Kristin Goodman

I Survived Theatre School

Intro: We're not doing well. What's the hustle for? W
Let Me Run This By You: Is there any such thing as an advocate?
Interview: We talk to Kristin Goodman about horses, One Flea Spare, I Got the Blues, David Dastmalchian, John Hoogenakker, New Mexico, Yellow Boat, performance anxiety, Chicago College of Performing Arts, Michael Maggio, gender differences in conservatory education.

FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina Kalichi.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later,

2 (16s):
We're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all

1 (21s):
Theater school. And you will too. Are we famous yet? That was the big question. How are you? It's good to see your face.

2 (36s):
It's good to see you too. I am. Oh, I'm not, not great,

1 (41s):
But I am like faking it until I make it, but yeah, you can just start out there.

2 (46s):
Yeah. I didn't sleep. I had conflict in my house yesterday. I'm fighting with the freaking IRS again. And

1 (1m 0s):
Like that that's enough right there. Like that could be, you know what I mean?

2 (1m 5s):
The kid got sick in the night, horribly sick. It's just like,

1 (1m 14s):
It's the shit, the shit of life. You know, the shit of life.

2 (1m 18s):
Yeah. What's the for you.

1 (1m 19s):
Well, before I go on, I just want to say there was a, there was a friend that said that she had this visceral reaction to whenever she felt bad, she traced it back to this time at camp where she was in the cold. This is what you're, you're talking. Your check-in reminds me of, she was in her cold outhouse. This is so gross. But she said there's a visceral or like a bath, the camp bathrooms, not an outhouse, but basically the visceral reaction of a cold wet floor seeing here on the floor smelling.

2 (1m 56s):
Yeah, wait, that's what comes up for her when she's like,

1 (1m 60s):
When she has distressed, she remembers this visceral thing of cold, wet floor, disgusting cold wet floor, seeing smelling poop and seeing wet hair on the floor. That's what reminds me like they all go together for her. Yes. She's really in that. And when she's in that moment, I'm not friends with her anymore. But I remember her telling me this and thinking, oh my God, it's so apt. It's like, that is the thing. It's like this combination of things that come together that just make fucking tear, like not good, you know?

2 (2m 32s):
Good. And that I can really envision that floor. I feel like, I know, I feel like that was, I never went to camp, but I feel like,

1 (2m 42s):
Yeah,

2 (2m 43s):
It's not good. It's not good. And you know, like, I guess misery loves company because you know, I, a bunch of people that I talked to yesterday were like, yeah, it's not good.

1 (2m 55s):
It's similar. I have a similar vibe of like, what is it? You know, I'm S I feel, I mean, it's very strong to say purposeless. I mean, that's, I'm looking for, and I started therapy with this new therapist who I at first thought, oh my God, because she's, she's an older lady. And like, she did that thing of like on zoom. We, we meet on zoom and she did a thing where her camera was fucked up. So I only saw half her face. And I had to be like, Hey, pat, you gotta move the camera. Like I thought, oh, we're in for real. But she's Dr. Pat, Dr. Pat is, I won't say her last name on this in case I ever talked shit about her.

1 (3m 35s):
But anyway, she, she, she, she's turning out to be quite okay and eight and it's through my insurance covers it. So it's not, that's great. But you know, my bar was pretty low because my last therapist was an Orthodox Jewish guy who kept wanting me to have children. So she's better than that. But anyway, in therapy, I'm realizing that like, I'm really searching for what is it like, what is it I'm looking for in life? Not how do I make money? Not how do I get where I want to go? But like, what are the qualities in life that I am searching for?

1 (4m 18s):
I've never asked myself that question in my life. Wow. Okay. That's big. Yeah. Like, and, and there's all this shit going on. You know, my friend here, her, mom's got, Alzheimer's, I'm caring, helping care for her and her. Dad's on life support and it's a mess, but all that stuff is true and it's horrific. But I think that's all the stuff of life that's really shitty. But like the internal, when we've talked about this on the podcast, like my internal stuff is more painful usually than the external. Right. I mean, they, they, they really inform each other, but like the informed internal questions of what are the things, what am I looking for? Like if the, what is the hustle for, what is the, where am I going?

1 (5m 1s):
What the fuck, that's where I'm at. And it's super painful to know, to realize that, like, you know, I don't know the answer to that question. What am I looking for? I, I literally don't and my friend, I have a new friend who's also named Jennifer who said, she asked me this question. And she said, Hey, J boss. She calls me J boss, because someone asked her this as a writing exercise. And I'm going to ask our people this on, on Friday. Anyway. When did you feel when and where do you feel most at home?

1 (5m 45s):
And I'm like, oh, I w my first response was the coworking space. She's like, and, but it's because I feel like I belong here. Like there's a place to belong to. So that question got me on this. It got me really feeling like vulnerable. And, but like, I wanted to ask you that question, like, my answer was, holy shit. I have no idea. And then the true, if I told this to, and I told this to therapy last night, the true answer to that is in practical terms.

1 (6m 29s):
The first time I remember feeling at home was when I went to my partial hospitalization day program. Oh,

2 (6m 37s):
Wow. Oh,

1 (6m 38s):
Wow. And it was the feeling of after my dad died, you know, I was such a mess and had good insurance praise God. And I went there and I was ashamed and embarrassed, and I didn't want to be there, but I had no structure in my life because I'd left LA and had nothing, nothing to do. And I went there and I thought it was the first time in my life being sick. I felt like no one was pretending, not one person was pretending we had all reached the end of the line in the pretending the therapist. Like no one was pretending that we weren't where we were.

1 (7m 19s):
It was unbelievably like shocking, but it was also the biggest relief I've ever felt in my life. Well, that's,

2 (7m 28s):
That's the word I was going to say. I was going to say what it sounds like, what you really felt was relief that you were, I mean, because, and it makes sense that you would have spent your entire life up to that point, figuring out what you had to do to survive, which usually involves making other people happy and feeling responsible for other people's happiness. So the minute, you know, nobody was pretending to be happy. And even if they were, you, weren't in charge of whether or not they were happy that that would feel like a relief. And I, I mean, I haven't had that exact experience, but I do know that, and this is so...