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[0:00] Bobby Steggert: I'm Bobby Steggart, and this is The Quiet Part Out Loud.

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: The concepts of introversion and extroversion are so baked into the zeitgeist that you could easily assume they've been around for centuries. In fact, it was Carl Jung who introduced these ideas as recently as 1921. It was Jung, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, who split off from the sterile notions of Victorian psychology to include a decidedly spiritual dimension to his theories. He introduced the idea of the collective conscious, an unspoken, mystical, psychological territory that we all share as one. He was also the person to first categorize people as distinctly extroverted or introverted, and his definition is more nuanced than the way that we use them today. Usually, these words describe someone as social or perhaps shy, but in fact, the terms more suggest how someone primarily directs their psychic energy.

An extrovert flows outward towards the external world. People, places, things, they're oriented towards what is happening. Introverts flow inward to thoughts, reflections, the subjective experience, and they're more concerned with what it all means. That said, you can be an introvert who deeply loves people and even perform in their job. I consider myself one of those people. And an extrovert isn't necessarily better at being social. It only means that the outer world has more pull. Adam Gwon is a writer and composer of new musicals that span from Ordinary Days, his debut in his 20s that announced him as an important voice in the theater, to shows such as Scotland, PA, and his most recent This Way to the Stage.

The best singers in the theater have sung his music, most notably Audra McDonald in her 2013 album Go Back Home. Adam is a self-described introvert who grew up in the intimate company of his piano. He also performs much like I did as a way to find more extroversion, as opposed to jumping on stage because it was where he naturally and most comfortably lived. But as he grew to understand himself, he came to terms with how deep reflection and solitude is the safest place for him to explore his creative life. It is a deep well to which he always returns for meaning. There's also a misunderstanding perpetuated by personality tests like the Myers-Briggs that we fall into distinct categories. But as for me, I have parts that want to dance on top of bars while others would prefer to live on a branch in the treetops.

And Adam's version of this dichotomy is that his introversion is far different from an avoidance tactic. In fact, his introversion mostly functions to slow down, to make space and quiet for a deeply held sense of what is authentic to him. It is in the service of communicating to the world. It's a tool of connection. It's his barometer for what feels right and true and therefore worth the risk of putting out there in the hopes of being seen and understood. It felt so comforting to be in the presence of Adam's gentle reflections, ones that were fostered and nurtured through his introversion. And he helped me to appreciate the parts of myself that are most safe in their own solitude. Lucky for us, he chose to share. And may his introversion inspire you to listen to the wisdom of your quietest voices.

[3:47] Bobby Steggert: Part of what I love about the podcast is that I do feel like it's this really intimate and human look at people who are in, are doing the theater thing. Yeah. And it's so easy for, especially people on the outside, to remember that we're just a bunch of human beings trying to do the theater thing. Yeah. And it's so easy for to remember that we're just a bunch of human beings trying to do our best. And especially in doing what we are doing to be vulnerable. And there's this incredibly fascinating tension I find in the work that we do is that to be successful, to be impactful, we have to be vulnerable. And it's also doing that in an environment that is not always catered toward vulnerability. And so I just am fascinated by that tension. I feel like your podcast gets that yin and yang of what we do in a really great way.

[4:45] Adam Gwon: That's the goal.

[4:49] Bobby Steggert: And I just want to teach younger people what they're in for.

[4:52] Adam Gwon: Yeah.

[4:53] Bobby Steggert: In a very positive and perhaps mourning way.

[4:56] Adam Gwon: Yeah. And it's a dance that doesn't ever, at least for me, I think when I was younger, I thought there would be a moment where everything clicked into place and I'd know exactly how to navigate every single thing and being human in the industry. And I think what I've realized at this point is that it's an ongoing navigation. There's never going to be one answer. It's always shifting. You always have to find your place.

[5:22] Bobby Steggert: That's right. It's such a myth that you'll figure it out one day.

[5:25] Adam Gwon: Yeah.

[5:26] Bobby Steggert: I wanted to start with a memory I had. We both attended a wedding that was industry adjacent.

[5:34] Adam Gwon: Yeah.

[5:34] Bobby Steggert: And I have quit acting a few years before that wedding.

[5:38] Adam Gwon: Yeah.

[5:39] Bobby Steggert: And it was such a weird experience for me because I just didn't know how to show up in this space with all of these different industry people.

[5:47] Adam Gwon: Yeah.

[5:48] Bobby Steggert: And I felt an introversion that I had been developing over those years really keep me from being able to fully show up and feel like myself.

[5:57] Adam Gwon: Yeah.

[5:58] Bobby Steggert: And I remember seeing you at the end of the night and I recognized something similar in you. Not that you weren't happy to be there, but that it cost you something to be around so many people in the way that maybe it was costing me at that moment.

[6:10] Adam Gwon: Yeah.

[6:11] Bobby Steggert: And so I guess I want to just say I recognized your introversion in that moment. Was that your experience at an event like that with so many industry people where you had to show up and be the version of yourself that is public?

[6:21] Adam Gwon: Yeah. I imagine you have this feeling too is that the reason I was at that wedding is because I have a very personal friendship with that person that transcends all of the industry stuff.

[6:33] Bobby Steggert: Interesting to me.

[6:33] Adam Gwon: Yeah. And it's that my so-called life thing where she's walking down the hallway and she sees someone who knows her as part of one friend group, but she's with a friend group that knows her in a completely different way. And she has this moment of panic where she doesn't know who to be. And I feel that kind of thing. I feel one kind of person with the people that I am friends with and have that kind of intimate relationship with a kind of different person with people who I only know from the industry side of things. And sometimes you don't know, because it feels like those two things are sometimes at odds in a weird way, and it's impossible to do both things at once. And so when you're in that kind of situation, or suddenly you find that you're playing both parts at the same time, it can be very disorienting.

[7:25] Bobby Steggert: And are you like me where one on one, you actually feel very extroverted, but it's the introversion that comes forward when there's more social dynamics to navigate?

[7:33] Adam Gwon: 100%. Yeah, it's funny. I feel like my closest friendships with people in the business are people a lot of times the origin story of that relationship is this feeling of being in the midst of some kind of hurricane of a social situation and finding that person and being able to connect with them, really, in a one to one way in the midst of this kind of hurricane happening around the anchor.

[8:05] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, yeah, there's something very grounding. There's something that allows me to be what feels like an authentic version of myself in a situation where I often find that to be difficult, but also make a major assumption, which is that a lot of composers and lyricists are more introverted, because obviously, you're doing a lot of your work privately. In general, is that a theory that you accept?

[8:31] Adam Gwon: I think so. What's interesting to me, what I feel like I've noticed amongst composers and writers and writing teams in an interesting way is that often I feel like the more introverted person on a team finds a more extroverted person as a creative partner in some way. And so it's two personalities joining forces in order to navigate. The team that I really think of is Kander and Ebb. And I never got to meet Fred Ebb because he passed away before I was doing this thing. But John Kander is such a lovely, gentle, quiet soul. And from all the stories I've heard, Fred Ebb was the much more gregarious, non-billing extrovert. And I feel like I see that pattern crop up in a lot of writing teams. And also, I feel that with a kind of people I'm drawn to working with in a room that I really come to rely on people who are more comfortable navigating that part of the deal.

[9:34] Bobby Steggert: Does it let your introvert part stay where he's comfortable?

[9:40] Adam Gwon: Maybe, yeah. Because I think the idea of authenticity swirls around this whole conversation because more than feelings of fear or anxiety, I feel this feeling of how can I be authentic in these situations is really the thing that kind of eats at me all the time. So are you saying that the force that we're calling introversion that sometimes holds you back is really concerned that if it wasn't doing its job, you might be inauthentic in some way?

[10:06] Adam Gwon: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And I've come to realize in all kinds of ways that this idea of authenticity is something that I really value in people, in relationships, in work that I make, in work that I see, in the kinds of actors I like to work with. And I think that's been a real journey to figure out, oh, how can I take a leap, put myself outside of my comfort zone in situations that require it without betraying this feeling of authenticity and that I can be myself in these situations.

[10:43] Bobby Steggert: I'm also thinking about how extroversion can either be totally authentic in someone or really a protection.

[10:48] Adam Gwon: Yeah. And I guess introversion is the same, isn't it?

[10:54] Adam Gwon: Yeah. And there are those moments where I can clock that I have almost used introversion as an excuse sometimes to avoid something that feels a little scary or a little dangerous, but that might actually be useful and beneficial and good. And so that's part of it, too, trying to gauge when it's actually just fear operating.

[11:12] Bobby Steggert: What's your earliest remembrance of the feeling of introversion?

[11:19] Adam Gwon: That's a really good question. I feel like I've always been a kind of introspective child. I even think that my finding my way to music, and in particular playing piano, came from this kind of introverted nature when I was little. Because for reasons that don't have an explanation, I was always just drawn to pianos as a kid. Whenever there was a piano in the house, whenever my parents would be having a conversation with some of their friends, there's a piano in the living room. I'd wander over as a very young tyke and start sounding out melodies on the piano. It felt like this way of trying to communicate or articulate something, I think, that I wasn't able to do verbally or in a kind of social situation.

This was very foreign to my parents. They're not musicians. They're not artists or creative people in any kind of way. I think it was really wonderfully intuitive of them to see that this was a thing that I was drawn to for some reason, and then put me in piano lessons to help develop that vocabulary and figure out what it meant as a form of expression.

[12:35] Adam Gwon: I hear so many people talk about wishing they'd stuck with piano lessons because they would really benefit from it as an adult.

[12:43] Bobby Steggert: Did you have any trouble sticking to it? Or was it something that was more of a refuge that you kept returning to very naturally?

[12:47] Adam Gwon: Yeah. Oh, it was the opposite of having a problem. I spent every free moment of my childhood practicing piano. My parents had to drag me away from practicing piano. There was actually a running joke that the piano in the house that I grew up in was situated by the front windows of the house. And so my neighbors would drive up and down the street and I would just always be at the piano. It was like the running joke. It was the expected side.

[13:16] Bobby Steggert: That's so interesting. What makes someone truly an introvert is that they don't feel alone when alone. And so you were with your music.

[13:26] Adam Gwon: Yeah, yeah, that is probably true. I didn't feel like I needed any other company to be happy when I was a kid.

[13:32] Bobby Steggert: Was there an avoidance of social dynamics at the same time?

[13:37] Adam Gwon: I don't think so. Or at least not that I was aware of. I have many wonderful memories of playing with all the kids in the neighborhood and all of that kind of stuff. It was just this kind of other refuge or this other place that I felt like I needed to go to.

[13:56] Bobby Steggert: And so there's no sort of cliché elements of you needing to escape some sort of pain or circumstance that was dangerous to you?

[14:06] Adam Gwon: I don't think so, honestly. And I've thought a lot about it and wondered if there was, but it really... I was so young when I started playing and just had this urge to take refuge in playing piano that it truly feels like this natural thing that I was born with.

[14:23] Bobby Steggert: When would you say the elements of story and imagination and creation started coming into the world that was piano playing?

[14:33] Adam Gwon: As a funny partnership with this very introverted piano playing, I also, when I was a little bit older, probably in my preteens, like going into high school, fell in love with theater. Because I think this was a way for me to feel safe being more extroverted performing. And so I ended up, my first pursuits, my way into this career as a theater was as a performer. I went to a high school in Baltimore for the arts. So I was doing theater and performing in school during the day and then doing this piano thing extracurricularly at night. And wound up going to... I graduated from NYU in their performance program.

[15:21] Bobby Steggert: Were we the same year-ish? Or was it 2003 I graduated?

[15:24] Adam Gwon: I graduated in 01. So we definitely have a lot. But my freshman year at NYU, I was in the performance program. I had a teacher who was teaching musical theater performance. And because I was the guy that played the piano in the class, everyone would always ask me to play their songs so they could practice, drag me into the practice room. And one day this teacher who taught performance but was a composer professionally outside of the classroom, he pulled me aside one day and said, was that you playing the piano just now in the other room? And I said, yeah. And he got this very serious look on his face and said, I hear more of your voice and I know more about who you are hearing you play the piano than I do from anything you've done performing in class.

[16:17] Bobby Steggert: Did that hurt to hear?

[16:18] Adam Gwon: A little bit. A little bit. It was shocking. And he said, you should see what that's about. And it was this kind of jarring moment because I was 17 years old, freshman year of college. So I committed for like the next four years to study how to be a performer. But something about he was a very trusted teacher who a lot of people looked up to. And so I didn't take what he said lightly. And he was right. I started writing. And then by the time I graduated, I knew that was the thing that I wanted to do and not a performer.

[16:59] Bobby Steggert: In retrospect, do you think what he was recognizing was a freedom that you hadn't quite developed as a performer?

[17:03] Adam Gwon: That feels very true because I always had a self-consciousness about myself in performing. And what drew me to performing in the first place was that it felt like the goal, the rules, the end game was to be extra. It felt like that's what I needed to be.

[17:25] Bobby Steggert: It was the maybe more human goal.

[17:27] Adam Gwon: Yeah. Yeah. When in fact, the more introverted path, I guess the writing path is the thing that will let me flourish and be myself.

[17:37] Bobby Steggert: I am always amazed by the kinds of actors that are in it because of more of an exhibitionist streak because I always saw performing as privacy.

[17:49] Adam Gwon: Oh, interesting.

[17:50] Bobby Steggert: It was like my way to have, like you said earlier, the boundaries through which I could be free and I could explore it all with enough ground rules that it felt safe. And because of that, it felt deeply private to me, even though there were lights and people watching. So I realize that there's always a yin and a yang to performing. When it comes to writing and playing, is there an exhibitionist side of you that balances out the part that is so introverted?

[18:20] Adam Gwon: I think the exhibitionist side is this lead that I think we all have to be heard and seen. I think everyone has that introvert, extrovert, everything in between. And so I think writing is my way to shout out to the universe like, hey, I'm here, look at me, I have value, because I cannot naturally do that by literally shouting out to the universe, I'm here. And writing allows me, I think, to go through a process of introspection before that kind of pronouncement happens, which I find to be really valuable because I think anything that I write is going to start from a very private, very personal place, some kind of personal question that I have about existing in the world that I'm only going to figure out an answer to if I write about it.

[19:17] Bobby Steggert: Let's take Ordinary Days as an example. What was the core question or the kernel that began that process for you?

[19:24] Adam Gwon: Yeah, I think at that time, I was in my 20s in New York, trying to cobble together a life as an artist. And I had this feeling like I was putting my energy whole hog into so many disparate things, career, life, love life, there were all these pieces of life that felt like they weren't quite coming together. And I wasn't sure if all of these efforts I was putting in to all these things that felt so disconnected were ever going to add up to anything. I think that was the impetus for writing Ordinary Days.

[20:12] Adam Gwon: What's interesting is it started as, oh, I'm going to write a song cycle. That's what a lot of composers of my generation were doing at the time. So I just started writing a bunch of songs. And then I got bored with that and wondered what if these various characters and moments that I'm writing somehow started to stick together. So like literally the process of writing the show was about having these disparate pieces and trying to make a cohesive, meaningful thing out of them. And I think that's what I was trying to do with my life at the same time. And what the characters in that show wind up realizing or discovering is that it takes a certain amount of trust in yourself that what you're putting out into the world is going to have value and add up to something. We so deeply want that and we're so deeply afraid it won't happen. And I think, honestly, I think that's what I was wrestling with when I was writing that show.

[21:14] Bobby Steggert: You wrote that fully or independently?

[21:16] Adam Gwon: Yes.

[21:16] Bobby Steggert: So you were interesting, you were talking about collaborators. In that case, you wrote the whole thing by yourself. I can't imagine as a collaborative artist and chose to be an actor, the discomfort it must present to someone when you spend the process so alone and then you have to share it. Is it both exciting and painful when you bring something into a room with other people?

[21:40] Adam Gwon: Yeah, I live for the moment when I can have other people participating in the storytelling.

[21:47] Bobby Steggert: So that's only exciting to you?

[21:49] Adam Gwon: It's definitely, it's always vulnerable and it's always scary. I think I've come to learn that is a natural and worthwhile part of the process. I tell my students this, that when they're presenting work in class, that no matter what stage it's in, it's always going to be scary because you're sharing a part of yourself and that's vulnerable and we should acknowledge that. But I think, like I said at the end of the day, I think the reason why I delved into the introverted place to wrestle with things that I'm wrestling with is ultimately to allow me to connect with other people. And so that the moment that happens, whether it's in a rehearsal room or with audiences in a show, there's always something really special and really gratifying.

[22:40] Adam Gwon: The sort of metaphor that always strikes me when I'm writing is when I write harmonies, they require more than one person to make happen. And I think that one of the reasons I love writing harmonies is because it's like a promise and a group of people have to come together in order for this thing to exist.

[23:00] Bobby Steggert: You don't have to share any details, but have you had the experience of sharing something with the world and it being because you have to include other people's not what you wanted it to be?

[23:13] Adam Gwon: Introversion has the power of one vision and collaboration requires a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

[23:18] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. What is the hard part for you?

[23:20] Adam Gwon: This is another muscle that I feel like I have developed over the years, which is, to me, that transition from something that's very private and very much my own to sharing it with other people is how do I communicate this thing that I feel on the inside to other people? And oftentimes I have to go through this process of writing a musical in order to figure out how to communicate something. And so I've come to enjoy the process of navigating whether I have effectively communicated the thing I'm trying to say as I'm developing a piece. I think that the development process of a musical almost is this kind of built in distance to figure out how to take something very personal and make it something I can communicate to other people.

And so I've actually come to enjoy that process. And I think I've also been able to cultivate a group of people that I really trust to help, especially in the earliest stages of that process, who understand who I am, who understand what I'm trying to say and can help facilitate whether that vision that I have is being communicated.

[24:44] Bobby Steggert: This is somewhat connected. I came across, when I knew that you and I were going to talk today, the reel you posted last week that was really adorable about you announcing the recording of your latest show. It was really cute, real funny. And I thought, he's doing it alone. Is this an act of extroversion that feels uncomfortable to him? Or is it something that because you're in your own room and your own process of putting something out that you actually felt safe to you?

[25:11] Adam Gwon: Yeah, the social media of it all is definitely something that I've had to navigate in terms of this introversion, extroversion thing.

[25:26] Bobby Steggert: To do things on social media. I guess the basic question is, did that feel embarrassing to you? Or did it feel natural?

[25:30] Adam Gwon: I would say on the scale between embarrassing and natural, it definitely felt more embarrassing.

[25:37] Bobby Steggert: Really?

[25:38] Adam Gwon: Yeah. And the thing that I think I try to do with all the social media stuff is find that sort of authentic way that I can do it. And it's funny, it mirrors this process of writing, especially in the earliest stages of a project when I'm trying to find my way into a character. I feel like there are often these attempts to capture a character's voice that don't hit the mark or feel like I'm not hitting it yet. And the moment where I feel like I have cracked a character's voice, coincidentally, is the moment where I feel like I've been able to capture it in a way that feels authentic to me. Often for me, that is connected to a sense of humor. If I'm writing a character and I figure out the way in which this character is funny, that feels authentic to me, I feel like I understand something about how to write that character.

And I feel like the same is true for the social media stuff. I'm trying to be funny, I'm trying to be engaging, and there are all these attempts and ideas that I have that feel inauthentic. But for example, in that reel that you saw, the whole concept of it was this poking fun at me, the writer, having to make social media videos and pretend I'm an influencer.

[26:49] Bobby Steggert: And you used the real anxiety.

[26:55] Adam Gwon: Yes. And so it felt like an authentic way to come at the voice of myself on social media. What's really surprising me so far about this conversation is one might assume that introversion is mostly about social anxiety, but you're really talking a lot more about being true to yourself. But do you experience introversion as connected to the social world?

[27:18] Adam Gwon: Sure, because I think I am most comfortable and most successful at forming social connections with people when there's a certain kind of intimacy and a one-on-one kind of setting, like you said. And so much of where those interactions happen in shoelace are in these very big, very loud social settings. And so, yeah, I definitely think a big part of it is how do I navigate those kinds of settings? And what's weird too is we're literally in the business of putting on a show. So figuring out how to be true to my voice as a writer and balance the needs of putting on a show for people and be entertaining, bringing musical theater into a space. So I book people for a couple hours. It all feels part of the same sense of striking a balance.

[28:13] Bobby Steggert: What is hardest for you in the role of representing a show? Not the writing of it, but the representing of it.

[28:19] Adam Gwon: Yeah. I think my biggest challenge is when I'm writing a show, I feel like I'm living so deeply with each individual character, all of the different pieces that make the show. And part of what you have to do when you start representing the show or speaking about the show to a bigger audience is zooming out and seeing what kind of forest the trees have made. And that perspective switch, I think, is often a challenge for me, just because I'm so mired in the nitty gritty of what's making the show tick. I have found that just having really honest conversations with other people on the team, whether producers or directors or marketing and press folks, like, what are the ways that you see the zoomed out story of this show connecting to people? Because I can get lost in the details.

[29:20] Bobby Steggert: You're creating the detail.

[29:21] Adam Gwon: Exactly. Exactly. And so part of this idea of collaboration, I think, is having to sort out on a big picture level, what kind of story are we trying to tell to audiences when we're talking about this show? What resonates with you that might be a zoomed out, more universal idea than I've been fixated on with a particular character or my own kind of stuff?

[29:47] Bobby Steggert: Have you ever taken on a big commercial project that wasn't yours, or is everything that you've written self-sourced?

[29:55] Adam Gwon: I was hired on to my first, here's a movie, we're going to adapt it kind of project during the pandemic. And I really feel like in order to find my way into a product that someone else has brought to me, I have to find that personal connection. You got to find what's meaningful to you. Again, what question do I have about the world that I'm going to wrestle with writing this project? And I think with this particular product, I immediately was able to feel what that was and felt the connection to the story and the project, which I think allowed me to make it feel like the product was just as much my own as it was something that I suggested or I came up with.

[30:39] Bobby Steggert: So if we were to explode this conversation about extroversion versus introversion, and think about people who are really successful doing the opposite, which is the outside-in, who's a composer that you respect for the opposite reason? That they can be given an assignment and just deliver, and they might not have to go deep into their own experience.

[30:59] Adam Gwon: It's hard to say because I feel like maybe I'm assuming something about other people that I shouldn't assume. But I suppose I assume that everyone has to find their way into a project in that way. Or the bigger question, how can one really be successful at writing something if you don't have that kind of personal connection to it? And so I think the kind of writers along those lines that I admire are people who I feel like are able to work on many disparate kinds of projects and projects that have a brand or an IP that really lead the way into the room, but are able to mine something personal out of it.

[31:44] Bobby Steggert: That's really fair. I think I asked that question through the lens of being an actor, because it's all I know. And like I said earlier, I'm always amazed by actors who can come into the material, throw spaghetti against the wall and find it that way, versus the way I had to function, which was to go inward, be very quiet, and then grow from that place.

[32:04] Adam Gwon: Yeah. I feel like I shouldn't assume things about other writers and their process.

[32:12] Bobby Steggert: Maybe you can't.

[32:14] Adam Gwon: But it's an interesting question. And I will say, I certainly have been approached to write projects that I have not been able to find my way into, and therefore have politely declined. Because for me, that's the foundation. It has to be there before I feel like I can do anything that's going to be good.

[32:32] Bobby Steggert: Well, maybe that's the distinction, because there might be people, very talented, who just go, yes, I'll figure it out. You have to listen to something quieter.

[32:40] Adam Gwon: Yeah. And sometimes that takes time. I think this probably applies even more so to actors than to writers. But things in showbiz often move really fast. There's pressure to make a decision about something in a split second, or there's a ticking clock going for one reason or the other. And I think part of why I really value the patience that a more inward kind of start to a project requires is that it builds a sense of knowledge about the work. That when the pace picks up and when that ticking clock kicks in, I feel like I know what I'm trying to do and I know what I'm trying to say in a way that I can then live in the moment and work really fast and adjust. It's like when you're in previews for a new musical and you're seeing the show in front of an audience for a first time, you're like, holy crap, this part isn't working.

I have to fix this because the audience is not connecting to this thing. But I've spent all this time doing the work to know exactly what I'm trying to say and what I'm trying to do. And therefore, I can be less precious about how I get there because I've laid that groundwork. And I think without that, I would be in a panic and I would know what to do and I'd be, like you say, throwing spaghetti against the wall. And I don't think that's necessarily a productive way to go the musical previews just by throwing spaghetti. You want to be really intentional about what you're doing.

[34:15] Bobby Steggert: And yet, didn't Sondheim write the lyrics for Little Lamb as a joke in previews?

[34:20] Adam Gwon: Oh, is that true? I don't know.

[34:21] Bobby Steggert: And just saying, yeah.

[34:22] Adam Gwon: Wouldn't be surprised.

[34:23] Bobby Steggert: It's a great song. The one thing that being a therapist has really taught me is that if we're talking about extroversion versus introversion, in general, broad generalization, people who are more extroverted depend more on external validation and trust their inner voice a little bit less. And people who are introverted trust their inner voice a little bit more and are a little less trusting of other people. It sounds like you've really worked very well to become balanced in those two forces. But if we're talking about you really knowing a piece and having lived with it and knowing why and knowing what it means to you and the story you want to tell, are you any less sensitive to constructive criticism? Are you any less sensitive to bad reviews because you spent so much time understanding what you're trying to say?

[35:11] Adam Gwon: Oh, gosh, I don't think I am. It has to do with this idea of the communication. Like, I'm working on a piece, like I said, because I really feel like I have something to communicate with the world through the piece. And so when I feel like that communication, for whatever reason, has not been successful, I feel bummed about it because that seems to me like the reason why we're doing it. So, yeah, I definitely feel the stings of all those things when they happen. And I also feel the navigation that's required for an industry that feels, to me anyway, incredibly driven by the external validation part of things, by the numbers, by the awards, by all of the things. And I think part of what I've had to discover to be an anchor for myself is the internal validation and the stuff that I might feel more naturally because of the introversion holding on to that, and protecting it, and reminding myself that is enough.

Because so much of the industry part of it is going to be about all the other stuff. And it can be really easy to feel like you're not living up to that if that stuff doesn't happen. So that's a pinpoint of that internal validation as well.

[36:36] Bobby Steggert: When that stuff has happened for you, I'm sure it's been exciting.

[36:41] Adam Gwon: Sure. Lots of awards have come your way. Have you learned that they don't mean as much as people tell you they do?

[36:47] Adam Gwon: Yeah. And the feeling that you get, that feeling of validation, that's not the validation that's going to sustain itself through the long arc of the journey. And I'm all about celebrating those wins when they happen, but also realizing that that's not the foundation of it all, because there's going to be up times, there's going to be down times, and the thing that's going to get you through has to be a belief in something different. I'm also interested in artists you're attracted to. We've mentioned Ordinary Days. I love Lisa Brescia.

[37:21] Adam Gwon: Oh, gosh. One of the best human beings on the planet.

[37:24] Bobby Steggert: Anyone that knows her just knows what a truly good soul she is. And there's something about her that is beautifully introverted. Not that she's not also such a charming person amongst others, but I do wonder if you're attracted to introverted performers.

[37:39] Adam Gwon: I would say, yes. I feel like some of my favorite actors in general, and also to work with, have wound up being more introverted people. And I also feel, though I'm not sure I can articulate what it is, that there is something about my work that speaks to those kinds of performers. I feel this especially in my shows and Ordinary Days in particular. It gets done at a lot of universities, and often I'm invited out to see those productions.

[38:10] Adam Gwon: I think there's something really beautiful about the idea of solitude and connection, and how they can coexist. For me, as an introvert, I've often found that my solitude has been a source of strength. It allows me to reflect and to create, but it also makes me crave connection. I think a lot of artists feel that tension, where we need that time alone to recharge, but we also want to share our work and our experiences with others.

[39:03] Adam Gwon: I remember when I was younger, I would spend hours just writing and drawing in my room. That was my safe space, and it was where I felt most comfortable expressing myself. But at the same time, I always wanted to share those creations with friends and family. It was this push and pull between wanting to be alone and wanting to connect.

[39:58] Adam Gwon: As I grew older, I realized that my introversion wasn't a barrier to connection; it was actually a tool. It helped me to listen more deeply and to understand the emotions of others, which is crucial in storytelling. My experiences of solitude have informed my work, allowing me to explore themes of longing and connection in my music.

[40:53] Adam Gwon: I think the challenge is finding the balance. There are times when I feel overwhelmed by social situations, and I need to retreat to recharge. But then there are moments when I feel inspired by the people around me, and I want to engage and share. It's a constant negotiation between those two parts of myself.

[41:48] Adam Gwon: I often find that the most meaningful connections come from vulnerability. When I allow myself to be open about my introversion and my struggles, it creates a space for others to do the same. That’s where true connection happens, and it’s incredibly rewarding.

[42:43] Adam Gwon: I think a lot of artists grapple with this idea of being seen versus being hidden. We want to share our work, but we also fear being exposed. It’s a delicate dance, and I’m still figuring it out. But I believe that by embracing both our introverted and extroverted sides, we can create something beautiful.

[43:38] Adam Gwon: I wrote a song that touches on these themes of solitude and connection. It’s about the places we dream of and the people we wish to share them with. It reflects that longing for connection while also acknowledging the beauty of solitude.

[44:33] ♪ Musical number: "Favorite Places" — performed by Adam Gwon ♪

[46:53] Adam Gwon: That song really encapsulates my journey as an introvert and an artist. It’s about the places we imagine and the connections we seek, even when they feel just out of reach.