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[0:00] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's the Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:09] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to the Roundtable, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon and you're listening to us on Broadway World, the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeart, Spotify, wherever artists are talking about art. And today we have an artist who has created their own show. It's coming to the SoHo Playhouse, one of my favorite places to see shows. It's been literally international. She is an international superstar. How about that? Are you ready, everybody? I love this topic because Bride to Be, which was at Edinburgh Fringe, which is coming on November 6th and 7th. You can go to SoHoPlayhouse.com. Bride to Be. I've been married twice. And one wedding there was a bride and one wedding there was just two grooms.

And one was more fun than the other. And I'm going to tell our guests all about it because Meg is here. What is she a bride? Does she want to be a bride? What does she think about being a bride? Why did she write this show? I have so many questions for Meg. Meg, welcome to the Roundtable.

[1:03] Meg Millane: I'm so happy to be here. I have so many questions for you, too.

[1:10] Robert Bannon: Meg, where are you from in the world?

[1:13] Meg Millane: In the world? I am from the Midwest. I am from the great state of Iowa, if you've heard of it.

[1:21] Robert Bannon: It's like the corn place.

[1:23] Meg Millane: That is it. And that is all it is.

[1:27] Robert Bannon: When did you leave Iowa? Did you go back there?

[1:31] Meg Millane: My family still lives there. So I'll go back to like visit them once in a blue moon. But yeah, I moved out when I was 18. So I feel like I have to prep this with that. Because anytime, obviously, I've been in New York now for 11 years. And whenever people find out I'm from Iowa, they're always like, are you okay?

[1:54] Meg Millane: I think it sounds cute. Iowa sounds cute. You know, I moved to the Midwest. Now, I mean, I'm in Detroit, so I'm not in, you know, Kentucky or Midwest. But you know what I'm saying? I moved from New York to Detroit. The Midwest has a whole certain type of vibe. Like they say weird things and they are slower than New York and New Jersey area. It's they're friendly in an interesting cultish kind of way. It's very it's unique.

[2:24] Meg Millane: It is unique. Yes, that is so fun. So when you moved to New York, was your intentions always to be a comedian and an actress?

[2:33] Meg Millane: No, I. Well, OK, not a comedian. I moved to New York. So I went to school, actually, in Oklahoma, which also sounds just as bad as Iowa. But OK. Oh, my God. This whole thing is just me shitting on the Midwest. No, these are my people for them. I love court. I really do. I know I went to school in Oklahoma. I was a dance major. So, yes, I wanted to dance. I wanted to do like chorus line type stuff or Broadway rocket. That was kind of my dream for a long time. I'm quite tall, which you can't really tell as I'm sitting down behind me. So I know you probably are. You don't know. But I am. I'm quite tall. And so that was always like showgirl was my dream. That type of aesthetic. And I slowly throughout my time living in the city kind of started dreaming bigger, dreaming different and learning that there's other things you can do in performing that isn't just that one vision that I had, which was actually my first solo show, which was called How to Give Up on Your Dream. Stay tuned. There might be a revival in twenty twenty seven. But that was yeah, that's how I got my start. So I always wanted to perform, but I was a dancer.

[4:03] Robert Bannon: So when was the moment where you were like, I think I have a soul? See, because I love solo shows and I'm really fascinated by solo shows that are not like sing, like you're up on stage talking and it's like stand up slash play slash therapy session slash X, Y, all of the above. It takes a lot of chutzpah and courage to do this. What what gave you the first idea to write this first show?

[4:28] Meg Millane: What gave me the audacity? Right. So like I said, I was dancing, I was auditioning, I was doing like regional contracts and stuff in the dance world. And it just wasn't feeling like it was it. I did like improv and sketch classes just for fun. And I also didn't feel like that was it. And then I started to stay on all female stand up class. And that was maybe the first time I was like, wait, there's something here. Like I'm really having fun telling story and being funny and energetic and finding my own voice for the first time. So that was the first time I thought there might be something here. But that was famously February 2020. So after that, I kind of put that on the bookshelf, if you will, let that simmer for a little bit. But plans dried up when March came around.

[5:31] Meg Millane: Dried up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But I yeah, I just I throughout the pandemic, I started kind of shifting out of dance and doing more writing of my own. And I liked stand up the most out of all of the comedy things I had tried. I guess improv terrified me, especially being a dancer. I was like, what do you mean? What are my steps? Where's my elbow supposed to be? I'm just supposed to go on stage and make it up. So it probably did not get along. But I yeah, I really connected with stand up. I found a really amazing mentor who I'm still with to this day and probably would not be doing this if I didn't find Christy Summers. And she is an amazing, very bubbly stand up comedian and comedy coach.

And I was through her that I was like, oh, maybe stand ups don't have to just be straight white men. Like we can be energetic and bubbly and girly and fun. And it was that I think just getting more involved in the comedy world. And I think I met a few people. I forget the first time I heard what a solo show was, but I was like that. That is what I want to do because it combines theater and stand up and all of these different elements. I can dance in it if I want to. I can kind of mush it all together. Yeah, that's that was a very long answer.

[7:08] Robert Bannon: No, I loved it. This is why you're here. You're supposed to talk. And then so what what makes that so great is that you write it. It's one thing to write it. It's one thing to have a coach. It's one thing to go through the process. But then it's another thing to get it up and out and to go to a French fest. Now, I don't know much about I mean, I talk to a lot of people who do French shows. I do talk to a lot of people who go to Soho Playhouse from their French show. How do you get a show that you have to like submit it? Do you just show up there in a van and perform it on the side of the road? Did you have big audiences where there's sometimes only one person there? Like I've heard all of these different various tales of the Fringe Festival experience.

[7:47] Meg Millane: The Fringe Festival is a wild ride. It's honestly like the most work I've ever done and the most stressful thing I've ever done, but also the most fun and the most rewarding thing I've ever done. So it's someone told me this and it's such an annoying answer, but it really is what you make of it. Some people will bring really big cast and they'll stay for the whole month in Scotland and have a completely different experience. I only went for two weeks and brought myself and was at like a cute little theater and my audiences were pretty great. I mean, I felt like I actually had a crowd for all of my shows, which was nice. Again, why I like doing two weeks when you do the whole month. There's going to be some where there's splatterings of people.

But yeah, you definitely it's really fun, especially as a solo artist, to be able to do, you know, a longer run of the show. A lot of times doing it for other festivals. I've done the New York Festival and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and they're both great. But it's like, you know, four shows you're in for a weekend and then you're out. So it was really cool to be able to do it night after night after night and exhausting. But it was really fun and it felt like a very fun learning opportunity to see how certain audiences reacted to certain parts of the show and what resonated more with an international crowd versus an American crowd versus a younger crowd and a less young crowd and a more conservative.

Now less conservative. There's certain jokes at the top where I'm like, oh, it's going to go this way. And each audience has its own personality. It comes you feel it as a performer. It hits you like you as a different vibe.

[9:49] Robert Bannon: So this show. What is the show? What is it about? Tell me this show.

[9:57] Meg Millane: This show is called Bride to Be. It is all about kind of the cultural baggage of saying I do of getting married and everything that goes into it. I talk a lot about the history of marriage. And is that really fascinated me as a straight woman? You know, and I wish it could have been grouped by a drag queen. I always say, you know, because it's a hard life. It's a hard life having to know who Bill Belichick is. And I don't know if you know, but it's rough. It's rough out there. But you have to deal with men.

[10:34] Meg Millane: You have to deal with men. Exactly. And I don't know. Men kind of stink like physically and emotionally. They stink. Yeah. It's a lot. And also the patriarchy is it's a tough one.

[10:49] Robert Bannon: Well, they're very self-serving. They've been never had to really.

[10:55] Meg Millane: The patriarchy and men.

[10:57] Robert Bannon: Men.

[10:59] Meg Millane: I feel you, Meg. I'm married. I have a great husband. But men.

[11:04] Robert Bannon: But men.

[11:06] Meg Millane: They can be tough to deal with for sure.

[11:08] Robert Bannon: For sure.

[11:09] Meg Millane: And they're not always very emotionally mature. My husband is. But like men, like I think especially straight men.

[11:14] Robert Bannon: Oh, that's terrible, Meg. You should really date a gay man. It's way better.

[11:17] Meg Millane: Oh, I have. Don't worry.

[11:21] Robert Bannon: Oh, Meg. Why do you feel? You're not married. Are you married? Did it.

[11:26] Meg Millane: I married a man. Yes.

[11:34] Meg Millane: Is Bill Belichick, he watches football? He loves football, which is totally fine. I'm happy he has his hobbies, but I don't know. I think that throughout the show and throughout kind of our whole relationship together too, it's about like defining what commitment and what, you know, marriage means to you. And for me, it is about being a teammate and seeing each other as equals. And I don't know, I just found it very interesting the history of marriage, especially, I kind of wrote the show leading up to my wedding and then after my wedding of like, the whole institution of marriage was really built around the ownership of women and procreation. And if a woman couldn't produce a child, her husband could just like send her back, give her away.

Return her with a receipt. Yeah, literally return her. And then meanwhile, the men were allowed to have mistresses and concubines. And a lot of them had teenage male lovers, gay, and wasn't allowed, but they could. And so a lot of it was very contradiction, contradicting or like, you know, selling off their daughters for political power or land. And I don't know, I just found it very sad, but humorous how that's how marriage started. And today on the other end of the spectrum, we have, you know, married at first sight.

[13:11] Robert Bannon: That's my show. Don't come for my show, Meg. I loved every reality dating show, marriage show, but how did we get from point A to point B? And it's kind of fascinating how we got there. And yeah. You know, in my two cents, which you didn't ask for it, but I'm going to give them to you anyway. Marriage used to be, as the police are rolling on by, but don't mind us. That's just life here in the big old city. I feel like people used to take it very seriously. Divorce was very taboo and it was the patriarchy and family and arranged marriages and this. And now marriages are like, people look at them as very temporary and not a big deal. You'll go on TV. I'll marry you. I've never met you before. I'm on my third or fourth marriage.

And I don't feel that way in my house. Me and my husband got married. You know, like, we're not the stereotypical gays. Like, we're like, it's me and you versus the world. And we are going to be partners in this, physically partners in a home and in a house, but emotionally and also in life. Like, we are just, that's my person. So there's a lot of muckety-muck that comes along with the word wedding and a bride and a marriage, because you're at the David's Bridal and a baby shower, bridal shower, muckety-muck, families get all hooped up and whooped up into it. And then what happens when it's all over and you put the dress off and now you're like, oh shit, it's you and me. That's real.

[14:43] Meg Millane: Yeah, and- Sorry for my long answer. You get it, but it is. And a lot of people get, especially like in the last 50 years or so, have gotten really swept up in the, you know, capitalistic idea of what marriage is and do they actually want a marriage or do they want a wedding? Do you want a party or a marriage is a whole different thing. Yes, and guess what? You can also want both. I love a party. I do, and I love a wedding. I love weddings. So yeah, it's about that. And I just think I was, when I was getting married, I'm in my thirties and it was like, at that time, I felt like all of my friends were either just married or just engaged. And so we were all going through it together. And I found it such an interesting, I guess, like point in your life and you don't understand it really until you're in it. And then it's over and you're just like, well, that was weird. Like, I guess we'll just live happily ever after, so.

[15:52] Robert Bannon: Where'd you get married?

[15:53] Meg Millane: We got married in Cape Cod.

[15:56] Robert Bannon: Oh, beautiful. And is your husband in show business?

[16:02] Meg Millane: No.

[16:02] Robert Bannon: Oh, that's even more beautiful. And does he like the show? Is he supportive? Has he seen it?

[16:06] Meg Millane: Oh my God, yes. He is like, he is where very much opposites attract, which is what I always kind of gravitated towards and wanted in a partner. I want all of the limelight on me. I want to be the star. I want him to hold my bag in the background. And before we met, I don't think this man had ever seen any sort of staged production. And has become just such a stage partner, like is just so happy, loves all the festivals, loves like going to Edinburgh. He came with me this year again. He'll like, as much as he can step away from work, he'll try to see me when I'm like on tour. And it's gotten to the point where like, this was my second time in Edinburgh and he came this time as well. But he'll like make friends with the other performers at the venue.

And I remember one time I was like, do you want to go get dinner or something? He's like, I really need to see this person's show. Last week, we became friends when we were like flyering on the street. So I actually really have to go, but you have fun or you can come to the show with me. I'm like, oh, did I want to create, but in a beautiful way. You created a show pony and that's it. Maybe next year he'll have his show about being married to you and it'll be a big giant hit as well.

[17:39] Robert Bannon: I love that so much. I love this idea. I think it sounds like the most fun evening because like I said, if you're somebody who's home watching dating reality shows, watching wedding shows, I loved all of them through that. I loved to see us in dress. Four weddings was my jam because we all judge each other's weddings. Even if we say we don't, we totally do. So these things, and then the idea of marriage and how it's evolved and changed plus the history and what it means today, Meg's got you covered. Who do you hope comes?

[18:07] Meg Millane: Married people, people who want to be married, people getting married. I mean, this sounds like my sister's getting married next year. I got to take her to this show. Like this is the show to see. If you're like in the process of planning a wedding or you just planned a wedding specifically, there are certain things that you're like gonna feel in your soul. You're also ridiculously expensive. Like it's one of the dumbest financial decisions of your life to have a big wedding. It's so funny. One of my really dear friends had, she directed my last show and she was like, you know, she directed my last show and she obviously had seen this show and I have a joke in it about like, what do you mean it costs extra if I want the cake cut?

And it's true, but she had seen the show how many of her times, whatever, in the last year and a half of me working on this, she's gotten engaged and started planning her wedding and she just messaged me one day and she was like, the cake cutting part really, really hits differently these days. And I was like, I'm sorry, girl. It's true. I hear you. We went to see a venue we really wanted to get married at and they would have to put a tent outside and they told us that it would be $20,000 for a floor. I said, what? A floor? Yeah, if you would like to not stand on grass in the tent, to have a floor is $20,000. I said, do you not put the floor down and just keep it for all the weddings? No, we take it up and then we put it down for the next wedding. Is this real life? It is. So Meg's got you covered.

[19:51] Robert Bannon: So Meg, besides this, we could follow you on Instagram. I'm following you. I clicked, I'm following you right this second. And you are a writer now. You're a performer now. So we expect, are there new ideas, other ideas, other things percolating, formulating in your head?

[20:05] Meg Millane: Yes. Oh my God, always. I do have, I want to do a revival of my first show because I haven't touched it in a while. And I feel like I just have new ideas and want to kind of revive that in the new year. And then I want to work on my first play, which is going to be fun. And I have a lot of ideas. It's going to kind of talk about faith and mental illness. And it's going to be a dark comedy, a little bit more serious than this one. It's going to be all glitter, all sparkles, all fun. So if that's your vibe, come see this one. Your next one, Midwestern religious, scary, dark comedy.

[20:51] Robert Bannon: Sounds perfect. Meg, everybody, is somebody that you need to watch out for and be ready. You can go to sohoplayhouse.com. You can see her. She's going to be in Philly. Are you going to be in Philly or you were in Philly? Or you're going to be in Philly.

[21:03] Meg Millane: I was just in Philly last month.

[21:04] Robert Bannon: Philly, you missed her. So where were you? But you were there, I'm sure. It was an award-winning five-star run of Bride to Be. It comes from Edinburgh. It's touring like it was in Philly. And it's going to be here on November 6th and 7th. You only have two nights to be able to check it out. And then we'll see what happens from there because I'm sure people are going to love the show and they're going to want to see more of it. And then Meg's going to write more shows and then have more things going on. And then TV show's going to pick her up. Then there's going to be Bride to Be TV show that she's going to star in. And then it's going to lead to a film career. And then, you know what's going to happen, everybody. I just, that's it. This is the, I get it. I know what's happening.

[21:38] Meg Millane: I think what needs to happen is I think that we need to make our own reality show that's some sort of like wedding. I don't know what it is, but I see this from-

[21:46] Robert Bannon: Can we go to people's weddings? Can we assist in a wedding? Like, did you ever watch David Tutera where he does his, like he's a wedding planner and he plans people's weddings? And then he had a celebrity wedding show, which is probably on Netflix, which was really badly great. And I'm in. I think we should show up and we will fix your broken wedding.

[22:04] Meg Millane: Yeah, yeah, that's it. We might break it more. So you come with the support for the ladies so that they don't fall into the trap of patriarchy and tell them to man up to your husband. And I will eat the food. That's my favorite part.

[22:21] Robert Bannon: Yes, yes. And the dance floor is for both of us. Oh no, and you can dance obviously better than me. I can do the electric slide.

[22:31] Meg Millane: Yeah.

[22:31] Robert Bannon: Do you like shuffle off to Buffalo? Like you're a tap dancer? Jazz, what do you do?

[22:36] Meg Millane: I do pop jazz. There's some dancing, there's some dance breaks in Friday to be too. I should have mentioned that.