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

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: Are we getting stupider? I ask that to get your attention, I suppose, but also to really ask the question. And according to social scientists, there are many studies accumulating in the past couple of decades that point to some disturbing results. One of my reading obsessions is about the rapid changes in information technology that are transforming our brains and our bodies at a rate that is hard to measure, let alone understand. But what we do know is that the way we now process and share information is greatly diminishing our capacities for critical thinking, holding nuance and complexity in our worldviews, and having meaningful and respectful dialogue. I imagine I don't even have to share an example for these truths to resonate with you immediately.

Two books that have been really influential to me are The Shallows by Nicholas Carr and Stolen Focus by Johan Hari. In the latter, he even discusses how smartphones and a shift in parenting styles have robbed children not only of the boredom from which creativity springs, but from building social and problem-solving skills with other humans in the real world. So in all these ways, yes, we are less smart than we used to be. The timing for today's episode feels especially fortunate. We could use some smarts these days, some wisdom, some plain truth. And all of these gifts emanate from my guest, Mary Testa. Mary is the kind of icon that every serious theater person knows and is in a little bit of awe of.

She says that she's not a star and that she's grateful for the wide range of incredible work she's gotten to do over the past five decades. I beg to differ. She is one of our community's greatest stars, and there's this indelible and uncompromising quality to every one of her performances. She's also one of the very few musical theater actors for whom composers still write shows for. A young William Finn snagged Mary up and never let her go, while Michael John LaChiusa, for whom I did Giant more recently, has written multiple roles for Mary, some still to come. We've explored intellect on the show before, and Mary has tons of it. But I would also translate her smart part into street smarts, intuition, self-trust, instinct, and the ability to hold one's own without being swayed by undue influence.

Her smarts are ones that seem to have always guided her without the pesky influence of doubt that so many of us contend with daily. And I have to say that by the end of this interview, I felt a little bolder and braver just being in her presence. I think you will, too. It's been a crazy few months, right? So let's let Mary's wisdom teach us something about how to be smart and how to live clearly in an uncertain world.

[3:28] Bobby Steggert: So happy you're here.

[3:29] Mary Testa: I'm thrilled to be here.

[3:31] Bobby Steggert: Thank you. And I have to just keep myself from telling you how great you've been in every show I've ever seen you do. So I will not do that.

[3:37] Mary Testa: Oh, my goodness. No, you can do that. That's very nice.

[3:39] Bobby Steggert: You'd be okay with that?

[3:41] Mary Testa: Yeah, I'd be fine with that. It's all good. Thank you. That's very nice of you to say.

[3:46] Bobby Steggert: I think I was in the only Michael John show that you were not in, which was Giant.

[3:51] Mary Testa: Oh, I loved Giant. I thought, well, I love everything he does. But so I'm biased. I just think he is incredibly special. And I love Giant. I thought it dealt with that. What was it like a 25 year span? I thought it dealt with it so beautifully and seamlessly. I really enjoyed it.

[4:10] Bobby Steggert: I like Michael Greif's direction on that one.

[4:13] Mary Testa: Me too. And I never met Michael John, but he was such a pleasure. I know he's one of your greatest friends.

[4:18] Bobby Steggert: I count myself very lucky that I get to work on his stuff because it's immensely satisfying as a singer and an actor.

[4:25] Mary Testa: Yeah, it's so full-blooded.

[4:27] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, absolutely. We're both Italian. And we get each other. We're both totally Italian. We get each other in that way. And I've yelled about this before. I think Italians are not celebrated as much as they should be. I really don't. Everybody's got a thing now. And rightfully so. But Italians have been shit on for years. Imagery, all of that stuff. I'm always happy to collaborate with an eye tie.

[4:53] Bobby Steggert: What's the strength of an Italian person or family or community, do you think?

[4:58] Mary Testa: Italians are incredible artists. All of the marble and stonework you see that's old has been done by Italians here in New York. They're amazing artists and they have the souls of artists. Really, pretty much everybody that's Italian does. It's very true. And not everybody, but a lot of people were big in emotion and expression and all of that stuff. And I love that. I cherish that. I'd like to see Italians more celebrated. I have that in common with him as well.

[5:27] Bobby Steggert: That's really cool. So tell me about the part you want to share.

[5:31] Mary Testa: The smart part, I think it's because I consider myself a very smart person. And that is not always taken with adoration. It can be taken with a little bit of gimlet eye. I find that it's very interesting to maneuver. And the older I'm getting, the more I'm realizing you don't need to say anything right here. There are times when I'm in a room and I feel like someone has done something that I don't think it's very smart. And I will be the person to say it out loud. This isn't cool. And then people will come up to me after and say, Oh my God, you said exactly what I was thinking. Thank you so much. I've been in that situation pretty much my whole life, but now I'm starting to realize, you know what? You don't need shit. Just be quiet. You don't need to say anything right here. And it's interesting. It's a new thing for me.

[6:19] Bobby Steggert: So you've never been afraid of your intelligence or felt like you did to hide it in any way.

[6:25] Mary Testa: No. And as a woman, very interestingly enough, I used that intelligence, like my whole growing up, like I never really learned the art of being a flirty girl. My intelligence or my mindset was that I looked at everyone as an equal. And I was very often that wasn't the case.

[6:51] Bobby Steggert: Tell me about growing up. So was intelligence and your smartness celebrated in your family?

[6:56] Mary Testa: Yes. Yes. Very much. My family, my dad was very smart. My mother was smart. My sister's incredibly smart. Yes. It was a given. It was just a given.

[7:06] Bobby Steggert: And how did that manifest in terms of conversation, in terms of how you shared?

[7:10] Mary Testa: We still have the same familial problems that every family has. So it's not like we were able to sit around the table and talk as adults. It's just that that was just a given in the household. And I'm not trying to sound snotty. It's not like, oh, my IQ is. It's not that like a smartness of character, a smartness of understanding stuff. That's what I mean.

[7:33] Bobby Steggert: So I don't mean to sound like above. That's not what I'm really talking about.

[7:38] Mary Testa: No, this feels like ownership, not superiority.

[7:42] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[7:42] Mary Testa: What about education? Because there's so many ways to be smart. And tell me about your journey into being a performer. And was it formal? Was it informal?

[7:50] Mary Testa: I never really thought about it until I was a teenager. And then I decided to become an actor. But I did the manning route. My formative years, though, were in Catholic school, grade one through eight. And that's what made me the person that I am today, because I had a really, as most people I know went to Catholic school in my age frame with nuns and things like that. We have stories. We were either the hero or the villain in the eyes of the nuns.

[8:18] Bobby Steggert: I just think of physical discipline. Was that part of it?

[8:22] Mary Testa: No, but there was threats and there was mental bullshit and there was a lot of stuff that was formative. For me, it made me the type of person that doesn't really think anybody will have my back. It's just I have to fight my own battles kind of thing. Because my parents, when I would tell them, and this is an old thing, I've worked through this a long time ago, but I come home every day with stories of these horrific things. And they thought it was a really great education. They didn't really believe me until I was in the sixth grade. So the damage had been done.

[8:56] Bobby Steggert: What were they doing?

[8:57] Mary Testa: Oh, they were horrible. Oh, they would threaten me. And also because I went to, and this was a particular timeframe too, I went to school with mostly Irish girls and the nuns were mostly Irish. So they looked down upon me because I was Italian. You know what I'm saying? So it was because I was a straight A student basically, except for conduct, I went through a lot of stuff with them. They would threaten me. The first time I went into school, the principal said she was going to hit me. And I remember my mother saying, if somebody hits you, you hit them back. So I said, you touch me, I'm going to hit you back. And so it started from there. That was like first grade. Then it went eight years. So it was a lot of formative stuff. And it was a lot of stuff that created different responses in me, which how many years later, 60 something years later, I am still processing and realizing, but it was formative.

[9:55] Bobby Steggert: And so your mother encouraged you never to back down when intimidated.

[9:58] Mary Testa: Yeah, my mother did really. She did. And my father did too. Although, yeah, my father did too in his way. But anyway, that was Catholic school. Then I went to high school. And during high school, I started to get artistic sensed and then went to college and majored in theater for two years and then quit, moved to New York and started working.

[10:19] Bobby Steggert: So in terms of artistic training, was your intelligence, was your boldness embraced as a young person?

[10:28] Mary Testa: In certain circles, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I had a real disparate group of friends too who are all kinds of things. I wasn't your typical high school girl cheerleading major at football games. I wasn't that type of kid. So I was more into different weird things and interesting books and stuff like that. But I'm like a particular timeframe too. Although I think schools now still with the cheerleading and the football and the people that stay where they are and then they stay like that for the rest of their lives. And then the weird people like myself don't really always have a great time in high school because you don't really, you don't really fit in. And then it's later on that you start to thrive.

[11:09] Bobby Steggert: What was it about not knowing how to flirt that was specific to that time? I'm sure you saw other girls playing into gender roles that you just chose not to.

[11:20] Mary Testa: It's all like familial stuff. It was my mother and my mother was a real girly girl. And I don't really know why, but I think I had to, and I'm figuring this out now and my mother's gone. Both my parents are gone. I'm figuring this stuff out now. And I've done therapy a few times as well, is that I felt like I had to protect my mother and to do so I couldn't be a threat to her.

[11:44] Bobby Steggert: Say more, this is really interesting.

[11:46] Mary Testa: Yeah, I think so. This has just come to me recently. Like instead of being a full blown woman, sexually letting it loose, being a teenager, letting it loose, I felt like my mother wouldn't have been able to handle that. And so I became a more masculine presence for her.

[12:05] Bobby Steggert: That was something that she was more comfortable with?

[12:08] Mary Testa: I think so. Because I'm like, why was I, why? Because I'm starting to question that. I have a picture from like one of those student outings, really hilarious. One of those high school things where you go to a place in the woods, you're there for several days and there's hiking and canoeing, that kind of stuff. And there was this guy that ran the sort of events and I can't remember where we went. And his name was Cuckoo, right? It was just this guy with a weird hat, real character, entertainment for the camp kind of thing. And there's a picture of me talking to Cuckoo, right? And I am looking at him and he is looking at my chest. But I'm looking at him having a conversation, probably asking how they do things or whatever. And it's hilarious. It's like all this stuff is coming. I'm working through all this stuff by day.

[13:03] Bobby Steggert: And so what would have been threatening to your mom to be more feminine? Why do you think that would have been threatening to her?

[13:12] Mary Testa: Because my mother had to be the prettiest and the most cherished.

[13:18] Mary Testa: I see, you didn't want to be in competition with her. That's exactly right. I had to be the son. And so I was her confidant in many ways, which wasn't really appropriate. It was like not a thing I needed to know, some things I didn't need to know about. Yeah. And it's all kind of dawning on me now, which is interesting, that my mother's been gone, like, I don't know, 14 years, and I'm a certain age. And like, all of a sudden, I'm very, I'm very happy. I'm not like, why am I performing? Why am I acting this way? Because I want to fix. I'm very happy with my life. It's just this is dawning on me now, which I find interesting. In terms of smartness, it seems like you had a really high emotional IQ as a young person. You understood what she needed.

[14:06] Bobby Steggert: I think so. I think so. I think so. Yes. Where was your dad in the picture?

[14:11] Mary Testa: My dad traveled a lot because he was a businessman. He was an engineer. And the company workforce sent him out traveling. So he was gone a lot. And that's the other wonderful thing that my mother taught me was to be okay alone, because she didn't freak out. You know what I mean? When he was gone, sometimes three, four nights a week, and traveling a lot. My father adored my mother. So it wasn't like she was worried about him having a little extra. That wasn't even a part of it. But he was gone a lot. So she had to function and be. And she also worked and stuff. Yeah. And my dad and I were very much alike. So we would fight. And then she would tell me stuff about him. And I would stick up for her with him. And now I realize my dad did not deserve any of that.

[14:56] Bobby Steggert: He was asking you to join her team in terms of their conflicts?

[15:02] Mary Testa: She was informing me of her frustrations. So that was something I should have never been privy to as a daughter. And so I would then take it out on my dad. When he would come back, I would be her army. And my dad didn't deserve it. And it took me a long time to realize that I loved my mother and dad fiercely, both of them. But I was like my father. So we fought when we could be loud. So we fought a lot. We skirmished a lot. And he also thought like, when I was with my ex-partner, my dad said about him, Oh, I hope he's got, I hope he's a strong person. Or I hope he can deal with somebody like you kind of thing. His opinions about me as well. Come from a Catholic family. My dad had seven siblings, huge Roman Catholic family, a lot of boisterous sharing, a lot of sort of playful conflict. And it sounds like there is something similar in your family culture.

[15:59] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, but a huge family. My dad came from nine and my mother came from eight. So the family was enormous. I, however, was never really close to any of them. A couple of my aunts I was, but I was always like, I didn't dive headfirst into familial life with my outside family, just my inside family. Yeah. Interesting. What was expected of you in terms of your future?

[16:27] Mary Testa: Of my family, my immediate mother and father? Yeah. In terms of education or profession. They were immensely proud of me. Immensely proud. My dad was a little reticent at first for me going to New York and being an actor, but they saw every single thing and they were immensely proud. I think my dad really wanted me to sing a national anthem at a baseball game, which never happened. That would have been success.

[16:59] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back. One of my favorite things about seeing you perform is that it just seems whether it's true or not, that there's not an ounce of fear in you. And if you think about coming to New York in your early years, was that true then?

[17:10] Mary Testa: Yes, I've always been this way. However, I did have to learn lessons when I came here. I lived in Rhode Island and when I went to college, I lived off campus in Kingston, North Kingston, which is near the beaches. What I didn't know from New York. I just moved to New York when I was 21 and I had to learn lessons, but luckily, and this is the smart part, ladies and gentlemen, I learned lesson about trusting and street in one lesson. I had just moved into my apartment, my doorbell rang and I looked in the thing and it was a man I'd never seen before. And he said, I'm your neighbor and I live above you. And I had to take my girlfriend to the hospital and I don't have any money to take a cab. And I had literally $20.

That's all I had. That's all I had. And I got the 20 and I handed this guy, opened the door and I handed this guy 20 and I shut the door and went, I'll never see that 20. That was a scam. I was just bought, but luckily I wasn't killed. He didn't come into my apartment. He didn't break through the door. He didn't push his way in. He didn't rape me. Didn't kill me. Didn't any of that stuff. So lesson learned. And after that, I wised up to the ways of New York.

[18:40] Bobby Steggert: It didn't occur to you until that moment that people would try to take advantage of you?

[18:44] Mary Testa: No, because I was from Rhode Island and that didn't happen. Just people didn't do that. You know, not where I was. Nobody did that. And I gave him my last 20. So I had a lot of lessons learned in that one event, but I became savvy after that. And that was like early. Wised up. What were your early career days like?

[19:08] Mary Testa: My early career days were working with Bill Finn on In Trousers. I was a waitress at the U.S. Steakhouse, which was in the Time Life building on the first floor. It was a union job, which I happened to get because I was the cashier there first. So this is early 76, 77, I moved to New York in 76. We did In Trousers in 78. We worked, we just got together with Bill and sang music, me, Alison Frazier, and a woman named Kay Pesick. And we just started working on various and sundry songs at Bill's house. So we'd have to go whenever we could. My working schedule was during the day, but then we got In Trousers and we had to rehearse at midnight, midnight to three in the morning for the first workshop of it because I was working, Alison was working, and our schedules didn't allow us to rehearse at a normal time. So that was, my early days was working on In Trousers, what turned out to be In Trousers, and working as a waitress.

[20:08] Bobby Steggert: I would have to assume that one part of your smartness was finding the right people to give your energy to.

[20:15] Mary Testa: Here's what I've realized. I think, yes, but I didn't realize the full extent of that until like right now. Right now. I'm really understanding that because show business is so slippery sometimes. And you can feel like so small sometimes when you see things on social media and you can feel left out and you can feel like you're comparing yourself to someone and all of that stuff. And I am guilty of it just as much as anyone who is a performer, because it's just what happens. But I'm realizing, and I've said it a million times in various interviews and all kinds of stuff, that I realize now that as long as I am working on things that I love with people I love, then I am golden. But also, I'm at a stage in my life where I'm collecting my pensions, so I don't have to worry about, it's different when you're in your 30s and you have to make a living in your 40s. So the great present of that for me is that I realize that fully now, and I live in it, and it's so gratifying.

[21:30] Bobby Steggert: You work with Bill Finn in your 20s. Did you realize that he was a fundamental partner to you?

[21:35] Mary Testa: Oh, I knew that from the beginning. No, I knew that. You did? Yeah. How did you know?

[21:42] Mary Testa: Because his music would move me, and it would hit me in my gut, and I would realize that his resonance is exactly what I love. I knew that. I met him when I was 19. I actually did a show of his when I was 19 in school. We were in school. That's how I met him. So if somebody plays me music and it hits me in the gut, I can't really explain it, then that's the person for me. It's why I saw Illinois five times, because I had never heard that album before.

[22:07] Bobby Steggert: Oh, you hadn't?

[22:08] Mary Testa: No. I was a Leon Russell girl, growing up a Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, like in that range, and I had never heard Sufjan Stevens. I didn't know him. So I think that was my awakening. That's why I went five times, because the music to me was glorious, and the singers, it would just touch me. I would cry every time I'd go. I had so many people tell me, oh, I didn't like that show. No, I didn't like that show. I'm like, I'm sorry. I went five times and cried every single time. Okay, whatever. To each their own.

[22:43] Bobby Steggert: Yes, exactly. And so how did you navigate early on the utter inconsistency of being a performer?

[22:53] Mary Testa: I said yes to everything, so that I sometimes was doing three things at once. And I was lucky enough to get agents and stuff. I didn't really have to work. It just happened for me. So that was luck. And I worked on a bunch of stuff, and I did a bunch of things that I just said yes. I just knew with the stuff that I started auditioning for that I was up against 40-year-olds for roles, and I was 20 or 21, 22. So I knew that when I hit my 40s, it would get a whole lot easier for me, which it did. But in the meantime, I said yes to everything, and I did a lot of different stuff. So I did a lot of concert work during the 80s, and then I did a whole bunch of stuff. So there was always something to do.

[23:36] Mary Testa: I have said to students before, I liken my life almost to the old Popeye cartoons when Olive Oil is walking through construction sites sleepwalking.

[23:44] Bobby Steggert: No, describe it.

[23:50] Mary Testa: Okay. Do you remember the old—you're too young, probably—

[23:53] Bobby Steggert: No, I remember the muscles after eating spinach.

[23:57] Mary Testa: No, there's actual long cartoons that were—anyway. So Olive Oil is sleepwalking, and she's walking through a construction site, and she's walking on the beams, and her eyes are shut, and her arms are hanging. And she's just walking, and it looks like she's going to fall off, and another beam just comes under her foot. So she just keeps walking, sleepwalking this construction site, but she never falls down. I feel like that's how I have looked at my career, like, I'm not going to worry because I'm going to do this job, and then something else is going to come along, and I'm just going to do that job. And that's what happened, and that's exactly what happened.

[24:31] Bobby Steggert: There's a contradiction here, because if we use the metaphor of sleepwalking—

[24:35] Mary Testa: I don't mean sleepwalking that I'm sleepwalking, but she never fell.

[24:39] Bobby Steggert: What was the smartness in that decision to see it that way, that the next job would come?

[24:44] Mary Testa: Because that's putting out into the universe that the next job will come, and it does. The smartness that I knew what to focus on, that I didn't—I mean, I had panic moments, we all do, trying to pay bills and all of that stuff, but something always came, because I believed it would.

[25:00] Bobby Steggert: Was there a turning point after In Trousers that made you feel more secure in your presence as a performer in New York?

[25:07] Mary Testa: I feel like I've always felt secure in my presence as a performer. I don't think that's an issue that I tackle. Yeah. Was there a turning point in terms of the kind of work you got or the quality of work?

[25:18] Mary Testa: That first time that I dealt with art versus commerce, where I had two jobs where I had to pick, and that was the first thing. I was in the workshop for March of the Falsettos. We had done In Trousers, and we were on March of the Falsettos, and I got my first Broadway show as a swing and an understudy, a job I did not want, I did not care about, I didn't want it. But it was a Broadway show, and it paid me—at the time, I was making $75 a week doing this workshop. It paid me $400 a week, and it was the first time I said, okay, you have chosen this as a career. You have to pay bills. You have to take this Broadway show.

[26:03] Bobby Steggert: What was the show?

[26:04] Mary Testa: Barnum. I was miserable. And also, I was going into a company two weeks before they opened. No one wanted to hear from me. Who's this girl who's not skinny and is going to be in circus tights? I was coming into a company that had been together through a whole rehearsal process, and they were like, who is this? And they were so excited to open, and they were so tight, because that's what happens with a company. And I was like, I want to be doing March of the Falsettos. I don't want to be doing—I don't do circus shit. You know what I mean?

[26:35] Mary Testa: I had to learn some stuff, but it was really the most hysterical job I've ever had. I had to make that decision. So that was smart. I was like, okay. And P.S. I went with my gut and I went with my intuition. My character from *In Trousers* had no place in *March of the Falsettos*. So it worked out the way it was supposed to work out. It just was a little more painful to the way it worked out.

[27:00] Bobby Steggert: You never regretted making the decision ultimately?

[27:02] Mary Testa: Ultimately, no, because there was really no place for her. She would have been written out at some point, I would think. That saga needed to go on without that. That was an *In Trousers* thing. And then the rest was on, onward with the characters.

[27:16] Bobby Steggert: Were you ever in the version of *Falsettos* that was both together?

[27:21] Mary Testa: No, no. I was offered, this is the truth, when Lapine took over, because it was Grazi, and then Lapine took over. And there was a workshop of *Falsettos*. And Bill had originally thought he wrote the Dr. Charlotte and the other role for me and Allison. And we were like, no, I'm not going to do that. That's too small. That's what we've done. No.

[27:46] Mary Testa: And I had concert work. So I did the workshop, and then I didn't do the production or whatever it was. And yeah, we chose not to. It was offered, but we chose not to. Which turned out great for Heather McRae, because Heather McRae was sensational and gave her a whole thing. So it works out the way it's supposed to.

[28:04] Bobby Steggert: Well, one of the other things that are smart about you, in my observation, is that you just really celebrate your colleagues. And has that always been easy for you to really be supportive of your fellow colleagues?

[28:13] Mary Testa: Of course, because theater is all about the community and the collaboration. And that's why I'm not a star, and that's why I'd never be a star, because I can't do that. That's not for me. I have a good ability, but that path is not for me. It's not. I've seen other friends. I have friends who are big stars. I've seen how that works, but it's just not for me.

[28:38] Bobby Steggert: I can imagine that it's not even a consolation prize. It's a really amazing alternate path to be a star within our community.

[28:46] Mary Testa: That's really lovely. And I love that. And the respect that people give, for the most part, is really moving and wonderful. But it is a collaboration, and everybody deserves that. You know what I mean? Everybody deserves that. And there's so many incredibly brilliant people that are functioning on a daily basis. That's what it is.

[29:17] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back.

[29:20] Bobby Steggert: Was there ever a low point, if you just look at the years, was there a point where you thought, maybe I need to do something else, or this is not what I thought it would be?

[29:29] Mary Testa: No.

[29:30] Bobby Steggert: That's incredible.

[29:31] Mary Testa: No, because I won't work on stuff that taints my soul. I only work on stuff that, even when I had to make a living, I was lucky enough that I would find a variety of things to do that were satisfying and paid. I feel like I've been very lucky in that, and I also feel like that's what I am drawn to, and I realize that's what makes sense for me.

[29:54] Bobby Steggert: You're also one of those people that writers write for, and that's an enormous gift.

[29:59] Mary Testa: Well, I'm very lucky in that Michael John has written for me, and other people have as well. Yes, and then Bill. Yes, and that goes back to when we started this conversation. That's my soul place. It's really wonderful.

[30:15] Bobby Steggert: How else do you define your smart part?

[30:17] Mary Testa: This is very funny, but I'm going to say it. I'm obsessed with TikTok.

[30:21] Bobby Steggert: What?

[30:22] Mary Testa: And obsessed.

[30:23] Bobby Steggert: I've never even once been on it. Tell me about it.

[30:26] Mary Testa: I don't do it.

[30:27] Bobby Steggert: Talk to me as if I've never even heard anything about it. What is TikTok?

[30:30] Mary Testa: Okay, I just watch, but here's the thing that makes me smart, and I have so many people make fun of me for this, but I don't care. There is an incredible wealth of knowledge on TikTok. You just have to watch enough things so that it leads you to it.

[30:47] Mary Testa: There's really incredible people, and I've learned so much stuff, like life hacky, and just small things and big things from watching TikTok videos, and people make fun of me all the time, but I don't care.

[31:00] Bobby Steggert: It's a grand democracy in terms of anyone being allowed to share.

[31:04] Mary Testa: There's great people sharing. There are great people sharing.

[31:08] Bobby Steggert: Okay, so what does your algorithm give you now?

[31:11] Mary Testa: I'll get a lot of astrology stuff. I'll get scientific stuff. I get enough political stuff. Everybody's getting political stuff, but I get smart political stuff, people who have their heads screwed on straight, and then there's a lot of shopping, too, which of course I love.

[31:27] Bobby Steggert: I love shopping.

[31:28] Mary Testa: Do you mean like commercials, or what do you mean shopping?

[31:31] Mary Testa: No, they have you can buy stuff on the TikTok shop. You can buy stuff.

[31:36] Mary Testa: So I'm like the greatest proponent for TikTok, but I've learned an incredible amount. Like during the pandemic, there was all this medical advice. There were these wonderful doctors and nurses who were putting out advice.

[31:47] Mary Testa: I've just learned a ton, so that's where my smart part comes in, because I'm able to go, you know what, that's stupid, and that makes sense. I like that, and then I save the videos that I like for an archive of like handy tips or recipes, or if you've got on Medicare, if you're doing this, you've got to look at this, and you've got to look at this.

[32:07] Mary Testa: There's all these experts that go on there and talk about stuff.

[32:10] Bobby Steggert: So you are smartly curating your TikTok algorithm.

[32:14] Mary Testa: I am. I am, yes, because when I first started, it was a lot of teenage girls dancing, and it was like, no, I'm not interested in.

[32:23] Mary Testa: It's fun. There is a fair amount of dancing, and there's dancing from around the world, too, which is really interesting. There's these little soundbite dancey things that come from like Africa or come from Kenya or places like that, that like catch on as like a dancing meme that everybody learns, and that's fun, too.

[32:43] Bobby Steggert: You're thinking I'm crazy, aren't you?

[32:45] Mary Testa: It's a good thing I can see your face.

[32:46] Bobby Steggert: I'm not thinking you're crazy.

[32:47] Mary Testa: Whenever I've been exposed to it, it just overwhelms me.

[32:52] Bobby Steggert: But I've curated it.

[32:53] Mary Testa: No, I get it.

[32:54] Bobby Steggert: I hear this from other very smart people, so you're not crazy at all.

[32:57] Mary Testa: Oh, good.

[32:58] Bobby Steggert: What kind of people do you appreciate? Who do you surround yourself with?

[33:03] Mary Testa: I surround myself with people who are friends, who are like sensibilities mostly. You have to be funny and sensitive and smart and just move as in shakeries. The older I'm getting too, the more time I'm spending in solitude, which I enjoy because I'm not with anybody now.

[33:21] Bobby Steggert: Does that feel like a really conscious choice?

[33:26] Mary Testa: I think so. Nobody's coming after me.

[33:31] Mary Testa: No, I'm happy about that. I don't want any bullshit anymore.

[33:36] Mary Testa: I just don't. I don't have the time or the patience for it.

[33:40] Bobby Steggert: For putting up with other people's bullshit.

[33:43] Mary Testa: Yes.

[33:44] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[33:45] Mary Testa: I don't want to compromise. I don't want to. I did that, and I don't want to do it anymore.

[33:51] Bobby Steggert: What did compromise look like? You don't have to get too personal if you don't want to.

[33:55] Mary Testa: Oh, yeah, just relationships are just a pain in the ass. They can be wonderful, but if they're not wonderful, they can be a total drain on your person. So I don't want. Unless somebody's going to come along that's going to elevate my life in a way that's going to be fantastic, then wonderful.

[34:12] Mary Testa: Honestly, that hasn't happened. I'm okay if it doesn't.

[34:17] Bobby Steggert: That sounds smart to me, too.

[34:19] Mary Testa: Yeah, that's what I mean. That's why I chose smart part because it's not a snotty thing. I've heard from so many women that being smart has been something that they felt punished for.

[34:29] Bobby Steggert: And have you ever felt punished for your intelligence?

[34:31] Mary Testa: Absolutely. It's every woman's experience.

[34:34] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[34:35] Mary Testa: Yeah, pretty much. Every woman has either been assaulted. Pretty much every woman has been essayed. Pretty much every woman. And put down for smartness and ability and just misogyny. All that stuff is so deep. Every woman has experienced it. We are all in the same boat. Some worse than others, but yeah.

[34:54] Bobby Steggert: It seems that you just have very little patience for it, and that's a good thing.

[34:58] Mary Testa: I don't have any patience. And God, I pity somebody who at this point would try that poor person. It wouldn't be fun for them.

[35:08] Bobby Steggert: I would love to ask you about being a performer now and in the future. What are your priorities at this aspect of your career in terms of what you want to do as an artist?

[35:12] Mary Testa: I just want to keep doing work that excites me, so I don't know whatever that is. And I also really, I'm a real proponent of young talent, young-voiced writers. And there's a bunch that I love, and I just wouldn't mind working with them. I like all that stuff. I don't know. I really was focusing for a while. I really wanted a series regular.

[35:39] Mary Testa: I've done a lot of TV and mostly guest stars and recurring roles. I've done my fair amount of that, nothing that's so huge that I'd be up for an award or anything. But I've done my fair share, and I just kept saying, why can't I get a series regular? My God. So I was focusing on that for a while, and then I realized, just let it go. If it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen. You just make yourself crazy. So just go work on something that you like, which I've been doing. So that's where I'm at.

[36:11] Mary Testa: I never had a plan, ever. I've never had an eye on the prize. I just am like, go. I hit against. I liken myself to a pinball. I hit against whatever is in my path.

[36:28] Bobby Steggert: There was never a vision that you felt you had to reach?

[36:31] Mary Testa: No.

[36:32] Bobby Steggert: No.

[36:33] Mary Testa: No.

[36:34] Bobby Steggert: No.

[36:35] Mary Testa: I just didn't put that out. I didn't say, if I don't in five years get blah, blah, blah, blah. That's not how I look at the world.

[36:44] Bobby Steggert: I could assume that you just pick up the phone and just say yes or no to things. But do you have to put yourself out there at this point?

[36:50] Mary Testa: I have to audition. Half the time, I have to audition, yes.

[36:54] Mary Testa: And it's from people who I've worked with and like, are you kidding? And so sometimes I'll just go, no. I'm not going. And I hate that. I was at an audition once with a director I had worked with. And he was like, what are you going to sing from your book today? And I said, book? I don't have a book. I brought you a song. And that's what I did. I literally reacted that way. Because it's like, really? Are you kidding me?

[37:23] Mary Testa: I also auditioned for another director who had seen me do *Queen of the Mist*. Did you see *Queen of the Mist*?

[37:29] Bobby Steggert: Probably not.

[37:30] Mary Testa: Yes.

[37:31] Bobby Steggert: Yes, I did.

[37:33] Mary Testa: There you go. He had seen *Queen of the Mist*. And I had an audition with him two days later for a Sondheim musical. And he said, what are you going to sing for us? And I said, he goes, I saw you. I said, I pretty much sang everything. But okay. And so I brought one Sondheim thing with me and sang it for him. And I didn't get the job. So now I'm like, I just turned down something the other day. And I'm also really getting real choosy now. Not that I'm being offered like a million things. Don't get me wrong. But my agents will say, they want to see you for this. And I'll go, oh, this is just not good enough. No.

[38:14] Bobby Steggert: So it's nice to do that, too.

[38:17] Mary Testa: I just wish every actor could really take in this lesson from you, which is that saying no is often the only power you have. Did you ever feel like you had to make major sacrifices in order to hold strong on boundaries for yourself?

[38:33] Mary Testa: I didn't make sacrifices. I just had boundaries. I did. My first job was an understudy in a swing. Okay. And then I stood by. And then I said to my agents, that's it. We're done. No more of that. No more. Because I don't want to do that. I had a friend who yelled at me once, why aren't you in dance classes? Why would I want to be in dance classes? Because you need to be a triple threat. I said, I don't want to be in the chorus. No.

[39:00] Mary Testa: No. I guess what I mean is that because of those boundaries, did you feel you ever had to make sacrifices for your standard of living, for your comfort?

[39:10] Mary Testa: No, because I've lived in the same apartment in a rent-stabilized apartment. And I purposely stayed, although I love my apartment and I love where I live, I didn't want to make my nut higher than I needed to worry about paying bills. So I managed to work enough and keep a lifestyle enough where I didn't have to worry about that.

[39:29] Bobby Steggert: That is smart.

[39:30] Mary Testa: Exactly. Why I picked it.