the fundamental and just a
Speaker 5: new idea that they made up, and then it was
Speaker 5: popular and then it's like, well, other people want to
Speaker 5: learn how to do it, and then it becomes ossified.
Speaker 5: So I guess I think if you show up in
Speaker 5: any if you show up and you're like, there are
Speaker 5: no rules, usually that's kind of self indulgent in a way. Sure,
Speaker 5: but you're trying to find that special place of there's
Speaker 5: rules for me to learn. There's not rules I have
Speaker 5: to follow because other people told me that I had
Speaker 5: to follow them, Right, it's sort of where I land
Speaker 5: on that.
Speaker 4: Okay, I think I would add to that that, uh yeah,
Speaker 4: I kind of don't care. I'm like, do you want
Speaker 4: to follow the rules? Do you not want to follow
Speaker 4: the rules? Are you feeling angsty about it?
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 4: Do your thing. If you have a thing that you
Speaker 4: are feeling compelled to do, do that thing. But you
Speaker 4: should know that we live in a world and in
Speaker 4: a cultural landscape where people are going to come in
Speaker 4: with a certain set of assumptions and expectations, and you
Speaker 4: are going to be making work in conversation with those
Speaker 4: assumptions and expectations. So if you're angry that they didn't
Speaker 4: see what you wanted them to see, that might be
Speaker 4: on you to shift things to make it more legible,
Speaker 4: if that's what you want to do. So there's, yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a we all have. I think I think there's
Speaker 4: I've had moments where I'm like, why am I following
Speaker 4: these rules? I don't need them. I'm doing them because
Speaker 4: somebody told me to, and I got to let go
Speaker 4: of that and do my own thing. And then I've
Speaker 4: also had moments where I have thought, oh, that's why
Speaker 4: we have that rule. I thought I didn't need it,
Speaker 4: and now actually it's very useful, and I'm just going
Speaker 4: to hold onto it and follow that rule because it's
Speaker 4: helping to elevate the thing that I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: Legibility is that what it? Just the concept of it?
Speaker 1: Because how to say? I have worked with the actress
Speaker 1: for whom the stage is therapy, Oh my god, which
Speaker 1: I would prefer it not be. I'd like you to
Speaker 1: also have a therapist, just because And so I've seen
Speaker 1: both sides of that where it's and and it does
Speaker 1: come back to the legibility of it, like and being
Speaker 1: able to say, well, if you didn't get what you
Speaker 1: were looking for in that, you're the one who needs
Speaker 1: to consider your approach, not them. You not always easy
Speaker 1: to teach.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and I've I've I've approached that that scenario
Speaker 2: a couple of times, where like I love experimental work,
Speaker 2: I have been captivated by things that would have other
Speaker 2: people rocking back and forth and checking their watch. And
Speaker 2: then I've also said, if I'm going to watch someone
Speaker 2: masturbate on stage, I'm not going to do it here.
Speaker 2: You know, there are places for that.
Speaker 4: What are the cultural expectations of this space. Sometimes we're
Speaker 4: all showing up to watch somebody master van stage and that's.
Speaker 2: Cool, Right, I've been to that show too, and that's okay.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we're not and we don't want.
Speaker 2: To see it, right exactly, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I just came here to grocery shop, ma'am, this is
Speaker 1: a Wendys.
Speaker 2: That's funny.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I am. I love that there are
Speaker 1: more and more affirming churches in the world. You know,
Speaker 1: we've got several around here, and regardless of what my
Speaker 1: own views are. Somebody asked me to go talking to
Speaker 1: church that I know is really trying to reimagine. I'll go.
Speaker 1: And you know the last time I did, I walked
Speaker 1: in and I said, all religionism made up the good
Speaker 1: thing about that, we can reimagine it right, just you know,
Speaker 1: just because it is, you know, and like if we
Speaker 1: can't get to that fundamental part of the idea, I'm
Speaker 1: not the one you want talking to you.
Speaker 2: I think I actually heard some hairs on backs of
Speaker 2: necks stand up when you said that.
Speaker 1: Probably probably, but I think we need to say it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all made well. Yeah, like when people say,
Speaker 2: you know, oh god, you're just making up words now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're all yeah, that's how.
Speaker 3: They all got.
Speaker 2: All of them, including these right now that I'm saying,
Speaker 2: somebody made it up, right, But we just have these
Speaker 2: communally agreed upon like ideas that this is this, that
Speaker 2: is that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's you know, some of them. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get off this tangent in one second. Some
Speaker 1: of the con flicked that we see, especially with queer
Speaker 1: and trance people at the moment, you know, in our
Speaker 1: broader culture is you're not following the rules I am,
Speaker 1: I am chained with and I don't like it. And
Speaker 1: art is one of the ways we challenge that and
Speaker 1: say uh huh. But but you too could break through, right,
Speaker 1: you too. You've got the key to your own cage
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, it's scary.
Speaker 2: There's actually nothing stopping you from doing.
Speaker 3: It too, friend.
Speaker 4: And also, if you don't want to, you don't have to.
Speaker 4: Like me, diverging from the path shouldn't be a threat
Speaker 4: to you walking the thank you yes part.
Speaker 1: You can put a doily on the elephant in your room.
Speaker 1: I'm good with that, but you know, don't fuck with mine.
Speaker 2: Right, you can call it an end table if you like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fine. We're allowed. We're allowed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing. It's it's all minus oppression and
Speaker 2: and and you know, causing harm. It's all. Okay, here's what.
Speaker 1: I have always wondered, Dan, where did the name pig Iron?
Speaker 1: Why pig Iron? I think I know, but I want
Speaker 1: you to tell me the name.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's in the program. So now you have to
Speaker 4: come see the show and naming the program.
Speaker 1: Okay, read the book, just between us.
Speaker 3: Between us.
Speaker 5: Again, Remember this is a company dreamed up by twenty
Speaker 5: one and twenty two year olds, not knowing that they
Speaker 5: would be explaining pig iron in the year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5: I'm sure, and I love that for y'all so much,
Speaker 5: so you have to put yourself in this mindset. It
Speaker 5: began as a little inside joke, like wouldn't it be
Speaker 5: funny if we call the theater company that? And then
Speaker 5: someone maybe me, was like wow when we re it
Speaker 5: was in some other play, and we were like, oh,
Speaker 5: pig iron is the raw, crude iron that's the first
Speaker 5: step of getting iron out of ore of smelting, and
Speaker 5: it is useless and crude, and you use it for weight,
Speaker 5: you use it for ballast. So when you're in a
Speaker 5: theater and you see a fly system, often there are
Speaker 5: stacks of these metal plates, and those metal plates are
Speaker 5: pieces of pig iron. And we were like, well, in
Speaker 5: a way, pig iron is something crude and functional that
Speaker 5: creates a transformation, or that creates an image of flight.
Speaker 5: And I think that still connects to our work, where
Speaker 5: sometimes we want you to see how it's all, see
Speaker 5: how it's made, you know. I think for a long
Speaker 5: a lot of our plays stylistically we would like build
Speaker 5: a thing and then turn around the set or turn
Speaker 5: around the style so you could see how how the
Speaker 5: puppets were happening. Oh, this play doesn't do that. But
Speaker 5: that's the story that's buried in this play is the
Speaker 5: story about a secret world that lives underneath and that
Speaker 5: the right weirdo can find out and the right weirdo
Speaker 5: can see. What are the secret strands of the matrix
Speaker 5: that make meaning and make the city work together and
Speaker 5: make inspiration of them.
Speaker 2: I love how you keep adding references the more we talk.
Speaker 1: About I adore that too many. Right, No, that's where
Speaker 1: I thought we were going. I just I wanted to
Speaker 1: hear it from your lips and thank you for that.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about Franklin's Key, which opens at Plays
Speaker 1: and Players June eleventh and runs until the twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: So it's covering Pride month. Is that tell me what
Speaker 1: days of the week.
Speaker 4: It's mostly Tuesday through Sunday. But the schedule is a
Speaker 4: little wonky because of the FIFA schedule. We have some
Speaker 4: like off, oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we decided like let's not compete with this FIFA game,
Speaker 5: or let's move earlier in the day. And because it's
Speaker 5: a play that you can bring people as young as
Speaker 5: eight too. We were like, hey, audiences don't even like
Speaker 5: to go at eight anymore.
Speaker 3: Let's do one at six.
Speaker 5: On a Friday and see if people want to come
Speaker 5: at six and have dinner afterwards, or they can take
Speaker 5: their kids.
Speaker 3: And then put them to bed.
Speaker 1: I am. Yeah, it's so weird to maybe earlier the
Speaker 1: way we kind of shifted time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the famous line from Angels in America, the theater
Speaker 5: is always at eight.
Speaker 1: Right, It is not true, not anymore.
Speaker 5: Broadway is not at eight anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. Yeah, And I've been enjoying that actually
Speaker 2: because it's like you still and I'm okay with that. Well, no,
Speaker 2: just because, like you know, a your approach to being
Speaker 2: in the theater can be acted by being there a
Speaker 2: little earlier. And do you have a little more of
Speaker 2: your your night left over afterwards?
Speaker 1: I guess, but for a time, and it's getting better,
Speaker 1: but for a time your night. You couldn't go anywhere
Speaker 1: afterwards because they were all closed. But yeah, you might
Speaker 1: sign the bar, right, but the kitchen closed it.
Speaker 2: That's kind of where I was going, actually.
Speaker 1: Slowly reopening, you know, the Selca is twenty four hours
Speaker 1: on the weekends. Now, so there is a god right somewhere.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And so how would we find the schedule?
Speaker 5: Franklin's key dot com. That's the way to do it.
Speaker 5: We have a website where people can go check it
Speaker 5: out and find out everything about getting tickets and times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I love that.
Speaker 2: And if we wanted to learn more about pig Iron
Speaker 2: itself and what you guys do, where would we.
Speaker 5: Go pig iron dot org, pig iron dot org.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: I Danneva. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3: Thank you too, so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I have really enjoyed the conversation you've been listening to.
Speaker 3: Full Circle the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Martha Madrigal.
Speaker 2: And I'm Charles Tyson Jr.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Full Circle is a Never Scurred Productions podcast hosted by
Speaker 2: Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal, produced and edited by
Speaker 2: Never Scurred Executive Produced by Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal.
Speaker 2: Our theme in music is by the jingle Ares. All names, pictures, music, audio,
Speaker 2: and video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of
Speaker 2: their respective copyright holders,