The Quiet Part Out Loud

Host Bobby Steggert finds himself squarely middle aged. He shares some thoughts and observations from his perch at the midpoint of the presumed timeline, reflecting on how age makes us care much more and much less about everything all at once.

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Brooks Ashmanskas is one of Broadway's greats - known for being reliably hilarious in whatever he does - but he started out as a tap dancer and a singer before honing his mastery over humor. He shares the gift and the burden of being as funny as he is, and how humor has helped him to succeed while not taking himself too seriously in the process.

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Telly Leung is a Broadway veteran (Rent, Aladdin, Phantom) who embraced the culture of alcohol in the theater from his earliest days doing Rent in his twenties. Two decades later, he and Bobby share their trajectories navigating the individual and social factors that make drinking so central to so many aspects of the Broadway lifestyle, and what has changed since taking stock of drinking's benefits - and its costs.

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Tom Kirdahy is a successful Broadway producer with several shows running in New York concurrently. He brings his extraordinary experiences as an activist and leader during the AIDS crisis, as well as his many years as loving husband to playwright Terrence McNally to the work he does today. It is through enormous loss that he moves forward with grief, but also with gratitude and passion.

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Emily Walton was born into a family of theater people and never questioned her destiny as she began performing professionally as a teenager. She discusses the unique paradox of receiving all the benefits of joining the family business along with the surprising limits to self-investigation when so much of the future seemed to be predetermined.

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Carla Duren and Bobby played opposite each other in the Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade. Twenty years later, they are both working with artists in healing professions, while Carla's wisdom grows out of a lifelong search for spiritual meaning that begin with organized religion, and emerges today as a deeply personal relationship to the mystery of life.

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Patrick Stafford is an actor who has been navigating a serious kidney disease for most of his life. This month, he underwent a second life-saving kidney transplant. He discusses how an early relationship to his mortality affected his life and his creativity, and what it is like to live in a world where most people are in denial about the fragility of life that he has become intimate with.

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Adam Gwon is a composer and lyricist whose work explores the tension in the human condition between solitude and connection. It is his own introversion that fostered the space for him to discover his authentic voice, while it is also a tool for connection that shares the meaning of his most deeply held experiences.

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Michele Pawk is a Broadway star who is disarmingly down-to-earth and as generous as she is talented. She opens up about a long a varied career on Broadway, and how her inner critic has evolved from paralyzing during particularly difficult transitions to a trusted ally in her quest to remain open and authentic in her work and life.

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Host Bobby Steggert takes another step back from interviewing to reflect on the phenomenon of polarization - from the current political climate, to the contradictory forces in every human experience.

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Jenni Barber (Beetlejuice) comes from a family lineage of caretaking, and it is infused in every role she plays, from cast member, to teacher and mentor, to wife and mother. Jenni explores the profound connectivity, as well as the risk to a loss of self in the role of caretaker, and how she is learning to balance it with age and wisdom.

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Tyler Joseph Ellis (Shucked) has honed a lifelong gift of observing the world around him into a talent that both honors and finds humor in the beautiful absurdity of the theater. Driven by a deep love for the art form, he has followed his enthusiasm down a variety of paths - from actor to writer to host and comedian. He shows that keen observation of humanity is at the core of his unique artistic resonance.

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Jay Armstrong Johnson is a Broadway fixture whose success is the result of uncompromising dedication to his work - but his choice of becoming an artist wasn't always easy. Jay explores the complexities around selfishness, when choosing his own path sometimes meant that family felt abandoned by his wider pursuits.

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Ben Levi Ross (Ragtime at LCT) and Bobby share the distinction of playing Mother's Younger Brother a generation apart. They share how different upbringings in different eras contributed to their interpretation of the character. Ben's history of nonconformity to norms and expectations contrasts with Bobby's history of conformity, while both experiences offer a fascinating entry point into the psychology of a young man radicalized by period of great social change.

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Bobby saw Elisa in her first performance as the lead in Real Woman Have Curves and was so taken with her that he was determined to track her down and learn more about her. What follows is a fascinating conversation about the need to be right - something that she seemingly nailed in her many roles, on and off stage in her Broadway debut - but on a deeper level, the need to avoid being made small in environments where it's common to be underestimated.

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Mary-Mitchell Campbell is one of the busiest musical directors on Broadway. She is the resident MD at Encores! and is currently readying The Queen of Versailles with Kristin Chenoweth. But there is another side to her life that gives her invaluable perspective as an artist and human, and it is all about serving the most vulnerable among us.

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Tiffany Mann is an extraordinary singer and actor who is often hailed as a powerhouse - and so it might seem surprising that she battles uncertainty just like the rest of us. She shares what it was like to develop her talent in the context of family who are highly successful artists in their own rights, as well as the ongoing uncertainty of navigating a business that both values and minimizes the extraordinary talents of marginalized artists.

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Christian Coulson is an actor and director - an all around thinker of great thoughts, and one of Bobby's favorite people to talk to. The two friends share the complexities of a self-conscious watchfulness that was borne out of difference and an early experience in the performing arts, as well as a mutual effort in cultivating creativity and experience that is freer from self-observation and richer in presence.

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Nicholas Barasch has been performing on Broadway since the age of 10. He is now 27 and making his adult debut in Pirates! While there is a generational divide, Bobby and Nicholas share how both of their inner children sought belonging and achievement on the Broadway stage, but agree that it is only through embracing the inner child in adulthood that freedom is ever truly possible.

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Jenny Anderson has built an astounding career as the preeminent photographer of  Broadway culture - she and Bobby started in the business at around the same time, when she was working at Broadway.com.  Over the years, she has relied on her talent, and moreover, her easy way of connecting- the friendship and intimacy she has fostered with so many of the artists she captures - to help her become the most trusted photographer of the private and backstage lives of actors. 

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Host Bobby Steggert takes a break from interviewing to share his story of learning to play the cello. It turns out that learning something hard in middle age is a lot more confronting - and ultimately satisfing - than he ever could have imagined.

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Tally Sessions is a Broadway actor of immense commitment and passion for his work, and even more, for his community. His willingness to live openly and without shame within the complexities of experience makes him the perfect person for Bobby to share an honest and nuanced conversation about grief. Old friends who have done five shows together over the years, Tally and Bobby discuss what it truly means to face devastating loss.

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Josh Breckenridge (Come From Away, Book of Mormon, The Scottsboro Boys) is one of the most employed actors on Broadway. He has a particularly complex relationship to code-switching that likely makes him a wonderful actor.  It is also a pattern in his life that emerged from a confluence of identities that consistently made him feel othered. He is black and gay, but grew up in largely white communities, where it was a constant and multi-dimensional challenge to find belonging - not only in the groups that he was different from, but in groups that he was connected to. It i...

Patti Murin is an actress most notable as the star of Brodway’s Frozen. In addition to a practically glowing personality and upbeat optimism, she has also navigated depression that many people might think directly contradicts these qualities. Patti emphasizes how she has worked towards change through acceptance. It was the acknowledging, understanding, and embracing of the largeness of her experience into her identity - the idea of who she is-  that set her on the path towards integration. Ultimately, it is the flexibility of identity as opposed to assurance in who we are that allows us to grow.

Eden Espinosa (Lempicka, Rent, Wicked) has been a powerhouse on Broadway for decades. She has also experienced the very human contradiction of struggling to own her power in certain areas, where shape shifting to avoid conflict and to maintain the status quo of an imbalanced power dynamic has kept her from stepping into the personal power that she is known for on stage. It is through the hard work of breaking old patterns and prioritizing independence where she is finding a new path forward.

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Lonny Price is Broadway royalty and just happens to be one of Bobby's best friends. They have shared several professional successes together, but in the end, it is their deep and enduring friendship they value most. Lonny shares the evolution of his ambition - one that was singly focused on professional success as a young person, and that has balanced into a philosophy based in kindness and perspective. 

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Host Bobby Steggert is back with an update for 2025.

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Sara Gettelfinger (Water For Elephants) shares the harrowing story of an addiction that brought her to her knees and interrupted a highly successful career on Broadway. After a decade of struggle and recovery, she has returned to performing with a new perspective and hard-earned wisdom that is an invaluable lesson to us all.

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Cody Renard Richard is a highly respected and singularly visible Production Stage Manager on Broadway who has carved out a multi-faceted career in the theater that includes producing, teaching, and advocacy. He shares how his faith, both religious and personal, has fueled his purpose and given larger and wider meaning to his contributions.

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David Cromer is one of our finest directors. His gift for simple yet profound observation of the human condition makes for must-see theater. He’s won all the awards, is sought after and one of the rarest of talents - and, like so many of us, he has experienced depression. Leaders often feel required to set themselves apart from the struggles of the rest of us, and perhaps it is his willingness to speak the bare truth of his experience that makes him a leader worth following.

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Lisa Gajda (Fosse, Movin' Out) is a veteran Broadway dancer who is now a therapist to many artists. Bobby and Lisa share in their similar paths, as well as their mutual focus on IFS, the model of therapy that is the inspiration for this podcast. Lisa's worker part, much like Bobby's drive for achievement, was single-minded in keeping her afloat through productivity. The rest is a journey towards healing and self-acceptance while, hopefully, working a little less.

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Mary Testa is a theater legend with a storied career spanning 50 years, and it is her natural grit, intuition, and boldness that contribute to her smarts - a part that has enabled her to stand in her power and to know exactly who she is- onstage and in life.

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Jenn Colella (SUFFS, Come From Away) has always been a natural born leader, whether it's with her friends, her cast, or her community. Bobby and Jenn discuss the essential quality of leadership that often goes unnoticed - self-compassion. It is through a commitment to inner grace that Jenn nurtures every aspect of community with genuine optimism.

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Brent Comer (The Outsiders) is from Frederick, Maryland - the same small town that Bobby grew up in 15 years earlier. Brent and Bobby explore what it means to come from the very same place, where they had the same teachers and performed on the same high school stage. They discover what bonds them together and how one community molded each of their lives a generation apart.

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Mike Wartella (Wicked, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tuck Everlasting) found theater as a kid and discovered a sense of power that would change his life, but a career in the arts is filled with uncertainty and powerlessness. Mike and Bobby discuss how overcompensation for fear and insecurity often lead to addictive validation-seeking that can lead us down harmful paths, and that a redefinition of personal power is essential for healthy and sustainable relationships to ourselves and others.

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Lilli Cooper (POTUS, Tootsie, Spring Awakening) has always relied on defiance as a source of personal power - essential to her life as an artist, as someone who has often been the only black woman in the room, and now, as a mother, whose very presence as an actor who is visibly navigating motherhood at the same time is an act of defiance in itself.

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Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice, School of Rock) and Bobby have been friends since they were in the Broadway production of Big Fish together. They were both quietly struggling with mental health, not knowing where to turn or how to address it. Alex shares how his drive to entertain and succeed was ultimately an obstacle to authentic wellbeing. A decade later, their reunion celebrates the growth and relief in finding paths towards authentic connection, self-care, and life balance.

Disclaimer: For anyone considering medication for their mental health, always seek the guidance of a qualified healthcare provider, such as a...

Ana Nogueira is an actor, playwright, and screenwriter whose way with words is just one aspect of her enormous intelligence. She reveals a complex relationship to her intellect, growing up in a family where her emotional and interpersonal understanding of the world were always nurtured, but in school settings where they were minimized. Ana and Bobby explore how artistry requires simultaneous confidence and doubt in one's capacities in order to truly succeed.

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Krysta Rodriguez (The Collaboration, Smash, Spring Awakening, The Addams Family) explores a complex history of trust (and mistrust) as influenced by many factors in life - religion, family addiction, and a cancer diagnosis at the age of 30. She shares how the journey to self-trust is about continuing to center autonomous choice over reliance on external forces.

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Alex Puette (Hadestown) shares his story of addiction with honesty and transparency, exploring both the initial benefits of substance use for coping with life's stressors, and the ultimate shame and isolation that inevitably results from it. Opening up about his experience is a reconnection to the world, and central to his recovery.

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