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Patrick Oliver Jones:

This past month highlighted National Disability Employment Awareness to honor the contributions of workers with disabilities and promote inclusive employment policies. It's a time set aside not only to recognize the strides that have been made, but also acknowledge the barriers that still exist in workplaces, public spaces, and even in the arts. Theater has long been a reflection of society, a place where difficult truths are brought to light through story and song. And while conversations around race, gender and identity have become more central in recent years, disability often remains on the margins. But thankfully, that's starting to change, though, with artists who are not only telling these stories, but also demanding the industry itself to become more accessible and inclusive.

Abbie Goldberg:

My name is Abbie Goldberg. I'm from rural Maine and now I live in the big city of New York. I am a writer, a drag artist, a puppeteer, a dabbler in many things, but mostly a writer.

Mason McDowell:

Hey, I'm Mason McDowell. I'm from the rolling hills of upstate New York, but I live in the forgotten borough of Staten island right now. I'm a writer, I'm a pianist, a singer, songwriter, all of those things that generally run together.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Abbie and Mason are the writers behind 504 the Musical, which dramatizes a pivotal moment in disability rights history. The 1977 sit in at a federal building in San Francisco where activists spent nearly a month fighting for the rights of disabled workers. Their work brings to new life an event that helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities act, blending history, advocacy and artistry in a powerful way. And it's a reminder that theater doesn't just entertain, it can inform, inspire, and ignite change. And when it does, it becomes something far greater than anything happening on stage. I'm Patrick Oliver Jones and thank you for joining me on season nine of of why I'll Never make it, an award winning theater podcast where I talk with fellow creatives about three stories or moments of personal struggle and professional hardship. Subscribers will get additional audition stories as well as early access to the episodes. The website is why I'll never make it.com where you can subscribe, donate and learn more about the podcast.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Again, that's why I'll Never make it dot com.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, welcome Abbie and Mason. It is such a pleasure to meet both of you. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Mason McDowell:

Pleasure.

Abbie Goldberg:

Thank you. We're so excited to be here now.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

For both of you. You came to the arts in different ways and now, Abbie, you and I, we actually share this in common. My very first musical that I saw when I was a kid was Cats and That was the one that you saw up in Port? Yes. So. So this was when you were five years old, right?

Abbie Goldberg:

I was five years old. And I remember it like it was yesterday. It was just so magical seeing, like, the. The people on stage. But the. The people. But they were cats. And.

Abbie Goldberg:

And the set was incredible. I just remember, like, being totally blown away. Like, this is the most magical thing ever.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, yeah, I mean, for a five year old, I. I think I was around 10 or 11 or so, so I was a little bit older, but still.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Seeing these people in these crazy costumes prancing around on stage.

Abbie Goldberg:

Exactly. I think afterwards I was. I dressed as magical Mr. Mistoffeles for Halloween. And everyone at the preschool was like, oh, you're. You're a cat. And I was like, not just any cat.

Mason McDowell:

I am the cat.

Abbie Goldberg:

Oh, well, there never. Has there ever been a cat. So clever.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Not like Abbie. No, no, that's right.

Abbie Goldberg:

And.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And for you, Mason, you came to it a little different way. Yours is actually more of a. More of a family thing. Right? Your parents were writers.

Mason McDowell:

Exactly right. My. Both my mom and my dad are musical theater writers. My mom's done a lot of vocal arranging. She did the vocal arrangements for Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, which won the Tony in. And my dad has written a lot of musicals in Colorado, and they've written musicals together as a team as well. Husband and wife team.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

How about that?

Mason McDowell:

So my relationship and introduction to musical theater was kind of in the basement of my house. I would hear them writing and practicing, and before I ever saw it realized on a stage, I thought of musical theater as sort of an insular process, something that is dreamt up in the home and then eventually brought to the public.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, yeah. And then you find out it's a much more lengthy and collaborative process involves a lot more people.

Mason McDowell:

Oh, I learned that in due time.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now for you, what was that first musical that you saw of theirs? Because I know a lot of parents, like, you know, because of the material they write or the subject matter, sometimes their kids can't watch it. Were you watching your parents stuff early on?

Mason McDowell:

Oh, yeah, all the time. There weren't a lot of. First of all, they weren't writing stuff that was, you know, restrictive in terms of age groups. Their first musical together that I remember was an adaptation of Wind in the Willows, which is a classic story in the public domain. There's a lot of versions of Wind in the Willows, but theirs premiered at Syracuse Stage and then went on to the new Victory Theater. In the late 90s. And there are songs that still ring in my head all the time. It's not a very well known show, but it's famous to me.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, yeah, it's actually one of the. Because I remember growing up Wind in the Willows was one of those claymation series, and so I would watch that all the time with Mr. Toad and all the adventures there.

Mason McDowell:

I should send you some of the. I should send you the Mr. Toad song. It's a good one.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Oh, I'll take that. I love that. Always looking for new material. Well, let's get into the first story that we want to talk about. And the two of you have come together to write a musical. And so before we actually get into story number one, what was it that brought you two together? How did you two meet and get to know each other?

Abbie Goldberg:

We met at NYU's Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program. And I think, at least for me, I think we both knew right away. We were like, we want to write with each other. And, yeah, Mason is just an incredible talent. He's kind of a genius, I must say, it must be said. So I was just dying to write with him, and when we finally did, we were like, yeah, this fits like a glove. We really love writing together.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Mason, that is high praise.

Mason McDowell:

Absolutely. And it's reciprocal. I felt the same way listening to Abbie's material. The way that the NYU program was structured is everybody in the first year would have individual assignments where they were paired with someone else in the cohort, but we would all listen to each other's material, and it seemed week to week, no matter what the assignment, no matter who Abbie was paired with, the lyrics were always the highest quality, always an excellent sense of craft and artistry. I was just blown away. Every week, when somebody, regardless of circumstance, can produce quality in different partnerships, it speaks to their, first of all, their stubbornness for craft and quality. And I really, really respected that. So when the second year came around and it was time for people to pick their thesis partners, I immediately put Abbie at the top of my list.

Mason McDowell:

And I'm lucky. We felt we both felt the same.

Abbie Goldberg:

And then, like, on top of our shared admiration for each other and our. And our craft, we found that we have a lot in common. We're both from rural areas, and we both have this connection to disability, which is what we ended up writing about together.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. From what I understand, this. This is something very personal to both of you.

Abbie Goldberg:

I. I myself am disabled, and Worked for a while as a disability rights community organizer, and I really. I really loved the community so much, and. And I wanted to continue the work that I was doing for disability justice and disability rights, but I wanted to continue it through sort of my passion, which is art, which is theater. And so when I found a way to kind of combine those passions, that was really exciting for me.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And, Mason, this is personal for you as well?

Mason McDowell:

Absolutely. In a slightly different way, I. My relationship to disability is through the lens of my brother, who was born with a severe hearing impairment. And I'm his younger brother. I look up to him in a lot of ways, and I watched his struggles, and I watched him struggle socially. I watched him struggle with a lot of things. And mostly I felt frustrated because I felt like people didn't have the patience to see his genius, which he has mountains of. He's a drummer, he's a computer programmer.

Mason McDowell:

He's. You know, and we've had conversations over the past few years, and he's acknowledged, you know, I'm. I'm probably on the spectrum, too, but I don't feel like I need to get a diagnosis. I just. I kind of know that. And we've had these conversations, and I feel like my musical language is so shaped by Taylor. He's my brother. He's taught me so much about rhythm.

Mason McDowell:

He taught me so much about feeling. Feeling a beat rather than observing a beat. And the musical language of 504 is a large percentage. Taylor.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, now that you've brought it up, let's get into this musical. And it's based upon an actual event. And I did a little research beforehand, and it was something that I had never heard about this 504 sit in, as it was called. And it was an actual. That. That took place in 1977 when disabled activists came together and actually staged these. These protests throughout the country. But San Francisco was the biggest one, and it happened at the Federal Building, the Hugh Federal Building there in San Francisco.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

So tell us a bit more about this historic event and how you found out about it. Abbie, we'll start with you.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah. You've done your research. Yeah. So I learned about this event. Actually, my first assignment when I was working at the Boston center for Independent Living as a disability rights community organizer, was to make this sort of pop education handout about the 504 sit in. I was sort of new to learning about disability history and the different fights that had gone on. And so it was sort of a dual purpose, educating me and also educating our. Our members and I just thought it was the most amazing thing that I had ever heard of.

Abbie Goldberg:

It was like, These people, over 150 disabled people and allies, stayed in the building for 26 days and learned how to take care of each other and how to be a community. And that's the part that really moves me, is just figuring out how. How do we actually build something together outside of. Because in a way, when they were inside the building, the pressures of the outside world and the inaccessibilities and the ableism of the outside world is gone. They're in there with each other, but in another sense, it's actually still there because it's been ingrained in them, and it's things that we all have to be working through at all times, all the different. These different pressures and these different factors and forces. So I was really interested in how they were grappling with those things, how they were dealing with these tensions. And it was a really beautiful moment of intersectionality as well.

Abbie Goldberg:

The reason that they stayed in the building for so long was that they were fed by the Black Panthers. The sort of. The lead organizers was a Jewish woman and a queer woman, and among the lead organizers, and they were supported by unions, by churches, by LGBTQ groups. It was just really an amazing moment in history that has really stuck with me ever since I heard of it.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And so, Mason, was it Abbie that.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Introduced you to this story as well?

Mason McDowell:

Absolutely. My only relationship to disability was my brother. So hearing about this, this incredible event, this example of human solidarity against oppressive force was. It just screamed musical. It screamed. It had to be told. But we were terrified to write it because it was so, so important, we felt. But our advisors really encouraged us to.

Mason McDowell:

To shake this into a show, and we're really glad they pushed us in that direction because we are here today because we got that little nudge.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And just for you who may not know what this is, the 504 was actually a section of the Rehabilitation act of 1973. And this is a particular provision that prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities in programs that received federal funding. So that provision was not exactly being implemented across the country. And so places like San Francisco, they gathered together to make these protests. And so that's what they were fighting for. And therefore, that's where the name 504 comes from. And, yeah, it's really interesting how over 25 days, I mean, they were in the building for that long. It's not like they came and went.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

They stayed inside the building for that long.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah.

Mason McDowell:

And a lot of Them needed medication, a lot of them. It was difficult for them to stay for that period of time. So there was significant effort to try to make that possible. And that's why the outside was also so important. The group that they were receiving, the help that they were receiving from outside groups.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And. And.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And I read somewhere that the people inside were actually starting to, I guess, fight against it. Like, for example, their wheelchairs needed to be plugged in because they were electric, and they would actually unplug them.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yes. Yeah. There was incredible, enormous efforts to get them out of the building. There was actually a fake bomb threat to get them out of the building. They cut the phone lines to the building so that they couldn't really get their story out anyway, which I'll spoil a little part of the show. It's actually an incredible story, and one of the first moments that made us want to write the show is when they cut the building. The phone lines to the building. They.

Abbie Goldberg:

The protesters said, well, that's all right. We'll have people who speak asl. We'll have our deaf community members sign from the windows to get our message to the outside. People on. People waiting outside the windows.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It's amazing, all these different groups coming together and joining the cause. Like you said, Black Panthers, LGBTQ organizers. So, I mean, as you said, Mason, it does sound like it needs a musical.

Abbie Goldberg:

It needs.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It needs a song. Was there a particular song that kind of started your journey on this musical?

Mason McDowell:

Yeah, is exactly what Abbie said. It was that moment where the deaf community is signing out the windows when the powers cut to the building to get the story across. We just imagined a deaf protester coming to the center and saying, we're not done yet, and then teaching the other protesters how. How to sign, how to get a few basic phrases out to the public. And we wrote the song Stranger to Silence, which is a rap, which I don't generally write, but it was really, really cathartic to get that kind of rhythm across in that song. It was my ode to Taylor, I think, because my brother doesn't sing, but, boy, does he have rhythm.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, is this a musical, like, with all the various groups that are a part of it? Are there also various styles of music that go on in it?

Mason McDowell:

Absolutely, yes. It. It's pretty varied stylistically, but it's generally Inspired by the 70s R&B, that kind of sound. I'm really influenced by Stevie Wonderful, by Billy Joel. At musical theater. I'm influenced by Adam Gettle and Sondheim. Everybody says that, but it's true. It's for a good reason.

Mason McDowell:

So there's. I would hope that people come away from that feeling. Like, you know what? I felt like I went back to the 70s for a couple hours.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, there's certainly some great, like. Like the protest songs of the seventies, those singer songwriters that were doing all kinds of things. And when you're telling a real story like this, you know, I mean, you're. You're presenting a fictionalized version of it with characters that you've made up, but the story itself is real. What. What kind of responsibility do you feel as writers when retelling such a historic event?

Abbie Goldberg:

Oh, man, I feel so much responsibility. We have. It's funny, we have a song in the show called Bear that Weight. And the. The kind of theme of it, Hook of it is, how can I bear that weight? And it's the lead organizer asking that of, like, this is a lot of responsibility. People are really looking to me, and I feel that so much, so deeply. It's. That one is definitely written out of my experience.

Abbie Goldberg:

And we're. We're so lucky that we have a really strong and vibrant and beautiful community around the show of disabled artists, disabled supporters who have been, like, so generous with their. With their feedback, with their time, with their support. And that, in a way, is enough for me. I'm like, that's the point of writing. This is building that community. And at the same time, I also feel a lot of pressure of. I don't want to let them down.

Abbie Goldberg:

I want this show to be everything they want it to be. I want it to make it to the stages where they can see it. And, yeah, that's definitely a lot of pressure. But, yeah, Mason and I, we do a lot of research. We've done a lot of interviews. We were actually extremely lucky to build a relationship with Judy Heumann, one of the original organizers of the Sit in, who was also just. I mean, she is just. They call her the mother of the disability rights movement, and they say that for a reason.

Abbie Goldberg:

She was just an incredible powerhouse of an activist and a connector of people, and she was, yeah, so, so kind to us and. And supportive before she passed in 2023. So, yeah, we. We've. We're deeply mired in the. In the research, in the community, in the gathering feedback from all sorts of angles, anywhere we can get it.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And for you, Mason, in writing the music, obviously you referenced that it came from the 70s. So obviously there was a lot of just musical research besides just historical research.

Mason McDowell:

Absolutely. I don't know if I had to do all of that. So much of my influence is from the 70s anyway. I kind of fell in love with my parents music and all the stuff that they were listening to. So I naturally gravitate towards that kind of writing. So when this show kind of conjured itself up, I thought, wow, this is perfect. This is how I write. This is already what I do.

Mason McDowell:

And of course, I had to do a little bit of additional research to see, you know, what. What music was being played at that protest, specifically, and things that were more specifically contemporary to 1977. But it feels very natural for me to write this music in this time frame.

Speaker E:

I know a story about a mermaid wanted legs so she could walk A sea witch took her voice as payment she would stand but couldn't talk the witch was proud of her sly cruelty Claimed this girl under her spell.

Mason McDowell:

Round.

Speaker E:

The stories go Saying our lives are not but woke Round but they don't know Stories change, stories grow.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, as we get into story number two, we're actually going to take a step back and start to go through the process of bringing 504 to the stage. And in 2023, you were accepted into a New York theater festival and you.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Weren'T able to be a part of it.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And this was because the stage wasn't physically accessible to your actors. Now, did the festival reject it outright, or you just made the decision to.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Leave, or how did that come about?

Abbie Goldberg:

We went back and forth a little bit and we were really pushing them. We were saying, you know, is there any. Are there solutions? Because. Because we hope that we're not, and we assume that we're not the only people who are going to be having this issue. If you can get a ramp up to the stage and we're willing to, you know, for free, basically help you figure out how to make your space more accessible. And they just unfortunately weren't interested. They were sort of like, no, there's just kind of no way. And that may have been true.

Abbie Goldberg:

Maybe not. We won't really know.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. Because as far as the actors in your musical, obviously they are people in wheelchairs. It's not just people acting in wheelchairs, Correct?

Abbie Goldberg:

Absolutely. Yeah. It's very important to us that we're authentically casting.

Mason McDowell:

I remember one of those sticking points with that particular theater festival was they were toying with the idea of the ramp to the stage because that was within the realm of possibility. But then they said, well, we don't have accessible bathrooms either. And I remember that being sort of the pivot point where they said, okay, you know what? This is a little bit too complicated. I remember feeling a certain way about it because they just clearly didn't read the entire script. If they wanted our show, they would know they would have to have these things. Several wheelchair using characters accommodations are a part of the show because that's the ideology of the show. So I don't know why you would accept it unless you were prepared to handle those things. So I was disappointed for sure.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, it's also interesting because in my research as well, this 504 was pivotal and kind of paved the way for what eventually became the Americans with disabilities act in 1990. And it seems like even all these decades later, we're still having to fight for this accessibility.

Mason McDowell:

It's very, very ironic.

Abbie Goldberg:

And not only that, but actually the 504 piece of legislation itself is directly under attack right now out of a lawsuit out of Texas. So this, this exact fight continues, which is sobering and disappointing. But I think our show is, is a good reminder that when we come, when we do come together, when we fight together, we can win. We have in the past and we will again. So that's what I hope people hang on to.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I'm curious about your reaction as people. I think it's gotten a little better. It's hard for me to know exactly in every instance, but I believe it's gotten better as far as hiring actors, no matter the disability or whatever situation going on, hiring actors that are more truthful to the actual characters that they're playing. But I know in past there have been abled actors who were portraying these roles. Does that ever bother you? Is that something? Well, if these big names can attach themselves to good projects, then it's good. Like, like what are your thoughts on these?

Abbie Goldberg:

It does bother me. I think there are so few opportunities for disabled people to, to be on stage, to be on screen. And, and I think that those roles that are written for them should go to them. They're the ones who can authentically portray those experiences. They have the insight to bring depth and nuance to those roles. And yeah, disability is not and shouldn't be a costume. It shouldn't be something that people can take on and off. So I think it's getting a little bit better, but slowly for sure.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And Mason, as you and Abbie were writing this, are there certain considerations as you kind of map out the blocking? Obviously a director does that more so. But at least as you're conceiving the show, were there certain things you had to take into mind, well, someone's in a wheelchair during this, so we have to do this. That kind of decision making that was going on as you were writing it.

Mason McDowell:

Definitely most of the considerations that we've encountered so far, because we haven't had a full stage production yet, have been related to. I'll speak for myself. To the music in terms of the vocal ranges. In terms of the reason Billy was written to only rap was to leave the door open for potentially a deaf actor being able to. To voice some of the parts. Lately, we've rewritten it so that Billy is interpreted by an ASL interpreter, and I think that's the way it's going to stay. But some of those choices were made with the specific disability in mind. And in this production that's coming up on August 3rd, Joe's Pub, that we're doing in association with Epic Theater, Epic Players, excuse me.

Mason McDowell:

That we're doing in association with Epic Players is really educational for me because I'm working with people that have a variety of needs in a variety of strengths, and a variety of things that need to be accommodated. And I have had to change some keys, some harmony parts. I've had to flip things around to make sure that people are showcasing their strengths. And it's an interesting challenge as a vocal arranger to make sure all of those things still reflect the song, but also reflect the cast.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And as you were writing it, Abbie, were there certain things that changed as far as maybe adapting the characters more to the actual actors or vice versa?

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah, I think we're always kind of changing things for the actors. We fall in love with certain actors, and I think it's bad advice, actually. Like, I'm told that you shouldn't write for certain specific actors, but. But you just do. You fall in love with certain people and. And end up wanting to kind of add their originality to the characters so that the characters end up becoming a sort of blend of. Of the actors that we have, of the historical figures that were loosely inspired by. Of me, of Mason.

Abbie Goldberg:

They. They become these combinations. But I would say. Yeah, I was thinking also about. In terms of accommodations. I think one of the interesting things we've been dealing with is with this character who's deaf, Billy. And right now, for this, we've got an upcoming concert at Joe's pub and at St. Anne's Warehouse, two concerts.

Abbie Goldberg:

And we're working with a director of artistic sign language Dazzle, who's been enormously helpful in thinking about how ASL can be used in the show and how signing can be used in the show because it's not actually all asl. What. What she's added is, at the beginning, this character, Billy, is sort of isolated from deaf community and he's using se signed exact English. And then as he becomes more ingrained in the disability community, he's transitioning to more asl, American Sign Language. And so. And then there are moments in the show where. Where Billy is not interpreted by anyone. Neither his mother, the character of his mother nor the interpreter are voicing his lines.

Abbie Goldberg:

So it becomes this thing where we both want to represent inaccessibility, but we don't want the show to be inaccessible to the audience because, like, for example, if. If Billy is signing and it's not. It's not voiced, then how do. Then how do blind audience members know that he's saying something? So we get into these complicated things where we both want to represent. We both want to represent inaccessibility, but we want the show to be accessible. So there have been things like that that I think are still puzzles that we'll continue to work on as we. As we work with our director, as we work with our director of Artistic Sign Language, as we get feedback from the audiences that we're putting this work in front of. Yeah, it's a curious puzzle.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, it's interesting. I saw the revival of Children of a Lesser God, which deals with deaf, and there was sign language in it throughout. And there was one moment where the descriptive language, you know, because obviously there's a lot of sign language and you're kind of, as someone who doesn't know that language, I was at least able to follow along. But there's one moment where it was turned off and we got to feel what it's like to not understand, to not know what's going on. And so it was a very powerful moment in there. And so I. And so these things really happen to people. And it's interesting that you talk about different sign language and how his language evolves throughout the show.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's something that I would probably not knowing sign language or anything like that, would not be aware of, but it's interesting that you take these little details and put them into the show.

Abbie Goldberg:

Well, we're really lucky to have such an amazing team. And we have an access coordinator. We have a director of Artistic Sign Language. We have a director, we have. Mason is music directing. So we have a lot of. As theatre always does, we have a lot of different collaborators working together to come up with something much more nuanced and beautiful than Mason and I, on our own, could come up with. Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And in putting this together, it's interesting. This theater festival kind of brings up the whole point that you're trying to make about being accessible not just for the actors, but Mason. It's also for the audience as well, making sure that they're accessible to get into. To the theater just to go to the bathroom.

Mason McDowell:

Right, yeah. It's not everybody that walks into the theater, first of all. They don't all walk into the theater. That's an assumption by itself. So it's kind of mind boggling how New York, with all of its advances in all of its. In all of its diversity, still has that problem with so many of its theaters.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, yeah, it's that balance of. Well, it's historical theater, so we can't.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Touch it too much.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

But at the same time, it was built in a time where they didn't think about wheelchairs or crutches or any other type of physical disability that might prevent people from going to the bathroom or go upstairs or whatever it is. So it is a balance. But I do think that they could be much better at finding whatever that balance is going to be.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah.

Mason McDowell:

Agreed. Yes.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Hello?

Abbie Goldberg:

Hello?

Mason McDowell:

Hello?

Abbie Goldberg:

Hello?

Speaker E:

Is anybody there? Can anybody hear me? We're still here. They cut the phone line. We're starving. I need my a. My wheelchair has no power. They've taken all our power. We're still here, but they don't hear us. I need more meds.

Speaker E:

This isn't about me. I'm okay. But if I wasn't okay, would that be okay? I am here for Keith. Keith says, let's get free. I am here for Keith, who is here for me.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, as we get into story number.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Three, when you were finalist, this was a big opportunity for you both to receive a grant and a residency in 2024. And you were being advised at the time by your college advisor. And this opportunity, this grant and residency, actually ended up going to your college advisor instead of you. Do you think he was mentoring you without bias, even though he had submitted for the same thing?

Abbie Goldberg:

Oh, definitely.

Mason McDowell:

Oh, yeah, we love Avi. I mean, yeah, he's okay.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

No bad blood, no not casting aspersions, just trying to figure out the nuance of that.

Mason McDowell:

It's, I think, an irony that needs to be, you know, observed. But we're all in the same boat. We're all trying to do the same thing, and we, in a certain sense, are in competition with each other, but we're on the same team. So you cheer on Your compatriot when they do.

Abbie Goldberg:

Well, yeah, it was just funny because it was like, oh, my gosh, how can we compete with that? In a way, it was really an honor that we really look up to him and see him as so accomplished and talented. So just to be in the same boat at all was. Was really. Was really an honor. But it was funny.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Had you received the grant in residency, how do you think that would have changed or propelled the show forward?

Abbie Goldberg:

I mean, it definitely would have been more eyes on the piece. It was also like a performance opportunity. But, I mean, maybe this is cheesy to say, or maybe it's kind of the point of the whole show, this whole podcast, but I think whatever is meant to happen does happen, because not getting that opportunity kind of encouraged Mason and I to say, well, okay, how do we make our own opportunity? Because we apply to everything and we get very few things. And so we ended up. We ended up just emailing Epic Players and another theater, and both of them were actually like, we're interested in. In, like, working on new work. And we're really believe in the story that you're trying to tell. And I don't know that we would have kind of.

Abbie Goldberg:

We. These were honestly cold emails, and they ended up really working out for us. And I don't know if we would have done that if we hadn't been like, well, rats. We missed out. So, yeah, it did work out for us.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And for you, Mason, putting your work out there, I mean, it's a part of you. Yes, it is. Its own work stands on its own, but it's still a part of you that's going out into the world as well.

Mason McDowell:

Oh, absolutely. And it's difficult to. In musical theater specifically, it's difficult when the self and the community it's meant to represent sort of conflate together. In an ideal world, you separate your ego from the work entirely, and you let it just float out into the ether and let it be judged without bias. But you are inherently biased. You are in that piece. And in the process of developing this work for the concert, I find myself initially, always, initially resistant to change, because I feel like I have crafted this music in a certain way, and I know it a certain way. It's in my head to be just so.

Mason McDowell:

And then when you bring it to the world, it changes. And it's almost like a parent and a rebellious teenager. You have to let them do their thing. You have to let it be rough and edgy and mistakes are made, but you really never know. What it is until those mistakes are made, and then new discoveries are made through those mistakes. And the piece has changed, the music has changed, and it has changed for the better. That was not a purposeful reference, but.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, yeah. And new works that I've been a part of as well.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

There is that process of something that works on the page then doesn't work in the voice or on the stage or, you know, in various ways. Once you actually get it on onto its feet or in a wheelchair, you. Things change as they. As they evolve. And with that, have there been things. There's always those babies in the show where it's like, I want this, but for the sake of the show, I have to let it go. Have there been those. Those things you've had to let go? Mason? Yes.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

You seem to be reacting.

Mason McDowell:

I was really sad to let the bomb threat go. We talked about it a little bit before, but there were bomb threats, fake bomb threats issued to the protesters in the building in an effort to get them out. And we represented it very, very dramatically in the show. Probably overemphasize how seriously the protesters took those bomb threats. And I really loved the song. It was mixed meter. It was very percussive, very dramatic and interesting to me. But after.

Mason McDowell:

It was just this past year that we had to make this cut, we were looking at it and we were thinking about it in the context of the history of the event, and we realized the protesters kind of did an incredible thing. They knew from the get go that it was bs. They were not phased. And in a certain way, it's better to represent that than to represent their panic, even if it's more dramatic. We felt it showed the strength of the community to say, you know what? They're just trying to get us out of here. We have. We see through the lies, and we've had to figure out a new way to represent that moment, and we had to let the bomb threat music go. And that was definitely a sad moment for me.

Abbie Goldberg:

It's a good song, in my opinion.

Mason McDowell:

It's a really good song.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. There are so many things that I'm like, so many little things. And there are. And there are things that Mason and I still fight about that. Oh. All the time that are like, I don't know about this little section and.

Abbie Goldberg:

But some of them are out and some of them are in for now.

Mason McDowell:

Yeah, we'll talk about it.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It sounds like you're thinking of something very specific.

Abbie Goldberg:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

How does the relationship between the two of you work, obviously, you're. You're collaborators. You're. You're on equal footing, but at the same time, at. At the end of the day, someone has to get their way and someone doesn't. How do you come up with that compromise?

Abbie Goldberg:

I feel like we. We definitely fight over certain. Certain things that we're attached to, but I feel like we're pretty good at, like, putting the show first and, like, trying at least trying each other's ideas and just seeing, like, what feels right.

Mason McDowell:

Yeah. Usually we don't have to get to the point of saying, well, I have veto power on this because I'm the composer. Usually by the time the idea is tested, the truth is revealed. It's clear who's right. It's like, okay, well, no, that's clearly the superior idea. Oh, well, that doesn't work because we did this. So if you're being honest with yourself, you have to just look at the piece for what it is. If it works, it works.

Mason McDowell:

If it doesn't, it doesn't. There's a couple of places where that truth has yet to be revealed. So the fight will continue until. Until we find out who's right. But I'm gonna, as best I can, put my ego at the door and. And wait and see.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I. I'm curious, as you've been writing this, Mason, how much of it has your brother been able to. To experience? Has. Has he given you any feedback?

Mason McDowell:

Oh, yeah. I've sent him Stranger to Silence, that song that's inspired by him. He loves the drum beat, and he's actually. He. We. I've visited upstate, and he's actually played along with it. He's really excited that it's happening. He.

Mason McDowell:

He lives way upstate. We don't talk a whole lot, but we. I want to talk to him so much more. It's just when you're so busy, it's hard. You know what. You know the way it is. But he's heard all of the demos, he's heard all of the music, and he is planning on seeing the show in Denver in 2026.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Okay. Okay. So you guys have. Have this for the. For the long haul. You have a trajectory. Yeah. Even into next year.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's great.

Mason McDowell:

Even in 2027, we have hopes and dreams. We are hoping to have a full production in time for the 50th anniversary of the Sit In. A full production in New York. That's the big dream.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And as it's gone through these different phases, you know that there was the theater festival that it didn't get into. You didn't get the grant or the residency. Has that ever made you think or kind of go back to the piece and be like, ah, are there things we should change? Is there a reason it's not getting these opportunities or winning these certain things?

Abbie Goldberg:

Definitely. I mean, it's so hard because with so. With so many of these things, you just hear nothing back. You're just sending your piece out into the void and then you get nothing back except it's a no. And it's like, well, is it because the show is just not as good as we think it is? Is it because of the accessibility? Sometimes we send this piece out to, like, colleges and things and it's like, well, they just don't have the cast maybe to fill all these roles. But I think, like, we're. Yeah, we really believe in, in what we're doing. So I think, of course, of course, not getting things sows all kinds of doubts, but I think we're really, really loyal to the story and to the piece.

Abbie Goldberg:

So we try not to be too swayed by, like, what would make this more marketable or something like that. I mean, often we're saying, like, why did we write such a big, hard to produce show? But it hasn't solved us.

Mason McDowell:

And what I was going to say was, if we wanted to make a show that was marketable, we wouldn't have written this show.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yeah.

Mason McDowell:

Right.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

You would have written a typical love story of, you know, he finds her, she leaves him, they come together, you know, the whole thing.

Mason McDowell:

Catherine of four. No set.

Abbie Goldberg:

Yes, I know.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, obviously, you know, 504 is still on its journey. Has this inspired you to write other things? You know, you're. You're starting to have a bunch of trunk songs, Mason, so you're going to be pulling them for the next, next several years into other shows. Have you started thinking about what a future collaboration could look like?

Mason McDowell:

We've talked about it. We've sort of flirted with the idea. We're pretty focused on this current production. It really requires all of our energy, and because we can feel there's momentum behind it, it almost seems silly to look outside. But we do independently have other little projects that we're nurturing along the way. But this is sort of our main focus.

Abbie Goldberg:

Before we started this project, we had various ideas that maybe we'll return to at some point. Like, like I said, I think at the beginning, we're both from rural areas and it would be amazing to write about that at some point. But, yeah, we're very focused on 504.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And remember, you can get early access to our full conversation by going to why I'll never make it.com and click subscribe. Well, that about does it for this episode. I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, in charge of writing, editing, and producing this podcast. Stay tuned for the next episode when I ask the final five questions and we talk more about why I'll Never make it.