Celebrating 100 Episodes of Call Time

Last Thursday’s episode of Call Time with Katie Birenboim, featuring actor and choreographer Aigner Mizzelle, marked the 100th episode of the show — in some form or another. Longtime listeners, friends, or fans might remember that a different version of Call Time, then known as “Theatre Book Club,” started under the auspices of Berkshire Theatre Group in 2020. We were in the depths of the pandemic, almost all of theatre was shutdown, and I was approached by BTG to plan, produce, and host a show as part of their “Learn from Home” series. I remember they told me that my segment could focus on “anything” and take “any” format, and I remember thinking to myself: “what better pass-time can I imagine than talking about plays and musicals with my articulate, cool, and often expert friends?”

The scope of the show quickly expanded, more by accident than by choice. I cold emailed both Ben Brantley and Jesse Green, then the co-chief theatre critics for The New York Times, and journalists whose writing I had long admired and held in high esteem, never thinking that they would respond, or, even more amazingly, agree to be interviewed. I knew I couldn’t just speak to them about a specific play, although that would have been interesting too, but I found I had so many more questions for them that were broad in scope — about the nature of criticism, the future of theatre, trends they had noticed, their writing processes, their sources of inspiration, and so much more. I found that as I garnered “bigger” and bigger guests, whom I did not know personally, I, and the listeners/viewers, were more and more curious about their careers on the whole: How did they get to where they are now? What helped? What didn’t? What is it truly like to make a career in their little slice of life?

Once Berkshire Theatre Group went back to live programming (they were the first in the country to do so in 2020!) their learn-from-home series came to an end. But I found I really missed the interviews. Granted — I was still to some extent sitting at home, tutoring kids online and applying to grad school. Not much was going on. But I nevertheless found that there was a hole in my intellectual and theatrical life: I missed asking people about their process, their inspiration, their career, the business. I found that even with tons of friends in the “industry,” it was pretty rare that you got to sit down and have such a focused discussion about these topics, topics which many of us artists kind of take for granted. We’re much quicker to discuss our latest boy drama, or industry gossip, or something like that. Maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong people, but it’s pretty rare that I sit down for a catch up coffee or drink with a friend in the business and begin the conversation by saying: so…what other pieces of art inspire you? I found I really missed opportunities for those candid, fun, and wide-ranging conversations.

So in 2021, nearly a year after Theatre Book Club had begun, I started Call Time with Katie Birenboim as a YouTube show. This was my chance to really figure out my own format and decide what I — as a solo host and producer — wanted my show to feel like or focus on. I discovered that my desire for cerebral conversations that you might have with a fellow artist over a coffee or a mojito was my niche: I thought of, and still think of, Call Time as a place where you can have TED talk level conversations about art, inspiration, career highs and lows, longevity, and process as if you’re talking to a friend, and you’re on your third martini. I found that, like a waltz, I often let my guests lead: I let them take me, and the audience, where they want to go and where their mind wanders. I also found that I particularly enjoyed interviewing people who were like me in the sense that they wore many hats in the theatre or in the arts: they were writer/directors or actor/writers or director/producer/choreographers.

This was especially exciting given everything that was happening concurrently in the industry: Call Time came back just as Broadway and Off-Broadway were re-opening, and I’ve written about the ways that the pandemic pause (undoubtedly so hard on so many) also allowed for some exciting reinventions in theatre. As someone who had always been scolded for being a multi-hyphenate (“people won’t know what you are!”), I found that the multi-hyphenate was slowly but surely taking over…frankly by virtue of necessity. People who make their own work or do guerilla theatre — like the folks at Job, Little Engine Theatre, the Brooklyn Center for Theatrical Research, the list just goes on and on — can’t just be one thing because by nature of the beast they have to do it all. You can’t just be the artist if you’re also running concessions or driving your speakers back to New Jersey (fun, but I don’t always recommend!).

I found that the show took on a real shape and a voice, almost on its own. I switched to a podcast format, per the urging of many friends who argued that many more millennials were likely to listen if they could be doing something else at the same time (completely fair…that’s how I listen to my own favorite podcasts, The Daily, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and, my first podcast love, Who Weekly). Much like this new era of Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway theatre I describe, I was scrappy about that transition. My friend Jordan Schneider (who has his own very lauded podcast, China Talk) took about a half hour to walk me through the applications he used for his show and all the new tech (thanks Jordy!). Through my studies at NYU (those pandemic grad school apps did pay off!), I was connected with the lovely people at Arts Journal, who launched this platform for the show and my writing.

Both the show and the articles went on pretty consistently from there: people argued with me in the comments about Off-Broadway or the LORT theatre system or feminism; increasingly I’ve had to take patches of time off as I’ve worked as a director more and more consistently. Somehow, we reached the 100 episode mark in nearly the blink of an eye! And as we did, I got to thinking about what, if anything has been consistent about the show, my guests, and my interviews. One of the things I pride myself on about Call Time is the variety to which I’ve alluded — I’ve made a point of featuring all different kinds of artists with all different kinds of jobs, careers, and backgrounds, many of them “behind the scenes” people who don’t often get interviewed in flashy magazines. I’ve spoken to my NYU marketing professor, someone like Christian Borle or Erika Henningsen, but also stage managers, lighting designers, ballerinas, playwrights, translators, activists, choreographers, producers, and directors. But as we reached this 100-episode milestone, and as I got to thinking about what I love about doing the show, and what has made me reinvent it and return to it again and again, it got me thinking about what I’ve learned from my guests. I realized that, despite their many differences, over the course of 100 episodes my guests have been consistent about a few things. Thinking about those consistencies has made me feel hopeful about the state of our industry, and I hope they make you feel the same way — and perhaps go back and listen to a few!

First, I’ve already alluded to this effect and written about it, but, to me, our post-pandemic era is the era of the multi-hyphenate. Given that the paths of “success” (or even the paths to just plain work) that were open to young artists in the past are no longer all that open or accessible, most of the artists I admire who have “broken through” in the last few years have been doing so by making their own work to some extent. Whether that literally means self-producing or whether it’s just hustling, it’s undeniable that it’s not enough to rest on the laurels of the four shows you directed in college or your BFA in acting. What’s more, people are increasingly excited by artists who do multiple things: it’s how multi-hyphenates have been able to build personal brands in the theatre. I believe we are lucky enough to live in the era of the theatrical auteur…the Jack Serio show or the Matthew Gasda show, for certain people in certain crowds carry with them their own distinct vibe or aesthetic. You accomplish that by flexing the boundaries of what you do, trying new things, and generally being willing to get down and dirty. As discussed above, it’s not hard to become a multi-hyphenate when you have to man the concessions stand or the bar (as I’ve seen several times) at your own show. Bemoan the state of the theatre at your own peril — but that’s the name of the game these days.

Second, nearly every guest who works in theatre has talked about how it is, by nature, a team sport. In fact, this has been such a consistent note, across all 100 episodes, that I’m starting to wager that it is the most “team sport” of all the high art forms. I’ve seen this in my own career: you can be the most brilliant, resourceful, gutsy multi-hyphenate in the industry, but if you don’t have people around you who are also working hard, putting their own stamp on things, and believing in the vision, nothing will ever get accomplished. It’s something I didn’t fully realize until I started directing and working more consistently in the professional world: any one stage picture you might see on Broadway is the result of, say, the lighting designer having a cool idea during pre production, the electrician and the programmer working nights to make it happen, the sound designer reacting to the cue the lighting designer wrote and building a sound cue around it, the A4 scrambling to make the sound designer’s vision actually sound good in a cavernous, old theater, the actor executing the moment just as the director reacts to lighting and sound…even the General Manager moving some money around to ensure that the tech crew doesn’t have to go into overtime. The chain of events and inspirations go on from there. Until I felt this in my bones, I never understood why so many theatre people talked about the miracle of what we do — that truly every single night, even for the longest running Broadway show — the fact that the curtain goes up and a fully staged show happens before our eyes is nothing short of miraculous. It can be a scary but also a freeing thought — a release of control and a release of power.

A corollary to that fact is another thing most guests have discussed: the belief that any young artist should feel as if they are “coming up” in a “class” of other young artists. Mentorship is of course incredibly important, and I’ve been lucky enough to have had some amazing mentors in my theatrical life — most of whom have been on the show, but equally important are the connections you make with other young artists, your future collaborators. The sequence I described above that makes a single stage picture really pop is the result of incredible teamwork between artists who do really different things and speak in what might as well be different languages. If you have a strong working relationship with these people, even a friendship, that process becomes easier, more productive, and more creative. So while it might seem like getting recognition from The New York Times, or finding the right mentor, or working on the biggest show, is super important when you first enter the professional world, equally if not more important is finding and identifying the “class” of artists with whom you can collaborate effectively. A rising tide lifts all boat, as they say.

Third, nearly all of my guests have wondered aloud something like: whither star casting and rising costs? I think many of us thought star casting was kind of a gimmick, and then a post-pandemic necessity, but if the last six years have shown us anything it’s that star-casting is here to stay. I relate it to rising costs and accessibility because they are indelibly linked: if it costs at least several million dollars to produce anything on Broadway these days (a combo of labor costs and supply chain issues — you know, theatre is NOT divorced from the broader financial markets) — you need a star to ensure there’s any chance of recoupment. Similarly, ticket prices will go up: again, investors (rightly so) want to make back their original investment, and customers, amazingly, are willing to pay those prices for the chance to sit in the same room and breath the same air as their favorite star. There are too many examples to name: in this season alone there’s Good Night and Good Luck, Othello, John Proctor Is the Villain, Hugh Jackman and Sonia Freidman’s new company “Together.” While all of my guests have recognized, in some way or another, the phenomenon of star casting/rising prices, the group has not been consistent about future predictions/outcomes for the trend. That’s for another article at another time, but for now I’d say it’s definitely something to watch. Can the cost of theatre simply keep rising — not unlike the competitiveness of college applications — or does “something” have to give?

Fourth and finally, while I focus on theatre and the arts, many of my guests have talked about other sources of inspiration. This might seem like obvious advice, but it’s very important to me — especially as a director. It’s clear to me when an actor, or any artist, isn’t informed about the world around him or her. We are living through “unprecedented” times, and I think it’s our duty as citizens to be well-informed and knowledgable. Not only that, but it’s our duty as artists. How can you produce, direct, market, or perform in a play about the McCarthy era, for example, if you know nothing about it, and haven’t studied or read any history? How can you design the costumes for a production of The Seagull if you have never read any of the great Russian authors or looked at a John Singer Sargent? Indeed, I believe that theatrical performances, designs, and visions become richer and more complex as inspired by other art forms. Who knows: maybe the new Caspar David Friedrich show at the Met will inform your scenic designs for a production of Eugene Onegin, maybe Emma Cline’s The Guest will find its way into your direction of a new play about a twenty-something woman. Maybe the 2015 New Yorker profile you read about Bernie Sanders influences how you write a specific curmudgeonly, but change-making character. Maybe a Florine Stettheimer painting makes you reconceive No No Nanette (nope? just me?). Not only do I think this practice, which almost all of my guests have discussed, makes for better art, but I also believe it’s just common sense. Theatre is, at best, supposed to hold up a mirror to humanity. There’s nothing more navel-gazing, boring, or lazy than when a theatrical production merely holds up a mirror to itself.

For what it’s worth, I promise to always do the same with this show. As discussed above, I’ve always believed that one of the strengths of Call Time lies in its variety, and the diversity of its guests. Especially as the show continues, and we need a raison d’etre for (hopefully) a hundred more episodes, I want to continue highlighting interesting guests who surprise my listeners. Indeed, if I believe a painting can inspire a theatrical production, I also believe that an actor can learn as much from a scenic designer as he or she can from a fellow performer. As I said in my 2022 “manifesto” for this platform, “if every aspect of how we make theatre must be rethought – economically, socially, and artistically – the charge must be led by a new generation of artists who aren’t bound by traditional labels.” I hope the show will continue to explore the ways those lines — between genre, art form, career, and artist — can blur.

My heartfelt thanks to any and everyone who has watched or listened to a show, from its earliest rumblings in 2020 to its more elaborate productions now. My heartfelt thanks, too, to anyone who has read or even skimmed one of my accompanying articles on this platform. And of course, my truest thanks go to Arts Journal, for giving me a platform and helping me keep on producing, and to each and every one of my guests, who have given me — in addition to these several consistent themes on which to chew — many hours of thought and enjoyment. I think all of you are interesting and inspiring.

Let me know what you’d like to see more of in the comments — and if you’ve noticed anything that’s been consistently discussed over the years which I didn’t write about here! Thank you, thank you, thank you, and cheers!