It is very Theresa. And so, hello
Broadway World. It's Ken Butler and I'm here at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and you're backstage for our show
opposite a set I
put, so be the, so
I play D Druitt, the narrator of the show. And, um, it's sort of
uh, I'm a, uh, I would say anguished teenager who's, uh had a lot of a troubled childhood
um, abused uh alcoholic mother. And, um, so, uh her way of coping is
sort of um shutting off and closing, closing down sort of emotions and just not letting anybody get too close to her and
she's very controlling. And so I sort of like run the show
kind of like telling people what to do and
you and DD isn't the kind of role that I normally get cast in
But, um, Rob told me that, um, when he was writing it
he thought of me, which I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not
Um, but I did beauty and the beast for him. And so usually I'm like a good girl
um, with a little bit of quirky added to it. Um, but
uh, Yes. So, now I'm very dark and I, uh, have to be really grounded and
and then actually after doing DD, um, now I'm playing Claudia resting on one live to live and she's a dark character too
So I don't know what's happening to me. Um, but Playing Duty is fun because she's sort of
um, teaches me not to care about what people think about me and sort of
uh, empowers me more. But she's also, um, very depressing to play
Like, I, I, it's just, like, sad to have all that, like, emotional baggage and a
is one thing, joke. It seems like everyone's having sex with me
Yeah. To the smoke, to
listen news for you. Yeah. It was so awesome getting to work with
Caitlin again and it's so, um, strange how, how it happened. I ran into her on a plane and then I was like
oh, Kaitlyn, you'd be perfect for this part. And so I was telling her about it and then Rob called me and he was like
what do you think of Caitlin? Like the next day, Rob called me and was like, what do you think of Caitlyn happens
I'm like, oh my God, it's meant to be. Caitlyn is meant to be this part because I just ran into her
I told her that she's perfect for it. And so then he didn't even really audition for her
He was just like, yeah, it's fate and it is fate. And so it's so great to work with her again
She's like, she takes care of all of us and she's such an amazing actress
Um, yeah, everyone loves Caitlin and, you know, I love her from Bad Boy and then now we're doing the cabaret and we're doing three
bedroom house together and so it's really fun to do that again. Uh
yeah, it's been hard because, I mean, not too hard but, uh
both the soap opera and the opposite of sex said that they would work around each other's schedules
So it's been great that I've been able to do both and I'm so happy that the soap lets me do theater
Um, so every week I've been going back to New York and filming my episodes and
uh, sometimes it's during the week and sometimes most of the time it's
I've been lucky it's been on Monday or Tuesday. So I've just gone back and then gone back
uh come back to Williamstown. But yeah, it's a lot. I haven't had a day off in a while but it's all good
It's fun here. So I don't really mind. So
the role of Matt Mateo, he is very simple, very vulnerable, not much going on
but truly, I really think that he is the heart of the show
He's the only one that really says what is right and what is wrong
what is the right thing to do in terms of um how to go about living the
the correct way of living. Uh if that makes any sense, working uh uh opposite Greg has been just a dream
I mean, I saw him a while ago in City of Angels and I just was like
ok, this is it, I am doing theater because of him and James Naughton
It was so it was such a breath of fresh air for, for me as a as a kid growing up to see something like
that on the stage, broadway stage. And, and I always looked up to him as a, as a mentor and now I'm like performing with
him on stage and um he's great. He's such, such a, such a class on his own
He's a normal kid. This is my chance to maybe he won't
that I'll be the dad. He had to very
important, you know, normal life. What's going on in my head is
is um this, this character, this man who wants to have a life that he's not going to get chastised for
that. He wants to live this norm life that everyone else has
but he hasn't because he's gay. He can't, he'll never sort of have that normal quote unquote
normal life. Um But um something that he's really desiring, uh it's
not that it's, our relationship was not the same as his previous lover that he had
There was much more deep enriched relationship that he had and he's truly fully still in love with this other man
And I've known it this whole time and I'm, I'm, I'm telling him that I'm not him
I'm never going to be him. I've, I've always been competing with him and
and I never wanted to, you know, that's just the way, the way it is that it was our love
our relationship was on a completely different level. And I've already realized that and
and he should too. But I'm not calm and I'm not smart though
I've known for some time heart because I'm not, oh, it's
gonna be, we were always assured what that mean. But
money drive to reach but nobody had broken the most culture. There
are some musical scenes that I'm really proud of because I felt I stretched a little further in those places and um they're very ambitious
and, and I'm very happy with the way they turned out. But one of them that's uh I guess most uh obvious would be the
opening number which encompasses so many different things in terms of exposition and characters being introduced
Um I think also the seduction scene when, when Didi seduces Matt with
excuse me, rub a little lotion is one that I, I get great pleasure watching
I mean, not just because it's a seduction scene and you know, they're both scantily clad, but it just the writing I feel is very
true to, I think what Don Russ's objective was in the movie and it just feels as if the way that dialogue and music kind
of interplay feels very natural um in terms of like just those songs that are just a abas that land
I, I want to cite it's not enough, which is Lucia's song in Act two
which is a real personal favorite of mine. And I feel very proud of that number because that was after we opened in San Francisco
Rob and I come back to New York, we got notes from the Weisslers and from Jack De Palma
And it was a request that that would be a great moment for me to re evaluate because it was a musical scene to
know when I, we
were scrupulous and um very unforgiving. When we got here, we went through the script for I think a whole week just around a table
just looking at every scene and song and reading the text, the lyrics as text and really deciding if everything was necessary
And if there was one thing that some actors said may seem like a false moment
it was gone. So, and I actually wrote um new music for some of the performers so that it could be right in their range
because there were some things that just didn't favor their voices. So I changed some things
Press the department kind
of has that all too for me. Well, we had the great opportunity to go to the Magic Theater in San Francisco and try out
the show about two years ago now. And we did learn a lot from that production and we realized that most of all DD needed
a number at the end of Act one. So Doug wrote a great new song called End of The Line
uh which we put into the show. We also didn't really get to try our full set design idea out in at the magic
The theater was very small. We couldn't fit Derek mclean's idea. So here at Williamstown
we're going to really try our full set design idea, which is working very
very well and I'm really happy with and the audience seems pleased by it. Um So
and there's been lots of other little internal changes. I kept going back to the movie and back to some drafts of the script that
Don Russ had given me and finding little Gems of Don Roos that we
for whatever reason didn't use in San Francisco. So we put a lot of little things back in which uh I'm really delighted about
Uh Don's very funny writer. Well, the difference in the audience is between
the magic theater and here none, which is really interesting. I thought there would be
But I'll tell you, the audiences respond to this the same. And we have a very wide age range from the apprentices here at Williamstown
who are, you know, 1819 20 to people my parents age who are in their seventies that are just laughing and crying and being emotional
So it's funny, we have the same response at the magic. It's a, the show seems like it crosses generational lines and I think this
is a tribute to Don Russ. Really? Um And that he wrote something that's universal that kids relate to it
They relate to Didi in one way and older people relate to the other characters
Um Bill and Lucia in a different way and relate to Dei in a different way
So it's been a very interesting thing that the audience response has been very
very similar, even though the show has changed some to be the first name that you're calling every
what is the, unless we insist on d I had never seen the film
And when they offered me the show, I decided that it would be better for me to wait and see the film after the production
Um And actually, I wouldn't necessarily have made that decision, had it been another actress
But because it was Lisa Kudrow, she's so very specific and original and unique in both in her style of comedy
everything about her. And I did feel that it would influence me and I wanted to try to have my own take on it
And I felt I had a better shot at that if I didn't have any pre existing ideas in my head about how it should
be played or who the character was, you know, I wanted to make those discoveries myself
It's, it's, it's a wonderful experience in a way to step into something that has been already worked on because they already
have so much information, they already know so much about it. And Rob and Doug in particular
you know, have such a strong relationship to the piece and they know so much about the characters and the text and the music and
everything. Um So it's sort of like having this incredible wealth of information accessible to you and
and Carrie and David and Ian, you know, are so open and willing to share what they know as well
Um And Greg and Herndon and I really kind of my aunts, we all just sort of as a company
We really, um I think we discovered it and they rediscovered it with us nails
that snow white was hard. His name was good. Poison, full face
chalk it up to death. Wrong greetings
in a hall. Don't look too hard. I'm, I'm really, really proud of
it. I just think that it's such a great piece and the level and caliber of the performances and the work that's being done um
is top notch and I feel very, very proud and very privileged to be part of it
And it's nice to feel that way because you don't always, you always want to, but you don't always
And uh it's, it's really exciting and thrilling to be part of this company
I think there's a lot of tension because Lucious begin when we meet her at the beginning of the story
she's at a place in her life where she's really controlling everything and she has a lot of very strong opinions about everything and everyone
and Didi comes into their lives and it's, it's very easy to judge her frankly
I mean, she's obnoxious and she's acerbic and she's a nasty little kid who's all kinds of problems in our lives
One of the things that is so sweet and sort of wonderful about their relation
The journey of their relationship together is that, I don't know that they'll ever come to love each other
but they do come to understand each other. And on some level
I think they come to respect each other. And that's saying a lot because they are so opposite
They function from such different places. You know, Didi is a feeler and a reactor and a doer and um
Lucia is very repressed in a lot of ways and, and very um safe and Didi is very dangerous
And I think that they also envy each other. I think that that's part of how their relationship changes is that I might not like
Didi, but there are aspects of her that I wish I had that I as Lucia that I think she wishes she could be a
little freer and a little braver and a little bolder. And I think that at the end of the show
I think didi that there are a couple of things about Lucia that Didi could use too
Who is getting and, but
hang on one second. Thank you so much for your interest in the show. I really appreciate it. I
I have a couple of calls I need to take. So if you could just, I'm actually gonna go into the bathroom now
So you, you can't, don't follow me. Ok. Hi, I'm your waiter
I mean, Timothy, what I can. Right. Hi. Uh, I
I do want to do the interview but I'm, I'm actually on the phone with an agent right now. So
um, it's actually, I actually haven't got him on the phone yet. It's
it's still ringing. Um, he's actually not an agent. He's, it's a relative of mine who knows an agent
Um, and it, it, it's, well, it's not actually, it's a relative of mine that knows the head of a pipe fitters union
So, but he, he says he knows pipe. Hey, it's Ian Scott M
Yeah. Yeah, we, we talked about, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh
you know, me coming in and meeting, seeing if you had anything for, I don't have any plumbing experience though
Uh, well, I, I am based in San Francisco. You're where? Tallahassee
Ok. Um, let, let, I'm gonna, let me call you back. Hi
I'm Ian Scott mcgregor. I, uh, I'm currently playing a bunch of different roles in the opposite of sex
Uh, one of them is Randy cats who is a, uh, a hick from
I don't know where he's from but he, he has one testicle and that's, that's all the audience really cares about at that point
He, uh, he's, uh, he's, I'm sorry, this is my brother. I'm trying to move to New York and he's
it's getting, uh, very mad at me. Uh, hello, Broker. Um, yeah
Well, I'm, I'm doing an interview right now at Broadway world.com. So
um, oh, you got the credit check back? Ok. Yeah, I do owe them a lot of money
A lawsuit. That's, I haven't heard about that. Uh, my balance overdrawn
Good. Well, li listen, it's cost a lot of minutes and this is, you know, expensive roaming
Um, so I'll let me, I'll call you back in a little while
So one of the things that's really great about playing a bunch of different characters is
um, is, you know, you just kind of get to, you know, be a lot of different people in
you know, a small amount of time. Um, ah, I'm sorry, I had to see that you're not
you're not, you don't have to, you can edit that, right? Because people
people remind me my broker saw it. That would be, you know
bad for me. Struggling actor trying to move to New York needs an apartment
If you mess with the brokers saw that he would go crazy
Wow, this is really not the best day. My name is Lance Rubin
I'm playing Jason Bock in the opposite of Sex near Willington Theater Festival
And being Jason Bock specifically is an interesting challenge because he is
I mean, I guess the, the person playing the role has a choice of how weird this character is going to be
Um But it's also tough because like, like DD True, this is a character that's sort of unlikable and as the character who accuses Bill
who everybody is obviously going to love this. It's Greg Edelman. How could you not love him
Uh I'm going to accuse, uh, you know, Bill of, you know
of seducing or, you know, molesting him in school, uh, when, you know
Bill would never have done that. Um So, you know, the audience is, is automatically gonna sort of hate you
So, uh, so it's tough to tackle. But, uh, you know, I just try to bring sort of like a
a goofy charm to the role, I guess so that even though he's doing these horrible things
it's like, oh, and he's sort of funny and maybe he's just, he's weird and he can't help it
Five look, don't pretend you didn't know about, about Max
and me right now. I'm just enjoying being here at Williamstown and it's been Roger Rees has been so supportive of the show and supportive
of me and, uh, it's just a great place to work. My God. It's just wonderful
I, I think the cast, we're all having a really good time. It's like being at camp uh with performances at night
Uh It's fun so that you'll be staying that
it's been great. Williamstown has been like summer theater camp to tell you the truth
There's theater everywhere. There's interns and non equity members and they're doing shows and directing projects and
and improv shows every single night. There's something to go see and
and there's a lot to take in, in a very enriching um environment
And not only is it, it's so beautiful with the green mountains right behind us and
and the weather has been fantastic and it's been an amazing, amazing experience
Um People really care about theater here and they really um respect the work that everyone does that we
all do here. And that's been a real treat for me. It's love
it's compassion, it's um community. And I think that all three of those things
are things that are achieved in the journey of these characters in the context of the piece
And um so I guess that would be my answer. Well, I guess it's
it's what did d by the end of the show just wants the opposite of sex because it's sort of like
uh you know, sex, sex can never just be sex. It's always gonna lead to something
And I guess the opposite of sex is just wanting a life where you can never be heard who could have that is getting hurt
That's what life is about. I think it means like love or something like the opposite of like doing the deed
You know what I mean? Like all the other things that come along with sex
It's one of those things where it really is left to the audience to discern what it means
I think, I mean, Rob and I have talked about, he feels the show is about people making connections and I feel that's very true
I also feel it's about people who fear intimacy and have repressed emotions and need to heal and they heal through
sex, through the connection that they make through what sex is more than just the physical act
But it's an emotional connection. And as Carl says, it's like biological highlighter
you know, it helps you to focus on the person that you're sharing your life with
So I think it's all those things and whatever the audience wants to bring to it